Millennia | Atomic Ambitions & Update 6 Release

Hello! Atomic Ambitions and Update 6 have been released! We will now have a look through what that entails below in the changelog!

These notes cover the Atomic Ambitions DLC and Update 6 for Millennia.

If you last played when we released Ancient Worlds, you might want to peek at some of the changes since then. In particular, the Multiplayer Update at the end of September was substantial.

Atomic Ambitions

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Details for all of the new things added in Atomic Ambitions can be found the original announcement and in the Atomic Ambitions Developer Diary, but a summary of the major new additions follows:

• New Strategic Warfare System: Reduce an enemy’s ability to fight by targeting and damaging their Buildings using the new Strategic Warfare system. This system is part of the free update, but the Atomic Ambitions DLC provides additional ways to engage with it, such as the Siege Masters National Spirit.
• New Nuclear Weapons: The most powerful weapons known are now included in Millennia’s arsenal. Update 6 adds the Arms Race system and the basic set of nuclear options for all players, but Atomic Ambitions adds exclusive new options (the ICBM and Dirty Bomb Powers), the DEFCON system, Age of Wasteland, and the Nuclear Superiority National Spirit.
• New Pollution System: Pollution-related items, “Bads”, are now part of the overall Goods model and must be dealt with to avoid their negatives. Update 6 adds this new element for all players, but the Atomic Ambitions DLC adds and exclusive option for processing later-game pollution through the new Cooling Tower Improvement.
  
• New Age of Wasteland: A unique new Age, Wasteland can become the future if Nations are a little too free in their use of nuclear weapons. Scavenge the irradiated world, fight with Mutants and Battle Cars, and attempt to rebuild civilization.
  
• New Age of Atom: A new Age 7, Atom is Wasteland’s peaceful cousin, an Age that involves the early discovery of atomic power and widespread enthusiasm for the peaceful uses of nuclear everything.
  
• New Flower Child National Spirit: A new Age 8 National Spirit, Flower Child allows you to adopt an anti-nuclear war stance and attempt to prevent Armageddon.
  
• New Nuclear Superiority National Spirit: Dominate the Arms Race with Nuclear Superiority, a new National Spirit that allows you to become a nuclear superpower.
• New Siege Masters National Spirit: This new National Spirit allows you to focus on siege starting in Age 4. Build Siege Camps close to enemy Regions and construct Ballistae, Trebuchets, and Siege Towers to make short work of their defenses.
• New Wasteland Terrains: Age of Wasteland introduces new Wasteland terrains.
• New Wasteland Start: This new Game Option allows you to start a new game in the Age of Stone but on a post-apocalyptic Age of Wasteland map.
• New Starting Bonus: Atomic Ambitions adds a Diplomatic Favor Starting Bonus.
• New Music: Atomic Ambitions adds awesome new tracks for Age of Atom and Age of Wasteland (and also a few in the general Future and Modern music sets).
• New Landmarks: Six new Landmarks and their associated Expeditions are added by Atomic Ambitions – Wulingyuan, Rio Platano, Wadi Rum, Old Harry Rocks, Serengeti, and Ngorongoro Crater.
  
• New Chaos and Innovation Events: Atomic Ambitions adds a new set of Chaos and Innovation events, along with four new Innovation Buildings – Stonehenge, Great Sphinx, Ipet-Isut, Chateau De Chambord.
  

You can purchase Atomic Ambitions here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2829690/Millennia_Atomic_Ambitions/

Simultaneous Multiplayer

Simultaneous Multiplayer has been steadily improved since being introduced with Ancient Worlds. (Thanks to everyone who has helped with testing in the public beta branch.)

This feature is now ready for general use. We debated removing the “Beta” from it for Atomic Ambitions, but we felt it needs a little larger scale testing before we’ll allow it to completely graduate.

There are specifics in the notes that follow, but the short version is that the version of Simultaneous Multiplayer included in Update 6 is ready for all players.

Millennia Update 6

Items below are part of Millennia’s free update and available to all players.

Featured Changes

• Added new default Nations:
  
  • Italy: An AI Personality of Opportunist, and default starting bonus of Regional: +Influence.
  • Australia: An AI Personality of Diplomat, and default starting bonus of +Movement: Naval Units.
  • Poland: An AI Personality of Cooperative, and default starting bonus of Regional: +Unrest Suppression.
  • Mexico: An AI Personality of Isolationist, and default starting bonus of Regional: +Food.
  • Mongolia: An AI Personality of Aggressive, and default starting bonus of Age I: Warband Unit.

