Enjoy watching a pre-recorded session of our Dev-Team playing Pioneers of Pagonia in our shared co-op multiplayer mode! Would you play Pioneers of Pagonia together with your friends?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2155180/Pioneers_of_Pagonia/

it's time for a new Quality-of-Life-Update! Our team has been working on this for quite some time, and we can't wait to show you all the new improvements! Some highlights like savegame naming or additional hotkeys were highly requested by our community and we are so glad that it's finally in the game!

Also have a look at our brand-new UI with loads of changes to the production, recruitment and unit control interfaces. This is still the first iteration and possibly subject to change in the ongoing development process. We have already received a lot of positive feedback from our beta-testers.

Now it's your turn to tell us what you think! Please let us know what you think of the new improvements in our feedback forums on Discord[discord.gg] and Steam.

But without further ado let's dive into all the changes starting with the highlights:

• General UI overhaul, first iteration
  
• New production, recruitment & unit control interface
  
• Savegame Naming
  
• Construction Priority
  
• Additional Hotkeys
  
• Seagulls
  
• and many more!
  
  
  Seagulls
  Let's begin with the obvious: We added Seagulls to the game. Since our first announcement teaser you were able to spot Seagulls in most of our key artworks. They have always belonged to the natural inhabitants of Pagonia and we are very excited that they finally made it into the game!
  
  You can spot them flying around or resting in their nests close to the landing ship and on the rocks near the seashores. They also have gameplay impact because larger flocks of Seagulls indicate a swarm of ocean fish underneath.
  
  
  Construction Priority
  
  Next up is that the construction priority is separated from the economy priority. The construction section of the building interface now allows to enable or disable priority for the construction process independent of the economy priority.
  
  Separating these two priority options ensures that you no longer have to remember to change the economy priority of the building after the construction process is finished. You can set it separately once the building is placed. Yay!
  
  You can still enable or disable priority of a building for both the construction process and all recipes with a single click at the top of the building selection interface.
  
  
  New Unit Control Interface
  Commanding troops is now much easier! If you select a military unit assigned to a territory building (like the guard tower), all other military units assigned to the same building are now highlighted too. The unit selection interface now offers direct access to change building settings like focus points for patrol, attack or claiming territory.
  
  New Unit Control InterfaceThis is also valid for civilian units. And the interface offers a button that links to the related building. This will make your life a lot easier.
  
  
  New Production Interface
  The production interface has been reworked and there are major improvements of the functionality. It is now possible to define the individual priority of each recipe. This is very useful in various situations, e.g. if you want to produce a specific amount of a tool or weapon immediately without the need to change all the other settings of the building.
  
  Toolsmith New Production Interface“Minimum stock” setting: It is now possible to continue production of a commodity until a specific minimum quantity is available for further use. This is very helpful to manage production chains more efficiently. A minimum stock of e.g. some tools or weapons ensures available equipment as it is needed for training.
  
  “On demand” setting: It is now possible to continue production until all missing and requested commodities are produced. The production will continue until all requests of the commodity like missing for construction, recruitment, trade, production, etc. are fulfilled. The production will continue until all buildings that produce or recruit continuously have full input piles.
  
  Read a more detailed description on the new production interface and functionalities in the patch notes down below!
  
  
  New Recruitment Interface
  The improvements to the recruitment interface are very similar to the production interface, turning it also into a much more powerful utility. This change grants new functionality and includes several enhancements of the economy and transport system.
  
  Adventurer's Guild New Recruitment Interface“Target amount” setting: It is now possible to continue recruitment of a unit type until a specific target quantity exists. As long as the number of units do not exist, the building will continuously train this unit type (if equipment is available). This is very helpful to replace lost military units or construction units that lost their equipment due to Spectres.
  
  
  Savegame Naming
  We thought this day might never come, but it is here: you can finally name your savegames, jippieh! This also includes existing saves, meaning you can rename them, too. Happy savegame naming, everyone! (Tell us in the comments how you named your first one!)
  
  
  Visuals
  We would like to highlight our new character models for Woodcutter and Baker here. What do you think of their new appearance?
  
  Woodcutter New Character ModelBaker New Character ModelThe Seagulls are not the only new animals in Pagonia. We spotted two new cats at the Geologist' Hut and one dog at the Provisioner.
  
  Samuel's CatsAs always, we hope you enjoy all the new improvements in Pagonia. Let us know about your feedback on Steam and Discord[discord.gg]! Don't forget to read the patch notes below to get all the detailed changes.
  
  In the meantime. we are busy working on the story campaign for the full release. There is a lot of exciting stuff coming your way, stay tuned for more updates! If you are curious about the backstory, check out our latest video about the mysteries of Pagonia.
  
  
  
  What else do you want to know about the backstory of Pagonia? Tell us in the comments!
  
  Pick up your tools, Pioneers!
  Your Envision Entertainment Team
  
  

  ---

  
  
  0.13.0 - Quality of Life
  
  
  Highlights
  • General UI overhaul, first iteration
    
  • New production interface with a lot of new options
    
  • New recruitment interface with a lot of new options
    
  • New unit control interface
    
  • Several highly requested improvements: Savegame naming, construction priority, additional hotkeys
  Improvements
  
  
  Gameplay
  
  
  Construction priority separated from economy priority
  • The construction section of the building interface now allows to enable or disable priority for the construction process independent of the economy priority
    
    • The priority can be changed right after placing a new building.
      
    • If you want a different priority setting for construction and economy, you no longer have to remember to change the economy priority of the building after the construction process finished
      
    • You can still enable or disable priority of a building for both the construction process and all recipes with a single click at the top of the building selection interface
  New unit control interface
  • Commanding troops is now much easier
    
    • If you select a military unit assigned to a territory building (like the guard tower), all other military units assigned to the same building are now highlighted too.
      
    • The unit selection interface also lists all other units assigned to the same building
      
    • The unit selection interface now offers direct access to change building settings like focus points for patrol, attack or claiming territory.
  • Controlling civilian units
    
    • If you select a civilian unit assigned to a building (like an explorer or a woodcutter), you now co-select all other civilian units assigned to the same building
      
    • The unit selection interface now offers direct access to change building settings like the focus point for the work procedure.
  • The interface also offers a button that links to the related building
    
    • Left-clicking the button will focus the related building
      
    • Right-clicking the button will select the related building
      
    • This behavior has been added to other unit and building icons
  New production interface
  • The production interface has been reworked and there are major improvements of the functionality. This change grants new functionality and includes several enhancements of the economy and transport system.
    
  • It is now possible to define the individual priority of each recipe
    
    • This is very useful in various situations, e.g. if you want to produce a specific amount of a tool or weapon immediately without the need to change all the other settings of the building
      
    • High priority means that the commodities for this recipe will be ordered with high priority.
      
      • Carriers will execute those transports first and available ingredients will be reserved for high priority recipes first
        
        • If e.g. coal is needed for a high priority recipe, it will be ordered with high priority even if other recipes in the same building that use coal are not on high priority
      • If there is an amount defined to produce, only the ingredients needed to meet the amount are ordered with high priority
    • High priority means that, if ingredients are available, the building will continuously execute this recipe and non-priority recipes will be skipped.
      
      • Means that non-priority recipes will only be executed if the high priority recipes lack ingredients or if their requested amount is met already
        
      • If multiple recipes are on high priority, they take turns as usual
    • If at least one recipe is set to high priority, the building will hire staff with high priority, means that it gets staffed before non-priority buildings
      
    • If at least one recipe is set to high priority, the building will show the green priority flag in the game world
      
    • Low priority means that the recipe will only be executed if all high and default recipes lack ingredients and cannot be executed or already met their requested amounts.
      
