Today we are celebrating the 3rd Birthday of Totem Tribe II: Jotun. It has been exactly 3 years since we launched the ALPHA 1 version of the game to the general public and now we are approaching ALPHA 7. Let's look back  and reminisce about things that happened during the last year.

We have had similar threads for earlier Birthdays, so you can browse them here: 1st Birthday, 2nd Birthday.

So - what were the major milestones of the past year?

• Travelling Characters were added. They added some life to your stale towns. Some of them were trivial, while others were deep and even had large quests (think Necromancer). We are going to add more unexpected events to your towns in the future.
• ALPHA 6 was launched on the 23rd of March 2016. This was the biggest event of the last year and featured loads of new content. Industrial Age was introduced along with all those new units and buildings, and a pack of quest locations such as monster dens, a whole new desert climate, Tesla minigame and many more. You can review the news of alpha 6 launch here.
• Ongoing interface changes. This year we finally found time to improve game interface and to make it more convenient and less buggy and laggy. New minimap with icons, new build menu and upgrade screens were highly regarded by players and today we are also adding some more eye-candy to the interface. You can compare how game interface looked back in 2012 at our facebook page. In the future we also plan to redesign how advisors work, so all those annoying Zweistein popups will go away.
• Random Dungeons were evolutionary improvement over Random Caves , which were introduced during A4. The addition is 9 randomly generated dungeons which are different for each hero.
• Numerous balancing updates can be easily overlooked. They are those minor bits that might be hard to notice at first glance, but shape the game's fundamentals and make it fun to play. I am talking about things like Tavern building, prolonged beginners' protection which smoothed out the early gaming for newbies, destruction balancing which made it more reasonable, alliance balancing, improved movement speed of all units which made the game more fun, and finally - the most recent easier recovery from destruction. By the way, in today's update we have increased timers for easier recovery x2.
• Other updates - there have been dozens of smaller updates throughout the year and if you are really curious, you can find the list of all changes for the past 12 months in our update log.

Thanks to your support we were able to make it through another year, and closer to our ultimate vision of how Totem Tribe II should be. Yes, it may look like the game still needs a lot of work, and it's true, but we will do our best to make sure you have fun while we are slowly moving toward the full version release.

To celebrate today's Totem Tribe II: Jotun birthday, everyone receives gifts in the form of a Supporter's Key, Truce Proclamation, non-expirable Thank You Package, and 3 Lucky Coins.

There has been a lot of destruction lately and some players have suffered quite a bit. Therefore we have decided to make it easier to recover from it.

If some buildings were destroyed (completely or partially)  there is now a timer on such buildings which gives you a chance to rebuild cheaper and  faster. If you order the building upgrade until the timer runs out, today's update allows it to take 2x less time and resources to upgrade such buildings.

Let us know how if you were the one who suffered from destruction and tell is if it helps or not.

Recent balancing tweaks which involved Tavern nerf and awareness slowdowns (snails) impacted the overall game dynamics, especially things related to attacks. A lot of people complained about it so we have decided to try something.

Today's experimental update increases all world map unit speed, both reinforcements and attacks. This also involves exploration and traders speed.

• Land and aerial unit speed is increased by x2.
• Naval unit speed is increased too but not as much, something around x1.5
• Awareness effects rebalanced so they provide more in earlier ages and less in later ages
• Snail effect a little bit bigger

Keep in mind that this is an experimental feature to see how it will influence attacks and defense and overall game dynamics. It is not guaranteed to last forever and may be removed in future updates partially or completely. The final decision depends on player feedback - so post it in the comments below.

In other news: Karfaree is coming along, still planned for Alpha 7 launch. You can see the opera screenshot from corresponding Karfaree quest.

After we released random caves I had a lot of ideas for improvement which required re-evaluation of the concept. The dungeons we present today implement these revised ideas. Initially, we wanted to release them with Alpha 6 launch, but decided to postpone it and focus on monser dens instead. We have been working on these dungeons on and off for about half a year. They are now ready for the prime time.

So what exactly are these dungeons?

