Got smashed by those pesky pumpkins? Want to learn from your opponent, or just retrace your steps? Well, now you can learn from your mistakes and perfect your strategies by studying your replays!
Replay Feature
A few things regarding the replay feature:
It's a new feature, and still in its beta phase. Please report any bugs you encounter.
Replays are automatically saved for multiplayer matches. Single player replays are only saved when the game duration was longer than 1 minute. You can disable autosaving by going to Settings > Replays
Replays are only saved for the following game modes: full conquest, monster hunt, roguelike, king hunt. We're planning to extend support to other game modes in the future.
Replays are only compatible with the current version of the game. We're working on improving this in a future update, so that you can also view replays from older versions.
You can access the folders where replays are located in from Start menu > Replays > Replays Folder
In replays view, there's an option to start new game next to each replay. This works best for single-player replays. It starts a game with the same settings and seed. In case of multiplayer replays the number of players is reduced from multiple to one. This means the map is also somewhat different as the map depends on number of players even with the same random seed. All the other settings are same as in the replay.
Other
Mirror-map setting is not used anymore when playing on LAN with 1 player
A small balance and bugfix update this week, nothing too grand, though your aquatic friends might be a bit weaker than before. We're cooking up something big for the future, so keep your eyes peeled! Some might even call it... groundbreaking.
Balance
Number of fisheries reduced from 3 to 1 per circle.
Gold-fish harvesting rate reduced from 100 gold per trip to 50 gold per trip
Mermaid spearman (the javelin throwers) attack cooldown increased from 0.6s to 0.9s.
Circle defenders lose more health pear each projectile blocked (used to take 10% of the projectiles damage, now it's 12.5%)
Fixes
Multiple fixes to Chinese localization. Special thanks to all the players who reported issues! There are a couple of things we were not able to fix yet but stay tuned for updates.
Fixed an issue where names of hotkeys for creatures, buildings and technologies were not localized
Fixed unlocalized text in credits: Testing season winners
Fixed: Message to developer view localization
Fixed: Map size and difficulty level unlock descriptions localized.
Fixed: introduction text was sometimes very small, e.g. for Rogue-like mode in Chinese language. Fixed numerous places where the line-breaks were not use after a special dot symbol.
Last week we launched our first content update, and it looked like many of you have tried out the new spooky and evil units. This week, there's even more new units, some spooky again, others not so much. There's also a new building for aquatic enthusiasts, and a bunch of balance changes to reduce rushing!
Summary of new units and buildings:
Acid Worm (2 levels): Goblin leaders
Forest Ghost (2 levels): Darius the Druid, Arcane Alliance, Nature Nurturists
The Acid Worm is a worm, that spits acid. Makes sense, right? They spit so much they should make a soundcloud. Make sure you have a trip sitter when using these creepy fellows. Available to Goblin leaders.
Forest Ghost
Forest Ghost > Wilderness Ghost
They're spooky, and have nice leaves on their twiggy heads, what's not to love? These spirits are available to Darius the Druid, Arcane Alliance, and the Nature Nurturists.
Ballista
Ballista > Advanced Ballista
A little lesson in linguistics: the plural of ballista is ballistae. These big bolt-throwing machines replace Ice Hunters for Wolfam, Ephius, Barandur, and Dominic, as well as the Darkness Dominion, Mermaid leaders, and Goblin leaders.
Young Witch
Young Witch > Elder Witch
These witches can lay the smack down on your units. They're not available to players, so attack all witches on sight like it's the middle ages.
New Building
Fishery
Fishery > Advanced Fishery
Like a forester, but for fish! The fishery spawns new fish every now and then, though they're obviously only available in circles where you would normally find fish (also known as water). Available to all leaders!
Changes, fixes, and improvements
Circle Defender changed
Projectiles that are blocked by circle defender deal 10% of the projectile damage to the Circle Defender. Minimum 1 damage per projectile. Attack bonuses to buildings apply. Note that circle defenders can be healed by healers so they can support the shield durability.
Maximum number of Circle Defenders allowed per circle increased from 2 to 3. Each one gives 50% protection from projectiles. With 2 the protection is 75%. With 3 it's 87.5%.
