Patch notes for EA 0.9.14 “Uprising of the AI” – June 9th, 2021

Build number: 622947

Hello Guild fans,

The team worked really hard on this patch, fighting the constantly shrinking number of bugs, balancing the gameplay and adding new features at the same time. It has been one of our biggest internal milestones and we are very happy that we were able to achieve it! It is not the final iteration of these improvements, though. We will continue to work on them. Nevertheless, we didn’t want to keep you waiting any longer and we are also very excited about your feedback 🙂
We changed the format of the patch notes and have split them into two parts: the first of which contains the foreword and an overview of the current patch – so in case you just want to skip through the patch notes you will find the highlights in the first part. The second part includes all details to the patch. And as usual, you can find the link to the latest survey at the end of the patch notes.
You might notice that we have removed the passages about our next plans, because from now on, we will reveal some of our plans in the monthly DevDiaries. While we still want to talk a bit about the things happening during development, we will as well give you a bit of a forecast on what you can expect.

Please support us and take the time to give reviews. Thank you very much!

Overview

New features: With EA 0.9.14, we implemented a feature that allows you to add fan-translated text files more easily to your game. You will also find four different ground texture sets in the game, that give the single scenario maps a much more unique style.
Content & Balancing: The most important updates here are unarguably the changes in the levels of difficulty and the AI. With this patch and with the coming patches, the game will be more challenging, depending on your preferred difficulty setting. The AI will not be perfect in EA 0.9.14 but the AI characters will start to act more like real entities with more defined objectives. We will be constantly working on our AI-tuning for the next patches.
Bug fixes: We have fixed more than 50 major issues and more than twice that number of minor bugs, including 13 bugs that led to a crash of the game.

We value your feedback!

If you have the time, we would appreciate it if you could fill out a short survey regarding the changes we made in patch EA 0.9.14: https://forms.gle/UUXsdqPHvbS6iWyu7
Please note: we do not collect any personal information other than your feedback – you will remain completely anonymous. This survey will end the day we release the next patch.

 

New features

  • Over the course of the last months, a number of fan-translators asked for support for their fan-translations. So this feature is especially for you guys 🙂 All you have to do is copy one of the existing “locdirect_[language].loo” files in the folder “media\localization” and name your copy the way you like, e.g. “myFanTranslation.loo”. Then translate the text keys you want and delete the ones that you don’t need. You can even split your translation into several files, like “myFanTranslation1.loo”, “myFanTranslation2.loo” and so on. When the game starts, all entries in your “*.loo” files will replace the texts in the language you have chosen in the options menu.
    • please note that The Guild 3 supports all characters in the “Basic Multilingual Plane” (BMP)
    • another side-note: as mentioned in DevDiary #18, we will add fully translated texts in all languages in the game in July or August. New texts after that point in time will be translated at a later time, but the bulk of the texts will be translated then.
  • our scenario maps now support different ground texture sets. We have implemented three new ground texture sets which you can find in Wenighusen (Tutorial), Heligoland, Paris and in London. We are very curious what you think of that 🙂
  • transporters are now able to replace their carrying bag or cart with an item of a higher tier – in the options of the game you can enable or disable that behavior

 

