Added a new player banner as a thank you for your continued support.
Added combat environments reflecting locations where battles take place. Attacking a bandit camp will now have that camp appear in combat, and likewise will a graveyard or some ruins. Locations may have fortifications like walls and palisades, which you'll be informed about in a location's tooltip and the engage dialog.
Added exploration mode, allowing you to start with an entirely undiscovered map.
Added toggleable highlighting of any tiles blocked by environmental objects (such as trees) in combat via button and hotkey.
Added treasure items selling for full value as possible loot for all beasts, old and new, in order to make fighting them a more profitable endeavour.
Added a line to the tooltip of any items used in crafting to inform you of this fact, as to better differentiate between crafting and loot items, if the Beasts & Exploration DLC is installed.
Added tooltips explaining in more detail beforehand what is expected of the player, and what the expected rewards are, when choosing between ambitions.
Added tavern rumors about situations of nearby settlements, including some hinting at the presence of particular beasts, as well as rumors specific to each of the late game crises, and reduced chance of pure flavor rumors slightly.
Added 'enter' cursor to display over locations that can be entered on the world map, like friendly settlements.
Added better and up-to-date tutorial videos.
Added '-nohwcursor' command line option for people experiencing issues with their mouse cursors.
Changed 'Nine Lives' perk to also clear any damage over time effects (e.g. bleeding, poisoned) upon triggering, and to give improved defensive stats until the character's next turn.
Changed 'Relentless' perk to also remove the penalty to initiative when waiting with a character.
Changed 'Head Hunter' perk to guarantee a hit to the head for your next attack after hitting the head of your target once. Resets after your hit connects or if you miss your attack.
Changed 'Fearsome' perk to also carry a penalty equal to 20% of the attacker's resolve for each morale check triggered by inflicting damage.
Changed 'Sword Mastery' perk to lower the threshold to inflict injuries with the 'Gash' skill to 50%.
Changed 'Rally' skill to cost 5 action points to use, down from 6.
Changed 'Indomitable' AP cost to 5, up from 3. The previous cost erased too much the choice between going offensive or defensive and allowed you to have the best of both.
Changed 'Adrenaline' skill to cost 1 AP, up from 0.
Changed 'Fast Adaptation' perk to give +10% chance to hit with each miss, up from +8%.
Changed 'Brawny' perk to reduce the fatigue penalty from armor and helmet by 30%, up from 25%.
Changed 'Anticipation' perk to always give a minimum of +10 to Ranged Defense.
Changed 'Knock Back' skill to have a fatigue cost of 20, down from 25.
Changed 'Repel' and 'Hook' skills to have a fatigue cost of 25, down from 30.
Changed 'Split Shield' skill to trigger the 'Overwhelm' effect.
Changed 'Exposed Ribs', 'Stabbed Guts', 'Grazed Kidney', 'Deep Chest Cut' and 'Deep Abdominal Cut' injuries to have more of an effect, including reducing hitpoints of the victim to certain thresholds if currently above. In essence, those injuries are now a bit more useful for the player to inflict upon enemies, and both the 'Crippling Strikes' perk and the 'Gash' skill were indirectly buffed this way.
Changed Ranged Defense levelups to range from 2-4, up from 1-3. Only affects characters generated after this update.
Changed damage of Scimitar to 40-45, up from 35-45, and increased efficiency vs. armor to 70%.
Changed damage of Three-Headed Flail to 30-75, up from 21-66.
Changed damage of Billhook to 55-85, down from 60-90, and efficiency vs. armor of 140%, down from 150%.
Changed efficiency vs. armor of Polehammer to 185%, up from 175%.
Changed damage of Reinforced Boondock Bow to 30-50, up from 25-40.
Changed damage of Heavy Javelin to 35-50, down from 40-55.
Changed damage of Heavy Throwing Axe to 30-50, down from 35-55.
Changed Living Tree Shield to regenerate by 10% of maximum durability each turn.
Changed Undead Trophy to double the wearer's resolve when defending against fear and mind control skills, and no longer grant complete immunity.
