Field of Glory: Empires | Sign ups for the final patch

[saraviga]

Field of Glory: Empires | Sign ups for the final patch
Dear players,

We are pleased to announce that we are preparing one final patch for Empires — and it’s going to be a massive one! Drawing on three years of development work from its successor Kingdoms, this update will include not only dozens of bug fixes, but also substantial balance adjustments across nearly every aspect of the game.

In addition, numerous interface and quality-of-life improvements will be included. Notably, the much-loved Building Browser from Kingdoms will be added to Empires, as it has been highly requested and will no doubt be warmly welcomed here as well.

Sign ups are now open here: https://www6.slitherine.com/beta/field-of-glory-empires

That said, it’s important to note that we do not intend to overhaul Empires to the point that it loses its identity. It will retain its distinct features compared to Kingdoms. Gameplay additions will be made on a case-by-case basis, and sometimes as optional features, to satisfy all types of players.

With that in mind, there’s still a lot of work ahead on our side, and we will need your help in the near future for an intensive testing phase of the patch — as it will bring major changes. Only you can provide the volume and quality of feedback we’ll need.

But we’ll talk more about that later this summer.

Gamefully yours,

Pocus

[Surt]

But we’ll talk more about that later this summer.

Pocus

Later this summer ... 26?

[TORNADO92]

It's happening!!!!!!

[Surt]

Field of Glory: Empires | Sign ups for the final patch
Dear players,

We are pleased to announce that we are preparing one final patch for Empires — and it’s going to be a massive one! Drawing on three years of development work from its successor Kingdoms, this update will include not only dozens of bug fixes, but also substantial balance adjustments across nearly every aspect of the game.

In addition, numerous interface and quality-of-life improvements will be included. Notably, the much-loved Building Browser from Kingdoms will be added to Empires, as it has been highly requested and will no doubt be warmly welcomed here as well.

Sign ups are now open here: https://www6.slitherine.com/beta/field-of-glory-empires

That said, it’s important to note that we do not intend to overhaul Empires to the point that it loses its identity. It will retain its distinct features compared to Kingdoms. Gameplay additions will be made on a case-by-case basis, and sometimes as optional features, to satisfy all types of players.

With that in mind, there’s still a lot of work ahead on our side, and we will need your help in the near future for an intensive testing phase of the patch — as it will bring major changes. Only you can provide the volume and quality of feedback we’ll need.

But we’ll talk more about that later this summer.

Gamefully yours,

Pocus

When do we know we are in?

[kronenblatt]

Field of Glory: Empires | Sign ups for the final patch
…

Appreciating that you want to maintain or revive interest in Empires, you should really allow people to stay in v1.3.9 and continue enjoying Empires as is without having to upgrade to v1.50, and thus for players and modders to make their own individual choices between v1.3.9 and v1.50. Not too many responses above to the v1.50, so the benefit of v1.50 seems limited.

Especially from a modding perspective it would be great if Slitherine could acknowledge the effort put into mods of their games, in this case of a game no longer being developed: Empires v1.3.9 (without having to make the massive upgrade to v1.50 of mods).

With Steam, that should be perfectly possible: keep v1.3.9 as a Legacy branch on Steam. (Paradox did it with EU4, enabling players to stay and go back and forth between versions, and in the Empires case it’s only between 1.3.9 and 1.50). Or hopefully you can present other ways to accomodate this request to allow v1.3.9 to continue living (and thriving ).

Then mods can still be played and enjoyed in v1.3.9, and effort instead be put on creating and publishing mods in your newer games such as Kingdoms and its successors.

[stormbringer3]

Any thoughts on when v1.50 will be out?
Thanks.

[GLeech]

any thoughts on what exactly is planned to be addressed in the final patch?
right now it's not even clear what bugs and errors in 1.3.9 are worth reporting

[stormbringer3]

I've asked in two different threads when will v1.50 be out and no answer. IMO it's not coming.

[Emp_Palpatine]

Pocus stated that things are more or less ready to be launched but now the ball is in Slitherine/Matrix's park : they have to launch the beta, but my guess is this is a low priority thing (not a DLC, old product with a low player base).

[kronenblatt]

That’s fair enough. Although it also raises the question whether an update to v1.50 is worthwhile at all, given low priority, old product, low player base, etc. Better for Empires to stay in v1.3.9 and instead spend resources (developers,beta testers, modders) on developing Kingdoms and future games.

I also fear the risk of new bugs and especially imbalances and cheats being introduced in v1.50 (when the original intention was an effort to eliminate old ones). This is a risk even more apparent due to the low player base that can act as beta testers, making it likely for the update to not be thoroughly tested. If that would happen, even more resources would need to spent to fix them (or leave them in, rendering the game unplayable in the future), and so on.

So therefore it would be best in my view (both as a player and as a modder) to leave Empires in the stable, enjoyable, and wonderful 1.3.9 version.

[GLeech]

So therefore it would be best in my view (both as a player and as a modder) to leave Empires in the stable, enjoyable, and wonderful 1.3.9 version.

i'm not sure if you're being serious or sarcastic considering the mess in the current csv files

[kronenblatt]

i'm not sure if you're being serious or sarcastic considering the mess in the current csv files

I'm serious: I truly consider Empires stable (i.e., no crashes), enjoyable (both playing and modding), and wonderful (it's a true gem of a game).

Which mess in which csv files are you referring to?

[GLeech]

Which mess in which csv files are you referring to?

Well, at first I just wanted to mod hellenic factions in the base game a little to make them more historical. Little I knew what a can of worms I was opening. In a short time I found that:

- Sparta can recruit light horsemen only at civ level 1;
- some units are recruitable at civ levels 1 and 3 but not level 2;
- hibernians got phalanx (that looks like a warband but has phalanx stats);
- picts and hibernians are allowed to get elephants while many more southern factions aren't;
- all germanic, balkanic and most celtic factions get cataphracts at level 3 but half of the hellenic factions don't;
- many factions got standard (not raw) regular infantry at civ level 1 (not sure if intended for all of these);
- 1/3 of all independent and rebel factions got wrong units (like desertic units for nomad rebels);
- etc, etc.

These are just some of my discoveries in the army rosters. I suspect it's just the tip of the iceberg as I didn't dig as deep into other data and didn't look into the 550BC scenario yet.

[kronenblatt]

Which mess in which csv files are you referring to?

Well, at first I just wanted to mod hellenic factions in the base game a little to make them more historical. Little I knew what a can of worms I was opening. In a short time I found that:

- Sparta can recruit light horsemen only at civ level 1;
- some units are recruitable at civ levels 1 and 3 but not level 2;
- hibernians got phalanx (that looks like a warband but has phalanx stats);
- picts and hibernians are allowed to get elephants while many more southern factions aren't;
- all germanic, balkanic and most celtic factions get cataphracts at level 3 but half of the hellenic factions don't;
- many factions got standard (not raw) regular infantry at civ level 1 (not sure if intended for all of these);
- 1/3 of all independent and rebel factions got wrong units (like desertic units for nomad rebels);
- etc, etc.

These are just some of my discoveries in the army rosters. I suspect it's just the tip of the iceberg as I didn't dig as deep into other data and didn't look into the 550BC scenario yet.

OK, I see. Hope that it all would get fixed then, when reported in the beta.