Patch Notes

Time & Interface

• The approved compact TopLeftBar is now live in both the city and world map, providing one consistent layout for the date and game-speed controls.
• Added manual UI Scale options for 80%, 90%, 100%, 110%, and 125%, alongside an automatic mode that adapts the interface to the active resolution.
• UI Scale changes now preview immediately. Leaving Options without applying restores the saved scale, while HUD anchors and city-map interactions remain stable.
• The Escape pause menu now opens in the center of both the city and world map. Its parchment frame stays behind the controls while a separate transparent full-screen layer safely blocks world input.
• The Guild Hall now opens as one clean interface with a textured membership page, clearer typography, contained tab labels, a carved-wood close control, historical requirement emblems, and the current city name beneath the league header.

World & Cities

• Bruges has been rebuilt as a broader Flemish walled city with a curved coastline, canal harbour, denser housing, a waterfront market row, three gate roads, a functional Town Hall, four workplace plots, and an open-water ship departure point.
• Bruges' waterfront has received a second refinement pass: misplaced sea walls were removed, harbour buildings now face open water, the second gate was corrected, and decorative houses were separated from the Shipyard, workplace plots, water, and ramparts.
• All 18 settlements now retain their Hanseatic City or Hanseatic Trading Post status. Only Hanseatic Cities can be selected as hometowns; Trading Posts may become cities later during play.
• Every city now uses one canonical starting camera. City views open from their authored camera positions, including Bruges' exact saved camera angle and height.
• The world-map Hansa Forever plaque now uses the carved-wood, iron, brass, and parchment World Wheel design, with a matching directional toggle and automatic retraction near the lower-left Bruges boundary.
• New games begin with the world map two mouse-wheel steps closer while preserving the existing navigation limits.
• Stockholm's world-map label now remains visible and correctly ordered across zoom levels, resolutions, and languages.
• Pedestrians in renewed cities now remain locked to their authored road routes throughout their animations.

Homes, Merchants & Politics

• Every city house now begins under either municipal or local AI merchant ownership. The player starts without a home, and purchased houses retain their owner through save and load.
• The world now contains 63 persistent AI merchant identities across 72 city appearances: 17 Rank 1 — Shopkeepers, 13 Rank 2 — Provisioners, 9 Rank 3 — Traders, 7 Rank 4 — Merchants, 5 Rank 5 — Guildsmen, 3 Rank 6 — Magnates, and 9 Rank 7 — Patricians.
• AI merchants now retain unique regional names, stable portrait identities, council membership, and roster identity across saves, promotions, and demotions.
• New games now begin with a fixed mayor and independently authored merchant reputation values in every city. Each starting mayor is the most popular person in that city.

Reliability & Fixes

• Incompatible save files now display a red exclamation mark in the Load panel, with a localized warning explaining that the save cannot be used by the current game version.
• Ships now spawn from their exact registered vessel prefab and retain their required interaction behavior, preventing incorrect replacement ships or missing interaction controls.
• The Shipyard status display now remains available when city previews change.
• Shipyard construction, ordering, repair, and upgrade controls now use their correct authored interface references.
• Architect, Guild Hall, Counting House, and other building interactions now use their intended authored controls instead of opening overlapping layouts or unrelated interface elements.
• City loading, camera limits, and architect placement now use the selected city's exact authored data instead of falling back to an unrelated scene object.