Jan 7, 2019

Wyrmsun - Andrettin

A new update for Wyrmsun has arrived!

The Nidavellir map used for the two dwarven scenarios, The First Dwarves and A Home in the Fields of Sand, is now randomly-generated, thus enhancing its replayability. The amount of available land in the Nidavellir underground has been expanded, so that it now houses multiple kobold tribes, along with a tribe of underground-dwelling gnomes and many resources. A gnomish faction is generated on the surface above as well.

Three new naval upgrades can now be researched at the Dock: Sailing, Celestial Navigation and the Compass.

Each of them increases ship speed by 1. In order for ships to not end up becoming too fast, the initial ship speed has been lowered from 10 to 8.

Two new deities have been added as well: Frey (major deity) and Freya (minor deity). They both belong to the Vanir group of deities from Norse mythology, and are available for the Germanic and Norse civilizations. In Norse mythology, there was a strong association between the Vanir and the elves, with Frey even being described as the ruler of Alfheim himself. As such, in Wyrmsun the Vanir are deities worshipped primarily by elves in-universe, and they adopt elf-like appearances.

Frey's spell is Barkskin, which increases armor by a set amount. Freyja, on the other hand, allows priests to cast Regeneration, making the affected unit slowly recuperate hit points.

For the full changelog, see below.

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- 3.5.2 Changelog
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

* Abilities
- Added the Barkskin ability, which increases armor by 2 for the target unit.
- Added the Regeneration ability, which causes the target unit to slowly regenerate hit points.

* Buildings
- The Coal Mine is now built upon a deposit like the other mines.
- Added snowy graphics for the dwarven Mead Hall and Bastion.

* Deities
- Added the Frey major deity for the Germanics and the Norse. Frey grants +1 damage to archers, and the Barkskin ability to priests.
- Added the Freyja minor deity for the Germanics and the Norse. Freyja grants +20 mana and the Regeneration ability to priests.

* Factions
- Founding the dwarven Shadowcharm Clan now requires having built a Temple, and having Loki as a worshipped deity.

* Maps
- Improved the performance of the forest regeneration code.
- Fixed issue which occurred when loading a saved game of certain quests (e.g. "The Wyrm", "Caverns of Flame").

* Miscellaneous
- Fixed issue with the size and graphics of the save game confirmation dialog.

* Quests
- The Andvari's Gold side-quest now requires the destruction of the Oinling Clan's Mead Hall, instead of the destruction of the entire clan. The magic ring will drop beside the destroyed hall.

* Scenarios
- The Nidavellir map is now randomly-generated.
- The trigger which creates the Oinling Clan now gives a Mead Hall for it as well.

* Units
- The starting speed for ships has been toned down, so that the final speed after researching the new Sailing and Celestial Navigation upgrades is still the same as before.
- Slimes now deal acid damage, which ignores armor.
- Increased the amount of experience slimes give when killed.

* Upgrades
- Added Sailing upgrade, which increases speed for ships and is researched at the Dock.
- Added Celestial Navigation upgrade, which increases speed for ships and is researched at the Dock.
- Added Compass upgrade, which increases speed for ships and is researched at the Dock.

Dec 23, 2018

Wyrmsun Update 3.5.0: Winter is Here!

Wyrmsun - Andrettin

As autumn gives its way to winter, the ground gets covered in snow, and daylight falters.

This new update to Wyrmsun makes a substantial addition to the game: the passage of seasons. Each of them lasts c. 15 minutes (so that 1 year = c. 1 hour) at the base game speed. Their effects are twofold: seasons can change the terrain (e.g. from grass to snow), and they affect the time of day schedule (with longer nights/shorter days during winter and the reverse during summer).

To celebrate the holidays, a Christmas hat item has been added to the game:

That is not all, however. Further content has been added to Wyrmsun:
* A new major deity, Loki (available for the Dwarves and the Norse), which grants a 50% Backstab Bonus to axe and sword infantry and the Slow spell for priests.
* The current "age" your faction is in (e.g. the Bronze Age) is now depicted at the top of the screen.
* Times of day and seasons are now represented by icons at the top of the screen (hover the mouse over them to see the name of time of day / season).
* Bats, blood bats and dread bats now have icons of their own, and are selectable.
* New club weapon.

Many thanks to Jinn and Exidelo for their hard work on the graphics added in this update!

Merry Christmas to you all!

