Version 4.1 beta patch includes: - Sound for host in multiplayer games! ( no more excuses if your monarch die while hosting, everyone can host! ) - Option to always allow Monarch Expendable - Allows 8 Players on direct play launch, such as Gamespy Arcade - Allows the 5th Race known as Creon on direct play such as, Gamespy Arcade and all the features from the Iron Plague expansion pack (movies can be downloaded apart) - ironplague.icd no longer used. - Command line not allowed anymore ( 3rd party unit makers can instead of using the -disablecavedog... just move the kingdoms.key file out of the kingdoms folder, but remember to put it back to play online) Version 4.0 patch includes: - 500 units limit - More than 500 maps bug fix - Allows more than one AI per person in mutliplayer games - Direct Play launch on ironplague.icd allows the Creon race on multiplayer games Version 3.0 patch includes: Several new units; including the Aramon Ark and Grenadier, the Veruna Merwarrior, Ballista and Centaur, the Zhon Swamp Beast, Barracuda and Giant Orm, and the Taros Dark Hand and Fallen Angel. All Monarchs have been given the ability to summon their sides respective Gods. Additionally, several changes have been introduced in the Darien Crusades: Occupied territories will now show a flame according to the number of players in the territory on both the full size map and the minimap. Territories in the Crusades can also fall without battle having been waged upon them, when the total territorial fatigue and support for either side amount to more than the territorial toughness. The Crusades Balance button should now be fully functional, and will allow the host player to decide whether to use the original units or the Crusades Balance. Version 2.0 patch included: Kingdoms should now run at least two times faster in all instances. In many cases the game will run even faster Faster user interface Faster game loading Faster single and multiplayer gameplay During intense battles, Kingdoms can now automatically adjust the level of shadow detail and animation updating to maintain a responsive frame rate Kingdoms RAM footprint has been reduced by 24MB Kingdoms should now run effectively on a P200 with 32MB of RAM (64MB is highly recommended) A new option to control unit/shadow scaling quality in hardware modes in available A registry control has been added to allow players to change the level of unit animation updating The introduction movie can now be turned off Assigning orders to units while the game is paused has been improved The offensive capabilities of the Veruna Dirigible have been reduced The size and polygon count of the Veruna Dirigible has been decreased The Zhon Wisp will now target and fire more effectively Anti-cheating measures have been updated The multiplayer check making version 2.0 incompatible with version 1.x has been updated A number of errors dealing with unit data have been corrected Two additional maps have been added to the game Hardware Cursor bug fix Documentation: Total Annihilation: Kingdoms v. 2.0 Total Annihilation: Kingdoms 2.0 includes a number of options to allow players to trade off image quality for greater performance. In its default mode, Kingdoms 2.0 will slightly diminish image quality when the frame rate drops, in order to maintain a high frame rate. It does this by rendering some shadows at half size and then scaling them up, and by skipping some frames of unit animations. On fast machines or during normal load this will not be done, but in intense battles this will automatically happen. The options below let you override the default behaviour to either lock in perfect quality, or increase the frame rate. Command line options - these are specified on the command line when you initially run the game. -skiplogo This option disables the intro movie Console options - these are typed into the game console while you are playing a game. +kenny: This command toggles between "Kenny mode", where the units move around without animating at all! and normal mode, where the unit animations are updated as frequently as possible, while still maintaining a good frame rate. "Kenny mode" exists because a) it looks cool and b) it gives you the highest possible frame rate +kenny n: This command, +kenny followed by a number, sets the animation update frequency. +kenny 0 disables all unit animation updates. +kenny 100 tells Kingdoms to update the unit animations every frame and +kenny 50 tells Kingdoms to update the unit animations every second frame. +kenny 101 sets Kingdoms to its default behaviour where the unit animations are updated as frequently as possible, while still maintaining a good frame rate. Registry options - these are entered into the registry. Do not modify the registry unless you are confident in your abilities to make the modifications properly. Incorrect changes to the registry can cause serious problems with your system. We do not recommend that you change these settings as the default settings were carefully chosen to be optional. All of the new registry options are in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cavedog Entertainment\Kingdoms\VisualOptions. They are: UnitRedrawPct: This setting is what is controlled by +kenny. You can set this to any decimal number between 0 and 101 and the behaviour will be as described for +kenny followed by a number. ShadowScale: This setting controls the scaling of rendered shadows (note: not all units have rendered shadows). There are four legal settings: 0 - the default. Adjust shadow scaling based on frame rate. 1 - always do full resolution shadows. 2 - always do half resolution shadows. 3 - always do quarter resolution shadows. ScaleAll: This setting controls the scaling of units. By default none of the existing units are scaled. If you set this to 1, to enable scaling of all units, then units will be rendered at a lower resolution as specified by the UnitScale registry setting. By default this means that they will be scaled down only when this is needed to maintain a good frame rate. UnitScale: This setting controls the scaling of units. This entry is interpreted in the same way as the ShadowScale entry. However, note that by default UnitScale only applies to units that are flagged as needing optimization - which none of the existing units are. Therefore this option has no effect unless you set ScaleAll to true. Options from the Visual Options dialog in the game. This dialog is accessible by pressing F1 and selecting Options and then selecting Visual. There is one new entry in this dialog: Bilinear Filter - when running in D3D mode you can select Bilinear filter. This affects how shadows and units are scaled up after being rendered at a reduced resolution. It smoothes them out and makes them look much nicer. However, many cards implement this feature incorrectly, which causes a purple halo around shadows and units. This is why this features defaults to being off. Here are some possible ways to configure your registry settings, depending on your own particular needs: Default: ScaleAll = 0 ShadowScale = 0 UnitRedrawPct = 101 UnitScale = 0 Fastest: ScaleAll=1 ShadowScale = 3 UnitRedrawPct = 0 UnitScale = 3 Highest quality: ScaleAll=0 ShadowScale = 1 UnitRedrawPct = 100 UnitScale = 1 CURSOR BUG FIX 1. If you use a Voodoo1 or Voodoo2 make sure your desktop resolution is as high as your game resolution. 2. If you use a Voodoo1 or Voodoo2 and your desktop resolution is lower than your game resolution, use Glide and use the "-fixcursor" command line option. (this is done by creating a shortcut and adding the -fixcursor to the end of the shortcut path way in its properties.) This should restore proper cursor behaviour. This option does not work in D3D mode. You can also specify +fixcursor on the chatline inside the game to toggle the fix on and off.