Greetings commanders!
Since the last update I’ve totally overhauled the action system to allow for more in depth combat mechanics and better game feel. The core combat system provides each unit with a primary, secondary, defensive, and commander ability. Most attacks have chainable combos as well. The new ability sets for each of the 5 core archetypes are as follows:
Sword and Shield - Emphasizes survivability and defensive skills while holding its own in combat.
- Primary: Sword Swipe - A cleaving melee attack dealing damage to nearby enemies
- Secondary: Shield Bash - A weaker attack with increased knockback to create space from enemies.
- Defensive: Shield Block - Slows movement to reduce damage from the front to 1 point of damage.
- Commander: Rally - The commander rallies his troops to heal all units in the formation.
Skirmisher - The skirmisher’s kit emphasizes mobility and hit and run tactics. Their melee attacks don’t slow them down as they dip in and out of combat with ease.
- Primary: Twin Blades - quick successive attacks against nearby enemies.
- Secondary: Backstab - Singular attacks that deal double damage if attacking from behind the target.
- Defensive: Dash - Quickly dash in the indicated direction.
- Commander: Throwing Axes - Units in the formation throw axes a medium distance.
Great Weapons - A damaged focused build using massive weapons to dominate the battlefield
- Primary: Swing Blade - Cleaving Melee Attack with good reach and damage.
- Secondary: Piercing Blow - A linear attack with good damage ideal for durable targets.
- Defensive: Parry - Negates the next attack within a short period and unleashes a powerful counterattack.
- Commander: Charge - The formation charges forward dealing damage to anyone that stands in their way.
Pikemen - Another defensive class that uses long spears to keep threats at arm's length.
- Primary: Pike Wall - The formation holds their spears forward creating a damaging barrier for any enemies that touch it.
- Secondary: Spear Thrust - a linear damaging attack with good reach.
- Defensive: Still in development.
- Commander: Advancing Blades - Advances forward at full speed with blades extended forward.
Archer - As a ranged focused class Archers thrive engaging targets from a distance.
- Primary: Shoot arrow - Fires arrows over a long distance at a good rate of fire.
- Secondary: Melee attack - Used to fend off units that get too close. Not as effective as other classes.
- Defensive: Still in development.
- Commander: Still in development.
In addition to the action system rework, formations have also had stances added to them allowing greater control over the troops you command. Currently you can choose between tight formations where your troops will maintain their position and mimic any abilities their commander performs, or a loose formation where they will find and independently engage targets near the formation. The current unit type and battlefield situation dictate the best option for any given moment. Pikemen for example benefit from maintaining a tight formation with spears extended while skirmishers benefit from piling in and flanking their targets.
Swordsmen fight independently while Pikemen stay in formation
There have been some visual updates as well like commander's attacks having a visible “swoosh” for better combat readability, animation updates, some UI cleanup along with archers finally having quivers.
Next Steps involve ongoing polish and refinement along with starting to build out additional game modes like a wave survival siege mode, or a map based grand campaign mode. The tutorial will need a revamp teaching the new and updated mechanics, but that will wait until the mechanics are more finalized and design locked.
That's it for now so make sure to try out the new update and wish list the game if you haven't yet.
