Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia

[razvedchiki]

I really hope CA bankrupts and someone else takes their type of games and make them from the start,after empire im constantly watching their games.

 

[vonAchdorf]

I haven't played it so far, but they made a few changed, which at least on paper, don't look bad, like the removal of agents and the new recruitment system.

 

[trais]

Best. Mosh pit. Ever!!!!

 

[Tigranes]

Writing them off entirely after Empire and abandoning every shred of hope is the best thing I ever did.

Call now and quit the cycle of disappointment

 

[A horse of course]

Saga Team – Thrones of Britannia

Since last month’s blog, we took another look at the roadmap and shifted our priorities a little. Off the back of a really positive reaction to the first balance update, we decided to apply more focus towards a new update to the game, and to getting more improvements into the hands of our players as quickly as possible.

This next update will introduce a number of substantial changes to the game incorporating a bunch of player feedback. Players can look forward to more depth and granularity in the Politics system and within building trees, improved battle AI, and an important new mechanic called Allegiance. This mechanic is loosely based on Religion from ATTILA and the Culture mechanic of ROME II but designed to better reflect events of the Thrones time period and complement the design of the game overall. It ties in to several areas, mostly politics and how provinces work, removing some frustrations and adding some new challenges to expanding your kingdom.

If you’re interested in knowing more, game director Jack Lusted has taken some time to talk about the past, present, and future of Thrones, including more on the Allegiance Update – click here to read the full interview.

The first version of the Allegiance Update is available to try now as an opt-in beta. Click here for patch notes and instructions on how to download it. The update will stay in beta for a while, with at least one more wave of changes to be introduced over time so we can ensure it is well balanced and polished before the full automatic push to all players. It’s looking like this will come at the end of August, with the release of the Blood Pack.

And finally, we know modders are keen to get their hands on the Assembly Kit for Thrones. It’s nearing completion now, and should be ready for release in the next week or two.

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/blood...hrones-of-britannia-game-director-jack-lusted

As the first game in the Total War Saga series, Thrones of Britannia set out to both tread new ground and shake up an established format – but how did it do? We spoke with game director of Thrones of Britannia Jack Lusted about the design process, what worked and what didn’t, and the game’s future including a brand-new update patch – read all about it below.

Thrones of Britannia is the very first Total War Saga game – what’s the aim of the Saga series?

Jack: The Saga series uses more focused periods of time and geography as a basis – moments in history where perhaps there isn’t one character to focus the game around, but that are nonetheless a great setting for the Total War experience. Because these titles are hyper focused on one time and place, it allows us to spend time thinking about how the game works and what changes we can make to reflect the time period covered and deliver a new experience.

Was it daunting taking the Total War series in a new direction like this?

Jack: Absolutely. I’ve been a fan of the series for the past 18 years so leading a team as game director on a new type of Total War game was huge! Doing anything new is always daunting, but it’s also an opportunity. Throughout the work done on new content for ROME II and ATTILA, there were plenty of ideas we had or changes we wanted to do that we couldn’t as they wouldn’t fit with those games. Thrones of Britannia represented a chance to make those kinds of changes in a game tailor-made for them.

Back when it was announced, you said the game’s design philosophy was “one of re-invention and focus, looking at classic Total War mechanics and consolidating them to deliver more meaningful choices for the player” – do you feel like you achieved what you set out to do?

Jack: For the most part, yes. We made a lot of big decisions with Thrones in terms of what features to keep from other Total War titles and where we wanted to change or do something new. The new recruitment system represents a big change from previous titles in particular. It really changes how you have to approach recruiting armies and how to use them. Do you recruit an army in response to a threat and then throw the units in under strength? Or do you wait, probably losing territory, until they’re fully up to strength?

I’m also really pleased with how characters have become a focus for a lot of bonuses that previously were more spread around.

That said, it’s clear from some more negative reactions we’ve seen that the new faction features we added – like Heroism, for example – haven’t resonated with everyone. That’s obviously disappointing and something that we’ve been spending a lot of time looking at recently.