Dungeons are a number of quest locations scattered around the world map that can be found in different ways - just like caves and monster dens. Some of the dungeons can be found just by uncovering the world map with explorers, while others can be located when you find the appropriate map items in your towns or in the chests. The dungeons are not related to the storyline. There is only one quest associated with them and that is optional - but it is quite fun and rewarding if you complete it.

Randomness

Just like caves (and unlike monster dens), dungeons have different length and difficulty. But most importantly the dungeons are different for different players and heroes. Each player playing the same dungeon will experience different things - one player might be gathering items and another might be fighting monsters. There may be similar parts in different dungeons, but the bigger the dungeon, the less likely you will find exactly the same one again. Also unlike caves, dungeons are not as linear and may have different branches.

What's in them?

A lot of stuff. Despite not having "legit" quests due to their randomized nature, you will find lots of trademark Totem Tribe items . These dungeons were made specifically for the single-player type of players who have beaten the story locations, caves, and dens and are craving for more. However, if you are more into multiplayer stuff, don't dismiss these caves too quickly! There are plently of things in them, including rarer items like Blueprints and Figurines of Enlightment, so you have to give them a shot.

Things that can be found in the random caves:

• Monsters - Ghosts, Skeletons, Zombies, Flying Coffins, Spiders, Worms, Muscards.
• Items - plenty of useful items including Blueprints and Figurines of Enlightment, although don't expect them to be found easily ;))
• Secret buttons and switches
• Collectable hidden objects required to unlock deeper parts of the dungeon - timed for the first time!
• Puzzle sequences
• Secrets! Let's see if you can find at least one on your own
• Gems
• Traps - defused differently than the ones in caves.
• Other quirks put there to block your progression or just for fun.

How to access them?

Today we are introducing the new behavior of town population - your townsfolk will no longer aimlessly wander around their buildings, but instead will be doing their duty.

The workers will go to the resource facilities and deliver resources to storage. Then others will deliver resources from storage to the construction site. Some citizens will work at the construction site, knocking their little hammers. Occasionally, citizens will show their superstitious respects when passing by the religious buildings like the altar or temple. I could go on and on, but it is better to see it than to read about it.

While this feature does not add any functionality to the town and is basically one big eye-candy, it makes the town feel more alive and pleasant to look at. Also - this is the first step toward visualizing battles - so stay tuned for that future update.

Finally, I have to mention that this is the first big undertaking from our recent programmer Spoon, who had before this been busy with minor features and bug fixes. He would love to hear your feedback about today's update - so don't hesitate to post it in the comments. Cheer him up to motivate him for future undertakings :)

Today's update focuses on making alliance defenses more accessible and convenient, but by doing so, it also changes a few other things.

First of all this update fixes the Tavern. The Tavern was so good that players hesitated to report its bugged features and enjoyed it instead. This is bad of course, and the hangover will be significant. From now on, the Tavern will be increasing speed of reinforcements by +10% per level up to +200% at maximum level, making total maximum speed of reinforcements 300% (100% default + 200% bonus), thus basically increasing speed by x3 (not x11 like it was before bug fix). Also, the Tavern will no longer speed up naval and aerial reinforcements.

In order to compensate for the Tavern decrease of power, we looked around and found that powering up the Lighthouse was a natural step. The Lighthouse bonus to all naval armies sent from the town increased from 1% to 2% per level. Furthermore, an additional +10% speed bonus was added to reinforcements, which is similar to the Tavern bonus, except it works for naval units only. This will make seashore towns a little bit more desireable.

Since the Tavern fix made the reinforcements much slower, we added another feature which will give more time to react on incoming attacks. First of all, enemy armies are slowed down when they are detected, not when they enter your domain. This adds an additional 2 to 8 cells around your domain, depending on your tech. This is especially helpful if your country is squeezed from a side by a neighbor town, thus making your domain small and enemies detected very late.

Furthermore, the slowdown of enemies on your territory is increased from x2 to x3, which means they will move slower once detected, giving even more time to react and put defenses in place.