Changed surrounding mechanics to no longer count stunned characters, or characters armed with ranged weapons, towards the surround bonus.
Changed zone of control mechanics for actors that are stunned or without skills to actually perform attacks of opportunity (like if armed with a ranged weapon) to no longer exert zones of control.
Changed 'Dazed' status effect to -25% damage, -25% initiative and -25% max fatigue, down from -35% of each.
Changed 'Charmed' status effect to make the afflicted immune to some morale effects, as to avoid odd situations of characters fleeing after the charm has worn off.
Changed 'Sleeping' status effect to last for 3 turns, up from 2. It still can be removed at any time using the 'Wake Up' skill.
Changed 'Cat Potion' to be used on the worldmap and give a +20 bonus to Initiative for the duration of the next battle.
Changed 'Lionheart Potion' to be used on the worldmap and give a +20 bonus to Resolve for the duration of the next battle.
Changed 'Iron Will Potion' to be used on the worldmap and give the same effect as before for the duration of the next battle.
Changed 'Night Vision Elixir' to be used on the worldmap and give the same effect as before for the duration of the next battle.
Changed 'Second Wind Potion' to be used on the worldmap and give +4 to Fatigue recovery for the duration of the next battle.
Changed 'Berserker Mushrooms' to be used on the worldmap and give a +25% bonus to damage in melee, and reduce both melee and ranged defense by -15 for the duration of the next battle. Using these no longer carries an additional risk of getting sick, but characters still risk getting sick/addicted from taking too many potions of any kind at once.
Changed 'Antidote' to also give immunity to poison for the duration of 3 turns after use.
Changed 'Potion of Knowledge' effect to last for 3 battles instead of 2 days.
Changed Geists to no longer have the 'Anticipation' perk, but instead have a perk of their own that increases both their Melee and Ranged Defense by small amounts the further away an attacker is.
Changed the tails of Lindwurms to also exert a zone of control.
Changed 'Trade Caravan' origin to only receive 66% of all renown, up from 50%.
Changed starting renown of some other existing origins to better work with the new Retinue feature.
Changed targeting icons for AoE skills to also show up on empty tiles as to give a better idea of the area those skills can cover.
Changed hotkey for showing/hiding footprints on the worldmap to the 'F' key, as to avoid players accidentally hiding footprints by pressing the 'Tab' key while switching between applications.
Changed auto-saves when leaving towns in ironman mode to be faster.
Changed AI turns to be faster when multiple characters do nothing but move one after the other.
Changed AI to perform better in various situations.
Changed lots and lots of minor things for the better.
Fixed rare issue with game speed on very long campaigns.
Fixed potential crash when in a three-way fight with Alps and other enemies.
Fixed issue with temporarily invisible Alps when getting knocked back and receiving damage at the same time.
Fixed potential crash with bleeding Lindwurms as they retreat from the map.
Fixed potential crash with AI use of Three-Headed Flail.
Fixed characters devoured by the Kraken rising as Wiedergängers when fighting it during the undead crisis.
Fixed fatigue cost reduction of named items not applying to 'Reload' skill of crossbows.
Fixed 'Lunge' skill potentially moving a character onto a tile they can't attack from.
Fixed 'Riposte' skill sometimes not working against Unhold attacks.
Fixed rare issue of armor and helmets not dropping even though they're named items and should be guaranteed to drop.
Fixed rare issue with 'Reset Equipment After Battle' function losing items.
Fixed wolf gained via event having incorrect stats.
Fixed issue with a particular twist of the 'Siege' contract.
Fixed retreating from fight with bounty hunters in 'Drive Away Brigands' contract not removing the robber baron's head.
Fixed 'Big Game Hunt' contract potentially pointing to regions that neither Lindwurms nor Schrats are native to, or to regions undiscovered by the player.
Fixed potential crash with the 'Investigate Cemetery' contract.
Fixed potential crash with 'Barbarian King' contract.
Fixed pathfinding issue where characters would move through zones of control when they shouldn't.
Fixed hate/fear trait events not firing properly.
Fixed guaranteed building spawns across the map not always working.
Fixed multiple pieces of text appearing one after the other at game over screen, instead of just one.
