Songs of Conquest News

The first quarter of the year is behind us, this means we have the chance to look at what we’ve done so far during 2023. Even though Q1 only has six specific items listed we’ve done much more than that, both big and small changes that have made Songs of Conquest a different game compared to what it was before.

It looks like a great year, doesn’t it?

Beacon Improvements
So how did we actually improve beacons? Quite a few things actually! We enhanced their role as a victory condition and turned them into teleports, which in turn made us rework the way teleports work. You can now choose which beacon you teleport to if you own several of them, creating some very useful and tactical networks, especially for those bigger maps.

Imagine taking over an enemy's home beacon, leaving them stranded in hostile territory!

Artifact Marketplace
We added something called the Raider’s market. It's building on the adventure map where you can trade those hard-fought-for artifacts or just buy that item that you were missing. This mysterious trader has now appeared on a few of our maps and is ready to lighten that coin purse!

The difference between winning and losing could be that new golden mask!

Map editor finalized
This one is brand new as it came out with out last update. But are we completely done? No and yes. There might still be tweaks and small fixes left to do but our map editor is now in a state that we are proud over, ready for our 1.0 launch.

We put a lot of effort into making the map editor more user-friendly and updated a few features. Search functionality was added, as well as drop-down menus to make it easier to find those entities that you were looking for. We also added a feature that gives you the option to crop maps after creation. And an overall a better UI and user experience. (We hope!) Let us know if you agree or disagree!

The map editor has been vastly improved in Q1. Did you know that Songs of Conquest is one of the most active games on mod.io in terms of most downloaded maps? Almost half a million user created maps have been downloaded so far!

For those of you that enjoy creating more story-driven maps we updated the way you add a chain of objective groups. We also added a bunch of more portraits for custom dialogues. We can't wait to see what type of stories and scenarios you guys will create with these new tools!

A face for every occasion!

Update troops on recruitment screen
Sometimes it's all about the quality of life improvements. You can now upgrade troops directly in the "wielder interaction header" if the building has a troop pool with the upgraded troop type.

It’s the little things in life that make it better. Like seeing your enemies driven before you or a new UI update.

Rana random events
We absolutely delivered on this one! Rana now has exactly 100 random events, a nice and round number. Some are more random than others and some require certain conditions to occur before getting them. These are singular or sometimes a series of events that can act as both a boon or a drawback during your games. Tell us in the comments is you have any events that always happen to you? Might they be a clue to how you play the game?

This would be one of those boons we mentioned.

More skirmish maps
Since the start of Q1 we have added four new skirmish maps. Triad pass, Proving ground, Divided and From rags to riches. These are four beautiful and lovingly-crafted maps but more are on the way, including our largest map yet!

This map is going to be huge!

AI Improvements
Improving our AI is an ongoing work and doesn't have a public list of bullet points in the roadmap, but we still wanted to highlight the work done. Through feedback from our community (keep leaving us comment on Steam, on our Discord, Reddit, etc, it helps us make the game better!) and through internal discussions and testing, we try to improve the AI with just about every update. For example, we recently released a vast improvement for our battle AI. It now has better tactical awareness and makes better use of spells like repel or swap!

Now the AI pulls that trick on you!

As the AI now plans battles differently, it tries to protect its ranged troops and use its melee troops wiser than before. It also views the unit roles differently, changing tactics if it's defending or attacking or if it's behind obstacles or not. It’s a whole new tactical ball game and it has made quite a difference.

The AI has also learned to path its course across the adventure map better, clearing out pockets of resources with more efficency (but again, let us know if you spot problems!). It uses several Wielders to act as mules, sending reinforcements to the front and making longer trips than before.

The quartely results: Check marks all around. Yes, we are happy about it.

We hope that you are pleased with everything we have done so far and that you, like us, look forward to what’s coming next. If you want to go into the gritty details for updates the last months, we recommend reading up on our changelogs. If you do, would you please leave a comment about your one favorite update, of all the ones done in Q1? Or just let us know what upcoming feature you are most excited about.

