Hi everyone,
Port Royale 4 has just received its first big update, 1.1 on Steam. This adds improvements to warehouses, adjustments to the difficulty settings and makes money a much more valuable resource. You can find all the details in the changelog below:
Port Royale 4 – Changelog – Update 1.1
New features
1) Warehouses
- Introduced a difficulty setting to Free Game allowing you to choose between the current warehouse system (“Optional”) and that found in previous titles (“Mandatory”) in the series. The latter will require you to first build a warehouse before being able to build production buildings.
- From now on, to have your warehouse auto-sell goods to a town, you will first need to hire an administrator.
- Reduced cost for warehouse upkeep and split this between the warehouse itself and the upkeep for a warehouse administrator.
2) Tweaks to money
- Removed trade license requirements for towns belonging to your nation.
- Decreased starting funds as you no longer need to buy trade licenses from the start (this should make money feel more valuable).
- Tweaked price curves to reduce price plateaus during trading.
- Increased the cost of buying ships, making ordering them a viable option again
3) Difficulty settings
- Revamped difficulty settings for Free Game, adding a new difficulty screen and making each option much easier to understand.
- Added more difficulty-related options such as choosing between the new and the old warehouse systems.
- You can now choose between 3 pre-set difficulties or a ‘Custom’ option so to customize the game’s difficulty to your liking.
As starting difficulties, we recommend ‘I Want A Relaxing Game’ for new players, ‘I Want A Decent Challenge’ for those familiar with trade simulators, and ‘I Am The Ruler of The Seas’ for those wanting to put their skills and trading acumen to the absolute test
Small adjustments
4) Player-owned non-convoy ships anchored in the harbour
When anchoring ships in a town via the lighthouse, these will now show as anchored in each town’s respective harbour.
Please note: this visual indicator is capped at a specific amount for each town.
5) Bell chime for manual convoy
Each player-controlled convoy will now trigger a bell chime when arriving in a harbour, regardless if it is selected. Automated convoys will only play the chime when selected.
6) Swapped trade route menu buttons
Swapped the position of the ‘Assign Route’ and ‘Create New Route’ buttons in the trade route menu and adjusted the spacing between the buttons.
7) Quick link to assigned trade route
When assigning your convoy to a trade route, you can now click on the name of the trade route via the ‘Trade Route’ tab of the convoy window. This will open the respective trade route in its respective window.
Bug fixes and optimization
Update 1.1 also brings with it an assortment of bug and graphical fixes as well as general game optimization.
Known issues
- Once hired, you cannot fire an administrator. This function will be added in the next update.
- When choosing the ‘Warehouse: Mandatory’ option, you cannot build in your town prior to constructing a warehouse. Please note: this restriction applies only to production buildings.
- In Tutorial Chapter 4, the arrow is not currently pointing at the ‘Create New Route’ button due to the button positions being switched.
Legacy Branch
We also added a legacy branch to Port Royale 4. This branch allows you, to access version 1.0.2, if you encounter any issues or problems with the latest update.
- Launch the Steam Client
- Open your Steam Library and right-click on Port Royale 4
- Select 'Properties' and click on the 'Betas' tab
- Click on the drop-down list and select 'legacy -'
- Press 'Close'
- Wait until all necessary files have been downloaded and start the game