Hey everyone,
We have another update for you this week, focused on three main areas: the tutorial, world map visuals, and world map performance.
The biggest part of this update is a major rework of the tutorial. The prologue and first half hour of the game have been redesigned, a lot of dialogue has been shortened, voice acting has been re-recorded where needed, and the early Genoa and world map chapters have received a lot of improvements.
We`ve also made several visual improvements to the world map. The map should now look better overall, with improved distant rendering, better handling of town buildings, cleaner cinematics, and fixes for several visual issues around the horizon and edge of the screen.
Finally, this update includes another major world map performance pass. Winter and snow should now run much better, scrolling should feel smoother, and world map loading has been slightly improved.
And once again - thank you so much for the reports, feedback, and support during Early Access!
And now, here are the full notes for this update:
Reworked Tutorial
Major redesign of the tutorial prologue
First half hour has been completely redesigned
Tutorial no longer features the Acre sequence
A lot of dialogue has been shortened
All adjusted dialogue voice acting has been re-recorded
A lot of improvements to the first World Map chapter
A lot of improvements to the Building Up Genoa chapter
Improved World Map level design of the Holy Land
Fixed various issues with custom saves and resuming the tutorial
World Map Improvements
Improved World Map appearance
Disabled LODs for World Map trees for now
Fixed issue with houses in towns changing appearance when scrolling
Lowest zoom-in camera now looks better, with more visible far-distance rendering
Fixed issue where the World Map horizon looked strange
Fixed issue with World Map objects disappearing at the edge of the screen
Campaign cinematics now end with correct shadows and max draw distance
Better handling of World Map house LODs
Performance Improvements
Finished major World Map performance improvement pass
Snow on the World Map now lags a lot less
Greatly improved World Map performance during winter
Reduced World Map tree texture sizes to help with stability
Improved scrolling lag on the World Map
Small improvement to World Map loading speed