Keep up the Adventure!

/The Lavapotion team

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[h2]Greetings Wielders![/h2]
Another month, another update. This time we’ve focused on the map editor in an effort to make level creation just a bit easier for everyone! It is an important feature of Songs of Conquest. Not only it is the tool that we use to create our maps and campaigns, but it’s also something that you, the community use to create awesome maps

So what have we been up to this busy spring month? As we mentioned we have been focusing on the map editor, making sure it’s easier to work with, and updating a bunch of its features. For instance, you can now search for entities and crop maps and we have added drop-down menus for your convenience.

It’s ever so convenient!

We have also added more features for those of you that want to create story-driven maps with objectives, just like how we create our campaign maps. Our fantastic artists have created more portraits for custom dialogues and we have thrown in an “objective group” field to story objectives, making it easier to create a series of objectives when you create your own maps. We look forward to what you will create with these new tools.

And speaking of community-created maps, to celebrate our new map editor we have just launched a competition together with mod.io, be sure to look it over on its very own steam post. You have the chance to get your map into the official Songs of Conquest map list and win some money too!

Get creative and submit your map for the chance to win. Read about the competition here!

We also gave some development love to one of our experimental features, co-op. Although we aren’t done yet we made sure this got some much-sought-after improvements. For example, you can now ping each other on the mini-map and send resources.

Get in there and do things together!

There has also been more work done on AI, both for adventure and battle. We are proud of all the improvements made with last month's AI update and community feedback has been important for those extra additions and fixes. One of those fixes has been to change the AI behavior during sieges, now we force AI attackers in sieges against players to always be the aggressor.

We have worked a lot with unit roles and behavior and that work will continue to be important for us. This update introduces many small changes, fixes, and updates and as always we recommend reading the entire changelog down below, we promise it’s a rewarding experience.

Keep up the adventure!

/The Lavapotion team

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[h2]Changelog v0.83 - March 24, 2023[/h2]
Notable additions
Added a new hierarchy view in the map editor, where all the placed map entities are listed and searchable.
Most objects in the map editor now have tooltips and better English translations
33 new Random Events for the Rana faction

Notable bug fixes
Fixed issue causing passive AI on randomly generated maps
Fixed bug where upgrading Eth’dra could cause Dragons to exceed their max Troop Size
Fixed bug where upgrading troops could cause upgraded troops from the pool to disappear
Fixed bug where the AI could do actions on the adventure map while stashed in a town
Fixed a bug where towns sometimes could not get attacked, which was also a cause for AI freezing on their turn.
Fixed bug related to Rapid Fire spell, Onslaught spell, or Double Strike trait, where you could get stuck in Battle after killing a troop and still having attacks remaining.

Adventure
Tweaked scouting thresholds (hostile threat levels can now be seen one tile further away than previously)
Fixed text size problem on post adventure stats menu
Fixed team color glow on the mini menu.
When ejecting a wielder from a town or settlement it is automatically selected
Don't close town interaction menu when the enemy is storing wielder in sim turns
Updated behavior for how the camera follows wielders
Slowed down building in progress smoke effect
Updated cursor notification pivot to show notification left of the cursor if it's too far to the right of the screen
Invisible “story actor” map entities no longer block movement
Fixed being able to exceed stack size limit when upgrading troops
Add overflowing scouted troops in pre-battle into the tooltip instead of the cover grid
Allow aborting forced camera movements by pressing WASD or begin panning with the mouse
Refresh town list when initiating a raze/convert the town
Fixed town wall gates being placed underwater
Fixed color tinting map entities not being active at map start
If a research building is banned on a map it no longer shows up in the research menu
Show building cost even if players don't have any available build site
Fixed the issue of not generating an alternate valid path for the wielder when the optimal path goes through unexplored parts of the map
The behavior is now always the same when capturing neutral settlements no matter which faction the capturing team belongs to
Fixed showing “pillage” mouse cursor and tooltip for neutral buildings that could not be pillaged
Fixed wielders sometimes unnecessarily move when the ground underneath them changes appearance
Show level-up menu before joining popup after the battle

