Alpha 5 Deployment: Renaissance Age added and more!

Today we launched Alpha Test Stage 5. This new version of the game features the addition of a whole new Renaissance Age, totally new Snowy Tundra climate, and a lot of smaller additions.

Let's go into detail about everything step by step.

Renaissance Age

First of all, a short disclaimer: Totem Tribe II: Jotun takes place on planet Teya and not on Earth. Therefore, we are not following historical accuracy here and the Renaissance Age is not necessary exactly as the Renaissance from human history. It contains bits of Victorian times and some other historical periods as well.

The Renaissance Age has a whole lot of new technologies, buildings, units, upgrades and so on. You will have to explore them on your own, but I will describe the key ones:

1. Ships. The Renaissance Age could be called an Age of Sail here and I have made exclusive news post about ships in this age which provides more details.
2. Gunpowder! This tech changes everything, but not for everyone. Gunpowder allows you to train units and build constructs that are very powerful. However, it requires access to a strategic resource - sulfur. The sulfur is the horses of Renaissance - you will need a lot of it if you want to use Renaissance units in warfare effectively.
3. Aerostatics. The first air units, like aerostat, will allow you to explore the world map via air - and the dirigible will allow you to deliver resources.
4. Paved road. Replaces regular road and allows units to move faster on it.
5. Bank. Allows you to make some profit on your market transactions. Effective traders will love it!
6. Museum. Scientists will be able to use it to speed up research.
7. Conservatory. Helps mitigate corruption penalties towards culture, making your domain larger.

Oh, and the prices of some Medieval Age technologies have been reduced.

New World

First of all, your starting position is limited to the recently finished Showy Tundra region. You can say Christmas starts early this year and all of a sudden it becomes really cold in Totem Tribe world :)

The new climate not only looks different, but also has unique elements not found in other climates. I am speaking of unique monsters, animals, fish species, etc.

Finally, the world map has changed too. The continents are slightly larger, as the Alpha 4 experience showed us that continents  may fit more players to better benefit land trade and warfare. Also, global resource distribution has changed a bit, because last time it was somewhat bugged. There were places with the same resources placed  too closely together multiple times or whalebone located so far from the shore it was unreachable.

Better Towns

The locations inside player towns have been improved as well. Here is what is new:

• You can find several random quests and characters in your towns and even one minigame!
• There are 10 new puzzles types with 6 difficulties each added into the game - and you can find those puzzles in your town locations.
• Tough monsters. Sometimes your town location will have very tough monsters right from the start - even if you are low level! They will be guarding a lucrative chest, so if you are up to the challenge you will not need to wait until higher levels to fight the dragon if you are lucky.
• Special places with the chests hidden behind doors or obstacles in the dwelling area are now available in some towns as well.
• Idols. Sometimes item idols will be placed in your town, which will allow you to manage your items right at home.

Quests and single-player content.

While the release of Alpha 5 does not add the long-awaited new quest location Karfaree (it will hopefully be added via update somewhere in the middle of Alpha 5), we have also worked on some stuff that might be interesting for people who are into the story and quests:

• All 4 existing quest locations were revised - some bugs fixed, treasure spots added, but most importantly - we have added 15 secrets across these locations. Those are very tricky, but players who are up to the real challenge might try to find them all.
• Shaman Blacksmith - new NPC and new quest which involves item idols
• The Florist and the Wonderful Garden - new NPC, quest and a lengthy minigame.
• The "Great" Architects - a bunch of NPC and the quest. These guys are arrogant for sure, but helping them might pay off.

The Wealth Victory and the War Victory

In Alpha 5 at the long last you will be able to officially "beat" the game as 2 victory types are available.

The War Victory requires to completion of the Trophy Hall with war trophies in order to "win" the game. However this time around it is not that simple. First of all, the trophy requirements were revised based on the progress from testers which hoarded them in Alpha 5. Second - and most important - building and upgrading the hall requires special items called "Colorado Stripes". They are required in large amounts. In order to obtain such items you have to attack with onslaught those players who are at least one age higher than you. This means you must attack more developed, and potentially stronger, players than you. Having this requirement in place requires a completely different strategy from the very beginning of the game if you plan to reach War Victory seriously.

The Wealth Vicotry requires building the Wonder of the World level 100. However, unlike Alpha 4, this time around there will be surprises. I will not reveal them right away.

Reaching the victory will grant you a special stripe visible on your achievements page, will increase one of your stats limit for the next playthroughs and will grant you some additional bonuses that you will discover when you reach it yourself.

The wipe of progress and Enkord Cash refund

Just like we have promised earlier - all Enkord Cash spent during August will be refunded. Needless to say, any unspent Enkord Cash will not be lost and you will be able to spend them during Alpha 5 without problems. However, we have made serveral nice extra surprises:

• We have made a step forward and all items purchased with Enkord Cash (those which have E sign) were transferred to Alpha 5, so you will be able to start a new hero with these items from the old one.
• You can even take up to 3 equipment items from the old hero to the new one, so your best artifacts can be kept!
• Last but not the least - there are different bonus packages - second wind and loyalist packages - so you will have a better start at Alpha 5.

All existing heroes and countries are wiped, because the changes in Alpha 5 are too complicated to allow us keep your progress. We appologize if it causes you inconvenience, but don't forget this game is still in an early stage of development. Such progress losses were expected and announced in advance.

The rankings and achievements are wiped for everyone as well.

What's next?

We will start the deployment right away, but as always, the early version of the new Alpha stage might be extremely buggy, Critical bugs might even require us to reset the progress again. If you want a relatively smooth experience you might decide to wait a few days or even a week. If you can't wait - welcome, but expect bugs and crashes.

Also, don't be shy to post your first impressions about Alpha 5 in the comments below!