New update 2.60.2 is now available for download. It includes a new tutorial mode, leaderboards and lots of needed gameplay fixes.
Update notes 2.60.2:
New:
- The tutorial campaign in 6 chapters has been added to the game. It can be started with "Tutorial" button in main menu.
- Added help mode to the game, activated with F1. It features tips of the day, context-sensitive hotkey list and strategic and tactical advices from the tutorial.
- Added "Inactive" AI difficulty. An inactive enemy does not expand or develop, allowing players to explore the map at their leisure.
- Changed balance of AI difficulty. The "Beginner" AI does not place guards, and the "Overlord" AI no longer has to spend resources on troop upkeep.
- Steam Leaderboards support has been added to the game. The Leaderboards can be accessed from the "Extras" section of main menu and the "Achievements" button in Escape-menu.
- We rearranged the main menu structure. Only the most important selections are now available on top layer, everything else was moved to "Extras" submenu.
Fixed:
- Skeletons generated by temple of Morgaine in the garrisons now gain the "Gift of Morgaine" ability, which makes them upkeep-free.
- Fixed an error with AI sometimes not selecting 2nd class for its heroes when they reach level 10.
- Changed sorting order for list of saved games.
- Fixed incorrect working of province-capturing divine rituals when there is an enemy hero in the targeted province.
- Fixed wrong text message shown to player after capturing a province with divine rituals such as "Revolt of Nature" and "Invasion of the Colossi".
- Fixed FPS lag while targeting the "Dark Road" divine ritual.
- Fixed an error when the player was prompted with levelup window for enemy soldiers upon being attacked by enemy hero.
- The battlefield-wide "Armageddon" spell no longer asks to choose a target.
- Fixed an error when a unit could get stuck in movement animation.
- Fixed tip of the day rotation.
- The "Next hero" button on strategic map is blocked when you only have one hero.
- Clarified the format of earned gold, gems and divine favor displayed on victory screen.
Sandbox
Hi everyone,
Today we'd like to tell you a bit more about the Sandbox mode, which is coming soon for Imperium.
Firstly, this mode will let you create and customize your own campaign, just without any story. You can choose the number of maps in your campaign and their size — whether they will increase or decrease in size is up to you. Define how tough the enemies will be as well — strong, weak or just turned off completely.
Turned off AI is a special new option. Although you never asked for this, it's something we gathered from the forums: many players intentionally lock the enemy in the castle with powerful guards, so that later they could relax and calmly explore the map however they want. Now this can be achieved with one simple setting.
You will also be able to transfer your heroes, armies and income from one mission to another. This will help making early game more interesting, starting from scratch is, at times, too boring.
Another new addition (currently in testing) is a system of leaderboards. In a sense, the polar opposite of the relaxed sandbox, but we thought that the most experiences and skillful players could use more incentive to show how it's done in Eador. Perhaps, with enough interest from community, we could even try arranging some competitions in the future.
Update 2.60.1 (Preview access)
Hi everyone,
Update 2.60.1 is now up in the closed branch of Imperium on Steam.
To access the branch, select Eador. Imperium in you Steam library, right click, choose 'Properties' and head over to the 'Betas' tab. Enter this access code: Y4T2pM245ndC. After that, you'll be able to choose 'Public preview' branch 'from the drop-down list.
We'd like to gather as much feedback as possible, so if you have some time, please let us know what problems you find (be it the newly added tutorial or the base game).
You can do that here in the comments, in this thread or, most preferably, by writing us to support@snowbirdgames.com with attached savegames.
Just in case — this update doesn't include the Sandbox mode we announced earlier, it will be released a bit later and separately.
Thanks a lot!
Upcoming plans
Hi everyone,
Let's talk about our upcoming plans for Eador.
Starting with the "elephant in the room" — tutorial in Imperium. Lack of any guidance for new players on Imperium's release was one of the more obvious shortcomings overlooked by the previous team. Because the game came out as a stand-alone expansion, we can't just let it stay that way.
So we've created a completely reworked tutorial (in comparison to MotBW), to make the game more accessible and clear for everyone — even those who never played Eador before. We've closely looked at how streamers approached Imperium for the first time, and in some cases they had to spend about 5 minutes to find how to end their turn. We hope such problems will no longer arise.
Along with the tutorial we'll try to include fixes the most annoying gameplay errors in the next patch — coming next week.
We also noticed that many players (even from Genesis times) enjoy creating their own "sandbox" out of the game: lock AI in its own capital, so that it wouldn't bother them, and just explore the map however they like. This led us to creating a new separate mode, that we called the same way — Sandbox.
This mode allows you to create your own little campaign with a set of parameters. AI's behavior can be tweaked to your liking, so it would be possible to play on a gigantic map while only exploring provinces, fighting guards and collecting rare sets. We'll talk more about this mode next week.
