Hi Everyone,

So it has been 12 solid days work since release now, and I think we have the worst of the bugs and quality of life issues under control. Thanks very much for your patience and bug reports. Those of you on the testing branch have been a huge help as well!

Let's dive into the changes.

I have increased the amount of heat that the fireplaces will emit from a 5 tile to a 6 tile radius for optimal heating. This amounts to a heating area of 75->108 tiles. As rooms get bigger than that, the heating power is proportionally reduced. Also keep in mind at 108 tiles, the most heating improvement a single fireplace can give is +10 degrees over those 108 tiles. So if it is -20 outside and you have a lot of floor space you will still need multiple fireplaces (just not quite as many)

I had never anticipated the need for so much Wood Ash, but some of you have quite the major farming and tanning operations and Wood Ash gets low. The Charcoal Kiln now has a recipe to turn Bark from the Timbery into Wood Ash. I chose the Charcoal Kiln for this recipe since in most cases players will already have auto stack set up from the Charcoal Kilns to a nearby Ash Bin.

If you don't know about Auto Stack, if you place a storage object within two tiles of a crafting object, the crafted items will auto stack to the appropriate storage. It can save a lot of clutter and haul time.

A common problem was people trying to plant crops in Fall, and there was no feedback as to why the Clanfolk were ignoring the orders. They actually would not plant because the crops would not grow and the seeds would be lost. I have made this much more obvious now.

So in Seasons where the crops cannot be planted, they will show up with a red X in the menus. To make it clear it is not planting time. Also planting jobs that cannot complete will clean themselves up in Fall.

Sorry for this one. The Clanfolk were always trying to find the best bed to sleep in, and while no one could sleep in someone else's bed, anyone could sleep in an unclaimed bed. This lead to Clanfolk sometimes not picking the beds they owned and blocking unassigned beds.

Now Clanfolk see their owned beds as 1000x more attractive than other beds.

So Clanfolk want to eat the food that is going to spoil the most to prevent waste, however they were not taking distance into consideration enough, which could lead to "Berry Parades."

A Berry Parade happened when berries had been left out in the wild and were about to spoil somewhere across the map. The Clanfolk being thrifty Scots wanted to save them and trekked out in the rain to eat those berries instead of eating the fresher food nearby.

In some cases this behavior is desirable, so it remains, but the distance is taken much more into consideration now before attempting this.

This one is more for the testing branch, but everyone can use it. If you see odd behavior, please use info mode and click on the object or person who is misbehaving. There will be extra info in their description box when selected that may shed some light on the problem and could be useful in a bug report.

Even just out of curiosity, some of the info in there may be interesting to people. So have fun :)

So this was a weird case, but the babies will not nurse anymore when the mother is fighting a fire. This baby juggle was quite funny to watch while it lasted. Mother throws off baby, Mother to fight fire. Baby jumps back on. On Repeat. Not A Good Time Baby!

This one is worth calling out here. There was in issue with the Windows System Culture sometimes preventing saved games from loading due to their different time/date format. This is now fixed. Sorry about that! Only saw this in the case of Arabic Windows, but there may have been others.

I have set the Winter Ice Jug filling active in all seasons. So if there is less than 201 water and there are empty jugs available, someone will go fill those jugs.

The natural way to get this done is to set a Clanfolk's Gathering skill high (Water Collection is Gathering) and set the Drink Zone to High Priority. With this task though, you can rely on at least having a small stable water supply no matter what.

So this was a quick one but a popular one. The paths no longer fade out near the Clanfolk, so you don't have to guess where the path is going on the long ones, searching for that blue line.

I finally have the troughs looking like the stockpiles when you disallows certain seed types. This issue was reported so often that I am calling it out here as well. This also works for the Graves and Composts. Speaking of Graves.

Burial has been a huge problem. To bury a body, it had to be assigned to a grave using a button list just above the main rack of buttons at the bottom of the screen. It was not intuitive and lead to a lot of frustration.

So now we have Auto Burial. New Graves are set to priority 9 and will automatically select a body to be buried in them. This can still be overridden by stopping the grave you don't want used for the body if you have multiple graves too.

Remember, Burial is a Repair task as well so you have a Clanfolk with high Repair priority (you should always have at least 2.)

• Baby animals will no longer nurse their mother to death like vampires as a final farewell when sold to traders.
  
