More objects (trees for example) are now replaced automatically when you put a building or a road on top of them. Scarecrows now automatically replace farm plots.
You can now adjust the amount of water on the map in the new game window.
You can set the maximum number of locations (graveyards, warlock towers, dragon's lairs) or turn them off in the new game window.
Killing Spree achievement now requires only 50 enemies to be killed in one year.
Amount of iron and coal on the tutorial map has been increased.
Chickens, birds and other animals are a bit quieter.
Most windows can now be closed with Enter key.
A new beautiful poster:
I've been thinking about making Hearthlands merchandise shop with posters like this one and other stuff. What do you think: good idea/bad idea? What's the best solution for an online shop? What would you like to see there?
Thank you for your support!
What's new in 1.1.1
As you may have noticed Hearthlands was released from EA a couple of days ago thus (now officially) bringing this 3 year journey to conclusion. This is how you make games god dammit, no Kickstarter, no nothing:) I don't recommend trying this at home.
As I've said before, this is not the end though:) Also, there's probably gonna be a long post soon-ish, once I finish writing it (need more time!).
This is a quick update focused on either preventing rare launch issues or telling you what's wrong and how to fix it.
Most problems so far have been related to outdated or wrong graphics card drivers.
If you're still having issues, please contact me at info@hearthlands.com. Make sure you include log.txt file from the game folder and your system specs.
The game now requires C++ Redistributable Package (on Windows), which should be installed automatically by Steam (99.9% of you already have it).
I also added 'Keep Playing' button in campaign missions. Thank you for the suggestion!
Hearthlands soundtrack is now available in higher quality on SoundCloud:
There are 12 missions, which help you understand more about how the game works. First few missions are quite easy, last few are rather challenging. First mission picks up (complexity wise) roughly were tutorial ended. As you go through missions, more buildings become available and the overall difficulty increases. Each mission has several steps you need to complete much like the tutorial, but it is not as limiting and they're more like guidelines.
Campaign is currently English-only. I'll make an update when translations become available.
Big change: grain, turnips, cotton and apples can now be planted (and therefore harvested) at any point regardless of the month. This means your growers don't have to wait before they can start planting crops. This is not very realistic, but makes the game much smoother. The numbers are still the same: each grower is able to efficiently plant and harvest 24 grain/turnip/cotton plots or apple trees per year.
The same goes for grapes and hops. As soon as you build grape plots, they start growing.
City reputation calculation has changed and recovers much faster now.
Migrants and merchants now have a high chance to evade monster attacks.
Only one squad at a time can throw a revolt.
Another big change: overall difficulty has been reworked. There are many small changes all over the place, but in general: very easy became much easier while very hard stayed almost as hard.
Forester's lodge no longer has to be adjacent to a road to function.
Blizzard spell used to be very OP. It now functions according to its description.
Watchmen became better against monsters, but cost coins to train. Two watch towers should be able to deal with one sewer entrance.
Rivals will no longer attack you if your army is away. Not very realistic, but it used to be annoying.
Ambient sounds now stop properly when you return to main menu.
A number of other changes, which I forgot to write down.
Savefiles from the previous version are compatible with 1.1.0.
Thank you for your support!
What's new in 1.0.0
No, this is not a typo. We're now in 1.0.0. Yay!
What does it mean?
The development process won't change. There are still some things to do (improvements, suggestions, heroes). It is mostly just a numbers change. We're also are going to start transitioning from Early Access to Released status on Steam.
Why now?
It was about the time. I've said before that the version numbers basically represent the percentage of completeness and now it is the time to call it 100. It doesn't mean we won't go above 100 percent. This is not a revolutionary, but an evolutionary update. As Sid Meier once said "A game is never completed, but sometimes you just have to release it". I may be imagining this quote, since I couldn't actually find it anywhere, so don't quote me on quoting him. Luckily, we now have the ability to continue completing the game even further, even after it's been completed.
Why not a year ago?
I've been postponing the official release, because I didn't (and I still don't) know how it is going to affect the perception of the game and sales. Hopefully, many people who don't buy Early Access games will now take a look at Hearthlands.