The crafting system and crafting idols introduced a year ago have their share of positive and negative moments - and now it's time to share some thoughts about improving them and making them more exciting.

While we have in some ways succeeded in bringing attention to the idols by adding the shaman/blacksmith and his quest, apparently it was not enough. Lets take a look at each idol in detail:

• Repair Idol - probably the most used one. No matter how you put it, your favorite gear needs to be fixed.
• Disassembly Idol - useful to those players who want to save on ore and crystals by disassembling unused gear to fix useful ones later.
• Enhancement Idol - while its usefulness is debatable and some people may argue that the prices are too steep, this idol can turn useless artifacts into better ones or good ones into exceptional. It's just up to your luck and whether you are willing to take the chance.
• Crafting Idol - actually, the crafting idol is the most useless one and I bet no one is using it apart from completing the quest. If not - please post in the comments, I would love to hear about it.

So the improvement of the crafting system will come from improving the item crafting. How so? By adding some items you will not be able to obtain otherwise!. Take a look at these:

(click the picture to view full size)

Take a look at these Samurai item sets - you will be able to craft these items from ores via the crafting idol! To make things more interesting, some crafting items will be unlocked only after you find the appropriate recipes - and finding more recipes will improve your chances of crafting that item.

These items can be ONLY obtained through crafting and there is absolutely no way to get them in other places. This will motivate players who want unique stuff to use the crafting idol. The items will not only look cool but will also have higher base stats - which will also make them perfect candidates for turning into artifacts to improve even more!

We have reworked Zodchiy town and the Wealth Victory as a whole. We added a new character, a new quest, and new requirements for this victory type.

By the end of Alpha 5 we had significantly increased resource income - which made reaching Wealth Victory too easy. Hence, today's addition of the new quest.

In the town of Zodchiy you will meet a new character - Petro Paton, who is the mayor of Zodchiy. You will need to help him with his town building. In turn, he will give you an essential element that will be required for the Wealth Victory from now on.

This quest is scaled according to your previous success. If you have already reached Wealth Victory with your current character, (i.e. in Alpha 5), the quest will become longer and more complicated. This depending on how many times you have reached the Wealth Victory.

In order to cope with Paton's quest you will now be able to make multiple camps in Zodchiy.

Since the launch of Alpha 6 we have been working primarily on the long-needed interface overhaul, and today we are launching the first pack of changes.

We had already added some minor changes in earlier updates, (like the new upgrade confirmation screen and information panel at the bottom of buildings), but today it is a complete overhaul of what is inside your town.

So what exactly has been changed?

• Build Menu - This is a long awaited change. Now it is more than just a build menu. It's also a convenient summary screen of all buildings you have in your town. It shows what is present and what is not, levels of buildings, their quantity, includes the ability to quickly locate a necessary building, and so one. Hopefully you will enjoy this. Now you will see why the building button has been moved to the right side.
• Minimap -  Have you ever struggled to find lumber income buildings to upgrade them in the new town and instead clicked on stone or iron or food building first before locating the lumber? Well, not anymore. The new minimap helps distinguish one from the other. It may look overloaded at first, but you will get used to it and will find it quite helpful. It shows all the interesting stuff - idols, puzzles, monsters, chests, NPCs and so on. The minimap will also be bigger in the future, so those icons will be even more prominent.
• Buttons Style - Hopefully these are now more streamlined and noticeable, thus easier on the eyes.
• Building panels are gone - There are now brief details underneath the building, and control panel above a selected building, with a detailed info screen about the building when you click question mark button. The new design allows you to order units, upgrades, petroglyph tasks, and so on - with less clicks.
• Unit order screen - I have previewed the new unit order screen on twitter, but now you can actually try it. It allows you to order multiple units in one go.
• Upgrade order screen - This is similar to the unit order screen, but very helpful in showing which upgrade applies to what kind of units before you order it.

Keep in mind - while this is a whole lot of changes - this is far from what we actually plan to do. There is a world map screen which needs even more work, but even the town screen is only partially reworked. We will be adding further improvements as well.

The update is rough and untested so make sure you report all bugs. Let us know what you think about these changes in the comments below.

