Tooth and Tail News

French localization, the ability to reveal cloaked enemies, and a ladder reset - these are the headliners of this patch. We also threw some small balance tweaks in the mix, mainly to make poking and siege strategies stronger, and added a few minor fixes and features (Fog of War on the Minimap and first steps towards Custom Mission support).


All ranked points have been reset to zero, again, season 5 has started!
Eight players managed to get beyond 1000 points, this season:
Congrats to Arilou, Gent, James, Imari, QQ, Melvinfro, Jakobi, and mocaccino!

• Commander: After standing still for a short time, any other team's cloaked units and structures in a 3x3 area around the commander will be forced to uncloak for 1s. (Rallying allowed, burrowing resets the timer.) Visualization as seen in the GIF is off by default, but can be turned on in other options.
  
• Toad: Moves at the same speed on all kinds of terrain; still slowed down by Barbed Wire, Daze etc.
  
• Pigeon: 4 tiles range (from 3).
  
• Ferret: 6 DPS (from 5 DPS), 6 tiles vision range (from 5 tiles).
  
• Chameleon: 32 HP (from 34 HP).
  
• Badger: Rev up in 5s (from 6s) and rev down in 3s (from 2s).
  
• Wolf: Buffs units for 10s (from 12s).
  
• Fox: 12 DPS (from 11 DPS), 25 HP (from 24 HP), 6 tiles vision range (from 5 tiles).
  
• Barbed Wire: 16 HP (from 18 HP).
  
• Landmine: Gets triggered at 1 tile distance, again (from 0 tiles = same tile), 16 damage against a single target (from 18), including 2 damage in a 3x3 area (unchanged).
  
• Machinegun: 28 HP (from 24 HP).
  
• Artillery: 6 tiles vision range (from 5 tiles).
  
• Lower max. amount of water on Old Mother Township maps.
  

Thanks to The Gentleman, we can add another language to the game: French localization is now available!



Some players also notified me that the game partially handled keyboard inputs in a strange way: Despite using the correct localization in the menus, the game assumed a QWERTY layout as soon as you started playing. That issue is fixed, now. However, you might have to rebind your keys in case you are using an AZERTY layout (for example) with the original key mapping (WASD for movement).


You can now make the Fog of War visible on your Minimap. It is disabled by default, but you can turn it on in the Graphics Options, where you'll see a checkbox "Fog of War on the Minimap".



Some systems have been heavily slowed down when certain lighting options (especially bloom) were active, allowing them to play only on low quality graphics. These lighting options will from now on only be active in high and ultra settings, so if they caused you any trouble, you can enjoy the lighting and shadows of the medium settings, instead of having to choose low quality.



Fragile Wire on Custom Maps: Barbed Wire placed next to decor assigned to a different faction* took way too much damage when touched. Only happened on custom maps, should be fixed, now.
*) Faction-aligned decor is mostly useless, anyway, will no longer occur on new custom maps.

Some (rare) crashes should be fixed, too - just keep telling me if something bad happens!


A couple of new possibilities for modding have been added:

• units can be spawned from bullets (yes, the Toad thrower is now possible)
  
• added amphibious trait: unit moves at the same speed on all types of terrain
  
• added revealed status effect: forces units to uncloak and stay uncloaked while it lasts
  
• build and production time of one tier can now actually differ
  
• mods can now be loaded automatically for a map (currently needs XML editing in the map file)
  
• spells (like air strikes) no longer get picked randomly/by CPUs, which didn't know how to handle them, so you can include these in your mods, now
  

I also started working on Custom Mission support (i.e. Maps with briefings, mods, unit restrictions, fixed teams/spawn positions, starting food...). It's still work in progress, but a first example map using some of these features can be found here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2108645070
(Not saying the decks are balanced, though - this is just a test & demonstration.)
More such maps and features will be added. Tell me if there are any specific special rules and objectives you would like to see in Custom Missions in the future, and I'll see what I can do!


We've had a couple of events since the last update, first of all the TnT Championship 2020.1 - a league with three divisions (beginner, intermediate, premier) and over 50 participants. Well played, everyone!
Since the Championship has been casted by different streamers over several weeks, we do not have a complete collection of all the matches, but here are most of the (near) final games.
There will probably be a second installment of the Championship in autumn.

We also had a continuation of Gent's famous series of tournaments with special rules, this time:
The 21 Clues!
All participants could gather and exchange information that helped them pick their targets in four challenges: smuggling contraband (Longcoats), raiding meat hoarders (Commonfolk), catching the assassin (KSR) or preparing the perfect feast, by cooking an enemy with a special "recipe" (Civilized). After catching the assassin and raiding the most meat, Arilou won over the three other finalists: Melvinfro, Mishi (best cooking), and Cyanide Trick (best smuggling).
The finals have been casted by Delthius and JetEriksen on ToothAndTailTV.