• Increased fire heating optimal radius from 5 -> 6 tiles. This is an increase of 75->108 tiles
  
• Fix for case where butcher blocks could stall out permanently
  
• Added Bark -> Wood Ash recipe for Charcoal kiln
  
• Mulch paths (bark) now have an environmental bonus
  
• Renamed Dirt Path, Gravel Path, and Mulch Path to better describe their function and why they don't touch walls.
  
• Fixed ice jugs breaking when emptied.
  
• Fixed Wells duplicating water jugs if on tilled soil

• Planting menu will show red X on items that can not be planted due to current season
  
• Planting jobs will clean themselves up in the fall and winter when they cannot complete.
  
• Automatic cleanup of automated tasks improved

• Musical Beds and Berry Parades Resolved? + Info Mode for Bug Reports
  
• Clanfolk give 10x more choosing weight to items they own when filling attribute bars
  
• Clanfolk give 1000x more weight to beds they own.
  
• Clanfolk take the distance much more into account when deciding which thing to eat next. Was too heavily weighted to what would perish next which lead to treks across the map to eat a berry that was going bad.
  
• Less weight given to perishables on their last day. Was overwhelming other picks too much causing far travel for that last berry.
  
• In all cases owned objects are 10x higher weighted for picking than non owned ones.
  
• Enable Info Mode with Left Shift + F1 this will provide internal info for bug reporting when clicking on entities. Many bugs fix themselves on reload, but this info can help track down problems.
  
• If possible enable Info Mode, select the entity causing trouble and take a couple of screenshots showing all the info in the info pane for the entity (scrolling may be needed)

• Fixed Gravel Path, Dirt Path, Mulch Path so they do not default back to English in other translations
  
• Updated French Translation
  
• Updated Hungarian Translation
  
• Fixed babies continually latching on to mothers fighting fires to nurse. No fire fighting baby juggle
  
• Fixed issue where hauler could try to move an items from a stockpile that they were locked out of
  
• Optimization for validation of hauling tasks between stockpiles when boosted. Could get really ugly in some cases
  
• Fix for loading games with different Date/Time culture formats for the OS
  
• Objects will clear the grass out from under them on load. There cannot be grass under objects as it prevents their normal use.
  
• Fixed grass being able to be planted under objects
  
• Fixed Plants reseeding themselves under other jobs causing weird states. Seen with reed planting job on top of reseeded reeds.
  
• Made long paths easier to see near the starting point (Unit) - No more fade out
  
• Grain Troughs and Composts use the red X's to show the items that are not allowed now instead of just the darker button
  
• Graves no longer allow ownership as burial does not use that system and dead units cannot own things
  
• Graves have a default priority of 9 so they get picked quickly when a person dies.
  
• Auto Burial now works. If there are more bodies than graves (oh no) then you can still pick the permanent resident
  
• Set the auto gather of water to be available in all seasons, not just Winter. So if less than 201 water someone will fill jugs. Remember, water collection is a gathering task.

• Getting Hunters to Haul Bunnies when they are cold [DONE Update 2]
  
• Preventing personal needs from breaking chained tasks [DONE Update 2]
  
• Keeping fires lit overnight [DONE Update 3]
  
• Automating burying loved ones [DONE Update 4]
  
• Fixing bed owners stealing unclaimed beds, blocking them [DONE Update 4]
  
• Wells duplicating water jugs somehow [DONE Update 4]
  
• Upgrading the Boost System to also read skill ordering for decision making
  
• Any and all cases of a movement stuck problem causing starvation
  
• Carrying Tools back home better

Thanks again people on the testing branch. It helps keep the main branch stable. If you like quicker daily updates, come join us in the testing branch too :)

Library->Clanfolk->Properties->Betas->testing

Diving back into the code now.

Andrew Hume (Blorf)
MinMax Games Ltd.

p.s. Fun fact, as of this morning, Clanfolk's combined play time is now over 47 years!

Please, read more about the things here:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1283810/view/3389539321932659309

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/TeamSyukino/announcements/detail/3317479353974559078

Estellium Legends II is one of the fortunate projects to come back from the dead. Just like Anetona and Solenars Edge II: Aurora of The Seventh Dawn.

* Bug where some ammo for the gun wouldn't work correctly.

Turns out the tag list for the different kinds of ammo was corrupted in the last update. This made it so that all ammos had the same damage, as well as completely failing to trigger some of the easter eggs in the game. This should be fixed now.

