Ymir News

As a small side project, I've decided to launch an experiment by introducing the Hog coin: an Ymir community token that can be interacted with through a Discord Bot i created called "The Hogbank".

Every Discord user will be able to own and transfer Hogs through the Hogbank, but not only. For those who know what Ethereum is, the Hog coin is actually an ERC20 token that can be withdrawn or deposited to the Hogbank at any time.
This means Hogs actually exist on an independent and decentralized network outside the Ymir Discord and that players can also store the coins and exchange them at their own discretion independently of the Hogbank and benefit from all the existing tools of the Ethereum ecosystem. Yes, it is gloriously useless and nerdy!
If you don't know what Ethereum is you you'll be able to simply use the Hogbank without having to worry about any of this.

[h2]So what is the point of all of this? [/h2]
Absolutely nothing, at least for now.
Hogs will just be an item to measure your game achievements and your participation in the Ymir community.
However the introduction of Hogs is an experimental first step for a long term plan i have in mind that will aim toward multiple important goals:
- incentivizing players to stay active until the endgame and to win the servers.
- incentivizing players to be more committed to their spawns to reduce server hopping and players giving up as soon as they don't get optimal starting conditions.
- further incentivizing players to join ongoing servers in need of new players.
- giving players meta-game objectives and progression by unlocking new cosmetic content.

[h2]How will you earn Hogs?[/h2]
For now Hogs will only be distributed manually by myself.
The principal way to earn Hogs will be to win Official Server games.
- From now on, the Nation leader of the winning nation of any Official Server will be manually awarded 50 hogs upon claiming his prize on this Discord and confirming his ingame identity.
The redistribution of this loot will be left at his entire discretion, so you better join a Nation with a Leader you can trust! Polish your daggers and get ready for some fun backstabbing :)...
- Hogs will also be given to reward general participation in the Ymir Discord community.
- Hogs can be earned as a bounty for reporting any new game-breaking exploit or cheats in multiplayer games.
- Hogs being an Ethereum token, they may also be stored, traded, and exchanged outside the Hogbank at the own discretion of its owners.

[h2]What is the Hogbank?[/h2]
So the way to interact with Hogs will be through the Hogbank, a bot i made that will be introduced in the Ymir Discord.
By talking to this bot, you can do 4 operations: get your current Hog balance, transfer it to other Discord users, withdraw it outside of the discord to an Ethereum wallet, and deposit it back from an Ethereum wallet.

[h2]To conclude...[/h2]
Like everything in this game, this is highly experimental and motivated mostly by curiosity to see what happens.
Because i had to learn a lot of new things for this small side project, its potentially (probably) going to be buggy and the Hog rewards will start low until the system is more tested.
If this is successful then it can later on be integrated more with the game itself, and developed with more features. As of now its just the bare minimum and manually managed for simplicity.
Also, in case it needs saying: don't take Hogs too seriously! Remember these are totally useless vanity tokens, and that in the end its all just a game.

This update focuses on improving the experience of solo/realtime games, especially to fix issues caused by the previous update that added the mechanic of hidden natural resources making it much harder to progress alone.
To fix this, new early game missions have been added to better scenarise the discovery of the first critical techs of agriculture, leadership, and metallurgy.
Therefore these techs no longer rely on randomly triggering their ideas, ensuring their discovery and preventing being blocked in solo mode.


To further improve the rhythm of solo and realtime games, game speed controls have been improved and split in 2 different controls: one for game speed now up to x40 to make sure players are never stuck waiting, and another one affecting only the speed of units and battles still limited to x4.


Additionally, this update introduces the production chain of Jewelry (luxury need resource) with new natural resources of pears and shells and a new building of jewelry making producing adornments (early stone jewelry) and jewelry (made of gold or silver).


New pearls natural resource, found sometimes on sea shores.


Primitive jewelry makers crafting Adornments out of precious shells collected on the shores.


To also reduce waiting times and dynamize the early game, this update introduces a first step towards more formation actions with a new woodcutting action that allows a formation to collect some wood on forest tiles in exchange for APs. This should help giving players more options instead of being typically stuck waiting for a few wood units in early game.
Depending how this is received, i’ll keep improving on this system.


As always this update includes its fair share of bugfixes and server improvements.
Notably, a key algorithm used for building placement as been greatly optimized, allowing the server to be much faster and efficient at placing automatic buildings such as slums or storages.
I’m not forgetting about the endless fight with exploiters and cheaters, and this update includes an upgrade of the anti-cheating to detect the use of multi-accounts. However it will remain for now in ‘silent’ mode and thus is not in effect yet.
Numerous infamous UI issues with the policies menu have also been fixed.

