Warlords: Under Siege cover
Warlords: Under Siege screenshot
Steam
Genre: Simulator, Strategy

Warlords: Under Siege

February Development Updates
Hello everyone! It's been a while since we posted some news, so I thought it was high time to give you guys an update. Normally we try to post updates right before a big patch, but since we've been a little bit quiet we figured it was only fair to give you an insight into what's happening at the moment.

Unit Formations


Unit control was one of these things in WuS that bordered on "bad" to "ok". We've done some significant improvements over time, but there is still a lot of work and effort that needs to go into it, to put it into the "good" category.

One of the main steps we've taken over the last month or so was introduce unit formations. You can now select a bunch of units, and put them in a specific formation. These formations can also be rotated by dragging your mouse. You can see a W.I.P video here:



There are five formations to choose from:

  • Single Line
  • Double Line
  • Double Line Melee Front
  • Double Line Missile Front
  • Triple Line

You'll also notice that units don't go to a random point in formation anymore (well, sometimes) but try to stick to the closest point available to them. We feel this is a major change that will make unit control a lot better. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this, so leave us some feedback in the comments, or engage with us on our Discord server!

New Map, new enemies


We're hard at work on a new map with its very own unique theme. Along with it come new enemies, and new mechanics. I don't want to give out too much information, so instead I'm going to throw a few images at you and let your imagination fill in the very extensive gaps.



One of our artists (same guy as above) has been hard at work designing a content pack to be used in the map editor as well. One of the biggest drawbacks when it comes to the map editor is that we can't share most of the content we've used in creation of Warlords Under Siege maps, as they belong to third party companies (essentially purchased assets). Going forward we'll be reducing the amount of paid assets in the game, and everything that we'll create for our new maps is going to be available in the map editor.

The above problem is also why the map editor is still not out - we want to make sure you have assets to build your maps with rather than having to source everything yourself.





The new enemy race also comes with some unique mechanics. You'll now have to face enemies that can burrow underground (which means you can't target them with archers, or anyone else for that matter). We're also adding in flying creatures, so your walls might be less useful from now on :)




Price Increase


The sad part, but something worth mentioning. We intend to increase the price of the game when the next update hits. We don't exactly know by how much yet, but we expect it to be in the 30%-50% mark. We feel the game will have a decent amount of content by the time the next patch hits, and the new price will reflect that. We were always very open about the fact the game will gradually increase in price as it's improving, and I hope majority of you will agree it's currently in a decent place as far as development is concerned :)

That's all we have for now. We'll keep the rest secret :) We don't have an ETA for this update as it requires extensive testing and more development, but be assured we're hard at work. I can tell you it will not be this month (sorry :( ) See you on the battlefield!

0.5g Complementary Patch

  • Fixed units getting accidentally selected when drawing the selection box. This should really improve the gameplay experience when dealing with large number of troops
  • Endless mode will now draw 3 cards from player deck, with 4th and 5th card having 50% chance to be random, or from deck

0.5g Hotfix 3
- Fixed Main Menu UI not reacting the first time it's opened during the game
- Fixed Nightmare Mode not resetting correctly when going back to the Main Menu

0.5g Hotfix 2
- Wave pool for endless waves on Western Valley fixed
- Endless waves are now taken from the correct wave pool

0.5g hotfix
- Endless mode keeps spawning random cards, even after initial deck is exhausted

Update 0.5g - Endless Modes
Now that Christmas and the New Year are well and truly over (although personally my wife and I are still yet to take down the Christmas tree) we can get back to proper updates. We didn't sit idly, feasting and celebrating though - we've been hard at work bringing you this new update!

Endless Modes





Endless modes were one of these things we didn't really plan, but alas the community has spoken and we delivered. You'll now be able to dig into Nightmare 6 along with endless modes. Endless mode is fun for a few reasons - first of all, well, it's endless. If you choose to play endless, you'll be given a set of additional cards in your deck that are repeatable and give you permanent boosts during your run - these can be additional resource bonuses, additional unit strength and such.

To go along with these we are now giving you Endless Townhall Upgrades. That's right - you can keep building up the last line of Townhall Bonuses forever! Well, actually until you reach the max value of a 32 bit integer, it might get funky after that... in fact you can probably get into the negatives. I think there is potential in making an achievement out of all this...

I should add that mods can also add Endless Waves to their maps. I'll cover all that in the modding guide in the next few days.



Killing your meta


That's right - siege boys and girls! Your time is up. Well, not really, but it will be just a tad bit harder. You are no longer able to build Catapult Towers willy-nilly where you please! Siege Workshop will now spawn a new resource limit when built. Level 1 gives you 4 slots, with levels 2 and 3 giving you additional two each. This means that each fully upgraded Siege Workshop can support up to 8 catapult towers. Destroying the building will take the limit down with it.

(Sorry)



Keybinding


Someone, somewhere on our Steam discussions was very adamant that WASD is for noobs, and the ESDF is the only sensible option as far as placing your fingers on the keyboard goes. Well. Maybe. Personally I prefer KM<> or the arrow keys.

I understand that we all have our quirks, we are all different and that's ok. It's the 21st century after all and we're no longer intolerant barbarians. We've added Key Configuration for you, and people just like you. This image turned out to be really big, so brace yourself for some scrolling.



