Genre: Real Time Strategy (RTS), Simulator, Strategy, Indie
Against the Storm
Hotfix 0.56.5 (Farsight, Rebellious Spirit)
Greetings, Viceroys! We just released a hotfix that addresses the remaining issues from yesterday's Upgraded Living Update:
Fixed a bug with events taking a very long time to investigate if the Farsight Cornerstone was triggered multiple times.
Fixed an issue with Rebellious Spirit and Fiery Wrath not granting Resolve for Impatience.
Fixed a bug with the Secure Perimeter Cornerstone not working retroactively.
Fixed an issue with Blightrot Cysts being misplaced on some buildings.
Temporarily disabled the Gentle Dawn Forest Mystery and two Cornerstones: Thrill of Exploration and Exploration Expedition. Due to a bigger issue with effects granting timed Resolve bonuses, we need to redesign and rebalance them.
In yesterday's Hotfix 0.56.4, we also resolved the non-responsive Cornerstone panel issue.
We are grateful for all your help with resolving those issues and we once again apologize for all the inconveniences they caused.
Important: if you encountered issues with the Farsight Cornerstone (events taking a very long time to complete) in your current game, the hotfix won't fix them right away. In order for it to work, you will need to start a new settlement.
We are terribly sorry for the trouble. If this bug caused you to lose an important game, feel free to contact us via support@eremitegames.freshdesk.com with your save file (the zipped contents of this entire folder: %userprofile%\appdata\locallow\Eremite Games\Against the Storm), and we will manually win this game for you or reimburse you the lost citadel resources. The reply time may vary depending on the number of requests we receive. Thank you for your understanding.
We just released a hotfix that deals with one issue that occurred after today's Upgraded Living Update: Drawing one particular Cornerstone caused the Cornerstone panel to become non-responsive.
The issue will be resolved once you update the game to version 0.56.4.
Know issues We are aware that there are additional issues related to the cornerstones and we'll also fix those in another patch coming tomorrow:
We must admit, this is unusually many issues for an update and we're extremely sorry for it. We'll fix the issues and do our best to improve. Thank you for your understanding!
UPDATE (August 3): We just released a hotfix that deals with a Cornerstone panel issue and we're investigating other reports. We should be able to release another patch on August 4. https://steamcommunity.com/games/1336490/announcements/detail/3658663641149172398
Greetings, Viceroys!
Homeowners, rejoice! Old Farluf's Fixer Uppers are now open for business. In return for a little investment, you can improve your villagers' living standards and get useful effects that will improve their resourcefulness.
But that's not all! Here's what's new:
Species-specific House Upgrades
New Cornerstones
New Citadel Upgrades
Rebalanced World Events
House slot lock
UX features
Continue reading for the full changelog and our design notes. And don't miss the plush giveaway!
BEAVER PLUSH GIVEAWAY
Together with Makeship, we just launched a giveaway in which you can win 1 of 2 Beaver Villager plushies!
To participate, follow the instructions in the post: https://twitter.com/AtS_CityBuilder/status/1687077338058498048/
The giveaway ends on August 10 at 2:00 pm ET (6:00 pm UTC).
DEVELOPER NOTES
In today’s update, we bring you a lot of new content, balance changes, and UI improvements. We’re talking house upgrades, new Cornerstones, new Smoldering City upgrades, specialization icons, better overlays, and much, much more.
The biggest addition is the ability to upgrade species-specific housing. Very early on in the project, we played around with the idea of a fully-fledged upgrade system for most buildings in the game, but eventually decided against it. At the time, it didn’t make much sense and added some unnecessary complexity. We implemented upgrades only in a few select places in the game. But recently, motivated by some interesting suggestions from the community, we looked back at our early plans and decided to introduce an upgrade system to one more type of building - species-specific houses. Our main goal is to introduce more depth and interactivity to an aspect of the game that until now has felt pretty static.
So how does it work? Just like you would upgrade a Mine or the Archaeologist’s Office, you can invest extra resources into houses and unlock unique effects for your villagers (using a dedicated tab in the UI). There are two levels of upgrades for every species house, each with two possible improvements to choose from. While the first level has some common bonuses (like more room or increased movement speed), the second one contains one generic effect and one species-specific perk (depending on the type of house). Buying an upgrade will also slightly change the look of the building itself.
