- hero purchase panel will now close when clicked off-screen.
- Player town Ai should now be more likely to upgrade villages.
- Hero level cap removed - points needed are now calculated based on hero level.
- More hero stats added - Keep track of their kills!
- Auto battle panel now shows if a battle is over the sea.
- Battle unit text now uses proper localization names.
- Merging armies walk animation should correctly play.
- AI village upgrade improved.
- Resources are correctly removed from origin town when using the trade panel.
- Button properties take off town automation options - only toggle is interactive.
- Expenses ledger now take into account the town tax setting.
- Keep upgrade gold cost increased massively.
- Ai will upgrade towns slower while the player has no towns.
- Stables final upgrade resource cost slightly reduced.
- The hair on units is now removed and pooled properly, preventing hair sticking through helmets.
- Ending war with a faction now resets your faction relation to 0 as opposed to just adding 10 relation (War could soon be declared if it was below -20).
- The player can now interact with camps with only 1 population.
- Heavily optimized army navigation - improvement to game FPS included.
- All party gold is now available, Negative faction gold is no longer included when checking.
- Game quests are more available when a new game is started.
- Hunt Deserters quest available.
- Quest armies faction is now set depending on quest type. I.e Hunt barbarians quest faction is now set as barbarians.
- Rescue prisoners quest added. Armies have a high amount of prisoners to rescue that will be added to your army as peasants.
- Campfire interaction now depends on your relation to the camps faction.
- Rank needed to declare king has been raised to 13.
- Fixed issue when taking control of quest auto-complete battle victory not being recognized for quest completion.
- If tracking a quest, the finder arrow will automatically update if you complete an auto-resolve battle.
- Localisation added to campfire names and descriptions.
- Campfire available unit types have been adjusted.
- Collect prisoners amount now set per difficulty Tier. Also moddable.
- Peasant carts model replaced with LOD support.
- Fixed issue where resources were not being checked against unit equipment, and not allowing the player to purchase units. This will become more apparent when custom equipment is introduced.
- Campaign map AI town progression will match the players current level more closely.
- All scroll panels can now be scrolled with the mouse.
- An issue with progress not being saved properly before the player defends a siege has been fixed.
- Issue with siege equipment not transferring when players take over an auto resolve battle has been resolved.
- Tutorial bandit army colour issue fixed. units changed to Bandit unit types.
- 'All heroes' button added when creating armies.
- Asking quest location should now clear village available quests until you ask again.
- Issue where you couldnt complete a quest if you are at war with the owning town resolved. Can now complete the quest to improve relations.
Armoury
- New quiver model - Lods added.
Battle scene
- Siege equipment should now trigger AI log traps.
- Log traps should be properly triggering and causing damage to units.
- Units should now look in the direction of a sorted formation once they reach their target.
- Nomads will now skirmish instead of standing and firing arrows, unless in formation.
- Unit cards textures outlines/horse darkened.
- Unit types displayed in forces selection panel.
- Optimised peasant clothes unit LOD.
- Crowsperch map starting look directions fixed.
- Loading progress now shows after a battle.
- The issue with AI not responding during some village battles has been resolved.
- When AI is defending, persuing archers will now fall back into formation if they are too far away from the rest of the army.
- Ranged weapon range no longer decreased due to weather, just accuracy.
- An issue with siege equipment sometimes floating has been fixed.
- Reinforcement generation slightly optimized.
- Improvements to archer height distance issues.
- Highstone map had a building hidden underground - Units would spawn here preventing the battle from ending. Fixed.
- View the battle in a first-person perspective from any one of your soldiers by pressing the F key.
- Reinforcement unit hair and beards now positioned correctly.
- New battle terrains added x 5.
- Log trap audio now connected to SFX audio controller.
- Cavalry animation speed will adjust properly when moving information.
Thank you all for your support, and welcome to all new players!
Enjoy
- Kerry
Massive Update! 28/05/2018 - Better AI, New Units, Town management AI, and more!
Overview
Welcome to today's massive update, I do hope you all had a wonderful weekend and are ready for a bit of reading. Today's update brings better AI, tonnes of new unit types, tonnes of new equipment types, UI improvements, new game text (written by a writer), many users requested features, and much much more.
I will go into further details with some important updates towards the end of this article.
Muster your troops, because barbarians have landed!