      • This is very useful to define products which are not urgent and should not slow down other production processes, but still make sense to produce if nothing else can be done.
  • “Minimum stock” setting: It is now possible to continue production of a commodity until a specific minimum quantity is available for further use
    
    • You can define a minimum quantity of the commodity to be available. As long as this condition is not met, the building will continuously produce the commodity (if ingredients are available)
      
      • This is very helpful to manage production chains more efficiently. A minimum stock of e.g. some tools or weapons ensures available equipment as it is needed for training, on the other hand e.g. a minimum stock of 200 construction material avoids that the economy continuously produces and transports something that is already available in large quantities.
        
      • You can define this setting individually for each building, means that e.g. one Weaponsmith stops producing silver blades if 20 are in stock, but the other one already stops if 5 are in stock. This enables you to define urgency depending on the current amount stored
        
      • Note that only commodities which are available for further use count for this condition. You can see the amount available in the tooltip of each commodity in the top bar. Missing and reserved commodities do not count as part of the minimum stock
        
        • All commodities which are currently missing for construction, trade, etc. will immediately be used for these and are not available for further use
          
        • If other production processes continuously request this commodity, they will be delivered to those buildings unless the input piles are full. As soon as they are reserved, they are not available for further use
  • “On demand” setting: It is now possible to continue production until all missing and requested commodities are produced
    
    • The production will continue until all requests of the commodity like missing for construction, recruitment, trade, production, etc. are fulfilled
      
    • The production will continue until all buildings that produce or recruit continuously have full input piles
  • All recipes offer any setting option now
    
    • Before, equipment production only had an amount setting and non-equipment only had continuous production. Now, any production setting (continuous, quantity, minimum stock, on demand) can be applied to any recipe.
      
      • The default settings still reflect the commodity type:
        
        • Non-equipment is set to “continuous production enabled” by default. A few recipes with rare use, e.g. rations made out of delicious deer meat are disabled by default as before.
          
        • Equipment is set to “on demand” by default. Means that equipment missing for manual or automatic training will be crafted.
  • It is now possible to differentiate between pausing and stopping a recipe
    
    • Pausing a recipe means the ingredients to produce it will still be delivered for later use, but they will be redirected if they are needed elsewhere.
      
      • If another enabled recipe at the same building needs the same ingredient, it obviously keeps ordering
    • Stopping a recipe means the ingredients will no longer be ordered and ingredients already there will be redirected if there is room anywhere else.
      
      • If another enabled or paused recipe at the same building needs the same ingredient, it obviously does not stop ordering.
    • By default, a disabled recipe will be paused, not stopped. This allows to continue production faster if enabled again since the ingredients might still be on site.
  • The amount of commodities to produce or store can now be entered via keyboard too
  New recruitment interface
  • The improvements to the recruitment interface are very similar to the production interface, turning it also into a much more powerful utility. This change grants new functionality and includes several enhancements of the economy and transport system.
    
  • It is now possible to define the individual priority of each recruitment process
    
    • This is very useful in various situations, e.g. if you want to recruit a specific number of a unit type immediately without the need to change all the other settings of the building
      
    • High priority means that the equipment for this unit type will be ordered with high priority.
      
      • Carriers will execute those transports first and available equipment will be reserved for high priority recruitments first
        
        • If e.g. chain armor is needed for a high priority recruitment process, it will be ordered with high priority even if other recruitment processes in the same building that use chain armor are not on high priority
      • If there is a unit quantity defined to train, only the equipment needed to meet the quantity is ordered with high priority
    • High priority means that, if equipment is available, the building will continuously train this unit type and other non-priority unit types will be skipped.
      
      • Means that non-priority unit types will only be trained if the high priority orders lack equipment or if their requested amount is met already
        
      • If multiple training orders are on high priority, they take turns as usual
    • The priority of automatic recruitment processes in the guild house is defined by the priority of the building that orders the staff.
      
      • E.g. if any or all recipes in a Weaponsmith are set to high priority, the smiths for the Weaponsmith will be ordered with high priority at the Guild Hall. A green flag symbol will indicate the high priority order in the Guild Hall interface.
    • If at least one recruitment order is set to high priority, the building orders units to be trained (available carriers) with high priority
      
    • If at least one recruitment order is set to high priority, the building will show the green priority flag in the game world
      
    • Low priority means that the unit will only be trained if all high and default recruitment orders lack equipment and cannot be executed or already met their requested amounts.
  • “Target amount” setting: It is now possible to continue recruitment of a unit type until a specific target quantity exists
    
    • As long as the number of units do not exist, the building will continuously train this unit type (if equipment is available)
      
      • This is very helpful to replace lost military units or construction units that lost their equipment due to Spectres.
        
      • You can define this setting individually for each training building, means that e.g. one Military Academy ensures that 30 Guards exist while another trains Soldiers continuously.
  • By default, all recruitment processes are set to “amount 0”. All recruitment and training processes can have any of the new settings.
    
  • It is now possible to differentiate between pausing and stopping a recruitment process
    
    • Pausing a recruitment process means the equipment for it will still be delivered for later use, but it will be redirected if is is needed elsewhere.
      
      • If another recruitment process needs the same equipment, it obviously keeps ordering it.
    • Stopping a recruitment process means the equipment will no longer be ordered and equipment already there will be redirected if there is room anywhere else.
      
      • If another enabled or paused recruitment process needs the same equipment, it obviously keeps ordering it.
    • By default, a disabled recruitment process will be paused, not stopped. This allows to continue recruitment faster if enabled again since the equipment might still be on site.
  • The amount of units to train or have can now be entered via keyboard too
  Balancing
  • The Malthorn have been rebalanced:
    
    • The first attack wave of Malthorn bases has an additional delay depending on the distance between player starting position and the Malthorn base
      
    • The chances of Baneroots destroying nearby military units have generally increased. The formula to calculate a hit/defeat on a targeted unit now scales better with the combat power of the unit.
      
    • Warlocks destroy Baneroots faster than before
  Other improvements
  • Saves can be named manually now. Finally!
    
    • Existing saves can be renamed too
      
    • The saved game interface has been improved in general
  • Increased the amount of fishing spots in generated maps
    
  • Attacking player units that survive will now move back simultaneously once they find no more enemies in the target area.
    
    • Before this change they decided individually if it is time to move back, causing them to be more vulnerable on their way home and causing an additional delay for the player before they could be sent elsewhere moving together.
  • If a lacking commodity is produced in small amounts only, now it will still distribute to different target buildings taking turns depending on the distance
    
    • In the past, if you e.g. had a low output of iron ingots and multiple buildings requesting them continuously wait for more, the few units produced went to the building(s) closest to your Smelting Works. This could mean that the nearby Weaopnsmith gets supplied while the more distant Toolsmith was not getting anything. After this change, if a building gets not supplied at all, it will increase the urgency over time, and at some point it will receive a delivery even if it is more distant.
  • The prediction of unit types that will be trained next in any training building has been improved.
    
