Hyvää päivää! Welcome to this week’s developer diary where I will be revealing two new mission trees: Finland and Lübeck! As a note ahead of time, the new Finland mission tree will be part of the upcoming DLC, while we decided to grant Emperor’s Lübeck tree to Hamburg and Bremen (with the appropriate tweaks, available for Emperor owners) and give Lübeck a brand new, expansive set of missions for the base game. However, more on that further down!
Please keep in mind that the numbers showcased here are NOT FINAL and are very much subject to change based on your feedback!
During the timeline of the game, Finland rested under the crown of Sweden and had some regional development in terms of its farming population. The Finnish cavalry known as the Hakkapeliita were famed for their ability to provide valuable skirmishers, reconnaissance, and devastating charges in campaigns against both Russia and Poland. However, as with the Teutonic Order, Gotland and Livonia, this set of missions revolves around a scenario in which Finland fought (and won) their independence, making them a valid contender for the Scandinavian crown and expanding their domain across several shores and regions.
Despite Finland’s status as a releasable tag, we felt it was appropriate to satisfy the demands for a proper and interesting Finnish mission tree:
Finland will receive 15 new missions, each one carefully crafted to offer new and unique rewards, leading into the formation of Scandinavia and the domination of the Baltic shores. Please note that the art of the icons is placeholder and is not final!
Raise Our Army will give a short yet tactically crucial bonus to your forces, allowing you the ability to outmaneuver the numerically superior Swedes and their wartime allies:
What’s more, you will gain access to a unique version of the Hakkapeliitta Cavalry which costs no Army Professionalism to recruit:
The mission Defend Independence will require you to make allies, raise your stability and bring balance to your financial affairs by having no loans. As a reward, you will be able to write your own story, your saga, which will grant you a scaling reward based on your ruler’s achievements during his lifetime at the time of completing the mission. The factors for the reward are:
Stability (Administrative Accomplishment)
Number of Allies (Diplomatic Accomplishment)
The amount of development you’ve grown by (Military Accomplishment)
Each of these will grant our ruler between 1 and 3 monarch stats (or monarch points if already at 6), along with this powerful ruler-tied modifier as well as permanent claims on the Baltic Trade Node (that’s a surprise tool that we will use later):
Completing the aforementioned mission will open the way for 3 new missions. First off, conquering Stockholm from your former overlords will change the name of Stockholm (if your culture is Finnish), grant it some development and give you access to a discounted advisor:
Seize the Means will task you with seizing the means of production behind Europe’s prime source of copper and will grant you a good bit of ducats from your copper and iron production, the ‘Industrious’ trait (if your ruler has enough available slots) as well as the following reward:
Expanding St. Olav’s Tower will yield quite an interesting and powerful local reward:
Keep in mind that if for whatever reason an enemy force (another nation or rebels) takes control of the province, you will lose the above modifier!
Declaring a Baltic Empire will give you a new name and if you have Mandate of Heaven the following reward along with granting you the rank of Empire:
On the right side of the tree you will see missions relating to the development of the countryside and the founding of new cities:
Founding Turku, an important city for Finland guarding the way to and from Stockholm:
Founding Helsinki will grant a level 2 Center of Trade as well as a few buildings for your newly developed province. Note that if you complete the mission with a Shipyard and a Dockyard, you will instead gain their upgraded versions:
Finetuning the Finances of the realm will require you to increase your income, employ a level 2 Administrative Advisor, run a positive monthly balance and have no loans:
The Turku Academy, your domain’s first university and institution of higher education, will yield the Scholar trait for your ruler, Innovativeness and more:
The culmination of the Finnish tree ends with unleashing the White Death upon Europe and a powerful permanent country modifier to go with it:
Of course, you are welcome to form Scandinavia and gain the Scandinavian mission tree, however Finland will not have a unique Scandinavian tree, as its senior siblings in the region do.
