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Changelog 0.8.9
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AI
- AI heroes no longer cast Shatter for no reason
- Damage, for mixed damage type of damages, calculations improved for AI priority system. Removing memory corruptions
- AI no longer resigns if he has a titan or a special character
- Fixed bug where the AI would build fliers in No Eyries mode
- AI no longer sends units and heroes into towers with under 100 hp
- Units on the Skirmisher attitude will now only flee from targets that can actually harm them
- Units on Skirmisher attitude when forced (trapped) in melee will now attack back
- Implemented Magic Skirmisher attitude
- Implemented Magic Cowardly attitude
- Fixed bug where AI heroes would only carry 1 ring/orb item
- Demigods now always carry a complete item set
- AI now uses Elcor’s Balm from Healing Orb and Healing Fountain too (was just Healer)
- High level AI now considers enemy heroes a higher threat
- Fixed bug where AI heroes would level up above the skill restrictions
- Auto-casting cure now only happens when there’re at least 2 afflicted units (was 1)
- Auto-casting blink now only happens if the threat is great or the caster is on low hp
- Fixed Plaguelord AI not building Cess Pool at the beginning of a game to produce zombies
- Improved auto-attack priority algorithm, correctly calculating target distances and remaining hit points
- AI heroes of level Prince and higher may now go shopping
- AI heroes no longer try to take quests that are not meant for them
- AI now increases their attack group size based on elapsed game time
- Fixed crash on calculating AI group toughness
- Fixed bug where AI would try to cast psych spells on immune units
- Fixed bug where AI would try to cast fire spells on immune or resistant units
- Fixed bug where AI would try to cast ice spells on immune or resistant units
- Fixed bug where AI would try to cast lightning spells on immune or resistant units
- AI sides now suffer the same conversion penalties as human sides (such as +10 seconds per additional building, being affected by enemy Traditionalists etc…)
- AI heroes now correctly level up their perks
- Movepath and range calculations are now done on a circle basis (was rectangle)
- Units with psyche inducing spells (such as Chaos Aura) will no longer try to cast these spells on Undead targets
- AI sides will no longer bring special character Firebombs or Spores into battle
- AI no longer interacts with guarding units (trying to overwrite attitude and causing lag)
- AI now converts with Keeps more often
- Added AI reaction time based on AI difficulty levels, greatly separating them
- AI heroes will no longer try and cast a spell if they are already in the casting process of another spell
- AI units (including heroes) will no longer try and cast weather changing spells during Weatherlock
- AI heroes are now more likely to cast utility spells
- AI heroes can now use more spells
- AI heroes will use healing potions to cure themselves of poison / disease if they are heavily suffering from them
- AI heroes are now more likely to use mana potions when in combat
- Fixed bug where AI sides could merge Slimes in to Oozes without first owning a Casket
- Baron, Count and Duke level AIs now have a time delay between upgrading their keeps
- Improved the AIs handling of base building
- AI heroes and generals will no longer run if they are converting a flag or are over 75% conversion
- AI units will no longer attack if they are converting a flag or are over 75% conversion
- Temporarily disabled Spell Research powerups for AI sides
- Temporarily disabled critter (animal) production for AI sides
- The AI will no longer spam Ships
- The AI will now take attack vs types into account when assigning targets to their units (so, for example, they will no longer send Eagles to attack ground units and inevitably do nothing when they get there)
- The AI will no longer send groups of units to attack Eyes of Oros
Visual
- Heroes can have name upto 79 characters, rest still are upto 19 characters. UI have been changed to accommodate as much of it.
- Ssrathi Buildings now have vines and foliage on them.
