Update #25 - Stand United

Today, we are happy to share with the entire community that we are releasing our next big update, Stand United.

Here you will find a 5-minute video that summarizes the key elements for the update!

• 📊 District Cost Scaling

• 💂‍♂️ Militia Panel

• 💥 Combat Retaliation

• ✅ The game is now “Steam Deck Verified”

Let us know if you like this short format and if you have any suggestions to improve it!

HIGHLIGHTS

📊 District Cost Scaling

While balancing costs/yields is always an ongoing topic, we noticed that there were some issues with how district cost were scaling, which was generating frustration among players

> Thanks to everyone who shared feedback on this topic 🤗

The issue was, mainly, that the cost was skyrocketing as there was exponential factor in the formula. The base was not bad, as we want players to have choices that are impactful, but this ended up having the opposite effect.

We released an initial hotfix for this issue that made some districts cheaper, to check with the community if the direction we wanted to go in was right. There was positive feedback, and we decided to keep pushing the idea! Here is how works now 👇

Basic / Elite district

We made a clearer distinction between the 2 types of districts; Basic & Elite

• Basic: Farms, Works & Communal Habitations

• Elite: Laboratories, Merchant House, Forums & Keeps

The idea is that the cost of a district will increase mainly if you build the same district, and the rest of the districts will have almost no impact on it.

Now, the basic costs are way lower (compared to the elite ones), and the idea behind is that you should now be able to build plenty of them, as they are the “foundations” of your city.

Here is an example of how the formula has evolved for Basic and Elite districts.

Let me share an example so you can see the cost (in turns) in a medium city

District Effects & Synergies

As we just talked about districts, we decided to enhance some of them to create a “puzzle system“ that will generate additional synergies between them

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After some feedback from players who tried the PTB, we added additional synergies for the Trading Post and Bridges. And also adjusted some values related to Approval.

Population Vocations

In order to more precisely control how much influence and dust a player can generate, we decided to make 2 major changes to vocations:

• Scribes now focus purely on Science (no more Influence)

• Citizens and Artisans give slightly less Dust, bringing them in line with the other changes

This change will also make some of the minor faction populations more interesting! ​

💥 Combat Retaliation

Now, when a player attacks an enemy unit for the first time, the enemy performs a counter‑attack that deals 70% of its base damage. We think it will improve combat even further. Here are the main goals from the Game Designers behind the change

Game Designer:

1. The first goal is to create attrition in fights and limit alpha strike potential

2. The second goal is to add one more factor to consider when making decisions in battle, while also creating opportunities for content and stronger unit personality (f*** those pesky Ochlings).

As this means your units will get more damage, we increased the HP of all units, and also adjusted some skills and added new ones 👀

Thanks to everyone who shared feedback during the Public Test Branch > we have reduced the defense values (as there were too high) and made additional changes to some units based on your feedback!

😎 A personal favorite > We added a skill for Defender Heroes that will disable retaliation to all adjacent enemies.

💂 Militia Panel

The team created a new Militia Panel, so you have a better understanding of what Militia you have in your city, as well as in the territories attached to it.

Sharing a bit of context: in a previous update, we changed the militia to be territory-based instead of having a central one. This was a great change, but it was a bit obscure for players to find out what their militia composition was (it was hidden in a tooltip inside another tooltip).

Also, everyone can access this information, so be careful, as the AI will be more inclined to attack areas you have left unprotected! 👀

💡 Do not forget that if you mouse over the flag in the city, you can see how much fortification is required in order to upgrade the militia.

💡 There are techs that increase the veterancy of your militia

✅ Steam Deck Verified

So happy to share to the entire community that the game now is Steam Deck Verified 🎉 Thanks to everyone who has been trying the game and sharing feedback with us!

Thanks for helping us make the game better 🌟

And seriously—huge thanks to everyone playing and sharing feedback! We are grateful to have this community 💖

Jump into the update and let us know what you think about the changes!

Have a nice day ^-^

CHANGELOG

VERSION NUMBER: 0.80.100

[🦖 PTB Changes] There are a few adjustments we introduced thanks to everyone who participated in the PTB and shared feedback

Known issues

• [Fixed ✅] Necrophage districts are losing their base bonus when leveling up (we’re looking into a hotfix for this update)

• With the world setting “archipelago”, there’s a small chance that the first recess is directly triggered (we’re looking into a fix)

• There is a visible debug text in the custom faction creation screen (we’re looking into a hotfix for this update)

Economy ​

• Balance the Food, Industry, and Population district costs as "basic" districts, which have much lower costs and smaller scales, making them easier to build.

