Songs of Conquest News

[h2]Notable additions[/h2]

• New multiplayer mode: BATTLEGROUNDS. You can now play Battle only matches against friends, AI or random people online. Just pick an army created by the developers or create one yourself in the Army Creator.
  
• Add Easy setting to campaigns
  
• Add Turkish language option
  

[h2]Additions[/h2]

• Large skirmish map Bad Neighbours added
  
• Add notifications and updated round text for maps with a round limit
  
• Add video option to limit framerate
  
• Add Hotseat link to Multiplayer section of Main Menu
  

[h2]Gameplay changes[/h2]

• Dead Wielders count towards the total number of Wielders the player can have
  
• Wielders can no longer be disbanded
  
• Dead Wielders can always be revived, even if it brings the total number of living Wielders above the current limit
  
• Pre-requirement for march skill updated for Awakened
  

[h2]Gameplay bug fixes[/h2]

• Fix not receiving gold incomes from occupied towns when continuing on a saved game
  
• Fix rare movement edge case where AI could get stuck in an endless loop
  
• Fix battle AI not being able to handle casting several spells on higher tiers when they can be cast on more than one troop
  
• Fix Wielders sometimes moving because of newly constructed buildings even when it wasn’t necessary
  
• Fix issue where battle maps with forest and mountain themes were not selected as often as they should be
  
• Fix buff/nerf tooltips in battle showing spell descriptions instead of spell effects
  

[h2]UI[/h2]

• Add better camera zoom values in battle to support wider screen resolutions
  
• Fix no visible level up button in the wielder list
  
• Fix incorrect attack action in tooltip for towns
  
• Fix guard tower upgrade tooltip
  
• Fix mouse instructions hidden in tooltips when not your turn
  
• Fix memory leak when hovering the mouse cursor over selectable things on the map
  

[h2]AI[/h2]

• AI upgrading and also switching out (weaker) troops when entering towns/settlements has been made more likely to happen.
  
• Recruitment has gotten a overhaul in general, promoting more sensible recruiting
  
• Skill selection scoring has been changed, in some ways to promote command in situations when it got pushed to the bottom.
  
• Add more decision inputs for when deciding what to build
  
• More diverse and flexible ways of building has been added
  
• AI concept of handing out roles specific roles to its wielders
  
• Pathing/tracing nearby items for pickup/claiming has been fundamentally changed
  
• An improved retreat option is in place to make feeding weak wielders to opponents less likely to happen.
  
• Fix bug where it inverted treat checks which made Suicide opponents appear as Very Easy, this was particularly nasty.
  
• Fix bug where the AI could not "see" some items under hostile zone of control, nor items it was standing next to.
  
• More detailed cache invalidation to help speed up think loop times
  
• Stop AI from casting Fury spell when it has only ranged troops
  
• Added dynamic caching of data in multiple places to help increase performance
  

[h2]Localization[/h2]

• Minor fixes on missed localisation
  

[h2]Multiplayer[/h2]

• Can now open spellbook during opponent's turn in Battle
  

[h2]Audio[/h2]

• Update Piper’s Post sfx
  
• Update Merchants Guild sfx
  
• Add Barya Workshops sfx
  
• Fix Sassanid footsteps
  
• Rework and update other Barya sounds
  

[h2]Optimizations[/h2]

• Optimize Fog of War update when walking with a wielder
  

[h2]Known issues[/h2]

• Battlegrounds: Army Creator — when dropping a troop on a slot where you already have units the resources will not be refunded correctly. You will need to delete the current troops and add new troops. You can always cancel and redo the army if your resources have been offset.
  

Hello, Wielders! Since the development team is now back from vacation and hard at work we figured it was time to provide you with a roadmap update. But, before we get into the roadmap we want to send out a huge thanks to all players who have bought or wishlisted the game so far! We had no way to anticipate such a huge interest in the game already in Early Access and we are now in a position where we can support the ongoing development for a long time!

