Greetings, warriors!

A new update aimed at improving the gameplay experience is now out. Let's see what's this all about.

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• We've sorted out the crashing issues related to multiplayer games (see below).
  
  
• Added a new mini-map fix toggleable in Battle_Realms.ini (configuration file). You can find it under the [VideoState] section of the .ini file.
  
  [VideoState] MinimapAlt = 1
  It is optional, generally you would want to use it if you experience critical mini-map problems related mainly to modern GPUs' lack of DX7 support.
  
  ☯ Technical:
  
  
• Players joining Steam MP rooms won't see any room information or chats until the joining is complete (Stability Fix).
  
  
• Joining process regarding Steam MP has been greatly improved. The game will no longer crash when starting an MP match, and it will handle multiple players joining at once better than it used to.
  
  
• Fixed FPS issues related to Musketeers attacking terrain or trees.
  
  ☯ Gameplay:
  
  Balance Tweaks:
  
  
• Straight line projectiles won't be affected by height advantage/disadvantage. This means units with missile weapons that fire projectiles in a straight line (warlocks, musketeers etc.) will deal the same damage no matter the height difference.
  
  
• Dragon Spearman: The piercing animations (when not on horse) are now more frequent and deal more damage.
  
• Dragon Battle Maiden: Mirror image BG won't count as population.
  
• Serpent Swordsman: The piercing damage animation will now have less of a chance to play.
  
• Serpent Fan Geisha: if Razor Fan BG is activated, they won't automatically heal units unless manually ordered to.
  
• Serpent Necromancer: Necromancer will now deal blunt damage as he was always supposed to.
  
  General:
  
  
• Improved auto-healing behavior for Geishas. If their target is already on full health, Geishas won't waste a healing animation on them (this is convenient when sending multiple geishas to heal a single unit and all of them performing the healing animation).
  
• Pack Wolves will follow Wolf Pack Master's moving behavior (if PM walks, wolves walk too, same with running).
  
• Blinded units won't respond to missile attacks or scan for targets.
  
• All non-Lotus units riding Shadow Steeds won't regenerate hit points.
  
• Fixed some exploits that allowed all peasants to skip horse taming animations.
  
• Fixed a leftover-bug that applied BG damage to horses twice.
  
• Fixed Serpent Clan population bug that occurred when players reached maximum population when having Necromancer created zombies.
  
• Fixed a bug that gave peasant generation rate a small boost every time a zombie died.
  
• UnitAI: Improved pathing when chasing a target.
  
• AI peasants will not go back to their original base if they had to relocate, AI will even destroy some buildings to relocate them to a new location.
  
• If AI is being attacked and outnumbered, it will call upon their closest ally AI for aid.
  
• If outnumbered AI will rush to defend its base (before that, the AI armies would just peacefully stroll back, oftentimes to an absolutely disintegrated base).

Miscellaneous info:

  

Join the official server for the game, the universe and the community if you haven't. Discord has proven to be a very helpful and fun program to use for us (as developers), so we're quite keen on maintaining our server.

Populated by nearly 4000 warriors, it is a solid communication bridge between us and all of you.
If you're having issues, planning to report a bug or just want to learn something new about the game and communicate with other fans or even developers -- we'd like to see you there, come around!

• Report any issues you experience in this topic.
  
  
• Complete Battle Realms Info Guide.

• On Youtube.
  
  
• On Facebook.
  
  
• On Reddit.
  
  
• On Twitter.
  
  
• On Twitch.

Greetings, warriors!

We're releasing yet another small update that fixes a bunch of known issues... Thank you everybody who reached out to us via Discord, Steam Forums and Support Mail, your help is greatly appreciated! Without further ado, let's get right into it.

---

☯ Technical:
• Reduced a number of crashes and bugs related to the joining process in Steam Multiplayer.
  
  
• Fixed the in-game timer, it will now display the real game time independent from the game speed setting.
  
  
• Fixed a check that was performed when accessing the "Multiplayer" screen. Although rarely, that used to cause crashes for certain players.
  
  ☯ Gameplay:
  
  
• Garrin horses can no longer be stolen when they're on their way to him (Call Horse Battle Gear).
  
  
• Horses will be granted all techniques previously researched by a player when their units mount them: this originally happened only when horses were taken from stables, now it will happen with any horse be that the ones called by Garrin or the ones stolen on the battlefield.
  
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed horses to keep moving when a player commanded their units to dismount.
  
  
• Fixed a bug that "triggered" horses to attack and spit fire under certain circumstances.
  
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented combat units from interacting with buildings on fire (any training buildings, stables and watchtowers).
  
  
• Fixed a bug that rendered the stables softlocked after loading save games. Now, the fix prevents the bug from ever happening, but if it you have a savegame where it had already happened, the stables will remain softlocked.
  
  
• AI controlled Bandits can now loot corpses.
  
  
• Doubled the lifetime for all units' corpses, they will now disappear slower.

Miscellaneous info:

  

Discord has proven to be a very helpful and fun program to use for us, so we're quite keen on maintaining it and have it as a bridge between us and the community. It's already populated by more than 3000 members!

If you're having issues, planning to report a bug or just want to learn something new about the game and communicate with others - we'd like to see you there, come around!