Now, 1.34 will also hone and improve as well as add new content for the base game. One such addition is an expanded mission tree for Lübeck. Before we delve into it, I would like to repeat that the Emperor DLC Lübeck tree will be available for Hamburg and Bremen (if you have the Emperor DLC) with a good number of tweaks and new rewards as well as localisation. Moreover, the Hanseatic League will now be a formable nation with its own set of national ideas (essentially Lübeck with a different name and better ideas). Since that’s out of the way, let’s go, Lübeck!
From a historical perspective, Lübeck (and the Hansa as a whole) has seen better days. The 15th century brought a lot of decline for their merchants, with business shifting westwards towards the English channel. You are tasked with reviving the mercantilist grip of the League, expanding it and creating a trade Empire the likes of which the world has never seen. To assist you in your endeavors, the various missions of your tree also benefit the members of your trade league, giving you a reason to care for them and if possible, expand their ranks:
The top half of the tree will focus on expanding the League outwards. However, many of these missions will not require direct conquest. You will be able to complete many of these via diplomacy as well! The goal is to give the player the freedom to choose how they want to approach the tree.
The conquest branch will start with requiring you to raise an army which will seamlessly grant claims for and flow into missions about Visby, Mecklenburg, Riga and more.
Gateway to the East will require you to have Riga be part of the trade league and have high opinion of you or control the similarly named province as well as having a certain amount of troops.
Restore Visby will lead you to restoring a historical stronghold for the League:
Gaining ports in Danzig, cooperating with the Traders and developing the city of Danzig will grant the following benefits:
The conquest path ends with the appointment of an official War Minister. Every different military advisor will grant a different, dynamic reward:
The second part of the tree is wholly dedicated to the internal affairs of both Lübeck itself and the Hansa as a general league of trade nations. Initially, you will have to expand the Old City of Lübeck and its market, yielding powerful Trade Efficiency and Institution Spread modifiers for a few years followed by the Peace of Vordingborg, imitating the styles of Italian Bookkeeping and Financing the Guilds of Lübeck:
Of course, no Hansa playthrough would be complete without a mission to address and expand the Hansehalle, the legendary administrative center and the heart of the entire Hansa:
Funding the shipbuilders’ Guild will grant a flavor event about the legendary Hanseatic Cog which will grant Light Ship Cost as well as Sailors and increased Naval Leader Maneuver. Elsewhere, Organize Hanseatic Diets will require you to bring peace within the Trade League and develop Diplomatic channels between yourself and potential members or subjects:
Impose Lübeck Law will grant another dynamic reward, based on which faction is in power at the time of completion:
Presenting a grown and powerful economy as well as increasing your total development in the Tend to the Towns mission will yield a positive bonus for you and your Trade League members:
Developing the Mineral Trade in Europe has quite a spicy reward that will, just like its predecessors, change depending on the circumstances of its completion, here’s the direct and less likely outcome of importing large amounts of precious metals in your ports:
To wrap up the flavor part of the tree, declaring the Queen of the Hansa mission will turn all members of your trade League into subjects and grant a diplomatic relations modifier to cover part of the upkeep costs for 30 years. Furthermore, you will gain monarch power scaled to the Development of your capital, 10 points per development to be precise:
The event Crowning of a New Queen grants 2 different bonuses. Either you change your country’s name to The Hanseatic League and gain a new idea set or keep your current ideas while your ruler gains +1 adm/dip/mil and you gain 3 Mercantilism:
Earlier in this Developer Diary, I mentioned that the Emperor DLC Lübeck tree will be playable for Hamburg and Bremen, since Lübeck got a shiny new tree. To add to that, the Hanseatic League, which is the reward for the final flavor mission for Lübeck, is now available as a formable nation and will come outfitted with the Lübeck tree and the evolved idea set I showcased just above.
In the interest of time, this Developer Diary cannot be too large. Thus, we have intentionally omitted showcasing the rest of the flavor coming for Lübeck. This Diary barely covers 40% of the new content! As mentioned above, this Lübeck mission tree will be part of the **base game** and will come fitted with 36 new missions and 20 new events!