Battle
Add retaliations to melee attack preview
Stop reload animation after troop has ended turn the second time after firing
Fixed battle outline null reference exception
Increase damage of most spells
Lower cost of Biting insects to 4
Increase the cost of Earth block to 5
Increase the cost of Repel to 8
Only show equipped artifacts in battle on the wielder tooltip
Update wielder tooltip layout
Fixed being soft-locked after killing the initial target with troops that have additional attacks left
Remove troop essence section in battle tooltips for troops without a wielder
Add notification to troops that can hit again

Common
Fix localization of codex faction headers in the building category
Fix some troop portrait positions
Fix localization bug in the codex research section

Map Editor
Removed old “Island” type random map generation
Improved mirroring when drawing using “circular mirrored” mode
Make it possible to disable the ability to build walls in cities
Added “objective group” field to story objectives, allowing them to be grouped as a single entry in objectives HUD in-game
Story actors now correctly get the color used by the team selected for it
Added a way to add custom map editor names to entities to make them searchable.
All lists and fields in map entity properties now have a different way of drawing themselves, so they should now be more responsive
All dropdowns now have a search bar
Fixed issue where the area trigger grid never disappeared from a wielder spawn point once added
You can now see where roads and walls will end up around towns and settlements in the editor
Added keybindings, most can be found in the tooltip for each tool. Keybindings added but not found in tooltip - cycle tool context, and set brush size, and to change height when drawing terrain height.
Added 11 neutral personas to use in dialogues
Added tools for padding and cropping maps

Multiplayer
Show other players’ selected teams in the lobby when the co-op is enabled
Exploration data is now shared between allies
Scouting is now provided by allies’ wielders and map entities
Added a tooltip for allies’ wielders showing level, skills, troops, and equipped artifacts
Allies can now use each other’s Beacons as teleports in co-op games
Allies can send minimap pings to each other during co-op games by right-clicking the minimap
Allies can now recruit their own troops from each other’s rally points during co-op games
Allies can now send each other resources during co-op games
Prevent showing pillaging mouse cursor and tooltips when pointing at allies’ buildings

AI - Adventure
Fixed exception bug that happened when AI rebuilt map regions
Fixed some guarding issues to better help the AI abort thinking in transitions to/from battle, when an AI team dies, and when the game is over.
Fixed a bug that made it possible for AI wielders to attack across the map even if they were stored in buildings
Remove Option creation redundancy (optimization)
Usage of portals entirely refactored
Map loot pocket scoring tweaks
Removed mismatch where the AI was braver when planning long routes, but chickened out when it got close.
Map interaction improvements
Changed how the troops are valued by the AI when recruiting or transferring troops

AI - Battle
Tweaked when the AI uses the Aim ability
Increased chance of AI casting a spell during a troop round
Removed some restrictions on AI casting spells if is has 20 or more essence in total
If AI can afford it, it will try to fill the path of a Repel spell with Explosive Fungi
Made AI more restrictive about using the Aegis spell
AI should be more willing to “waste” damage in order to use Ice Bolt and Rupture more often
Defensive AI teams are more restrictive about using Sabotage spell
Defensive AI teams are much more restrictive about using Destroy Essence spell
Defensive AI teams are more restrictive about using the Lethargy spell unless very early in combat
AI is much more likely to use Entangle spell if the enemy only has one unit left
AI no longer should cast Pacify spell as often, and not as a must cast when one enemy left
Defensive AI teams less likely to waste Onslaught spell on troops with support roles
Rebalanced Wait ability to work like other abilities and actions to make it viable again
Aggressive AI teams are much less likely to use the Wait ability
Removed elevation scoring bonus for attackers unless they are in reach of an enemy
Added an extra elevation bonus when occupying a hex next to an enemy
Fixed the bug of troops not being able to just stay in place if they had a valid melee target that was too dangerous to attack
Force AI attackers in sieges against players to always be the aggressor
Increased the aggressiveness of a team without a wielder meeting a team with a wielder
Added a “no retreat” penalty to discourage aggressive attackers to retreat toward the back edge of the map
Added a “retreat” bonus to encourage passive defenders to retreat toward the back edge of the map for certain troop roles
Tweaked down the fear of damage for troops with supportive roles for teams with high aggression