• Report any issues you experience in this topic.
  
  
• Complete Battle Realms Info Guide.

• On Youtube.
  
  
• On Facebook.
  
  
• On Reddit.
  
  
• On Twitter.
  
  
• On Twitch.

Greetings, warriors!

We're releasing a small update that fixes a bunch of issues.... and introduces some neat stuff!

---

We've received a bunch of reports in regards to 100% sync error rate in Multiplayer games vs AI for certain people, this is now fixed! Thank you everyone for reporting! ːlunar2020halodragonː

---

This has been requested since a very long time and we're finally able to provide something that we think is very nice. Introducing... Advanced Tool Tips!



Now you can hover over any unit portrait and, instead of just seeing their name, you will also see their attack type, their weaknesses and their resistances if they have any. The best thing? It works even on enemy units!

We're not stopping here and this is to be further improved as well as certain other aspects of the game.

---

We no longer require netlogs to be sent to us, thank you to everyone who sent us their reports, once again.

Please, delete your NetLogs folder located in the core folder of the game, you can get there by following the steps shown on the screenshot below:

---

☯ Technical:
• Fixed the countdown timer (popup) when joining a room from the lobby.
  
  
• Reduced the joining timer from 60 seconds to 30 seconds for steam MP games.
  
  
• Fixed a bug that made lobbies disappear when joining was failed.
  
  
• Reduced INFO spam, it won't repeat itself on every player joining.
  
  
• The game will now show a message when someone is attempting to join (Steam MP).
  
  
• Fixed the country disappearing when re-ordering lobby list (Steam MP).
  
  
• Rooms in the lobby are now sorted by closest distance by default (Steam MP).
  
  ☯ Gameplay:
  
  
• Introduced Advanced Tooltips.
  
  
• Fixed a bug that caused desyncs for some players when playing against AI.
  
  
• Enemy AI units will be revealed in campaign if they don't have any combat buildings, just like in the 'Survival' game mode!
  
  
• Fixed the game timer not showing on wolf console.
  
  
• Made magic objects (Death Sentry, Wolf Totem, Cursed Swords etc.) to be prioritized over combat units, this changes makes those objects easily destroyable as it should've been since the beginning.
  
  
• Death Sentry will now be able to penetrate Lotus Staff Adept's Dark Canopy and Dragon Samurai's Dragon Skin now.
  
  
• Fixed Shinja being afk in campaign under certain circumstances.
  
  
• Improved units re-engaging their enemies when commanded to run away without Ctrl (force move) key. Disengagement process should be easier now.
  
  
• Fixed a bug on Geishas' healing: they couldn't be stopped if they ran to heal because of the fix we introduced in the previous patch, now players can prevent them from running to heal, but will still be unable to cancel their healing animation.
  
  
• Improved context for attack cursor: now, when in forced attack mode, if you hover over a boulder it will provide proper visual feedback (yes, you can attack boulders!).
  
  
• Water spots can no longer be attacked by units.
  
  
• Fixed a bug that made 'hybrid' units (Kabuki, Dragon Warrior, Samurai, Bandit) "wait" when they were forced to attack in missile.
  
  
• Fixed the difficulty setting in campaign in regards to AI Profiles, previously all profiles were being always set to "normal".
  
  
• Fixed a bug that made horses 'aggressive' when attacked by missile weapons.
  
  This led to some unpredictable horse behavior. A user by the name of highluffy sent us a clip from one of their multiplayer matches. We thought it was extra funny and decided to share it with you:
  
  
  
  Of course it had to be tackled as soon as possible, so it is no longer a thing.

Miscellaneous info:

  

Discord has proven to be a very helpful and fun program to use for us, so we're quite keen on maintaining it and have it as a bridge between us and the community. It's already populated by more than 3000 members!

If you're having issues, planning to report a bug or just want to learn something new about the game and communicate with others - we'd like to see you there, come around!

• Report any issues you experience in this topic.
  
  
• Complete Battle Realms Info Guide.

• On Youtube.
  
  
• On Facebook.
  
  
• On Reddit.
  
  
• On Twitter.
  
  
• On Twitch.

Greetings, warriors!

We're releasing a small update to accompany the big release of 1.57.4. Some things introduced in that update got polished, some exploits in the game got fixed. Take a look!

---

For the longest time members of the Wolf Clan have suffered from their inability to ride horses. Now, any Wolf unit or hero can attack tamed horses without riders and make them run away!

---

☯ Technical:
• Fixed a visual bug that sometimes distorted the menu.
  
  
• Forced the game to not override player difficulty settings when loading a save game.

☯ Gameplay:
• Fixed a bug that allowed peasants to interact with buildings on fire (without extinguishing it) through a rally point set from an active peasant hut (spawning).
  

  ---

  Previously this allowed peasants to train in combat buildings, take horses from stables and man watchtowers that were on fire.
  
  Now, peasants will no longer be able to 'disregard' all the fire that's consuming buildings. Upon spawning from their huts, if the really point is set to any building on fire, peasants will first go to extinguish it and only then interact with it.
  
  Also, with this change, you can pretty much automate any extinguishing procedures. But keep in mind that any peasants that 'rallied' to extinguish a building will then interact with it. :)

  ---

  
  
• Forced units to avoid idle-ing in combat.
  