The full crew recently sat down to plan the development up until 1.0. We had a long good look at all the user suggestions over at our Feature Upvote page and discussed both the top suggestions as well as interesting ideas with fewer votes. The team also reviewed the first version of the roadmap and considered if it still would hold up. After a long and constructive meeting, some follow-up planning, and discussions, we are now happy to release an updated roadmap!



The roadmap is also available in text format on www.songsofconquest.com/roadmap. You can also click the image above for a larger version.



Major changes?
The only real major change is that the next campaign has been pushed to early next year. We are still looking for a new Lead Artist and figured it would be hard for us to deliver within our previously estimated timeline. We have set the bar high when it comes to cutscenes and it simply takes a while to produce this level of content to spice up the campaigns!



Other changes
Smaller changes to note are for the scope of the rest of 2022. Spells will be updated, and we are working on more unit traits and abilities. However, a richer siege battle experience has been moved to 2023. Also, what we previously called Lobby facelift and updates have been moved into the UI & UX improvements section. More skirmish maps will come as they are designed, crafted, tested, and refined during 2022 and 2023.



New features!
Oh yes. As you might have noticed, we have listed a whole new game mode in the during 2022 column. Battlegrounds is a game mode where you can test your mettle against the AI, friends, or strangers online. It is a way to jump straight into combat without having to play adventure at all. So you’ll be able to try out late-game strategies, untried army builds, or just have a quick and fun match against a stranger online! We look forward to hearing your feedback on this new game mode, which will be released next week!

We have also bumped up the visibility of the ongoing AI development slightly, to make it clear that this is of the utmost importance to the team. It’s an aspect of the game that is not done in chunks or increments but rather something that is continuously worked on. Our AI lead, Marcus, dropped an AI development Steam post last week, which I suggest you check out if you haven’t already!



Upcoming roadmap changes
Going forward, we will label all the revisions of the Roadmap so you can easily check when it was last updated. As we have stated before, the roadmap can and will change. Sometimes with delays and sometimes with additions of new features or content.

Building this game is a dream come true and the road to 1.0 will be truly exciting! We have lots of cool things to come and we can’t wait to show it all to you! Do you have any feedback, game-related anecdotes, or just something that you want to share about your game experience? Please drop a comment below and stay tuned for next week's update with Battlegrounds, big AI improvements, and more!

/Team Lavapotion

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Hello everyone!

We've been quiet for a while as the team has enjoyed their Swedish summer vacations. But, since a few weeks back the team is now hard at work again. And we are soon to drop some news and updates for you. Starting right now we would like to introduce you to the upcoming AI improvements. Some of these improvements are already live on our internal development branch, however, AI improvements are an ongoing process, rather than just one update!

Since this is one of the most discussed topics in the community, we want to emphasize that we value your feedback a lot and are aware of many issues related to the AI. It is definitely not finished and we will continuously work on improving it as time goes by - So please, if you have the time, post your feedback regarding the AI in the comments section of this Blog Post. It helps a lot!

We've started to add the concept of wielder roles. So, now the AI will start looking at its wielders in the terms of roles, and from that it can take certain decision. I.e. who should get the strongest troops or what skills to pick when leveling up. This is in an early stage still, but we are quite certain it's going to affect more and more decisions. The inital roles we have created for the first iteration is Warrior and Explorer, more will come after the system has matured a bit.

This a non-exhaustive list of what has been worked on lately:

• The AI upgrading and also switching out (weaker) troops when entering towns/settlements has been made more likely to happen. Previously the AI simply topped off what it had and filled empty slots, often leading to weak and pretty insignificant troops being left in slots.
  
• Recruitment has gotten an overhaul in general, previously recruitment was only part a long term decision which meant that if it walked by its own town it did not always recruit even if the town was overflowing with units. It's now more likely to recruit if it happens to walk by. Also it should use neutral dwellings much more often than before.
  
• Skill selection scoring has been changed, in some ways to promote command in situations when it got pushed to the bottom. This was previously a mitigation due to other issues the AI had, having many troop slots just lead to it having empty troop slots. The root cause has been fixed for this so we could remove that mitigation.
  
• How the AI reasons around buildings has been updated and we've added more decision input for when it decides what to build. For instance, it can check how much resource surplus it has if it would buy all units it produces every round. Or what starting resources are lying around the starting area.
  
