Hello Wielders!

The summer sale starts now. We partnered with the amazing Triumph Studios and came up with a great way to start your adventure in the world of Turn Based strategy games — Rulers of Realms Steam bundle, which allows you to get both Songs of Conquest and Age of Wonders 4 (or just one of the games) with an additional 15% discount for a limited time!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/42811/Rulers_of_Realms/

Please note that the bundle is dynamic: it means that if you already own one of the titles you can still get the other one with a discount!

We wish you all a great summer!

/Team Lavapotion

Greetings Wielders!

As summer approaches here in Sweden, we're excited to bring you our first update since the 1.0 release. And what is a summer without a proper Summer Sale? We are thrilled to join up with our friends at Triumph Studios and Paradox in the Rulers of Realms bundle! For a limited time, you can get both Songs of Conquest and Age of Wonders 4 at an additional 15% bundle discount. If you already own SoC, then you’ll still get the extra bundle discount on top of the ongoing summer sale price!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/42811/

But, let’s take a look that the new update! It includes much-requested new features, a small balance patch, and some very cool new obstacle modifications. While we've been hard at work on these improvements, we've also begun working on our upcoming DLC Rise Eternal.

In case the pixel art isn’t making it all too clear: This is a traditional Swedish Midsummers scene, with a smorgasbord, pickled herring and flower garlands on the head!Our latest update introduces a new difficulty level for our Campaigns, tailored for those new to the game and the genre. We've named it "Simple," and it's perfect for when you want to focus on the story and enjoy a more relaxed playthrough.

And the difficulty levels are color-coded too, for convenience!Another new feature is one that hot-seat players have been eagerly awaiting. Previously, you could catch a glimpse of your opponent's tactics and the map when you pressed the end turn, but not anymore. Now, At the start of each turn, the adventure map is covered with a dark overlay, allowing you to surprise your hot-seat adversary with your brilliant tactics.

You’ve got this, your royal highness!We mentioned obstacles. We've added a new feature: debris in battle. When most obstacles are destroyed, they now spawn "debris" that prevents new obstacles from being placed or summoned on that hex. However, debris can be freely moved through, clearing it as you go. And added bonus is that it looks great!

This new feature really is a barrel of laughs!

Balance is a tricky thing, especially in strategy games, and Songs of Conquest is no exception. Thanks to our active Community, we receive invaluable feedback on how to improve it. Our latest changes are steps in that direction. Rest assured, this won't be the last balance update. But this is a list of balance changes for now:

• Essence shield protection lowered to 25% / 50%
  
• Rigor bonus increased to +3HP / +6HP
  
• Increased Impressive bonus to 15% / 30% / 50%
  
• Increased troop size research of Bones to 3 / 3 / 4
  
• Acid Cloud damage lowered to 20 / 40 / 60
  
• Rupture t3 damage lowered to 220
  
• Cost of Chain Lightning reduced to 13

And is that it? Of course not! The list of changes is a bit too long to detail here, so as always, we recommend reading the full changelog—there's something for everyone! And, if you are looking forward to some more undead experiences, don’t forget to wishlist Rise Eternal which will come out this fall!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2977430/Songs_of_Conquest__Rise_Eternal/

As you can imagine, we've been quite busy since the 1.0 launch, but soon it will be time for a brief respite. Even in the cold Swedish north, summer is a time for holidays. We'll now be taking a four-week break, so our responses may be a bit slower during this period. But don't worry, we'll be back soon and ready to dive back into development mode!

/Everyone at Lavapotion

Changelog[www.songsofconquest.com]
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My name’s Carl Toftfelt and today I’m writing the Steam post, a friendly takeover of sorts! I’m the Lead Game Designer of Songs and have been working on this project for the past seven years. Releasing from Early Access into 1.0 has been exhilarating. All the kind words and calls for more content for the game have been amazing. I truly feel privileged to share that Songs of Conquest has now hit an incredible milestone!

There was more than a few high-fives at the office when we reached this milestone!Of course, with over half a million players and a passionate community I’m very pleased to tell you the following: There’s an expansion coming with two new factions. There will also be four DLCs that will expand existing parts of the game.

