Greetings, Viceroys!

The second part of the Camps Update is out now! If we worked in Hollywood, this would be a trilogy, but unfortunately for you, we’re just a bunch of gamers who happen to make games for a living. So enjoy this update, because it’s all you’re getting for now!

Jokes aside, here’s what’s new:

• Visually revamped Camps
• Starting glade layouts
• New Cornerstones
• Storage limits
• And more!

Also, if you haven’t got Against the Storm yet, you might want to hold off a couple of hours until the Steam Winter Sale starts. It will save you a few bucks.

DEVELOPER NOTES

Today’s update is a bit of a smaller one, as many Eremites are slowly starting their holiday break, but worry not, there are still many cool new additions coming to the game! And to make up for the smaller update size, we want to share some exciting news – Custom Mode will be coming on January 5th!

Now back to this update. The most important changes are the new camp models we teased two weeks ago. When redesigning how the system works, we wanted to also improve the visual side of it, mainly because the old camps were too similar (especially their colors/rooftops). We took this opportunity to not only recolor them but also add a lot of unique new assets and improve some existing props. We also gave camps a more “carriage-inspired” look, to signify that they are moveable (and to give the impression that they were brought to the settlement from the faraway Citadel).

From left: Trappers’ Camp, Herbalists’ Camp, and Foragers’ Camp.

New camps on a new semi-randomized starting glade layout.

For those of you who are not too much into visuals, we also prepared some new content and system changes. Most significant of them – a change to how newcomers arrive. Until now, it was possible to just not invite new villagers and leave them waiting until the settlement could support them. At the same time, subsequent newcomer groups would still come to the town and stack in the background, so there was never any consequence to not welcoming new arrivals. From now on, newcomers will come every 10 minutes (you can see the timer when hovering over the newcomer icon on the HUD), and not welcoming them will postpone the arrival of the next group. This way players can still wait for better conditions before accepting new villagers, but it will come at a cost. 

At the same time, we added four new cornerstones – three of which are tied to the new newcomers’ system (creating some basic synergies). In the future, we will likely add more, but for now we just want to see if this creates any interesting new gameplay decisions.

Now onto UX/UI changes. Many of you will be happy to hear that from now on, you can change the limits in your buildings’ internal storages, and therefore decide when workers carry goods to the Main Warehouse. This can be done using a slider in the storage tab in every production building. Additionally, we also introduce a “default fuel” setting in the Options menu – so now you can decide which resources are burned in the Ancient Hearth (without the need to manually change it every run).

Storage limit.

There are also multiple other UX and UI improvements and of course a ton of bug fixes. If you’d like to share your ideas for upcoming updates, here are some useful links:

• Steam Discussions, Discord, Reddit – discuss the game with the community and share your impressions
• Feature Request Tool – suggest specific new features

Have fun and may the storm be gentle on you,
Eremite Games

P.S. This is the last update this year so our whole team wants to wish you joyful holidays and a Ha(r)ppy New Year! Thank you for being with us this year and for supporting us along the way. We can’t wait to see what the new year brings!

CHANGELOG

Changes marked with ⚡ were inspired by community.

Starting glade layouts.

New content and features

• ⚡ Added multiple layouts to the starting glade.
  • The Main Warehouse and the Ancient Hearth will now be positioned differently between games (layouts might somewhat repeat). 
  • This semi-randomness was added to change up the gameplay a bit in the starting phases of the game, and lead to more interesting town layouts further down the line.
• Added 4 new Cornerstones to the game.
  • Zhorg’s Secret Ingredient – A mysterious ingredient discovered by the famous chef and businessman Zhorg. Gain 10 Skewers for every 10 Pickled Goods produced. 
  • Secure Trail – Royal Stormwalkers secured the trail to your settlement. Newcomers will arrive 25% quicker.
  • Stormwalker Tax – A joint venture with the Stormwalker Guild can be very profitable in the future. You gain 15 Amber every time a new group of villagers arrives, but you will lose all stored Amber upon choosing this cornerstone.
  • Economic Migration – Rumor has it that your settlement is one of the wealthiest in the realm. Newcomers will arrive 15% quicker for every 2 levels of standing you have with other settlements in trade routes.

Balance

• ⚡ Changed the way newcomers arrive at the settlement. 
  • From now on, newcomers will arrive every 10 minutes (though some effects might influence that).
  • The newcomer button will stay on the HUD for good (after the first arrival). You can hover over it to find out when the next group will arrive. 
  • Newcomer arrivals no longer stack. A new group won’t be sent until you accept the previous one.
  • Previously, it was possible to simply wait and then accept multiple groups at once with no consequence. We felt that this was not an interesting gameplay decision and it allowed players to postpone problems at no cost.
• ⚡ The Vassal Tax and Overheating Forest Mysteries will no longer last for the entirety of the game. Their negative effects will be removed at the start of the next Storm. You still need to prepare the payment for the next Storm in order not to get a penalty for the next year.
  
