Hey Everyone, Great news – today we’ve hit our first Early Access development milestone, and we have an absolute monster of an update for you that improves every area of the game. From stability, performance, AI, and pathfinding to graphics, new features, new levels, and so much more. This update also completely re-balances the game – it now gets challenging real fast. The game is in a pretty good place now, so we can start focusing on updating art assets and adding new features. Later next week, we'll share our road-map for the entire Early Access development cycle and release another large update introducing controlling multiple armies at one and adding the quality-of-life improvements requested by our players on our [url=https://steamcommunity.com/app/2533020/discussions/0/]Steam Forums[/url] and [url=https://discord.gg/YQtHeEKuM5]Discord[/url]. With that said, let's take a closer look at what this major update #5 (game version 0.9) brings to the table. Please note that we are only listing the larger changes here: [h3]PERFORMANCE & STABILITY[/h3] [list] [*] Cut visual memory use by 300MBs, bringing huge performance and stability improvements [*] Fixed the vast majority of random crashes when switching between levels [*] Lag spikes from tasking a lot of units are practically eliminated [*] Lag from selecting a lot of battalions at once reduced by 50% [*] Fixed issues with some video cards working at the highest performance [/list] [h3]PATHFINDING UPDATES[/h3] [list] [*] Fixed long-standing issues with battalions forming up great distances apart [*] Units spawning on walls are positioned properly now [*] Greatly reduced the time it takes to task a lot of battalions – from 3 seconds to 1.25 seconds [*] Battalions are better at navigating walls and tight passages [*] Units now barely get stuck on walls or fall from the walls [/list] [h3]TOTAL CAMPAIGN REBALANCE[/h3] [list] [*] Campaign progression completely rebalanced [*] Campaign is infinitely more complex and challenging [*] Difficulty increases the further the player gets in the campaign [*] AI will now use a lot of different strategies on the world map to counter player steps [*] AI now researches technologies and advances – unlocking new buildings, units, and abilities [*] Over the years, the composition of units used by AI changes – starting from almost medieval and moving towards early modern warfare [*] Bigger, stronger nations progress through technology much faster [*] AI will try different types of armies and garrisons to find opponents' weaknesses [*] Types of AI strategies and army composition: low tech medieval, gunpowder ranged focus, cavalry hit and run, mixed and balanced, infantry focused, etc. [*] Rebalanced stats and strength values for the majority of units [/list] [h3]NEW FORMATION SYSTEM[/h3] [list] [*] Unit battalions now look and work differently than before [*] Changed battalion sizes – unit battalions are now more manageable in size [*] Each type of unit has a set of unique formations now [*] New formations make it much easier to tell units apart [*] All formations redesigned to be more historically accurate [*] Changing formations during battle now provides huge benefits – making units up to 50% more effective [*] Formations are designed to benefit units in certain combat situations [*] Formations can be changed while battalions are moving [*] On changing formation, units will stop moving and form up [*] Fixed various issues with changing formations [*] Fixed issues with changing formations often not working [/list] [h3]HAMLETS REDESIGNED[/h3] [list] [*] Almost every hamlet in-game now has a unique combination of environment/terrain/city itself [*] Hamlet types now all have unique terrain – forests, badlands, hills, rivers, seaside – both for European or desert environments [*] Hamlets now feature real-world geographical features – hamlets located on rivers, near the sea, in the mountains, etc. [*] Desert hamlets will now show proper palm trees and not northern trees like oaks or firs [/list] [h3]LARGE CITY UPDATE[/h3] [list] [*] Refreshed the design of all large cities [*] Major rework of desert environment cities [*] Some cities received a major redesign to improve gameplay [*] Units spawned on walls when defending or attacking cities now perfectly line up [*] Fixed overcrowding of units when spawned in large cities [*] All units spawned in large cities now face the enemy [*] Redesigned army camp for the attackers in large cities [*] When sieging large cities, all units are spawned in neat formations [*] Large cities now have a lot more variety in town levels from 6 to 10 instead of most being 8 [/list] [h3]VISUAL UPDATES[/h3] [list] [*] RTS game mode had significant improvements in visuals and presentation [*] Total rework of the RTS mode environmental light [*] New RTS mode environmental textures [*] Incremental improvements to world map presentation [*] World Map GUI art update: happiness icons for towns and hamlets [*] World Map GUI art update: citizen count icons for armies and towns [*] Reworked desert set art with new palm trees [*] New art set for RTS mode wall set for northern Europe [*] Bloom effect in the options greatly reduced [/list] [h3]WINTER REDESIGNED[/h3] [list] [*] All aspects of winter visuals have been redesigned [*] Brand new winter light for the winter season [*] Redesigned winter environmental effects [*] Added constant light snow during winter for better atmosphere [*] New environmental textures for the winter season [*] Reworked all winter textures for all buildings, walls, and props [*] Fixed issues where hamlets would not show winter during battles or when entering town [*] Fixed issues with some walls or buildings not having winter textures [*] Improved world map snow effects [/list] [h3]TUTORIAL IMPROVEMENTS[/h3] [list] [*] Improved the look of tooltips and messages in the tutorial [*] New onboarding tooltip window, different in RTS and World Map view [*] Various improvements to the first world map level [*] Build the town tutorial now works with advice and objectives [*] Various fixes to the set diplomacy tutorial [*] Outlaw messages will no longer show during the tutorial [*] Fixed all situations where the player might get stuck in the tutorial [/list] [h3]DIPLOMACY UPDATES[/h3] [list] [*] Gift cost increases each time given (per nation) and slowly decreases with each passing month [*] Game difficulty greatly increased with diplomatic gifts, making it impossible to steamroll fellow Lords [*] Fixed various exploits with the new approach to diplomatic gifts [*] Rebalanced various aspects of the diplomatic system [/list] [h3]OTHER FIXES[/h3] [list] [*] Various windows that used to be player clicks on screen – now accessible to player clicks [*] Area where objectives are displayed is now accessible to player clicks [*] Fixed all errors with cannons firing [*] Improved distance fog in cinematics [*] Disabled broken upgrade gatehouse button [*] A lot of improvement with showing War/Peace/Outlaw notifications [*] Fixed issues with capture town window overlapping with War/Peace/Outlaw window [*] Birds now have proper scale [*] Prompt for tutorial when opening Skirmish if the tutorial has not been played/started [*] Various fixes in the tech tree – like cannon portraits or unlocking crossbowmen [/list] Thanks for your support and if you want to share your feedback - please do so on our [url=https://steamcommunity.com/app/2533020/discussions/0/]Steam Forums[/url] or on our [url=hhttps://discord.gg/YQtHeEKuM5]Discord[/url]. As always - we are forever grateful for your support! -Konstantin & Brian