  ---

  We've been fighting this one for a while. If you still see units idling mid-combat., please provide a save-game or a video file in any of the bug-report threads.

  ---

  
  
• Fixed an animation-cancel exploit related to Geisha healing.
  
  
• Fixed a Dragon Geisha issue when she was regenerating stamina while performing healing.
  
  
• Fixed peasants not being able to deliver horses to non-full stables/wolves den (this happened when 2 or more stables/dens were in play).
  
  
• Fixed stamina regeneration when dismounting a horse.
  

  ---

  Update 1.57.4 did the same but on mounting. Those two combined together allowed certain players to exploit mount/dismount actions that rendered their units invincible (they would loop between mount/dismount) while their horses regenerated stamina for trampling/running away.

  ---

  
  
• Fixed horses sometimes running away when units were dismounting them.
  
  
• Fixed stolen horses being damaged by friendly Battle Gears.
  
  
• Fixed horses being tamed forever, never becoming wild after some time.
  
  
• Fixed docking exploit that allowed putting peasants into Serpent's Necromancer Throne and Dragon Monument and activating them.

Miscellaneous info:

  

Discord has proven to be a very helpful and fun program to use for us, so we're quite keen on maintaining it and have it as a bridge between us and the community. It's already populated by more than 3000 members!

If you're having issues, planning to report a bug or just want to learn something new about the game and communicate with others - we'd like to see you there, come around!

• Report any issues you experience in this topic.
  
  
• Complete Battle Realms Info Guide.

• On Youtube.
  
  
• On Facebook.
  
  
• On Reddit.
  
  
• On Twitter.
  
  
• On Twitch.

Greetings, warriors!

Another month gone, another update is ready to take off! We've had a lot to deal with this month: fixing some of the more obvious issues with the game, addressing player feedback, figuring out what we want to achieve with this project in the future, updating our social media presence... and a lot more.

This update is bringing a couple major changes to the gameplay as you know it since we're restoring and reintroducing the mechanics that previously refused to work. So please, bear with us, let's go through everything at once.

  

---

That's right, unlocked by popular request. However, it is still experimental and is only available and set in the Battle_Realms.ini file found in the core game folder. If you don't know how to get there, please, see #6 in our official troubleshooting guide. We will need your feedback on how it performs!

---

---

By tradition, AMD GPU (videocard only) users who rely on dgvoodoo2 to have the best possible BR experience will have to take some extra steps in order to make it function properly, but we've done most of the work for you and came up with a new config!

If you're an AMD GPU (videocard only) user, grab {LINK REMOVED}our latest dgvoodo2 config right now for users with AMD videocards, more information can be found in the troubleshooting guide (#6).

---

---

Now this is something that definitely spices up the horseplay in the game...

A little bit of backstory: In the legacy version of Battle Realms horses acted as an (mostly) impenetrable shield for the units that mounted them, that was because of a bug in the code. Originally any damage dealt to a unit on a horse was supposed to be distributed across the rider and the horse according to the percentage set in the database file.

The code, however, skipped an important check resulting in horses always taking 100% of the incoming damage from everything. On top of that, the AoE damage dealt by such Battle Gears as Soul Chill, Whirling Spear, Wrecking Ball etc. woud apply to the horse twice, which effectively made horses extremely weak against AoE Battle Gears.

---

---

We restored the code, making the damage distribution work as it was always supposed to, the bug with double damage application was also fixed.

All of that combined makes horses... much less fragile than they used to be, however each clan has a set of Battle Gears to effectively counter horses or damage the rider much more than the horse. We're not gonna spoil a lot, so discover on your own!

Melee attacks - 75% damage to horse, 25% to rider. Missile attacks - 25% damage to horse, 75% to rider. AoE Battle Gears- Percentage varies. For example, Serpent Raider's Caltrops BG will distribute 100% of damage to horse, while Serpent Musketeer with Sniper Scope will distribute 100% of damage to rider instead.

That will cause a bit of chaos in the game's balance, so please, lets us know your thoughts regarding this change.

---

---

Many of you probably caught themselves hearing blunt damage audio feedback on Dragon Spearman's or Kenji's kicks, piercing damage audio feedback on Serpent Swordsman's poking attacks etc. And you probably asked yourself, "Do these units sometimes attack with a different damage type?".

Well, wonder no more! The answer is no, the unit damage type stays the same no matter the animation. Many units in Battle Realms are actually wired to deal damage types based on their animations; however, they were limited to dealing only one damage type by the code... up until today!

---

---

After continuous discussions within the team and proper analysis by Ed Del Castillo himself, we've decided to lift this limitation and restore yet another unique feature BR was supposed to offer.

We understand this will cause a shift in the game's balance because it directly adds an RNG factor that being the randomization of animations thus damage types, but this also adds more flavor to BR combat and the game as a whole. We will most likely be improving this system as the time goes.

---

---

This has been delayed many times, but for a reason! We're now releasing this to you along with a short story...

