Development Summary - April 2026 & a little teaser

Hi ,

The Monthly Summary for April is here! Make sure to read to the end of this post, its worth it 🙂

April was absolutely packed with exciting stuff: I focused heavily on developing a Bot AI, which is capable of building up a full settlement, recruiting soldiers and eventually attacking the player 🙂

TFE Development Summary - April 2026

Bot AI

• 🛠️Bot AIs now follow structured build orders (roasters), to build up their settlements

• 🛠️Implemented a "Mental Memory" for the Bot AI so it can remember things like harvestables or enemy settlements (after scouting) to plan its expansions intelligently

• 🛠️Implemented an Expansion Protocol allowing the Bot AI to expand its territory towards unknown areas or scouted harvestables

• 🛠️The Bot AI now automatically gathers squads at frontier towers and launches coordinated attacks on enemy landmarks after peacetime ends

• 🛠️Added a Peacetime option and Bot AI Behavior dropdowns directly into the Skirmish Lobby

Territory & Conquest Mechanics

• 🛠️Overhauled the territory calculation: When a tower or landmark is conquered, the old owner's buildings are demolished & civil settlers correctly retreat to homeground

• 🛠️Fixed multiple bugs regarding territory borders, including isolated territory islands and incorrect building restrictions after losing a tower

• 🛠️Construction materials are now visually consumed 1 by 1 during construction, and the topbar UI reflects this in real-time

Performance, Pathfinding & Visuals

• 🛠️Moved to real async pathfinding on worker threads, eliminating Game Thread lag spikes when hundreds of characters move

• 🛠️Implemented a newly optimized Fog of War plugin

• 🛠️Added a new AgX Tonemapper and updated post-processing for a better visual look

• 🛠️Optimized building preview spawning by reusing child actors to save performance during placement

• 🛠️Camera grab movement now correctly stays on top of the landscape, and added Q/E hotkeys for smooth camera rotation

Bug Squashing & More Stuff

• 🛠️Introduced a new CheatMode (hiding FoW, HUD, etc.) to help with testing and content creation

• 🛠️Fixed a bunch of worker logic bugs: Farmers placing fields on roads, Foresters planting in water, and Woodcutters leaving trunks behind

• 🛠️Harvest workers and soldiers no longer get stuck or take massive detours when avoiding each other

• 🛠️Fixed several critical background thread crashes to improve overall stability

• ✨ Secrets

April was all about making the world feel alive and challenging!

This first BotAi implementation completes the Core Gameplay Loop for the first time and the player can now compete with the opponent for harvestables & territory.

It's a big milestone for me indeed and its highly rewarding to squash the enemy settlement with your army.

Feel free to share your feedback in the comments. I'm curious what you think about the new AI improvements and if you're excited to face off against it!

Best, Sebastian 🙂

PS: Stay tuned for end of May! I'm sure you'll love it!