Four variants of the Harpy House
Human House Upgrades
Settlement with different House variants
But housing upgrades are not the only new piece of content coming in this update. We’re also introducing 7 new Cornerstones, most of which are focused on two very specific branches of the game - rainpunk and exploration. We tried to create new effects that would boost these playstyles and create some additional synergies. There are already numerous perks in the game supporting a whole array of different strategies (resolve, trade, farming), but not quite enough Cornerstones rewarding wider exploration or the extensive usage of rain engines.
Aside from all of this, there are also 5 new Smoldering City upgrades to unlock, giving you access to the new housing features and increasing the usual stats a little. This time we didn’t reshuffle the existing upgrades too much (just one of them had its rewards changed), and all the new ones are added on top of the tech tree in the Citadel.
In terms of UI and UX, we added quite a lot of exciting new quality-of-life features, as well as some much-needed improvements here and there. Most notably, we added the option to lock housing slots and introduced specialization icons to worker portraits. We changed how big nodes are displayed when using the resource overlay, and expanded the Hostility tooltip to include values broken down by their source. We also changed how clicking on a notification on the HUD works (it now opens the corresponding UI panel instead of just highlighting it), and we took the time to standardize some problematic tooltip descriptions (for world events, a few Deeds, and effects increasing double production chance).
Specialization icons
Resources Icons
Lastly, this update also brings numerous bug fixes, and some minor balance changes - mostly to do with the rewards and objectives in World Events, the reappearance of a Forest Mystery removed a long time ago (Vassal Tax), and a slightly increased spawn rate for Rainwater Geysers in the Cursed Royal Woodlands.
And now… let’s talk about the upcoming Sealed Forest Update! While we’re still not ready to fully release it, we want to give you an opportunity to get an early look at it and share your feedback with us. This means we will release an Experimental version of the new biome in the coming days! Stay tuned for more info!
As always - thank you all for providing feedback and suggestions for the new update. If you’d like to share your ideas for upcoming updates, here are some useful links:
P.S. One of the best things you can do to help indie games is to leave a Steam review. If you’ve had a chance to play Against the Storm, we’d love to hear any feedback, positive or negative. Thanks!
CHANGELOG
Number of changes: 68 Inspired by community: 88%
Changes marked with ⚡ were inspired by the community.
New content and features
⚡ Species-specific houses can now be upgraded.
There are two levels of upgrades for every species house, each with 2 possible improvements to choose from.
Players can choose one upgrade per level. Upgrades cost Packs of Building Materials and may also require a secondary resource.
The first row of upgrades contains general improvements (more room, movement speed). The second row has one general improvement (Resolve) and one unique effect (different for each species).
To upgrade a house, you have to select it and navigate to the upgrade tab in the building’s UI.
Once purchased, upgrades are not refunded when a building is destroyed.
Upgrading a house also slightly changes its look.
⚡ Added 5 new Citadel Upgrades.
Dim Square Level 10 - more caravan goods (moved from another upgrade) and trader arrival time reduction.
Brass Forge Level 11 - upgrades for Beaver Houses, global production speed increase.
Pioneers’ Gate Level 12 - upgrades for Fox Houses, villager speed increase.
Monastery of the Vigilant Flame Level 12 - upgrades for Lizard Houses, Hearth burning duration increase.
Vanguard Spire Level 11 - upgrades for Harpy Houses, additional node charges.
⚡ Added 7 new Cornerstones.
Secure Perimeter - Securing the deadliest corners of the forest will make it a lot less terrifying. Every discovered Forbidden Glade lowers the Hostility gained from Dangerous Glades by 2 and from small glades by 1. (the bonus is added retroactively) [scales with the difficulty]
Farsight - Scouting ahead makes it easier to prepare for the worst. Discovering a small glade increases the working speed of scouts investigating Dangerous or Forbidden Glade Events by 50% for 120 seconds.
Blight Filter - A crystalline filter designed to mitigate the negative environmental impact of infused rainwater. Blightrot Cysts appear 50% slower when using Rain Engines, but Reputation from Resolve is generated 90% slower for the next 2 Reputation Points.
Market Shift Plan - Big strategic changes always come with an adjustment period. Every neighboring town offers +2 more trade routes, but no trader will arrive in your settlement until you complete at least 8 trade routes.
Master Blueprint - A collection of architectural drafts from a very early period in the Citadel's history. Unlocks all camp blueprints and upgrades all small camps to their advanced version, but gathering speed is decreased by 50% until you deplete at least 10 resource nodes.
