Genre: Real Time Strategy (RTS), Simulator, Strategy, Turn-based strategy (TBS), IndieNorthgard
Patch Notes #11: Repair system update v0.1.4718
We have been getting a lot of feedback on our latest patch. There was a lot of stuff you liked, and then there was the repair system.
We were not happy with the previous mechanism which required a simple click to repair. We chose to add a villager requirement to repair the damaged buildings to make the process more interesting and less abstract. We think the changes are good, but the flow of required actions and the ergonomics involved were... no so good.
This fix should make things a lot smoother:
- Earthquakes can no longer damage more than 3 buildings. They will damage only 20% of the building (was 50%).
- The speed at which the building burns has been halved, so you have more time to send a villager to repair.
- We have reviewed the notifications and icons for buildings currently burning or being repaired. It is now easier to see what's going on and what you should do.
- Repair time now depends on building size. It is faster to repair small buildings such as houses, bigger buildings repair duration stays the same.
- Constructing and repairing is no longer stopped by incoming attacks (unless the villager himself is attacked)
- We have fixed a few bugs related to Trading Post and Training Camp repairs
Our goal is to make sure that repairing is something you have to handle strategically and not by simply spending wood, but without turning the whole thing into a click fest or a chore.
Let us know what you think! We will keep updating the repair process and balancing depending on community feedback.
EDIT : v4718 fixes bug for repairing Harbor or having more than 3 sailors, and a few other fixes.
Thanks for your patience!
The Shiro Games Team
Patch notes #10 : Replay, Women and gameplay updates v0.1.4677
Hey there everyone!
Sorry for the long wait, but as we mentioned in our last post we've been really busy working on the multiplayer and well, it's coming along very nicely! We can't wait to show it to you.
In the meantime, we've also been working on additional gameplay mechanics and content for Northgard. Here's a list of changes that comes with today patch:
Replay functionality:
No matter if you win or lose you can now relive that sweet moment where you crushed your foes, or study what went wrong and plan for the next skirmish.
The replay function is only available for games that you start after installing the latest update, as we weren't recording anything before.
Repair:
When a building is damaged, either by an enemy attack or an earthquake, paying the wood required to repair will not be enough, you will also need a villager in the area to repair it. The building will keep burning and might be destroyed if you don't send a villager in time.
To repair we allow you to directly assign a villager by right clicking on the damaged building to pay the wood and start the repair immediately.
As a result of these changes, earthquakes now affect less buildings but repairing them costs more wood.
EDIT: v4677 removes entirely the Repair button and Right-click-to-repair that was causing some confusion. You now have to assign a villager to repair the building.
Women:
There are now both men and women in your viking clan population! The woman can take on any role and will cut wood, punch wolves, sail the Iron Sea and go on raids with the best of them!
Extra Resources:
Destroying (colonizing) a Wolf's Den now gives +5 Stone, and for a Draugr Camp you get +5 Iron.
As a result, Draugr Camps now give 30 Fame instead of 50, and Wolves' Dens 20 instead of 30
Improved controls:
We have improved controls, unit selection and automatic combat behaviour so you can now better micro-manage your military units.
This will play nicely with the new military units we are working on : the Axe Thrower and the Shield-bearer, which should be available soon.
Early game pacing:
In order to improve the early game pacing, we have reduced the build time required for the Scout Camp and halved the time it takes to scout the first few areas around your Town Hall.
We have also slightly decreased the time it takes for a building to construct by making the progress continue while the villager is moving around the building.
We reduced the Harbor, Longship Dock and Marketplace cost to 80 Wood and their upgrade to 100 Wood (they now have all the same price as the Trading Post).
Map Sizes:
You can now select your Map Size between Small Medium (default) and Large when starting a new game.
Small map is up to 2 players (1 AI), Large maps allow up to 6 players (5 AI + you)
Can't start the game:
We have fixed a bug related to 64 bit windows that prevented a few of you from starting the game. Let us know if this helped you out!
EDIT: we have fixed additional startup bugs, restart Steam to update to latest version if you're still having issues
Clan of the Wolf:
- Fenrir can now directly hire a Berserker instead of Warchief. (We found that having two heroes makes the wolves unstoppable in multiplayer matches...)
- Wolf Fame 2 is now replaced by the fact that the Berserker can use a special power "Dominion" to colonise areas for free (with a one year cool down period)
- Pillage now always gives +15 Kröwns per unit killed (outside of territory)
Clan of the Goat:
- Now starts with 2 sheep instead of 3
- Barricades : +20% instead of +10
- The Sheepfold upgrade now gives +50% production bonus instead of +100%
- Industrious and Amenities have been switched
- Amenities : now reduce cost of upgrading zone instead of giving free slots
- Industrious : all buildings can be assigned an extra villager (it was previously only food producing structures)
Clan of the Stag:
- Structure Maintenance has been replaced by Advanced Silos (gives +2/+5 Food per Silo)
- The Value of Great Deeds now replaces Coinage instead of Shipbuilding
- Young and Proud now replaces Defensive Strategy instead of Sharp Weapons
Clan of the Raven:
- The lore Wealth now gives Happiness bonus based on harbours instead of being based on Kröwn stocks
- After several rage quits while testing multiplayer, we found that Mercenaries were a bit tough so we have reduced their resistance.
