Songs of Conquest - New Update and Map Making Contest

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Written by ValH on April 5th, 2023

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The Lavapotion team brings us a new early access update for their kingdom management RPG Songs of Conquest. This particular one focuses on the game's map editor, making it more robust and easier to use. And to celebrate this addition to the game, the developers will be running a map making contest through April 28, 2023, the winner of which will be rewarded with $1000 USD.

More on that below, alongside the full patch notes also featuring some assorted bug fixes and balance adjustments:

Greetings Wielders!

Another month, another update. This time we’ve focused on the map editor in an effort to make level creation just a bit easier for everyone! It is an important feature of Songs of Conquest. Not only it is the tool that we use to create our maps and campaigns, but it’s also something that you, the community use to create awesome maps

So what have we been up to this busy spring month? As we mentioned we have been focusing on the map editor, making sure it’s easier to work with, and updating a bunch of its features. For instance, you can now search for entities and crop maps and we have added drop-down menus for your convenience.

We have also added more features for those of you that want to create story-driven maps with objectives, just like how we create our campaign maps. Our fantastic artists have created more portraits for custom dialogues and we have thrown in an “objective group” field to story objectives, making it easier to create a series of objectives when you create your own maps. We look forward to what you will create with these new tools.

And speaking of community-created maps, to celebrate our new map editor we have just launched a competition together with mod.io, be sure to look it over on its very own steam post. You have the chance to get your map into the official Songs of Conquest map list and win some money too!

We also gave some development love to one of our experimental features, co-op. Although we aren’t done yet we made sure this got some much-sought-after improvements. For example, you can now ping each other on the mini-map and send resources.

There has also been more work done on AI, both for adventure and battle. We are proud of all the improvements made with last month's AI update and community feedback has been important for those extra additions and fixes. One of those fixes has been to change the AI behavior during sieges, now we force AI attackers in sieges against players to always be the aggressor.

We have worked a lot with unit roles and behavior and that work will continue to be important for us. This update introduces many small changes, fixes, and updates and as always we recommend reading the entire changelog down below, we promise it’s a rewarding experience.

Keep up the adventure!

/The Lavapotion team

Changelog v0.83 - March 24, 2023

Notable additions

• Added a new hierarchy view in the map editor, where all the placed map entities are listed and searchable.
• Most objects in the map editor now have tooltips and better English translations
• 33 new Random Events for the Rana faction

Notable bug fixes

• Fixed issue causing passive AI on randomly generated maps
• Fixed bug where upgrading Eth’dra could cause Dragons to exceed their max Troop Size
• Fixed bug where upgrading troops could cause upgraded troops from the pool to disappear
• Fixed bug where the AI could do actions on the adventure map while stashed in a town
• Fixed a bug where towns sometimes could not get attacked, which was also a cause for AI freezing on their turn.
• Fixed bug related to Rapid Fire spell, Onslaught spell, or Double Strike trait, where you could get stuck in Battle after killing a troop and still having attacks remaining.

Adventure

• Tweaked scouting thresholds (hostile threat levels can now be seen one tile further away than previously)
• Fixed text size problem on post adventure stats menu
• Fixed team color glow on the mini menu.
• When ejecting a wielder from a town or settlement it is automatically selected
• Don't close town interaction menu when the enemy is storing wielder in sim turns
• Updated behavior for how the camera follows wielders
• Slowed down building in progress smoke effect
• Updated cursor notification pivot to show notification left of the cursor if it's too far to the right of the screen
• Invisible “story actor” map entities no longer block movement
• Fixed being able to exceed stack size limit when upgrading troops
• Add overflowing scouted troops in pre-battle into the tooltip instead of the cover grid
• Allow aborting forced camera movements by pressing WASD or begin panning with the mouse
• Refresh town list when initiating a raze/convert the town
• Fixed town wall gates being placed underwater
• Fixed color tinting map entities not being active at map start
• If a research building is banned on a map it no longer shows up in the research menu
• Show building cost even if players don't have any available build site
• Fixed the issue of not generating an alternate valid path for the wielder when the optimal path goes through unexplored parts of the map
• The behavior is now always the same when capturing neutral settlements no matter which faction the capturing team belongs to
• Fixed showing “pillage” mouse cursor and tooltip for neutral buildings that could not be pillaged
• Fixed wielders sometimes unnecessarily move when the ground underneath them changes appearance
• Show level-up menu before joining popup after the battle