Map Editor Progress


It's coming along nicely, there's not all that much left to do now until the very first version is ready. The Map Editor comes as a Unity 2020 project, so you'll need the Unity Engine to play around with it. It will also have some tools to help you design Enemy Waves with a GUI rather than just writing it out in notepad or some other equally primitive text editor.

We will also be providing you with a bunch of unique graphical assets to play around with and a video tutorial on how to use the editor.

Full changelog:

  • Endless Modes added (main game and mods)
  • New cards for endless modes
  • Key Configuration menu added
  • Catapults will now have a limit based on amount and level of Siege Workshop
  • Serious Optimisation improvements in large fights
  • Resolution will now set correctly in options
  • Your save files are now automatically saved in an archive with up to 50 previous saves. You can find it in LocalLow\RedKar Limited\Warlords_ Under Siege\SaveArchive
  • Various bug fixes we lost track of but they are definitely there, although mostly uninteresting


The patch will go live just before or during the weekend.

Update 0.5f - Iron Mountains Keep
We've not had any news for the past few days, but it does not mean we were idle! We were chipping away at three important things:

  • Working on a new map
  • Working on the map editor
  • Fixing bugs!


It's an age old problem - what to show first to your audience. Do we want to show off the biggest bit - The map? Or should we leave that for later, so that we can build up tension with small updates and do a big reveal at the end. Everyone knows that the best thing to do however, is just to write meaningless drivel keeping the user on the page as long as possible, so the ads play. However, we have no ads here, so let's just cut to the chase...

Iron Mountains Keep


"The gates of the Keep slammed shut behind us with a bang. I've never seen people so sad. So abandoned. So devoid of hope. Flocks of ravens constantly circle over the city, like heralds announcing the end of the world. There will be no time to rest. An ominous aura extends everywhere outside the walls. In the distance, the thumping drums of the Greenskins can be heard, as well as the sounds of ghostly horns.

'Your friends are with you' Galahad, commander of the Lion Guard, told me.

I answered - 'Let's hope they last the night.'


Did you get the reference? ːB1ː



The new map is a twist on the already existing ones. You have one, elongated front-line, but it's split in two, meaning letting one fall can create problems for the second one. In the most dire situations, you can always retreat back to the keep, which is perfect ground for a last-stand type scenario.



Of course we also have new achievements associated with the map. There is one for beating the basic difficulty, and one for each Nightmare difficulty.



Mod support progress


Although the image below might not look like much, it's actually quite a breakthrough. We have managed to create a very basic map in an external mod project (which will be made available to the community) and import it into the game, as a mod. It's functional, although obviously a bit ugly at the moment.

We will now work on making the tool as accessible as possible.


For those of you who are curious, here are the details:

  • Mod support will come in form of a Unity Project (external download)
  • We are targeting Unity 2020.3.42f1
  • At first we will provide very few visual assets, meaning the community will likely have to rely on free assets found on the internet
  • Custom scripts are not supported
  • Custom music will be supported
  • Custom enemies are unlikely to be supported
  • You can add as many waves of any intensity as you like
  • You can override points needed for card draws, meaning you can create maps with limitless decks if you so wish


Technically, the build in this patch already provides custom map support but we're not quite ready to release the mod project to the public. However, if you want to try it out for yourself as an early adapter you can contact me on Discord (kommissar#8990). Please bear in mind you need to have some knowledge of Unity Engine or previous modding experience to make the alpha-tester experience worthwhile.

Patch Notes



  • Added a new map
  • Laid necessary groundwork for map editor and mods supporting custom maps
  • Improved performance of various on-tick abilities, such as are heal and proximity boosts
  • Localized 'MaxValue' text
  • Catapult projectiles will no longer get stuck in the air when losing their targets
  • Added new achievements
  • Player units now have baked meshes, increasing performance
  • Added new enemy: Bone Catapult
  • Wall upgrades no longer close the wall panel
  • Slightly increased size of Hero portrait and gave it a new frame
  • Units will 'slide' less often
  • Fixed number of starting resources on maps


That's all for now! I hope you will enjoy the new content and look forward to future stuff. We have some very exciting unannounced things that are not even mentioned in the roadmap, and I'm positive you'll love it! Keep well, and until next time! ːsteamthisː

The update is going to hit Steam in a few hours :)

0.5e Hotfix 2
Made "Speak Friend And Dig" code reusable.

0.5e Hotfix
Greedy Goblin Puchok was eating all your resources in the Passage of the Dead. We introduced some code to stop him from doing that.

Minor patch 0.5e

  • Fixed 'Speak Friend And Dig' code
  • You can now select and deselect additional units properly by clicking on them while holding the shift button
  • Hero resurrection now costs gold, as opposed to giving it to the player
  • Fixed catapults dealing too much damage when the wave was considered over
  • Mods can use custom sounds now when a wave appears
  • Fixed resource production slider not updating when a building is lot
  • Improved unit avoidance a little bit


Just so you're all aware, we're now working on the new map, the map editor, as well as trying to rework the combat system. We are not making any promises at the moment, but unfortunately this means updates can be a little slower. Of course any major game-breaking stuff we'll fix right away.
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