Greetings, Viceroys!

The coat-wearing, Queen-obeying folks are back with the new update. Here’s what’s new:

• 5 new World Events
• 9 new illustrations and sound effects for existing World Events
• UX improvements
• Improved stability (should prevent certain instances of crashes)
• And more!

Check out the full list of changes and our design insights below.

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DEVELOPER NOTES

Today’s update is a bit of an extension of the previous release (the Cycles Reforged Update). The main theme (as you might have guessed) are the new World Events, but there are also a lot of UI improvements to the World Map, quite a hefty number of bug fixes, and big stability improvements to the game. So without further ado, let’s jump right into the details!

With this release, we’re introducing 5 brand new World Events you can encounter while traversing the World Map. All of them offer new types of decisions, challenges, and consequences, as well as some small insights into the lore of Against the Storm. We’re also slowly working on making events more flavorful in general, so that’s why today’s update includes unique illustrations and sound effects for 8 existing events. We will release more of these visual and auditory improvements in the near future so that eventually every World Event feels special.

Stormbird Egg

We also focused heavily on the UX of the newly introduced Cycle revamp, in an effort to make the system more player friendly and easier to interact with. Thanks to your invaluable feedback, we came up with several UI improvements, such as:

• The ability to reforge a Seal at any point during the Cycle. This still requires Fragments and being close to the Seal, and it will end the Cycle right away, but we got rid of the unnecessary step of skipping the rest of the Cycle using the button in the calendar HUD.
• World Event objectives being shown in the game, above the Order HUD. 
• New, clearer tooltips when hovering over question marks and World Events.
• World Event objectives being shown in the Embarkation Panel.
• A highlight around the Sealed Forest, showing if it’s accessible or not.
• And much, much more!

World Event objective

Seal access highlight

Additionally, we introduced some miscellaneous UI changes not directly tied to the meta layer of the game. For example, you can now see global villager stats above the species panel (population, free workers, homeless people), and there are around 61 new custom icons throughout the game (this is an ongoing process – we’re slowly replacing a lot of the old icons, as this is the only place where we still use some store-bought assets).

Global villagers stats

New icons

This update also introduces some smaller balance changes to spice things up a bit. We increased the maximum trade route distance by 50%, so even if you are very far away from the Citadel, there are still enough towns to trade with. Additionally, we slightly increased the Obelisk’s spawn rate in small glades, and we increased the number of fertile soil tiles spawned around haunted farm ruins. You can read about all the balance changes in the changelog below.

Lastly, with this update we not only fixed a lot of bugs (as is tradition with every patch), but we also greatly improved the game’s stability. This means you should finally see way fewer crashes and issues in general after updating the game to the newest version.

As always – 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 5 new World Events to the World Map.
  • The Gambler
  • Crashed Airship
  • Followers of the Forsaken Gods
  • Wandering Eremite
  • First Dawn Company Caravan
  • We don’t want to spoil any lore or share the event decisions here, so it’s up to you to find these new points of interest on the map.
• Added custom illustrations and sound effects to 9 World Events.
  • The Gambler
  • Hanged Viceroy
  • Commenda Contract
  • Obsidian Loremaster
  • Wandering Eremite
  • Followers of the Forsaken Gods
  • Stormbird Egg
  • Cloaked Wanderer
  • First Dawn Company Caravan
  • Events not listed here still have a placeholder illustration and a universal sound effect. We will add new illustrations and sounds in future updates.

Balance

• ⚡ Increased the range of trade routes by 50%. Now you can trade with settlements as far as 15 tiles from your current location.
• ⚡ Added Leather as a possible bonus resource from trees in the Sealed Forest.
• ⚡ Increased the threshold at which the Resolve bonus triggers in the Guild’s Welfare effect (in the Guild House) from 60 to 75 Amber.
• ⚡ Increased the number of spawned fertile soil tiles around haunted farm ruins (Haunted Small Farm and Haunted Herb Garden).
• ⚡ Slightly increased the Obelisk’s spawn rate in small glades.
• ⚡ Ore deposits can no longer spawn under resource nodes.