[💡 This was already the case, as we introduced the changes in a recent hotfix, but mentioned here so it is easier to compare]

• Balance the Dust, Science, Influence & Military districts as "elite" districts. They’re more expensive to build, so players will inevitably have to make trade-offs about which ones to focus on at certain key moments in the game. This creates a temporary dynamic of City specialization at certain times. We removed the exponential factor from the formula

• District's new synergy

• 🦖 Balancing changes following PTB feedback (included in the table above)

  • Communal Habitations

    • Reduced the malus for Communal Habitations effect from -10 approval if adjacent to works districts to -5

    • Added +1 Influence to Communal Habitation if adjacent to Pacified Village

  • Merchant's House

    • Increased the Merchant's House effect from +3 to +6 for each adjacent Resource Deposit

    • Reduced the Merchant's House effect from +6 to +4 if adjacent to Works Districts

  • Trading Post

    • Added +6 Dust per District Level to Trading Post

    • Changed Trading Post effect from +6 Dust for each adjacent Bridge to +4 Dust if adjacent to Bridge

    • Added +6 Dust for each adjacent Pacified Village to Trading Post

  • Soul Repository

    • Reduced the malus for Soul Repositories effect from +12 Approval per District Level to +5

  • Forum

    • Reduced the Forum effect from +10 to +5 if adjacent to Communal Habitations Districts

  • Updated Bridge to now provide

    • +3 Food if adjacent to Farms

    • +3 Industry if adjacent to Works

    • +3 Dust if adjacent to Merchant’s House

    • +2 Science if adjacent to Laboratories

• Removed the default Influence on Scribes.

• Increase Scribe vocation yield from +1 to +2 Science.

• Decrease Citizen & Artisans vocation yield from +2 to +1 Dust.

• Here are all the changes in Vocations

• Removed the exponential from the Foundation cost formula

• The Bridge cost formula increases with the number of bridges built in a settlement.

• Bridges are not included in the calculation of basic or elite district costs. Therefore, building a bridge will not affect the cost of other districts.

• Fixed Ascetic Existence improvement not working when Aspects Farms get to level 2

• Fixed some Necrophage district that were not working properly

• Fixed the bonus of approval granted by forums adjacent to communal habitations

Visual

• Fixed VFX on districts flickering during late monsoon

• Added a smoother fade effect when elements (bushes, trees, etc.) appear in the world when zooming

• Added an animation when an army is selected and the mouse hovers interactable elements

• Added icons for Aspects improvements

• Added new icons for the schematic view for the Kin of Sheredyn’s tier 3 districts

• Fixed 3D elements disappearing after playing for a long time on the same game

Diplomacy

• Both Public Opinions are now influenced by insults and compliments.

We heard your feedback that, even after the changes we made to Diplomacy, it was very difficult to have Justified Wars. Therefore, we updated how Compliments and Insults work, and now it should be easier. Let us know!

• Updated the notifications of diplomacy to redirect directly to the correct tab when clicking on it

Military

• Added retaliation to battle

• Updated all units in game > Big list below

• Added a militia panel in the city menu

• All armors (equipment) buffed by +5 Defense

• Heroes base units stats are adjusted to be in line with regular units

• Exotic weapons (casters) all have prepared Break Retaliate.

• 🦖 Promoted “Destabilizing defense” to a hero skill in the defender skill tree and removed “Buckle Up” from the game (for the moment) as it was redundant with the infantry passive

• Added hint explaining retaliation in tutorial

• Added retaliation UI feedback on unit pin

• Fixed All Armies window not showing armies on coral on water

• Fixed a bug where the forecast damage for retaliation was overestimated

• Fixed a bug that displayed wrong tooltips for unit classes

• Fixed a bug where ranged units had broken focus when shooting from forests

• Fixed Hoy and Ladhran losing defense when specializing

• Fixed heroes not being the first unit in the army stack

• Fixed “Heavy Strike” skill tooltip

AI

• Improved how AI asses borough, cities and other military targets to be a bigger threat

• Improved AI in battle:

  • Fixed an issue where the AI would use skills on empty tilesd

  • Fixed several issues where the AI would pick actions that put its unit in an odd position (typically after using a teleportation skill)

  • Improved the use of certains skills by AI

• Refinements to AI when playing Necrophages There are a small list of tweaks, perhaps too technical. But they will do a better assessment on certain situations, like the economy or battle.

• Fixed an issue where the AI would keep sacking the same target

• Fixed an issue where the AI would misjudge which Player's Army would be about to grab a Collectible, leading to an error.

