Veil of Crows
Version 1.1.0 Is up on the testing branch!
After a long delay, the next update is finally on its way.
The 1.1.0 update will bring a major optimization to how most in-game assets are handled. This has seen a reduction in ram used and helped improve loading times.
This update has had me refactor a whole bunch of the core functionality with how assets are handled, so it is taken me quite a lot of time to put this update together, not to mention having significantly less time to do so than I have had previously.
So far results have been promising, so I am excited to finally bring it forward for testing.
Now that assets are handled in a much more optimized way, it will allow me to focus on creating more units and equipment for the later stages of the game.
Thank you for your patience, I hope to have this next update out soon.
To access the testing branch:
Right click on VOC in your steam library => Properties => BETAS => Select the testing branch in the dropdown.
Cheers for your support!
- Kerry
Version 1.0.3 Now live. Further optimization inside!
I have been spending a lot of time digging deep and finding where I can improve performance before setting my sights on further updates in the future.
Version 1.0.3 continues my quest to root out issues with memory management and bringing more stability to the game.
Enjoy!
Campaign map
- Quests will auto-complete if hometown is owned by the player.
- Quick save added to campaign map F5.
- Quick load added to campaign map F9.
- More code optimization and cleanup.
- Hero army cost reduction now correctly working in armies involved in castle sieges.
- Amount of scouts sent from AI towns reduced.
- Mouse screen edge scroll now working as intended.
- Further material memory optimization.
- Towns no longer generate faction flags. Town faction is displayed on the sprite and is no longer needed.
- Helper text adjusted for Attack and defense.
- Closing events panel now resets game speed to the previous setting.
- You can now close all full-screen panels with the Esc key.
- Stability increase, inputs disabled during saving/loading/scene transition.
Battle scene
- Right ALT now toggles first person view.
- Scripting optimization.
- Further material memory optimization.
- Stability increase, inputs disabled during the scene transition.
Cheers!!
Week one updates us to version 1.0.2 - Optimization included!
Its been a wild week, but that doesn't mean we stop improving Veil of Crows! Your feedback has been more than valuable, so we will keep pushing and polishing to make this game even better!
Today's update not only fixes a few bugs, but it also brings quite a nice optimization. Details inside!
Campaign map
- Barracks final upgrade now properly recognized.
- Bribing an army to join forces will now update the quest tracker arrow.
- Prevention in place to prevent an extremely rare bug with merging parties duplicating.
- Siege force factions are now displayed above the siege camp.
- Building upgrades red & green crosses now update based on available resources without the need to click away first.
- Peasant attrition rates now scale depending on population up to 25% for large peasant populations. The scale can depend on how much food is needed to feed the remaining peasants.
- A bribed king will lose their king title if they desert or join forces.
- Peasants in armies now incur a daily payment per 5 peasants in the army. This is to balance out massive peasant army exploits.
- Player income is now updated when an army is created.
- Fixed issue where villages would replenish hired units after saving the game.
- An issue with hero vassal being disconnected from towns resolved.
- Issues with final upgrades unable to be completed have been fixed. All final upgrades now work properly, and the upgrade button is disabled.
- Town extortion max gold value lowered.
- Player hero's diplomacy now increases the max gold value of the extortion, instead of decreasing it.
- You can now train multiple peasants at once using a slider, or manually inserting the amount into the text fields.
- Texture Material optimization
Battle scene
- Controls menu scroll sensitivity increased.
- Pressing 'F' will focus on selected units.
- Zoom movement is now reset when exiting the menu, preventing the camera flying away when the panel closes.
- All used resources are now cleared before quitting to the menu or quitting the game from a battle.
- Should no longer get the loss of general message every time a hero is killed. Only the general.
- Texture Material Optimization.
- Improved load times after the battle.
Main menu
- Change to main menu text - W A S D added to key bindings.
- Fixed issue where some key bindings weren't finding the correct binding to save.
