It`s time for a second major update this week, and once again it`s a good - greatly changing the way battles play out. Get ready for a number of new features - from units routing to all new formations, as well as brand new unit combat pathfinding. We also reworked a lot of things under the hood - from adding V-sync, to reworking a lot of our world map gameplay code. And of-course - the bug list is getting shorter by the day, with a few dozen issues resolved.
Please keep in mind that with update of this magnitude, there might be some follow up work needed, but we are here this weekend and will take care of any issues that might arise.
Also now that MKW is really starting taking shape ahead of next month`s release, we want to start increasing the player population. To this end we`ll be inviting all of our players back into the game next week. We also hope to see some new faces during the upcoming winter sale.
As always - we really appreciate your feedback, and forever grateful for your support!
And so presenting Update 68:
BIG CHANGES
Added combat unit routing gameplay mechanic
Routed units flee to the Manor building, and try to regroup there
Completely redesigned Formation system
Unique startup formation for each unit type
Four unique formations for each unit class
Added VSync option to fix screen tearing to the options menu
Fixed resolution menu showing wrong resolution for players on laptops and some desktop systems
Potential fix for a rare crash when returning to world map after battle
AI on the world map redesigned to attack a lot less, but stronger
Unit location during town defense battle is now saved, if these units are on walls
Armies on the world map properly interact with towns or armies - resolves all problems with healing, adding units e.t.c
Redesigned inviting armies to battle - now works properly, extending range, and always finding your army to invite
Improved terrain graphics on most large towns during winter
Corrected various localization errors, or empty text after the last update
PATHFINDING CHANGES
Completely reworked combat pathfinding
Fixed pathfinding problems when tasking archers on units, and they walked to their location instead
Fixed pathfinding problems when taking melee unit on units, and units were not obeying orders
Entire ranged battalion now properly lines up to fire at the enemy from safe distance
Melee battalions now hold formation when advancing and attacking enemy units
Major improvements to unit behavior on walls
Units on wall will no longer try to climb into the towers
KNOWN ISSUE: Melee sometimes refuses to attack buildings, to be fixed in 48 hours
FIXES AND ADDITIONS
Fixed major issue with 2nd AI army taking no damage after being defeated by the player in town defense battle
Fixed issue with Oil Pot often not auto triggering
Added various gameplay messages and voice dialogues for routing
Various improvements and fixes to siege weapons on towers
Paris level fixed some building locations where town houses were too close to buildings
Towns front gate now always properly close
Fixed issue with players gates constantly closing when enemies are nearby
Fixed various issue with World Map GUI remaining on screen when returning to the main menu
Fixed various issues with world map GUI, or adviser windows being on screen when getting attacked by enemy army
Fixed major issue with world map GUI sometimes appearing during a battle
No longer have to reselect an army for option to Heal units to show up near a town
Increased the delay before showing Back to the World Map button on victory, fixes various issues
Fixed common issue with world map remaining paused after auto-resolving a battle
Fixed major issue with players army sometimes switching sides to the AI
Fixed view cutting of on player ships in naval combat and in naval combat tutorial
Silver counter no longer shows decimal points
DIPLOMACY CHANGES
World map icons that show war or peace status of towns now update on the world map in realtime
Updated description for new King diplomacy abilities
When you are King - attacking someone without declaring War will result in big diplomatic penalty
Declaring War using Kings diplomacy - reduces standing within your Kingdom by -20
White Peace doesn`t effect relations with other Kingoms, but reduces standing within your Kingdom by -20
White Peace requires relations of at least -30
Offering Terms is cheaper, but reducing diplomatic relations with all Kingdoms by -10
BALANCING
World map upkeep for Higher level buildings increased significantly
Even remote Kingdoms like Scotland or Ireland can now be attacked by far away nations from entire world map
AI gets more time to conquer large player town - 30 minutes
Wildfires damage to units greatly reduced, only kills lower tier units now
Doubled the price in iron to start construction of stone walls
Slightly increased the price in iron to start construction of palisade walls
All melees and cavalry units are now much better vs archers in close combat
Fixed issue with Mantlets taking melee units very long time to kill them
Archers, and especially Crossbowman now do very little damage to Mantlets
Mounted wall siege weapons are twice as expensive
Happiness goes up or down twice as fast as before
Techs that effect happiness going up or down faster/slower are 2X as effective
Looted towns now have 30% smaller unhappiness penalty
Captured towns from same nation, now have much smaller unhappiness of ~-60
Captured towns from other nations, now have small unhappiness penalty of ~-90
Soldiers inside the town increase happiness by 40% more.
Pricier building upgrades do not affect world map as much
Storehouse storage increased to +300, base storage increased to 500
All buildings prices nearly doubled, doesn`t effect world map silver price as much
Building level up price almost doubled, doesn’t effect world map silver price as much
On the world map - units cost less silver
Update 68 - Introducing Evil Killer AI
Hey Everyone,
With release date approaching, we continue to make great progress and today have an exciting new update for you.
