Hello friends! We are happy to be back with a huge development update. This time we are doing a traditional written blog post, just to make sure that it can be translated to all the various languages the game is available in.
Team Lavapotion, at our offices (and elsewhere), celebrating the start of the Early Access period!
First and foremost, the whole team wants to send out a big thank you to our players! Your comments, ideas and feedback means the world to us. We have received so many cool suggestions and just general support. Keep in mind, we already spent over five years developing this game and we are planning to spend a few more to get it just right! To finally have a community to share the game with is just an awesome privilege for our small team.
With that said, it’s now finally time to look forward to what the future holds for Songs of Conquest and you players!
We have tried to listen to the whole community and strike a balance between features that cater to both multiplayer and singleplayer experiences. Simultaneous turns is a huge addition that is currently released on the Public Test Realm. So you can jump right in and try it out at this moment, but don’t expect it to be perfect, just yet! The same goes for difficulty options in the campaigns, which is something many of you wanted! Normal is a little bit easier than before and Hard is a bit tougher.
The random map generator is something many have asked for, to give the game more longevity, and we have heard you all. That is why we are placing it high on our prioritization list. The same goes for more campaigns, so you’ll get one for each of the four factions!
A lot has happened in the last five years. This is how the adventure map used to look five years ago, and how it looks right now!
There is lots more good stuff to come. First and foremost, the AI will continue to be worked on during the full Early Access period and beyond. It is at the core of the singleplayer experience and it is super important for us to keep improving it. The same of course goes for general quality of life improvements, bug fixing and optimization.
New factions are also highly requested, and something we've always thought about adding more of. But they are very time-consuming to produce. We want to do it, and we will do it, but we don’t know when.
Keep in mind that the roadmap is a living document. We will always need to weigh in new ideas and general improvements to every planned feature, but this is how our plan looks right now. We will always strive to create the best game possible at each given moment.
The combat screen has also undergone a lot of iterations in the last five years. Makes you wonder how it will look after a few more years in development!
Thanks to the success of the Early Access launch we are also expanding and looking for more team members. If you want to work with us as either Community Manager or Lead Artist, check out the job postings on www.lavapotion.com/jobs.
And finally, thank you to everyone who has decided to take this journey together with us. Please know that the whole team is pretty much going on vacation during July (the Swedish summer is short but sweet!) and we won’t be communicating or developing new features. We’ll be back in action early to mid August, so that’s when you should expect to see updates again!
We just finished a development sprint and here are the highlights from the sprint review! There are of course many more things that has happened within the production, but these are the most important parts in my opinion. Check out the video and leave a comment if there is anything you want to ask or suggest!
Please know that next week will be exciting as we are getting ready to share our roadmap for the game!
Added difficulty levels Normal and Hard to Song of Stoutheart campaign (Easy and Very hard will be added later and difficulties to Rise of Ashes will be added)
Added ability to replay a Quick battle in Manual battle if you didn’t like the results
Gameplay
Fix being able to end up with having both a two-handed artifact and an off-hand artifact equipped at once by replacing a two-handed artifact in the backpack with an equipped main-hand artifact
Fix sometimes not being able to remove artifact increasing the Command stat even though the wielder has enough Command without it
Fix issue where you could only donate one less troop than max size allowed, even if you had enough troops on the giving wielder
Fix artificers mines using wielder level as multiplier instead of stack size
Q can be used to fast walk
Fix the mass move button not handling stack size research correctly
Shaman Tents upgrade changed to 5 stone, 5 Ancient Amber and 5 Glimmerweave (Was 4 stone, 3 Ancient Amber and 3 Glimmerweave.)