Obsidian Runestone - A complicated runic structure, designed to shield the hearth from corruption. The Ancient Hearth's resistance to corruption is increased by 500, but Blightrot Cysts will take 5 more seconds to burn until you destroy at least 12 of them.
The Sparkcaster - A more compact version of the famous Blight Fighter flamethrower. Blight Fighters move 30% quicker.
Balance
⚡ Rebalanced multiple World Events.
Cloaked Wanderer - choosing to assault the wanderer will now grant 10 Seal Fragments instead of 8. The Cloaked Wanderer's Vengeance effect will now kill 8 villagers instead of 10.
Forsaken Gods Followers - choosing to join the ritual will now require you to win a game before year 8 (instead of 7). Winning the challenge will give you Mushrooms and Reserve Embarkation Points instead of Sea Marrow.
Crashed Airship - choosing to provide fuel will now require you to win before year 8 (instead of 7). Winning the challenge will give you Pipes and Sea Marrow (instead of just Sea Marrow).
Gambler - lowered the Food Stockpile bet from 30 to 20.
Commenda Contract - lowered the required value of completed trade routes from 200 to 150 Amber.
Fire Moths - choosing to destroy the Hearth will now give you 3 Wildfire Essences instead of 2. The Desecrator penalty will now trigger every time you sacrifice for 90 seconds (instead of 50 seconds).
Mosquito Nest - choosing to hunt down the swarm mother will now reward Reserve Embarkation Points in addition to Insects.
Somber Procession - choosing to give provisions will now remove 3 Reserve Embarkation Points instead of 4.
Stormbird Egg - choosing to steal the egg will now apply the Stormbird's Anger debuff for the next 2 games instead of 3.
⚡ Lowered the requirements for all Rushed Delivery Deeds. They now require fewer completed timed orders.
⚡ Slightly increased the spawn rates of Rainwater Geysers in the Cursed Royal Woodlands.
Reshuffled a few upgrades in the Smoldering City.
First Dawn Headquarters Level 8 - removed additional caravan goods, added the Plantation Embark Bonus.
First Dawn Headquarters Level 9 - removed the Plantation Embark Bonus, added the Herb Garden Embark Bonus.
First Dawn Headquarters Level 10 - removed the Herb Garden Embark Bonus, added Human House upgrades.
Reintroduced a previously disabled Forest Mystery - the Vassal Tax. It requires players to pay Amber each year under penalty of gaining Impatience. We decided to reinstate this effect due to the recent introduction of the payment panel.
Rebalanced the Scientific Agreement perk. It now requires 12 dead villagers for a wildcard blueprint and has a lower drop rate from Mystery Boxes sold by Dullahan.
UX/UI improvements
⚡ Added an option to lock villager slots in houses. You can now click on a slot to prevent a villager from moving in. This change is meant as a way of helping players manage villager distribution across multiple hubs.
⚡ Added specialization icons to villager portraits when selecting workers in buildings.
⚡ Big resource nodes are now marked with star icons when using the resource overlay (B by default).
⚡ Clicking on notifications for things like newcomers or orders now opens the corresponding UI panel instead of just highlighting the button on the HUD (outside of the tutorial).
⚡ Ingredients can now be changed in disabled recipes in the Recipe Panel.
⚡ The Hostility tooltip now shows a breakdown of Hostility values per source. For example: Regular Glades (2 x 15).
⚡ Cost indicators for Embarkation Bonuses now change color to red when the player can’t afford them.
⚡ All descriptions for timed effects (like Resolve bonuses for discovering glades with the Exploration Expedition Cornerstone) have been rewritten. They now clearly state what they do and where they came from. They also have a neutral frame and new names, although the icon is still the same as their source effect.
⚡ Unified the wording for all effects increasing the chance of producing double yields and gathering additional secondary resources from nodes or trees. It should now be much easier to understand what these perks do.
⚡ Added information about cloned events to all perks scaling based on solved Dangerous Events. These perks will now clearly state that duplicated Fishmen Totems and Blood Flowers do not count.
⚡ Clarified the decision descriptions in the Somber Procession World Event. It now clearly states that Reserve Embarkation Points are taken away.
⚡ Unified the objective descriptions of all Deeds and World Event challenges based on winning a game in X years. It should now always say “win before year X”.
⚡ Changed the wording in the description for the Cheap Construction Cornerstone to make it clearer when node charges are being removed.