Out of all high-poly models (currently unlocked by the 'High' Level of Detail in Options), the Wolf ones were the most outdated. They were much different in design compared to their low-poly counterparts, surely that is something we were quite eager to fix because it just didn't look right. Not only those models were dated in their looks, but some didn't even have proper masks or the 'Shale Armor Equipped' texture that indicated the units wielded their iconic armor.



They indeed have many more polygons, but you can see some things are amiss: hair form and color, Berserker's shield... These models were made before the clan design got finalized, so this is the result. Using the good ol' Liquid tools, we were able to update them using the existing files in the game. Some things are impossible to change (like the hair) without reworking the model completely, so we touched only what we could surely fix.



While the base models weren't really changed (besides mask textures, hair color and Berserker's apparel), we added shale armor variations for Brawler, Pack Master and Berserker. Grayback received a pickaxe update and, together with Longtooth, got updated mask textures.

You might've noticed we also changed the texture on the pack wolf. That is the original high-res texture straight from the year 2000, a real treasure! We did some spelunking, yes.

Remember- this is only available if you select 'High' Level of Detail in Options. For reference, if you select 'Very High' LoD, you get the original low-poly BR unit models:



It is done for a reason, we know it's a bit messy, but we will change that in the future updates.

---

1.57.4 Changelog:

  

• Fixed the High DPI scaling issue that made the game render outside of the screen, resulting in an extremely zoomed view.
  
• Game can now be played in a window (see more in Highlights above).
  
• Fixed game rooms not properly updating settings in the main lobby screen.
  
• Fixed lobby refresh time (now it updates upon on an interval).
  
• Fixed lobby selection getting reset when the game list was updated.

• Fixed horse/rider damage distribution for weapons and battle gears (see more in Highlights above).
  
• Fixed horses getting damaged twice by AoE damage (see more in Highlights above).
  
• Fixed an exploit that allowed to tame horses faster by partially skipping the peasant taming animation.
  
• Fixed battle gears that are supposed to be 'melee' type, like Dragon Spearman's Whirling Spear, Wolf Werewolf's Wolf Bite and such (As a result of this change, such 'melee' type BGs now penetrate Lotus Staff Adept's Dark Canopy or Dragon Samurai's Dragon Skin because the latter two were always supposed to protect from projectile attacks only).
  
• Fixed a bug that made golems (and sometimes peasants) go idle when harvesting or collecting water.
  
• Fixed units sometimes refusing to train in combat buildings.
  
• Fixed magic objects (Death Sentry, Totem, Scorched Earth etc.) not being identified as attackable under certain circumstances (the most vivid example of this is Death Sentry on the water).
  
• Fixed unit attachments being rendered separately from units under certain circumstances (like entering buildings).
  
• Fixed Lotus Shadow Steed "Symbiosis" Visual FX when its rider is killed.
  
• Zymeth and Lotus Clan Watchtowers won't cast lightnings on enemy units stationed in their watchtowers. This used to happen before resulting in both wasting their lightnings.
  
• Lotus Reapers won't reset their attack animation when performing execution (innate ability).
  
• And most importantly... Golems are now able to run! They didn't do that in vanilla because of a bug.

  

• Reduced responsiveness delay for multiplayer games, offline games will have no delay at all.
  
• Targetable Battle Gears (Death Sentry, Smoke Bomb, Scorched Earth etc.) will now take into account the run order (ALT + Use Battle Gear action). Previously units ignored the run order when activating their Battle Gears resulting in them just walking and losing time.
  
• Improved unit disengagement-chase behavior (they won't run around a unit they're chasing, wasting their stamina).
  
• Peasants will always choose rice patches that are the closest to nearby huts when harvesting rice.
  
• If the base is under attack, the game will play a restored sound FX alert.
  
• Restored hybrid damage based on unit animations (see more in Highlights above).
  
• Reduced collision radius on units.
  
• Game time is now visible on the UI panel (near the resource counter!). This replaces the previously available !time console command.
  
• Restored realistic water animation. This will make water more 'wobbly' than it already was. Don't stare at it for too long or you are going to get dizzy!
  
• Peasants will now always try to deliver horses to the stables closest to them if multiple stables are built.
  
• Tamed horses will face their target when doing their battle gear action. For example, Lotus Shadow Steed will now breath directly on a building, greatly increasing its chances to set it on fire.
  
• Tamed horses won't regenerate stamina if units are in the process of mounting them (only when getting on the horse, this is done to reduce the mount/dismount exploit until we find a better solution).
  
• Tamed horses without riders will now trample if under attack or run away whenever convenient.
  
  
  Journeys (Campaign):
• Increased Nightvol's hordeling spawn chance.
  
• Added effect to Nightvol when spawning hordelings.
  
  
  AI:
• AI will keep group pathing when moving a war party (it won't send units one by one to attack or to reach strategic points, the whole formation will move as one group).
  
• AI will wait until units regenerate their health before moving or relocating war parties (this prevents AI sending severely harmed units back to battle).
  
• AI lotus won't eat golems using Tier 2 units in order to obtain Battle Gears.

  

We've begun looking into the game balance, every update will basically bring a bunch of tweaks to certain things in the game.

• Wolf Brawler now deals twice as much damage per hit on his '5 hit combo' animation. Finally Brawler lives up to his character!
  
