Hello and welcome! Today I will be going through, or perhaps more accurately infodumping, everything that has happened for Update 1.2. Many of you will have already experienced 1.2 in our Open Beta and will recognize many of these new features, improvements, and bug fixes, but there's a substantial number of things in here that were not in any of the three beta releases (or which were too niche for most to notice), so I expect that even beta players will find a few gems in here!
The planned release date for the update is Monday March 13th, at 10:00 Central European Time. Our testing shows a promising amount of compatibility with savegames created on 1.1.2, but as usual we cannot guarantee flawless compatibility between versions, so for safety we recommend you start a new campaign on the new build. We will of course backup the old 1.1.2 version as a Steam beta branch which you can rollback to if needed (e.g. for mod compatibility).
It is worth noting that this changelog reflects only the changes between 1.1.2 and 1.2.3 (which will be the release version of 1.2), and interim changes between beta releases are omitted to avoid confusion. In practice this means that if you experienced a bug or balance problem in a feature new to the beta build, this document won't explain whether it's been fixed or not.
If you're looking for more detail on the biggest changes coming to 1.2, take a look at our previous dev diaries.
Now, without further ado…
- Autonomous Investment: when the game rule is enabled, Pops will automatically start new private construction projects based on available funds in Investment Pool
- Buildings can now have Government Shares, which will pay money (or subtract losses) directly into the treasury relative to building profits and government ownership share
- The investment pool is now disabled under Command Economy. When Command Economy is enacted, all funds in the investment pool are seized for the treasury and all private construction projects are turned into government construction projects.
- Added new economic law Cooperative Ownership, which requires Council Republic and now unlocks Workers' Co-ops production methods instead of Council Republic doing so directly
- Strategic Objectives that can be designated by the player, encouraging Generals to capture specific states
- Command Economy now makes it so all private sector buildings have only government shares, and only pay out government dividends
- In-Game Music Player
- Defeating a Native Uprising no longer instantly annexes them, but instead creates a Colonization Rights pact which speeds up colonization of that country for 5 years
- New Lens interaction and context menu options to reset the Production Methods of a state, building, or building type to national standards
- New Journal Entry, Decisions, and events pertaining to Russo-Chinese Border conflicts, the Beijing Treaty, and the Chuguchak Protocol
- Complete overhaul of the Taiping Rebellion / Heavenly Kingdom event chain, including a new Journal Entry and event, a custom government form, historical characters, unique Interest Groups, new law setup, and plenty of fixes and balance changes
- Markets now have a Land Trade Capacity, which allows trade routes between adjacent markets to trade a limited number of goods without needing to use convoys
- Trade Routes now trade using market price, rather than a computed difference between pre- and post-trade prices. Trade routes now cannot be profitable unless the price is lower in the exporting market than in the importing market.
- Secondary war goals added in a Diplomatic Play can now be locked in at the cost of Infamy and Maneuvers, causing them to be yielded if the target backs down
- Numerous improvements to battle initiation, including picking which units should be involved and how many units each side can bring
- It is no longer possible to colonize a state where another country both has a claim and maintains an interest, unless you also have a claim there
- Several claims have been added to colonizable regions where other powers should not be able to start colonies, such as Hokkaido for Japan
- Worldwide rebalancing of Arable Land, with land generally reduced in Europe/Asia and generally increased in the Americas
- When a Native Uprising starts, they now only get conquer wargoals on states in state regions where the Native country owns land, instead of all adjacent states
- We now print a list of any missing DLC or mods when attempting to load a game, but let you try to load the game anyway
- Low Legitimacy is now communicated through an Alert (or an Important Action, depending on the severity)
- Added a Game Rule for whether Investment Pool is autonomously used by pops or directly controlled by the country
- Interest Groups are now much more likely to spread out across multiple available parties, reducing the risk of ideological incoherence within parties
- Maintaining additional Convoys in excess of what is needed now provides a bonus to Trade Route Competitiveness
- Unrecognized Powers now get a special Journal Entry for becoming Recognized during the Hegemon objective
- Colonial Clash event now triggers considerably less aggressively
- Notifications can now be dismissed in Observer mode
- Naval Invasions are no longer limited to using Admirals and Generals from the same HQ, but can use Generals from any HQ with coastal access
- If a front is resolved, any Generals at that front will now only automatically reassign themselves to a nearby front if it will take at most 30 days to reach it. In case of travel durations longer than that, the General will instead Stand By in their current location
- Battles currently in progress no longer get manpower reinforcements from newly trained servicemen. Reinforcements will arrive once the battalions leave their current battle.