Added information about effects being retroactive to the reconstructed Sealed Scorpion and Sealed Spider skeletons in the Scarlet Orchard.
Bug fixes
⚡ Fixed a bug with the Blood Sorcery working effect (Fishman Soothsayer) not showing the number of villagers killed.
⚡ Fixed a bug that prevented players from settling on tiles between Forbidden Lands and Barren Lands modifiers.
⚡ Fixed a bug that caused the Twitch polls feature to break in non-latin versions of the game.
⚡ Fixed a bug with farm ruins occasionally spawning too few fertile soil patches.
⚡ Fixed a bug with the Wandering Eremite missing a decision description in its tooltip in the French version of the game.
⚡ Fixed a bug with the Force of Nature Cornerstone showing a duplicated sentence at the end of its description.
⚡ Fixed an issue with the extended view distance incorrectly carrying over from one cycle to the next one (causing the last ring of fields to be unclickable).
⚡ Fixed a missing parameter in the starvation warning notification.
⚡ Fixed a bug with wildcard perks not allowing players to pick just one blueprint if the maximum is 2 or higher.
⚡ Fixed a bug that caused the number of failed towns to be negative in the cycle summary after the tutorial.
⚡ Fixed an issue with the Flooded Mines modifier missing information about Hostility scaling.
⚡ Fixed a bug with the Forbidden Glade Event missing in the unique insect glade.
⚡ Fixed an issue with the Rebellious Spirit Cornerstone being available from Treasure Stags.
⚡ Fixed a bug with the Twitch overlay being displayed on top of the Order tracker on the HUD.
⚡ Fixed an issue with some UI panels not closing when clicking outside of their area.
⚡ Fixed a bug that caused the destruction popup to not appear when trying to destroy species houses.
⚡ Fixed an issue with some Forbidden Glades not being uncovered correctly.
⚡ Fixed an issue with the Economic Migration Cornerstone having an incorrect state preview in its footer.
⚡ Fixed a typo in the description of the Monolith glade event in Japanese.
⚡ Fixed a typo in the Simplified Chinese description of the challenge offered by the Somber Procession World Event.
Fixed a bug with the Royal Tax modifier missing resource names and amounts in its description.
Fixed a bug with the negative consequence of Cloudburst not being displayed on the HUD.
Fixed an issue with neighboring towns in the trading route panel having a click sound even though they are not clickable.
Other
Improved the overall performance of the game, especially when it comes to post processes and weather effects.
The not-so-subtle title already teases the main feature of the update: Upgrades to Species Houses. Nevertheless, we have a couple more things up our sleeves.
If you can’t watch live, the recording will be later uploaded to our YouTube channel, where we keep the Livestream Archive playlist with the recordings of all our streams.
We can’t wait to see you later today and kindly remind you that as usual, all the ongoing settlements will have to be force-finished (more information below).
We release new content Updates every two weeks on Thursdays around 1 pm – 3 pm UTC. As we make multiple changes to the game’s systems, balance, and content, the game needs to force-finish any settlements that are in progress when you download the update. This aims to prevent various game-breaking bugs that could occur otherwise.
IMPORTANT: If you have a settlement in progress, it will have to be force-finished when you download the Update. You will be reimbursed with Citadel Resources but you will have to start a new settlement. Your meta progress (that is: Experience, Level, completed Deeds, unlocked Upgrades, Citadel Resources, etc.) will remain intact.
In the main menu, under the “Play” button, there’s a countdown to upcoming Updates. Please finish your current settlement before the update day if you don’t want it to be completed automatically.
We just released a hotfix that addresses a very specific issue that occurred after today's 0.55.3 patch. Players who quit the game in the middle of the Sealed Forest settlement and returned to the game after the patch was downloaded, experienced an issue with the frozen game upon attempting to complete the Cycle.
If you were affected by this issue before we released this hotfix (0.55.5), and want us to manually modify your save file to compensate for the loss of the Seal, please message us at support@eremitegames.freshdesk.com and include the zipped contents of the entire game saves folder. It's located here: %userprofile%\appdata\locallow\Eremite Games
We deeply apologize for the inconvenience this caused and thank you immensely for your quick reports and help in resolving the issue.
May the storm be gentle on you, Eremite Game
Hotfix 0.55.3 (Trader Match, Dangerous Lands)
Greetings, Viceroys!
Thank you for the warm reception of the new update and for providing us with the feedback and reports. We just released a hotfix that deals with the issues you might have experienced.
