So there are many, many changes in this update, which will mainly be a compilation of all the changes i've made in the past two weeks with some hindsight. Usually i just copy the changes from the "mini" changelogs and sort them but some of the changes were reverted so. Can't do that this time, so here we go. It will all be simplified a bit, like i wont go into detail about most of the the specific balance tweaks to Pqvv'Ger etc.

Oh, and I threw in a new unit "assassins" and a few more new tile effects, just to spice things up.

Don't expect a load of screenshots; if you're curious about those, the earlier, smaller changelogs have you covered. This changelog's big enough as it is.

Changes:

-Building while on building is now allowed as long as the unit has 1 or more deploy range

-Tile effects that create blood particle effects now take the units flags into account

-Added Assassins and an Assassinate tile effect, they dont have art yet so they use placeholder art, but they add a cool new angle to playing as bandits, basically rogues can promote into assassins. And you can build them from captured capitals, and upgraded guilds.

-Assassins have all flags of rogues + a flag that makes them get less heat when detected and a flag that grants bonuses against buildings (to sorta simulate them asassinating officials)
--They also have better all around stats as they are just a higher tier rogue.

-When deployed or promoted assassins will kill all adjacent units instantly

 but it takes time to do both so you have to predict where enemies will be a couple turns from now when doing it if you want to make the most out of the ability. Capitals can build them instantly allowing you near undisputed control in the surrounding area as long as you are careful.

-Added deploy range to Pqvv'Ger lairs.

-Added "Mass Sacrifice" faction power tile effect to all cults.
Which instantly kills all wildlife units and buildings within a two tile radius and grants resources per kill.
It sounds overpowered until you realize that they dont capture everything using the power unlike kingdoms.
It also has a cool particle effect and sound effect though :P

-Mass sacrifice can affect unworshipped dark forces aswell, which makes it good on maps without a big "world owning" faction and good on maps with 

a big world owning faction.

-Mass sacrifice occassionaly spawns friendly phantoms from the souls of the deceased

-Mass sacrifice captures cpaturables 33% of the time

-Cult AI is now also compelled to make more hideouts so it doesnt feel as stupid

-Changes to critical hit logic so tiny mushroom babies wont usually hit buildings for over 100 damage (It wasn't just them but it was funniest for them) in cases where that would happen previously instead it just grants damage bonuses (though the massive ones are still possible i just made them rarer heh)

-Action Points And Movement points are only wiped when building if you actually choose a spot now, they are refunded if you dont and you can keep moving around.

-Smart Bandits/WIldlife better labeled on skirmish setup screen

-Enhanced AI's tactical prowess in naval warfare, enabling it to effectively exploit ship hard counter bonuses.

-Cultists now possess the unique ability to extract additional runes from tiles with the "Ancient Rune" effect, marking another strategic tile effect exclusive to their factions.

-Cavalry can shout now

-Units will no longer shout at crates

-Increased scroll sensitivity on codex and on tile effect panel

-Farm Now has "Plentiful Harvest" tile effect which grants 2 weeks of upkeep in bonus resources + a small chance of a backstory/other bonuses to units deployed on it, it works for cults and bandits and kingdoms. (But not for the cult's big summons)

-Myco Heal flag can now heal all friendly units, not just Pqvv'Ger units

-Many various changes to the Pqvv'Ger that are detailed at length in one of my mini changelogs and i dont feel like typing out.
--Though one major one i want to note is that the Pqvv'Ger can no longer take advantage of the usual bandit tile effects (As it made them overwhelming to players and overpowered as AI)

-Wildlife AI now has a unit soft cap based on map size

-Added insect squashing particle effect

-Added unique particle effect for attacking bugs

-Ramped up the particle effects a little, especially the tumor death one

-Made camera hang on enemy attacks for another half second as it was previously hard to tell what was going on

-Made death blood particle effect last longer

-Added some new tips to loading screens

-Cranked up the Wendigo's cost and threw in a fire vulnerability for good measure.

-Put an informative flag on the ancient skeleton warrior to make it crystal clear that it very much resists arrows.

-Made the default world age setting Middle Ages (aiming to craft a more curated first skirmish game for newbs that start skirmishes without tweaking anything).

-Ensured the default dark force isn't one of the "multi" types or "It Follows" - those are intended for challenge runs (This change is part of the aformentioned curating)

Added an option to pick "none" for your dark force, giving you more control over your game setup (It also informs you that you could have just ticked the box below it to disable them).(This change is ALSO part of the aformentioned curating)

-Archers now have a hard counter bonus against Ghouls.(They were supposed to always be that way)

-Popped handy little flags on several units hinting at "hey, maybe try something other than archers against this, it's pretty tough!" - so players can see their folly.(Also part of the aformentioned curating)

-Rolled out a discreet but major tweak to the advantage/disadvantage system to cut down on frustration. Let's see if you can figure out what I did there... (Another change to make the game less frusterating for newcomers)

-More tweaks to advantage/disadvantage system to make it more in line with what i want.
--Numbers are more deterministic
--Humanoid units will say stuff under certain conditions now. Just for fun it doesn't check their personality or anything its just some predefined lists of phrases.

-On scenario setup screen emphasized more text in certain places (EG Making "Not For Beginners" warning on world age selection red)

-On scenario setup screen reworded a lot of the text (Especially for dark forces.) to be more booky.