What challenges did you encounter during the design process?

Jack: The big one is the fact we knew that making so many changes was not exactly a “safe” approach. Total War as a series is beloved by its fans, and any changes to the Total War formula need to be done very carefully. The execution needs to be as close to perfect as you can get it so that what you deliver feels like an improved experience – players shouldn’t feel like anything is worse or missing.

This meant that a lot of our time was spent thinking again and again about how the features in Thrones came together as a whole to deliver the experience we wanted. We know we didn’t manage to achieve this for all players, and that was always a risk.

What do you think didn’t work so well?

Jack: Politics – in particular the new Estates system – and the faction mechanics like Heroism and Legitimacy haven’t had the impact we thought they would. For politics, some players seem to find managing loyalty too simple. Estates feel a bit superfluous to them. With the faction mechanics, the impact they have on the turn-to-turn gameplay is too subtle so it seems people often ignore them, which is absolutely not what we wanted.

What did you and the team learn from Thrones of Britannia as a whole?

Jack: We learnt a lot, but the main thing has to be if you make significant changes, you’ve got to get them exactly right. The design intention, the implementation, the balance, the in-game experience and how it works with other features of the game. All these aspects need to be analysed, tested, and validated from various perspectives to encompass the full range of different player tastes, preferences, and expectations – underestimate the scale and importance of this challenge at your peril.

We’re also looking at how we gather feedback on the game before release. Both the average review score and the user scores on Steam were below what we expected – this is a clear signal that we’ve got something wrong. Some of our players didn’t get the experience we wanted them to have and these mixed reviews hurt us on a number of levels, so we need to make sure we avoid that in future.

What’s next for the game?

Jack: We have a couple of things coming up: the Blood Pack, which will be free to anyone who owns the ATTILA Blood & Burning DLC, the Assembly Kit to support modders, and a substantial new update to the core game called the Allegiance Update. This update will introduce a number of changes to the game to address player feedback and improve the overall experience. We wanted to put these improvements in the hands of players as soon as possible so we have made it the priority, pushing back the release of the Blood Pack.

The first version of the update is available to try from today as a beta (go here for more information and instructions on how to download). It will stay in public beta for a while (with at least one update adding more changes) so that we can ensure its full release to all players, alongside the Blood Pack, will be as polished as it can be.

What sort of changes can we look forward to in the Allegiance Update?

Jack: The biggest change – and the one the update is named after – is the addition of Allegiance to the game.

Allegiance
This feature is based on Religion from ATTILA and the Culture mechanic of ROME II but, to better match what was going on during the time period and the design of the game overall, it has been reimagined as “Allegiance”. As you take territory, you’ll spread Allegiance to these new regions based on how influential your faction leader is, the followers and traits your characters has, and possibly some buildings – we’re still balancing aspects of this feature. You’ll also suffer public order penalties from having lots of other faction Allegiances in your territory.

Adding this feature helps tie in to several areas that we identified for improvement, mostly politics and how provinces work. Some players mentioned that, with the lack of garrisons, it can be harsh and frustrating to take back a settlement you had a turn before and suffer the occupation public order penalty straight away. With Allegiance we’ve now removed the occupation public order hit, so the main public order penalty you get from taking a settlement is based on Allegiance. Take back a settlement you lost the turn before and you’re very unlikely to have any extra public order issues. Take a settlement deep in enemy territory, however, and it will take time to get the people’s Allegiance and deal with the resulting public order problems.

Allegiance also ties in to the politics system. Characters who feel wronged through political actions or who gain traits based on low loyalty or their influence can spread “Usurper” Allegiance. This ties in to the factions that appear when you have a civil war. As a result of these traits, characters may start to have public order problems due to Allegiance deep inside your territory, requiring you to deal with the characters causing the problem (which can lead to other consequences as well). This way, the spread of Usurper Allegiance helps alert you to problems and gives a nice build up towards worse ones.

