Hey Everyone,

We are thrilled to bring you yet another major update, packed with substantial performance and playability improvements. This time around, we focused on rewriting the very foundation of our game engine to make these big improvements possible – and we hope you’ll enjoy the results as much as we have.

Performance was one of the most common player concerns, and we’ve addressed it at the core. You can expect to see an average increase of +30 FPS, especially on the world map. With V-Sync on, almost everyone should now be able to play the game at a perfectly smooth 60 FPS.

We’ve also focused on greatly improving world map playability, spending countless hours getting rid of all the stutters and freezes, and completely redesigning army and town interactions and controls - no more selection or tasking lag, or being unable to issue a command.

This update also finalizes cannons – they are now a joy to use as you reduce castles to rubble.

This update brings dozens of other fixes and enhancements, as well as the last of the known bug fixes and plenty of balancing for the mid and late game. Be sure to check out the full patch notes for all the details.

Thank you for your continued support, and as always, please keep the feedback coming! We’re working hard to ensure that Renaissance Kingdom Wars is the best it can be, and we appreciate all of your contributions and suggestions.

With that said, let’s take a look at what our 9th update (game version 0.43) has in store:

• RTS Performance and Stability
  - Significant framerate improvements in hamlet and field battles, averaging a +20 FPS boost.
  - Even greater performance gains in large towns, with an average increase of +30 FPS.
  - RTS mode framerate now consistently meets performance benchmarks.
  - Resolved the (hopefully final) loading screen crash issue.
  - AA Sample no longer contributes to visual lag and is now set to x8 by default.
  - Reworked water settings – lower settings now include full reflections and look significantly better.
  - Improved performance when displaying multiple cavalry units.
  
  
• Performance - World Map
  - Incredible +40 FPS boost on the world map.
  - Fixed all random lag spikes during world map gameplay.
  - Major lag spike at the end of the month is now resolved.
  - World map cinematics are much smoother with stabilized camera movement.
  
  
• World Map - Unit Controls
  - Completely redesigned how units are selected and tasked on the world map.
  - Fixed all issues with army and town selection.
  - Resolved the bug where armies would unselect or select after being unselected.
  - Fixed interaction bugs between towns and armies.
  - Improved the selection of units near each other, avoiding incorrect unit selection.
  - Enhanced selecting and tasking armies on cities for attack actions.
  
  
• World Map Improvements
  - Completed a major world map update – all towns and hamlets now display summer walls in regions unaffected by winter.
  - Corrected various hamlets missing desert or winter settings.
  - Redesigned the visual appearance of Spain during winter.
  - Fixed winter shoreline rocks on the world map.
  - Resolved snow appearance issues when loading hamlets during winter.
  - World map now fades in during load, fixing hamlets appearing in summer during winter.
  - Strengthened snow visibility during winter.
  - Improved hamlet visuals – more houses and better palisade walls.
  - Smoother transitions between seasons, especially from fall to winter and winter to spring.
  - Fixed birds freezing on the world map.
  - Horse carts and ships now travel across the world map much more smoothly.
  - Armies on the world map now play marching animations based on game speed.
  - Improved world map banners – they now clearly show whether cities are at war or peace with the player, along with enhanced shield and town strength visuals.
  - Removed "out of range" messages on the world map.
  - Season and year announcements are now much clearer, especially during season changes.
  - Adjusting game speed on the world map now correctly changes how fast months pass (from 20 seconds on fastest to several minutes on slowest).
  - Brighter visuals during the summer season on the world map.
  
  
• Large Town Improvements
  - Completely redesigned environmental effects (fog, dust, etc.) in large towns.
  - Fixed issues causing large towns to appear overly grey and foggy.
  - Reworked rain effects in RTS mode – rain is now lighter and allows better visibility.
  
  
• Cannons Finalized
  - Fixed cannons malfunctioning after the last major update.
  - Cannons no longer become immovable while reloading.
  - Moving cannons during reload interrupts the process, reloading will resume later.
  - Reduced cannon range and view.
  - Cannonballs now reliably reach distant targets instead of falling short.
  
