Hi everyone,

We have just uploaded a new public Beta build. The branch build becomes obsolete now and everyone on the standard beta branch will get the new build.

The [0.5.18] release notes list the new content, improvements and fixes since the beta build of early July, so some elements of the branch build appear as well in this comprehensive list.

We have ongoing work on the AI (diplomacy / military behaviour), and the AI behaviour is not yet satisfactory to us. As I said in a previous post, the pieces are setting together, but the remaining work consists in perfecting the interaction of the different subsystems (almost feature complete except for some marketplace interactions and diplomatic contracts) and tuning the AI game design data. The obvious goal is to increase the interactions (war or diplomacy) of the AI with the player.

The custom faction screen, even though implemented, has been disabled as we need a bit more time to tune the faction traits (single and multi) before we release it to the public.

The multiplayer has been improved in terms of stability and feedbacks, and our QA has reported 100 turns without desync. This is looking good, even though the remaining issues will be the hardest ones to reproduce.

As I explained in a fan thread yesterday (boy I love those, keep them coming smiley: smile), we had a breakthrough in terms of memory management, as it seems out of memory issues on 32 bits systems have been fixed.

Enjoy!


[0.5.18] Release Notes

CHANGES AND ADDITIONS
  • Enabled Tiny and Huge maps.
  • Enabled 7th and 8th Player slots.
  • Added Gauran and Hurnas minor factions.
  • Added new diplomatic terms: commercial and research agreement.
  • Heavy modifications of the tech tree. Some technologies can unlock several constructibles or bonus empire. Text and icons are still WIP.
  • Increased the requirements of the next Era (10 unlocked technologies instead of 8), but to unlock a new area, you now have to research 10 technologies of any previous era (and not the last era anymore).
  • Added the Roving Clans scene in the outgame view.
  • District and City Center levels are capped to 2. Their level is now displayed in their tooltip.
  • In Game Chat:

    • Ensure we'll show all messages received, even without opening the chat window first. Also clearing the backlog when starting a new game (or loading a save).
    • When the chat panel is not visible, incoming messages are discreet (the panel doesn't pop-up anymore).
    • Fixed the fading out of the chat, when in "discreet" mode (+no scrollbar, no mouse grab).
  • Added a new Unit capacity: “Revive” (for Ardent Mages' Eneqa Wing)

    • If the phoenix is killed, it is transform into an egg with 50% of its max health.
    • An egg can't attack but can still be targeted.
    • All the eggs still alive at the end of a battle are killed if they don't have friendly units with them.
  • Added a new Unit capacity: “Parasite” (for Necrophages' Proliferator)

    • The proliferator uses Parasite by attacking. A unit with a parasite that dies in a battle gives a Forager unit to its enemy.
    • Disease immunity protects from parasite.
  • Added new world generation options.
  • Added a new option to scale the speed of battles (animation, FX, movement...).
  • Added an in-game stats panel in the Empire screen.
  • Added Steam Cloud support.
  • Added a Retreat button for attacked armies: retreating deals 50% of the max health to all units retreating and requires 1 Army Action Point.
  • Added the display of the Diplomatic abilities to the Diplomacy/Negotiation screens.
  • Added the display of the trade routes in the strategic world view.
  • Improved the feedback (effects and icons) of the Unit and Hero capacities.
  • Updated the native capacities of all of the units.
  • Updated the capacities on weapons.
  • Removed the army action cost for the Search, Bribe and Parley army actions.
  • Now flying have their own default attack which can be countered if the terrain allows it.
  • Reworked the critical formula: now deals damages equal to attack instead of critical.
  • Added the display of the upkeep cost in the Unit tooltip.
  • Added the display of the remaining action points in the army panel.
  • Units' level are limited to 9 instead of 20.
  • Increased the experience needed to level up. Updated the experience reward per era to fit with the new levelling threshold.
  • Decreased price of heroes, increased their sensibility to inflation.
  • Increased winter maluses (-2Food/Dust on Food/Dust tiles, -1 Industry on Exploitation Area). Several buildings don't work in winter.
  • Necrophages' Sacrifice resets the growth timer.
  • Added more information concerning the players' status on the MP loading screen.
  • Improved the desync detection tool.