- Added the ability to map the W A S D keys to other keys for non-QWERTY keyboards.
- Unit stats added to the game index.
- Max battle size text now turns red if set over 350 units as previous warning doesn't seem enough.
Armory
- Recurve Bowman now showing bow in the armory.
- Downgrading or selling items no longer costs the player but should increase player gold.
Thank you all for your support and feedback!
Enjoy!
- Kerry Fawdray
Edit: Update!
Just added a small update that will improve load times for battles with many hero units.
The next patch is in the works but it may need some time. I am processing a lot of great feedback and am experimenting whith what I can do.
Cheers!
Armory Crash "band-aid" patch 20/10/2018
Quick patch
Hello everyone! Massive apologies to anyone who has been experiencing crashes during the armory scene.
Some users were experiencing crashes scrolling through the units, and it seems to have been caused by excessive geometry & shadows in the background.
I have temporarily removed these, simplified some of the lighting, and made sure to clear system memory whenever relevant. I have had positive results from some users, so I hope this fixes the issue for everyone.
Band-aid
This is not a permanent solution, but more to alleviate the problem while I can work out something long term.
Other small fixes
Campaign map
- Town interaction text now reset after the player goes back to the towns menu.
- Factions will no longer be randomized if continuing a sandbox when starting a new faction.
- An issue where armies that rob player trade caravans don't receive resources resolved.
- Transferring all resources should now include all prisoners.
Cheers!
Thank you so much for your patience.
I am here to support the game, so if you are having any issues, or have any feedback I would love to hear about it on the forums.
Cheers!
- Kerry
Veil of Crows has left early access! Welcome to Version 1.0 18/10/2018
We did it!!
We made it! We did what so many other games never get to do. We smashed our way out of the early access prison!
This could not have happened without your massive support.
Thank you for believing in me!
How far have we come?
Well, see for yourself...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIxgw4v5Psw
Patch notes!
But really, this is what you are here for...
Campaign map
- Attacking a quest party over water no-longer loads a battle in the battle map and treats it as an auto-battle situation.
- Quest tracker arrow now updates correctly when a quest step is completed using an auto-resolve battle.
- Fix for party panel closing when other panels close.
- Prisoner transfer All & None buttons now work.
- An issue where ship sails wouldn't generate their material resolved.
- Newly taken towns will now show when showing village destination.
- Newly taken towns properly have hero units removed.
- Gerr reference no longer being saved as Tegn (Viking units).
- Fixed issue where sometimes a selected party would become unselected (Even though the party is showing as selected).
- Armies now show other hero units in the army.
- Horde invasion no longer triggered as soon as the player has conquered the world. Invasions are set as active and will happen at the appropriate season, or after the world has been played for 150 days.
- Hero agility cap added.
- Small UI glitches fixed.
- At the start of every new campaign, all factions are completely randomized, including unit equipment, names & coat of arms.
Battle scene
- When selecting starting units, peasants are automatically prioritized last.
- Female unarmoured hair/helmet position fixed.
- Holding shift while selecting unit cards won't deselect previously selected units.
- Floating tree removed from the Wolfshall map.
- Heavy axe weakness correctly set to bludgeon instead of arrows.
- Town reinforcement positions updated in lumber town scene.
- Minimum units amount set to 1 (To prevent no units spawning)
Main menu
- Starting condition starting horses updated with new horse types.
- Two new worlds to choose from!
Armoury
- Topless male unit skin now showing correctly.
- Heavy leather legging material replaced.
- Horse price increased.
- Every unit default agility is now the same. Armory items including horses will add or reduce this stat.
- 70 Horse types added. WHAAT!!??
- The ability to upgrade the weapons and equipment of all of your units has been unlocked!
Once again, I am humbled by your support over the last year and a half. You made this happen.
I hope you enjoy the release features as much as I enjoyed making them.
- Kerry Fawdray
Version 0.9.9 is here!
