Kingdoms News

Greetings, noble Kings and Queens of KINGDOMS!

WAR UPDATE is coming very soon, and i know that many of you are waiting for a very long time. First of, thank you for your patience and support, you're the best, really. To make this waing a little nicer, i started to write daily devlog in game Community. From this devlog you'll know all latest news about development progress - what is being worked at the moment, why update is delayed and what i'm doing do deliver it to you as soon as possible. I really hope that this devlog will bring more transparency to the development and you'll know all latest news about KINGDOMS. Besides i'll post weekly devlog - the progress for past week - here, as sort of news. Sorry for waiting, friends, and thank you for patience and support - as said, you're the best:)

Cyfieithydd

-Working on two-handed wepons animations, the most problem here is to make left hand work properly, tried to use IK pinning for sword object;
-Scales of iron rocks looks to unnatural, changed randomizer a bit;
-Worked on the script responsible for locations discovering, because adding of new types of locations (iron ores on open space) caused several bugs;
-Working on vegetation optimization for trees billboards, tests showed, that rendering billboard caused spikes at certain spots;
-Changed all float.TryParse functions in Save-Load script, because of moving to newer .NET version;
-Testing how two-handed animation works with "Running" layer, seems to be okay, more testing needed with more two hamded swords variations;
-Some rocks are still showing incorrect resource amount of already used rocks, fixed the issue;
-Testing animations for left players hand, used for burning strunctures at settlements and bandits lairs;
-Added some quests written by messpine, "find location" ones need testing;
-Tested caves objects in saves, seems everything is okay;
-Fixed some logical missbehaviour (???) in farmers logic;
-Metal reflection shader seems to be not properly working in the dark, changed it a bit;
-Translated two tutorial articles into English ”Welcome to kingdoms”, ”What to do?”;
-Added several new articles “Travelling”, “First settlement”, “Combat” in Russian;
-Removed all iron ingots from ruins;
-Tested ruins chest gold amount, can’t be randomized anymore;
-Testing block for the player during combat, animation seems to be not to smooth as I want, need more work;
-Testing block timings for player, seems to be okay, need more testing;
-Grass LODs seemed working incorrect, fixed;
-Fixed issue, when NPC bandit fought half in the floor, now it teleports to the entrance when seeing a player, dynamic buildings + navigation grid = pain for developer;
-Changed reflection intensity a bit (again, hehe), metals seem to be a bit better;
-Working on script and animations, responsible for opening\closing city gates during sieges, gates won’t work as intended, spend several hours trying to find out the reason, still bugged:(;
-Added torches to stone gates (still funding for proper gates model for wooden ones, walls are ok);
-Translated yesterday written tutorials to English;
-Tested catapults proper rotation during sieges, seems to be ok, need more testing;
-AI is still won’t march in the lines, tried to fix it (really, “bad-fixing-day” is today)
-Still working on proper two-handed sword animations + testing 10x10 crowd fighting only two-handed swords, look much better;
-Added some new visuals to the map - resources location now have owner label + color of the kingdom;
-Working on global map camera, trying to make its movements move smooth, sometimes it’s still buggy, ie when mouse moves too fast, need more work;
-Testing some stuff in sieges script, there are still some work to be done - some NPCs stay aggressive after taking the settlement, dead ones are listed as alive etc. - fixed most of found bugs, need more testing;
Tried to add new sound effects to forest zones, prefabs are causing FPS spikes for some reason, tired to figure it out - with no luck:( Pitty, because sound are really making environment much more immersive;
-Added some additional sound to swords fights instead, like taking weapon out, tried some screams (just make for now) for NPCs, sounds good;
-Worked in players two-handed block animations, timings are quite ok during testing;
-Tried to add siege tower to the siege script, looks awful:(
-Tested marching mechanics a bit, still don’t like how it look - AI is running during army March, thinking if making it more organized - started to make marching animations;
-Found a bug when some settlers moved to the sea after landing - the reason was change in A* pathfinding script made in September (??) + water collider refused to disable for some reason. Anyway, fixed;
-Changed water shader to new one (noticed foam glitching during previous fixing), looking good;
-Changed house setting script a little, previous version has some problems on the beaches;
-Noticed that taking off two handed animation glitched a little, fixed;
-Stones refused to render grass and sand texture properly for some reason, tweaked shader + rocks collider;
-Changed garden veggies spawn algorithm a little making them a little easier to find;
-Thinking of adding animals to the caves (or bandits), dynamic pathfinding grid makes this extremely difficult, tried several solutions to make proper grid in the caves with no luck:(;
-Wrote some long awaited script, that can close all windows (or any opened) by hitting ESC;
-Added a little timer to pause script to fix the issue when player hit a sword after pressing save button, need resting but works good by first one;
-Fixed the issue when roads weren’t rendered properly because of timer error;
-Tweaked common update script timer a little , I think we have no spikes at all even in populated settlements, need testing on various CPUs (hello release);
-Animals script still takes too much of CPU, Update function is removed, Profiler showing Raycasting issue, need deeper profiling + animals pathfinding optimization;
-Tweaked billboards and LODs distance in Vegetation Studio, shows 190fps at empty island at some moments, no spikes (please, please, please) at the moment, I think I’ll leave this so hard found settings for release;
-Tweaked amount of forests a little for at least 20x20 battles, AI is still dummy at war declaration, tried to add resource amount float to the script, still dummy;
-Fixed broken horse hair shader, caused by moving to newer engine version;
-DoF effect on the global map still looks wierd, especially bu close perspective, tweaked a little;
-Added some additrional spring animation to players hands + changed fichting script to cause this animation after enemy hits;
-Fixed issue, when AI send its army to wrong settlement;
-Changed icon of an army on the global map;
-At the moment number of soldiers in the army is visible by default. Thinking to change this by adding some scout units. (Now or after release????)
-Added new icons to army tents in the building menu;
-Tested how AI sets up its tents during sieges, still bugged:( (IMPORTANT!!!)
-Tried to change army moving speed, that depends on Commanders perk;
-Tested "Search for iron" quest;
-AI still won't build mines on the iron chunks properly, tried to fix; (IMPORTNAT!!!)
-Tweaked "Go to place in building" script for better performance;
-Animals Update() still takes a lot ms, reviewed script step by step, no luck:(
-Tweaked position of fallen trees into the forests;
-Discovered that some fire lighting sources have shadows casters, removed;
-Changed default possible height of AI building script to fix the issue when house could be build on the water;
-Tweaked forest LODs distance for better performance;
-Fixed the issue when soldiers unoform was invisible in soldiers management menu;
-Fixed the issue, when ship stopped to bring new settlers (at least i hope it was single one);
-Tweaked lighting settings in caves a little;
-Discoverd that by some reason hands new hands animations speed depended on FPS (Unity 2019 feature/bug???), fixed;
-REturned shadows to NPS, performance is about 140-150 in landing scene;
-Tweaked trees textures resolutions (fron 512 to 2048), to performance issues, need more testing on various GPUs;
-Tweaked the distance for fire effects sounds;
-Tweaked fog effect distance a little, for close distance;
-Making new animation for bannerman, that holds the flag in the army (Add before release???);
-Tested melle fight again 1x1, AI animation smoothness needs more work, tweaked;
-Fixed bug when AI played wrong animation after death;

