Birthright News

Finally the project is converted to Unreal Engine 5. This has been a monumental task and we are super happy it's done and over with :)
Moving forward we can now focus on new features and content with shiny new tools.

Most things should be the same, while everything has changed under the hood. The physics and collision system is completely new, static meshes are converted to Nanite meshes, completely new destruction system etc (check UE5 if interested in all cool stuff).

However Lumen is currently not enabled due to targeting more like 30fps, but we will eventually enable it due to UE improving this for games.

[h3]Collision, Physics and Destruction[/h3]

This is a completely new system in UE5 which has a major impact on Birthright's combat. The melee weapon collision is rewritten using the new system.

Basically for Birthright this is just goodness compared to the previous Nvidia PhysX system we used. It's also built with Multiplayer in mind, so Dedicated Servers will now run a fixed update rate on physics, making it possible to sync clients much easier compared to variable update rate.

The new destruction system (Chaos) is incredible much better than the Nvidia system previously used. We already made simple tests using Catapults and destructible Walls and dynamic NavMesh etc seems to work fine. So a future Siege Patch will be planned now.

[h3]Optimizations[/h3]

After conversion was done we did some deep analyzing and monitoring performance. And for combat the biggest bottleneck is Animations.
Therefore we started remaking Animation logic according to the new Multi Threaded model that UE5 supports. This enables using a Proxy object to copy data between threads and run necessary update logic on a thread rather than the main thread. We will continuously make improvements around Animations coming patches due to this. But already there is a good improvement in performance.

[h3]Nanite Meshes & Virtual Textures[/h3]

Most Static Meshes are converted to Nanite for performance and removing the need for LODs. And UE5.1 already released support for Foilage being Nanite Meshes too. This will be updated in coming patches.

And all Textures are now UE5's Virtual Textures making things more video memory optimized while even and crisp over longer distances.

Big thanks to Amarum for testing during development!

[h3]Settlement Sickness and Prosperity[/h3]

Now it has much better simulation with natural Population Sickness. Morning Events tagged with Sickness will also create an outbreak.

The total Extensions Prosperity bonus in a Settlement will act as a buffer so when Prosperity falls below, it will help pull it up again over time.

Health Extensions such as Alchemy or Hospitalis is now healing their Passive % each morning. Acting like a buffer for large outbreaks in the population. Making sure the Settlement recover in a timely manner.

Having a large population will protect you more from daily natural sickness, but outbreaks will be more severe.

AI will now more often build Health Extensions in their Settlements, regardless of Tarot Cards backgrounds.

[h3]Fixed Reserves spawning[/h3]

Thanks to FranzMauser on Discord found many performance issues and bugs with Reserve spawning not following the Max Soldiers settings.

Now both sides should be kept more properly to their starting Spawn Ratio. And no side should start tipping over because they die much less often.

Also fixed a bug where you could end up in infinite spawns each tick until all Reserves were spawned, making it extremely performance heavy as a result, or crashing the computer from the pressure.

This affects both Battles and Sieges where you have more total soldiers than your Max Soldiers settings.

[h3]Houses, Hillside Gardens and Terrain updates[/h3]

Hillside has now become the Asian side drawing heavily from Japanese culture. This new Kamura Family have settled in the NW. This area will develop with their own Extensions for producing Silk and Tea.

House Brewmere has been moved to Westmark and become a Minor House only holding 1 Settlement at start.

Old Forest is now it's own Terrain type.

Added over 30 new Music tunes and equal amount of Ambient tracks spread over all the Terrain types on World Map.

Added a Faction Panel (default L) where you can read about each Major House (will add Minor Houses later).

Big thanks to Arconde for working on Houses backgrounds and ideas!