This is going to be a very scary time for me, since Hearthlands is the main source of my income and the biggest thing I've done so far. I really want it to do well. There were many ups and downs since the development started in May 2014 and I'd like to thank everybody who gave the game a chance, contributed to the project, provided their feedback, and/or helped to spread the word. You guys made this rollercoaster an enjoyable ride.
It will always be subjective, but I think the game has quite enough to offer. It is very easy to lose interest to a game when you know everything about it and spent countless hours playing, testing and developing it, but Hearthlands still manages to make me forget what time it is. In preparation to this update, I decided to build a 20K population city, which took three days staying up almost until morning. And I was playing with passive rivals and infinite money. There are things to improve (and I'll keep improving things), but I'm happy with the way the game turned out.
Also, we ended up doing more than was initially planned, which is good, because if I knew how much there was to do (and still is), it could have scared me away, and Hearthlands would have stayed as another idea I never went for.
Also
Hearthlands is now available on GOG!https://www.gog.com/game/hearthlands This is basically a dream come true for me, since the game I've always wanted to play/make is now available to everybody on Steam, Humble and GOG. GOG also requested that the game was officially released and I took this as a sign.
So, what's new?
- Trade is now automated by default. In order to start trading you need to build a marketplace and enable a trade route in the trade menu. Marketplaces will automatically accept items you want to sell and merchant will drop off items you want to buy in any of your marketplaces. To enable manual control you can click the marketplace and uncheck "Auto" checkbox.
- You can now specify trade limits in the trade menu. "Sell when over" setting means that you will only sell items when you have over the specified amount in stock. "Buy up to" means that you will only buy items until you have the specified amount in stock. Currently each trade route has a separate limit, which is something to improve later (?).
- Employment menu now shows the total number of buildings you have when you mouse over the industry.
- Picking colors for your shield is now easier.
- You can now restart the game from the game menu (works with games started in 1.0.0 and after).
- Fancy road under a roadblock is now rendered properly.
- Clerics have been nerfed a bit.
- War pig riders now have regeneration.
- Resource distribution algorithm has been improved once more.
- Stuttering issues introduced in the last update have been (hopefully) fixed. There are ideas have to improve things further in the next update.
- All trees (not just pines) now provide twice as many logs, so you only need half as many woodcutter's lodges. Wood consumption was indeed ridiculous; it is fixed now.
- A new song has been added! I would like to thank Seth Cruse for this beautiful contribution. It is almost as good as what we wrote (it is better). Also there could have been bugs in sound engine, which are now fixed.
- Savegames from earlier versions are compatible with 1.0.0.
If the game doesn't work
The game (regardless of version) may not work for you if you have an Nvidia GPU and use 378.49 driver. You can see your driver version if you go to Nvidia Control Panel > Help > System Info. Minecraft is also affected by this, which is probably why Nvidia did a good thing and released a hotfix. You can download the fix and learn more about the issue here:
To fix the stuttering issue I've decided to build a 20K population city, and it is monstrous. Here are some screenshots:
As you can see, there are several districts: pillow/clothes/eggs district, medicine district, two furniture districts, bread district, boots and wurst district, beer district and the main district. I decided to go with a district system to optimize the resource-flow.
The idea is: let's say you have furniture production district. It has woodcutter's lodges (half as many!), sawmills and carpenter's shops. It inputs nothing and outputs furniture. The district is connected to the main city only though a storage yard, that accepts only furniture. The storage yard is used as a gateway to prevent peddlers from going into the district to get some furniture.
Instead, there is a storage yard (several of them, just in case) in the middle of the city and it "gets" the furniture. There's almost always some furniture in there, so the peddlers don't have to travel too far to get some.
If peddler's tent had direct access to the carpenter's shops, it would send a guy every time a new load of furniture is produced, and the guy would have to travel all that distance to pick up just one load of furniture. Instead, peddlers go to a nearby storage yard, where they can pick up four loads at once.
This, I believe, is an efficient way to micromanage the resource flow in big cities.
TL;DR
1. This is an improvements update, it's not the last one, but it marks the end of the Early Access stage.
- Storage yard, marketplace, road, roadblock and stone tiles have been redrawn.
