Crossbows And Stone Keeps

We’re back from MAGFest and ready to share a new update to our demo!

New Unit: The Crossbowman!

With devastating armor-piercing bolts, our newest ranged unit The Crossbowman can cut down Knights from afar! They have heavy armor, protecting them from archers, and bring an exciting expansion of our counter system. Crossbowmen can be garrisoned alongside archers in fortifications.

Tier 4 Outposts: Stone Keep!

Build further with a new tier for Outposts and Fortifications! Stone Keeps earn more gold and provide garrison slots for ranged units. Stone Wall fortifications have significantly higher defenses and provide extra garrison slots.

Wider Outposts

Upgrading outposts now makes them bigger! Fortifications push outward, creating a larger outpost for your army to hang out in! This is mostly a visual effect right now, but it lays the groundwork for future base building features.

Additionally, there are now different background wall sprites for every fortification tier!

Other Changes

This update brings many small (but important changes!) so read the patch notes if you want to see them all. Some highlights include a 1.5x speed boost for all units (we heard you!) and many more tooltips!

MAGFest!

Last weekend we brought Castles of War to MAGFest to a crowd of over 20,000 gamers! For four days we watched people try out our game for the first time, heard what excited them and what they wished were different, and of course took time to enjoy the convention itself! We have some feedback from MAGFest marked to be addressed in future updates.

Share Your Thoughts!

Thank you for supporting Castles of War!

This update marks an exciting step forward, and we’d love to hear your feedback on the new changes. Drop your thoughts, suggestions, and bug reports in the community discussions!

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Patch Notes 1.0.43

• Gameplay

  • New “Crossbow” unit, which has high armor, does piercing damage, but moves very slowly and is expensive

  • New tier 4 outposts/walls: stone keep and stone walls!

  • Wall repair costs are now determined by the current percentage of wall health

  • Outposts now widen as they upgrade, two blocks on each side per tier

  • Wall collider widths now change depending on the tier, more closely matching the sprites

  • Garrisons no longer auto-fill, the player needs to hit the arrow manually

• Balance

  • Archers now do 2 Normal damage instead of 2 Piercing damage

  • All unit speeds increased by 1.5x

  • Made adjustments to difficulty in early missions

  • Reduced base capture time from 15 seconds to 10 seconds

  • Decreased construction/repair time of all structures by half

• Visual

  • Moved flagpoles in front of units

  • New main menu backdrop

  • Reduced likelihood of units “fighting” for visibility

  • Walls are now transparent as units walk through them

  • Capture flags now move with different outpost tiers

  • Wall backgrounds now change to match the tier of the highest-level wall

• UI

  • New info panels when you hover over the Castles, Outposts, and Fortifications

  • Raised UI vertically for Tier 3 Wooden Walls

  • Improved tooltip functionality and placement

  • Fixed incorrect hotkey in “Homeland” mission text

  • Vashta Entertainment splash screen now uses a dark background instead of light

  • Replaced “Advance” language with “Charge” in tutorial

  • Level selection screen is now responsive to screen aspect ratio

  • Added hover tooltips to water and tall grass to explain the mechanics

• Audio

  • Sfx for outpost captured and lost

  • New summon and death sfx for mage and crossbow

• Other

  • Scroll-to-zoom is much faster and more fluid

  • Hitting “spawn unit” hotkeys now highlights the button, indicating which unit was spawned