Valkyries:
- Yggdrasil, Relic of the Gods, Magma Flow are now protected by 4 Valkyries instead of 3.
- Valkyries will spawn in pairs on Helheim, but at a slightly slower pace than before.
- Valkyries are now aggressive and can attack your territory if you colonize next to them.
Other changes:
- Berserker and Warchief now run at the same speed as warriors
- Increasing the number of slots for an area now costs 100 Kröwns instead of 200
- Upgrading tools costs 30 Kröwns instead of 50
- Carpentry Mastery and Negotiation have been switched
- The Altar of Kings now gives +2 Food/Wood/Kröwns/Lore and costs 300 instead of 400 (wood and kröwns)
- Upgrading towers only upgrades their resistance, not their attack power
- Upgrading the Town Hall now also increases your population limit by 2
- When destroying another clan's Town Hall you now get 80 Fame instead of 50
- Wood can now be traded for +3 Kröwns instead of +4
- The time it takes to forge a part of Odin's Sword has been tripled
- Added notifications for: Yggdrasil colonizatioin start, trade victory progress, altar of kings built, incoming raven raid, forged sword part.
- Defensive Strategy now only upgrades towers' resistance
- Upgrading Training Camp now only applies to warriors
A little development update.
Hey there everyone,
We've been getting a fair few requests for some news on what we're working on, so here it is!
Main priority: Multiplayer
We've got all hands on deck on the multiplayer version of the game and we're quite happy with the 2v2 version of the game, that we've just tested out 3v3 which was quite possibly even better, in spite of the fact that we still had a few bugs!
As many of you know we decided to prioritise the multiplayer mode and as we explained before we're only a small team, so this is why you haven't had as many features added or patches pushed as we managed to do in the first month. But rest assured we haven't forgotten the base game.
Here's a picture of the team testing the 3v3.
Next patch: Women come to Northgard!
Our next patch will be shipped sometime next week and be quite light. However, the most interesting feature will be the addition of female characters to the world! The shield maidens will be out there chopping wood, punching wolves and raiding with best of them.
Advanced buildings:
The next update is small at first glance but quite significant in terms of the change it will have on your strategies and playstyle. As of next week you will be able to construct most advanced buildings without having first upgraded the town hall.
This will give you more control over which direction you push your society early on in the game.
Bug fix:
Some people have been having trouble launching the game becasue of a missing Microsoft redist package. We've taken care of that which should mean one less critical and critically annoying bug for those of you out there struggling with this.
I also wanted to mention that we're aware of the other major game launch problem and we're working on finding out what it is. We've tracked it down to a problem with a library that launches the game window, but we're still a little stumped as to why it's not allowing some players to boot up the game. Any information that you can provide us about your rigs, drivers and experience with this bug is very welcome!
Balancing:
Of course the patch will come with a stack of tweaks and balancing that should make the game a more rounded experience for all of the clans. Detailed patch notes will come with the update next week.
Community Management
Last but not least I wanted to get some feedback on how you think we're doing as far as communicating about the game goes. Is there anything that you would like to see more or less of? Are we communicating frequently enough? Do you feel like we're reactive when it comes to bugs or critical issues with the game?
Would love your feedback here.
Otherwise we'll be doing an update on the FAQs for bugs so that people have a clear idea on what's happening.
Thanks again everyone for helping us take Northgard from good to awesome! And stay tuned for that multiplayer patch, if all goes well we're aiming to have it out by the end of the month (there you go an Easter egg for those who read right till the end) ;)
See you soon,
buzzard and the Shiro Games team.
Development update: Multiplayer and new units.
Hi there everyone!
It's been a little while since we've stopped by to let you know what we're up to or pushed out a patch. So here we go.
Multiplayer:
We've really come a long way. We're currently testing and addressing issues on a free for all version (up to 4 players). It's a LOT of fun. Much errr... "testing" has been done this week. More seriously there is still a lot of work to do, but it's mostly functional and we're pretty happy with what we've got so far.
Next week we'll start working on a 2v2 coop system and see what happens... This is still in the idea phase so we'll have to see how it pans out as we continue to develop the game, but we're confident we can make something fun!
Here is a picture of some snow for while you wait.
New units:
We hear that you like ranged units... So we're experimenting with some ranged units!
It's early days and we are absolutely not sure we can make it work for the moment, but we are definitely going to try our best! That's enough teasing about that for now... ;p
We're also working on another more defence based unit which might come in handy against certain fixed objects...
So far so good:
Enough teasing. We will of course be coming past to let you know once we have more concrete information, concept art, screenshots and maybe even a little gameplay footage...
As for the bugs and issues. We are of course still reading through your reports and compiling them, fixing the bigger bugs and trying to understand the ones we can't reproduce. However we have all major bugs right down to the single figure percentages or less.
We hope this gives you a little idea of where we're up to. As usual, thank you all for your time playing out game, your suggestions, your feedback, bug reports and your screenshots!
See you soon,
The Shiro Team.