European Knights (EK)

PATCH FIX 1.1.1

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• Ability badges on rewards: reward cards now show labelled ability badges, like “Volley 1” or “Scout”, the same as cards in your hand.
• Rewards no longer re-roll: I couldn’t reproduce the shuffle when going back and forth between “See the others” and inspecting a card; the cards stayed the same in my tests. What I did find is that a prize could be drawn again if a reward button was pressed a second time, so I made every reward screen reuse the cards it already offered. If you still see them change, tell me which screen it happens on (tournament, siege, tavern, the lists or the road) and I’ll track it down.
• Special cards: neutral weather and other special cards no longer count toward the 3-neutral limit.
• Special limit: decks can now hold up to 7 specials.

OTHER NEW FIXES IN 1.1.0 AND SOME EXPANDED

AI play

• Once you’ve pass: the AI plays only what it takes to win the round, cheapest first, then stops. In a test of 20 games against the hardest AI, it played one card each time, took the round and passed.
• When it’s already ahead after your pass: it passes straight away.
• When no card can win the round: it passes and keeps its hand, at every difficulty.
• Before you pass: none of this applies yet. It still plays its normal strategy, so it won’t give up a round early while you’re still playing.
• Who leads: the winner of a round now leads the next one.

Decks

• Limits: 20–45 units, 0–6 specials, and at most 3 spies, 3 neutral cards and 3 pillage cards. These apply to your decks, the AI’s decks and Draft.
• Saving: the muster roll edits a working copy, so you can empty it completely. The Save button only works once the deck is legal; until then your last saved deck is used in battle.
• Presets: each faction has 3 presets, each with Load and Store.

Weather fix: Hard Frost was secretly cutting the Horse row of anyone playing against Muscovy, and Muscovy’s own Foot was immune to frost. Neither was in Muscovy’s faction ability, so I removed both. I checked the other weather cards and faction exceptions, and they now match their descriptions.

Gear

• Prices: the three old tiers cost about 25% more.
• New tiers: each piece has two new top tiers, for example Barded destrier at 650 and Spanish jennet of the royal stud at 1,500. Tier 5 prices run 950–1,800.
• Wear: each contest wears the gear it uses by 5%. Even fully worn gear keeps 80% of its effect, and a full repair costs a tenth of the item’s price. The armourer shows each piece’s condition and has a “Mend everything” button.

Contest difficulty: the joust, the butts and the duel now ask Easy, Medium, Hard or Balls of Steel, and the rival gets tougher at each step.

• Card odds: they use your exact t5/t4 percentages. When the prize rolls a tier, you’re offered three cards from that tier.
• Completed tiers: if you already own every card in the rolled tier, you get 150 groschen for t5, 75 for t4, or 50 for t1–t3. Higher tiers are never forced on you.

Other changes

• Travel: journeys now take 80% of the days they used to.
• Version label: the version (v1.1.0) now shows in small print at the very bottom right of the main menu, and in About.
• Menu: the new menu from earlier will go into the Mac and Windows builds when I package.

NEW IN 1.1.0

The builds include the new main menu and everything from the earlier list. I ran the deck rules, presets, weather fix, armourer and difficulty prize roll in a headless browser, and the older tests still pass. I didn’t test the “winner leads the next round” change, and I haven’t played a full game by hand or opened the Mac and Windows builds.

On saving cards for later rounds, the AI now uses these rules at every difficulty:

• After you pass: it plays only the cheapest card that wins the round and then passes. In my test it won with one card each time.
• If no card can win after you pass: it passes and keeps its hand.
• If you have nothing left to play: it stops as soon as it’s ahead.
• Well ahead with more cards than you: it passes early to make you spend cards catching up.
• Hopelessly behind in the first round (22 or more): it gives up that round and keeps its hand.
• In a deciding round: it plays to win, with no holding back.