Another massive update today - as the team is working in overdrive ready for our next milestone.
It`s time for a sale! To celebrate this milestone, we think the time is right to start a big two week-long sale, and show the game off to new players! We - the developers will also be extra active in-game chat during this sale - any questions or feedback - just open the game chat, and talk to us:)
Update 1.12 Now lets talk about this awesome update 1.12 - it comes with nearly half a hundred changes and new features. And every area of the game got some loving and polishing.
Especially the world map AI and pathfinding. It`s a joy to see your units nicely lined up on walls and ships now. Mid to late game has also been greatly re-balanced, together with a new approach to Kings diplomacy.
And we are aware that some of our players might not dig the new changes with making the game harder, especially happiness and silver drain. For these we have added a new campaign mode - Chill Mode, that basically removes these limiters.
Looking ahead we are planning to solve last performance issue during large battles, as well as the last rare crash happening at the loading screen. The new poll will also go live shortly - as it`s time to start work on some big new projects - like commanding AI lords, new terrain, perhaps CoOp.
As always - forever grateful for your support!
And so presenting Update 1.12
MAJOR CHANGES AND ADDITIONS <*>Greatly improved visual performance when many units are on screen
<*>Added Chill Mode to the campaign - greatly reduces silver and happiness drain for a calm and easy gameplay
<*>Major pathfinding update - units appear on walls correctly now, without units dropping to the ground
<*>Fixed a lot of additional problems with pathfinding on walls
<*>Livestock now has an overlay icon to make them easy to select or task peasants on
<*>Fixed major issue - archer units can attack buildings now
<*>Fixed units falling through ships in naval combat and all other naval combat pathfinding issues
<*>Reworked diplomacy peace making - it`s now much harder and expensive to conclude and maintain peace
<*>Fighting enemy armies increases diplomatic relations and greatly helps with peace negotiations
<*>Fixed major lagspikes when sieging large towns and AI opens gates to ride out
<*>Battle rewards now scale depending on the battle size.
WORLD MAP AI REWRITE
Major rework and improvement to world map AI - armies will no longer attack same targets but spread out to look for weaknesses
World Map AI will often now attack in the first couple of months of the campaign, instead of letting player build up for a year
Fixed major issue with world map AI sending armies to attack player - will seem like a brand new experience. Effected all mid to late game campaigns
World Map AI will now send armies to attack player from far away towns and nations
World Map AI will complete it`s attacks on other AI towns faster without waiting around for months
World Map AI will never take long year long break from attacking player
FIXES AND ADDITIONS
Fixed Options menu appearing behind quest windows and being unusable
Changes to Tutorial and Campaign where sound volume for voices will no longer jump up an down
Fixed voices narration volume in campaign and tutorial being too quite
Added new Voice Volume setting to the Options - controls voiced over narrations volume
Fixed unit groups at the top overlapping with building banners
Fixed weird sound popping when skipping to the next dialogue conversation in tutorial
No longer applying large happiness penalty for entering town, only usual drain over time
Looted town is no longer auto-invited to join battle
Fixed game hanging when auto-resolving battle with a looted town
It`s now possible to select buildings by clicking the building banner
Building banners now show in multiplayer games
Fixed issue with world map army selecting when clicking on the ground near it
Greatly reduced lag that sometimes would happen when capturing the enemy flag
Fixed various issues with units on walls or on ships at the start of the game
AI will rush out from walled city to counter only if it has a strong chance of winning
Very rarely will AI now rush out from town just to surprise player
Large ship in naval combat can now be fully walked on
Fixed issue where AI army half across the screen would still protect it`s city
Arrows and ballista will no longer always hit village houses and set them ablaze
Ships no longer disappear during naval combat intro and outro cinematic
BALANCING
Diplomacy Gift and insult cost greatly increased, especially when the player is King
Trade Agreement cost increased when the player is King
Declaring War on a nation sets relations to -50, instead of 0
Increase the silver cost of Suing for Terms by 10x
Reduce diplomatic cost of Suing for Terms from -10 to -5