Content & Balancing

  • Level of Difficulty
    • the level of difficulty now affects several aspects of the game, like prices for employees and prices for a number of actions
    • reputation changes due to some actions, mostly interactions, are influenced by the level of difficulty
    • the level of difficulty for human players and for AI players are applied contrary: if you choose “easy”, the AI dynasties will play with “hard”, and conversely.
  • AI
    • the AI can and will from now on use all available artifacts – be careful to not be bombed away!
    • the availability and weighting of the actions of the AI archetypes have been completely reworked. AI dynasties should now act more logically and with focus on specific goals. Please be aware that this focus can shift a bit over time and sometimes a dynasty might follow some hidden goals.
    • AI characters can equip special artifacts, like the hare’s paw or the rat companion, and get rid of useless items, like the old boot
    • the plot of land where the AI places a new building is from now on chosen in an intelligent way, considering distance to marketplaces or other businesses and dozens of other parameters (see DevDiary #17)
    • from now on, the AI will erect more new buildings on city grounds as well, including higher tier residences
    • possibility and frequency of denounce and praise actions have been reworked in a way that they aren’t performed so often anymore
    • the AI now considers own buildings and unlocked skills when receiving a proposal for a dynastic trade
    • the individual building addons are evaluated based on the playing style of the AI dynasty and purchased accordingly
  • Dynasty Management
    • the size of the player family and AI families is limited to a specific max size given by the level of difficulty. The bigger the family is the harder it gets to grow the family even more.
    • the current size of a family (adults and children) is displayed in the family tree and in the book of dynasties
    • with patch EA 0.9.14, you are able to own more businesses – we increased the maximum number of businesses given by the title from 15 to 18
    • the Avatar, their spouse and the (adult) heir now have access to most actions and/or artifacts of the family’s henchmen, like bombs and poisons; actions like conquering buildings are still available only for henchmen
    • the Avatar, their spouse and the (adult) heir now have exclusive access to powerful actions like “Church donation” and “Oil the wheels of bureaucracy”
    • romancing: characters now have a number of possible preferences when being courted. If you for example choose “sweet talk” for your courtship, they may prefer a present or a more intimate action next. Having approached your romance target in their preferred way, you get a bonus to the success. We also increased the success chances of “sweet talk” and “kiss” a bit.
  • Reputation system
    • Aggression radius: with actions like “Kill character” or “Kidnap character”, you can from now on get away without negative consequences if no one witnesses your doing. But if you kidnap someone in the middle of a crowded marketplace, do not wonder if a lot of people are angry at you…
    • the reputation changes of all actions in the game have been balanced
    • for some aggressive actions, the character’s ‘stealth’ is considered when the reputation changes
  • Moral attitude and Guilds
    • the way actions impact the moral attitudes (the values) of a dynasty has been reworked. If you use the same action over and over again, the impact will decrease accordingly. Additionally, the impact of for example aggressive actions will decrease when you are already considered an aggressive dynasty. This way, most of the dynasties should no longer end up with an extreme negative moral attitude with nearly no chance of changing
    • the impact on attitudes of all actions have been balanced
    • Guild invitations should from now on be triggered correctly. Once you have reached a higher title and your moral attitudes match the attitudes of a Guild, you should be invited to their midst.
  • Area map
    • the layer with the details and filters is active by default
    • from now on, you can find the religious beliefs of the inhabitants of city districts and villages in the details layer of the area map
    • surroundings and rivers/sea ways are no longer displayed in the overview of neighborhoods
  • 3d Artwork
    • steep terrain has been smoothed out on almost all maps
    • water now has floating algae and we added waves to few water areas (in Heligoland for example). But as those are performance hungry, we have to look into it before we decide if we can add more)
    • new normal maps for mountain rocks and some cliffs (see Heligoland for example)
    • more shadow and some LOD rework for vegetation props
  • Sound
    • a new option to adjust the loudness of interface sounds has been added
    • several new ambient sounds and new SFX for characters and carts have been added
    • ambient soundscape has been balanced further
  • buildings now have specific construction times and specific renovation costs. The rule of thumb is: the higher the tier of a building, the higher the construction time and the renovation costs. As a consequence, the start buildings in the “Poor fellow” mode have the shortest construction times.
  • tutorial: the active quest is from now on pre-selected in the questbook so that its description and details are displayed without the need to select it first
  • in case a character in a list of valid targets is for some reason not available, the game shows the feedback “busy”
  • you are now able to place items you are purchasing directly into the equipment slots of your characters
  • resource producers (mine, lumberyard and quarry) can now have up to 4 fully equipped transporters
  • currently working employees get paused if you drop an item into their inventory. This way you can equip your workers or give them artifacts and the automation does not automatically transfer the items back in the storage of your building
  • the duration of the actions “Drive your workers”, “Spur your transporters on” and “Motivate your workers” (Guild action) are now shorter while the duration of the effects are longer
  • we have added new (and cooler 🙂 ) religion-related icons
  • whenever a character changes their faith, a specific particle effect is shown above their head
  • “2 years per round'”is now the standard setting in the map selection menu
  • a number of new NPC dialogues, like talks about the Sovereign or a specific dynasty, have been added
  • more of the actions are now part of the law system and in case they are illegal, you can be brought to court
  • the productivity of employees is now displayed for all producing characters and the percentage is colored in red if the value is lower than normal (debuffed) or green if it is higher than normal (buffed)
  • from now on, you will receive proper notifications when someone throws a bomb or applies a poison at one of your buildings
  • the target selection pop-up for romances, bribes etc. show information as to why the target is unavailable
  • the professions of potter, minstrel and preacher are now more economically balanced than before

 