[h3]Other fixes and changes[/h3]

• Settlement Army Transfer UI now has Pagination and Filtering to be performant handling large armies (Thanks to FranzMauser for pointing this out)
  
• Fixed several Desert maps start points
  
• Equip/Unequip weapons and armor with Status Effects should now work properly updating Stats
  
• Weapon onHit Status Effects is added generally. Polearms now having a Pierce effect (20% chance of Bleed) and Hammers/Maces have a Blunt effect (150% Durability Damage)
  
• Fixed using Enter to submit Amount in markets
  
• AI will now properly declare War on Player when taking a Settlement from them
  
• Settlement Extension Blacklist have been updated and fixed bug where still some started with forbidden Extensions
  
• Audio Volume Settings now properly apply when starting the game
  
• Horses idle sound in combat should now be more retained when having many horses
  
• Fixed keyboard bindings for Units while Mounted
  
• Family Panel should now explain what it is if opened without having a family
  
• Multiplayer fixed several replication issues and several Players joining Battles should now have a proper Spawn Ratio (before joined Players got 0 ratio)
  
• Multiplayer fixed damage/hit Events to not show between several Players
  
• Settlement Events changed from each Settlement drawing every morning, to now only draw one time per day when any Player visit Settlement. Still they do draw themselves each morning to check if they got special Events such as Sickness, but won't start the quest for it. This makes for much better distribution for the Player not getting duplicate quests as often
  

As always Big Thanks for testing and balancing to Amarum

Had to push the planned Kings & Queens patch and instead did some Battle/Combat rework, new Units, new Formation system, completely modular Characters, and the new Horse model that also support advanced things such as Pegasus variations.

[h3]Modular Characters[/h3]

Finally Humans are fully Modular as per Equipment items for Armor/Clothes. This also prepare for K&Q patch. And introduce several new Armor items and new equipment sets for Recruited soldier types.

Horse asset is completely changed to the final version we need. This makes it easier to commit to working more on Mounted Combat and needed melee animations. Dismemberment is still not added to horses but will soon come, where axes will have bonus damage to Horse legs.

[h3]Units[/h3]

New system where any World Character can appoint Officers that control their own Units of Soldiers (Max 12 as default config).
Players build their own Units in the Character Panel (new Tab). And currently are free to make as many as they can (any Soldier already in a Unit can't join another). Unit Name is auto-generated but can be changed for customization.

In Combat the Lord has control of the Army and Officers, but not directly Unit Soldiers. Instead the Lord can "select Unit 1" and command to attack from the side or take Hold Formation on a hillside.

When commanding Charge to Unit Officers they instead start Advancing, where the Officer now tries to carry out the Lords command.
The Lord can place a Banner as Target Point used by the Officer to try advance toward enemy using a Path. Currently the placed visual Banner is the Lords, but in the future it could be special banners equipped on the Officer that can be found in Dungeons. These special Banners will give AoE Status Effects to nearby soldiers.

When giving Hold to Unit Officers they will hold the position, but if heavy fighting occurs the Officer might charge.

Officer/Soldier AI decision is based on Character Stats and Skills.

In the future we will add even more advanced Officer AI using more complex Environmental Query Data to make for example decisions based on Terrain. And we are very open to any kind of feedback and ideas how Units could be used :)

[h3]New Formation system[/h3]

New system that is performant and easy to work with. External tools can visually create Formation structures and exported as local relative positions.
This makes it very easy to manually create any kind of Formation and we added several new ones like Circle, Square, Column etc.

A new Radial Menu is added for selecting Formation. Both Charge and Hold command buttons can now be held to open menu and select what kind of Formation.
If charge or hold are clicked they will use the current Formation you have with your Army.

Be aware that Unit Officers have their own Formations and you can set each Units preferred Formation, but Officers might change it during combat if deemed necessary.

Soldiers holding Formations, they might break out of it depending on what happens, but can most often be called back by the Formation Leader.

AI Lords/Officers will now actively use Formations as a strategy, while also disengaging to gather up the lines again.

[h3]Combat[/h3]

New movement speed added, Sprint, that use Stamina in combat. It is between Walk and Run but can be used while holding weapons. (Players default keybinding is holding shift).

Player HUD now shows hit/recieve floating damage numbers around middle.

Armor is changed to be % based instead of fixed damage reduction. Normal Plate now has around 75% Armor reduction.

Many changes to combat AI making the pace of combat a lot different.

AI Leaders will now actively use Formations to their advantage.

New Death animations for Humans based on direction of death.

Armor breaking in combat will now naturally be visible with new modular character, but also added a breaking Sound.