Circle Defender hitpoints regeneration rate inceased from 0.5 per second to 2 per second
Defending circles is now easier
Wall upgrade price changed from 350, 700, 1050 wood to 300, 600, 900 wood
Tower hp increased from 250 to 300. Armor increased from 3 to 6.
Poison tower price changed from 300 wood, 600 food to 500 wood, 250 food. Armor increased from 5 to 7.
Boulder tower price reduced from 1000 wood to 700 wood. Armor increased from 5 to 7 at level 1 and from 7 to 8 at level 2.
Fire tower price changed from 900 food, 100 gold to 800 wood, 100 gold. Armor increased from 5 to 7.
Acid tower target armor reduction doubled (exact numbers depend on how long the target stays in the acid splash and how many times they are hit)
Catapult xp requirement increased from 400 to 500
Volcano range increased from 5 to 8
Leaders
Barandur the Builder gets +2 level 2 keeps in each circle (used to be 1 level 1 keep)
Sentia the Spellbound workspeed bonus increased from +70% to +100%
Laura the Lifegiver starting healers increased from 3 to 4
Swifty the Scavenger lord get's 2 towers in each circle (up from 1)
Wyona the Watery queen starting bonus for wood increased from 500 to 600
Wyona the Watery queen's water circles get 3 fisheries (used to be 8 fish) and 1 gold-fish.
Darius the druid get's 1 tower per circle (didn't get any towers before). Can no longer recruit horse archers.
Dominic the defender get's 2 boulder towers per circle (up from 1)
Flynn the footman units per new circle reduced from 2 spearmen, 1 archer, 1 barbar worker => 1 spearman, archer and barbar worker
Demian the Dragon starting circle workers (including all bonuses) reduced from 5 to 4
Cheaper economy upgrades
Prince xp requirement at level 1 reduced from 340 to 150
Farm base gather rate increased from 6 to 8. This also makes
Added rounding up favorably to economy bonuses to make sure that each bonus adds at least additional +1 resource at dropoff. - drop-off building profit factor, e.g. storehouse level 2 - worker profit, e.g. golem worker - circle profit, e.g. from having a prince in the circle - tech type profit, e.g. from harvesting upgrade
Wood harvesting level 1 price reduced from 250 wood and food to 200 wood and food
Wood harvesting level 2 price reduced from 1000 wood and food to 500 wood and food
Food harvesting level 1 price reduced from 400 wood, 200 food to 400 wood, 100 food
Food harvesting level 2 price reduced from 600 wood, 1000 food to 600 wood, 400 food
Banking upgrade level 1p rice reduced from 500 wood, 100 gold to 400 wood, 50 gold
Bank level 1 xp requirement decreased from 300 to 150
Forester level 1 xp requirement decreased from 10 to 6. Price changed from 200 wood, 600 food to 400 wood, 300 food
Eco upgrades increase profit of appropriate resource types when deconstructing stuff
Circle profit improvements from princes and Goblin King increase resources gained from deconstructing
Deconstructing resource gain is capped at 70% from the original price (when many princes and upgrades are used).
Early game monster changes
A circle being defended by a single strong monster was easy to cheese, and didn't provide enough challenge. Some of these monsters have been toned down in terms of overall strength, but will appear in larger groups to defend their circles.
Saberhorn Deer strength rating reduced from 250 to 200 (at least 1 deer in first circles)
Megalodon strength rating reduced from 125 to 100 (at least 2 Megalodons in first circles)
Ghost strength rating reduced from 150 to 120
Poison zombie strength rating reduced from 150 to 40
Pumpkin-man strength rating reduced from 40 to 30
Pumpkin necromancer strength rating reduced from 50 to 35
Crossbowman strength rating reduced from 55 to 30
Necro tower strength rating reduced from 250 to 230 which allows it to spawn near starting circles
Huge goblin strength rating reduced from 800 to 650
Baniter monster strength rating reduced from 900 to 650
Infested Maid strength rating reduced from 300 to 100
Wizard strength rating reduced from 100 to 55 (the rating was kind of outdated from times when the wizard was very scary even at level 1)
Dragon strength rating reduced from 500 to 400
Golem strength rating reduced from 80 to 50
Dragon lair strength rating reduced from 1800 to 1400 and xp requirement reduced from 3000 to 2000
Wizard tower strength rating reduced from 2500 to 1500 and xp requirement reduced from 4000 to 2500
Sunken ruins strength rating reduced from 350 to 230
Catapult strength rating reduced from 200 to 100 and level 2 from 300 to 150
Biome guard changes for less snowballing
Some biomes now have more defenders ːcer_spiderː
Foggy plains: increased minimum number of zombies, poison zombies, ghosts. Raised priority of having a necro-tower there instead of only mobs
Frog swamp: minimum frogmen from 1-4 to 4-6. Usually has frog spawner now.