-Added some lore/set dressing to the red city in the renovations mission that i've wanted to add for a bit (See its details screen and its description)

-Brownwood too (the starting city in the debauchery and lawlessness scenario) now ha smore lore/set dressing

-Moved lore for other campaign cities and towns to their "main description" in the middle of the defualt description and the extra details and kept them in the details screen too.

-Replaced skeleton warrior profile pic, i actually added this the other day but didn't mention it anywhere.
It Went from this:


I'll probably use this old one for some other flavor of undead later. Maybe a WIght?
To This:


-Added new realmchild priest protrait


-Other tweaks around the edges heh

-Ive updated the itch/steam/gamejolt store page, with new information/a new screenshot so it reflects the game better.

-I've optimized getComponent checks in the unit logic. This means a smoother, faster game experience, especially when there's a lot of units on the screen and during AI turns.

-I added the ability to scuttle ships! Once you've explored a body of water, you can now scuttle your ships to conserve resources. But beware - it's a gamble! Scuttling involves rolling a d20. Roll a nat 1, and you might just attract an enemy sea monster. Roll over 10, and you'll create a new treasure for your units to grab. (AI can do it too!)

-Wind mechanics are now in play (I've been watching a lot of videos about Ultima!). But don't worry, my wind system is less frustrating and only really grants bonuses. The wind direction, which changes (or doesn't) randomly each turn, is tracked by the world and affects ship movement. For balance, I've reduced ship base movement points (MP) by 0.5. However, a favorable wind can give you a significant movement bonus. And don't worry about constantly checking the wind - the movement highlight on tiles takes wind conditions into account automatically. It adds an extra layer of strategy to ship navigation.

-Ships now can move through swamps unless the wind isn't in their favor. But if you've invested in certain techs and your ship has 2 or more MP, you'll navigate swamps as if they were "normal" tiles

-Wind conditions are mentioned in the world news and in the ship flag tooltip.
Rest assured, wind direction saves and loads correctly. For existing saves, the default wind direction is set to north.

-When building buildings and you choose not to build it will refund your action points/movement points so you can keep moving around

-Discovered the Neverwuz a rare mouldy undead thing that is said to rise from the corpses of TENACIOUS people who died with unfulfilled dreams.


-Attempted to remove Neverwuz

-[NODEOSERROR]

Bug Fixes 

 -Fixed bug where open menu button and command buttons would retrigger after pressing space if you had not clicked on anything else since clicking on them. Thanks to a buddy on the discord for reporting the bug

-There is a sneaky broken command somewhere, the error caused by it is handled now so it wont freeze the game now, but i added some stuff to help me find it if it happens again. Keep your eyes open for a command that you can click but does nothing and report it if you see it (For all I know its specifically the ai using the command that would break it so we will see heh)

-Fixed bug where units who built a building (or did any command) would still be unable to do actions on the turn the building/command is finished

-Fixed somewhat major bug where unit deployable cache didn't clear after moving, causing some immense problems like units not being able to build around them, instead using the previous tiles neighbors etc. (I had thought I got lucky this release and didnt introduce any major bugs, but alas)

-Resolved an issue where Fyegrayed's fury barred access to the close menu post-tutorial completion.

-Fixed bug where game changed state even when AI upgraded buildings causing weird stuff like healthbars spazzing out. (They still spaz out sometimes but due to another issue)

-Fixed the cause of the other healthbar spazzing out issue, which might also lead to the game being more performant aswell!

-Fixed major bug with grex tenebris/any time cults spawned next to wildlife that broke the game completely and hardlocked the game

-Fixed bug where sometimes units healthbar would just turn permanently filled with green which made it hard to see what their health actually was

-Fixed some typos.

Bella Update!
Shes doing okay.

But she really would rather I go into the living room and cuddle (which i will do after finishing this devlog)

Ramble!
Reflecting on the previous big changelog where I laid out my future plans that I never seem to do, I've actually managed to implement some of those ideas this time. Notably, the Assassinate effect I mentioned has been introduced as a separate unit rather than slapping it onto cutpurses—a decision I'm quite happy with.

I've also rolled out a few new cultist tile effects as promised. While they might not be uniquely tailored to each cult (Like i wanted, though there is some of that) , they pack a punch and feel strong to use.

On the other hand, I haven't tackled the noderooms tile effects or the "every turn" tile effects. However, I've introduced a wind mechanic for boats, which does bring me a step closer to the pirate-themed ideas I have.

As for the "improved guidance that was mentioned in that changelog," I've made the game more accessible from the start, which somewhat addresses that goal. Additionally, I've ensured that the new tile effects are incorporated into the campaign more.

So now what? 

Well, I want to keep pushing towards more cult tile effects and I want to get those noderooms ones added and i really want to do more piratey themed things (Just feels like it would be a really fun subfaction of bandits to play as if it worked),

I want to add something that will kick players into gear if they make it to turn 30 (though it might depoend on map size what turn it happens at) some ideas are an event that makes random portals appear everywhere so players cna start invading each other or one that increases all units movement at that point (as i really really don't want the endgame slog to exist) think of it as a stellaris style midgame crisis.

I also want to add some new codex entries and make it so upgrading doesn't clear the unit command queue etc as I imagine that ahs annoyed some people.

For the next major changelog, I'll revisit these ideas to see how well I've kept them, heh. It looks like the 'Ramble' section is going to be a staple in my changelogs from now on.

Cheers! Have a good sunday!