Voor De Kroon News

Hello everyone!

Today's upgrades push melee fighting on foot during battles. This is the first step in a series of combat focused updates coming this year.

At the heart of this update is the brand new Perfect Block system. Time your guard within a 0.4 second window and you will unleash an automatic shield bash that knocks down your attacker and opens them up for an instant finisher. In contrast, kicking enemies is no longer a guaranteed knockdown unless they are low on health. Enemies will now also push you away if you hover around in their face for too long, prevent too close engagements.

Combat flow has been upgraded to feel more responsive. Input buffering makes attacks and combos chain smoothly. Stamina interactions are redone, blocking enemy attacks drains you and blocking also prevents stamina regen, balancing pressure in long engagements and preventing the game from fighting itself. Finishers have been expanded across swords, axes, shields and blunt weapons, giving you more ways to end a fight.

The soft lock system has been improved, making you properly attack your current enemy during battles and making sure your hits connect.

Formations feel more alive with dust effects in dry weather and cavalry charge behavior has been tuned. A batch of animation improvements and bug fixes also bring more polish and consistency to the entire system and fix a couple of critical issues.

This is a big step toward the combat experience. Stay tuned for more updates on this as my main focus is going to be upgrading the game's combat for the coming updates.

Thank you for all the support so far!

If you have suggestions, bugs or just general ideas for the next update, feel free to join the discord or drop by in the discussions. Always happy to hear your input.

https://discord.com/invite/cTgXXfTmhc

Full changelog

• Add dust effects to formations in dry summer weather
  
• Add dry climate property for custom campaigns
  
• Add more default sword types
  
• Add holsters for all weapons
  
• Add perfect block system that staggers the opponent when timed correctly
  
• Add finishers for blunt weapons
  
• Add more ground finishers
  
• Add shield specific finishers
  
• Add more finishers for axe and sword
  
• Add performance option to show all unit holsters
  
• Add check to knockdowns so only low health units are knocked down from kicks
  
• Add mid 13th century helmet to Guy Dampierre based on his rider seal
  
• Add markers for castles on tactical map
  
• Add mitre without helmet
  
• Add push away mechanic when standing too close to a units face
  
• Add subtle footstep soundlayer for holstered weapon
  
• Add stamina slowdown effect on animations
  
• Add input buffering to melee on foot
  
• Add stamina drain when blocking a hit or parrying an attack
  
• Tweak cavalry charge behavior
  
• Improve some control and rotation mechanics
  
• Increase strength of on foot combat soft lock
  
• Improve draw holster sounds
  
• Improve way ground finishers work
  
• Improve stamina stun animation
  
• Slightly lower general waterlevel during summer to simulate drought
  
• Make sure militia officer message appears even when the player is dead
  
• Increase chance player is knocked off horse
  
• Remove hiding signal instruments of units in combat
  
• Block stamina regeneration when blocking
  
• Lower player combat stance reset time
  
• Remove nasal helmet from default sergeant unit body loadout
  
• Polish work on various animations
  
• Fix range marker not erasing when mounting or dismounting horse
  
• Fix unarmed player animation
  
• Fix left hand placement when not holding shield in player animation
  
• Fix potential crash with invalid custom unit data
  
• Fix animation glitch when equipping or unequipping shield
  
• Fix way uploaded items are queried on the Steam Workshop
  
• Fix potential crash related to siege defense locations
  
• Fix potential crash related to player animation
  
• Fix default bastard sword handle length
  
• Fix sword loadout icons
  
• Fix mirrored old weapon thumbnails
  
• Fix sound level of two handed weapon swirl
  
• Fix fleeing player horse
  
• Fix animation jank when equipping shield or equipping bastard sword
  
• Fix vassalage for faction with global heraldry enabled
  
• Fix footstep sounds sometimes being off for player
  
• Fix missing tournament parry sound
  

Changelog

• Add vassal logic to AI campaign factions
  
• Tweak algorithm used by AI to hire and manage units during the campaign
  
• Slightly increase unit XP gain
  
• Reduce chance AI resorts to peasant levy policy ( Should only be used in emergencies )
  
