Occidental Heroes 1.3.6 (Android) / 2.3.6 (iOS)

A long overdue content update. What's new is the Expanded Edition, an in-app pproduct that contains:

• A new map area
  
• Two new party members with unique classes
  
• 15 new quests
  (or 10 if you already played Capriss and Fort Venture quest arcs)

If you've already bought ad-free in-app product, you also own the Expanded Edition so sadly I can't take more money from you.
There's also new bugs that are being fixed rapidly, so pretty please report all of them no matter how small.

Occidental Heroes 1.1.0

A systems/mechanics update. Here's what's new:

• Optional company traits
  When forming your company you will be able to set some starting conditions that will affect how you experience the Occident. Each of the five traits has a trade-off and some are mutually incompatible.
• In-app purchase to remove ads
  There's been a surprising number of players who are upset because they can't pay to get rid of ads. I'd have thought they'd be upset about ads, but instead they're upset they can't give me money. Well now they can, and that purchase will include all future paid content in the game. No promises as to when or how much though.
• Optional gender bending
  I have decided to go full woke SJW and acknowledge that women exist, so now you'll be able to choose your starting character's gender. Keep an eye out for any mismatch in pronouns, since I've probably missed a few.
  If you buy the aforementioned ad-free version, you'll also be able to change the names and genders of every character available for hire. Then you can name them after your friends/family and feed them all to bears or something.
• Goal for the wandering naturalist
  Now the wandering naturalist will be able to reach his goal by visiting tiles regardless of whether they were previously discovered by the company or not. The number of tiles required to attain the goal has been lowered significantly, but adjacent tiles no longer count and (as before) neither do roads, farms, settlements or ruins.
• Composite bow
  I've reduced the damage penalty from the composite bow because -30% looks really bad.
  A note here: the bonus/penalty rating of an item doesn't refer to absolute damage but only the portion of the damage that depends on the type of item (which is less significant than the portion that depends on the level of the user). So the -30% wasn't a good reason not to use the composite bow, and at -20% the actual penalty in terms of damage dealt will probably not even be noticeable.
• Italic text
  This has been crazy difficult to implement and as expected it looks , but that's how things used to be back in the dark ages before antialiasing. I promise not to overdo it.

I'm still working on new content. I can't say when it'll be available, but keep in mind that I've been working on the game since 2014 and it's still not even halfway done, so... yeah. All of the changes in this version took less time than it took me to write say the mercenary captain quest, so that should give you an idea of how time-consuming it can be to add content.

Why are there no female playable characters?

Short answer: lack of foresight.

Long answer: because of a lack of foresight.

When I started working on Occidental Heroes back in 2014, I was adding a lot of systems and mechanics to the game, and I just kept putting off implementing female characters because I thought about them in terms of content rather than systems. The result of this was an immense amount of text that used static male pronouns. To implement female characters, I'd need to parse every bit of text in the game and mark every pronoun that refers to a party member, then have the game ask them for their gender and insert the correct pronoun in the text.

So that is what I did, and now the game's text content should support female party members _{(though I probably missed quite a few pronoun checks, so I'd appreciate keeping an eye out)}.

I should note here that there are no canonically female party members in the game as of yet. That is content and should be added in the future.

Occidental Heroes 1.0.5 1.0.6. 1.0.7

This is a bugfix update on Android. Yeah I know you'd prefer content, so would I. This game is my most important project, but that doesn't mean I can work on it as much as I'd like.

Anyway, the changes for 1.0.5 1.0.6 1.0.7:

• added: this should fix that nasty bug where your party members come back from retirement and you suddenly end up on the main menu unable to continue the game;
• you can now give up the Hrok's tomb quest by reporting your findings to the headman of Hrok's crossing;
• if Harland du Grier dies during an unrelated quest fight, you won't have to do the quest fight again;
• resolution fixes for 1080x1920+ devices. Yell if something doesn't look right on any device. The game should support 480x800 and above.
• the crossbow will now reload automatically if the crossbowman is cornered and cannot move;
• parties with multiple carts/prisoners are now far less likely to be trapped on tactical maps. If you experience this, a screenshot would be helpful;
• rewards for delivering keening ore should now spawn only items useful to the party. For example it shouldn't spawn a keening steel shield if you don't have a man-at-arms in your company;
• adjusted the critical chance bonus for the impoverished nobleman from +50% to +40%;
• corrected a bunch of typos;
• some extra analytics for cases where autosaves get messed up.

