Hello everyone! Today we will cover the upcoming hotfix coming to the Open Beta plus a further set of improvements coming in the free Update 1.5 release (tentative release date: sometime in November).
With the latest release of the Open Beta (Update 2) we introduced a few new mechanics which, it turned out, weren't quite ready for release. Being a beta build that is perhaps understandable (and you've all been very understanding!) but nevertheless we feel the issues are too game-breaking to leave in their current state. As a result we will be releasing a hotfix imminently (if it hasn't been released already, as I'm writing this in the past) that will contain fixes for the following issues:
Cannot change language in the Settings menu unless game was started in English
This could be worked around by setting the language in the Launcher before starting the game, but should nevertheless be fixed now.
Occupying a state may remove fronts from the war
Winning the last bit of a state, causing fronts to move, may remove that front from the war temporarily. In most cases the front re-emerges again after some time, but this causes you to have to redeploy formations to the front again. This should no longer happen.
Crash to desktop in some cases when a front is destroyed, or when reloading the game
Seemingly random crash related to repositioning of armies when their current front is no longer valid and they are forced to travel elsewhere, or sometimes when recalculating cached data upon reloading a game. The game should no longer crash under these conditions.
Trade Route Caravans not visible
This applies to all "caravans" traveling the network except for armies and fleets - horse buggies, trains, zeppelins, trading vessels, etc. They are now visible again, alongside armies and fleets.
Occupation texture not visible on the paper map
Sometimes partial occupation won in a state would be shown correctly and sometimes it would not, leading to some confusion over who won certain battles. Partial occupation should now always be properly displayed again.
AI <3 Infantry
The AI refuses to build any unit type other than Infantry or Light Ships. This issue has now been patched up - the AI is still not the greatest at evaluating which unit types to build for different purposes, but at least it's open for a bit of experimentation now.
This job sucks
A balance issue in the new Job Satisfaction + Migration system caused especially rich strata pops to be incredibly hard to hire and retain. In practice this looked like these job openings were just incredibly hard to fill or pops were "bouncing around", but the reason for this turned out to be as follows:
- A lower-strata pop is given a new job opportunity, for example a Clerk becomes a Capitalist
- The Clerk, having been promoted from a much lower Wealth level (Wealth 13, for example) suddenly finds themselves a Capitalist and starts comparing themselves to everyone around them
- Realizing that other Capitalists in their state and/or market has a much higher Wealth than they do, they become incredibly and instantly dissatisfied with their new lot in life
- Due to having such low Job Satisfaction, they decide they better seek their fortunes elsewhere, and join a migration wave to another state on the following week - effectively blinking out of existence as soon as they popped in
- Next week the building realizes they need replacement Capitalists and starts hiring more Clerks into that position
- Rinse and repeat
While funny and at least semi-logical, this is not working as intended. We have now added an additional factor to Job Satisfaction such that pops who have not yet been paid in their new jobs will wait with migrating or taking on other jobs until they get a chance to see how well compensated they will be, and also apply a large positive Job Satisfaction factor to pops whose Standard of Living is currently on the rise. This should serve to keep those former Clerks in place long enough to understand that being rich is good, actually.
Reversed Migration
Speaking of migration, the revised internal migration system had a few issues. It calculated migration correctly between states, but in the end instead of sending them to the place they should go to, it sent them back to the state they came from. This meant no migration was happening and confused the UI making it think pops that should be arriving were actually leaving. We have now fixed this as well as tweaked the migration values so they’re a bit lower.
These fixes should hopefully already be live on the Open Beta branch when you read this, or should be there shortly! With that, I leave the floor to Victoria who will guide us through the aforementioned new additions to the upcoming free Update 1.5, as well as a major enhancement to Voice of the People.
Note that the section below will now feature content that will not be available in the current Open Beta build.
Hello. This is Victoria, and today we will be going over the long-awaited improvements to the Paris Commune content made in 1.5, as well as some miscellaneous improvements and content additions that did not make it into the previous dev diary.
First, however, here are the six new achievements added in patch 1.5.
Not Yet Lost: As Krakow, form Poland-Lithuania and complete the Expanding the Commonwealth Journal Entry.
Viva la Confederación!: As Bolivia, successfully form the Peru-Bolivian Confederation
Deșteaptă-te, Române!: As a Romanian nation, form Romania and directly own all Romanian homeland states.
Stonks: Have three companies at max prosperity at the same time.
Banana Republic: As a Yankee or Dixie nation, achieve maximum prosperity with the United Fruit Company and have at least 75 Banana Plantations.
SPQR: As the Papal States, become the Roman Republic and then form Italy.
With a teaser for some of the art of these achievements!
The Paris Commune
Joining the improvements to Divided Monarchists and other Voice of the People content given a rework in Patch 1.3.4, the Paris Commune journal entry has received significant improvements in 1.5. Rather than the player playing both sides in the crisis, making decisions for both the Commune and the Versailles government, the player will be invited to pick one side in the beginning, with the AI making decisions suiting the other side. This adversarial system creates a race between player and AI to advance their respective causes, and bring the Commune either to ruin or triumph.
