Change Log

[zatikon]

1/20/2010
 - Zatikon Unit Guide has been updated (pdf)


1/15/2010
 - More bug fixes!
 - The Abbey can deploy Clergy and Cultist units to surrounding squares
 - The Abbey costs 2 to deploy instead of 4
 - The Barracks can deploy Soldier and Commander units to surrounding squares
 - The Fanatic costs 2 to deploy instead of 1


1/6/2010
 - The Abbey is in
 - Many bug fixes


12/27/2009
 - New unit the Captain has been added
 - Changling's range for trading with an enemy has been reduced to 5
 - Added a mute player option in the chat window options


8/3/2009
 - The Wyvern is in
 - The Conjurer's portal has been reduced to 3 range, and the portal's summon range is reduced to 3
 - Many, many bug fixes.


6/7/2009
 - The Sycophant is in
 - The Diplomat now costs 200 instead of 150
 - Armistice now renders the enemy castle uncapturable for 2 turns.
 - The Tactician now grants 3 commands when it dies.
 

5/30/2009
 - The Longbowman is in
 - The Sergeant has been revised
 - The Dragon is 8 power instead of 7
 - The Tower is 150 cost instead of 100
 - The Diplomat's truce has been revised
 - The Diplomat has a new ability: Armistice
 - The Conjurer's invert ability now makes adjacent conjurations invert.
 - The Archangel is 4 power instead of 5, and 1 armor instead of 2


5/26/2009
 - The Diplomat is in
 - Lots of bug fixes. Thanks for all the reports in the forum!

5/19/2009
 - The Conjurer is in
 - The Archangel has been revised
 - The Surrender button now asks: You sure?

5/2/2009
 - The Archangel is in
 - You can now buy single units in the Edit Army screen
 - There's a "Sell All Extra Units" button now in the Edit Army screen
 - All Structures can now deploy out to 2 range
 - The Confessor now has 2 actions instead of 3
 - The Mourner is now a Cultist


4/27/2009
 - The Lancer is in
 - The Alchemist's Strength Potion has been revised
 - The Possessed can now force an enemy to kill her
 - The Bounty Hunter is now has +1 range, +1 armor and costs 150
 - Doppelganger twins now inherit inflicted damage

4/19/2009
 - The Chieftain is in

4/12/2009
 - The Shield Bearer is in
 - Tutorial has been added for new players

4/4/2009
 - Bounty Hunter is officially in
 - Improvements to 2v2
 - Dragon's fireball now costs 2 actions instead of 1

4/3/2009
 - The first version of 2 vs 2 is live, ready for testing.
 - The Assassin now has 2 actions instead of 3.
 - The Assassin now costs 3 to deploy instead of 0.
 - The Sergeant has been revised.
 - The Wizard's attack and Trade Places ranges have been reduced by 1.
 - The Mason now has 3 actions instead of 2.

3/26/2009
 - All players now see their rank.
 - 3 new units have been added for the Legions prerelease
       Cultist: Confessor
       Cultist: Possessed
       Nature: Barbarian
       The Alchemist and Strategist will be added soon

 - Actions are now categorized by 5 types:
       Move (blue)
       Attack (red)
       Spell (purple)
       Skill (green)
       None (black)

 - The trigger mechanics have been revised. Many units are affected.
 - Actions now have popup descriptions
 - Units can now target themselves with friendly abilities
 - The Dragon has been revised
 - The Cavalry now kills units of power 3 or less
 - The Quartermaster now reduces deploy costs by 1
 - The Command Post's planning ability triggers automatically at the end of turn if you have spare commands.
 - Serpents now attack approaching units
 - War Elephant now shoots arrows based on line-of-sight

3/3/2009
 - Bug fixes
 - Improvements to the AI upgrade system

3/1/2009
 - A reconnector and game resyncher is live.
 - The AI now buys upgrades for its units


2/18/2009
 - New Commander: the Quartermaster
 - The Doppelganger has been revised
 - The Engineer has been revised as the Mason
 - The Wall can collapse itself now
 - The Druid has a new summon pet: the Bear
 - The Assassin now costs 150 instead of 100
 - Random armies now all load with a Gate Guard

2/8/2009
 - The invites and queues should be stable now
 - The dracolich now resurrects dead enemies on the spot instead of sending them to your castle

2/1/2009
 - Bug fixes
 - Assassin has been redesigned
 - The war elephant is movement 4 instead of 3, and 7 life instead of 8
 - The catapult costs 150 instead of 100

1/16/2009
 - Private matches is live.  Open an instant message window with another player, and invite them to a game.
 - The changeling is now only indestructible during the turn it trades.