While everyone is playing Alpha 6 in Classical Age - or maybe Medieval at most - let me show you what goodies are waiting for you in the Industrial Age - if you choose to pursue this hard road. Let's take a look at buildings.

These are Petroleum Tanks and Pyrotechnics Facility. The first one will store the fifth basic resource - oil. The second will construct bombs for your cool bomber planes.

Now these are Radio Tower and Delivery Service. The first will increase the speed of your planes sent from the town, while the second will replace the old market to bring land trading on the next level.

Today we launched Alpha Test Stage 6. This new version of the game features the addition of a whole new Industrial Age, totally new Desert climate, and a lot of smaller additions.

Let's go into detail about everything step by step.

Industrial Age

As always, the new Age adds a whole lot of new buildings, units, technologies, upgrades, and so on. We had previewed some of the stuff earlier, but I will describe the key ones:

1. Oil! Industrial Age adds a fifth basic resource - the oil. Oil is required by a lot of things in Industrial Age. Not only is it consumed when you build some structures, construct some units, and upgrades, but it is also consumed when you move your machines!
2. Trucks and Barges. New resource delivery units will match your increasing needs for resource shuffling.
3. Engineers. This new unit will be able to fix your machines in battle, just like witchdoctors and medics heal living units.
4. Tanks. Unlike rams and mortars, tanks are more than just siege units. They are capable of being frontline fighters.
5. Submarines. Ultimate anti-navy, submarines are very effective against ships, and they can also sneak undetected into enemy towns. They are unable to attack anything except other ships, but they can spy.
6. Planes. Horses are useless in industrial age, but the new strategic resource 'Aluminium' provides access to planes, unlocking aerial combat for you!
7. Bombs. The ultimate weapon of the industrial age - bomber planes loaded with bombs can destroy enemy buildings very quickly.
8. Observatory. Allows you to reduce corruption effect on your research.
9. Railroads. Even better than the paved roads.

You can find out more about the new industrial stuff yourself.

New World

This time around you will be playing in the hot desert climate. It is a dramatic change from freezing tundra of the previous Alpha stage. As always, a new climate is not only the way things look, but also minor things like unique monsters, unique animals, fish species, strategic resources, etc. In this climate you will be able to get camels and build Caravanserai - which allows to train Camel Archers in Medieval Age!

All Enkord Cash spent since 1st of March 2016 until the wipe will be returned on Alpha 6 launch, regardless of when it is going to happen.

So far we plan to release the Alpha 6 and wipe current progress somewhere near the end of March, but this is only a rough estimate and may or may not be changed. It will depend on actual completion status.

Alpha 6 will have at least the following new things:

• Whole new Industrial Age with appropriate units, buildings, and so on.
• Monster den quest locations where you will be able to battle monsters, level your hero up and earn items. Monsters there will respawn from time to time. There will be over 10 of such locations with the majority of them discoverable under the fog right from the start.
• Alpha 6 will happen in a new climate - the desert.
• New minigame like the Wonderful Garden.

While there is still time before the next alpha launch, we are smoothing out the rough edges - and this time our attention is on the destruction part of the game.

Foreword

Ever since Classical Age and promoted buildings were introduced, there has been a feature which made the Level 1 of a promoted building enclose within itself all the traits of all levels of the previous ages from which it was promoted. This seemed fair at first glance because all the effort put into upgrading previous buildings through the ages to the max was not lost. However, in higher ages it caused some problems.

The first level of promoted buildings turned out to be too tough to crack because all of the summed-up health. The health turned out to be so big, that often a single player did not have enough siege/destructive units to destroy even a single level of such a building. This was true despite the fact that promoted level 1's are targeted if there is nothing else to target. It was still unbearable.

This issue was impossible to fix without a deep redesign of the destruction side of the game. And this is what I did.

In short, I added armor to the buildings, however made promoted buildings inherit no armor from it's parent building. This allows promoted Level 1 buildings to still be significantly tougher than non-promoted ones, but became "crackable". This tweak demanded tweaking units, upgrades, and other items as well, in order to be balanced.