For the full changelog, see below.

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- 3.5.0 Changelog
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

* Abilities
- Dwarven loremasters can now learn the Mace Mastery ability.
- If multiple priests are selected and are then instructed to cast Far Sight, only one of them will cast the spell now. Previously all selected priests able to cast the spell would do so, despite that providing no additional benefit.

* Buildings
- Added "Enter Map Layer" button for Cavern Entrances and Portals, which changes the current map layer to the one the building leads to.
- Added snowy variations for the Germanic War Lodge and the Dwarven War Hall.

* Deities
- Added Loki major deity for the Dwarves and the Norse. Loki provides a 50% Backstab Bonus to sword and axe infantry, and the Slow spell for priests.

* Heroes
- Hero encyclopedia entries now display their level and acquired abilities.
- Fixed issue which caused Norse and Latin heroes to not be selectable to play an Earth quest with.
- Fixed issue which caused fauna heroes to have inventories.
- Fauna heroes can now enter transport ships.
- Fixed issue which caused custom heroes to be recruitable at game start even if they were picked to start the game with.

* Items
- Added Club weapon.
- Added Christmas Hat. This item appears only during winter.

* Miscellaneous
- Seasons can now pass in-game, in a manner reminiscent of the time of day system. Each year takes about one real-time hour to pass. Currently the seasons are mostly cosmetic, causing the terrain graphics to change. Additionally, days are shorter during winter and nights longer, while for summer it is the other way around.

* Modding
- Made substantial progress in allowing for separation between scripts and data. Animations, buttons, characters, icons, map templates, missile types, sounds, terrain types and unit types can now be defined in data files (.cfg), placed within the /data/ folder. The .cfg files within the /data/ folder (or in a subfolder within it) of a mod are now parsed automatically by the game on start.

* Quests
- Fixed issue which caused quest objectives to keep being displayed when loading a save game from within a quest.
- Quests will no longer fail if they require researching a given upgrade, and you have lost the building that researches it but still have workers to rebuild the structure.

* Terrain
- Fixed issue which caused walls to regrow when destroyed if built on top of cleared forests.
- Added support for season-specific terrain graphics.
- Dirt, Grass and Dry Mud tiles now become Snow ones during winter.
- Mud tiles now become Ice ones during winter.
- Pine Tree tiles now become Snow Pine Tree ones during winter, and Autumn Pine Tree tiles during autumn.
- Rock tiles now become Snow Rock ones during winter.
- Added snow version for the Flamefood Tree.

* Units
- Fixed issue which caused flying units to prefer moving over roads and railroads, despite receiving no benefit from them.
- If a unit which has an ability with autocast active is selected, and you right-click another unit, the selected unit will use its ability on the right-clicked unit if the latter fits the autocast conditions. For example, if you select a hero who has the Stun ability on autocast, and then right-click an enemy, your hero will now use Stun on the enemy instead of attacking.
- Bats, blood bats and dread bats are now selectable and have icons.

* User Interface
- The minimum resolution width for the game is now 1024.
- Pressing CTRL+L now returns the player to the previous map layer they were in.
- Hovering the mouse over resource amounts will now also display the tooltip for the respective resource (previously the tooltip was only displayed if hovering the mouse over the resource's icon). This also applies to the food and score amounts.
- A text string is now displayed at the top of the screen delineating which "age" the player is currently in (e.g. Bronze Age). This changes automatically depending on which upgrades are researched. For instance, when the player researches Ironworking they will change from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age.
- Times of day and seasons are now represented by icons at the top of the screen.

Oct 30, 2018

Wyrmsun Update 3.4.0

Wyrmsun - Andrettin

The 3.4.0 update for Wyrmsun has arrived! This update contains several substantial additions to the game, namely:

* Playable Norse
* Addition of Mason's Shop buildings for non-dwarven civilizations
* Inclusion of Ballista/Catapult Tower buildings
* New experience upgrades for some dwarven units

For the full changelog, see below.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
- 3.4.0 Changelog
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

* Buildings
- Added Norse Dock, Market, Temple and Watch Tower.
- Added Dwarven Ballista Tower, an individual upgrade of their Sentry Tower.
- Added Dwarven Cannon Tower, a technological upgrade of their Ballista Tower. Researching Gunpowder converts Ballista Towers into Cannon Towers.
- Added Goblin Catapult Tower, an individual upgrade of their Watch Tower.
- Added Teuton Catapult Tower, an individual upgrade of their Watch Tower.
- Added Goblin Mason's Shop.
- Added Teuton Mason's Shop.