    • Previously, the display did not update if the situation changed in the meantime. Arriving equipment and new recruitment commands issued by the player will now immediately modify the prediction.
  • Units waiting for equipment to arrive to start their training process will now wait closer to the training building entrance if space is available
    
  • Notifications now inform about the affected unit type bitten by Werewolf or panicked by Spectre.
  Visuals
  • Added seagulls to landing ship and rocks in the ocean and also above fish swarms
    
  • Improved cat model and texture quality
    
  • Added Samuel’s cats to the Geologist
    
  • New unique 3D model for Woodcutter
    
  • New unique 3D model for Baker
    
  • Slightly changed Farmer textures
    
  • New VFX and SFX for Warlock scare spell
    
  • New VFX for Torch and Magic Torch of the Ranger
    
  • Slightly improved look of wind animation on trees
    
  • Cleaning Idle Animation now uses a cloth prop
    
  • Added a dog to the Provisioner building
  UI
  • General UI overhaul, first iteration:
    
    • The UI has received multiple improvements to increase overall the readability. This process has been started with this first iteration and not all improvements are distributed within the UI evenly, yet. Current focus was the overall more appealing look and the new production and recruitment menus.
      
    • It will receive further updates and improvements in the future. We’re also happy to receive ongoing feedback from the community.
      
      • Improved UI rendering for more clarity in low screen resolutions.
        
      • Contrast:
        
        • The UI appearance is overall darker to improve readability of text and icons.
          
        • The average font brightness is increased or in other cases decreased.
          
        • Slightly decreased menu background transparencies.
          
        • Adjusted contrast of minimap colors
      • New buttons:
        
        • Completely revised the main buttons' look.
          
        • Visual improvements for hover highlighting and pressed state.
          
        • Streamlined button sizes.
      • Fonts:
        
        • Exchanged info text & figures font to improve readability, especially for smaller resolution settings.
          
        • Overall bigger font sizes.
          
        • Adjusted outlines for small text version.
      • Building menu layout (at right screen side):
        
        • Is slightly wider to offer more space and keep readability of its many elements high.
          
        • Can extend higher to offer more space and to reduce scrolling.
      • Icons:
        
        • Replaced and improved various icons for readability and understanding, like e.g.
          
          • Increased icon sizes on main buttons.
            
          • The new control button icons.
            
          • New “Food” category icon in the building construction menu, replacing the single “Bread” icon.
            
          • The icon states and tooltips of “fell all trees” have been improved. It is now named “Remove forest” and the default state has been changed to “off”, as this is the common setting to harvest trees continuously.
            
            • You can change the default setting of Woodcutters in the options menu too, if you prefer.
        • The new artifact icons have been polished visually.
          
        • Added all new character icons for the reworked units matching their new 3D look.
          
        • Exchanged the icon for choosing the metal type at the Toolsmith.
          
        • Improved Provisioner building icon
  • Hotkeys
    
    • The hotkey layout has been updated and extended. Existing keybindings are not changed. All keys can be reassigned in the keybindings section of the options menu.
      
    • You can now use hotkeys to mark up to 10 units / unit groups / buildings and locations to access them quickly.
      
      • Press “Ctrl+1” (2, 3, …. 0) to save your current selection. If no unit or building is selected, the current camera position will be saved.
        
      • Later, press “1” anytime to select the saved selection and hit “1” once more to center your view on it. If it was a camera position or was already selected, it will already center your view when you press it the first time.
    • We added 10 configurable building construction hotkeys to select specific buildings without using the construction menu. Eight of those are configured by default: F1 to F8 are bound to some often used building types.
      
    • Added hotkey configuration possibility for quick select.
  • Tooltips
    
    • Default tooltip delay has been adjusted
      
    • Some tooltips were instant, those have been corrected
      
    • Tooltip delay is now adjustable in the options
  • Added an option to enable border scrolling
    
  • Various
    
    • The dropdown list of commodities in the top bar will now show the full tooltip when hovering any commodity
      
    • Adjusted look of disabled interface segments to easier identify them
      
    • Fixed the few visible seams of tutorial character images.
  SFX
  • Added seagull calls to now visible seagulls
    
  • Added unique sounds for Warlock scare ability
    
  • Enemies now shout when fleeing or being scared
  Fixes
  • Destroying a Scav base is no longer prevented by a new unit currently spawning inside
    
  • Destroying an enemy base is no longer prevented if all leftover units are scared by Warlocks
    
  • Fixed culling of crows and seagulls while they are still on screen.
    
  • Fixed rare multiplayer desync which happened when joining the game while having a building under construction.
    
  • Treasure hunter building UI will no longer extend width depending on found treasures by mistake
    
  • The tooltips of found treasures show more information about the commodities now
    
  • Removed white flag idle warning status of player Trading Post if Pagonian village Trading Post was waiting for goods to arrive
    
  • Fixed a rare case of multiplayer desync when setting a market stall to priority
    
  • Improved compatibility with some AMD graphics cards
    
  • Improved picking box of the ship and of some buildings
    
  • Fixed mini map rendering after applying changes in video options
  Known Issues
  • UI
    
    • Due to the replacement of the new font for info text, more formatting issues can occur.
      
    • New UI input styles, like e.g. new enter amount pop-up aren't implemented everywhere, yet.
  • There are no seagulls near fish deposits in old savegames including guidance and predefined maps
    
  • Decals of Baneroots may flicker.
    
  • Predefined Tutorial map Banners are slightly too big.

we would like to invite you to the latest Beta test!

Version 0.13.0 just went into the beta branch on Steam for all Early Access players. Our new Quality-of-Life Update is packed with a lot of highly requested stuff!

Here are some of the Highlights:

• General UI overhaul, first iteration
  
• New production interface with a lot of new options
  
• New recruitment interface with a lot of new options
  
• New unit control interface
  
• Several highly requested improvements: Save game naming, construction priority, additional hotkeys

Please write us your feedback on Discord[discord.gg] or in our Beta branch discussion forum on Steam.

As always thank you for your support and have fun testing!
See you in Pagonia!

---

• The construction section of the building interface now allows to enable or disable priority for the construction process independent of the economy priority
  
  • The priority can be changed right after placing a new building.
    
  • If you want a different priority setting for construction and economy, you no longer have to remember to change the economy priority of the building after the construction process finished
    
  • You can still enable or disable priority of a building for both the construction process and all recipes with a single click at the top of the building selection interface

• Commanding troops is now much easier
  
  • If you select a military unit assigned to a territory building (like the guard tower), all other military units assigned to the same building are now highlighted too.
    
  • The unit selection interface also lists all other units assigned to the same building
    
  • The unit selection interface now offers direct access to change building settings like focus points for patrol, attack or claiming territory.
• Controlling civilian units
  
  • If you select a civilian unit assigned to a building (like an explorer or a woodcutter), you now co-select all other civilian units assigned to the same building
    
  • The unit selection interface now offers direct access to change building settings like the focus point for the work procedure.
• The interface also offers a button that links to the related building
  
  • Left-clicking the button will focus the related building
    
  • Right-clicking the button will select the related building
    
  • This behavior has been added to other unit and building icons

• The production interface has been reworked and there are major improvements of the functionality. This change grants new functionality and includes several enhancements of the economy and transport system.
  
• It is now possible to define the individual priority of each recipe
  
  • This is very useful in various situations, e.g. if you want to produce a specific amount of a tool or weapon immediately without the need to change all the other settings of the building
    
  • High priority means that the commodities for this recipe will be ordered with high priority.
    
    • Carriers will execute those transports first and available ingredients will be reserved for high priority recipes first
      
      • If e.g. coal is needed for a high priority recipe, it will be ordered with high priority even if other recipes in the same building that use coal are not on high priority
    • If there is an amount defined to produce, only the ingredients needed to meet the amount are ordered with high priority
  • High priority means that, if ingredients are available, the building will continuously execute this recipe and non-priority recipes will be skipped.
    