Buildings
We’ve also made changes to the building trees. All minor settlement buildings – aside from religious ones – now branch at tier four. Generally, these branches have one focused around food or resource production, or one on income or certain income bonuses. For example, with the Lead building tree you can choose between lots of lead production or getting bonuses to Church income in the same province, which can work well if there are Abbeys or a Monastery in the same province.

The buildings in major settlements have changed as well. We’ve added the Merchant and Workshop chains that give basic Commerce (what we’ve renamed Market income to avoid potential confusion) and Industry income respectively to always allow for some of that in a province. But the bigger change is in what I’d call the “combo” buildings. For example, the Tanner chain – which gives a bonus to the Hunting chain that exists in some minor settlements – can now only be built in provinces where that chain exists. The Tithe Hall chain now boosts food production from Farms, Pastures, and Orchards, and also gives a bonus to Church income. However, it can only be built in major settlements in provinces that have a Monastery or an Abbey in at least one of the minor settlements.

We’ve added more combo buildings as well. The Warehouse chain boosts food and income from all ports in a province. Church Crafts gives church income and boosts Industry income from Copper, Iron, and Wood building chains in a province, too. The Artisans chain improves income from Gold, Silver, and Lead building chains. Finally, the Craft Merchant gives a bonus to income from the Cloth, Pottery, and Salt chains.

All of these combo buildings are now only available in provinces where the relevant buildings they give bonuses to exist, resulting in a lot more variety in the options available from province to province, as well as more choice in what you can do in each province.

Politics
Politics has had some big changes, too. We’ve listened to feedback that some players have found Estates underwhelming and added more variety to the system. There are now multiple types of Estates (religious, agricultural, and Estate types). Characters can now gain traits that give them a preference for a certain type of Estate, or a desire to have more than the faction leader, or a desire for none at all (and these aren’t the only ways characters can now desire Estates). This gives more variety in both how characters in the game interact with Estates and how you must manage them.

Family trees
We’ve also improved the family tree UI, splitting apart faction-level information into a new screen to give a better overview as well as more space to show the family tree itself. This allows for only relevant political actions to be shown for each character, a better display of the bonuses wives give in the family tree, and a new filter to allow you to see just the faction leader and their immediate family (which can be useful as the campaign goes on and the family tree gets larger and larger).

Battle AI
The battle AI has received a lot of attention, too, to both fix issues that have been reported and to make it more of a challenge on the battlefield. AI armies will no longer turn 90 degrees to you, or only use a few disembarking spots on coastal maps. We’ve improved AI missile unit targeting, creating the opportunity for them to decimate your own missile units (which definitely makes things tougher!). The AI will also make better use of terrain hint lines for hills, time the approach of its cavalry better, and won’t leave its general on their own in sieges far away from the walls. We’ve also improved the formations the AI uses so it’s less vulnerable to flanking and made it position units better for how it can make use of them.

These are the big changes for the first beta of the Allegiance Update, which will of course also come with a number of balance changes and bug fixes. Future updates will have changes to mechanics like Heroism, Legitimacy, Here King, and Tribute, as well as some other changes that we’ll take about once they’re ready.

What’s your favourite part of the update?

Jack: I’m really enjoying the building changes – they definitely give a lot more options when improving a province and different ways to do so.

What is the Assembly Kit and what will it contain?

Jack: The Assembly Kit is how we release official mod tools for Total War games. The Thrones Assembly Kit will be available as a beta via the Tools menu in your Steam Library in the next week or two, and will be immediately familiar to modders of Total War: ATTILA.

It will include the following tools:

• DaVE – Enables editing of the game’s database entries
• BOB – Enables processing of raw data such as textures, models, and animations
• TeD – Enables the creation of individual battlefields for land, sea, and sieges
• Terry – Enables the editing of campaign map aesthetics such as the heightmap, lighting, and props

What about the long-term future of Thrones of Britannia?

Jack: For now, we’re focusing on what improvements we can make to the game without losing the aspects many people enjoy.