But first! Check out how far we have come!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIxgw4v5Psw
Overview
Today's patch really pulls the straps tight, and readies us for the coming charge! I have managed to fit in many bug fixes and even some user-requested features. We are in the home stretch and I cannot wait to unleash the release version upon you!
But until then, we march!
Campaign map
- Fixed issue with pooled event messages not being set active after being re-used.
- Hero portraits now display on player owned town and village info panels.
- "Training Complete" text fixed.
- Increase relations with bandit camps price fixed.
- Faction logos now displayed next to town and village names.
- Player faction logo now displayed above owned armies without heroes.
- Village resources displayed now shows total number of resources in town.
- Split army screen improved. Now all units and resources will scroll on the
same panel. Hero units portraits are now shown.
- Selected siege towns now display both factions colours.
- Ability to save custom games now available.
- Safety put into place to prevent armies being deleted after siege battle (Army enters town before units are loaded).
- Loading bar size unified throughout the game.
- Can now use text box to input amounts instead of sliders in most cases
hero units who join your forces through an army bribe will no longer keep their vassal.
- Campaign map battles now have an icon indication of battle and who is involved.
- Campfires now have a floating icon.
- Hero portraits now shown with a border.
- Town armourys will now start at level 1 in Veil of Crows game mode so they can always be accesed.
- Save crash caught when saving a game straight after a new game has been created.
- When selecting hero units to purchase from the town tavern, this window should no longer close randomly.
- Sellsword UI text name fixed.
- Last barracks upgrade building time fixed .
- Green or Red cross on upgradeable building should now show correctly if the playert can upgrade.
- fixed issue with bribes & tributes where you cant succees without a hero unit present.
- Clicking on a siege army in the armys panel now correctly selects the siege, and not the non-existant army.
Battle scene
- Generating unit faction colours highly optimised - no longer rebuilds every texture on unit.
- Castle gate materials replaced.
Main menu
- Ability to delete saved games in the save game menu now available.
- fixed issue where cancelling out of resetting game world would disable the option the next time it is shown.
- Custom battle army limit set to amount of start positions per map preventing error when loading battle if above 8.
- More detail added to the main menu screen.
- Custom battle player faction roerly set. Was preventing player from using siege equipment if faction wasn't set the the default faction.
- Save games now display in the order they were last written.
- Unit amounts can now be entered into a bext box when transfering to an army.
- Random button added to create character screen.
- Main menu landing page has had a visual upgrade.
- Hero portrait added to character selection.
- Additional skin tones added to character creation.
- Starting condition gold increased.
- Starting condition hair and beard positions fixed
Armoury.
- All equipment references numbered in armoury equipment file. Reference can be used when changing unit and starting condition equipment.
- Armoury scene has had a visual upgrade.
- Material locator fixed for one of the unit models.
- Armoury items now displayed on a single line, showing Attack, defemce agility effects, with gold cost displayed in order of cost.
- Prices and stat adjustment for many items.
Updated 09/10/2018
- Fixed an issue when displaying horses in the Armoury
- Fixed an issue where sometimes resources would dissappear in the tutorial preventing the player from building the siege army
- Some other smal fixes
So there we are! Expect a few more smaller updates throughout the week as I really try to get some polish on this before we launch!
Cheers!
- Kerry Fawdray
Veil of Crows is leaving early access on the 18th of October!
Veil of Crows is leaving early access on the 18th of October
Veil of crows is breaking free of its shackles, and charging forth into battle! This has been a long time coming, but I am extremely excited to finally share the release features with you.
This is huge for me on a personal level, so I would like to thank each and every one of you for your continued support! Without your input, the game would have never come this far.
You can read more about the release features here
Completely custom forces
On launch day, you will be able to enter the armory and completely customize your units. From weapons & armour, to how your coat of arms is displayed, to the breed of horse.
New realms to conquer
Veil of Crows will launch with two new worlds. Each with its own climate, resource restrictions & impacts, and frequency of Viking raiders. No two maps play exactly the same.
