Town Mechanic Rework

🏘️ Town Mechanic Rework

• Merchants and recruitable troops now appear outside towns when you approach.

• Town boundaries will be clearly defined on the world map in a future update.

• If outlaws or hostile forces enter a town’s area, the garrison will sortie and intercept them in a future update.

• Old save files made inside towns may cause NPCs to be displaced to unreachable locations.

• The old town entry system will be used only for future dungeon content.

⏳ About the Next Update

• The next update will take a long time and is planned as a major overhaul.

• Planned changes include:

  • 4× world density

  • Neutral factions

  • Character appearance changes

  • Attack animation overhaul

  • Perk system rework

  • Starting race selection

  • New and reworked items

• Shader changes and optimization attempts for ~2,000-unit battles are planned, but success is not guaranteed.

• Save files will not be compatible after this update.

• While quests and the main story will not be expanded, neutral factions require a minimum narrative framework, which contributes to the longer development time.

⚔️ Combat

• Infantry now predict the future position of enemy cavalry and enter attack-ready states.

• Mounted players can still dominate with superior weapon reach, but taking damage inside infantry attack range now happens because enemy AI no longer misses clear attack opportunities.

• Horse size has been reduced.

• IK-based hit reactions added:

  • Applied to humanoid-type monsters only.

• Cavalry AI:

  • Always enters attack-ready state when enemies are nearby.

  • Attacks are executed using predicted speed and future positions.

  • In theory, attacks do not miss, but because movement AI and attack AI are separate, attacks can miss if direction or speed changes mid-attack.

• Lancer AI is now much stronger against cavalry.

  • Effective against monsters and shock infantry.

  • Ineffective against shield infantry unless given a charge order.

• Shields:

  • Blocking does not consume stamina.

  • Can block continuously until destroyed.

• Tactical AI:

  • Spearmen prioritize shock cavalry.

  • Other infantry prioritize enemy archers or infantry groups.

  • Formations that are heavily outnumbered are treated as decoys and deprioritized.

  • In auto tactics:

    • Formations do not rotate toward very close enemies.

    • Non-spearmen do not rotate to face cavalry.

• Siege battles:

  • Monsters target the main gate.

  • Smaller units use ladders.

• Equipment weight:

  • Only armor and helmet weight are applied.

  • Heavier gear reduces movement speed but improves impact resistance and reduces knockback.

• Current battle maps suffer from poor visibility. → Flat, combat-friendly areas will be added to all biomes in the next update.

⚖️ Balance

• World map starting location moved to a valley region.

• Reduced cavalry movement penalties in forests.

• Players can no longer dodge while airborne.

• Battles initiated by the player on the world map now pull in nearby legions.

• Weapons and armor now have six quality tiers:

  • Higher quality slightly increases core stats.

  • Prices increase significantly.

• Only faction leaders can declare war.

• Soldier stats have been reworked.

  • When using old save files, only newly recruited soldiers use the new balance values.

🐞 Known Issues

• Humanoid monsters have slimmer hit collisions than their visuals.

  • Rakseth: collision closely matches visuals.

  • Anabolic Cat and Vynekin types: large mismatch remains.

🎨 Art

• Accumulating blood stains and hit splash effects added (can be disabled in options).

• IK-based hit and parry animations added.

• Battle map art and layouts updated.

  • Central areas generally provide good fighting terrain.

  • Maps do not yet scale based on total army size.

• Increased variety in knockback and recovery animations.

• Musket smoke visuals replaced.

  • Performance with large musket formations has not yet