Changelog
Fixed an issue with force-finished Seal games not giving back Seal Fragments. Unfortunately, this fix does not work retroactively, so if you experienced it, you will not get your fragments back, for which we are terribly sorry.
If you don't mind waiting for a little while, you can contact us directly on Discord or via email (support@eremitegames.freshdesk.com) and we can add them back manually. Please provide us with the entire zipped game save folder: %userprofile%\appdata\locallow\Eremite Games
Fixed an issue with workers sometimes getting stuck when fetching goods from storages.
Fixed a bug that caused some Forbidden and Dangerous glades to not uncover fully when opened.
Fix a bug with the Ruins Modifier spawning near the Forbidden Lands, Dangerous Lands, and Untamed Wilds modifiers on the World Map.
Fixed a bug with the effect descriptions for the last stages of the Snake and Spider Archaeological Discoveries being switched.
Removed the unnecessary "stop sacrifice" checkbox in the Small Hearth UI.
Fixed a rounding issue with some resources in the Trade Panel when using the auto-match feature.
Fixed an issue with the last difficulty ring on the World Map having the same minimum difficulty as the one before it.
Fixed a bug with the Followers of the Forsaken Gods World Event challenge being visible in the Deeds panel.
Fixed an issue with trade route notifications appearing twice.
Fixed an issue with the Soft Stems Forest Mystery being selectable in the Training Expedition UI.
Fixed a typo in the Embark button toolitp.
Fixed an issue with the Mole spawning in the Stormbird-themed unique glade.
Fixed an issue with some glades not uncovering correctly in games with the Untamed Lands modifier.
Removed the Baptism of Fire Cornerstone from the reward pool for catching a Treasure Stag.
We've got a little surprise for you! On August 12, we'll launch a crowdfunding campaign for a Beaver Villager plushie on Makeship.
We're extremely excited as this is the first-ever official Against the Storm merch and we can't wait to welcome our lovely lumberjacks into our homes.
You can learn more about the campaign here: https://www.makeship.com/products/beaver-villager-plush
We encourage you to subscribe on the page to receive updates about this campaign.
As with all other plushies on Makeship, the Beaver Villager will cost $29.99 plus shipping costs. A few days before the campaign launches, Makeship will also host a giveaway in which you'll be able to win the plushie.
Stay tuned for more news!
DEVELOPER NOTES
The main theme of today’s update is payments, because who doesn't love to think about taxes when they want to have a good time playing a video game? Fortunately, we’re not adding any new system that will require you to pay the Crown regular fees, we’re simply adding a tool that will help you manage payments triggered by already existing effects (such as Land Tax).
With this update, we also bring you numerous balance changes, new unique glade layouts, a lot of UI improvements, and of course bug fixes. So without further ado, let’s get into it.
First of all, let’s talk about payments. There are already some effects in the game (such as Land Tax, Vassal Tax, or Cloudburst) that require you to make more or less regular payments. And most of the time, missing a payment triggers a negative consequence (such as a villager dying). We’ve always felt that this mechanic was very promising, as it created a lot of unique interactions, but at the same time it was extremely frustrating - payments would appear seemingly out of nowhere, and players didn’t have a say in whether they wanted to pay a fee or intentionally miss it.
So because of this (and because we want to make room for some interesting effects and perks in the future), we decided to add a dedicated Payment Panel to the game. From now on, payments will no longer trigger instantly, and will instead appear in a new window (located in the top right corner of the HUD, same as all the other control panels). There, you will have the option to pay right away, wait, or simply ignore a fee. You will also have more time to collect the required resources, as most payments are due at the end of the next season.
Payment panel
This new panel offers a lot of information about your payments - what is their source, how many resources you need, how long do you have, and what the exact consequences are for not paying. You can also choose from two “auto payment” options in this panel - instant and last minute (you can also set a default auto payment value in the Options menu).
But enough about taxes, let’s instead talk a bit about exploration. This update brings 8 new unique layouts for small and forbidden glades. You might have already encountered something similar in the past, in the form of glades with a lot of ruins and stone roads, but this time we wanted to diversify the pool a bit. That’s why from now on, you might find a forbidden glade filled with egg deposits, with a giant Stormbird in the middle, or an abandoned mining town filled with ore and drilling equipment. Our overarching goal here is the same as with a lot of previous changes to glades - to make small glades more viable and to make forbidden glades more interesting and rewarding.