Completely randomized AI factions
Not only faction name and coat of arms will be randomized, but each unit's weapons and armour will also be different. No two factions will look the same.
Thank you!
Once again, a massive thank you to everyone who has supported me in this amazing journey.
The next update will drop in a few days, and then we are on the home stretch.
VOC will continue to be supported and updated post-release, so this is not the end. I have been blessed with such an amazing and supportive community and I am excited to continue this relationship.
Thank you all!
Kerry Fawdray
A whole new world! Latest update brings us to version 0.9.8.a
Summary
Today's update brings some massive changes and additions to Veil of Crows. Polish and optimization is my current goal, and I feel this update brings the bacon!
Some of the major improvements
New campaign map
The campaign map has had a major upgrade! I built a new procedural system to aid in creating new world maps, and not only does it make it a lot faster, but the maps produced are also much nicer to look at and feel more varied and natural.
It is recommended to start a new game, however, your old savegames & maps still work.
When we leave early access two new world maps will become available, these will have a unique climate, with varying effects on village production and raider factions.
More on that at a later date.
Custom unit grouping
You may now group units with one of your heroes for additional combat bonuses. Unit limits are now impacted by the heroes management skill, and these preferred groups will be remembered between battles so you don't need to keep re-arranging your heroes into groups. The hero units leadership skill will add additional bonuses to your units on top of the general's leadership skill.
Tutorial voiceover added
The very talented folks at Humble Sage games have written, recorded, and mastered a voiceover for the tutorial. Expect a snarky adviser with the personality traits of Snape meets Jaffar to help you along your way until you have him executed. The voiceover is voiced by the talented Marc Dubois.
New battle music
Composed by yours truly, and re-sampled and mastered by Dean Watkin (Humble sage games), the battle music has been completely replaced. I am super pumped as it needed a serious upgrade.
Major bug fixed
This could be a major cause of a CTD (Crash to desktop) bug that has been plaguing VOC for the last few months. Fingers crossed for some promising results. The bug consisted of a continuous loop (In a Coroutine for any of your programmers out there) in the resource cart code. In the editor it was causing some serious slowdown, but this would absolutely cause a CTD on a build version. Fingers crossed we have caught the bugger!
On with the patch notes!
Campaign map
- Tutorial text updated.
- Fixed issue where Norse camps are saved and loaded as Barbarian camps.
- Rebalanced how engineers are purchased by AI (And player Ai) to prevent disproportionate amounts.
- Party resources no longer scroll horizontally.
- Buildings displayed in the buildings panel will now display if you can afford the upgrade before clicking.
- The player is now warned when their actions have been noticed by other factions.
- Village upgrades now display the current upgrade level.
- Bribing an army to join forces will now detect if the faction has been defeated when successful.
- Hero units will now join the player's army after a successful bribe.
- Building descriptions have been updated.
- Invasions will now also target villages, not just towns.
- Heroes created now have faction appropriate equipment
- Heroes the player may hire will have militia level equipment and a smaller chance of being mounted.
- Hero price now uses the same multiplier whether purchased in town or an AI town.
- Peacefully occupying a village will now transfer any AI hero units into the leaving army instead of just erasing them.
- Hero units now gain experience when reducing army cost.
- Hero units now gain experience when increasing tax income.
- Hero units now gain experience form diplomatic events, tributes & bribes.
- Heroes Accounting and Management skills can help reduce gold and resource costs for units, building, and village upgrades.
- Runoff faction relation influence will only impact the player if they were the instigator. This was causing Ai to constantly declare war even after the player made peace.
- Town and village names now loaded with localization.
- Auto-resolve battle now calculates army strength more accurately.
- The player should now receive rescued prisoners (Peasants) if auto-resolving a campfire battle.
- Seasonal impacts have been adjusted.
- Town names now always face the camera.