- Battle Conditions now have a chance to update after having been active for several days, ensuring the tides can turn during battles
- The Offense/Defense bonus enjoyed by Colonial Uprisings has been halved
- You now get to choose to recruit one of 3 (instead of 2) Generals and Admirals
- Certain Diplomatic Plays such as Annex Subject are no longer blocked by having too good Relations with the target
- Interest Groups will no longer forget all about slavery as soon as it's abolished, but will retain their former ideals for some time
- New Alert for when a country does not produce enough construction to fully utilize the money coming into its investment pool
- Farmers and Shopkeepers now reinvest a small portion of their earned dividends into the Investment Pool
- Only slave states can now revolt with the Confederate States of America, and only free states with the Free States of America
- When the American Civil War breaks out, USA now gets claims on all states of the seceding country, and the seceding country gets a Revoke All Claims wargoal
- Unincorporated states now cost less Infamy and Maneuvers to claim than incorporated ones
- Reduced Fertilizer production from Intensive Grazing Ranches
- The most powerful Interest Group in a party is now considered the Party Whip, letting them moderate the impact of ideological incoherence among groups that do not agree with them
- GDP is now measured by subtracting the cost of input goods used in manufacturing, which is more true to life and doesn't unfairly rewards manufacturing economies over resource economies
- Buildings will now raise wages only if they have considerable profits and they have employees below minimum expected Standard of Living, or if they have reasonable profits, are trying to compete for labor, and have <50% employment
- Buildings will now lower wages or lay off employees if they are running a deficit and have <50% cash reserves, or if they have minimal profits and employees have a Standard of Living >33% above the minimum expected standard
- Generals will now be more aggressive and consistent about pursuing war goals, even when those war goals are far away
- Improved national dissolution events for China and India
- Revolutionary or Seceding countries are no longer able to engage in Colonization, as this would cause orphaned colonies upon their destruction
- Auto-Expand trigger conditions have been altered to ensure very expensive buildings don't block new buildings from being added
- First Aid Production Method now requires Liquor and Fabric rather than Opium, while Opium is only required by Field Hospitals PM
- When a country splits due to a revolution, any gold reserves or debt it has will be split between them in accordance with GDP. When one country annexes another in a revolution, gold reserves / debt will be recombined.
- It is now possible to use the Take Treaty Port wargoal on a treaty port where you already own part of the state even if the holder is of higher or equal power rank
- Earnings prediction when expanding buildings has been made less confusing by only displaying the earnings of the prospective level and ensuring Economy of Scale is factored in
- Serfdom now reduces the amount of Infrastructure states get from their population
- Junior countries in a Customs Union will now get Trade Centers for their own trade routes
- Investment Pool contribution balance revisions to ensure the pool can be relevant for all countries and to not radicalize investors when they increase their investments
- Command Economy now requires Autocracy or Oligarchy to enact
- Postal Savings technology now increases the efficiency of Shopkeeper and Farmer investment
- Council Republic now increases the Clout of the Trade Unions instead of the Political Strength of Farmers and Machinists
- If the outcome of a battle would result in a tiny pocket with its own irrelevant front, it will be handed over to the winner instead, reducing the number of fronts created in wars overall
- Rebalanced employment numbers, trade volume and economy of scale for Trade Routes to work better with market price trading
- Added a warning for negative productivity trade routes
- Improved overall profitability of Vineyards
- Laissez-Faire now disallows any downsizing of private sector buildings
- Unacceptable legitimacy level now slow down the enactment of laws
- Righteous legitimacy level now impact enactment speed a bit less
- Mass migration targets are now selected in two steps, first country then state, increasing the reliability of migration waves to the new world
- Mass migration targets are now established by culture + country rather than culture only
- Mass migration should now only occur from states considered homelands for that culture
- Mass migration target limits based on cultural turmoil removed, replaced by a cooldown per culture + country pair from a specific country
- Limited emigration to a percentage of the state's population + a percentage of unemployed Pops in the state each week
- Adjusted some countries' cultural tolerance setup to encourage more new world migration
- The Competitiveness of a trade route now increases the longer it's been established, making it harder for new routes to compete on limited supply
- Rebalanced pop growth, including secondary factors like dangerous working conditions, to achieve stronger and more historically accurate compound pop growth
- War Exhaustion from occupation now scales in a non-linear fashion against the amount of territory occupied, so that occupying just a small portion of a country now does not have much impact but fully occupying them still has a huge impact
