Patches 50-53 (MAIN). Big Spring Update. Seasons, Politics, UI

Hello everyone,

Today we are moving the accumulated changes from patches 50-52 (map generation, public politics, and more) out of beta into the main branch, along with a today's patch №53 that includes many fixes and QoL stuff.

Thanks to the entire community for the feedback on the beta version!

We will continue working and will soon show you our plan for further work - there will be a lot of interesting things!

Dmitry.

Changelog of of the patch №53

Below you will find the contents of patches 50–52 from the Beta branch

Character Traits

• Added the “Devout” and “Preacher” traits

• Fanatics now receive a relations bonus towards characters with the “Devout” trait

• A character with the “Preacher” trait gains increased relations growth with the Bishop after delivering a Sermon of Faith

• When starting a new game, characters from predefined family presets now have their traits assigned in advance, and starting skills are generated taking into account the bonuses and penalties of those traits

• Changed the reward for the Red Mass: the ruler now gains +10 levels in a random skill instead of a random talent

• Updated the display of effects for the strengths and weaknesses “Born Leader” and “Impressionable” - now showing the amount by which the relations threshold is reduced, rather than the final values (as those did not account for stacking bonuses)

• The strength “Born Leader” and the weakness “Impressionable” now affect the relations thresholds for a neighboring ruler to gain a Debt of Honor after seduction

Balance

• Changed the relations threshold for becoming a puppet for the “Puppeteer” trait from 60 to 70

• Adjusted the relations bonus with the Bishop from delivering a Sermon of Faith

• Added a 3–4 day cooldown for the tribute demand quest from a stronger player on the global map

Interface and QoL

• Lords no longer eat berries from the warehouse if other food is available

• Assigning an inspector via the building context menu (right-click on a building) now correctly removes the previous inspector

• Available training hours for a lord are no longer reset when the lord leaves the local map

• Politicians no longer schedule sermons if there is no Bishop in the city

• The “Auto Study” option in the knowledge menu no longer resets after saving and loading

• Scrolling in the settings is no longer blocked by tutorials

• Buildings occupied by unique guests can no longer be moved or demolished

• Quest hint titles above global map objects are now taken from the quest name

• Crime scenes are now labeled in King’s View mode

• Map entry points are now displayed in King’s View mode

• Information about newly energized residents has been moved to the character statistics event

• The event about a politician receiving a donation has been moved to the top

• Added a new interface for soft tutorial steps - it is now displayed on the right, under the Help menu, instead of in the problem flag

• During the workday, the job manager assigns jobs to unemployed residents, but does not change jobs for residents who are already employed. Full job rebalancing still occurs at night

• Politicians no longer schedule sermons if there is no Bishop in the city

• Added an investiture ceremony: after granting a title to a new lord, the corresponding ceremony should now trigger

• If there is no Temple or Altar in the city, immobilized homeless characters will be brought to the hall square instead of inside the hall (previously they were brought to the ruler’s bedroom)

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that occurred when assigning a Chancellery inspector to another Chancellery

• Fixed a bug where the city menu would freeze after assigning a Seduction there

• Characters no longer receive skill debufs from drought if they are outside the local map

• Fixed a bug where the player did not receive 300 coins for joining a city alliance at the request of its leader

• Fixed a bug where residents would sometimes tie up injured fleshwolves and try to make prisoners out of them

• Fixed a bug where lords could lack a character trait and therefore it would not unlock upon reaching a new level

• Fixed a bug where a quest executor could be completely lost if the quest the character was in was destroyed

• Fixed a bug where if the player had 3 Paper in storage, they could send a messenger, cancel it, and receive 4 Paper

• Fixed an issue where completed soft tutorial steps might not be counted when loading an old save

• Fixed a bug where a ruler with senile dementia would continue political struggle

• Fixed a bug where a notification about a fleshwolf attack would appear even if hunters attacked the fleshwolf

• Fixed a bug where the money of a free lord would still go to the player after the lord was burned

• Fixed the display of multiple traits in the non-lord character menu; scrolling now appears after 15 traits instead of 9

• Fixed a crash that could occur when loading a family preset

Patch #52 full list of changes

Characters and social mechanics

• Added character trait “Honest Trader”

• Added character trait “Iron Fist”

• Added character trait “Benefactor”

• Added character trait “Combat Teacher”

• Added character trait Intimidating

• Added character trait Bookworm

• Added character trait Friend of the Scriptonics

Intimidation

• Added loss of half of a lord’s direct followers when punished on the scaffold

• Added display of all consequences of punishing a lord on the scaffold — changes in relations with the player ruler, changes in lords’ mood, and more

• Added accusations against a lord by fanatics, which are applied when a fanatic religious uprising is declared (not the bishop)

• Added restriction on possible punishments when accusation traits are present

• Added traits Accused of Crime and Accused by Bishop for lords. These traits allow punishing a lord on the scaffold without mood penalties for other lords. Traits are applied when committing crimes (murders, attempted murders, poisonings, attempted coup) and when accused by the bishop before a religious uprising