Today`s update covers many areas, with well over a hundred changes, but what truly stands out is the new reworked AI. Get ready to be surprised. Nothing says 'Game Over' like several full stack AI armies landing on your shore at once, or the gates of Paris opening and a dozen Hospitaller battalions rushing your siege camp. AI is out for blood, so get ready!
Our next update will bring more diplomacy options, as well as finally unveil reworked pathfinding and much better unit behavior in combat. And yeah - we got a bit a delayed with this pathfinding update, but we are almost ready, just fixing the last issues and bugs.
And so presenting Update 68:
BIG AI CHANGES -New town defense AI - will employ different tactics, and often ride out to meet weaker opponent
-Town Defensive AI will launch a counterattack vs weak besieger, or if it sees an opportunity
-In Battle AI units react to player attacks much faster, charging at archers or other melee units
-New smart world map AI - will look for weakness, and try to go after weak towns and armies
-AI armies on the world map will work together a lot more
-Tough new world map AI - in later years will utilize 2, 3 and even 4 armies when assaulting the player
-Weak or damaged AI armies will retreat to gather new units, or pursue new targets, or await reinforcement
-AI will only attack if it believes it can win a battle - no more suicide attacks
-Fixed various issues with AI armies standing still on the world map
-AI armies will now properly position them on the world map and not bundle up all in one place
-AI will now attack from further away on campaign map
-Having remote enemies will no longer be as forgiven on the world map - AI will come after you
-Completely reworked how AI progresses through the years on the campaign Map
-AI stars campaign slower with lower tech armies
-AI will never send powerful armies to attack players in the first year of the Campaign Map
-AI is a lot more challenging in later campaign years
OTHER BIG CHANGES -Major Auto-Resolve change - if attacking army or armies have 3x more strength, they will never loose a unit, only health
-Buildings now show player owner colors on them
-Added first part of King diplomacy - ability to directly declare war, offer terms or signing a white peace
-Diplomatic relations changed to one way - no longer displaying two sets of relations icons
-Translated all the recent text, still waiting for Chinese translation - couple more days
-Fixed lag issue when assaulting large towns like Nantes or Paris
FIXES AND ADDITIONS -Fixed major bug during civil war, allowing player to attack his own towns
-Fixed another civil war bug with player army defending AI town
-Fixed a civil war bug with player unable to attack his kings armies
-Fixed a rare civil war bug where player army would join the enemy
-Fixed extremely bright textures on heavy armored unit shields
-Improved the look of winter ground textures
-Greatly improved the look on world map mountains during winter
-Fixed a bug with selecting world map army sometimes showing ugly portrait in the left corner
-Town Hall starts at level 1 for both attacker and defender, fixing various bugs
-Manor now shows correct building level
-Every morning a rooster will sound to mark the end of nighttime
-Added ice and mini icebergs to naval combat during winter
-World map campaign quests now pause the game
-Fixed rare bug when entering battle just as relations with King drop, breaking the game
-Fixed bad shadowing issue on the pig
-Improved the pigs visual
-Added additional tutorial at the 1st campaign dialogue
-Cleaned up localization files
-Chicken portrait no longer covers buttons
-A lot of polish to camera scrolling and zoom in speed
-Camera scrolling and zoom in speed is now different for world map and RTS views
-Snow and rain is now well visible on all zoom in and out levels
-Rain and snow now don`t disappear when scrolling the camera
-Improved the look of snow and rain FX
-Corrected description of sheep and mines not to mention gold
-Music volume reduced less during tactical pause or pause on the world map
-Ballista bolts will no longer fall way short of the target unable to ever reach it
-Fire Cart is not longer just unlocked by constructing Storehouse, but by Liquid Transport tech
-Fixed Academy being unlocked too early by an incorrect tech
LEVEL DESIGN CHANGES -Major change in Paris - just 1 outer gatehouse now
-Major change in Nantes - just 1 outer gatehouse now
-Nantes, Caen and Paris - palisade barricades only have 1 gatehouse
-Norwich - removed excessive bastions, with 12 per wall, max 6 now
-Caen - cleared the ground by the middle stone walls to make easier to assault
-Dover - fixed problem with ultra bright sandy beach
-Dover - added more eye candy to the level, ship harbor and so on
-Aberdeen on the world map now uses correct level, also changed Glasgow town design
-Nantes - player can now easily use attacker camp, without map edge getting in a way
-Updated tutorial menu background in the main menu
-Updated main menu background
-Fixed a bug with AI towns replenishing units fastest on easy, and slowest on hard - other way around
-Orleans reworked the central keep in the middle of the town
-Nantes, Dijon e.t.c levels - fixed missing wall segment and added more staircases
-Fixed various problems when rebuilding iron gates on stone gatehouses
-Fixed all mounted and tower siege weapons crew members twitching when attacked by archers
-Fixed wall mounted trebuchet having 4 tiny crew members, instead 2 proper size crew members
-Main menu now works great on ultra wide monitor
BALANCING -Ranged units gain experience in combat twice as slow now
-Loosing and Winning auto-resolves with even odds, now removes a bit more units, on average 1 extra unit more
-Looting and Raising gives a lot more silver
-Other battle types give a lot less silver
-AI and player units are healed about 20% slower overtime on the world map
-AI armies that drop down from 20 strength will get defeated and removed
-Cost to upgrade buildings re-balanced to consume a lot more stone
-Increased Palisade wall and palisade tower hit points by up to 40%
-A bit more starting resources for battles, enough to start building a palisade wall
-Hospital is a lot more effective at healing units
-Monks healing spell is less effective
-Removed Healing Potion from Templar Knight
-Hospitaller Knight healing potion is more effective, but costs more stamina
-Palisade towers and stone towers take significantly longer to build
-Increased world map view for towns and armies
-Tech upgrade that increases world map view is more effective
-Changed starting enemies for Burgundy, Aragon and Spain,
Update 67 - Victory or Death
Hey Everyone,
With January release fast approaching, we are pushing hard to wrap up all the features and fix remaining bugs. And today`s update is a big step in that direction...
