Master of Command · build 23511161 · published
Hey everyone! This is our largest update to Master of Command yet. Alongside a major free update packed with new features and content, we’re also releasing a new DLC that adds two nations to the game: Sweden and Poland! Sweden and Poland each come with completely unique gameplay mechanics. Sweden introduces the Military School, while Poland brings the Polish-Lithuanian Sejm government system. I’ll explain both systems in more detail later in the changelog. Since the Scorched Earth update, we’ve also been closely monitoring your feedback and making improvements to balance, pacing, and overall gameplay. Combat should feel better paced, with charge damage becoming more impactful again. Ranged lethality has also been adjusted so that late-game battles are less extreme, making them feel more tense and interesting. The new weather system adds another layer to both the campaign and battles, while the new general staff customization and skill points give you more ways to shape and roleplay your commander. On top of that, this update includes new content overall, including a new gun, new doctrines, and new officer traits! We did not have time to get any new battle maps in, but I plan on making a few more either this week or next week alongside a small patch. The DLC also adds a large amount of additional content beyond Sweden and Poland, including 10 new items, 14 new doctrines, 8 new encounters, and 12 new officer traits. Altogether, these additions should bring more variety, replayability, and long-term depth to the game. For the changelog, I’m going to highlight all of the DLC-specific changes first, and underneath those, I will detail everything else that is arriving in this update for free! I’m incredibly grateful for all your support. We would not have made it this far without you!
- The “Lion & The Eagle” DLC is now available. It adds the Kingdoms of Sweden and Poland-Lithuania to the game! We’ve also put the base game on sale for 20% off, so tell a friend to check out Master of Command if they’ve been waiting for a sale. You can purchase the DLC as part of our new “Complete” edition bundle which will give you a discount even if you already own a copy of the base game.
By the 1760s, Sweden’s military reputation had declined from its height during the age of Charles XII. Sweden entered the Seven Years’ War hoping to reclaim Western Pomerania, but the campaign produced few decisive results. Much of the war was spent encamped or conducting sieges, and Sweden eventually withdrew after Russia switched sides in 1762. Sweden’s national doctrine slows your campaign movement speed, reflecting its indecisiveness during the conflict. You have a unique stance called the “Death March” which can compensate for this; it is faster than the normal forced march but you will suffer attrition while using it. There is also a “March Discipline” reform which can help with the slower campaign movement speed.
- Sweden has a new mechanic called the Military School!
We did not want Sweden to feel weak purely for the sake of historical accuracy. Instead, Sweden begins with a fairly average force that can be reformed over the course of a campaign through military research. Military research is boosted in two main ways: by winning battles, and by dragging and dropping treatises or military staff into the Military School to accelerate your progress.
Through the Military School, Sweden can adopt older Carolean Reforms inspired by the Ga Pa tactics of the early 1700s, focusing on aggressive charges and shock combat. Alternatively, you can pursue the more contemporary reforms of Ehrensvard, emphasizing accuracy, cover, and veterancy. These reforms can also be stacked multiple times. For example, you could research Ga Pa tactics four times to gain +40% charge damage, but at the cost of -20% stamina.
Sweden is much easier to play than Poland, so we recommend starting with Sweden first!
- Sweden has three army compositions to choose from: the Indelta Forces, Varvade Troops, and Pomeranian Corps. The Indelta Forces represent Sweden’s more traditional national troops, built around older shock tactics and aggressive battlefield action.
- The Varvade Troops are a more modern, professional force based in Sweden’s North German territories. They receive a campaign bonus that discounts treatises and staff officers, allowing them to accelerate research through the Military School even faster.
- Finally, the Pomeranian Corps focuses on light infantry and cavalry. They gain a reload speed bonus while fighting from cover, but suffer higher losses in melee combat.