Delthius also recently celebrated the 100th Episode of his replay casting show The Feast (on ToothAndTailTV, as well) with a wacky tournament, that allowed only Fox, Turret and Artillery Cannon in each player's deck - and the winner of this crazy format was: The Gentleman!

Our most recent tournament, the 2v2's Bizarre Adventure, took place last Saturday. Each team consisted of one experienced and one learning player, and the experienced player had to play with one of several pre-defined "bad decks", so they had to rely on their learning team mate.
The almost 5h tournament has been casted by Delthius, with lots of otherwise rare genius strategies and hilarious moments.
Congrats to Wyld kin and Big Pimpintosh for winning this 4th season of the 2v2's Bizarre Adventure!
​
The next tournament is going to be Vyeshal Kyawlnez, a 1v1 tournament played on custom maps. It will start the coming weekend, June 27th, and this time you can pick your own dates for playing the matches (one per week).
For more information, signup etc., join the Vyeshal Kyawlnez Discord server!
The approved maps for the tournament can be found here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1597066158


Salut et bonne bataille !
EELuminatus

http://twitch.tv/jeteriksen
http://twitch.tv/wittypun7
http://twitch.tv/toothandtailtv

Most of the changes in this patch are rather subtle or even behind the scenes. Especially the balance changes are mostly about timing, e.g. allowing surprisingly quick Mole attacks and making it easier to get tier 3 units on the board. It should also lower the efficiency of the popular mass Falcon + Chameleon combo in the late game.

On top of that:

• some details have been improved (or fixed) about rally commands and map generation,
  
• the difficulty slider now has a bigger impact on the Civilized missions in the Story Mode,
  
• and some new possibilities have been added for modders.
  

The community also keeps organizing one event after the other: on top of the new monthly tournament on custom maps, a league for new and experienced players alike is about to start on March 13!
See more details below!




[h2]Balance[/h2]

• Mole: the first Mole of each warren spawns as soon as the warren is finished and the Mole is paid
  
• Skunk: gas canisters hit within 0.4s (from 0.5s), even faster if the target is nearby
  
• Chameleon: 0.5s recloak time (from 0.25s)
  
• Falcon: shoots 12 bullets over 1.2s, then reloads for 1.8s (from: 10 bullets over 1s, reload for 1s), damage per bullet is still 1, DPS reduced to 4 (from 5)
  
• Boar: 100 HP (from 110 HP)
  
• Tier 3 & Artillery: 45s build/production time (from 50s)
  
• Flying over Gristmills: air units can no longer stay on top of a Gristmill, that means they can still move over it, but no longer rest or shoot there
  

[h2]Commander Inputs[/h2]

• easier targeting against ground & air units: if a ground unit and an air unit are on the same tile, you can target the air unit in the upper half of the tile, and the ground unit in the lower half
  
• fix a rare bug that caused some units to ignore the retreat command (hold rally without target)
  

[h2]Map Generation[/h2]

• improved fairness calculations
  
• inaccessible high ground cannot be as close to a player's spawn base as before
  

[h2]Difficulty Slider (Story Mode)[/h2]
I got feedback that the 3rd and 4th Civilized missions (Vacancee Downfall & Sage Marro Speaks) were not sufficiently affected by the difficulty slider - very hard for new players, same old strategy for veterans. With this patch, the difficulty setting will get a much bigger impact on these two missions. That means they will be a lot easier on low difficulty, but also more challenging on higher difficulty.

[h2]Modding Possibilities[/h2]
Some players already started working on Mods, but they want more power... and I'm experimenting with new units/balance, as well.
That's why I added support for a couple of mechanics that have not been used in the game, before:

• fixed Food Crates placed in the Editor (they disappear when collected, but do not respawn automatically)
  
• added action to set production progress (Type="SetProductionProgress", Value of 0 means no progress, Value of 1 means production finished; used when a new Mole warren has been built)
  
• structures can have the property "AirBlocking": if true, air units cannot stay on top of that structure (see the balance change "Flying over Gristmills")
  
• structures can have the property "BurrowTarget": if true, Commanders can burrow there like they can to Gristmills and Campfires
  
• added action "SpawnStructure" (used like the Owl's SpawnUnit; warning: will only happen when a structure can be spawned at that position and the owner has at least as much as the structure's cost of food in stock, even though the cost will not be automatically substracted from the food stock)
  
• if a structure that provides territory is destroyed, the territory bounds will be adjusted immediately (previously this only worked for Gristmills and Campfires; warning: does not (yet) work when the structure is sold!)
  
