Soulash 2 News

Greetings fellow gods,

Today I have a content update with a bunch of fixes for you while I continue to work on the new group AI for regional battles. Here's the full changelog:

[h3]Added[/h3]
- New extreme location - Acidara's Lair.
- 11 new animals added to biomes.
- 8 new recipes for Armorsmithing.
- Most crafting skills now give skill points.
- Bone Bolts are now available.

[h3]Changed[/h3]
- Spirit of the Snowfall Figurine now gives frost damage.
- Made an Ostrich quick again.

[h3]Fixed[/h3]
- Fixed crash related to Haunted Orchard.
- Fixed a crash related to history simulation.
- Fixed an issue that would cause a region map not to load properly when we start as our descendant.
- Feather is now correctly discovered while gathering resources.
- Nettle Plant is now more visible.
- Bugs and Fire Beetles no longer leave orc tracks.
- Gniseggi AI fixed.

The war is still in progress and will take longer as much background work is necessary. Hopefully, the next update will bring the ability to join existing battles if we so desire, and then we'll take a longer break to work on v0.9 and allow us to field our armies and conquer the world.

Until next time,
Artur

Greetings fellow gods,

Today's update introduces the first important step toward the upcoming War major update: battle simulation and reporting.

NPC states now wage wars for profit and raid opposing settlements for wealth.



For now, these are only a part of the history simulation, and we can't participate in battles in towns yet. They also don't attack our towns as we don't have a State faction.

We also have a new knowledge tab for wars where simulated battle reports can be viewed.



Here's the full changelog (the long list under changes is mainly an overhaul of Imbuing):

[h3]Added[/h3]
- NPC states wage wars as part of the history simulation.
- Added battle simulation to history simulation.
- Added wars tab to Knowledge Screen.
- Battle reports were added to the Knowledge Screen.

[h3]Changed[/h3]
- NPC states don't trade with each other during war.
- Magnificent Ring moved down to level 24.
- Frost Flower Ring moved up to level 27.
- Shell Ring moved up to level 40.
- Mastery Ring Moved up to level 42.
- Leaf Signet moved up to level 47.
- Braided Leather Necklace moved down to level 3.
- Troll Amulet moved down to level 20.
- Shaman Amulet moved down to level 22.
- Spiked Chain moved down to level 23.
- Bone Beads Necklace moved down to level 25.
- Glacial Amulet moved up to level 27.
- Hunter Amulet moved up to level 28.
- Winter's Embrace Necklace moved down to level 34.
- Lion Mane Necklace moved down to level 43.
- Heavy Necklace moved up to level 44.
- Carved Bone Beads moved down to level 1.
- Frozen Light moved up to level 11.
- Rune of Toughness moved down to level 16.
- Black Pipe moved down to level 19.
- Ghoul Tongue moved down to level 19.
- Rune of Protection moved down to level 21.
- Snowflake Brooch moved down to level 22.
- Small Cauldron moved down to level 24.
- Bone Lock moved down to level 25.
- Wicker Doll moved up to level 26.
- Carved Skull moved up to level 28.
- Bone Brooch moved up to level 29.
- Rune of Strength moved up to level 32.
- Half a Coin moved up to level 34.
- Rune of Survival moved up to level 35.
- Value changed for: Magnificent Ring, Shell Ring, Leaf Signet, Mountain Ring, Braided Leather Necklace, Troll Amulet, Shaman Amulet, Spiked Chain, Bone Beads Necklace, Glacial Amulet, Winter's Embrace Necklace, Sun Amulet, Lion's Mane Necklace, Leaf Tiara, Button, Bone Dice, Frozen Light, Bone Chimes, Rune of Toughness, Black Pipe, Ghoul Tongue, Snowflake Brooch, Small Cauldron, Bone Lock, Wicker Doll, Carved Skull, Bone Brooch, Rune of Strength, Half a Coin and Rune or Survival.
- Magic Slots changed for Shell Ring, Leaf Signet, Orc Amulet, Shaman Amulet, Tree Amulet, Bone Beads Necklace, Frozen Heart Locket, Winter's Embrace Necklace, Icicle Charm and Heavy Necklace.
- Required Resources changed for Shell Ring, Leaf Signet, Mountain Ring, Shaman Amulet, Spiked Chain, Fortune Amulet, Heavy Necklace, Bone Key, Bird Skull Figurine, Bone Chimes, Snowflake Brooch, Bone Lock, Wicker Doll and Rune of Strength.
- Weight changed for Bone Beads Necklace and Winter's Embrace Necklace.
- Quality changed for Bone Lock and Bone Brooch.
- Carved Bone Beads no longer give acid damage.
- Carved Skull gives more resistance now.