- Provinces are now selected for new battles according to more relevant parameters (e.g. distance to war goal)
- Particularly severe goods shortages are now signaled to the player as Alerts rather than Important Actions
- Italian and German flags now look different depending on which country formed them
- Slower tech progression but with tech boosts from Journal Entries and events (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- It is now possible to take Treaty Ports from Isolationist countries and trade with their market if you hold such a port
- War Exhaustion from casualties is now scaled off military size rather than population size and increases by the relative amount of battles lost by a country's side of the wa
- Colonizable Pacific Islands now have the Severe Malaria trait to discourage early colonization
- Western Australia, New South Wales and Japan now start with Colonial Resettlement
- Anarchism now requires the Cooperative Ownership economic law to be enacted, and disables all other economic laws
- Interest Groups with a Slaver leader are now virtually guaranteed to join the Democrat Party while the 'Great Slavery Debate' journal entry is active
- Interest Groups with an Abolitionist leader are now virtually guaranteed to join the Republican Party while the 'Great Slavery Debate' journal entry is active
- Missouri Compromise now also gives additional voting power to Aristocrats and Farmers
- Each level of Trade Route now generates a base number of Trade Center levels, and then one additional Trade Center per level, in order to better balance against sharper decline in per-unit profit from market price trading
- "Protect Domestic Industry" tariff focus now gives a greater increase in export tariffs
- "Encourage Exports" tariff focus now gives a greater increase in import tariffs
- Very unhealthy characters may now die young
- Industrial Barriers event has been rewritten to be more balanced and engaging
- Music track now resets when exiting the game to the Main Menu
- Command Economy no longer enforces mandatory subsidies, since deficits are covered by the treasury due to government shares anyway
- Buildings will no longer raise wages to attract new employees if no qualifying employees exist
- Increased radicals from being below minimum Standard of Living (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- Poor pops are now more politically engaged at high literacy (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- It is now possible to use "Revoke Claim" war goal to revoke claims that are not on your own states, e.g. colonial claims
- Workers in unincorporated states are now generally paid lower wages, especially if they are discriminated and/or you have the 'Colonial Exploitation' law
- Decentralized Nations no longer have Serfdom law active by default
- "Independence" war goal now only requires you to hold your own capital in order to contest the war goal, rather than having to occupy your former overlord's capital
- Console command "tweak debugworldpopulation" can now be used to log many interesting annual global statistics as .csv and Elasticsearch data
- Agrarianism now allows whaling, fishing, logging and rubber plantations to be funded by the investment pool when using Directly Controlled Investment game rule
- All workforce pops in Worker Co-ops now have an equal ownership share
- Defeating the Shogunate in a Civil War will now complete the Meiji Restoration
- Trade Routes will now always increase their size so long as they can maintain at least £10 productivity, and always decrease their size if they are unable to maintain at least £3 productivity
- Markets are now considered adjacent if they have any land adjacency, not just if their capital areas are adjacent
- Improved balance for Political Movement start chances
- High and Very High taxation levels now slightly reduce the Pop attraction of the Interest Groups in power
- Revolutionary uprisings now select their participating states with more precision
- Changed completion conditions for the Declare Interest tutorial to lower the barrier for low-Prestige countries
- Conscript troops and standing armies now have the same statistics when the same Production Methods are active
- Whaling Stations now have a Simple Whaling Production Method that produces mostly Meat
- Whaling Stations and Fishing Wharves now have Ownership Production Methods that are better aligned with other Resource industries
- Arms Industries and Munition Plants now have Automation Production Methods
- Indus Valley and Good Soil state traits now also include bonuses for Plantations
- USA gets a claim on Texas from Manifest Destiny (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- Construction Industries now have increased Laborer mortality (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- Arc Welded Construction is now less efficient (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- Rebalanced Radical gain in Subsistence buildings due to Expected Standard of Living
- It is now much rarer to get an Obligation from Bankrolling a country
- Russia now starts with Propertied Women law instead of Legal Guardianship
- Party leader Popularity now has a much lower impact on Election Momentum
- Decision to convert Japan to Shintoism now requires a less restrictive Church & State Law, and when taken, will instantly convert 40% of pops in the capital + 20% of all Japanese pops nationwide
- Road Maintenance Decree now provides a boost to "Infrastructure from Population" instead of flat Infrastructure
