Rising Lords News

Dear Lords and Ladies,
time to get the default branch up to date again. Many changes to the story editor over the last patches which allows creating your own custom maps with story, triggers, tasks etc.
If you are interested, the documentation is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PxlXyiGeeXmWjWcviWbNFfwpmokTsbIKOkHjATfTF9Q/edit#heading=h.ukdbw0wbtd2j

Meanwhile, we are using the same editor to work on our own story campaign. We have made significant progress and the first selected testers were already able to play a few missions.

let us know if you encounter any problems with the new build, we will fix them asap as usual.

see you on the battlefield!
- Chris

0.21.4 (July 25)

New:
- story editor end turn node
- story editor loading screen node
- Added tiles for non-ruined palace, north towers, north village, and 3 mountain segments
- Added helper tutorial for the "U key to cycle through idle peasants."
- Added gamepad support for cycling through idle peasants (L bumper + L trigger).
- Added cycling through beggars (B key).
- Added gamepad support for cycling through beggars (R bumper + R trigger).
- can now change general sprite in Story Tree w/ 'change army resource'
- Use the right mouse button to click on a node in the story tree and move it to another place and clicking the right mouse button again to place it.
- new story-specific tiles to story tree 'tile change' node
- option to zoom in and out through story tree editor
- controller: long-press 'start' ends turn; short-press opens option menu
- Story tree can now set ai difficulty and personality after game has started.
- End turn story tree node can now also end battle turns.
- Story editor page up and down keys to scroll the tree
- Option to set team to 0 in player setting in story tree to allow overwrite previous games settings.
- Fix bug in where the game did not reset some globals in a start new game situation
- added can not place in camp restriction to prevent humans and AI to place units in camp in battle.
- option to reduce units in army from story tree
- option to disable waypoints for AI armies in story tree restrictions, so an AI army can't move to a specific waypoint.
- Added "press any key" or "press any button" to end of battles screen.

Fixes:
- Steam join crash fix (invite link)
- Fixed strategic areas rendering flags
- Fixed FOW crash due to freed tile timing issue
- Fixed edit menu for general xp nodes in story tree so they can be edited and deleted
- Fixed mercenary only performing 'attack' animation in campaign
- Fixed merchant not moving in tutorial correctly (again)
- Fixed version number missing from the title screen.
- Fixed maceman / merchant not animating correctly
- Fixed Array sorting crash while spectating
- Fixed border-to-border waypoints not connecting w/ allied regions
- Fixed army menu objects from showing during the skill tree
- Fixed army menu units from having hover tool tips from showing during the skill tree.
- Fixed neutral regions not clearing weeds correctly sometimes
- Fixed small memory leak coming back from editor
- Fixed small memory leak in editor when loading maps
- Fixed re-entering editor not loading tile images on dynamic texture targets
- Fixed open-border region attacking crossing army
- Fixed potential crash w/ freed tile while updating FOW
- Fixed moving camera in 'waypoint' mode floats the flag around the cursor
- Fixed army menu button snap points active on borders
- Fixed gamepad 'back' in options menu in editor quitting editor instead of closing menu
- Fixed army menu joystick snaps bleeding into general config menu
- Fixed merchant rowing on land
- fixed fireslot crash when moving unit on a slot that got fire and the unit dies.
- fixed crash when using blind fire and only one enemy is near the archer fixed
- fixed waypoint bug in script that could in theory cause issues to find waypoints where armies could travel.
- Added preventing rogues from being placed on player's own buildings to arson them.
- fixed Bug in that could cause the general to not be returned correctly by the script for AI players.
- Removed old debug code that could cause a mercenary crash in battle.
- fixed regression preventing temporary fog from rendering in battle
- fixed rare battle-end / end-turn crash due to raiders trying to update region population
- fixed card icons not appearing on units correctly
- fixed how much food player auto-govern needs before it sets double rations
- Fixed coming back from battle, FPS tanking due to spine animations all activating
- Fixed winter farmer animation not triggering the complete animation
- Fixed merchant overlapping w/ army position
- Fixed army hover tooltip not substituting in dictionary keys
- Fixed cancel construction crash on the same turn.
- Fixed back-to-back battles sometimes waiting extremely long to trigger
- Fixed dynamic object inconsistently tanking FPS during waypoint placement
- Fixed camera zoom helper text misallignment
- Fixed invisible peasants in some cases
- Fixed white tiles sometimes appearing at the edge of fog
- Fixed rare dynamic token crash when save file during a battle is loaded.
- Fixed ladders rendering incorrectly w/ scaled tile caches

