Hello everyone,

this is Dmitry.

With this patch (which once again goes to the Beta channel, and the public update will be released to the main branch in a week), we are finishing improvements to the core gameplay. Starting next week, we will move on to the long-awaited story generation features – crime and justice, aggression, intimidation, blackmail, deeper character personalities and traits, intrigues using weaknesses, and so on. In addition, in the conservative branch we continue working on new buildings and resources and are moving quickly toward climate and seasons. By the way, we have decided to bring back barracks for warriors (in one of the nearest update).

This patch solves two problems – mood management and tool transparency.

Mood management

The main problem with mood right now is that there are many tools to increase it, but first, their effects are not transparent, and second, once you solve the migration issue, these tools become mostly unnecessary. That is, they work to solve a problem, but do not work to provide advantages. To address this, we took the existing inspiration mechanic for lords, expanded it to peasants and warriors, unified everything into a single system, and significantly improved tool transparency.

Energy surges

All characters (except prisoners) who wake up happy in the morning receive an energy surge that lasts for 2 days (for lords it remains +5 to all skills for 1 day).

• For warriors this is +7 to Combat skill.

• For peasants this means +50% productivity (including construction).

Buildings now have two priorities – prisoners and energized peasants.

The ways to achieve this mood can be any. Nectar gives +50 mood (and its negative effects have been reduced). The effects from housing comfort, alcohol, and punishment spectacles have been increased. Sermons of Hope also work very well, which your king, politician, or Bishop can deliver at the temple among their followers at your request (this allows you to use their political popularity for your own purposes).

Thus, you can endlessly invest resources into the happiness of your subjects (and if migration becomes too high, it can always be disabled).

Transparency

We made the tools more transparent.

• Descriptions of alcohol, food, nectar, punishments, and sermons now provide clear data on mood bonuses during the day.

  

• In addition, you can now click on any object on the map and get information about it – this applies to trees, bushes, and resource deposits.

  

• When starting the game and choosing a location for the Hall, map entry points will also be shown.

• In the King’s Eye, you can now see the average happiness of the residents living in houses, and when selecting a church or another public building, the total amount of money owned by the residents of that building.

  

• In the politician interface, it is now much clearer who holds which powers.

  

Other stuff

• At your request, we have brought back wolves finishing off lords to death and reduced the cost of moving a building back to 5 wood.

• Also, based on your feedback, we removed the negative bonus for not having a place of prayer, serious injuries during training, and inheriting gray hair.

• We removed relationship requirements for Wise Conversation, Slander, and the Gift from a Lord. To invite another lord to your court, it is now enough to have good relations with his king (this will make it easier to collect special knowledge from the Global Map).

• Since there are now more trees, we rebalanced them, as well as the balance of bushes.

• We added another source of organic influence growth – training fighters.

• Now, when a politician gains influence comparable to that of your king, he receives the status of Contender, and only then begins to put forward demands for a change of power. The change of power itself is now much less painful.

As always, we count on your feedback and suggestions, and stay in touch – the most interesting part is just beginning.

How to switch to Beta channel

RMB on the game in Steam Library and then go to Game Versions and Betas

Full list of changes

Local Map

• When loading an old save without berry bushes and Stone, these resources will now appear on the map and will not overlap

• Fixed an issue where resource bushes were generated in very small clusters; they now generate in larger patches

• Added entry point indicators to provinces in the map preview after starting a new game and before the Hall is built

• Increased the number of harvested bushes that regenerate each day

• Berries on bushes are now less bright

• Chopped trees are now harvested faster, but yield less Wood

• Fixed saving of map entry points to file; entry points are now calculated only during map generation or when loading old saves

• Removed old tree assets; when loading old saves, trees are now replaced with new ones

• Trees, stone clusters, bushes, and hop fields are now clickable and open a menu

• Trees now grow 1 unit every 10 hours instead of 5 units every 50 hours

• Improved resource distribution during map generation

• Reduced the chance of generating maps with a long hill that has a passage on one side

• Tightened map generation rules to ensure sufficient accessible space for the player

• Dry trees no longer grow in place of chopped trees

• Minor adjustments to lake and mountain size and count in the local map generator

• Tutorial is available again; replaced the tutorial local map

• Added edge blockers on the local map; they are applied at the start of a new game (e.g., in Turnow the right and top edges are blocked)

AI

• Pack wolves will finish off their opponents in combat again

• Bandits now gain a positive “Crime in the City” thought after committing a crime instead of a negative one

• Fixed an issue where combat did not end after three guard strikes on a fleeing prisoner or bandit, as each guard calculated its own three strikes; only one guard now engages a fleeing prisoner, the fight ends in one hit, and guards use weapons