IMPORTANT FIXES
  • Fixed an issue where clients remain stuck in multiplayer sessions without migrating the previous host after s/he leaves.
  • Fixed an issue where a skippable assert resulted in a block when choosing auto or manual combat.
  • Fixed an issue where the creating/loading of a session is paused whenever users switch to another windows task by alt-tabbing.
  • Fixed an issue where clients is stuck inside the lobby screen whenever the host switches to another task by alt-tabbing.
  • Performed some memory optimisations, improved the performance on 32-bit systems.


OTHER FIXES
  • Fixed an issue where destroying and rebuilding minor faction villages can be used as an exploit to increase city population.


MP
  • Fixed an issue where a desync is generated when a user obtains a regular technology as a quest reward during the same turn in which s/he completes the research of another technology.
  • Fixed an issue where a session desyncs when the host buys a hero from the marketplace.
  • Fixed an issue where a session desyncs whenever a third player switches slots and joins a multiplayer session while it's being created.
  • Fixed an issue where the server migration fails whenever the host either quits or is defeated during a session.


AI
  • Fixed an issue where the AI does not attempt to complete side or main quests.


GRAPHICS
  • Fixed an issue where the game stops loading graphic assets in the later stages of a game when zooming out.
  • Fixed an issue where a graphical corruption is displayed inside the city list screen when colonising over 40% of a large map.
  • Fixed an issue where switching to 1920x1080 windowed mode does not centre the game window on the main screen.


QUESTS
  • Fixed an issue where the chapter 5 Roving Clans alternative quest cannot be completed.
  • Fixed an issue where loading the session causes the army spawned during the 1.2 "Digging in" quest to remain stationary instead of assaulting the city.


GUI
  • Fixed an issue where the Dust line exceeds the graphic in the score screen.
  • Fixed an issue where the score screen does not display numeric values on the X and Y axis for the empire score and turns passed.
  • Fixed an issue where geoconstructible extensions is shown when the empire is lacking the strategic resources to construct them.
  • Fixed an inconsistency between the City Banner timer and the Construction Queue timer.
  • Fixed an issue where Expansion victory does not activate an alert notification at 50% progress.
  • Fixed an issue where activating or deactivating the big screen user interface changes the position of the notification icons on the UI.
  • Fixed an issue where quest screen text become unintelligible due to the winter background.
  • Fixed an issue where there is no visual element in the multiplayer lobby to mark the Host.
  • Fixed an issue where in the city list screen, there is no buyout button for the displayed queued item.
  • Fixed an issue where the Diplomatic offer proposed window does not give any information about the proposed treaties.
  • Fixed an issue where a skippable assert is generated when a user selects a faction in the drop down list during the "End turn" phase and that faction was eliminated during that same turn.


KNOWN ISSUES
  • The Auto-explore army action is enabled for the first army only.



[0.5.14] Version Notes

CHANGES AND ADDITIONS
  • Added the flying behaviours.
  • Added the Game Difficulty options.
  • Added the Game Speed options.
  • Added new Victory Conditions (science, economy, expansion, annihilation, diplomacy).
  • Added Victory alert notifications.
  • The turn limit in normal speed is now 300 instead of 200.
  • Reduced the requirements of the next Era (8 unlocked technologies instead of 10).
  • Reduced the requirements of the Necrophage recycling (8 cadavers instead of 10).
  • Changed the calculation of the Bribe’s cost.
  • Removed base assimilation gain and increased max assimilation gain from 5 to 6 max.
  • Increased the empire plan costs.
  • Reduced XP gain from hero skill (skill level 3: from +2 to +1 XP per turn).
  • Kazanji assimilation bonus is now a percentage instead of a flat value.


ARMIES
  • Added Army Action Points. All units start with 1 AAP. The following army actions cost 1 AAP: Attack, Search, Bribe, Parley, Privateers.
  • Unsaleable units cannot be sold/disbanded anymore. Added the "unsaleable" tag to all settlers.
  • Increased the upkeep of units (now equal to their level).