Rather than harmlessly withering away, the Paris Commune, for as long as it exists, will now serve as a leech on the French economy, siphoning away at your treasury to keep itself afloat. Instead of facing a bankrupt Commune in the event of a civil war, it will now be fully functional, having preserved arms and gold reserves with which to strike back against the Versailles Government.
Additionally, more foreign interaction with the Paris Commune has been added. When the Commune emerges, foreign nations that are either left-wing in character or simply very, very opposed to France may be willing to recognise the Commune as the legitimate government of France, providing a bonus to the speed of its advancement.
New code features have been added to fix bugs related to the Commune, as well. The new set_immune_to_revolutions effect can be used to temporarily disable revolutions in nations that one wishes to treat as civil war countries, ensuring that a scripted war will not be interrupted by the sudden emergence of a Communard Peasant Revolt. Likewise, bugs involving France losing its journal entries in the case of the Communards successfully marching on Versailles have been fixed. Instead of France losing every character it has, characters whose interest groups are not in the government will be spared, creating a mix of new Communard characters and old characters who managed to avoid the trials of the reactionary forces.
These improvements should ensure that the Paris Commune is less of an outside context problem, and more of an organic and smooth component of the French gameplay experience. The French Commune rework will be available to owners of the Voice of the People DLC.
Miscellaneous Additions
1.5 also includes many free miscellaneous historical content changes to make small aspects of the game slightly more interesting. This section of the diary will give a brief overview of a selection of this content.
Frontier Colonisation
First and foremost is the addition of the new Frontier Colonisation law, a law that will primarily be used for New World countries at game start, as well as colonial administrations. This law functions similarly to Colonial Resettlement, but restricts colonisation to territories bordering your already existing states. All Rural Folk interest groups will now support Frontier Colonisation by default, as a part of the Isolationist ideology.
In the United States, the American Rural Folk have been given flavour, along with a new ideology that reflects their unique heritage as smallholding colonial settlers. The Jeffersonian ideology makes the Rural Folk support universal suffrage by default, along with making them more resistant towards agricultural collectivisation. This addition will make it much more difficult to reduce the American franchise from what it is at game start.
The Red Scare
Historically, the rise of socialist states has not come without a shockwave being sent around the world. The 1.5 Patch includes new content for the Red Scare, triggered by a diplomatically relevant nation adopting the Council Republic law.
The Red Scare journal entry will periodically fire events dealing with the reaction to the international communist movement within your nation, stirring mistrust against progressive interest groups. The player may choose to side with the reactionaries and sacrifice the strength of the Trade Unions in return for domestic tranquility, or they may choose to stand for progress, angering the upper class in exchange for the continued power of the lower.
Whilst the Red Scare will always fizzle out eventually, the decisions that were made during this tumultuous period are certain to haunt the nation’s politics for years to come.
As a bonus, AI communist countries have been given three new strategies that they may choose from, which will change their attitude towards the outside world - including one of the most aggressively interventionist strategies in the game so far.
Clothing Additions
With the reworked war system in 1.5 has also come some additions to uniforms, with Russia, Brazil, the Ottoman Empire, and modernised Japan joining the ranks of countries with unique uniforms for their generals. Now, as any of these nations, you may enjoy all of your generals having stylish matching uniforms.
As mentioned earlier, all non-Devout Japanese characters will now adopt Westernised clothing following the Meiji Restoration.
Brazil, the Ottoman Empire, and modernised Japan, as well, have new soldiers’ uniforms, which will display for Soldier and Officer pops in the details screen.
The Romanov Family
As a free bonus, Patch 1.5 includes every credible Romanov claimant as a character for Russia, along with some events pertaining to their fates, and events for the beginnings of their reigns.
Pictured: The end of the beginning…
Pictured: …and the beginning of the end.
Each Tsar will start their reign off with a bonus to the political strength of a certain social class - and, in some cases, will encourage the appearance of advisors that are compatible with their specific ideology.
Potential candidates for the throne include Alexander II, Alexander III, Alexander II’s son Nicholas Alexandrovich, Nicholas II, Georgy Romanov, Mikhail Romanov and Alexei II.
Pictured: Alexei lives!
The Age of Caudillos
Currently, all South American countries’ Armed Forces begin with the Caudillismo ideology, representing the trend of military strongmen dominating the region’s politics throughout the early nineteenth century. Patch 1.5 expands on this with the addition of the Age of Caudillos journal entry, allowing South American players to either embrace Caudillismo or attempt to combat it.
As you play, the progress bar will be depleted or filled by the fulfilment of certain conditions, ticking towards either a military or civilian-leaning conclusion.
The Age of Caudillos journal entry will provide the temptations of military support for politics, potentially sponsoring needed reforms for the price of making the state ever more accountable to their whims. However, if one can resist the temptations of absolute rule, the age of Caudillos can come to an end, and the South American militaries may be brought firmly under civilian control.
And that is all. Thank you for reading.
While the Open Beta continues strong and we make any last-minute additions, bug fixes, and balance tweaks you're suggesting on the Discord prior to the 1.5 release, we have one more surprise in store for you. Next week's dev diary will be released on Wednesday October 25 at 18:00 CEST rather than on our regular schedule, and will contain the exact release date of the update, among other information! Until then, Victorians!