Chelun Sanctuary’s upgrade changed to 5 stone, 3 Ancient Amber and 3 Celestial Ore (Was 5 stone, 3 Ancient Amber and 2 Celestial Ore)
Smoldering Cave’s final upgrade change to 30 Ancient Amber and 20 Glimmerweave (Was 30 Ancient Amber, 20 Celestial Ore and 20 Glimmerweave)
Remove Coral as a recruitable undead wielder from Song of Stoutheart mission 3
Fix Shrine of Aurelia, this effect no longer stacks and now adds 5 initiative instead of 10
Troop changes:
Toxicologists initiative raised to 12 (was 11)
Bane: Initiaitve raised to 16 (was 15), max damage lowered to 8 (was 9), price adjusted to 350 gold and 1 Celestial Ore (was 350 gold)
Aurelian Scholars initiative lowered to 9 (was 21)
Necromancers initiaitve lowered to 10 (was 23)
Blessed Bones price changed to 1400 gold (was 1200 and 1 Glimmerweave)
Dire Dreaths max damage lowered to 6 (was 7)
Hellbreaths max damage raised to 24 (was 20)
Hellroars damage range raised to 26-32 (was 25-30)
Storm Guards damage lowered to 3-5 (was 4-6) and cost lowered to 200 (was 220)
Sage’s hp lowered to 14 (was 15) and cost raised to 340 (was 320)
The cost to evolve dragons into Elder Dragons lowered to 900 gold and 3 ancient amber (was 600 gold and 5 ancient amber)
The cost of Bandit was raised to 360 gold (was 350 gold)
UI
Prevent research from erroneously being shown as having been bought when quickly switching between tabs in the research menu
Show town/settlement names in troop overview menu
When clicking town/settlement names in building/troop overview menus the camera will move to that town/settlement
Spells: Added Tier label at top of each Essence type column to clarify tier and related skill
Spells (Adventure specific): Only shows spell as active if Wielder has Essence of that type
Spells (Battle specific): Spells in Quickbar is not sorted first by Tier and then by Cost – when using auto-populate
Spells: Overall face-lift on tier-based spell frames
Add check to see that input is valid online game code to “Join With Game Code” popup
Stop the “town chooser” menu on the Rally Point screen from listing the town that the Rally Point is constructed in, as well as any towns (or settlements) that are being occupied, razed or converted
Fix issue in pre-battle menu where it was possible to end up with multiple troops on the same hex when moving them around
Prevent the UI from being toggled on and off while writing in chat or bug reporting window
Show a troop’s Attacks stat in tooltip when it is more (or less) than 1
Fix bug that could erroneously show a troop ability as being activated when the troop was just making multiple attacks
Better wait screen when entering battle in multiplayer mode
Show active troop while targeting spells
Add tooltip with hotkey to battle spellbook button
Fix bug where random event menu showed up on top of “minimenu”
Fix issue when calculating scouting level for tooltip on entity that had zero blocking points
Fix issue where pressing ALT with the “enemy joining” menu open could cause error
Redesign of the “Hostiles want to join” menu to prevent confusion and misscliks
Updated some grid/path colors in Battle to increase readability for players with deuteranopia color blindness
Small improvements to the log in Battle
AI
Fix bug in analyzing regions with wielders stored in towns/settlements (could lead to never-ending AI turn)
Fix nullpointer issue when looking at claimable towns/settlements
Fix endless AI loop that could happen when an AI wielder was trying to repair a pillaged building that was inside an enemy wielder’s zone of control
Fix AI wielders moving towards map entities to interact with them even though they are inside enemy wielder’s zone of control
Fix AI wielders moving in to attack player’s commanders but then deciding to do other things once they reach them
Audio
Fix troop that was missing sounds
Fix issue with Oathbound Legionnaire footsteps
Misc
Fixed crash/freeze when a team was defeated (e.g. defeating 2 out of 3 players on four corners)
Made it clearer when you lost against the enemy on a beacon map what actually happened
Renamed skills related to magic and essence; added suffix “Magic” e.g “Order Magic, “Chaos Magic”, etc (only in English right now, translations will be added)
Renamed modifiers that are related to essence; added suffix “essence”. e.g “Order essence”, “Chaos essence”, etc (only in English right now, translations will be added)
Fix exception that could happen when losing a battle and dropping two duplicate trinkets at the same time
Two weeks into Early Access: Development update and a few tips!
We are back with another development update. Check out the video and leave a comment if there is anything you want to ask or suggest!
Add new PVP only map “PVP Battle Only” where players can quickly level a wielder, build an army and battle it out.
Add key-bindings in Options › Controls (first version; will see further improvements)
Add a “Surrender” button in the Pause Menu for Skirmish & Online
Add more loading screen tips
Gameplay
Fix issue with chain lightning breaking battle and triggering incorrect hit/death animations
Fix issue with slow timescale after leaving battle during slowmotion sequence
Lower the amount of earth blocks summoned at tier 3 from 3 to 2
Adjust the health of earth blocks, tier now has 10 hp, tier 2 has 10 hp, and tier 3 has 30 hp
Lower cost of Mist from 8 to 7
Mist now lasts to the beginning of the next battle round instead of to the beginning of the troop's next round.