Hello everyone! Today I’ll introduce you to the new monuments we’ve designed for the next update. As before, this content will be free for all Leviathan DLC owners. Along with that, I’ll also comment on some game balance changes we’ve implemented for free in the 1.34 update.


As already mentioned in some of the previous DDs, we decided to introduce a few more monuments. Overall, we’re happy with the monument density we got after the 1.32 update, so we just wanted to address one specific region that was lacking in love (Scandinavia, which fits in pretty well with the upcoming DLC), and a few gaps we wanted to cover here and there. Since we had few monuments to cover this time, we also tried to get creative with the attached modifiers (you may notice some new modifiers on them, also). Let’s see:

The Falun Copper Mine was already present in the game, as a local modifier to the province of Dalaskogen. As it was the main copper production site for Europe in the Modern Age, we decided to turn it into a monument (and for those not owning Leviathan, the local province modifier will stay as it is).



Modifiers:


Built by King Erik VII in the early 15th century, Kronborg Castle was established to enforce the Sound Toll, though it would later be transformed into a magnificent royal residence.



Modifiers:


The city of Visby was one of the main ports on the Baltic trade routes, its walls protected it from its many enemies, making it the heart of an independent Gotland.



Modifiers:


Trakai Island Castle was completed in the early 15th century by Grand Duke Vytautas, first for a military purpose and later transformed into a royal residence.



Modifiers:


Salvador da Bahía was one of the oldest cities established by the Portuguese in Brazil, becoming the capital of the colony for more than two centuries.



Modifiers:


M'banza-Kongo was the seat of Manikongo, the ruler of the Kingdom of Kongo, becoming the most important city in the region during the 15th and 16th centuries, as the power of its king prospered.



Requirements:
Culture is in Kongo group and is accepted by its owner

Modifiers:


The historic city of Harar Jugol was one of the main places of pilgrimage for Muslims, with dozens of mosques and shrines, and a tradition of scholars and holy men.



Requirements:
Province has the state or syncretic religion, which is in Muslim group.

Modifiers:


Dujiangyan is related to the ancient irrigation system developed around the city of the same name, and how it made the Sichuan region one of the most prosperous in China.



Modifiers:

---

We already talked in previous DDs about the new national ideas that we developed for some countries. Along with that, we decided to rebalance some of the existing idea groups. The general design behind this rebalance was to give again a bit of extra diversity to the different groups available, so choosing different possibilities between them might be more viable from this update. Getting into more detail, here are some of the reasoning behind specific changes:

• Ideas giving National Manpower and Land Force limit are nerfed, to combine them with the new changes in the combat system. We felt that there were already many different sources of Manpower and Land Force available to the player and that also some ideas (e.g. Quantity) were heavily favored over others.
  
• We’re also nerfing both the Economic Ideas and the Economic-Quality Policy Development Cost reduction, as we felt that we already introduced a fair amount of Development Cost elsewhere, so we saw it right to reduce it considerably here, effectively rebalancing the total amount you get from these sources.
  
• We wanted to buff some of the underdogs in the Idea Groups, such as Espionage, Trade and Naval, to make them more viable compared to others in their groups.

Here you’ve got a detailed account of the changes implemented:

• Innovative Ideas:
  
  • ‘Optimism’ gives now also gives +1 Leaders without Upkeep.
    
  • 'Formalized Officer Corps' replaced by ‘Expanded Policies’, now granting +1 Free Policies.
• Economic Ideas:
  
  • Bonus now gives -10% Development Cost instead of -20%.
• Espionage Ideas:
  
  • ‘State Propaganda’ now also reduces Covert Action Relation Impact by -50%.
    
  • ‘Vetting’ now also grants -0.1 Yearly Corruption.
    
  • ‘Audit Checks’ replaced by ‘Blackmailing’, now granting:
    
    • Reasons to Accept Vassalization +15.
      
    • Monthly Favors Modifier +33%.
  • Bonus gives now Rebel Support Efficiency of 100% instead of just 50%, and reduces Covert Action Relation Impact by -50%.
• Trade Ideas
  
  • ‘Shrewd Commerce Practice’ now also decreases Promote Mercantilism Cost by 25%.
    
  • ‘Free Trade’ now also gives +2 Merchant Trade Power.
    