Update 67 finally gives campaign some meaning - with numerous victory and defeat conditions. We also start implementing adviser quests, campaign cinematics and notifications that help a great deal to emerge players into the game world. In addition a lot of work went into improving performance, as well as implementing a number of player requests. And of-course - dozens of other fixes and improvements across the board.
Next week we are continuing with adding more diplomacy options and unveiling reworked pathfinding and much better unit behavior in combat.
Thanks for your continuous support, and hope you enjoy this update!
And so presenting Update 67:
BIG CHANGES -Adjusted all LOD settings to improve performance and visuals
-Major visual performance boost across all systems and specs
-Manor has been added to the world map buildings menu
-World Map buildings menu acts as a map – showing building distance away from Manor
-Reworked all building positions in town – note that current towns will be effected
-Silver and town Happiness now shown in the city view
-Added Gift Land feature diplomacy feature – increases relations and standing
-Added "European Union" victory for uniting all nations under your rule
-Added "Emperor" victory to eliminating 7 nations
-Added “Rivals” victory to eliminate historically rival nation
-Added “Usurper” victory to take over the throne
-Added cinematics with text for all four new victory conditions
-Added cinematics with text for a player getting wiped off from the campaign map
-Added cinematics with text for the player or other lords becoming King
-Added cinematic with text for the 14 nations getting destroyed on the world map
-Added new quest window for player becoming an outlaw and being forgiven
-Added new quest window for civil war in a Kingdom, and end of the civil war
-When player King his Lords can start a civil war if relations drop through player actions
-The player can regain lords trust and end a civil war through defeating armies or gifts
-Deleting campaign on a player loss
-When a player becomes King, if effects diplomatic relations with other nations
-AI will no longer use suicide attacks, and will look for weaker towns
-Fixed major bug with AI attacking player towns that recently been captured by player
FIXES AND ADDITIONS -Standing/diplomacy after battles now updates without opening chancellor window
-Gifting land to own nation lord increases standing
-Gifting land to other nation lord improves diplomatic relations
-Victory conditions added to Marshal window
-Player can now raze his own town by clicking on Manor on the World Map town GUI
-Campaign now remembers unit position much better, even from building spawn
-Fixed various bugs with the first quest dialogue in the grand campaign
-New multiple branching quest dialogue when starting a new Campaign
-New branching campaign intro Dialogue
-On loading a level, scroll chat down
-Using renown instead of standing to choose a new king
-Minor adjustments to Camera distances
-Fixed market building buying resources
-Fixed campaigns now showing the current date
- Fixed HRE bowman having price in iron as well as wood
-Improved the look of the fog FX in game
-Added level up button to the Market building
-Removed the tooltip about building tents
-GUI improvement - Multiline centered names in unit GUI
-GUI improvement - Fixed building HP and text positioning
-GUI improvement - Adjusted world map region banners to fix the text
-GUI improvement - Large world map region banners to fix the text
-GUI improvement - Show a silver counter in all battles, town management, etc.
BALANCING - AI now first trains melee units and only then archers, making it a lot more effective when attacking.
- Fix to AI armies attacking after diplomacy change says they shouldn't
- The player starts with renown of their chosen lord divided by Campaign Difficulty
- Adjusted AI lords renown values
-Renown increased faster through victories and decreased through defeats
- Adjusted Standing/Relations of gifting towns
-Gifted Town forms its own garrison instead of using player one
-Player defeat if no city and no army above 20 strength
-Adjusted world map time to be a bit slower
-Higher price on militia and hunter units
-Greatly reduced unit upkeep with just 10%-15% difference for some units
-Building level reduced level cost only by 5% per level instead of 10%
-Selling trade resources at steward gives significantly more silver
-Cavalry trample does 30% more damage both to the enemies and to self
-Increased passive food income from cow and chicken by 3x
-Improved Voulgier and Billman to be much better vs archers
-Increase food cost to train majority of military units
-Slighter lowered wood and animal gathering rate for workers
-Battering Rams 20% less resistance to pierce, and 20% less hit points
Update 66 - Release Date Anounced
Hey Everyone,
After spending last week working on reworked video trailers (to be released soon) and improving MKW`s store page, we are back into action. It`s time for another epic update that yet again changes the way you play the game. But before we get into the details, we have an announcement to make...
