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We heard your feedback: Adjusting difficulty and autosaves

Dear Lords and Ladies,

I wanted to take the time to thank everyone who has played Rising Lords over the last days after our 1.0 release and to talk about the current state of affairs and give a little personal insight.

Initially, Rising Lords was a sandbox game designed for short skirmishes against friends or AI, and the feedback was very positive! We then decided to also add a story campaign to give our single-player focused player base the chance to dive even deeper into the fictional medieval world we had created, with an intriguing plot to follow. We put a lot of love into it with all the story, quests, artwork, etc. and played it with beta testers to balance the difficulty.
While there are many players who have already completed the story campaign and enjoyed it very much, we have also noticed some frustration with it.

Mainly, although expressed in different words, it boils down to the fact that some of you find the story campaign too challenging and would like the gameplay to be more relaxed, with less trial and error and more freedom in making strategic decisions.

While the feedback from our beta testers did not reflect that, we have realized that this does not necessarily apply to everyone, as our player base has grown and broadened and many of the testers were experienced players.

To address this, we are currently working on an alternate difficulty mode that will modify the challenge of the current campaign to give players the freedom to choose how they want to experience the game.

Another issue that has been mentioned a lot was the autosave system, where the current and last turn saves are usually AFTER a battle, while the old turn autosave is not far enough back to make a meaningful difference. You can always save and reload manually or restart the mission from the pause/in-game menu, but we understand that this was not how users expected it to behave and are changing automatic saves to the respective beginning of the last 3 scenario turns. This means that autosaves will no longer happen during battles, directly after a battle or in the middle of a turn. We have made this decision based on your extensive feedback, which has taught us that you mainly use autosaves to reload previous game states, rather than using them to resume the game after a break.

We will be implementing these two major changes as quickly as possible, along with some minor additions and bug fixes based on your feedback.


Let us know what you think!
Best regards,
Chris

I want more simple, colorful strategy games like Rising Lords that people will actually play with me




Rising Lords is just the sort of game I'm most vulnerable to: historical strategy with the simple setup of a tabletop wargame and the quality of life and large numbers that are only possible when a computer does the math and moves the pieces for you. What I especially like about it, though, is that it's colorful—which might be one reason I can actually get people to play it with me...
Read more.

1.0.1.488 (January 20) Hotfix

1.0.1.488 (January 20)

Fixes:
- fixed a few issues with savegames that some users had and added a warning not to end the game during saving/processing.
- fixed tutorial getting stuck in battle when taking more units than advised
- fixed 'health' tool-tip locking in Polish
- fixed a potential building/farming crash during AI turn
- fixed tokens / workplaces not respecting 'blocking' gui elements, such as event cards
- fixed battle zoom for gamepads.
- added a new file to allow pre-release chapter 1/2 savegames to continue to the new chapters
- fixed japanese language crash on upgrade radials
- fixed 'pickup' hint cards showing in turn 2 of tutorial instead of turn 1
- fixed a potential problem in Mission 3 that lead to a defeat once one of the regions was lost
- fixed a potential problem in Mission 3 that lead to a rebellion in Havenhands counties

Changes:
- Added language support to the battle meter.
- Modified battle card cycling with gamepad to be with triggers and not the bumpers.
- Modified gamepad battle hints to not show when displaying battle information boxes.
- Added battle zoom gamepad hint.
- intro video now respects music & master volume settings
- Added hot keys to end round (F4 or End).

Rising Lords 1.0 is OUT NOW!

Lords and Ladies!


Lords and Ladies, the time has finally come: Rising Lords 1.0 is now available! After almost four years of passion and hard work, we have left Early Access!

First and foremost, we want to express our heartfelt thank you for your invaluable feedback and unwavering trust. Your support has been the driving force behind our journey, and we are so grateful for the incredible community that has formed around our game. Together, we've built something special, and we couldn't have done it without you.
Here's to the future and many more adventures together! 🛡️❤️

To celebrate this special day, we're offering a two-week launch discount of 15%, available from today until the 1st of February! So if you've been hesitating to join us in Early Access, this is your chance to step into the medieval world of Aubelin.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]The saga unfolds[/h3]

Get ready for a major content update to our Story Campaign, following the story of our protagonist, Tankred of Tannheim! Embark on a journey filled with intriguing characters, unexpected plot twists, and challenging quests that will test your strategic skills. Discover new twists and turns as you navigate through four all-new chapters and see the impact of your decisions! These chapters conclude the journey of Tankred of Tannheim, so get ready to discover the next phase of our saga!



[h3]Setting the tone[/h3]

Our new intro video tells the story of Aubelin, immersing you even further into this deep medieval world we've created. It will now play on startup, so look forward to it next time you play the game!

[h3]Achievements![/h3]

We know that some of you have been waiting for this opportunity to hunt for Achievements in our game! With their varying degrees of difficulty, we can't wait to see how long it will take you to complete all twelve of them!

[h3]... and more![/h3]

Of course, our journey is far from over!
Below you will find detailed notes outlining the various changes and fixes that have been made in this patch.

Over the coming days and weeks, we'll be working hard to iron out any bugs and tweak things based on your valuable feedback. At the same time, we may also have some other things in the works... Stay tuned for more exciting updates and in the meantime, join our Community Discord!



Patch Notes

[h2]1.0.0 (January 18, 1.0 release!) [/h2]

[h3]New[/h3]
  • complete story campaign - Guide Tankred of Tannheim through troubled medieval times in Aubelin!
  • Intro Video explaining the past story of Aubelin!
  • Achievements!

