Massive Update Incoming + Plague: Kingdom Wars this July
Hey Everyone,
Hope everyone enjoying the summer and staying safe.
Upcoming Major Updates
Our team is wrapping up work on the upcoming new Kingdom Wars game - The Plague, and it will be released to Early Access this July. With that work complete, we are starting process of copying cool new tech and upgrades from the new game to MKW. These updates will make the bulk of the upcoming Update 22 and 23 later this summer, and will really help improve MKW.
To give you some previews of the cooler features: -Total war like unit positioning preview when tasking soldiers -Custom campaign game save -Major performance improvements due to the new engine updates -Large number of fixes and improvements to AI, combat and pathfinding
...and a lot more. We`ll post a detailed preview towards the end of next week.
World Map Expansions DLC
And as we have mentioned in our previous announcement, we can`t wait to release a huge DLC later this summer or early fall, that will feature a 4x bigger world map.
This new world map expansion will bring over 20 additional Kingdoms, and features areas from Constantinople and Middle East to North Africa, Poland and Sweden. And while it will be a little bit smaller than world map in the Plague, it more that double the playable area of MKW.
The Plague: Kingdom Wars
And now it`s time to finally properly announce The Plague: Kingdom Wars. The game page is now up, and you can visit is here:
You will note quite a bit similarities visually between MKW and The Plague. And while we are working towards making every asset be different from MKW, on our early access launch, the game share about 40% of art assets and 70% of level assets.
When working on The Plague our main goal was to come up with a brand new gameplay experience, and new tech to make large world map and battles possible. And good part of art and level workload was left for after we launch in Early Access.
Free Access to MKW Veterans
Following our studio's tradition, we will be giving all veteran MKW players a chance to get the new game for free. This week, we will be contacting thousands of players who have logged over 30 hours in MKW. Those who decide to join the pre-release beta test will receive a free key and will be able to start playing as early as next week, and will forever keep this free copy of The Plague.
Update 1.21 - Total Rebalancing & New Game
Hey Everyone,
Hope everyone is staying safe. We have a lot of news and exciting updates for you today!
Update 21 We are glad to finally present the long-awaited update 21. It took us good month and a half to compete, but we think this was well worth the wait. This update completely re-balance mid and late game. The challenge and difficulty will scale up correctly now, providing players with never ending challenge, from early to late game. This updates also does wonders for visual performance on the world map and covers a range of other issues.
Please keep in mind - there are hundreds of balancing changes in this update, and there`s a chance we might have went too far in some aspects. Please let us know what you think about the changes, and if there are aspects that our players don`t agree with, we`ll do a quick follow up update until we get this right.
New Game Soon we will be releasing the next Kingdom Wars game. You can expect the Steam page with media, trailers and full announcement by May 15th. The new game is called "The Plague: Kingdom Wars". It`s a successor to Medieval Kingdom Wars, though gameplay is vastly different, and it`s more of Survival Grand Strategy game.
This might seem like bittersweet news. But rest assured - this only means great things to MKW. We are continuing regular MKW updates for at least the rest of 2020, and our work on The Plague: Kingdom Wars will not impact MKW updates.
World Map Expansion Now for some good MKW news! You might have seen us do this with our previous Kingdom Wars game. Since the two games are pretty close together, we will be able to copy the elements of the new game into MKW.
The most noticeable will be the huge World Map expansion added to MKW this summer. We are talking 35-40 new Kingdoms, nearly 300 new Lords to play as, and world map that`s nearly 5 times larger.
We are very excited both to share The Plague: Kingdom Wars with you, as well as to add this huge free world map expansion to MKW.
And back to the update... With that said, lets take a look at what today`s major update brings us.
Performance
Massive graphical performance boost for World Map
Average world map performance increased from 45 FPS to 90 FPS
Greatly improved performance fighting on smaller Hamlet maps
Combat AI & Pathfinding
Combat AI will perform much better when sieging or defending Hamlets
All Hamlet maps now have just one entrance instead of two
Unit pathfinding has been significantly improved in Hamlet battles
World Map AI Redesign
Complete rework on World Map AI for mid and late game
AI will send build up large force of 3 or 4 armies at before attacking in later years
AI will progress much faster after 3 years into the campaign – bigger armies and better units
AI builds up it`s towns nearly twice as fast on the world map with walls and buildings
AI will upgrade it`s garrisons a lot more often as it advances
AI will no longer Raise towns, but players can still do that
Fixes and Additions
Redesigned first tutorial chapter, no more oil pitch lag
Greatly increased upkeep for the very top tier of units - Knights, Longbowman e.t.c
Minor visual downgrade of the World Map - a bit less density for forests
Various stability and performance improves across the board
Fixed rare issues with unable to start multiplayer battle
Fixed various localization issues in all supported languages
Mini Update 20 & Upcoming Update 21
Hey Everyone,
We hope everyone is able to stay safe and healthy during this challenging time...