Fixed various minor issues.
We’re back from vacation with a rework of everyone’s favorite opponent, the Alp.
Why do a makeover? The intention is to have Alps provide unique encounters and challenges with a puzzle-esque element that is solved differently each time, unlike with the first iteration of Alps, while also be fun and without the tedium that now plagues the second iteration of Alps. All while staying true to their lore.
What’s changed? Alps now work like this: They no longer spawn any shadows. Instead, they attack themselves at medium range. They get a unique passive ability as well as two familiar spells, each with two tiles range, and any combination of the two can be cast per turn.
Their ‘Sleep’ spell will inflict the ‘Sleeping’ status effect, which works similarly to ‘Stunned’ in that a sleeping character is unable to act. However, sleeping characters can be woken by adjacent allies, just like you can free adjacent allies from webs, and using the ‘Rally’ skill wakes up every ally within 4 tiles as well. The effect of the spell can also be resisted in the first place with a successful Resolve check. Finally, after 2 turns (or 1 with the ‘Resilient’ perk), characters wake up on their own again.
The ‘Nightmare’ spell of Alps can only be cast on targets with the ‘Sleeping’ status effect. It inflicts damage that scales inversely with the Resolve of the target (like attacks from shadows did), but can not be resisted entirely. Once a target receives damage like this, it wakes up and loses the ‘Sleeping’ status effect.
Unique among all opponents in the game is the new passive ability of Alps, which works like this: Each time any Alp receives damage, all Alps on the battlefield, with the exception of those stunned or rooted, shuffle to a different position within 2 tiles range of your men. In other words, each attack on an Alp will change the look of the battlefield and will have you reevaluate your priorities, which mirrors how they’re besieging your mind in the lore.
What does all of that mean? Fighting Alps is now much quicker, it’s different each time, and there’s much less incentive to strip everyone naked before each fight because fatigue is not the deciding factor. The strength of Alps also scales less with their numbers, which makes them viable opponents from the early game until the late game. They’re not the most dangerous opponent in the game, but they can and probably will kill some of your men.
Changed 'Cultists' origin to have an additional small chance to find cultists for hire in settlements.
Changed some more events and random mentions to exclude the player character when playing the 'Lone Wolf' origin.
Fixed some origin-specific campaign modifiers not resetting properly when loading from inside a campaign.
Fixed cultists being in a bad mood after their companions died in battle when they shouldn't care.
Fixed face part of tattoos not getting applied when changed at the barber.
Fixed issue with a certain new legendary reward.
Fixed infinite loading screen before combat with champions under certain conditions.
Fixed champions potentially spawning with a shield but no weapon.
Fixed 'Hook' skill being usable while disarmed.
Fixed 'Duelist' perk applying when it shouldn't.
Fixed potentially incorrect AP costs displayed in tooltip when switching items during battle and having the 'Quick Hands' perk.
Fixed hitchance bonus/penalty not applying properly to throwing axes and javelins.
Fixed missing visuals for Reinforced Throwing Net.
Fixed potential save corruption when saving right after accepting a 'Barbarian King' type contract.
Fixed Watermill location not triggering events under certain conditions.
Fixed some other minor things.
Added new main menu background.
Added a choice between two company origins - the classic Hoggart start and a quick start that drops you right into the world. Owners of the 'Warriors of the North' and 'Beasts & Exploration' DLC get additional origins.
Added named variants of Ancient Dead and Goblin weapons.
Added additional loot items for Goblins.
Added new 'Relentless' perk which reduces the impact of fatigue on current initiative by 50%.
Added new 'Cultist Leather Hood' and 'Cultist Leather Robe' items.
Added 'Paint Remover' item for owners of the 'Beasts & Exploration' DLC. Can be both bought and crafted.
Added 15 new event illustrations and updated some older ones.
Added ability for Wiedergängers to pick up weapons from the ground.
Added new 'Auto-Pause After Leaving City' option.
Changed named items to have new attributes depending on item type, e.g. named throwing weapons may have larger stacks.
Changed crafting costs of some consumables from 'Beasts & Exploration' DLC to be lower.
