What’s new?

Done and live

• Camera: right-drag rotation and left-drag panning are smooth again (they used to stall after one step).
• 20 new 3D models: 7 creatures (toad, beetle, lynx, griffin, basilisk, pack leader, rime warden), 8 landmarks (stable, shipwreck, war smithy, charcoal burner, toll bridge, pilgrims’ well, watch cairn, herb garden), 4 war machines and the Stormrunner ship.
  
• More than 90 new images: banners for all 3 campaigns and pictures for all 24 missions, a new victory/defeat emblem (a shield and two swords), 11 building icons and 16 town views, 29 spell, skill and site icons; plus 20 skill icons redrawn.
• An outside, independent test (Codex, 5 areas + a live playthrough) — followed by more than 40 fixes: a smarter computer opponent (gates, sieges, the workshop, the globe seam), battle and siege bugs, economy maths, safer saves. For example: Escape no longer throws away a half-made custom hero in the heraldry editor.
• Interface: the reward marker in the HUD style, round reward icons in the reports, the hero-switch strip only shows when it is needed; fixes from 10 QA branches (levelling up, the world map, keys, switching language).

In the works

• The computer opponent takes to the sea — it plays the match through on island and ocean maps too.
• Missing reports: a siege beaten off at your own castle, small hot-seat and online touches.
• Pulling apart HUD pieces that overlap (the battle forecast, the tutorial card, pop-ups).
• Movement and life for the 7 new creatures, a brighter pack leader, the bone dragon’s wing membrane.
• Steam page: fresh text, new pictures and screenshots in Hungarian and English.
• Deeper maps: a denser world closer to the classic Heroes maps — zones, guarded passes, full of interesting places instead of big empty fields.
• Already done, ships with the next release: inside-out faces fixed on 15 models (black patches).

Planned

• Manual castle defence — when your own castle is besieged, you command the defenders.
• The underworld — a second map level, and separate naval battles.
• “Onward round the ring” at the magic gates; a new balance for battle and economy.
• The remaining 22 icons (strongholds, war machines, ships), a faster world map, long test runs.

Done and live — from our colleagues’ feedback

Three colleagues (Jani among them) wrote down what bothers them while playing. 22 of those points were still open — a whole 10-agent round went into them.

• Levelling up: 3 cards instead of 6 options, each with a one-line description.
• Magic gate: the hero can step back to where they came from.
  
• Route: the hero steers round guards, rival armies and castles they cannot take; does not step into other sites on the way; a multi-day target (R) and a “Home to the castle” order (G).
• Notifications: the reward only appears on arrival; the site report fades on its own after 2–3 seconds and does not stop movement.
• Enemies: you can see where they are heading, an “enemy in reach” marker warns you, and the end of the game says why it ended.
• Battle: a blue aura on the active unit, a better over-the-shoulder unit view (V), no jumping picture, a showier start and finish.
• Camera: trees and buildings no longer poke into the picture; an adjustable field of view (50–70°).
• Comfort: the striped background behind texts is gone, Alt+Enter for full screen, much faster colour mixing in the hero creator, fixed bun and beard.
• Towns: a small ceremony when a building is finished.
• Minimap: roads and your own holdings; the peoples got subtitles (e.g. Watchfires — humans, keepers of the fire).

Done and live — our own development round

• A new name: Ancient Crowns — the “Ruined Worlds:” prefix is gone everywhere (title screen, window title, desktop/Steam version, save folder).
• Peoples’ subtitles: Watchfires — humans, keepers of the fire · Lanterns — people of the water · Knells — the undead (on people choice, campaign headers and in the help).
• World map on the O key: a zoomable overview with selectable views (holdings, battles and more).
• Less text, bigger pictures: the site window, rewards, town cards, the garrison, the info card; bigger portraits in battle, and pointing at a unit in the turn order highlights it on the field.
• Campaigns: all 24 new missions played through and fixed, shorter briefings; each campaign keeps its own progress when you switch to another; the old 3-mission chain is hidden and its achievements are tied to the Horn Line.
• Online: chat (with spam protection), handling of lost connections, a resume code; a paused host can sit back down.
• Desktop (Steam) version: display settings, saves in your own user folder, Steam Cloud, moving the old saves over.
• World: sea variants of sites, a quest gate in the map editor, a “been here” marker.
• Faster loading: −72 KB off the first download.
• Groundwork: an art survey (what is missing — today’s art round came from it), a decision memo with measurements for balance.

Decisions

• From now on, an automatic release after every green round, with a version bump.
• The images (Higgsfield) are legally in order; a new victory emblem: a shield and two swords (made today).
• Next step: a full outside playthrough (it ran today, with 40+ fixes).