White Peace available at -10 relations instead of -30 relations
Only armies directly on top of cities will be auto invited to defend them
Range where armies can be invited is reduced by 30%
Can capture more units during battles, from up to 5 increased to 8
Mounted hobelar nerfed around 20%
Livestock max food is half of what it used to be. Same on start and grow quicker
Raising towns now has less diplomatic relations penalty, -3 for hamlets and -6 for towns
Reduced battering ram attack by 30% - to make Belfry and Escalade more attractive options
Reduced archer fire arrows damage by 25%
AI gets 5 minutes less (25 total) to conquer large player town
Silver drain increased- half an hour long battle now costs around 600 silver on medium
Units a 20% more likely to stay and fight until death instead of retreating
Price of trade goods increased 2x, makes it more important to produce trade goods in cities or through combat
Selling trade goods is 2x more profitable now
Update 1.11 - The Game Changer
Hey Everyone,
The massive update 11 is finally here! This update adds a number of large new features and also redefines the gameplay - addressing main player complaints of the past month. So let's see for this Game Changing update has to offer:
The # 1 player voted feature has been completed - battalion flags and information overlays. Combat is now a much better experience, and RTS portion of the game feels quite different from what our players are used to.
Next up we worked on addressing the main player complaint - too much grinding and time building up towns. To this end - we have greatly sped up everything in RTS game mode, from economy to combat. In fact, higher speed controls are no longer necessary -which in turn greatly helps with performance.
Please keep in mind - that we listen to our community closely - and if the changes won`t be popular we are completely open to reworking this again. With the update of this magnitude, there`s a potential for new bugs. We`ll be correcting and improving things based on your feedback over the next couple of days
The update comes complete with over half a hundred other changes big and small affecting every area of the game. We hope you`ll enjoy the experience as we continue to work. Thanks for your continuing support, a lot more amazing updates on the horizon!
New Poll & Upcoming Sale And we`ll be starting a new poll later this week - with an important choice between CoOp, trade, and controlling AI lords.
Also - we`ll be starting our first post-release sale next weekend - so if you're waiting for a discount, it`ll be a good time to join us!
And so presenting Update 1.11
MAJOR CHANGES AND ADDITIONS
Added detailed overlays for all unit battalions with a unique flag for each unit type
Added useful information to unit flags including hitpoints, stamina, level
Retreating battalion is clearly marked with ripped up white flag
Fixed the last combat crash, the only rare crash left is on the loading screen
Completely reworked how melee units attack buildings and gates
Added hitpoints bars to siege equipment, buildings, walls, gates - only shown when damaged
Added ability to select and task units by their flags instead of units - simplifies battle controls
Added silver reward for completing grand campaign objectives - from 8000 to 90k silver
Improved random terrain - more variation and less closed off areas
Removed grinding from building up towns in campaign mode - much faster, streamlined experience
Reworked RTS gameplay flow - much faster resources income and build times
Skirmish rebalanced for much faster gameplay experience, with faster AI progression
Build and Destroy gameplay plays a higher role in battles now - allowing both the player and AI to build up faster
Removed high game speed option in RTS gameplay - no longer needed with faster gameplay
Player will now get kicked out of town management, once happiness drops below -50
Reworked how world map objectives are shown in the tutorial
Fixed major issue with cavalry being useless in melee combat
FIXES AND ADDITIONS
Retreating units are now removed from unit type numbered groups
Reworked unit routing - only some will route, and some will die - freeing up pop for build and destroy gameplay
Can no longer target mill or village houses
Larger battalion tasking arrow
Fixed selecting units from multiple unit selection only working half the time
Fixed game breaking bug when resuming a saved Hamlet battle in Skirmish menu
Allied player AI is now dark blue color instead of grey
Reworked the look of the town and battle minimaps
Greatly reduced number of spike walls on all siege camps - easier to form up armies and navigate
Ballista bolt now has a visible attack trail
Tutorial 2 polished and improved – the English now properly retreat, less total defense time
