We kick off 2019 with more balance adjustments & fixes based on community feedback and videos. A special thanks to everyone who has shared their experience of Circle Empires with us! This is what really keeps us going. Happy new year to all!
Balance changes
Adjusted the way circles grow in difficulty. The circles right next to your starting circle area are easier to capture, especially on high difficulties. Circles that are further away have guardians that are a bit stronger.
Unlocked +1 difficulty level from the start for all game modes as some players were suggesting that they played on the hardest available difficulty and it was a walk in the park.
Knight price changed from 100 food & 150 gold to 180 food & 40 gold. Hp increased from 480 to 500.
Level 3 farm: available food amount increased from 600 to 800.
Sunken Ruins (frog spawner) strength rating increased from 200 to 350.
Level 1 farms available food amount increased from 180 to 220. Previously, some players felt like they were "losing resources" because the cost is 200 wood and you got 180 food out of it. This caused a puzzling situation where people were struggling with a lack of food but were reluctant to make farms. This puzzle is now more simple, you get more out of it in addition to converting wood to food.
Made the starting circle available food amount less random. You now always have 2 blueberry bushes for a total of 600 food, previously it was possible to have 0-2.
Buildings that have an attack and spawn creatures (e.g. barracks) no longer gain experience from combat. They get experience from spawning waves of creatures which is a more predictable behaviour. Before that, it was possible that e.g barracks accidentally finished off your dragon and gained a level, which could turn the battle around very unexpectedly.
Hammerman and Giant Maul Warrior (Apex Monsters DLC only) have more clear bonus damage vs armor. E.g. +50% damage vs armored targets. This also means that heavily armored units take less extra damage than before.
Fixes
Updated the Unity engine to latest version which fixes various issues (including Linux input glitch).
Fixed an issue that caused enemies to attack you immediately after loading a save game. Due to that, old save games are no longer functional unfortunately.
Fixed an issue with a legacy update system popping up.
Fixed an issue where the attack cursor was the default cursor. Now it's a sword again.
Added an option to delete save games.
Fixed one of the issues that caused workers to go into unintended circles to work there (issue introduced in last patch)
We have just pushed out a humongous update that some of you might know from the beta branch. It contains a lot of new content, changes, upgrades and fixes.
Without further ado, here's the mighty list:
Apex Monsters DLC only
Added 2 rare biome variations with special armies.
Elder Pumpkin Wizard: decreased damage from 50 to 30. This also helps to reduce the number of pumpkin warriors they can spawn as they get less last-hits when combined with other units.
Circle Empires base game new content
Added 4 rare biome variations with special armies.
Towers are better and have different attacks
Towers rebalanced to make defending specific key locations with them more feasible.
Poison tower hp 300 => 600. Attack type is now line attack (think dragon, axe thrower)! Price 200 wood, 500 food => 200 wood, 600 food. Attack cooldown 0.6s => 1.6s. Strength rating 150 => 250.
Fire tower hp 400 => 600.
Frost tower: line attack, slow projectile. Cooldown increased from 0.6s to 2s. Hp increased from 300 to 600. Increased freeze duration from 2s to 4s and slowdown from 40% to 60%. AI value from 110 to 220.
Many leaders got buffed to be on par with the best ones
Wolfram start bonus wood increased from +300 to +700.
Laura the life-giver bonus gold for each new circle increased from 1 pile to 2 piles.
Puck the pumpkin king: increased start wood bonus from 1000 to 1500.
Each claimed circle now gets +3 trees.
Darius the druid: increased claimed circle bonus from +3 trees to +5 trees.
Removed start bonus +300 wood. Added start bonus +2 frog workers (4 in total with 2 human workers).
Mindy the Mushroom Mage: claimed circle healing mushrooms count increased from +1 to +3. Removed claimed circles getting explosive mushroom. Starts now with +600 food.
Demian the Dragon worker bonus for each circle increased from +2 workers to +3 workers.
Wyona the watery queen now starts with +500 wood and in Fishy Lake biome.
Swift the Scavenger Lord's resource bonus increased from 2x to 3x.