- Added lighting effects when casting spells from Time and Contagion Spheres
- Heroes who are equipped with a complete Item Set will now emit green stars with their avatar
- Added Dwarf Lord, Dwarf Infantry and Dwarf Smith as portraits for NIS use
- Restored long names for the random name generator
- Dropdown lists now close if clicked outside them
- Adjusted time for Retinue popup to appear
- Fixed cutscene subtitles
- Fixed bug where NIS dialogues would display in game even if there were no messages
- Added extension panel for the editor
- Improved the firing position of the Contaminator
- Improved the firing position of the Spider Priestess
- Increased size of dragons
- Decreased the walking animation speed of the larger Minotaur Hero avatar
- Starting stat modifiers are now displayed in the popup on the hero creation screen
- Fixed visual glitches in the hero creation screen popup
- Implemented new weather set Sandstorm
- Added 3 new side colours (magenta, violet, pale green)
- Victory-defeat screen now shows elapsed time
- Moved graphics system to SDL rendering improving stability and offering more graphical customizability
- Fixed memory leak/corruption in the MP chat in lobby and sync screen
- FPS counter can be enabled to see FPS during game through the main Game Options
- Reactivated screen fading between most menu screens and can be disabled at will through the main Game Options
- Updated multiplayer loading screens to accommodate long hero names and 16 players
- Added Brax portrait for NIS use
- The T-Rex now uses the hand icon for the mouse cursor (instead of the attack icon) when the mouse cursor is hovering over an animal, indicating that it can be eaten instead of just being attacked
- Daemons now use the hand icon for the mouse cursor (instead of the attack icon) when the mouse cursor is hovering over a soul, indicating that it can be consumed instead of just being attacked
- Fixed bug where the Skull of Sartek would have the hand icon for the mouse cursor when it was hovering over an animal (the Skull of Sartek can’t eat animals)
- Fixed bug where grouped units would always display the attack icon on the mouse cursor when hovering over and enemy target, even if no units in the group could actually attack the target
- The mouse cursor attack particles are no longer displayed when a selected group of units is ordered to attack a target that no one in the group can hit (ground only vs air targets / air only vs grounded targets etc..). The blue movement particles will be used instead
- Improved the production display of buildings, which now has 12 visible slots as opposed to 6 and allows scrolling through the whole arbitrarily-sized production queue
- Added pink flower #3 as portrait for NIS use
- Fixed bug where starting view would not always be centered on start location
- Tweaked hero level up screen popups for better positioning
- The control panel no longer displays perks at level 0
- Added Troll, Minotaur Shaman and Gnoll portraits for NIS use
- In-game NIS dialogue border now has the colour of the side or a custom set colour
- Mana and HP regen skills and stats now have the cap applied in the description box
- Fixed some image and text alignment issues with the campaign’s “sell item” dialog, where some item power text would exceed the width of the dialog and the animated sparkles for special items to not be centered on the smaller items (helm, boots etc…)
- Fixed bug where moving the mouse cursor between items in the stash / spoils of war wouldn’t reset the set item data text, resulting in the set item data text being added to the new item
- Added a few more blood decals, including black blood
- The level 5 Furnace now has 4 smoke / particle emitters (was 3) and the level 3 Furnace now has 2 emitters (was 1)
- AI heroes now get random portraits
- Updated racial portrait list in the hero creation menu
- The progress bar in the loading screens now correctly starts at 1% (was 10%)
- Fixed a bunch of loading screens that either weren’t displaying a background image or weren’t displaying text
- NIS dialogues now have a 1 second click fail-safe
- Item images have now been split and recompiled into their own ItemImages.xcr to allow for higher quality images (they were previously all bound to the same palette, thus limiting quality)
- Game now automatically pauses when viewing a quest
- Added a sundial in the GUI to better reflect the day-night cycle
- Added calendar in game when playing campaign mode
- Added Perks tab in Hero Info panel
- Added new building Ancestral Totem for misc use
- Tower radiuses are now displayed when placing a tower
- Lightning effect now also brightens the screen
- Slimes and Oozes are now slightly translucent
- Added option for grayscale vision when your hero is near death
- Implemented new menu backdrops and buttons
- Slightly edited fonts for better reading
- Fixed bug where some GUI icons and text would flicker when moving the screen or when they came into contact with other display objects (such as the selection box)
- Fixed bug where units medals for the context area would be drawn in the lockable unit area when the control panel was set to “classical”
- Fixed the context area’s blurry text
- Fixed bug where the hero names in the diplomacy dialogue would occasionally become blurry
- Hero avatars now follow your cursor in the customize hero screen
- Fixed bug where the RSB text in the context area would just say “Level 0”
- Fixed bug where some text in the context area wouldn’t be cleared if there was a lot of it
- You can now see allies’ mana bar
- You can now view army/building hp and mana regen in the control panel
- You can now view army attack speed in the control panel
- You can now view hero faction in the control panel
- The ability bar now activates on single unit selections too
- The end-game statistics screen now displays the levels that the heroes started and ended the game at, if they changed level during play
- The end-game statistics screen now shows the number of units summoned by each side (they are no longer counted as produced units)
- Medals in the end-game statistics screen are no longer awarded to heroes for leveling up, but instead are now used to denote the winner(s) of the battle