• Player lords and junior player lords (excluding hired free lords) will receive the fear thought “Intimidated” toward the ruler and the mood thought “Terror” from punishments on the scaffold. Thought strength depends on the type of punishment

Balance

• The inventory of a free lord will be destroyed when the body is burned instead of being transferred to the player; the thought about the death of a faction member has been removed

• The player ruler will no longer receive sin for ordering seduction

• Punishing a lord on the scaffold will give a 3x stronger and longer-lasting thought to execution witnesses - commoners

• The negative thought from seduction will last 10 days instead of 3

• The seducer will not receive the thought “Good sex”

• The social thought that a lord played dice with someone increased to +14, the mood thought from winning dice increased to +16

• Farm growth settings updated - growth duration reduced

• “Soft” vassalage removed (where a neighbor offers vassalage without threat), but the chance of “hard” vassalage increased

• The heavy tribute demand variant (where a neighbor threatens attack) removed - but the light tribute variant now has higher amounts, higher chance, adjusted relation thresholds, and stronger relation penalties when refusing to pay

• Clay pottery can now be produced without researching technology

• At least one neighbor will sell Wheat

• The Scriptonic will bring books of the ruler’s culture instead of the culture dominant among adult lords

• The trait from the death of a close one (like grey hair) is now given to only one random character

• The Depression trait now applies a -5 penalty to skills

Interface, notifications and UX

• Added ability to specify hint context for reasons of skill level changes in the character menu

• Notifications about results of unique guests are now normal, not important / they are removed after reading letters

• Added a single notification for political changes (X is no longer an ally of the politician) instead of separate ones

• Reinforcement transfer notifications are grouped into one

• If a faction is destroyed by a horde, only one destruction notification is shown instead of two

• The hint reset option is now unavailable during gameplay

• When a soldier uses painkillers, it does not create a notification; instead, at 20:00 a summary notification appears with total usage

• The dice game notification moved to the top

• Removed knowledge study status from bottom right / it is now shown in lord hints in the top panel

• The game no longer pauses due to mountain marauder attack notification

• Conspiracy threat notification now has a 24-hour cooldown

• Buildings constructed after 15:00 will not appear as uninspected in the evening notification

• The game no longer pauses when hunters fight a flatwolf

• Removed deep communication notifications (top)

• Removed “child is not studying” notification

• Removed war consequences notification

• New energetic residents notification moved to the top

• Added display under the lord’s name showing what they are saying (joking, insulting, etc.) during communication activity

• Added name separation when characters stand close to each other

Fixes and stability

• Fixed character trait “Duelist”

• Fixed a bug where prisoners got pneumonia while sleeping in the barracks during winter

• Fixed game freeze when saving if a character had a seduction task

• Fixed a crash that could occur when destroying the alliance leader’s city

• Fixed a bug where seduction on the global map could fail if the seducer was acting under another lord’s order

• Fixed a bug where seduction could end without starting

• Fixed a bug where ending one trade agreement removed another one in the same city

• Fixed infinite loading for some old saves

• Fixed a possible crash when moving a building

• Fixed a bug where any resident becoming loyal to a lord was counted as loyal to the ruler in statistics

• Fixed talent assignment without required level

• Fixed a possible crash when closing menus

• Fixed a crash when starting a new game with a family with children

• Fixed a bug where the tutorial froze when exiting to the main menu

Graphics

• Fixed shadow rendering when zooming camera over water

• Added lakes and rivers to some maps

• Flower and mushroom decals will no longer appear on clay and mud

• Added new ground decals. Decals will no longer render on sand (except stones). Forests will have mushrooms and sticks

Patch #51 full list of changes:

New character traits

• Added the Smuggler trait

• Added the Kind-hearted trait

• Added the Duelist trait

Politics and AI behavior

• A politician’s allies will receive a negative thought “Manipulated me” when the politician uses them to perform an action (hunting, seduction, a gift from the lord)

• The politician will delegate actions only to allies whose opinion of them is above the alliance threshold + 20

• The player’s ruler will no longer go hunting or attempt seduction on their own as part of political actions

• A politician cannot initiate more than one political action every 20 hours

• To transfer the crown to a bishop, the player must have a free title

• The “Spend time together” action now results in 1 conversation instead of 2

• If a character sleeps outside a bed for 5 hours during winter, there is a 50% chance of getting Pneumonia, which can only be cured with medicine and may otherwise lead to death

Combat system and squads

• Added display of the selected squad’s firing range; a squad ordered to fire at an enemy will begin shooting from the same distance as in automatic mode (40 tiles)

• Fog and precipitation can now occur in manual battles on the global map

• When recruiting a prisoner, they become a loyalist and therefore should not receive the “Fear of death” thought; a note has been added to the recruitment hint indicating that the character will receive the “Fear of death” thought

Production and economy

• Clay pottery is now produced twice as fast

• After the season ends, workers are hired to the fields again

Interface and UX

• The inspection bonus in the building menu is now shown even if the inspector is a clerk

