Christmas season is all around and it sounds like a great time to release Knights Province Alpha 13!
It has been two long years since the last big release of Alpha 12. A lot of work has gone into making the game look better, play smoother, and, most importantly, Multiplayer!
Why Alpha 13 matters
Alpha 13 is a noticeable milestone in the development of Knights Province. For the first time, the game expands beyond single-player with the introduction of multiplayer. On the other hand it keeps on laying down more and more of long-term technical foundations that future development will build upon. Deeper mission scripting and storytelling tools, performance, audio, and visual improvements, all this keeps on moving Knights Province towards a more complete and engaging RTS experience.
What’s new in Alpha 13
Multiplayer finally here!
Alpha 13 introduces long-awaited multiplayer. There are already a bunch of servers to join with friends and play. The game allows for PvP and cooperative experience, alternatively you can just spectate. Maps and saves can be shared between players easily.
More expressive missions and storytelling tools
Animated map objects and addon objects allow mapmakers to create more dynamic scenarios and richer narratives. Together with heroic unit support – enabling unique unit names, stats, size, morale, and behavior – scripted missions now have far greater creative freedom.
A darker world with new neutral threats.
Skeletons enter the world of Knights Province as new neutral units. They know neither hunger nor morale, adding fresh tactical challenges and a distinct atmosphere to missions and campaigns.
There is a whole new campaign
“Burning Hay” is a new campaign by Amaroth. Featuring 8 missions to play. As the author describes it himself – “As a young and until now insignificant knight who never cared about the kingdom’s politics, you find yourself pulled right into the middle of a sudden civil war. Story-heavy, no tutorial. Challenging, especially for beginners”.
There are new single-player and multiplayer maps as well.
A major visual upgrade
Trees now have fully reworked foliage, giving forests a decent look that better matches the game’s tone. Combined with new terrain surfaces, sun settings, mapmakers can fine-tune lighting and mood to make maps feel more alive than ever.
Smoother performance and GFX
Alpha 13 brings performance and rendering optimizations, a new underlying sound engine (based on raudio / miniaudio), and a new text renderer with tag support (mixable color, underline and strikethrough styles are just a start).
Better support for localizations
Alphanumeric localization keys simplify translations for addons and missions. Oh, and Greek localization has been added.
Among other features
Semi-automatic highscore verification on Knight Tavern for competitive play. Savegames are now bundled into a single file, making sharing much easier. There are many more smaller changes and improvements included in Alpha 13. The full and detailed changelog is available in-game on startup and from the Options menu.
Looking ahead to Alpha 14
While Alpha 13 is a major milestone, there are still several areas that require further designing and development before the game can move into the Beta stage. These will be addressed in Alpha 14:
- Horses and farm animals breeding (should they be handled similarly to sheep, I say yes)
- Sturdier walls and improved AI handling of them
- Trade between players (market, trading post, wagons?)
- Siege machines (?)
- Additional assets and content (building models, unit models, animations, etc.)
The game is still free to play while in Alpha, but if you enjoy Knights Province, please consider supporting its development on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/knights_province) or Itch.io (https://kromster80.itch.io/knights-province)
There is the Steam page where you can add the game to your wishlist (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1026220/Knights_Province/)
Main community hub for discussion, support, and ideas is on Discord (https://discord.gg/ZGrgC6G)
Feedback and word of mouth are always greatly appreciated!
Download links:
Installer: https://release.knightsprovince.com/index.php/s/kzSC5iJwiWw2WwB
7zip archive: https://release.knightsprovince.com/index.php/s/Nn7ppWC5DHiYQTb
