We Are The Horde

This update is mostly about the second half of a city. Districts took too long even when they were packed with zombies, and soldiers often died at the fence before they reached the fight. Here are the changes in detail.CombatCleanup squads no longer remove a fixed percentage of the horde. The squad spawns, marches to the biggest crowd of zombies and fights there. You lose exactly the zombies it shoots. Its hit chance depends on the city. After the fight a message shows how many zombies it cost you.Squad size: 5 soldiers plus 2 for every doubling of your horde, at most 30. Counterattacks get 3 extra soldiers per doubling, at most 50.BalancingConquest speed scales with the zombies at the target: every doubling adds 80 % speed, capped at 5x. The count uses the real horde size, not just the figures on screen.The free strip between city and fence is twice as wide on every map, at least 8 tiles. Before, soldiers coming through the gates were often caught right at the fence.Pathing and AIFixed: zombies coming out of a manhole kept their old area and walked back to an old fight. They now pick a new area, and reinforcements spread out again once a fight is over.Zombies walking back into their area and soldiers taking position only aim for free ground now. They no longer pile up at benches, cones and barrels.Fleeing survivors pick their own direction, avoid each other and avoid paths blocked by props. They no longer run into the horde in a single line.ControlsDouble left click a district or building to attack it. The DISTRICTS button still works.World mapEvery city has a short story text, and the map has an intro. In the demo, locked cities show a lock icon.Full game and demo are updated. The demo contains all gameplay changes in Millbrook.

Some of you told me that the second half of a city felt like waiting: millions of biomass in the bank, the whole map full of zombies, and still nothing moved. This update changes that: Storm attack: right click on the district you are attacking. The biomass you pay for the horde call now goes straight into the conquest, three times over. Your horde size counts: the more zombies stand at the target, the faster it falls, up to three times as fast. Every click on Harvest now draws a little attention. Early on you barely notice it, with a big horde it adds up. Reinforcements crawl out of the manholes much faster and spread over several nests during a fight, so soldiers can no longer shoot them down one at a time. Survivors are smarter: they notice groups of zombies earlier, look further ahead when they flee and no longer run straight into the horde. The starting areas in Northgate, Port Haven, Ashford and Redwater are fuller, and the searchlights over Northgate are gone. Everything is live in the full game. The demo gets all gameplay changes in Millbrook. Let me know how the storm attack feels. Feedback in the forum helps me a lot with the balancing.

While testing all five cities again I noticed something odd. Next to street lamps the horde sometimes stood still in front of nothing at all. Here is what was going on: Lamps, hydrants and stop signs blocked the whole width of their picture instead of just the pole. A lamp seen from the side blocked almost three times the space it should. Now only the pole itself is in the way, so zombies walk right past it. Afterwards I checked all five cities again with small and big hordes. No new tight spots came up. The fix is live in the demo and in the full game. If you still see a zombie stuck somewhere, a screenshot in the forum helps a lot.