The Thrones of Britannia Allegiance Update beta is available to try now. The Blood Pack will follow after the beta period when the final Allegiance Update is ready to be pushed to all players.

For all the latest updates about Thrones of Britannia and other Total War titles, make sure to follow the official social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter.

 

[Rahdulan]

I still don't know why they're acting as if the Saga team is doing some insanely innovative work. By all accounts ToB is a glorified campaign pack for Attila they decided to touch up and sell for $40. What surprises me is they haven't turned it into yet another DLC outlet. Only objective positive I can see from this and future Saga projects is they let them test out new ideas for proper titles without [necessarily] the same huge risks associated with it.

Then again, who can complain about having more options? Especially if honest to god good modding becomes viable again.

 

[A horse of course]

I completed a short campaign on normal difficulty as Alfie. I'll carry on so as to see the invasions later in the campaign but other than that there's not much reason to keep going.

Thoughts: There's nothing fundamentally bad about Thrones compared to other historical titles, but it's certainly not worth the almost full price there's asking for it. It would've been fine as a DLC & performance patch for Attilla without pointlessly reworking a bunch of mechanics.

1. Whilst I don't really care about stuff like religion being cut, you do very much notice the absence of forced march (it can take ages to get around the Saxon lands, and is particularly irritating combined with the random viking raids spawning 1-2 turns away from the South and East of England) and ambush stance (there were a couple of points in the campaign I REALLY wanted to draw out an enemy army using ambush and then noticed the button wasn't there).

2. The estates system goes from being irritating to practically irrelevent. Having too many estates causes an immediate MASSIVE debuff to everyone's loyalty, to the extent that if you take a couple of settlements in one turn and forget to address this, there will be an immediate secession/uprising on the next turn. The way this effects player behaviour is that every time you take territory, you check the estates tab, throw it at whoever has the lowest loyalty, and forget about it until the next conquest. Estates should be something cool that you think about distributing according to roleplaying or minmaxing, rather than 20 seconds of thoughtless busywork after each siege to prevent a civil war.

3. The supply system prevents armies from operating outside their own lands for too long, although it feels a bit superflous since you just need to take a single undefended village and wait a turn to start replenishing again. I only noticed it after marching across a vassals lands for a few turns. I'm not sure if the AI suffers from supply attrition. I don't dislike it, but there's not really any significant gameplay element to it since you can't do something like manoeuvre intelligently and cut a more powerful army's supply lines with a single stroke.

4. I like the simple RPG-esque companions you can level up for each character, all of which felt reasonably useful in various situations, though I always went for Forager first as replenishment is extremely slow compared to other titles. I don't see how their inclusion would have interfered with agents, but whatever.

5. The lack of garrisons for minor settlements/villages can be frustrating due to the large occupation debuffs and the ability to go on a sacking/conquering spree with a general and some trash units. In effect this means that lands fought over for even a short period will usually be hit by multiple rebellions soon after. Realistic, I suppose, but annoying if you can't do much about it. I think this system would've worked better using the old army system of being able to split up your forces and leave some units to defend key points from single-unit raiders.

6. The flip side of this is that campaigns are generally a lot more dynamic than something like Warhammer. AI definitely suffer at least some or most of the penalties as the player (although I'm pretty sure their replenishment is much faster), so even a larger Kingdom can be torn apart by rebellions or smaller foes taking advantage of their main stack being busy elsewhere. If anything it's a little too easy for rebels to take major settlements. Every time I click the end turn button, I'll spot an average of maybe 2 settlements being lost to rebel spawns (though I've not as of yet spotted any civil wars occuring to the AI). The other possible downside of this is that combined with food and supply limitations, it's basically game over for any faction facing multiple minor powers, no matter their size, as they can't move armies around or replenish fast enough to prevent massive chunks of their Kingdom being chain-conquered by two or more stacks from other powers.

 

[Fedora Master]

They couldn't make it another Attila DLC because Charlemagne already exists and even the densest CA fan would see the similarities.

 

[A horse of course]

They couldn't make it another Attila DLC because Charlemagne already exists and even the densest CA fan would see the similarities.