Main tree
German tree
Renowned units
As some of you may know, Poland-Lithuania did not directly participate in the Seven Years’ War. Although it was tied to Saxony through a personal union, the Commonwealth itself had been heavily weakened and demilitarized under Russian influence since the Great Northern War. Your goal as Poland-Lithuania is to escalate your involvement and force your way into the conflict. To reflect this, Poland cannot purchase brigade slots normally. Instead, you need to petition the Sejm to escalate the war, opening up additional brigades through political action.
- Poland has a new mechanic called the Polish-Lithuanian Sejm!
To build Sejm support, you can win battles, make concessions, or destroy settlements using the new Foray stance. A Foray works similarly to a raid, but instead of focusing purely on material gain, it generates political power by intimidating the Sejm and demonstrating your strength. Historically, forays were carried out by nobles against one another. They originally functioned as a form of legal enforcement, often involving the removal of nobles from disputed property. Over time, however, they were increasingly carried out without legal sanction, with powerful nobles raiding each other’s estates to consolidate influence.
The reforms available through the Sejm are quite unique. Some provide temporary effects, such as requesting new guns, horses, or manpower. Others are permanent. In addition to escalating war involvement to open up brigade slots, you can pass reforms that increase the maximum unit size of your infantry, cavalry, artillery, and even your general’s bodyguard. These reforms let Poland-Lithuania play “tall,” building fewer but much larger and more powerful units. They can also be stacked multiple times. In one of my own playthroughs, I focused heavily on strengthening my Hetman and managed to grow his bodyguard unit to over 1,000 men. It is absolutely ridiculous, but also very fun.
Despite some of the absurd possibilities, Poland-Lithuania is very difficult at the start. I recommend opening your second brigade slot as soon as possible, then using reforms to build your political party, which makes future reforms cheaper to pass. Opening your third brigade before the end of Act 1 is extremely important. Keep in mind, however, that unlocking it costs 105% political power, which is impossible to accumulate unless you first use the Build Political Party action to gain a 5% discount on all reforms.
- Poland-Lithuania has three army compositions to choose from: the Commonwealth Army, Noble Cavalcade, and Magnate Militia. The Commonwealth Army represent the conventional Polish army, with a fair amount of Saxon influence in their structure and even their flags. Their bonus is that they get a free officer anytime they visit a city for the first time. This is especially helpful since officers can be embedded into the Sejm for influence!
- The next composition is the Noble Cavalcade. This is the definitive cavalry composition if you want to roleplay the arrival of the Polish hussars! Their bonus is getting +100% (double) stamina recovery while in command radius. So if your cavalry tire out from shock charges, they can quickly regroup and regain all of their combat effectiveness. They also start with the highest Sejm influence, and some expensive items which can be liquidated into cash to bribe officials and consolidate even more support.
- The last composition is likely the most interesting of all (including the three Swedish compositions). The Magnate Militia are also led by the nobility, but they lead their own private forces rather than commanding regular units. Magnate troops are very small in size but extremely elite. They are very fragile and require good micromanagement, but if the player passes Sejm reforms to increase the size of their units, they become extremely powerful. Their bonus is that they gain twice as much Sejm influence from foraying, so they are similar to the Cossack composition in that regard where they are focused more on raiding.
Main tree
Cavalry tree
Magnate (retainer) tree
Renowned units
- New universal doctrines have been added as part of the DLC. The first two are free, the rest are DLC-exclusive. Some of these doctrines are unique to the base-game nations, like the Colonial Company Network which is specific to Britain. You’ll need to play to see what these new doctrines do!
- Sweden and Poland also have their own doctrines you can find as region rewards, but I’ll save those as a surprise. Poland and Sweden both get 6 region reward doctrines you can find.
- New items added to the game! These are all DLC-specific!
- New officer traits were also added in the DLC. The first two traits have been made free. Many of the new traits affect your entire army’s campaign stats (like resourceful, which reduces the army’s ammo and food consumption!). Any effects that are campaign-wide (colored in yellow) still apply from reserve. So you can have a bureaucrat or resourceful brigade officer hanging out in a reserve slot, giving passive buffs to the army!