- You can now delete save files by selecting a saved game in the Load Game menu and pressing Delete.
- Your culture is now shown in the name of the save file (only works with games saved in 0.9.3).
- A few achievements have been fixed.
- A rare freeze in map generation has been fixed.
- Smite ability apparently didn't work at all, it's fixed now.
- Sea access option used to toggle between on and off on its own.
- Big change: resource distribution algorithm has been rewritten and now has built-in priorities. Fox example you will no longer wait for planks to get delivered to the fletcher's shop while they are being used up by carpenter's shops. Peddler's have higher priority than marketplaces and so on.
And for the Halloween:
- New title screen:
- Witches! Witch spawns if the witch hut is attacked and brings wolves and spiders with her. Also, she can heal her allies.
- Vampires! Vampire is one of the most powerful creatures in the game. It can teleport, restore its health when dealing damage and is resistant to both magical and physical weapons. Vampire commands an army of ghosts.
Thank you for your support and happy Halloween!
What's new in 0.9.2
- Lots of buildings redrawn!
Hunter's lodge, smokehouse, fishing quay, forester's lodge and woodcutter's lodge:
Masonry, coal digger's lodge, iron digger's lodge and gold digger's lodge:
Aviary, grower's lodge, mill, oast house, bakery and beer brewery:
Shepherd's lodge, beekeeper's lodge and mead brewery:
Pigstry and winery:
Dairy and cider brewery:
- Note that since smeltery, mint, pillow maker's shop, smokehouse, bakery, pigstry, beer brewery, cider brewery, mead brewery and winery changed their size they will disappear from the map when you load a game saved in a previous version. Savegames are otherwise compatible.
- Polish translation by Mateusz Ulma!
- French translation by Pierre Jerome Lubac (Akashar), Jac Damez (Grobiduch) and Mathieu Fayard (Bibouzh) (http://www.gameovert.net)!
- New monsters: wolves and spiders as well as their dwelling: wolf den and spider lair. Wolves are fast and attack in big groups while spiders are well protected.
- You can see building names by clicking 'Show building names' button in the right-bottom corner of the screen or pressing '5'.
- Fixed crash with Engineering tech.
- Fixed bug with unobtainable 'Death from Above' achievement.
- AI requests improved, so that rivals now ask more often for goods your city produces.
- Rivals will no longer counter-attack immediately after you attacked them.
- Monsters level now grows quicker over time.
- Shift-clicking on 'Shut down' button now properly shuts down/starts up all buildings of the same type.
- Fixed Mining tech tooltip.
- Fixed terrain around monster dwellings.
A couple of screenshots from Testville:
Thank you for your support!
What's new in 0.9.1
Just a quick little update:
- Horsemen barracks are no longer invisible.
- Spanish translation updated to the latest version (thanks, Joaquin!).
- Forgot to say in the previous update: since fletcher's workshop became 4x4
instead of 3x3 it disappears when you load a game from 0.8.7 or earlier. Make
sure to rebuild it.
- Saved games are compatible with previous versions.
Thank you for your support!
What's new in 0.9.0
A big, big change, which I've been waiting a long time for - we've got new music! The main theme was re-recorded and expanded and there are two more peaceful themes and two combat themes. One of the combat themes is only played when you fight undead and it is even a bit scary.
I managed to persuade a good friend of mine to spend lots of time with me digging up our old songs and coming up with new ones, rewriting and recording them properly. There are several more songs in the works, so I hope we'll be able to add more music to the game in the next updates.
Military buildings were redrawn and now look even better. Several new buildings were added. From left to right: barracks, berserker barracks, war pig rider barracks, cleric barracks, horsemen barracks, armorer's shop, fletcher's shop, weaponsmith's shop, stables and war pig ranch.
Every culture now has a special powerful unit! From right to left:
Southerners have horsemen, which are now unique to southerners but otherwise unchanged.
Northerners have berserkers, which lack any armor, but are fast, can throw axes and have a bonus against monsters. Berserker requires two axes and 4 loads of mead.
Westerners have clerics, which can heal friendly units, launch magic missiles with splash damage and do 50% more damage to undead. Cleric requires 2 loads of clothes and 2 loads of beer.
