Pioneers of Pagonia News

[h2]Dear Pioneers,[/h2]

it is time for another Dev Blog! What news washed up at the Pagonian shores? What fabulous tales traveled to your ears? Or did the Tavern's innkeeper let you in on a little secret of what's coming next in Pagonia? Let us dive right into the juiciest bit of news:

[h2]Open Beta – Mining Update[/h2]


As some of you might already know, the open Beta of our upcoming Mining update is live! If you like to test all the upcoming features, you are more than welcome to do so! All Early Access players are eligible for the Open Beta. Just right click on "Pioneers of Pagonia" in your library, click "Properties". then "Betas" and choose the Beta branch from the dropdown menu. We are happy to receive your feedback on our Discord server or in the Open Beta Steam Forum. Have fun testing!

For all of you who are waiting for the update release in main, you don't have to wait that much longer!

The Mining Update will be released next Tuesday on June 25th!

Watch the recording of our latest Dev Live Stream on YouTube featuring everything that is new for the upcoming Mining Update:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Sneak Peek: New Enemies called "Scavs"[/h2]

Next to the Geologist and Subsurface Mining we would like to introduce our new enemy unit: The Scavs! These guys will definitely change up the game and cause some trouble! Here is all you need to know:

The Scavs are a new and challenging enemy type completely different from the Pagonian faction!
They will expand their territory and exploit mining resources. Yes, you read this correctly: If you don’t defeat them fast enough, they will spread like wildfire! Not only do they claim neutral territory, they will also compete for mining resources above and below ground! Their base is called Grimy Bulwark, and it serves them as a smithy to craft their tools, weapons, and armor. It also stores all their mining resources.



[h3]There are three main types of Scavs:[/h3]

Creepers

• These bulky units with their frog-like helmets use stone to extend the Scav territory. If Scavs find copper, they can produce more tools and armor for new Creepers and expand faster!
  

Stonebreakers

• Watch out for these guys! They harvest any stone and metal resource available on the surface! (Yes, they take all the good stuff!) Both coal and iron is needed for their tools, but they are weak in combat.
  
• If the Scavs find silver, they can produce sophisticated tools to equip an Orescraper. They can build a Pit and harvest metal resources below the surface. (And they are also quite weak in combat.)
  

Pit Watchers

• They are in charge of defending the Grimy Bulwark and protect the weak Stonebreakers because they are specialized in combat. Their weapons and armor also need iron and coal.
  
• Greedy Watchers use steel weapons and will only appear if the Scavs get their hands on nickel. Be careful because they are serious enemies to overcome!
  
• Vicious Watchers need both steel and gold for their armor and weapons and are the strongest enemy in Pagonia for now. Send only your best units to defeat them!
  

You can’t let the Scavs roam freely on the island for too long. You must be quick and plan your attack carefully. Because if the Scavs find and harvest enough limestone, they can raise a new Bulwark within their territory. Stop them before they become too strong!

[h3]How to defeat the Scavs[/h3]
Most Scav units wear thick armor and are hard to defeat, but there will be a new player unit type which move swiftly as a cat and target their weak spots! Drumroll please for … the Blade Dancer !

As their name already suggests, Blade Dancers are skillful fighters which are best answer to the well protected Scavs. They can be recruited in the Adventurer’s Guild. Depending on their tier-level, they need light armor, padded armor, and steel-padded armor as well as iron daggers and steel daggers.

If all units of a Grimy Bulwark are defeated, the base will collapse. All nearby territory will become neutral again and all resources that were still stored in the base will be on the ground for you or other Scavs to take.

What do you think of the Scavs? We hope you enjoy the new challenge!

[h2]Gronkh & SodaPoppin as Geologist[/h2]
We are so excited that two great streamers lend their voice to our iconic Geologist! For the German version you can hear the one and only Gronkh voicing the character and for the English version it is SodaPoppin's voice travelling through Pagonia. We think both did an amazing job!


Geologist finding coal

If you want to know how the Geologist sounds in German you can watch this little clip on YouTube

In the future we are planning to record a lot more voices also for our female characters. If you have suggestions who should be voicing one of our characters, please let us know! In the next update we are implementing the feature that you can choose which voice for which character you would like to hear in the game. So you can always have your favorite "Yippie"-sound playing in the background.



