Patch Notes - October 11th 2023 - Campaign overhaul
Hello everyone!
I am thrilled to announce the latest update to Voor de kroon.
1. Revamped Building Upgrade System
Delving deeper into the heart of medieval settlements, I've redefined the building upgrade mechanism.
- Slot-Specific Upgrades: No longer can you build everything all over the place. You now need to adapt ot specific settlement biomes like forests, dunes and coastal areas.
- Rebalanced economy: All buildings now have multiple effects and will need to be balanced out to create a good income stream to finance your wars.
2. Heraldry for All Settlements, and other campaign changes
Every settlement in the low countries now boasts its unique heraldry.
- Settlement heraldry: All settlements now have their own unique heraldry that is also displayed in battle by it's troops. When you move units they will retain their origin and still display from where they were called to arms simulating a lance system within the games context.
- Better UI feedback: You can now exactly see what influences public order and settlement income when you hover over the respective stats. The settlement UI is also completely revamped providing a better user experience and a lower barrier of entry for new players.
- Officer importance: Officers are now more important than ever, they have gained a loyalty stat that influences the unit morale and they hold the progress to the next unit rank. If they die in battle this progress is lost.
- Updated campaign map: The campaign map has been updated to be a better reflection of the low countries during the 13th century and 5 settlements have been added to the map.
4. Battle AI improvements
Battles are the heart and soul of the game and will always receive some love.
- anti cavalry: Opponents will now dynamically use their infantry to counter your cavalry, especially with polearm formations this can provide a real challenge to overcome for your units.
- cavalry movement: Cavalry will no longer get stuck behind silly things like trees and I improved the steering and movement speed of all cavalry for a more realistic battle experience.
I am excited to see your feedback on this new update!
Full Changelog
I am thrilled to announce the latest update to Voor de kroon.
1. Revamped Building Upgrade System
Delving deeper into the heart of medieval settlements, I've redefined the building upgrade mechanism.
- Slot-Specific Upgrades: No longer can you build everything all over the place. You now need to adapt ot specific settlement biomes like forests, dunes and coastal areas.
- Rebalanced economy: All buildings now have multiple effects and will need to be balanced out to create a good income stream to finance your wars.
2. Heraldry for All Settlements, and other campaign changes
Every settlement in the low countries now boasts its unique heraldry.
- Settlement heraldry: All settlements now have their own unique heraldry that is also displayed in battle by it's troops. When you move units they will retain their origin and still display from where they were called to arms simulating a lance system within the games context.
- Better UI feedback: You can now exactly see what influences public order and settlement income when you hover over the respective stats. The settlement UI is also completely revamped providing a better user experience and a lower barrier of entry for new players.
- Officer importance: Officers are now more important than ever, they have gained a loyalty stat that influences the unit morale and they hold the progress to the next unit rank. If they die in battle this progress is lost.
- Updated campaign map: The campaign map has been updated to be a better reflection of the low countries during the 13th century and 5 settlements have been added to the map.
4. Battle AI improvements
Battles are the heart and soul of the game and will always receive some love.
- anti cavalry: Opponents will now dynamically use their infantry to counter your cavalry, especially with polearm formations this can provide a real challenge to overcome for your units.
- cavalry movement: Cavalry will no longer get stuck behind silly things like trees and I improved the steering and movement speed of all cavalry for a more realistic battle experience.
I am excited to see your feedback on this new update!
