Update 3 "Naval Combat" Official Release

[rob]

To coincide with the imminent release of the Eagle King DLC, we're excited to launch the third major gameplay expansion for Hegemony III. This free update is available with or without the DLC and significantly expands on the naval components of the game including water territories, new ship crew mechanics, and improved naval AI. It also includes enhanced tutorials for new players and an extensive list of minor improvements listed below.

Update 3 should support any saved games created in earlier versions, but if you run into trouble let us know at [e-mail] and we'll try to sort them out so that you don't lose any progress. If you prefer to continue your game under the old version, there is now a legacy 3.2 branch available in the betas list.

For modders, update 3 does introduce a few compatibility issues that will require some mods to be updated. We'll release some official instructions on that in the next few days, but in the meantime feel free to contact us or post your questions and we will be happy to help.

As always, if you run into any bugs or crashes please send your reports to [e-mail] and we'll try to fix them as quickly as possible.

Thanks again for everybody's support,
The Longbow Team

Change Log Ver 3.3.0 rev 41732

New Ship Mechanics

• Ships now have crews that require food and recruits in order to operate effectively.
  
• Combat units on ships now act as marines and have a much greater impact on both ship-to-ship combat and ship-to-land combat.
  
• Ships can now siege, capture and raze enemy cities from the water.
  
• Ships now have different stances that control whether the ship should ram, board, or use ranged fire when attack other ships.
  
• Ships can now surrender and be captured or sunk.

Water Territories

Territories now extend into the water from all camps and cities with the 'Deep Water Port' attribute. Water territories work identically to their land varients and can be used to supply ships, and to connected nearby cities and resources.

New Tutorials

The default sandbox scenarios now feature a short opening tutorial to introduce new players to basic camera and gameplay commands. This tutorial can be disabled in the scenario options menu (the 'Gear' button in the bottom-left corner of the Faction Select screen).

Baggage Trains

Update 3 includes new baggage train units that can be constructed in any camp or city that has sufficient food available. Baggage trains can carry very large amounts of food and will share it automatically with nearby friendly units. As the food is consumed, units in the baggage train will disapear. Ox-carts from enemy supply lines can be captured and added to your baggage train.

Bug Fixes and Minor Changes

• land units can now attack beached ships
  
• ships and ranged land units can now attack each other
  
• city population is now dispayed in the asset list
  
• ships now support carrying more than one unit
  
• upgrades window will now refresh automatically when upgrades are paused, deleted or constructed from the upgrade tab
  
• ships cannot be disbanded at sea
  
• improvements to ai resource management
  
• unit ranged damage is now defined per brigade instead of per individual unit
  
• player territories are now faintly visible through the fog-of-war
  
• new greek and illyric general models
  
• fixed bug with raiding achievement
  
• fixed performance bug when steam is in offline mode
  
• you can now enter forts, cities and bridges of friendly factions
  
• fixed editor crash for bridges that are missing an exit
  
• shifted default map space in editor so it no longer extends into negative coordinates
  
• improvements to AI group formations
  
• siege engine positions have been hidden for now
  
• cancelling bridge construction on one bridgehead will now cancel it for both sides of the bridge
  
• fixed bug with bridgeheads connecting to territories
  
• fixed bug where ranged units wouldn't engange neutral enemies when given orders
  
• improved multi-threading on load/saved game screen so window opens faster when there are lots of games
  
• added tooltips with more details to saved game screen
  
• minor changes to mod screen GUI
  
• fixed bug where AI got stuck when their home was captured while out on a raid
  
• added button to abandon empty farms
  
• fixed script crash in defeat neighbouring enemy units task
  
• added buff to indicate when construction in a city or building is paused
  
• added timeout to talking heads to minimize issues when they are left open
  
• fixed bug building ships from forts
  
• sails of surrendered ships now turn grey
  
• clicking the background of the unit tab will now re-select the container (building, city, ship)
  
• ship types are now displayed separately in tooltips instead of being all Triremes
  
• diplomacy tutorial message should only appear once now
  
• added timeout to the give food to rebelling city objective
  
• you can now plot trade routes past hostile forts if you have a truce
  
• increased civilian morale penalty when a city is out of food
  
• improved sharing of food between ships and land units
  
• improved when raiders decide to scavenge vs raid farms
  
• fixed a bug with ai sieging bridges
  
• fixed an ai bug that caused reinforcements to cancel on route
  
• increased siege damage done by ranged units
  
• adjusted how ranged damage from forts effects enemy units
  
• adjusted morale damage done when nearby friendly units are defeated
  
• all selected ships should now try to land even if there isn't enough room
  
• significantly increased raid damage for scouts in saboteur stance
  
• units now gain XP when they kill enemy garrison units during a siege
  
• fixed invisible light hoplite model
  
• multiple fixes for the AI incorrectly cancelling an attack in progress
  
• ai should still continue naval raids when all of it ships can't land
  
• fixed bugs with gold display in the territory window
  
• fixed bug displaying wood consumption from unit construction
  
• fixed bug with territories not sending extra resources to other territories when they are full
  