• Make AI cavalry steering more granular based on situation
  
• Fix possible crash related to corrupted heraldry
  
• Fix empty settlements retaining vassal status
  
• Fix AI army setup strategy during campaign with large armies mode enabled
  
• Fix being able to move vassal commanders after battle
  
• Fix campaign autosave timing
  
• Fix AI factions sending peasant levy to the frontline as a replacement
  

Full Changelog

• Add more officer gambeson variations
  
• Add more dynamic comments based on tournament victories to campaign
  
• Add game log entries for collected food and wood
  
• Add escape logic for enemy faction leaders if defeated in auto resolve or surrender
  
• Add ability to change weather for castle creator test
  
• Add custom thumbnail logic for custom castles
  
• Add more trees to castle creator
  
• Add pike without kletsie foot to customization items
  
• Add new great helmet type
  
• Dark Fantasy Variety Pack: add dark fantasy castle creator assets
  
• Tweak cavalry movement when charging
  
• Optimize campaign icons and thumbnails
  
• Improve look of faction editor preview
  
• Tweak and change some dialogue lines
  
• Fix formations not reacting to charge command when advancing
  
• Fix join war questions breaking the UI on bigger campaigns
  
• Fix player faction showing in join war questions
  
• Fix issue where a castle filename conflict can cause testing issue in
  
• Fix unit fleeing bug on maps with large elevation differences
  

Hello Everyone!

Another campaign focused update adding more immersive features allowing faction leaders and officer dialogue to reference recent events happening in the game. You can now also ask any faction leader how their war is going with other factions and a couple of other interactions have been added. It also improves the frequency at which the AI does diplomacy with eachother and contains the usual quality of life fixes and improvements.

It's completely save game compatible as always, but it will take time for events to fill the new systems before they get referenced if you continue an existing campaign.

Thank you for all the support!

If you have suggestions, bugs or just general ideas for the next update, feel free to join the discord or drop by in the discussions. Always happy to hear your input.

https://discord.com/invite/cTgXXfTmhc

Full Changelog

• Add faction leader dialogue commenting on recent game events
  
• Add more dialogue options to faction leader interactions
  
• Add diplomacy hit to allies when you execute a faction leader
  
• Add tab filters to campaign game log
  
• Add simulated tournament results in case player declines a tournament
  
• Add game memory dialogue to officer dialogue reports
  
• Add war memory to factions
  
• Add global game memory
  
• Disable squire equipment recovery dialog if battle lost
  
• Improve player faction leader unit handling during campaign
  
• Improve AI to AI diplomacy logic
  
• Fix AI only processing the first captured officer
  
• Fix sally out button visible when surrender should be the only option
  
• Fix not being able to start siege assault with just siege tower
  
• Fix surrendering settlement not counting as an attack
  
• Fix AI losing units when surrendering settlement
  
• Fix game log not getting cleared when starting new campaign
  
• Fix AI commander switches being recorded in global game log
  
• Fix equipment recovery dialog triggering on quick battles
  
• Fix ladder units with custom officer loadout sliding around
  

Changelog

• Add loot system: commanding officer will keep picked up weapons and shields
  
• Add more dialog options when interacting with other faction leaders
  
• Add squire dialog after battle if lord: do you want to recover original equipment
  
• Add small public order bonus to faction leader present in settlement
  
• Add control icons for tactical map and artillery fire to battle UI
  
• Add more officer report dialogs during campaign (Eg when running low on silver)
  
• Add relationship modifier UI popup
  
• Add logic that makes units with ceremonial banners draw secondary if attacked
  
• Prevent resources from going negative, except silver
  
• Make helmets fly off if any damage removes the head from unit
  
• Increase formation rally distance
  
• Executing lords lowers relation with other faction (militia officers are expendable)
  
• Fix reinforcements interface elements showing in campaign with large armies mode enabled
  
• Fix jousting AI tracing
  
• Fix invalid weapon data stuck in custom unit
  
• Fix unit count getting clipped to 5 after battle if large armies mode is enabled
  
• Fix player death scene mossy stone
  
• Fix player win scene
  
• Fix potential crash related to non-affiliated lords
  
• Fix lords not losing loyalty when stationed with peasant land owner
  
• Fix siege battles charging player double for siege engines in some cases
  
• Fix faction unit preview for custom units