Hi everyone, this week we focused on player-facing fixes and clarity from your forum and Steam feedback: less guessing where to click, clearer reads on regulatory heat and racing/engine screens, and a few parity updates (golf decor, offices, sequels, cover art on desktop, culture/comp knobs).

Below is the release notes for the fixes / tweaks, mostly legibility and systems, with clicks paths so you can jump straight in. Thanks for the reports everyone they shaped this patch.

Legibility and quick UX

Golf — find the full loop faster

• Go to: Empire → Golf Club.

• Then: Open Course (the course / hex builder tab on that screen).

• What you should see: Short, step-oriented guidance from land → draw/save the hex sketch → opening → operational, and clearer pointers to membership and hiring a GM once the club is operational (those controls live on the Course side of the flow, not buried on a one-off screen).

• Optional: Empire → Command Centre and the Player Guide may point you back here when golf needs attention.

Released titles — genre and design tags in one place

• Go to: Games → My Games (Reports), then open a released game into its Game Record.

• What to look for: A Genre / sub-genre readout and a creative sliders summary (and related planning fields) so you can plan sequels without guessing what you shipped.

Racing — season wins update during the year

• Go to: Empire → Racing Team.

• What to look for: A Season wins stat on the overview (alongside career-style totals) so wins tick up after race weeks, not only at season end.

Engine Lab — clearer copy and a fair “flagship” rule

• Go to: Games → Engine Lab (once unlocked).

• What to look for: Copy that matches how major programs actually work (e.g. after you Start, partner attention behaves as one big program at a time), clearer baseline vs total framing, and a deterministic flagship tie-break (latest qualifying release on that engine, then review score, then a stable tie-break).

Regulatory heat — why the meter is moving

• Go to (pick one):

  • Home → Dashboard — find the Regulatory heat strip when heat matters; use Driver estimate to expand a read-only breakdown of what is likely pushing heat (policies, monetisation, crunch, lobbying, etc.).

  • Studio → Company — open the Ethics & Compliance card; the same driver estimate panel appears there for a slower read.

  

  • Player Guide — article “Regulatory heat (drivers)” for the same concepts in prose.

• What to look for: Named drivers with rough weights so heat feels less like a black box.

Systems and parity

Golf — placeable decor / feature tiles

• Go to: Empire → Golf Club → Course (hex builder).

• What to look for: Decor / feature tiles are placeable (with a visible budget), while routing still follows the base hex layout. Save/load keeps the extra layer.

Sequels — copy the parent game’s design in one pass

• Go to: Projects (from the left rail under Projects).

• When: Starting or editing a sequel tied to a parent title.

• What to look for: Copy design from parent with checkboxes for genre, sub-genre, creative sliders, and engine (when still available).

Offices — upgrade every site; more than one office per country

• Go to: Studio → Company → scroll to Offices.

• What to look for: Upgrade this office on each listed office (not HQ-only). Open office can add another site in a country you already use, with costs and hire routing updated accordingly.

Cover art — your own PNGs on desktop + easier layout

• Go to: Studio → Trophy Room or Projects → open a project and launch the cover art builder (where you edit layers / ART).

• In the builder, My PNGs (desktop) — path is under app data in a cover-user-assets folder; use Open folder, drop .png** files, then Refresh list.

• Builder UX: Select an image or shape layer and use the white corner handle to drag-resize on the canvas; fine X/Y remains in the properties strip below.

Culture — ongoing profit-sharing

• Go to: Studio → Culture → Cultural direction.

• What to look for: Ongoing profit-sharing — a persistent intensity slider with weekly payroll cost and a small morale upside (and spend reflected on culture-related financial lines).

Regulatory heat — things you can do, not only wait

• Go to: Studio → Company → Ethics & Compliance → Compliance programmes.

• What to look for: External audit (up-front cost, heat relief, then a cooldown) and Transparency campaign (multi-week weekly cost with stronger natural decay). Help copy notes that lobbying + campaign mitigation is capped so extreme policy pressure cannot be spent away entirely.

HR depth — design for later

• Note for players: There is no new HR incident sim in this bundle; groundwork is documented for future improvements though.

Community — smarter “sequel demand” events (J1)

• Go to: Games → Community (over the campaign).

• What to look for: Sequel demand-style events should not nag for a sequel that is already released or already in development.

Quick navigation cheat sheet