Hi everyone!
Before getting to the update...
❤️❤️❤️ The feedback is always fun to read!
🎉🎉🎉 Here's to a thousand more!
Now, check out all the stuff that's changed!
Alliance / Unifications Rework 🛡️
As you know, previously alliances and their inner workings were pretty unknown to the player. Nations sometimes left alliances, sometimes unions happened, which often resulted in crazy long nation names.
That has now changed!
Unions & Alliance Unity
Alliances can now form Unions. (check out Mali States & Saudi-Arabia Republic below)
These are more "unified" alliances, and appear on the map as semi-complete nations. But under the hood, they are still their individual members, which can still act with their own interest.
Unions now have more fitting names, so no more seeing "France-Germany-Luxemburg-Sweden" on the map!
Alliances now collect and depend upon Unity. This is gained by fighting wars, gaining more members, donations and defeating other nations. Unity is lost upon losing members, revolts, having puppets while being in a Union, and by having disloyal members in the alliance.
Below are examples of an alliance, and a union. Both have a certain level of Unity they need to have to avoid the union from disbanding. The two stars represent the points at which the alliance and form a Union, and the point where the Union can fully unify into a single nation.
Loyalty
Individual members now also display their Loyalty to the alliance. If their loyalty is too low, they will leave, and in some cases, drag other disloyal members into a competing alliance!
These new mechanics require the "Unifications" and "Leave Alliances" toggles in God Mode to be enabled, so make sure those are turned on, or off if you don't care for these unions :D
Let me know what you think about these new mechanics and if something should be adjusted! 😋
Map/Scenario Editing Tools 🎨
Grasslands
There is a new terrain type, called Grasslands (#4C4C4C), which is slightly less valuable than basic land.
For those people dreading having to update their maps to include this, don't worry you don't have to! Terrain ultimately doesn't matter all that much.
Map Editor Visuals
For those who find working with the black and white colours awkward when creating maps, you can now display the map editor using the in-game colours!
Reminder that if you create maps in outside programs like Photoshop, you will still need to use the black and white colors when saving the maps. These are only for display in the editor.
Bucket Tool for Painting Territory
You can FINALLY use a bucket tool in Scenario editor and in God Mode! I don't think anymore needs to be said haha.
Other big changes ⭐
Better Revolt Borders
Revolts now have more fuzzy borders instead of straight lines! If you manually release puppet nations, those will still have the straight lines like before.
Map Mode Changes
Alliance Map Mode now actually shows the Alliance names! And no individual nation names. Unallied nation borders are also much more faded so alliances are more visible.
The same faded grey borders are also changed in Puppet and Wars Map modes
Hold Shift to Chain Actions
You can hold shift on many nation commands to do them multiple times in a row without needing to click the button again!
Nation View Visual Changes
Alliance and Puppet Sections on the Nation Panel has been completely redone!
Also, flags now have a wavy overlay to make them look even better!
Also! All the different lists with nations in them now feature their flags instead of crowns!
It looks pretty sexy ngl...
Here's some examples:
Old one for comparison ⬇️
Check out the rest of the changes below!
v4.2.0 Full Changelog
Additions
Reworked Alliances & Unifications
Alliances now have a Unity-bar
If the bar is filled enough, the alliance will "unify", creating a more unified version of the alliance, where each nation still functions individually
If the bar reaches the max, this unified alliance will fully unity into one nation
Turning off the Unifications toggle in God Mode will prevent unions and full unifications from forming
Added a paint bucket tool for Editing Territory
Added a wavy texture overlay to flags in Nation View (you can disable it in Settings)
Added a new terrain type - Grassland
Added grasslands to most maps and scenarios
Added a new mode to Map Editor where it can show the map using in-game colors
Revolt borders are now fuzzy and less straight (manually released puppets will have straight borders)
Alliance Map Mode now shows alliance names instead of nation names
Alliance leaves, disbandments, and events related to unions will get mentioned in History Tab
You can now hold Shift on many Actions to chain multiples of the same command
Bugfixes & Improvements
Fully updated the looks of Alliance and Puppet infos on Nation View
Lists inside Nation View now show nations' flags instead of their crown levels
Allies no longer donate to each other if they have enough gold and max combat efficiency
Adjusted the colors in Alliance, Puppet & Wars Map modes
Changed default color scheme to Dark
Fixed a bug where alliance was renamed when any member left or died
Fixed a bug where manually spawned nations were wrong shade until unpaused
Fixed a bug where tooltip text overflowed the box
Fixed a bug where scrolling was still possible on Settings Page
Updated some US State flags
City and alliance names will show in bold on text popups
Scenario editor home button now visible on PC
Allies stat at the bottom of Nation View now displays total members in alliance, and not one less. The list that appears when pressed still shows only other members
Allies are now the default Diplomacy list on Nation View
Raised default max alliance size from 4 to 10