So more solstice releases missed….

I realise that the last official release was actually Spring Equinox 2023 – nearly a year ago!

It’s not that I’ve not been busy. There has been plenty of development, some sideline things, but ultimately I’ve not been visiting the land of Midnight quite as much as I would have liked. I can insert all the usual excuses here, but ultimately it just comes back to enthusiasm and time management.

So I’ve just pushed the button on the next release. It’s heading to testers now and will be available to all soon. if you just can’t wait you can sign up for testing of iOS LOM and DDR or register for Open Testing for Android LOM or DDR (click link from your device). OSX and Windows versions are available from the download pages – LOM and DDR

The observant among you will notice that there are actually two releases. This is because if had a release ready to go last year, but just never pushed the button on it. That is, except for Android. I had to push a mandatory Android release for targeting SDK 33 – so I pushed it out around October and didn’t even mention it. So there is a good chance that if you’re an Android user you already have 2.0.7

This is really a DDR heavy release, and I must also add a shout out to Andrew Smart for keeping on my toes with all his questions while he has been beavering on with his implementation of Doomdark’s Revenge. There are a few issues the the below list that came out of those questions. Particularly the bug fixes…

v2.0.8 (47)

• ADDED: Game Difficulty – Number of followers should affect outcome of fights
• UPDATED: Lords should not be displaced when a member of a group
• UPDATED: Groups should not disbanded when the leader dies in a battle
• ADDED: Game Difficulty – Number of Soldiers affects the outcome of a fight
• ADDED: DDR – Game Option – Upgrade to Shareth Army AI
• FIXED: DDR – Character without an army doesn’t trigger an AI lord deciding to stay at a location
• FIXED: DDR – ‘prepares to do battle’ message is shown incorrectly
• FIXED: DDR – Imgorarg’s loyalty is incorrect – should be Dwarf
• FIXED: DDR – Dawn energy boosts are flipped for AI / Non AI characters
• FIXED: DDR – Dawn energy boosts for resting are fixed and not based on hours remaining
• FIXED: DDR – Recruitment does not take in to account the power of the 5 main special objects
• FIXED: DDR – Incorrect object name / types

v2.0.7 (46)

• ADDED: Game Difficulty – time affects seeking
• ADDED: Game Difficulty – time affects hiding
• ADDED: Game Difficulty – time affects recruiting
• FIXED: DDR – Think page incorrectly shows Person and Army info outside of tunnels
• ADDED: DDR – Game Option – Don’t swap after successful approach
• ADDED: LOM – Game Option – Auto Seek enhancement
• ADDED: LOM – Game Option – Auto Approach enhancement
• UPDATED: Android target sdk 33

So let’s talk about what all the above features mean…

Firstly a note on Difficulty. When it is set to NORMAL which is the default, then the game plays as original. Changes only apply to EASY, MEDIUM, and HARD.

Game Difficulty – Number of followers should affect outcome of fights

If a lord goes in to a fight, the chances of death or losing a horse will be removed by fighting as a group. The current rules for LoM of a friendly army being at the location still apply. So really this only applies when all the lords do not have an army. In DDR the lords’s armies could still lose numbers, but the lord will not engage the nasty. The number of followers that has an affect is based on difficulty.

Lords should not be displaced when a member of a group

When a lord loses a battle and does not die and are part of a group, then the lord should not be displaced so that they can stay in the group. They should however not take part in any more of the battle. In hard mode, then they could still be displaced. What this essentially means is that in hard mode you may have to remove the lord from the group yourself, which is a conscious decision as you might not be aware that they are no longer with the group.

Groups should not disbanded when the leader dies in a battle

Aligned Lom and DDR so that groups are not disbanded due to death. This allows the UI to reflect that a lord has died so that the player can see it.

Game Difficulty – Number of Soldiers affects the outcome of a fight

If a lord goes in to a fight, the chances of death or losing a horse will be removed by fighting with soldiers. In DDR the lords’s armies could still lose numbers, but the lord will not engage the nasty. The number of soldiers that has an affect is based on difficulty.

DDR – Game Option – Upgrade to Shareth Army AI

Two changes for this feature. Firstly, AI Lords have the habit of leaving a fight. This option makes them act like LoM and stay until their death or other lords leave. They may also choose to leave if the total number of soldiers is not currently within their favour. Secondly, AI lords have the habit of not attacking enemies that are close by, unlike LoM. This feature makes them act more like LoM.

These decisions are linked to game difficulty and lord traits.

DDR – Lord without an army doesn’t trigger an AI lord deciding to stay at a location

This is a bug fix. AI Lords make a decision to leave a location at the start of their turn. If there is an enemy at the location it’s pretty much a toss of a coin. But lords with no armies don’t get included in the enemy count, and therefore an AI lord will not consider lone lords when they are making the decision on whether to stay at a location.

‘prepares to do battle’ message is shown incorrectly

The addition of the words, “prepares to do battle” was inconsistently shown. It was possible for a lord to still be in battle in the morning and the message would not be correct.

DDR – Imgorarg’s loyalty is incorrect – should be Dwarf

Imgorarg had the incorrect race attached to him.

DDR – Dawn energy boosts are flipped for AI / Non AI characters

The dawn energy boosts that are applied ahead of the nights battles we incorrectly flipped. So AI lords were getting half that of player lords.

DDR – Dawn energy boosts for resting are fixed and not based on hours remaining

Resting characters energy is hard coded to a fixed amount and should have been calculated based on the number of hours remaining when they started to rest.

DDR – Recruitment does not take in to account the power of the 5 main special objects

The Crown of Varenand, Crown of Carudrium, Spell of Thigrorn, Runes of Finorn, and Crown of Imiriel should all have a positive affect on recruitment. But they didn’t.

DDR – Incorrect object name / types

The Spear of Thorthak was incorrectly marked as a sword. And the Bow of Tororthane was incorrectly marked as a hammer.

Game Difficulty – time affects seeking

Seeking is no longer available at night when difficulty is hard. In medium and hard, seeking will actually take an amount of time.

Game Difficulty – time affects hiding

Hiding is no longer available at night for medium and hard. Hiding and Unhide now take 1hr on medium or the rest of the day on hard.

Game Difficulty – time affects recruiting

Recruitment time for both lords has a group of new rules depending on game difficulty. In easy the recruiter loses no time and the recruited is reset to dawn. In medium the recruiter loses one hour and the recruited time is set to the same. In hard they are both set to night.

DDR – Think page incorrectly shows Person and Army info outside of tunnels

When a lord is in a tunnel, information about the outside of tunnels was visible on the think page. This has been corrected.

DDR – Game Option – Don’t swap after successful approach

Added an option to stop the auto switch to the newly recruited lord after an approach. Player can choose to DO NOTHING or stick. After the approach a new icon is displayed next to the Look icon to indicate either the recruited or the recruiter lord depending on the swap option.

LOM – Game Option – Auto Seek enhancement

Added option to auto seek when entering a location. Doomdark’s Revenge already does this.

LOM – Game Option – Auto Approach enhancement

Added an option to auto approach when entering a location in LoM. This was not added as a feature for DDR because approaching is done from outside the location and is also linked to battle.

Not sure when the next release will be. I had one scheduled in for Spring Equinox which I guess this one is kind of becoming. Therefore the next release would be Summer Solstice (June 21st) but I’m not promising anything as I potentially have to perform another SDK switch!