Changed supply caravans to randomly carry either tools, medicine or ammunition in a significant quantity.
Changed trading caravans to carry tools, medicine and ammunition in small quantities.
Changed general frequency of events to be slightly higher.
Changed Goblin City and Witch Hut to have slightly less opponents, and Kraken to have slightly less hitpoints, to tighten the run-up to your next challenges after the first late game crisis has been defeated and you choose not to retire. The Black Monolith remains as challenging as ever. New campaign required to take effect.
Changed ranged attacks hitting tiles other than the intended target to have their damage reduced by 25%.
Changed 'Quick Hands' perk to no longer apply to shields.
Changed 'Bags & Belts' perk to also apply to shields again.
Changed 'Duelist' perk to still work if having a throwable tool (e.g. a throwing net) in the offhand.
Changed 'Resilient' perk to reduce any negative status effect duration to 1 turn, instead of decreasing it by 1 turn.
Changed fatigue cost of 'Adrenaline' skill to 20, down from 25.
Changed fatigue cost of 'Indomitable' skill to 25, up from 20.
Changed 'Throw Net', 'Throw Acid Flask' and 'Throw Blessed Water' skills to benefit from fatigue cost reduction when having the Throwing Mastery perk.
Changed 'Shoot Bolt' skill of crossbows to cost 3AP, up from 2AP, and 'Reload' skill to cost 4AP, down from 7AP.
Changed crossbows to inflict 33% damage to Ancient Dead and Alps, up from 10%. Bows continue to inflict just 10% damage against these opponents, but the new Staff Sling inflicts 33% damage as well.
Changed stack size of 'Spiked Bolas' to 6, up from 5.
Changed AI to perform better in a variety of situations.
Changed 'Lock Camera' option on worldmap to turn off automatically when using WASD or dragging the camera.
Changed various minor things for the better.
Fixed various bugs and issues.
Added blood-red variants of all common helmets.
Added new recipe for crafting red paint.
Changed 'Nimble' perk to grant damage reduction to hitpoints up to 60%, down from 66%, lowered exponentially by the total penalty to maximum fatigue by head and body armor after the first 15 points.
Changed three-headed flails to no longer potentially lose durability with each connecting strike, but only once per skill use.
Changed 'Lunge' skill of fencing sword to no longer calculate its damage bonus after fatigue from current skill use is applied, but before. Effectively, the skill will do more damage now.
Changed events for legendary locations to now automatically dump the lowest value item from your inventory, if the inventory happens to be entirely full, in order to make room for legendary item rewards.
Fixed 'Famed Explorer' achievement not registering as completed.
Fixed crash on fleeing Lindwurm dying while attempting to leave a zone of control.
Fixed crash on Irrlichts dying to bleeding damage right while they're ensnaring someone.
Fixed issue with ambitions to discover legendary locations not working properly.
Fixed issue with combat in 'Raid Caravan' contract not working properly.
Fixed issue with loot not working properly as Wiedergangers reanimate right after clicking to end the battle via dialog.
Fixed issue with Saplings and Wiedergängers potentially showing as stuck in the ground if attacked during their initial raising-from-the-ground animation.
Fixed permanent injury visuals still showing on characters after being cured with a certain item.
Fixed named two-handed flails having no improved values over their common counterparts. The fix only applies to weapons generated after the update.
Fixed various minor issues.
Changed how random seeds are handled to solve some issues. Unfortunately, this breaks map seeds once more. This has no effect on existing saves.
Changed settlement situations to have a higher chance of filling the roster with specialized backgrounds.
Changed some things to make retreat from combat play out faster.
Changed tooltips of legendary items, as well as some rare items, to better explain their special effects.
Changed saves to no longer compress fog of war data, as to improve saving times on weaker computers.
Fixed clipping issues on world map after loading an older campaign, quitting to main menu, and then starting a new campaign.
Fixed potential crash during combat with Alps.
Fixed wardogs making human sounds when being woken from unnatural sleep.
Fixed potential crash with AI using the three-headed flail.
Fixed famed three-headed flails and spetums not being shown on character busts.