After nearly 3 years in development, we are almost ready to make the big move and graduate from Early Access. And the date is... Nth of January 2019. We`ll reveal the exact date soon.
There are two more months of work ahead, and we are confident MKW will be released in a solid shape. However, the official release is only a beginning... We already have 2019 all planned out - providing a constant stream of big updates post-release.
Also - if you own our previous game - KW2B - some good news. We`ll be releasing a definitive edition - a free update - that changes the game engine to DirectX 11, greatly improves many areas of the game and fixes the majority of leftover bugs in KW2B. We`ll have a full announcement and preview in December.
Now back to today`s update - the main feature is updated pathfinding and the new Epic camera mode. Let us know how it plays out...
And so presenting Update 66:
BIG CHANGES -New Epic and Performance camera in the options
-New Epic camera is well - Epic - with extremely high zoom out
-Completely reworked world map camera, for a much closer view
-Adjusted the minimal zoom in a good way to play the game, and not just zoom in for details
-Pathfinding update - Battalions stay together in formation, without some units breaking formation
-Pathfinding update - tasking units - battalion now goes exactly to where it was tasked
-Pathfinding update - various fixes and improvement when tasking battalion to walk or to run to a location
-Visual update - greatly reduced bloom and blurring on all levels
-Performance boost of about 3-6 FPS on all graphics cards
-On town capture, reduce happiness by 70 if the same nation, by 150 if a different nation
-On town looted, reduce happiness by -150
-On town razed, diplomatic relations with all nations reduced by -5
-On town razed, razing player standing with his King drops by -5
-Building upkeep cost now increases with building level, instead of decreasing
-Raising now gives very high silver loot - a game changer
-World map game time goes by 50% faster
-Entering to manage towns deducts a lot more happiness, the longer you stay
FIXES AND ADDITIONS -Game view now starts at max zoom in, instead of max zoom out
-Improved visual performance on high and highest game settings through LODs
-Update all infantry formations to be more evenly spread out
-First game run language prompt - now has a title, not to confuse new players
-Much quieter sounds of peasants chopping trees and dropping off resources
-Fixed major bug preventing cavalry passing through stone gates
-Fixed piked infantry unable to destroy Mantlets
-Fixed "Heal All" showing different cost depending on what unit was selected
-Less brightness in the campaign map
-When launching scenarios from the editor, it now uses the DX11 engine, and not 9
-Added world map borders to tutorial scenarios
-Fixed odd shadow on the ship in the skirmish screen
-Regular and fire arrows are a lot better visible
-Fixed naval combat level spawning units within range of enemy bowman
-After capturing the town the action screen shows up right away and not a few seconds later
-When the game is action paused the music is not as quiet as before
-Fixed odd shadow on the ship in the Skirmish screen
BALANCING -Combat AI trains more rams and less siege of other types
-Combat AI creates new units significantly slower
-AI gets a lot less time to conquer player hamlet or town, making these battles go by a lot faster
-Ballista now consumes iron when firing
-Siege weapons now consume 0.2 stone/iron when firing instead of 1
-Destroying buildings on the world map gives more of their cost back
-Buildings that generate income, have their income significantly increase with high levels
-Buildings that generate happiness, generate more at higher levels
-The market now sells and buys resources by 100, and not 700
-Looting gives a little bit more silver for low-end hamlets and more overall
-Silver drain when attacking significantly reduced
-Increased the price of Serfs by 30%
-Reduced Serfs animal slaughter income by 25%
-Stone and Iron Mines level up cost increases 50%
-Stone and Iron camp 50% more cost, but 50% more productive
-Piked infantry now a lot more effective vs siege weapons
-All infantry is much better at killing mantlets
-Increased unit upkeep by 30%
-Increased building upkeep by 15%
-Blacksmith and Armoury now provide a lot less income
-Academy comes with an upkeep
-Price of all RTS mode techs increased 2X
Update 65 - The Follow Up
Hey Everyone,
As a follow up to yesterday`s update, we have another game changing patch for you today. We have reworked all the price tags in game, from livestock to research, both in RTS and World Map mode. You`ll find that all the income and expenses have went down greatly - up to 12 times lower. For example if before a unit could cost 1200, now it`s just 120.
These changes go far beyond simple math though, as relation between world map silver prices and RTS prices has been completely reworked as well. In addition this update is complete with the usual lengthy list of changes and fixes. We are breaking for the weekend, but you can expect another massive update next week.