Long term economy gives bigger bonuses
Bank rebalanced to get more instant benefits and give greater rewards for keeping them alive.
Gold production on 3 levels increased from 4, 6, 12 => 8, 12, 25.
Xp requirement increased: Level 1 from 240 to 300. Level 2 from 500 to 1000.
Increased high level storehouse resource bonuses: Level 2 from +20% to +50%. Level 3 from 50% to +100%.
Decreased pumpkin growth time: Level 1 from 240s => 160s. Level 2 from 300s => 180s. Increased harvesting speed from Level 2 pumpkins by 33% and from level 3 pumpkins by 66%.
Resources gained from creatures is more consistent
All things that can be fought have 25% chance to give resources when destroyed. If it's a building or it's strength rating is 500+ then this chance is 100%. It used to be a thing always, now it's more predictable and gives more resources so you can build a strategy around it.
Buildings and ranged creatures give wood.
Melee creatures give food.
Any creature that deals splash damage or has line-attack gives gold (that overrides previous points).
Resource amount is 50% of the strength rating of the creature. If it gives gold then the amount is halved.
Balance changes
Knight armor increased: Level 1 from 3 to 6. Level 2 from 5 to 8. Level 3 from 7 to 9. Damage increased: Level 1 from 12 to 15. Level 2 from 25 to 30. Hammer-man level 1: decreased hp from 280 to 220 and damage from 7 to 6. Frogman XP requirement decreased from 300 to 150. Price changed from 120 wood, 50 food => 150 wood, 25 gold. Raw strength wise they were always closer to knight than to guard.
Archer XP requirements for getting from level 2 to 3 increased from 500 to 800.
Ranged mermaids are 16% faster. Melee mermaids are 33% faster.
Increased golem cost from 100 wood, 200 food to 250 wood and food.
Monster hunts now have more varied terrains for boss circle.
Made lakes a bit less prominent.
Fixes
Healers no longer seek martyrdom in battle.
Player can now move creatures to land and water regardless of movement limitations. Notably mermaids. AI mermaids will not come to attack you on ground if they are in "drinkable" water.
Units no longer forget about their attack move when levelling up.
Frog workers no longer level up to human workers.
Fixed an issue with loading localisations before the game content was created.
Fixed an issue where saving certain terrain types created anomalies, e.g. player had to build +1 storehouse to be able to build units.
Pumpkin necromancer attack sound upgraded.
Fixed an issue where tooltips showed incorrect freeze stats when looking at units to buy.
Mermaid spearman has more visual cues to distinguish it from other mermaids.
Reworked the logic how units choose what to do. Fixed multiple issues.
Smarter behaviour expected. Let me know if seeing anything weird.
Fixed an issue that caused units to gain too much XP when multiple units killed the enemy at same moment. No more levelling up entire army of archers from 1 kill. This happened in case of huge ranged armies and low fps.
We heard you wanted more monsters. We got more monsters! More leaders? We got you covered. The Circle Empires: Apex Monsters! DLC adds 12 new monsters to hunt down, 6 new leaders to play as and 21 new units to recruit or defeat.
Best part of the story? It's available right now!
But wait? Something else has changed in Circle Empires. The cold winds of autumn have reached the circular battlefield and workers are noticing strange phenomena. We have received news of haunted pumpkins. Oh no, not our beloved pumpkins! 🎃🦇
Plant a haunted pumpkin between October 25 and November 8 and in due time, expect to see them unfold into an evil creature. Sounds like quite the achievement. ;-)
Let's get to work! Start growing those pumpkins and grab the DLC now! 👇
We heard you wanted more monsters. We got more monsters! More leaders? We got you covered. The Circle Empires: Apex Monsters! DLC adds 12 new monsters to hunt down, 6 new leaders to play as and 21 new units to recruit or defeat.
New creatures make their way onto the circular battlefield. Hunt down a feared unicorn named Über, as you recruit wax monsters that spawn wax towers that shoot wax at your enemies (we could wax lyrical all day). Or recruit your own horny unicorns and fight Enormy the Enormous; a really dumb but (for some reason) widely revered Barbarian.