New factions take quite some time to develop. We want to keep telling the story of Songs of Conquest at a higher pace than only faction expansions would allow. So we’re introducing something we call Tales of Conquest in the form of DLC, releasing roughly every quarter. These Tales will move the story of Songs of Conquest forward, as well as expand our gameplay, through story missions following each one of the existing factions.

Our first Tales of Conquest is called ‘Rise Eternal’ and it will focus on our undead faction - the Barony of Loth. You will follow Kastus Maal, a scholar slain by Lady Stoutheart at the battle of Grey Tor. He will be seeking vengeance from beyond the grave against the Arleon baroness, and with his guidance the Risen will be more powerful than ever before.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2977430
Remember: For every wishlist we get, one more skeleton will rise to serve Aurelia! You don’t want to disappoint her, do you?

We’re planning to release Rise Eternal this Fall. It will be a paid DLC, and it will bring new artifacts, set bonuses, and general improvements to the Risen of Loth. And the sweet thing is that most of these things will be added to the base game for free so that everyone can enjoy the hordes of the loyal Risen, even if you don’t choose to buy the DLC.

The next DLC that we hope to release around December this year is called ‘Essence Awakened’ and will see Arleon as the protagonist faction. This DLC will focus on new and strange Essence beings in the world of Aerbor. More will be revealed as we get closer to release! The two remaining DLC’s are focused on Barya and Rana, and will be released in the second half of 2025.

Lots can be said about Kastus Mall, and as far as wandering corpses go, he is a beauty!All right, here’s the big one - we’re aiming to release Songs of Conquest’s first major expansion in the early summer of 2025. I know that’s a full year away, but we just wanted to let you know right away that we plan to support Songs of Conquest for years to come, and that of course means more factions!

The Bleak East lies to the North-East of Patrium, and is the home of descendants from both Arleon and Barya. Hardy settlers who now live their lives free of their former masters on the coast of the Bleak East. But they are not alone, and we can barely wait to share their Song with you.

I don’t want to give away too much about the new factions, but rest assured that there will be more news about them as time goes on. So for now you will have to make due with their names and some sprites to pique your interest. They will be known as the Vanir and the Roots.

A tale as old as time, trolls vs plants.Both new factions will be introduced through a new Song, a large single-player campaign that will tell the story of how they came to be and how they will affect the larger world of Aerbor. Will I personally be singing the campaign song again you ask? Very likely, as it takes too much time to find someone else with just the right amount of Swedish accent!

We will be sharing much more about the Bleak East, the Vanir and the Roots in the following months. We know that faction variety is super important for a turn-based strategy games like Songs of Conquest, and we heard your requests loud and clear. I hope the above visual teasers will sate your hunger for the time being!

If all that text was a little too much for you here’s the TL:DR in a fancy picture, or as you might say, a roadmap:

Click the image to see a larger version of the roadmap!As always, this is a living roadmap - things will always change, and timelines can shift forward and back. We’ll make sure to keep you posted on any developments that happen along the way.

From the bottom of our hearts here at Lavapotion, thank you so much for believing in us and supporting our game, the reception of Songs of Conquest has completely blown us away. Thanks for making our dream come true.


With love and gratitude,
Carl and everyone at Lavapotion

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* Fixed third mission of Barya campaign not completing after defeating all enemies (includes fix for currently broken saves)
* Fixed not being able to move wielder on first turn when starting a game with the complete map exploration option
* Limit risk of rare bug where the campaign map selection menu is not loaded after choosing a campaign

The 1.0 version of Songs of Conquest is launching today. At the same time we are updating the soundtrack, releasing a digital Art Book and dropping the news of a console version! We know it's a lot to take in, so let's explore these subjects one at a time after you’ve checked out our new trailer:

Get ready to venture into the sandy dunes of Barya! In this final campaign you’ll conclude the epic adventure that began with the Baronies of Arleon fighting for power, the rise of the Rana to reclaim the Marsh, and the loyalist of Loth determined to bring back a dead Empress. Now, experience the ingenuity and independence of Barya as they challenge all enemies. In keeping with tradition, the campaign is accompanied by a song written and sung by none other than our game designer Carl. Incidentally, we’ve now added several more tracks to our official soundtrack!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1968750

