Greetings, Viceroys!

Our new reports speak of the Fishman Soothsayer. He does not speak, though you can hear his voice. His eyes are blank, yet you can feel his gaze. He is not afraid of death, he stands by its side.

Are you brave enough to look into the future?

What’s new:

• Forbidden Glade event: Fishman Soothsayer
• Balance changes: Ore, Fuel, Packs
• UX: Caravan resources, Worker overlay specializations

Continue reading for our design insights and the full changelog.

DEVELOPER NOTES

Two weeks ago, we unveiled the new roadmap and announced the next big feature coming to Against the Storm – the Cycle overhaul. While we’re still not ready to release it, you can already help us test an early iteration of this system on the Experimental Branch. In the meantime, we bring you a new update to the main branch – the Fishman Soothsayer Update – with a new glade event, numerous balance changes, and a whole host of highly requested UI improvements.

Let’s first talk about the new event. As the name of this update suggests, it’s the Fishman Soothsayer – a mysterious wandering fortune teller. He can only be found in Forbidden Glades, and offers a very unique reward for those brave enough to challenge him – the Airbender perk, which increases the Hostility threshold for all negative Forest Mysteries (so for example, Looming Darkness will now activate at Hostility 1 instead of 0). This is also the first time ever when we show a fishman NPC in the game (face reveal, yay!), and a step in the direction of making other fishmen events more interesting by adding more life to them (soon™).

Fishman Soothsayer Capture Decision

Fishman Soothsayer Foretell Decision

For this update, we also decided to take a closer look at some pending balance issues. The biggest changes are related to trading, packs of goods, and mining, with some minor adjustments in rainwater production, newcomer numbers, and citadel resource acquisition during settlement runs. Let’s first talk a bit more in detail about trading and the pack economy.

Packs of Goods are an unusual type of resource. They are required in a lot of orders and can be used for fueling trade routes, but aside from that, they’re not really produced to the same extent as other goods in a settlement (there is no real reason to stockpile them or to be excited about a high tier pack recipe in a drafted building). That’s why we decided to give the pack economy a little push and pivot it slightly into a more trading-focused direction.

From now on, packs will always be profitable to make (there won’t be any trade value loss even when making them on tier 0), and neighboring settlements will have a higher chance of buying packs through trade routes. Additionally, their value has been significantly increased across the board. This, combined with some smaller trading changes (a slight increase in the value of raw food, general price rebalancing, and smaller stack sizes in trader inventories) should make them more attractive to players trying to make a trading-focused build.

The other big balance change worth talking about in greater detail is related to mining. There has been quite a lot of feedback about how ore is spawned under trees or is too scattered to comfortably build a 3×3 mine on top of it. We finally decided to change that. Ore will now always be confined to a 3×3 square, and will never again appear underneath a tree. You might be asking – why was this even a thing in the first place? Well, when first designing the mining system in Against the Storm, our initial idea was to give players a small optimization problem to solve when placing a mine. But since then a lot has changed (for example ore deposits are no longer infinite), and this somewhat interesting puzzle turned into a tedious affair. It’s high time we changed that.

Lastly, before we move on to the more detailed changelog, let’s mention some of the UI improvements coming with this update. Most notably, we changed how resources are displayed in the Embark Panel (goods present in every caravan are now displayed on a tooltip), added specialization icons to the worker overlay, introduced a highlight to resource tooltips when a rebuilt ruin can produce something, cleaned up effect labels (in Cornerstones, perks, service building effects, etc.), improved the wording in some Orders related to trade routes, added a shortcut to the Consumption Control panel, and much, much more. We also fixed a lot of bugs, as is tradition with every bi-weekly update.

Caravan Resources

Workers Overlay specializations

Thank you all for providing feedback and suggestions for the new update. 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

May the storm be gentle on you,
Eremite Games

P.S. If you’ve picked up Against the Storm and have been playing it, make sure to leave a Steam review! They help a lot!

CHANGELOG

Changes marked with ⚡ were inspired by community.

New content and features

• ⚡ Added a new forbidden glade event.
  • Fishman Soothsayer – An old wandering soothsayer, seething with magic. He does not speak, though you can hear his voice. His eyes are blank, yet you can feel his gaze. He is not afraid of death, he stands by its side.