- There are new animal encounters; Sweden has the moose, and Poland has the beaver! The Eagle will now be part of the HRE dlc (which is free). The “Jeweler” encounter is also free since it appears at slums and I know that slums are avoided so I want to make sure that players without the DLC still have a decent encounter that they could find going to the slums.
- Just like in the base game, there are achievements to work through to unlock compositions and renowned units. (Some information on a couple of these achievements might be outdated by the time of release)
- There is a new weather system in campaign which affects battles and campaign
- Here is an example of a winter camp during a blizzard!
- The “WinterizedQuarters” malus which you get when winter occurs now reduces visibility by -10% instead of -15% since there is now snow/blizzard weather which heavily reduce visibility.
- New “insight” system. For all non-DLC nations, they receive insight points from fighting battles. You can put insight points to improve your general’s command radius buffs to the nearby troops in battle, or put points into campaign buffs to improve things like casualty restoration, veterancy, etc. The more points you put into campaign buffs, the larger your general’s staff will appear in battle. The more points you put into battle buffs, the faster your general will become and the larger his command radius will get.
- Insight points are gained from battles. Think of them like wisdom gained. The more casualties you suffer in battle, the more insight you will gain. This acts as a good catchup mechanic for any players suffering a lot of losses or defeats; insight will be gained in larger quantities. Your battles are now classified as “Minor, Decisive, Major,” etc. Depending on the battle ranking, you will gain more/less insight. A decisive battle generates the least amount of insight, but a minor victory will generate the most. You can also now see the percentage each side lost underneath the “Lost” section. Interestingly, Sweden and Poland use an inversion of the catchup mechanic; they will gain more reform/political power from decisive victories compared to their losses.
- The general staff unit now has gold UI in battle. This way you can clearly scan the battlefield and see where he is without getting confused between your cavalry units.
- The general unit now has a default regimental flag based on each country’s garde du corps equivalent, instead of it being a completely random flag
- The general’s portraits have been redone to use the modular clothing system so that you can customize all parts of your general just like the brigade officers.
- You can also toggle to the “bodyguard” view to change the general’s troops uniforms and the items they have.
- All uniforms that the regular brigade officers can wear are now using a higher resolution and look more detailed. There are also new hat, hair, and facial options for them.
- Added two new settings to the campaign. First, there is a new “hidden AI personalities” toggle in case you want the AI’s behaviors to feel less predictable. This will hide the icon that reveals the AI’s behavioral tendencies and their strengths/weaknesses. Second, there is now a “Coalition Armies” toggle which raises the limit of how many nationalities can be in a reigon at once. Normally, there are 1-2 nationalities that can be in a region, but with coalition armies enabled there can theoretically be up to 6 (depends on how many enemies you have turned on). Coalition armies does not increase the difficulty, it simply allows for a greater variety of brigade nationalities in the armies you fight.
- Here is an example of a coalition army. Notice it is comprised of British, Russian and HRE troops all at once.
- “Historical Enemies” is now disabled by default. This is because MoC shines most with a greater amount of variety. Additionally, the new Polish nation is not a historical enemy of any nation in the game since they were not involved in the Seven Years’ War, and I would like DLC owners to fight against the new nations if they go with the game’s default settings. Players can actually choose whether they want historical enemies on or off by default when beginning campaigns in their game settings as well.
- The “Multi-Front Conflict” modifier, which made Units & Officers +30% more expensive, has been merged into Corrupt Commissars. Corrupt Commissars normally make resources & items at settlements +25% more expensive, but it now also includes units & officers +25% more expensive. This means instead of having two modifiers at +30% and +25%, there’s now just one blanket “All settlement costs +25%”
- Since “Multi-Front” modifier was consolidated into Corrupt Commissars it has given us an additional modifier slot to play with. The new modifier is “Reinforced Headquarters.” This makes the HQ battles tougher and reintroduces the reinforcement HQ in Act 3 which will arrive with 6 brigades, making for a great finale!
