In line with announcement from a few days ago, we're releasing next Patron update today! Work was done in several areas from continuous optimizations, bugfixes and additions of a few quality of life and useability perspectives.
To dive deeper and find more room for performance gains, we've performed a very lenghty testing sessions to monitor the hardware stress and deduce when and why stress is increased. In this instance, particular emphasis was put to find a way to bring optimizations that could impact lower-end GPU's.
Acording to results we've been getting, performance (especially in lower end hardware) should be more consistent now, shouldn't have significant drops with hundreds of citizens and hundreds of buildings, and occassional issue where frame dropped during ingame winter time should be resolved now.
At the same time, while diving deep, we've also identified some areas that could increase performace even more, but more extensive changes will need to be made. That's something we'll include in more future updates.
We've also fixed several bugs you've reported with stock panel, numerous notification errors and visual glitches.
Lastly, selection for several frequent keyboard layouts has been completed too.
List of notable update elements: CHANGES
FIXED: Stock panel – when resources are sorted by quantity, selected resource won't randomly change when numerical value changes
FIXED: Shadows for numerous objects are now rendered properly at intended level of distance. They will not disappear prematurely
FIXED: Fake notifications, especially for lacking housing, won't appear anymore
ADDED: Choice between QWERTY, AZERTY and QWERTZ keyboard layouts
OPTIMIZED: Very extensive optimization of all free Halloween DLC 3D models
OPTIMIZED: 3D models of all buildings and trees in Mare Nostrum DLC improved
OPTIMIZED: Several tree models in Patron base game
OPTIMIZED: Transport wagons 3D models for all farms highly optimized
OPTIMIZED: Text renderings in many panels improved and made less hardware demanding
OPTIMIZED: During winter times, frame drop should be eliminated
May your experience be smoother then ever. We have more in store for future updates, so keep us informed of your experiences!
Enjoy and govern on! Overseer Games
Next update coming by the end of the week
Hello Patrons!
It's been a while since last update to Patron, but we've started proper testing on next round of improvements. If all goes well, update should be live by the end of this week. We did get a chance to gather a lot of feedback since last update and information from save files many of you provided. Btw – thank you for that!
Bulk of the work will focus on next optimization package. Many players now reached much farther into the game, and with thousands of citizens and hundreds of buildings, every additional frame counts.
Next, we'll introduce a balancing pass on the campaign portion of game. There is room for improvement here and numbers we got from your save files will be the guideline for these changes.
Also, several items from „quality of life“ list will enter this update as well, mostly suggested by players as well, but perhaps some surprises too…
Looking at a calendar, it's not yet time for summer, but given the climate stuff happening around and temperatures we're experiencing here, we'll call it an early summer update!
One last thing - some of you may already noticed, but thanks to awesome devs of another great city building game, we've also entered into a bundle with Pioneers of Pagonia. This way you can get access to both Patron and Pioneers of Pagonia with bundle discount!
Getting both the lack and excess of population under control – Update 1.902.0
Greetings Patrons!
According to numerous reactions from many of you, and what troubles can arise in longer gameplay sessions, we’ve decided to pack together numerous modifications to game features impacting two of the most prominent problems some players are encountering – the lack or slow growth of the population, or the opposite situation with these numbers snowballing after a while.
General idea was to boost the possible population growth in earlier stages of the game, and slow it down after certain number of ingame years. At the same time, tweaks have been also made to system managing the speed with which resources are distributed around your city.
Changing any of these numbers in a full game featuring so many interlinked numbers and calculations was rather tricky, but from all the testing we've done, it should work properly and as intended. If you notice any weird consequences, please do let us know so we can adjust it more if needed.
Let’s go over the list of changes for this update:
CHANGELOG
MODIFIED: Movement speed of dedicated carriers (in jobs board) is increased by 10%
MODIFIED: After 20 and 40 ingame years, carrier speed is increased by further 4%
MODIFIED: When production building requires a critical resource, carrier will go pick it up even if drop off distance is further away
MODIFIED: If some resource is very abundant in warehouse, carriers will pick up larger quantity for delivery then usual
MODIFIED: Road signs increase road travel speed by additional 2% after 20 ingame years
MODIFIED: After 20 ingame years, and once city gets much bigger, number of required dedicated carriers is slightly increased
MODIFIED: in first several years of your colony, 2-4 additional colonists will arrive to your city per year
MODIFIED: if your colony exceeds 1000 citizens, natural birthrate will slow down after ingame year 40, then 60, then 80 again, further reducing snowball effect
With all these changes, it should be easier to start your colony and manage its growth in first critical years. After that, once you get to later stages of the game, sudden overpopulation and strain on already established production chains should be easier to control.