Destruction Rebalance

Today's upgrade is a radical attempt to fix the food issues once and for all - which has been plaguing us since this alpha launch. A lot of things have changed so read the details thoroughly. Oh, and we have a sneak peak about 20 new hairstyles coming soon as well.

Since the beginning of Alpha 5 there has been a food issue that has mixed origin. Players have been pointing this out and we have tried to fix it more than once by altering population in different buildings. Unfortunately, those fixes had limited effects and a proper solution required drastic changes. Back then we had no time to do it, so I decided to postprone it until Alpha 6. But instead I decided to do it before the end of the current alpha stage, to see it in action.

Balance Changes

1. Food production buldings starting from Classical Age provide more income (including food as the most valuable resource). Renaissance Age production buildings now provide twice as many resources. As you can see, this is an extreme change and required tweaking other things:
   • Population of many buildings was increased. This starts with Classical Age and higher
   • Food consumption of units was increased (mainly later ages)
   • Some building prices increased here and there. Report if some of them do not fit the maximum storage of the corresponding age.
2. Increased resource income means higher science spending, so we had to increase tech prices from Classical Age and onward. However, even with increases the science should be easier to learn now since the resource income increase is  still much bigger. The science increase also triggered a couple of other changes:
   • Museum efficiency increased 10 times.
   • Science speed-up items now provide 10 times more points.
3. Increasing the  population in buildings to offset the increased food production resulted in a critical penalty to construction speed. To deal with it we did the following:
   • Increased the effect of 1 level of the hut from 1% to 2% reduction. This is a huge boost - especially in early ages, so it will result in a more comfortable start.
   • The increased bonus made the huts too good so we reduced the culture bonus from them as a compensation. This is not very noticeable at early ages, but Renaissance players may see the shrink of domain if they had many huts.
   • To compensate for culutre loss just a little bit, we have increased culture in some of the "culture booster" buildings like the Well, Fountain, etc.
4. Some other changes related - and not so related -  with this rebalance, such as traders capacity, increased to match up to the increased resources usage.
   • Rig Trader capacity increased from 500 to 800
   • Coach Trader capacity increased from 600 to 1000
   • Trade Ship capacity increased from 1000 to 1500
   • Dirigible capacity increased from 500 to 1000
   • Main buildings protection from capture decreased (Still too big, but not impossible. This will be reduced even more later).
   • Basic advisor quests now should not only be able to accept buildings from Classical and Medieval Ages, but also the ones in other towns. This needs to be tested thoroughly.
   • From now on, Stained Mask Trophy does not require you to kill enemy spies. (The players who tested this out but were too lazy to submit the report or even PM me should be ashamed)

New Hairstyle

There will be a vanity update which will allow you to visually customize your character. While we are working on it, we need your help with the hairstyles:

New Female Hairstyles

Just as we had announced in the previous News post, our current priority is to make the game more accessible and friendly to the newbie players. This update adds conditionally prolonged beginner's protection, as well as other things - more quests from Bulat and Zweistein to guide people further into the game, town capture mechanics redesign, and many others. Read on for details.

Prolonged Beginner's Protection

There was an issue brought up by one of our players about newbies being punished too early in the game, before they figured it out well and learned enough. There is beginner protection when you start a new hero, but we took it more seriously and decided there must be something else we can do to help new players transition further into the game. We did a discussion on forums, and the feedback was positive - so we gave it a go. Current implementation of this "Conditionally Prolonged Beginners Protection" is almost exactly as proposed in that discussion, except for two things:

1. It is not the number of attacks which enables protection, but rather the amount of damage a newbie receives (i.e. if someone is attacked 7 times with a single Hunter unit, it won't be enough to trigger the protection, but if someone is attacked with cataputs, losing numerous units and structures, then that single attack may enable the protection)
2. There is an additional clause which will make you less protected - the more military buildings present in your town and the stronger they are, the less entitled you will be for beginner's protection.