Audio
Don’t trigger wielder death sounds from opponents in the fog

Random Map Generator
Tweaked random faction chance for random hostiles and should now be more varied

Misc
Change the percentage of beacons needed to win from 70% to 64%

Hello, Wielders!


Our improved map editor is just about out and we are celebrating it in the best way possible, with a friendly competition! Together with Mod.io, we are launching a map-making contest. We’re even throwing in a 1000 USD prize for the best map maker out there, as well as adding the winning map to the official Songs of Conquest map pool. But don’t fret if you don’t win, the runners-up get some lovely prizes too!


So, who are Mod.io? They provide cross-platform mod support and host all the awesome player-created maps that our community has designed.

The competition will run from April 3rd and will last until the 28th of April, giving you a month to complete a large map. Lavapotion will announce the Winners on 12 May 2023 via the Songs of Conquest Twitter account: twitter.com/songsofconquest

Can you create anything? No, but pretty close. Let’s list the requirements and go into everything in a bit more detail. Scroll down to the bottom to read the longer eligibility.

Here’s what we are looking for:

• Large map size.
  

We are looking for a large map, the map size we have the fewest of. That is the 125x125 size in our editor.

• Stick to our default values when working with entities.
  

Don’t change default values like the value of pickups when working with entities, that’s because the maps in our official map pool must work in cohesion with each other and represent Songs of Conquest the way that we designed it. Remember, your map could be the first map that a new player plays. So don't change the value of a sack of gold for example.

• Winners' Criteria are “Fun to play, good visuals, and best overall fit with the game.”

• Just like the rest of our skirmish maps, we don’t focus on lore or story.
  

As we mentioned above, this could be a player's first map and we don’t want it to break from Songs of Conquest lore. So although we don’t mind small story elements and fun little additions the focus should be on gameplay and good visuals.

Tag your map with “spring map contest” after uploading your map to Mod.io



How do you submit a map?

That part is easy. Start with creating a profile on mod.io, then agree to and not breach the mod.io and Lavapotion terms of use and privacy policy. After you create a large-sized map, upload it to mod.io with the correct tag and then you’re good to go!



… What are you waiting for, cartographer? We are looking forward to your awesome creations!

Enjoy your adventures!

/The Songs of Conquest Team together with Mod.io

----------------------------------------------

Eligibility


All eligible mods and creators will be automatically considered for entry into the competition. If you do not wish to participate, you can opt out by sending an email to [email protected];

For mods to be eligible, the creator must:

-Have a single active member account on mod.io when the Prizes are determined and on the last day of the relevant month. Duplicate accounts will be grouped or banned;

-Have agreed to, and not be in breach of, the mod.io or Lavapotion Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, and any other policies as may be required by Lavapotion or mod.io from time to time;

-Not be employed or provide services for mod.io or Lavapotion or be related to or live with someone who does;

-Live in a jurisdiction where they can participate in unregistered competitions for games of skill; and
-Be tagged with “Spring map contest” after being uploaded to mod.io; and
-Be willing to have their submitted map featured in the Songs of Conquest official map roster.

For mod(s) to be eligible, they must:
-Be your original creation;
-Be publicly available and visible on mod.io;
-Be active and not taken down from mod.io for any reason;
-Be compatible with the latest version of Songs of Conquest;
-Be correctly submitted by the submission date; and

Comply with the relevant Lavapotion EULA and any other policies required by Lavapotion from time to time.