Cavalry Horde biome can now spawn in weaker variations, starting from 300 strength (used to start from 1000 strength) (has some cavalry units and berry bushes)
Zombie swamp minimum number of regular zombies increased from 0 to 6 and minimum number of ghosts increased from 1 to 2 (if total circle strength limit allows)
Ancient ruins: increased max number of skeleton spearmen and increased likelihood of spawning black knights
Less resource snowballing
Some biomes gave a bit too much bang for their buck, making a game too snowball-ey. That's why we reduced some of these resources.
Autumn forest: blue-berry bushes number reduced from 1-4 to 1-2: Haunted pumpkins from 0-8 to 3-4. Trees from 6-8 to 5-7. Removed training dummy and monster mushroom appearence chances
Guard garden, the amazing land with bunch of berry bushes: berries remained at 8-10, blue-berries reduced from 8-10 to 2-3 (average total food from 9x150 + 9x300 = 4050 reduced to 7x150 + 4.5x300 = 2100). Reduced training dummy count from 3-4 to 1-2
Zombie swamp: switched 2 blueberry pushes to regular berry bushes and increased minimum bush count from 2 to 3. Increased dried tree count from 2-5 to 3-5
Priest hideout berry bushes reduced from 7-9 to 5-6. Extra life mushrooms reduced from 1-4 to 1-2
Saberhorn Deer Forest: switched about half of the blueberry bushes to regular berry bushes
Rune land: reduced max number of monster mushrooms from 3 to 1
Goblin land: reduced training dummies from 4-8 to 3-4
Mushroom forest: reduced training dummies from 4-6 to 3-4
Goblin wasteland: reduced training dummies from 4-8 to 3-4. Reduced min circle strength to spawn in from 800 to 150
Huge Goblin Council: reduced training dummy count from 4-8 to 3-4. Reduced pumpkins from 5 to 4.
Crossbow Horde: training dummy count reduced from 4-12 to 3-4
Magic land: training dummy count reduced from 4-6 to 2
Training grounds: training dummies remain at 5. Monster mushroom chance removed. Tree count reduced from 5-6 to 2-3
Crossroads: mystery box spawn chance increased from 50% to 100%
Ghost forest: tree count reduced fom 8-12 to 8-10
Infested maid forest: reduced tree count from 8-12 to 8-10
Red plains: reduced pure gold count from 4-8 to 4-5 and 25% chance for extra gold appearence from 2-5 to 2. Minimum circle strength to spawn in reduced from 1000 to 230.
So far, our updates have contained balance changes and QoL improvements, but today is our first content update! Leaders with... dubious morals will find their armies strengthened with these new entities of evil, champions of chaos, deliverers of despair, etc.
Without further ado, let's get into it!
A quick summary of the new units and who can recruit them:
Black Knights (3 levels): Undead leaders and Harvey the Horseman
Annihilators (2 levels): Xee & Xot and the Greedy Guild
Rock Troll (1 level): Undead leaders, Goblin leaders, and the Greedy Guild
Skeleton Spearmen (3 levels): Undead leaders and Melee Mercs
As for the buildings:
Volcano (2 levels): Barg the Barbarian and Demian the Dragon (replaces boulder tower), also randomly encountered in the wild.
Skeleton Barracks (3 levels): AI only ːcer_harvesterː
Units
Black Knight
Black Knight > Dark Knight > Dark Crusader
These dark warriors atop their mighty steeds are available to Harvey the Horseman and leaders with undead units!
Annihilator
Exploding Demon > Annihilator
They may look kind of cute, but these big boys and girls can dish out the hurt! Available to Xee & Xot, and the Greedy Guild.