[h2]Throwback to the OTK Games Expo 2024[/h2]

Our Art Director (2D-)Timm interviewed by OTK host Ovilee

On June 4th we were on the edge of our seats! (well, Timm was definitely at the edge of his!) Pioneers of Pagonia was part of the OTK Games Expo 2024. It was so much fun to see our city builder made in Germany being showcased to soo many people around the world! We were honored to be mentioned next to so many other amazing indie games!

You can watch the recording of the OTK Games Expo 2024 on YouTube including the interview with our art director Timm. (Time Stamp for the Pagonia Showcase is already linked)

For the OTK live stream we updated our Early Access Release Trailer with a few scenes from our upcoming Mining Update. You'll also find the new trailer on YouTube. Enjoy!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]What comes next for Pioneers of Pagonia?[/h2]
[h3]Magic Update[/h3]
Last but not least we would like to give you an outlook on our future plans! The current roadmap is still active. After the release of the Mining Update next week, we will shift our focus on the upcoming Magic Update. This will be a major content update with lots of new features and we are so happy to finally be working on all the ideas we've been bottling up for ages!

New Enemy Type: "The Cursed" and Magical Unit "Warlock"

[h3]What's to come:[/h3]

• New Enemy Type: "The Cursed"
  
• Arcane Academy
  
• Warlock & Sorceress
  
• Gem Mine & Jewelry
  
• Magical Weapons
  
• New Iconic Building "Gigantic Sanctuary"
  
• Treasure Hunter
  

The unit names are still working titles. If you have a cool idea for naming the magical player units as well as the new enemy type, please don't hesitate to drop a message on Discord or on Steam. We would love to read your ideas!

Mark your calendars, Pioneers! Because the Magic Update will be released in September 2024! We can't wait to show you everything we are working on. There will also be a Beta test before the release, stay tuned!

Finally, we can confirm, that we will be at Gamescom Cologne this year! Are you planning to go, too? We are thinking about a little community gathering during Gamescom including a meet-and-greet with our Dev Team. Please let us know, if you would be interested in something like that.

As always thank you so much for following our journey so far! We can't wait to read what you think of our new update launching next week! Let us know what you are looking forward to the most.

To end this Dev Blog we have a little quote from our Creative Director Volker Wertich for you:

Originally posted by author

Only the Treasure Hunter can find things that have long lain hidden and undiscovered ...

See you in Pagonia!
Your Envision Entertainment Team

[h2]Pick up your tools, Pioneers![/h2]

Today our creative director Volker Wertich is presenting all the new features we have in store for the upcoming Mining Update! You are more than welcome to ask Volker anything you like to know about our new major content update.

What's new?

• Subsurface Mining
  
• Geologist
  
• New Enemies: Scavs
  
• New Player Unit: Blade Dancers
  
• New Buildings
  
• and more!
  

Join our Dev Live Stream on June 18th at 6 pm CEST here on Steam or on your other favorite streaming platform:

YouTube Twitch

Please note that we are streaming from our Beta version, which means that there might be some bugs. If you want to play the Beta version yourself and test the new features, head over to our Discord channel for further information.

Read the detailed Beta Patch Notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2155180/view/6020830277266622097?l=english

Have fun watching the stream. :)
See you soon in Pagonia!

The latest Beta test of our upcoming Mining Update 0.7.0 is out now!
Please tell us what you think on Discord or in our Open Beta discussion forum on Steam.
Thank you for your support and have fun testing our new features!

[hr][/hr]
[h2]Top 3 Highlights[/h2]

• Subsurface mining including the famous Geologist
  
• New enemy faction “Scavs” expand their territory and exploit mining resources
  
• New player combat units and production chains for gold and steel
  

[h2]Features[/h2]
Please note that most of the new features require a fresh start of a game session as the required resources and enemies are not placed on the map in older saved games.

[h3]Geologist[/h3]

• The islands of Pagonia now contain subsurface resources.
  
• The Geologist’s Hut hosts up to 3 Geologists.
  
• The Geologists can travel quite far and also outside your own territory. Like Explorers they may run away from enemies or become their victim.
  
• Geologists need to be supplied with rations for their journeys.
  
• The Geologist can search any scree and stone plateau for mining resources hidden below.
  
• Beside coal, iron and silver there is gold and nickel to be discovered.
  
