Patch notes for version EA 0.9.7 – February 7th, 2020

Build number: 595365

Hi all!

Here is our first release of 2020! As many of you know we originally planned to release EA 0.9.7. in January. We received lots of reports via our Redmine bug tracker, which we wanted to take care of, before the version goes live.
We were putting a lot of effort into the new music system and further stabilizing the game.

Please note: we sadly noticed in our final testing round before the launch that we have a crash and a problem with the ambient sound system. The crash should happen rarely, but due to some strange combinations of bad luck with karma you may transfer sounds from one map to the main menu and then to your next map. It is also possible that this will affect the performance. We are already working on a hotfix that we believe will be ready next week. Sorry for this inconvenience!

New features

With this release you will be able to hear way more music tracks compared to EA 0.9.6. We have separated the tracks in background and event music. The track selected for the background music depends on your family’s title, their moral values, whether you live in a village or city, office position, season and whether it’s day or night. The background music can be interrupted by event music. Events such as the wedding, a family member being in combat, a house is on fire or if your family is having harsh times (no money or no residence). Overall we are really happy that we finally have more tracks in the game that reflect the current situation your family is in. Let us know what you think.
In order to make building placement easier we are now highlighting the streets while being in the building placement mode.

Content & Balancing

We slightly improved the system that controls from what business citizens are buying their goods.
Lansquenets are now less likely to pick a building that is already protected.
The rogue tree businesses have been updated in aspects of income so the rogue class economy is working better.

Art

Lots of texture and material improvements.
Several lightmaps and LODs fixed and/or adjusted.
Metal surfaces and objects now look more like if they were made of real metal.
All scenario maps have been worked (bug fixes, reorganizing streets, atmosphere of sceneries, etc.).

Optimization

Optimized network serialization code in order to improve network performance in multiplayer.
Reduced unnecessary net_references to reduce the amount of data that needs to be synced between host and clients.
Optimized the way character plaques are rendered so they are less costly in aspects of performance (particularly on big maps).

Bug fixes

Fixed lots of crash bugs reported in EA 0.9.6.
Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash upon losing the game after banishing another character.
Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash upon pressing the embark on a romance button.
Fixed a bug that caused AI dynasties to stop doing anything anymore after the player decides to continue playing after being victorious.
Fixed a bug that caused the game to not stop the working animation correctly after sending a character to do something else.
Fixed a bug that caused the toddlers to not get transported to the church correctly after the only residence a dynasty owns gets destroyed. Just to clarify: the family keeps their toddlers, the church will just be their temporary home.
Fixed a bug that caused characters to not return to their previous route action upon being interrupted by another action. In case the character lost a fight their route is still interrupted. The same happens when a worker with full inventory flees a fight. We will take care of that in one of the next patches.
Fixed a bug that allowed players to use (eat) the “Small cake of joy” on themselves without getting any effect.
Fixed a bug that caused characters to have wrong animation upon executing the “kill action”.
Fixed a bug that allowed the partner to exit the building while executing the “produce offspring” action.
Fixed a bug that caused multiple thieves to select one target which lead to unfortunate visual implications.
Fixed a bug that caused the breaking bones action to always fail.
Fixed a bug that got henchmen stuck upon trying to eliminate someone.
Fixed a bug that caused the extort protection money action to always fail.
Fixed a bug that caused some actions to not be available for other grown-up family members despite the fact that they should have those actions as well.
Fixed a bug that caused automated employees to not heal them correctly.
Fixed a bug that caused the timer for the off-map actions to start ticking down as soon as the character starts moving.
Fixed a bug that caused boasting characters to select a new destination for boasting, after being interrupted by another action.
Fixed a bug that caused children to not enter the school correctly upon executing the “send to school” action.
Fixed a bug that caused characters playing dice where positioned too close to each other.
Fixed a bug that caused guards to slide smoothly away after another character used the break bones action on them.
Fixed a bug that caused riding horses and horse carts to vanish too early if the rider is waiting for an interaction with another character.
Fixed a bug that caused NPCs to idle too long.
Fixed a bug that caused NPCs to not unload their inventory correctly after stealing items from other characters/buildings.
Fixed a bug that caused the sovereign UI to not show the crest of the currently ruling family.
Fixed a bug that caused the gold bar to show up first in the foundry list of products despite being unlocked later.
Fixed a bug that caused the character creation UI to not reset the attribute points correctly upon starting a new game.
Fixed a bug that caused NPCs to wait too long for their conversation partners.
Fixed a bug that caused characters to get experience points even when a kill attempt was not successful.
Fixed a bug that caused extinct dynasties to not erase all their family members correctly.
Fixed a bug that caused henchmen to protect a building despite the relationship with the owning family being changed from ally to foe.
Fixed a bug that caused the game to only show a maximum of 50 characters in several UIs.
Fixed a bug that caused the far-trade UI to not update description and details after a far-trade opportunity timed out.
Fixed a bug that caused the lumberyard icon to not be shown on lumberyard items in the market.
Fixed a bug that caused right-clicking on long-distance trade routes in the quick access menu to not work correctly.
Fixed a bug that caused the apply for office window to not show up if you try to apply for the same office in another city.
Fixed a bug that caused the confirm button in the application window to be enabled despite no candidate being selected.
Fixed a bug that caused the game to show the “head of the family” icon for every prisoner in the “change prison sentence” UI.
Fixed a bug that caused the game to show valid building placement despite the fact that the position is invalid.
Fixed a bug that caused gathering workers to not pick up gathering again after their inventory was full.
Fixed a bug that caused workers to continue showing their work animation despite the fact that they already stopped working.
Fixed a bug that caused the reputation to not increase upon successfully donating money to the church.
Fixed a bug that caused automated transporters to sell item stacks one after another instead in one bulk which lead to lower sell prices.
Fixed a bug that caused the game to prevent diplomatic actions while the target character is busy.
Fixed a bug that caused the dynasty trade window to not react to changes happening in the background that affect the current trade.
Fixed a bug that caused the warehouse UI to not update correctly when switching between different buildings.
Fixed a bug that caused the knowledge hub access button to be wrongly placed in the “new child” pop-up.
Fixed several inconsistencies in the save game dialogue.
Fixed several text issues.
Fixed a bug that allowed the player to select multiple scenario maps by right mouse button clicking.
Fixed a bug that caused the character to be stuck in the church upon saving and loading while being in the church scene.
Fixed several bugs related to multiplayer.

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 “c:\Users\[USERNAME]\Saved Games\Guild3\” (standard under Windows).
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 can 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 “C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Guild3\” (or “C:\Users\[USERNAME]\Documents\Guild3\”). Then re-install the game.
Join our official Discord server (https://discord.gg/CGnN2Vb) where you can meet us (that is, when we take a break from developing games) and other players to chat about the game.

What we are planning for the next patch

For the next patch we are planning to introduce a big change to the economy – the separated markets. We are currently working on a developer diary focused on that feature, so you can see what to expect.

A short outlook…

Besides the separated markets we are planning to make the needs of the citizens more transparent, so you have an easier time seeing how needs and of course prices are developing.

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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 0.9.7: https://forms.gle/eSRQ8L5jBajLh7Dn9
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.