Change the refill timer of the blacksmith from 10 to 5
Speculative fix for “There is already an income registered” error that sometimes happened when artifacts moved between Wielders
Prevent Wielders from getting invisible 11th skill as reward from visiting map entities when they already have 10 skills
Fix auto-equipped artifacts from being placed in wrong hand
Update Conquest so a pouch of gold can be picked up
Make damage over time spells such as Insect Swarm, Boiling Blood and Acid Cloud be affected by Spell Power and resisted by Magic Resistance
Change Repel, Justice and Explosive Fungi to no longer be affected by spell power
Change so that artifacts giving Command cannot be unequipped/dropped or destroyed if you have too many troops
Change damage of acid cloud to 20/40/60, was 20/50/80
Change damage of Insect swarm to 6/12/18, was 6/12/20
Change damage of boiling blood to 8/16/24, was 8/15/25
Doctor Marjata in From the Ashes mission 3 was adjusted to fit better with her setup in Song of Stoutheart mission 4
Adjust normal ai resource advantage to intended levels for the campaign
Fix problem where AI didn’t move in mission 2 of From the Ashes campaign
Selling a building now gives back 50% instead of 75% and is rounded down instead of up.
UI
Add scrollbar to mission text area to make sure mission text and win conditions is readable in all languages
Update UX for drop artifacts
Remove notifications about players “no longer being controlled by AI” when they have used the auto battle feature
AI
Fix for AI getting stuck when surrounded by map entities
Multiplayer
Fix too few team slots being shown when starting a lobby using an online game save
Miscellaneous
Fix issue where pets in supporter pack wasn’t visible
Misc translation fixes
Patch Notes v0.75.5
Gameplay
Prevent using troop abilities that spawn troops or map entities if the target position is not totally empty (prevents stacking of Tinkerer mines)
Using an ability now removes the effects of the “Mist” spell
Make income generating artifacts apply their income correctly when auto-equipped after winning a battle
Fix not being able to select more than two targets for higher tier spells that allows for three targets
Fix claimable things on the map erroneously showing “(Visited)” although never visited or claimed by the player
Fix exploit where endless troops could be gained by splitting of small amounts from stack while keeping it above "max" stack size
Set a maximum value of 6 to each of the five Essence stats that troops have
UI
Lobby: Fix lobby client not able to see active Wielder choice of AI players
Lobby: Make sure Cancel Ready button is removed and replaced with buffer animation when multiplayer game is starting
Lobby: Fix visual bug where Starting Wielder changed (visually only) when host started game
Lobby: Fix wrong player names being shown in chat
Fix bug in kingdom overview that didn’t evaluate state of buttons on new turn
Fix bug in purchase UI that caused upgraded Rana Tremors to show (they don’t exist)
Add ability to drop and destroy artifacts in the inventory
Fix “auto battle” button being shown for opponent when playing hotseat battles
AI
Make Easy AI even easier
Speculative fix for “KeyNotFoundException: Could not find a key for SongsOfConquest.Common.Ai.PoolableUtilityCalculation”
Map Editor
Fix issue with kill team trigger that made it impossible to select what team to kill
Fix issue with game softlocking setting buildings to upgraded that didn’t have an upgrade available.
Multiplayer
Fixed issue where joining players were able to change the faction and starting wielder of an AI team
Misc
Community maps are now sorted by Popularity rather than newest in the browser
Enable authenticating mod.io through a steam account.
One week into Early Access: Status update!
It’s time for a new blog post!
But this time it isn’t Magnus who is writing but me, Johannes. So first off, a small introduction to who I am. I’m originally one of the Coffee Stain founders. I had the pleasure of meeting the small team of Lavapotion back in 2017 when they pitched us the idea of making a modern take on old classics like HOMM. This is something we had considered ourselves for many years so we fell in love with the idea straight away. Since then I’ve been working closely with the peeps from Lavapotion to make sure we deliver a product you can enjoy and we can be proud of! Which we absolutely are!
Steam were kind enough to feature our game on release.
