News
Feb15 2023 - New Stable Minor Release 0.6.2
in mine popup, mine efficiency percentage replaced with histogram showing actual mining results over time
'i' key cycles through player's mines
UI fixes related to zooming, notifications, new-game popups
restored ability to re-target current building popup, was broken in v0.6.x
Feb11 2023 - New Stable Minor Release 0.6.1
Viewport zoom now separated from UI elements zoom (independent UI scaling will be added later)
some UI bugs related to zoom/popups/dragging fixed
Feb09 2023 - New Stable Major Release 0.6.0
game popup windows can be moved and if moved will stay permanently until closed, and will auto-refresh. Any number of popups can be opened. Some limitations to this, notably that it doesn't yet work while zoomed
castle/stock "out queues" for serfs & resources now visible as a fourth page of the current set of popups for these buildings
viewport automatically recenters after game window resized
bug detection-workaround for certain type of blocked serf issue
circular-serf-gridlock/deadlock detection and auto-fix logic from original game now triggers properly
fixed option_ForestersCreateMonoculture bug
fix for land road appearing to allow crossing single water tile
popup window error will be show before crashing in Windows when game cannot continue because acceptable AI castle locations could be be found
Number pad arrows will move the game/map cursor one pos at a time in the specified direction (6 valid dirs), mostly for counting distance when debugging
Debugging: added hidden debug popup that allows "go to pos XXX" (click the right shield on the PanelBar)
Jan20 2023 - New Stable Minor Release 0.5.2
added option_HighMinerFoodConsumption, this matches Freeserf's food consumption which is 7x original game
AI builds 3rd farm per Inventory area if option_HighFoodConsumption on
AI may build 2nd stonecutter per Inventory area
fixed hang/crash with track change when music off
AI Stone Mines fixes
misc small bug and AI fixes
Jan17 2023 - New Stable Minor Release 0.5.1
fixed AI new pathfinder creating excess roads as time passed
AI will now make desperate attacks for resources that it does not posses if it can no longer expand by building knight huts
fixed zoom centering being off after a window resize
added Amiga-style spinning star panel animation (optional)
AI will build Stone Mines if no above-ground stone in the area
slightly lowered contrast for tops of winter trees w/ FourSeasons
fixed an uncommon crash bug when a Flag is destroyed while AI is plotting a road to it
AI will now only consider passthru road-plotting solutions for important high-traffic buildings, not low volume ones
Jan14 2023 - New Stable Major Release 0.5.0
rewrote AI pathfinder. AI will now plot complex multi-segment roads comprised of any number of new and/or existing paths
zoom changes: more zoom levels, mousewheel zoom centers on mouse pointer, now using "pixel art" style non-interpolated zoom instead of interpolated fuzzy zoom
increased number of concurrent unfinished buildings AI allows
Jan08 2023 - New Stable Minor Release 0.4.7
AI improvements for economy, especially managing parallel economies around Stocks
AI improvements to attack logic, it is much more conservative now. Previously it was foolishly aggressive
Fixed resource production graphs, they are working great now
Elimination of long-snaking grass paths across water bodies (see https://github.com/freeserf/freeserf/issues/519)
Added new reeds/cattails in water (optional)
Added map generator sliders specific to WaterTrees and WaterStones now that they are fixed (they were broken in original game)
Map Generator options persist to disk
New larger submerged stones based on partial loading of existing junk objects from land
Tweaked water splashes around water stones
Improved water road contrast with option_WaterDepthLuminosity
Improved AI castle placement logic, though human-player-with-FogOfWar-on placement is unchanged
Added pathfinding check to free-walking behaviors to prevent Knights (on attack) and Serfs (when fishing, chopping, farming, planting) from trying to walk around excessively large bodies of water
Building sounds now have ambient focus area of around 800x600 pixels instead of entire screen, to reduce noise when playing at high resolutions
Fixes for root cause of stuck-serf in StateWaitIdleOnPath issues. Previously the AI would work around these by booting stuck serfs, but this resulted in the serfs not reaching their destination and a replacement never called, sometimes causing buildings to never be completed/occupied
Tweaks to dulling of sprites in winter with FourSeasons on
Dec29 2022 - New Stable Minor Release 0.4.6
game options persist, saved to disk each change. (independent of to savegame files, options are not stored in savegames)
option_WaterDepthLuminosity, shows varying lightness for shallow to deep water
option_RandomizeInstruments, chooses random MIDI instruments for the DOS game music tracks each play
fixed original game "bug" with map generation where Submerged Trees only appear in odd top-left place, and Submerged Boulders which were part of original game code/content but never appeared... now appear
added water splashes around submerged boulders, they are too flat
greatly expanded FogOfWar visibility range of buildings, to fix issue where enemies are within attack range but not visible/attackable
Right Click to close any popup/cancel road build. Previously 'ESCAPE' key was the only other way
fixed misc bugs with UI, save/load, graphics
option_SailorsMoveFaster. Sailors in water move 66% faster to make them more useful
Save and Load game popup, scrolling, other improvements
Reworked options screen
updated game type icons in game init box
disabled original game Missions entirely, they don't work right now
Dec23 2022 - New Stable Minor Release 0.4.5
slightly quieter boiling sound for Smelters, they are too loud and annoying
implemented 'special click' functionality like original game, plus supporting three different implementations (optional)
build possibilities overlay now available by special-clicking on the build panel button, like in original game (previously only when 'b' pressed)
added original game limitation of "cannot place a building whose flag touches the edge of a water tile" which Freeserf had not implemented
added option to invert mouse Y-axis for drag-scrolling
added option to invert zoom wheel, I believe Macintosh users prefer this
zooming with mouse wheel no longer requires holding CTRL key
fixed bug where zoom level was temporarily lost when changing window size
added can-build-flag icon to build options overlay like in original game
expanded main options popup window and changed advanced options paging method slightly
removed debugging information from some building popups
Dec22 2022 - New Stable Minor Release 0.4.4
added flowers to Spring season in FourSeason (cosmetic only)
added shading of map objects when on a steep downward slope left->right (cosmetic only)
possibly fixed music issue, music should now replay forever when last track ends
Dec18 2022 - New Stable Minor Release 0.4.3
added Fog of War, see details here: https://github.com/forkserf/forkserf/wiki/option_FogOfWar
fixed some bugs with LostTransportersClearFaster
added a PleaseWait popup, for Auto-Save events and other slow functions
minor minimap fixes
removed confirmation popup when burning incomplete buildings with QuickDemo enabled
internal: spiral_dist now allows up to radius 48 (was 24)
internal: game can now indirectly set interface cursor pos
internal: greatly consolidated draw_sprite functions, added extensive comments
Dec04 2022 - New Stable Minor Release 0.4.2
changed game speed to use "physics warp" up to speed 12, with "time warp" for speeds 13-40
performance improvements for AI, including caching similar road solutions, capping solution complexity, resting during long solutions
cleaned up code related to mutex locking
minor bugfixes and logging tweaks, including updates/frames-per-sec logging
Dec01 2022 - New Stable Minor Release 0.4.1
AI log message cleanup & properly defaults to Info instead of Debug loglevel
smoother transition between seasonal graphics
minor bugfixes
Nov29 2022 - New Stable Major Release 0.4.0
many core game bugfixes & AI improvements
custom map generator
minor new game options added (see wiki)
adds Seasonal graphics & Advanced Farming (optional, see Game Options to enable)
binaries available on README page on main code of stable branch