Hi everyone! Apologies that this was delayed from our initial end of July target. With this update, the game's full structure is complete, paving the way to final gameplay balance and tweaks, and then hopefully more content after we launch 1.0 (albeit at a slower pace).

One major issue remaining is the rudimentary state of base building, which will be a focus of the last pre-1.0 update. The game isn't really a base building game at its core so we don't intend to expand on this significantly but we agree that it needs to be much more user-friendly to customize your territory if you want to.

New Victory Condition

We've introduced the new Goals tab on the top menu. The Goals tab consists of six Goal categories, each having multiple thematically-related tasks. Winning the game is now quite straightforward - the player must just complete 13 of any of these tasks. This allows for some flexibility regardless of your Archetype.

As usual with these new features, it would take a few iterations to balance - new tasks may be introduced, numbers may be tweaked, etc. The current version is probably going to be quite easy for veterans. At the same time it would give new players some ideas about what's doable in the game. PRO-TIP: Hovering over each Task will give hints on how to accomplish it.

Once this is in a much more final state, a portion of the Spirit Energy needed to upgrade the Portal will then also come from completing these tasks.

Expanded Portal Upgrades

Victory is no longer directly linked to upgrading your Portal but the tasks you can accomplish are still dependent on the Powers you unlock. So we had to tweak this a bit. As you reach Portal level 6, you will now get to choose from some of the most useful Powers from the other Archetypes. This should give players more tools overall and should allow them to accomplish more Tasks regardless of their Archetype. Portal Level 7 used to be simply the Victory Condition. Now, unlocking it will also provide new Powers from the other Archetypes as well.

In a way, this also reflects how the Ruinarch player is getting back their full potential as the Portal's connection to the world gets firmer.

Updated Powers

We've went through some of the more boring spells and introduced some ways to make them either more useful, or just more fun.

Manifest Food

There are two new actions players can do with the Food produced by Manifest Food.

First is Lure. You can lure a Stored Target so that they will be forced to go and eat the Food. They have to be within a certain distance for this to work, though.

Second is Infuse. Use this to apply a negative effect on whoever eats it. You can choose from Bloated, Food Coma or Rabid. Infuse becomes available at Manifest Food Level 3.

Locust Swarm and Poison Cloud

You can now control the direction of the last casted Locust Swarm or Poison Cloud. It will follow the mouse cursor if you move it close enough to them.

Brimstone

We added more of a fun effect for Brimstone rather than something super useful. It now leaves behind Cinders on the ground it hits. These Cinders continue to spread fire to adjacent tiles but can be removed when hit by Water or Ice elements. As you upgrade Brimstone, it becomes immune to these elements as well, until at Level 4, it even explodes and deals damage when hit.

Iceteroids

We added more of a fun effect for Iceteroids rather than something super useful. It now leaves behind Ice Blocks on the ground it hits. These Ice Blocks obstruct movement and can only be removed when hit by Fire or Lightning elements. As you upgrade Iceteroids, it becomes immune to these elements as well, until at Level 4, it even explodes and deals damage when hit.

Earthquake

Earthquakes are now meant to be extremely powerful against structures but pretty useless against living beings. Structures will always get destroyed by Earthquakes. It doesn't deal damage to Villagers, except if they are within a structure that it destroyed. In that case, they will instantly die as the building crumbles over them.

Splash Water

Splash Water will now wake up sleeping Villagers and make them Irate. Villagers are also now unlikely to sleep on Wet beds.

Ward Lights

This is just a small tweak on how Villagers get alerted about hostiles in their Village. Before, anyone entering could instantly trigger the alert. Now, these Ward Lights serve the role of setting off the alarm. Any hostile that enters its range will alarm the Village and wake up some combatants to defend.

Localization Progress

We have completed our localization text and it is now being translated to different languages. The following will be available in the next update:

• German
• Simplified Chinese
• French
• Japanese
• Spanish (LatAm)
• Polish
• Turkish

Tweaks

• Migrations will no longer occur within 3 hours of losing all Major Factions.
• When new migrants arrive, there is now a chance that they won't occupy abandoned Villages. This will increase the frequency of abandoned Villages getting permanently destroyed.
• Increased rate of Preach action.
• Reduced relationship decrease when Preach fails.
• When you share Intel about assault by hostile characters, the recipient will attack the hostile if it is nearby and its assault target is an Acquaintance, Friend or Close Friend of theirs.
• Unoccupied landmarks will now last up to 5 days (previously 3).
• Added description for Hallowed Ground.
• HP damage dealt to objects will now also be displayed similar to HP damage to characters.
• Added a new setting to adjust Log limit. This will adjust how many events are stored by the game. Reducing the Log limit may help performance issues.
• Placing lumberyard and mine should not take into consideration existing blueprint limit.
• Cultists will no longer destroy manifested Food.
• Criminal Cultist Leaders will no longer join the Bandits faction.
• Entering public structures will no longer be considered Trespassing.
• Because spawning them are required Victory-related Tasks, you can no longer select Lycan or Vampire Clan as starting Factions.
• Mushrooms taken from caves will now eventually respawn.
• Spooked Villagers are now much less likely to sleep.
• Adjusted volume of Migration Events.

Bug Fixes

• [FIXED] Sometimes, when a Villager leaves a party, the reason text is blank.
• [FIXED] Landon did not earn any money after bringing a wolf back from hunting quest.
• [FIXED] Blank relationship label.
• [FIXED] Divine and Nature Cults have their Faction Info unlocked by default.
• [FIXED] Sometimes, hovering over an empty tile will display tooltip related to a non-existent object.
• [FIXED] There is an empty notification related to Heatwave death.
• [FIXED] A pet Wyvern joined the Demon Cult faction but its master did not.
• [FIXED] Wrong reaction when assaulting Monster Spawner.
• [FIXED] Susan was raised as a skeleton while being carried by another skeleton.
• [FIXED] Hunters are picking up wolfs already placed in the city center instead of the freshly killed wolves in the den.
• [FIXED] Turning a faction into a demon cultist faction does not decrease the number of existing faction.
• [FIXED] Witches that increase chaotic energy cost can be killed to reduce costs again, but when reloading after killing them, the costs go back to being increased.
• [FIXED] Faction exclusive to Female but there are males in the faction.
• [FIXED] Two non-combatants are stuck due to pathing issues.
• [FIXED] Cultist keeps releasing the target of Snatch Villager.
• [FIXED] Repeated log entries called "[Village Name] has completely fallen into ruins."
• [FIXED] Whole village disappeared even though a faction resides in it.
• [FIXED] Error sometimes occurs when storing a city center as target.
• [FIXED] Various errors that causes the game to get stuck.
• [FIXED] Various loading errors.
• [FIXED] Various incomplete text replacement errors.