- Pops will no longer mass migrate away from a state to such an extent that it completely empties out all non-slave pops
- Increased casualties generated by Offense/Defense compared to manpower
- Reduced the throughput penalty Decentralized Nations are subjected to from 30% to 10%
- If slavery is abolished and a civil war is then launched to restore it, the pro-slavery rebels will now re-enslave discriminated laborers working in agricultural buildings in former slave states instead of just accepting de facto abolition
- Rebalanced start conditions to ensure several countries no longer start with negative weekly income
- Subsistence buildings can now have the Government Run Production Method
- Andrew Jackson now starts the game with Slaver ideology
- Britain now starts the game with more agriculture and textile industries
- Russia now starts the game with even more agriculture in Ukraine
- Calling in a country to a Play by using an Obligation now costs 10 Maneuvers instead of 20
- Rebalanced number of provinces conquered in battles
- USA event option that annexes the Indian Territory will no longer be selected by the AI if the Indian Territory is controlled by a human player
- The Suez and Panama Canal surveys now take less time to complete
- All releaseable countries (e.g. Sudan, Inca) are now centralized
- Transcaucasia is now a recognized rather than unrecognized nation
- Ottomans now start with Line Infantry tech and some barracks with it active (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- Ottomans now start with a longer truce with Egypt (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- Tanzimat: Army Reform no longer requires expanding the army to 250 units, only 150 (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- Germany & Italy now get a bunch of claims on unowned states when formed (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- Heavenly Kingdom event will now trigger at Standard of Living <10 instead of <7 (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- Bolivian event option that annexes Peru will no longer be selected by the AI if Peru is controlled by a human player
- Improve Rank tutorial is now adapted to not auto-complete for Unrecognized countries
- Tanzimat: Literacy requirement reduced from 35% to 20%
- Very small pops that would otherwise be merged into larger pops will now remain intact if they are likely to have recently arrived to their state via migration
- Western Australia now has a Claim on New Zealand instead of on New South Wales
- Clicking on either the Unhealthy Economy or Stockpiling Gold Important Actions will now open the Budget panel
- FMOD audio middleware updated to 2.02.03
- Lower effect of Standard of Living on Qing for opium obsession, and higher for having lost opium wars (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- Reformed Mughal is now Muslim (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- India doesn't get any Iranian cultures as primary (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- Britain now starts with additional Declared Interests
- "Visitors from Colonies" event now has a longer cooldown before it can reoccur
- Colonization of a claimed state will not be blocked if the country with the claim can't reach the state
- English: fixed a broken reference to concept_subsidizing in Trade Route tooltip
- No more Scottish people in India at game start (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- British Gambia now starts with a Port, ensuring it's not isolated from the British market
- AI will now never remove the last level of port in a state
- AI will now refrain from constructing more ports than it could support financially
- AI "Bravery" is now renamed to "Recklessness"
- AI will now better balance its forces between defending home HQs and sending troops to overseas fronts
- Technologies now have scripted AI weights to fine-tune the AI's decision making when selecting new research
- High Recklessness will now cause the AI to overestimate its military strength in Diplomatic Plays, thereby increasing Confidence
- AI is better at responding to political movements (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- AI is now less likely to back down in diplomatic plays where there are numerous primary demands arrayed against them, especially if they will be annexed on backing down
- Tweaked unification AI strategies to make the AI better at using the journal entry systems to absorb minor countries
- AI will no longer downsize government buildings while in a civil war
- AI will now hire enough Generals to effectively garrison their HQs (e.g. to repel naval invasions)
- Ensured wars between AI countries do not stall due to neither side ordering their generals to advance
- AI is more keen to do reforms to avoid civil war, especially if a subject (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- AI now values institution spending higher and in accordance with its Strategies
- Improved AI's ability to manage Infrastructure levels across their market
- Improved AI's ability to reform its government to maintain reasonable Legitimacy levels
- AI will now handle their Generals better, ensuring they are assigned to advance or defend fronts as is appropriate
- Adding more primary demands now increases sympathy for opposing side
- AI now sets tariff policies on goods according to their interests
- AI should no longer offer or accept a white peace when the odds are overwhelmingly in their favor
- AI now values the war goal of revoking Treaty Ports more consistently in Diplomatic Plays
- AI no longer gets stuck in a spiral of low infrastructure due to underemployed railways
