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.