Fixed objectives in 'Find Location' contract sometimes being too far away.
Fixed player potentially having to wait a long time in 'Defend Settlement' contracts for enemies to arrive when having destroyed their intended origin just prior to accepting the contract.
Fixed game potentially freezing on world map.
Fixed wrong inventory icon for 'Masterfully Preserved Rations'.
Fixed hiring costs changing when loading a save.
Fixed kraken cult location not working after first task is completed.
Fixed 'Nimble' perk protecing against damage from 'Hex' status effect.
Fixed dialog to select new ambition not appearing under specific circumstances.
Fixed Kraken ambition not registering as completed.
Fixed combat between parties on the world map sometimes not ending.
Fixed various minor issues.
Added new main menu background.
Added icons to the main menu showing what DLC are installed or missing.
Added 24 new settlement situations for a more dynamic economy.
Added 16 new character traits.
Added ability to pay for a tryout and uncover a potential recruit's traits before hiring them.
Added button to end the current round and have all your men skip their turns until the next round starts.
Added ability to give potions, strange mushrooms and antidote to other characters in battle without having to drop them on the ground first.
Added 'Free Ally' skill to free adjacent allies from nets, webs and vines.
Added 'Grant Night Vision' spell to Goblin Shamans.
Added lots of new event and contract illustrations.
Added more names for characters, settlements, regions, items, locations and opponents for more variety.
Changed world map to be 25% larger and include two additional settlements. New campaign required to take effect.
Changed map seed to use words made up of characters from a to z, and no longer exclusively numbers in hexadecimal notation. For example, the word "overhype" is now a possible map seed.
Changed XP required for veteran levels to increase by 1000 for every level. In effect, the first levels are attainable roughly as fast as before, but attaining the following levels takes longer as to cut down on the attribute inflation for very long campaigns. Also, with a linear increase in XP cost, there's no longer any sudden roadblocks where one veteran level would require twice as much XP as the previous one did. And because enemy strength scales in part with the levels of your characters, having the average level a bit lower in long campaigns will also reduce the number of enemies a bit, leading to quicker combat and less pressure to replace everyone with superhumans as time goes on. Note that when loading old campaigns, veteran level characters may seem to need excessively much XP to level again - this isn't the case when starting new campaigns.
Changed starting size of stash to 99, up from 90.
Changed named shields to always have either the same or better fatigue penalties than regular ones.
Changed strength of roaming beasts to scale more depending on distance to civilization, and less on campaign time.
Changed enemy bases to be more proactive in sending out parties to intercept enemies threatening them, but also have a weakened garrison while doing so.
Changed all end game crises to start slightly later, to take slightly less time to defeat, and to fade out more smoothly.
Changed greenskins and undead to be a bit less active in destroying settlements, as to make using the 'Permanent Destruction' setting more viable.
Changed chance of any human dying during the Undead Scourge crisis to return as a Wiederganger to be lower.
Changed 'Escort Caravan' contract to give better directions, an approximation of the time required (e.g. two days), pay slightly more per tile of distance, to support payment per head, and to have a cap on distance, especially in the early game.
Changed 'Armed Courier' contract to have a cap on distance, especially at the start of a campaign, to pay slightly more, and to give an approximation on the time necessary for travel if going by road.
Changed 'Defend Settlement' contract to make sure that there's bases of the attacking faction near enough to not have the player need to wait for too long for the attackers' arrival.
Changed contracts to be more readily available at the very start of the game.
Changed renown to decrease by -2 each passing day, as stories about your company will slowly fade from people's memories unless you continously create new ones.
Changed effect of different training regimes at Training Hall to be slightly stronger and made them stay for a certain number of battles, and no longer a certain number of days. Also, they're more affordable now.
Changed costs and stats for various character backgrounds to some degree, and introduced a random +/- 10% factor for all daily wage demands, so you'll find cheaper and more expensive recruits also within the same background.