Many of these adjustments were made to balance out a lot of the drastic changes introduced in the Scorched Earth update, which had slowed combat down.
- Stamina loss in gunfights has been reworked. Units no longer lose stamina throughout the reload process. Instead, stamina is now spent when a reload is completed. This means tired units ordered to hold fire will properly recover stamina instead of exhausting themselves while slowly finishing reloads. It also makes very fast-firing units spend more stamina over time, while slower, lower-tier units exhaust themselves less quickly. For example, a Prussian Grenadier will lose about 3 more stamina per minute during sustained fire, while a Serf Recruit will lose about 3 less stamina per minute.
- Cavalry carbine accuracy has been made +5% higher
- Supply consumption on the buckshot/buck&ball/quartered shot has come down further. Should make the ammo types more viable to use.
- Global accuracy reduced by -5%, specifically to help curb instances in the late game of both the player and AI dishing out enormous damage to each other in single volleys.
- Speed buff that retreating units get when they rout has been decreased by -20%, making them easier to chase down
- Speed buff retreating units get lasts only 6 seconds now instead of 8
- Melee attacks against retreating units is +20% more deadly, making it easier to chase down and shatter routing units (for both player and AI)
- Rear flanking morale damage increased by +5%
- Rear flanking charge morale damage increased by +10%
- Casualties on impact of charge reduced by -5%, but morale from charge impact increased by +5%
- Charging into open order formations is +5% more effective
- Light infantry fire damage reduction is +10% more effective, but their morale damage received is 5% less effective.
- All light cavalry stamina reduced by -5 points
- Global casualties' impact on the morale of the army has increased by +4%. This means if one side suffers a lot of casualties, their troops will be slightly more willing to retreat at the end of the fight instead of clinging on
- Local casualties' impact on the morale of that unit has increased by +10%. This means if a unit has suffered extreme losses, it’s less willing to cling on.
- You may now order the retreat of a unit even if the morale threshold for your army has not been met, but only if that unit has lost half of its morale. Previously, you needed to wait until your entire army’s morale collectively fell to at least 75% before being able to retreat individual units. This was to prevent exploit strategies where you’d load into a battle, get some kills with artillery, then retreat and repeatedly fight the battle until you’ve whittled down your enemy. The change effectively means that if your army’s morale is very high but there’s a unit that is in danger and losing men rapidly, you’re able to individually retreat him off the field.
- Rivers have been made more costly to cross. Accuracy while in one changed from -50% to -60%. Stamina loss has been changed from -30% -40%. Movement speed has been reduced from -75% to -80%.
- Marshes have been more costly to fight in. Accuracy has been changed from -25% to -40%.
- Lances are now visible if equipped
PRUSSIA
- Freikorps dragoons now correctly have a carbine by default
- Frei-infantry fusiliers lose -5 reload but gain +5 melee
- Frei-infantry jaegers lose 10 reload
- Freikorps veteran jaegers lose 5 accuracy
RUSSIA
- Russian provincial cavalry loses -150 manpower but gains +5 reload, +5 morale, +5 melee
- Cossacks have had a general rework to be a little more powerful
FRANCE
- Swiss units have all gained +5 morale but lost -5 charge, giving them a more defined role compared to the Irish, for example
- Irish lose -5 stamina to also distinguish them more from the German units, who previously had identical stamina. This also helps to balance out the Irish a bit more since they received such a large buff in the previous update.