And so presenting Update 65:
-All RTS mode prices reduced by 8x to 12x
-All World Map prices reduced from 2x to 4x
-Adjusted every single income or expense in-game to work with the new numbers
-Fixed the last startup crash issue, when clicking on Options window
-Fixed various issues with too much blurring in-game
-Adjusted in-game brightness and overwhelming bloom values
-New portrait for Serf, holding a pitch fork
-It is not significantly easier and more affordable to play on the world map
-Rebalanced income from Mines and Serfs to be significantly higher
-Reworked how AI trains units on the world map
-AI will no longer send overwhelming armies in the first couple of years
-AI progress through the first 10 years of campaign is significantly slower
-Reworked tutorial level 2 and 8 - AI assault force s a significantly larger now
-Reworked all tutorial levels with new light values and new unit cost
-All cavalry unit stats have significantly increased
-Archer attack significantly reduced - no longer op
-All the prices in-game are now even multiples of 5
-AI hamlet garrisons for level 4 and 5 are much weaker now
Update 64 - The Game Changer
Hey Everyone,
And we continue with massive weekly update - allow me to present our biggest gameplay update so far. The changes go beyond a simple patch, instead you can call this a total gameplay conversion - or as we like to say - The Game Changer.
Our main goal was to simplify controls - with fewer but much larger battalions, and to create more realistic combat. Almost every game stats has been changed for this update - and just in case there are some issues - we will iron it our by next week.
In addition we made a big step in improving the game`s graphics, as well as stability. We also started to work on updated unit pathfinding - you can expect a lot more improvements in this area next week.
As you discover the new approach to gameplay we recommend starting a new campaign. If you want to continue an old campaign, you might need to remove 2/3rds of yours military units to work with the new gameplay format.
And so presenting Update 64, it`s a long list:
BIG CHANGES -Major visual update - might be a bit too bright though...
-Fixed the last startup issues
-Total Rebalance of the game, including all gameplay modes
-Gameplay changed to controlling fewer units, but of bigger size
-Battalion size increased with twice as many soldiers in each group
-Unit scale greatly increased - easy to tell units apart
-Battalions now fight as one unit - not separating nearly as much
-Battles last twice as long with units surviving much longer
-All units stats are doubled or tripled - cost, strength
-Reworked starting player garrison, starting payer army, and AI garrison for each city
-Ranged units reworked - new animation takes much longer to reload, but deadly
-Siege ranged weapons reworked - cinematic kills with knocking units down
-Starting Diplomatic relations for each nation redesigned - more historical, and better gameplay
-There is a lot more difference in stats between units of different nations
-Greatly slowed down movement speeds of all units for slower more realistic gameplay
-Completely reworked Serf resources gathering - big battalions, efficient, doesn`t get stuck
-A lot of improvements to the Tutorial with over 40 changes and fixes
AI CHANGES -Combat AI - major improvements to AI laying sieges faster and more efficient
-Combat AI - AI will not use multiple Rams to attack the same gate
-Combat AI - disabled AI advantage where it would deal more damage to the player
-Combat AI - AI creates units a lot slower now to work with the new balancing
-Unit AI - there`s now an actual AI script controlling their individual behavior
-Unit AI - units now attack building that they feel threatened by - like Barracks
-Unit AI - units now advance to attack archers shooting at them
-Unit AI - units will often stand ground, or advance based on the situation
-Unit AI - units a lot smarter when it comes to choosing opponents
-World Map AI now replenishes dead units in Hamlets and Towns
-World Map AI now upgrades Hamlet garrison as the time goes on - for large garrisons
-World Map AI now gives player more peacetime at the start of the campaign
FIXES AND ADDITIONS -World map clouds less shiny and interfere less with the line of sight
-Polished up a lot of building and unit descriptions in English
-Peasants will no longer automatically slaughter not fully grown sheep
-Fixed boats having texture issues
-Fixed naval combat level not working
-Tutorial now uses national troops and not defaults
-Fixed issue with bad looking extra large or small GUI icons
-Fixed national unit names not showing in RTS mode
-New idle animations for Knights and Ranged units
-Removed some ridiculous idle animations from billman and voulgier units
-Reduced volume of music track on winning or losing a battle
-World map clouds less shiny and interfere less with the line of sight
-World Map army larger
-World Map army less brightly lit
-Unlocking sheep moved further down in the economy tree
-Arrows look a lot better and more noticeable
-Crossbowman now properly holds crossbow with both hands
-New Crossbow shooting animations
-Defending the town no longer gives huge amounts of silver on the world map
-When AI captures player towns it no longer gets an odd garrison of mixed units
-On capturing AI town in auto-resolve players get a basic garrison, not a strong one as before
BALANCING CHANGES -All unit battalions double in size - including livestock, serfs, and military units
-All unit cost, training time and upkeep increased 200%-300%
-All unit and building cost and build time increased 150%-200%
-Increased the strength of all units 200%-250%
-Increase starting resources in skirmish and in campaign battles and enter town mode
-Wall construction time, especially towers is greatly increased by up to 250%
-Increased resources cap to 4000 on default
-Income from building and livestock greatly increased up to 300%
-Income from mines, Serfs, and livestock increased 200%-300%
-Level up cost for buildings greatly increased - up to 400%, not effected on the world map
-Cow and sheep less passive food income 25 per minute chicken, 50 per minute cow
-Rams take significantly longer to known down the gate
-Each tree, especially small one has 30%-50% more wood
-Townhouses hold 400% more wood
-Fog of war reveal distance expanded for all units
-Cost of building blockading palisade decreased
-Livestock starts with more resources and bigger in size
-Archers can take a lot more arrow damage with higher piercing armor
-Piked units made to have a big bonus vs archers, now that archers have high piercing armor
-Archers now shoot 2x-3x slower and are but deal 2x-3x more damage
-Archers shooting straight at a shorter distance, preferring to shoot high flying arrows
-Peasants no longer generate silver income on the world map
-AI will use 3x fewer units everywhere
-Increased the price of hamlet upgrade by 40%
-The reward for looting and raizing low-level hamlets is increased by 300-600 silver
-Building give 25-30% more silver income on the world map
-Moved the Cow unlocking research to 1 position later in the Economy tree
-New Sheep unlock in the Economy tech tree, on the 7th position instead of second
Update 63 - Beta Milestone
Hey Everyone,
The past month was a total roller-coaster with one large update after another. The new campaign, new game engine... and we continue just as strong with today`s update - with nearly 100 features, fixes, and changes. It`s fitting for our first beta build to be that epic...