  
• Balancing
  - Reduced income from Mills and Sawmills on the world map.
  - Increased the cost of sending insults via the world map menu.
  - Disabled the Arrow Volley ability.
  - All bow and crossbow units now have access to Fire Arrows.
  - All ranged infantry units now feature a Hold Fire button.
  - Removed the Attack Ground ability from wall-mounted siege weapons.
  - Military units recruited from the Town Hall are now significantly cheaper.
  - Looting and razing towns now provides substantially more silver based on the town or hamlet's level.
  - Resolved issue where players were incorrectly awarded 40 population.
  - Fixed a bug causing large city attack population limits to be 30 instead of 20.
  - Herbalist and Hospital buildings now properly heal units during combat, with healing sign displayed.
  - Fixed healing exploit in RTS mode.
  - AI upgrades towns and hamlets at a slower rate over the years.
  - In combat, AI will now charge the player, even when heavily outnumbered, speeding up battles.
  - Capture the Flag victory conditions no longer count retreated units, making flag capture easier.
  - Units that retreat now remain retreated longer, unlikely to rejoin the same battle.
  - Research improving city happiness is now less effective, making happiness harder to balance.
  
  
• Other
  - Improved dialogue window for declaring war or peace.
  - Fixed tutorial prompts not advancing to Skirmish mode.
  - Gate Gears are now easier to target during sieges.
  - Enhanced cinematics for entering towns and battles, especially for large towns.
  - Hobelar unit models now feature larger masks, making it easier to identify them as player units.
  - Added more birds in RTS mode, which now look much better.
  - Fixed RTS bird animation freezes.
  - Adjusted position of Events window on the world map.
  - Fixed mounted units being able to scale walls.
  - Improved Boiling Oil visuals.
  - Enhanced gunpowder unit firing effects.
  - Updated descriptions for Herbalist and Hospital buildings.
  - Techs that can't currently be afforded are now clearly marked.
  - Polished layout of the controls menu in options.

Hey Everyone,

We’re back with another major update for RKW – and this time, we have a bit of a theme, as our focus was on reworking everything related to castles, sieges, and gunpowder to get it just right. There’s tons of brand-new art, visual improvements, completely reworked features, and some massive changes to gameplay.

Some highlights: today’s update includes a complete overhaul of how large cities are fortified, with all large towns now starting with stone walls. These stone walls have been redesigned with all-new Renaissance-era art, making large towns truly look magnificent. You’ll also get all-new and reworked siege weapons and cannons to take these stone walls apart (cannons can absolutely devastate towns now).

This is a true game-changer for how you approach defending and attacking these settlements, adding a lot of historical realism.

We’ve also gone back to the drawing board with our gunpowder units, completely redesigning their look and feel.

Of course, we didn’t stop there. There’s a host of art updates, balancing changes, performance improvements, and important bug fixes across the board.

Thanks again for your continued feedback and support! We’re excited to see what you think of these changes, and we can’t wait to show you what we have in store for you next week (it’s totally awesome!).

Now, onto the patch notes for Update #8 (game version 0.42):

• Major change to unit appearance - all units now correctly scaled relative to buildings and environment
  
• Units look much better when on top of walls
  
• Totally redesigned the look of stone walls - they now have realistic renaissance designs
  
• New art for all gatehouses, bastions, salients, towers, and more
  
• All large town stone walls redesigned for a renaissance look
  
• Reworked texture for all palisade walls with great improvements
  
• All humanoid unit model quality greatly increased (actual units and not the animated portraits)
  
• Greatly improved various terrain textures
  
• Reworked textures for buildings that had super bright elements
  
• Reworked textures for various terrain and environment elements that had super bright elements
  
• Improved textures of various unit models all over the board - siege units, soldiers, economy units
  
• Fixed multiple texture issues where winter, desert, or summer walls and buildings were appearing incorrectly (summer walls during winter, etc.)
  
