Hey everyone.
This is a beta update that includes a lot of fixes and balance changes. We thank our community for actively finding these issues and discussing balance.
In short, it should now be more stable, easy, and more logical.
Try it out, we’re curious what you think has improved.
Balance
Rulers on the global map now recruit warriors according to the same technology thresholds available to the player. For example, they won’t have shields before reaching 60 population, and so on. These warrior sets also now depend on culture: some prefer to recruit archers, while others favor melee fighters.
Population threshold for unlocking the Chancery changed from 60 to 40; Ale production and Herbalist building thresholds changed from 40 to 20
Removed the “Shields” technology; shields are now available immediately after learning Armorer. Added a new “Light Armor” technology (unlocks at 75 population)
Migrant culture calculation now considers only direct neighboring empires
Crossbow and Ale technologies now require less population to unlock
War-caused migration: one migrant will always be a bandit (if bandits are allowed by the player’s current development tier)
Bandit camp towers now appear at 75 and 90 population. The bandit leader appears at 60 population and now wears light armor instead of heavy armor
Loyalty sermon cost reduced from 150 to 100 coins
Adjusted forest bandit composition based on the population size of the city in the same province
The “Defeat in battle” thought is now removed from prisoners when the player brings them to their city
After reaching the final settlement development tier, the Scriptonic will visit the city once every 10 days
After destroying a bandit camp, a new camp will not appear in the same spot for at least 4 days
Adjusted population thresholds for Pig Farm and Paper Workshop technologies
Removed negative prisoner thoughts about the player’s army size; only positive thoughts remain (when soldier count is equal or twice as high)
Bishop and Matriarch now have the “Tolerant” trait, which removes the “Hated Culture” thought toward characters of cultures hostile to theirs
Removed the “Patrols” technology. You can put them from the start.
Politician will demand attacking an enemy only if that enemy is weaker than the player
Soldier taste preferences are now identical to peasants: no negative thoughts from carrots or flour, meat gives the same strong positive thought, and the turnip thought no longer lasts twice as long or has increased strength as it does for lords
If the player frees a foreign lord from bandits or from being a hostage in another army, the player receives half of that lord’s ransom value and improves relations with that faction’s leader
When assigning the “Hire a free lord” task, the executor now begins performing it immediately
Rutabaga Typhos can now occur immediately after reaching the required development tier, not only after 50% of citizens eat turnips
UI and QoL
Building hint in the construction menu now displays whether the building gives comfort bonuses or penalties to nearby housing
Adjusted population thresholds for some cultural technologies; removed the 110 population requirement
Optimized tooltip display for caravan goods during scrolling; fixed a bug where next-tier technology descriptions did not appear
Optimized redraw and rebuild of the trade menu when switching tabs
Caravan now uses the player’s current development tier instead of current population; if population decreases, book deliveries remain tied to the highest reached development tier
Characters will no longer wish to see their close child, since they cannot interact directly with them on the global map
If the player reaches a new development tier while trading or while the caravan is already on the local map, the caravan’s book list updates
If the Hall has no servants, worker reassignment is attempted every hour; if no one can be assigned, an event about missing servants is sent every 6 hours
Peasant info hint now displays “Migration allowed” when migration is enabled in the Hall
Notifications about knowledge becoming widespread are now merged into a single notification if multiple technologies trigger it
On Easy difficulty, the 60-population notification no longer shows the line about Loving Family protection being removed; this line is also hidden if protection was already removed due to player aggression
Bug Fixes
Trees incorrectly marked as decorative on load (and therefore could not be chopped or removed when placing buildings) are now either deleted or replaced with real trees
Fixed a bug where the order of lord commands was random and could differ between players
Fixed localization issues in the “Invite a lord to visit” and “Take/Put rings/gold” commands when the Hall was missing
Fixed a bug where hiring a free lord and other treasury-costing tasks were canceled if the treasury had less than twice the task cost
Fixed layout issues in the caravan trade menu
Fixed a bug where AI city armies could receive extra troops left over after attacks on that AI’s villages
Fixed a bug where, in rare cases, already killed soldiers could continue fighting
Fixed a bug where the learned “Durability Ointment” technology also reduced the chance of destroying enemy armor and shields
Fixed a bug where the next population tier was calculated from current population instead of current development tier; this caused incorrect ambition hint information when population dropped
Fixed a bug where AI lords entered their first battle without equipment after adulthood, causing heavy injuries; they now receive their full gear immediately after maturing
Fixed missing context in the iron mining hint
Fixed a bug where some icons remained visible on the loading screen
Fixed a bug where the tooltip for goods on the exchange table in the trade menu showed incorrect items
Fixed a bug where captured enemies on the local map could still have the “Defeat in battle” thought
Fixed a bug where a bandit camp could appear for the player before reaching the required settlement development tier