Tutorial 2 and 4 minimaps fixed
Chapter 2 tutorial removed a confusing front walls control point
Tutorial chapter 7 fixed the bugs with stone and iron mine confusion
Fixed a lot of level design issues in the town of Caen level
Corrected some hamlets using old round towers
Chat is now always closed when starting the game
Ranged siege weapons have a larger line of sight
Ranged siege weapons will only fire at targets within their line of sight
Fixed exploit with Army Tent destroy button
Fixed issue with campaign cinematics playing with other background voices
Faster screen scrolling speed in battle on minimum zoom out
Slightly higher min zoom in the camera
BALANCING
Rebalanced unit strength values - militia and hunter less, elite units more
Hamlet upgrade cost increases by 40% of the base cost per city level
Greatly increased starting resources for build up
Increased happiness drain and silver drain - was necessary as gameplay is much faster now
Greatly increased all buildings hitpoints - harder to destroy with siege and fire arrows
The cost of leveling up building is greatly increased both in towns and on the World Map
Leveled up buildings are about 30% more effective now in battles and production
Units have a higher chance of fighting until death without retreating
Looting and Raising low-level towns bring 200-400 more silver
A bit of a boost to ranged units - were nerfed too much before
Major boost to cavalry in all stats for the best field unit
Destroying building on the world map gives fewer resources
Siege units consume 1 resource of stone or iron for each shot
Storehouse add 100 additional storage Base storage increased by 100
Increased peasant carry capacity by 50%
significantly increased price of walls in Iron
Update 1.10 - Fixes, Taxes and Happiness
Hey Everyone,
We have a small, but important update today. There have been a lot of complaints about two core gameplay elements play out - collecting taxes, and grindy build up in the town mode. It`s time to address this.
Taxes now generate faster and towns can store more tax income, but collecting taxes now comes with a big -15 happiness penalty. This really changes up how players approach taxes - immediate needs vs happiness penalty.
The happiness penalty for managing towns directly has also been greatly increased 2 times. Together with more silver from taxes, and less overall town happiness - gameplay shifts a lot towards managing towns on the world map. It`s now critical to figure out how to build up towns using less time - adding some core buildings and serfs on the world map before entering a town. This also addresses the exploit of entering to build up town garrison right before AI army is due to attack it.
Some of you might find these major gameplay changes to be odd at first, but we ask you to take your time before passing judgment - gameplay is quite different now, but it does make the game more challenging and faster. But of course - if you really don`t like the changes - let us know, we are open to revisiting this balancing.
We expect the next large update towards the middle of next week - finally adding combat units GUI overlay.
Thanks for supporting MKW - we are just getting started - a lot more amazing updates to come!
And so presenting Update 1.10.
MAJOR CHANGES
Collecting taxes now imposes -15 happiness penalty on a town taxes are collected from
Re-balanced collecting taxes - makes sense to let them accumulate and not click to collect all the time
Happiness while building up towns goes does significantly faster - twice as fast
World map gameplay re-balanced to be less long grind buildup oriented
FIXES AND ADDITIONS
Re-positioned world map army GUI to be centered
Fixed Social window where none of the buttons would work
Aligned recruit units world map window - no longer overlaps the chat
Aligned and re-scaled transfer units world map window - no longer overlaps chat and smaller
Fixed adviser tooltip covering adviser buttons
Corrected Swordsman description
Taxes generate 30% faster
Maximum tax storage per town increases by 100%
Update 1.09 - Better GUI & Fixing Bugs
Hey Everyone,
Another solid update today - as we continue to improve GUI. You`ll notice a lot of changes in every game screen, especially on the world map. We also took a step back to fix a lot of smaller bugs and issues across the board and worked on a lot of quality of life improvements. Combat also got a lot of attention with reworked ranged combat and better sounds.
This massive update with nearly 40 new features and fixes makes MKW play a lot smoother with fewer annoyances. Now that we got most of the bugs out of the way - the road is open us to add the major long awaited feature of floating combat units overlays. We expect the milestone 10th update towards the middle of next week.