Bug fixes

  • multiplayer: several connectivity bugs and crashes have been fixed
  • multiplayer: a crash could occur when trying to access the options via the main menu
  • multiplayer: a crash could occur if you clicked on ‘back’ in the list of available games
  • multiplayer: fixed a crash when loading a MP savegame while the system tried to set up the order list of a building when the owning dynasty was switched from human player to AI player or counterwise
  • on the Paris map, a crash could occur after a short playing time
  • a crash could occur when AI characters calculated their decision in a political vote on an NPC
  • a crash could occur if an action was to be carried out by an invalid character or an invalid building
  • a crash could occur when loading a saved game with an invalid item; this was caused by an error in the save function
  • fixed a crash that could occur when the AI tried to spend attribute points on a character who died in the same moment. We hope that we were able to fix all causes of this specific crash and we will monitor possible crash reports with EA 0.9.14 – fingers crossed 🙂
  • if a player character was banished, it could lead to a crash
  • fixed a crash when an AI character tries to change the prison sentence of a jailed character who has no family/dynasty
  • AI dynasties sometimes offered too much money in the lease auctions of resource producers
  • in case a catholic or a protestant married a secular character it was possible that the spouse did not become catholic or protestant – fixed
  • fixed a number of bugs in the system that applies birth traits to newborn
  • when selecting an item for children the inventory slots of adults were highlighted as well
  • it was possible to equip adults with items which were allowed for children only
  • it was possible to drag equipped items from adults to toddlers when inside the residence
  • multiplayer: the models (bodies) of the previously defeated NPCs were still present after saving and loading the saved game
  • the family wide action cooldown hadn’t prevented multiple identical actions from getting started in parallel
  • a bug allowed the Powder Of Hygeia to be applied to foreign buildings
  • fixed a bug in actions with an audience – e.g. begging or playing music – that caused under specific circumstances the actor to become a valid target of their own action…
  • fixed a number of calculation issues with the score of the dynasties; please note: we will invest more time to the balance the score and the three connected achievements
  • removed raw materials and intermediates from the list of relevant goods in the front store section in businesses in which they cannot be produced
  • surrounding regions are no longer shown in the list of districts and villages on the area map
  • multiplayer: fixed a number of occasions where tooltips of actions and/or buffs weren’t shown on the client’s side
  • fixed a number of bugs related to AI dynasties constantly praising and denouncing other dynasties; we finally got rid of this spamming 🙂
  • fixed a bug that allowed preachers to be affected by the religious speeches of other preachers and therewith sometimes converted
  • re-organized the categories of several items so that they now appear in the right categories at the marketplace
  • the sounds of birds and other ambience sounds were wrongly assigned to group “sfx” instead of “ambient”; we fixed that so when you now switch off ambient sounds, the birds will be silent 😉
  • the disease immunity buff of the workers of the hospital was missing
  • fixed a bug where the list of customers would fail to update when a customer started getting treated/served
  • city guards sometimes reacted on actions where an audience gathered, like when minstrels playing music
  • a bug has been fixed that prevented transporters to upgrade to a better transportation item a second time
  • fixed a number of bugs with the notifications and alerts when conquering a building or when someone conquers a player’s building
  • fixed several bugs that broke the price trend and the needs trend graphs of markets in longer games; we additionally had to limit the history for the graphs to 20 rounds
  • fixed a bug with the bandages; a success now also shows a particle effect
  • budget book: the income through leased resource producers was not added to the family’s total
  • budget book: the wrong building level was displayed (actually it was the level of the unlocked skill…)
  • fixed a bug that made exotic wares like amber or brocade available at the ports; players now have to go on far trade missions again to get those wares
  • the audience of a preacher’s church service didn’t donate money – we taught them good behavior now 🙂
  • pedestrians now have to decide if they want to listen to the minstrels on their stage or to a preacher performing a holy church service
  • fixed a bug that allowed own minstrels to perform a stage show in every own minstrel tent; same went for preachers and preacher huts
  • fixed a bug that caused the workers of neutral preacher’s huts and minstrel tents to idle instead of working
  • non-producing business buildings had an incorrect productivity buff set
  • multiplayer: fixed a bug where the economy stock and market inventory would go out of sync when a character sold something to a trade market
  • henchmen who are protecting a building should from now on react accordingly to aggressions against that building
  • several animations have been reworked and/or bug fixed
  • several smaller bug fixes and tweaks in the area map
  • several bug fixes and tweaks on all maps

 

Known issues

  • sometimes an AI character may perform the same action multiple times in a row, even when it may make no sense; e.g. applying a bandage when the character is not hurt.
  • dynastic trades may be a bit tricky at the moment, because AI dynasties will not accept offers of businesses they don’t need or where they have no skills unlocked for; at the moment AI dynasties will not sell businesses they need for their skill tree no matter how high the offer is
  • the AI could be a bit too peaceful even in feuds – please give us feedback of how you see that
  • guarding and escorting henchmen are sometimes not released from their duty when the building changes the owner or when the escorted character is in jail etc.
  • inhabitants/employees don’t leave a burning building and too few of them are attending in extinguishing the flames
  • a number of newly added NPC actions have no icon yet

 

Important information

The game does not display/load save games from outdated patch versions as they have become incompatible due to the rework of core systems.
If you are experiencing difficulties with loading and saving the game, you may attempt to delete all files from the folder “%userprofile%\Saved Games\Guild3” (C:\Users\[USERNAME]\Saved Games\Guild3).
Multiplayer: If you have a restrictive firewall then you may have to manually open the following outgoing ports to be able to play in multiplayer: 61111 TCP & UDP, 36895 TCP & UDP, 36975 TCP & UDP. You can find this information as well in the FAQs Multiplayer on our webpage!
It is quite possible that some problems that you have in your game are caused by missing or corrupted files. In this case, the following might help:

  • STEAM -> right-click on “The Guild 3” in your Steam library, then Properties – LOCAL FILES – VERIFY INTEGRITY OF GAME FILES…
  • GOG -> right-click on “The Guild 3” in your library, then Properties – “More” – Manage Installation – VERIFY/REPAIR

If you still have issues afterwards, then we recommend to uninstall the game and then manually delete the folder “%localappdata%\Guild3” (C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Guild3). Then re-install the game.
Crash dumps for bug reports can be found in “%localappdata%\Guild3\sentry\reports” (C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Guild3\sentry\reports) per default.
Join our official Discord server (https://discord.gg/theguild) where you can meet us (that is, when we take a break from developing games) and other players to chat about the game.