And after eight long months in Alpha phase, we are happy to say that we are officially in the beta stage of production now. There`s still a lot of work ahead, but we managed to hit all the goals that we set out - from the new game engine to the tutorial campaign and a lot of campaign features.
None of this would be possible without your support – so please accept our never-ending gratitude for believing in MKW! A special thank you to so many of you who`ve been here with us from Day 1! Next week will be our 500th day of Early Access...
We hope you enjoy the new update, and the massive update 64 is on its way next week.
Big Changes -New major feature - looting towns - good income, town is out of the game for half a year
-New major feature - raizing towns - best income, town is destroyed, and politically a bad move
-Major visual improvement with corrected blurring and smoothing
-Fixed a wide range of startup crash issues affecting a small number of players
-Updated all the in-game music - some of it now uses real recorded instruments
-Added 6 new music tracks, mostly for the world map gameplay - majority using real recorded instruments
-Redesign starting conditions for each nation with more historical and logical enemies and friends
-Redesigned post-siege sequence - awards and next step is now allocated on the world map
-All tutorial chapters are unlocked with no need to complete to unlock
-Increased performance when building walls and sieges in all large towns
-Text notification and scribe record of where AI armies are attacking now also list province instead of a town
-Fixed big graphical glitches on townhouses in cinematic
-Fixed graphical glitches on various small objects
-Removed walkable towers from the game
-Updated all levels replacing walkable towers with automated towers
-Updated all town siege camps leaving only 2 gates per layer
-Update all hamlet siege camps leaving only 1 entrance per layer
-All large town maps have improved attackers palisade camp
-All large towns removed a good number of towers
-Gatehouse now has voice lines for selecting opening and closing
-Gatehouse displays gate status on screen if it`s opened
-Tooltips that show unit cost now display easy to see resource icons
-No longer need to build army tents to increase population, everyone starts with 30
Fixes and Improvements -Polished up Skirmish main menu scene
-Reworked battle income - reward now depends on the size of the town
-Hunters can no longer target livestock
-Regular and Fire arrows now don't look as invasive
-Archers will shoot straight at a longer distance
-Archers will now shoot as smaller vertical angle
-Fixed problems with crossbowman and other ranged units shooting short of their targets
-Horse Cart and Fire Cart is much easier to click select among other units
-Citizens now die from arrows or fires during town sieges
-Corpses no longer selectable
-When attacking Hamlets, the siege camp gets only one small inner walls, not two as before
-Yeomen unit better display player colors - can easily tell which player he belongs to
-Updated description for all the animals in English to describe their different roles
-World Map view boundary expanded in the east, allowing to better manage Bohemia and other eastern provinces
-Increased chances of rain
-Greatly increased performance when shooting a lot of fire arrows
-Fire arrows are not as visible now
-World Map clouds are less visible and obstruct the map view a lot less
-Water on Medium graphical settings now shows reflections for ships - especially visible in Skirmish menu
-Fixed bug with the naval map giving a free Voulgier battalion
-Improved the look of the Tutorial tooltip
-Fixed building destruction visual glitch on higher game settings with Normal Maps
-Expanded landing by Nantes final Keep for better siege opportunities
-Fixed all situation where palisade tower doesn`t have wall segment under it
-Removed chickens that were everywhere in large cities
-Updated Mines description, to indicate the benefit of upgrading, and removed tasking serfs feature
-Attack Town button now works properly, with the same range as clicking on the enemy town
-Skirmish menu now properly titled Available Games for multiplayer games
-Updated a lot of text lines about offline mode, banning e.t.c
-Removed outdated? section in Stewards menu
-Fixed floating fire and smoke in the air after walls and buildings are destroyed at night
-Larger torch fire FX
-Now showing full unit and building description in world map garrisons and armies
-Now showing unit description in buildings in combat mode
-Fixed volume issue with voice-overs in campaign intro cinematic
-Removed peasant Task to Plant Gathering button
-Fewer trees in army and siege camps - looks much cleaner
Balancing Changes -Crossbowman now has much smaller range but is a lot stronger in all stats
-Bowman, Yeomen, and Longbowman do a lot more damage at large range