• Fixed an issue where the AI would only consider the Status it adds during an attack that are already on the targeted Unit instead of ignoring them

• Fixed multiple technical issues with world heroes

General UI

• Hide non-sellable items in equipment's in “sell mode”

• Increased the number of teams colors available

• Polished multiple elements in the battle UI

• Fixed All Armies and Settlements window not closing when clicking on a mandatory

• Fixed overlapping with too long names in lobby

• Fixed “Active Skill” without nested tooltip in multiple places

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City Construction

• Display the full list of terrain types involved in adjacent tiles for synergies in district tooltip

• Added new icon for Anomaly Districts

• Added a new icon for the Monument of the Lost in schematic view

• Added a new icon for buildings in construction in schematic view

• Separated "in queue" extractors from other districts

• Fixed a bug where district layer would highlight non-exploited resources and curiosities

• Fixed a bug in Necrophages districts synergies

• Fixed a bug in anomaly district feedbacks

• Fixed a bug where resources would show a feedback while not exploited

Steam Deck and gamepad layout

• Implemented the virtual keyboard for Steam Deck

• Added the game speeds

• Updated the text size setting to have 10 as the max value and to be 3 by default on Steam Deck

• Added the text size setting directly in the intro menu

• Exit to desktop button is now on main menu on Steam Deck

• Added back the “quit to desktop” button in the pause menu

• Fixed missing prompt to see nested tooltip in hints

• Fixed strategic resources automatically brought when selected

• Fixed radial menu displayed under the resource details

• Fixed gamepad cursor shown until the mouse is moved when switching from gamepad to PC layout

• Fixed equipment screen being refreshed many times while the turn is passing

• Fixed resource buttons and panel overlapping with button prompts and the reminder list panel

• Fixed button prompts for major factions related UI displayed before the capital is established

• Fixed parley hint not accessible

• Fixed camera moving by itself during events

• Fixed first reward always focused in events

• Fixed a bug where Create archive shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+Y) would not work in Gamepad interface layout

Multiplayer

• Improved chat panel to be displayed in front of the terrain tooltip and to block mouse inputs behind

• Removed formatting in chat messages

• Removed the fake buttons to switch factions when loading a multiplayer save

• Displayed the name of the player when clicking on an enemy army

• Improved the display of toast messages from chat

World generation

• Updated the generation to be able to spawn points of interest such as resources or anomalies according to the elevation of the tile and not the highest point of the whole territory, hence a half submerged territory can have multiple resource types

• Increased the frequency of ridges in the world

• Balanced strategic resource frequency

• Reworked lake generation to increase their number in large maps

• Reworked lake generation to increase their number in large maps

New game and default settings

• Changed the default setting when starting a new game​

  • 4 opponents with different Major Factions

  • Map Archetype: Continents

  • World Size: Normal

  • Game Speed: Normal

• Changed first game default empires' colors so they're more distinct

• Display 12 colors in lobby for empire color to choose from

Quests and events

• Improved the wording of the tooltips of the traits given in the victory paths

• Improved the wording of the objective of “Bread and Circuses”

• Improved the wording of the objective of “Night Terror”

• Fixed redundant text in two minor faction pacification quests in Chinese

Misc

• Updated “Army of Ones” from 5 lone wolves to 2 in the empire (only on Steam, passing a turn if you already validated this should unlock the achievement)

• Fixed a bug when opening tooltip of reminder of evolving camp into city

• Fixed debug text shown in the reminder list when there is no capital

• Fixed 6 technical issues

• Fixed a bug on displaying nested tooltips

• Removed Game Director intro video

• Fixed a bug where Quest Journal could be opened while locked by tutorial

• Fixed a bug where there was no scroll for beats descriptions in The Story So Far

• Fixed a bug where resources outline was overlapping the last resource icon

• Fixed missing localization for the "Sage's Will" Tahuks faction trait

• Fixed missing localization when looking at the Companion tooltips for Necrophages

• Fixed a localization bug for Necrophages Infectious skill

• Fixed localization for retaliation with Ranged units

• Fixed a bug where backslashes would not display in file paths

• Fixed a softlock in tutorial if you would buyout a keep district instead of a works district

UNIT & SKILL CHANGES

UNITS

♾️ Time to the infinite scrolling ♾️

• Foreest no logner give broken focus but 5 defense & 5 additional defense when defending.

• Veterancy nerfed back to 5% damage and health per level instead of 10%, defense reduced by 2/level instead of 3/level

• All units retaliate once per round when attacked in melee range (exceptiuon by some abilities) => a retaliation attack deals 70% of the damage

Some skills/passives around Retaliation

(I will let you discover which unit got them) ​

🦖Here are some highlights of changes during PTB

• We reduced the initial values of unit defense (-5 to -10) > Saw your feedback that it was too much!

• Promoted “Destabilizing defense” (when defending, removes retaliation to all adjacent enemies) to a hero skill in the defender skill tree and removed “Buckle Up” (gives defensive stance to adj units) from the game (for the moment) as it was redundant with the infantry passive

• Reworked Aspect’s Archer specialization tree

• Updated the skill “Alpha strike” to now require the attacked target to be encircled

• Updated Scout abilities: they gain “Weakening Strike” and lose “Destabilizing defense”

• Tweaked Last Lords palanquin dust specialization

• Reduced the malus for Soul Repositories effect from +12 Approval per District Level to +5

🏰 Kin of Sheredyn ​

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🦑 Aspect

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🧛‍♂️ Last Lords ​

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🔭 Tahuk

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🥩 Necrophage

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🏕️ Minor Factions

👻 Specials ​

If you managed to get in here... just Bravo 👏

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