• Anything discovered will be marked with a signpost reflecting the findings. If something has been found in an area for the first time, a notification will appear for the player.
  
• Surface resources remain in place, but their amount is reduced considering the additional subsurface resources. The overall mining resource amount is slightly increased to reflect that they are harder to find and obtain.
  

[h3]Mines[/h3]

• Five mine types are available now to harvest subsurface resources: Gold Mine, Nickel Mine, Iron Mine, Silver Mine and Coal Mine.
  
• Three Miners holding a pickaxe are necessary to operate a sub-surface mine, they go down using a mechanical elevator
  
• The miners working in a mine need nutrition food supply, similar to the miners working in huts on the surface.
  
• Additionally, the miners need one softwood beam each time they travel down to extend their tunnel system
  
• The Miners will not always find resources, even if there are some nearby. The success rate depends on the number of suited resources nearby. If a deposit is small or depleting, some or all may return empty-handed. The displayed efficiency rate of the building will inform you about the current condition.
  
• If a mine is unable to find any more resources because the nearby veins are depleted, the miners will stop working, no longer consume food / use softwood beams and a notification will inform you.
  

[h3]Scavs [/h3]

• The nasty Scavs will compete for territory and resources with the Pagonians. Note that the Scavs are a new and challenging enemy type completely different from the Pagonian faction.
  
• Their base is called “Grimy Bulwark” and serves them as a smithy to craft their tools / weapons / armor as well as a place to store their mining resources.
  
• In general, most Scav units wear thick armor and are hard to defeat, but the new player unit type “Blade Dancer” (see below) targets their weak spots with fast moves to knock them out efficiently.
  
• The Scavs have various different unit types:
  
  • Creepers use stone to extend the Scav territory. If the Scavs find copper, they are able to produce more tools and armor for new creepers and expand faster.
    
  • Stonebreakers harvest any stone and metal resource available on the surface. Both coal and iron is needed for their tools, but they are weak in combat.
    
  • Pit Watchers protect the weak Stonebreakers as they are specialized for combat. Their weapons and armor also need iron and coal.
    
  • If the Scavs find silver, they can produce the sophisticated tools for their Orescrapers. They are able to build a Pit and harvest metal resources below the surface, but they are weak in combat.
    
  • Greedy Watchers use steel weapons and will only appear if the Scavs get their hands on nickel. They are a serious enemy to overcome.
    
  • Vicious Watchers need both steel and gold for their armor and weapons, and are the strongest enemy in Pagonia for now.
    
• If the Scavs find and harvest enough limestone, they are able to raise a new base within their territory. The units will distribute between the old and new base and continue to spread. Stop them before they become too strong.
  
• If all units of a Scav base are defeated, the base will collapse. All nearby territory will become neutral again and all resources that were still stored in the base will be on the ground for you or other Scavs to take them.
  

[h3]New objective buildings: [/h3]

• The “Monument of Knowledge” is the second iconic building (after the “Light Spire”)
  
• Currently, it can be requested by neutral villages to be built by the player
  
  • Note that we plan to add functionality to those iconic buildings, but we do not have details to announce for that, as of yet.
    
• A golden statue has been added to the objective buildings, which can be requested by neutral villages
  

[h3]The Furnace[/h3]

• Is a new building which uses coal to melt and merge iron ingots and nickel ingots to produce steel ingots.
  
• The furnace is an advanced buildings and needs cement to be built.
  

[h3]New commodities (resources, products, weapons, armor)[/h3]

• Gold ore and nickel ore can be discovered by the geologist and harvested with the gold mine and Nickel mine.
  
• Gold ingots and nickel ingots are produced in the smelting works adding coal to the ores.
  
• Gold coins are produced in the mint and have a value of 6 if they arrive in the Treasury.
  
• Steel ingots are produced in the new building Furnace, which combines iron ingots and nickel ingots using coal.
  
• Steel can be used to produce various new equipment at the weapon smith: steel daggers, steel halberds and steel maces. Besides that, the weapon smithy can also craft iron daggers now.
  
• Steel shields are produced at the armor smith and steel padded armor combines leather or cloth with steel and is now available at the Tailor’s Shop.
  
• All new commodities can appear in trade and gift offers of the Pagonian villages
  
• All objectives have been extended to include the new commodities.
  

