Flags & Shields Update in Konkwest

This update adds flags and shields to the game, but also a huge load of other content.

Flags and Shields

• All countries in Konkwest, if they historically had a flag, have a flag now, which is displayed in various places throughout the game, for example on a shield displayed on each place on the globe, and on a flag on each country's capital.
• Flags are linked to the country name. If you rename your country it will adopt the flag matching the new country name if given, or use the country's color as the flag.

Gameplay

• Countries can no longer spawn back in if their traditional language is not at least present by 5% in their origin place.
• Countries can now start at war or with active friendships in the starting scenario.
• When you select regions or countries, that will now be visually represented by the selected places moving upwards.

Chat
There is now an ingame chat where you can communicate with the other players in your game room.

Netcode

• Almost the entire netcode of Konkwest has been rewritten to be more reliable. In case of connection interruptions players with connection issues will now automatically be switched to single player mode. If a player who is a game room's master client disconnects, another player will now automatically replace them.

Scenarios

• In some starting scenarios countries now have diplomatic relations from the start. This means some countries start as friends, while others start at war.
• As of this update, this models as friendships (in 2024): ASEAN, the East African community, the EU, the Inter-American Treaty, the Iranian sphere of influence, Mercosur, NATO, the neutrality of Switzerland, and the Union State.
• As of this update, this models as wars (in 2024): the Libyan civil war (with current truce), the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the Yemeni civil war.
• New scenario: 2024 + EU
• More countries have been added to the Balanced scenario and the Alternative Counties scenario.
• Scenarios can now include occupied places.

Lighting
Place markers are now affected by lighting, with the exception of capital stars and flags.

Linguistics

• Improved the linguistic simulation, so development of languages over time behaves more as one would expect.
• Each country can now have a local variant name for it's traditional language group. This way, Latin in France will be called French and Latin in Honduras will be called Spanish. While this is not quite how it works in the real world, it does add a bit more flavor to the simulation.
• Traditional languages in historical scenarios will now be boosted before countries spawn, so that historical countries won't automatically adapt to the modern language distributions.

Localization

• Translated country names and demonyms.
• Dozens of other new translations.
• Konkwest should now be fully translated in German and Dutch.

Performance
Removed several issues causing lag spikes between turns.

User Interface

• The load a game menu now displays details about the different saved games before you load them.
• The game status note is now in the bottom right corner instead of the bottom middle of the screen. It now also displays more accurate status information.
• Place labels are now a bit smaller and have a lower display range.
• There is a button to lower all fortification in a region of yours or even your entire country.