- French provincial cavalry loses -150 manpower but gains +5 morale, +10 melee
- Volontaires provincial cavalry gain +10 stamina, +5 move speed
- Volontaires dragoons gain +10 stamina
- Volontaires hussars lose -5 accuracy but gain +10 stamina
Volontaires Cav takes longer to get, is less convenient to get, and is also smaller than baseline French Cavalry with lower morale; these changes specialise them more into speed and stamina for hit & run
AUSTRIA
- Hungarian veteran grenadiers lose -5 charge
- Austrian horse grenadiers gain +5 accuracy
HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE
- Imperial provincial cavalry loses -100 manpower but gains +10 accuracy, +5 melee
- Imperial hussars gain +5 accuracy
- Imperial cuirassiers gain +5 accuracy
- Wurttemberger musketeers gain +5 stamina, +5 charge
- Wurttemberger Feldjägers gain +5 charge
- Saxon Chevauxleger gains +5 accuracy, +5 speed
- Saxon tartar cavalry loses -5 melee
- Saxon cuirassiers gain +5 charge
- Fixed a bug where the Wurttemberg Horse Grenadiers and Saxon Carabinier Guards were using each other’s stats by accident.
GREAT BRITAIN
- British dragoons cost -1 less veterancy, gain +100 manpower
- All Hessian infantry gains +200 manpower
- All Hanoverian infantry gain +5 speed
- Hanoverian veteran foot loses -5 stamina, -5 reload, gains +5 accuracy
- Hanoverian grenadiers lose -5 stamina, -10 reload, gains +5 accuracy
- Brunswick musketeers gain +5 morale
- Brunswick grenadiers lose -5 reload, -5 melee
- You can no longer take terrain attrition while raiding, so if you were accidentally positioned on a river while raiding, you won’t bleed troops anymore.
- Experience from battles (prisoner action) and drilling now affects reserve units and officers (this won’t dilute the amount of experience gained; it simply adds experience gain to the reserve units instead of exempting them)
- Reroll cost changes. Instead of all reroll costs being 50 thalers, then 100, it’s now been changed based on what you’re rerolling. Rerolling officers' skills is now much cheaper since it impacts fewer units (compared to doctrines), and officers can sometimes be hard to specialize. So it’s now 40 for the first reroll, then 80 from that point. Rerolling regions now costs slightly more; it’s 60 for the first roll and 120 from that point on. Doctrines have had the highest price change, which are now 80 for the first reroll and 160 from that point on. I found it too easy for people in Act 3 to reroll continuously until they stacked certain doctrines to an absurd degree. Doctrine stacking can be fun, but I just want it to be a little more balanced.
- Field army move speed slightly slowed down on campaign
- Encamped army move speed slowed down on campaign
- Made any encounter choices that result in spawning an enemy army yellow to help warn players that their choice will result in combat
- Removed the text “weak” from field armies in encounter tooltips as it would often be misleading
- The default unit rewards for non-renowned units now come with slightly higher veterancy
- Renowned units and many of the “guard” units now have a 4th tier of replenishment speed called “Very Slow.” It’s a black icon. This means forming an army made up entirely of guards or renowned units will be riskier. There are also doctrines in the game that boost replenishment speed, and so they will be more useful for fielding armies with many renowned units/guards.
- Raiding now provides -1 less loot item but provides +1 additional food generation per regiment raiding
- Saxon Army composition has had its artillery upgraded to Field Artillery instead of Battalion Artillery
- British Expedition composition has been adjusted. Its marksman has been upgraded to Excellent quality, as have its basket-hilt swords. The doctrine bonus has also been reworked: it now gain +100% Veterancy from all sources, including drilling and combat, but this bonus is reduced by -5% for each unit in the army. This means the bonus will eventually disappear if the army is fully expanded, but by then the player should have already benefited from greatly increased veterancy gain in the early game. Players can also choose to leave the fifth and final brigade empty, which is more expensive anyway, to keep part of the bonus active.
- Hanoverian composition loses -50 starting ammunition but has been given a new Liege carbine as a starter item.
- Austrian crownland compositions’ accuracy bonus reduced from +15% to +10%. It was just a little too strong and can lead to stale gameplay when the artillery reaches a point of critical mass.
