Today we're dropping combat engine changes, a simulate report button, expanded sitter permissions and a whole lot of improvements and bugfixes. Keep on fighting the good fight!

Combat changes

We're changing the combat system, primarily to address the farming method called rainbow farming. This method avoids all losses, but requires a lot of input from the player to manage it well. After asking our community, it's clear that both the people applying this method don't enjoy playing this way. And the rest doesn't like feeling behind because of it. With this change, we want to ensure that doing events stays fun.

The combat calculation will do the following:

  • Calculate attacker and defender strength
  • Calculate losses
  • NEW Sum up the remainder losses, which happens when less than 1 whole unit of a type dies.

The total remainder for that battle is resolved as follows:

  • The unit with the largest remainder gets killed off first
  • If multiple units have the same remainder, a random unit is selected from that group
  • If the remainder is below 1, no more units die

We'll keep monitoring the situation closely to see if further changes are necessary.

Features added

  • Relevant reports now have new buttons: Simulate, Send Army and Send Resources. The Archive and Mark Unread buttons were reworked to unify the style.
  • You can now share simulator links. The link can be copied from a report or after clicking simulate.

New buttons in the report header New buttons in the report header

Balance changed

  • Rewards from PvE kills are buffed from 20 of each resource per consumption killed to 25 of each resource, to compensate for the additional farming losses.
  • Sitters can now send reinforcements to all Empire villages, instead of only own villages and objectives.

Improvements made

  • You now get to see the privacy policy and code of conduct when registering an account.
  • You now get a warning when attempting to settle in an area where another village may have an overlapping claim to a tile.
  • The layout for managing sitters now looks better on mobile.
  • The left sidebar's village resources always uses the smaller text when checking the storage full timers, stopping layout jumps.
  • The current village name is now prefilled in the change name form on the Manage page.
  • Repeatable research that boost projects and buildings now show the benefit's percentage value in their description.
  • Queue additional science/culture was renamed to Science/culture Project.
  • The message form now expands automatically when typing a message that's bigger than the text area.
  • The reports UI was tidied up a bit.

Bugs squashed

  • The helpful links on the game's Help page now go where they should, instead of all linking to the wiki.
  • You now get a clear error if you try registering with a too long username.
  • Merchants on the map are no longer visible if the target event was completed and you missed it. This way you can keep track of new events on the same tile.
  • Empire messages no longer appear in the personal messages tab.
  • The Farm description now once again mentions all 4 of its upgrade buildings.
  • You're no longer able tap through the main menu buttons on mobile, leading to accidental actions.
  • The map cache now updates your population on the map instantly when finishing a storage or bonus % building.
  • Going out of bounds on the map in the east or south no longer crashes the game client.
  • The Objective page for owned objectives no longer crashes the game client when leaving the page.
  • The dropdown for own villages was updated to

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