[h3]Fixes[/h3]
  • fixed crash when conceding while the game was processing AI movement or saving
  • fixed auto-resolve if castle is causing 'region split'
  • fixed region re-name not displaying textbox
  • fixed ultra-wide monitors soft-locking on smaller battle maps
  • fixed cursor double-jumping in-battle
  • fixed some mission task depth oddities
  • fixed rare inability to use merchant due to incorrect 'not your region' check
  • fixed merchant menu 'sell' tab rendering white instead of black
  • fixed merchant assets rendering on top of mission story
  • fixed 'end turn' joystick hint off-center
  • fixed battle gamepad hints having the potential to be small.
  • fixed regression that broke d-pad support in custom battle
  • fixed tool-tips covering currently hovered field upgrade button
  • fixed tooltips spawning @ hardware mouse pos instead of virtual in some cases
  • fixed controller 'back button' in skill-tree confirm dismissing all changes
  • fixed 'over HUD' tool-tips not being triggered sometimes
  • fixed controller shortcuts signals incorrectly being attached
  • fixed 'falcon' not giving extra spy card
  • fixed added numerous missing hover sounds
  • fixed crash due to traveler figure missing dest_x or dest_y values
  • fixed crash when no valid tiles for wanderer to move to
  • fixed potential crash w/ obj_unitPath (battle related)
  • fixed 'set server' menu missing currently active server
  • fixed adjusting army sliders not resetting d-pad auto-snap
  • fixed event cards not dismissing when menu opens
  • fixed a number of cases where joystick mouse jumps to top-left corner
  • fixed 'shared general' audiogroup volume linked to music instead of SFX

[h3]Changes[/h3]
  • 'send food' tutorial tool-tip now shows in regular game modes
  • localisation update
  • removed waypoint debugging info display on map save
  • removed 'early access' and FPS debug test from all builds
  • tooltips dismissed when story book opens
  • removed irrelevant controller tips when placing general
  • reworked AI behaviour when defending for normal+ difficulty (use walls and castles more, especially ranged units)

0.23.6 (January 3)

0.23.6 (January 3)

The last bigger patch before 1.0 release. If necessary, hotfixes will still be released asap, let us know :)
Also 1.0 will not be the end of the line. stay tuned for more info!

Please also note that this patch includes the previous 0.23.3 patch that was not pushed to the default steam branch yet.
Savegames should be compatible, we warn you anyway ;) You can also always revert to the "previous" steam branch.

New:
- (story) intro video !
- big localisation update
- 'confirm' buttons to event card groups

Fixes:
- reduced the minimum battle map size to prevent autobattles without choice in some cases
- Fixed editing army providing incorrect maximums until refresh
- Fixed broken flag/starting position placement on multiplayer
- Fixed game menu rendering behind 'processing turn' fade
- Fixed info display lockup in Spanish language
- Fixed army unit setup hover bleed-through to general screen
- Fixed auto-capitalization applying to non-english languages
- Fixed story book pop-up not correctly having click inputs blocked
- Fixed different issues with new gameengine runtime
- Fixed visible mission story potentially locking up end-turn process
- Fixed escape key triggering 'end turn'in specific cases
- Fixed battle animation lock-up w/ low FPS + more delta-time conversions
- Fixed open menu = potential crash during end turn
- Fixed 'load' menu behind battle pop-up menu
- Fixed saving in unsafe states being possible
- Fixed rare soft lock in battle when AI was able to finish thinking before the AI cards was shown
- Fixed 'confirm' popup sometimes behind menu elements
- Fixed morale change icon behind units
- Fixed trait scrolling can scroll past last trait
- Fixed multiplayer 'committed turn' icon not updating sometimes
- Fixed some workshop maps not loading correctly w/ steam
- Fixed rare FOW tile crash
- Fixed rare crash when going into the editor due to missing render layers
- Fixed unit 'inc/dec' buttons not always snapping w/ controller
- Fixed rare case of controller stuck in 'radial' mode + rare end-game crash
- Fixed joystick snap-points in incorrect position w/ story book on rare occasions
- Fixed rare crash on game load if event card textures not fully loaded
- Fixed waypoint crash in editor on map borders
- Fixed 'invisible cards' in skill tree in some cases
- Fixed mission story only hiding portions of army menu
- Fixed numerous 'input box' issues w/ controllers on Steam

Changes:
- tiles around battle camp are now always owned by camp owner
- make 'go to battle!' force-close event cards
- improved wanderer boats on land
- controller button 'end turn' no longer moves cursor
- editor auto zooms-out & centers camera upon launch & load
- tool-tips now auto-dismiss when attacking in battle
- AI now cannot propose treaties on first turn
- AI battle 'use card' to delta time + speed up animation
- cursor auto-snaps to 'continue' on story book w/ controllers
- loot is now given in campaign after defending territory
- adjusted some font mismatches
- d-pad can now adjust sliders
- terrain benefits now display during hover w/ deployment
- new entries to the credits display
- added more story editor options
- right-joystick now acts like d-pad w/ open menus
- army menu unit spawn arangement to not alternate left and right
- adjusted controller deadzone thresholds & default
- added more controller hints
- removed or simplified particles from 'low quality' mode

Campaign and battle AI improvements:
- tweaked aggressive AI conqering behaviour
- Added AI armies to disband if they are beneath the PARA.army_too_weak
- Fixed AI armies not attacking regions next to their allies. It was set to false.
- Modified disbanding armies due to lacking gold to use AI personality's definition of what army is too weak rather than the static PARA.
- Fixed AI not enhancing existing armies if there were not enough generals.
- Added AI to disband army when in revolting region that has no fields.
- Modified disband armies via no gold + too many armies to be different scripts.
- Fixed AI not eating crops when food was low on regions without fields. AI thought it had to save crops to seed, but there were no fields.