Yeah, it’s all pretty weird, and there’s a lot more to discover. Recruit brand new units to fight by your side like crossbowmen, infested queens, black dragons, white dragons and assassin warriors. All Apex Monsters! units can be used across all game modes with this DLC package installed.
KEY FEATURES
6 new leaders to play as
12 new monsters to hunt down
21 new units (including unit classes)
A new autumn-themed biome
All leaders have a new unit to recruit
AI empires use the new units to wreak havoc of their own
Apex Monsters is coming October 25. What are you waiting for? Wishlist the DLC now!
To all the Linux users in the house; we are happy to announce Circle Empires is now available on Linux as well, hurray!
Important announcement for Windows users as well: to fix multiple bugs, we had to relocate Circle Empires’ save game folder. This might mean that save games made in previous builds will no longer be listed in the ‘load game’ menu. Luckily there is an easy way to recover these save games.
To find your old save games you will need to navigate to the install location of the game. The easiest way to do this is through your Steam library:
From the Library, right click ‘Circle Empires’ and pick ‘Properties’
In the newly opened window select the ‘Local Files’ tab
Click ‘Browse Local Files…’ and then enter the folder titled ‘Saves’
Here you will find your save games. Select and copy them.
Paste the save games in the following location:
C:\Users\*your user name here*\AppData\LocalLow\Circle Empires\Circle Empires\Saves
(Don’t forget to replace the *your user name here*, with the username in your Windows system).
Of course, we also have breakdown of all other fixes and balance updates for you guys:
Bug fixes
Fixed an issue which caused a music volume inconsistency when booting up the game and after finished games
Fixed multiple issues that occurred when changing the resolution of the game
Game resolution and window size can now be modified. To modify the window size, select ‘Settings’ in the main menu > make sure ‘Full screen’ is unchecked > change the resolution using the drop-down menu. Note that changing the game window size is only possible in the main menu.
The save game location has been changed which prevents issues at start up of games (For recovery of your old save files please see above!)
Fixed an issue which prevented you from moving units after loading a game
Fixed an inconsistency in the worker count due to the addition of the new worker types
Balance updates
Wizard Towers come in smaller numbers and spawn less wizards
Wizard Tower strength rating increased from 1000 => 1250, this means you are less likely to encounter them and less likely to get multiple in one circle
Number of wizards per Wizard Tower decreased from 3 to 2
XP requirement of Wizard Tower increased from 2000 to 2600 (meaning they will level up slower)
Level 1 Wizard strength rating increased from 170 to 220
New units, balance tweaks, Korean localisation and many, many bug fixes.
We hope you’re ready for this because we have a major update for you! Aside from the copious bug fixes, balance tweaks and usability improvements, we have new content coming your way in this update. The new units include the Hammerman (scary looking gents wielding hammers), various new workers, new biomes and new spawners. And version 1.1.7 includes Korean, which can now be selected from the language settings.
Of course, we also have a full changelog for you below, with a breakdown of all changes. We won’t blame you for not reading all of it, because it’s a lot. Sorry.
Thanks a million for your continued support! <3
New Stuff!
New language added! Korean localisation is now available from the language select menu.
New unit called Hammerman added. These units deal extra damage to armoured units and buildings. The more armour the target has, the more damage it deals.
Added spawners for Dragons and Wizards.
Leaders will now have their own workers: Goblin Workers, Pumpkin Workers, Frog Workers, Barbarian Workers.
Zombies can now also perform worker tasks! Create a horde of zombies and use them for both fighting and collecting resources.
New rare biome variations with a large army of hostile units but no spawners. It's like a discoverable circle of DEATH!!!
New biome variations with Dragon Lairs and Wizard Studies.
Added priest hideout biome variation.
Balance tweaks
Overall game balance:
Easy and normal game difficulty now have more monsters to fight.
Highest AI difficulty is less powerful at the start of a game.
Neutral and AI creatures use attack move more effectively which means they will finalize their conquest of nearby circles. Previously they used to shoot some fireballs and then leave it be often times.