-Greatly increased silver reward for winning battles
-In large towns, it`s now a lot cheaper to build the sets of towers in the inner town
-Cows now bring a lot more food when slaughtered or milked, but also come with a greater price
-Sheep have almost no food on them, but this is made up by higher world map silver income
-Peasants gather food from slaughtering animals 40% slower
-It now takes significantly longer to repair or rebuild damaged gates
-Palisade walls now take twice as long to build but consume 30% less wood
-Stone walls now take 30% longer to build
-Maceman is 20% better vs high armored troops, but 30% less efficient vs other types of enemies
-Greatly increased the cost of diplomacy gift and gossip options
-Hospital building now heals in a smaller range, but slightly faster
-The cost to level up buildings on the world map is significantly lower
-AI will never send two armies to attack at once during the first year of gameplay on the easy and medium difficulty
-Besieged status on gatehouses reduced from 5 to 3 minutes
Update 62 - Unique Faction Units
Hey Everyone,
...it seems like we just had a major update yesterday... did we?. Well - always happy to bring you another good one. We have finally completed another big project that we have been working on for quite a while - unique faction units. Each faction now have a roaster of 12-14 unique units with historical names and stats. And this goes beyond just artificial changes - as new units and their cost will greatly impact the play style from nation to nation - both on the worldmap and in battle.
And addition there are couple of dozen fixes to some critical and overdue bugs. Please continue to post on the forums if you notice something else that`s going wrong with the game, and now that we are free from working on the engine update, we`ll be able to fix dozens of bugs each week.
In a few days we`ll follow up with another update bringing you a massive new feature - looting and raising towns. Very excited about this one, as it`s truly changing campaign gameplay - from letting you or an angry AI to burn entire world to the ground - as raised towns can`t be rebuilt, or to let you go on a pirate/viking trip - looting and burning towns (looted towns are out of the game for a few months).
Big Changes -Unique Faction units fully implemented in battle
-Unique Faction units fully implemented on the world map
-Unique Faction units fully implemented in Skirmish
-Hospital Building now heals nearby units
Fixes and Improvements -Units again show description tooltip
-Fixed the bug with attack window getting stuck on screen in the main menu
-Fixed issue with one of the adviser menus being stuck on screen in main menu
-Improved the look of Tutorial text windows
-AI melee units will not properly assault climb the walls with belfry and ladders
-Fixed siege weapons and carts not using bridges or gates
-Fog is less visible during the day
-Fixed issue with very strong patchy fog during the night
-Rain is a lot less visible, does not get in a way during the night
-World Map is a lot brighter during winter
-Nighttime light visuals improved for summer and winter nights
-Fixed rare bug breaking Stewards window
-Fixed various bugs with new national units
-Fixed new nations units asking for odd resources like stone or 3 resources
-Fixed text getting cut off at the bottom at various menus and tutorial
-Dover castle expanded the inner gate landing so towers can better attach
-Fixed the bug with melee units attacking closed iron stone wall gate. suppose to only attack the palisade one
-ESC key now properly closes any adviser menu on the world map and opens options
-Fixed issue with one of the adviser menus being stuck on screen in main menu
Balance Changes -Destroying a building on the world map returns small part of the cost, increases by level
-Destroying a building now returns a bit more silver, but not enough to be exploitable
-Gates are much slower to repair, fixing a known exploit of rebuilding or repairing gates during attack
-Decreased the chances of rain - was effected fire arrows too much
Update 61 - New Game Engine - Live Release
Hey Everyone,
It`s time to release our biggest update ever! And it only got bigger and better over the last week during the beta testing period. And so it`s official - new game engine is here. And from here on we have amazing options to improve other areas of the game.
And finally our team is back to working on current bugs and new content - at full strength. During the past few months - tutorial and this engine update really took up a lot of time, and we are glad to put this behind us.
Let us know what you think. But please keep in mind - there are still a few known issues that we`ll iron out later this week. Also there are almost no performance benefits right now vs the old engine - we will work on this next week, and results will follow.