• fixed display of wood/gold map overlays on the strategy map when zoomed out
  
• updated morale map overlay to show city rebellions
  
• fixed bug with the far zoom strategy map overlay not updating properly
  
• previously awarded victory point messages should no longer appear when a game is loaded
  
• updated multiple tooltips to reflect recent game updates
  
• new event tag system for activating/disabling events in different scenarios
  
• reworked scenarioconfig script functions (will require some mods to update to work in 3.3)
  
• experimental fix for game freeze when clicking alerts
  
• alert response can now only be changed from the options page (should prevent accidentally disabling alerts)
  
• adjustments to camera movement when jumping to targets
  
• brigade files now support both groupmissiledamagerate and missiledamagerate to improve compatibilty with older mods
  
• slaves now retain their native faction until merged with a different group of slaves
  
• water supply lines can no longer be connected to bridge heads
  
• improved error messages for building water supply lines
  
• opening the territory window on the strategy map now requires double-clicking
  
• fixed some city guards with the wrong faction
  
• fixed some floating props in cities
  
• colonist units now consume food
  
• starving non-combat units now die off slowly
  
• fixed bug with frozen unit animations
  
• multiple fixes to unit movement when their formation is blocked
  
• groups will now use their run speed if all members can run
  
• fixed bug that caused a group to change direction when linking to a unit's target formation
  
• new baggage train unit
  
• capturing ox-carts turns them into small baggage train units
  
• fixed broken ox-cart texture
  
• fixed bug that caused the AI to sometimes ignore scouts
  
• strategy map tokens now show different colours when a unit is inside a different faction's city
  
• fixed water entrance to Taurasia
  
• faction window now closes when the customize general window opens on the faction select screen
  
• cities/camps/bridges with walls and a garrison now display their missile range when highlighted or selected
  
• fixed layout of gallic skill tree
  
• adjusted food collection steam achievement
  
• fixed bug with city selection ring not showing the correct colour
  
• fixed some extra unit defeated messages
  
• improved group ship landings
  
• fixed the direction of group ship miniature
  
• fixed bug loading games with units with forts for homes
  
• scavenging farms now increases hostility
  
• raiding farms of friendly factions will now immediately make factions hostile
  
• fixed crash moving the camera with a controller before a map was loaded
  
• new opening tutorial in sandbox games
  
• 'enable tutorial' option is now saved between games
  
• changed colour of pause border to look less like a warning
  
• fixed/adjusted a few water entrances along the campania/latium/etruria coast
  
• routed enemy miniatures are now gray and routed friendly units don't have miniatures
  
• adjustments to AI defense of walled cities
  
• demolishing forts now increases hostility
  
• fixed AI siege bug
  
• scavenging is no longer the default action on friendly farms
  
• removed hostility warning when scavenging your own farms
  
• fixed crash with raiding ships
  
• talking head windows now push open windows to the right to prevent overlaps
  
• adjustments to ship movement and collisions
  
• baggage trains can now be constructed in cities and forts
  
• linked groups with ranged units in the front will now stop advancing when they get within missile range of the target
  
• fixed bug with 'num upgrades built' end-game stat
  
• fixed hostility bugs when razing captured cities
  
• fixed bug that caused ships to use much less wood than stated
  
• decreased wood cost of raiding ships
  
• wood returned from disbanding ships is now proportional to construction progress
  
• adjusted hostages stats to make them more competitive with combat units
  
• fixed bug with ships trying to attack land units
  
• adjustments to ai raid planning
  
• city population construction now cancels if the city loses growth from razing
  
• camp/bridge construction is no longer blocked by supply line ox-carts

[Dual_Cored]

Awesome update. Good luck with the release will be purchasing and reviewing after a few hours.

[The Joker]

Sweeeet

[Duckroll]

Will the AI use the new baggage trains? I'm always attacked by hoplites who take so long to march to me that they're all out of food when they arrive. It's good for the 120 free slaves, but kinda lame after the 5th time it happens.

[rob]

Originally posted by Duckroll:

Will the AI use the new baggage trains? I'm always attacked by hoplites who take so long to march to me that they're all out of food when they arrive. It's good for the 120 free slaves, but kinda lame after the 5th time it happens.

Unfortunately, the AI doesn't use them yet, but the new update does include a number of AI improvements related to supplying armies on the march including adjustments to scavenging and the ability to build a chain of forts along the route.

