Aside from fixing bugs, this update tidies up some of the mechanics involving the first type of wild animal, aurochs.
First, some visual details have been added so as to distinguish between the different types of aurochs, for example this fabulous team-colored neckerchief:
Tame aurochs (on the left) have a team-colored detail, to distinguish them from wild aurochs on the right.
The goal is to make animal management intuitive and easily handled by right clicking, and the rules and mechanics surrounding them are guided by the principle of least surprise.
Hopefully, animals will now be better at doing what you expect them to. But if you'd like to know the nitty gritty details, it's like this:
Wild aurochs can only be tamed by shaman.
Shaman can lead both wild and tame aurochs. Shaman can never lead settlers or traders, as they lack the ability to trade or settle villages.
Villagers can lead tame aurochs, settlers and traders, but they can not tame wild animals.
Tame aurochs can be stored in a pasture. Aurochs that are bred in a pasture are born tame.
Villagers and shaman can retrieve aurochs from a pasture at any time.
Traders and settlers can never be stored in a pasture (yes, there was a hard-locking bug involving this - now fixed)
Leashed animals are a lot better at following their leader now. You couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for them before, always getting stuck on obstacles and snapping back into place.
Settlers carry the next town's runestone on their back.
0.8.0.8 - Saves, right clicks, and routes previews
So we have arrived at version 0.8.0.8:
Fixed several issues related to loading and saving games.
With all the various connections and inter-dependencies, loading a saved game of Trollskog is a bit like playing mahjongg solitaire with ten thousand pieces. This patch fixes all known problems related to game saving and loading, but unfortunately breaks backward compatibility with version 0.8.0.7 and earlier - older saves will not show up in the load games screen.
Right clicking now drops off resources.
This was a commonly requested QoL feature and it makes a lot of sense.
Reduced tile gold cost as a temporary measure.
I've heard a lot of dissatisfaction with the tile gold cost, so this mechanic is something I'd like to experiment a bit with moving forward. For now, the gold cost for tiles has been reduced.
"Display Routes" can be enabled in settings, showing dropoff and pickup points for buildings.
This is a bit of a preview for the next patch, which is in the making - the visuals for this feature are not quite finalized, and so it's disabled by default.
v0.8.0.7 - Wrangling bugs
Sinking my teeth into some more bug reports.
Accepting a quest will now reveal its objective locations on the map.
Mouse scrolling in the lower left corner of the screen works now.
People with unicode and backslashes in their steam names should see significantly fewer errors when saving and loading games.
Fixed many glitches and crashing bugs. A few known issues related to loading games still remain, but their days are numbered.
Thank you for your help with feedback and bug reports and for your continued patience as we smooth these wrinkles out!
0.8.0.6 - Pathfinding patch
Here comes another quick bugfix patch.
Units no longer get stuck in barracks.
Fixed a bug where enemy units would stay in "Spawning" state
Fixed a bug where raider camps would continue spawning raiders, even in death. 💀
Clubs and silver axes can now be built from tier 2 armories. Removed iron axes for now.
Fixed an issue where loading a game would break certain quest objectives.
The pathfinding system is now totally perfect and bug-free forever.
... Okay, but seriously, the unit pathfinding has been vastly improved.
There are still two points I'd like to work on a bit more - arrival and avoidance. Arguably, these fall under the steering system rather than pathfinding, but nonetheless they behave poorly in their current form during fights involving many units.
If you encounter any dancing workers or pathing weirdness, please let me know.
The present, the future, and AVI
Abstract Void Interactive
You might notice Antipattern Labs is no longer listed on the store page - The company registration office rejected the name, as they considered it an industry term. Inexplicably, they approved the alternative suggestion "Abstract Void Interactive", so there we have it. Long Live AVI.
The name never really mattered, but what does matter is that this gives me the opportunity to transfer the earnings from early access sales and reinvest it into the game:
In search of 3D artist/animator
To start, I'm looking to commission some 3D assets and hopefully forge some lasting relationships with artists.
As much as I love making art and assets for the game, I'm also looking to accelerate the rate of development. If you are interested in making some rigs, animations and models in exchange for compensation, let's talk!
