Update # 9 - All Crashes Fixed!

This is a big one... after more than 100 hours of work, I can finally say that all known crashing issues have been fixed. It’s been a tough month tracking down the causes across so many different player setups - from old PCs to high-end rigs - but at last, it’s done.

Im terribly sorry for how long it took to fix, really wish I could go back in time... seeing the games review score drop from the 90s to the 70s over these crashes was heartbreaking. I truly hope that with this fix in place, the score will rebound, as these days an indie game can’t really grow without a Very Positive rating. Fingers crossed. I`ll continue working on the game no matter what though.

And I also want to thank everyone for your patience and support. Even after the 7th update, nearly a third of players were still affected by crashes. Ad your reports, shared logs, and feedback are greatly appreciated.

And with this major hurdle out of the way, we can finally return to the usual weekly updates - got so much exciting stuff on the horizon. A lot of polish to mid and late game, new nations for Sandbox, new features - and so much more...

And let’s take a closer look at what today`s 9th update has in store - a lot of other solid fixes and improvements.

Crash Fixes

• Fixed a crash on the loading screen that would close the game

• Fixed additional crash on the loading screen – affecting a very small number of players

• Fixed loading screen crash related to point light

• Fixed game getting frozen on the loading screen – requiring a PC restart

• Fixed a crash during combat when player is about to win defense of his city

Major Bug Fixes

• Fixed a major issue when winning battles and having to wait a minute for victory to register

• Fixed a rare major issue when after winning a battle player could still not get a win

• Various campaign progression fixes – fixing last situations where player can rarely get stuck

Byzantine Empire Playable

• Byzantine Empire is now playable in Sandbox mode

• Byzantine Empire has 6 playable and 8 total lords

• Unique starting conditions for Byzantine King and Lords with a very large number of assets

• Various fixes to Byzantine Empire assets, relations, starting conditions

Performance Improvements

• Visual performance in RTS battles in large cities improved by up to 15 FPS

• Scrolling speed on the world map is smoother now

• Shaved off additional 1-1.5 seconds from most loading screens on all systems

Other Fixes

• Disabled some odd light in the army camp and large city houses

• Improved the look of Slavic king portraits

• Fixed some issues when loading hamlets with double walls

• Final Crusades battle vs Fatimids now shows a quest at the start of the battle

• Improved Russian localization

• Improved Chinese localization

• No longer playing Low Food voiced notification in naval battles

• Added flags to small stone gatehouse – so it’s easy to identify it

• Player lord character is now more clearly marked in diplomacy screen

• Play Victory/Defeat sound when end battle window is opened

Balancing

• Further reduced frequency of AI attacks on player (please note – in existing campaigns it will take a few months to take full effect)

• Greatly reduced penalty for leaving battle – it now only damages some units, without removing any

• Winning battles is now faster in most game modes

• Player can now choose to stay and loot or leave the battle

• Rebalanced ranged units – a bit less effective in some situations now

• Stone resource is a lot harder to acquire now, requiring bigger investment to build up large city

• RTS mode stone income decreased by 25%

• World Map stone income decreased by up to 35%