• Lotus Brother Sehk's Yin score generation has been reduced from 5 to 1 (1 per each projectile = 5 score points in total). This Brother would generate Yin quicker than the other Brothers because of this dev oversight (generating 5 score per 1 projectile, resulting in 25 score points per 1 attack compared to the other two brothers' 5 points per 1 attack).
  
• Serpent Musketeers' damage to buildings was reduced by 50%.
  
• Serpent Musketeers' hitpoints were reduced from 240 to 210.
  
• Serpent Musketeers' Armor Multiplier against Blunt type of damage was changed from 0,5 to 1, meaning they will take full 100% damage from blunt attacks.
  
• Dragon Spirit (Dragon Monument's Unique Ability) will now penetrate Staff Adept's Dark Canopy and Dragon Samurai's Dragon Skin.

  

Discord has proven to be a very helpful and fun program to use for us, so we're quite keen on maintaining it and have it as a bridge between us and the community. It's already populated by more than 3000 members!

If you're having issues, planning to report a bug or just want to learn something new about the game and communicate with others - we'd like to see you there, come around!

  

Miscellaneous info:

• Report any issues you experience in this topic.
  
  
• Complete Battle Realms Info Guide.
  
  
  Follow Battle Realms:
  
  
• On Youtube.
  
  
• On Facebook.
  
  
• On Reddit.
  
  
• On Twitter.
  
  
• On Twitch.

- Fixed the synchronization error that would occur when players left mid-match.
- Removed the GameSpy codebase due to it becoming obsolete, tidying up the code.

Greetings, warriors!

Thanks to everyone who shared their NetLogs to help us track down sync errors, and those reported various bugs that the game liked to boast. We're slowly but surely polishing things up, another update is now ready to be released...

1.57.3 Changelog:

• Replaced password feature with 'private lobbies' (steam exclusive) with according interface changes.
  
  You can now choose if you want to create a private or a public lobby by ticking/unticking the 'Private Lobby' option. Private lobbies are only joinable via friend invite (done through your Steam friend list) and are not visible in the general Steam multiplayer lobby.
  
  
• Redesigned lobby screen:
  
  - Fixed a visual bug that resulted in misplacements between text rows.
  - Moved country tag from the game name to a separate column.
  - The last column will now show if the game is started or not.
  
  
• Reduced chances for sync errors to occur when players prematurely leave a match.
  
• Fixed crashes on maps that contained a lot of visual effects and wild life.
  
  

Understandably not many are aware of this, but Battle Realms employs a "Siege Damage System" which is related to how effective a unit is against buildings. However, that only worked for melee units and was, for some reason, disabled for missile units, which resulted in several techniques in the game simply not working (Serpent Cannoneer's "Steel Cannonballs" in the Sharpshooters Guild) or partially working (Dragon Chemist's "Phosphorous Powder" in the Alchemist Hut).

The most notable example of a "siege unit" you know is the Wolf Clan Sledger who eats buildings for breakfast. Basically, a melee focused "siege unit" would deal full base weapon damage to any building where as the same "non-siege unit" would deal 50% of that damage.

We have now made that system work for missile units albeit with some little tweaks. From now on, any missile focused "non-siege unit" will deal 25% less damage to any buildings, where as a missile focused "siege unit" will deal its full normal damage.



Keep in mind that buildings in Battle Realms also have Armor Multipliers, same as units:

Cutting AM - 0,5 - All buildings take 50% damage from cutting attacks.
Piercing AM - 0,25 - All buildings take 25% damage from piercing attacks.
Blunt AM - 0,75 - All buildings take 75% damage from blunt attacks.
Explosive AM - 1 - All buildings take 100% damage from explosive attacks.
Magical AM - 0,75 - All buildings take 75% damage from magic attacks.
Fire AM - 0,25 - All buildings take 25% damage from fire attacks (compensated by fire point damage e.g. Fire consuming buildings).

This makes missile units less effective against buildings unless they're "siege units", which is how the original developers were planning to make it work, but for some reason didn't. The system is now back in the game and affects missile units as it should, the mentioned techniques were rebalanced and now work as intended.

New Siege Damage System changes:

• Non-siege missile units will now deal 25% less damage to buildings.
  
• Siege missile units will deal full damage to buildings.
  
• Fixed an interface bug where the attack cursor wouldn't become "gold" when a unit learnt a technique that added siege capabilities.

And our guest today is the Lotus Reaper from the "Winter Of The Wolf" addon. It's no secret to anybody that the "WOTW units" are pretty underwhelming. We'd like them to really stand out, but for now we're not completely sure what we want to do with them. However, as a sneak-peek and an experimental feature, we present a new innate for our reaping friend:

Innate Ability: Execution
Reaper will execute units with less than 20% health.

Go check it out right now and tell us what you think!

• Serpent Cannoneer's "Steel Cannonballs" technique will now make him deal his full base weapon damage to buildings because it makes him a siege unit.
  
• Dragon Chemist's "Phosphorous Powder" technique will now give him an overall 20% damage increase, 75% AoE increase, and will make him a "siege unit" which further increases his damage to buildings.
  
• Techniques that were supposed to increase Units' AoE never worked properly and are now fixed.
  
• "Bond Of Pestilence" now affects both Infested and Diseased and will increase their AoE by 50%.
  