    • Means that non-priority recipes will only be executed if the high priority recipes lack ingredients or if their requested amount is met already
      
    • If multiple recipes are on high priority, they take turns as usual
  • If at least one recipe is set to high priority, the building will hire staff with high priority, means that it gets staffed before non-priority buildings
    
  • If at least one recipe is set to high priority, the building will show the green priority flag in the game world
    
  • Low priority means that the recipe will only be executed if all high and default recipes lack ingredients and cannot be executed or already met their requested amounts.
    
    • This is very useful to define products which are not urgent and should not slow down other production processes, but still make sense to produce if nothing else can be done.
• “Minimum stock” setting: It is now possible to continue production of a commodity until a specific minimum quantity is available for further use
  
  • You can define a minimum quantity of the commodity to be available. As long as this condition is not met, the building will continuously produce the commodity (if ingredients are available)
    
    • This is very helpful to manage production chains more efficiently. A minimum stock of e.g. some tools or weapons ensures available equipment as it is needed for training, on the other hand e.g. a minimum stock of 200 construction material avoids that the economy continuously produces and transports something that is already available in large quantities.
      
    • You can define this setting individually for each building, means that e.g. one Weaponsmith stops producing silver blades if 20 are in stock, but the other one already stops if 5 are in stock. This enables you to define urgency depending on the current amount stored
      
    • Note that only commodities which are available for further use count for this condition. You can see the amount available in the tooltip of each commodity in the top bar. Missing and reserved commodities do not count as part of the minimum stock
      
      • All commodities which are currently missing for construction, trade, etc. will immediately be used for these and are not available for further use
        
      • If other production processes continuously request this commodity, they will be delivered to those buildings unless the input piles are full. As soon as they are reserved, they are not available for further use
• “On demand” setting: It is now possible to continue production until all missing and requested commodities are produced
  
  • The production will continue until all requests of the commodity like missing for construction, recruitment, trade, production, etc. are fulfilled
    
  • The production will continue until all buildings that produce or recruit continuously have full input piles
• All recipes offer any setting option now
  
  • Before, equipment production only had an amount setting and non-equipment only had continuous production. Now, any production setting (continuous, quantity, minimum stock, on demand) can be applied to any recipe.
    
    • The default settings still reflect the commodity type:
      
      • Non-equipment is set to “continuous production enabled” by default. A few recipes with rare use, e.g. rations made out of delicious deer meat are disabled by default as before.
        
      • Equipment is set to “on demand” by default. Means that equipment missing for manual or automatic training will be crafted.
• It is now possible to differentiate between pausing and stopping a recipe
  
  • Pausing a recipe means the ingredients to produce it will still be delivered for later use, but they will be redirected if they are needed elsewhere.
    
    • If another enabled recipe at the same building needs the same ingredient, it obviously keeps ordering
  • Stopping a recipe means the ingredients will no longer be ordered and ingredients already there will be redirected if there is room anywhere else.
    
    • If another enabled or paused recipe at the same building needs the same ingredient, it obviously does not stop ordering.
  • By default, a disabled recipe will be paused, not stopped. This allows to continue production faster if enabled again since the ingredients might still be on site.
• The amount of commodities to produce or store can now be entered via keyboard too

• The improvements to the recruitment interface are very similar to the production interface, turning it also into a much more powerful utility. This change grants new functionality and includes several enhancements of the economy and transport system.
  
• It is now possible to define the individual priority of each recruitment process
  
  • This is very useful in various situations, e.g. if you want to recruit a specific number of a unit type immediately without the need to change all the other settings of the building
    
  • High priority means that the equipment for this unit type will be ordered with high priority.
    
    • Carriers will execute those transports first and available equipment will be reserved for high priority recruitments first
      
      • If e.g. chain armor is needed for a high priority recruitment process, it will be ordered with high priority even if other recruitment processes in the same building that use chain armor are not on high priority
    • If there is a unit quantity defined to train, only the equipment needed to meet the quantity is ordered with high priority
  • High priority means that, if equipment is available, the building will continuously train this unit type and other non-priority unit types will be skipped.
    
    • Means that non-priority unit types will only be trained if the high priority orders lack equipment or if their requested amount is met already
      
    • If multiple training orders are on high priority, they take turns as usual
  • The priority of automatic recruitment processes in the guild house is defined by the priority of the building that orders the staff.
    
    • E.g. if any or all recipes in a Weaponsmith are set to high priority, the smiths for the Weaponsmith will be ordered with high priority at the Guild Hall. A green flag symbol will indicate the high priority order in the Guild Hall interface.
  • If at least one recruitment order is set to high priority, the building orders units to be trained (available carriers) with high priority
    
  • If at least one recruitment order is set to high priority, the building will show the green priority flag in the game world
    
  • Low priority means that the unit will only be trained if all high and default recruitment orders lack equipment and cannot be executed or already met their requested amounts.
• “Target amount” setting: It is now possible to continue recruitment of a unit type until a specific target quantity exists
  
  • As long as the amount of units do not exist, the building will continuously train this unit type (if equipment is available)
    
    • This is very helpful to replace lost military units or demoted construction units
      
    • You can define this setting individually for each training building, means that e.g. one Military Academy ensures that 30 Guards exist while another trains Soldiers continuously.
• By default, all recruitment processes are set to “amount 0”. All recruitment and training processes can have any of the new settings.
  
• It is now possible to differentiate between pausing and stopping a recruitment process
  
  • Pausing a recruitment process means the equipment for it will still be delivered for later use, but it will be redirected if is is needed elsewhere.
    
    • If another recruitment process needs the same equipment, it obviously keeps ordering it.
  • Stopping a recruitment process means the equipment will no longer be ordered and equipment already there will be redirected if there is room anywhere else.
    
    • If another enabled or paused recruitment process needs the same equipment, it obviously keeps ordering it.
  • By default, a disabled recruitment process will be paused, not stopped. This allows to continue recruitment faster if enabled again since the equipment might still be on site.
• The amount of units to train or own can now be entered via keyboard too

• The Malthorn have been rebalanced:
  
  • The first attack wave of Malthorn bases has an additional delay depending on the distance between player starting position and the Malthorn base
    
  • The chances of Baneroots destroying nearby military units have increased
    
  • Warlocks destroy Baneroots faster than before

• Saves can be named manually now. Finally!
  
  • Existing saves can be renamed too
    
  • The saved game interface has been improved in general
• Increased the amount of fishing spots in generated maps
  
• Attacking player units that survive will now move back simultaneously after they found no more enemies in the target area.
  
  • Before this change they decided individual if it is time to move back, causing them to be more vulnerable on their way home and causing an additional delay for the player before they could be send elsewhere moving together.
• If a lacking commodity is produced in small amounts only, now it will still distribute to different target buildings taking turns depending on the distance
  
  • In the past, if you e.g. had a low output of iron ingots and multiple buildings requesting them continuously wait for more, the few units produced went to the building(s) closest to your Smelting Works. This could mean that the nearby Weaopnsmith gets supplied while the more distant Toolsmith was not getting anything. After this change, if a building gets not supplied at all, it will increase the urgency over time, and at some point it will receive a delivery even if it is more distant.
• The prediction of unit types that will be trained next in any training building has been improved.
  
  • Previously, the display did not update if the situation changed in the meantime. Arriving equipment and new recruitment commands issued by the player will now immediately modify the prediction.
• Units waiting for equipment to arrive to start their training process will now wait closer to the training building entrance if space is available
  
• Notifications now inform about the affected unit type bitten by Werewolf or panicked by Spectre.