[h3]New player units[/h3]

• Blade Dancers are skillful fighters which are the best answer to the well protected Scavs.
  
  • They can be recruited in the Adventurer’s Guild
    
  • The Blade Dancer needs light armor and iron daggers, has a combat value of 5 and a 50% combat bonus against any Scav.
    
  • The Swift Blade Dancer uses padded armor and steel daggers, has a combat value of 10 and a 100% combat bonus against any Scav unit type.
    
  • The Champion Blade Dancer uses steel-padded armor and steel daggers, has a combat value of 15 and a 150% combat bonus against any Scav.
    
• Some extensions and modifications have been made to the guards:
  
  • The new Elite Guard uses a steel halberd, chainmail and has a combat value of 15. It also claims almost three times as much territory each time it uses a borderstone.
    
  • All guards have a 100% combat bonus against Scav “Creepers”.
    
  • Veteran Guards have an increased combat value of 8 now (before: 6). They also claim almost two times as much territory each time they use a borderstone compared to the simple guard.
    
• There is also a new soldier available:
  
  • The new Elite Soldier uses a steel mace, steel shield and chain armor and has a combat value of 20, which is the highest combat value of a player unit.
    

[h2]Content[/h2]
All predefined maps have been recreated to enable the new features.

• The visuals of many areas (e.g. lakes, stone plateau, etc.) have been improved.
  
• They all contain subsurface resources now.
  
• The maps “Unfriendly Neighbors” and “Dangerous Hills” are now with Scav enemies.
  
• The objectives, trade and gift offers have been adjusted and improved.
  

A dropdown now allows to enable or disable specific enemy types before creating a map.

• You can disable an enemy type, e.g. disable all Spectres.
  
• You can choose only one enemy type, e.g. create maps with Werewolves or Scavs only.
  

[h2]Gameplay[/h2]
[h3]Farming balancing changed[/h3]
Impact of sediment types has been increased to ensure that unsuited terrain has a significant lower production output:

• Best: 100% plants grow up (as before)
  
• Good: 50% plants grow up (was 75% before)
  
• Poor: 25% plants grow up (was 50% before)
  
• Very poor: 10% plants grow up (was 25% before)
  

Also a few changes for individual plants:

• Pumpkin on Sandy terrain: was “Best” => is changed to “Good”
  
• Pumpkin on Dusty terrain: was “Poor” => is changed to “Very poor”
  
• Wheat on Sandy terrain: was “Poor” => is changed to “Very poor”
  

[h3] Tavern shows a history of meals served [/h3]

• For each meal currently produced, the type of meal, the ingredients used, and the total nutrition / comfort value are displayed.
  
• The current state for each meal (shopping, cooking, serving, served) is shown.
  
• Beside the meals currently in production, the last 6 finished and served meals are shown.
  
• For each meal ingredient, the nutrition value and comfort meal value is displayed now in a tooltip
  

[h3]Residences and Cottages show a history of meals consumed.[/h3]

• The residences and cottages show which meals have been consumed recently.
  
• The current state for each meal (consuming, returning home, finished) is shown in the tooltip.
  
• The value of the comfort meal is displayed and the food ingredients used are displayed in the tooltip.
  

[h3]Mines, mining huts and quarries show a history of meals consumed.[/h3]

• The current state for each meal being consumed (consuming, finished) is shown in the tooltip.
  
  • Note that the “stock” section already shows meals incoming or available.
    
• The value of each nutrition meal is displayed and the food ingredients used are displayed in the tooltip.
  

[h3]Rebalanced the amount of diggers ordered by construction sites.[/h3]

• Some building types did not order enough diggers, which means leveling the ground was slow in steep terrain.
  

[h3]Explorers now use less rations during exploration.[/h3]

[h2]Visuals[/h2]

• New plants for rock plateaus
  
• Better plant variety in grass land
  
• New option to control the quality of animations in the distance. This can reduce CPU load significantly when many units are on screen.
  
• New shadow rendering quality level “Ultra”
  
• Added enemy camp destruction VFX
  

[h2]Audio[/h2]

• New music track “Challenging Fate”
  
• If a building is selected, a sound effect which reflects the building will now be played.
  