• Residents no longer idle around the Hall; for social relaxation and drinking alcohol (if no Taverns are available), they now choose squares, including the Hall square

• Homeless residents no longer attend sermons

Characters

• If a lord has a desire to visit a grave, this activity now has higher priority

• A lord who trained soldiers on the Training Field now has a 10% chance to gain loyalty from those soldiers

• Gray hair color is no longer inherited by children

• During training fights, soldiers now receive only light bruises and minor injuries

• Prisoners can no longer have loyalty to lords and therefore cannot be Loyalists or Fanatics

• Loyalists no longer have a productivity bonus

• Peasants gain the “Energetic” trait at 8:00 AM and after a sermon if their mood is ≥75

• Set the duration of thoughts for transferring the ruler’s crown and heir crown to 5 days; a lord receiving the crown now gains a positive thought

• Politicians, player lord puppets, and politician followers no longer leave the player faction due to −50 relations with the ruler; a notification is shown if a lord leaves a province

• Reduced experience gained from the “Training” order so children cannot reach skill level 14+ while growing up

• Nectar no longer increases movement speed, inspection speed, or skills; addiction chance reduced to 10%; addiction ends 3 days after stopping use

• Lord inspiration no longer expires early if the lord goes to sleep or their mood drops

• Soldiers can now also become Energetic; for them this provides a combat skill bonus

• Individual worker productivity now also affects construction speed

• Hunting (10:00–20:00) and walks/drinking (10:00–23:00) now have time limits

• Removed required relation threshold for “Gift from Lord”, “Gift from Neighbor”, “Slander”, and “Wise Conversation” orders

GUI

• Updated the politician support hint: personal support from population and army is shown first, followed by allies and their support; total population support is shown at the bottom

• Added a line showing ruler support percentage to the politician support hint

• Added mood change values to food and alcohol tooltips

• Added the number of Energetic peasants to the residents hint in the top panel

• Added a hint to the new heir event display

• Reordered skills in the menu to match training categories

• Updated the info panel above residential buildings in King’s Eye mode: shows average resident mood and composition (soldiers, peasants, Energetic)

• Updated the info panel above production buildings: worker icons are larger, Energetic workers are displayed

• Reworked the resident tooltip in houses: mood and culture are now shown with icons

• In King’s Eye mode, production buildings show a Zzz icon for inactive buildings

• Buildings under construction now display a “missing resources” icon above them and a special status in the build menu if there are insufficient materials to finish the project

• When selecting service buildings (Market, Tavern, etc.), residential buildings display resident money and comfort

• Updated resource area icons and context menu on the local map

• The top lords panel now shows technology research progress percentage next to the assigned task icon

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where a city was not burned to the ground if the executing army was located on the same tile as the AI city

• Fixed an issue where the Nectar resource was missing from the statistics menu

• Fixed an issue where player soldiers could repeatedly go to sleep and wake up during the day

• Fixed an issue where flower bushes did not appear when loading a save

• Fixed fertile land indicators when constructing farms

• Fixed completion of a conspiracy that involved a fight to the death

• Fixed an issue where maps were generated with the same seed

• Fixed an issue where the negative comfort issue flag in residential buildings also affected prisoner barracks

• Fixed game start in the Prisoner scenario

• Fixed an issue with a construction marker that did not disappear in the build menu

• Fixed an issue where the pain relief effect was infinite

• Fixed inverted character references in the relationship tooltip

• Fixed an issue where dead peasants and soldiers could be assigned to houses

• Fixed an issue where action tasks on the global map could be completed instantly

• Fixed bush sprites breaking during map generation with rivers

• Fixed header text wrapping in the Training Field menu

• Fixed the issue “Monogamous characters are suffering” appearing and resolving repeatedly

• Fixed an issue where a rebellion warning event could appear for a culture that had no residents

• Fixed trees on manual battle maps on the global map

• Fixed credits not starting after victory

Misc

• Reduced building relocation cost from 10 to 7 Wood

• Changed Ale technology availability requirement from 20 to 40 population

• Added the “War Consequences” problem flag

• Removed “Approval Sermon” and “Joy Sermon”; added “Hope Sermon” (increases mood, only for followers)

• Reworked the worker type assignment menu and filters in buildings

• Added a “Trade” building category (Market, Den, Tavern)

• Doubled the thought strength from Meat and berries; doubled alcohol thought duration

• Increased comfort from religious buildings by +4

• Removed “No place to pray nearby” thought

• Building upgrades can no longer be started without sufficient resources

• Relocating a residential building now preserves the “Priority for Warriors” option state