• Added seagulls to landing ship and rocks in the ocean and also above fish swarms
  
• Improved cat model and texture quality
  
• Added Samuel’s cats to the geologist
  
• New unique 3D model for woodcutter
  
• New unique 3D model for baker
  
• Slightly changed Farmer textures
  
• New VFX and SFX for Warlock scare spell
  
• New VFX for Torch and Magic Torch of the Ranger
  
• Added new character icons for the reworked 3D models of several units
  
• Slightly improved look of wind animation on trees
  
• Cleaning Idle Animation now uses a cloth prop

• General UI overhaul, first iteration:
  
  • The UI has received multiple improvements to increase overall the readability. This process has been started with this first iteration and not all improvements are distributed within the UI evenly, yet. Current focus was the overall more appealing look and the new production and recruitment menus.
    
  • It will receive further updates and improvements in the future. We’re also happy to receive ongoing feedback from the community.
    
    • Improved UI rendering for more clarity in low screen resolutions.
      
    • Contrast:
      
      • The UI appearance is overall more dark to improve readability of text and icons.
        
      • The average font brightness is increased or in other cases decreased.
        
      • Slightly decreased menu background transparencies.
        
      • Adjusted contrast of minimap colors
    • New buttons:
      
      • Completely recreated main buttons look.
        
      • Visual improvements for hover highlighting and pressed state.
        
      • Simplified white and black approach for active and deactivated state.
        
      • Increased button sizes.
    • Fonts:
      
      • Exchanged info text & figures font to improve readability, especially for smaller resolution settings.
        
      • Overall bigger font sizes.
        
      • Adjusted outlines for small text version.
    • Building menu layout (at right screen side):
      
      • Is slightly wider to offer more space and keep readability of the many elements on it high.
        
      • Can extend higher to offer more space and to reduce scrolling.
    • Icons:
      
      • Replaced and improved various icons for readability and understanding, like e.g.
        
        • Increased icon sizes on main buttons.
          
        • The new control button icons.
          
        • The new “Windmill” icon for “Food” category in the building construction menu, replacing the “Bread” icon.
          
        • The icon states and tooltips of “fell all trees” have been improved. It is now named “Remove forest” and the default state has been changed to “off”, as this is the common setting to harvest trees continuously.
          
          • You can change the default setting of woodcutters in the options menu too, if you prefer.
      • The new artifact icons have been polished visually.
        
      • Added all new character icons for the reworked units matching their new 3D look.
• Hotkeys
  
  • The hotkey layout has been updated and extended. Existing keybindings are not changed. All keys can be reassigned in the keybindings section of the options menu.
    
  • You can now use hotkeys to mark up to 10 units / unit groups / buildings and locations to access them quickly.
    
    • Press “Ctrl+1” (2, 3, …. 0) to save your current selection. If no unit or building is selected, the current camera position will be saved.
      
    • Later, press “1” anytime to select the saved selection and hit “1” once more to center your view on it. If it was a camera position or was already selected, it will already center your view when you press it the first time.
  • We added 10 configurable building construction hotkeys to select specific buildings without using the construction menu. Eight of those are configured by default: F1 to F8 are bound to some often used building types.
• Tooltips
  
  • Default tooltip delay has been adjusted
    
  • Some tooltips were instant, those have been corrected
    
  • Tooltip delay is now adjustable in the options
• Various
  
  • The dropdown list of commodities in the top bar will now show the full tooltip when hovering any commodity
    
  • Adjusted look of disabled interface segments to easier identify them
    
  • Fixed few visible seams of tutorial character images.

• Added seagull calls to now visible seagulls
  
• Added unique sounds for Warlock scare ability
  
• Enemies now shout when fleeing or being scared

• Destroying a Scav base is no longer prevented by a new unit currently spawning inside
  
• Destroying an enemy base is no longer prevented if all leftover units are scared by Warlocks
  
• Fixed culling of crows and seagulls while they are still on screen.
  
• Fixed rare multiplayer desync which happened when joining the game while having a building under construction.
  
• Treasure hunter building UI will no longer extend width depending on found treasures by mistake
  
• The tooltips of found treasures show more information about the commodities now
  
• Removed white flag idle warning status of player Trading Post if Pagonian village Trading Post was waiting for goods to arrive

• UI
  
  • Due to the replacement of the new font for info text, more formatting issues can occur.
    
  • New UI input styles, like e.g. new enter amount pop-up aren't implemented everywhere, yet.
    
  • Few new icons are placeholder, yet.
    
  • There are no seagulls nearby fish deposits in old savegames including guidance and predefined maps
    
  • Seagulls at the venture sometimes clip out of view
    
  • New patrol icon on the minimap has wrong position
    
  • Savegame naming letters “H”, “J” and “K” appear at wrong position
    
  • Rare case of broken road texture.

I am Katja, the 3D Character Artist working at Envision Entertainment, and today I pick up the topic of readability from our last dev blog and talk about the latest changes that our Intern Judith and I worked on together.

Like our buildings we also want our characters to offer a lot of personality and storytelling through their design to enrich the overall feeling and immersion of the world. For a long time, our main focus was creating individual looks for the many different professions, enemies or creatures that exist in the world of Pagonia. This is still an ongoing topic, as you may have noticed with the Forester in our latest patch. He got a completely unique design fitting his nature-loving job and his very own stylish backpack for carrying all kinds of saplings.

New Forester incl. backpackOur latest efforts were to improve readability, i.e. reworking and expanding unit variations which already had variations and adding new ones to those that still were lacking some.
In the very early development when our focus was mainly on building new designs for new units rather than expanding on variations, we used a rather simple formula to create unit variations. This was usually just adding come color highlights or tinting certain parts of the clothing. As time allowed later during production, we started focusing more on variations designs while modeling the characters.

In this blog I will highlight four of the units that we have improved even though we have also reworked most of the military units and a few enemy types. If you look closely while playing Pioneers of Pagonia, you might notice some other improved unit variations.

Our Goal & Approach

With the goal of improving the readability we had to think about what was making the current unit variations hard to differentiate. Just adding some color highlights like we did to the Spectres and Bandits created the issue that the highlights were getting harder to read when zoomed out far or were washed out completely. And of course, this kind of variation design did not really add to the personality and storytelling of the unit.
In order to control the design not only through texture variations, we also decided to work with the models themselves. Of course, creating completely new and unique designs for every variation would be an overkill not only time wise but also within the game itself. As a player you already have to get to know and distinguish between all of your seven military units and six enemy types. Expanding those units with even more differentiating character designs would have made it too chaotic. We wanted to keep the essence of a character and try to tell a story regarding the character’s rank and experience as the names of the different ranks already do. For the players’ units we also considered what kind of resources are needed to recruit a certain rank and tried to implement that as well in some of the variant designs.

Bandits

For each unit we put together notes on the character’s personality and key elements. Since the Bandit’s design is kind of “birdlike” with the feathery cape you could think of them as stealing magpies or bowerbirds. They raid and steal your stuff and would potentially like to decorate themselves with their stolen treasures.

My idea was to reflect this in their appearance and give them silver and gold details that they would have made from stolen weapons and ores. The Elite Bandit, being not only the strongest but also somewhat of a leader personality in the Bandits ranks, has some additional weapons they carry and of course lots of gold reinforced details in their clothing.

Our intern Judith created some design proposals based on those characteristics which you can see here.