Changes:
- greatly optimized battle turn clock rendering
- minor performance improvement for controller inputs
- improved tile painting performance in editor
- cleaned up save notification +fixed some minor save-name bugs
- radial controls to diplomacy menu + more precise click level control w/ diplomacy popups
- Disabled low morale acting for player 1 in final battle of tutorial.
- fog reveal now waits until after season fade
- bug report no longer requires game restart + fixed 'debug character' depth
- improved battle 'victory/defeat' screen performance
- changed switched battle unit move / animation to use delta time
- improved army movement 'valid waypoint' calculation speed
- no more horses as loot
- 'turn timer' render precision
- strategic region FOW icons removed
- german language files updated
- many changes to 'low quality' graphics mode
- Modified AI to consolidate livestock only in the winter to clear fields and start sowing.
- Modified AI to play far more conservatively with rations when it has no open fields.
- Added AI worker priorities to go fishing. If focused on food, fishing will happen after farming and before smithing. If not focused on food, will happen after resource gathering.
- Modified AI to not let livestock die before it opts to ship them to other regions in the winter.
- Added louder version of swordsmen marching.
- Modified field peasant doing nothing to use the default hand peasant spine.
- Modified AI building behaviour
- increased editor buttons to fill screen + dynamic text size
- improved chunk tile update processing time
- improved 'beggar location' calculation times significantly
- fixes and changes to controller hints and button usage
- Added army menu to show unit ranks when adding enough members to downgrade their rank.

New:
- Allow players to have no start region in story editor
- Story tree filter tools to hide unwanted nodes to make the story tree more clean
- Include node id when using filter in story tree editor
- Added 'discard button' to each card in skill tree when hovered
- added 'END_TURN_CALCULATIONS' note during battle processing
- option to play music from story tree

Fixes:
- Fixed runtime related crash without message when loading a scenario map
- Fixed global morale bug when adding units in army menu
- Fixed incorrect error message when saving a battle map of less than 7 tiles in a region.
- Fixed crash going back from hosting MP battle
- Fixed +/- button in army edit not updating slider limits
- Fixed dynamic player objects not properly rendering boats
- Fixed testing map from editor and returning breaks map render
- Fixed player reported negative drinkers bug
- Fixed sea battle (from river) not allowing placement on water
- Fixed castle battles always executing auto-battles
- Fixed several units falling down instead of backward when eliminated. (runtime changes again)
- Fixed story-tree removing HUD causing constant HUD / joystick point recalculations
- Fixed disabled workplace interaction when GUI is disabled
- Fixed instant proton crash at game start
- Fixed battle cam not zooming / tracking in some situations
- Fixed unit effects / archer arrows sometimes rendered behind units
- Fixed card-to-stack depth issues
- Fixed card-to-stack sprite flicker
- Fixed cards sometimes zooming off screen
- Fixed 'don't show again' tutorial card button missing controller snap point
- Fixed main menu input boxes setting incorrect click level
- Fixed a couple remaining memory leaks
- Fixed tutorial tasks not updating in wall mode
- Fixed user reported conflict string crash
- Fixed turn number flickering back and forth on some occasions
- Fixed text colors not inverting for winter properly all the time
- Fixed CPU drain on 'claim region' menu
- Fixed reported crash when not enough slots for escape tiles
- Fixed a rare crash with the invader/raider AI
- Fixed siege crash if defender has 7 units
- Fixed removed click detection / joystick anchors w/ hidden GUI
- Fixed blurry splash screen going from splash -> fullscreen menu
- Fixed army and peasant number fonts different
- Fixed invisible hovered army w/ disabled GUI

Changes:
- hide GUI tool tips when player uses invisible GUI.
- AI to prioritize clearing wastelands when there are no available fields.
- changed neutral AI to not have huge amounts of wheat in stock after a while
- Disabled mercenaries for raiders and invaders
- removed 'X' button from border army menu
- optimization for castle battle tile calculations
- changed skill tree right-click unlock to left-click
- Sped up some animations a little / switched to use delta time
- changed battle cam max zoom to 1.4x from 2x
- changed save files now compress to 10% their old size
- changed updated EN entries to match new skill tree controls
- Performance improvements (text render, outline shader and caching to surface)
- changed controller east face button opens battle radial regardless of cursor position
- changed a number of tooltips to switch between 'left/right mouse' and controller buttons
- Disable disband army in tutorial map
- changed adjusted army font to better fit / align on army sprite
- some tweaks to token animation frequency / surface handling
- started implementing new token rendering system fpr performance improvements (wip)
- performance improvement to dictionary substitutions in strings