[h3]Other[/h3]

* Many Rings and Necklaces now have Status Effects and can be found in Dungeons.
* Several important fixes to Character Panel thanks to Amarums extensive testing!
* Faction Lords have been boosted in Stats, got new Titles and sometimes new names. This is part of the updated Family history that Arconde has worked on, more to come in next minor patch.
* All 4 Attack Directions now have key bindings so Player can choose more freely how to play in combat.
* Unequip Armor is finally here thanks to Modular Character, now you can finally play naked (almost)
* Most Weapon items have been re-balanced, and one Legendary got the first visual effect, more to come on visual effects on weapons (based on Status Effects).
* Granaries should now work correctly collecting nearby Fields.
* Settlement Extensions Gold income per day is rebalanced.
* Old Merchant during Weekly Event should be tradable.
* Settlement Population has been capped depending on City/Castle/Village.
* Dedicated Servers fixed small freeze when other Players start combat (2 game instances will be started when starting a Server, one is only handling all the new game instances created for combat).
* Player can now kick Followers, adding them to the Missing state and they might re-appear in the World at a later time.
* Added Time Controls in Single Player mode with key bindings.
* Inventories added Sorting and Searching, along with Pagination (mouse scroll while turn pages too), making them handle infinite large inventories.
* World Map sound is now using the Player character rather than Camera for the "Ear". This makes many sounds be more natural in direction since Camera can be far away from the actual Player position.

Big Thanks for help goes to Amarum & Arconde


[h3]Next Patch[/h3]

Now we will finally start with Kings & Queens Patch. Basically a big update on World AI and new features such as Contracts, Castle Events, Ruler UI and logic (global world Tax too).

End Game needs fancy Clothes produced to get into Feasts and other Gatherings of Lords and High Society in The Citadel. Attending will give Reputation with Host and Settlement.

[h3]Summary[/h3]

This is another massive update following Dedicated server support. But moving forward we now have a very performant and good Production and Settlement system, which will enable more advanced logic and querying of Data without performance issues.
Compared to before it's maybe 10x more complex but so much better performance that all complicated Threading is removed, hence increasing stability as a side effect.

Everything is made for both Single Player and Multiplayer. For Multiplayer all inventories and armies are now streamed to handle endless sizes.

World Extensions are now introduced, similar to Settlement Extension but can be built on World Map. They will be connected to nearest Settlement paying normal taxes on all Production.

All Extensions are reworked and now has Work Slots, Inventory Slots, Passive Bonuses and more.

Settlement Extensions are now all in proper effect. As example a Guard Post Lowers Food Consumption and adds minimum Morale for Soldiers while stationed.

Character Panel is reworked adding lots of tools to handle large armies and inventories, such as Search, Mass Equip, Mass Heal, Mass Repair, Pagination and more. Everything use Filters too so as an example you can easily choose Infantry->Mass Equip->Stack of Shields.

Trading is also completely re-done following these changes. Enabling much better Data Querying for more accurately discover needed trade goods.

New Hardcore Mode is introduced in Options Panel->Game. It's not yet in Character Creation. Softcore option only kills Player if it has Family to continue. None option means no player death ever. More coming on this later.
Servers got the setting in Game.ini

Big thanks to Amarum for helping to quickly refine things and coming with good ideas. And everyone else reporting bugs and problems!

[h3]World Extensions[/h3]
This new feature aims to fill the early-game and support for Settlements. While making it much more intricate to handle and defend.

Every World Extension shows what Settlement it is connected to when building it. There is also some minimum distance to Settlements and other WE's. And you can rotate it before placing using scroll wheel.

They update every Night and Taxes in Connected Settlement will take it's cut before Settlements update in Morning. In Multiplayer this gives a huge reason for Mid Game Players owning Settlements to get Early Game Players to move in near their Settlements, getting Taxes to increase their own standing.





There are 3 Categories: Houses, Constructions and Plantations

Houses has inventory slots for storing items. And will be expanded later for Family. The most simple one, Camps, are also used in Multiplayer for hiding stashes because their seen radius is very narrow, meaning you must really search on map to find them. They will also be account bound if dying in Hardcore without Family.

Construction examples are Mines for gathering a little Ore, the Wheel of Pain where you can break Workers Morale. Making their Escape Chance much lower or Guard Towers for signaling Enemies/Friends in the area. Granaries are important when owning Settlements because they act as a Food Buffer if too low food in Settlement cudos Amarum for idea.

Plantation examples are Wheat Fields, Vegetable Gardens or Spice Fields. Foundation for Food production in Mid and End Game. Keeping both Settlements and Armies growing.