Rock Troll
Rock trolls throw a mean curveball. They're stupid and self-conscious -- a deadly combination. Available to Goblin and Undead leaders!
What do you call a frightened spearman? Shakespeare. Thankfully, in death, these spearmen have lost the ability to feel fear, and will stop even the strongest cavalry charge! Available to Undead leaders and the Melee Mercs.
Buildings
Volcano
Volcano > Great Volcano
KRAKATOA!! The volcanoreplaces the standard boulder tower for Barg the Barbarian and Demian the Dragon to rain fiery death upon all who dare come close to your circles.
Do you sometimes wish you could just listen to the Circle Empires Rivals soundtrack forever? Well we have got some good news for you, because you can! Composer Sigurd Jønk-Jensen, Circle Empires Rivals’ composer from Iceland, has made 9 tracks for the game that are all ready for battle. The original soundtrack is now available for purchase, so you’ll be able to walk around with epic battle music following you wherever you go! For $1,99 you can enjoy these tracks and support the developers on their quest to keep improving the game. You can get your hands on the original soundtrack right here.
Back again with another update (we're going hard on 'em, all for your balancing pleasure!). This time, even leaders weren't save from our balancing hammer! Without further ado, let's get into it.
Units
Goblin price increased from 80 food => 100 food
Horse archer price increased from 140 wood, 70 gold => 200 wood, 60 gold. For example, 1400 wood and 700 gold could get 10 horse archers before. Now it buys 7 horse archers and there's 280 free gold, most of the free gold comes from not buying 3 horse archers, not from the discount.
Mermaid archer price increased from 50 wood, 150 food => 50 wood, 200 food. Xp requirement increased from 400 to 600
Leaders
Demian the dragon starting gold bonus reduced from 555 gold => 222 gold
Sentia the Spellbound's pumpkins that come from workers have reduced food amount so level 1 pumpkin no longer gives more food than the worker costs. Levelling up the pumpkin still works as a profitable scheme.
Barandur the builder starts now with a catapult
Melee mercs can now recruit spearmen
Dominic the Defender gets now +1 regular tower in each circle (also gets +1 boulder tower in each circle).
Flynn the footman get's now 3 spearmen and 1 barbar worker in each circle. (Used to be 1 guard, 1 spearman, 1 barbar worker)
Arcane alliance: starts with a random unit. The random unit is less random: can't be mermaid priest, splash harvester, kraken head, caravan, worker of any type, building or anything with strength over 200.
Arcane alliance can now recruit Zombies, Poison Zombies, Ghosts
Harvey the horsemaster starts with a healing tower (also gets +1 horse archer in each circle)
Goblin oil thrower price changed from 200 wood, 30 gold => 100 wood, 200 gold. Hp reduced from 200 to 180. You can still set everything on fire but it's gonna cost more and it's easier to snipe them.
Goblin Oil Thrower level 2 burning damage was reduced from 5 seconds x 45 damage => 10 seconds x 16 damage
Goblin worker price increased from 90 food => 100 food
Spearman cost changed from 120 wood, 40 food to 110 wood, 40 food
UI Fixes and improvements
Fixed: if a creature was selected to buy and you left-clicked on a button to start buying another creature, it bought +1 of the first type because you "left-clicked". Now it doesn't do that when clicking on buttons.
Fixed an issue where assigning workers to drop off resources at storehouse did not work.
Clicking a worker to harvest a resource in another circle made them move there but they changed their mind half-way through and continued working in current circle sometimes.
Fixed: Clicking a worker to another circle's storehouse or resource more than 1 circle away used to forget the target immediately (clicking on ground was the only way to move workers more than 1 circle away).
Replaced wall deconstruct and upgrade button order to avoid accidental deconstructs after reaching last upgrade level (deconstruct button used to jump where upgrade was after last upgrade).
Other fixes
Fixed an issue with keeps that cause these sideffects:
Fixed: Keeps "picked up" trees and other invalid objects
Fixed: uncapturable circles
Fixed: invisible enemy units
Fixed an issue that prevented starting the application when there was missing timezone setting on windows
First, we want to thank all of you for an amazing first week. We're humbled by all the support you've shown us this far! We don't have a mega-huge update just yet, but we can reveal some things we're working on for the future.