Changed how daily wages for mercenaries employed by the player are calculated. Instead of a flat +2 crowns for every level, it's now a cumulative 10% on the wage for every level until the 11th, and then 3% on the wage for every level afterwards. In effect, there's less wage pressure in the beginning, low tier backgrounds have become cheaper to employ in the longterm, and some backgrounds have become more expensive to keep around if they reach veteran levels.
Changed how retreating works. If your men are already on the edges on the map, you'll safely retreat as before. If they aren't, they'll now attempt to move to the edges of the map by themselves until either they succeed or die. While this is going on, they'll get a defense bonus for moving through zones of control, the amount of which scales with the chosen difficulty level.
Changed enemies and player characters to make no more than 2 attempts to flee from a position in a single turn.
Changed morale checks to always have a 5% chance to succeed or fail, just like attacks do.
Changed dropping items to the ground, or switching between hands and bags, to no longer grant effective fatigue to spend in the same turn.
Changed polearms to have a -15 chance to hit targets directly adjacent, reflecting how long and unwieldy they are in close combat. Picking the 'Polearm Mastery' perk will remove this penalty.
Changed 'Polearm Mastery' perk to reduce the action point cost for using skills of polearms from 6 to 5. The 'Repel' and 'Hook' skills now always apply the 'Staggered' effect, even without the mastery.
Changed 'Hold Out' to be called 'Resilient' and have a new effect; any negative status effect with a finite duration (e.g. Bleeding, Charmed) has its duration reduced by -1 turn, to a minimum of 1 turn.
Changed description of 'Shield Expert' to include the fact that picking it grants a +15% bonus to hit chance to the 'Knock Back' skill. This was already true in previous versions, but the game neglected to mention it.
Changed 'Killing Frenzy' perk to count the turn the effect first triggers as part of its 2 turn duration.
Changed 'Reach Advantage' to provide a bonus of +5 to melee defense per stack, with a limit of 5 stacks, instead of the +20% of total melee defense per stack it provided before.
Changed 'Nimble' perk to now give consistent damage reduction to hitpoints up to 75%, but reduced exponentially by the total fatigue penalty of body and head armor. Fatigue penalty from other equipment does not affect the damage reduction, but neither do the 'Brawny' perk or traits.
Changed 'Battleforged' perk armor damage reduction to be based on current total armor value, and no longer maximum total armor value. Also, a status effect now displays details on the effect as with 'Nimble'.
Changed 'Underdog' perk. The defense malus due to being surrounded by opponents is negated, as was previously the case. However, if an attacker has the Backstabber perk, the effect of that perk is now negated, and the normal defense malus due to being surrounded is applied instead.
Changed 'Brawny' fatigue reduction to 25%, down from 30%.
Changed 'Bags & Belts' perk to no longer entirely remove the fatigue penalty for two-handed weapons and shields.
Changed Lindwurms to have slightly more hitpoints, and to give significantly more XP. Their 'Tail Slam' skill now has an equal chance to either stun, daze or knock back their target. Also, they're a bit less rare now.
Changed out some assets for updated versions.
Changed AI of many enemies to perform better in a variety of situations.
Changed AI to make better use of parallelization for faster turn processing times.
Changed savegames to use compressed fog of war information for smaller file size and faster cloud synchronization.
Changed lots and lots of smaller things for the better.
Fixed game sometimes not continuing when a Lindwurm retreated from the battlefield.
Fixed game sometimes not continuing when a character that used the 'Taunt' skill died in the same turn.
Fixed rare issue with frenzied direwolves not dying properly.
Fixed issue with 'Reset Equipment After Battle' option not working properly under very specific circumstances.
Fixed issue with 'Last Stand' contract where the game would potentially freeze when defending settlements isolated on small islands.
Fixed 'Caravan Escort' contracts failing without battle in some cases.
Fixed combat slowing down in very long campaigns for some people.
Fixed player banner bonus not being updated immediately after moving.
Fixed wrong damage values displayed in tooltip of 'Knock Out' skill.
Fixed morale chain events being displayed in the wrong order in the combat log under certain conditions.
Fixed 'Nine Lives' perk not properly resetting after triggering once combat is concluded.
Fixed coastal settlements not being reachable by boat in some cases.
Fixed various minor issues and annoyances.