Spawners now spawn a new wave of creatures when the old wave has left the original circle. This is the case for all types of units except the goblins. This prevents the spawners from being easily killed after the defending army has left. Goblins are a special case because of the Goblin King, who pulls nearby goblins to himself.
Unlocking most leaders now have more requirements.
Reworked the way neutral units and buildings level up. Now stronger ones are more likely to level up. Previously the XP was spread more equally.
The Area of Effect damage is reworked. More distant targets take less damage and the damage is split between targets if there are more than 6 of them. This greatly reduces the damage output of wizards, dragons, undead towers and axe throwers in case of large armies. If there's more than 6 targets then the formula is: damage=originalDamage * (0.5 + 0.5 * 6/numberOfTargets). For example, if you deal 100 splash damage to 12 targets then each gets 75 damage, not 100. This is further reduced by a distance from the centre of an explosion. Damage from burning and poison are still fully applied.
Melee units are easier to level up and much better at high levels to make late-game melee more feasible compared to splash-burn-shoot armies. This also allows for an easier re-creation of high-level melee army after losing everything. Changes that are applied:
Guard level 1 XP requirement 120 => 100
Guard level 2 XP requirement 450 => 180
Guard level 3 HP 800 => 1200, damage 30 => 50, XP requirement 900 => 300
Frenzy Mages and Druids give a bigger bonus but massing them is less effective
Frenzy mage and druid bonuses to all units in a circle have diminishing returns now. Each additional bonus has less effect.
The base bonus for frenzy mage is increased from +4% attack speed to +10% attack speed. 10 frenzy mages will give about 50% attack speed boost. Maximum attack speed increase is 10x. It takes about 75 frenzy mages to achieve that (compared to 23 in previous versions). However, the benefit of having a few frenzy mages is greatly increased.
The druid hit points regen bonus is increased from +30% to +50%. 10 druids will give about +150% health regen speed. It takes 78 druids to reach 10x faster health regen (compared to 18 in previous versions). However, the benefit from having a couple druids is greatly increased.
Holding on to your bank-circles becomes more important as they now level up slower. HP increased to help with keeping them alive. Max level bank profit increased.
Level 1 bank HP 300 => 600
Level 2 bank HP 600 => 1200, XP requirement from 300 => 500
Level 3 bank HP 900 => 2000, income from 10 => 12
Multiple storehouses now makes sense:
Workers will use the closest storehouse to bring their resources to
Workers harvest the closest resource if there are more than one available of the same type (e.g. the tree closest to the storehouse, in case there are multiple trees on the circle)
Storehouse price increased from 50 => 200 wood (note that almost all leaders get free storehouse in a circle they conquer)
Starting resource of wood is increased by 150 to cover the price of the first storehouse
Storehouse level 2 resource bonus increased from 10% => 20%, HP from 1000 => 2000, XP requirement from 1000 => 2500
Storehouse level 3 resource bonus from 30% => 50%. HP from 1300 => 3000.
Unit and leader balance
Undead leader can no longer recruit regular workers because zombies can work
Undead leader no longer recruits mermen
Wyona the watery queen has more mermaid-oriented recruit list and frogs
Tenebria the Tribal King can recruit all living worker types
The Barbarian, Builder and Demian the Dragon can now recruit hammermen.
Ghosts and frost ghosts have no movement penalty on water biomes
Golem wood cost 10 => 100
Pumpkin necromancers are no longer slower than regular units
Barracks now spawns Hammermen
Price for upgrading wall increased from 1000 wood => 2000 wood
Giant Poison Frog damage 5 => 30
Void Queen strength rating is reduced from 3000 to 1800 so it spawns more easily and in greater numbers
Evil Mermaid price decreased from 150 food to 90 food
Mermaid Archer price from 100 food, 100 wood to 150 food, 150 wood
Mermaid Spearman price went from 100 wood, 500 food to 100 gold, 500 food
Mermaid Lord attack speed bonus increased from 5% to 20%
Mermaid Lord price decreased from 5000 wood and gold to 2000 wood and gold
Usability Improvements
When buying new units and buildings the tooltip shows which resource types are missing, eg. wood.