0.20.8 (May 25)

Pushing the changes from the beta branch to the default branch!
Thanks for everyone playing the beta branch and giving us feedback.
Let us know if you encounter any problems with the new version :)

New:
- Added zoom closer toggle to graphical settings as requested in the forum
- Added gamepad's right-west, and right-north buttons to jump to taxes and rations.
- Fixed gamepad for mouse click being inconsistent, some were set to be MBR as right-east, other times as right-west.
- Added SL + SR gamepad icons to loading screen tips.
- Added SL + SR gamepad to cycle through loading screen tips.
- Added gamepad jump to region overview filters.
- Added gamepad support for escape radial menu in battle. (system to close is a bit broken)
- Added SL + SR gamepad icons to map change in scenario setup.
- Added SL + SR gamepad icons to map change in mission story.
- Allow players to have no start region in story editor



Fixes:
- Fixed lost peasant not reflecting change unless clicked / small outline color bug in shader
- Fixed screenshots not capturing all of the Army menu items.
- Fixed tutorial so you end the game if you flee in last battle.
- Fixed render chunk crash when canceling a house build
- Fixed a rare crash when going to battle in small and odd regions
- Fixed slow pan screen (hold ctrl + pan screen) from glitching and going backward fast.
- Fixed gamepad holding center-right to end turn.
- Fixed tokens above temporary fog layer
- Fixed raiders from crashing sometimes when they do not advance immediately.
- Fixed drinkers on construction sites after load
- Fixed partial half-house fix that forces neighbor tiles to update after fade
- Fixed several potential event card bugs due to missing sanitization
- Fixed some shortcuts still activating in editor while typing map names
- Fixed a rare town guard army crash.
- Fixed gamepad allowing jump to rations + taxes + end turn when in menus.
- Fixed SL + SR gamepad icons not showing on merchant menu.
- Fixed gamepad hints for zoom + slow cursor being reversed.
- Fixed rare hover over raider army crash
- Fixed flood-fill region type in editor not updating all chunks visibly
- Fixed units falling incorrectly again due to the old runtime
- Fixed some other minor problems with the old runtime we had to revert to
- Fixed AI armies in castles ignoring when enemies are in their regions.
- Fixed overlap of gamepad hints when overview dialog is up.
- Fixed overview dialog hint always showing when gamepad hints are visible.
- Fixed pause menu from opening after it was just closed, which disables gamepad's hold center right to end turn.
- Fixed 'radial controller mode' not resetting after closing escape radial
- Fixed AI double_ration_turn_amount requiring happiness to be used.
- Fixed auto-govern still using neutral AI when it is first pressed.
- Fixed hard lock in a user made map when going to battle in a small region
- Fixed runtime related crash without message when loading a scenario map
- Fixed global morale bug when adding units in army menu
- Fixed incorrect error message when saving a battle map of less than 7 tiles in a region.
- Fixed crash going back from hosting MP battle
- Fixed +/- button in army edit not updating slider limits
- Fixed dynamic player objects not properly rendering boats
- Fixed testing map from editor and returning breaks map render
- Fixed player reported negative drinkers bug
- Fixed sea battle (from river) not allowing placement on water
- Fixed castle battles always executing auto-battles


Changes:
- Speed up menu.
- Modified gamepad taxes + ration decrease button to be right-east.
- Modified gamepad hint for options to be + rather than -, because the button has changed.
- Modified wanderers to spawn 5 - 25 seconds in cases of low FPS (under 50 - under 30).
- optimized cam-shake code (valorous attack)
- changed many editor-specific tile details cached to chunk surface for faster rendering
- Modified auto-govern (player AI) to allow double rations if it has 4 seasons worth of double rations to try to get to 50% happiness.
- Added % to sword description.
- made neutral regions accumulate less wheat over time
- other minor auto govern improvements
- hide GUI tool tips when player uses invisible GUI.
- AI to prioritize clearing wastelands when there are no available fields.
- changed neutral AI to not have huge amounts of wheat in stock after a while
- Disabled mercenaries for raiders and invaders
- removed 'X' button from border army menu
- optimization for castle battle tile calculations

0.20.6 (May 10) BETA BRANCH

Reverted to the last game engine version due to a runtime related crash to dektop without error message that would inconsistently happen when pressing "play game" in the scenario setup screen.
This made some compatibility changes on our side necessary.