Battle

• Add retaliations to melee attack preview
• Stop reload animation after troop has ended turn the second time after firing
• Fixed battle outline null reference exception
• Increase damage of most spells
• Lower cost of Biting insects to 4
• Increase the cost of Earth block to 5
• Increase the cost of Repel to 8
• Only show equipped artifacts in battle on the wielder tooltip
• Update wielder tooltip layout
• Fixed being soft-locked after killing the initial target with troops that have additional attacks left
• Remove troop essence section in battle tooltips for troops without a wielder
• Add notification to troops that can hit again

Common

• Fix localization of codex faction headers in the building category
• Fix some troop portrait positions
• Fix localization bug in the codex research section

Map Editor

• Removed old “Island” type random map generation
• Improved mirroring when drawing using “circular mirrored” mode
• Make it possible to disable the ability to build walls in cities
• Added “objective group” field to story objectives, allowing them to be grouped as a single entry in objectives HUD in-game
• Story actors now correctly get the color used by the team selected for it
• Added a way to add custom map editor names to entities to make them searchable.
• All lists and fields in map entity properties now have a different way of drawing themselves, so they should now be more responsive
• All dropdowns now have a search bar
• Fixed issue where the area trigger grid never disappeared from a wielder spawn point once added
• You can now see where roads and walls will end up around towns and settlements in the editor
• Added keybindings, most can be found in the tooltip for each tool. Keybindings added but not found in tooltip - cycle tool context, and set brush size, and to change height when drawing terrain height.
• Added 11 neutral personas to use in dialogues
• Added tools for padding and cropping maps

Multiplayer

• Show other players’ selected teams in the lobby when the co-op is enabled
• Exploration data is now shared between allies
• Scouting is now provided by allies’ wielders and map entities
• Added a tooltip for allies’ wielders showing level, skills, troops, and equipped artifacts
• Allies can now use each other’s Beacons as teleports in co-op games
• Allies can send minimap pings to each other during co-op games by right-clicking the minimap
• Allies can now recruit their own troops from each other’s rally points during co-op games
• Allies can now send each other resources during co-op games
• Prevent showing pillaging mouse cursor and tooltips when pointing at allies’ buildings

AI - Adventure

• Fixed exception bug that happened when AI rebuilt map regions
• Fixed some guarding issues to better help the AI abort thinking in transitions to/from battle, when an AI team dies, and when the game is over.
• Fixed a bug that made it possible for AI wielders to attack across the map even if they were stored in buildings
• Remove Option creation redundancy (optimization)
• Usage of portals entirely refactored
• Map loot pocket scoring tweaks
• Removed mismatch where the AI was braver when planning long routes, but chickened out when it got close.
• Map interaction improvements
• Changed how the troops are valued by the AI when recruiting or transferring troops

AI - Battle

• Tweaked when the AI uses the Aim ability
• Increased chance of AI casting a spell during a troop round
• Removed some restrictions on AI casting spells if is has 20 or more essence in total
• If AI can afford it, it will try to fill the path of a Repel spell with Explosive Fungi
• Made AI more restrictive about using the Aegis spell
• AI should be more willing to “waste” damage in order to use Ice Bolt and Rupture more often
• Defensive AI teams are more restrictive about using Sabotage spell
• Defensive AI teams are much more restrictive about using Destroy Essence spell
• Defensive AI teams are more restrictive about using the Lethargy spell unless very early in combat
• AI is much more likely to use Entangle spell if the enemy only has one unit left
• AI no longer should cast Pacify spell as often, and not as a must cast when one enemy left
• Defensive AI teams less likely to waste Onslaught spell on troops with support roles
• Rebalanced Wait ability to work like other abilities and actions to make it viable again
• Aggressive AI teams are much less likely to use the Wait ability
• Removed elevation scoring bonus for attackers unless they are in reach of an enemy
• Added an extra elevation bonus when occupying a hex next to an enemy
• Fixed the bug of troops not being able to just stay in place if they had a valid melee target that was too dangerous to attack
• Force AI attackers in sieges against players to always be the aggressor
• Increased the aggressiveness of a team without a wielder meeting a team with a wielder
• Added a “no retreat” penalty to discourage aggressive attackers to retreat toward the back edge of the map
• Added a “retreat” bonus to encourage passive defenders to retreat toward the back edge of the map for certain troop roles
• Tweaked down the fear of damage for troops with supportive roles for teams with high aggression

Audio

• Don’t trigger wielder death sounds from opponents in the fog

Random Map Generator

• Tweaked random faction chance for random hostiles and should now be more varied

Misc

• Change the percentage of beacons needed to win from 70% to 64%

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