While all of the designs have their own charm and some design aspects may look cooler or more interesting than others at first glance, the most important aspect for the design was to consider whether it will be easy to read in the default game camera distance. This is why all design proposals include a top-down view, to check what details will actually be visible and pop out in this perspective and which were maybe too small-scale for our style.

While the intricate jewelry hanging between the feathers of the Bandit’s cape looks like they used some of the stolen treasures, we agreed that in the game perspective and default zoom they may be too small to really pop and make the character visibly different from the other ranks. That’s why we decided to go with the gold-plated feathers. It's easy to see them from far away and they are not melting into the cape color in the silver version for the Veteran Bandit.

Soldiers

The Soldier was one of the very first units in general but also the very first military unit in Pioneers of Pagonia. He has a knight-like appearance though he is not completely armored. The Veteran Soldier, for example, has big shoulder pads, metal bracers and a helmet with a big fluffy feather which protects him against any type of enemy unit for a long while.

There are four strength levels of the Soldier. The simple Soldier uses a wooden shield and a bronze sword, the Advanced Soldier an iron sword with a wooden shield. The Veteran Soldier uses an iron sword and shield, and the Elite Soldier has a big steel shield and mace. We decided to keep the original design for the full iron soldier. The first and second version are known to be lighter versions of the design with no helmets and the first soldier looks more squire-like without the metal armor. The second one is more in-between level 1 and 3 with an iron shoulder pad, bracers and a gorget.

Since the fourth and strongest soldier uses a steel mace and a big and heavy steel shield, I decided to adapt the heaviness of his weapons into his armor giving him additional chainmail for heavy attack protection and a bigger and more protecting helmet. My goal was to make him stand out and be recognizable as the strongest and most elite soldier like his name suggests.

Guards

Our Guards are brave women that not only expand the territory sometimes not knowing what's behind the mysterious fog but also ready to run into battle and protect the villagers when they happen to come across enemies.
They did have some visual distinctions showing in their armor, but we wanted to enhance the readability. As long as you are expanding your territory you have to rely on your Guards. Depending on where you are sending them to expand (maybe somewhere you know that danger is nearby) being able to distinguish between them will help you make the right decision which Guards to send to the border of your territory.

Similar to the Soldier variations I kept the original design for the Veteran Guard and simplified the simple Guard, removing her helmet and chain armor as she also doesn't need a chainmail as a resource when being recruited. The Elite Guard also uses steel armor and a very big sharp and pointy steel halberd. That's why I gave her a more prominent helmet with steel reinforcement and a pointy tip matching her halberd, a chain hood and several steel reinforcements on the gloves and boots.

Spectres

I had the most fun reworking the Spectre variations. Even though I did not stray too far away from their highlight colors, I did increase the usage of their color scheme and added more "accessories" to create a more interesting and unique silhouette. With the chains that the Restless and the Haunting Spectres are wearing I wanted to suggest what type of being they had been before they were buried and forgotten in the Broken Tomb. With chains around its arms and being chained to its tomb for a long time, now wonder the Restless Spectre deserved his name for being ... well ... restless.

The Haunting Spectre is of course a master of fright and the strongest of the Spectres.
Its name suggests that it not only likes to scare away the occasional Pagonian crossing their way. But also that it has made haunting poor souls its only purpose ... or hobby?
The Haunting Spectre has not only broken free from its chains like the Restless Spectre but is also wearing one of the chains around its body like a belt. Every move and every swirl create a spine-chilling sound that will make even the bravest soldier shriek and run.

In addition to the extension of using the variation color I also adjusted the "body" colors of the Spectres fitting their general color scheme. I also changed the colors of their ghostly VFX as well.

As you can see, being a 3D Character Artist for Pioneers of Pagonia is not only creating the characters from concepts but also putting in a lot of our own creativity into the designs. For me personally, it is a lot of fun taking over the creative responsibility and challenging myself to create a character design that radiates an interesting personality and tells a story while still fitting into our established style and worldbuilding of Pioneers of Pagonia.

And of course, I hope that you guys enjoy our hustling and bustling little Pagonians and creatures as much as I had fun creating them.

If you want, check out the improved buildings from our last dev blog or some of the reworked resources and deposits in our latest update. You can find all of the changes in our detailed patch notes. As always, we’re very excited for your reactions to the upcoming patch and looking forward to everyone’s feedback once again.

Dear Pioneers,

After more than a year of Early Access on Steam, more than 150 quality-of-life changes and four extensive content updates, we can now confirm the date for the price increase we announced last December.

From April 8, 2025, the price will be permanently increased to 34.99 EUR.

Interested Pioneers should therefore act quickly, as Pioneers of Pagonia will be part of the Steam Spring Sale with an additional 20% discount on the previous price of 29.99 EUR

If you were thinking about getting the game for you or for a friend, this might be your chance, as it won't be available at such a low price for some time.

The sale starts on March 13th and ends on March 20th, 2025.

Have fun in Pagonia!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2155180

Dear Pioneers,

We would like to inform you that community items are now available on Steam! You can collect trading cards, craft them into exclusive badges or trade them with fellow Pioneers! You can also get emoticons and cool profile backgrounds. The only thing you have to do is to play Pioneers of Pagonia.

Have fun and good luck!

it's time for a new Quality-of-Life-Update, the first one in 2025! We hope you are ready for some new improvements in Pagonia!

You will find gameplay improvements such as revised enemy behavior and the rebalancing of mining resources. Also, forests in Pagonia will finally be repopulated by wild animals after reforesting the original area. This should definitely boost your leather production! (or just enjoy watching cute animals returning to your reforested areas^^)

New 3D Forester ModelBut there is more: our artists have been working on updating the visual appearance of a bunch of buildings. We listened to your feedback and enhanced the readability and visual quality. If you would like to read more about our thought process, we highly recommend reading our latest Dev Blog, where one of our Artists explains the iteration process of our updated buildings.

Sneak Peek of the new Guild HallWe have also added a lot of UI improvements. For more details just read the patch notes down below.

We hope you are having fun with these new improvements in your next game session!

See you in Pagonia!
Your Envision Entertainment Team

---

• Moon Glen improvements: The Moon Glen is defeated once there are no more werewolves nearby, even if infected people would still transform. The transformation process is also faster and happens deeper inside the building.
  
• Malthorn will return much earlier to their base after successfully raiding the player village.
  
• Mining resource amount in generated maps has been rebalanced. It now also considers existing enemy types, trade and gift offers, content of treasures and requests of objectives. E.g. a map with many werewolves or objectives to deliver silver coins will have more silver deposits, a map which offers silver ingots in treasures, as trade or gift offer will have fewer silver deposits.
  
• If resources deplete at a mine, outdated geologist signs in range are removed automatically.
  
• Forest animals will not populate new forest areas, but they will now repopulate an area that they used to live if the forest was removed and replanted afterwards, even if all animals were hunted down.
  
• Forests in Pagonian villages no longer contain boars since they were not reachable by hunters of the player.
  
• Adjusted landing party for co-op game: decreased number of Carriers from 200 to 180.

• 3D Forester model has now a new unique design.
  
• All types of mining and quarry resource deposits have been reworked to provide better readability and higher visual quality.
  
• Several changes to the visual appearance of commodities were made with the goal of increasing readability:
  
  • Most 3D assets of mining and quarry commodities have been reworked to fit the new deposit look.
    
  • Porcini basket has a blue cloth now to be better distinguishable from the raspberry commodity.
• The visuals of trees have been improved, and the coloring of Hardwood and Softwood trees is more different.
  