- New town info panels displayed above each player owned towns.
- Village strength now properly calculated.
- Ability to scroll next town, village, or army in the selection panel.
- Button added to zoom on the current selected Town, village, or party.
- Selecting an army in the side panel no longer zooms to its position, but now selects the army.
- Battle panels now have a focus button.
- Event panel now has a focus button option.
Camera no longer automatically focuses on the player.
- Tutorial updated with more indicator arrows and camera focus.
- HeroPortraits now contain helmets.
- Resource carts boat should now properly show above water level
Tutorial now has a voiceover.
- Further LOD's (Level of detail) use to optimize campaign map.
- AI will no longer send kings on patrol, potentially only with a siege army.
- Hero accounting skill can reduce the cost of building upgrades, unit hire, and village upgrades.
- Hero management can reduce the resource cost of building upgrades and unit training.
- The issue with incorrect cost reduction fixed - was always based on hero units diplomacy.
- Fixed issue where hero experience wasn't showing on the experience bar on the selected hero screen.
- The correct unit gold cost charged when purchased.
- The Ai will now correctly set vassals for its hero units.
- Option to control battle should no longer show if the battle is over the ocean.
- Additional hero agility added amount reduced.
- Faction town, village, and hero info now allows the player to focus the camera on each item.
- Army leaders now displayed on floating icon above player armies.
- Ships are now controlled by LOD's (Optimised).
- When units are created unit names are now read correctly from the localized text, and town name is mentioned.
- Construction complete message will display localized building name.
- The player is now alerted of hero units needing upgrades by a green cross on the hero's overview panel.
- Secondary faction colors are now shown in the balance of power.
- An enemy army entering an empty village will take control and no longer create a battle.
- Form alliance button no longer shows after alliance formed.
- Tier 4 - 5 units purchase and daily payment increased.
- Confirming hero upgrades will reset green crosses on the heroes side panel.
- Fixed elusive bug where defending a siege battle would update the wrong town's population after the battle.
- AI owns will now create fewer patrols.
- Towns will only create scouts if the faction only has a small number of towns.
- Heroes will now remember the combat groups they have been put into. Whenever available they will create a combat group to match the last one they have been assigned at the start of battle provided units are available.
- Event messages are now pooled for optimized efficiency.
- Major bug fix (Possible cause of the crash to the desktop bug) fixed. endless loop in resource caravan code.
- Unit purchase and daily payments increased.
- All cavalry now require food to purchase.
- Duplicate gold mine name renamed.
- Error trying to find siege armies general when displaying armies fixed.
- Town heroes panel properly masked. Should no longer have hero units scroll above the panel.
Armory
- All items now have text descriptions.
- Item text now available to be localized.
- Unit names are now loaded correctly from localization text.
Battle scene
- Tutorial text updated.
- Town Gates no longer break navigation. This is to prevent unreachable paths causing unresponsive units during a siege.
- Tweaks to unit acceleration and responsiveness.
- Caught a rare exception when setting ranged units to melee.
- Heroes panel should now scroll vertically.
- Fixed a glitch with the Stillwater map where the castle was cloned on top of itself.
- Increased chance of taking prisoners when an army is fleeing.
- Helper text now shows on top of win/lose panel.
- New battle music - Composed by me (Kerry Fawdray), and re-sampled & mastered by Dean Watkin!
- Text alerting of a hero leveling up now has its own color;
- Hero units are no longer selected when selecting melee, mounted, or unit cards. Can still be selected with the portrait, or by pressing 0.
- Holding left CTRL will include relevant hero units in the Unit card or numeric selection if preferred.
- Ranged units set to melee attack will no longer become selected when all melee units are selected (2 Key).
- Hero units now have their own unique hero card.
- Army general is now displayed with a star next to its health button.
- Hero health panel will now display with a red background if a hero has been killed.
- Tutorial updated.
- A bug has been caught when units try to pick up a destroyed ladder.
