New Alpha 8.2 has just one critical bugfix. In Alpha 8.1 the game would crash upon warriors death. This has been fixed now.
Download links:
Knights Province Alpha 8.2 (7z package)
Discussion forum:
https://www.knightsandmerchants.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=35
Fixed bugs:
+ Having selected a neutral unit that is about to be dead (killed) causes a crash
+ Camera changes height too noticeable on panning across mountains
+ Camera does not move smoothly when dragging over minimap
+ Desert 1v1 lacks stone deposits
+ Recruits are not shown on statistics
+ When creating new map, terrian selected in menu does not match the terrain in MapEd
+ Updated and renamed Desert to DustyDay
+ MapEditor won’t load developers SP maps for editing from main menu
+ Gameplay key shortcuts in readme.html needs to be updated to include new spacebar function that rotates house construction blueprints
+ Serf should be able to “give” building materials to building Towers from any side
+ Game crashes if log gets deleted midplay
+ Game crashes when serf does delivery to a house that is destroyed meanwhile
+ Game crashes when unit walks into destroying house
+ Game crashes when serf tries to take ware from destroying house
+ Game crashes when fort with training orders is being destroyed
+ BadNeighbours and TheIronWolf maps did not allow to build Cottages
+ Deleting groups in MapEd does not work
Download links:
[Download not found]
Discussion forum:
https://www.knightsandmerchants.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=35
It has been almost 2 weeks since Alpha 8 release. There are many bugreports and suggestions – thank you for that!
Bugfixing goes on. I’m also using a nice little tool called Runner, which runs the game without display (e.g. 45min of 4 player skirmish on Crossing takes just 9sec). Recently I have added several more modes to it, which includes killing of random unit and houses. This unearthed another good source of bugs.
Following bugs have been reported, found and fixed and will be included in Alpha 8.1:
+ Having selected a neutral unit that is about to be dead (killed) causes a crash
+ Camera changes height too noticeable on panning across mountains
+ Camera does not move smoothly when dragging over minimap
+ Desert 1v1 lacks stone deposits
+ Recruits are not shown on statistics
+ When creating new map, terrian selected in menu does not match the terrain in MapEd
+ Updated and renamed Desert to DustyDay
+ MapEditor won’t load developers SP maps for editing from main menu
+ Gameplay key shortcuts in readme.html needs to be updated to include new spacebar function that rotates house construction blueprints
+ Serf should be able to “give” building materials to building Towers from any side
+ Game crashes if log gets deleted midplay
+ Game crashes when serf does delivery to a house that is destroyed meanwhile
+ Game crashes when unit walks into destroying house
+ Game crashes when serf tries to take ware from destroying house
+ Game crashes when fort with training orders is being destroyed
+ BadNeighbours and TheIronWolf maps did not allow to build Cottages
Alpha 8 is ready!
 
Change list is quite big:
As usual – this is still Alpha, there are likely a lot of bugs, flaws, incomplete features, broken mechanics and such. Please report them and also your thoughts on what should be different and why.
Download links:
Knights Province Alpha 8 (7z package)Discussion forum:
https://www.knightsandmerchants.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=35
I’ve been categorizing and refactoring unit deaths in the game. Made this comment block in the code. Might be interesting for you to see it too:
// Killing of a unit is done in 4 big steps
// 1. KillUnit - unit is doomed to die (could be next tick, if unit is doing exchange).
// - Fire event
// - Register statistic
// 2. KillInternally - we can kill it now (exchange interactions are done)
// - Abandon old tasks
// - Create and execute Die task (exits house, shows animation, takes ~20 ticks)
// 3. KillFinalize - erase all unit data and hide it from further access
// 4. Delete - when unit has no pointers left
// KillUnit usages
//
// A L - gic_TempKillUnit (kills any selected unit)
// S G - UnitOwnerChange (from script, or capturing a wagon. Kills old and creates new)
// A/S L - ScriptingActions.UnitKill (kills any unit)
// S L - CheckAnimalIsStuck (kills any stuck unit)
// A L - Unit.HitPointsDecrease (killed by enemy)
// A L - fCondition <= 0 (any unit could die of hunger any time. training units get their condition topped manually, yet script can reset any condition back to 0)
// S - - TrainingCancel (kill wip unit)
// S U - UnitTrainingEnd (kill Blank unit)
// S L - FindPlaceForUnit fail (extra units get killed when house is destroyed)
// S L - DeleteUnit (by MapEd)
// S - - TKMUnitTaskDie (final result of Die task)
// S C - TKMUnitTaskWagonGoHouse (wagon entering house)
// A - animated death
// S - silent kill
// L - Lost
// U - Upgraded
// G - GivenAway
// C - Consumed
I had some doubts about how to handle “Skirmish” setup in MapEditor. Cos there are plenty of ways for Skirmish maps to be made made “unfair” (placement of resources, dynamic script, etc..). So I thought that maybe the MapEd should not be so strict about the “Skirmish” setting …
Ideally I’d want to pop up a dialogue with settings – which aspects of the mission should be (or should be not) equalized. So the setting is more helpful than restricting. But that would take some time to implement ..
.. two hours later ..
So what “Story/Skirmish” does now is just sets the flag to “Story” or pops up a “Skirmish setup” menu. Actual Skirmish “equalization” happens in “Skirmish setup”, where you can choose what to “equalize”.
New settings could appear there later in development (e.g. indicators of existing unfairnesses or more detailed descriptions, or something else related).
There’s one more feature I want to include into Alpha 8 – terrain triggers.
Terrain triggers are special zones placed in MapEd, that trigger dynamic script events when a unit enters into the zone. This is very helpfull for story missions scripting. With that feature, events could be triggered once and then removed/disabled if not needed.
Alpha 8 is mostly ready. I’d guess it will take another week or two before it’s released.
Now I’m looking into making some final touches to it. For example until there are proper designs and models for mounted units – here are some fake horses to distinct kinds of troops:
You can also see new group orders icons.
Made these notifications and updated the games’ code to show them in appropriate situations:
After watching second part of Knights Province play (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33tjOSoJfNQ) I’ve decided to look into house notifications. As of Alpha 7.1, they indicate when a house if missing a worker, or a connecting road (these are 2 very popular situations for new players). In Alpha 7.1 those notifications are rather vague and easy to miss in the background. So I’m drawing new icons for them. Here is the style:
Icons are good at attracting attention, as they should, but I’m not entirely happy about the style – it looks a bit “artificial”.
Key thought on the matter:
Until then, this is what I’ve been working on today (and refactoring controls render overall) 🙂