[h3]Fixed[/h3]
- Fixed companion portrait being selected accidentally while on Trading Screen.
- Added scrollbar and fixed resource selection when there's many resources available in settlement.
- Reptilion females correctly expect Trident instead of Runic Dagger when asking for claw in marriage.
- Fixed typo in Fur Boots description.

[h3]Hotfix v0.8.14.1[/h3]
- Fixed rare crash in history simulation.
- Fixed glyphs for Troll Amulet and Winter's Embrace Necklace.

The next step will be introducing these battles into the region simulation, where we can affect the outcome. It will require some new functionality and AI development, so the next update will likely once again take longer than a week. Once that's in place, we'll need a new GUI to send out our armies, add occupation mechanics, and the units will require a balance overhaul so big battles can pose an end-game threat.

A lot of War-related work is still ahead, even before I can get to Liches and Necromancy. In less than 2 weeks, we'll reach the first full year of Early Access, and I'll update the roadmap a little bit, pushing the full release to 2026 to have plenty of time to flesh out the game, add details and more complexity to simulation, and eventually polish the experience before 1.0.

Have a fun weekend,
Artur

Greetings fellow gods,

Today's update adds new two-handed weapons like swords, axes, and crossbows to the roster and two new knowledge tabs for states and companies. Here's the full changelog:

[h3]Added[/h3]
- New Knowledge tabs for States and Companies.
- 7 new recipes in Weaponsmithing.
- 5 new recipes in Carpentry.

[h3]Changed[/h3]
- Rebalanced marriage requirements to make them easier to acquire.
- Selecting tabs in the Knowledge tab selects the first entry by default.
- Improved stats of Reptilion Leaders.

[h3]Fixed[/h3]
- Fixed rare world simulation crash.
- Fixed rare crash related to Thorn Spitters.
- Fixed a crash related to throwing things down to a lower z-level.
- Fixed rare crashes related to consuming items.
- Fixed Thorn Spitter crashing on the attack.
- Fixed beard hair color for bald characters.
- Bird Bones show as a discovered resource.
- Rats and Wasps are now considered alive.
- Goblin mines have a correct image set up.
- Fixed using the damaging ability on self when first selecting the ability.
- Fixed some typos.

[h3]0.8.13.1[/h3]
- Moved Greenskin Crossbow and Bolt recipes to Carpentry 2.
- Fixed crash related to State history events.

I'm in my least favorite area of development right now - GUI, but things are moving forward. The next step is to create battle reports so wars and battles can be a part of the history simulation. It should take 1 - 2 weeks.

Have fun with new toys,
Artur

[h3]Changed[/h3]
- Having a dead spouse allows re-marriage.
- Special characters are cleared from settlement names.

[h3]Fixed[/h3]
- When marrying a companion, it gets properly removed from the party.
- Fixed a bug that would stack arrows with different resources when shooting at enemies.
- Fixed plant growth when it's in progress.
- Fixed disappearing shield when equipping while holding 2 handed weapon and full backpack.
- Fixed rare crash related to world generation.
- Fixed pickup of stackable items being possible above carry weight.
- Returned visibility of Pirate Bays.
- Pouring Water action consumes 100 units of water once.
- Fixed missing multiple entries with the same names in the Knowledge tab.
- Fixed keymap for keys changing z-levels.

Greetings fellow gods,

In today's update, I bring some utility improvements like filters to declutter the world map, per-race occupations for buildings in our settlements to be able to have different specialists, like dwarf or elven armorsmiths, and animations for settler groups that will also be used for moving armies in the future.

Here's the full changelog:

[h3]Added[/h3]
- Added animations for traveling settler groups during world simulation.
- Added filters to the world map to hide locations, caravans, NPC groups, and settlement names.