New:
- option to transfer region ownership between missions in story editor

Fixes:
- fixed common crash with Turkish language
- fixed post defeat particle crash.
- fixed crash when enabling gamepad hints and closing the pause menu.
- fixed a problem with corrupted save files
- fixed particle crashes due to recent particle memory leak fixes :)
- fixed spamming 'end turn' w/ ai-battle to victory/defeat failing fade-screen dismiss
- fixed army menu general 'falls' briefly / disband appears then disappears (army menu)
- fixed battle card 'radials' sometimes behind unit
- fixed window resize w/ merchant menu open displacing elements
- fixed manors not rendering correctly at game start when choosing high prosperity
- fixed player color turning 'white' after save
- fixed tutorial stating 'place general' when extra units may exist
- fixed 'cancel' button available, but checkmark button not working in "view army menu"
- fixed destroyed wall graphic being 'cut off' at edge of tile
- fixed chunk render crash w/ upgrading manors on some maps
- fixed some walls not properly rendering after load in editor
- fixed wasteland peasants incorrect sprite after game load

Changes:
- Additional generals for AI
- Modified quick end turn via gamepad to only show hour glass if quick end turn is enabled.
- Modified AI personalities to aim to construct castles every X regions (2 Knightly, 3 for Prosperity, 4 for Aggressive).
- modified AI to also have different preferences for castle sizes
- reduces rainy weather and other weather effects
- slight minimap render improvements
- removed 'panning' while season fade is running
- changed AI to keep at least one general as a defense general for when it gets attacked, more dependant on owned regions and castles
- Added advanced quickstart cards (deck) that unlock skills of an AI general, then creates a stack from them.
- improved system for AI to not bring useless skills into battle.
- changed "-" to "0" consistenly in the UI

Hi everyone,

time to push all the recent changes from the beta branch to the default branch!
Let us know if you encounter any issues!

Full version changelog since the Raider update:


0.19.7 (April 12)

New:
- added yellow as player color

Fixes:
- some requested story tree fixes
- load timer not executing if low FPS / blank language entries overwriting english defaults
- fixed 'language' screen freezing upon open / 'missing texture group' warnings
- fixed some issues & memory leak with recently added chunk surface pool
- added missed worker spine optimization WIP
- fixed obj_slot not properly rendering w/ cache scaling
- giant hand on drinker unit
- fixed regression preventing field 'harvest' animation
- fixed missing field elements
- fixed drinker & firefighter rendering issues
- fixed army waypoint-to-menu soft freeze
- fixed hovering merchant killing FPS /
- fixed weeds rendering wrong w/

Changes:
- updated dynamic loading screen background & text
- switching languages is async and also done at game load
- rewrote minimap system for improved performance
- chunks use surface pool when zoomed in (slightly reduced stutter)
- valid map names cached at game start (reduces campaign-setup freeze)
- force 'tutorial cards' click level to be above on menus
- greatly improved fog cpu usage when zoomed in

0.19.8 (April 17)

New:
- you can now use specific general in create army node (story editor)
- clicking a task can now be an objective

Fixes:
- Fixed a reported reconnect crash
- fixed escape position problems for story editor
- fixed texture load issues w/ battle from story tree + season change
- fixed empty defeat message/event card when a player lost everything
- fixed a memory leak with particle systems
- fixed region tiles not always updating peasant count
- fixed smithy unit not animating properly
- fixed 'builder' peasants sometimes not looping & wrong color
- fixed a rare raider crash with castles
- fixed AI being allowed to build on mountains + waypoints under certain circumstances
- fixed AI check if it's building a castle too close to a waypoint

Changes:
- performance improvements for raider pathing calculations
- balanced raider calculations, also related to AI difficulty now

0.19.9 (April 22)

New:
- Added "U" hotkey to jump to a peasant of yours that is relaxing.
- Allow +- current XP for change general node in story editor
- Added I hot key to cycle through merchants in regions.

