Update 08000

## Factions Update

Update 08000, also termed as the **Faction Update**, introduced the concept of distinct civilizations. It also made modifications to the Technology tree to make way for the unique technologies introduced for each civilization.

Prior to this update, the buildings and Wonder followed the architecture currently assigned solely to the Babylonians.

The update also introduced Steam Achievements.

## Changelog

### General

* **3 Bronze Age Civilizations**: Assyrians, Babylonians, and Egyptians
* **New Early Age Technology: Potter's Wheel**: This technology is required for constructing Outposts to claim neutral settlements.
* **Wonder is More Important**:
	+ Every Wonder Level constructed provides a unique bonus to the village based on the Bronze Age civilization that picked in the Tech Tree.
	+ Even when Wonder Victory is disabled as a setting, a Wonder can be constructed and all its Wonder Level bonuses gained.
	+ The Wonder is now available to construct in Horde Mode as well, but will not grant Wonder Victory.
	+ Unique Wonder bonuses:
		- Assyrians: +10% attack speed for all units per Wonder Level constructed (up to 40%)
		- Babylonians: +25% villager training speed across your empire per Wonder Level constructed (up to 100%)
		- Egyptians: +10% farming speed per Wonder Level constructed (up to 40%)
* New equipment: So that weapons don't upgrade multiple units at the same time, which would cause balance issues.
	+ Heavy Axe: The heavy axe equipment upgrades attack damage for Heavy Axeman.
	+ Javelin: The javelin equipment upgrades attack damage for Javelinman.
	+ Light axe and spearhead: Only upgrades attack damage for Light Axeman and Spearman, respectively.

### User interface

* **Civilization Information Panel** in the Technology Tree
* **General Improvements**:
	+ Redesigned Technology Tree
	+ Space for more technologies and the Bronze Age Civilization Picker. All the technology buttons have been redesigned for this purpose.
* The top-left UI now always shows the Wonder Level you have constructed.
* Range Displayer: The Influence Range of buildings like the Village Center and Palace are now visible, with uses as such as seeing how far away villagers can venture before losing their Militia status, the attack range of units garrisoned in Watch Towers, etc.
* Improved Descriptions: Almost all descriptions in the game have been updated with glyphs.

### Music and sound

* **New Soundtrack**: A new soundtrack for the Skirmish Mode. Every faction has unique music, and multiple tracks each.
* **Dynamic Music**: The music reacts to gameplay. As the player's village develops, so will the music. Entering into a large battle also changes the music.

### Skirmish AI

* Skirmish AI will only save up to expensive units that require wood and metal if they have sufficient villagers gathering those resources
* Skirmish AI produces units more efficiently late-game and will make an additional military production building to train more units at once
* Skirmish AI might target any enemy outposts (not just the one closest to its own base)
* Skirmish Skilled and Brutal will now send priests into their Palace to generate additional Knowledge
* Optimised Skirmish AI build orders
* Skirmish AI generates knowledge slower on all difficulty levels except Master (previously Brutal)
* Skirmish AI doesn't see enemy villagers as such a threat anymore so that higher difficulty levels will be more aggressive in trying to destroy the enemy economy before deciding to flee with offensive army
* Generally improved AI defensive behaviour
* Improved how AI deals with Watchtowers in certain situations (so it's harder to "tower rush" it, for example)

### Map Generation

* Added threshold to how close to any player tribe that metal deposits can spawn
* Regions that are empty (no tribes spawned there) no longer have extra fertility generated around their potential spawn points

### Other improvements

* Early Age military units have new art and animations
* Horde Mode on Beginner and Familiar is slightly easier to better accommodate new players
* Clicking on the base of the building or resource will now always select the controller occupying it, even if there are other static controllers (building or resource) in front of it
* Updated research icons for Archer, Elite Spearman, Swordsman, and Javelinman, so that they represent whether these units are affected by the helmet equipment or not
* Updated art assets for Babylonian Wall, Gate, Watchtower, and Archery Range so it matches historical references a bit better
* The vision range circle for units and buildings has been improved
* The militia indicator no longer changes direction with the parent unit
* Delivery point arrows take 0.25s longer to show over delivery points after hovering over the resource
* When holding over the Wonder title or icon, the tooltip shows a description of the Wonder bonus currently accumulated
* The building production panel now shows missing resources for training the next unit or equipment in the queue
* Minor performance improvements
* Villager indicators always show above buildings in placement mode
* Updated art for priests indicator above Palace
* Renamed hardest difficulty level to Master (from Brutal)
* Knowledge Generation in buffs panel also shows while starving
* Technology tooltip closes after clicking to research a technology
* In unit info panel title will now begin with "Elite" if unit has elite upgrade
* Villagers are easier to select (especially when they build, farm and skin animals)
* Changed double-click unit to select all of the type time to max 0.25s (from 0.4s)
* Added an additional zoom in level

### Balance changes

#### Units

* Villager ranged attack rate is 1.5s (from 1.25s)
* Slinger attack range is 12 (from 18)
* Slinger consumes 1.5 food (from 1)
* Light Axeman consumes 1.5 food (from 1)
* Spearman has 7 move speed (from 6)
* Spearman has 220 hitpoints (from 210)
* Archer costs 45 food and 35 wood to train (from 35 food and 35 wood)
* Swordsman has 280 hitpoints (from 190)
* Battering Ram consumes 2.5 food (from 3)
* Battering Ram has 6 base ranged armor (from 1 standard and 3 ranged)

#### Buildings

* Palace costs 150 clay and 125 wood to construct (from 150 clay, 150 wood, 75 food)
* Outpost costs 50 clay and 25 wood to construct (from 50 clay, 50 wood, 25 food)
* Wall has 1 base siege armour (from 2)
* Farm has 75 hitpoints (from 150)

#### Technologies

* Elite Battering Ram adds +2 ranged armor (from 3)
* Elite Archer adds +4 attack ranged (from 8)
* Bronze Smelting costs 4 knowledge points to unlock (from 5)

#### Other

* Digging clay base speed is 15% slower
* All Wonder stages cost more clay and less of any other resources
* Constructing wonder stages no longer rewards technology points
* Default health regeneration is 66% slower
* Priests generate 0.3 knowledge each (from 0.4)

### Bug fixes

* Pressing 'M' no longer desyncs a multiplayer game
* Fixed building hotkeys
* Fixed problems with hotkeys that could happen after playing one session without restarting the application
* Fixed a problem that could happen when selecting a group of units, and all these units were garrisoned in a Watchtower or the Palace
* Fixed problems that would occur when swapping between groups of multiple buildings
* Fixed issues with showing rally point positions when adding and removing buildings from selected buildings using CTRL
* All Leave command button no longer shows after selecting a unit while multiple Watchtowers were selected
* Fixed a problem with Skirmish AI never attacking "insignificant" wall segments
* Fixed a problem that could make horde groups stuck and infinitely circle around a neutral settlement
* Fixed a problem that could lead Skirmish AI defensive forces to follow your units fleeing to the other side of the map
* Fixed a problem that could lead to AI units getting stuck when attacking walls
* Fixed a problem caused by selecting a group by NUM when all units in the group were garrisoning buildings
* Fixed a problem with selecting multiple neutral settlements
* Villagers foraging no longer trigger chop sound once
* Fixed a problem that could break Skirmish AI and cause performance problems if AI unit was hit by a ranged units from a completely walled-in area