Luckily for our studio - we have always been working remotely, so we are able to continue our work uninterrupted. And so - lets take a minute to update you on what we are working on and what`s coming up next.
Mini-update 1.201 First of all - we had a mini-update today. This update fixes couple of issues we had with the game past couple of weeks:
Fixed not being able to enter or fight in some towns and getting stuck on the loading screen
Fixed all issues with some units getting stuck and becoming completely unresponsive
Fixed some issues with changing unit formations
Upcoming Update 1.21 And work continues on the major update 21 that we are expecting within two weeks. This updates comes with impressive list of features, here`s a few of them:
World map fixes and updates including fixing wrong town location, wrong geographical features and more
Performance improvements in large town combat
Performance improvements in other large combat scenarios
Major improvement of World Map AI in all areas
Rebalanced AI progression to keep players challenged as the game progresses
Dozens of bug fixes and other improvements
New Kingdom War Title Within a week or two we will be announcing our next Kingdom Wars project...
...I can confirm that this will be continuation of the type of a game we started with MKW, and I think a lot of our Kingdom War players will find interesting. Can`t wait to share details with you guys. And I would like to say that it in no way effects our updates and commitments to both Kingdom Wars 2, and Medieval Kingdom Wars. You can expect a full on announcement, with media and in-game screenshots and more within 10 days.
As always - thanks for your support!
Update 1.20 - Unit Transfer Redesigned
Hey Everyone,
We have another major update for you today. The top achievement this week is the brand new Unit Transfer window. This has long been one of the weakest points of our GUI, and finally it`s been redesigned. You can now transfer multiple units, select where to transfer them, and time to transfer units or form armies have fallen from 30 seconds on average to 5.
Today`s update also comes with a solid visual and CPU performance improvement, as well as a lot of polish for the AI. We also looked on making certain parts of the game look better, and fixed some long standing bugs.
We are just getting started, and have more great updates coming to you this month. Thanks for your support!
And so presenting Update 1.20:
New Features & Major Fixes
Unit Transfer completely redesigned, but can still use old way of transferring
Unit transfer – select multiple units and click on any other army slot to transfer there
Unit transfer – select multiple units and use Transfer button to transfer and auto sort
Major performance improvement on the World Map for Epic camera settings
Minor performance improvement for Performance camera on world map and in combat
Fixes and Additions
Fixed one of the sources of very bad lag in large town sieges
AI will no longer do a suicide charge out of large towns each time now
AI will only sally forth to attack the player if it has 2x stronger force and a very good chance of winning
Small chance AI will sally forth at random to surprise player
AI will no longer build ballista on towers, as it was spamming them too
AI will not cheat in the first two years and use armies with advanced units, only the basic
High level AI towns still use the cheat units for now, but this is to be fixed shortly
Balanced AI armies in the first two years, more difference between easy, mid and hard difficulty
All campaign world map cinematics now have distance fog
Town intro, battle intro and victory cinematics now have distance fog
Fixed level design issues in some of the large towns
Polished main menu scene fog
Mobile Siege Weapons are much better at going to attack the specific target, but will get distracted if fired by ranged units
Various issues due to unreachable AI ballista on towers have been resolved
Removed tree visible in the middle of some hamlet rivers
Hill terrain set improved with dirty terrain under trees
Balancing Changes
Rebalanced early game technologies - they are not more affordable
New campaigns now start with more trade goods, allowing researching more early game
Update 1.19 - Total Gameflow Re-balance (FIXED)
Updated on 03-04: Following a problem with the original update and revert, we have brought this update back after fixing some issues. Everything should be working as intended now.
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Hey Everyone,
Today`s update comes with short patch notes, but changes are massive and really effect the gameplay. Please keep in mind that if you don`t like the changes, we are open to discussion and continuing re-balancing. With that said - welcome to MKW on steroids. The main goal was to speed up slower parts of the game, as well as to give players a way to control the game speed.