- Russian cossack contingent lances were slightly downgraded, simply because they have 2 of them and so having excellent-quality is less justified. Also under combat changes I buffed morale damage and charge damage so I don’t want the cossacks to be overpowered too quickly due to the change.
- Prussian old corps now starts with 10 insight points which will be the highest out of any of the base game compositions. Melee is not as powerful as it once was during the launch of the game, and the composition has felt a little lackluster. So the 10 insight points will let you max out any insight category right away which also reflects the nature of the “old” corps being comprised of wise/experienced units.
- New liege musket & carbine added to the game! A few units across France, Holy Roman Empire, and Poland will use these by default
- I preferred when cheese provided morale so I’ve made its primary effect a morale buff instead of stamina. I then changed medicinal herbs’ secondary effect to boosting stamina (assumes the medicine helps people stay healthy).
- Heavy saddles provide slightly less move speed buff
- Light saddles provide slightly less stamina buff
- Heavy saddles made more expensive than light ones
- Coffee and tea items have been slightly rebalanced to make tea more attractive to use over coffee
- Artillery limber chests’ ammo consumption reduction is 10% less effective now. For example, an excellent limber chest reduces ammunition consumption by -40% instead of by -50%
- Lances now reduce accuracy slightly more
- Carolean military treatise changed to reduce stamina by -4 instead of reload -2
- Spontoons now have a third effect, which slightly boosts morale recovery rate
- The dachshund now boosts morale recovery speed instead of increasing range
- We’ve added an eagle mascot for the free Holy Roman Empire DLC. The eagle now boosts range (which is what the dachshund previously did)
- Jönköping muskets’ melee damage has been very slightly reduced simply because it already has an accuracy and charge bonus, and it was outclassing the Tula musket in nearly all ways
- Canteens now boost stamina recovery speed rather than providing stamina as a base stat
- Canister shot damage very slightly reduced (by about -5%), and its ammunition consumption is slightly higher
- Grapeshot damage has been untouched and its ammunition consumption was slightly lowered
- Lower-caliber artillery pieces now deal less canister damage relative to the higher-caliber ones
- Artillery now takes 200 ammunition to refill, making it a little more expensive to field an army of many artillery units
- History of Charles XII item icon change
- Foreign Advisor doctrine slightly nerfed. It provided +5% combat effectiveness at the cost of -10% veterancy gain, but the malus has been increased to -15%. Combat effectiveness is an extremely powerful stat, and we’ve added a new doctrine that you can get, which also increases combat effectiveness, so we need to make sure it’s balanced if you stack them both.
- German arms production reduces musket/carbine cost by -35% instead of -50%
- Russia’s “Extended Supply Line” doctrine now provides a +50% raid speed bonus instead of +75%. I was finding that by the late game, it was too easy to snowball through raiding, making the playthrough become boring towards the end.
- Two free new doctrines, "Leading From the Front," and "Etat Major"
- Bloodthirsty has been changed from gaining +15% melee skill to instead reducing stamina loss from being in melees by -50%
- Trait generation has been altered. The percentage chance of finding rares is now generally higher. We’ve also improved some of the random generation system to be more consistent; it was previously skewed by the number of traits in each category. So by adding a lot of common traits, it diluted the chance of rares appearing. That’s no longer the case.
- Two new officer traits added, "Bureaucratic" and "Resourceful"
- The chance of finding an animal mascot at the deer encounters has been increased
- Added a new mascot you can find, the Eagle. You must have the "Imperial Banner" (HRE) DLC enabled to find this.
- Added the "Jeweler" encounter. You can buy/sell jewelry here or even smelt your own out of excess ammunition
- Fixed a bug where the AI would turn away the moment before contact with you, charging them
- Improvements made to AI targeting for artillery to make them less likely to expose themselves ahead of their line
- Mentioned in the last patch log that we fixed a bug where the AI was able to rapidly charge you even if its charge momentum bar hadn’t depleted yet, which meant they’d continuously launch charges against your unit as you try to pull them back. Seems like the fix wasn’t working, but now it is. The AI shouldn’t launch instant charges against units that pull back.