New faction specific units
Barbarians - Tier 3
- Nomads - Horse archers (light armour).
- Horse lords - heavy horse (Sword).
- Banshees - Horse axe units (Axe).
- Raiders - (Spear).
- Marauders - Mounted bludgeon.
- Cannibals - Swords.
- Hunters - Spear.
- Trackers - Archer unit.
- Barbarians - light axe.
- Maulers - Bludgeon Maul.
Bandits - Tier 2
- Bandits (Mounted swords).
- Poachers (Archers).
- Brigands - Axe.
- Outlaws - Swords.
- Bastards - Spears.
- Hooligans - bludgeon.
Campaign map
- The player is now alerted when a faction has been destroyed.
- Defeated factions no longer show on the factions ledger, and the player is alerted once all factions have been defeated.
- AI factions will now begin siege if the player owns the town (Bug created by the previous patch).
- Hero rank now showing in hero overview panel.
- Automatic town management added! Providing the town has a lord/baron/duke assigned, you can now automate most town functions
- All building icons replaced.
- Siege equipment icons replaced.
- Expense ledger added. Can now see where your money is going
- More accurate up to date income representation. Includes market/mint profits, and Hero authority adjustments.
- Certain villages types will have increased productivity with certain unit types. Miners in mines, serfs in farms, hatchetmen in lumber mills, peasants in ranch.
- Building upgrades resources amount will now update when resources enter the town.
- Resource cost for all buildings increased.
- Faction name properly displayed in trade towns panel.
- All side panels no longer scroll horizontally.
- Trade resources panel should no longer scroll horizontally when sliding sliders.
- Roaming deserter armies will now combine if they discover each other. Snowballing into larger threats, or returning to a deserted camp.
- Resource carts should only show resources when resources are present.
- Major optimisation to how resource carts pathfind. All paths are pre-calculated, and are no longer calculated each time a cart leaves a village or reaches town. This will improve path response time with regular armies.
- Send and return cart buttons now play a click sound when pressed.
- Fixed issue with caravans not being sent because they weren't set to 'Idle' state when disabling.
- Max required gold tribute clamped.
- Armies with 0 population should no longer be created after losing a siege.
- Armies defending village battle will now re-enter village after a successful defense.
- Auto-resolve sally fourth battles when Player is attacking available.
- Town siege tents now disappear straight after the battle has ended.
- Deserters camps now appear. Deserter camps can contain higher tier units than bandit camps.
- Barbarian faction added!!?? WHAAAAT!!?
- Barbarian camps added.
- Bandit camp text quality improved.
- No longer bombarded with 'Factions declare war' message at startup.
- Quest tracking arrow now displayed over towns and villages when tracking quests is active.
- Every unit is properly represented on the campaign map as far as equipment.
- Equipment in campaign map is now pooled and optimized.
- Bandit camps now have multiple hero units and may send them out on patrol.
- Quest armies units are specific to the quest type as opposed to the tier type.
- Hunt deserters quest added.
- Hunt barbarians quest added.
- Kill harassing barbarians quest added.
- Gold mines production speed decreased.
- Army reps in the campaign map now have hair/ beards if they have no helmet.
- Completing quests at camps text is now green.
- Issues with withdrawing / retreating from siege resolved.
- Fixed lag issue when watching units train with a specific tier selected (Was resetting the panel if a unit of a different tier was training).
- Night time slight light increase.
- Village carts hometown and faction properly set during game load.
- Mounted units in the campaign map should no longer have a walking animation.
- Gold income from the town mint is now added to markets income - allowing income to be seen in the ledger.
- Offer alliance button now has text.
Armoury
- Unarmoured armour (Topless for men, fur top for women) added.
- The proper texture should show after purchase is confirmed.
- Armless vest (Hardened leather vest) x 5.
- Studded vest (Armless) x5.
- Fur vest x 5.
- Fur coat x5.
- Fur gambeson x 5.
- Fur surcoat x5.
- Chain vest (Armless).
- Scale vest (Armless).
- Fur leggings x 5.
- Fur boots x 5.
- New bow model.
- Longbow model.
- Recurve bow model.
- Crossbow model.
- Light crossbow.
- Arbalest crossbow.
Battle scene
- All weapons now do damage to shields. Bludgeon and axe weapons do 3x damage.