Fixes:
- fixed loading save games added all tiles to all chunks, leading to severe end turn lags and long end turn times
- fixed a crash with fire damage in battle
- fixed rogue/spy unable to be placed
- fixed mercenary only allowing initial selection/ popup problems
- fixed missing fog / tiles in battle mode
- fixed missing scale bias for new minimap render
- fixed border stones not rendering between two regions w/ same owner
- fixed render stones drawing on top of hills / trees
- fixed split wood/stone castle tower types default to center keep type
- fixed workplace tiles (and peasant colors/text) not updating w/ region conquer
- fixed missing obj_field 'token highlight drop' effect
- fixed potential minimap crash returning from battle
- fixed other rare bugs fixed that were reported by players
- fixed crash for invalidated region instance with map tile
- fixed upgraded buildings from showing how many peasants still needed to be construction.
- fixed minimap 'click region' offset & overlapping taxes button
- fixed cpu-bottleneck with tile render requests
- fixed rare muster army hard-lock with new runtime
- fixed memory leaks with the tile surfaces & dh maps

Changes:
- improved end turn times
- Modified autogovern "abandon livestock variables". now keeps even small lifestock since the economic behaviour of abandoning - improved AI behaviour for attacking overseas territory
- changed so that AI army trying to merge with others doesn't pick paths through player territory (seemed like AI is attacking again and again with minimal forces)
- changed tile update priority lowered during transition effect
- changed better optimized out spines / dynamic tile rendering when out of view
- lessened minimap frametime allotment


0.20.0 (April 25)

Fixes:
- fix for user reported crash with "map structure not found" popup (most likely only for new games or older saves, actual save is probably corrupted, sorry)
- fix for user reported end-turn soft-lock (was event related)
- fixed fisherman boat incorrectly colored & missing text
- Fixed a few memory leaks due to the new systems

Changes:
- improved AI army targeting to calculate castle regions can spawn an army to defend it
- improved overall AI pathfinding and target finding
- further improved AI behaviour for attacking overseas territory


0.20.1 (April 26)

New:
added click-lock debug display to for public build (see above)

Fixes:
- Fixed sending provisions sometimes not working correctly
- Fixed clicking 'view area' on event card w/ battle popup breaking click level
- Fixed option menu conflicting click &depth w/ battle popup options
- Fixed language loader not properly stripping all 'extra' double-quotes
- Fixed raiders not attacking in some cases

Changes:

0.20.2 (April 27)

- for your story editor, you can now use battles/wins/losses against certain generals of factions as triggers
- fixed muster / disband breaking click level(blocking UI) in some cases


0.20.3 (April 30)

Fixes:
- fixed merchant on the battle field causing a crash
- fixed dynamic player tokens appearing in battle
- fixed second-method of merge-army not releasing click lock
- fixed 'fire mercenary' broken + army menu click pass-through bugs
- fixed broken army overlap detection
- fixed some units having a wrong orientation when getting destroyed
- fixed killing wild animal causing a very rare crash (user report)
- fixed merchant not moving to assigned position (tutorial among others)
- fixed a bug that potentially had the number of peasants wrong/invisible
- fixed a bug that lead to player color being white after loading (already corrupted files can't be fixed)
- fixed fire/flood-fighters not updating visually when done
- fixed peasant not placable on fire anymore in tutorial

Changes:
- improved autogovern AI
- Changed autogovern to have even more priority for animals
- AI no longer builds walls around harbours

0.20.4 (May 3)

New:
Fixes:
- fixed a dynamic reference crash in the story editor
- fixed a trait related crash in the story editor
- fixed merchant usable on 1st turn of tutorial / merchant base not fading out
- fixed recent change breaking editor tile painting
- fixed numerous small memory leaks due to missing particle cleanup
- fixed peasants using incorrect image when fighting animals in some cases

Changes:
- Added system to not jump the cursor to next turn on button press, if next turn is not yet ready.
- Added show_hourglass to override mouse cursors to demonstrate a player must wait for something.
- Added button visuals when hovering over taxes, and ration.
- Added L stick press to move cursor 2x as fast.
- Added L stick move cursor to be 5x slower if pressing L shoulder.
- Added L shoulder hint for slow cursor.
- Modified left gamepad hints to stack differently without gaps depending on what triggers the left hints.
- Added language support for left gamepad hints.
- Fixed when panning screen, the cursor would still think it was where it was before panning.
- Modified center right button (start +) to open menu instead of end turn.
- Added holding center right button (start +) for a half second to end turn.
- Added gamepad support for back button (select -) to exit out of all 20 menus.
- Modified tax + ration gamepad hints to show when gamepad is used over the icon
- changed AI to built castles further away from border waypoints.
- AI builds more castles now when it needs more generals.