• Audio improvements and mixing
  

[h2]Misc[/h2]

• Several UI layout improvements
  
• Lighting setups now have a description in the map setup window
  
• Improved error reporting in case of desyncs
  
• Added bonus track “Challenging Fate“ to the soundtrack
  

[h2]Visuals[/h2]

• Fixed: Particle effects are no longer visible through fog of unexplored
  
• Fixed: Removed small jump in animation of units when entering or leaving a building
  
• Fixed: Two residents could stand in the same spot in front of a residence
  
• Fixed: Added missing demolish building VFX
  

[h2]Misc[/h2]

• Fixed: Several crashes
  
• Fixed: Several desync reasons
  
• Fixed: Unreachable points of interest should no longer occur
  
• Fixed: Cases where two deposits were overlapping on some maps
  
• Fixed: Bread is now regarded as main dish in the Tavern
  

[h2]Known Issues[/h2]

• Scav High Tower, Scav Mine and Monument of Wisdom still have placeholder models and visuals that will be improved and swapped out during Open Beta
  
• Mint work animation is not working as intended right now and will also be fixed during Open Beta
  
• Missing Monument of Wisdom model & icon
  
• Missing Golden Statue icon
  
• Missing objective icons
  
• Missing notification icons
  
• Placeholder Scav Mine model
  
• Placeholder Scav Claimer model
  

[h2]Dear Pioneers,[/h2]

It's here! Our next update is packed with Quality-of-Life-Improvements and brand new features that will enhance your game experience of Pioneers of Pagonia. Take your time and read the patch notes carefully, because this update is full of great new stuff!

What's new?

• New Village State: Acquainted
  
• Building Construction Mode: New Help Grid & Snapping to Road
  
• Road Construction Mode: 90 Degree Snapping
  
• Efficiency Statistics
  
• Demolish Refund and Visualization
  
• New Additional Light Setups
  
• And many more!
  

Find the full list of changes in the patch notes below.

[hr][/hr]
[h2]Developer Notes[/h2]

The month of April just flew by and It feels like yesterday, that we've released our first multiplayer mode! It definitely made us really happy to watch all the co-op livestreams on Twitch. But, of course, there is still so much more to do! We kept ourselves busy by working on a bunch of new features and improvements we would like to share with you today.

[h3]New Village State: Acquainted[/h3]
Being kind to other factions will pay off much sooner than before! The new state "Acquainted" is already achieved with 50% faction standing and will unlock some trade and gift offers with your friendly Pagonians from the neighborhood. This makes sure you can profit from the benefit of trade much earlier in the game.

[h3]New Building Construction Mode and Road Construction Mode[/h3]
This one will please everyone, who prefers to plan out their settlements very accurately. First of all, there will be a new help grid, which will inform you about space available around the current building. This will make it much easier to estimate space for roads and other planned buildings!

Secondly, the entrance of a building will automatically snap to the road while hovering over an existing road or very close to it. This will definitely save you some time and make building your beautiful village much easier.

And lastly, this is for everyone, who loves 90 degree angles and straight lines: don't worry, we got you! The new road construction mode allows new planned roads to automatically snap to 90 or 180 degree angles if the current mouse position is close to those axes.

[h3]Efficiency Statistics[/h3]
Now you will get even more information on individual buildings! Just hover over a building and it will show the efficiency value in the building tooltip. Also, if you select a building, the efficiency value is shown, too! This is very helpful to understand whether the building is operating continuously or not, and at which efficiency level.



[h3]New Additional Lighting Setups[/h3]
We saved the best for last: Let us introduce three brand new lighting setups to make Pagonia look stunning! (it looked stunning before, but this is a whole new vibe!)

By using a hotkey (default: CTRL+L) it’s possible to change the current map lighting setup at any time. We are soo happy with how they turned out, because each of them is looking gorgeous and sets an entirely different mood!

We can't wait for you to try the different lighting setups and let your villages shine! Please share your screenshots with us on Discord or in the Steam Community Hub, we would love to see them!

Sunrise

Cloudy Daytime (Default)

Golden Hour

Sunset

And this is not all, there are more features in the patch notes below! We hope you enjoy these improvements in your next game session.