- Tutorial now has a voiceover.
- Units can now be placed into unit groups with hero units Ctrl + 0 - 9.
- Hero units will remember selected groupings and will be placed into groups at the start of each battle if units are available.
- An issue where all units would gain full health after their general was killed fixed.
- Secondary faction colors now displayed on the balance of power bar.
- AI retreat delayed preventing complete gridlock and unresponsive units.
Main menu
- Minimum music/sound volume lowered. Now mutes properly.
- Town loader starting condition starting town changed.
- Create character and tutorial armor changed.
- Starting conditions equipment altered.
Faction color randomization improved. Can now include black & white.
Mod Support
- Current mod toggle no longer used. Select mod and hit confirm to load the mod.
- Currently loaded mod now displayed next to game version text on the main menu start screen.
Updated 19/09/2018:
Just uploaded a quick patch for some minor issues I came across after uploading this build:
- Fixed issue when completing a bandit camp quest with the arrow tracker enabled.
- An issue where hero units weren't being cleared from villages when peacefully occupied resolved.
- Battle tutorial voiceover echo removed.
- Slight adjustment made to the tutorial to prevent issues creating the siege army
- Bandit camps now have a lod (Level of detail) level.
- Bandit camp text now follows the player.
- Highwater position fixed.
- Balance of power removed from balance of power in battle. already obvious enough.
- Bandit camp tribute price lowered.
- Auto resolve "Time has come' missions bug fixed.
- Hero skill influence will now show when determining if player can upgrade a building not in the buildings list.
Updated: 20/09/2018
- Safety put in place to make sure the player always has enough resources to build siege equiment in the tutorial.
- Check now made when setting Normal/Slow mode to prevent erratic camera after retreat panel is shown.
- Faction colour randomisation improved.
- Equipment reference nyumbers added to armoury item details - this can be used when eqipping heros when modding starting conditions.
- Old savegames having an issue playing has been fixed. Please let me know if the problem still happens.
Updated 21/09/2018:
- Paleseid walls towers material fixed.
- Campaign map borders visually fixed - no more grey line.
- Peasant carts should no longer be seen under the ship.
- Deserter, Norse, and Barbarian camps text now follows.
- Only one general should be showin to the player.
- Unit cards name text will now scale.
- Light lancers agility (Movement speed) fixed.
- Tutorial saves will no longer show on the continue game panel
Thank you all for your ongoing support as we get closer to announcing the release date, with the awesome new features available.
If you have not done yet, please remember to leave a review! VOC has come a long way in its time in Early access, and it is all due to your support. Let me know how you feel!
Reviews not only provide valuable feedback, but they also help games stay relevant on steam.
If you have any issues with the game please let me know, I am always looking for ways to improve the experience and fix issues.
Thank you all!
- Kerry Fawdray
Latest Update! New Factions, Units, equipment, and a massive optimization!
Summary
Hello all!
The last month and a bit have been quite a ride for myself and my family. We welcomed a new Son into the world! This has taken some time away, as I have officially been on leave for the last 4 weeks, but that doesn't mean I haven't been finding time to push VOC to the final stretch.
Today's update brings new raider events, where at certain points in time new factions will invade the world and attack towns. These factions will try to establish a foothold on the world and must be stopped.
Vikings will attack in the spring, bringing with them Tier 4 infantry units. Supported by the new 'Norse' camps, this faction hits hard and fast. Try to take them out before they spread.
The Horde - This faction becomes active once you have conquered the world. Massive armies of barbarian units will descend upon the land, attacking you from all sides. Try and hold them off until they attack again in the Autumn.
On with the patch details!
Campaign map
- Mouse and keyboard control sensitivity sliders show again.
- Clicking on farm SFX volume reduced to be less jarring.
- Productivity renamed: Management.
- Authority renamed: Accounting.
- Hero stat bonuses clamped preventing any negative costs.
- The issue with loading looted resources after battle resolved.