• Significant improvements to winter season graphics, including snow terrain, rivers, lakes, and water visuals
  
• Improved all siege weapons' appearance and textures

• Large cities now start with fully built stone walls instead of wooden palisades (major change)
  
• New stone tower, gatehouse, and bastion designs applied to all stone walls and updated in all levels
  
• All large towns have received minor design updates for better siege functionality and other gameplay
  
• Disabled wall building for large cities (still available for hamlets)
  
• Coming soon - in large towns instead of constructing stone walls from palisades, players will upgrade the quality of stone walls
  
• AI skirmish wall building now restricted to hamlets only

• Completely redesigned humanoid gunpowder units
  
• All new art and animation for Hand Cannoner, Arquebusier, and Musketeer units
  
• Each gunpowder unit now has a unique weapon design - hand cannon, arquebus, musketeer
  
• These units now have a very long reload time, allowing new tactics - like charging them as they reload
  
• Complete rebalance of all stats with gunpowder units

• Cannons and other siege weapons now properly damage walls - a major rework of projectile physics
  
• Cannons are the most effective siege weapons against walls
  
• Cannons now require stone resources to fire (1 stone per shot per cannon)
  
• Grape shot rebalanced - now very effective against infantry at close range
  
• Reworked how cannon grape shot looks and works
  
• Cannons updated with new scale, art, and correct horse and gun crew proportions
  
• Catapults and trebuchets fire slower for balance
  
• Fixed exploit allowing siege weapons to constantly fire with multiple clicks
  
• Fixed siege weapons slowing down significantly when damaged
  
• Siege weapons no longer display bad player colors
  
• Fixed belfry not attaching correctly to stone wall bastions and salients
  
• Trebuchets, catapults, and boiling oil wall upgrades now always properly line up on walls and towers

• One more round of visual memory optimization - should allow almost everyone to run the game on max settings
  
• Lag from selecting multiple units has been greatly reduced
  
• Rifled units now scripted as humanoid, which also greatly improves performance in combat

• Fixed major issue with units not leveling up properly with booster buildings in the city
  
• Fixed large cities having extra building slots that caused disappearing buildings
  
• World map units now have correct health levels when created and they stay in the red zone
  
• Visual memory usage significantly reduced, improving performance and reducing crashes
  
• Fixed several towns that didn’t have trees at the starting areas for peasants to chop down
  
• Fixed issue with stone wall-mounted trebuchets and catapults firing overly bright projectiles
  
• Fixed empty armies and cities not recruiting units correctly
  
• Fixed exploit allowing players to make siege weapons fire constantly through repeated clicks
  
• Fixed issue with horse carts not having proper winter textures
  
• Fixed some towns in northern Mediterranean having desert environments

• Rebalanced storage capacities across large towns and hamlets - storage is now a more significant part of early and mid-game
  
• Horse carts now only add 200 storage instead of 300
  
• Fixed issue with town defense battles having incorrect storage limits (now properly scales for larger towns)
  
• Self-healing for units disabled, reduced overall healing power
  
• Livestock now produces more food on the world map, making it much more useful
  
• Rebalanced all wall stats and ranged siege stats for better gameplay balance
  
• Ranged siege units now more effective at realistically taking down walls
  
• Food production and resource income from various buildings adjusted for balance on the world map

• Improved winter day/night lighting cycle
  
• Enhanced cannon textures with new masks, added snow textures for winter
  
• Improved palisade gatehouse with new flags on top
  
• Improved the art for armourer, gunsmith, and trade guild buildings
  
• Polished world map army units and reduced visual memory for better performance and stability
  
• Enhanced the look of horse carts on the world map
  
• Reworked normal bump map textures for better performance
  
• Improved the look of retreat flags and fixed shiny textures for unit weapons
  
• Added visible smoke to chimneys of village and town houses