• Previously broken "Pressurized Kegs" technique for Dragon Powder Keg Cannoneer now gives him a 20% damage increase for his missile weapon.
  
  After these changes, all techniques in the game work as they should. We may rebalance something later, but for now what matters the most is that they are properly functioning.
  
  
• Lotus Infested and Diseased base AoE has been increased.
  
• Diseased One's "Rotting Pool" (after-death innate ability) will now poison any enemies that step in it.
  
• Made Chemist's "Mandrakes Spores" rockets' visual effects to follow affected units instead of being stuck in the air.
  
• Restored Bandit's "Looting" (Innate Ability) visual effects.
  
• Units under "stun" and similar effects will no longer play different idle animations and will be immobile.
  
• Improved conditions that prevent stunned units from regenerating health and stamina.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused missile units to go into melee range when ordered to attack.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused missile units to get 'stuck' when attacking (resulting in endless animation loops).
  
• If a building has rally point set beyond the screen borders, it will now point you to the direction of the rally point when selected.
  
  
  
  
• Fixed a bug that caused AoE battle gears to not apply damage percentage to horses (whirling spear, concussion smash, etc..).
  
• Missile units will not insta-shoot after they disengage from melee combat to prevent exploiting.
  
• Fixed !time command, it will now show the real game time instead of the "lobby creation time".
  
• If a player's stables is full and peasants still caught horses, instead of idling with the horses, they now will go to stables first and idle there until a slot for horses frees up (player takes horses from the stables).
  
• Fixed battle gears not applying on time (delayed) / blinking / never applying (goo, sentry, etc..).
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed combat units to attack horses with a help of a peasant (being in the same squad (no more Lotus Brothers abusing wild life for stamina!).
  
• Fixed a bug that made units lose stamina while being on a horse and running.
  
• Fixed a bug that made 'Poison' not work on projectiles (beware of ninjas' shurikens now!).
  
• Units won't regenerate health if poisoned.

Campaign and AI changes:

• Campaign difficulties have been rebalanced.
  

  How it worked before (in the legacy game):

  All Campaign levels are always script controlled, not allowing AI to play like it does in Skirmish (full freedom of action).
  
  An AI profile (like the ones you can set in skirmish) with all stats being 50% was taken as the base enemy model.
  
  The difficulty levels (that could be set in 'Options') did the following:
  
  EASY: Set intelligence to 15% and decreased all enemy unit armor by 25%.
  NORMAL: Set intelligence to 30% and decreased all enemy unit armor by 12.5%.
  HARD: Set intelligence to 45%, all enemy unit armor remained unaffected.

  What does 'Intelligence' in the AI profile do? Well, it defines just how good the AI is at matching units against each other e.g. utilizing the damage/armor system and picking proper counters against what player does.
  
  A little bit after this update, we'll update the Online Guide and provide detailed information on the AI behavior and couple other things.
  
  

  How AI works now (Zen Edition):

  All Campaign levels are still script controlled, not allowing AI to play like it does in Skirmish (full freedom of action). Still the same AI profile with all stats being 50% taken as the base enemy model.
  
  The difficulty levels do the following:
  
  EASY: Set intelligence to 30% (AI won't recover from 'blindness' effects) and decreased all enemy unit armor by 25%.
  NORMAL: Set intelligence to 64% (AI won't recover from 'blindness') and all enemy unit armor remains unaffected.
  HARD: Changes the AI profile to 'Nightvol' (All stats at 100%, will recover from 'blindness' effects), all enemy unit armor remains unaffected.
  
  While still limited by campaign scripts, the "HARD AI" will now make more units and attack in more efficient ways, this will now be a tough challenge even for seasoned players.

• Fixed a bug that made AI sometimes leave tamed horses idling around stables.
  
• Fixed a bug that made AI sometimes idle in campaign (campaign scripts will still make them idle here and there).
  
• Fixed a bug with AI sometimes not manning watchtowers.
  
• AI will now bring back any army to base if under a 'high-risk' attack.
  
• AI will now try to position towers near rice fields.
  
• AI won't build same buildings more than once (excluding peasant huts and towers).

Community & Discord:

Discord has proven to be a very helpful and fun program to use for us, so we're quite keen on maintaining it and have it as a bridge between us and the community. It's already populated by more than 3000 members!

If you're having issues, planning to report a bug or just want to learn something new about the game and communicate with others - we'd like to see you there, come around!

Miscellaneous info:

• Report any issues you experience in this topic.
  
  
• Complete Battle Realms Info Guide.
  
  
• Battle Realms on Facebook.
  
  
• Battle Realms on Reddit.
  
  
• Battle Realms Wiki

Stay tuned for more updates!

- The Battle Realms Team

Greetings, warriors!

We've been collecting your feedback closely, trying to address the most persisting issues in the game. Let's see what this update has in store for everyone. We will preface it with a couple short announcements though:



We are sorry about that, the bug was introduced with the battle gear targeting change and only affected this particular Digger battle gear, it's fixed now and you can continue leading Grayback's clansmen to freedom!



As improving multiplayer experience be that PvAI or PvP is our main priority, we're bringing more exciting news.