Pick up the tools, Pioneers!
Your Envision Entertainment Team

[hr][/hr]


[h2]Features[/h2]

[h3]New Village State: Acquainted[/h3]

• The new state “Acquainted” is already achieved with 50% faction standing
  
• The “Acquainted” state already unlocks some trade and gift offers
  
• The overall amount of trade and gift offers has been increased
  

[h3]Building Construction Mode: New Help Grid[/h3]
In building construction mode, a help grid will now also inform about space available around the current building position. This is very helpful to immediately recognize if there is enough room to build a road along or around the building. Beside that, it helps in general to estimate available space for other planned buildings nearby.

[h3]Building Construction Mode: Snapping to Road[/h3]
In building construction mode, hovering over an existing road or very close to it will snap the entrance direction of the planned building to the road. This means it is still possible to place buildings sideways to roads, but also to snap them to the road directly without the need to rotate the building.

[h3]Road Construction Mode: 90 Degree Snapping[/h3]
In road construction mode, new planned roads will snap automatically to 90 and 180 degree angles if the current mouse position is close to those axes. The new planned road segment will snap to existing road segments, previous planned road segments and to existing buildings/construction sites.

• Road snapping can be enabled and disabled with a new button in the road construction menu
  
• Road snapping can be suppressed by holding CTRL (customizable)
  

[h3]Efficiency statistics: Individual building efficiency display[/h3]

• For each building with a continuous workflow, an efficiency value is shown
  
  • Hovering over a building will show the efficiency value in the building tooltip
    
  • For a selected building, the efficiency value is displayed, too. The tooltip of the value will show the efficiency graph for the last hour. This is very helpful to understand whether the building is operating continuously or not, and at which efficiency level.
    
• Efficiency values are displayed for the following buildings:
  
  • 9 different gathering buildings (Woodcutter, Quarry, Copper hut, etc.)
    
  • 16 different production buildings (Sawmill, Weaponsmith, etc.)
    
  • Both farm buildings, reflecting successful harvesting
    
  • Forester, reflecting successful planting of trees
    
  • Tavern, reflecting successful meal ingredient usage
    
  • Guard Tower / Garrison, reflecting territory expansion
    
  • Explorer, reflecting unknown territory exploration
    
• The efficiency value reflects actual positive results, not if the units are continuously busy. The value of 100% is a best case value, it can be lower for many reasons, depending on the building type. Here are some examples:
  
  • Longer walk distances (for gathering buildings, farms, territory building, explorer, etc.)
    
  • Missing input commodities, missing food supply (for mining) or full output piles
    
  • Weaker ingredients which consume more production time (copper instead of iron)
    
  • Rotting plants (for farms: more seeding, less harvesting)
    

[h3]Economy enhancement: Commodity redirection by more flexible input piles[/h3]

• Equipment items in training buildings which are currently not needed for the ordered and scheduled units of that building, will be released and redirected to other locations if they are needed there. This ensures that equipment can be exchanged between e.g. multiple guild houses or multiple military academies to handle the training/recruitment orders.
  
• Input commodities in buildings which are currently not needed because their recipe has been disabled, will be released and redirected to other locations if they are needed there.
  

[h3]Demolish refund and visualization[/h3]

• Demolishing a building grants 50% (rounded down) of wood/stone construction materials that were used to construct the building
  
• Cloth and rope are refunded 100%
  
• A tooltip shows the amount of commodities refunded
  
• A simple demolish visualization has been added
  
• The demolish refund can help to escape deadlock situations (no more softwood beams, no more stone deposits, no more nutrition food for quarries)
  

[h3]New additional lighting setups[/h3]

• For customized maps you can select between one of several new lighting setups. At the very end of the “Map Setup” section, you will find a new dropdown for “Atmosphere”
  
• By pressing a hotkey (default: CTRL+L) it’s possible to change the current map lighting setup at any time. The last active lighting setup will be part of the savegame.
  
• The 4 available lighting setups are:
  
  • Sunrise
    
  • Cloudy Daytime (Default)
    
  • Golden Hour
    
  • Sunset
    
• New directional atmospheric fog
  
  • The fog color reacts when facing the sun
    
  • Can be deactivated in the settings
    

[h2]Improvements[/h2]

[h3]Gameplay[/h3]

• When a hunter is selected, nearby animals get highlighted
  
• Rations and nutrition meals now still look different after being served at mining buildings
  

[h3]Map Setups[/h3]

• The landing party “Beginner” now contains some trade carriers
  
• Added enemy level “Extremely many” which adds another 50% of enemies
  
• Added landing party “Beginner (Extended for co-op)”
  
• This landing party has been created for co-op to allow a faster game start. It has both more units and more commodities. Adding more enemies keeps the overall challenge similar.
  