[h3]Settlement Extensions[/h3]
All Settlements have now been updated according to it's Terrain type, as well as the Blacklist. This means only Deserts can construct Spice Fields. While you will find more Wool in Highlands or Snow.
Settlements nearby map now impacts its ability. As example for Fishing Shacks there must be nearby Water in a reasonably distance. And having access to biggest Mines require nearby Mountains or stone.

Forges now focus on smelting Ore and some simple crafting. Armor and Weapons are now split into several new Extensions, such as Blade Smithy, Fletcher, Blunt Smith etc.
Arena and Tournament are no longer Upgrade to Fighting Pit, but split into their own Extensions with Upgrades.

Upgrades are reworked and now things you add to the Base. Before you would Upgrade Smithy -> Grand Smithy. While now you will Upgrade Blade Smithy with Bellows and a Master Smith, as an example.



Some new Extensions are added such as Chicken Coops. However there are +110 Extensions/Upgrades now in Settlements so we urge Players to check and read up on them in game.

You can pay for Upgrades in any Settlement regardless of being the Lord or not. This will cheer up the Population and give you good reputation.

Search is also added to more quickly navigate the list.

World AI has also got the foundation of taking decisions based on their 3 Tarot Card backgrounds. This will be expanded and built on in next patch.

[h3]Character Panel[/h3]

Many tools for handling large armies and inventories have been added. You can now Mass Level or Mass Equip with Filters. And Sort inventories. This is essential for micro-management.

All Recruited Soldiers & Followers now have unique names from their respective Terrain area. So you can more easily keep track of favorites.



[h3]Misc Important[/h3]
Equipped Horses now consume Hay each Morning. It varies from 1-5 Hay per day depending on Horse Level. If lacking Hay both Strength and Constitution is reduced with 1 each day without food. This is Permanent until Horse dies.

Armor is reworked and no longer removes a absolute number, but a percentage instead, of incoming damage. And Durability impacts effectiveness.

Settlements Food consumption per day is Population / 7 right now. Getting too many immigrants can become a problem to maintain the increased food consumption, ending in Revolt for a long time.

[h3]Upcoming Patch[/h3]

Next we will work on the Kings & Queens Patch. This will introduce End Game Kingdom rule and global Kingdom Taxes. Rulers will be able to administrate Taxes (and other things) for each Terrain region from the Citadel.
Contracts will be introduced that acts both as Messages and signed Contracts. These will be carried by Birds between destinations.
Rulers will put up Bounty Contracts, Alliances are forged signing Contracts and put in storage at Notarie in Citadel, Players will send Messages to met Players for direct messaging or signing Contracts that can be turned into the Citadel for dispute if not upholding the part, just remember the Ruler always decide.

This upcoming patch will also focus a lot on World AI. Current World Extension Patch introduced the final system for AI taking decisions based on their Tarot Backgrounds. This will continue to be used everywhere.

Expect lots of intrigue, burning farms, Sacking Settlements, Plundering and other evil deeds.

While also focusing on End Game Kingdom Rule we will introduce Outfits. This is expensive Robes used for High Society meetings. You won't be accepted to a Banquette or High Society without proper Outfit. Coming in Armor will be laughed at.

The absolute top fighting for Ruling the Kingdom has to play a Political game as well as the traditional Warmongering, Trading and Adventuring. And that is not made with steel, well maybe smaller knives sometimes.

After this we will do the next Siege 2.0 Patch. Introducing Checkpoints and similar. But also focus on updating Combat as much as we can for a Patch period.

Therefore we ask everyone interesting in Combat to start pitch in on Discord what games you think has some good Combat system, and why exactly is it good ?
And we will gather more information before this to maybe get some very good ideas that would fit.

Several major performance fixes on World Map and AI. This should remove a lot of spiky CPU. Special thanks to Amarum for sending Save Games to analyze in these fixes :)

• Added new World HUD logs Filter for type of messages (can finally avoid spam)
  
• Added Cancel Mission button - This does not clean up everything in the World right now
  
• Settlements now searches for trade targets in a lesser distance
  
• Settlements can only have 2 Trade Convoys each at a time now, down from 4 each
  
• All Item and Character Tooltips have had fixups to be more clear visually in all cases
  
• Fixed Mission Cattle Thief where it now properly has a lesser Cave Troll and not a 3 Star Warrior Troll
  
• Urn Coins from Dungeons should now properly be added to Player in Single Player