• Added a new Advanced Start to Game Options. You can now start games in Age 4, 6, or 8 and will begin the game with a setup reasonable for the Age. This also works in Simultaneous Multiplayer.
• Strategic Warfare changes:
  • Most Units that can take part in Strategic Warfare have new Unit Abilities. Land Units, like the Catapult, have a Barrage Ability (in addition to Siege Defenses) that allows them to attack enemy Armies. Air Units, like the Propeller Bomber have a Strategic Bombing toggle that allows them to switch between targeting Armies and Buildings.
  • Units capable of delivering nuclear attacks now have a Unit Ability to specify this action, such as Nuclear Strike on Submarines or the Load Nuclear Payload toggle on Bombers.
  • Siege Units can now attack at range, depending on the Unit. Guided Artillery, for example, can Siege Defense 3 hexes away.
  • Damaged Buildings do not produce their normal Resource output, Goods output, Unrest Suppression, or Regional Efficiency.
  • Damaged Buildings repair passively, based on the Production of the Region.
  • Building damage shows in tooltips and in the City UI, where they now have HP bars.

• Refreshed the Machinery National Spirit:
  
  
  • New Ideal unlocks a Charcoal Furnace Improvement, generates 1 Engineering XP and converts 2 Logs to 4 Charcoal.
  • New Charcoal Good (2 Production). Charcoal can also be used as fuel for Power Station, Power Generator, and Mega Powerplant.
  • New Apprenticeship Ideal provides additional worker slot to Charcoal Furnace and Tinkerer.
  • Trebuchet Ideal changed to Gears and Pendulums, unlocks Clock Tower, unlocks and spawns a Trebuchet.

• Refreshed Spec Ops National Spirit:
  
  
  • Tactical Insertion can no longer target tiles inside an enemy's borders.
  • Laser Targeting replaced with Air Supremacy Ideal, unlocks and spawns VTOL, increases Strategic Power, Strategic Targets, and Attack on Air Units.
  • Sabotage Ideal unlocks a Briefcase Nuke Unit Action for the Special Forces Unit.
  • VTOL Ideal replaced with Contact Local Resistance Ideal, unlocks Domain Power that spawns Rebels in an enemy Region.

• Refreshed the Colonialism National Spirit:
  • Eminent Domain Ideal no longer provides a power. It now is a one-time effect that converts up to three Minor Nations into Vassals and applies an Integration bonus to all Vassals. For each Minor Nation that cannot be found (such as from none being left) a Settler spawns in your Homeland instead. The ideal was also moved from Tier 1 to Tier 3.
  • Macro Economics Ideal moved from Tier 3 to Tier 2.
  • Overseas Colonization Ideal moved from Tier 2 to Tier 1, and now only spawns 1 Settler, down from 2.
  • Added nested tooltip for the Colony Outpost Specialization to the Placer Claim Ideal / Power.

• Added new Resource and Reward Camp Abundance map generation Game Options.
• New map type – Enclosure. This map features harsh mountains and glaciers trapping all nations within a single landmass with one body of water. An arena-type map that forces all nations to fight for what little territory they have, with each open area separated by thick hills and forestation.
  
  

• New Chaos and Innovation events added to Age of Heresy, Age of Harmony, Age of Revolutions, and Age of Dystopia.
• Diplomacy UI now shows an AI player’s chance of accepting an offer, as well as a brief summary of some of the factors influencing that chance.
• Added the ability to Compel in Diplomacy. This allows Diplomatic XP to be spent to guarantee acceptance of a Diplomatic offer (when dealing with an AI player).
• A new Megaproject, the Manhattan Project, has been added. When completed, this unlocks nuclear weapons.
• After nuclear weapons are discovered, the Arms Race system becomes active. This is a Faction system that provides bonuses or penalties based on each Faction’s nuclear weapon stockpile.

Balance

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT BALANCE CHANGES WILL ONLY APPLY TO NEW GAMES.​

• Updated overall Power economy.
  • 1 Coal Worker = 1 Coal and 1 Power.
  • 1 Petroleum Worker = 1 Petroleum and 2 Power.
  • 1 Uranium Worker = 1 Uranium and 3 Power.
  • Stored Energy Good is now worth 10 Power Need (increased from 5).
  • Adjusted Aether and Matter-Energy Condenser to both fall in line near Petroleum, but worse than Uranium.