Thanks for supporting MKW - we are just getting started - a lot more amazing updates to come!
And so presenting Update 1.09.
MAJOR CHANGES
Finale changes to the world map GUI - moved a lot of components around
Reworked Army and Town world map windows - no more overlap with the chat
New GUI art updated across the game
Chat now uses a modern approach to chat GUI with transparent background
All GUI windows redesigned to be significantly darker and less transparent
All tooltips are much darker and easier to read
Redesigned Steward window much easier to look at, and to see information
Can now invite armies of allied nations and your own nation to battle
Options Menu added clear Apply and Cancel buttons
FIXES AND ADDITIONS
Fixed rare instance of world map not responding when auto-resolving battle
Fixed rare bug with world map being paused with no way to unpause
Fixed AI attacking player army on top of town, instead of attacking the town
Fixed world map Army GUI floating on air when the game is paused
Fixed selecting units from multiple unit selection
Fixed all issues with ranged units shooting outside of their line of sight
Greatly reduced the arrow trails - arrows look a lot more realistic
Polished combat sounds - a lot more death screams
Updated premade group icons for ranged units and peasants
Fixed news window format breaking and displaying the date when loading next news story
Player color is brighter red now
Player allied color is a much darker red, almost black
England color is a different shape - more different from players Red now
Updated Horse Cart and Oil Cart unit portraits
World Map minimap terrain now perfectly fits town locations
A little bit of transparency for World Map minimap
Fixed social window overlapping with town banners and army GUI
Improved + and - tax rate buttons
Corrected Oil Cart description in all languages
Selecting army no longer centers camera on it
BALANCING
Crossbowman will no longer shoot short of their target
Crossbowman shoot in smaller angle - more direct line of fire
Ranged units no longer gain larger range with higher level
Horse Cart added to Peasant pre-made group
Adjusted capture flag to ignore retreating units for calculating capture time - much faster to capture it now
Peasants and siege weapons no longer count towards protecting the flag from being captured
Ballista now consumes 0.5 iron when firing, helps nerf siege weapons
Catapult, Trebuchet now consumes 0.5 stone when firing, helps nerf siege weapons
Elite Knight self-healing ability nerfed to heal 50% less
Update 1.08 - Better Graphics & GUI
Hey Everyone,
Another massive update today as we follow up on Players Votes and concentrate on reworking the GUI with overlays. And of-course - it`s time to get the game`s visuals finalized - we had a lot of feedback over the past month... A lot of work went into reworking the visual engine and coming up with new game color palette - we hope that results will please majority of players.
The changes can be seen in every game menu - including the update graphics or GUI improvements. And the World Map GUI has been redesigned from the ground up. Next week we continue with more GUI improvements, including redesigning the combat GUI, and adding overlays for battalions.
Thanks for your continuing support, a lot more amazing updates on the horizon!
And so presenting Update 1.08.
VISUAL UPDATE
Major visual update of the game - sharper, realistic graphics
Completely reworked the light scheme for realistic colours
Reworked graphics to remove blurring effect
Reworked graphics to remove red hue effect
Reworked graphics to remove super bright bloom easy
Game starts with high visual quality settings for new players
At nighttime houses, buildings and walls turn on window lights and torches
Reworked sky graphics and sky box
WORLD MAP GUI CHANGES
Completely redesigned world map GUI
World Map armies now have GUI overlay - showing owner, strength, diplomacy status
World Map Town banners now display town strength
New GUI art for World Map chat and minimap
World Map minimap moved to the right bottom corner
World Map chat moved to the left bottom corner
World Map advisers relocated to the middle of the screen
FIXES AND ADDITIONS
Removing decimals points from world map army and town strength
Redesigned main menu News window
Update 1.07 - National Colours & Performance
Hey Everyone,
A massive update today with multiple changes across the board. We took our time with this update and the wait was well worth it. You`ll notice changes in every area of the game - from completely reworked combat sounds, to national colours, and world map GUI updates. We also fixed a large number of bugs effecting players on some systems - resulting in bad graphics or GUI issues.