Full Changelog
- Improve AI infantry tactics against cavalry
- Improve cavalry pathfinding
- Increase time of battle AI archer phase when executed
- add Middelburch
- Add Voerne
- Add Haerlem
- Add Woerden
- Add sconhoven
- Set use english naming enabled by default
- Show notification if officer gained a level during battle
- Show notification when officer has died in battle
- Add new realism mode images
- Rewrite settlement connection algorithm
- Redesign quick battle and campaign menu's
- Add new main menu background
- Add tooltip with public order specification
- Add tooltip with settlement income specification
- Correctly update player income info on campaign UI
- Adjust cavalry speed
- make campaign AI more aggressive
- Update menu graphics
- Add performance menu option for horse footprints: disabled by default
- Add footprints to all cavalry as ultra setting
- Player earns xp for commanded formation when making kills
- Improve campaign AI recruitment
- Slightly increase chainmail base health
- Rebalance weapon damage values for some units
- Allow palyer to freely place ladder in campaign based on ladders built
- Add ability to accept level 5 militia officer into knighthood when he has at least 8 loyalty
- Add unit history log to unit detail screen
- When a horse rears it knocks back nearby units
- Show town heraldry on militia units during battle
- Show town heraldry on settlement flag
- Add options to play as faction leader or commander in quick battles
- Add campaign performance options
- Adjust AI building behavior to new system
- Remove global player level system
- Show officer equipment in unit detail screen
- Tie policy names to use english naming setting
- Increase settlement population scale
- When officer dies in battle, replace with new officer, reset leveling progress
- Make enemy faction leader harder to kill
- Show unit rank and faction leader status on units cards
- Show rank and faction leader status in unit detail panel
- Only attackers can wait for night when starting battle
- AI sometimes waits for night when attacking player based on army composition
- Increase allowed characters during renaming to 18
- Add identifier to units with their origin
- Add town related heraldry to all units during campaign
- Simplify unit cost
- Simplify unit recruitment
- Rename some stuff back to english for easier readability of interface
- Show traveling units between settlements on campaign map
- Show icon on settlement flag when an officer has low loyalty
- Add officer assassination system, replace officer with new officer with higher loyalty
- Loyalty gives morale boost or penalty when really high or really low
- Add officer loyalty system: officer will gain and lose loyalty based on actions during campaign, this is visible in unit log
- Add resource indicator for stockpile modifier to building info tooltip
- Unifiy all icons used for silver pennies
- Player can't run anymore when he has taken too much permanent arrow damage
- Settlements get +1 public order when connected to a friendly settlement with a high public order
- Add ministerial foot soldier unit
- Add some extra deploy strategies for AI armies
- Increase range in which player can't mount horse with enemies nearby
- Add hover effect to various campaign UI elements
- Increase stockpile size per upgrade level, simplify stockpile
- Add unique flag for building types
- restructure all building upgrade trees
- All settlements have specific biomes with building slots based on landscape
- Implement slot based building upgrades
- Bind couch lance button to left mouse by default
- Rebalance unit XP gain
- Redesign settlement management UI
- Make summer sky color more realistic
- Add fire effect to settlements under siege
- Add recommended settings button to realism mode select
- Buildings get damaged during sieges and will need to be repaired
- Decrease overall size of campaign clouds
- Change look of campaign map
- Remove oversized rivers and replace with smaller rivers on campaign map
- Make high end feudal units rare and more expensive
- Tweak starting condition difficulty values
- Decrease chance AI commander will build a trebuchet
- Change name of 'defensive' quick battle army style to 'ranged'
- Add truce between Utrecht and Holland at campaign start
- Fix skirmish battles sometimes not spawning units
- Fix skirmish menu state widget
- Fix turn delay when checking if castle can still be under siege
- Fix AI building trebuchets when not having required buildings
- Fix units stalling when charging during a siege
- Fix officers of initial garrison having wrong culture
- Fix player health when dismounting
- Fix reinforcement box location in attack dialog
- Fix defense screen to battle loading screen Z-index
- Fix being able to capture enemy faction leader after defensive victory
- Fix campaign AI still constructing buildings when under siege
- Fix formation data being scrambled in some edge cases
- Fix 4 infantry and one cavalry AI unit deployment
- Fix 4 cavalry and one infantry unit deployment
- Fix hit arrows dissapearing after mounting/dismounting horse
- Fix player sieging self during campaign in some extreme cases
- Fix crash related to missing player index during campaign
- Fix not being able to siege settlement after defense
- Fix reinforcement spawn location in Alcmare
- Fix bug causing wrong faction leader to be placed in settlement
- Fix player being able to mount horse in sally out battle