Additional rules:
Notwithstanding the above eligibility criteria, Lavapotion and mod.io reserve the right to exclude any creator or mod from the program for any reason;
Creators who are found to have acted in bad faith, in mod.io’s sole discretion, will be permanently excluded from this and any future competitions;
If a mod has been created through the contributions of multiple parties, only the primary creator, as credited on the mod page, is eligible to enter and win prizes;
Mods that are obviously trying to "game" the system in any way to win will be disqualified from participation; and
The decisions of Lavapotion and mod.io staff regarding eligibility, Winner Selection Criteria, and winners of the competition (Winner) are final and binding on all creators.

Fixed broken bug reporter.

Greetings Wielders!

It’s time for another update and yet again it’s filled to the brim with all manner of news and improvements. The focus this time has been on upgrading the AI and making sure that it offers you a more exciting challenge, especially when you are facing enemy Wielders in battle.

Even though AI has been the focus, it's far from the only thing worth mentioning in this update. The team has done some amazing things and we can’t wait for you to experience them firsthand.

With the new and improved AI, you might even learn a few things!

We are proceeding as planned, following our roadmap, and as always there are tons of things happening that are not listed in the update. We are looking forward to releasing stuff like more unit abilities and a whole new campaign in the months to come.

So let’s talk about AI. Our devs have been more than busy so it will be impossible to go into depth in every single detail. We recommend reading the full release notes by scrolling down. But let’s look at some highlights.

The computer is now much more efficient when it comes to planning their adventure map movement. The AI should no longer leave obvious low-hanging fruit, easy claimable map objects untouched. It will save up their money to buy bigger units of troops so that their expeditions can last longer and push deeper into your lands.

Now that’s what we like to call AI efficiency!

Do you know how you sometimes pat yourself on the back after using a successful repel and explosive fungi combination? Well now the AI knows how to use that ability too! This update brings many changes, including implementing repel and swap into the AI wielder’s repertoire.

It has also gotten a lot better at knowing if and when to use its spells, like keeping those dangerous damage spells to the end to really use them efficiently.

The AI also got a lot better at both defending and attacking. It will no longer needlessly attack its fortifications or obstacles and will try not to waste those high-damage class cannons before they get a chance to prove their worth!

It feels different when it’s happening to you.

So what's new besides all that awesome AI stuff? We added an option to pick where you want to teleport, this was created for Beacons but works for portals too if set in the map editor. This makes Beacons even more interesting to Claim, like cutting off an enemy from returning to their own area before you attack and more easily transporting across your realm.

Choosing where you teleport puts a whole new level to the larger maps.


Another skirmish map has entered the lists. Rags to riches is a small map for two players, designed to take you from poverty to wealth, competing for those precious resources.


Do you have what it takes to rise from rags to riches?

A cool surprise addition to the game is something we call spell dmg preview. Designed to help you plan spell usage better and to more clearly show the effect your spells will have in battle. It even includes and shows things like spell resistance!


Time to put away those calculators, spell review is here to stay!

But the list goes on. This is a huge update and one we are very proud of. Let us know what you think and tell us about your experiences with the new additions and the improved AI. The road ahead is packed with awesome content. We will have interviews with developers, a map-making contest together with mod.io, and more besides. We want to know what you are looking forward to!

Keep up the adventure!