• Deciding what to build has also previously been a bit unbalanced between the factions, which is one of the reasons why the AI has been weaker playing certain factions.
  
• An improved retreat option is in place to make feeding weak wielders to opponents less likely to happen.
  
• There has also been several bugs fixed which caused behaviour problems rather than crashing the game. The two major ones being: 1. It inverted treat checks which made Suicide opponents appear as Very Easy, this was particularly nasty. 2. The AI could not "see" some items under hostile zone of control, nor items it was standing next to.

The above points will be iterated upon even more, this is what we have had time to look at after coming back from our vacations. More to come in the future!

We've made a fundamental change to how the AI traces items nearby for pickup/claiming. The previous solution started out well with what we had available at the time (without making the AI even slower, it did not need that ...) but it has scaled poorly and created lots of edge cases.

The AI is now better at determining if something is on the way to where it wants to go and interact with it on the way. This is being verified currently and the initial tests look great, it also has better scaling capabilities when it comes to improvement and performance so we expect this to improve even further.

As always, if you have any questions or comments about this, please put them below.

Until next time!

/Marcus (AI Lead) and Team Lavapotion

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• Fixed issue where you could recruit endless amount of troops from defence tab if you had lots of research
  
• Fixed memory leak when you where hovering over objects in adventure mode
  
• Fixed issue where mini map could not be opened in the level editor
  
• Misc localization updates
  
• Fixed issue with wielders moving too far when a building was built or when an artifact was dropped
  

We also released a small patch on friday the 8th of July, that we forgot to post the changelog for. The changes of that patch were:

• Fix null reference exception in GetRoundsUntilRevival (usually after battle)
  
• Fix null reference exception in Upgrade Troops (exception after battle)
  
• Fix issue where listeners weren't cleaned up in TroopManagementMenu (exception after battle)
  
• Fix issue with AutoSaves no longer working
  
• Fix issue where you sometimes couldn't start a loaded online game from the lobby
  

Hello everyone!

We've just updated the game with a bigger update. It's been on the Public Test Realm for a while now where we ironed out a bunch of bugs, but now it's ready for everyone!

[h2]Notable fixes and additions[/h2]

• Added difficulty levels normal and hard to From the Ashes campaign
  
• Added the ability to control the hostiles in battle when your opponent attacks them in multiplayer as an experimental feature.
  
• Added Chinese (Traditional) as a choosable language
  
• Added Korean as a choosable language in options
  

[h3]Simultaneous Turns in multiplayer as an experimental feature[/h3]

• All humans play at the same time and the AI players each have their own turn after the humans are done
  
• If one player enters battle, the other non-battling players will not be able to move or interact until the battle is over (this is because of a technical limitation that we want to remove in the future). However, the “locked” players can still purchase buildings, buy troops etc
  

[h3]New map settings when setting up a game[/h3]

• Force quick battles (disables manual battles) - Always or against neutral team only
  
• Disable random events
  

[h2]Gameplay changes[/h2]

• Scarred Brutes Hp increased to 70 (was 65) Price increased to 1000 gold and 1 ancient amber (was 900 gold and 1 ancient amber)
  
• Stoutheart shall Stand ability now also grants 10% spell damage reduction
  
• Fear no Foe ability now also grants 5% spell damage reduction
  
• Defend changed from granting 30 defense to 25 defense and 25% spell damage reduction
  
• Protect now also grants 25% spell damage reduction
  
• Made sure you can build town walls and still exit the town in map Valley Low
  
• Moved a pouch of gold in Death to Diplomacy (so it can be picked up)
  
• Skill pools re-worked
  
• Levy bonus increased to 40%/80% (was 30%/60% )
  
• Increase ballista damage to 25-35 for all factions (was 20-30) (Baryas ballista previously did less damage than the other factions, this was wrong)
  
• Change the amount of beacons needed to 70% of available, rounded up to win (was 60%)
  
• Increase Wielder cost to 3000 gold (was 2500)
  

[h3]Change how disbanding wielders work:[/h3]