Lastly, I would like to bring another small change to your attention: the UI for Estates has been reworked and I would like to give special thanks to Artemis, whose UI work served as the basis for our own:
Now passing the mic over to my dear friend and colleague Ogele to talk about new shiny Theocratic Reforms!
Hello there!
In the last development diaries we have shown new government reforms for monarchies, republics and even pirate republics which will all be part of the 1.34 update. Today I want to finish this topic for good as I will present to you what we have in store for theocracies!
Theocracies were the last on our list for new government reforms and had already a bunch of interesting and fun choices to pick from. As such, they don’t receive as many new reforms as for example monarchies and republics do. With that being said, we still think they deserve some love nonetheless and because of that we have decided to add 2 new theocracy specific tiers.
Tier 2:
Note: Internal Mission, External Mission and Mission to Civilize are unchanged while Mission on the High Sea only requires one owned port instead of a capital port.
Tier 3:
Education of the Theocrat will immediately trigger an event for you when picked which allows you to choose what stat bonus your next heir shall receive:
This event will always trigger when you get a new ruler and fires before you can select an heir so your heir will benefit from the bonus you choose.
While we are at it: the Kingdom of God reform for the Papal State is still in the 3rd tier, but has received some buffs to make it more on par with theocracies which have access to the Papal Influence and Education of the Theocrat:
Tier 5:
Note: Only Subservient Bureaucrats and Zealous Administrators received changes
Tier 6:
Note: Magister Militum Dei and Embrace Conciliarism are Papal State only
Tier 8:
Note: only “Pursuit of Knowledge” is new here, the other reforms are former Tier 2 reforms which have been moved to Tier 8.
Tier 9:
Governments which have the “Is a Monastic Order” government trait gain access to four additional reforms which are already part of the game right now.
Tier 10:
Tier 11:
Tier 12:
That was it for this week! Next week Gnivom will talk about the AI changes and adjustments for 1.34. Until then, we wish you all a great week!
1) Added ability to build structures in the wilderness 2) Added crafting recipe to learn how to craft building foundations 3) Updated various UI windows 4) Renamed wooden ceiling building parts to 'floor and ceiling' 5) Added wooden walls for building and their crafting recipes 6) Flipped the wooden plank tool icon so the amount text is now visible 7) Profession and recipe scroll/book tooltips now show 'learned' or 'not learned' 8) Fixed the forest caves and the mage entrance quest
Any pledge would be an incredible help! If you are unable to pledge we totally understand! All that we can ask is that you please share this Kickstarter with everyone that you can. Every share matters greatly to us. Thank you, and we hope you will join us on this journey!
We are already into the second week of Season 6, and we hope you have been exercising your drifting muscles! Here’s what to expect for the next action-packed week of The Crew 2!
LIVE SUMMIT – HASHIRIYA (JULY 13 – JULY 19)
Japanese car manufacturers love nothing more than solving technical challenges to reach first place. In this week’s LIVE Summit, choose your ride and conquer the podium!
Whether you’re busy drifting through the circuits or speeding down the open roads, there’s always time to stop and admire the flowers – or to visit the Far & Beyond Store! This week will feature the Hashiriya Bundle, available until July 19th!
Nissan Skyline GT-R (R34) High Octane Edition (2002) – Street Race
Mazda RX-8 (2010) – Street Race
Nissan 370Z (Z34) (2013) – Drag Race
VEHICLES & VANITY BUNDLES
It’s not enough to win – you must look stylish while doing it. Speed past your opponents, blend into the city lights and become a neon blur with the new bundles from the Far & Beyond Store! The Murasaki and Nightline Bundles will be available until July 19!
Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X (2014) – Murasaki Bundle
Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X (2014) – Street Racing
Hey everyone! We're back with another behind-the-scenes look into our development process. This week we're diving into how we're improving combat in the game by focusing on improvements to enemy AI.