In this update, we also bring you some minor balance changes. Most notably, we rebalanced a few over and underperforming Cornerstones, like for example Hidden from the Queen, which was given a unique drawback to change the way it influences the run. Similarly, some underpowered perks (like Economic Migration) were slightly buffed. Our goal was as always to expand the pool of viable choices and bring some less frequently used Cornerstones to the forefront.
We also added a new Forest Mystery, changed the reward for the Crashed Airship World Event, moved the Loremaster World Event closer to the Citadel, and slightly tweaked map generation during a run. Additionally, we had to revamp the Fishman Soothsayer’s working effects to accommodate the new payment panel (the old effects wouldn’t work too well with the option to delay payments).
As with every update, we again took some time to improve the UI in various places. Most notably, we added difficulty rings to the World Map (narrow dark lines that show where a difficulty level ends), introduced a “minimum difficulty” section to map field tooltips, implemented an “auto-match” button to the trading screen, and changed a lot of descriptions and names to make some aspects of the game less confusing.
Lastly, there are of course a lot of bug fixes, corrected typos, improved translations, and minor adjustments in this update, as well as a new Ghost Chest mesh, and a graphically refreshed Brickyard.
Difficulty rings
Auto match the offer
Updated Ghost Chest and Brickyard
As always - thank you all for providing feedback and suggestions for the new update. If you’d like to share your ideas for upcoming updates, here are some useful links:
P.S. One of the best things you can do to help indie games is to leave a Steam review. If you’ve had a chance to play Against the Storm, we’d love to hear any feedback, positive or negative. Thanks!
CHANGELOG
Number of changes: 66 Inspired by community: 78%
Changes marked with ⚡ were inspired by the community.
New content and features
⚡ Added 6 new unique Forbidden Glade layouts.
These glades are thematically different from the usual Forbidden Glades and contain a bit more resources or treasure than usual. They are also very rare.
We won’t spoil all of them here, but here are two examples: a glade filled with big and small egg deposits, and a giant Stormbird in the middle, or a destroyed mining town with a lot of ore, drills, and a Rainpunk Foundry.
Our goal was to add more variety to exploration and to make Forbidden Glades more interesting and rewarding in general.
⚡ Added 2 new unique small glade layouts.
The new unique small glades are similar to already existing unique Dangerous and Forbidden Glades, as they contain a themed layout of ruins and/or resources (the only difference being that they are of course smaller and less rewarding than their bigger counterparts).
With this addition, we wanted to take yet another step in a series of many recent changes to the content of small glades. Our goal is still the same - to make small glades more interesting and less punishing to interact with.
Added a new Forest Mystery.
Rotten Vapors - Machinery has to be cleaned with specially prepared Drizzle Water. Otherwise, Blightrot will spread. Once this effect activates, you have to pay 5 Drizzle Water (multiplied by the number of years). If you don't, 3 Blightrot Cysts will spawn in your settlement.
Balance
⚡ Rebalanced multiple Cornerstones.
Rebellious Spirit - added a drawback. Now every time a villager dies, Impatience is increased by an additional 0.2 points.
Protected Trade - increased the amount of Amber required to trigger the Hostility reduction from 25 to 30.
Hidden from the Queen - added a drawback. Now Impatience will grow 600% faster after year 8.
Burnt to a Crisp - this perk was promoted from Epic to Legendary quality (without any numerical changes).
Economic Migration - introduced an additional positive effect. Now every level of standing also increases the amount of resources brought by newcomers by 10%.
Force of Nature - buffed the numbers and introduced an additional positive effect. Now this Cornerstone increases Storm Water production by +3 instead of +2, and increases tank capacity by 50 (the Stormforged version was also buffed accordingly).
⚡ Changed the reward given for solving the Crashed Airship World Event. It no longer gives the Guild Logbook blessing. Instead, the player gets the Guild’s Sigil effect.
Guild’s Sigil - A ring given only to the closest friends of the Merchant Guild. Traders will arrive 25% faster, and perks and blueprints will cost 25% less Amber.
Changed the consequence for missing a payment with the Vassal Tax Forest Mystery.
Vassal Tax - adds an Impatience point as a consequence of a failed payment instead of making Impatience growth faster by 33%.
Changed the working effects of the Fishman Soothsayer glade event.
Rain Sorcery - A powerful spell that feeds on the insatiable anger of the forest. Hostility is increased by 50 for every scout in your settlement. This includes idle scouts and workers assigned to this event.
