Vehicles, siege weapons and some ships can now move in reverse, automatically choosing the quickest route while accounting for turns
Optimized pathfinding and target selection, the game’s most demanding algorithms
Solo players can now queue for team matches of any size; the option to search only for large matches remains available
Added notifications for battles outside the camera view, with minimap markers and announcer messages
Weapons now aim vertically to match the firing trajectory and wait until they are aligned before firing
Brought back the system that predicts the winning team
Unit descriptions now show piercing damage and the proportion of damage dealt to buildings
Wheeled vehicles now turn more realistically
Visuals
Added physics-based deaths for infantry, riders, animals and weapon crews, with bodies reacting to terrain and explosions according to their mass
Redesigned the settings window
Added individual controls for every graphics quality setting
Realism is now the default graphics style for new settings; Standard has been renamed Vivid
Reworked the range indicator to prioritize the main weapon
Improved textures for some vehicles, including the BM-13, and explosion craters
Brought birds back to the game
Added smoke effects for steamships
Added dust and water ripples from elephant footsteps
Added the Blocks healthbar
Improved the appearance of indicators above units
Bug Fixes
A target disappearing at the start of an attack could crash the game for all players
Choosing starting positions on maps with disconnected areas could cause the game to hang
The initial connection could get stuck retrying indefinitely
Attack and resource-gathering commands involving units that no longer existed could cause an error
Lobby events arriving while the interface was loading could crash the game
Fixed image-loading hangs and memory leaks involving textures, fonts and sounds
Typing in text fields could trigger hotkeys, and a focused text field could prevent a window from closing with its hotkey
Announcer messages could overlap or repeat too frequently; messages now play at least two seconds apart, with identical messages at least five seconds apart
Turrets with limited rotation could snap abruptly when turning
Building and research requirements could be displayed incorrectly
Fixed sound playback and seeking errors, including errors caused by damaged recordings
Music volume could change abruptly during fades or be applied incorrectly to stereo playback
Positional sound volume could reset after the audio device was recreated
Dropdown menus could leave a thin strip at the bottom
The text cursor and selection could be misaligned with the displayed text
Scrolling the rankings before they finished loading could cause an error
Fullscreen mode could hide fatal error messages
The launcher could incorrectly suggest running the game with administrator privileges
Balance
Buildings now receive 40% of piercing damage before armor is applied, replacing individual weapons’ building-damage modifiers
Vehicles now crush obstacles with their entire hull, including while reversing
Reverse speed is generally 50% of forward speed; the East Asian Warship, Steamboat, Tank destroyer and Steam barge reverse at 75%
Vehicles that could fire directly beneath themselves now have a minimum firing range of 20–30 instead of 0
Adjusted hull dimensions for 33 types of water units, as well as the Tank Maus, 2C and FCM F1