Hope it will further improve your experience and help you build sustaining and long lasting medieval colony!
Govern on!
Story questline addition + another targeted optimization pack
Hello Patrons!
Fall is fast approaching, and to alleviate the boredom of long rainy days, we've been preparing to add another update to Patron. This time it's mainly focused on new content elements.
Let's get straight into the details of it: First of all, biggest addition in this update is opening up a long questline that will start relatively early in the game and ask players to fulfill tasks asked by the King. Basically, the mainland Kingdom gets involved in a costly and long war alongside its borders. To successfully turn the tide of the conflict, they will need all the help they can get, and your thriving colony will get a chance to step up and offer assistance, in terms of steady stream of supplies or trained troops.
Everything you've been building in your colony in the new land will now get a chance to become an important asset in helping your mainland bretheren fending off the hostile invasion. If your city/colony is strong enough to offer that assistance, you'll prove once and for all that you were the right choice to lead the settlement and King's faith in you was justified all along.
In economical terms, all you'll be required to keep sending assistance when asked for is to secure sufficient production and ensure specific surpluses for resources your mainland is missing at a specific points of the conflict. On the other side, if you're asked for fresh troops directly, you'll have to build a barracks and train required amount of troops.
Besides story questline, another element of this update is another batch of optimizations, this time affecting your citizens, how their simulations are calculated and presented. In our internal tests new system yielded some noticeable gains in performance, depending on specific hardware and overall citizen numbers in your city.
Lastly, today's update brings several bugfixes that correct some annoying bugs our players have been reporting in recent weeks.
CHANGES
ADDED: Campaign questline and linked worldmap
ADDED: New available building - Barracks
OPTIMIZATION: reworked system governing citizen background simulations
FIXED: Possible CTD during reloading on specific maps eliminated
FIXED: Trade panel won't suddenly open and close when you click on Dock icon (if Dock icon is below Cancel icon on panel)
FIXED: Numerous corrections to texts in different languages
Hope you'll enjoy the new content! Until the next update, you're welcome to leave your comments, reactions, any feedback or suggestions - on either Steam forums or our Discord channel. We're there regulary and ready to help out!
Keep governing!
Next big update and Story questline is coming soon!
Hello Patrons!
In much of the world time of vacations and time off is slowly coming to a close, se we wanted to reach out and announce that work on Patron hasn't stopped during this time. We've been working on some more extensive additions so it is taking a bit more time, but next major update should be ready within next month!
Besides additional bux fixes, more optimization interventions and feature tweaks, another aspect of the game that we've been working to expand is the story and quest dimension. So, with next update you can also expect the introduction of longer questline with broader map where events take place, some additional background linking your colony to original homeland and your King etc...
Majority of game elements from this upcoming update are already undergoing internal testing, so if all goes well, in a month or so this update will land on Steam.
Meanwhile, enjoy the rest of the summer, continue building your medieval colonies and have fun!
Pressing on – update 1.700.0
Hello Patrons!
In recent days following our extensive update and significant increase in active player numbers, we've also received a number of suggestions and possible bug reports. Today's update responds to these requests, at least to ones we've already confirmed and can react to quickly. Thanks to everyone communicating with us on forums and sending us valuable data for pinpointing the areas of improvements!
These are the elements for today's update, and we're throwing ourselves at work for the next one: CHANGES
FIXED: All chopped and prepared wood will now be properly picked up and taken to warehouses in a timely manner
UPDATED: When upgrading a trading dock, autotrade list will be properly refreshed
FIXED: Harbour trade list glitch where manual value input is being duplicated to scrolled resources is now removed
FIXED: Distillery production building now updates correct upkeep resources when switching production output
FIXED: Few ingame panels that were previously displayed visually incorrectly
FIXED: Several text typos in new game starting panels
OPTIMIZED: Another batch of foliage models heavily optimized for faster rendering
Hope it makes your playtime even more enjoyable! Until next update, Overseer Games
Celebrating two year release anniversary with awesome update and hefty discount!
Hi honorable Patrons!
In a few days we'll celebrate the two year anniversary of Patron release. A lot has been changed, expanded and improved during this time and we're happy majority of players appreciate this continuous effort to make the experience ever more enjoyable. Heck, a lot of ideas came directly from you so big thanks for supplying us with such a nice amount of inspiration!