Countless hours of patience and persistence have paid off - we've been hunting down the triggers for sync errors crawling inside the game, and we did eliminate several of them, which, according to our statistics, were at fault for most part of the desyncs.

Not all of them have been found yet, so we're still working on that, however you should be able to have smooth games in MP with your friends. We've tested all of that a lot under different circumstances and scenarios, and it's looking pretty good! Now... let's talk about how you can help us help you:


Having realized that the wretched desyncs are not as easy to fix as we had thought them to be, we had to bring countermeasures, and our go-to was NETLOGGING.

Netlogging is a feature in Battle Realms: Zen Edition that will log any multiplayer sessions in detail into a file. These files (logs) are stored in a dedicated folder called NetLogs.

When a synchronization error happens and players drop each other, the logs will vary and that will allow us to spot the differences between P1, P2, P3 etc. that triggered a desync. That's where we need your help!

If you experience a sync error with a player you know, you (and that player) need to grab the latest log file and send it to us so we could compare them. Let's go through the reporting process step by step:


You and your friends ran into a sync error, what to do?

• Step 1 - Try to remember what led to the sync error. Bonus points if you got a video prior to the desync ("Instant Replay" from NVIDIA GEFORCE EXPERIENCE or AMD ADRENALINE). We will need that information along with your netlog file.
  
  
• Step 2 - Navigate to your BR folder and find another folder called NetLogs
  
  
  
• Step 3 - Grab the Netlog that matches the date and time of your last game. Make sure the person you desynced with does the same.
  
  
• Step 4 - Send the Netlogs from players who dropped each other along with the description of the events that led to the drop to:
  
  
  • [PREFERRED]To the dedicated Discord channel on our server.
    
  • Our official support mail - longlivebr@gmail.com
  
  
  
• Step 5 - Receive our heartfelt thanks and feel proud because you've just provided some essential help to the developers.

This is not necessary, but if you want to help speed up the process of fixing the sync errors, please, do follow the guide above. Also remember- the Netlogs don't get deleted so you will have to do that manually if you need to preserve disk space.

With all that out of the way, let's go through the actual changelog!

1.57.2 Changelog:

• Version updated to 1.57.2.
  
• Fixed a number of bad sync values that triggered desyncs in Multiplayer.
  
• Fixed all FOV bugs (a.k.a black squares) in all game types.

• Fixed a bug that prevented Diggers from using their Digging Battle Gear in Grayback's Journey.
  
• Fixed a bug that made some units untargettable in Journeys.
  
• Restored rice/water shifting fix (had been previously removed for stability).
  
• Restored unengageable duration on units (it had previously made horses nearly unmountable when in combat).
  
• Wolf Ballistaman & Serpent Cannoneer won't lose their main behavior orders when reloading (such as Stand Ground or Passiveness).
  
• Improved the fix that prevents missile units from shooting while being engaged in melee (sometimes it didn't work).
  
• Fixed an issue with units not retaliating when engaged in melee while doing something else (building, constructing, attacking).
  
• Fixed an issue with peasants when their forced commands not being able to be cancelled (construct on fire, repair while being attacked melee, etc..).
  
• Units won't reset their attack animations when they stun the target (spearman, sledgers, etc.).
  
• Fixed an issue with stun not working properly on bots.
  
  
• [UnitAI] Run order will no longer make pack wolves retreat.
  
• [UnitAI] Instead, if any wolf unit with pack wolves issues the Guard order, their wolves will retreat to them.

• Granted Nightvol a new innate ability:
  

  Lord of the Horde: if Nightvol is under attack, hordelings will arise to aid him.

• Nightvol is now immune to Glass Sword of Serpent Swordsman.

• AI will no longer send Ronin to Necromancer's Throne if Necromancer is already summoned.
  
• AI will now reassign units when its warparty is severely reduced (no more war parties of 2/3 units or geishas only). AI will also retreat if it senses danger.
  
• AI will now water rice in a wiser way.
  
• AI will now consider non-AI allies' rice fields when relocating/expanding.
  
• AI will now try to build wells near rice fields whenever possible.
  
• AI will now order Necromancer and healers to utilize 'Passiveness' when engaging in fights.

That's it for now! We had to delay the fixes for the high-poly Wolf Brawler/Berserker/Packmaster until the next big update, however some progress has certainly been made!



We will also leave some room for speculation regarding this particular screenshot... Any ideas what we're planning deep in our development cave? :)

Community & Discord:

Discord has proven to be a very helpful and fun program to use for us, so we're quite keen on maintaining it and have it as a bridge between us and the community. It's already populated by more than 3000 members!

If you're having issues, planning to report a bug or just want to learn something new about the game and communicate with others - we'd like to see you there, come around!

Miscellaneous info:

• Report any issues you experience in this topic.
  
  
• Complete Battle Realms Info Guide.
  
  
• Battle Realms on Facebook.
  
  
• Battle Realms on Reddit.
  
  
• Battle Realms Wiki

Stay tuned for more updates!

- The Battle Realms Team

Greetings, warriors!

Alas, getting rid of synchronization errors has proven to be even more difficult than getting rid of the Horde, we've underestimated our enemy one too many times. Fret not! We will be singling out every desync trigger left in the game.

