A variety of bugfixes and a very core UI improvement come to the main branch. The main branch's new feature, the preference map view, should let Vinerva players (as well as others) get a far better at-a-glance overview of whom to tempt and where to deploy the gifts. Definitely a view which was long overdue.
On the beta-branch, V0.9 makes its debut. It brings the Elder God Mammon, the spirit of greed, envy and decadence. As with any new god, it'll be fairly unbalanced and some mechanics may well need polishing/adding/removing, but that's what Early Access is for, and the beta-branch is the most early of early accesses.
Mammon revolves around dividing humanity, especially rulers, and exploiting these divisions. He specialises in causing wars, both civil and international, between those who have wealth, the decadent, and those who do not, the greedy. While under his influence, humanity's soul will be tested, as those who want try to take from those who have.
Ideally Mammon will be in beta for a month, before reaching the main branch. At that point, he can be rebalanced in a slower way as the other gods have.
On that subject, Iastur gets some changes, along with madness updates. Hopefully this will bring Iastur up to a finished level of polish, barring some balance changes when all mechanics are in.
Specific main branch changes (beta-branch to be discussed on the forums):
Gameplay:
-Rulers can no longer command the Chosen One to attack a target using a cavalry escort
-Desecrate challenges in holy sites can't be performed in Ophanim theocracies or dark empires
-The Laughing Tome will automatically drop when carried by a fully insane character
-The Laughing Tome will automatically drop when carried by a character who is neither a hero nor a ruler
-Changed wording on vengeance message when justified, with special case for non-humans killing a person a hero wanted dead
-Caches now disappear when emptied completely
UI:
-Added map view to see hero and ruler preferences
Bugfixes:
-Armies will no longer eternally try to burn down a Vinerva Manifestation with a high-menace heart in it
-Fixed bug in local actions with a dead/missing ruler
-Potentially fixed bug where an army was trying to raze a ruined settlement forever
-Fixed UI glitch with ruinous blade
-Fixed UI referring to trading between agents as robbing
-Abdicate now properly uses the DANGER tag, to make cowards more likely to give up their crown
-You no longer gain menace for driving back non-humans (such as orcs) using armies
-Humans will no longer guard non-humans
-Fixed description of 'novel strain'