Unfortunately we often have to test the AI in artifically created scenarios (we don't have time to play things out properly) so I'd be curious to look at your saved games if your interested in sending them to me ([e-mail]) to see if there's anything particular about your situation that is causing problems.

[Kinote]

Some really interesting looking changes here, particularly the baggage trains and ship combat stances.

Ships capturing cities feels a little odd, but being able to aid my land forces will be much appreciated. With the new Marine combat abilities, will we be getting an officer/officers for increased boarding or city attack bonuses? Dedicated Marine units that are much smaller/more lightly equipped than their land counterparts, but can handedly beat them out on the water?

[rob]

Originally posted by Kinote:

Some really interesting looking changes here, particularly the baggage trains and ship combat stances.

Ships capturing cities feels a little odd, but being able to aid my land forces will be much appreciated. With the new Marine combat abilities, will we be getting an officer/officers for increased boarding or city attack bonuses? Dedicated Marine units that are much smaller/more lightly equipped than their land counterparts, but can handedly beat them out on the water?

Ship-to-city combat is done as if your ships are sending units into the city via the harbour. So both the ship's crew and any combat units inside the city will take losses. It certainly works better when accompanied by a land siege, but it can be convenient for taking lightly defended coastal targets.

Right now, any unit can function as a marine when onboard a ship and we don't have any dedicated marine units, however I could see adding those in the future. There are separate attributes for marine boarding combat so it could be done as a mod now.

[Kinote]

Oh neat, so a naval invasion rather than just sitting out in the habour glaring at the city. Looking forward to giving it a go!

[ValkyrieMoon]

This is all great stuff, just excited, this is one of my top series ever.

[TallestDavid]

sweet. also yes add marine special troops! cool to have unique ones! athenai marines sound cool! or syracuse! maybe jack sparrow? ;D

[AirFlow]

I really need to get past the tutorial

[rob]

Originally posted by AirFlow:

I really need to get past the tutorial

Are you talking about the new tutorial in the update? Is there something you're stuck on?

[Baring]

"linked groups with ranged units in the front will now stop advancing when they get within missile range of the target"

This is the bugfix i'm most excited about ;) tired of losing all those slingers and javelineers because they decide to charge into an enemy hoplite formation.

[Kinote]

Originally posted by Baring:

"linked groups with ranged units in the front will now stop advancing when they get within missile range of the target"

This is the bugfix i'm most excited about ;) tired of losing all those slingers and javelineers because they decide to charge into an enemy hoplite formation.

I didn't even see that one! We're into dreams coming true for quality of life stuff at this point.

[a_mak_ulate]

Originally posted by rob:

Unfortunately we often have to test the AI in artifically created scenarios (we don't have time to play things out properly) so I'd be curious to look at your saved games if your interested in sending them to me ([e-mail]) to see if there's anything particular about your situation that is causing problems.

You guys are doing a great Job for independent developers and i just wanted to say THANK YOU

Seeing all these changes just makes me EMOTIONAL, more so because I recently (more than a few months ago) purchased a well know strategy game (who's name shall not be mentioned in this post but from hence on be refered to as "The Nameless Game") for a very high price, £69.99 to be exact (that was the pre lunch price with all the so called goodies they throw in for free which they will eventually make free anyway) and I was actually disapointed.. Over the following months I downloaded updates and patch after patch to fix what I felt was a very incomplete game

What made it even more aggrivating is the fact that we pay all these BIG developers truck loads of money only for them to rob us (IN BROAD DAYLIGHT) and hand us back a shell of a game and then expect passionate modders to do (FOR FREE!!!) the job they were paid to do.


I almost lost faith in Steam and the whole system and then i saw the glorious light of the "Update 3" and the "Eagle King DLC" and then i remebered there are honest developers out there who actually care about the game and not how much is in my pocket

it just makes me sad that that £70 went to something not worth it when i would have gladly given it to you guys to pay for the time to test and do all the things you need to do to make this game perfect (and still have some to take home to the wife and kids)

i can only speak for myself but i am sure there are a lot of us who will glady pay for more DLC like a full Greece campaign of more maps as playable scenarios

once again thank you for all the hard work and dedication

[Mourdeeb]

Long Bow Team, you have never dissapointed!!! I can't wait!
I had a few questions, and sugestions, from past posts:

#1 It's great that the units get xp for killing units that are garrisoned, BUT, units STILL don't get xp for killing units AS a garrisoned unit. (your units defending as a garrison get zero xp).

#2 Certain battle mechanics are still not balanced. Specifically, Spear units do not have near enough charge defence, making Cav. Units OP. (I posted pictures previously).

I know you guys have a lot of Big things going on, and you keep making this game even better. Are there any plans to smooth out these mechanics?

Thanks again for one of the best game experiences I have ever had!