Larian Studios Forums Dragon Commander Dragon Commander - Beta Changelist 1.0.152.9727

Surprise! A new beta update!

We read and heard you regarding the end of battle rules and are working on changing the system, but that's probably only going to be in tomorrow. In the meantime however, here are a couple of sweet changes that increase stability, take care of some long standing requests and in general make your dragon life better.

- Added "Show map" button to battle menu
- Fixed shadow artifacts when zoomed out in combat
- Added more information to tooltips in battle menu
- Pathfinding issues fixes for boats
- Iron clads can attack sea build sites now
- Double clicking a unit will only select the units of the same type on-screen
- Added "Skip" and "Continue" button to auto-resolve
- Mouse-button to pan the camera in strategy phase is configurable now
- Fixed mouse-click_through issues on some UIs
- Hunters will shoot the dragon now with rockets
- Fixed stability issues for polyphormed units
- Ocean files do not give affinity anymore
- Cards that are played correctly undo now
- Several smaller stability fixes

Have fun!

I've noticed in the last couple patches that Shaman seem to perform worse. They don't response to my commands very well and often lag very far behind the main forces. Almost to the point of uselessness unless you baby them along. Didn't notice this last week.

- Mouse-button to pan the camera in strategy phase is configurable now

Ah finally.. Thank you!

Is the building creation bug on the campaign map fixed with this update?

Well I'm glad that render engine issues are fixed as well!

Lord Crash - yes... but there's a new bug where all the information from the maps is gone. No country names, population, gold, research points... that's missing from the graphics of the map.

I do like being able to see the map before committing to battle/autoresolve and most importantly before using mercenary cards.




Uh... where exactly is that configurable? I've looked through all the options twice, and the controls three times, and I can't see where to change that.

Just got this bug myself. Got it after loading.
Here is a screen shot.
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1119427776392877277/862E9FD1AED9965E7B51D74E9800454D9C654FAD/




Yes this is a good feature. Maybe a new card should be introduced to work with it. A "terrain advantage card" where you can change the map. Make it rare though.

Also, it seems that devastators on siege mode do not attack the targets you tell them to, they say its "out of reach" even if the target is right next to them.

Thanks! Keep up your great work!

Signed!

And I still think that the "percentage to win" should be displayed not only at the very bottom but also on the screen where you decide if you want to autoresolve or engage personally in battle. It's kind of weird to have to mouseover over the respective country when the battle preparation screen for a single country is already visible....

On the new campaign map, I've noticed that I don't seem to be getting any mercenary cards. I have several taverns but they don't seem to be coming up. Also the enemy doesn't seem to be getting them either.

Finally got some time to play with the latest patch.
The gold costs on the strategy map are much more sensible again.
And it's nice to have another multiplayer campaign map to play with.

Unfortunately balancing between campaign map/RTS units is still very much the same, meaning that in comparison to RTS units, initial units still don't matter much, unless you bring a large amount of them, but I guess we won't see a change in that anymore.

Well, I'm still looking forward to finally playing the single player campaign!
Very interested to see if it plays any differently to the beta.

I actually kind of like it where it's at right now. You don't get too much advantage with 2-3 units in the fight but when you actually have decent forces on the strat map it helps. One exception though is troopers and grenadiers. They really aren't worth their gold cost in strat map. If I changed anything it would be making troopers and grenadiers worth more in conversion. 3 gold for 3 troopers? that's a ripoff. If I was modifying the strat-RTS conversion I like how it is for most things now but I would make each trooper or grenadier counter count as 5-7 units in RTS. 1 gold per trooper is just crazy!

I haven't gotten far enough into a campaign to use higher-level units, but yeah, Troopers and Grenadiers could be bumped up more, to 4 or 5. Higher than 5 would probably be too much.

Well, it works and it's not too bad.
IMHO it's probably not the strong part of the game, though (for me that is).
Although I won't exclude the possibility that I'm just not very good at the RTS part.

Anyway (I know I'm repeating myself here), I think that considering the amount of units on the campaign map, the numbers in the RTS part are much too high (or the conversion rates too low).
The combat IS build around spamming units.
While there are a lot of abilities and strategies to discourage blobbing, you will still pump out units at an insane pace, which for me at least usually results in battles that go on until the ressources are depleted (unless I attack with absolutely overwhelming force).

Personally I would still increase build times and/or build costs, but I guess Larian won't do that anymore. Too bad, would have loved to give it a try at least.

That being said, the game has improved a lot over the beta (but I think the RTS part was best somewhere in the middle).

Just out of curiosity how many units do you typically attack with? I found the Campaign AI is a bit too rushy due to recent changes to the conversion (now keeping forces together matters more) but if you defeat it's initial waves and dont immediately push back and rush yourself it tend to create a more stable front that sees larger forces clashing. Once you get that the RTS conversion is much better (although I still think grenadier/trooper conversions are too low) and you get decent starting forces.

The problem is it seems the AI is still seemingly coded around strat map units not really mattering much and it races units out to every corner of the map threatening everything. As such if you are good at the RTS without major starting forces you can push them back with tiny 2 units vs 3 units kind of fights and rush yourself knocking them out due to momentum. However if you give them a few turns to get borders more finalized then they start massing forces in border regions and you see bigger clashes.

The downside is it's easier to just rush with a big stack while they are disorganized (as letting them organize with a stable front makes the battles harder and greatly increases the average amount of units in combat). A change to the strat map AI to keep units grouped in larger numbers when near enemy units and not just throw units piecemeal into border regions would be nice.

An example of that is a recent campaign I played on center mass. The enemy had a large force of mostly hunters and grenadiers (there were a few other units but they are inconsequential). They were 2 moves away from a border region that I was about to assault with a large mixed force (around 10 or so units) They tried to move the whole force to the region where I was about to attack but the hunters made it it one turn while the slower units only moved one space. As a result I was able to attack and overwhelm the hunters and then next turn overwhelm the grenadiers and other units. If the AI had sacrificed the border territory and had the hunters only move 1 space (thus keeping the units grouped together) then they would have had a chance at beating me at the next territory where they could have bunched up.

Edit: Explanation as to my thoughts on why battles tend to be small

Obviously it depends on the numbers the AI has by the time.
But most of the time it's at the maximum of what I can build, which will be roughly the same as the enemy anyway, with the exception of a small force I leave behind to guard against flanking maneuvers.

Yeah but what is the average amount of units? I find that once you get 10+ units in the fight then starting units feel like they really matter while if you do the tiny 2 unit vs 2 units fights the AI loves to pick they won't really ever feel very large.

I used to hate the conversion rates, but they have improved a bit since the start of beta and now 10-15 unit (on the strat map) clashes actually feel like you start with something. It might be that you just don't like it because the AI loves picking tiny fights as opposed to big offensives. That's just my opinion though.

I usually attack with 100% of max at once or a 50/50 split on two fronts. Depends on the map.

Had a very interesting experience today though. The AI on insane was building a LARGE quantity of warlocks. And it was using the special abilities really well. They annihilated like 4/5ths of my army just with mass spamming death from above. Quite nasty.

Were you not getting any at all? Taverns should generate mercenary cards every 3 turns (and did for me Tuesday, at least).