The latest update introduces significant balance changes, tooltip improvements, and technical fixes.
View the Full Changelog Below
The latest update for Ara: History Untold, v2.02 has been released, bringing a variety of adjustments aimed at enhancing gameplay and stability.
Culture & Traits Updates
Several Culture Traits have been rebalanced to improve their strategic distinctiveness. Key changes include increased influence for Field Distinction, as well as raised culture bonuses for Victory Parades and Solitary Brilliance. The Celebrated Empire trait has been adjusted, reducing its culture bonus. Other traits, such as Convincing Doctrine and Religious Authority, have seen increases in their Religion Spread Strength. Tooltip improvements have also been made, including fixes for the Celebrated Hardships trait and ensuring that Capital Pride applies correctly.
Trade Production Balance Changes: Trade production bonuses have been increased for several traits, including Organized Merchants and Shared Routes, enhancing their effectiveness in gameplay. The bonuses for Confident Traders and Shared Plunder have also been raised, improving trade dynamics.
New Tooltip Improvements: Comprehensive tooltips have been added to enhance the understanding of trade production calculations, detailing base rates, connection types, and modifiers. Nested tooltip navigation allows players to hover over and click on production values for a full breakdown by nation. Tooltips are now integrated across various UI panels and feature improved readability and localization for all languages.
Gameplay & UI Improvements
The update resolves an issue where starting a crafting project could unintentionally cancel building upgrades, ensuring that upgrades complete as expected. Late-game performance has been optimized, significantly reducing UI lag when adjusting crafters in the Improvement Panel. The Eternal Siege event has also been modified to provide a temporary security boost instead of unlocking City Walls.
Economy & City Management
Filter tags for Cured Meats and Salted Fish have been corrected to ensure proper display under the City Growth filter in the Amenity selection menu.
Technical & Stability Updates
This patch includes improvements to startup performance on high-end NVIDIA GPUs and fixes for a rare startup hang related to texture loading.
Players can look forward to a more balanced and stable experience with the release of this update.
v2.02 Changelog
Culture & Traits
Rebalanced several Culture Traits to make each feel more rewarding and strategically distinct:
Field Distinction: Influence increased from 2 → 4
Victory Parades: Culture bonus increased from 20 → 25
Solitary Brilliance: Culture bonus increased from 20 → 30
Celebrated Empire: Culture bonus reduced from 20 → 10
Convincing Doctrine: Religion Spread Strength increased from 2 → 5
Religious Authority: Religion Spread Strength increased from 5 → 10
Cultural Exchange: Culture bonus per Trade Agreement increased from 1 → 2
Cultural Diffusion: Culture bonus per Research Agreement increased from 1 → 2
Monument Builders: Prestige bonus reduced from 2 → 1
Artistic Glory & Systemic Inquiry: Updated text to better describe their effects
Capital Pride: Now correctly applies only to Capital Cities
Fixed the Devotional Reach Culture Trait so it properly boosts Influence when your Religion is dominant.
The Celebrated Hardships trait now correctly appears in the Golden Age tooltip.
Ensured Grand Duke starts with a Culture Value in Cities as intended.
Trade Production Balance Changes
Organized Merchants: Trade Production bonus per City Controlled increased from 5% to 10%
Shared Routes: Trade Production bonus per Alliance Maintained increased from 5% to 20%
Respected Caravans: Trade Production bonus increased from 10% to 25%
Confident Traders: Trade Production bonus increased from 20% to 50%
Shared Plunder: Trade Production bonus after conquering a city increased from 50% to 100% (lasts 20 turns)
New Tooltip Improvements
Detailed Trade Route Tooltips: Added comprehensive tooltips showing how trade production is calculated — including base rate, connection type (Land, Sea, Air), modifiers from traits and buffs, and total production per turn.
Nested Tooltip Navigation: Hovering over Production Per Turn now reveals a full breakdown by nation (e.g., “Korea +0.3, Egypt +0.9”), and clicking on a nation opens that nation’s detailed trade production tooltip.
Integrated Across the UI: Tooltips are now available on the Trade Agreement Panel, Diplomacy Screen (Agreements Subpanel), and Diplomatic Relations Panel (Receiving Section).
Accurate Modifier Calculations: Trade bonuses now display exact numerical contributions (e.g., Protective +220), ensuring full accuracy with internal buff calculations.
Improved Readability: Tooltips now feature clear visual spacing, color-coded values (white for base, green for modifiers), and icons for time-based information.
Localized for All Languages: All tooltip text has been externalized for localization, ensuring consistent and translatable presentation across languages
Gameplay & UI Improvements
Fixed an issue where starting a crafting project could unintentionally cancel a building upgrade. Upgrades now complete as expected.
Optimized late-game performance when adjusting crafters in the Improvement Panel:
Significantly reduced UI lag (especially in larger empires).
No gameplay logic changes — purely a performance enhancement.
Eternal Siege event updated: the second option no longer unlocks City Walls (which previously caused stalled wars). It now grants +10 Security for 20 Turns, maintaining the defensive narrative without blocking progression.
Economy & City Management
Corrected filter tags for Cured Meats and Salted Fish, ensuring they properly appear under the City Growth filter in the Amenity selection menu.
Technical & Stability Updates
Improved startup performance on high-end NVIDIA GPUs.
Fixed a rare debug startup hang related to texture loading.