Balance

• ⚡ Changed the ore balance and how it’s spawned in glades.
  • Ore no longer appears under trees.
  • It’s now always contained in a 3×3 square.
  • Adjusted spawn rates in biomes with more than one type of ore (Marshlands). It should be a bit harder now to find both Coal and Copper in the same spot.
• ⚡ Changed how fertile soil is spawned in glades. It should no longer appear hidden under trees.
• ⚡ The Black Treasure Stag no longer gives Cornerstones with significant drawbacks.
• ⚡ Added Porridge to traders who sell/buy food items.
• ⚡ Rebalanced the Pack of Goods economy (Pack of Building Materials, Pack of Crops, Pack of Provisions, Pack of Trade Goods, and Pack of Luxury Goods). 
  • All packs are now worth a lot more.
  • Increased the trade value return rate for all pack recipes. This means that even when making packs with a tier 0 recipe, the value of the created item will be higher than the sum of its ingredients.
  • Increased the number of packs bought by other settlements in trade routes. Every biome town now has 3 types of packs it’s willing to buy. 
  • The Smoldering City now buys almost all types of packs (except Packs of Provisions, which are used to fuel trade routes).
  • Our goal with this change was to make packs a bit more interesting and profitable to play with, as right now they are mostly just crafted when an Order requires it. We wanted to move them a bit more into a space where they can be a viable option in trading-focused builds.
• Decreased the amount of food sold by all traders. They will still have the same types, but in smaller quantities (for example: 50 instead of 70).
• Slightly increased the value of raw food items (both when selling and buying).
• Slightly increased the difference between the sell and buy value of food in general (by around 10%).
  • Our goal with this (and the other food economy adjustments listed above) was to make it a bit harder to flat out buy food for an entire year or two when you’re not specialized in trading or exploring (as well as encourage a bit more exploration in search of nodes). At the same time, due to the changes to packs, this theoretical nerf should be offset by dipping even slightly into a more trading-focused type of gameplay.
• Slightly rebalanced the prices of multiple resources. The goal here was to normalize the trade value return rates (how much it costs to make an item vs. how much it can be sold for). In general, most items are crafted at a small loss on tier 0, and with no value gain on tier 1 (everything above is increasing the value).
• Rebalanced the burning rates of resources in the Hearth (as well as the Hearth’s fuel limit and the Firekeeper’s carrying capacity).
  • Wood now burns for 10 seconds instead of 15 seconds.
  • Oil now burns for 20 seconds instead of 30 seconds.
  • Coal and Sea Marrow now burn for 40 seconds instead of 60 seconds.
  • Firekeepers can now carry 10 items at once (instead of 5).
  • This change was done to slightly increase the upkeep cost of Hearths, as currently, it’s a bit too easy to have multiple in one settlement. Additionally, Firekeepers transporting more goods should decrease the likelihood of negative fuel rate effects triggering “no fuel” warnings (even if a Firekeeper decides to take a break in the meantime). 
• Increased the production time for all rainwater types in rain collectors (from 15 to 20 seconds) and geyser pumps (from 10 to 15 seconds).
• Slightly decreased the maximum possible number of newcomers for each year.
  • For example, previously in year 3, you would get between 3 and 6 villagers. Now it’s 3 and 5.
• Removed Citadel Resources earnable during settlement runs (from perks or events).
  • While finding Citadel Resources in chests in the middle of the forest can be pretty exciting, we decided to remove this type of reward because it was having a negative effect on the game’s flow as a whole (by encouraging artificially prolonged runs and causing confusion about resource acquisition after a victory).
• Reduced the number of workers in the Beanery from 4 to 3.
• Lowered the Hostility reduction in the Converted Altar of Decay effect from 25 to 20 per dead villager.