[h3]Visuals[/h3]

• Improved reflection on the cliff textures
  

[h3]Misc[/h3]

• Audio mixing
  
• Saved games can be deleted from the load and save menus
  
• Loading the game to the main menu with many saved games is now faster.
  
• Switched trade UI layout for better readability so that the player is on left side and the NPC side is on right side
  
• Improvements in the UI layout
  
• Improvements of the localized texts
  
• Improved rendering performance through optimized LOD levels for characters
  
• Optimized VRAM usage with optimized texture compression setup
  
• “Join Co-op game” button got a tooltip
  
• Reworked visuals for the thieves
  
• Improved rendering of distance fog
  
• Performance improvements on maps with a lot of Pagonians
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

[h3]Gameplay[/h3]

• Fixed: Sometimes the building state “Construction paused” was not removed even though the building got finished
  
• Fixed: Sometimes a guard tower did not get any reinforcements
  
• Fixed: When a soldier was living in a residence or cottage, its selection window did not reflect this
  
• Fixed: A Pagonian bitten by a werewolf would still show “Ready for new orders” when selected
  
• Fixed: A bitten Pagonian did not have an icon
  
• Fixed: Building preview got stuck at its current location if cursor hovers any UI while holding right mouse button
  
• Fixed: Fishers do not block traffic
  
• Fixed: Storage pile not accepting commodities under some circumstances
  
• Fixed issue where farmers would disregard work orders
  
• Fixed issues where neutral village territories would prevent road accessibility for points of interest
  

[h3]Visuals[/h3]

• Fixed: Sometimes fish were swimming into the ground when close to the shore
  
• Forester now carries different looking hardwood and softwood saplings
  
• Fixed: State "not enough to do for all staff members at the moment" stayed active when building was turned off
  
• The color of porcini and raspberries baskets was too similar, so the white blanket was removed from the porcini basket
  
• Fixed: Black rabbits suddenly turned red when dead.
  

[h3]Misc[/h3]

• Fixed: When changing the language, not all text was updated to the new language
  
• Fixed several crashes
  
• Fixed: Placed pings in a co-op session persisted in the world after last client left the session
  

[h2]Dear Pioneers,[/h2]

what's better than celebrating the upcoming update with a dev livestream? If you want to watch the devs play Pioneers of Pagonia and get their rear ends bitten by werewolves, then join us on Steam, YouTube and Twitch next week! When? May 14th at 4 pm CEST.

This time our community manager Katharina will play a co-op session together with our lovely QA-Team (Mirjam, Chris and Samuel). This is your chance to ask everything you always wanted to know about Quality Assurance and other behind-the-scenes topics, while we try to beat a very special map. (And showing you all the crisp new features of our next update, of course!)

We've also been working on a little treat for all of you, Pioneers! (Drumroll please ...) Let us introduce to you the very first and official Community Challenge called "Find the Lost Artifacts"!

[h2]Community Challenge: Find the Lost Artifacts[/h2]



How it works:

We have prepared a special map for you, where several artifacts are hidden in secret locations. The goal is to find all artifacts, beat whatever obstacle you encounter and let your carriers bring the artifacts back to your treasury.

Please note: There are no other NPC factions on the map and you won't find the challenge in your objectives! (we just kept it simple.) You can ignore the map goal of "defeat all enemies" for the challenge. The only win condition to enter the giveaway is to store all three artifacts in your treasury!

But there is more! Everyone who beat the challenge can enter our giveaway. For a chance to win one of three Pagonia-Goodie-Packages, send us your savegame with the completed challenge to the following email address:

[email protected]

The three winners are chosen randomly from the submitted entries! (given the savegames are valid and the challenge was won)

We will provide the savegame with the Challenge Map on our Discord-Server and as a Download on our homepage on May 14th. Then you'll have two weeks time to complete the challenge and submit your entry.

Submissions will close on May 28th, 6 pm CEST.

Pick up your tools and good luck, Pioneers!

P.S. We will play a variation of the challenge map on stream to not spoil the fun of finding the artefacts yourself. So you can watch the stream spoiler free!