Blood Sorcery - The comforts of the civilized world are disgustingly unnatural to the Fishmen. Every time 10 Complex Food, Clothing, or Service needs are fulfilled, 2 random villagers are killed.
Changed the map generation for Settler difficulty. Previously, there was a chance of no Forbidden Glades spawning (and Dangerous ones taking their place instead). Now, a few Forbidden glades are guaranteed to spawn in every game (just like it is for higher-difficulty games).
The Obsidian Loremaster World Event can now spawn closer to the Citadel.
UX/UI improvements
⚡ Added a dedicated payment panel to make tax/maintenance effects easier to keep track of.
The payment panel is located on the top right of the HUD. It’s represented by a round icon, like all the other control panels. It will only appear once payment is triggered.
You can navigate to the payment window from any other panel (like Consumption Control or Orders) using the tabs on top of the window.
All so-called “payment effects” (Vassal Tax, Land Tax, Cloudburst, Sacred Flame Rituals, etc.) will appear in the payment window once they are triggered.
Once you trigger a payment (for example by discovering a glade on Prestige 19), you will be required to pay it before the next season ends. So if a payment request started in Drizzle, you have time until the end of the Clearance to pay it.
The payment window contains a lot of useful information - the required resource amount, the source of the payment, when it’s due, and what the consequences are for not paying it.
There is also an “auto payment” option in the payment window. Using it, you can set a payment to “instant” (paid the very moment it’s triggered), or “last minute” (paid just before the deadline).
You can set a default “auto payment” value in the Options menu, under the Gameplay tab.
There is a reminder notification that appears when a payment is due at the end of the current season. It can be turned on or off in the Options menu, under the Alerts tab.
Due to this change, we had to adjust a few payment effects in the game. You might notice that some descriptions were rewritten, some penalties were changed, and the Fishman Soothsayer (the only glade event based on a payment effect) was given new working effects.
We added this panel to make it easier to manage payments, and to avoid surprising players with a sudden negative consequence that triggered in the background. Additionally, this should allow us to create some new and interesting payment perks in the future (without worrying about readability issues).
⚡ Added visible difficulty rings to the World Map. From now on, a faint black line will show you where exactly a difficulty level range ends and starts.
⚡ Added information about the minimum difficulty to the tooltip displayed when hovering over a World Map field.
⚡ Added retroactive effect previews to perks displayed in the Forsaken Altar panel.
⚡ Added a button to match a trader’s offer in the Trading Post. If there is something selected on one side of the barter UI, you can simply select a resource on the opposite side and press the “auto” button to automatically add enough goods to balance out the deal.
You can also use the Middle Mouse Button. Simply press MMB over a resource and it will be added to the offer in an amount that is enough for the deal to become acceptable.
⚡ Added a checkbox to the Hearth UI to automatically stop sacrificing resources after the Storm. There is also a way to set a default value for this checkbox in the options menu.
⚡ Added the Game History button to the lower panel in the Smoldering City.
⚡ Added town names to the Game History panel.
⚡ Added a checkbox for auto-pause on newcomer arrival in the Options menu (under the Gameplay tab).
⚡ Changed the Seal entry in the in-game Encyclopedia to be more accurate and in line with the most recent changes to the system (added information about attempting a Seal run early, and when years are added to the Cycle).
⚡ Changed the description of the Ghost Chest to be clearer and more understandable.
⚡ Changed the wording of the Deserted Caravans Cornerstone description to be more accurate.
⚡ Changed the names of the Harpy Resolve, Lizard Resolve, and Fox Resolve Orders to avoid confusion (as the objectives have nothing to do with Resolve).
⚡ Changed the name of the Seal Fragment Cornerstone to Forbidden Seal Shard to avoid confusion.
⚡ Added a tooltip to the Amber icon on the “decline” button in the Cornerstone Choice Popup.
⚡ Changed the wording in all Orders and Deeds tied to Abandoned Caches found in the forest. It should now be clear that both opening and sending caches counts.
⚡ Changed the description of the converted Stonetooth Termite Burrow decoration to describe its effect more clearly.
Changed the descriptions of the reconstructed skeletons in the Scarlet Orchard to unify them with other converted decoration descriptions (with the decoration tag, a clear indication of the positive effect, and the decoration score).
Changed the wording on tooltips for Embark Resources taken away by World Events. From now on there will be a full sentence saying a good has been taken away (instead of a simple “- 20 Eggs”, etc.).