The Jewelry update

v0.2.6.x
– added missing display of resource rewards in projects UI
– added Pearls and Shells natural resources
– added Jewelry and Adornments resources
– added Jewelry maker buildings
– added Jewelry techs and projects
– added new early game missions to direct the discovery of agriculture, leadership, and metallurgy (which no longer rely on random discovery)
– added wood cutting action for formations
– added better game speed controls in solo & realtime games, with game speed now up to x40 and separated from battles speed
– fixed server crash causing loss of time for timed events
– optimized algorithm for free space detection (AI building placement) –> server much faster at auto placing buildings like slums or storages
– anti-cheating upgrade for multi-account detection (silent for now)
– fixed settling action not working on some claimed territories
– fixed problem of some ideas triggering despite lack of natural resource (ex fishing)
– fixed problem of some critical resources sometimes missing from starting region (ex missing meat source)
– fixed issue on server regionmap files
– auto converts nomad form types in a non-NPC owner controls any city
– fixed UI issues with policies in government menu where policy settings would reset to 0
– moved “treasury contribution” parameter into the “privileges” policy
– simplified and cleaned up leader wealth privileges & contribution calculations + added more UI feedback
– fixed problem of troops all deploying around the same camp when 2 formations already in territory start a battle
– fixed building workers income bug from state owned resources
– fixed city ambient sounds from considering inactive buildings as active
– fixed invalid ruins sprite for 4×4 buildings
– improved automatic placement of formation camps
– fixed issue where event-triggered battles would register an attack instead of a defense, depleting AP
– fixed bug of wildlife presence when visiting a region with wildlife after having visited a region where wildlife had left
– networking improvements to fix a case of connection loss during initial worldmap loading for some players

This new update adds a long-needed small feature: the hiding of undiscovered resources.
This has been needed for game balance for a long time. The problem was that all resources being visible from the start, all territorial conflicts would occur mostly in the beginning of the game as every player would naturally try to secure all the needed strategic resources, then turtling for the rest of the game.
Now, multiple resources are hidden until the tech associated with them is discovered: for example, iron ore only gets revealed once Iron working is discovered.
With this, new conflicts will arise as techs unveil resources throughout the game’s progression and thus re-balances the strategic desirability of territories. It will also make it harder for experienced players to optimize and game the tech discovery mechanics.

Besides that, this update contains many fixes for reported issues as usual, and notably a few improvements of the battle AI.
The behavior of troops seeking the shortest distances when travelling through water had been broken by previous patches and was fixed in this update but also improved so that they will now also seek the embarking point closest to their predicted point of disembarking instead of embarking from the closest point of their final target (as in some specific cases these can be rather different locations).
On top of that, proper support for combined siege points as been added: water shore + palisade, water shore + cliff or cliff + palisade will now be properly accounted for. The issue of palisades on shores being ‘ignored’ by disembarking troops is therefore fixed as they now have to breach it from their embarkations.



The resource hiding update
v0.2.5.x
– Resources related to undiscovered techs (ex iron ore to iron working ) are now invisible until the tech is discovered.
– Added encryption to some client side cached files (-> in case of retroactivity issues, clear your AppData\Local\Ymir\cache folder)
– fixed issue with barbarians present on a primitive tribe location during player spawn & triggering a battle
– fixed issue with the wildlife leaving event.
– fixed buildings not being destroyed during pillage
– fixed troops retreating on a tile occupied by enemies not triggering a battle
– battle AI: improving behavior when retreating to stop ignoring everything else no matter what.
– battle AI: improved pathfinding to further minimize travelling distances through bad layers (ex water)
– fixed battle AI issue where range units in defensive mode kept trying to target out of range units instead of in range ones.
– check global banlist immediately when registering new character to prevent banned accounts from exploiting the grace period on new servers
– unconfirmed fix of odd issues with corrupted territory claims unclaiming or changing ownership for no reason
– decreased construction time of builder buildings
– fix bug being able to recruit troops during ongoing battles
– fixed issue with claims of evacuated cities
– fixing calculation issue in leader contributions from privileges
– fixed owner-less annexes not showing up in red in the annex tool
– fixed server issue with exe arguments when auto-restarting
– fixed problem with treaties being sometimes ineffective (trade, passage… )
– fixed issue causing deployments to still fail in some cases
– fixed being able to claim sea tiles

Here is finally another update with miscellaneous bug fixes, exploit fixes, and general rebalancing!
As always, this news also includes in its changelog all the previous hotfixes that were published since the last news.