The end results: it`s now possible to achieve in 1 hour of gameplay, what would take 2.5-3 hours before. All the waiting and grinding was taken out of the town build up, it`s now fast and fun, just keep an eye on that unhappiness meter, as your time is limited (unless you are playing with Chill mode enabled).
RTS gameplay now also becomes a much more important part of battles, as you can get your base setup faster and train more soldiers during the course of the battle.
On top of that you can now increase the game speed both in build up mode and during battles, that will make things go even quicker during the slower moments.
We been playing with the new game speed rules for a few days now, and I must say - feedback is very good, hopefully you`ll like the changes as well.
Signing of for now, but keep in mind - we are hard at work on a major update 1.19 and 1.20 coming later this month. We are working on a new world map transfer window, fixing two dozens of remaining bugs, and a huge update to the combat lag and AI lag that should finally deal with large battles lag.
And so, lets take a look at Update 1.19:
New Features & Gameflow Rebalancing
Ability to control game speed in RTS mode is back
Town build up and combat gameplay completely rebalanced
RTS game speed completely rebalanced
Happiness drain while in a town increased by 30%
Instead of spending 12-14 minutes to build up a hamlet it takes 6-7 now
Resources gathering by mines, livestock and serfs has been increased by 40%-50%
Unit and building production time decreased by 30%-40%
Rebalanced some costs, like cheaper serf
Corrected welcome message and some localization
Update 1.18 - Major Graphics Update
Hey Everyone,
It feels great to bring you another great update, just few days after the last one. We hope we can keep us this weekly update schedule as we move forward.
Today`s update is our biggest visual improvement for MKW so far. Please make sure to turn on Bloom in the game`s option though and play with Epic camera (if your PC supports that). We also recommend starting a new campaign as one of the Iberian or Italian Lords to experience the most of the new content.
We hope you`ll enjoy the new experience, and please consider reviewing MKW - we sure can use some more recent reviews. Thanks!
This update also comes with several fixes and improvement, though our main focus was on graphics and new southern city set. Also we went a bit too far with difficulty in the last update, so made some adjustments, reducing the upkeep for example.
And a word about the 19th update as we are taking a bit of a detour before we get to more bug fixing and performance improvement. The 19th update will feature major re-balancing of the game flow, making things a lot more streamlined and faster. Aside from being able to control the game speed in hamlet battles and while building up your town, we are completely re-balancing RTS mode economy and flow. Before it might take you 10 minutes to build up your hamlet, and 20 to build up a large town - we are changing this to only take 3/6 minutes respectively.
For now - introducing Update 1.18:
New Features & Major Fixes
Created southern version for most Italian and Iberian towns, with forever summer, and desert/palm tree terrain set
Major Visual update with distance fog and other improvements
Major visual improvements – distance fog is now present for all camera settings
Major visual improvements – make sure to turn Bloom On if it`s off
Bloom has been reworked to be less bright, and more natural
Redesigned tutorial cinematics with distance fog and other improvements
Fixes and Additions
Call to Arms is now activated with middle mouse button or double click right mouse button
New players start with bloom on by default
Rotating mouse wheel in the main menu no longer hides the distance fog
Distance fog now enabled right away as gameplay starts, and not only on camera scroll
Fixed main menu not having any visual effects when returning to it from scenario
Rotating minimap is now default option for new players
Playing proper intro and outro cinematic for battles where player attacks or defends a hamlet
Balancing Changes
Lowered unit upkeep, it was increased too much in the last update
Update 1.17 - Major Udpate & More...
Hey Everyone,
And we are back! Before we get to today`s awesome and long awaited update, just a few words about our plans. After some delays in the past couple of months we are back to actively updating and growing MKW, expecting to have couple of updates per month, so the 18th and 19th updates will be coming this March. Priority will be given to balancing, improving AI, and performance.
And now lets take a look at today`s major update 1.17. It took us quite a while to complete this update, as we had to create over 300 new terrain segments used in random maps, hamlets e.t.c And you`ll notice the difference right away. Every hamlet, field battle, hamlet siege will look quite unique and different with 5 terrain sets that don`t only create unique battlefield conditions but also vary by resources and geographical locations. We plan to continue expanding this city, also making large towns have unique looks based on their geographical location.
Second major part of this update look at visual performance and visual improvements. Quite a bit of work went into it, and on average players should see 15-20 FPS improvement across the board, and the game now looks much better (though admittedly the changes will only be noticed by these using Epic camera and playing on higher end PCs)
We also completely re-balanced the game, making things a lot harder, so it`s no longer just a challenge during the first couple of years, and a total walk in the park after.
