Cult Following: surf your way to the top of potion business!

Greetings, potion magnates!

Have you ever dreamt of building a cult of your own? Not exactly an object of religious worship or zealotry, no. Rather something lots of people would exalt and enjoy to a great delight - a cult classic.

Well, either way, that is something we want to let you transform your potion empire into in the new major content update, released today.

As the name goes, building a cult following will be your next ambitious goal to achieve as potion shopkeeper, on the path to the ultimate triumph. It’s not going to be easy, but to facilitate the task we’ve introduced a bunch of handy late-game tools and options for you to seize. These include the long-awaited high-tier research unlocks, goals, VIPs, requests, events, and artifacts, along with some powerful alchemy, production and shop upgrades.

Enter the top flight now, reinforce your potion brand, earn dignitaries’ patronage - get one step closer to the apex, and just one step away from the final act!

Bewitchingly yours,
Snowhound Games and Daedalic Entertainment

Changelog:

New:

• New late-game goals and artifacts.
• New high-tier research goals.
• New events and VIP requests:
  • Added a plethora of tier 3 VIP requests, which can trigger if you have Close Following with specific factions.
  • Added a tier 2 Wizard request and Witch request to the Grand Assembly faction event.
  • Added a Carnival event to the weekly cycle of periodic events that starts on the 2nd week.

• New equipment:
  • Autolab (an advanced version of Alchemy Lab)
    • Can produce potion mixtures with up to 3 ingredients and has all processing options available (whereas Alchemy Lab can mix up to 3 ingredients with only basic processing options).
    • Autolab and Alchemy Lab belong to the Production Equipment category (instead of Research) in the Construction menu.
    • Autolab and Alchemy produce potion mixtures at the output (instead of bottled crates).

  • Portal Pallets
    • Portal Pallet Senders can move items from adjacent equipment to the Receiver of the same color, as long as the Receiver's filter settings allow the item.

  • Delivery Automaton Hub
    • Spawns 5 quick bots that can handle delivery tasks.

  • Bargain Bin
    • A shop cabinet that stocks potions with a -25% discount.
    • All customers will try to check the bin, regardless of their preferences.

  • Luxury Cabinet
    • Increases appeal for Premium potions stocked in it.

  • Entry Signs
    • Instruct new customers looking for a particular potion category to enter from the left or right, if possible.

  • Big Bottler
    • Works faster than the basic Bottling Machine.
    • The basic Bottler's default workload (task length) is increased to give Big Bottler a bigger advantage.

  • Ritual Table
    • Marketing artifact enabling the Market Prediction action
    • Gained by completing the Trendsetter goal.

Changes:

• Research:
  • Split some existing research goals and rearranged the research branches to create additional paths (especially noticeable in the Production branch).
  • Extractor processing equipment now unlocks from an earlier research goal "Potency Boosters".
  • Moved Infuser processing equipment to be unlocked earlier in the research tree with Fermentation Tank.
  • Industrial Tech research goal, which unlocks the Autolab equipment, now also unlocks all processes if they were not already available in Recipe Creation.

• VIP requests:
  • When choosing rewards for tier 2 or 3 VIP request completion, the player is no longer locked to get multiple copies of the same ingredient seed.
  • When choosing rewards for tier 3 request completion, two different artifacts can now be offered.
  • Increased duration of the fame bonus when selected as a reward for completion of VIP request of all tiers.

• Monsters inside the house now disappear after spooking a certain number of actors (workers or customers), if not banished earlier.
  
• Added missing appeal rewards to the Inventor goal.
  
• Marketing action-specific artifacts are no longer granted as rewards or offered at the Artifact Trader unless you have access to the Marketing Desk.
  
• The loading indicator is now shown when the game is starting up.
  
• Workers are now smarter about moving potion crates straight from Bottlers to Cabinets pending to refill, instead of first delivering them to the storage.
  
• Balancing:
  • Increased the department size requirement from Large to Grand in Adventure Arcade, Sorcery Superstore and Pharmacy goals.
  • Increased the Alchemist skill requirement for Grand Cooker from Veteran to Grand Master, but it also now produces two potion mixtures with a single batch of ingredients.

Fixes:

• Fixed a situation where a delivery task could get stuck.
• Fixed ingredient pop-ups in the Alchemy View getting smaller with bigger page sizes in the Ingredient Book.
• Fixed an issue where the amount of potions to deliver for a request could still be changed while the confirmation dialog was visible.
• Fixed errors when clicking the up/down buttons on the Ledger/Production page.
• Fixed ellipsis characters in dialogues.
• Fixed instances of modal dialogs not blocking time controls as intended.
• Fixed the Ingredient Book’s page size in Alchemy not being saved.
• Fixed faulty scrollbar behavior in production and quest potion selection pop-ups.
• Fixed Ledger/Revenues/Expenses pop-ups stretching out of screen bounds.
• Fixed skill filter tooltips on the Ledger/Workers page not updating after changing the language setting.
• Fixed a minor text layout issue when promoting a worker with a long name.
• Fixed an error when clicking the Marketing Desk "Choose Action" button rapidly.
• Fixed knocked out skeletons being shown as standing upright instead of lying as a pile of bones on the ground upon loading a saved game.
• Changed from an empty "this ingredient unlocks:" pop-up to a normal ingredient pop-up in the ingredient trader dialogue if the player owns the ingredient already.
• Fixed UI issues that could occur when entering the Research or Alchemy views right before the Daily Report shows up.
• Fixed endorser text in successful request outcomes not correctly stating when the VIP becomes an endorser.
• Fixed the Assign and Boost button tooltips getting clipped for the topmost entry in Ledger/Workers.
• Scaled the ingredient unlock tooltip in the ingredient trader dialogue to fit the text.
• Unlocked post-milestone 2 goals for older saves if their prerequisite goals have been completed.
• Fixed the worker promotion dialogue not always updating the worker's title correctly.
• Fixed placeholder in the "This ingredient is too complex to produce in Alchemy Lab" text.
• Fixed Alchemy Labs not checking the allowed ingredient processes correctly.
• Fixed Alchemy Labs incorrectly changing the room purpose to Research instead of Production.
• Fixed Alchemy Lab animations not working.
• Fixed Alchemy Labs not starting automatically after being storage blocked.
• Fixed Tycoon Point generation bonuses from artifacts not stacking.
• Fixed missing "Choose Potion" text from the Alchemy Lab overlay UI.
• Fixed a potential crash when canceling delivery tasks.
• Fixed a potion not being removed from the Alchemy Lab’s queue If a product update made it incompatible for production with Alchemy Lab.
• Fixed issue where an ingredient could appear in non-trader dialogue after loading an old save.
• Moved style customization arrows in objects’ overlays in the Construction mode further to the sides to avoid blocking selection of small objects such as lanterns.
• Fixed the worker’s bonus stamina (exceeding the maximum level) gained from the rest getting wiped upon walking past stamina-boosting in-house items.
• Fixed fame bonuses from multiple artifacts not stacking.
• Improved scroll wheel handling in Ledger/Workers.
• Fixed some research unlocks using wrong icon sprites.
• Fixed a potential crash when deleting potion cabinets.