MAJOR Beneath the Mountain update for 5 March 2024

New Game Modes

• Challenge modes offer a variety of ways to test your skill as a dwarven leader.
• Speedrun mode offers a hardcore challenge for the best BTM players.

Challenge Modes

• There are now multiple challenge modes available.
• Each of these challenge modes is designed to restrict the player and create more interesting gameplay decisions.
• Each of these challenges can be defeated on easy, normal, hard, or nightmare difficulty.
• There are Steam achievements linked to each of these challenges, for each difficulty.

Speedrun Mode

• This new game mode is designed for hardcore players that want to test their BTM skills.
• In speedrun mode both time-pausing and saving are disabled. The game is meant to be played continuously without interruption.
• Your best speedrun times for normal, hard, and nightmare difficulty are tracked within Steam stats.
• Location and affixes are completely randomized on speedrun mode.

Civilization Ages

• There are now 3 different civ ages: mining Colony, stronghold, and kingdom.
• You advance to the next age when prestige is above a certain amount.
• Some buildings are locked behind certain civilization ages.
• Advancing to the next civ age has lots of benefits.
• Civ age progress is tracked in a new UI at the top center of the screen.

World Map Trading

• All dwarven mountains on the world map now periodically offer things for trade.
• Trade offers might be resources, tech, talents, or even mercenary units.
• An offer can be purchased, which triggers a trader to be dispatched.
• The trader will walk to the destination, complete the trade offer, and then return home, granting you the reward.
• The trade system is an excellent way of spending extra gold, or quickly acquiring badly needed resources or units.
• The number of active traders you may have scales with your current civ age.

Custom Game Mode

• In custom game mode it is now (finally) possible to disable invasions entirely and play pacifist mode.

Runeslots

• The number of available runeslots has been restricted by civ age.
• Advancing to the next civ age will allow you to go deeper into a specific category.

World Map

• You can now play on any of the 9 dwarven mountains.
• Each dwarven mountain comes with 2 free perks.
• Location perks can be free tech, free resources, or even free units.

Technology Research

• The number of simultaneous technologies you can research has been restricted by civ age.
• Some tech/talents raise this cap.
• This design forces you to make decisions about which technology is the most important at the moment.

Prestige

• You gain some prestige for each invasion you've defeated.
• You gain some prestige for each technology you've researched.
• You gain some prestige for each talent you've unlocked.

Affixes

• Renewal: this affix has been reworked. It now gives you vision of each cave, while making the cave's inhabitant much stronger.
• Arcane: this new affix massively buffs caster units and units that have abilities with cooldowns.

Thane (new)

• New ultra-heavy armor, dual-wielding dwarf.
• Requires the Throne Room to recruit.
• Has a high cost in both gold and iron.
• Has an attack that deals high damage while also buffing himself and nearby dwarves.

Spectral Ancestor (new)

• New temporary unit that can be summoned by Runepriests, and some talents.

Beholder (new)

• Found on Floor -2.
• Summons undead, slimes, and elementals.
• Has a variety of powerful magical attacks.

Throne Room (new)

• This massive building is only available to build in the final civilization age, and offers a variety of king-specific technology.
• Horn of the Mountain Thanes: this tech makes Thanes much quicker to train and gives them some movement speed as well.
• Ancestral Axe: this former reworked talent now only buffs the king.
• Heartforged Hammer: this former reworked talent now only buffs the king.
• Glorious Greathelm: this new tech buffs the king and makes him immune to critical strikes.
• Gilded Gauntlets of Might: this new tech buffs the king offensive and defensively.
• Resplendent Full Plate: this new tech buffs the king defensively and gives him greatly increased cooldown reduction.
• Crown of Command: this new tech buffs the king but also increase the number of nearby units affected by his aura.
• Greatstride Greaves: this new tech buffs the king defensively but also gives him some movement speed.
• Aegis of the Ancient Kings: this new tech buffs the king and gives him a small chance to block an attack entirely regardless of it's damage.

Heater Trap (new)

• This new trap lets players deal fire damage via a floor trap.

Reset Trap (new)

• This new trap resets other nearby traps when triggered.

Lightning Trap

• Complete overhaul of lightning trap projectile physics, making it 100% reliable.

Medium House (new)

• This new type of house takes slightly more space, but gives a lot more population at an increased price.

Large House (new)

• This new type of house is the largest, costs the most, but gives the greatest return on gold per population.

Shrines

• Increased the baseline radius of shrines.
• Fixed an issue with shrine radius indicator scaling.