- Broken shields now pooled properly, allowing to be removed when too many.
- The unit lost message no longer displayed when unit dismounts a horse.
- Improved army AI.
- Defending Ai armies will now turn to face your approach.
- hero unit colliders changed to optimise performance. Now on par with regular units.
- Reinforcements will no longer attack random enemy units. The AI will give them orders depending on their situation, and the player must manually give orders.
- Units moving in a formation will now match movement speed.
- Siege defense icons replaced.
- Confirm retreat panel now shows when you choose to retreat.
- Reinforced gatehouse HP reduced.
- Custom battle terrain texture blending working properly.
- Battle snow optimized.
- End battle button now available after player retreats.
- Units should no longer run on the spot when they don't have a target.
- Buildings in village battles now have colliders. Can use as arrow cover.
- Fixed cavalry not entering formation state when moving to position.
- Units are now generated at runtime, and each factions units are slightly unique - this is in preparation of custom unit types at release. (And can be edited by any savvy modders)
- Retreating units weapon colliders should always be turned off. Preventing chasing units from taking damage.
- Dismounting units population type correctly set.
- Bandit camps level has changed.
- Ranged units now place ranged weapon on their back when in melee mode.
- Ranged weapons are now dropped when the unit is killed.
- Foot unit running audio track.
- Single starting position at the Northwatch map now facing the correct way.
- Hair now only spawned on units without a helmet.
- The issue with some keeps not having any reinforcement positions resolved.
- Stonesfall - corner tower has been replaced with regular tower. Unblocking the path.
Main menu
- Can now rotate the faction creation soldier.
- Realm selection image added.
- New barbarian starting condition added.
Mod Support
- Unit training speed now adjustable.
- Custom unit types (Will put together a tutorial once a few things have been finalized).
UI
-Text replaced - Tutorial, unit and building descriptions, Starting conditions.
Improved Battle AI
The enemy army will now be a lot more reactive to your actions during battle. From turning to face you when defending to updating its movement position when skirmishing/attacking. I have since taken more notes on how I can better improve the AI in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.
Automatic town management
This has probably been a user request since day one, and I had always said 'Possibly after full release, but no plans just yet'. Well.. NUTS to that! After my many hours of playthroughs, I came to realize how important this is. The AI will not send patrols as that could get problematic, but everything from TAX/Food consumption, to upgrading villages/training units and improving buildings have been added. It uses a similar AI to what the AI uses to determine what is best. You can access these options in the town panel (New icon on the right). Your town must have a Lord assigned to do so, but they do not need to be in the town.
New expenses ledger
This was a common user request that makes all too much sense. You guys are generally right about most things so I will continue to keep my ears (eyes??) open to your suggestions. You can access the ledger with the new Icon on the side panel (left of the screen). This will give you a general rundown of your income and expenses from towns/villages & armies. The 'Other' panel will show gains from markets, mint income, and any increases (or cost deductions) you may have received from a hero units authority level.
The income arrow is also updated more accurately from this information, and it updated in real time.
Barbarian faction
A new faction with a unique set of units has been added. Barbarian units are similar to tier 3 units with some unique capabilities and come with 10 unique unit types and armour. These units are all unique to the barbarian faction and can only be hired from barbarian camps. Nomads are a new cavalry archer unit that should create some interesting scenarios on the battlefield.
New types of bandit camps
Desserter camps and Barbarian camps have been added. These work in a similar way to bandit camps, but now contain their own unit types. Deserter camps are a refuge for any units leaving armies, so keep them in check, else you may have a problem later on.
Unique bandit units
Bandits also have a unique set of units. Similar in armaments to Tier 2 units, they also have a few types of leather and studded vests. These units can only be hired at bandit camps. With the new pipeline, it takes about 5 minutes for me to set up a new unit type so stay tuned as I have plans for many more unique factions.
Summary
Well, there you have it. This update is massive, and I already have a whole list of further improvements to make. The next update will likely focus on further optimization and improvements to any new systems.
I look forward to further improving the VOC experience and want to thank you all for taking the time to read this massive article.
Take care!
- Kerry
Polish and balance patch mach 2! 30/04/2018
Overview
Another polish and balance patch you say? Heck yes!
As we get closer to our goals, I intend on releasing a bunch of smaller updates so we can get to the real meat & cheese of this polishing sandwich.