This update comes with a few other bug fixes and improvements.
And a word about the 18th update - we are finally reworking the world map fixing all these inaccuracies and other issues. Performance also takes the main stage as we work to make large scale sieges lag a lot less. Can`t wait to share this next update with you.
For now - introducing Update 1.17:
Major New Features
Visual improvements and completely reworked game camera
Added variety to random map and hamlets
Added Hills, Desert, Dryland, Fir Forest, and Oak terrain sets that replace previous 1 default set
New terrain sets are quite unique and presents various strategic differences – resources, chock points e.t.c
Hamlets across the world map now use unique terrain sets that are geographically accurate
Field battles and other battles now feature new terrain sets depending on location
Fixes and Additions
Major graphical improvements across the board
World Map camera has been completely reworked
Improved visual performance on the worldmap by 15-20 FPS
New close up battle camera that`s much more playable and shows more of the battlefield
Greatly increased battle visual performance with new camera controls, up to 20 FPS more
Ground view camera still available in cinematic mode
Reworked both Performance and Epic camera settings for optimal gameplay and performance
Fixed Nantes having sand yellow texture all over the map
Replaced some of the worse looking loading screens
Fixed Bush object constantly disappearing when moving the camera
Balancing Changes
Significantly increased world map AI difficulty progression
AI will especially be harder after couple of years
AI will employ some new tricks on the world map when it comes to attacking player
Small increase in happiness drain while inside the city - unchanged for Chill Mode
Unit upkeep increased by 20% on average for all units
Rebalanced a few campaign settings to increase overall difficulty in the first few years
Minor rebalance to melee units damage to building and other units
Upcoming Updates and the Big Sale
Hey Everyone,
From our small team we would like to wish everyone all the best in 2020!
Upcoming Major Update And we have some good news to start the new year right - we are back to full scale work on MKW and have major update on the horizon. In a few days we`ll be releasing the 17th update that greatly expands the world terrains.
Right now the game world just uses one random terrain set - Oak forest, that you have seen again again in all hamlets and random maps. In the 17th update we have reworked this system completely to include a lot of variations that cover all of the terrain and climate zone featured on the world map. This will effect back the hamlets and the random map for battles.
New terrain sets include - fir forest, dry-land, grass-land, farmland, desert, northern higihlands, and hills.
Following release of this update we`ll continue on the 18th update that adds quite a bit more to the world map gameplay.
The Big Sale Also from today we are running one of the biggest sales on MKW - with 55% off for the next two weeks. This should help increase the in-game population. During this sale you can expect to see our developer and moderators inside the game chat to help answer any questions you might have.
If you were on the fence about buying the game, this is the best sale we`ll have for a while. See you on the battlefield!
Holiday Sale Events
Hey Everyone,
With holiday season approaching we are starting some of our biggest sale on Medieval Kingdom Wars.
Also we would love to wish Happy Thanksgiving to all our players from USA!
And so - the big promos on MKW are here.
For the next weeks the game is available at 5o% off, that translates to about 9.50$ USD. We will continue with similar discount for the Steam Winter sale later on in December.
We are exciting to see many new players join MKW, and will do our part to make new players feel welcome. Developers and mods will be available in the game chat around the clock, and we also stepping up our forum presence.
Meanwhile work is still ongoing on the 17th update. We do have to apologize for the delay, we are now couple of weeks behind schedule, but are on track for November. There will also probably be a smaller update in the coming week taking care of some bugs and balancing.
Thanks again for your support, welcome to Medieval Kingdom Wars - and can`t wait to chat with some of your in-game or on the forums.
Haloween Event & Upcoming Sales
Hey Everyone,
Thanks for supporting MKW and we wanted to share some ongoing news.
In time for Halloween we have a small cosmetic in-game event with some art changes for the next few days. We hope everyone has a safe and fun Halloween week!
Work continues on Update 17, and we do have to apologize for the delay, we are now couple of weeks behind schedule, but are on track for November release of the 17th update. There will also probably be a smaller update in the coming week taking care of some bugs and balancing.
Also we are running several sale events on MKW for the next couple of months - mostly taking part in Steam season sales, but also running Fanatical Star Deal on Monday, and starting a two week Steam sale on Tuesday. So if you were waiting for a good deal to get MKW - it`s coming up soon.
Thanks again for your support, and can`t wait to finally share Update 17 with you later this month.
