Alongside the launch of Free to Play and the Koreans, we released our biggest patch to date. Check out the changelog below and let us know what you think of the patch!

Civilizations & Free to Play

Empires Apart is now free to play.
You can play through every mode in the game, online or offline, using the Byzantines. The remaining civilizations are available as DLC through the in-game store or the Steam store.
You can always play against any civilization, either online controlled by a player or offline controlled by an AI opponent.
The available civilizations can be viewed from the Armory screen and can also be tried out for free in a Skirmish match.
Everybody who purchased the game before October 16th 2018 are awarded the title of “Founder” and have also unlocked French, Chinese, Arabs, Aztecs and Mongols.
Founders will also get more rewards in the future.

Koreans

Koreans are now available as the 7th civilization of Empires Apart. They feature a unique approach to economy and some very interesting units that add many new mechanics to the game.

  •  Koreans start the game with 4 Nobles. Each Noble will grant a different bonus to the economy, military or other Nobles.
  • They lack global economic upgrades, however the Nobles can be upgraded and more Nobles can be produced from the Wanggung.
  • Managing Nobles efficiently and protecting them from enemy raids is at the core of the gameplay of the Koreans.
  • Their priest is a Buddhist Monk which heals units nearby for a small amount and in a short range. More Monks will heal units more.
  • Among their ranged units they have Hand Cannoneers, which have a bonus against Ranged Units.
  • They have a Siege Mortar which is able to fire and move without assembly.
  • They have a Hwacha, which is a formidable long reage siege weapon that can shoot multiple volleys of arrows and deal damage in an area.
  • The Fortress Unit is the Hwarang, a light cavalry unit that can also shoot arrows in rapid sequence in an area.
  • Their heroes are Sejong the Great and Eulji Mundeok.
  • Sejong the Great observes Villagers to accumulate Wisdom. Accumulated Wisdom can be spent to boost the villager efficiency and building efficiency nearby.
  • Eulji Mundeok can channel his strenght to double the damage inflicted to enemies in an area at the cost of his own health.

Menus

The whole Menu system for the game has been overhauled. The core objectives of this overhaul were ease of navigation and the ability to get into games faster.

  • It is now possible to access the Options menu from inside any other menu.
  • The Options menu has been reorganized and the layout has been optimized.
  • It is now possible to search for a Ranked match and continue navigating through the menus or while the Options menu is open.
  • A new Profile screen displays various stats including wins and losses for each civilization in Skirmish, Ranked and Unranked matches.
  • The Tech Tree screen has received some minor visual updates.
  • The Lobby and Civilization Select screen have received visual updates.
  • If you haven’t completed the Tutorial there is now a prompt in the main menu.

Maps

  • There’s a new map available called Huangshan, playable in Skirmish and Multiplayer.
  • The new pool of maps for Ranked is composed of Scorching Desert, Great Meadows, Solitude, Huangshan and High noon.

AI

Empires Apart has a brand new AI called Agatha. Agatha is much smarter, more efficient and more versatile. Agatha can play any game mode and every civilization in a variety of different ways.
It has a huge number of strategies it can employ and playing against her will feel much more varied. Every civilization has different chances of going for different strategies. Agatha will defend herself, help allies in need, respond to pings, trades, buys and sells resources at the market, builds towers, use siege weapons, active abilities, heroes and more. It fixes every issue that the previous AI had and improves in every aspect. We look forward to your opinions on her.
The old AI remains in the game as “Legacy AI” but we will no longer support it.

Gameplay

We made several improvements to gameplay in order to provide a better and smoother experience.

  • There are now range indicators for Active Abilities.
  • The building placer mesh is now self-shadowed to provide a better sense of depth.
  • Farms now have a proper placer mesh.
  • Construction yards now correctly display a visual feedback on click.
  • Click interaction effects for movement and attack-move have received a visual update.
  • Dead units are now slightly desaturated and loose any emissiveness in their player color, to better blend them with the background.
  • Dead units now sink into the ground after a while.
  • Dead units now start to bleed (blood can be turned off in the Options menu).
  • Every unit and building in the game has now a 5% emissiveness applied to its color, making them stand out more from the environment.
  • The fog and color correction is now separated for every environment and for day and night. This should result in a more visually appealing game and an improved readability especially at night and when zooming in.
  • Control Groups are now stored in savegames and retained through resyncs.
  • Stop and Hold Position are available through hotkeys.

Hotkeys

  • Many missing hotkeys have been added.
  • Technologies now also have hotkeys.
  • Hotkeys for Stop and Hold Position are available.

UI

The in-game UI has received several minor tweaks to improve functionality, usability and to make it more visually appealing.

  • There is now a counter displayed for how many villagers are working on a resource.
  • There is now a counter displayed for how many villagers the player controls.
  • The bottom UI is now always correctly centered, no matter what’s being displayed.
  • Many animations have been tweaked.
  • Minor improvements to the Spectator UI.

Bug Fix

  • Fixed some issues with the pathfinding that would make units turn around unexpectedly.
  • Fixed an issue that would make a villager gather from a dead animal that was too far away.
  • Fixed some issues with range when the game transitions from day to night.
  • Fixed some issues with Trebuchet transforming.
  • Fixed some erroneous configurations on volleys of arrows shot by Fortresses.
  • Fixed an issue with Gengis Khan’s Active Ability’s cooldown.
  • Fixed an issue where after building a Storage or Town Centers, Villagers wouldn’t start to automatically gather resources.
  • Fixed an issue where a Boar hitting a Villager could make him flee making luring very difficult.
  • Fixed various issues with the villager’s attachments.
  • Fixed a small issue with the randomness function in relations to Civilization Picking.

Stability

  • The main source of crashes is now gone. We’ll keep a close eye on the stability of the game but we expect this to not be an issue anymore.
  • Fixed some potential desyncs.

Miscellaneous

  • Empires Apart now supports Discord rich presence. We display what mode, map and civilization is being played and the current time in the match.