Easterners have war pig riders, which are well protected mounted archers. War pig rider requires a chainmail, a bow and a war pig (yep, that's a new resource).
New building: war pig ranch. Produces 4 war pigs a year and requires 6 loads of turnips per pig.
Other changes and improvements:
- Fixed possible crash when loading game saved in 0.8.6 or earlier.
- Fixed a number of typos.
- Healing spell now correctly uses percentages.
- Houses now have smaller stockpile which makes them react quicker to a change in resources availability.
- Destroying a dwelling will no longer make its inhabitants disappear.
- You can cast a second copy of a spell without clicking its button again.
- Added a popup window when mega construction finishes.
- Added credits window:
- Rewrote sounds/music engine, which became much more reasonable and also now uses compressed music. No more limit on the amount of sounds.
- Gardens have a proper appeal effect now.
- One load of logs is now required to build a stockade.
- Stone is now required for horsemen barracks and other special units.
- Fixed a bug with enemies getting stuck on a canal bridge.
- Some decorations became walkable, some gained HP value. No more defensive lines made of flowers (sorry, hippies).
Thank you for your support!
What's new in 0.8.7
Serveral buildings have been redrawn, including (mega constructions, stone walls, guard towers, watch towers, magic towers and gatehouses).
More variations for fancy trees and flower pots have been added.
A bug with stone tiles has been fixed. Stone tiles can now be demolished properly.
Peddler's tents now have proper size (3x3). Note that all your peddler's tents will disappear when you load a game created in 0.8.6 or earlier. Make sure to rebuild them.
Abandoned mines now have a proper appeal after they've been restored.
More balance changes concerning difficulty and power ratings of monsters and characters.
Stocks panel has been changed and shows two numbers (or one if they are equal). The first number is a total amount of a resource in the city (excluding stored in peddler's tents, houses and apothecaries) that can be used immediately (as a gift for example). The second number includes resources that are reserved by a hauler or are being moved around. Resources that were put in peddler's tents and apothecaries are now counted as spent.
Logic of peddler's tents has been changed. Peddlers now target houses that lack resources available in the tent, which allows several peddlers to work in the same hosing block without interfering with each other. This also makes peddlers work better overall.
Resource focus. You can now click a resource in the stocks panel to 'lock it'. Locked resources won't be spent or traded away allowing you to create a temporary stockpile (for example to fulfill an outstanding request). This does not affect resources already in houses, peddler's tents and apothecaries or resources on their way there. Locked resources are still being moved around and delivered to workshops, but not used.
Overall difficulty calculation on New Game screen has been changed. Also 'Default' button has been added which resets the settings to default values (and 100% difficulty).
Thank you for your support!
What's new in 0.8.6
In case you've missed it, here's a new trailer of the game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZRe8NZ2J8g
And here's what's new in the new update:
- Several building have been redrawn: tax office, peddler's tent, apothecary, constabulary, town hall, temple, minstrel's guild, library, manor and estate.
Since minstrel's guild now has a different size it disappears from the map when you load a game saved in 0.8.5 or older.
New vs old:
- Also high-appeal road now looks more fancy.
A number of decorative objects added (most of them increase appeal):
- Bench. The bench rotates automatically to face the road.
- Garden crate.
- Garden.
- Metal fence (works the same as wooden fence and let's monsters in as well).
- Stone tiles.
- Canals and canal bridges. Canals are 3x3 tiles and only connect to each other on a 3x3 tile grid. Canal bridge must be built between two canal pieces (press R to rotate it) and it counts as a road. Enemies can use canal bridges too.
- Fixed bug (hopefully) with enemies getting stuck under gatehouses.
- Character screen now shows damage value correctly according to character's level.
- Invaders now have greater range and are less likely to hang out on the edge of the map (which isn't necessarily good).
- A number of other fixes.
I'm also in the process of migrating to LWJGL 3, which will improve a few things, but there's a lot to rewrite so it'll have to wait until one of the next updates.
Savegames from 0.8.5 are compatible with 0.8.6 (don't forget to rebuild your minstrel's guilds though).