  • ‘Overseas Merchants’ now also decreases Trade Company Investment Cost by 25%.
    
  • Bonus now also gives +10% Loyalty of the Burghers/Vaisyas
• Exploration Ideas:
  
  • ‘Free Colonies’ now gives +10% Settler Chance.
    
  • ‘Global Empire’ now also gives +25% Treasure Fleet Income.
• Aristocratic Ideas:
  
  • ‘Noble Knights’ gives now -20% Cavalry Cost instead of 10% and +15% Cavalry Combat Ability instead of 10%.
    
  • ‘Serfdom’ now gives +20% National Manpower Modifier instead of +33%.
    
  • ‘Noble Connections’ now increases mercenary manpower by 25% instead of 20%.
• Divine Ideas:
  
  • ‘Martyrs’ gives now +25% Manpower in True Faith provinces instead of +15% Global Manpower modifier.
• Horde Ideas:
  
  • Bonus now also gives +10% Tribes Loyalty Equilibrium.
• Indigenous Ideas:
  
  • ‘Controlled Burns’ from Indigenous Ideas gives now +15% National Manpower Modifier instead of +20%
• Offensive Ideas:
  
  • ‘Grand Army’ now gives +10% Special Unit Force Limit and +15% Land Force Limit Modifier instead of 20% Land Force Limit Modifier.
• Quality Ideas:
  
  • ‘Quality Education’ now also gives +0.5 Navy Tradition.
• Quantity Ideas:
  
  • ‘Levée en Masse’ now gives +33% National Manpower Modifier instead of 50%.
    
  • Bonus now gives +33% Land Force Limit Modifier instead of +50%.
• Naval Ideas:
  
  • ‘Naval Glory’ now also gives +1 Impact on Siege.
    
  • ‘Oak Forests for Ships’ now also gives +10% Ship Durability.
    
  • Bonus now gives -100% Naval Barrage Cost instead of +10% Ship Durability.

Policies:

• Economic - Quantity:
  
  • No longer gives -10% Development Cost, instead it gives -5% Land Maintenance Modifier.
• Innovative - Quality:
  
  • Now gives Infantry Combat Ability +15% instead of +10%.
• Aristocratic - Espionage:
  
  • Now gives Cavalry Combat Ability +15% instead of +10%, and +10% Noble Estate Loyalty Equilibrium.

---

You may know that it was commented by my colleagues PDX Big Boss and Ogele that we replaced the tax modifier from high crownland with Reform progress growth, but for those who don’t follow as much in detail the DDs, here is a kind reminder of it:



We made an additional change to this: now each Crownland Level above 50% Crownland increases Reform Progress Growth (the modifier, not the flat value) by 20%, up from the current 10%, so the final amount of RPG you can get at 100% Crownlands is 100%. And we’ve also lowered the subsequent reform growth cost from 50 to 40. This makes for more consistent growth of RP, making it easier to progress through the expanded tiers of Government Reforms.

---

Along with the above change, we also decided that we could make Reform Progress Growth even more strategic, by adding a malus to Administrative Efficiency if being over the Government Capacity - which is something that can be countered either by the Centralize State mechanic or by getting more Gov. Cap. with buildings, monuments, reforms, etc. This will certainly curb growth speed, but we think that this also adds some more depth to the game because it presents the player with the choice of how to get extra Gov. Cap. from the different features from where it can be expanded, but also an additional “How do I spend my precious Government Reform Progress” because it can be used either on the ‘Centralize State’ mechanic or in getting more Government Reforms.

Thus, the change we implemented is adding -1% Administrative Efficiency for every 2% Governing Capacity above the cap. This way it scales logically and gives off a dynamic and natural effect on the expansion speed of the country in question.



To help adjust the Government Capacity, we made that Courthouses and Town Halls no longer require an open building slot to be constructed, similar to how Universities work, making them a more interesting type of building. Additionally, the State House building now no longer requires an open building slot, and now decreases local governing cost by a percentage of 25% and a flat -25. These governing modifiers are doubled when constructed on a Paper, Gems or Glass province.

---

Aside from that, we've implemented a few more changes here and there, which we're covering in this miscellaneous section, as we think they might be of interest:

• Expanding the Infrastructure of a province now increases local development cost by -25% instead of -5%. We decided against using Development Efficiency because it could end up at 0 Dev Cost for a province
  
• Ramparts give 1 Combat Roll Bonus for the defender.
  