UX/UI improvements

• ⚡ Added a global counter for population, available workers, and homeless villagers. It’s located above the species panels in the top left corner of the HUD.
• ⚡ You can now attempt to reforge a Seal at any point during the Cycle, without needing to press the skip button on the calendar.
  • All other requirements are still binding – you need enough Seal Fragments, and the Seal needs to be within your Embarkation Range.
  • Starting a game in the Sealed Forest early will automatically skip the rest of the Cycle. After finishing the game (doesn’t; matter if it was won or lost), the Cycle will be over.
  • Due to this change, the tip displayed on the HUD about skipping the Cycle near the Seal has been removed.
  • Added a warning next to the Embark button when trying to play in the Sealed Forest before the Cycle’s end.
• ⚡ World Event challenges (like winning a game with 150 Amber) are now displayed on the main HUD during gameplay (above Orders).
• ⚡ Added generic tooltips to World Events when hovering over them in the World Map. These tooltips give only the name of the event, and some tips to make it clearer how events work (how to interact with them, and that they will disappear after the next game).
• ⚡ Added World Event effect icons to the Embarkation Panel when starting a game from an event.
• ⚡ Added the objective text for World Event challenges to the Embarkation Panel when starting a game from an event.
• ⚡ Added a highlight to the Sealed Forest biome on the World Map to clearly show when it is in range and available (all the conditions are met). 
• ⚡ Added a tooltip to “?” markers on the World Map.
• ⚡ Added custom flavor text to reward pop-ups for all existing World Events (these pop-ups appear after winning a challenge run offered by an event).
• ⚡ Updated the “Logistics” entry in the in-game Encyclopedia.
• ⚡ Added information about Seal Fragments and the Royal Resupply to World Map tooltips (when hovering over playable tiles on the map).
• ⚡ Reworded the descriptions of multiple World Event rewards to clearly state that they are only given for the duration of the current Cycle.
• ⚡ Changed the description of the Storm Ant Column challenge – it now states that all food is removed when starting a game, including Embarkation Bonuses.
• ⚡ Changed the wording in the description of effects triggered by sacrificing goods (Desecrator, Sacrament of the Flame) to make it clearer that burning multiple resources at the same time progresses the perk’s counter quicker.
• ⚡ Changed Cycle perk labels in the city builder layer to “Cycle Blessing” and “Cycle Curse” to make it clearer where they came from during gameplay (one-time world event effects are still labeled “World Event”).
• ⚡ Changed the wording in the short objective version of the “use rainwater in engines” Order to make it clearer that it only counts using rainpunk engines (and not production). 
• Replaced 61 old icons with new custom assets.
  • Archaeologist’s Office upgrades
  • Firekeeper bonuses
  • Multiple meta rewards attached to Citadel Upgrades.
  • Service Building bonuses.
  • Over the last couple of months, you might have noticed that we’ve been slowly replacing a lot of the icons in the game, as this is the only place where we still use store-bought assets. Using asset packs is very helpful when trying to quickly iterate and balance the game (we have hundreds of perks, resources, upgrades that all need icons), but we want to gradually move to something more unique and tailor-made for us. 
• Renamed old Wealth Resolve effects that would sometimes appear in villager panels. They now have the same name and icon as their source perk (like Prosperous Settlement) to make it easier to understand where a bonus came from. 
• Changed the descriptions and names of Cycle effects with additional villagers (so that they are coherent).

Bug fixes

• ⚡ Greatly improved the game’s stability. You should see way fewer crashes and have a better experience overall. 
• ⚡ Fixed an issue that caused the World Map to stop responding to player inputs if players tried to settle on the very edge of it.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with Daily Expeditions sometimes not having neighboring towns to trade with.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug that caused tooltips to not appear for some Forest Mysteries in the Game History panel.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Reserve Embarkation Point counter not refreshing correctly right after taking the Supply Package reward from negative modifiers.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Resolve preview sometimes showing incorrect values when hovering over the Favoring button.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with Dangerous Lands, Forbidden Lands, and Untamed Wilds being spawned next to each other on the World Map.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Bandit Camp Modifier spawning next to a Land of Greed modifier on the World Map.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Lizard Relatives Order not taking Purified Lizard Houses (rebuilt haunted ruins) into account.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with some species-specific Deeds (Harpy Utopia, Lizard Utopia) not taking rebuilt haunted ruins into account. 
• ⚡ Removed the outdated Faction loading tip.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with species in the Consumption Control panel being shown in reverse order.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the foldable roof in the Clothier building not being animated when the Storm starts.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the No Contact modifier showing a “+1.0” value below its icon.
• ⚡ Fixed an incorrect Resolve value in the Fallen Viceroy Commemoration effect.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the calendar text at the end of the Cycle being covered by other UI elements.
• ⚡ Removed a duplicated Haunted Forest modifier from the Training Expedition panel.
• ⚡ Fixed some geometry issues with the Cookhouse building mesh.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with animated production lines between buildings sometimes not disappearing correctly. 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with some decorations having incorrect construction costs in the in-game Encyclopedia.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Temple sound effect being incorrectly pitched when selecting the building.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the bath House having the same sound effect as a Temple after selecting it.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Twitch vote feature sometimes not connecting to chat correctly.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with some individual fertile soil tiles being spawned under trees.a
• ⚡ Fixed a typo in the Blightstorm tutorial and Encyclopedia entry.
• ⚡ Fixed a typo in the Seal tooltip in the Embarkation Panel.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the “sell Ancient Tables” Order objective showing an empty “obtained by” text description.
• ⚡ Fixed a double negative in the description of the Sacrament of the Flame effect.
• ⚡ Fixed an incorrect description of the Procrastination Prestige modifier in Ukrainian.
• ⚡ Fixed multiple typos and inconsistencies in Simplified Chinese (perk descriptions, World Event descriptions, World Event decisions, biome names, rebuilt haunted ruin names).
• Fixed some inconsistencies in Order objective text in Czech, French, Japanese, Italian, Turkish, and Ukrainian.
• Fixed an issue with the “failed” and “completed” text being misaligned in the Order panel.
• Fixed a bug with the Fallen Viceroy Commendation Resolve effect having a placeholder icon.
• Fixed some paragraph spacing issues with entries in the in-game Encyclopedia.

Other

• Added a new sound effect to the “end cycle” button. 
• Added a new sound effect to the reward screen shown after finishing a settlement.
• Changed the interaction sounds in the Deed panel.

The current game version is 0.54.1.

COMMUNITY CORNER

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