Greetings, esteemed Lords and honourable Ladies! Today we prepared for you two remarkable news.

To begin with, the Winter sale came to Steam, which means you can buy "Diplomacy is Not an Option" with a discount to spend in our game long nights during the holidays.

For you to have even more pleasant moments in DiNaO, today we released the December update. Let us tell you a bit more about it.

The most severe changes affect the late game, so they are most noticeable in the Endless Mode.

Among our players, there are those few who feel like fish in water in 'Diplomacy is Not an Option' and who deal with enemies casually and easily. As if enemies were sleepy autumn flies. For these players, it doesn't really matter, whether the attack took place on the hundredth or on the bicentennial day of in-game time. Well, their life becomes a little bit complicated. Before the update, the enemy's army could no longer get any stronger at some point. But even all of its strength was not enough to break the defenses of true RTS experts. No doubt, this is about to change, since the enemy strengthens infinitely in the Endless mode. From now on, no matter how good you are in Diplomacy is Not an Option, the enemy will get you.

The most important improvement designed for the late game is the appearance of the infinite Stone and Iron sources. We've been teasing them for quite a long, and they're finally here. And now we're going to show you how exactly they work.

Attention: new deposit types - Fields of Iron and Stone ore - are not available in the saves from earlier versions of the game

The first thing you need to do is to find a new type of deposit: fields of stone or of iron ore.



Your second step is to conduct the research that opens up access to buildings capable of processing the ore. (For each resource there's a separate research.)

Only after completing both of these steps can you finally build Iron works and Stone Works on the ore fields, which will bring you Iron or Stone endlessly.

The appearance of new buildings led to interface expansion. We made a separate 'Advanced Resource Extraction' tab in the construction menu, where you can find Stone works, Iron works, and Workshop.

An important feature that should be mentioned: from now on, the production of Iron consumes Wood. This applies to both Iron works and Iron Mine of any level. In addition, Wood is also consumed by the Stone works.

Many of you have requested that you would like to have cavalry units on earlier stages of the game. Starting from December update Stables will have two levels. On the first level, you can hire Horse archers and Horsemen, and the second one unlocks Mounted knights. The fundamental change is that Stables I is available once you have your Townhall upgraded to the second level.


There is no Wall Street or quarterly investor reports in the world of DiNaO. However, we decided you wouldn't mind against some not-quite-Medieval info-graphics. From today on you will be able to track the dynamics of income and expenses of different kinds of resources by visual schemes. Those of you who prefer the "good old days approach", when the counselor comes and tells you in the very last moment something like "No more wood in storage, sire" or "the whole population died from the plague, my Lord" - just avoid clicking new tab on the Statistics panel.


Speaking of visual improvements, it should be noted that we have worked on the UI fonts to your numerous requests. The interface became more readable, you can put aside your magnifiers (just not too far in case you need them for other games).

The next one should be followed by a drum roll. Because the day has come to present you brand new mountain models. The first time we mentioned this improvement was when... last summer? Let us tell you, it was easier said than done. A lot easier.

As a cherry on top - from now on you can turn off the voice notifications of enemy attacks, so they do not bother you too much.

A couple of final touches to conclude the story about the December update. "Soul steal" research introduced in October and made to provide you with soul crystals now gives a guaranteed minimum amount of this rare resource. Killing war machines or cavalry units from large enemy waves will deliver you this particular amount. You can get more, yet not less. Hopefully, soul crystal management finally became predictable. Also, remember the option to display kill zones for Catapult and Trebuchet? It hasn't been working properly for everyone. We fixed that. Now everything is just fine.

