In the 17th (?!) Early Access update, we bring you lots of novelties. I’m talking fully 3D revamped world map. I’m talking Factions competition. I’m talking and you’re still reading. That’s good because there’s a lot more to uncover.

What’s new:

• Revamped World Map (now in 3D)
• World Map treasure chests
• Factions competition
• Factions lore
• New modifiers
• And more!

Check out the full changelog and developer notes below. And by the way, please consider rating Against the Storm on metacritic. It means the world to us!

DEVELOPER NOTES

This update marks a very important milestone for the Phase of the Citadel, as we’re finally bringing into the world the last two revamps to the meta layer of the game – the World Map and Factions. These changes have long been awaited, so without further ado, let’s get into some nitty gritty detail.

First off – the World Map. This has always been a very important part of the game, something that made Against the Storm stand out from the crowd, and caused a small “oh wow” moment for a lot of players when first interacted with after the tutorial. Sadly, this was one of the last systems we introduced before the Early Access release, so it never really got enough development time to really come to life. But this changes today.

New World Map.

From a visual standpoint – the World Map is completely transformed. Everything is now in 3D – we’re talking terrain, the Smoldering City, modifiers, towns, clouds, etc. We wanted to create the feeling of a realistic and physical world but at the same time retain a readable and clean “game board”. We believe the new graphic style is the best of both worlds.

When it comes to the gameplay of the World Map, the core principles are still the same as before: you choose a field to play on, you “drain” the resources from surrounding fields, you play near modifiers, your towns stay on the map after winning, and the Cycle wipes everything from the face of the earth. But we added some additional layers to this system:

• You now can only settle within a certain range of your towns. No more building settlements on the other side of the world.
• By building towns, you occupy the terrain surrounding you. Noone can build on occupied terrain (same goes for Factions – you cannot build on claimed territory).
• There are now 3 times as many Modifiers as before. Some examples are the Levitating Monument which makes it possible to move all buildings in your town; or the Forbidden Lands, which cause every Glade to be Forbidden.
• There’s also a completely new type of object that can be found on the World Map – treasure chests.
• And much, much more. Read more about the details in the changelog below.

With all these changes, we wanted to achieve two goals: introduce a form of exploration to the World Map, and build a solid foundation for future content (e.g. more modifiers, new types of treasures, world events, a tangible “end goal” somewhere on the map). 

Last but not least – the Factions. We initially wanted to make something really big out of this small system, but with time we brought ourselves down to earth and decided to keep it simple. The main role of Factions up to this point was to introduce a bit of randomness to the World Map, be some sort of a competition to the player, and present early opportunities for trading. In this update, we built upon two of these three pillars and added more flavor and lore into the mix.

From now on, Factions will compete with the player for the Influence and at the end of each Cycle, the Queen will reward her most loyal and resourceful subjects. Additionally, there is now a new section of the Atlas dedicated solely to the Factions (their motivations, goals, history, etc.). 

As always – nothing described here is final. Even though we have finished all the planned revamps to the game’s meta layer with this update, there’s always room for improvement, and we will be slowly working on these features in the coming months. With your help, of course ❤️

We think the world of your feedback, so let us know how you like the new changes (Discord might be the best place for that). And if there are any features you’d like us to consider in the future, create a suggestion on our official feedback tool and vote for other ideas you care about.

Oh, and in case you missed it, we partnered with Hooded Horse to publish Against the Storm. Hooded Horse is a publisher of world-class strategy games (Old World, Manor Lords) and so far it’s been great working with them. We have no doubt this partnership will benefit us all!

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

P.S. Can you spot all the “world” idioms we sneaked in?

CHANGELOG

Changes marked with ⚡ were inspired by community.

New content and features

• ⚡ Revamped the World Map:
  • The World Map is now fully 3D – terrain, modifiers, treasures, towns, the Smoldering City. We also updated the fog and UI indicators on the map.
  • Modifiers and points of interest are no longer visible beneath the fog on the World Map. They are instead marked with a question mark and need to be discovered first.
  • Added 14 new Modifiers. We won’t spoil the fun and describe them all, but here’s a list just to tease you:
    • Royal Outpost
    • Watchtower
    • Ancient Battleground
    • Sparkdew Crystals
    • Haunted Forest
    • Fishmen Ritual Site
    • Monastery of the Flame
    • Forbidden Lands
    • Dangerous Lands
    • Statue of the Forefathers
    • Flooded Mines
    • Levitating Monument
    • Corrosive Torrent
    • Forsaken Gods Temple
  • Added a new type of object that can be found on the World Map – treasure chests. They can be interacted with by simply clicking on them (if you are in range). They contain Citadel Resources. 
  • Changed the way settling on the World Map works. From now on, you can only select a field in range of one of your previous towns or the Citadel. You can’t jump around from one side of the map to the other at will. 
  • Changed the World Map’s HUD. There’s now a horizontal bar on top of the screen showing owned Citadel Resources and Faction Influence.
  • Added a Factions rivalry system. You are now competing against Factions for Influence on the World Map. The winner is decided at the end of a Cycle, and given additional Citadel Resources for their effort. Things that generate Influence: settlement scores, amount of land claimed, games won near modifiers, and expedition distance.
  • Successfully establishing a town now claims the land around it. Claimed land can’t be played on. This also goes for Factions (they can’t settle on your land, and you can’t start a settlement on theirs).
  • Completed Modifiers now disappear from the map to avoid confusion and visual clutter.
• ⚡ Added a Factions category to the in-game Atlas. There you can find more information about all three factions’ backstories, motivations, goals, and leaders.