- Production queues are now visible to allies as well
- Revived current talker visuals
- Implemented objectives display system
- Fixed bug where missile decals would flicker when near other objects
- Clot Hydra has a new sprite
- Fixed bug where the merge and morph tooltips would display weird costs when a mixed group was selected
- Game Paused text now remains on screen for as long as the game is paused
- Improved the campaign world map borders, especially when playing with high resolutions
- The victory condition additional options button in the scenario lobby now displays help text in the context area, just like other buttons
- Fixed bug where the button focus text on the victory / defeat screen wouldn't be displayed
- Added an option to increase / decrease the duration of in-game chat messages
- All daemon units (except Reapers and Souls), all swarm units (except Husks and Dust Devils), Spiders, Queen Spiders, Spider Priestesses, Kargoth now have black blood
- Repositioned the shop and quest dialogues to be in line with each other and to be placed more on the right side of the screen
- Battle NIS dialogues without portraits will now use the visual space for more text
- Husk Drain Mana tooltip now says it requires research
- Bloodrite spells tooltip now shows blood icon
- Experimentalism spells tooltip now shows resources icons
- Fixed bug where Orc Infantry would never play their fidget animation other than during the victory dialogue
- Illusions and Phantom Steed armies now have their death animation truncated
- Added the faction emblem on the control panel
- Arboreal Henge has a new yellow-green sprite
- Blessing and Firebreath icons no longer emit particle effects
- The Fey’s RSB now uses Blessing’s icon for its active effects (was Firebreath’s)
- Removed some leftover magenta-ish pixels from the Undead buildings
- Center-screen messages can now be displayed more than one at a time
Audio
- Added victory sounds for Barbarians and Plaguelords
- Buildings now have ambient sounds
- Implemented fidget sounds for units depending on the race and physical aspects
- Added sounds for new units and buildings (critter lair, griffon lair, bloodspawn, chicken, empowering souls)
- Reaper uses the soar moving sound
- Improved Banshee attack sound
- Fixed bug where environmental sounds were not playing at the start of a match
- The Imperial Sergeant now uses the WBC1 Mercenary speeches
- Music now plays on the sync screen and random map generating screen too
- Fixed crash when selecting hero voicesets in the hero customization screen
- Tortured Souls under attack no longer provoke the system message of your units being attacked
- Defeated quest character drops in the campaign no longer trigger the system message of an enemy character being slain
- Added Dialog and Travel music to all soundtracks
- Changed the Swordsman’s deathblow speech and added 2 more order and select speeches
- Added 3 more building falling sounds
- Added 2 more walking sounds
- Added 2 new attack sounds for Thralls and Brawlers
- Added 1 new attack sound when hitting flesh with Khazrimi Guards, Ogres, Ghouls Giants and Minotaur Brutes
- Added 4 new sounds for diseased units
- Added 2 new sounds for terrified units
- Added 3 new sounds for fearing units
- Fixed one of the select files for the Forestmaster that was equal to an order sound, since vanilla
- Added deathblow sound for the praetor
- Renamed ExtraTravel9_Mortuus to ExtraTravel2_Mortuus
- Removed ExtraLordBane, two AmbientCeltic, ExtraTravel8_Whitemountains, all ballad tracks and HumanMarket sfx
- The old TPC9 is now ExtraMiniGame4
- Renamed & remade the following tracks: Daros travel to Ehlariel, Bartonia travel to Khazdhul, TPC18 to Erelim, TPC73 to Lord Datura and TPC23 to Sir Calabar
- Remade TPC9 and TPC27
- Reopened the Mix for 8 tracks (improved audio quality and composition for TPC5, 6, 14, 20, plague theme, dark dwarf theme, fey theme, knight theme)
- Added one Ambient Light track and ExtraRobert
- Updated the number of soft tracks per race to 7 in TPCOST (was 12);
- Fixed resonance around 110-135 Hz for most old tracks
- Re-levelled volume for a couple of victory tracks (minor adjustments)
- Used automation for some sfx tracks
- Fixed AmbientMedieval5.mp3 introduction (having no region between 20 and 200 Hz)
- TPCOST.ini, Allinone.ini and TPCOSText.ini updated
- Announcer now always alerts player when your hero/character is near death
- Retweaked announcer priorities
- Added audio effects to sending resources / alliance requests through the diplomacy dialogue
- Units will no longer play an order speech if told to attack an enemy target which they can’t hit (ground only vs air targets / air only vs grounded targets etc..)
- Players may now check the file name of the current playing song by typing -nowplaying in the chat
- Fixed bug where the sounds played by the spells Create Item and Fools Gold would be heard across the whole map
- Increased the priority of Deathblow sounds
- Only one of each type of movement sound can be played at the same time (as in the vanilla game)
- Created sounds for situations where the same sound was used twice or more (forest tower, eyrie, crystal mine)
- Added four more hero voicesets. One from the narration of Warlords4 (Good aligned races and dark dwarf), two done by Kyle Stroud and Sean Letourneau (Orcs, Minotaurs, Ssrathi and Swarm) and one last by Mike Nito (Dwarf and Dark Dwarf)
- Added a new voice for the Leprechaun and for the Khazrimi Guard. Recorded by Bob Feeser.
- Added new voice for Iriki, recorded by Michael Jones.
- The tutorial now plays “For Sartek!” instead of “Let the battle begin!”. Recorded by Sean Letourneau
- Fixed bug where heartbeat sounds could still be heard when the main sound option was switched off
- Fixed bug where critical ignore armor sounds could still be heard when the main sound option was switched off
- Increased delay between order sounds, selection sounds, production ready sounds
- Voice Actors:Kyle Stroud (kylestroudva.blogspot.com), Sean Letourneau (Letourneauvo.com), Mike Nito (Voiceacting.boards.net, Bob Feeser (Bobfeeservoices.com), Michael Jones (Soundcloud.com)
