Free Content Update Available for Expeditions: Conquistador news

You can read the change list below, but let's just highlight some of the major things we've added in this update. First, your eyes will be overwhelmed with joy at the sight of our new bloom effects and our improved anti-aliasing. If you think the game looks a little blurry all of a sudden, try disabling the anti-aliasing first, as it may not be the bloom's fault. The bloom was added as a response to criticism that the game world doesn't really look as bright and warm as you'd expect from Mexico and the Caribbean, so we added this pseudo-HDR effect to simulate over-exposure. It looks particularly great during combat, with the glowing beaches fading under the moving clouds or the light of the fireplace bouncing off the white tents at night.

We've also added a few very convenient usability improvements. One is the ability to set a course for a distant location by clicking on a map marker on the overland map. Once you've got your course plotted, simply close the map again and press Space to move along your selected path - very convenient for checking back in on your fortress in Mexico! We've also changed the way the equipment menu works so you can simply click on the slot where you want to fill your equipment up to, and the game assigns the necessary equipment automatically. For example, if you want to assign 8 Equipment to Marisol Costales' armour, just click on the 8th armour slot! No more repetitive strain injury!

But we promised actual content, didn't we? Well, you'll be excited to hear that we've added 14 new events: three new Guard Failure events (each of which involves a new battle), two Tinkering events, one new Patrol event (with another new battle!), one new Treatment event, two new Travel events, and five new personal camping events for certain followers that didn't have any.

There's a bunch of other little tweaks and additions that you can find in the full changelog, but the last important thing to mention is that Mexico is now substantially harder. If you want the true Conquistador experience, you'll still have to dial the difficulty up to Aguirre, but all difficulty settings now have much improved balance in Mexico:

• You'll routinely come up against enemy groups that match your troops in rank and equipment.
• Certain fights are now on a turn timer.
• Food from hunting no longer scales with your party size (such that the more followers you have, the harder it gets to feed them all).
• There's less meat and herbs in Mexico in general.
• All critical hits break your equipment.
• All enemies now get random passive abilities corresponding to their rank.
• Construction costs for items have been massively increased.
• There is now a limit to how many items of each type you can bring into a battle based on your Tactics skill.

The update is already available through the auto-updater on Desura, and stand-alone versions will follow over the next few days. We hope you'll enjoy all this new stuff and convenient improvements, and we hope you'll now find Mexico is the challenge that it was always meant to be. Don't be afraid to turn up the difficulty if you find yourself steamrolling through! And please do swing by our forums (yes you have to register to comment) and let us know what you think of the update, and above all - have fun.

Version 1.4 Changelog

• Added Italian localisation!
• Implemented the ability to set a long-distance path by clicking on a map icon! We're pretty stoked about that.
• Equipment slots now act as buttons so you can just click once to assign however much equipment you want.
• Added timed victory conditions (Eliminate enemies in X turns and Escape in X turns) for certain battles in Mexico to force aggressive play.
• Added 3 new guard failure events, two of which will only trigger during Mexico, each of which has a battle with a new little twist.
• Added 2 new Tinkering random events.
• Added 2 new Travel random events (both of which are nasty, of course).
• Added 1 new Patrol random event with an optional battle.
• Added 1 new Treatment random event.
• Added 5 new personal random events (for Bernardo, Enrique, Gabriela, Sierra, and Teresa).
• Increased enemy ranks, equipment, and in a few cases even numbers in battles all throughout Mexico.
• Reduced the amount of Peccaries and Herbs that spawn in Mexico.
• Changed hunting so the result no longer scales with the size of your expedition, and your Survival skill now affects the result.
• Made the World Resources difficulty setting no longer affect the result of the hunting task.
• Critical success in camp failure checks are no longer possible in Mexico - there is now a 10% chance of attack in Mexico instead of the previous 5%.
• Implemented a "Very High" camp task difficulty level and used it for the three terrain types that are unique to Mexico.
• Implemented a subtle Bloom to give the game a brighter, more Central American look (you can turn it off in the Options if you don't like it).
• Implemented a cap to how many items of each type that you can bring into a battle depending on your Tactics skill.
• Tied the item placement radius in combat to your Tactics skill as well.
• Raised the material costs of constructing all items.
• Made a follower's Tinkering skill determine how many materials they spend on constructing items.
• Critical hits will now always destroy 1 point of equipment from a randomly selected slot.
• That enough difficulty for you? Huh? Happy now? Careful what you wish for, amigo!
• Being within the range of a light source now displays the "Illuminated" debuff during night battles.
• Furthermore, pre-placed light sources (torches, campfires, car headlights) and lantern fire now also illuminate nearby characters.
• Reduced the range of Torches from 3 to 2.
• Fire now provides partial cover in the hex it's burning on.
• Increased the amount of Valuables you get if you steal from the Ancient Temple from 2500 to 6000.
• Fixed bug that would occur when going to Mexico from Hispaniola and then going back to the main menu and launching Mexico.
• Fixed the cheeky loading screen non-hint for Aguirre being displayed even when not in Aguirre difficulty.
• Fixed a logic glitch that was causing the Conspiracy quest in the Aztec storyline to be infinitely repeatable.
• No more preparation phase in the Ruined Temple battles (since you don't have traps yet at that point anyway).
• Moved the free move zone around Tenochtitlan so it's no longer possible to rest on the causeway between battles during the siege.
• Added a couple of missing "Begin battle." choice nodes in the Jungle Hunters event and reduced the equipment you get from the Higuey Village fight.
• Reduced the XP rewards for the quests at the end of Hispaniola, as well as for a few of the exploration events and side quests.
• Added the morale number after the morale level description for each follower in the camp management window.
• Added an indication to the troop selection menu for battles of whether or not there will be a preparation phase.
• Put a 10 day deadline on the Abduction event to occur.
• Prevented the Tribal Attack event from playing until you've earned at least 600 Total XP.
• Added missing diacritics to a bunch of the Spanish follower names.
• Fixed MayanBanditsQuestCompleted flag being set instead of MasayaVillageHostile if you attacked the Masaya Village and won.
• Fixed the goal text of "Gutiérrez's Fate" sending you north when in fact you should be heading towards the south-west.
• Fixed a logic glitch where Coyotl or Citlalli could participate in the Pearl Fishers event even if they weren't in the party.
• Fixed "The Poisoned Spring" goal description asking for 10 herbs when in fact the quest requires 25.
• Fixed a thing where you could spend movement points without moving if you kept clicking under your own horse.
• Fixed a hex under a house in Papantla being walkable so you could walk right through the corner of the building.
• Fixed a bug that would allow you to promote three Sergeants if one of them was injured.
• Fixed a bug where the Governor would not be registered as dead if Leandra won the battle for Santo Domingo.
• Made it so you only have to camp once before Santo Domingo is restored after the battle.
• Made sure the Tournament won't be added back to the map after the battle for Santo Domingo if Noriega is dead...
• Made extra special sure that Coyotl and Citlalli won't leave AFTER the battle for Tenochtitlan, and that they'll leave even if they're injured.
• Added 30 new placeholder events to Mexico that modders can hook into in order to add new content if they want.