1/15/2009
 - Updated Zatikon Unit Guide (pdf) to reflect new unit changes

1/12/2009
 - The Changeling is now indestructible and immune to everything
 - The Footman now cancels all movement within 1 range
 - The Shaman's movement cancellation is now range 4
 - The Fanatic is now 1 armor instead of 2, and 1 deploy instead of 0
 - The Scout is now 1 deploy instead of 0
 - The Sergeant has been completely revised
 - The Knight now becomes a Dismounted Knight when it dies
 - The Warrior now gains 1 action every time it kills
 - The Feathered Serpent now returns a killed ally to castle 1/turn
 - The Swordsman now attempts to attack any unit it parries
 - The Catapult now destroys any enemy it hits
 - The Ballista now knocks any enemy it hits back
 - New White Mage: the Artificer

11/4/2008
 - The AI's choice of units is now more distinct from game to game
 - Heretic is 4 life instead of 5
 - Templar heals itself on attacks
 - Templar's heal ability is range 2 instead of 1
 - New Horseman: War Elephant
 - New Cultist: Fanatic

9/18/2008
 -Added Shaman unit
 -Added unit stacking in menus
 -Added refer-a-friend get 5000 gold
 -Balance changes to Footman

9/11/08
-Zatikon released

9/10/08
-OSX Installer bug fixed
-Message of the day added
-Uninstaller added

8/7/08
-Added saving multiple armies.
-Added double clicking to add/remove units from army.

8/3/08
-Added a outline to units.
-Added new graphics for spell effects.
-Added new sounds and fixed a bug with the sound engine.

7/29/08
-Added new graphics and sound effects.

7/27/08
-Added 1 range heal to the acolyte.
- Instant messager now shows if players are in a game.
-Healer's triggered heal only triggers from enemy damage (no shield maiden).

7/24/08
-Druids can now reset units to there base state.
-Command Post now had 2 actions instead of 1.
-New instant messenger style chatting so players can talk to other players while inside games.

7/21/2008
-Armory, Barracks and Command Post are now 4 deploy instead of 5.
-Golem is 3 deploy instead of 4.
-Catapult/Ballista are 2 deploy instead of 3.
-Acolyte changed to 50 cost and heal is now targeted on one unit.
-Healer revised to heal one attack per round and heal now adds one health to a unit and heals it fully.
-Assassin now has a 3 range poison attack.
-Bowman now has overwatch ability.

[mongolian]

Bravo on the new AI!  

I  still am saddened on the otherhand that 1 Heratic can spoil an entire army, if not dessimate most armies.  It isn't about the heretic being too powerful as much it is it just isn't fun playing Zatikon when 1 piece potentially spoils an entire army.

[mongolian]

Is it possable for Zatikon to have roll-over text options that explain what each category is the on main part of Zatikon.  This is the 2nd time I've played a new opponent who didn't know that constructed meant it was a vs. mode.

The other two graphical solutions are putting hyperlink's below each button to click to see what it does.  Then, the 3rd option is to just have a permant hyperlink that explains what all the categories are.  Just some food for thought as players tend not to read forums/website. heh.

[roxo]

whn is this getting updated? mayb a teaser till the server comes back up?

[NozeM]

I spent 53K gold and no Artificer!  

Edit:
Spent already 30k more and still no Artificer  '>

[roxo]

it took me like 20-25k to find 1.... only got 1 so far.

[NozeM]

If warrior destroyed a wall it get also extra actions.
I didn't know you can kill a wall!  

[roxo]

ne unit =) besides berzerker.  i guese its ability supercedes inorganic.

[minime]

hello,
do the invited games effect rankings?

btw I think that the unit tweaks were great in the last patches. thx.

[Chronic Logic - Josiah]

Invite games do not effect rank.  Glad you liked the changes, there are more to come!

[mongolian]

christ..i wish i knew this.. Can you please make this more obvious?
Challenge Random (unrated)

[Lumen]

I see that AI units now have little upgrades (or, in many cases, not so little) that increase all of their statistics.  I understand the difficulty incentive which would inspire this course of action, but I disagree with the method of implementation used to approach this goal.  I'm perfectly willing to accept that sometimes I'll be facing a heroic enemy who has a greater capacity for harm than a typical enemy.  However, the way it has been done now, where each stat has a chance of being increased makes armies that focus on dealing damage totally obsolete in the face of 15 hp units with 2 armor that insta-gib anything they touch.  The changes made force the approach to AI opponents to be either priests or changelings so that the non-AI player can steal these very powerful units.

