Ancient Warfare 3 News

Content additions:

• Added some high culture horse units
  
• Added horse units with armored riders
  
• Added a world war mustard gas grenade
  
• Added flamethrowers
  
  • Improvised flamethrower
    
  • Single-shot-flamethrower
    
• Added a new jungle biome
  
• Added bone armor and armored stone age units
  
• Added placeable corpses
  
• Added an airdrop flare
  
• Added a gauntlet dagger unit
  
• Added decorative grave objects
  
• Added an aerial dart bomb
  

Improvements & new features

• Added an option for supply planes in custom battles
  
• Added an option to choose the spawn points for conquest and KOTH
  
• The default spawn areas are now being visualized in the editor
  
• Added a search field for custom units
  
• Added a search field for save files
  
• Players can now fly planes and helicopters
  
• Added a basic tutorial
  
  • The tutorial will explain the basic editor functions, player controls, war plane controls and helicopter controls.
    
• UI improvements
  
  • Improved the random abttle UI in main menu
    
  • Improved the battle settings in editor
    
  • Improved the panel position if there are many units selected in the editor
    
• Removed animation head movement in first person
  
• Improved the ship landing
  
  • Ships will now land directly on the coast and no longer in shallow water to make it easier to create working landing maps with custom oceans
    
• Updated the engine to fix some small lags caused by some physic interactions
  
• Added descriptions for all objects and equipment
  

Weekly map competition:

• For all of you who don't know about the weekly map competition yet, please make sure to check out this forum post: AW3 Weekly Map Competition by Desert-Mammoth
  
• The current topic and time left for the competition is being shown in the main menu
  
• The winning map of the latest competition will get featured in the main menu
  

Bug fixes

• Fixed missing armor on some units
  
• Fixed wrong terrain shading on cancel edit mode
  
• Fixed wrong terrain collider on cancel edit mode
  
• Fixed that editing custom zombie units would stack up armor and weapons
  
• Fixed that airdrops started before the start of the game
  
• Fixed an error which prevented battles from being saved in some cases
  
• Fixed wrong unit amount after loading a conquest battle
  
• Fixed military jeep camera
  
• Fixed that entering and moving vehicles willbroke the player
  
• Fixed that units spawned in the water in conquest and KOTH
  
• Fixed that units spawned in the ground in the gladiator arena
  
• Fixed not working machine guns on F16, F20 and future jet
  
• Fixed that world war tanks spawned modern units
  
• Fixed the size of the terrain ground
  
• Fixed the occurrence of a terrain hole, if water was enabled
  
• Fixed that units walked through roads
  
• Fixed that changing terrain details will mess up bridges and units
  
• Fixed unarmed weapon sounds
  
• Fixed that deleting a road node reactivated trees
  
• Fixed that planes will not get destroyed if flying into buildings
  
• Fixed that planes sometimes collided with its own bombs
  
• Fixed that helicopters didn't crash if they hit objects
  
• Fixed that driving over ragdolls will not work with some vehicles
  

Next update:
Alpha 25 will be a content update. There is a lack of buildings and decorative objects in game which makes it bit difficult to build maps.
Also, I would like to continue fixing bugs and improve the stability of the game, so please continue reporting bugs and problems to the community hub.

Additions

• Added a military jeep
  
• Added a new faction (High Culture)
  
  • There are Egyptian, Greek and Roman units + equipment
    
• Added some new WWI/WWII weapons
  
• Added a new volcano biome
  
• Added stone bridges
  
• Added a future ammo pack
  
• Added a nuclear bomb
  
• Added 2 modern jets and 1 future jet
  
• Added large lazer fences
  
• Added an anti air rocket launcher
  

Improvements

• Added a fog option in the environment settings
  
  
  
  • Fog is enabled by default
    
• Squad mode
  
  
  
  • This is an experimental feature! Players can choose up to 4 units which will follow the player and attack the target, the player is attacking
    
  • You can choose the units from the battle settings panel
    
  • You can also change the kind of formation by pressing 'H'
    
• Added an option to search units in unit spawn settings
  
• Added FOV settings for first and third person
  
• The player will now pickup the bullets from guns on the ground
  
• The player will now stay on boats
  
• Added an option for friendly fire in editor
  
• Improved zombie survial mode
  
  • Players have to open airdrops to get food and water
    
  • Added an option for a time limit to win the game
    
• Added a spawn direction option for unit spawners
  

Bug fixes

• Fixed that custom zombie units wont cause damage
  
• Fixed that zombies wont find targets in zombie survival
  
• Units can always destroy castle gates now
  
• Fixed a weather sound leak in the editor
  
• Fixed the destruction of transport helicopters/planes
  

Next update
For Alpha 23, there were some other things planned, but I decided to add the missing 'High Culture' faction first.
With the next Alpha, I want to add more content and features (there are still many suggestions left), but I also want to work on the stability of the game, polish all things a bit and work towards the end of early access. This doesn't mean the end of development and new content, but the game and it's updates will be more polished and stable.

Additions

• Added 3 world war planes
  
  
  
  • This planes will use machine guns to fight air targets and bombs to attack targets on the terrain
    
• Added new units and equipment
  
  
  
  • Medieval heal stick unit
    
  • Modern field paramedic unit
    
  • Minigun unit
    
  • Molotov unit
    
  • Grenade units for RGO-grenades, poison grenades, ...
    