Achilles: Legends Untold is an action game - one of its most important elements is the combat system. And, as you know, combat is only as good as the enemies you fight! That’s why we give special care to the enemy AI during development. We want the game to provide you with truly formidable opponents and memorable, challenging encounters. Here’s an inside look on how we’re managing and continuing to improve our enemy AI:
The Old AI System
The original system we were using was based on “attack tokens”. First, the game checked the current condition of the fight - how much time has passed since the last attack? How many enemies are fighting Achilles right now? What type of enemies are they?
Then, the enemies, who were chosen after the condition check, were given some amount of attack tokens from the limited total pool. They were able to consume these tokens by attacking Achilles - then the AI returned them to the pool, so they could be dispensed again, during the next condition check.
(Enemies attacking & instantly backing off)
That’s how the game chose who will be striking at our hero and when he should do it. We decided the system needed improvements. We’ve been getting feedback from our players, that the opponents back off too quickly after attacking, and that it’s hard to counterattack efficiently. We’re listening! - and that’s why we’re making some changes.
The New AI System
The new & improved system is similar, but it splits enemies into certain groups. The AI can either be on the passive or the active list. What does this mean?
Active - An enemy that gets on the active list will stay close to Achilles and try to attack him.
Passive - On the other hand, the enemies on the passive list will give way to the active ones - they will move around at a distance and taunt our hero, waiting for their turn.
What does that mean for the player? With these changes, the combat will feel a lot more continuous - enemies that attack Achilles will stay focused on him longer, giving the player a better opportunity to punish them and counterattack. The fights will be much more natural, with enemies moving around more strategically. It will make the whole system feel less clunky, improving on the current AI behavior.
(Improved token system, enemies stay more focused)
On the Offensive
The combat style of our AI is shifting from a focus on defense to a more offensive-minded behavior. Now the enemies will be more vulnerable to your counters, but they won’t just let you attack them so easily. They are becoming more aggressive and will hunt you relentlessly! You will have to adapt your fighting style and strategy in order to survive against these more aggressive enemies . This fundamental change will make gameplay feel more dynamic and keep you on your toes, as you maneuver your way through more challenging opponents.
New Enemy Abilities
That’s not all! Apart from improving the AI system, we’re also actively expanding upon it. We want our enemies to have a wide array of attack types and environment interactions, so we’re constantly experimenting and adding new ones. For example, here are two new abilities we’ve been working on:
The Spear Throw
See these spears in the ground, scattered around the map? Enemies are able to locate them, pick them up, and throw them at Achilles using all their might and strength. If you don’t want to become a human shish kebab, watch out and dodge them!
The Flaming Arrows
We have many fireplaces placed in all of Greece, and it’s time we put them to a better use! Apparently, the archers haven’t been taught not to play with fire - they are now able to come up to any fire source, and light their arrows with flame. Better extinguish their enthusiasm, or you’ll get 3rd degree burns!
Bonus
We’re also creating unique abilities for the bosses. As you might’ve already seen, in patch 0.1.3 we expanded on Menelaus’ skillset. Now he’s carrying a bottle with a purple fluid - he can drink some of it and spit at Achilles, poisoning him. He’s also able to cover his weapon with it and start dealing poison damage on hit.
As it turns out, Menelaus is also a bit of a pyromaniac - he likes to light his sword on fire, burning Achilles with each strike. Using it, he can also spit fire at you! A dangerous foe indeed.
We’re giving our all to the game’s combat. We want to make it dynamic and exciting, but to also fully incorporate the strategic aspects of the top-down view, so it’s a challenging experience for the players. Thanks to the input we’ve been getting from you, with each update we’re getting closer to that goal!
Remember that you can also become a part of the process - we’re actively collecting and looking through your feedback, both here and on our Discord server. If you have any thoughts you want to share with us about the game, make sure to write us a message in a discussions thread, or in the dedicated Discord channel (link below).
It seems that Guy spilled the tea somewhere lately because we have received a lot of questions about further updates. Well, be careful what you wish for... or rather be happy that you get what you wish for because we have a little something for you.