New Quests

This is another feedback service. Back in the day, one of our players reported that at some point in the beginning of the game there is not much stuff to do - until you settle the second town. It was a valid issue, so we have taken it seriously. Another thing was people are recklessly not building enough defense in their town. We have addressed these issues by adding two (in fact three) multi-step quests to our famous advisors, Bulat and Zweistein.

• Zweistein's quest will guide a player step-by-step into settling a second town
• Bulat's quest is in fact two completely different quests, which depend on which politics you have. Collectivism players will be guided through how to defend their town better, while Leaderism players will be motivated to attack others and do various nasty stuff :)

We have also noticed that markets in the game are seriously underused, because everyone loves to accept a trade, but most people are too lazy to put up their own offers :) That's why we have added some bonus quests:

1. There are two new regular quests at Zweistein which are pretty simple - you have to put up an offer on the market and accept someone else's. Not a big deal, but this will introduce new players to the market stuff earlier, so they will be more aware - and hopefully pay more attention.
2. The second is a little bit bigger. The Antiquarian will gladly hear your boasting about trades you have done, and will reward you with blueprints and figurines. Not a fancy quest, but rather a motivator for people to use the market more often, benefitting everyone in the long run.

Town Capture Mechanics Changes

When we initially added town capturing mechanics with the launch of alpha 4, people were overwhelmed with things introduced, so priests and town capturing went slightly under the radar. It is almost a year later - and people have re-discovered this feature and actively started to use it. We would like to thank everyone who actively participated in town capturing (both willingly and unwillingly), because without you we would be unaware of how bugged it was and would have no data on our hands to analyze and fix accordingly. This is a natural part of the testing process.

In today's update we added a secondary quest location - the town of Zodchiy. This town is not a full-fledged quest location like Opposition Hideout, Keepers' Village, etc., but rather a place which will greatly help players who pursue Wealth Victory.

Why? Because of the Great Architects. In order to build the Wonder of the World, you will need multiple Architect Guidelines at various stages of construction. However, the Great Architects are random, and currently it is difficult to have enough of them in your towns. Therefore, we added the town of Zodchiy - which has multiple architects in it -  which is the main purpose of this town.

All you need to do in order to unlock the town of Zodchiy is to help at least one Great Architect complete the structure. While giving your reward, he or she will unlock the town for you. Players who have already helped architects will gain access to this town when helping the next one.

What are we up to right now?

Aside from the regular stuff that needs to be done prior to the Alpha 6 launch (Industrial Age, etc.), our current focus is to make the game's learning curve smoother, especially for new players. Here are some of the important things that will be done:

1. More convenient interface. I know this has been discussed a zillion times, but now it is actually time to make another attempt at smoothing it out. It will be done in an incremental manner during multiple updates.
2. Smoother, less intrusive tutorial and hints. I have some pretty neat ideas about how to make the tutorial less intrusive, without losing its helpfulness for newbies. After the interface has been improved we will work on the tutorial and advisors (those will be actually helpful - eventually).
3. Eliminate the "slow patch" which was described by players - Not much to do at certain point in the game. To do so, I have plans for two  "long" quests - one for Bulat and one for Zweistein. Bulat's quest will motivate the player to build a solid defense with numerous towers, while Zweistein's quest will guide the player to settlement of the second town. Players who started numerous heroes may help in this process by participating in this thread: Share your build order for second town.
4. Conditionally prolong the protection for beginner players. I have started an appropriate thread with ideas behind this and the feedback was positive. We are going to implement it so the new players will not leave so early - before having a chance to "dig the game" due to excessive attacks in the beginning.

The year is coming to an end, and at this time we usually do some summing-up and reveal our future plans. A lot of players are waiting for Karfaree and some other stuff and so I will shed some light on it.

Karfaree

In the beginning of Alpha 5 I said I would try to release Karfaree before Christmas, but I didn't say before which one . . . hehe. Joking aside, I started working on it and even made several quests, but this location is quite ambitious and not like anything I have done before. I don't want to rush it and sacrifice quality. That is why I have decided to abandon all estimations of release dates for Karfaree and release it only when it is ready. After all, a good Karfaree released late is eventually good, but a bad Karfaree released on time is bad forever.

