I am very pleased to announce that Heroes & Villains, a DLC for Airships: Conquer the Skies, is now available! [previewyoutube=WNErufrgWsk;full][/previewyoutube] In Heroes & Villains, you can recruit commanders for your airships and governors for your cities, and use their special abilities to conquer the world.
Commanders can outflank enemy ships, supercharge their engines, or repurpose random objects as ammunition. And some commanders are sorcerers who can blind enemies, control the weather, or summon creatures to aid them.
Meanwhile, governors increase the productivity of cities, quiet unrest, and can pronounce edicts and events such as martial law, forced labour, or a fun masked ball. Based on your actions, these characters can gain experience, gain or lose their loyalty, or become more angry, stressed, insane, powerful, famous. Over time, some will change into different versions of themselves - experienced or embittered or empowered. Disloyal governors can be great liabilities, while some heroes can become famous or magically powerful enough to help you win the game.
Diplomatic incidents can now arise between empires, where you have to decide whether to trust or betray your neighbours. Risk war to burnish your own reputation? Encourage cultists? Fight pirates together? The right answer depends very much on where you are, what you need, and what you know about the other empire.
Ship crew now gain experience with each battle - assuming they survive it, that is. So here's an incentive to keep those little air sailors alive, maybe give them a sickbay, maybe some better armour. Or don't bother - there's always more where they came from. Also, here's a an extra surprise feature: You can design and award medals to ships based on their experience level. Each medal tier only has a small number of medals, and the medals are permanently lost along with their ships, so make sure you keep your medal-bearing ships alive.
Also note that if you join a multiplayer game, you can use the DLC during the game even if you haven't bought it. I wanted to avoid splitting the player base along DLC lines. And as always with any big release, there are probably bugs, so if you encounter any problems, please report them on the Steam forums or on Discord, and I'll get to fixing them right away. And now go enjoy the DLC! --- I am also happy to announce that Airships is part of Simfest, the Steam festival celebrating all things related to simulation games. From today through July 24, Airships is 50% off! Do check out Simfest to see a wide variety of the latest and greatest simulation titles, both newly released and coming soon.