The songs have always been an important part of our game, but so have the visuals. In fact, what started out as a humble indie pixel art style has over the years transformed into something quite extraordinary if we might say so ourselves. The makers of the game engine Unity nominated Songs of Conquest for having the best 2D visuals of 2023. So, we figured it would be worth celebrating this launch with an artbook, with foreword by none other than Gregory Fulton, the lead designer for Heroes of Might and Magic 3.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2977420

Nice soundtrack and lovely visuals, yes. But what about platforms other than PC and Mac? This has been an ongoing request over the course of our Early Access period. We are proud to finally reveal that we are working on console versions. In fact, the game is already up and running, performing beautifully on both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

Imagine sitting on the sofa and enjoying the game on your TV. It’s about to happen!We're collaborating once again with the fantastic team at Bitwave, who previously assisted us with the Steam Deck version. We haven’t set a release date for the console versions, but this fall is looking very likely. Additionally, we plan to follow up with a Switch version as well!

From translations and marketing to pixel art and programming. Well over 100 people have in one way or another helped shape this game into what it is today!Expect to hear from us again very soon, as we prepare more news about our upcoming development plans. And if you have the time, please leave a comment with a favorite memory from playing the game or just a cheerful note. The whole team will be reading and appreciating your feedback as we gather at the office, manage the release and livestream while we play the new Barya campaign! All your lovely feedback has helped us not only improve the game, but made it a truly joyful experience of development!

This is not the end Wielders, this is merely the beginning of a new chapter in our epic saga!

With love, respect and gratitude,

All of us at Lavapotion

In less than a week, the long-awaited release of Songs of Conquest will be upon us, and we couldn't be more thrilled. It's hard to believe that nearly two years have passed since we first embarked on this journey together, releasing our project into Early Access. And oh, what a journey it has been!

We consider ourselves incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to spend this time in Early Access with you all. Together, we've forged an amazing Community, achieved a "very positive" rating on Steam, and delivered an average of one update per month – ranging from small tweaks to major updates.

But let's delve into the details a bit. What are some of the things we have accomplished during these past two years?

We missed the two-year anniversary by 10 days, shame on us! Last year, we un-earthed our third Campaign, letting players experience the necromancers of the Barony of Loth. And now, within just a week's time, we're set to unveil our fourth Song – a campaign that transports you to the sun-scorched dunes of Barya. Prepare to follow the journey of the indebted Bighli as he confronts loss, engages in crucial battles, and faces seemingly insurmountable odds.

It’s finally a complete set! And when it comes to defying the odds, we've introduced an entirely new gameplay mode called Challenge Maps. These specially crafted maps are designed to do just what they are called – challenge you. They're tailor-made to test your skills and help you improve, making them perfect for players eager to learn new strategies and tackle fresh challenges.

Currently, we offer eleven unique challenge maps, each as deadly as the next. Why not try your hand at "A Hot Deal"? Where you must choose your path carefully to reach the Beacon. But beware – Each road is different but definitely dangerous.

It seemed like a hot deal taking the job, but it turned out to be all too true.In the realm of Conquest maps, we've been busy expanding our lists. Over the past years, in addition to the new Campaign and the already mentioned Challenge maps, we've introduced over fifteen Conquest maps. These are your "standard" maps, designed to pit you against AI or human opponents on more or less equal footing. Here, you'll have the opportunity to build your settlements, muster your armies, and engage in glorious combat against both enemy Wielders and neutral troops.

But that's not all – our Conquest maps also serve as the perfect arena to test out the new Siege battles! They really change the battlefield as compared to when we started the Early Access.

Man the walls, or Faey the walls in this example! While some members of our team have been hard at work crafting new maps and game modes, others have dedicated themselves to enhancing our AI – ensuring that the enemies you face give you a worthy challenge. Our AI has undergone significant improvements, learning to utilize all of our spells in combat and devising tactics both on the battlefield and on the adventure map.

But that's not all – our AI has also gotten better at troop management, more efficiently utilizing resources to mule troops, investing in building plans and using portals and beacons to their advantage. Not to mention, it's now faster and more responsive than it was at the start of Early Access.