The Sandbox Update is planned for release before the end of May. We also have more news and announcements for Eador on they way — stay tuned!
Studio status update
This is an update from the new Snowbird Games administration.
This week, main investor of Snowbird Games studio took decision to dismiss the development team. Reasons for this being the unsatisfactory results of Eador. Imperium, as well as the slow development rates of Blood & Gold: Caribbean! — two primary projects of the studio. Right at the start of 2017 the investor did an independent code examination and had a talk with developers. As a result, it was decided to let go of the people behind both of these projects and invite new specialists.
New administration is not yet ready to announce its immediate plans on further development. It is also unclear whether the Snowbird Games brand itself will be preserved. At the moment people from the renewed team are preparing their own feedback on Eador and Blood & Gold. After agreeing on what's the next step should be with administration, new plans will be posted in this blog, as well as in Steam community hubs of both projects. This blog will be kept as means of communication with the audience for the time being. New information should be provided during the next week.
http://snowbirdgames.com/blog/?p=2660
Farewell from Snowbird Games
Hi everyone,
Today we’ve got probably not the most exciting announcement for you, but nevertheless — a very important one.
It doesn’t take much to see that with Eador. Imperium, our latest project, we faced an unusual amount of negative feedback. Much of that is justified — the troubled development of Imperium for the past year took far more time than needed, and the end result, understandably, didn’t really meet expectations of our players. Even taking technical difficulties of the engine behind Eador into account, it’s pretty clear — we could’ve done much better, something’s just not working out.
As it is, tough times call for tough decisions: the investor group which took part in forming Snowbird Games has decided to let most of the team go.
So for us it's the last chance to properly say goodbye. On the behalf of the people leaving Snowbird Games — thank you, everybody!
However you decide to look at it, it’s been a real journey for us. We love Eador and love Blood & Gold. All the work that went into both of these projects by our tiny team was 100% sincere and passionate. You can be absolutely sure of that.
But, when it’s clear it’s time to move on, it’s best not to hesitate. Best of luck to the renewed team. And see you around!
- For users' convenience, we added a "Continue" button to Campaign, Scenario and Map selection menus. In Campaign menu, the button loads the most recent campaign save, and in Scenario and Map menu, the latest random or custom save.
- Added "Tip of the day" functionality. Tips are displayed upon loading a saved game. We should note that detailed tutorial campaign is in the works and will be available soon.
- Scenarios which were available during Early Access were merged into a campaign called "The Beginnings..."
Fixed:
- Fixed a targeting error with spells having area of effect.
- Fixed an error which allowed AI units with "Swiftness" ability to attack in melee many times per turn.
- Fixed an error preventing start of the combat in specific site encounters when they are just discovered during exploration.
Update Notes (February 13)
Hi everyone,
Following our last Friday's update, this new one may be small but should be helpful.
- Added Compatibility mode to video settings. Enabling it should eliminate most crashes caused by Access violation error.
- Provinces highlighted as quest targets in scenarios are now highlighted on minimap as well.
Fixed:
- Fixed slowdowns in combat mode caused by cursor movements.
- Fixed the exploit allowing to fight as both parties while attacking one's own non-dismissable guards.
- Some scripting changes in final mission of the "Imperium" campaign.
Update Notes (February 10)
Hi everyone,
As the weekend approaches, we released another update for Imperium.
Make sure to follow us on Twitch, as we're planning to do a stream next week — make sure to tune in!
- Fixed an error causing many access violation crashes during turn resolution.
- Sentinel and lich are now counted as a warrior and a wizard respectively for the purpose of calculating the price to hire another warrior or wizard hero.
- Popup tooltips for spell and ranged attack targeting now display distance to the target.
- Tips explaining why specific outer buildings are unavailable are now clearer.
- The attack cursor now refreshes properly when the unit has moved first.
- Opposing scout heroes now correctly employ sabotage on the arena.
- Sites that provide the winter units for hire can now randomly generate on the map.
- Added "Thus, I give up the spear!" achievement to Steam.
Fixed:
- Fixed an error causing crashes in the second mission of "The Divine Will" campaign.
- Fixed double damage dealt by "Attack all enemies" ability of the Hydra.
- When using the "Lunge" ability against a Slug, units are no longer subject to Slug's "Poison Flesh" effect.
- Fixed errors with highlighting available targets in tactical battle.
- The Den of Thieves building is restored as a prerequisite for the Thieves Guild building.
- Fixed an error with wrong calculation of spell costs in the hero window while under influence of "Change spell costs" ability.
- Fixed inaccuracy in item description tooltip for items granting the "Change spell costs" ability.
- Heroes besieging enemy capital no longer receive a mobility bonus from enemy castle buildings.
