Cradlecrown v1.9: Night, rain, wounds and reforms

I started this version with a 3D trial. After a few days I dropped it; the game’s character is in its 2D drawings. Everything in v1.9 answers one question: on the same maps, with the same units, how can the game feel more alive and more natural?

Day, night and rain

A match now has a day. It opens in the morning and a day lasts ten minutes. In the evening the light turns gold, the night is blue and dark. Rain comes and goes, by day as well as by night.

These are not only pictures. At night every unit sees a shorter distance. In the rain arrows miss more often.

I removed the small clock. Instead, the match’s day passes behind the top bar where your resources are. The sun rises on the left and sets on the right, and at night the moon takes the same path among the stars. In the rain the clouds gather. The skyline under the bar changes with the map: sharp peaks on the highland, water on the lake map.

Torches and night raids

When it gets dark, soldiers light torches. A soldier with a lit torch sees almost as far as by day. But the light gives him away: the enemy notices a torch from 9 tiles away.

Put the torch out and it works the other way. The soldier sees little, but in the dark he is only noticed when someone comes within about 3 tiles. Towers don’t see him until then either. That is how a night raid works. With soldiers selected there is a Night button next to the stances; it lights or puts out the torches of all of them or of single soldiers.

Villagers don’t carry torches. The buildings are lit instead: oil lamps in the windows, lanterns at the doors, a brazier on top of a tower. Not every window is lit, and each flame flickers on its own.

Living nature

Treetops sway in the wind. Now and then a gust runs across a meadow and the grass leans and catches the light. There is foam on the shores and cloud shadows move over the ground.

By day there are butterflies and pollen on the meadows, thistle down on the highland and dragonflies along the water. At night fireflies blink, moths circle the lit doors and mist settles on the lakes. The night sounds different too: the birds and the noise of the town fall quiet, leaving crickets and now and then an owl.

Deer, sheep and flocks of birds roam the wild and run when someone gets close. They are only scenery; they don’t touch the rules of the game.

Combat

In close combat every weapon has its own strikes. Soldiers don’t repeat the same move; they miss, take blows on the shield and parry. A blow now holds for a moment and recovers slowly. There is fatigue too: in a long fight a soldier slows down and recovers when he rests.

I removed the flashes on hits; blood took their place. Every soldier can be wounded, and it is a matter of chance. Sometimes an arm or a leg is cut off, sometimes only a bleeding cut is left; a killing blow can take the head. A soldier who lost an arm strikes weaker, one who lost a leg limps. The dead don’t vanish at once. First they lie on the ground, then they turn to bones, and the bones stay until the end of the match. The combat sounds are new as well.

Infirmary

There is a new building: the Infirmary. Select wounded soldiers and right-click the infirmary; they walk over and go inside. They stay as long as their wounds need: about 6 seconds for a scratch, up to 50 seconds for someone badly hurt. They come out at full health and rested. A lost limb does not grow back.

The infirmary has 6 beds. When it is full, newcomers wait at the door and the worst hurt goes in when a bed frees up. A soldier inside can’t be seen or hurt. Click the building to see the beds; click a bed to send a soldier out early.

Formations

Formations didn’t work well. On the march the riders raced ahead and the catapults fell behind; soldiers cut across each other’s paths to their places and shoved each other.

Now an army marches together and arrives at roughly the same time. That has a cost: a mixed army moves at the speed of its slowest unit. Soldiers are given places so their paths don’t cross, and those marching in the same formation pass each other without pushing.

The orders changed as well. In battle lines the foot are in front, archers behind, catapults at the back and horsemen on the wings. In the guard circle the catapults are in the middle, archers in the inner ring, foot and horse outside. Open ranks leave wide, uneven gaps against arrows and stones.

Reforms instead of landmark studies

Each age’s lasting study used to run in the landmark. It only advanced while the landmark stood, and while it ran you couldn’t advance the age. Instead, you now get one reform per age.

A minute after you take up a new civilization, a “Proclaim a reform” notice appears under the resource bar. Click it and choose one of three ways. A reform is free and optional; it takes about a minute to take effect and keeps no building busy. If you close the notice, an empty seal stays in the reforms row and you can choose from there whenever you like. The reforms you proclaimed stay there as seals with their age numerals.

Interface

I rebuilt the panel that opens when you click a building. It is now a small strip at the bottom of the screen. On the left is the building’s picture, with a ring around it showing its health. In the middle are its name and what it does, on the right the units it can train. On screens 1920 pixels wide the inside of the panel used to overlap; that is fixed too.

The resource bar now sits flush on the top edge. The production tracker that floated near the middle of the screen, the reform notice and the reform seals are now in a single column on the left, under the bar.

Other changes

• Units walk somewhat slower overall; walking and gathering look smoother.
• The screen shakes slightly when a building falls or a catapult stone lands. A finished building settles into place with a small bounce.

This version changed the version number of online matches. If you had the game tab open, reload it once before joining an online match.

The game is at cradlecrown.com. Send bugs and suggestions through r/cradlecrown or to [email protected].