Hello everyone!

Thank you for your patience. We are rolling out the first official update for Battle Realms after almost 17 years... Unbelievable... Time to eliminate some of the reported issues and improve the game!

Also, in case you haven't seen it yet, Ed Del Castillo wrote a small letter to the fans not too long ago.

As Mr. Del Castillo has pointed out, we're a small team of people dedicated to the cause. Crave Entertainment dissolved in 2012, Liquid Entertainment - in 2018. Ubisoft is no longer affiliated with Battle Realms either. There's no fully established company, only us for now, but we can definitely make things right and this update will hopefully prove that claim further. :)

There is also a lot of confusion about BR being in Early Access now. In order to clear that up, we recommend visiting BR's store page once again and reading the special Early Access note where Ed Del Castillo explains what's going on and what the general plan is.

Remember that you can always report any issues in this topic.

Alright, now let's see what we've actually brought:

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Technical:

• Game version changed from 1.54 to 1.55.
  
  
• Fixed Steam MP lobby join / exit crashes.
  
  
• Fixed the Playlist crash.
  
  
• Fixed Steam MP lobby validation.
  
  
• Fixed lobby slot checkings in the lobby list.
  
  
• Fixed LAN interface.
  
  
• Fixed in-game invite feature.
  
  
• Fixed Steam Overlay interfering with the game controls. Now, when steam overlay is on, game controls are disabled.
  
  
• Fixed FoV zoom issues in campaign and skirmish.
  
  
• Fixed minimap issues for most maps.
  
  
• Fixed terrain textures not displaying properly, was especially noticeable on winter maps.
  
  
• Fixed cancel button in tech tree menu.

If you're experiencing issues with black shadows multiplied around units and similar stuff, we recommend disabling Steam Overlay for now, it's a 100% working solution. Other than that, If you wait a little or alt-tab, this problem goes away, but can be triggered again by any Steam popup. We're looking into this.

Steam Multiplayer is still giving us a headache. It's hit & miss at the moment, but now the whole team is focused on getting it stable for everyone (we want to play it just like you!). We can't provide any ETAs as of now, but we'll try to stabilize it as soon as possible.

Gameplay:

• Fixed S (Stop), N (Stand Ground) and O (Passiveness) hotkeys not working properly.
  
  
• Fixed units not reloading on horses or towers.
  
  
• Fixed the "Resource Shifting" bug that allowed peasants to collect rice or water without delivering said resources to their peasant huts.
  
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed getting resources out of terrain.
  
  
• Fixed the resource exploit done by interacting with teammates' huts.
  
  
• Fixed a bug that occured whenever "S" hotkey was pressed or held in melee combat. The key was originally not supposed to work under those circumstances.
  
  
• Fixed Lotus Yin bug (cancelling a technique to generate more Yin pearls).
  
  
• Fixed the unit collision bug that allowed stacking units in each other by manipulating SHIFT or S, N and O hotkeys.
  
  
• Fixed Lotus Brothers ability to enter watchtowers (if Crypt rally point was set to any watchtower).
  
  
• Fixed the Townsquare cancel bug that allowed obtaining resources by manipulating the cancel upgrade/refund function.
  
  
• Fixed the invisible horses bug.
  
  
• Fixed Serpent Cannoneer's Smoke spam, ammo depletion & stackability bugs (the effects of smoke are no longer stackable).
  
  
• Fixed Lotus Acolyte & Adept attack bugs. Acolytes and Adepts no longer deal huge amounts of damage to Dragon huts or horses.
  
  
• Fixed Master Warlock's Soul Thresher bug that allowed MWs to shoot ST projectiles without consuming stamina.
  
  
• Fixed Wolf Slinger's Scorched Earth BG that would previously get stuck after first use.
  
  
• Changed Wildeye's weapon damage type from 'cutting' to 'blunt'. Wildeye dealing cutting damage was an oversight.
  
  
• Fixed the Stamina Ratio issue that allowed using "Whirling Spear" twice despite Spearmen not having enough stamina for the second use.
  
  
• Fixed Fan Geisha's Dark Pact BG. It no longer stacks.
  
  
• Unclean's Goo now reduces fire resistance by 50% instead of increasing it.
  
  
• Fixed Pack Master having a missile weapon, it's no longer the case.
  
  
• Fixed WOTW units not having any bonuses/penalties when on high/low ground.

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Technical:

• Added Widescreen (FullHD) support. Works as it should, and will be further polished as the time goes.
  
  
• Made the cinematic LOD (Level Of Detail) selectable outside of campaigns. This lod unlocks high poly models with better textures, now available through the 'Very High' setting. Previous highest level of detail has been moved to the 'high' setting.
  
  
• Added new camera zoom.
  
  
• Improved Steam lobby interactions.
  
  
• Improved Steam lobby search performance.
  

Gameplay:

• Improved input responsiveness. Units react to commands quicker.
  
  
• Improved minimap latency. Almost no delays now.
  
  
• Improved AI.
  
  
• Restored various visual FX for unit abilities, such as:
  
  - Archer's Stoic Calm (Innate ability)
  - Archer's Zen Arrow & Zenning (battle gear).
  - Lotus Brothers' Dark Blessing (battle gear).
  - Lotus T2 Units Rite Of Ascension (battle gear).
  - Horse Trample & Unit Trampled (battle gear & unit state).
  - Dragon Warrior's Inspiration (innate ability).
  - Damage Reduction (Unit state FX. Seen on Shinja's Intimidation and Chemist's Mandrake Spores).
  - Otomo's Battle Cry (battle gear).
  - Master Warlocks' Dark Lightning Ball (projectile).
  

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• Temporarily removed BOTs from Steam Multiplayer games as they need some additional treatment.
  
  
• Restored Bandit's Handcrossbow missing launch sound.
  

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• Updated all the original BR maps to the latest .bre format. We've done that in order to ensure that everyone plays the WOTW version of the game. We encourage all mapmakers to update all of their maps to this format.
  
  
• In order to diversify and expand the default map pool, we've made some changes:

- - Max player count increased from to 2 to 4 for the following maps:

Samana, Freedom, Inferno.

- - Max player count increased from to 4 to 8 for the following maps::

Freedom, Valley Of Death, Dragon's Coast, Forested Delta, Gateway Valley, Lost Quarry, Odyssey, Passing In The Night, Ziggurat.



The starting positions may be slightly altered now due to how the game controls them (mostly on maps that went through the "to-8" change). That's why the original versions of popular competitive maps that got close starting positions have also been preserved:

- - (4) Valley Of Death, (6) Wheeler Canyon.

If you see any unusual starting positions in some maps- let us know! As of now, we recommend setting the "Allies Nearby" option for games that have 4+ players.

- - Other maps:

- - - Plantation Plateaus- Max player count increased from 3 to 6.

- - - Twisted Fate- Max player count increased from 4 to 6.

- - - Survival- Max player count increased from 5 to 8.

- - - Wheeler Canyon- Max player count increased from 6 to 8.


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That's about it! Leaving some links in here that you may find useful:

• Report any issues you experience in this topic.
  
  
• Our BR Discord Server.
  
  
• Complete Battle Realms Info Chart.
  
  
• Battle Realms on Facebook.
  
  
• Battle Realms on Reddit.
  
  
• Battle Realms Wiki

Merry Christmas and Happy Upcoming New Year!

- The Battle Realms Team