That will be all for today. Thank you so much for being with us. We know that the continuous waiting of the single-player campaign may be exhausting. And perhaps some of you think we are not enough devoted to the development process. But behind the many changes that seem not so noticeable to users, there is in fact a lot of hard work and tons of time spent. Once again, we confirm, that in the next year the main goal of the entire team is to finish the Story Campaign

Details

Update 0.9.78

Features:

• New buildings: Stone works and Iron works, designed to extract Stone and Iron from inexhaustible sources (added as new types of deposits). To unlock these buildings you need to complete research at University. Producing resources in Stone works and Iron works requires wood. Attention: new deposit types - Fields of Iron and Stone ore - are not available in the saves from earlier versions of the game;
  
• Reworked mountain models. In addition to visual improvements, this innovation also resolves problems with accessing some objects (E.G. it often happened that Gravediggers can't reach the corpses located near the edges of mountains);
  
• Graph tab added to the Statistics panel, allowing you to track the dynamics of your settlement's economy;
  
• The difficulty in all versions of Endless Mode now increases permanently. (Around the 100th day the health of enemies in attacking waves increases for the first time. The process periodically repeats. A notification in the center of the screen informs players each time the wave is strengthened);
  
• Stables I and II appeared in the game. Horse Archers and Horsemen may be recruited on the first level (construction unlocks once you've upgraded your Townhall to the second level). Mounted knights can be hired in Stables II. Research that reduces training time for cavalry units becomes available with the construction of Stables II as well.
  

General:

• Voice notifications of enemy attacks can be disabled in settings;
  
• Iron Mines I and II now spend wood to produce iron;
  
• Added the "Advanced Resource Mining" tab to the construction panel. This is where Stone works and Iron works are located, Workshop has been moved here as well;
  
• Next to some saves from previous versions of DiNaO there is an exclamation mark. When loading these saves a warning pops up informing about the possible incorrect work of the game. (It may happen so, that enemies already attacking you in a wave are not counted by the game in the right way);
  
• Increased game performance.
  

Improvements:

• Enemies no longer fly through walls and other obstacles (flying over the obstacles is still possible);
  
• The chance of obtaining soul crystals changed. ("Soul steal" research rebalanced. When destroying cavalry or siege machines of the enemy from large attacking waves, players are guaranteed to get at least a certain amount of soul crystals);
  
• When giving "Attack Point" orders to Catapults and Trebuchets, the attack area is now displayed correctly under the cursor (this innovation didn't work for all players before);
  
• Increased fonts and reformatted UI windows;
  
• Digits of thousands in values are now displayed in "k" format. (10 000 = 10k)
  
• Increased health of troops and enemies now colored green in the selection bar (same goes to increased durability of the selected buildings);
  
• Multiple UI fixes and improvements;
  
• Some SFX improvements.
  

Balance:

• Durability changed for Walls, Gates, and Towers, prices adjusted accordingly;
  
• Meteor spell: damage increased (from 700 to 1000 in the epicenter);
  
• Horseman: slightly reduced damage (from 10 to 8) and health (from 160 to 150);
  
• Mounted Archer: cost in wood increased (worth 5, not 4);
  
• Horsed and Mounted Archer: training takes longer (from 11 to 16 seconds);
  

Bug Fixes:

• Troops no longer ignore orders received when the game is paused;
  
• When executing the "Attack the strongest target" order troops no longer attack enemy buildings if they still have enemies to deal with;
  
• Bug with player's troops perform running in place when their target is thrown up in the air;
  
• Bug that caused farms to remain a part of a multiple selection, even though it shouldn't;
  
• Bug that allowed to construct buildings via the mini-map interactions;
  
• Bug that caused dismissed workers to stay where they are instead of returning to their houses;
  
• Undead biome now uses the correct skin for iron sources;
  
• "The return of lunatic peasants": bug that required destroying all enemy structures to complete the mission;
  
• Incorrect work of "No Builders Nearby" indicator (before the fix, the indicator might not disappear, although it should have);
  
• Bug that caused indicators over dismissed workers to not disappear;
  
• Bug with missing indicators of filled warehouse and barn above the Townhall;
  
• Bug allowing 'Burrdam Chimera' to be placed on Towers;
  
• Nug that prevented the icons of troops on fortifications from displaying;
  
• Bug with drowned enemies not being counted by the kill counter;
  
• Troop formation now changes correctly (before the fix, there was a problem with selecting a certain amount of troops);
  
• Some game crash cases fixed;
  
• Multiple localization fixes.
  

See you next time!
Yours, Door 407 team