• Any Riots active when Age of Dystopia ends are now cleared.
• Added Arts XP bonuses to the Religion-related techs in Ages 3 and 4 to make the Arts Domain, and thus Religion, easier to access if you weren't working on Arts previously:
  • Age of Kings: Organized Religion (+10 XP).
  • Age of Monuments: Worship (+10 XP).
  • Age of Plague: Sanctuary (+10 XP).
  • Age of Kings: Spirituality (+5 XP).

• Computer Labs Improvements are now their own upgrade line (instead of being part of the Laboratory line).
• Changed Age 7 Power Station and Age 8 Wind Farm to cost IP (to make it easier to bootstrap Power in Regions).
• Imperial Bombardment Ideal now buffs Strategic Power and Strategic Targets.
• Increased City Attack power of Castles from 23 to 28.
• The Ancient Seafarer Legacy Ideal now includes Deep Water Utility Ships too.
• Age of Singularity no longer unlocks Civil Bunker, now unlocks AI Warehouse.
• Buffed the Howitzer unit from 42 to 48 ATK.

Gameplay

• Existing Events that involved Capital Building damage or destruction were revised to use the new Strategic Warfare building damage system.
• Added new Chaos Events that damage Capital Buildings.
• Age of Ignorance Chaos Events no longer occur after the Age of Ignorance.
• When AI players evaluate Diplomatic offers, they now weight differences in Power differently. Specifically, when Power between two Nations is similar, it no longer has any impact on the chance of accepting or refusing the offer.
• Towns and Vassals can now be placed atop Goods (this destroys the Goods tile).
• Removed or revised a number of Events designed to reveal nearby Camps; the current implementation was confusing.
• When a City is destroyed, any air Units there are now also destroyed.

AI

• Improved the AIs use of warships.
• Improved how the AI uses siege weapons against cities.
• Improved how the AI selects and builds Improvements.

UI / Art

• Added a new icon to represent bonuses that increase Army size (to differentiate from Warfare XP-related upgrades / bonuses).
• Adjusted the Army banner art to make player color more visible.
• Added support for showing more than four possible future Ages in the Technology screen.
• Fixed issue with text overflow on Envoy.
• Improved tooltip clarity around rivers and lush terrains to better call out the terrain bonuses received from these locations.
• Improved text related to Spec Ops National Spirit.
• Fixed an issue with Unrest Suppression from Goods not always showing correctly in the Goods tooltip.
• Updated Diplomacy text to highlight Alliance and War warning information.
• Fixed an issue where “small penalty” was not showing in the Faction panel.
• Fixed an issue with how Goods that provide Unrest Suppression are shown in the Region panel.
• Added Unrest icon to relevant tooltips.
• Updated and improved numerous Infopedia entries.
• Deforestation Domain Power now shows that it generates IP when used.
• Added Lush terrain tooltip for Food production.
• The Build Helper no longer shows tabs for suggestions of what to build if you want more Chaos or more Unrest.
• Updated Shogunate Innovation tooltip for clarity.
• The Diplomacy UI now uses “+ +” and “- -“ to indicate factors that have greater impact on the AI’s decisions.
• Updated the Diplomacy state tooltips to clarify the effects of each state.
• National Spirits that have been completed now show a “completed” icon.
• Tooltips for starting bonuses now show bonus value.
• Added missing Age of Ecology Infopedia and Help topics.
• Added sounds to a number of buttons that were missing these.
• Improved tooltip for Bow Hunter’s Harvest ability.
• Revised the left column of the main UI (where Technology, Culture, and Domains are shown).
• Revised terminology around Victory Ages to be consistent
• Changed Expansion Overlay to show number of turns until expansion.
• Amount of Wealth gained from deploying a Merchant now displays correctly on the same turn the Merchant is deployed.
• Changed Culture and Domain Power buff icons to use the icon of the Power instead of the icon of the resource gained / spent on the Power.
• Improved Expedition tooltip for clarity.
• Updated the Influence Infopedia entry.
• Fixed tooltips for National Spirit Legacy items to correctly show that they come from the Legacy Ideal (not the National Spirit itself).
• Tweaked the glacier terrain texture.
• Clarified tooltips for Crusader Ideal when Secular.
• Made Sheep animate correctly.