I must say, after playing VOC with completely custom and unique units in each faction makes the non-version seem like a mere demo, so get ready for your world to be blown right open once we reveal our release date.
Now to the update...
Campaign map
- If a player is involved in a siege, the siege will never start without the player's input unless the defender decides to sally forth.
- Dismiss unit buttons disabled during the tutorial. This has been the cause of the infamous "Can't create an army tutorial" bug because of accidental clicking on the dismiss unit button. Only took me a year to figure this one out.
- Mercenaries are now a lot more fleshed out, common, and an Inn is no longer required.
- Ability to bank gold in town (when visiting towns) is no longer restricted by the towns treasury level.
- Town prisoner exchange option (when visiting towns) no longer requires the prison to be built.
- Quest tracker should find the correct town when objective it to return home.
- Quest tracker arrow should now update position after completing quests.
- Army size indicator now based on army strength instead of population.
- An issue with deserters being loaded as a regular faction has been resolved. They should no longer take villages.
- Quest options to be reset when clicking on village leader option when speaking to the village elder.
- Hero units actual loadout added to army strength calculation during all encounters.
- Tribute chance is now impacted by how much gold the player has and their current relationship, and not the receiving factions gold. So it should be a lot cheaper and reasonable.
- Merchant unit carry weight increased.
- Merchant unit movement speed reduced (Because they carry lots of stuff... duh).
- Loading screen should now say 'Loading' instead of 'Accept'.
- You can now store more resources in a village than its capacity from armies that enter the village, but it will not produce more resources while it is above capacity. This should prevent the player from losing resources when they enter an owned village.
- Quitting a siege halfway through a battle and then reloading your game should no longer result in your siege being broken. A temporary save is now created before a siege battle and is loaded once the siege is over.
- AI will now build engineers even after they are building higher tier bludgeon units.
- Ability to sort unit purchases by Tier.
- Confirm armory panel should appear on top of other town panels.
- Later stage building upgrades building time increased dramatically.
Armoury
- Scale surcoat colour variations added + 9
Battle scene
- Army power bar should properly reflect military might on the battlefield compared to the campaign map.
- Weird archer arrow scale issue should be fixed.
- Added a friendly fire damage reduction for ranged units.
- Caught many exceptions to do with mounted units dismounting for ladders.
- During multi faction battles, will check only your enemies retreating to decide when to bring up the retreating enemy options.
- After selecting pursue enemies a button allowing the player to end combat at any time has been added.
- Unit text at the start and battle end should now scale nicer and use proper localization text.
- Forces selection scrollbar should scroll properly from the top - bottom.
- Arrow and bolt damage increased.
- Flaming arrow damage increase.
Main Menu
- Default antialiasing set to basic. There is an advanced option (less stable it seems was the cause of many crashes but was much prettier)
Mod Support
- Unit tier added to the unit information. Used for sorting units when purchasing but may have further implications for the future.
Notable Updates
Mercenary units (Tier 2) are MUCH more readily available in towns, no longer require the Inn to be available, and multiple types will be available at once. They are quite expensive to hire, but they should be a much sort after commodity when taking your first castle.
Unit tier sorting in towns Makes it much easier for you to sort your units when purchasing based on each tier level. Buttons have been added to the unit purchase menu.
Quitting a siege battle and re-loading no longer breaks your siege! This took me a while to figure out the best way, as all data is saved before a battle. Your game is now saved before anything is processed, and updated version is loaded once the battle is complete. This should be a welcome fix to many a siege quitterer.
Later buildings now take longer to build. Earlier build levels are not affected by this, but the purpose is to prolong the time it takes for each town to be fully upgraded. Giving the player a better chance to take a castle in the earlier stages of world development.
Ranged units are more powerful: I found ranged units to be quite weak, this has changed. Igniting your arrows now has a greater benefit. Prepare to alter your tactics, and make use of cavalry.
Whats next?
This week I plan on starting my crusade to improve the AI combat potential, stay tuned as battles could be getting more challenging. Ai decision making will be based on the enemy generals leadership ability.
Many more balance and polish updates!
Thank you all! I hope you enjoy todays update!
- Kerry
Experiencing crashes since the latest update?
Hello all!
It seems crashes have started to appear since the latest update, and it seems it may come down to the new post effects.