Thank you for your support and feedback as always! Reading all the comments to Update 1.57 was a blast.

Update 1.57.1 is coming through with more fixes and improvements.

1.57.1 Changelog:

• Version updated to 1.57.1.
  
• Internal tweaks regarding Multiplayer stability.
  
• Minor lobby improvements.
  
• Synchronization errors (desyncs / player drops) will now play a sound and show a proper message .when they happen (we sincerely hope you won't get to see it often).
  
• Game speed limitation for Steam Multiplayer lobbies has been reverted.
  
• Lobby description will now change if user changes it in the lobby settings. This will be seen by everyone in the Steam Multiplayer lobby.
  
• Speed for multiplayer lobbies has been improved.
  
• Chat in the multiplayer lobby settings has been fixed: now it's also colored and you can send messages that would be seen by everyone in your lobby.
  
• Changing global settings (Main Menu -> Options) will be saved to current player's profile (such as in-game hotkeys).
  
• In-game hotkeys will no longer reset when updating/verifying the game through Steam.

• Increased difficulty for campaigns as AI there behaved in quite a bizarre way. It is almost the same as the one you encounter in Skirmish.
  
• Clan selection dropdown menu will no longer show the selected clan when picking "Random" in Multiplayer.
  
• In-game stun has been fixed (units will no longer run around stunned targets, engaging them instantly instead). Attackers will no longer disengage when stunned units are ordered to move/attack.
  
• Serpent Cannoneer smoke bomb (machinegunning) abuse has been finally fixed, Cannoneers finally shoot smoke bombs as they should- with a proper reload! Wolf Ballistaman Totem... We're coming for you next!
  
• Dragon Samurai Seppuku will no longer give any Yang points if no units are affected.
  
• Yin/yang multipliers regarding damage dealt are now fixed (no more 3 Yang points for Samurai Seppuku).
  
• Fixed the inability to gain any Yin/Yang in some in-game situations (thanks to user Blankname for providing a crucial report and a save file).
  
  
• [UnitAI] Healers and Necromancer will no longer respond aggressively to enemy attacks.
  
• [UnitAI] When putting out fires, Peasants will now take into consideration the nearest water source from the burning building instead of themselves.
  
• Destroyable battle gears can no longer be thrown on impassable terrain or buildings.
  
  
• [AI]: AI controlled units will now destroy enemy magic objects (Ballistaman's Totem, Unclean One's Sentry, Ronin's Cursed Swords etc.)
  
• [AI]: AI controlled units won't retaliate if a peasant was killed far away from his main base.
  
• [AI]: Necromancer pathing fix (no more walking/reposition loop).

More notes:

One change made in the Update 1.57 wasn't listed in the changelog, so we're listing it now.



The "Cinematic Level Of Detail (LOD)" with high poly models was once again moved, this time from 'Very High' to 'High' for a couple of reasons:

• Main reason is it being on 'Very High' removed some of the minor VisualFX for the (previous) vanilla 'Very High' setting, such as Serpent Cannonner's flag shimmering with blue or Kabuki Sword shimmering with pink.
  
• We didn't want to force the cinematic LoD on most users due to not yet fixed and overall inferior looking high poly wolf models.

High Poly Wolf models will be fixed in the next update, we can't exactly say to what degree as we're limited in our capabilities for now, but they'll look better and will have distinct Shale Armor. We'll talk about that one in one of the upcoming announcements, so keep an eye out for it!

Community & Discord:

Discord has proven to be a very helpful and fun program to use for us, so we're quite keen on maintaining it and have it as a bridge between us and the community. It's already populated by more than 3000 members!

If you're having issues, planning to report a bug or just want to learn something new about the game and communicate with others - we'd like to see you there, come around!

Miscellaneous info:

• Report any issues you experience in this topic.
  
  
• Complete Battle Realms Info Guide.
  
  
• Battle Realms on Facebook.
  
  
• Battle Realms on Reddit.
  
  
• Battle Realms Wiki

Stay tuned for more updates!

- The Battle Realms Team

Greetings everyone,

As of now, Steam is undergoing some sort of maintenance (which is weird as they normally hold it every Tuesday), which is obviously causing issues for the Multiplayer part of our game.



If you're constantly stuck with "Waiting for OK from host" popup, see an extremely low amount of lobbies or didn't see your friends' lobbies - Steam is at fault here.

We're monitoring the SteamSDK documentation and have already seen quick edits done to it:

Up to 50 results may be returned, but usually it's no more than a couple. The results are returned ordered by geographical distance and based on any near filters set. By default, we will not return lobbies that are already full, and the distance filter is set to k_ELobbyDistanceFilterDefault (nearby). To add filters, before you call RequestLobbyList you need to call one or more of the filtering functions.

There can only be one active lobby search at a time. The old request will be canceled if a new one is started. Depending on the users connection to the Steam back-end, this call can take from 300ms to 5 seconds to complete, and has a timeout of 20 seconds.

Basically they're trying to change the way Steam handles all lobbies. We'll fix and adjust anything as soon as Valve/Steam settle down with their changes.



Remember- even though the game uses P2P, it still depends on Steam as it's directly responsible for all the networking. So if Steam has issues, the lobbies will act unpredictably as well.