Notable changes:
– Wild animals now leave territories of growing cities above 800pop after a small grace first because it was absurd to hunt animals in the middle of a city, and also because it will make meat more scarce and thus valuable.
– Waste was slightly reduced but it now applies on market sale’s profits as well (and not just trade routes) to counter exploits taking advantage of this.
– Many issues regarding the infamous strategic tool have been fixed and improved to prevent mistakes and strategic changes not being effective.

What is going on besides that since all this time?
Besides these fixes that constantly come up, I’m working in the background on multiple long term new features, none of which is completed now unfortunately.
There is the “end game event” for a start, but i’m also working on a weather system and on a new Culture tab which will work in a way similar to government policies.
With cultural traits players will be able to specialize their people and therefore they’ll have make choices about things like what resource they can consume and produce, but more on that when these new mechanics are completed! This new cultural mechanics will in turn allow to finally add many more new resources and industries into the game.



Another Multifix update
v0.2.4.x
– fixed resources not in alphabetic order in the “allow” button of storage permissions
– fixed claim action being available on tiles occupied by enemies
– fixed pacific actions not cancelled when target tile turns out being occupied by enemies
– reduced waste from total population to +1% per 65 hab. instead of 50.
– applied waste to market sales profits
– strategic tool: fixed issues with default defensive zones around formation camp
– strategic tool: fixed not being able to deploy in neutral territories
– strategic tool: fixed UI problems when deleting a defensive zone.
– strategic tool: fixed being able to assign a troop to a defensive mode when deployed outside of it, leading to deployment being ignored.
– strategic tool: deploying troop in a defensive zone will now auto set it to defensive mode by default.
– fixed problem with destruction tool that could trigger destruction on invalid coordinates.
– increased research speed in realtime mode (doubled)
– fixed problem with trading agreements and market trades allowing trades between 2 parties not having a trade agreement.
– fixed trading bug where new sell offers wouldn’t auto adjust price to match the best buy offers if the inputted sell price was lower.
– fixed Migrants formation troops no being able to be disbanded independently (empty action menu)
– fixed free claims not working when administration is negative
– new event of wild animals leaving cities above 800pop after a 48h period
– cities and capitals now get 8 free claims
– added possibility of free claims to territory statuses
– fixed not beign able to build height 2 stone platforms
– fixed bug with construction speed of platforms
– restored ability for buildings to modify the grass density around and below them
– improved field graphics to better reflect their current state
– migrants will now spawn at 100AP when territory evacuation is completed
– only occupied territories may now be “renounced”
– increased AP regen in cities by 2
– reduced home distance malus for AP regen from 3 to 2% per tile
– fixed bug with annex tool locking up the UI
– fixed problem on client side battle pathgrids having incorrect values leading to wacky movements through fields
– Representative money wealth no longer provides a linear amount of wealth, but provides a % bonus applied to the produced wealth of every territory. 10 gold = +1% produced wealth.
– fixed crash when exiting region view with the annex tool opened.
– fixed state ownership problem when cancelling trade offers
– fied missing 25honor commitment in colonial treaties on the colony side
– fixed exploit of bypassing building’s minimum distance
– added failsafe for animal spots: unbuildable & undestroyable
– fixed instaresearch exploit
– Migrants now transfer local culture when settling in a city
– Overall redesigning of ideas triggering mechanics to fix tech stagnation on servers
– increased resistance decay speed
– decreased foreign cultures decay speed
– excluded salaries and subventions from deductible expenses in territorial statuses
– fixed dismantling causing crash when applied
– fixed exploit with rounding prices in market orders
– fixed battle pathfinding bug causing occasionnal server crashes
– fixed problem with market offers depleting state owned resources
– slowed down the evolution of intelligence of population classes

Multiple hotfixes have been applied since the last update, rather than a bigger thematic update. This is the changelog of all the cumulative hotfixes including today's.

It includes many bug and exploit fixes, an update of the anti-cheating and new formation types.
I'm aiming to get a stable enough version so i can resume working on new features in the next updates.
Below is the cumulated changelog of all the hotfixes published since the last update, including a new hotfix today (bottom of the changelog).