Nah, they just wanted to sell a 30 bong title and Darren (CA's old PR/marketing guy) said that the Saxon vs. Viking setting had been Jack Lusted's dream project for years. Charlemagne's campaign is quite different to Thrones beyond both of them existing in a vaguely similar era. Thrones has a very heavy Viking influence, plus a much more central role for Gaelic and Welsh factions, and invasions by sea play a more significant role than CA let on before release. Even playing a British Isles faction in Charlemagne was different to the pacing in Thrones.

 

[Raghar]

They couldn't make it another Attila DLC because Charlemagne already exists and even the densest CA fan would see the similarities.

Nah, they just wanted to sell a 30 bong title and Darren (CA's old PR/marketing guy) said that the Saxon vs. Viking setting had been Jack Lusted's dream project for years. Charlemagne's campaign is quite different to Thrones beyond both of them existing in a vaguely similar era. Thrones has a very heavy Viking influence, plus a much more central role for Gaelic and Welsh factions, and invasions by sea play a more significant role than CA let on before release. Even playing a British Isles faction in Charlemagne was different to the pacing in Thrones.

Genetic research says current anglo-saxons have only 1/10 saxon heritage. So Saxons vs Vikings, should be better said, Saxon overlords vs Viking overlords. Whales are largely unaffected by Saxonism.

 

[Bibbimbop]

The Anglo-saxons didn't take the Romano-British as serfs. The AS Chronicle is pretty blunt that the Saxons killed any Britons that they found and kept the land entirely for their own people. Some studies even find enough genes to claim that old tribal regions retain much of their original Saxon, Cornish, Welsh, Angle, Danish, etc., original divisions.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science...n-anglo-saxon-tribal-kingdoms-oxford-univers/

Genetic research is largely a pseudoscience these days, though. Any result can be obtained, particularly since ALL Europeans are remarkably similar in genetics.

 

[Raghar]

What Romano British? There was no large Roman immigration, it was just a distant province where Romans lived in only few small enclaves close to administration points. The main reason why they conquered Britain was because they wanted to show they are more competent than previous government which sunk money in conquering Britain exercise and failed.



This is rather accurate video of what happened during first invasion.

Claudius because he was a cripple didn't overestimated capabilities of healthy people and send 50000 soldiers. Which with were nearly defeated by Belgic kingdom.

 

[Bibbimbop]

The Notitia Dignitatum disagrees with you, mentioning a long list of foreign units in Britain that probably had hundreds of thousands of troops over the course of their histories. All of these would have settled down and established roots near their garrisons.

There were also many colonies established in the "distant province" for Roman veterans. Far more than a "few enclaves" in fact.

All of this became moot when Anglo-Saxons decided to genocide the Romano-British rather than enslave them.

A.D. 477. This year came Ella to Britain, with his three sons, Cymen, and Wlenking, and Cissa, in three ships; landing at a place that is called Cymenshore. There they slew many of the Welsh; and some in flight they drove into the wood that is called Andred'sley.

A.D. 490. This year Ella and Cissa besieged the city of Andred, and slew all that were therein; nor was one Briten left there afterwards.

A.D. 591. This year there was a great slaughter of Britons at Wanborough; Ceawlin was driven from his kingdom, and Ceolric reigned six years.

That's the Anglo-Saxons themselves being pleased about it. The other side also records great slaughter in the account of St Gildas.

The reason you say there were no Romano-British is because they left no trace when they were killed, but that they existed in great numbers is certain.

 

[fantadomat]

Roman story is pretty dark and depressing,they too decided to follow the road of tolerance instead of whipping all the barbarians they let them in their country,let it rot and eventually got slaughtered by them. It is amazing how humans even if they know the history they never learn from it. Greed and short term gains are always more important to us that the future of our own kind...it is sad.

 

[Fedora Master]

Whales are largely unaffected by Saxonism.

No wonder it's such a miserable place.