• All artifacts carried by the wielder are dropped on the ground
  
• All troops are destroyed
  
• Wielder is then “killed”, as if it just lost a battle
  
• Can be revived later as per normal rules for defeated wielders
  

[h3]Spell changes:[/h3]

• Earth block tier 2 now spawns 1 block at 30 hp, tier 3 spawns 2 earth blocks at 30 hp
  
• Protection now also grants spell damage reduction
  
• Rally now also grants spell damage reduction
  
• Psychic Spears damage changed to 15/25/35 and cost raised to 5 (was 10/20/30 and costing 4)
  
• Ice bolt t1 damage increased to 30 (was 25)
  
• Rupture damage increased to 50/100/150 and cost was reduced to 6+6 (was 40/80/120 costing 7+7)
  
• Breath of the Phoenix damage increased to 50/90/130 (was 40/70/100)
  
• Insect swarms damage lowered to 5/10/15 (was 6/12/18)
  
• Boiling blood’s damage changed to 10/15/20 (was 8/16/24)
  
• Arcane storm’s damage changed to 30/50/70 and cost to 16 (was 25/50/75)
  
• Invigorate’s cost changed to 4/4 (was 5/5)
  

[h3]Added trait “Magic Resistance”[/h3]

• Grants the troop 50% resistance to magic-based damage.
  
• Added to the following troops: Crawler, Adult Crawler, Brute, Scarred Brute, Scavenged Bones, Blessed Bones
  

[h2]Gameplay bug fixes[/h2]

• Fix bug where, after using the Barya Pipers’ song ability, the next active troop might not be the one with the highest initiative
  
• Fix Essence Burst skill giving the essence income one extra time at the start of the second battle round. It now applies only once, as intended
  
• Fix scenario where the enemy team would receive multiple “momentum” buffs when a troop with multiple damage dealing effects (for example Poison) on it died
  
• Fix not receiving troops when buying troops for town defense that have max stack size increased by research
  
• Fix artifacts becoming unequipped on wielders transferred between campaign levels
  
• Fix issue where you could press Q to pick up objects even if it was guarded by hostiles without fighting them
  
• Fixed issue where you could not cast spells sometimes
  
• Fix a problem where sometimes troops would get an extra essence from Occupy rewards instead of the Wielder
  

[h2]UI[/h2]

• Spellbook: Visual update to clarify spell tiers
  
• Spellbook: Only show spells that are available based on Wielder’s essence in Adventure mode. Tooltip now shows approximation of first battle round spell will be available to cast
  
• Don’t list starting troops for wielders that have died and can be revived
  
• Show the numbers involved when showing the “Offense versus Defense” damage multiplier in extend attack previews
  
• Stop towns from changing name when razed or converted
  
• Fix descriptions of the “Backstabber”, “Helpless”, “Persistent” and “Venomous” troop traits
  
• Add ping notification to minimap when hostile wielder enters visible area
  
• Select correct build site size when switching tabs in build menu
  
• Allow build menu on not your turn by pressing build hotkey (X if default settings)
  

[h2]AI[/h2]

• Fix bug where AI could get stuck in endless loop by claimable map entities being partially covered by enemies’ zone of control
  

[h2]Map Editor[/h2]

• Fix NullReferenceException when trying to load a map that was corrupt when entering the map editor.
  

[h2]Multiplayer[/h2]
[h3]Lobby/online games list improvements[/h3]

• Option to choose random faction for teams
  
• Continuously update list of online games in selected region (“Refresh” button is gone)
  
• Fix always showing zero as the number of connected players
  
• List games that are currently in progress
  
• Prevent players from joining online games when they are running different versions
  

[h2]Misc[/h2]

• Change default sorting in community maps section to “updated” instead of “popular”
  
• Change the order of the statistics graphs regarding resources to correspond with the adventure ui
  
• Update gets turn VFX
  

[h2]Known issues[/h2]

• If your internet connection is slow/choppy, you might experience disconnects (especially in sim-turns). We are working on solutions on how to fix this
  
• In rare cases, the game starts to leak memory until you restart the game. This is being investigated and will be solved in the future.