RELEASE WEEKEND 21-24MAY10: RELEASE 2/3

1. CANCELLING MOVEMENT ORDERS
(THE "I MADE A BOO-BOO" BUTTON)
You can now cancel:

• Army Movement Orders
• Diplomatic Movement Orders
• Settler Movement Orders

... within two minutes of dispatching them, without penalty.

This is to allow people who have just made a terrible error a little time to make it good.

We will be extending the cancellation system to include buildings, research and production orders soon.

Canceled movement orders return the units to the city immediately.

To cancel the order, the Unit Movement screen which you are shown after dispatch has a "Recall" button on it next to the orders you have just given. This button is available for 2 minutes from the moment your troops were dispatched. Pressing the button after 2 minutes have elapsed will not work.

You cannot use the recall button to bring back caravans once they have been dispatched, as this is potentially too exploitable (regarding trade offers etc). Please also note that Settlers in motion appear on the Diplomatic Movements screen.

However, we know that players want to be able to bring back armies and caravans that are located on another square - or reinforcing another town - which is why we have also introduced the brand new, shiny, Messenger unit.

2. MESSENGER UNIT
Messenger units are the elite speed-riders of your city's Diplomatic Corps: the very fastest riders, indefatigable and capable of crossing great distances continuously.

Messengers carry messages bearing new orders, and seek out stationary troops and caravans.

They take replacement horses with them so when the horse they are riding tires and falters they abandon it, swapping to the next, fresher horse to make up lost time.

There is a new Diplomatic technology, Messengers, which requires Consulate Level 6 to research before you can build Messengers.

They're expensive to build and expensive to maintain; as they need to be on constant standby with their horses in the best possible shape so they can make good time across the land.

To send a messenger simply give it the co-ordinates of the army you wish to recall in the Move page in the Consulate - or, on the world map, click on the unit you wish to recall and choose "Send diplomatic mission".

You only need to send one Messenger to recall a unit (or army).

On reaching their target square the messenger will give ALL the currently stationary caravans and armies belonging to the Messenger's hometown the order to return home, and they will leave immediately.

Messengers are one-shot units. When they have reached their target location, the poor horses are broken and the unit will disappear.

Messengers will (in the fullness of time) be enhanced to allow different orders (other than simply recall) to be given to specific armies at a location.

3. ENHANCED INGAME MAIL LINKS
A selection of the ingame emails that players receive have received some loving, and locations are generally now linked to the map, plus additional information that has often been requested has been placed on the email as well.

• Quest emails now report which town it was that completed the quest in the subject line:
  [Quest name] completed at [Town Name]!
  
  
• Diplomatic Reports emailed to you now have links to the map where the event occurred as well as links of the player name and alliance name to the relevant profiles (if applicable).
  
  
• Resource Harvesting emails (starting harvesting, ending harvesting, pushed off square, killed caravans) now have details on the resource type being harvested, as well as map links embedded in the X|Y locations.

4. MOVEMENT SUMMARY PAGE ENHANCEMENTS
We've added various pieces of additional information and linkage to the Movement Summary Pages.

• Military Summary
  As well as the current "view in map" option to see your units current position in the map; now the source and destination locations are linked so you can also see them in the map
  
  
• Diplomatic Summary
  As well as the current "view in map" option to see your units current position in the map; now the source and destination locations are linked so you can see them in the map also
  
  
• Trade Summary
  Caravans currently harvesting now say what resource type they are harvesting

5. DIPLOMATIC UNIT BUILD TIMES

We've suddenly noticed that every basic diplomatic unit and every advanced diplomatic unit takes the same time to build.

So we've provided some variance to the base production time:

• Basic Scouts - 10m
• Advanced Scouts - 15m
• Basic Spies - 15m
• Advanced Spies - 20m
• Basic Thieves - 20m
• Advanced Thieves - 25m
• Basic Saboteurs - 30m
• Advanced Saboteurs - 40m
• Basic Assassins - 45m
• Advanced Assassins - 1h

6. OTHER FIXES & CHANGES

• Various further typographic and grammatical errors have been fixed; thanks to all the players who have reported these - keep them coming!
  
  
• Earning prestige for referring a player was triggering when the player reached 101 population or more, not 100 as it said in the description. This has now been brought into line with the text - and you earn 25 prestige for each player you refer who reaches 100 population.
  
  
• The "Welcome to Illyriad" email for new players referred them to a (missing) guide on the forum; this has been changed to a message urging new players to do the tutorial instead.

Edited by GM Stormcrow - 23 May 2010 at 23:20

Thank you for the change SC.
Appreciate it.

Keep up with the good work.

kudos to the devs for the great dedication! 

Larry wrote: ivyleaves wrote: Very nice. I do think Caravans should be able to be recalled if they are outgoing and empty. That would make them not exploitable in trade, but still help when you realize you are going to bump yourself or an alliance member. Disagree. The mechanics of the market must be immutable.

And how would that not be the case with recalls limited to outgoing empty caravans?