To ensure that every player can face the AI experience they desire, we've reworked our difficulty into seven new levels, ranging from Simple to Deadly. In short, our AI has evolved into a much more varied and formidable opponent compared to two years ago, though it's truly impossible to list all of its achievements since then.

Seeing 1.0 so close on the horizon. To the team at Lavapotion it tastes like a sweet victory.

Behind the scenes, there's been a flurry of activity as we've worked to craft improvements and optimizations. On the visual front, we unveiled a brand new main menu that showcases our game in all its pixelated glory.

Thanks to the demands from our community, we're proud to say that during Early Access Songs of Conquest got support for gamepad and was Steam Deck Verified by Valve. This means our game is a lot more portable and versatile. We've partnered with local Gothenburg studio Bitwave to make that happen, and they've done an incredible job with it.

Tactical, portable, and turn-based! Perfect for the holidays!These years have also allowed us to release Random Map generation. Our Random maps have gotten more than one work-over and it now boasts three different win conditions, four sizes, and one special mode called “balanced”. It’s still random, it just makes sure you and your opponent really start on equal footing.

There is a structure and order even in random chaos! Beyond our own work, there's a large community of skilled map makers. We've spent these last years refining our map editor tools, making it more user-friendly. With these tools, players can craft their own maps and campaigns. On https://mod.io/g/soc there are over 400 community-created maps and several grand Campaigns!

Change the theme with the stroke of a brush!

This has been far from a conclusive list of our work since those early days. We didn’t even mention our Steam Achievements! But it is safe to say that we have loved every update we’ve made and that we have no intention to stop after 1.0.

Our launch is very close now but we’ll spend our time playing the game and squashing some pesky bugs. The reason we found those bugs is because of you, the community that gave Songs of Conquest a chance during Early Acces and made our game so much better because of it.

But the time after 1.0 is when it gets exciting, we have so much planned and we hope that you will be here for the ride, it’s going to be a good one! Turn to Conquest Wielders, the time draws near!

/Everyone at Lavapotion

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Greetings Wielders!

As the release date for 1.0 is creeping closer day by day, we are trying to focus mainly on stability and a good experience.

However, unexpected issues before a release are almost more of a rule than an exception. And we have just found a pretty serious issue with the AI and how its trading has worked.

When the AI tried to trade resources, it looked something like this:

- (AI) “Hey! I want to buy two extra stone to be able to buy this building. How much does it cost?”
- (Trader) “How much gold do you have?”
- (AI) “20.000 Gold. So how much do I owe you?”
- (Trader) “20.000 Gold, please”
- (AI) “Uhm, sounds a bit expensive… But ok, here you go!”

We had a nice, but stern chat with the trader and passed some new laws that it’s not allowed to raise the prices depending on the budget of the AI like that. So, good news, the issue is now fixed. Huzzah!

But as you probably understand, even though it is a small fix, it can cause a snowball effect making the AI much more difficult to beat - on all difficulty levels.
For example: If the AI could break out of the first zone by round 7, it might now sometimes break out at round 5 or 6 instead - which would give it an advantage in later stages of the game.
Consequently, if we look at the end game with an AI that wants to trade a resource to buy research - this would before deplete most of its gold reserves in the process, so now it would just have more gold in general resulting in more troops, research and all that good stuff.

The positive thing about this is that the AI will feel more competent, especially in the later stages of a session. The negative is that the easier difficulties might be too difficult to be called easy - and our efforts to give every player a difficulty that feels appropriately challenging might be unbalanced now.

But the thing is, we don’t know yet. And to find out we need lots of testing and data, something that takes a lot of time.

Yes, we are asking for your help, but we are also treating you with this brand new screenshot! How's that for a tradeoff?!This is not something we expected to happen so close to release, and this is where we need your help. The time is nigh, and we need as many eyes as possible on both our campaign maps and our conquest maps and collect feedback on how difficult it feels to play.

So if you have the time, we’d greatly appreciate it if you could play the game with this in mind for us. If you want to be extra helpful, please use this template below to describe your experience in a comment to this post.

I see myself as a: <Difficulty> Player
I played with difficulty: <Difficulty>
On map: <Map Name>
Thoughts: (How did it feel, how many times did you reload, quick battles etc)

Thank you!