 

[A horse of course]

Finished an Ultimate Victory (Get a Long Campaign Victory then defeat the invasion fleets AKA stack spam). Didn't really change any of my previous thoughts on the subject. Fighting off a

Spoiler

Norman Invasion

was pretty cool even if it was annoying trying to get all armies all the way back in time, and I appreciated that the Invasions fleets target the closest major factions rather than just making a beeline for the player, but after that you've won anyway so it's just map painting.

I'll probably wait for the overhaul patch and blood dlc at the start of August to mess around with some minor mods and see if there's any sign of DLC on the horizon.

 

[LESS T_T]

Bloody DLC: https://store.steampowered.com/app/...THRONES_OF_BRITANNIA__Blood_Sweat_and_Spears/

Rule Britannia with a bloodied iron fist and experience the true brutality of war. Blood, Sweat and Spears adds ultra-violence and gore to A Total War Saga: THRONES OF BRITANNIA.

Paint the battlefield red by chopping off limbs, spilling guts and taking heads, revel in the greater ruthlessness of combat between armies on the Campaign Map.

Blood, Sweat and Spears includes:

• Ultra-violent battle fatalities
  
• Gory combat animations on the campaign map
  
• Blood spraying across the battlefield and spilling on the floor
  
• Guts spilling out of stomach wounds
  
• Blood splattered unit cards as the units take damage in battle
  
• Blood-soaked event clips

All effects with this pack can be enabled or disabled in the Graphics Options menu.

This DLC is similar in scope to the Blood & Burning pack for Total War: ATTILA, sharing some of its effects. It will be available for free to players that already own that content for ATTILA.

 

[A horse of course]

Pretty sure the second half of that animation is new, and it looks absolutely awful.

 

[A horse of course]

Interesting post-mortem interview between Jack Lusted and a shill. Poor dude looks like he's gonna hang himself.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Silva]

So is this good?

I'm itching for a total war game and was about to reinstall my ol' Shogun 2 suite. Should I instead take a look at this?

 

[A horse of course]

So is this good?

I'm itching for a total war game and was about to reinstall my ol' Shogun 2 suite. Should I instead take a look at this?

For a 5-10 bong campaign DLC? Sure. Not for the price they're asking.

 

[Silva]

Ended up getting it.

I'm midway a campaign as Bard from Sea Kings and having fun so far. It has a number of very good ideas (CK2 -like politics and chars' dynamic personalty traits, army supplies, food, interactive quests, research, etc) that unfortunately are marred by lack of playtesting and balancing. It seems things are too binary right now, with some aspects having obviously optimal outcomes resulting in dull gameplay (the "estates" mechanic being the most offensive, it should be simply cut out IMO). They should try giving more nuance to the game, making things more analogue and less binary, if that makes sense. I can see this game getting really good if the devs have the patience to do that.

 

[A horse of course]

https://www.totalwar.com/blog/the-steel-statecraft-update

Last week we gave you a brief taster of what’s coming up next for A Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia and today we’re ready to share a few more highlights from the forthcoming Steel & Statecraft update.

Estates Overhaul

The purpose of Estates was to add challenges in managing a kingdom where each noble is playing the game of intrigue, looking to grab more power and land for themselves. However, the system didn’t have as much impact as we’d have liked, which is why Estates have received a rework to better represent a king granting land to his more important lords, thus ensuring their devotion to the crown. With the power of land ownership comes a responsibility for the owner to properly tend to his holdings – each Estate will offer a positive effect if given to the proper lord, or a negative one if the noble is not suited to presiding over such lands.

The nobles in turn do not sit idly, hoping for deeds to fall in their lap. The Estate Desire traits, which characters previously gained, have been replaced with requests, directed towards the crown in the form of missions. Every so often a lord in your faction will ask to be granted Estates, offering a reward in return. But if you deem the noble ineligible or sense malicious intent, and you ignore their request, their loyalty will start to waiver.