So, for the occassion, we've naturally prepared some nice surprises:
Central element of today's update is the addition of „Creative“ game mode. This has been requested numerous times by so many of you, so it's here now. When you start the New game you'll be prompted to choose between two game modes – Sandbox and Creative. First is basically the original game mode that existed from before: All game rules apply, players faces challenges with securing resources, balancing societal issues, tackling problems and disasters, forces the way ahead through resources and everything else connected to selected game difficulty.
Creative mode is a special game mode that OPENS EVERYTHING to players. Entire research tree is available from the start, ALL RESOURCES ARE INFINITE, Citizens will always spaws in sufficient numbers, access to all buildings is open and so on… you get the picture. This mode is for anyone wishing to simply spend some time playing the role of ultimate medieval urbanist. If you were a mayor of a medieval city, with limitless resources and logistics – what kind of marvelous city would you create? Only sky is the limit…
We hope you'll enjoy this new dimension of Patron, and that you'll go wild building impressive urban fantasies. We'll be happy to take a look at what you come up with. Feel free to share it via Steam community screenshots of on our Discord.
Another important thing in this update is the introduction of „automatic jobs board“. This means you can now check this option on ingame jobs board and all jobs will be automatically populated depending on available citizen numbers, stage of building upgrades and current city requirements.
More detailed list of v1.610.0 content: CHANGES
ADDED: Second game mode: Creative mode with unlimited resources and people, as well as all researches and buildings unlocked
ADDED: Jobs board now has „automatic“ option
ADDED: Several new flags for players to choose from
UPDATED: Another batch of 3D models optimized for faster performance
UPDATED: Trees in orchards now use different drawing system aimed at increased game performance
UPDATED: Visual improvements on water wells
FIXED: Hitting ESC button in main menu doesn't initiate save loading anymore
FIXED: Error disabling more then one on screen notification is removed. All notifications are now clearly visible
FIXED: Numerous corrections to text in several languages
Hope you'll like the contents of this update! Thank you for following us in this two year journey, and see you on next update!
Enjoy and have fun! Overseer Games
Fixes before the big update
Hello Patrons
Last fixes before the big update:
CHANGELOG Continue button fix Only one notification fix Model Optimizations – more improvements
Extensive optimization package, part two - v1.501.0
Greetings Patrons,
As announced yesterday, our testing of second optimization package is now concluded and ready for all of you!
In general, this update includes further interventions to improve game performance. Technical details are similar to last update, but this time optimizations include much more models, and they go deeper in multiple layers. Today's update also includes improvements to foliage, trees, farm plants, as well as upgrades to level of details on various zoom levels.
After both optimization packages are installed, there should be a significant reduction of loading times, better performance when numerous buildings are constructed and more precise handling on citizens once they reach higher numbers. Note that bottlenecks we've been resolving with these two updates weren't equally visible on all machines. It mainly depends on specific hardware you use, so that means that gains will also vary. During our testing we've noticed bigger improvements on relatively slower machines. Loads on your CPU and GPU should also decrease further.
Hopefully this will make your entire experience smoother and easier to control.
Regardless of fact that last two updates were strictly aimed at heavy optimizations, we've also corrected a few minor bugs and glitches, one of which was actually pretty noticeable but also somewhat funny - snowman in front of your Town Hall won't be appearing in the middle of summer anymore :)
Final heads up on this occassion is that our work will proceed from this point, but we'll be again more concentrated at the game itself. We're aiming for second part of July for another megaupdate and few more surprises...
Until then, Govern on!
Huge optimization update, part one - v1.500.0
Hello Patrons!
After several weeks of work, we're now starting to release packages aimed at boosting game performance. There will be two update packages, first one today, and second one in a couple of days.
Every file you've provided us and every log sent to us by every player helped us locating places where bottlenecks appeared. In that respect - we wish to extend gratitude to all of you for assisting us in this work.
There were interventions in several game elements: large optimizations of graphics drawings, changes to model loading procedures and massive improvements in model level of details.
Full impact of these changes will be visible once part two of this update is applied, and that should be in a day or two. But sizeable improvements should be noticeable right away, depending on your specific GPU and CPU.
As before, once you download and apply both updates, if you wish to report anything else, please do provide us with new game logs and save files. We will continue to pursue further improvements and data from fully updated game versions will be of great use!