* Civilizations
- The Norse civilization is now playable.

* Map Editor
- Fixed issue which caused prefix/suffix for certain item types to be reset when opening up their properties.

* Miscellaneous
- Building entries in the encyclopedia are now separated by civilization (as occurs with units and technologies).
- Ctrl-clicking resource sell buttons now toggles the autosale of that resource.

* Scenarios
- Fixed issue which caused a unit killed through effects like bleeding to not count for the completion of quest objectives.

* Terrain
- The Snow terrain transitions have been reworked.

* Units
- Fixed issue which caused units to not be granted experience if they killed another unit through effects like bleeding.
- Added the dwarven Stalwart and Sentinel (upgrades of the Guard).
- Added the dwarven Annalist and Loremaster (upgrades of the Witness).
- Unit epithets are now properly saved for save games.

* Upgrades
- The siege weapon projectile upgrades now require Engineering, as the siege weapons themselves do.

Feb 24, 2018

Patch 3.3.0

Wyrmsun - Andrettin

Wyrmsun 3.3.0 is now online!

Most notable amongst the changes are a number of AI improvements, as well as the addition of the Palisade (weaker and cheaper wall that costs lumber instead of stone), the Legionary, several Norse structures and the Norse Swordsman.

Another important change is that units such as priests now start off with zero mana (and slowly recover it as usual), so that newly recruited priests and heroes aren't capable of casting a plethora of spells right off the bat.

Enjoy!

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- 3.3.0 Changelog
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

* Abilities
- Decreased the duration of the Terror spell from 500 cycles to 200.

* AI
- Improved the AI building construction.
- Increased the distance AI units will go to react to an attack.
- The AI now uses only mercenary camps that are currently visible to it (previously it could use any mercenary camps it had previously explored even if they weren't currently visible).
- The AI now recruits mercenaries as substitutes of units it would otherwise train, instead of recruiting any mercenaries available.
- The AI now makes use of minecarts.
- The AI no longer receives extra resources per second under the Hard and Brutal difficulties, instead receiving bonus resources when harvesting.
- Fixed issue which caused the dwarven AI to train too many workers in the late game.
- Fixed issue which caused the AI to produce luxury resources even before it had a market.

* Buildings
- Added Norse Farm.
- Added Norse War Lodge.
- Added Norse Lumber Mill.
- Added Norse Smithy.
- Players who attack a mercenary camp will now lose access to it.
- Fixed issue which caused the settlement of a Settlement Site to not be loaded properly when loading a saved game.
- Added Palisade, which is cheaper and less sturdy than walls, and costs lumber instead of stone.
- The graphics of the Teuton Wall have been reworked.
- The destroyed graphics for the Dwarven Wall have been reworked.

* Factions
- Added the Jomsvikings mercenary faction (Norse).
- Added the Mamertines mercenary faction (Latin).
- Added the Varangian Guard mercenary faction (Norse).

* Heroes
- Fixed issue which caused Gunpowder Infantry heroes who equipped items that granted fire damage to shoot a fire arrow instead of a bullet.
- Added one-minute cooldown for recruiting heroes.

* Maps
- Mercenary Camps are now present in forest random maps.

* Scenarios
- The Hlesing Tribe no longer starts off at war with other Germanic tribes in the Thunraz's Servant scenario.

* Units
- Added unit graphics for the Norse Swordsman and the Norse Veteran Swordsman.
- Gunpowder infantry units and the Latin Javelineer can now use the Precise Shot ability properly.
- Added new icons for the Goblin Barbarian and the Goblin Warlord.
- Unit epithets (e.g. "the Wise") now remain in place even after changing civilizations.
- Units now start with 0 mana.
- Minecarts can now be salvaged (like buildings).
- Fixed an issue which caused minecarts to get stuck after harvesting metal rocks.
- Increased minecart costs from 200 Copper and 200 Lumber to 300 Copper and 300 Lumber.
- Fixed issue which in certain circumstances required the player to repeatedly re-issue harvest resource orders to minecarts.
- The mana bar overlay is now only shown if the unit has a spell it can cast.
- Added the Latin Legionary, Veteran Legionary and Centurion.