BATTLE
  • Added spectator mode as battle representation mode. In this mode, the user does not need to give inputs to skip deployment and targeting phases.
  • Improved the targeting behaviour of support units :
    • Added a new weight parameter to count how many identical units are already targeting a unit.
    • Added a new weight parameter to count how many effects a support unit provide are still applied on another one.
    • After a support attack, the unit loose its targeting intention to avoid targeting the same ally twice.
  • Added multi targeting system:
    • If the player decides to target a unit, he can give a preferred position to perform the associated attack.
    • If the player decides to target a position, he can give a preferred target for a opportunity attack.
    • The two targeting intentions are display at the same time.
    • Two modes of control:
      • Drag the mouse from the main target/position to the secondary position/target.
      • Select the main target/position and, maintaining Ctrl select the secondary position/target.




MARKETPLACE
  • The transactions are regrouped by turn in the exchange info panel of the Marketplace.
  • Added more colours and the faction logo for each transaction.
  • Added empire filters in the exchange info panel.
  • Removed the confirmation message when selling goods.


DIPLOMACY
  • Balanced relation score modifiers and warning/gratify costs.
  • Diplomatic costs are now relative to cities instead of eras.


GRAPHICS
  • Added GFX on Wands.


GUI
  • Added a feedback for technologies granted by quests or factions in the Research screen.
  • Removed the Academy link from the Military screen. Added a link to the Academy in the Control Banner.
  • Moved the Game options menu near the End turn button.
  • Improved the feedback of turn's end.
  • When a village is pacified (whether destroyed or not), its label is displayed with a flag (colour of the region’s Empire or white if no one has colonized the region).
  • Added a title for each Hero Skill category.
  • Added a tooltip on the Unit capacities (work in progress).
  • Added a notification when a quest fails.


OTHER FIXES
  • Fixed an issue where the battle effects applied on units (used by GUI) were not properly updated during the battle.
  • Fixed an issue where a quest village does not pacify the minor faction as quest reward.
  • Fixed an issue where armour gauge is not displayed for reinforcements.
  • Fixed an issue where the "show location" button on the battle notification is not functional.
  • Fixed an issue where the automated governors do not remove population from food when building settlers.
  • Fixed an issue where Necrodrone Disease capacity heals enemy targets instead of damaging them.
  • Fixed an issue where other Ardent Mage pillars stop granting bonus FIDS after a pillar expires.
  • Fixed an issue where “Select next idle army” button does not refresh properly after an army finishes its movement.
  • Fixed an issue where the tooltips are not triggered correctly in the research screen when camera is zoomed out.
  • Fixed an issue where, if the player dismisses an assimilated faction, s/he will still be able to create new designs based on the minor faction template.
  • Fixed an issue where roads are not redeployed when a city is received through diplomatic treaties.
  • Fixed an issue where the research screen view position is not reset to the first era after starting a new session.
  • Fixed an issue where the trade routes are not active after the player uses the "Setseke" action and then resettles the cities.


MP
  • Fixed an issue where clients receive and assert message and desync the session when inspecting the heroes market tab.
  • Fixed an issue where a skippable assert is displayed each turn for clients during multiplayer sessions while the save game has no functionality.
  • Fixed an issue where the option to invite friends to private multiplayer sessions through the lobby invite is available but not functional.


QUESTS
  • Fixed an issue where Roving Clans Chapter 5 step 2 quest cannot be completed.
  • Fixed an issue where Roving Clans Chapter 4 faction quest does not have a counter in the Quest Objectives section.
  • Fixed an issue where Vaulters Chapter 4 Step 1 quest does not complete if the city is received through diplomacy.
  • Fixed an issue where region names in the "Quest objectives" and quest notifications do not update when a player changes the name of the region.
  • Fixed an issue where the army spawned during step 2 of chapter 6 for the Broken Lords "Machines of the ancients" quest remains stationary on the adventure map.