Thank you for reporting typos, bugs and any weirdness you encounter. Extra special thanks to players who allow analytics in the game, as it's often the only way I have of finding/fixing bugs.

Occidental Heroes 1.0.0

Bug fixes and minor adjustments, but I decided this should be version 1.0.0 rather than 0.9.10 because that'll give me an excuse to celebrate.

So...

1.0.0 is out, woohoo!

Occidental Heroes 0.9.9

Happy current year. This is a minor update. Some of the changes:

• added five more challenging fights to the arena in Auhert's Beacon. They will be available at random intervals once the company gains champion standing, and the company will be notified of an available fight upon visiting Auhert's Beacon;
• the impoverished nobleman now has a 50% higher chance of landing critical hits than other fencers given his training in dueling;
• the goal for wandering naturalist will now take into account only tiles in wilderness. Road tiles won't count toward the goal, but fewer discovered tiles are required now so the difficulty of reaching the goal should be about the same;
• slight changes to hit points of fencers and archers;
• fixed all reported crashes and some typos.

Thank you for reporting typos, bugs and any weirdness you encounter.

Occidental Heroes 0.9.6

tl;dr
This beta version adds character progression, inventory (weapons, armor, shields), and changes how combat damage is handled. There are several new quests, but no new map regions have been added. This update will not invalidate your current game progress, but it is nevertheless recommended that you start a new game.

Changes from the current release version include:

• Character progression
  Party members now gain experience/levels which affects the damage they deal and receive in combat. When a new party member is hired, they'll have a lot less experience than current party members. Also, the money needed to hire a new party member will depend on their experience level, so at the beginning it'll be cheap to replace party members.
• Damage in combat is now handled differently
  Characters now have many more hit points and weapons deal variable damage, based on character level of the attacker and the target, weapon of the attacker, weapon+armor+shield of the defender, as well as random chance.
• There are critical hits in combat that increase the damage of an attack
  The chance of critical hits rises as the party member rises in level. Fencers will have a higher chance of critical hits when they do their special lunge or sweep attacks. Archers have a higher chance of crits when they're shooting from behind friendlies.
• You can now upgrade weapons and armor for your party members, as well as shields for men-at-arms
  This can only be done at markets or locations that have armorers. Some locations will tend to have a higher chance of spawning items than other locations, you'll figure it out. Some character backgrounds will have their own unique items when they get hired.
• You'll now be able to access the ledger and the map while in locations (towns, encounters and so on)
  You'll figure it out.
• Party members will lose resolve if they lose more than 50% of their hit points during a battle
  They will regain some of their resolve if they win a battle against overwhelming odds ("Epic" victory) or without any party member getting a scratch ("Flawless" victory) or when completing some quests or encounters.
• You will no longer lose your pack animals during hailstorms
  Previously an unsuccessful hailstorm event (one where you don't have a survivalist-type in your party) would lose you your pack animals. Given that hailstorm events are fairly common, spending money on pack animals was not a good decision for most playthroughs.
• You will now have a company score that tracks your overall success
  The score is based on the number of your party members who have completed their goals and earned enough money for a comfortable retirement.
• Permadeath is still in effect, but with a twist
  If your entire party gets killed, voluntarily retired party members will come out of retirement to keep the company alive. If you didn't retire anyone, then it's game over.
• Your previous companies will be saved in the Book of Heroes
  If you just start a new company without first retiring your party members or getting them all killed, your previous company won't be saved.
• Many smaller changes that I can't be bothered to list
  They're all good though, so don't worry about them.