  • Because the Vassal Tax penalty now no longer stacks, its effect was increased from 20% to 33%.

UX/UI improvements

• ⚡ Added an option to manually set the internal storage in a production building.
  • In the storage tab, there is now a slider on the capacity bar.
  • Using the slider, you can modify the storage limit – in other words at which the number of stored goods your workers will transport to the Main Warehouse.
  • There’s also a new setting in the Options menu – “Save Internal Storage Limits”. Enabling this option will save the internal building storage limits you set and then apply them to any newly constructed building of the same type.
• ⚡ Orders with the objective to build a specific hub level now display the name of the hub level on the HUD overview.
• ⚡ Updated tooltips for all effects that kill villagers (Forest Mysteries, glade events).
  • Previously, when hovering over a death notification, it would only give a vague description of what happened (“villager X died of a curse”).
  • From now on, when hovering over a death notification, the tooltip will state where the effect came from (for example: “villager X died of a curse (glade event – Ancient Shrine”).
• ⚡ Added a setting to the options menu to set the default fuel types that are supposed to be burned in the Ancient Hearth.

Bug fixes

• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Cursed Royal Woodlands not spawning Copper Ore deposits. 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with some particles on the World Map not being turned off on slower PCs.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with multiple visual effects (smoke, fire, particles) not being turned off when the “disable complex effects” option was checked.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug that made it impossible to destroy a mine during its construction (and broke the save at the same time). 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with camps upgraded during construction being blocked. 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug that made it possible to trade for Amber the player didn’t have (and therefore taking the Amber amount to the negative).
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the first step of the tutorial breaking when camera movement keys were pressed during the loading screen.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with some glades opening by themselves.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Finders Keepers Forest Mystery incorrectly stating that trade routes must be started during Drizzle.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Blight Extractor perk showing incorrect progress values in its tooltip.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Trader Panel always displaying “Bandit Camp” as the reason for trade being blocked.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Stormforged version of the Back to Nature perk not showing up on the HUD. 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Hunter-Gatherers perk decreasing yields in the Herb Garden by 100%. 
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Sunken Bones perk being incorrectly marked as retroactive.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Inspiring Pressure biome effect not taking the Ancient Battleground modifier into account.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with Flax nodes having incorrect bonus resources.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with incorrect resource nodes spawning in some biomes.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with season change sounds not being played when auto-pause is active.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with rain being rendered behind some buildings in the Smoldering City.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the farm UI counting fertile soil fields hidden under fog.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with mouse keybinds for camera movement not working in the World Map screen.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with an unlocalized {0} parameter being visible on the HUD in destruction mode.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Altar and Trading Post being moveable when under the effect of the Levitating Monument modifier.
• ⚡ Changed the name of the negative effect that is applied when the fire in the Ancient Hearth goes down. It was previously named Looming Darkness (same as a generic effect during the storm), and now it’s called No Hope.
• ⚡ Added information about Forbidden Glade Events to the Ancient Practices perk.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Workshop and Tinkerer being translated to the same name in Russian.
• ⚡ Fixed a typo in the Polish localization of the Clear Sky effect. 
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Japanese translation of the Strange Lights Forest Mystery.
• ⚡ Fixed an incorrect translation of HUB upgrades in the upgrade tree in the Smoldering City. 
• Fixed a bug with the Mole and Lightning Catcher working effects not being displayed on the HUD.
• Fixed a bug with the unconstructed Grill sticking out of the ground.
• Fixed a bug with the “replay tutorial” function breaking on the World Map if a faction occupied a tutorial town field.

Other

• ⚡ Changed the visuals of all camps in the game.
  • All camps have been revamped graphically with new models and textures.
  • Camps should now be easier to distinguish and more clearly convey what their function is.
• ⚡ Added new music to the settlement mode (3 tracks).
• Added a new sound effect when calling a trader.

COMMUNITY CORNER

This Against the Storm fan art by Wilburough’s kid was hands down the best thing that happened to us in the last two weeks:

Fan art by Wilburough’s kid

The real motivation behind Camps’ visual revamp:

Red Round Roof by Edward

And now some of our favorite picks:

Fantasy races by Fwopfwops

Clown by Andreas

Trader Arrives by Party Magician

For more memes come to our Discord and Reddit. See you next year!

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