Thanks for the continued reports and feedback as we continue our journey through the bug-tracker. You can see the currently known issues here: https://trello.com/b/sum8rono/trollskog-bugtracker
Fixed a crashing bug when generating vegetation for new chunks in loaded games. Thank you to Nox and Ocnuybear for helping me isolate this one.
Worker AI has been improved, but some glitches remain when loading saved games. Pausing slots has been removed until I can test it thoroughly.
Trade routes with AI players now give gold.
If further crashing bugs arise I'll continue to patch those quick, but the most pressing issue in the game right now is pathfinding problems.
I want to make sure to get this right in the next update, as a lot of current and future content depends on pathing being air-tight. The next update may take a few days as I test all edges and corners.
I've heard some good discussion about the role of gold in the game, I'll write a post soon about my its intended function for buying tiles. For now, I continue to read the discussions here and the discord :)
Patch 0.8.0.3 - Midweek bug roundup
There has been a lot of great feedback, both in the form of bug reports and suggestions, from a lot of sources. Thanks to everybody for your help, your patience, and positivity!
Please continue reporting issues to me here, on the discord, or anywhere - I'm very available. To start, I'm collecting bug reports in this trello: https://trello.com/b/sum8rono/trollskog-bugtracker .
Let's move on to today's bug roundup:
v0.8.0.3
The game process should now unwind "gracefully". This was a vexing issue that prevented the game from updating - be sure to terminate the Trollskog process to allow Steam to patch to 0.8.0.3 and let's get this bug out of the world.
The raven now gives out reliable directions to the silvermine.
House addon limits are now enforced at tier 2 and 3.
Loading a game with tier 2 structures no longer shows black boxes (note: they will still appear in games saved before this patch).
If you still have a save file that cannot be loaded, please send it to me. Especially if that save file was created during 0.8.0.3!
Patch 0.8.0.2 - Bugs and low hanging UI fruits
Very exciting to have so many new eyes on the game! But with new eyes come new, unexpected issues. Starting with these, let's get these bugs fixed so we can move on to the good stuff.
v0.8.0.2
Opening the main menu now pauses the game. This was requested by multiple users.
The injured troll now gets up when healed by a shaman. Thanks Diah for pointing this out.
Mouse scroll is now enabled by default. This can be changed in the settings menu - the alternatives are panning using the middle mouse button or the keyboard.
Placing structures on chunk seams no longer cuts the building in half. (Thank you sebovzeoueb for reporting this)
Fixed an issue where saved games were not openable. This critical issue that has been reported by many users and some save/load glitches may remain. I'll be keeping a close eye on this during the coming days and making sure this feature works as intended, and I'll be adding an easier way to submit broken save files via the game client.
The journey begins
Trollskog is now available on Early Access!
For those of you who are joining now, I hope you enjoy this offering to the strategy game genre. This early access period is your chance to shape this sapling as it matures.
For those who are biding your time, I hope you'll join us soon - for now, sit back and watch the forest grow.
The road ahead
Any bugs that may appear will be mercilessly crushed.
After that, regular content updates will bring new buildings, units, resources and encounters - we're expanding outward in every direction, and I'll be listening to you to make sure we explore the map in the right order.
Stay tuned in the coming days for the first content patch!
Early Access Preparation Patch
For those of you who have gotten your hands on the game already, and have submitted feedback and bug reports, thank you! Your help has been invaluable. This patch addresses most of the issues submitted so far.
New troll village quest. Rescue the troll matriarch's son for fun and profit.
Auto-buying tiles due to insufficient city size now buys in a radius around the building. This should hopefully make it visually clearer what the auto-buy mechanic is doing!
Added gamespeed setting. The UI is still a work in progress.
Fixed a bug that disabled villagers from working the market.
Fixed a bug where aurochs would get trapped in pastures.
Fixed a crashing bug related to 4K displays with DPI scaling.
Workers now display an icon if they're blocked from performing a task.
Implemented pathfinding caching - this might not sound exciting, but it's the big change of this patch. Aside from performance improvements on an order of magnitude, entities are now smarter about flocking and moving coherently, as well as re-using optimal paths.
Pushing a major change to a system as critical as the pathfinding engine a few days before launch might sound crazy. You'd be right, but there's also a method to it. In the next content update I will ship a feature that requires a pathfinding system with world-class performance, you'll see!
