Update 40: Followers II (AI stances and command system)

Coming hot on the trails of our previous content patch, conveniently titled Followers I, and as announced in our producer letter, we feel now ready to deploy on all platforms our next game update: Followers II!

This update stems from a month-long collaboration with our Testlive community, that kept us sending feedback over four revisions and helped us improving the update we’re releasing today. Among these changes comes a very long and oft-requested feature, AI stances! We have also added a command system for your active follower, which will let you give direct orders to your companion.

There’s more changes and improvements that come with these new additions that will generally improve how AI reacts and interacts in the game. We have also included a couple of commonly requested quality of life changes that will make your adventures in the Exiled lands even more amazing: you can now have a companion and a horse active at the same time, and while riding you can also drag any unconscious NPCs!

With this new update we are also releasing our newest cosmetic DLC pack: The Architects of Argos! Build stunning cities and gleaming temples of shining white marble. Adorn them with elegant statues and refreshing fountains to make your base look more impressive than ever, and follow suit with new mount saddles, armor pieces and weapon sets! You can read our announcement to see what’s included in this new DLC pack.

Thanks again for your amazing support, and stay safe!

Please remember that updates can mess with your installed mods. We suggest taking a backup of your current database before updating to any new patch if you have mods installed.

New follower behaviors!

You can now give your followers a brand new set of engagement rules and tactical preferences to better suit your playstyle!

Accessed via a new option in the interaction wheel, you can now assign different behaviors to your thralls and pets. Divided into two sections (Engagement and Tactics), this will give you better control than ever on how your armies react to incoming threats. Please note that these new options are for your thralls and pets who are set as base defenses and not actively set as your follower (to see which new changes apply to active followers, you can skip a few sections and go straight to the new Follower Command System!)

Engagement behaviors

Under this new menu, you can now choose and customize different rules of engagement for each of your followers. These new options are:

• Guard Area: Follower will only attack when a hostile engages with them or any friendly presence within their detection radius.

• Guard me: Attack those that directly attack you or those hostiles that you engage with in combat.*

• Attack all enemies: When subtlety isn’t part of your master plan, just let your armies know about this option. They will engage with any hostile that enters their detection radius, old-school!

• Attack nothing: If you want them to know engaging with any threats might be above their gruel pay-grade, choose this option. Any follower with this behavior will not retaliate against hostile activity.

• AddedAttack and Chase DistanceYou can set at which distance your thrall or pet will detect hostiles (Attack Distance), as well as the distance they might move (together with some new aggro systems) from their designed guard spot while pursuing their target (Chase Distance). These two settings open a new submenu with a range of options, from