Simultaneous Multiplayer

(Some of these changes were part of the earlier MP Update but not in the notes.)

• Fixed several issues caused by splinter Nations in simultaneous multiplayer.
• Fixed issues caused when too many players attempted to join a restored simultaneous multiplayer game.
• Fixed an issue where, while using speech-to-text, the chat dialog could fade and disable inputs.
• Fixed issues related to player positions in lobby when restoring a simultaneous multiplayer game where a player has been previously eliminated.
• Fixed OOS condition related to Vassals.
• Fixed multiple out of synch conditions (almost all OOS conditions are now fixed).
• Fixed issues with lobby not allowing multiplayer savegames that involve splinter nations to load / resume.
• Fixed an issue with locked workers causing a desynch.
• Unsupported symbols in player names are now stripped out and not displayed (so if you have a bunch of emoji in your player name, you won’t see []s).
• Added a ready button to the multiplayer lobby (and automatic countdown when all are ready).
• Added a “healing system” to Simultaneous Multiplayer. This can detect and repair most desynchs between turns.
• Added a host migration system to Simultaneous Multiplayer. This allows games to continue if the host has been eliminated.
• Updated Simultaneous Multiplayer load system to use the correct loading screen art.
• Made Advance Start Game Option work in Simultaneous Multiplayer.

Known Simultaneous Multiplayer Issues

• When playing with a larger number of players, it is possible that two players will swap positions (and nations) when transitioning from lobby to the game. We're working on a fix.
• The Lobby can sometimes incorrectly assign player positions when re-hosting and loading a saved MP game. Once in game things will be restored correctly.
• If the host of a MP game is eliminated, the next human player becomes the new host and is now responsible for saving the game and re-hosting future sessions. This is not yet communicated in game. You can tell if you're the host if you have an enabled Save button in the Pause menu.
• There are still cases where a MP game can go out-of-sync between the host and clients. These issues will be resolved on the next turn the vast majority of the time. However, if the out-of-sync indicator is on every turn for multiple turns in a row it may be a good indication to have the host save the game, re-host the lobby, and load that saved game to clear any lingering issue.
• Using the advanced start feature in a MP game is more likely to generate initial out-of-sync issues, but they usually fix themselves over the first turn or two.

Modding

• Added an additional single-placement Map Cluster type.
• Fixed an issue with modded Goods not showing in the Resource overlay.
• Modding no longer “beta.”

Bugfixes

• Fixed some incorrect warnings shown on loading old savegames.
• Fixed issue with Guided Artillery using incorrect move sound.
• Fixed missing sound effect on Unite Tribes and Keshig Unit Abilities.
• Fixed issue with Age of Monuments not properly following game speed setting.
• Fixed an issue with being able to promote Leader Units to Generals multiple times (for no effect but at a cost of Warfare XP).
• Fixed an issue with the Flower Wars Ideal causing more religious conversion than intended.
• Fixed an issue where undoing a Utility Ship upgrade could cause problems.
• Fixed missing hover sound on Vassal Destroy Region button, Integrate button.
• Fixed missing hover sound on buttons in Victory / Defeat screens.
• Fixed an issue that would cause odd visuals with mountain terrain when completing Quests in Age of Heroes.
• Fixed an issue with resources that start the game hidden not playing their selection sound after being revealed.
• Fixed an issue where queueing the same Unit to be multiple times would sometimes cause the Unit to not show or to show an incorrect number of turns to build.
• Fixed issues related to territory lost to Town destruction. This also fixes issues related to count limited Improvements being incorrectly left behind after Towns are destroyed.
• Religious Improvements in a Region are now destroyed if the Region is captured (preventing Nations without a Religion from generating Faith when they should not).
• Removed bombing Unit Actions from Supersonic Lancer (fighter-type air Unit).
• Fixed the Floods Chaos Event to not occur when there are no valid targets.
• Fixed an issue with correct display of itemized buffs on some Capital Buildings.
• Fixed Innovation Units, Buildings, and Improvements sometimes not unlocking their Infopedia entry.

Misc

• Improved performance, especially performance in late-game interface.
• Improved general pathing behavior to deal better with situations that involve overstacking.

Known Issue

• If you undo the destruction of a Transport Ship, it will leave the naval stack in a bad state.

2024 Roadmap
With that we come to the end of the changelog, we also come to the Roadmap for 2024, which we have updated below: