Hi everyone! Kommissar here. Today I'd like to talk about custom maps, modding tools and all that stuff!
It's important to note that we never intended to add modding into the game in the first place. Even a map editor was a big "maybe" for a long time, skewing very far towards a disappointing "no". However, now that I had a little break from bug fixes, as we're not receiving many reports, I decided to tackle this subject to see if we can pull it off or not, and how far we can take it.
Unity Project
We've decided that building modding tools from the ground up and integrating them into the game would take far too long and would be way too difficult. We took a few shortcuts here and there in hope that it would speed up development and end up being far more friendly to use. We decided that our modding kit will consist of a Unity Engine Project. The engine is free to download, has plenty of tutorials available online, and is relatively easy to use. For those curious, we're using 2022.2.16.
The Modding project will be shipped with the game - so once you navigate to your installation folder you'll be able to find it there. What does the editor allow us to do?
Creating New Maps
Building Slots
The biggest and most important feature of the project is creating new maps. Users will be able to drag and drop buildings on their new level, which represent locations where building slots will appear. We added in proper models there so you'll see roughly how much space the buildings will take. That way you can easily create wall sections, tower placements and what not. Obviously you have Unity Terrain tools at your disposal, so you can use them as you wish. You can also mark slots to be ignored by enemies, so unless they're in their direct line of fire, they won't engage with them (tower defence game, anyone?)
Process
I won't get into too much detail, but this is a rough outline of how it works:
Create terrain in Unity, use assets provided, import free ones, or make your own
Place dummy slots around the map
Create a navigable mesh file (tutorial coming, simple stuff all done in Unity)
Define enemy waves
Define weather
(optional) Write a script to do cool things in your map!
Export and try it out! Upload to workshop when happy
The setup is not very difficult, but has a strict hierarchy and some knowledge of file editing is required. Video and text tutorials will be provided of course by yours truly.
Scripting API
We'll be providing a simple API which you can use for writing scripts for your map. At first it will be quite bare bones - we'll expand it over time with feature requests - we're really counting on your help and feedback here. At the moment you can do things like:
Play custom music and sounds
Write events to the player log (bottom left)
Intercept events (one second tick, weather events, units dying etc) so you can do something with them
Give / Take away resources
Change weather / Force weather
For example you may choose to make a map where there are no resource slots, but instead the player gets X resources for every killed enemy. We'll expose whatever we can over time and I'm sure many of you will find creative ways to use it.
You can also stop the players from receiving fate points for killed units, or give them the fate points whenever you like. You can also give them cards at any point you want. For example you might make a mod where the player does not gain any fate points, but instead is rewarded with a new card every X seconds.
Play and share!
Once you're happy, you can upload the map to the Steam Workshop where people will be able to download it. Whether you provide the raw map files for others to use is completely up to you - some people like to do it, others not. Your call!
Here's a quick test of our map working in the game!
We plan to launch the map editor with at least three custom maps, and their projects available for download. That way you'll have a bunch of scripts and maps you can base your own versions on. At some point we'll probably organise a map making competition as well, but that will be sometime on release.
If you have any questions please let us know. Meanwhile stay strong, fight on, and see you on discord and discussions!
Hotfix 0.7G
Some users are currently reporting various crashes. We think this is related to how Unity version we've been using handles some CPU architecture. This hotfix should address this issue on most PCs.
Please make sure to update your graphic drivers as well. This also helped a few users who experienced crashes on spawning particle effects.
If you have any other issues please contact us ASAP via discord or Steam discussions.
Wrath of Sands
Greetings Warlords!
We are excited to shed some more light about the upcoming update for Warlords Under Siege, titled "Wrath of Sands". This update will bring new content and features to the game, including a new enemy race, fighting which will require a very different approach. In this dev diary, we will showcase some of these new units, their abilities, and how they fit into the game's lore.
The Shar'Qa Desert, an unforgiving expanse of scorching sands and treacherous dunes, stretches out as far as the eye can see. Once a place of mystery and wonder, it is now a land of shadows, where malevolent forces have been awakened from their ancient slumber. The once-balanced ecosystem has been disrupted, and the desert's inhabitants now find themselves caught in a battle for survival against the rising tide of darkness.
Whispers of an ominous power have spread like wildfire, stirring the evil that has long lain dormant beneath the sun-parched sands. The desert fiends, once bound to their respective territories, now find themselves united under a sinister force, their collective wrath turned towards the human cities at the desert's edge.
As the sun sets on the horizon, casting eerie shadows across the dunes, a palpable sense of dread settles over the desert, heralding the approach of the encroaching darkness. The people of the besieged cities must now stand together, drawing upon their courage and strength to face the awakened evil that threatens to consume them all. The sands of the Shar'Qa Desert, once a place of quiet solitude, now bear witness to a conflict as ancient as the land itself, a struggle for survival against the forces that lurk within its depths.
Wrath of Sands will bring two new maps, and a brand new enemy race along with it. This will bring us very close towards the end of our planned roadmap (in fact, once done we'll go beyond what was initially planned!), but the fun will not be over, and we still have some stuff up our sleeve for the future. All that being said, this update will be massive and will provide many hours of fun for experienced and new players alike.
With each update we try bring more than just a map and the same cookie-cutter enemies. Greenskins and the Undead are very different races, offering different challenges - but really they are still quite similar. We wanted to push enemy variety even further, and so this update will bring some massive changes to the battlefield.
This article will not show you all enemies you'll face - just some of them. Don't worry, we're leaving plenty hidden for you to discover :)
Let's talk about Desert Fiends.
Deep within the Shar'Qa Desert, hidden beneath the sands, lie the tombs of ancient civilizations long forgotten. Silent witnesses to the passage of time, these crypts harbor untold secrets and unimaginable treasures, drawing many an adventurous soul into their shadowy depths. Yet, those who dare venture within must face the enigmatic guardians of these sacred burial grounds: the Watchmen.
Neither living nor dead, the Watchmen are mummified, humanoid figures with an air of something far more sinister. Wrapped in tattered linens stained by the sands of time, they possess an otherworldly presence that instills fear in even the bravest of hearts. Their origins remain shrouded in mystery, with whispers of forgotten rituals and dark pacts that have bound them to their eternal duty.
[expand type="showmore"]The Watchmen possess an uncanny ability to sense intruders, emerging from the darkness of the tombs to protect the resting places of their long-departed masters. Their lifeless eyes seem to pierce through the very souls of those who trespass, while their withered hands wield ancient weapons with devastating precision. Silent and relentless, they serve as a stark reminder of the price of greed and the consequences of disturbing the slumber of the dead.
In the ever-shifting sands of the Shar'Qa Desert, the Watchmen stand eternal, unwavering guardians of a past that refuses to be forgotten, a testament to the darkness that lingers at the edges of human history. And now... they ventured out of the tombs they have been bound to protect.[/expand]
In the heart of the Shar'Qa Desert, a tribe of fearsome Snakemen known as the Serpentis dwell amongst the shifting sands. Their bodies, a fusion of human and serpent, are adorned with bronze armor and weapons forged from the desert's scarce resources. These formidable beings are skilled in the ancient art of bronze smithing, which has been passed down through generations.
[expand type="showmore"]The Serpentis are fiercely territorial, guided by a strict code of honor that demands unwavering loyalty to their kin and the desert they call home. They live in harmony with the harsh environment, their keen senses and unparalleled agility allowing them to navigate the treacherous dunes with ease. Their venomous fangs and swift strikes make them a formidable foe to any who dare trespass into their domain.
Though they share the desert with the sinister Sand Nightmares, the Serpentis have learned to coexist with these spectral beings, avoiding confrontation and respecting the boundaries of their haunted territories. In the ever-shifting landscape of the Shar'Qa Desert, the Serpentis stand as a symbol of resilience and unity, a testament to the power of adaptation in the face of adversity.[/expand]
Long ago, in the sun-scorched dunes of Shar'Qa, there existed an ancient order of assassins known as the Al'Samara. These elusive warriors were feared for their lethal skills and unwavering loyalty to their enigmatic leader, Zul the Shadowless.
One fateful night, Zul attempted to harness the power of the rare and mystical Dark Sands to grant his assassins immortality. The ritual, however, backfired and unleashed a catastrophic storm that decimated the order. Consumed by the very darkness they sought to control, the assassins were reborn as vengeful spectres, now known as the Sand Nightmares.
[expand type="showmore"]Bound to the cursed dunes, the Sand Nightmares roam the desert, cloaked in their tattered black robes, carrying the very daggers that once belonged to their mortal forms. Driven by a relentless thirst for vengeance, these malevolent apparitions hunt for unwary travelers, plaguing them with nightmarish visions and striking fear into the hearts of even the most hardened of warriors.
In the endless sea of sand, the Sand Nightmares serve as a grim reminder of the perils of ambition and the dark forces that lie beneath the surface, awaiting those who dare to awaken them.[/expand]
The desert is home to a diverse array of scarabs, each uniquely adapted to the harsh environment.
Some of these scarabs, known as the Burrowers, have evolved to live beneath the desert's surface. With their powerful legs and sharp mandibles, they tunnel through the sand, creating intricate networks of subterranean passages. These cunning predators lie in wait, sensing the vibrations of their prey above before striking with deadly precision from below.
Others, on the other hand, have taken to the skies, their large wings allowing them to traverse vast distances in search of food. Equipped with keen eyesight, they patrol the desert from above, scanning the dunes for signs of life. With a swift and silent descent, they can snatch their unsuspecting prey from the ground, carrying it away to feast upon in the safety of their aerial domain.
[expand type="showmore"]In the ever-changing landscape of the Shar'Qa Desert, these scarabs serve as a testament to the power of adaptation and the resilience of life, even in the most unforgiving of environments. As the darkness continues to encroach upon the land, the scarabs remain a vital part of the desert's delicate balance, their presence a reminder that life will always find a way to persist in the face of adversity.[/expand]
Within the vast expanse of the Shar'Qa Desert, the skies are ruled by a fearsome race of creatures known as the Harpies. With the upper bodies of humans and the powerful wings and talons of vultures, these formidable beings have adapted to the harsh conditions of the desert, soaring above the dunes in search of prey.
The Harpies are skilled hunters, wielding bows and arrows with unmatched precision. Their keen eyesight allows them to spot potential targets from great distances, while their agile wings grant them unparalleled maneuverability in the air. With a swift and deadly grace, they dive towards their enemies, raining a hail of arrows upon their unsuspecting victims before retreating back into the safety of the skies.
[expand type="showmore"] In addition to their formidable hunting prowess, the Harpies possess a cunning intelligence that enables them to coordinate their attacks, striking fear into the hearts of those who dare to venture into their domain. They are fiercely territorial, guarding their aerial kingdom with a ruthless determination that leaves few survivors.[/expand]
An ominous darkness stirs, awakening ancient evils long entombed beneath the sands. Foul creatures of legend, once thought mere myth, now rise to plague the land, their malevolent intentions sowing chaos and despair. As these nefarious beings unite under the banner of darkness, the men inhabiting this land must band together, forging alliances in a desperate bid to survive.
We hope you're just as excited for the update as we are! With new enemy threats such as flying units, and burrowers, the battlefield will be a very different landscape. We hope to see you soon in the next dev diary, where we'll reveal a little more about the upcoming maps.
As always, there's no ETA regarding the patch release date, but we do expect to work on it throughout the month of May. Lots of art is done, but there are still animations, map improvements, tweaks, mechanics and lots of other fun stuff!
Stay tuned, report bugs, and lift the siege, Warlords!
Hotfix 0.7F
Endless town hall upgrades mostly doubled their value
Enemies receive approx. 50% less HP and DMG on endless mode
When recruiting a large number of units at once, they will no longer stack on top of each other so easily
Fixed Fate Points acquisition in endless mode
Fixed missile unit rotation when on walls
Added new Loading Screens
Hotfix 0.7E
- Building weapons now have their damage correctly calculated when boosted by cards
Hotfix 0.7 D
Removed various redundant logs, making log files easier to read
Fixed a memory leak associated with missiles not despawning correctly
Removed logs during weather events, which could potentially have stalled performance
Passive hero cards now boost Anwen's stats correctly
Hotfix 07.c
- Lots of performance improvements - Further Optimisation of all visual settings - Garrisoned units will now correctly stay on the walls
0.7 Hotfix B
- Pathfinding, Rendering and UI optimisation, should give some extra FPS - Enemies no longer go out of their way to chase caravans - Fixed Thunder sound not being linked to Effects sound volume - Units should no longer get stuck when only Townhall is left - More armoured goblins on the Iron Keep, and less scouts
Hot Fix 0.7
- Fixed Anwen price being deducted from player gold repeatedly on game restart on old save games
April Game Update!
Hello everyone! First of all, we're very sorry for the radio silence. The last few months have been very busy and very eventful. We were held up mostly by technical reasons - we were upgrading from Unity 2018 to Unity 2022, which was quite a jump. As a result, we had to do a lot of work to make WuS work again, but development should go smoother from this point on.
Let's talk HEROES
You may have noticed our new capsule. You were probably thinking "sheesh, they added a girl on there so that more people will click on the game! Gosh, these sneaky developers!". Well, ACKSHUALLY you'll find it's not just some RANDOM GIRL, but our new Elven Hero - Anwen.
Anwen is an Elven Ranger. She comes with four new, unique skills only available for her character. She's very much a damage dealer, and she's fast on her feet too! She can also summon wolves which will follow her everywhere she goes. They are pets - you, as a player, have no direct control over them, but they'll stick by Anwen's side. You can select your hero and bind them to your deck in the Deck Builder.
Talking about heroes, they're voiced now! That's right! We hired some very talented voice actors, who now voice Galahad and Anwen. You can watch a little sneak peek here: But, what's good a new hero if you can't control those darned units properly. GOSH, I tell you developer, clicking and giving orders is IMPOSSIBLE IN YOUR GAME! You guys at REDKAR need to get your ASS IN GEAR and give us some NEW CONTROLS.