If you are experiencing crashes since the last patch I recommend going into the performance section and turning off...
Antialiasing
Motion Blur
Depth of field
My greatest suspicion is the new Antialiasing, so the next patch will include an option to use the old version.
Keeping your drivers up to date can also help with these issues, but I have also put together a handy guide here to help narrow down the cause.
I will have another patch soon with an option to go back to the old antialiasing system.
All the best!
- Kerry
Super mega polish update 24 / 04 / 2018
Summary
Hello all!
Today's patch brings us some much needed polish and bug fixing. I have been playing the campaign of VOC a lot lately, something that I don't often get to do because of how long a playthrough takes.
You would be pleased to know that I have found and fixed SOOOO many freaking bugs and polish issues, that I already have the next patch ready.
So.. without further ado, here is the summary.
Campaign map
- Many spelling issues have been addressed. (Much of the text is being re-written, more on that later)
- Resources not displaying when interacting with village markets issue fixed.
- Trading in towns now shows trade on the correct side and is consistent with all trade interactions.
- Rain volume adjusted. (Lowered)
- Farm output increased per upgrade level.
- Defeated factions should no longer show in the factions screen.
- Siege workshop description changed.
- Siege workshop no longer needs to be upgraded as it doesn't do anything other than unlocking engineer units.
- The elasticity of Building and Unit training panels have been fixed. No longer moves horizontally.
- Auto-resolve battle button now disabled at abandoned campfires.
- Trade caravans should no longer spawn as ships.
- Armies should no longer spawn with general stars, or king icon unless required.
- An issue where AI towns could generate armies beyond their population has been resolved. This could have been perceived as AI cheating, was not intentional :) I will likely need to keep balancing as fixing this issue has weakened the AI.
- Routing a quest army that does not involve killing the hero will no longer create a quest object on the retreating army.
- Easy and medium quest gold reward has been increased.
- Prisoners needed for medium - hard quests increased slightly.
- Dismissing unit will now revert all units back to the army, avoiding the perception of disappearing units (Units were still there, but only once you load the window again).
- Auto-resolving quest battles would add quest component twice if the army retreated, resulting in un-completable quests. This has been resolved.
- Purchasing peasants in villages will properly reset the slider panel after purchase.
- Rank needed for the hero to be declared king has been lowered to 12.
- Camp map battle drone SFX changed and mixed.
- Tutorial panel to sit on top of events panel.
- Leadership bonus now added during internal calculation of an armies strength. This should give more accurate indications before the battle.
- Hero productivity now increases siege equipment production speed.
- You can now build siege equipment using gold carried by your army as opposed to just faction gold.
- Carried resources now properly added to combatants from bandit camps and campfires during auto-resolve battles.
- Hero leadership bonus now added to the auto-resolve balance of power.
- Bandit camp unit training increased.
- Game loading issue caused by General stars amount fixed.
Battle scene
- Audio rolls off nicer, improving audio quality.
- Audio reverb zone added to simulate the outdoors.
- Removed doppler effect from charge sound.
- Charge audio no longer cut short.
- 'The crag' Castle walls now fully interactive.
- 'Battle drone' SFX during large battles.
- TAA antialiasing adjusted to reduce 'ghosting'.
- Horsehair should now be impacted by fog and shadows.
- Cavalry charge SFX added.
- Helper text now displaying UI elements properly.
- "Pursue or spare" panel should no longer show when an enemy army has been annihilated.
- Exception caught when loading The Crag map with reinforced walls.
- Caught exception creating reinforcement.
- Units sometimes spawning in map center bug has been fixed.
- Fixed pathing issues in some castle maps.
- Siege engines now respond to unit movement speed - should no longer have 'floating' ladders.
- You can now view each armies current stats by mousing over the power display bar. Including active units, reserves, kills, losses, and general influence.
- Pooling of Blood improved - increased optimization.
- Fixed errors when using a small dead bodies pool.
- Using advanced targeting controls will now correctly select Axe units.
- Longer battles are more optimized meaning they shouldn't bog down when going on for too long. All equipment, corpse, horses are now properly pooled and removed when needed. This should also improve siege performance.
- Units should now properly face their opponent in battle.
- Caught ranged unit targeting error.
- Mounted hero units will always be selected when selecting the mounted sword card.