When building units and buildings, you can hold down left click to multi-spawn! For some buildings, multi-spawn is not enabled by default. Hold down SHIFT, in this case, to prevent the building type from being de-selected (e.g. storehouse).
Advanced build options menu has units from Life Control and Camp buildings (Extra life, Frenzy Mage, Druid, goblins, ghosts, mushrooms). They become available once you get the respective building.
The bank is using multi-build now so it's not necessary to re-select it from the menu when building multiple banks.
Bug fixes
Fixed an issue where changing the in-game languages would not update some menu texts until re-opening of the same menu.
Fixed visual discrepancy in which units appeared in different sizes on the UI buttons.
Fixed: units were sometimes unresponsive to move/attack orders after loading a save game.
Fixed issue with saving sound and other settings.
Fixed AI difficulty unlock criteria texts.
Fixed localization issue with burning damage stats.
Added validation for finding common typos with unit stats, e.g. damage is smaller than 1 gives an error now.
Fixed: circles not playing ambient sounds after loading a game.
Fixed an issue in which your units would aggro nearby circles unintentionally.
Fixed the flickering health bar when a lot of damage was dealt to a single target.
Fixed the unintentionally small damage done by mermaid priests.
Fixed: Swift the scavenger lord gets a storehouse in each circle.
Fixed a localization issue with Czech and Polish languages in the settings menu.
Update time! And, once again, it’s pretty substantial. We listened to your feedback and implemented the following changes accordingly. Most notably, you can now easily expand your troop selection and add specific types to the overall selection, as well as select a specific subset of your troops.
Thank you again for all of your feedback and support. Stay tuned for more!
Check out the full changelog below.
Changelog update 1.0.10
Balance tweaks:
Harder difficulty levels are harder in general, especially on large maps. On XL maps, on Impossible difficulty, there are now circles that may stop, for example, 200 expert horse archers from passing through
Hostile circles with human population have more options for units and buildings, including towers, wizard, apprentices and healers
Pumpkin field circles have a chance of having defensive towers and extra pumpkin warriors so they are better defended
Void Queens and Wraith Mages can spawn in deadly, large packs
Ghost forest can have more, well, ghosts
Usability improvements:
Double clicking on a unit now selects all units of that type on their different respective levels. When you click on guard, it selects guard, big guard, huge guard, royal guard
Shift + left-clicking on a unit will now add all units of that type to selection. As opposed to adding only that one unit. For example, select guards, then shift + click on knights to add all knights to selection. Now you have all guards and all knights in circle selected
Bug fixes:
Fixed pumpkin-warrior damage output
Changed the achievement "necromancer pact" so it triggers with level 1 necromancers (apprentices), as many players felt that it's not working while it actually required you to level up the necromancers. Works now with level 1-s as well
Changed the achievement "worker army" so it works with level 2 workers too. Previously it required you to have 100 level 1 workers. Level 2 did not count. Now they both count
Fixed an issue where starting a map vs AI and not selecting a difficulty resulted in map having weak creatures. The AI was strong but neutral circles had few enemies
Fixed an issue which caused players to be unable to capture circles when playing vs AI (Barandur the Builder gained a gold pile in a new circle, but the gold pile was ‘loyal’ to the player. So if AI was playing as Barandur the Builder, there would be AI controlled gold piles which prevented the human player from capturing the circle unless the players harvests said gold pile)
Fixed some issues that prevented high level enemies from spawning on high difficulties. You can now face crazier stuff on large maps. Like a 35000+ strength circles
We wanted to make the first update a chunky one, with a lot of small little additions, fixes and balance tweaks that improve the game. One of the most notable changes is the addition of an attack move, that allows you to direct your selected units to attack anything that comes in their way. Thank you all for your feedback and support, and keep reaching out if you have something to share. We’ll be sure to listen.
Without further ado, check out the full changelog below.
