Warfare

• Armies can now have a Scout Captain to improve the scouting/reconnaissance ability of the army.
• Basic scouting mechanics have been implemented.
• Resource sites (farms, mines, etc.) can now be pillaged and razed. The mechanics modifying the loot and damage are shown in the event dialog to help make the results more understandable.
• Armies from non-civilized/settled factions will carry the loot from any pillaging, and it can be recovered/gained by defeating those armies.
• Major faction units can only replenish losses if adjacent to an owned or allied city, fortress or wizard tower.
• Units now replenish losses at half rate if they have moved.

UI

• Army window now starts in overview mode.

AI

• Marauder AI is now capable of razing and pillaging resource sites.
• Wizard AI and Warlord AI now declare war on most aggressive actions taken against them, and will declare war themselves more often.

Misc

• The remnant armies of a defeated rival will no longer auto-disband. Instead each unit is either disbanded, becomes a marauder or joins the mercenary pool. The chance of each depends on the unit type. Only marauders stay on the map as army.
• Terrain type now affects food production of farms.
• All food values (production, costs, etc.) have been increased by a factor 20 to allow greater granularity of values.
• Independent settlements can now construct resource sites.
• In non quick-start games, the player can now force a certain race/culture to be generated in proximity to the player' starting location. The player will also tend to start with units of this kind.

Audio

• Several additional music tracks added.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed "Worker Make Demands" event text to show the correct gold value (it was off by a factor 100). Made the demands a bit more reasonable at the same time.
• Fixed a bug where terrain changes due to the machinations of an Ancient Evil were only partially propagated to the game state, causing instability and inconsistencies in the UI and map.
• Fimbul Winters can now end (much to the relief of the poor inhabitants of affected provinces).
• The auto-buy toggle on the construction window now works as intended.
• Fixed issue with button text in Army window not being refreshed when it was reopened.
• Fixed a bug causing units to have increased upkeep costs if they have suffered casualties or have been split into smaller detachments.
• Fixed a bug causing requirements for conditional unit unlocks to not be listed. E.g. Minor Water Magic unlocks Nymphs for Faerie Wizards only. The UI made it look like the unlock was for all wizards. (non-Faerie Wizards need Advanced Water Magic).
• Most special factions (Ancient Evils, Dungeons, Organization, Nomads, Marauders, etc.) no longer pay unit upkeep, as they don't have income and resources in the same way as Wizards and Warlords.
• Fixed a bug where new sites were not always discoverable by the player as expected.
• Fixed a bug where saving with an in-progress construction project in a City could break the game when loaded.
• Fixed a bug where units would not have their numerical strength capped properly, resulting in rather large numbers of monsters roaming the world.
• Fixed a bug where disbanded armies would end up in a bugged and non-interactive state, empty but still present in the world.
• Fixed units replenishing losses at a fixed rate instead of a portion of their max size, which led to small units instantly replenishing.

General Notes This update focuses on warfare. Two features in particular warrant a more detailed mention: Pillage allows armies to plunder and/or raze resource sites (farms, mines, vineyards, etc.) This will result in loot and damage to the site - or complete destruction in the case of razing the site. Damage reduces production output (and plunder) and is repaired over time, with any dedicated worker units improving the rate of repair. Plunder is handled differently depending on what type of faction the army belongs to: the player (and rivals) will get the plunder as additional resources; nomads and marauders will have the loot assigned to the army. If another faction defeats this army, the plunder can be reacquired or looted (if was from a third faction originally). This will need to be tweaked, as it is somewhat odd that rampaging manticores will grab and carry around slabs of granite from a quarry after they're done destroying and chasing off any workers. When the choice is given between plunder and raze - the mechanics behind the calculation of the effects are more explicitly stated than usual. This is part of the effort to make the game mechanics less opaque and make it easier to find bugs and imbalances. Scouting is still in an early stage. Each army has a scouting value and a visibility value generated, based on the army composition and command. (These are not displayed in the UI yet). In this build you only get information on armies where you have an adjacent observer. The amount of information depends the stats mentioned above and can range from no info, to numerical estimates, to a full unit listing including size, etc. The scouting mechanics will be expanded in future updates. The information is shown in tool tips and the context panel.

[ 2017-03-27 20:00:50 CET ] [ Original post ]