• Pagan religious rebels can now force you to convert to their religion if the majority of your country has this religion. Nahuatl, Mayan and Ican are excluded from it due to their "primitive" status in the game.
  
• If you have Mare Nostrum then the Spy Network in a foreign country will decrease AE Impact in that nation by -30% instead of -10%
  
• Support Rebels now costs 30% Spy Network instead of 60%
  
• Scorched Earth now causes +0.25 Local Monthly Devastation alongside the -50% Hostile Movement Speed for 5 years
  
• Devotion now gives +25% Church Power, 25% Harmonization Speed, 0.001 Monthly Piety Accelerator, 0.5 Yearly Authority, 0.1% Yearly Patriarchal Authority, 0.5 Yearly Doom Reduction, 0.05 Yearly Karma Decay and 0.05% Clergy/Brahmins Loyalty Equilibrium additionally to the Papal Influence, Prestige and Global Tax modifiers
  Note: this change has been added to make Theocracies more fitting for other religions too.
  
• Crimea now becomes a Tributary State of the Ottomans instead of a March when they seek Ottoman protection during the "Fate of the Crimean Khanate" event

There were a lot of things to cover today! Please let us know of any feedback you have regarding these changes, as we feel today's DD is more about engaging with the community on balance changes than any other. Also, keep in mind that the numbers presented still have room for improvement, so please stay civil in discussing them. Next week the DD will be all about the great art our team has been working on for the upcoming DLC, brought to you by SaintDaveUK. See you!

The heatwave has reached central Europe and I am certain that many of you could use a little time at a cabin by the water! With that said, I am sure you will enjoy the new content that we have added to the Above Snakes Alpha!
The latest version has been rolled out on Steam and can be played by anyone who backed the "Play First" tier or higher.

We have added new content to the Alpha such as a new building style, new side quests, and tiles. We also reworked the character animations and combat. To celebrate all of these exciting implementations, we are trying something new: presenting the latest content in video format!
Please let us know if you prefer the written updates or this new video format by leaving a comment down below or subscribing to our YouTube channel.



Read the full patch notes on the Discord server.



As you can see, our YouTube channel is brand new and would love to grow! We plan on uploading more Above Snakes content on the channel in the future. Please subscribe so you do not miss out on any updates (the little bell helps!) :)



Another demo?! Yes, great news! From August 1st to August 8th you can play a demo of Above Snakes for free during Steam Survival Fest. You can enjoy all of the content of the current Alpha with the exception that the demo version will not save your progress! Please note, this will be the last opportunity to play a demo of Above Snakes for an extended period of time, so be sure to tell your friends, family, pets, and neighbors!

That concludes another update! As always, we are happy to hear your feedback about any and all changes we make to the game. Please feel free to leave a comment below or hop into the discussions on our Discord server!

Cheers,
Tobi

Read more about it here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1283810/view/3389539321932659309


Thank you all for playing Anetona!

The game has been patched to add European Portuguese localization.

• Added European Portuguese localization
  
• Fixed a bug where the Stats menu could be visible before being unlocked

Changes:
- Added a bandit overrun feature. Settlements owned by players who are inactive for 7 days and more will be conquered by bandits and the settlement will become ruined, with missing walls and roofs.
- These bandit towns can be conquered but will be heavily defended with bosses.

Fixes:
- Demolished furniture not giving refunds.
- Blocks not detecting foundations or ceilings below.
- Removed the detection of blocks below villagers' feet.

Hello friends!

In today's developer blog I'd like to tell you that there is a major patch in the works.
While it does not yet have a name, it includes a new map!

The new map is a massive marshland with rivers and forests. Within its lands you will find a huge amount of new species to encounter and play with.

The game has also been going through various bug fixes and improvements regarding the water physics and carcass physics. Animals now float to the surface in deep water; furthermore, carcasses now fall to the ground upon an animal's death. while these might not sound like much, they are major steps towards improving the game's realism.

I have also been hard at work at ironing out bugs and issues with the code (its a never ending struggle).


In other news: I've been not only juggling work on the game, but also in taking care of a new puppy at home!

Until next time, God bless and have a wonderful day!

- Adjusted tutorial room text size
- Added gifs to tutorial sections to give extra instruction
- Added backpack tutorial section
- Added a teleport movement mode to right thumbstick