UX/UI improvements

• ⚡ Goods in the Embark Panel are now divided into base goods (same for every caravan) and caravan-specific resources. 
• ⚡ Added specialization icons to the worker overlay (ALT).
• ⚡ Resource tooltips now take rebuilt ruins into account when highlighting owned buildings.
• ⚡ Orders that require completing a high-value trade route now show the exact value on the HUD.
• ⚡ Added a highlight to need icons in the Species HUD when all members of a given species have the need fulfilled.
• ⚡ Added the option to move between buildings with the arrow keys when hovering over them (without the need to open the building UI).
• ⚡ Added a shortcut for opening the Consumption Control Panel (“I” by default).
• ⚡ Cleaned up the terminology in effect labels to clearly show what an effect is and where it came from (Cornerstones, regular perks, biome effects, working effects, event consequences, decoration effects, service building effects, etc.).
• ⚡ Changed the wording on Forest Mysteries that scale based on Hostility (to make it clearer what the exact value of the penalty will be).
• ⚡ Added tank capacity to the descriptions of rain collectors and geyser pumps.
• ⚡ Clearance sunbeams can now be disabled in the options menu (using the “lightning flashes” checkbox).
• ⚡ Added a new Encyclopedia entry about services. This entry will also be displayed as an alert during the tutorial (when building a Tavern for the first time).
• ⚡ The Drizzle auto pause will no longer stop Cornerstone choices from appearing (previously you had to unpause to get them).
• ⚡ Changed the wording of the Forsaken Gods Temple modifier to more clearly describe its effect.
• ⚡ Changed the description of the “discover Dangerous Glades in time” Order objective to also mention Forbidden Glades.
• ⚡ Changed the “Other Negative” icon’s color in the species panel (from blue to red).
• Added a “request a feature” button to the ESC menu. Clicking it will take you directly to our Feature Request Tool, where you can post and vote on other people’s suggestions.
• Changed the wording in multiple descriptions tied to fuel consumption effects (to make them more easily understandable).

Bug fixes

• ⚡ Fixed a bug with Foxes not being drawn for Daily Expeditions.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Like a Machine Deed not resetting progress between games.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Woodpecker Technique Cornerstone incorrectly giving Insects for cutdown trees in Drizzle and Clearance.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Destroyed Cage of the War Beast glade event showing an incorrect Impatience prompt.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with an empty worker overlay being visible above traders found in glades when holding Alt.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with some glade events having incorrect animations tied to the “burn down” decision.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with Grain and Herbs being considered “food” by some effects (like food removal penalties, etc.).
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the game sometimes freezing when quitting it.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Basic Housing need status not updating right away when removing houses.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the recipe overlay (CTRL) sometimes not working correctly.
• ⚡ Fixed an out-of-place floating shoulder piece in multiple Fox animations.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug that caused incorrect value changes when using Shift and left-click on the arrow buttons.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the total game time statistic counting time too fast.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with Dangerous and Forbidden Glade warnings covering up species’ passive effect markers.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with pathfinding breaking sometimes when trying to build a road on terrain where an event exploded previously.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with some villagers being so busy with their tasks to realize they want to leave the settlement due to low Resolve (they left many seconds after the red bar filled up around their species’ portrait).
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the resource radial menu staying on the screen after a game has been won.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with one of the Petrified Tree’s working effects lacking some information in the description.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug that made it impossible to locate the Archaeologist’s Office when using arrow keys while hovering over the building card.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Robbed Dead working effect having an incorrect frame color.
• ⚡ Fixed multiple typos and inconsistencies in the Simplified Chinese localization of the game (encyclopedia, trader dialogue, Forest Mysteries, order names, objectives, perks, ghost dialogue, and event decisions).
• ⚡ Fixed multiple typos in the Russian localization of the game (Filling Dish, Beanery and Brewery, Corruption).
• ⚡ Fixed some incorrect tags in decoration descriptions in the Korean localization of the game.
• ⚡ Fixed some missing tags in decoration descriptions in the Czech localization of the game.
• ⚡ Fixed a typo with the Guild Catalogue perk in the Polish localization of the game.
• Fixed a bug with the Impatience penalty prompt from the Harmony Spirit Altar displaying an incorrect value.
• Fixed some inconsistencies with alert icon height above decorations of the same size.
• Fixed an issue with World Map markers being too bright.

Other

• Updated the Mine’s visual representation. Added a few new props and a drilling animation.
• Changed the animation played by scouts when working on a Blood Flower glade event.
• Changed the icon of the Converted Harmony Spirit Altar effect to avoid duplicates.
• Changed the icon of the Heavy Fog working effect to avoid duplicates.

COMMUNITY CORNER

Check out the latest community memes on Steam:

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