Alpha Test Stage 4 Deployment: Medieval Age added

Today is launch day for Stage 4 of Totem Tribe II: Jotun Alpha-test.  One of the major features of this stage is the introduction of a new historical era  -  the Medieval Age. There are a lot of important details about today's update so you need to read on (especially if you are experiencing new stage start for the first time).

As is the case with the introduction of every new Alpha stage, the game has been wiped and all of your progress, including your heroes and achievements, are lost. Unfortunately this is necessary because when we introduce new dramatical changes to the game (like the addition of a  new age) we have to start the game from scratch in order to test it properly. We have had to do this for the previous Alpha stages and this will be repeated in the future. However, the Enkord Cash that you have spent so far is now back in your account. You can read more about this at the bottom of this news post.

So what is Alpha 4 all about?

Medieval Age - We have added a whole new age to the game which you can access as soon as all of the Classical Age techs have been researched. Just like the previous ages, it has a lot of new features, like buildings, units, tech, upgrades, global resources, and so on.  However, there are also a number of unique things that we added that were not available before the Medieval Age

Priests and town capturing mechanism - you will be able to train a unique unit - the  Priest. Priests will allow you to  capture your enemies. Once captured, the town will belong to you forever just like the one you built from scratch. The capturing process is very complicated, because the reward (and damage done to your enemy) is huge.  It will be way harder than capturing a new town on your own, but it is too lengthy to explain it in this thread, so I will more than likely start a separate thread with a detailed explanation on this subject.

1. Catacombs -  we have had a lengthy brainstorming thread on an idea about how to defend your country when you are away and catacombs were the result of it.
2. Pirates! - this new privateering feature will allow your sailing ships (no rower) to plunder anonymously under pirate colors - your victim will never know who it was that attacked them.
3. Wonder of the World. Because of the upgraded capacity of the new medieval storage buildings and with the ability to have 2 world resource sheep in your domain (which is simplified by the fact that your neighbors can lend you resources too) you will be able to build a level 100 of the Wonder of the World which is a necessary  condition for  the Wealth Victory, however, the victory mechanic itself has yet to be implemented . But hopefully we will be able to implement it by the time you get to level 100 (which, believe you me, is not an easy task).
4. Courthouse - this allows you to reduce  the corruption (inefficiency) in any particular town.
5. Chaika - a new ship which can not only explore, but also spy on  port towns.
6. Pilgrim - a medieval age settler which can both walk and swim thus allowing you to settle on islands.

There are numerous smaller things that I haven't mentioned here and I will leave it up to you to find them on your own.

New Big World Map

Say goodbye to Littlefield and all of the regions/continents of Alpha 1-3. The all-new world map is different than the last in the following ways:

1. Size. The size is roughly one hundred times larger. A single region of new world map is now bigger than the whole world in past alphas.
2. Shape. The regions are shaped roughly as square now. We did this to make it fit your mini map better and to make navigation more convenient for you. Also, your mini map now only shows a single region. Once you scroll to another one, it shows the different region. Each region now has only one kind of climate.
3. Connection. Regions are now connected to one another by land, with 4 regions making up a continent.
4. Islands. You will notice that there are now a lot of small Islands on the world map. Now that your settlers can swim and cross water these islands can be settled and you have the ability to utilize them and to move your domain out into the sea.
5. World Resources. The resources have been rebalanced - there are more global water resources such as fish and whalebone, and we have also added more sheep which are important for the Wealth Victory. Also, some resources are now unique to specific climates so you will not find them anymore.
6. Food intensive spots. In Alpha 3 you may have spotted some cells which will allow you to build 14-15 food/farm plots in a town built next them.  You will be pleased to learn that we have also added more spots like those which will be quite handy for warriors.
7. Climate. Now that the world map is so huge, we will initially only unlock one climate zone which means that  everyone will be in the same place.

Enkord Cash and Bonuses Refund

All Enkord Cash donated up until now will be refunded and you will be able to spend it again. However this is the last time we are going to do a refund, so spend your Enkord Cash wisely. From now on, once you spend it, it will be gone for good. If  you come across a post anywhere on the website  that still mentions refunds - please let us know as we will need to fix it.

While refunding Enkord Cash is fairly simple to implement, we cannot refund bonus gifts (keys, lada's wards, packages) for the following reasons: First of all, in order to provide them, you need to have at least one hero to hold those bonuses and since all heroes are wiped we are unable to provide them right now. Secondly, some people accumulated large amounts of bonuses throughout the Alpha 3 and refunding the bonuses along with the Enkord Cash will make them too powerful at the beginning of Alpha 4 and this  will skew the effect of testing even more. Since we had initially promised to refund bonuses as well,  we have made the following decision: we will refund bonuses exactly 1 month from now to those people who create a hero by then and the maximum gift will be limited up to $100 amount, so you will receive 3 x Packages, 3 x Keys, 3 x Lada's Wards (+3 x Gift Lada's Wards) at most. Hopefully you will understand the reasoning of this decision.

Invitations of New Players

The single biggest difference in Alpha 4 is not the new Medieval Age, nor is it the new World Map. The biggest implementation that we have planned is the mass sending out of invites to all those who have been registered with the website to date.  However, as Alpha 4 is still quite rough, we will be relying on those who are already testing to report bugs,  and we will hold off on sending out invitations for a couple of weeks or so.  If you are really anxious to get into the game - existing players now have the ability to invite their friends, so if you know an existing tester, you can ask them for invite.

Conclusions?

Alpha 4 is a huge step toward the final game and an important moment for both the developers and the players who make up our community. We are looking forward to seeing how it works out. No doubt this initial launch build will be quite buggy and you should expect the game to crash, kick you out, and go a bit bonkers on you at any moment, but with your help we will get it fixed and sorted :)

So don't forget to post your opinions and impressions on Alpha 4 in the comments below and bugs in the bug section. Thanks for staying with us so far!