Hey Urists!
It’s Alexandra here with exciting news about Siege update. You won’t have to wait very long because it will be releasing onto the main branch November 3rd! Watch the release date trailer showcasing some of the new features coming:
What’s Coming in the Siege Update?
New enemy weapons: Battering rams, trolls can now carry giant pickaxes and blocks for building
New enemy behaviours: Enemy behaviour is now classified into different roles (charge, hang back, ambush) and can path around dangerous areas. Engineers can build floors and stairs. Enemies can break through fortifications and raised bridges. They can also dig underground through natural walls. Goblins also bring more kinds of mounts and their demonic leader
New weapon: Bolt thrower. This is a siege engine with a fixed location but can be turned freely in any direction. It fires faster than a crossbow and the ammo bin can hold 100 bolts. Siege operator skill matters but unskilled operators can use it more effectively than they use hand-held weapons.
Reworked weapons: Ballistas and catapults are more effective
Changes to traps: Goblins can rescue caged allies. Water and magma traps will not be as effective as before, so you’ll have to try a variety of defensive tools instead of relying just on one, to properly protect your forts.
Expect detailed patch notes with all the changes and features for the siege update on launch day. Old saves should still work with the update, except for great picks and the new mounts which use the new behaviours. If you load an old save, trolls will come with small picks instead of great picks.
If you want a more peaceful experience, you can turn off digging, deconstructing, and building separately, and also toggle the speeds. Or you can turn them off entirely.
New Splash Art
We also have new splash art for the update from Kitfox artist Thea Kent, who also made the art for Fortress and Adventure Mode. Can you name all the enemies shown here that you might have to defend against?
What’s Next?
After this Siege update is out, of course there will inevitably be important bugs to fix. And then after that, Tarn hopes to start looking into more magical content and features, such as warlords and demon-trained sorcerers that could make sieges on your fort even more dangerous and varied. But as you probably have heard us say before, the fundamentals of magic itself are a fairly large and complicated segment of the world generation to contend with, so we’re glad Tarn’s able to make sieges more fun (and fully-functional!) in the meantime.
-Alexandra