- AI is now better at prioritizing construction and usage of Logging Camps
- AI will not try to form Germany/Italy until they have nationalism (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- AI, including the Autonomous Investment AI, now correctly assesses the effects of Economy of Scale when determining where to expand a building
- Countries will now tend to maintain Generals on stand-by in important coastal HQs to protect from naval invasions
- A revolutionary country that has already won the revolution will now be willing to make a white peace with remaining countries in the war
- AI is now less likely to take sides in diplomatic plays without a good reason to do so
- Fixed a bug that was causing DIPLO_PLAY_BOLDNESS_WEAK_ARMY_FACTOR not to be included in the calculations, AI should now be more likely to back down and less likely to intervene in plays if their own army is very weak
- Reduced the overall aggression levels of the AI, as it was overtuned to compensate for (now fixed) bugs listed below
- AI is now more aggressive against ideological enemies, and a bit less aggressive against ideological allies
- AI is now generally better at constructing peace deals that might end up ceding wargoals to both sides
- AI now has an improved understanding of which wargoals are more important than others to press and not have pressed on themselves
- AI is now less random about who it has sympathy for in a Diplomatic Play, and more inclined to support allies and subjects
- Fixes a bug where AI was miscalculating countries that are likely to declare neutrality as potential enemies, causing it to be far too passive with starting plays in regions with a lot of interests
- AI is now less inclined to overbuild railroads in states that have free infrastructure
- Fixed a bug where AI Generals were getting stuck on fronts
- AI should no longer get into a state where it constantly moves generals back and forth between fronts
- AI is now better at understanding how lucrative Gold Mines are
- The AI must now wait for a cooldown period before resending an offer the player rejected
- Fixed a bug that caused AI peace desire from military strength to be reversed
- Fixed reversed check in achievable wargoals that was causing a country that was winning to peace out too early
- Fixed a bug where the AI did not understand that potential allies may not be able to join them due to truces and launched potentially suicidal plays as a result
- Fixed a bug where allies of the initiator could sometimes ignore truces with the target
- AI now looks at the relative power of the two sides' militaries when deciding how much it wants to make peace
- AI will now never abandon allies and subjects in diplomatic plays where they're not actually at risk due to very weak enemies, etc
- AI should now understand Construction Efficiency maluses better and use this knowledge while queueing new constructions
- AI is now much more interested in using Automation methods, particularly when the cost of the needed goods is low
- AI should now be unwilling to invest in ports if it already has a lot of free convoys and the port wouldn't connect any new states to its market
- Fixed an inconsistency in AI memories where sometimes it was tracking time by days and other times months
- Fixed an issue where Generals standing by in non-home HQs were considered to be garrisoning their home HQ
- AI now completes expeditions more regularly
- AI now places higher importance on conquering land-adjacent states
- AI is now more aggressive against Council Republics if they are themselves not a Council Republic
- AI is now more aggressive against countries with radical economic laws (Worker’s Co-ops and Command Economy) if they themselves do not have a radical economic law
- AI values obligations from irrelevant countries less (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- Russia is better at expanding in Central Asia (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- AI should now be better at establishing Electrics Industries in the mid-game
- AI may now choose event option with AI weight 0 as a fallback if all other options are disabled due to failed trigger
- AI is now less willing to agree to peace if there are wargoals their side is likely to achieve through capitulation that aren't part of the peace
- Increase AI's tendency to be neutral in native uprisings
- "Powerful Protectors" diplomatic approval malus is no longer applied when the powerful protector is the country making the offer
- USA is now much more keen to map the western frontier (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- Italian minors are more aggressive about pursuing unification (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- AI will no longer demand Treaty Ports or Open Market war goals from countries in their own market
- AI will no longer demand an Open Market if they already have or are demanding a Treaty Port of the country in the same Play
- AI now considers plentiful gold reserves to be less important for deciding when to peace out
- Fixed a bug that made the AI reluctant to side against secessions due to risk of spreading when they should actually be reluctant to side with them
- European Powers will not take full states in China while Fragile Unity is active unless another European Power has already done so (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- British India will not rebel, to avoid being shattered (from "Open Beta Tweaks" mod by One Proud Bavarian and Doodlez)
- Increased Britain's recklessness in the Opium Wars a bit
Continued in Part 2!