• heal/stim behavior can be applied to structures
  
• new status effect "status_blinded" reduces the vision and attack range of affected units/structures to a certain value ("MaxBlindedRange" in balance.xml)
  
• "OutsideTerritory" condition can be used to define the Scope of Events (= effectively the opposite of "InTerritory", but used the same way)
  
• improved display of negative food generation (warning: if you reach negative food stocks, you won't see a minus sign; instead, the displayed number will simply turn red)
  

[h2]Community News[/h2]
After several turns of events, the war of the 21 Generals ended somewhat surprisingly. The faction led by (King) James, who emerged victorious from the last couple of events, initially struggled to defend their territory against the insurgents. As soon as the "Royal Knights" recollected, however, they conquered the biggest part of Vyeshal within a few weeks. The rebel armies surrendered, and battles between royalists and mercenaries ensued. One of James' followers, Haru, eventually seized the opportunity to overthrow his leader. Rumor has it that James himself provoked this act of treason by wrongfully suspecting Haru of being a spy all the time. After Haru successfully usurped the over-cautious King, he even managed to beat the mercenary champion Arilou, and thus to end the war.

In the meantime, a new monthly tournament called "Vyeshal Kyawlnez" has been established by JetEriksen this year: a 1v1 tournament on custom mirror maps - a good occasion to see rare, map dependent strategies, as well as some glorious cheese!

This weekend, the Tooth and Tail Championship 2020.1 will start: a new league, with beginner, intermediate, and premier divisions, that will last for several weeks. Currently about 60 players are signed up. The first battles will be casted March 13 to March 15 - time and channel of these (and other TnT streams) will as always be detailed in this thread. (Subscribe if you want to be notified!)

Have fun!
EELuminatus

A Championship for Tooth and Tail is about to start next week.
This one is meant for beginners and experienced players alike! It will be a league system with different divisions, so you will only play against players at roughly your own skill level. All of the leagues are round-robin, so everyone will play everyone else in their group.

There are three divisions playing at the same time:

Premier Division: the crème de la crème of Tooth and Tail players split in two groups (until the playoffs).

Intermediate Division: You are experienced but you can't compete with the top players? This is your division.
There is only one group, but you can get a coach to give you advice and analyse games, if you want, to help you improve your game.

Beginners Division: You are rather new and want to play without getting stomped brutally? This is your division.
Almost the same rules as the in intermediate division, but with beginners or players who are out of practice. (Also with coaching, if you want.)

Interested? Join the Discord channel "Tooth and Tail Championship 2020.1" and read the rules in detail, talk to the other competitors, and find a coach, if you are beginner or intermediate level.
Or are you an experienced player who wants to support upcoming talents? Be a coach and/or play in the Premier Division!

Deadline for sign ups is 9th March.
The league will start on 13th March.

Many of the games will be streamed by the following casters:
Delthius / Tooth And Tail TV: https://www.twitch.tv/toothandtailtv
Big Pimpintosh: https://www.twitch.tv/wittypun7
QQ: https://www.twitch.tv/ticklebandit
Jet Eriksen: https://www.twitch.tv/jeteriksen

UPDATE:
The first three streams will be live

• Friday 13th, 6pm EST (22:00 UTC), on: Tooth and Tail TV
• Saturday 14th, 3pm EST (19:00 UTC), on: https://www.twitch.tv/JetEriksen
• Sunday 15th, 1pm EST (18:00 UTC),on: https://www.twitch.tv/wittypun7

(more streams to be announced in this thread!)

Vyeshal Kyawlnez is a new series of 1v1 tournaments on symmetrical custom maps.
After its strong debut two weeks ago, it returns today (2pm EST, 8pm CET) with Vyeshal EXTRA!
This tournament will use Pocketbot (on the Pocketwatch Discord server) for signups, and through Pocketbot replays will be uploaded. The rules are similar to last tourney with a few rule changes.

• Map pool has been adjusted and may be adjusted further until 24 hours before the tournament starts
  
• The same map may not be played twice in a row
  
• A bronze match has been added
  

All relevant links can be found below.
Bracket (Challonge) Rules (Google Docs) Map pool: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1597066158&savesuccess=1
Leaderboard (Challonge) Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/JetEriksen



The 2nd week of the 21 Generals event just ended. In week one, The Legion (red) had a powerful start, claiming four new territories, including the Capital of Vyeshal. Now the tide seems to have turned: the other two factions reclaimed most of their territories, and the Royal Knights (blue) is currently the most powerful faction. The Penal Squad (green), however, has been very stable, and still controls eight territories, like it did when the war started.

Here is the current map of Vyeshal: https://pocketworld.live/


Stay tuned for more streams of this event, usually three streams a week (e.g. Thursday, Friday, Saturday).
For updates on community streams in general, subscribe to this discussions thread:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/286000/discussions/0/1640915206466368885/