Big Changes -New Main Menu with Skirmish, Tutorial and Main scenes
-Game now starts at maximum possible resolution, and not in windows resolution
-Each nation now has a roaster of unique units - not yet implemented on the world map
-Unique units have different name and stats, but same art for now
-Major combat re-balance - fights last at least 50% longer
-Unit to Unit collision with enemy units is now on full strength
-Added selecting nation to Skirmish menu
-Fixed major issue with cavalry not going through some gatehouses
-Fixed various problems with AI attacking large towns
Performance Improvements -Camera Fov reduced by 5 points, wins several FPS on low end PCs
-Rain is a lot less performance draining
-Updated options menu to disable Fog, Weather Effects and Normal Maps on lower quality settings
-Rebalanced Medium and High options settings for better performance
-Removed Unused Bloom control from the options
-Significantly improved performance during ranged combat
Updated Game Engine -DirectX 11 feature: Improved Visuals
-DirectX 11 feature: Changing resolution in the Options menu
-DirectX 11 feature: Windowed Mode in the Options menu
-DirectX 11 feature: Small Performance boost - more to come
-DirectX 11 feature: fixed large number of startup issues
-DirectX 11 feature: fixed bad performance on good video cards
Fixes and Improvements -Changing resolution now fully works
-Reduced world map brittleness
-Reduced battle map brightness in summer, spring and fall
-Reworked rain sequences
-Removed bad looking lighting flashes
-Updated texture on crossbowman and billman helmet
-Several battalions will get stuck at tight spaces a lot less
-All bowman a bit more arrow armor
-Arrow trail looks much better
-AI will only build single palisade wall in it`s siege camp
-AI will not build blockading palisade in town sieges
-Fixed building names not shown fully and moved to the next string
-Better formatting for text when buildings are selected
-Brighter player color on the worldmap minimap
-Some GUI sounds are now quitter
-Corrected some hamlets having both wall control points inside the walls
-Improved trampling units with horses. More damage, but also take more damage and slowdown faster
-Hard AI will no longer produce useless Stables and cavalry units during sieges
-Fixed gaps in siege palisade for attackers on all levels including Paris
-Tutorial Intro and outro cinematic, and main menu load faster
-Tutorial cinematics greatly improved
Diplomacy Changes -Attacking your own nation towns and armies - has a much greater effect on reducing your standing with the King
-Attacking other nations that your king is not at war with - reduces your standing with the King
-Attaching nations that your King is at war with - will increase your relations with the King
-If you are in rebellion - destroying your Kings armies will increase your standing
-if you are attacking your Kings enemy - destroying their armies will increase diplomatic relations between your nations
-Raised the cost of diplomatic relations gift or insult
-Fixed Pax Europa tech not working
And last but not least - we are aware of a few known issues that we hope to resolve in the next 48 hours.
----KNOWN ISSUES----
-if you are getting a crash at the game start - disable PnkBuster - in your Task Manager (Cntrl + Alt + Del) list of Processes.
-On the world map unis show old default names - should be fixed in 24 hours
-Damaged buildings look weird - to be fixed in 24 hours
-On some nvidia cards when changing resolution, the game will automatically go into windowed mode (to fix, turn windowed mode on and off)
-You cant minimize the game - to be fixed later this week
-Town Houses in cinematics will show glitchy art, with walls trembling
Update 60 - New Game Engine - Beta Build
Hey Everyone,
After nearly a year of work - it is finally here. The updated game engine, using DirectX11! And there are truly too many changes to describe...
For now this is a beta release, that you'll need to Opt In - more about it bellow. But yeah - the current build is not very stable and still has a few issues that we know about. We expect this update to be ready for full release towards Monday evening.
So, if you are feeling adventures, and not afraid of a few critical bugs, go ahead - and enjoy the Beta. Here`s how: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlrH2QpESTI
Let us know what you think. Our main point is concern - have we went too far with bloom?
Also please keep in mind - there are almost no performance benefits right now vs the old engine - we will work on this next week, and results will follow.
Updated Game Engine -DirectX 11 feature: Improved Visuals
-DirectX 11 feature: Changing resolution in the Options menu
-DirectX 11 feature: Windowed Mode in the Options menu
-DirectX 11 feature: Small Performance boost - more to come
-DirectX 11 feature: fixed large number of startup issues
-DirectX 11 feature: fixed bad performance on good video cards
Big Changes -New Main Menu with Skirmish, Tutorial and Main scenes
-Units are scaled much larger
-New unit colors are much easier to see
-Fixed one rare crash
-Marshall will tell which Region enemy is attacking instead of spec
-Capturing all Lords towns will remove the Lord from the game
-Capturing all Kings towns will let you, or other lord with highest renown to become Kings
-Nations without any Lords left marked as destroyed
-Fixed issues with army not properly unselecting
Fixes and Improvements -Changed historically inaccurate helmet for Billman and Crossbowman
-Fixed broken cinematic for French campaign
-Animal don`t bunch up as much
-Minimap Wall Control is now more visible
-Longbow more anti-arrow armor
-Improved world map army - scale, animation, art
-New world map army dialogue
-Slight lower max zoom in in campaign and skirmish
-Update arrow trail - better visible now
-Update ballista trail - better visible now
-Improved Peasants Mask
-More natural hair color on units
-Changed French lords with starting conditions to be historically correct
-Fixed Portuguese translation missing a lot of text
-Reworked world map borders
-Winter worldmap fixed how the water looks
-A lot of fixes for Chinese translation (one more fix to come)
-Chapter 1 - flaming walls lag too much - reduce
-Chapter 6 - load up world map automatically after 20 seconds
-Various improvements to campaign cinematics
-Dover level - updated level design of a wall bridge