Balance

• ⚡ Glade Event rewards have been rebalanced.
  • Cornerstone rewards were moved. They are no longer present under the “send to Citadel” choice, and can instead appear under the “keep” section.
  • Increased the number of Cornerstones available as Glade Event rewards.
  • The chance of getting a Cornerstone from Glade Events has been increased across the board.
  • The “send to Citadel” reward section will now only have Amber and Reputation.
  • The amounts of Citadel Resources found in Glade Events (artifacts, Food Stockpiles, Machinery) are now scaling based on difficulty.
  • Citadel Resources were moved from the “send to Citadel” reward choice to the “keep” section.
• ⚡ Orders will now be generated based on the settlement’s biome.
• ⚡ Changed the recipe grades in the Stamping Mill. It now produces Pottery (3 stars), Flour (2 stars), and Copper Bars (1 star).
• ⚡ Moved the Guild of Traders of Thieves? Modifier to Prestige 8 from Prestige 2. 
• ⚡ Moved the Expensive Lottery Modifier to Prestige 2 from Prestige 8.
• ⚡ Removed Flour as a possible reward for salvaging the Lumber Mill ruin.
• ⚡ Increased the Amber requirement in the Prosperous Settlement Cornerstone from 20 to 35.
• Increased the length of the Cycle by 10 years.
• Increased all Upgrade prices in the Smoldering City by 20%.

UX/UI improvements

• ⚡ Added a keybind for the Trade Route Panel ([Y] by default).
• ⚡ Changed the color of all “decline” buttons in the game.
• ⚡ Added the option to scale up the UI above the limit.
  
  • Warning: this option is meant as a type of “last resort” in case you really need to have a bigger UI, not as a fully supported UI scale increase. There may be glitches and overflowing text. If you have trouble reading certain sections of the UI, please report them to us, and we will try and fix them.
• ⚡ Score is now displayed after winning any run, regardless of the difficulty (it was previously only displayed for Daily runs and Prestige difficulties).
• Changed the description of the Under the Queen’s Eye Daily Modifier. It now states that you are only given one non-timed Order choice (as you still can get Timed Orders). 
• Goods in caravans in the Embark Panel are now sorted based on their types.

Bug fixes

• ⚡ Fixed a bug that caused Ruined Plantations to spawn in maps without fertile soil. 
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with hungry villagers not prioritizing raw food over complex food they are not allowed to eat or don’t like. 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug that caused Reputation and Impatience values to be rounded incorrectly. 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug that caused Timed Orders to be completable by reloading the game. 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Woodpecker Technique Cornerstone still giving 2 Insects for each tree (instead of 1). 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Daily Expedition having both the Sabotage and Under the Queen’s Eye effects at once.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with Reputation from Resolve Deeds not sorting correctly in the Deeds Panel.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with Gatherers and Woodcutters incorrectly calculating the distance to their respective workplaces. 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug that caused the Fearless Order to start with the current amount of discovered Dangerous Glades instead of Forbidden ones. 
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the scroll bar overlapping perk icons in the “effects & upgrades” section of the building panel.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug that made it impossible to turn off sacrificing in the exact moment when the last piece of fuel was being burned. 
• ⚡ Fixed the incorrect tooltip text for the “Call Immediately” button in the Trader Panel after a game was won.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug that caused the Stonecutter’s Trial Order to appear in the Royal Woodlands.

Other

• Renamed the Trade Block Modifier to Bandit Camp.
• Added lights around the Hearth on higher graphics settings. More to come in the future!

We’re super grateful to everyone who contributed to this update. Your translations, suggestions, and reports are extremely appreciated! You can always track the progress of reported issues on our Public Bug Tracker.

SHOW YOUR SUPPORT

If you want to help us grow the Against the Storm community, there are a few things you can do:

• Let your friends know about the game
• Share our content and announcements on social media
• Share your gameplays on relevant subreddits like r/Games or r/PCGaming 

Truth be told, we appreciate all kinds of support. Be it feedback, words of encouragement, or casual activity on Discord. It helps a lot and we’re very much grateful!

Now, enjoy the new update and let us know what you think!

May the storm be gentle on you,
Eremite Games team

Current Early Access version: 0.28.1R

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