/The Lavapotion team

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Changelog 0.82.5

Notable additions
Add teleport functionality to beacons of power
Allow teleports to have more than one destination using a teleport menu
Add damage preview for spells in battle
New Skirmish map: Rags to Riches

Notable bug fixes
Buy button sometimes not working when recruiting units
Common game-breaking exception when killing last AI wielder
Aura abilities not doing anything
Exception when killing final troop with acid cloud or explosive fungi
Ai not able to pillage dwellings and gets stuck when interacting with them
Dragons disappearing after upgrading in draft menu
Can’t attack town with walls if occupied
RMG maps should no longer have inaccessible loot areas or blocked roads
Adventure - Can no longer walk through undiscovered tiles with wielders
Fixed regression of “story actors” not being interactable in people’s custom maps

Adventure
Fixed bug making it possible to pathfind through unexplored tiles
Fixed not being able to interact with “story actor” map entities
Fixed some invisible “story actor” map entities being spoiled by mouse over tooltips
Fixed exception that happens when pressing “Accept” in the post-battle menu after defeating the last wielder and winning the game
Fixed long standing bug whose most common symptom was when trying to claim a lookout tower using the wielder’s very last movement you would only get a message about the pretty view but not actually claim it (also you paid too much movement to do it)
Fixed bug where artifact market close sound was played when ending turn
Fix bug where player couldn't purchase troops after selling a building and building a new of same type
Fix team color in movable troop UI when splitting troops
Fix ESC/C hotkey not working after moving an artifact in the inventory
Show team name in pre battle menu in multiplayer
“Mini menu” (the menu when clicking owned buildings) is now closed when right clicking
Add notification when destroying artifact in inventory
Add move all buttons to defense menu
Update lots of UI for elder dragons and trigger related tutorials
Fixed incorrect wielder “race plus class” text combinations in some languages
Add available troops (if any) to owned adventure map entity tooltips
Add highlights to inventory slots of correct type when hovering artifacts
Add highlight animation to newly purchased or equipped artifacts
Show notification when trying to walk into unexplored terrain in adventure
Show notification when trying to walk without a valid path in adventure
A few Random Events will now reward you with Essence

Battle
Fixed abilities buffing nearby troops not having an effect
Fixed bug where it was possible to select an invalid target hex for troop abilities and ending up in a weird UI state
Fixed movement outlines briefly flashing before troop attacks
Fixed a bunch of buffs not showing up as “buff arrows” in troop stack panels
Add looping scaling to entangle VFX. It was very hard to see on some troops
Common
Removed subtitle text that was mistakenly showing at the beginning of all cutscenes
Multiplayer
Fixed exception when clearing “random seed” value in map settings

AI - Adventure
Enabled usage of movement buff entities
Enhanced terrain analysis to detect “pockets” in the map in order to clear out the map better
Should not turn home as often (unless threatened) to recruit but instead be better at saving up for bigger purchases less often.
Fixed bug related to neutral dwellings and pillage
Barya AI has more efficient build plans for their towns
Fixed Adventure AI sometimes ignores unclaimed towns and settlements
Troop recruitment improvements
Fixes for AI becoming too passive in later stages of large maps

AI - Battle
Added implementation for spells Repel and Swap
Added implementation for a Repel into Explosive Fungi spell
Should now be much better knowing when to use, and not to use most spells
Should use more damage spells to kill off enemy units, especially towards the end of a battle
Tries to avoid attacking or moving in battle if it would result in instant death when it’s better to just stand still
Split the AI roles of attacker and defender into five different ones to better represent different play styles based on troop composition and wielder stats
Added specific roles to all troops to help differentiate and balance their behavior
Melee are troops now much better at defending ranged troops when playing defensively
Deadly but weak troops should now be better at keeping safe until they can strike first
Should be better at actually defending a siege if the AI sees it as the best option
Should no longer attack blocking map entities in sieges when AI wants to defend behind them
Should smash through blocking map entities in sieges when AI do want to make a sortie
Should no longer attack random map entities that make no sense attacking
Add ability to cast Entangle spell

Audio
New Barya building sounds added

Random Map Generator
Fixed issue causing paths to sometimes be blocked by spawned entities, this should now be less frequent
Fixed issue causing some areas being inaccessible due to environment edges
Updated blueprint, entities should now be more varied overall and starting areas have been balanced for a better experience. A new region has also been added to the blueprint, treasure_low.