As a tactical game, any development that reduces the overall tactical flexibility of the game is a bad one.  Plus, should a player decide to use a unit that steals enemy units, the game is not more difficult.  A player can more easily use the insanely powerful enemy units than can the computer.

Since I like the idea of heroic enemies, and since the AI does need a little boost, I think a more purposeful and less random step is more appropriate here than the mish-mash of super-enemies.  Heroic enemies might have a special badge icon in the corner of their box, or receive a gold outline or something.  They should be much more rare than the upgraded enemies are currently.  Most importantly, I think they should have a theme to the boosts they get.  By having thematic boosts, some combinations can be avoided that make the game essentially impossible for non-stealing armies.  A heroic enemy could have one or two abilities drawn from a logical list, such as the following:

Tough:  +3 hp
Heavy: 2 armor (or 3 armor for something that already has 2)
Strong: +2 power
Mighty: +1 power/+1 hp
Fast: +1 action/-1 hp/-1 armor
Mechanical: As though starting with artificer mechanize ability used on it.
Flying: As though starting with wizard's levitate/fly ability used on it.
Regenerating: Fully restores HP at the end of the turn (ala Hydra)
Agile: +1 dodge (ala Rogue/Scout)
Masterful: +1 parry (ala Swordsman)
Epic: Each kill grants +1 action (ala Warrior)

I would very strongly discourage allowing too many of these to mix together, or you end up with something that's just not possible to oppose OR something that trivializes the rest of the opposition because it can be stolen.  It seems to me that only allowing ONE of these abilities per heroic opponent would be wise.  It might be wise to make the unit lose its heroic ability when the computer loses control of the unit.

Pros:
More diversity of enemies, and they're more difficult.
Modified enemies are CLEARLY visible via a badge or border.
Damage-based strategies are still viable, since enemies cannot just ignore hits with vast pools of hitpoints.
The types of enemies don't converge as much as they do now, where bowmen and crossbowmen have essentially the same hp, armor, and damage.  It retains the individuality of each kind of unit.

Cons:
It might not be quite the difficulty boost that people want.

[Chronic Logic - Josiah]

I like the idea of naming the unit based on the type of enhancement it has.  Plus those are good ideas for enhancements.

[mongolian]

I love this idea of herioc.  I really would like to see the AI use these abilities to make it more of a challenge.  I really cringe playing most single player games because there are only a few handful of armies that can win.  More specifically, it's always endless rush of units.  I would rather be overpowered then the constant swarm.  If you look closer, most armies just can't handle the infinite rush.  I'd like to see some more subdle variety in how AI puts on units other then the constant 5 it always spawns.

[Lumen]

I definitely prefer the way it is now to the way it was when it just started with upgrades for units.  I kind of wish I weren't at an AI level that didn't give EVERYTHING an ability.  I definitely would prefer it if the special abilities were somewhat rarer, but it could just be due to that AI level.

That aside, I will confine further comments as reactions to specific abilities gained by AI units:

Ascendant: +1 action, +4 hp (max 9), +2 armor (max 2)
  This ability, while strong, flags out a paragon of an enemy.  If it weren't the case that every enemy might be ascendant (what are we, fighting an army of gods?), then it would be an excellent ability.

Longshanks: +2 hp (max 9), +1 extra instance of the unit's move ability at 1 greater range
  Very clever.  I like it, except that it makes some units COMPLETELY silly.  A longshanks elephant can deploy and, in the very next turn, take your castle.  However, the AI does not use this capacity.  Not sure why.

Arcane: power is higher of normal or 5, gains attack anywhere within 5 attack for 1 action
  Making everyone into a warlock serves to make warlocks that much less interesting.  I don't like the idea of making something capable of attacking anywhere on the map, and Arcane Knights, Riders, Cavalry, Mounted Archers, Elephants and Dragons can do this.  Furthermore, having 3-action units with this ability is not fair.  I think a good change to it might be the ability to increase the range of the unit's attack by 1, or, to add a range 2 fireball to the unit instead of what it does now.

Cunning: +1 action, +1 hp (max 9), +1 armor (max 2)
  This is a good ability, but not overwhelming.  I wish things had to pay more for extra actions, but in the face of the other abilities, this isn't quite as scary.

Resilient: +3 hp, +1 armor
  Well-designed.  The +3 hp on this one doesn't seem to have the standard cap at 9, seeing as I've seen Resilient Elephants at 10 hp.

Mighty: +1 power
  Underwhelming.