The Maze and New Level Designer

A couple of months ago we hired a new person who is helping us with level design. No, he won't help to  release Karfaree faster, because that one is very important and I need to develop it personally. But the new designer is helping with some additional content and making good progress. In today's update we released the "Maze", which was designed by him under my supervision.

We have finally released a new Invitation System. This system was designed to encourage existing players to invite new players into the game and allow them to earn up to 60 items per single invited player. A lot of these items are unique and cannot be obtained otherwise.

The idea behind this invitation system is to not only generously reward efforts of inviting other people to play Totem Tribe II: Jotun, but at the same time make the invitation well thought-out. We do not want to just spam everyone hoping someone will join. This is why the number of invites is limited. However, achievements per each invited player are plenty. We don't need a lot of players, instead we need players who will stay playing here. This type of player is rewarded the most.

The reward goodies include regular consumable items, cages with pet monsters, statues that can be placed in your town as decoration, and also a unique outfit for your hero. The outfit is not yet working, but it is work-in- progress. It can be obtained even now, so by the time you get it, most likely it we will already be implemented. If not, you will just have to wait some time to put it on.

The new invite screen is pretty much self-explanatory, so switch to the "Donate" tab and learn from there. If something is still not clear please post questions in comments below.

Although the process of inviting others has been working for a while now, and some players already used it to invite their friends and/or relatives, the rewards are pretty new and only calculated for players invited In December 2015 and later. Don't let the list of invited players confuse you if you have already invited someone.

As the alliances are becoming more and more active, we are working on things that will make massive interactions easier and provide better defense. This new building does both.

The Tavern

Today we added the Tavern. This new building is accessible at the end of Classical Age through the Currency Tech. The Tavern will improve the speed of reinforcements sent from the town that holds the building. It does not really matter if you send reinforcements to your other towns or to someone else's, it will speed up the army (on their way there). The return time, however, is unaffected. At level 20 this building can speed up reinforcements by a whopping 3 times!

The main reason for adding this building is so it can be used in conjunction with alliance Commander features when the Commander detects an enemy invasion and tries to relocate troops of nearby members to reach the attacked town in time. With the Tavern level maxed, roads built, high awareness achieved by the attacked player, and prompt reaction of the Commander, this can be done in time.

Of course there are also other positive effects, such as defending yourself more easily in 1 vs 1 attacks, and sending your troops here and there faster.

Today we added new characters that travel around the world and may visit your towns from time to time. Some of them are helpful, some are funny, and some of them are bizarre.

There are 11 different characters - and it depends on your luck which character you are going to meet up with, and how often. They can appear anywhere inside your towns on a daily basis, so if you don't want to miss them, make sure your entire town area is uncovered from fog.

While it's up to you to discover all the obvious and hidden functionalities, here is a brief description of some of the features:

1. Antiquarian - can exchange 10 items you don't need into something random. Now your expired Pysanka Eggs will have some use.
2. Blacksmith - allows you to craft items. Unlike idols, this will require some time.
3. Butcher - discover some unexpected uses for your trusty tamed animals.
4. Chef - those heroes who need more food will be glad to meet this character.
5. Debtor - this one is shady, but may be quite helpful (or the other way around).
6. Gypsy Man - gypsies are known for their love of horses.
7. Gypsy Woman - it seems that she is running pretty good deals, but is it really doing so?
8. Necromancer - did you ever want to have a skeleton on your side? You might have a chance now.
9. Riddler - it starts out like some simple childhood riddle - but then...
10. Slaver - now you can find a better use for the troops you were going to dismiss.
11. Sleuth - he will deal with that "final clover leaf on green background" problem in no time - if you can afford his services.

Let us know what you think about these new characters and post about your experience with them, features you have uncovered, weird, unclear, and funny moments, etc.

P.S. By popular demand we have also added a Vacation Mode. No big deal, but it allows you to leave without the fear of your country being deleted due to inactivity (It may still be deleted due to aggressive neighbors or other disasters, but oh well).