- Failing to destroy a bandit camp will correctly load the camps remaining units.
- Extortion amount lowered.
- Minimum bandit camp size before the player can purchase units lowered.
- Bandit camps now generate gold by selling captured resources.
- LOD state set correctly when quest army generates - preventing invisible armies.
- Visiting a bandit or deserter campfire as a neutral or allied faction will no longer force you to attack, and gives the option to purchase units.
- Berserker renamed Heavy Axemen.
- Ulfhednar Unit (Tier 4 bludgeon).
- Huscarls Unit (Tier 4 Spear).
- Beserkers Unit (Tier 4 Axe ).
- Ulfberht Unit (Tier 4 Sword).
- Valkyrie Unit (Tier 3 Archer).
- Norseman Unit (Tier 3 sword).
- Thegn Unit (Tier 3 Bludgeon).
- Geirr Unit (Tier 3 Spear).
- Viking unit (Tier 3 axe).
- Barbarian camps will now produce maulers.
- Viking invaders will begin raiding the mainland during the 'middle' period of the game every spring. They will attempt to take towns and villages. Norse camps will also begin to appear at this time.
- The Horde (Barbarian invaders) Will attack immediately after the player destroys all other factions. The Horde will continue to invade each Autumn once activated.
- Barbarians now more likely to produce cavalry archers as their main unit type.
- Heavy nomad added. Available at Barbarian camps and Horde invasions.
- Popup alerting the player of a town under siege now shows.
- Quests are now more readily available at game start.
- Can now hire as many units as needed from bandit camps until they only have one unit remaining.
- If only peasants remain in an auto-battle, peasants have a 100% percent chance of retreating.
- Upgrade button no longer active if the building is at its final upgrade.
- Battle results properly set after successful or unsuccessful sally forth
- Hero units are now more powerful - strength and constitution level bonuses have been doubled.
- An issue where sometimes the upgrade building button was disabled even when all requirements were met.
Armory
- Improved plated mail visuals. Added chainmail arms & cowel.
- Peasant clothes with leather vest x 18.
- Chainmail coat with leather vest x 9.
- Chainmail coat x 3.
- Leather coat with chain vest x 9.
- Chainmail leggins x 2.
- Ulfberht (Viking sword) added.
- Light small shield.
- Heavy spearman pants texture adjusted.
Battle scene
- Unit bodies now disappear if LOD level high enough.
- Light lancer movement speed issue fixed.
- Unit blood option is given allowing fewer stages of blood. Decrease load times and increase performance with lower amounts.
- Performance increase due to vsync disabled. Recommend only increase vsync count if screen tearing is occurring.
- Selecting bow or crossbow unit cards will now only select the specific unit type, not all ranged.
- Barbarians no longer wear helmets.
- Caught minor exception when mousing over units on level load after a battle.
- Sally forth battles, the AI will now attack properly instead of just charging randomly.
[h1Main menu
- Headers for creating a faction and select starting condition added.
- Option added to increase/decrease blood levels for units during battle.
- Performance defaults decreased.
- VSync option now available. Significant performance increase when disabled.
- Game credits updated
Welcome to all new supporters and enjoy the new update!
Cheers
- Kerry
Visual Improvements, optimization, and major bug fix patch, oh my!
Overview
Hello all!
Today's patch brings us multiple visual improvements, extra LOD (Level of detail) levels, optimizations, stability, and a fix to a strange load game bug that may have left a few of you confused.
The game not only runs better, it looks better while doing it. I have also brought back the old campfire scene at the beginning of the game for those of you who joined early access at the beginning. It has now been optimized as to prevent the crash to the desktop bug that caused it to be removed. Prettier than ever it is!
In the last update, I had improved my terrain texture generator tools to give much more detailed battle levels. This update improves upon that with better grass detail placement and slope detection. Each terrain type (Grass, snow, sand, rock) etc now comes with unique tree and grass textures, as to match the terrain and season. Snow levels now have snowy trees, and sand & dry grass areas have dry dead trees.