Hotfixes

- locked claim action in early game until leadership
- fixed rounding issues with resources decimals
- fixed bug occasionnally causing the loss of unloaded resources when pre existing storages are full
- fixed bug causing failed settling actions (empty territory, with slums and storage not poping up)
- fixed invalid wealth production for some service buildings (like cargo and trading)
- production buildings now produce wealth proportionally to actually produced resources (and not if materials aer missing)
- fixed changing formation home not properly encamping the formation
- fixed visual bug of trees appearing on buildings
- resources from events are now state owned
- fixed battle issue of troops sometimes able to raid a building through a cliff or wall
- fixed trade routes not closing when abandonning a settlement
- fixed being able to avoid the annex nb limit for waterwheels and windwheels
- fixed bugs with retreating armies causing the army to be lost after a battle
- fixed invalid deployment location for allies of a territory or gaiag animals when hunting in a settled territory
- fixed hunting battle causing militia to be deleted in same territory
- minor optimizations for large battles rendering on client side
- Militias now can't hold inventory
- evacuating a city now spawns a special migrants type formation and not a regular army
- primitive tribes are now "nomad" type formations and not a regular army
- fixed client battle pathfinding issue on water getting battle display stuck
- fixed bug allowing to uncamp formation below 50AP
- fixed bug in music tracks selection causing tracks to be missing ingame
- fixed tech inertia being enabled in solo mode causing some techs to be too slow to trigger
- armies and national armies can no longer perform the 'settle' action
- adedd 'settlers' formation type
- added 'migrants' formation type
- added 'nomads' formation type
- added formations decay to any homeless formation of a type requiring a home support (such as army & national armies)
- fixed battle bugs with water
- reduced combat strength of civilian units
- speed boost now only available for primitive tribe start
- fixed issues with formations encamping after battles
- battle AI: troops are less inclined to keep targetting an enemy troop if they were inactive in the previous turn (meaning they're unable to engage that enemy, for being in a defensive zone for example)
- battle AI: troops are now more inclined to target enemy troop if its climbing or breaching defenses.
- national armies no longer trigger exploration events, but they also cannot explore new territories (from the perspective of the character giving the movement order) -> fixing the problem of national armies getting immobilized.
- fixed barbarians not despawning when back home
- chats are now ordered by last message date + added nation flags on portraits
- added ability to block characters ingame (mute messages, chronicles, and chats)
- fixed ui issue with the "marshal" button
- fixed treaty term "join nation" available despite member not having the right to recruit
- increased pre-tax voluntary contribution of people from 20 to 25%
- implemented free city upkeep for some territorial types
- doubled lvl1 granary capacity
- increased storage capacity of livestock paddocks
- slightly increased leather production of cows and buffalos but reduced meat production
- removed wealth production of buildings with no workers (water collectors)
- fixed bug when an army retreating to a tile occupied with enemies is destroyed before battle
- fixed tactical retreats registering as a defeat (ex: range army retreating when out of ammo)
- implemented minor pathfinding optimization to better solve direct simple paths
- removed state power transfers from treaties
- removed PNB breaking clauses from treaties
- fixed loyalty issue when spawning as a colony
- upgraded the automatic anti-cheat
- fixed calculation mistakes in importation incomes
- added option to disabled the anti-cheat for server hosts (in server_settings.ini and game_settings.ini )
- fixed an issue with minimum price calculation and added more UI details in the price UI
- fixed battle issue
- loyalty high-tax penalties now proportionnally reduced from its territorial status income modificator (ex -100% for outposts = no high-tax penalty)
- improved price algorythm determining the 'profit rate' of the 'minimum price' section: now fully dynamic to adapt at best to the resource's trading activities.
- inactives no longer capped at max 10% national state power tax
- fix UI issue of servers appearing/disapearing in the servers lobby
- fixed worldmap territories not properly updating when owner switches faction
- fixed formations not updating giving/losing visibility properly on the worldmap
- fixed auto-peace not applying to all the nation members when a foreign character is subjugated by a nation member
- home distance AP regen for formations is now capped at -50% instead of -75%
- fixed bug where after a server restart all encamped units would lose some AP
- fixed barbarians not moving back to nearby barbarian territories after raids
- fixed formations not giving visibility when in battle in the worldmap
- fixed cargo from other own territories not available for trade routes unless cargo is made public
- world price average no longer considers neighbors with rights of passage only (now only considers trade rights)
- fixed rebellion of a subjugated character not triggering national defensive pacts
- rebalanced tech inertia of some critical techs being too high and causing tech lockdown
- fixed not being able to move a national army on explored territory if its owner hadn't explored it himself