- Mouse over hero units will now show name and title of hero unit.
- Caught exceptions caused by pooling of dead units.
- *Updated* -An issue with arrows not resetting when pooled has been adressed. Overall it should also optimise them as they were falling through the terrain and remaining active for the duration of the battle
Main Menu
- Many spelling issues have been addressed.
- Increased starting gold for most starting conditions.
- Merchant starting condition now starts with scout, merchant, and peasant units.
- Keyboard zoom/keybinding added. Page up / Down default. Also recognized in the game tutorial.
- More antialiasing options: Off, Basic, Advanced.
- Baren of Greywatch and Desperate miner name changes.
Mod Support
- An issue when starting a custom battle after selecting a new mod has been corrected.
Whats next?
As we move closer and closer to leaving early access, we are pushing hard to bring the game up to a standard worthy of your amazing support. I will continue to playtest and polish the game so expect many smaller updates between now and when we announce the release date.
The amazing team at Humble Sage Games are also providing some pretty exciting updates, including new models for all ranged weapons, a re-write of the tutorial/building/unit descriptions. and many more art assets to gaze at.
My other priority is to improve the combat AI. I have been taking notes and have a pretty good idea how I am going to do it. Expect a more challenging enemy AI in the future.
That is all from me today, I hope you enjoy the update!
Take care!
Kerry Fawdray
Latest update 03/04/2018 - Happy Easter!
Campaign map
- 3d sound setting fixed for battle SFX - should no longer hear constantly.
- Can no longer auto-resolve when your army consists of only hero units.
- Game over properly triggered after losing last hero during camp map battle
- Army aggression level indicators now properly display after restarting a new game on an existing world.
- Construction SFX added.
- Enter town SFX added.
- Enter Mine SFX.
- Enter Farm SFX.
- Enter Tannery SFX.
- Enter Lumberyard SFX.
- Trade bug fixed - Clicking on trade resources after moving sliders no-longer doubles resource amounts.
- New cursors.
- Added Depth of field visual improvements.
- Hero units sometimes not keeping experience after a battle issue has been resolved.
- Hero units now attack in auto-resolve battles.
- Now a chance a players hero will retreat from an auto-resolve battle when left alone.
- Clicking on hero unit will place the camera at the hero units location.
- Footman army rep helmet replaced.
- Game over from losing all hero units should only occur in Veil of Crows game mode.
- Button click added when upgrading hero skills.
- Battle sound no-longer plays loudly after clicking on campaign map battle.
- Adjusted Fog height/density.
- Button click now heard when pressing forced march.
- Added general strength indications to armies.
- Added King indication to armies.
- Improved fog effect on water. No longer cuts around the world map.
- Improved Antialiasing - Graphics update.
- Prisoners needed issue fixed. No longer generates quests with 0 needed prisoners.
- Scene fade-in effect.
- Income prediction fixed when peasant class enters and exit villages.
Armoury
- Blacksmith hammering in background SFX.
- Scene fade-in effect.
Battle scene
- Hero units new display properly on the battle map.
- Scene fade-in effect.
- New cursors.
- Optimisation to shadows, this will be more noticeable a full release.
- Tutorial now has a controls overlay showing specific controls.
- Improved battle scene texture blending based on strength of campaign map terrain types.
- Improved Antialiasing.
- Added motion blur.
- Archer projectile improved.
Main Menu
- Scene fade-in effect.
- New cursors.
- Cursor force software toggle added - this will make the cursor bigger, and is useful for 4k monitors. It does add a slight bit of drag on the mouse.
- A depth of field toggle has been added to the performance menu.
- Improved Antialiasing.
- Resized grinding stone in armoury scene.. seriously though, how did no-one notice it was HUGE?
- Motion blur toggle added.
- More custom battle environment options.
Mod Support
- Fixed issue with loading armory items with mod support enabled. Players can now add their own equipment types using current equipment.
- Access to items king restriction - can now edit if the item can only be used by king or not.
This patch includes quite a few visual updates, however, most of these are optional, so you may adjust them at your leisure in the performance menu.
We are working hard on bringing the final content into the game for the final release, with a few weapon models still to come. We are also discussing post-release features and updates. More on this later.
Enjoy!
- Kerry
Testing branch Update - 20 / 03 / 2018
A new update has been uploaded to the testing branch!
