DR4X News

Hey everyone, quick update on the 'smoothing of critical hits' tweak. I decided to roll it back and replace it with a fix that targets the same issue but doesn't upset the balance we're all accustomed to.

So, here's the deal: I noticed an issue where, even with an advantage, taking down something could drag on forever, especially if all your damage was fully countered.

My original change was overcomplicated and negated critical hits a little, so, i decided to just change it right away to something simpler and closer to how it has always worked.

To address this, I've tweaked it so now, when you're already at an advantage, you'll get a small damage boost in the case where you would hit with 1 or no damage – just an extra point or two. So now instead of 0 or 1 its 1 or 2 (or rarely 3) It's a subtle change, but it'll make a difference in those moments when it would otherwise be really frustrating.

This change should still nudge you towards mixing up your unit choices in those scenarios, but it won't feel like you're stuck in the mud. That's pretty much it. Hoping this lands better and keeps things fun and fair!

Oh, and yeah, it's 1 am. The things we do for games, right?

Hey guys! I had planned to get this update out a couple hours ago but i got lost in the weeds a bit.
THe "Comprehensive" changelog will be out sunday afternoon which includes all the "small" changelogs from the past few weeks aswell as whatever else i can get implemented in the mean time.


-Added some new tips to loading screens

-Add ichor particle effect when attacking bugs

-Made all particle efects stick around a bit longer

-Made camera hang on enemy attacks for another half second because it was sometimes really hard to understand what was going on before when being attacked.

-Ramped up the particle effects a little, especially the tumor death one

-Added new particle effect for when you kill a bug

-Units will no longer shout at crates

-Wildlife AI now has a unit soft cap based on map size

-Pqvv'Ger Uncjw no longer can transform instantly into the desired upgrade but take a turn to upgrade into mushroom towers and 2 to transform into lairs, the wildlife varient takes 1 more turn for both

-Pqvv'Ger mainline units when owned by wildlife now take 1 turn for mushroom tower and 2 turns for a lair

-Fixed bug where units who built a building (or did any command) would still be unable to do actions on the turn the building/command is finished

-Pqvv'Ger can no longer take advantage of the usual bandit tile effects (It Made them overwhelming to play and overpowered)

-Pqvv'Ger Unit costs increased tad

-Myco Heal flag can now heal all units, noit just the myco units

-Farm Now has "Plentiful Harvest" tile effect which grants 2 weeks of upkeep as a resource bonus + a small chance of a backstory/other bonuses to units deployed on it

-Increased scroll sensitivity on codex and on tile effect panel

-Cavalry can shout now

-More damage calculation tweaks

-Smoothed critical hits a bit (im not sure if this was the best idea, as it does reduce the impact of advantage by a some) But it also reduces frusteration in some cases, eg having warriors insta killd by weak enemies like rats just because they had advantage the majority of the time heh. Some more tweaks can be made if nessessary (And probably will after i do more playtesting tbh)

-New realmchild priest unit portrait (not a placeholder this time)

This update is all about enhancing ship gameplay/strategy and boosting performance.


-Ive updated the itch/steam/gamejolt store page, with new information/a new screenshot so it reflects the game better.

-I've optimized getComponent checks in the unit logic. This means a smoother, faster game experience, especially when there's a lot of units on the screen and during AI turns.

-I added the ability to scuttle ships! Once you've explored a body of water, you can now scuttle your ships to conserve resources. But beware - it's a gamble! Scuttling involves rolling a d20. Roll a nat 1, and you might just attract an enemy sea monster. Roll over 10, and you'll create a new treasure for your units to grab. (AI can do it too!)

-Wind mechanics are now in play (I've been watching a lot of videos about Ultima!). But don't worry, my wind system is less frustrating and only really grants bonuses. The wind direction, which changes (or doesn't) randomly each turn, is tracked by the world and affects ship movement. For balance, I've reduced ship base movement points (MP) by 0.5. However, a favorable wind can give you a significant movement bonus. And don't worry about constantly checking the wind - the movement highlight on tiles takes wind conditions into account automatically. It adds an extra layer of strategy to ship navigation.

-Ships now can move through swamps unless the wind isn't in their favor. But if you've invested in certain techs and your ship has 2 or more MP, you'll navigate swamps as if they were "normal" tiles

-Wind conditions are mentioned in the world news and in the ship flag tooltip.
Rest assured, wind direction saves and loads correctly. For existing saves, the default wind direction is set to north.

These updates should make ship's more dynamic and strategic. Hopefully its fun :)

This is pretty minor, got blindsided today by family commitments. Wanted to put out update anyway as i think it is only making the game a bit better so why not put it out.



-Fixed some typos.

-More tweaks to advantage/disadvantage system to make it more in line with what i want.
--Numbers are more deterministic
--Humanoid units will say stuff under certain conditions now. Just for fun it doesn't check their personality or anything its just some predefined lists of phrases.
-Maybe it will get more complex later :P

-On scenario setup screen emphasized more text in certain places (EG Making "Not For Beginners" warning on world age selection red)

-On scneario setup screen reworded a lot of the text (Especially for dark forces.) to be more booky.

-Added some lore/set dressing to the red city in the renovations mission that i've wanted to add for a bit (See its details screen and its description)

-Brownwood too (the starting city in the debauchery and lawlessness scenario) now ha smore lore/set dressing

-Moved lore for other campaign cities and towns to their "main description" in the middle of the defualt description and the extra details and kept them in the details screen too.

-Replaced skeleton warrior profile pic, i actually added this the other day but didn't mention it anywhere.
It Went from this:

I'll probably use this old one for some other flavor of undead later. Maybe a WIght?
To This:


-Added new realmchild priest protrait


-Other tweaks around the edges heh

-[NODEOSERROR]

This update should reduce frusteration and curate your first skirmish a bit better.



-Cranked up the Wendigo's cost and threw in a fire vulnerability for good measure.

-Put an informative flag on the ancient skeleton warrior to make it crystal clear that it very much resists arrows.

-Made the default world age setting Middle Ages (aiming to craft a more curated first skirmish game for newbs that start skirmishes without tweaking anything).

-Ensured the default dark force isn't one of the "multi" types or "It Follows" - those are intended for challenge runs (This change is part of the aformentioned curating)

Added an option to pick "none" for your dark force, giving you more control over your game setup (It also informs you that you could have just ticked the box below it to disable them).(This change is ALSO part of the aformentioned curating)

-Archers now have a hard counter bonus against Ghouls.(They were supposed to always be that way)

-Popped ihandy little flags on several units hinting at "hey, maybe try something other than archers against this, it's pretty tough!" - so players can see their folly.(Also part of the aformentioned curating)

-Rolled out a discreet but major tweak to the advantage/disadvantage system to cut down on frustration. Let's see if you can figure out what I did there... (Another change to make the game less frusterating for newcomers)