- Slightly reduced the number of grenadiers fielded by the AI in Act 3, replacing many with either veteran musketeers or life guards.
Aggressive Profiles
- Carolean AI will now wait slightly longer before charging you instead of typically charging after a single volley; battles would often devolve into moshpits, which wasn’t fun. Carolean AI had the wrong malus being applied. It was displayed as receiving a stamina debuff, but it was reducing reload skill instead, which isn’t that impactful considering the personality primarily focuses on charging. Finally, I’ve slightly buffed its infantry move speed by +5% since its nerf is now being correctly applied, and this makes them have a much more distinguished weakness.
- Hildburghauser AI has had its stamina buff replaced with a morale buff. So if you engage the columns head-on, they’ll be harder to break, but if you fire on their flank, it will still be deadly. I’ve increased the amount of flanking damage they received from +20% to +25%.
- Sobieskian AI has had its old morale buff replaced with a melee stamina cost -75% buff. This means they won’t get tired in melee very easily, which I find more interesting than the previous morale buff (which I’ve given to Hildburghaus), since this is a cavalry-oriented AI.
- Frederick AI has had its reload buff replaced with a general move speed +20% buff. Not as fast as Carolean, but unlike Carolean, the whole army gets the move speed buff instead of only infantry. Also, unlike Carolean, Frederickan focuses on gunfire. I’ve also made it so the AI spreads their ranks a little thinner when using this profile, making them more likely to wrap around your flanks!
Balanced Profiles
- New “Gustavian” profile added. This inherits the old Saxe effects, which apply a malus to officer morale: a higher chance of officer death. I thought this fit better since Gustavus Adolphus was famously killed in combat while leading from the front.
- Since Gustavian has taken Saxe’s old profile, I’ve designed a new one for it. Saxe gets +40% morale recovery speed, making it more important to time your fire in concentrated volleys. This personality will probably do well against players who heavily rely on free fire. Saxe also gets an infantry combat effectiveness +5%, so its main body fights slightly better. Its weakness is infantry move speed -15%, so they should be easier to outmaneuver.
- Mauritian AI deals +25% morale damage instead of +20% as its bonus. Its malus of +15% morale damage received has remained the same. I was finding that this personality wasn’t particularly effective compared to others.
- New “Lacian” profile added (named after Franz Moritz von Lacy). It gets +25% range for light infantry and cavalry. It also has a double reload speed buff for light infantry and cavalry. These are relatively niche bonuses, but they are very powerful, so the few units that are affected by them (skirmishers and carbine cavalry) will be much more dangerous. Its weakness is -10% melee, leaving them more vulnerable to charges.
Defensive Profiles
- Blandian AI now receives -25% melee damage received instead of -20%. This makes them a little better at countering player compositions that spam cavalry or grenadiers.
- Munnicher AI has been renamed to “Vauban” after Sébastien Le Prestre, Marquis of Vauban, which is more historically fitting to his tactics. He was known as one of the most important defensive military engineers of the century. No changes to its stats.
- Daunian AI remains the same.
- New “Petrine” profile added (named after Peter the Great). His bonus is a stamina +50% buff, making them very difficult to wear out in prolonged combat. Furthermore, they receive -25% less morale damage, making them tough to break. Their malus is accuracy, which is -10%. Behaviorally, they are likely to hold a position and defend it for much of the battle without being easily aggro’d. Unlike personalities like Daunian, however, they won’t just respond with gunfire if you enter their defensive position; they will actually act more like Caroleans and charge you if you set foot in their area.
- Here’s an overview of the personality effects. The checkbox determines if they are more stubborn when defending.
- Act 3 encamped armies now field an additional 4 artillery units of medium quality (+1 brigade). Previously, they simply felt like alternative marauder armies, but we want to make them feel like reinforced defensive positions on the map.