Also this updates brings major improvements to performance. Not only have we fixed the rare stuttering bug effecting some systems, but greatly improved performance across the board, and in large battles.
And your Poll Votes are well received, we expected to have GUI overlay with units and world map armies within a few days.
Thanks for your continuing support, a lot more amazing updates on the horizon!
And so presenting Update 1.07.
BIG CHANGES
Fixed major performance issues effecting some systems with stuttering every few seconds
Fixed multiple GUI, graphics, resolutions issues when running MKW on laptops
All the nations now have unique colour on the world map - we are open to changing these colours based on player feedback.
In campaign combat national troops use unique colour, but this is custom in Skirmish
World map displays nations colour around the town and hamlet banners
World map shows red hue around player towns and hamlets on the world map
Redesigned the sound system for combat sounds - less overwhelming and quieter
Reworked hundreds of combat sounds using new sound libraries - combat sounds completely different now
Fixed GUI and graphics issues when running MKW on certain high end video card systems
Greatly expanded the Naval Combat map
Added Open All Gates and Close All Gates function to the Manor building
Greatly improved how the GUI scales when playing in a windowed mode
Units in armies and siege camps start nicely lined up and not bundled up
Units in towns and on city walls start nicely lined up and don't overlap
Units in naval combat now spawn nicely spaced and grouped
FIXES AND ADDITIONS
Allows clicking through certain GUI elements to interact with units, such as - Tutorial Arrow, Region banner, Building Banner
Fully tested and improved German translation with 100s of corrections
Translated all the recently added text into all supported languages
Corrected a lot of incorrect tooltips text from techs to units in all languages
Camera Settings default to Epic and also On for Medium options setting
Fixed rare bug with players not hearing music in multiplayer or having broken GUI
Improved how the game works on Dual Monitor PCs
BALANCING
Major nerf of ranged units, a lot less effective now
AI players upgrade their Hamlets twice as slow through the years
AI players upgrade hamlet garrison to higher tier units 30% slower through he years
AI players on easy and medium progress significantly slower through the years through techs
AI players on easy and medium use lower tier units for a few years longer at the start of the campaign
Boiling Oil takes twice as long to recharge
Boiling Oil damage and radius reduced by 30%
Upcoming Updates & Poll Results
Hey Everyone,
Sorry for a few days of silence, we got carried away with work on new features. Lets get you up to speed on what we are working on.
Update 1.07 Right now we are wrapping up work on Update 1.07 - expecting it tomorrow, or latest by Monday. Update will include unique national colours both on the world map and in combat, as well as first draft of a reworked sound system - making combat sound so much better.
The look of the world map also changed dramatically with national color outlines for towns and armies. We will be finalizing these colours based on player feedback.
Update 1.08 We heard your votes loud and clear and putting all the resources on the unit GUI overlay. By the end of next week we will release Update 1.08 - including UI overlay for Units in RTS mode, as well as for world map armies. Now you`ll be able to clear see the type of the unit, the owner, current hit points e.tc. Similarly on the world map armies will show their strength, owner and unit damage.
This update will also include another major performance improvement - not only fixing the issue for a small % of players effected by lag spikes, but making things run even smoother for everyone else.
As always - thanks for your continuing support! We`ll have a new poll for you by next week.
Update 1.06 - Lords for Hire
Hey Everyone,
It`s time for the second part of the Diplomacy update. Introducing the new ability to hire new lords once you become King. Customize their name, portrait and assign them land to rule. We will have a final part of the Diplomacy update by next week - letting you issue commands to your Lords and allies.
Another important part of this update, is the major rework of the graphics code with regards to bloom, hdr, light and much more. We have fixed a large number of related visual issues and create two distinct approaches to the game graphics. Try switching between Bloom On and Off in the game options and see which one works better for you.
Thanks for your continuing support, and we have a lot more amazing updates on the horizon!
And so presenting Update 1.06.