• Visual differences have been added to all 3D unit variations that were previously lacking them, and some unit variations have been reworked for better readability.
  
• All human 3D unit heads have been reworked for higher texture resolution.
  
• Several changes to the visual appearance of buildings with the goal of increasing readability were made:
  
  • We adjusted the look of the Guild Hall to stand out more in a dense settlement. It also takes up more space for a better overview of tool piles. When loading old save games, the old Guild Hall will be shown unless it is rebuilt after the update, as the new Guild Hall requires more space.
    
  • Military Academy and Garrison received slight reworks to make them more easily identifiable.
    
  • Guard Tower received a new banner to better fit with the new look of the Garrison.
    
  • The Wood Workshop was overhauled, and we changed its roof to be made of wood, for easier identification.
    
  • The Bandit and Thief Camps were reworked to make them match their inhabitants more as well as easier to distinguish.
• Adjusted default light preset to increase fog density in cursed areas.

• When selecting a military unit, additional functionality has been added to the unit selection display:
  
  • If you click on the related building icon, the building will be selected, but the camera doesn’t move. This allows you to reposition patrol or attack points without the need to scroll back to the territory building.
    
  • If you click on the magnifier icon, the related building will be focused by the camera.
    
  • If you click on the unit portrait, the unit will be focused by the camera.
• The graph of idle/busy carriers shows much more detail now: Units which are not idle are split into “Priority Transport”, “Transport”, “Tavern visit” and “Storing”.
  
  • Priority Transport: Carriers currently on a priority transport or heading somewhere to start one.
    
  • Transport: Carriers currently on a standard transport or heading somewhere to start one.
    
  • Tavern visit: Carriers heading to the Tavern to eat or already there.
    
  • Storing: Carriers storing surplus commodities (which is low priority) and able to switch to a transport order anytime.
    
  • Idle: Carriers currently idling or heading to resting points to idle, since they are ready for new tasks.
• Top bar
  
  • Added new entry showing the amount of digging tasks to be done by Diggers.
    
  • Added new entry showing the amount of all open construction tasks to be done by Builders.
    
  • Added new entry showing the amount of all construction material deliveries to be done by Construction Site Carriers.
    
  • Similar to commodity shortage warnings, new warnings have been added to many unit related values:
    
    
    • Available Carriers to reflect transport system workload status and inform about upcoming overload.
      
    • Workload of Diggers, Builders and Construction Carriers to inform if construction sites can be built in a timely manner.
      
    • Workload of Trade Carriers to inform if requested trade orders can be delivered in a timely manner.
      
    • Hungry Miners to inform about insufficient nutrition food supply.
      
    • Available homes to inform about upcoming lack of space for population growth in advance.
  • Similar to commodity shortage warnings, there are three levels of warnings (yellow, orange, red). If a warning level reaches orange or red state, an additional notification is kicked.
    
  • Active warnings of hidden values are now also shown on the category UI in the top bar to make sure the player will not miss them. The highest warning level of a hidden value is applied.
    
  • Active warnings are now also shown in the dropdown sections of the top bar to ensure that it is easy to find the related values.
    
  • Improved the color differences of warning levels.
    
  • Improved the colors of graphs in economy charts.
    
  • Improved the visualization of outlined font for notifications and in general.
• Mini Map Improvements:
  
  • New notifications will show their related location in the mini map.
    
  • Improved terrain colors for better readability.
    
  • Added a checkbox to toggle all filters on or off at once.
• Your current unit/building selection is now preserved when hiding the UI. (default: “U”)
  
• Game speed UI is now shown as 4 individual clickable buttons (x1, x2, x3, x5)
  
  • Game speeds now have hotkeys assigned to them. (default: NUM1, NUM2, NUM3, NUM5)
    
  • Numpad Keys are now always usable with activated and deactivated Numpad.
• Objectives UI
  
  • By left-clicking on an objective in the objectives list you can now cycle between all relevant locations (e.g. Points of Interest) associated with this objective.
    
  • Points of Interest that belong to the same objective can now also be cycled by pressing TAB key.
    
  • Pagonian village objectives are now sorted by their required faction standing level.
    
  • Exploration and Expansion objective progress is now shown as a percentage value instead of the huge numbers (the tooltip still shows you the exact square meters).
• Added an explanation to the construction menu tooltip that you can RMB-click on a building icon to cycle through existing buildings of this type.
  
• Detailed tooltips for arcane combat boosts have been added.
  
• Artifact types are only shown in the top bar interface after they have been discovered, e.g. by finding them in a treasure or by learning about them in a trade offer of a Pagonian village.
  
• In the tutorial map, some production recipes and recruitment options are disabled to simplify the interface.
  
  
• Notifications
  
  • Improved the visualization of outlined font for notifications and in general.
    
  • Added explanatory tooltips to the notifications kicked when you encounter a resource shortage.
    
  • Added explanatory tooltip to suboptimal search area notification kicked by treasure hunter.
• Buildings which need specific buildings nearby, like the Market Stall which needs a Market fountain, will now recognize that missing related buildings are under construction and no longer display warnings.
  
  
• Narration Dialogs
  
  • Added an effect to make the text appear over time (speed can be adjusted in the options).
    
  • Clicking into the text field will skip the effect or advance to the next textbox if the effect was already finished.
• Added a checkbox to the tutorial map selection screen which lets you choose whether you want to see all tutorial videos again. It’s on by default.

• If the light setting on the new map generation screen was changed manually, the last used light setting will be remembered as default setting (instead of default random) when generating a new map next time.
  
• Added a warning for some Intel CPUs that a BIOS update may increase stability. There are known bugs in Intel® Core™ 13th and 14th Gen desktop processors that may affect gaming stability unless a microcode update is installed with a BIOS update. The game detects affected CPUs with a suspected microcode version and warns the player to update their BIOS. More information can be found here: Intel Core 13th and 14th Gen Desktop Instability Root Cause Update - Intel Community[community.intel.com].
  
• Cooperative Multiplayer: All players are now allowed to change the game speed.
  
• Added predefined graphic settings to the options menu for easier adjustment.
  
• On first launch of Pioneers of Pagonia, a meaningful predefined graphic setting will be selected automatically. This also happens if video settings are reset.
  
• Performance of VFX has been improved by enhanced calculations of their visibility.
  
• Default key binding for pings in multiplayer was changed to “B”, because the “ALT” key caused issues for some people.
  
• Added bandit, thief, scavenger, werewolf, and spirit flee voice over, few smaller combat SFX tweaks.

• Fixed a rare case in which production buildings with a specific order amount were not receiving the necessary ingredients, even with priority enabled.
  
• Fixed: Selected summoned units now show the correct unit type if selected.
  
• Fixed: Summoned ancient workers not working correctly in explored exclaves not connected to main explored area.
  
• Fixed: Sometimes the feedback of why building placement is invalid was missing.
  
• Fixed: The highlight outline of related buildings disappeared in some cases if the related building was under construction and paused.
  
• Thieves don’t steal water anymore.
  
• Thieves give up on stealing if they are discovered and try to return home.
  
• Units returning to the ship no longer hesitate or stumble at the waypoint in front of the ship.
  
• Scared player units are less likely to flee into unexplored areas and more likely to flee towards their own territory.
  
• When demolishing a Monument of Wisdom, the workers no longer walk in the air.
  
• Fixed: Patrolling units did not use areas recently uncovered by the Light Spire.
  
• Fixed building preview sometimes showing fish as “in range” even if it was not in range.
  