- Act 3 marauders have had their artillery replaced with a second cavalry brigade. This means they are now 2 infantry brigades, 2 cavalry brigades. They should be very well contrasted against the encamped armies, which are more focused on artillery. Both marauders and encamped armies provide doctrines, so the player has a choice between battling the cavalry-focused marauders or the artillery-focused encamped armies.
- Act 3 marauders reduced to 2 instead of 3, and I’ve increased the patrols from 0 to 3. The region can feel quite empty since we’ve changed it to contain entirely marauders, so I think having a better balance of army types will make it feel more dynamic.
- Act 3 now arrives on day 120 instead of day 140. The Act is not meant to be standard, where the player is expected to spend significant time building up their army. It is the final test of the game, and so should naturally be quicker and more decisive.
- All army templates across the game have been altered so that encamped armies focus more on artillery quality and patrols/marauders focus more on cavalry.
New music has been added to the game! In addition to the DLC tracks that Sweden and Poland get while winning, the following tracks were added for free
- New deployment phase music, “Take Command”
- New combat phase music “Battle Hardened”
- New combat phase music “Gallantry”
- You can now move your entire army by holding left alt + right click. If you hold down left control as well you can rotate them.
- Steam cloud saving has been added to the game so you can retain saves between multiple computers.
- New custom color picker added. You can toggle between the pre-defined color palettes and the custom colors seamlessly using the icon of the palette in the bottom right of the image.
- You can now preview doctrines you already have by hovering over them in the upper left corner while selecting a new doctrine
- UI improvements made in battle that help you calculate why your units’ stats are the way they are. We now more clearly break down combat effectiveness and formation effects. You can also hover over stamina and morale stats to discover if your men are tired and by how much that might be lowering their combat effectiveness. For those who might not know, the “Combat Effectiveness” stat will increase/decrease the following stats: Charge, Melee, Reload, and Accuracy.
- You can now view reload progress displayed on the unit info tab on the left
- You can now see the percentage of forces each side lost in a battle
- We now display the personality of the AI in both the pre-battle and post-battle screens instead of just pre-battle
- The game will now classify your victories based on your casualties suffered.
- Units now carry proper king’s colors instead of a national flag
Unique king's colors illustrations
- Formations no longer have gaps every 3 ranks; the formations
- Your general now has a tooltip so you can see exactly what he’s providing in his command radius
- Fixed a bug where, when upgrading units, sometimes the item stats weren’t being applied properly in that unit’s inventory
- Fixed a bug where the bodyguard units for the general would wear the wrong uniform. The unit IDs were offset so Russia would wear Britain’s general uniform, for example.
- Fixed a bug where, when toggling bayonets, your troops weren’t physically putting a bayonet on their musket
- Fixed a visual bug on rerolling regions in Act 3
- Fixed a customization bug where the trousers were displaying the “Hat Color” tooltip
- Fixed a bug where, when you swap between line/column formation and flexible, it will allow you to stretch your units extremely wide
- Fixed a bug that sometimes counted units under the “sprinting” state even when they weren’t (namely, after retreating), so they’d continue losing stamina
- Fixed a bug where units would rapidly retreat and un-retreat as they left/entered their commander’s radius. There’s now a cooldown on how fast you can recover if you just began retreating (so a unit can no longer instantly recover a second after they begin retreating, only to retreat again once the officer moves away)
- Fixed a bug where removing officer traits would charge you higher than the amount previewed. Removing a trait for 50 thalers was actually deducting 100 thalers for example.
- More bugfixes made to cases where the AI would walk while charging
- Reduced the amount of Austrian cuirassiers fielded in the Rise of Frederick campaign’s final battle by -1, and downgraded two of the veteran Austrian fusiliers to regular Austrian fusiliers
- Added new regions to the map to accommodate Sweden and Poland
- No DLC required, just extra splash screens added.