Best Regards,
Niklas Borglund
Lead Programmer & CTO at Lavapotion.

Changelog

UI

• Fixed incorrect threat levels being shown sometimes in battle menus
  
• Added fade transitions when moving between heavy scenes
  
• Made sure spellbook/bar tooltips are never drawn outside the screen
  
• Fixed team queue beacon layout bug for >20 beacons

Map Editor

• Fixed AI difficulty dropdown misleadingly being initially visible even if AI team is not forced to have a specific difficulty
  
• Added ability to see trigger identifier names directly on the map in the editor as a gizmo

Modding

• Fixed issue on the Community Campaign screen where an exception sometimes were thrown due to a missing prefab

Multiplayer

• Fixed exception when trying to open spellbook in battle using hotkey while playing as a hostile in multiplayer

AI - Adventure

• Fixed bug where some options forgot to check if a fight was against the neutral planet.. I mean a neutral hostile! This stopped the AI from attacking player wielders sometimes
  
• Fixed vision and exploration issue that could lead to the AI not finding enemy player towns and settlements
  
• Fixed softlock in AI recruitment when it tried to move too large stacks between commanders, i.e the owner had a +1 stack size artifact
  
• Fixed issue with calculating capacity of an army (how full it is) before scoring and trading troops
  
• Fixed severe bug where AI would pay all of its gold instead of the calculated price when buying resources from the marketplace
  
• Fixed incorrectly scripted building requirement for Smoldering Cave that caused AI not to build it
  
• Fixed bug where AI would not build a required building on a built site it had reserved for upgrades
  
• Fixed bug where AI would reserve too many small build sites for medium building upgrades in large settlements
  
• Fixed AI not being aware of what buildings are already under construction in a town or settlement

AI-Battle

• Fixed ranged defenders in siege ending up exposed near the enemy
  
• Fixed so that melee defenders in siege are more likely to be positioned towards the center opening

Misc

• Fixed various issues that affected Macs running on Apple Silicon processors to run slow when Songs of Conquest lost focus.
  
• Fixed not being able to change the screen resolution in the options menu without encountering an exception
  
• Added option to clear local player stats under Gameplay options
  
• Fixed AI difficulty button in lobbies being locked when a team is actually just forced to be AI controlled but not forced to a specific difficulty
  
• Fixed bug with “Auto equip stronger artifacts” feature, that would override validation and allow for unequippable artifacts to be unequipped. I.e remove a +2 command artifact with something else, leaving you with more troop stacks than allowed.
  
• Fixed showing Range and Deadly Range in codex entries of troops that have no ranged attacks
  
• Fixed issue where rebinding an action with multiple default bindings (such as “End Turn”) did not override all default bindings
  
• Changed the bundle ID on mac builds back to its original value to fix issue with missing savegames

Greetings Wielders,

We're thrilled to share some exciting news with you all: The official release date for Songs of Conquest, along with the fourth and final campaign, is set for May 20th! Get ready to step into the shoes of Bhigli, a Wielder with grand ambitions. Discover the pivotal role played by the mercenary tinkerers of Barya as the final part of the story unfolds.

The development journey leading up to this moment has been nothing short of incredible, and we owe it all to you, our amazing Community! Your feedback and support have been invaluable, shaping Songs of Conquest into the game it is today. Sharing this news with you guys feels long overdue, but we’ve always had high ambitions for the game, and we didn’t want to release 1.0 until we felt the game was in really good shape! But finally, that time has come!


Thunder and lightning can be very very frightening, or so we heard. Let's not ask Bhigli!With the full release of Songs of Conquest literally just around the corner, you might be worried that this is the final chapter of our saga. Well, rest assured dear Wielders that our journey together does not end here.

The journey, though long and winding, does not end here in the sandy dunes of Barya. The end of a chapter marks the beginning of another!We are finalizing plans for more content, updates, and general improvements as we post this very news. We’ll keep you posted on a weekly basis as we are gearing up for the full release and you should expect more exciting news in the near future.

Until then, mark your calendars for May 20th – it's going to be an epic adventure!

/Everyone at Lavapotion

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