FIXES AND ADDITIONS
Major new feature - added ability to hire new lords when King
Select from twenty new lord portraits - only male for now
Diplomacy now shows all options, even if player is not King
Unique dialogue lines for destroying each of 14 nations
Added voice acting for all world map event cinematics and big messages
Major visual update to RTS mode - greatly improved light
Redesigned No Bloom settings - a lot less red light, bloom and brightness
World map has a lot less red colour, especially with bloom off
Redesigned world map light and colours
Fixed common issue with light sometime being too bright and bloomy in RTS mode
Fixed major issue with RTS mode usually being completely grey
Fixed major issue with time of day not changing RTS mode
Changing bloom on the world map now updates the level right away
Fixed a bug with giving towns to AI lords, creating player controlled AI armies
Removed ridiculous diplomatic penalty with all nations when the King attacks his own lords
Diplomatic penalty from alliance/peace only applies to nations you and your ally are at war with
Fixed French campaign cinematics not playing on the world map
Update 1.05 - New Poll and a Small Update
Hey Everyone,
I`s time for our second poll. Thanks to your votes last week – we got really needed feedback and heard you load and clear. Diplomacy continues to be our top priority – and a lot more updates are on the way - like being able to hire new lords. Votes cast towards Performance, Stability and CoOp were also heard - and we continue to work in these areas as well.
Now we want to see what you want us to work on for the rest of January, with a good selection of projects. You can see the list of all the projects, on our roadmap here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/499660/discussions/0/1744482869758019730/
Meanwhile we are working on a massive update 1.06 that we`ll be releasing on Wednesday. It includes a lot of new features for diplomacy and other improvements across the board. So today - we have just a small update - improving the tutorial and fixing a few issues here and there.
Thanks for your continuing support!
And so presenting Update 1.05.
FIXES AND ADDITIONS
New Poll added
Fixed Market building not unlocking option to sell resources
Fixed background sound not paying right in the main menu
Disabled Raze buildings in tutorial
Fixed text going off the screen for some units in the German translation
Updated Market building transaction description
Fixed other bugs with Market buildings like requirement for 500 wood per transaction
Improved Chapter 8 - AI attacks a lot better, with less lag, and the gameplay flow is smoother
New Moderator - Carl added
Update 1.04 - Diplomacy Part I
Hey Everyone,
We have a solid update that delivers on your votes! Hundreds of people voted for Diplomacy features - and we are glad to deliver. Today is just the first part of new Diplomacy series - with two more updates on the horizon. This large update also includes some performance improvements, as well as a dozen fixes for the most commonly reported player issues.
And we continue with diplomacy we`ll be adding ability to recruit Lords. And in the following update, introducing Lords relations to player and assigning tasks to Lords. We also hope to include various confederations, inviting nations to join war, or to make peace among each other.
As always - thanks for your support - your reviews and forum feedback is really making a difference!
And so presenting Update 1.04
BIG CHANGES
King Diplomacy - added Military Alliance
King Diplomacy - added Defensive Alliance
Allied armies can now be invited into battle
Minor Lord and King Diplomacy - added Trade Agreements
Added income from trade on the world map
Redesigned Diplomacy window - now shows all available buttons
GUI improvement - all the greyed out buttons now show tooltips
A lot of fixes in translation - for Russian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French.
FIXES AND ADDITIONS
City Tax and Happiness now change while the town is selected
Fix AutoSave option value not saving, and defaulting to 7mins
Fixed lag when changing unit formations and tasking
Tutorial level 2 no longer showing scripted battle scene with bad sound
Tutorial level 2 completely lag free now
Tutorial level 2 a lot easier now
Tutorial level 3 fixed healing army sometimes not working
Tutorial level 5 fixed constructing buildings sometimes not registering
Tutorial level 5 disabled giving towns with Steward
Improved Smelting Blacksmith tech now also improves Iron Camp
Munich now properly belongs to Austria in new campaigns
Fire pitch lights up a lot faster now, and is a lot more visible
Townhouses now have less smoke and lights
Corrected ballista description
Corrected description for Serf, and changing Iron and Stone Camp into Mines.