Yes. We heard you, and we agree. Unit control in WuS is very difficult, but it's going to get better in this patch. It's not perfect yet, but it is better.
Unit Control
Apart from the obvious fixes to the most annoying things (not being able to click on a unit, the selection box disappearing when hovering over the UI, things being WEIRD etc.), we have also introduced Unit Formations. You can watch a W.I.P video of unit formations here (please disregard the lack of translated text). There are five formations to choose from: Lines (single, double, triple), Melee Front, Missile Front. The last ones can actually be sort of reversed if you drag the formation from the other angle, so we might remove one of them... but we will see and await your feedback on that one. It's an experimental feature! Cool thing is though, that these formations are reactive - so you can stretch the lines as much or as little as you like.
We also reworked unit collisions, pathfinding, corrected unit ranges and all that. I could write an essay on it but I really, really don't want to, and I promise you, you don't want to read it. If you do want to read it, make yourself not want to. Please.
Gamepedia
Gamepedia, knowledge base, whatever... It's a big library of things that contains information about everything you need to know. Units, buildings, keywords, lore descriptions, stats, abilities... all that tosh.
You guys told us that you really need information about unit stats for your minmaxing desires, so we added it in. You can view stats and abilities of all races (both yours, and enemy), buildings and all that kind of stuff. We hope it's enough for all your gaming needs :) But the things you learn... Keep it secret. Keep it safe.
Weather
To spice things up, we have weather now! Throughout the battle you'll find a host of random weather effects that change the look of the battlefield, and provide bonuses and penalties. Sunny weather gives you a bonus, but any other can give penalties, or bonuses to your enemies. There are following weather types in the game:
Clear
Dense Clouds
Dense Fog
Electric Fog
Light Rain
Thunderstorm
Dust Storm (planned next update)
Total Rebalance!
So, this is difficult to admit (well, not difficult, but shameful). We made quite a doodoo. So far the game was cheating. Well, it wasn't cheating-cheating, but there's quite a chance most of you had very different experiences as far as balance is concerned.
TIL: We fixed things that were broken (stats, order of cards), and now everything will be better.
Long version: For those of you familiar with game design you might know that percentages and percentile bonuses are a dangerous tool when used willy-nilly. At the moment, the game would give bonuses incrementally from the current value, not the base value. This created some crazy numbers that were very difficult to balance, and allowed players to skyrocket their unit stats if they knew about this system very quickly. We no longer give any % bonuses incrementally, but instead always give the bonus calculating it from the original value. If you had a base value of 10, and gave it 5x 50% bonus, you'd end up with numbers 10, 15, 22.5, 33.7, 50.6, 75.9 and so on... Instead you should be always getting 50% from 10, so... 10, 15, 20, 25 etc... You see the problem?
At the moment the order of the cards really matters - because if you give yourself a big bonus first, it might hinder you. The way in which you picked the town hall development tree bonuses totally makes a difference. From the new patch, it no longer will - all bonuses will be independent from each other.
No screenshot for this because how the heck do I take a screenshot of this :) I could show you a stat comparison but bleh...
Upping the price!
As we've been saying, the price will be upped over time as we get closer to full release. WuS has been sitting at a very low price for a while. Now that we are happy with the additions, quality of life improvements and bug fixes this patch brings, we'll be upping the price a bit. WuS is going up from $4.99 to $7.99 this weekend, when the patch lands.
¡Traducción al español añadida!
Esta parte es en realidad del traductor de Google, ¡pero conseguimos que alguien tradujera el juego al español!
Creo que podría haber algunas cosas traducidas por Google cuando teníamos prisa, pero prometo que las arreglaremos :)
Release notes
The patch will hit sometime this week - we'll do our best to release it in time for Friday. For the curious: 0.7:
¡Traducción al español añadida!
Added a new hero and cards to go with her
Added a Weather System. Different weather gives bonuses or penalties
Added unit formations. A new button appears when more than one unit is selected at the bottom panel, allowing the player to select a formation
Added Gamepedia
Guard mode toggle changes stance for all selected units now
Both heroes are now voiced
Selection box no longer disappears when hovering over UI elements
Significantly improved unit selection
Optimisation Improvements
Improved mission loading time on lower-end PCs
Reworked unit melee combat distances. Units will now stop at correct distance
Reworked unit pathfinding, units will now display more intelligent behaviour, and will not push through each other unnecessarily
Reworked collisions. Units will no longer push through buildings such as walls and gates
Card bonuses are now independent from each other, this has a severe impact on numbers. Order of cards played no longer affects the final bonus.
Lots of new animations and sounds (especially UI)
THE FUTURE
This is not the long-promised content patch you've been waiting for, but it is a step in that direction. Since we've been silent for so long, I want to show you some screenies of things to come. Please remember everything you see here is W.I.P and subject to change. But more on that next time... :)