We’ve added more weight to managing your Estates, and to help with that we’ve reorganized the Estates interface. Each lord will list the effects that they provide from Estates they own. Moving Estates around has been made easier – clicking on an Estate will grant it to the selected character on the left. Beware, however, of dealing with Estates that are not in the king’s possession – nobles are quite attached to their lands and will rarely part with them without repercussions.

Traits

Traits depict the story of each character; their upbringing, their personality and the events that have occurred in their lifetime. Sifting through each character’s history can be cumbersome, which is why we’ve stacked traits into groups. Each trait group is now represented by a banner, with all effects of the traits within listed underneath. Clicking on a banner will list all traits within that group, giving a detailed account of the noble’s qualities.

As mentioned previously, each trait group will list how it affects a character’s Estates. The group with the most traits will be marked with a large yellow icon, showing the lord’s dominant characteristics and what effects they grant to the noble’s land ownership.

Recruitment Revamp

Recruitment in Thrones of Britannia is chance based, similar to the way in which mercenaries worked in previous titles. While it’s an interesting challenge to build armies with imperfect composition and size, it has downsides too, such as elite units appearing scarcely, and losing your painstakingly assembled army can be a devastating blow to your campaign.

We’ve replaced this chance-based system with cooldowns. When a unit type is recruited, there’s now a set number of turns before another becomes available. This retains the sense of choice limitation, but rewards planning and removes the random punishment of not having enough units simply because they didn’t appear in the recruitment pool.

The time it takes to build a full army can be lengthy, so recruitment events have been added, granting a quick supply of units to help with defending territories, or adding a helpful push to your conquering.

Buildings, technologies and faction mechanics have all received new effects to improve the recruitment times of units. We’ve also eased the unlock requirements of military technologies, to make meaningful choices in army management more accessible.

Book of Traits (Trait Browser)

With the added importance of character traits, we believe there is more purpose to managing your characters, seeking their best development. All traits present in the game are now listed in the Book of Traits along with the condition of their acquisition.

The details of a trait will be locked until the player acquires that trait for the first time. (We still want players to experiment and discover traits on their own, but unlocked trait information will now be readily available).

The Book of Traits is persistent between campaigns, allowing players to hunt for a specific trait in a later playthrough.

Buildings and Settlement Maps
Villages are getting a second, alternative building path straight from level 2. This should give players the opportunity to fine-tune their economy through minor settlements. The existing paths are vastly unchanged (safe for some minor balance tweaks) for an easier transition.

We’ve also created some new buildings that will feature on all settlement maps (both major ones and villages).

• Viking Gatehouse
• Viking Long Hall
• Viking Turf-roof Hall
• Viking Drinking Hall
• Viking House 1
• Viking House 2
• Viking House 3
• Viking House 4
• Anglo-Saxon Chieftains House
• Anglo-Saxon Great Hall (under construction)

New Major Settlement Maps
Since siege battles in Thrones of Britannia have been popular, we’re making two brand new settlement maps, one based on Bebbanburg Castle, and the other on The Rock of Cashel.

• Map 1 – based on Bebbanburg Castle (used in-game for Bebbanburg and Eidenburg)
• Map 2 – based on Rock of Cashel (used in-game for Caisil and Grianán Aileach)

Mod Support
Last but by no means least, we’ve made a couple of changes to help out Modders. Most notably, the Recruitment window can now accommodate any number of custom units (with a scroll-bar). Also retail pack files now contain exported binaries for all basic UI components, in addition to the already existing composite templates.

And That’s Not All…
The update features improvements to lots of other areas of the game, including updates to battle AI, performance optimisations, visual improvements, UI enhancements and more. Look out for the patch notes next week to see a full list of improvements, updates and fixes.

I appreciate the fact they're still trying to rework the questionable gameplay mechanics rather than just abandon it and move on to another cash grab, but I doubt anyone cares enough until the next big sale. perhaps they're hoping for a little bump from the new seasons of Vikings/Last Kingdom.

 

[Fedora Master]

As I understand it, they have different teams that all need to be kept occupied so that's why they are still working on R2 and this. In other words, it's busywork for numales and pajeets.