I am testing out a few of the updates for the next patch and would love your input.
Main features:
Updated post effects
These are all optional in performance options. I am mostly interested in how these are looking, and how they run on your system. If you have any issues let me know!
New SFX
We are still mixing these. Let me know how they sound.
New Cursors
We have updated the cursors! I am interested in how they look in your resolution. Results may vary.
There are also many other bug fixes and updates in this build but I will announce them in more detail when the next patch officially launches!
If you would like to opt into the testing branch please follow these instructions:
Right-click VOC in your steam library->SelectProperties->Select BETAS-> Select testingBranch in the drop-down.
Badda bing, badda boom.
I am looking to get the next patch officially out within the next two weeks. Thank you for your patience!
Enjoy!
- Kerry
Latest update 29/01/2018 - Its a biggie!
Campaign map
- Trade buy/sell error when selling has been fixed.
- Hero portraits will now display a crown when representing a king.
- Movement acknowledgment animation is now shown.
- Move to target animation now shown to confirm orders.
- Acknowledgement sound after giving orders.
- New unit! Merchant. Peasant cavalry with a high carry capacity.
- New quest complete SFX.
- New quest added SFX.
- Faction info buttons fixed when viewing faction details.
Armoury
- Padded Gambeson price adjusted.
- Crown your king! Crown now available for purchase in the Armory. Only your king can wear the crown.
- Pickaxe model replaced.
- Woolen gambeson added x 7.
- Studded gambeson added x 9.
Battle scene
- Resources properly added to combatants before the battle in open battles & bandit camp battles.
- Mounted units pivot point adjusted, mounted hero units shouldn't swing around as much.
- Units will not chase an opponent on a ladder, hoping to prevent units stuck in a loop.
- Mounted hero units health and experience will display properly when attacked.
- Carried resources now show properly at the battle summary.
- Bounds limit adjusted to prevent units spawning outside castle walls during a siege.
- Peasants are now classed as sword units, to avoid lost all units message during battle.
- The battle balance of power is now based on actual attack and defense skill instead of numbers. This is now the same as the campaign map.
- Click acknowledgment now shown when giving an attack order.
- Attack animation shows the point of click.
- Movement position animation now plays instead of just showing a cube.
- New victory SFX.
- New defeat SFX.
- Added charge SFX when army gives attack orders with a large number of units.
Main Menu
- Main menu localization text will now be outdated as more text has been added - so if you have any issues please feel free to message me and we can work through it.
- You may now choose to start a new faction in an existing sandbox game, similar to VOC mode.
- Option to select world available (This is a release feature and is still in development), and has been disabled.
- Reset game text has been updated.
- Players steam name added to the first scene.
- The game version now displayed - This will be more accurate upon full release, and reflects content amount more than overall polish.
- Added a loading scene to avoid totally black screen when loading the game.
- Added a quitting scene to try and manually clear loaded assets and clear memory before application quit. This is to try and stop the common crash upon game exit. Results have been promising.
- Music now starts playing after the sound setting has been loaded to.
- Improved armory loading speed - At the expense of install size.
UI
- Scrolling panel scale is now adjusted at runtime - this may fix some scaling issues with some scroll panels.
Enjoy!!
- Kerry
Testing branch - Stability, new campaign map test, player feedback. 24/01/2018
Hello all!
I set this live last night but did not get a chance to post about it.
After discovering a bug that could be causing a lot of stability issues in the current build, I decided to push the latest build to the testing branch to get the next patch ready quicker.
Full details will be in the next official patch, but to summarise the changes.
New test campaign map available - This is a launch feature, so the test map is the same as the old one (except covered in sand). This is to test the feature and will only be available in the testing branch until launch.
New load game menu - Because we have multiple maps, there can be multiple games with each game mode. Save games are now listed. You can now start a new faction on an existing world in sandbox mode now also.
Quit game screen - When quitting the game it will first load a scene where it unloads everything from memory. Initial testing has been promising, but I am hoping this fixes the exit game crashes some people are experiencing.
More user feedback We are still working on more of this - but new SFX and visual acknowledgments have been added to the game.
Other new features including a new unit class and equipment There is quite a lot in this update, but I will leave full details for the next official patch.