Mushroom Farm

• New building model, and reduced the space required to build it.

Barracks

• Defensive Stance: reworked this tech to be a mostly defensive boost for units with shields.
• Bradock's Martial Primer: reworked to give all melee units a chance to parry incoming attacks.

Library

• Advanced Research Notes: this new tech increases the number of simultaneous technologies you may research.
• Cartography: this new tech increases the speed at which dwarven traders move on the world map.

Workshop

• Fleetfoot Trader's Sandles: this new tech increases the speed at which dwarven traders move on the world map.

Play Menu UI (new)

• This new UI handles the multiple game modes that BTM now offers.
• This is where you select things like game mode, location, and difficulty.

Game Summary UI (new)

• This new UI is available when a game is starting/loading, or at the end of the game.
• It contains information about the game mode type, difficulty, affixes, world map location, challenge mode, and more.

Overview UI (new)

• This interface keeps track of all of your economic factors.
• It includes important information about gold, prestige, and resources.

Units Overview UI (new)

• This new interface keeps track of all of your units, and their relevant effects.
• It includes filter options so you can specify certain unit types.

Current Progress UI (new)

• This new UI keeps track of all the things that are currently in-progress.
• This includes units being trained, tech being researched, and world-map traders.

Building Selection UI (new)

• Found in the bottom right corner, this new UI keeps track of all of your buildings.
• It works in a similar way to the Unit Selection UI on the opposing left side.

Trade UI (new)

• This interface keeps track of all of the available world map trade offers.

World Map UI

• Entities such as invasions or traders now show the path they'll take on the world map.
• Invasion elements on the world map now show their strength number on the UI element.
• Improved distinction between the player location, and non-player locations.

Invasion UI

• Invasion elements on the invasion bar (top right) now show their strength number on the UI element.

Major Announcement UI (new)

• This UI informs you of important events, such as when you advance to the next civilization age.

Save/Load UI

• This interface has been updated to also show details about the save file (if possible).
• This includes information like the number of days, the world map location, difficulty, affixes, and more.

Misc UI Improvements

• Effects on unit now show their remaining time.
• Technology tooltips show the amount of prestige you gain by researching the tech.
• Clicking on location in the Play Menu UI will cycle through all the world map locations.
• Right clicking on a location in the Play Menu UI will select a random location.
• Clicking on an affix in the Play Menu UI will cycle through the affixes.
• Right clicking on an affix in the Play Menu UI will select a random location.

Runeforge Talents (king)

• Amulet of the Vault Warden: reworked to give flat prestige with the civ age system.
• Avatar of Anathor: this new talent gives the king fire damage on his whirlwind ability.
• Pendant of Piety: reworked to create synergy between the King and shrines.

Runeforge Talents (mining)

• Benevolence: reworked to flat prestige to work with new civ age system.
• Miner's Rhythm: reworked to give groups of miners a higher work speed.
• Fracture: this new talent reduces surrounding cube's hardness when a cube is mined out.
• Roknir's Idol: this new talent creates a strong tie between miners and shrines.
• Miner's Strength: this new talent lets miners scale much better with other experience systems.

Runeforge Talents (culture)

• Path of the Axe: this reworked talent now also grants the Ancestral Axe tech.
• Way of the Hammer: this reworked talent now also grants the Heartforged Hammer tech.
• Glorious Kingdom: updated to give additional prestige for cosmetic buildings.
• Coinage: this new talent improves tax incoming and reduces trade costs.
• Tunnel Network: this new talent puts an upper limit on trade travel times and increase the number of active traders you may have.
• The following talents have been removed: Shrewd Investments.

Runeforge Talents (infantry)

• The following talents include Thanes in their unit list: Rallying Cry, Battle Shout, Bitter Determination, War-Smith, and One-Handed Axe Specialization.
• The following talents have been removed: Trail by Combat, Target Practice, Tower Shields, Tenacious Defense, and Break Their Bones.

Runeforge Talents (magic)

• Wrath of the Ancestors: new talent that summons a spectral ancestor whenever a living dwarf dies.

Runeforge Talents (traps)

• Voltage Adjustment: new talent that lets lighting bolts from lightning traps bounce more and travel further.
• Twinned Bolts: new talent that duplicates lightning bolts from lightning traps.
• Static Shock: new talent that creates smaller lightning bolts as enemies are hit by lightning traps.
• Combustion: modified to also proc off lightning damage.
• Rune Etched Weapons: moved to this category from the infantry category.