Knights Province devblog

Alpha 11 is nearing its completion and is looking for beta-testers.

It is the most worked-on version of the Knights Province yet (except for Alpha 1, of course). Last release was 7255 and this one is going to be at least 8930. Means that a whole 1600+ bits of changes and improvements went into it.

Main features of the new version are:

• Manned towers. Now each tower can be manned with 1-3 warriors who will pick up bows inside and shoot from atop at the enemy. Warriors will request food to be brought in by Serf when hungry, otherwise they will stop “working” and walk out, just like citizens do. It is yet unclear how warriors specialization will affect his performance in the tower, or if warriors inside could take a fraction of damage from enemy archers. At the moment, all warriors shoot with the same strength, distance and frequency and stay 100% protected inside.
• Buildable fences. Now you can build and destroy your own fences (and enemy fences too, of course). Fences cost wood to build and block passage for citizens. Warriors can break fences on their way with several blows. So far it is quite a weak obstacle, but with more playtesting that can change. In the future fences are also planned to be used for cattle.
• Real Fog of War. From now you can see only what you have surveyed. This is how fog behaves in the majority of the games. Implementation was quite tricky, but the end result is well worth it.
• Early stages of multiplayer accounts. Registration and mission highscores allow you to compete with other single-player players. More on that is covered in the previous article.
• New and updated campaign missions. Campaign scripting and persistent script storage between missions, customizable icons and maps. Now allows for more varied custom campaigns. Check updated tutorial, Intro and Hostages missions.
• Added Russian localization as a test of a text translation engine. More localizations can be made later on.
• Configurable shortcuts/hotkeys are finally here as well. Almost everything is configurable and Ctrl+Alt+Shift are supported as well.
• Restyled fish count calculation and display in water bodies. Now it is smooth and informative.

Smaller features are:

• Return of the fraction of building materials on house destruction. Nice bonus or last chance at building a Stonecutter’s – you decide.
• Revised several house models (still temp).
• Finally added some leather background to in-game forms. It’s still a work in progress though.
• Added cinematics and speech bubbles support in missions.
• Allowed to make terrain highlights (invoked from script).
• Decal and Objects palettes for the MapEd. As well a couple of new objects.
• Added support for Buttons in dynamic script messages. Your choice can now directly affect mission flow.
• Changed how coalmaker’s house works, now the coal-piles need to be set outside.
• Made AI to attack animal dens
• A lot of effort went into refactoring alliances. Neutral hands. Players instantiation and mission setup
• Reiterated and improved AI in Skirmish (GDP +17%, Starvation -30%)
• A whole lot of bugfixes and improvements
• New music by Juan (Dark Banner, Harvest, Over the Hills)
• Campaign Builder tool is included with the game now.

Join the Discord server and try it out – https://discord.gg/cEwJFSY
Please report bugs and feedback on Discord too!

If all goes well, Alpha 11 will be released this month.

Knights Province Alpha 11 is going to be ready soon and it’s time to talk about one more unique feature that it is going to have: Knights Tavern!

Knights Tavern (KT for short) is a codename for the accounts server we have been developing since 2019. Accounts were one of the more often requested features in KaM Remake, but we never had expertise or bravery to actually implement it (well, for numerous reasons). Attempts were made for the KP, but they did not succeed until recently, when a lucky chance has arrived (in form of an article (https://habr.com/ru/post/491272/) and a code repository (https://github.com/Cooler2/ApusEngineExamples)). Now, knowing that the backend server can be developed in the same language as the game, KT is finally taking its chance to come true.

Neat thing about KT, is that it can be used for both KaM Remake and Knights Province. Both games are very much alike in terms of accounts info they provide and can benefit from. So we can safely build KT in such a way that it allows for a single account for both Knights Province and KaM Remake. Register once and play twice. KP is our test-ground for the KT. Once it is sufficiently tested, KaM Remake can be upgraded and start using it too.

You can help with KT playtesting right now, but more on that later.

Basic auth functionality is mostly covered: KT has player accounts that can be registered, activated, logged in to and logged out of, forgotten passwords can be reset.

For a proof of concept, KT can report how many player accounts it has and how many players were active within the last hour.

The first useful feature in KT are mission highscores. If a single-player mission was prepared by the mapmaker in a specific way (2 lines of script, one dynamic and one static), the game can submit the mission’s winning score to KT and later on show the player his ranking in that mission.

Word of caution, KT is still in beta and might have bugs in all different areas. We hope to iron them out over time. That’s why we start testing with simple functionality, so flaws in the authentication (which there must be) can be fixed. So, since there might be bugs and weak spots, do not use your everyday life passwords for KT.

KT future allows for many interesting things:

• Friends, instant messaging, lobby invites, clans, etc
• Player ratings and reputation, ELO scoring, etc.

KT poses new challenges to us:

• It needs to be coded in an asynchronous way, so that data requests do not slow down or freeze the game.
• Player data needs to be passed and stored securely (we already use salts and hashes)
• We will need to preserve the players data on upgrades and between game versions

Best of all – you can already try out KT and help us improve it! See the latest KP wip builds (available on Discord https://discord.gg/cEwJFSY). Please report any bugs or flaws. We are also open for suggestions on KT functionality. It can steer it into many directions and it would be best to pick ones that are more wanted.