Acces the beta build instructions
- Right click on VOC in your steam library
- Select properties
- Select the betas tab
- Select 'testingbranch' from the drop-down
Thank you all for being patient waiting for the next update!
All the best!
- Kerry
Latest update 8 /01 /2018 - Happy new year equipment drop!
Campaign map
- Easy quests now reward more gold.
- Removed horizontal slider movement - Village Markets.
- Removed horizontal slider movement - Town Markets.
- Removed horizontal slider movement - Army buy/sell.
- Removed horizontal slider movement - Campsite Markets.
- Player faction gold now displaying properly after armory purchases.
- Army gold is properly updated after using an unowned armory.
- Unit purchase resource text will stay default color if no resource is needed to put more emphasis on resource cost.
- Veil of Crows mode - Game over will occur when all player hero units have been killed, instead of just the starting hero.
- Battle sounds added to camp map battles
Armoury
- Heavier equipment now impacts movement speed. This can be alleviated by upgrading unit agility.
- Guisarme faction logo properly displayed.
- Armoury scene text changed and added to - translations may need to be adjusted. If you are experiencing issues loading the armoury please check the bug report section of the steam forums for a fix
- Chain vest added x 5.
- Mail armor added x 4.
- Leather shield metal material fixed.
- Leather shield size adjusted.
- Small shield added.
- Boot types added x 5.
- Leather boot types added x 6.
- Rags added x 6 (leggings).
- Boots renamed 'Hide Boots'.
- Leggings added x 7.
- Leggings stats adjusted.
- Leather leggings added x 7.
- Leather leggings stats adjusted.
- Boiled leather leggings added x 8.
- Heavy leather leggings added x 5.
- Studded leggings added and adjusted x 9.
Battle scene
- Unit names now displayed during mouse over.
- Dried river battle scene added.
- Hero 'max blood' reset on level up - this will adjust hero health displayed correctly.
Main Menu
- Refugee starting condition now starts with peasants, serfs, fowlers and extra gold.
- Hero Sex, hair and beard details properly transition into the game from creation.
- Baron of Greywatch starting conditions now properly start with farm and lumberyard.
- Desperate miner now correctly starts in mine.
Happy new year!
I hope you all had a wonderful new year, and have taken some time from your busy schedules to enjoy the steam winter sale! I didn't get much game time in because I went camping with my family, but I did manage to squeeze in a few updates for VOC before I went away.
Change to game-over conditions
Game over will now occur if all of your hero units are dead instead of just your main hero. This has been a long time coming. Thank you all for your patience. Hero units are also slightly more likely to spawn in taverns.
The home stretch
Early access for VOC was always supposed to be short, although it is already taken longer than originally planned (because of added features), we are beginning to enter the home stretch as far as features and content go. Humble sage games have been a huge help in the development of VOC, and they continue in the push as they work on some of the finer details that will enhance user feedback and experience. More on this in a future update, but I do want to talk about launch features. Once all features and content are in the game the focus will turn entirely to fixing bugs, ai, and minor issues.
Launch Features
The last bigger features will become available at game launch, but we have been working hard on bringing these to life in the meantime. The first of which I am ready to talk about.
Custom unit loadout
You heard that correctly! At launch, you will be able to enter the armory and alter your unit's equipment. At the start of the game your units will be equipped with weaker weapons and armor than your opponents, so you will need to upgrade if you want to stand a chance. Not only is the equipment customisable, you can also select how your faction colors are displayed on your units. There are about 8 different ways you can display your faction colors, from squares to stripes, to none at all!
All equipment selected will adjust your units stats, heavier equipment will reduce movement speed, and larger shields will impact attack damage, so you must consider this when outfitting your armies. Heavier equipment will also add to mounted units charge damage.
With the current selection of equipment, there are literally thousands of unique combinations. I hope to add new equipment options post-release too.
This feature is nearly complete, and you will be impressed by the fact that loading completely custom units at runtime doesn't seem to slow down loading times at all due to some fine optimisation. Unit types available equipment and player starting equipment will also be moddable.
Randomised factions
When starting a fresh sandbox or veil of crows game, every faction will be unique. A factions name, coat of arms, colors, and unit equipment is randomized to give you a unique experience each time you start a new world.
Summary
Thank you all for making 2017 such a wonderful year, I look forward to pushing this game further, and telling you about the next launch features once we are 100% sure we can deliver.