However, before we introduce you to the July update, we want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your continuous support and hundreds of hours of conversations when you've shared your feedback with us. We're thankful for each review because without them - both positive and negative - we wouldn't know which features need improvement. And even though we're not able to change many things at this stage of Rustler's development, we can promise you that we will take this experience with us and use it in the development of our other games. So once again - thank you! Rustler wouldn't exist if it weren't for you and your participation in different surveys.
Steam Deck verified!
Yes, you see that right, in April Rustler has been marked as Steam Deck Verified. Since then many of you have played it there and thanks to your engagement, we were able to optimize Rustler for Steam Deck a bit more. Thank you! Enjoy Guy's adventures on the newest Valve's gaming hardware and let us know your opinion!
Changelog & new fixes:
[expand type=details] The list contains only the most often reported bugs, we've fixed many minor ones as well:
We've added some extra time to the mace murderfest so it would be a bit easier to complete.
If you quit the game right after watching the intro and then load the save, you should be able to continue the game without any problems.
The Taxi Guy fail report won't show up on the game's screen while playing other minigames.
If you've killed Sleazy in your previous gameplay, don't worry, you'll meet him again on the next run.
Winning MMA fights will no longer block you from launching minigames with the "E" key while sitting on a horse's back.
You shouldn't experience any problems with the "condemned" scenes anymore.
If you try to repeat the "His Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" quest while doing the "Take Sleazy Home" quest, Sleazy should now show up in the return point anyway and follow Guy.
In the side quest "By a Long Shot", Guy shouldn't be seen floating anymore.
You're not able to buy a safe house while riding on a taxi horse.
If the 3rd debtor hits Guy while he's sitting on a horse, Guy shouldn't get blocked from performing other actions.
Exploding red barrels and TNT will kill you without locking you in place. No chance of surviving the hit or getting stuck now.
Guy shouldn't have the chance to spin around in place now after jumping off the med cart.
We've tried to fix all language issues. Let us know if we've taken proper care of that.
You won't fail the Stayin' Alive minigame by hitting a passer-by anymore.
If you have both: psycho fan and mercenary following you on the map, you don't have to worry anymore that they will keep throwing each other off the horse. The psycho fan will keep following you even if the place on the horse's back is taken.
If you buy the bard's services and then fire him, and hire him once again, the bard won't throw a tantrum anymore - earlier, he had some trouble with his pride and didn't want to sing after being rehired. And you know, we've had "a talk" and now he'll be singing more beautifully than ever, whenever you decide to give him a job :)
Any quest markers on the map will now point in the one and only right direction. Thanks to them, you will be able to, f.ex., localize stakes in the quarry sooner.
[/expand]
Steam Deck fixes:
[expand type=details]
We've improved the game's performance on Steam Deck.
The problem with two Guys showing up at once on your screen has been solved. You won't see a duplicated Guy again. At least not in our game.
[/expand]
DLCs await you
Remember that both Rustler DLCs: Murder Madness and Vinci await you! We've also prepared a special art book, as well as the soundtrack that you enjoy so much in the game! And if you want to get a full package, you can do that by buying a bundle! https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/19063/Rustler__Complete_Edition/
Hop on a unicorn and check Yet Another Fantasy Title!
If you like Rustler, hop on your unicorn and ride straight into Yet Another Fantasy Title. Become a rogue in an open-world fantasy action RPG and slay the dragon. Drink with ogres, steal the Ring from nasty goblins and bring mayhem to all and everyone around. Win a hand of a kingdom and a half of a princess... Wait, is there even any princess in this story? Add to the wishlist to find this and many more out: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1993450
And at the end of this announcement, let us use this moment to wish you a wonderful, colorful, and relaxing summertime! Rustler team hopes that you will enjoy these couple of months as much as possible.
Changelog 1.0.14 -fixed an odd issue where sometimes during the first boss the characters REALLY wanted to over explain dualtechs to you again and again and again -ADDED FULL VOICE ACTING TO THE GM1 MODE7 RECAP THEATER PLAY by request