Removed the names of unlocks in the level-up popup. This information was moved to the tooltip.
Changed the name of the Stormbird Nest resource nodes found in glades to avoid confusion with dangerous events and effects tied to Giant Stormbirds.
When first coming up with Stormbirds, we had two subspecies in mind - the regular one, and the giant variant.
To avoid confusion, we renamed the harmless Stormbird variant to Drizzlewing. So from now on you will collect eggs from Drizzlewing Nests instead of Stormbird Nests.
Bug fixes
⚡ Fixed a bug with the trees in the Sealed Forest not giving Leather as a byproduct.
⚡ Fixed a bug with the Wandering Eremite World Event subtracting 5 years from the Cycle instead of adding them.
⚡ Fixed a bug with resource nodes in glades not being generated correctly (they were spread too evenly).
⚡ Fixed a bug with the “sell goods” objective description for the Ancient Tablet showing an empty “obtained by” section.
⚡ Fixed an issue with the Stormforged version of the Lost in the Wilds Cornerstone showing incorrect Hostility values.
⚡ Fixed a bug with Seals being generated right next to each other on the World Map.
⚡ Fixed an issue with the Stormwalker Tax Cornerstone being offered for releasing a Treasure Stag.
⚡ Fixed a bug with the Haunted Forest modifier spawning next to the Cursed Royal Woodlands.
⚡ Fixed a bug with missing names for neighboring towns in Training Expeditions.
⚡ Fixed an issue with the Blight Incantation working effect (Altar of Decay) not having a state preview in its tooltip.
⚡ Fixed a bug with the Followers of the Forsaken Gods World Event objective being listed in the Deeds panel.
⚡ Fixed an issue with old icons still being visible in upgrade effects in the Archaeologist’s Office.
⚡ Fixed an issue with the “Fuel Burning Rate” stat in the Citadel being incorrectly labeled.
⚡ Fixed a bug with the old Weather Anomaly modifier still being generated on the World map.
⚡ Fixed a discrepancy between the objective description of the Somber Procession World Event and the goal displayed once the settlement was started.
⚡ Fixed a bug with some farms spawning additional fertile soil when destroyed by lightning.
⚡ Fixed an issue with the trader notification staying on the screen after the Trading Post was deleted.
⚡ Fixed an issue with the Russian translation of the “No Strangers” bonus in the scoreboard at the end of the game.
⚡ Fixed a typo in the description of the Barren Lands modifier in Italian.
Improved numerous Deed descriptions in French.
Fixed a bug with Ruined Small Farms and Ruined Herb Gardens having a lower-than-expected spawn rate on certain glades.
Other
Changed the mesh of the Ghost Chest. It no longer looks like a normal Abandoned Cache.
Slightly refreshed the Brickyard’s visual representation (both the building and its ruined version).
The current game version is 0.55.1.
COMMUNITY CORNER
Click to unfold: [expand type="showmore"] Check out some of the best community artwork and screenshots from the recent days:
We invite you to join us later today, at 3:00 pm UTC, for a livestream during which we’ll present the upcoming features and changes of tomorrow’s Payment Planner Update.
During the stream, we’ll present the new Payments window (that helps to keep track of and manage the recurring payments), describe the balance changes made to cornerstones, and host a short Q&A session.
If you can’t join us live, the recording will be later uploaded to our YouTube channel, where we keep the Livestream Archive playlist with the recordings of all our streams.
We can’t wait to see you later today and kindly remind you that as usual, all the ongoing settlements will have to be force-finished (more information below).
May the storm be gentle on you, Eremite Games
How to prepare
We release new content Updates every two weeks on Thursdays around 1 pm – 3 pm UTC. As we make multiple changes to the game’s systems, balance, and content, the game needs to force-finish any settlements that are in progress when you download the update. This aims to prevent various game-breaking bugs that could occur otherwise.
IMPORTANT: If you have a settlement in progress, it will have to be force-finished when you download the Update. You will be reimbursed with Citadel Resources but you will have to start a new settlement. Your meta progress (that is: Experience, Level, completed Deeds, unlocked Upgrades, Citadel Resources, etc.) will remain intact.
In the main menu, under the “Play” button, there’s a countdown to upcoming Updates. Please finish your current settlement before the update day if you don’t want it to be completed automatically.
Four variants of the Harpy House
Human House Upgrades
Settlement with different House variants
Specialization icons
Resources Icons
