Hi all, this an update that's a got a bit more background work going on that should help for the next patch which will include the new UI, and ability to play as other characters. The main event here is migrating the game to UE5.7 from 4.27, which has allowed some noticeable visual improvements as shown below - you can see a much better-looking ocean and better lighting on the forests, and the image itself looks sharper and doesn't have the blurry effect the game had on UE4. It also includes a bunch of bugfixes and balance changes.
New Features
Economy Automation
There is a new auto-buy option that fills stockpile shortages before army supplies are handed out. That should stop armies taking attrition just because the faction was briefly missing a resource at the wrong moment.
Auto-sell thresholds and auto-buy settings are saved properly, and trade value now refreshes with monthly income so the ledger stays in sync.
Cities, Coastlines & Map Visuals
Cities should look better and sit more naturally on the map. They now support parks with tree placement, settlement placement snaps more cleanly to the landscape, and city layouts are smaller but denser, so they take up less space while still looking busy.
Walls and palisades have also been cleaned up, including fixes for visible wall gaps and bad scaling. An inner sanctum has been added for larger cities.
The coast gets shoreline waves, kelp, and better ocean materials. Missing Kyrnos assets have been fixed, city walls have been darkened, and army/navy command radius visuals should be clearer.
Custom Military Names
Custom army and navy names are now saved and restored properly. If you rename a formation, it should still be there when you load the campaign again.
Performance & Stability
This update should make the game much less CPU-bound, especially in bigger campaigns.
A lot of repeated work has been cut out of the UI, map modes, settlement glances, income updates, pop unrest, convoys, fog of war, characters, and power blocs. The building browser also spreads out its setup work instead of trying to create everything in one hit, so opening it should feel less harsh.
The result should be fewer frame spikes when moving around the map, less stutter when opening heavy screens, and better performance once the world is full of settlements, characters, armies, navies, and convoys.
Navigation & AI
Sea navigation is now stricter about what is actually water. Sea paths are checked against the map, and the game can build a safer route when a path would otherwise cut across land.
Armies and navies also check whether merge and blockade orders can actually be reached before accepting them. That should mean fewer units getting stuck trying to carry out an impossible order.
UI & Quality of Life
Income breakdowns now separate replenishment and construction costs instead of blending them together
Policy changes refresh income and expense numbers immediately
Commander auto-assignment costs are now charged correctly and split cleanly in expense displays
Auto-assignment can now create new army commanders when needed
The family tree mouse wheel zoom is much faster
Fullscreen resolution switching has been fixed
Balance & Gameplay Changes
All buildings have been rebalanced so that upgrading never means losing ability
Succession now enforces male-only dynastic heirs consistently across heir designation, sidebar selection, effective heir checks, and ruler death
Player succession now looks for real same-dynasty candidates instead of falling back to unrelated courtiers or generated characters
Designating an heir is now the reliable way to avoid a succession crisis
Game-over checks use dynasty IDs instead of surnames
Auto-buy can protect army supply from temporary stockpile gaps
Pop unrest calculations have been sped up
Bug Fixes
Military & AI
Fixed being unable to update templates after reloading a save
Fixed merge and blockade orders being issued when the target could not be reached
Fixed AI paths cutting across invalid land routes
Fixed navy distance-based visibility and mesh animation overhead
Fixed supply loading ignoring military resource capacity
Fixed formation template panels using a stale player faction reference
Fixed auto-assigned commanders not always charging appointment costs correctly
Fixed peacetime AI garrisons being reassigned too aggressively
Fixed AI war planning waiting too long after settlement captures
Fixed battle hint timing issues pausing the game
Economy & Settlements
Fixed packaged tributary income
Fixed building modifiers and several tax breakdown issues
Fixed income modifier clamps and displayed income totals
Fixed resource processing tooltips looking up the wrong resources
Fixed policy application not forcing income and expense recalculation immediately
Fixed construction blocking lookups missing the right building in some cases
Fixed religion share refreshes leaving stale clergy eligible lands
Fixed city mesh pool updates so they are faster
Fixed city generation running too early during load
Fixed generated settlement walls leaving visible gaps
Fixed settlement inner sanctum layout issues
Characters, Succession & Game Over
Fixed generated characters losing enforced identity data
Fixed succession after failed executions
Fixed designated heirs not being tracked correctly before ruler death
Fixed succession crisis classification after a designated heir takes over
Fixed dynasty extinction checks using surnames instead of dynasty IDs
Fixed the game over screen not dismissing when loading a game
Blocked autosaves, manual saves, and loads after game over or while the player ruler is already dead
Fixed Rephsian and Histria character dynasty data
Fixed court subordinates failing to populate when the office holder was not set to auto-assign
UI
Fixed first-open screen hitches
Fixed hidden settlement glance layers still doing unnecessary work
Fixed settlement sidebars refreshing inactive tabs
Fixed building browser z-ordering, desaturation, and animation edge cases
Fixed family tree zoom being far too slow
Fixed gold change broadcasts firing when the value had not actually changed, which was slowing the game down
Fixed income breakdown rows for construction and replenishment