-New game mode was added: “Populated island”;
-Player now can choose game mode before starting new world;
-Fixed issue when General and Ambassador took money when not being hired;
-Player now can set the payment date using management menu;
-Payment date can be changed only once a month;
-Closing button was added to global map menu;
-Default camera position for global map was changed in order not to let camera look at sea at awake;
-Player is now able to use “wait” function to skip time - default key is T;
-Now the info in sleeping-waiting menu is more exact;
-All finances info (payments etc.) is now stored in Finances management;
-Various footsteps sound were added;
-Now footstep sound depend on surface;
-New damage visual effect was added;
-Now character can scream when damaged;
-Many game textures were compressed in order to reduce RAM usage;
-Start object instantiating algorithm we’re rewritten in order to reduce RAM usage;
-Some shaders render was changed to GPU instancing in order to optimize RAM and GPU usage;
-Player now can use 1 length names when creating character;
-Some additional help messages were added to characters generation menu;
-NPC textures compression scripts were changed in order to reduce GPU and RAM usage;
-Terrain shader was changed to new one;
-Parallax was added to terrain texture;
-Player now can build a wall in settlement using building menu;
-Fixed issue when settlers refused to work when having a house;
-2 different wall types were added: stone and wooden one;
-Objects interaction script was optimized in order to reduce RAM usage;
-Player now spawns in biggest settlement when using “Populated island mode”;
-AI houses start position was changed in order to create more organized streets in settlements;
-Gates position in AIs settlements depends on global settlement position: south wall side in the north etc.
-Walls in AIs settlements are build automatically when having more than 6 houses;
-Wall type in AIs settlemts now depend on leaders Builder perks line;
Player now can use global politics map;
-Player now can send an ambassador to discovered settlement in order to create partnership with it;
-When having good relationship with partner settlement Player can make trade agreement with it;
-When having trade agreement settlers from both settlements now can travel to partner settlements and sell goods there;
-Prices of goods in trade agreements depends on settlers Trading perks;
-When having a road build to settlement prices for sold-bought goods are 10% better;
-Settlements controlled by AI can make an partnership-trade agreement-road agreement when having proper Perks;