As beta 2 heats up in-game, we've been getting to work adding new content and laying the foundation for premium by adding new features. Also, we continue with the human units balancing to further enhance each unit's identity.

New defensive event types

The only defensive event type was a sit and wait for a single attack. We've spiced things up with two new event types: Gathering warband and Native ambush.

  • Gathering warband: fight against waves of enemies. The last wave will provide aether, so you can choose to go and fight smaller armies or one big army for more aether.
  • Native ambush: Send an army to a remote area and trigger an ambush to face the enemy as defender (no waiting for this one)

These new event types also change how events are spawned. A Native ambush can spawn new events. The Gathering forces event has a chance to turn into a Native ambush. And a Gathering warband can turn into a Native outpost or a Native ambush.

Map screenshot with all three defensive event types All three defensive event types on the map

Features added

  • Added a district selection component to better explain what each district does.
  • Premium: added a feature to show the cost per production increase when upgrading buildings.
  • Redesigned the actions bar on Map tiles.
  • Premium: added a feature that shows the walking times of armies when click a Map tile.
  • Premium: added the option to send merchants on a second trip automatically.

Balance changed

We feel good about the most recent balance changes, but some tweaks are still in order. We're mainly concerned with how easily people throw their offensive armies in defensive events and PvP. Therefore, we're reducing the defensive stats of offensive units to differentiate them better. Cavalry Archers will remain a hybrid unit, and Cataphracts keep their strong defense due to their cost.

New district selection component New district selection component

  • Swordsman

    • Melee defense 32, was 45
    • Ranged defense 20, was 27
    • Cavalry defense 26, was 36

  • Cavalry Archer

    • Melee defense 124, was 108
    • Ranged defense 84, was 120
    • Cavalry defense 62, was 72

  • Horseman

    • Melee defense 20, was 24
    • Ranged defense 36, was 42
    • Cavalry defense 28, was 36

  • Knight

    • Melee defense 60, was 72
    • Ranged defense 84, was 108
    • Cavalry defense 72, was 84

Improvements made

  • The Kingdom menu button was moved back to the top menu.
  • Objective scout reports now appear in the Empire reports list.
  • Changed the default resource exchange settings to exchanging food (was wood) for wood (was stone).
  • Accessibility: darkened the highlight colour of selected resources on the resource exchange.
  • Added the sum of Kingdom Production to the Other Resources tab, similar to Science and Culture.
  • When deactivating a trade route, the previous settings are stored.

Unit walking times to a village Unit walking times to a friendly village

Bugs squashed

  • Scouting player-owned objectives once again generates a report.
  • Army arrival times were shown incorrectly on the frontend, making timing attacks and defensive sniping quite challenging. This is now fixed.
  • The top menu once again shows the correct labels for all items.
  • Time until resources are available are now computed based on the net food production, including population and army.
  • When visiting the reports page, the number of unread reports in the top menu is now synchronised accurately.

Hope to see you in game! Play Aether Kingdoms now!