Snow during battles makes a comeback and is now heavily optimized as to prevent the game slowing down to a chug, and now runs in local screen space as opposed to world space, so it should be a lot more consistent.
There was an odd bug to do with loading the campaign map that may have left a few of you confused. Basically, whenever you begin a siege battle the game saves to a temporary location just in case you decide to quit half-way through, this prevents the siege from disappearing when loading your game. The trouble is, under certain circumstances, it wasn't saved before the battle loaded, so after the end of the battle, it would load everything from your previous manual (or automatic) savegame. You would still have taken or defended that castle, but, the world could have been in the place it was 5 minutes prior. It took a lot of confusion and "wait, no, that doesn't look right" moments for me to even realize it was happening.
As for the rest of the updates.....
Campaign map
- An issue with your hero's hair not showing, or disappearing resolved.
- Issues with incorrect text loaded into some UI slots have been cleaned up.
- Hero stats properly loaded after the battle.
- All building upgrade costs have increased.
- Mint produced coins amount adjusted (decreased) per level.
- Tavern hero's price increased.
- Selected unit resource amounts will update when trade cart enters the town.
- Quest tier enemy army population increased (except easy level).
- Hero army cost reduction clamped - removing any 'positive' income influence if over cost amount.
- Fog reduced for each weather state.
- Hero rank title level needed has been lowered. I.E, level 8 to become lord instead of 12 (If they have a castle as a vassal).
- Chance of peace button should now always be interactive unless chance is 0%.
- Chance of peace 'Chance' now influenced by hero diplomacy level.
- Failing to kill a hero during assassination battle that was won should now properly load the quest details to its new retreated army.
- Unit cost displayed and actual cost should now be correctly displayed.
- Current game speed setting now shows as selected.
- Trees change with the season.
- All units button added when creating an army.
- All resources button added when creating an army.
- The current season now displayed in the top panel.
- Tutorial hero set as town lord.
- Bank gold button now disabled after player banks gold in town.
- Fixed a strange issue with loading level after some siege battles.
- Hero cost authority reduction fixed preventing heroes producing income. percentage of reduction lowered.
- Removing the entire army from a siege will now correctly transfer all resources.
- Enemy retreating from assassination quest battle will now be recognized if they are killed at a later time.
- Message archive panel added to the side panel.
- Tier 5 units daily upkeep increased.
- Faction logos added to faction information panel.
- Button icons added to faction panel.
- Forced march button icon added.
- Snow particles optimized.
- Minor errors fixed.
Battle scene
- Terrain grass details color altered. Billboarding removed.
- Units in AI armies properly face enemy army after maneuvering.
- New grass textures depending on terrain type.
- Terrain texture will change to snow if the weather is set to snow.
- Fog adjusted depending on weather condition.
- Al mounted units base agility set - agility is reduced due to armor.
- Clearing baked materials from memory before scene transition.
- Units no longer move around erratically after a battle ends.
- Long range LOD's (Level of detail) optimized.
- Units will load at the appropriate LOD level at the battle start.
- Graphics optimization.
- Ranch level start position facing fixed.
- Tree textures now reflect the terrain/season.
- Siege defense buttons now highlight when moused over.
- Tier 5 ranged weapons more powerful.
- Unit armature cleaned - slight optimization.
- Siege reinforcement positions adjusted.
- Snow particles re-introduced. Optimised.
- Particles now live in local space, following the camera position.
- Minor null reference errors fixed.
Main menu
- New theme music. Placeholder asset removed.
- Campsite scene re-introduced. Optimized.
Summary
So there we have it! Today's patch is a big improvement on the game visually and performance wise and is really starting to come together. As of setting the build live on the test branch last night (And public this morning), I have already found some small improvements and are on my to-do list now so back to it I go.
Take care everyone, and enjoy the update!
Cheers
- Kerry