Changelog update 1.0.9
Improvements
Added an attack move! Press ‘Q’ or click the attack move-button in the lower right corner. Then left-click the target location to perform an attack move. Alternatively, hold down ‘Ctrl’ or ‘Alt’ when right-clicking the target location. Units will attack any enemy that they encounter on the way. The regular moving ignores targets on the way to enable escaping from battle
Double click selects only one unit type, e.g. guards. It used to be that it selected all units in the circle by category (like melee or ranged)
Added keyboard controls overview in the settings menu
Added hotkey ‘E’ to switch between simple and advanced build menus
Going from advanced build menu to regular build menu, no longer deselects the selected units
Units prefer to fight closer targets more intelligently. This also reduces the risk of losing your back-row troops to ranged opponents
Display of strength and number of selected units is more visible now. It's in the bottom-middle of the screen.
Balance tweaks
Huntable boss monsters got large HP and damage boosts
Horse archer level 1 is now less powerful and more expensive: HP reduced from 250 to 180, damage reduced from 10 to 8, price increased from 120 food, 75 gold => 120 food and 120 gold
Monster Mushrooms are more likely to spawn Vampires and Ghosts. Used to spawn mostly Zombies
Removed personal bonuses from camps, storehouses and mystery boxes.
The Goblin King got +10 armor
Vampire level 6 got +10 armor
Most buildings received armor and had their HP adjusted accordingly to to adjust for this balance tweak. Sunken Ruins and Sinister Towers have a bit less HP, while stables have a bit more
Ron the Rebel King (the Knight Boss) got more resistance to knockback and additional armor
The Goblin King got more resistance to knockback and damage 15 => 35, which will be further boosted if it's a huntable boss monster
Giant Frogman and Giant Poison Frog now have increased poison resistance
Giant Frogman got stronger poison attack, which does less direct damage
Pumpkin Warrior got a damage boost from 5 to 10, and more knockback
Axe Thrower boss gets a large knockback boost
Decreased the Frog Witch’s attack speed, and gave the attack a tiny area of effect splash
bug fixes
Fixed an issue where vampires lifesteal ability was 1000 times better than intended (meant to be 50%, was 50000% of damage dealt)
Fixed the issue that caused the sound settings to be reset after each match. This should not happen anymore. However, if it does still occur, be sure to reach out on the forum in the ‘bug reports’-section.
Fixed an issue where AI in Imperial Conflict stopped expanding
Display of strength and number of selected units is more visible now. It's in the bottom-middle of the screen
Fixed a bug that caused units to ignore certain enemies in a circle
Fixed a bug that caused that Druid tooltip to not show
Fixed a bug where some projectile sounds were playing in circles that are not discovered, most notably when playing vs AI
Sleeping NPC’s can no longer move around while sleeping
Circle Empires has released today through Steam and other major digital retailers. It is available at an impulse price of $7.99, with a further 10% discount offered during this week of launch!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUnjuUI17H4 The Circle Empires universe is made of interconnected circles, each containing loot to plunder and foes to defeat. Players take the role of the god-like leader of a tiny kingdom, hungry for power. Using guile and strategic prowess, gamers hunt down increasingly powerful foes to expand their territory.
Circle Empires features three modes - Monster Hunt, Full Conquest, Imperial Conflict - and six difficulty levels: Easy, Normal, Hard, Extreme, Nightmare, and Impossible.
Circle conquistadores can purchase the game at a 10% discount now!
Circle Empires releases for PC & MacOS on August 8th! Be prepared, start sharpening your swords, axes, and... dragon teeth? 🐲
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUnjuUI17H4 The Circle Empires universe consists of interconnected circles, each containing loot to plunder and foes to be defeated. Players take the role of the god-like leader of a tiny kingdom, hungry for power. Using guile and strategic prowess, gamers must hunt down increasingly powerful foes and expand their territory.
Circle Empires features 18 playable factions, 12 enemy boss monsters, and 150+ different creatures, buildings and resources. The game is procedurally generated, meaning no two playthroughs are ever the same. Circle Empires started life as a small demo on Game Jolt, which was picked up by over 165,000 strategy fans – since then it has blossomed into a fully-fledged Real-Time Strategy game, with completely overhauled art and countless new features.
Upon release, Circle Empires will support the following languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Turkish, Czech, Polish and Estonian.