[h3]Changed[/h3]
- Improved settlement food consumption to prioritize non-raw food, then food of the highest total nutrition, including the available unit count.
- Added support for different entities per race in player settlement buildings, allowing different workers to access separate recipes and fix their dialogues. The change applies after NPCs get re-assigned to work automatically or manually.
- It's no longer possible to build multiple of the same entities on the same tile.
- Reduced max zoom on the world map.
- Blocked assigning Escape key in KeyMap except for the default cancel actions.
- Frogs no longer have equipment.
- The Jar of Fireflies is now stackable.
- Barley Flour and Bread recipes added to the Agriculture skill.
- Bone Blade and Bone Dagger recipes changed places in Weaponsmithing.
- Changed ingredients in recipes: Bone Warpick, Shiverstone, Shiverstone Ring.
- Changed the Chain ability effect tooltip to include the number of chained targets.
- String of Dried Fish and String of Dried Herbs can now be demolished.
- Added some resistances to Phasewalker.

[h3]Fixed[/h3]
- Fixed an issue that would cause materials to disappear during item upgrade.
- Fixed a bug where crafting was possible without all materials.
- Fixed auto-pickup that sometimes occurred on the multi-item pickup menu.
- Caravan items are locked once the caravan is on the move.
- Removed interactions from the action wheel with unseen enemies.
- Fixed tracking message when no target for tracking is available.
- Fixed Frozen Potion ingredients.
- Fixed Electroshock description.
- Fixed Sugar Farm building.
- Fixed a family choice when changing race on character creation so the race always matches.
- Fixed crash in Armors Datatable.

[h3]Hotfix v0.8.12.1[/h3]
- Fixed rare crash in history simulation.
- Fixed Barley Bread recipe in Agriculture.

[h2]About major update v0.9 "War"[/h2]

As some of you on our Discord may know, I took some time off the internet to recharge, and I was able to refocus a bit more on the upcoming big features - war, necromancy, and liches. I've designed it and estimated it to take about 400 hours of work in total.

Because all 3 are so intertwined and impactful for the game, I will have our Thursday updates on a less regular schedule until everything is done in December or January. We'll still have updates when I feel confident things can go in without too much disturbance, but dealing with wars as something that can potentially be procedurally world-ending, I need to be very careful not to make the game too difficult and unfun.

With that in mind, I can offer a few details for the death lovers who've been asking for raising the dead for almost a year now. Both Liches and Necromancy will be very unique parts of the game. The Liches, for example, will not be accessible as a playable starter race but only available as an "accomplishment" during a playthrough. They will have their settlements in the snow biome and threaten the world.

Necromancy is mostly designed with many completely new mechanics around settlements and armies. Because of how the game is designed, we can make a truly malicious force of evil that spans beyond simple combat abilities - and that will be my goal. It won't be a typical summon or death damage skillset, but an ability that focuses on affecting the entire world.

In other news...

[h2]The team grows![/h2]

My work continues, and although it's still difficult to return to my productivity from before rainbow lunatics came to destroy me, especially since they continue to write essay reviews with lies to this day, I've been making progress.

One of the positive things that came out of all this was that, with the extra funds we got from sales, I hired my brother to help with programming. He'll help part-time, but he's already been getting used to the codebase while fixing bugs, and he will start to add some UI/UX features you've all been asking for. Once we get the bugs list and UX better, he will work on modding tools to allow for many more options to modify available functionalities. I would love to have a visual script hooked up to be able to mod in new systems, but that's going to be a challenge, so I don't want to promise it yet. We'll attempt it for sure.

This will allow me to focus on the design and big features, while hopefully, we will also be able to pick up the improvements to existing features many of you have been asking for very soon. The plan, as described in the Roadmap, still stands, and we'll continue to move towards v0.10, but we'll likely delay the 1.0 release to give ourselves as much time to polish as we need. I very much want to attempt the multi-tile entities and the 5th tier of special locations. A lot is yet ahead.


That will be it for today. A little longer post, but I felt you guys would like to know what's happening with your beloved game since things have been moving a little slower. If you have any questions, let me know below, but I won't share more spoilers about necromancy!

Have fun,
Artur