The reason why I’m writing this now is that Magnus is kind of swamped with work already and I thought it was important for us to deliver a message for you all. It’s been a week since launch after all! First off, we are absolutely blown away with the amount of people that have bought the game so far. We always knew that we had a gem on our hands, but were afraid it might be too niche for a broader audience. The feedback has been overwhelming, but rest assured that we read every review, every reddit-thread, and all the suggestions and feedback on Discord, Steam, GOG and wherever. It has been a huge help laying the path for us ahead.
The newly launched Feature Upvote system helps us evaluate the community requests better!
We never thought Multiplayer was going to be so popular as it has been. We’ve always thought of it as a single-player first game. But we are painfully aware now of how many of you would have wanted a better MP-session. This is something we’re working on already to try to have a few quick fixes that will improve it. A bigger and more stable system will have to wait a bit, since it’s quite time consuming to change the whole system. And yes, I’m of course thinking about simultaneous turns for multiplayer games.
This map was created with the map editor by our Discord user called "Token".
And regarding random map generator, we opted to ship the game with a level editor and mod-support instead. We’ve understood now that this is still a feature that many of you want, and it’s definitely moved up on our todo-list :)
Speaking of todo-list, we’ve started to lay the groundwork for our roadmap as well. Since we wanted to wait and see what your feedback was before we started on it, we don’t have one finished yet. We still have some bugs to catch and a lot of ideas on small changes that will improve the overall experience. We’ve already sent out a few patches to address campaign difficulty and fixed a bunch of bugs you’ve helped us locate already!
We will however start working on it ASAP and come back to you as soon as we can with a proper one. We’ve always enjoyed an open communication with our players and we intend to keep that communication two-ways, honest and open.
We have big plans for Songs of Conquest ourselves, and we are really looking forward to share our thoughts as well.
And in case you missed it: The format we've had for feature requests and votes became quite unmanageable very quickly just due to the sheer amount of great suggestions.
Therefore we decided to create a board on Feature Upvote! - So for the future, please make sure to post suggestions (and vote for the ones you like) over on our Feature Upvote: ➜ https://songsofconquest.featureupvote.com/
Thank you all for the feedback you are giving us, it helps a lot!
Potentially fixed when buildings became invisible (Please report if this still occurs)
Additions
All spells can now be reviewed and studied in the Codex
Mini-tutorial describing the “Momentum” battle mechanic
“Restart mission” button to “Defeat” screen and Game Menu when playing campaign missions
Gameplay
Fix exception in battle resulting from rare timing issues with “song” type troop abilities
Update mission 3 in From the Ashes campaign so that you can't have two P’cha in the mission
Lower difficulty of Song of Stoutheart mission 3 and 4
Garrison troops supplied by Guard towers doubled
UI
Clarify locked state on Faction, Color, Wielder options in the lobby. Some options that can be locked in the map design are now visualized with a padlock on the non-interactable option button
Display “Unknown” state on opponents Wielder option in multiplayer lobby
Don’t show the auto battle button for enemy human teams. Also disable it when it is not the current player’s turn
Fix bug that caused ESC button to stop working in defense menu after viewing purchase troops menu
Add confirmation popup to “Reset campaign progress” button in the options menu
Make sure Codex content area scroll position is reset when changing content
AI
Make Easy AI easier
Possibly fixed AITerrain exception
Localization
Misc language updates
Fix issue with Codex categories not changing translations when changing language in options
Map Editor
Fix issue where drawing a lot of roads caused exceptions
Multiplayer
Fix issue where hosting an loading a save game in multiplayer often selected Europe
Audio
Fix “double” music playing on Main menu after Credits
Enable looping of music on Main menu
Misc
Fix issue where NPC animals sometimes would get an mesh out of range exception
Fix issue where the artwork of build sites would be spawned under buildings when loading a game or returning from battle
Fix potential issues with invalid troops being stored in towns and settlements that would cause an exception when attacking them
Fix null reference when an artifact was dropped on the ground
Fix issue where temporary wielders would pick up artifacts if there was not enough space for them on the ground. This would often cause exceptions when being defeated after attacking a town or settlement
Remove some redundant network traffic in battles
Fix crash bug when one or more of the save files are corrupt
Team Lavapotion, at our offices (and elsewhere), celebrating the start of the Early Access period!
Please click the image for a better view of the roadmap. You can also find it on www.songsofconquest.com/roadmap
The combat screen has also undergone a lot of iterations in the last five years. Makes you wonder how it will look after a few more years in development!