• Fixed: Hunters were still hunting both deer and boar even if only one leather type was selected.
  
• Fixed: Both leather options (deer & boar) in the hunter building were simply called “Leather”.
  
• Fixed: Sound effects not always fading out correctly.
  
• Fixed: Dialogs sometimes not working correctly.
  
• Fixed road placement hints going offscreen in some languages at max scale.
  
• Fixed Malthorn sometimes exceeding their movement range when placing new Baneroots.
  
• Fixed Malthorn performing the summoning ritual within their base were sometimes not attacked by Sorceresses.
  
• Fixed the sorting of the language list in the main menu and removed the scroll bar where not needed.
  
• Fixed issues with the map selection on some aspect ratios / UI scales.
  
• Fixed rare case where Light Spire could get stuck while producing mana.

• Building icons of reworked buildings are not updated.
  
• NPC Villages on predefined maps will retain the old Guild Hall visual.
  
• Forest backpack in wrong orientation when planting new trees.
  
• Wood Workshop: Cogwheel pile clipping into building floor.
  
• The singular and plural forms of units, commodities and buildings might be grammatically incorrect as of now. We are actively working on improving the localization in all supported languages.

this is Alex from the Envision Entertainment-team and I’m one of the artists that work on the many different buildings in Pioneers of Pagonia. Over the last year since Pioneers of Pagonia released into Early Access, we’ve been updating the game not only with brand-new content like the Mining and Magic updates but also with plenty of quality-of-life centered patches. Smooth and comfortable interaction with any system that the players can interact with in Pioneers of Pagonia is very close to our heart, so we’ve been dedicating a lot of time to this so far.

Today, I want to shed some light on one of our upcoming quality-of-life updates and give you a glimpse of some of our internal processes and decision-making. In this upcoming patch, we want to tackle the topic of the overall readability of objects in the game and add some much-needed improvements in this area.

Pioneers of Pagonia is visually – like most build-up and strategy games – a very busy game. Players can have hundreds of buildings, units, and resources at the same time on their screen and with so much stuff going on it can be difficult to guide the player’s eyes in a way that all available information remains easily recognizable and digestible. As an artist working on this game, it’s also one of my jobs to make sure that everything we add to the game fits into our art style that creates the signature look of Pioneers of Pagonia: charming settlements, picturesque landscapes, and relaxing vibes that invite the players to spend hours upon hours of building up and exploring new islands.

Pagonian SettlementWe’ve received lots of feedback from players on the buildings, be it online through Discord or the Steam community or live at Gamescom and PAX, and the general opinion seems to be that many players love the game for how it looks, but that it’s also sometimes a bit difficult to identify or find a certain building. Upholding the balance between style and functionality is not always easy. So far, our strategy with designing buildings has been to give each of them a unique shape and silhouette, while keeping individual architectural elements and materials coherent across all buildings.

ForesterWe also always add unique elements to each building that might already give a visual hint towards the building's function, while the Forester building features a large tree growing through the walls, the Geologist’s Hut is leaning on a small rocky cliff with visible sediments, for example.

Geologist HutWith over 40 different buildings in the game by now, however, you sooner or later run into the problem that some buildings look too similar to another or simply fade into the background once they’re placed in a settlement. Over the last couple of months, I gathered feedback from the community as well as internally from our team on which buildings needed some changes the most, analyzed which problems they caused, and came up with a couple of possible solutions together with the design and art team.

Town Center before
While building a busy settlement core, players often place the Tavern, Guild Hall, and Residence close to each other. Together, these three buildings create a nice, dense, and almost urban center, but we found that the overall look of the three buildings is a bit too homogenous. They all occupy the same space, have similar heights, layout and materials. The Tavern and the Guild Hall are buildings to which players return quite often, in order to check the meals that they are producing or to manage the recruitment of new workers, so it was essential for us that they needed to stand out a bit more.

Although the Wood Workshop already features some wooden ornaments on its rooftops, it was one of the buildings players struggled to easily identify, they were always looking for that place where they could order more Wooden Cogwheels for their Windmills and Mines but were never able to find it!

The Garrison and Military Academy are two buildings that have different functions, but both deal with military units, occupy the same space, and have a very similar square-shaped structure.

Iteration process of Guild Hall and Wood Workshop
For the Guild Hall, we decided to increase the space that the building takes up from 3x3 tiles to 4x4 tiles. Players rarely place more than one Guild Hall, so since it’s not a building that is placed often taking up more space would help it stand out more against multiple Residences, without making it considerably more difficult to place. With more space available, the many different tool piles that the building features also aren’t all crammed in front of the hall but distributed more evenly throughout the perimeter. We decided to make the clocktower more of a focus point and swapped out the previous sun clock for a clock with hands and a more recognizable dial face. Additionally, we put the entire building on a foundation to increase its height and make it stand out more. With these new improvements, the Guild Hall catches the eye of the player more easily and is now up to the task of acting as a center point for every Pagonian settlement.

New GuildhallNew Guildhall in Town CentreFor the Wood Workshop, the goal was to give it a unique look and create a stronger visual connection to the actual use of the building, so incorporating more wood into its roof was one of the thoughts that immediately came up. As most of the structural elements of the building besides the roof tiles were already mostly wooden, I was a bit concerned about adding even more of the same wood, hoping to find a way to avoid the entire thing ending up looking like a uniform block made out of wood. I tried out using a different color of wood and applied the colors we use for the hardwood resources to the new wooden shingles, which I thought was a fitting idea, as the Wood Workshop is also one of the only buildings in the game that utilizes hardwood boards. Internal feedback, however, suggested that the light-colored wood clashed too much with the usual wooden tones that we use in the building, making it difficult to discern as a material on its own. Following that feedback, I applied our usual wooden tones to the shingles, added more moss on top to give it more of a “forestry” feel, and exposed more of the plaster and framework on the main structure of the building, breaking up any areas of the building that felt visually too uniform.

New Wood WorkshopThe goal for the adjustments to the Garrison and Military Academy was to double down on what made each of them unique in the first place in order to flesh out their visual identity. The stone foundation that the Military Academy used to sit on was also present in the Garrison and we thought that it fit better to the Garrison, as that building is the thing that is closest to a castle or fort that we have in our roster of Pagonian buildings. We opted for a dirt ground under the Military Academy, which in our eyes fit well together with the idea of a training ground – a place where Pagonians practice with weapons and armor in order to be recruited as soldiers.

Military Academy before and after

Even just changing the flooring of both buildings helped with the overall readability and we improved it even further by adding more wooden structures to the Military Academy and new banners to the Garrison. Lastly, we also rotated the overall layout of the Military Academy by 90 degrees, which also helped with any visual repetitions when both buildings were placed next to each other, as both buildings’ layouts were quite similar before.

Garrison before and after

These are just a couple of the many improvements we are going to release in our newest Quality of Life patch. There are even more improvements to units, resources, and deposits, as well as many changes to the UI that you guys should keep an eye out for! You can find all of the updates in our detailed patch notes and we’re very excited for your reactions to the new patch and looking forward to everyone’s feedback once again.

From a developer’s perspective, I really want to highlight how amazing it is to work on a game in Early Access like this. We get to iterate on many aspects of the game based on player feedback before the game has even fully released, and it really helps us deliver a high-quality game that not only works for us but also primarily for all the players out there. My thanks go out to everyone who voices their opinion about the game in any possible way, your input is much appreciated and fundamental to make Pioneers of Pagonia as best as it can be.

Thanks for reading and have fun with the new update!