• Added the gamemode 'Eliminate'
  
  
  
  • Choose a target to kill or defend to win the game
    
• Added the following objects
  
  
  
  • Watertower
    
  • Supermarket (with and without interieur)
    
  • Burger shop (with and without interieur)
    
  • Coffee shop (with and without interieur)
    
  • Gas station (with and without interieur)
    
  • 2 kinds of lazer fences
    
  • Barbwire trap
    
  • Ammo pile
    
  • 2 small stone bunkers
    
  • 13 destroyed vehicles
    

Improvements

• You can now create custom zombie units with melee weapons
  
• Terrain editor improvements
  
  
  
  • Paint ocean areas
    
  • Paint non tree areas
    
• Reworked the 'Gladiator Arena' mode
  
  
  
  • New arena with obstacles to have some cover
    
  • There are rounds of units from different entries
    
  • Medipacks, Ammopacks and grenades will spawn after each round
    
  • Options in the main menu (difficulty, equipment, enemy era)
    
• Grenades will now fly towards your aim target
  
• Helicopters will crash to the ground instead of exploding into the air
  
• Zombies can now drop out of planes
  
• Improved the main menu settings panel
  
• AI improvements
  
  
  
  • Ranged units will rotate their arms towards their target
    
  • Ranged units will continue to move towards their target until they have a line of sight
    

Bugfixes

• Fixed that the player couldn't use shields while walking
  
• Fixed problems with cursor restrictions
  
• Fixed that transport helicopters count as unit if off map
  
• Fixed some visual glitches for units on towers
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the unit placement to stop working
  
• Fixed that controlling custom units would not apply things like custom health
  
• Fixed that units could walk through containers and castle gates
  
• Fixed an error that broke the updating process of steam workshop maps
  

Next update
The next update will be released at the end of next month.
There will be more content, like world war weapons, buildings, a new biome and more. In addition, there are many improvements and smaller features planned, which will improve the editor and the gameplay.

Update delay

Until now the updates were released monthly.
Unfortunately there is a delay with Alpha 22. It's planned to release it between mid and end of July.

What will be included?

• Medic units (medieval and modern)
  
• Grenade units
  
• Minigun + unit
  
• Molotov cocktail + unit
  
• Arena mode rework with settings and more factions
  
• WWI/WWII planes and air battles + land bombing
  
• New decorative objects and buildings (based on suggestions)
  
• Custom zombie units with melee weapons
  
• AI improvements
  
• Terrain editor improvements
  
• Bug fixes
  

Some screenshots from the current version:

Additions

• Added Artic Biome with ice instead of water
  
• Added a helicopter for the future faction
  
• Added a transport helicopter for units (CH53)
  
• Added a plane, which will drop units (AC130)
  
• Custom units can now be shared in the Steam Workshop
  

Improvements

• Custom units can now have up to 100000 health
  
• Added an option deactivate dismemberment for custom units
  
• Added an option to choose the faction of a destructable object
  
• Added an option to deactivate unit despawning
  
• Thrown melee weapons will now cause damage
  
• Added an arrow, when placing air units in the editor, so that it's easier to place them
  
• Updated to .NET 4.6 scripting runtime
  
  
  
  • This will do some performance improvements
    
• Updated to a new engine version
  
  
  
  • Improved particle system rendering
    
  • Improved crash handling
    
  • Some small performance + stability improvements
    
• Added ambient environment sounds for each biome
  

AI improvements

• Implemented a priority queue
  
  
  
  • Each unit can now have it's own priorities for targeting units
    
  • For instance: Anti air tanks will now priorize air vehicles, units with RPGs will priorize vehicles, ...
    
• Improved AI targeting process
  
  
  
  • Until Alpha 20, the units would just find any target in a certain radius.
    
  • Now, units will only find targets if:
    
    
    
    • The target is in the field of view (170 degrees for default units)
      
    • The target has shot it's weapon or hit another unit with a sword
      
    • The target is under 5 meters away
      
    • The searching unit got hurt
      
    
    
  • If there was no target for a while, units will start to look around to find a target
    
• Improved the AI behaviour
  
  
  
  • AIs will no longer shoot, if there is an allied unit in the line of fire
    

Bug fixes

• Fixed some errors with the units in helicopters and ship cannon units
  
• Fixed weather size on large terrains
  
• Fixed a bug, that caused ships to not land correctly, so that the units drowned
  
• Fixed a bug that caused units to not leave the ship
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the on ship unit movement to stop working
  
• Fixed a bug that units could walk through wood log walls
  
• Fixed a bug that caused rpg units to shoot for no reason
  
• Fixed missing vehicle shot sound
  
• Fixed vehicle engine sounds while not moving
  

Balancing

• Decreased battering ram damage
  
• Increased catapult damage
  
• Increased AMX and Marksman (anti air vehicles) attack range
  

Next update
The engine and runtime update for this update took too much time, so that there are many AI improvements left for the next update. For instance, there is a cover system planned, so that the AI will search for cover points in their environment. The new 'Eliminate' game mode was planned for this update, too, but it will be in the next one.
Since there are many suggestions for new buildings and decoration objects, there are many new objects planned for Alpha 22.
For instance, there are WWI/WWII air planes planned.