Just over a week into our first speed server, it's time for a round of patch notes. This first patch for Beta 2 details a bunch of changes to the game engine. Some early feedback also led to big improvements to mobile gameplay, and a host of new bugs to fix.
The refreshed mobile layout, with icon menus for each page and showing the event size on sending resources
Features added
- The combat system was reworked to allow us to add different factions. For now we split it into Humans and NPC Humans, but later new NPC and playable factions will follow.
- Made it possible to change the speed of different parts independently. The x3 speed server has troops with x2 speed.
- Implemented tracking of advanced statistics. While not immediately visible, this will allow us to add new features on the existing data going forward.
- Made a lot of improvements in how the server handles game speed before launch.
- Changed mobile menus from dropdowns to icon menus, greatly reducing the required actions to reach specific pages.
Balance changed
- Cataphract saw very little use, even in the endgame. The cost of cataphracts was reduced to make them more appealing.
- Buying troops for Aether now costs 1.5x the Aether as compared to buying balanced resources with Aether. This stays consistent throughout the server too, instead of getting worse over time.
- Buying resources and army with Aether now scales weekly (or faster depending on speed) instead of monthly, smoothing out the curve.
- Multiplied all unit attack and defensive stats by 3 to allow more nuanced balancing changes.
The improved Village Overview. Now with icons, new headers and less text.
Improvements made
- Losing villages of different tiers was added to the Culture Planner.
- The missing culture for the next tier is now shown on the Culture page.
- Added a new icon for Builders to distinguish it better from Production. This icon is also shown when builders are used in the village queue.
- The game now runs on the server time instead of the user's local time, which solves a lot of timing, refresh and synchronisation issues.
- The event size (required resources or army size) is now shown on the screens for Send Resources and Send Troops if you select that action from the Map. Now you don't have to keep them in memory constantly.
- The Help Troops page now shows the attack type of each unit, and for NPC factions the week from which they start to appear (for speed servers: the day).
- Swapped the Village and Kingdom buttons for faster access to the village from the top menu.
- Made the Village Overview page more visually appealing with icons and darkened headers.
The Help Troops page now show the attack type of each unit and, for NPC factions, when they will appear (weeks for x1, days for faster speed
Bugs squashed
- Settlers that are underway from a village that gets destroyed or conquered now refund their culture cost.
- Objectives no longer generate Prestige after the game ends.
- Hourly scripts no longer run out of sync if the server runs without restarts for a few weeks.
- Fixes a bug where the user got stuck in a refresh loop on validating their email while not already logged in.
- Defense events no longer multiply their reward by game speed.
- Attacking a player without defenses no longer causes a server crash.
- Automated scripts to maintain the village state now consistently account for game speed.
- Conquest now works again with the faction system changes.
- You can now train nobles again with the faction system changes.
- The marketplace + and - buttons now work properly after manual input too.
- Week and Day numbers in the left sidebar now show the correct numbers around the change of week.
- Exchanging resources with the Aether boost now grows its limit with server speed.
- Achievements are no longer handed out a day early.
- The tasks page now loads the latest status of player tasks upon opening it.
- The combat simulator works again when you remove an attacking unit and leave the value empty.
Hope to see you in game! Play Aether Kingdoms now!