August has been the busiest month yet by a distance, so this is only the highlights. Everything else goes in the 0.3.0 notes, which are nearly ready.
The ground has height
The map used to be flat, with rock painted wherever you couldn't walk. Now cliffs block movement, ramps lead up them, and units on high ground see further (how the cliffs work).
- Shallow water that infantry can wade (water), and shallow lava they can cross if they don't mind burning
- More biomes, each with its own ground, sky and weather, and snow that keeps the trails armies leave (how)
Up to eight players
Skirmish takes up to eight players now, humans and AI mixed, as a free-for-all or in teams (2v2, 3v3, 4v4, 2v2v2). There's a team scoreboard, team and whisper chat, and an announcement when someone's knocked out.
Big online games are the least tested bit. Some 8-player lobbies couldn't connect everyone, so there's now a fallback. If you try one, tell me how it went.
Performance
Big free-for-alls were barely playable. I blamed the fighting. It was the computer opponents, about nine tenths of the work, with pathfinding most of the rest. Both are far faster now (the AI story).
Desktop app
0.2.8 came out last week, the first desktop version in decent shape. It runs on both kinds of Mac, Windows has a working installer, Linux gets a .deb and an AppImage, and auto-update finally works. The Mac app isn't notarised, so right-click and Open the first time.
Also
- Classic hand-made maps at /maps, with Play Now on each one
- Each faction writes its spell runes in its own alphabet, and frost spells stopped being purple
- Right-click drag a line and your army forms up along it
- Guard order (G), repeat production, and income per minute
- Goblins can harvest scrap and research Pillage
- The AI keeps track of every opponent in a free-for-all