Songs of Conquest Update 0.82.5 Available

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Written by ValH on March 7th, 2023

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The main focus of the latest early access update for Lavapotion's Heroes of Might and Magic-inspired kingdom management RPG Songs of Conquest lies in making the game's AI craftier when it comes to both adventure map exploration and combat.

And beyond just that, the update also introduces the ability to choose where to go when using a portal or a Beacon, adds a new two-player skirmish map, lets us preview the damage our spells will do in combat, and fixes a number of bugs.

Here's more on that, plus the actual patch notes:

Greetings Wielders!

It’s time for another update and yet again it’s filled to the brim with all manner of news and improvements. The focus this time has been on upgrading the AI and making sure that it offers you a more exciting challenge, especially when you are facing enemy Wielders in battle.

Even though AI has been the focus, it's far from the only thing worth mentioning in this update. The team has done some amazing things and we can’t wait for you to experience them firsthand.

We are proceeding as planned, following our roadmap, and as always there are tons of things happening that are not listed in the update. We are looking forward to releasing stuff like more unit abilities and a whole new campaign in the months to come.

So let’s talk about AI. Our devs have been more than busy so it will be impossible to go into depth in every single detail. We recommend reading the full release notes by scrolling down. But let’s look at some highlights.

The computer is now much more efficient when it comes to planning their adventure map movement. The AI should no longer leave obvious low-hanging fruit, easy claimable map objects untouched. It will save up their money to buy bigger units of troops so that their expeditions can last longer and push deeper into your lands.

Do you know how you sometimes pat yourself on the back after using a successful repel and explosive fungi combination? Well now the AI knows how to use that ability too! This update brings many changes, including implementing repel and swap into the AI wielder’s repertoire.

It has also gotten a lot better at knowing if and when to use its spells, like keeping those dangerous damage spells to the end to really use them efficiently.

The AI also got a lot better at both defending and attacking. It will no longer needlessly attack its fortifications or obstacles and will try not to waste those high-damage class cannons before they get a chance to prove their worth!

So what's new besides all that awesome AI stuff? We added an option to pick where you want to teleport, this was created for Beacons but works for portals too if set in the map editor. This makes Beacons even more interesting to Claim, like cutting off an enemy from returning to their own area before you attack and more easily transporting across your realm.

Another skirmish map has entered the lists. Rags to riches is a small map for two players, designed to take you from poverty to wealth, competing for those precious resources.

A cool surprise addition to the game is something we call spell dmg preview. Designed to help you plan spell usage better and to more clearly show the effect your spells will have in battle. It even includes and shows things like spell resistance!

But the list goes on. This is a huge update and one we are very proud of. Let us know what you think and tell us about your experiences with the new additions and the improved AI. The road ahead is packed with awesome content. We will have interviews with developers, a map-making contest together with mod.io, and more besides. We want to know what you are looking forward to!

Keep up the adventure!

/The Lavapotion team

Changelog 0.82.5

Notable additions

• Add teleport functionality to beacons of power
• Allow teleports to have more than one destination using a teleport menu
• Add damage preview for spells in battle
• New Skirmish map: Rags to Riches

Notable bug fixes

• Buy button sometimes not working when recruiting units
• Common game-breaking exception when killing last AI wielder
• Aura abilities not doing anything
• Exception when killing final troop with acid cloud or explosive fungi
• Ai not able to pillage dwellings and gets stuck when interacting with them
• Dragons disappearing after upgrading in draft menu
• Can’t attack town with walls if occupied
• RMG maps should no longer have inaccessible loot areas or blocked roads
• Adventure - Can no longer walk through undiscovered tiles with wielders
• Fixed regression of “story actors” not being interactable in people’s custom maps

Adventure

• Fixed bug making it possible to pathfind through unexplored tiles
• Fixed not being able to interact with “story actor” map entities
• Fixed some invisible “story actor” map entities being spoiled by mouse over tooltips
• Fixed exception that happens when pressing “Accept” in the post-battle menu after defeating the last wielder and winning the game
• Fixed long standing bug whose most common symptom was when trying to claim a lookout tower using the wielder’s very last movement you would only get a message about the pretty view but not actually claim it (also you paid too much movement to do it)
• Fixed bug where artifact market close sound was played when ending turn
• Fix bug where player couldn't purchase troops after selling a building and building a new of same type
• Fix team color in movable troop UI when splitting troops
• Fix ESC/C hotkey not working after moving an artifact in the inventory
• Show team name in pre battle menu in multiplayer
• “Mini menu” (the menu when clicking owned buildings) is now closed when right clicking
• Add notification when destroying artifact in inventory
• Add move all buttons to defense menu
• Update lots of UI for elder dragons and trigger related tutorials
• Fixed incorrect wielder “race plus class” text combinations in some languages
• Add available troops (if any) to owned adventure map entity tooltips
• Add highlights to inventory slots of correct type when hovering artifacts
• Add highlight animation to newly purchased or equipped artifacts
• Show notification when trying to walk into unexplored terrain in adventure
• Show notification when trying to walk without a valid path in adventure
• A few Random Events will now reward you with Essence

Battle

• Fixed abilities buffing nearby troops not having an effect
• Fixed bug where it was possible to select an invalid target hex for troop abilities and ending up in a weird UI state
• Fixed movement outlines briefly flashing before troop attacks
• Fixed a bunch of buffs not showing up as “buff arrows” in troop stack panels
• Add looping scaling to entangle VFX. It was very hard to see on some troops
• Common
• Removed subtitle text that was mistakenly showing at the beginning of all cutscenes
• Multiplayer
• Fixed exception when clearing “random seed” value in map settings

AI - Adventure

• Enabled usage of movement buff entities
• Enhanced terrain analysis to detect “pockets” in the map in order to clear out the map better
• Should not turn home as often (unless threatened) to recruit but instead be better at saving up for bigger purchases less often.
• Fixed bug related to neutral dwellings and pillage
• Barya AI has more efficient build plans for their towns
• Fixed Adventure AI sometimes ignores unclaimed towns and settlements
• Troop recruitment improvements
• Fixes for AI becoming too passive in later stages of large maps

AI - Battle

• Added implementation for spells Repel and Swap
• Added implementation for a Repel into Explosive Fungi spell
• Should now be much better knowing when to use, and not to use most spells
• Should use more damage spells to kill off enemy units, especially towards the end of a battle
• Tries to avoid attacking or moving in battle if it would result in instant death when it’s better to just stand still
• Split the AI roles of attacker and defender into five different ones to better represent different play styles based on troop composition and wielder stats
• Added specific roles to all troops to help differentiate and balance their behavior
• Melee are troops now much better at defending ranged troops when playing defensively
• Deadly but weak troops should now be better at keeping safe until they can strike first
• Should be better at actually defending a siege if the AI sees it as the best option
• Should no longer attack blocking map entities in sieges when AI wants to defend behind them
• Should smash through blocking map entities in sieges when AI do want to make a sortie
• Should no longer attack random map entities that make no sense attacking
• Add ability to cast Entangle spell

Audio

• New Barya building sounds added

Random Map Generator

• Fixed issue causing paths to sometimes be blocked by spawned entities, this should now be less frequent
• Fixed issue causing some areas being inaccessible due to environment edges
• Updated blueprint, entities should now be more varied overall and starting areas have been balanced for a better experience. A new region has also been added to the blueprint, treasure_low.

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