Changelog
Changes
Joinable lobbies are now at the top of the lobby list
Advanced settings are now reset to default when you host a new game
Added filters to filter out lobbies that are full, are from different regions, or have passwords
Added a South America server for testing purposes (see full details below)
Balance changes
Huge Maul Warrior xp requirement increased from 500 to 1000. Price increased from 600 food, 150 gold => 800 food, 400 gold. Level 2 strength rating increased from 1600 to 2200
Huge Goblin xp requirement increased from 500 to 800.
Melee Mercs technology discount reduced from 50% to 40%
Black dragons are stronger and cheaper (for Demian the Dragon who's the only leader who can purchase them) ++ direct damage increased from 50 to 90. ++ burn damage over time increased from 30 x 15s => 40 x 15s. ++ Hp increased from 1400 to 2500. ++ Price changed from 25k wood and 25k food => 10k food and 10k gold
Crossbowman level 1 hp increased from 60 => 110. Strength rating increased from 30 => 55. Price increased from 100 wood, 80 food => 200 wood, 60 food. Xp requirement increased from 110 => 180. Note that crossbowman attack cooldown is 1s compared to archers 0.6s.
Archer price reduced from 120 wood, 80 food to 120 wood, 70 food
Imperial Conflict: the AI will no longer start with extra resources on the highest two difficulties, but will instead get a bonus to any resources they generate
Imperial Conflict: the AI will only build a limited amount of Krakens
Imperial Conflict: strength of neutral creatures is now 'Experienced' (used to be 'Extreme')
Fixes
Fixed issue that prevented games from continuing when one player lost connection
Fixed Wizard Scholar text that was missing the "targets gain +100 experience" text
Fixed Saberhorn Deer description about it spawning new Saberhorn Deer -- they only do that in nature, not in captivity.
Lowered default volume level of the game
Upcoming: Matchmaking
While it's not ready for release right now, we are working on a requested matchmaking system! With this system, you will be paired with players of a similar skill level instead of having to browse through all the lobbies. Also, while searching for a match, you can play a single player game to warm up! Once a match is found, the single player game will save so you won't lose progress. We don't have a hard ETA for matchmaking yet, but it should be coming sooner rather than later. Keep an eye on the Iceberg Interactive Discord for the latest updates.
Upcoming: Testing new server regions
Our main three server locations are US, Europe, and Asia, but we're going to be experimenting with additional server locations, starting with South America. Note that the longevity of these servers depends on the playerbase in those regions.
Today is the day we have all been anticipating! No more beta testing and other shenanigans, Circle Empire Rivals is out on Steam in its full glory! Gather your friends, build your armies, and take the circles that are rightfully yours in this fast paced RTS.
What's new in Circle Empires Rivals?
Well the most requested feature, multiplayer, is now here! Play with your friends in co-op, or face them as bitter rivals in PvP across multiple game modes.
But that's not all! Here's just a few features you can expect in Circle Empires Rivals:
20 different circle biomes, from dry deserts to scary swamps to mystical extra XP biomes!
Over 300+ units, buildings, and level-ups!
30 Faction leaders, each with unique bonuses or special troops!
A huge range of difficulty options, and advanced settings to tweak everything to your liking!
6 different game modes, including ones unique to the RTS genre -- like the Roguelike and Stop the Army modes!
Units and structures keep gaining stats even after hitting their 'max' level, all the way up to bonus level 99! Turn your wizard into an army-destroying archwizard with a new look to boot.
But wait, there's more!
You can find Circle Empire Rivals in the steam store from today onwards for $14.99, with a 10% discount during the launch week. Of course, we wanted to add a little extra for our veteran players who own the original Circle Empires, so there will be an additional 15% off bundle deal ON TOP of that!
Greetings wise wizards, valiant knights, terrifying dragons, and pumpkin... people(?)
We're incredibly excited to announce that Circle Empires Rivals will be fully releasing on April 15th!
Build an army and conquer all circles in your path. Slay monstrous foes and expand your empire in this fast-paced RTS. Team up with trusted allies in co-op, or fight against each other in a range of different game modes! Why are we still writing this out when you can just check out our new trailer?!
Be sure to wishlist Circle Empires Rivals on Steam to be the first one through the gates once we launch!