• Improved display of reasons for bonuses and penalties to a character’s skill level (in skill hints)

• Fixed a bug where scrolling was not possible during the new game setup stage

• Added the ability to save a modified family preset when creating a new game

• Disabled the “Not enough wood” issue in the issues tab

• Fixed a bug where irrelevant issues could appear in the issues tab after a manual battle on the global map

World and visuals

• Introduced new building assets to replace the old ones — lumberjack camp, workshop, and brewery

• Updated sound configurations

• Disabled the appearance of green fog over fields on game load, as the crop disease prophecy has been removed

Bugs fixes

• Fixed the clay placement algorithm when loading old saves to ensure that building a pottery workshop is always possible

• Fixed bugs in clay generation that could cause it to spawn in the same location as bushes

• Fixes and stability

• Fixed a bug where fields would ripen 12 hours earlier than intended

• Fixed a possible game freeze at 12:00 if no prophecy is available to start

• Fixed a bug where the selected character trait would reset when switching to another lord in the family creation menu

• Fixed a bug where repairing the brewery cost 3 iron instead of 2 tools

• Fixed a bug where a unique maniac guest could not kill residents; fixed a bug where there was no blood during kills and the maniac could kill while facing the wrong direction; fixed a bug where saving/loading at the “Going to kill” stage caused the maniac to leave the town

• Fixed a bug with duplicate soldiers appearing in the army menu when recruiting a new soldier during army creation

Patch #50 full list of changes

Seasons and climate

• Seasons of the year have been added. The game starts in spring

• Depending on the biome, a “harsh season” is defined. Winter, drought, or rainy season

• Season duration is 12 days for a normal season (summer - spring - autumn), 4 days for a harsh season (7 days in the north)

• For old saves on the old global map, season durations are set to 4 days for the harsh season and 15 for the fertile season

• A display of time until the end of the harsh season and until its start has been added - shown near the in-game clock

• The province selection hint at the start of a new game has been updated - it now shows climate, type of harsh season, and its duration

• During the rainy season, fogs and rains will occur more often

• The rain effect has been changed; heavy snowfall-blizzard now causes the “Frozen Feet” trait in characters who walked on bare ground without roads

• In the menu of a selected tree, berry bush, or herb bush, during the season in which they do not grow, information about this will be displayed

• Price increases have been added for farm-grown goods that cannot grow during the harsh season (rutabaga, carrots, wheat, hops); price decreases have been added for resources that increase their growth during the harsh season (wood, herbs)

• Technologies “Drought Resistance” and “Proper Fertilization” have been removed due to reworking of the game mechanics related to them

Farms, resources and production

• A new resource Clay and a clay extraction building have been added. Roads are now built from clay or stone.

• A construction cost has been added for the stone extraction building

• Instead of separate farms for growing different resources, there is now a single farm building where you can choose the resource to grow

• Vegetables now grow in 3 days, while wheat and hops take 6 days

• You can harvest a farm at any time, but with a 50% yield penalty

• Fertile fields of hops/rye are not highlighted when placing a farm if the player does not have the knowledge to grow these crops

• Firewood production no longer requires the charcoal burner technology

• The woodcutter camp and builder camp are now built 5 times faster

• Relocating the sawmill and builder camp is now free

• A regular warehouse now adds 300 instead of 200 capacity for stone and wood

• Spoilage of food and plant resources in a regular warehouse has been increased from 5% to 10%

• Clay Pottery, Roof Tiles, Clay and Stone Tiles will not be displayed in caravan trade menu - they cannot be bought or sold

• The construction cost of the level 1 brewery has been changed, now it is 20 wood instead of 15 wood + 5 planks

Politics, uprisings and allies

• Political activity will start at 20 population instead of 40

• Politicians will now use the action task system, assigning themselves or allies one task per day - all these tasks are social and aimed at gaining an ally or strengthening relations with existing allies (hunting, gift from a lord, seduction, spending time together, slander, threat)

• A new tool has been added for politicians - intimidation at night. The power of intimidation depends on the politician’s combat skill. This tool is selected like others based on the potential impact on relations

• The mechanic for gaining allies for politicians has been changed. Previously, an ally was automatically considered a lord who had exclusive +25 relations with one of the politicians. Now there is a threshold of +50 relations (can vary based on strengths and weaknesses), if a politician exceeds it, they can perform the action “Make Ally”, which will make the lord an ally. The action cooldown is 3 days. An ally stops being an ally if their relations with the politician drop below a certain threshold

• In the politician and player ruler menu, their target for recruiting allies will be displayed

• In the “Relations to Politician” hint for a lord who is an ally, the threshold for ending the alliance will now be displayed

• When a politician becomes the ruler, their neighboring ruler allies will stop being allies, and the former player ruler will become a politician while keeping their followers

• If a politician has < 1000 gold, they will give higher priority points to alliance targets that have money

• If a character has an action task assigned by a politician, it will be executed with priority

• If an action task cannot be canceled because it was assigned by a politician or a guest, this will be shown in the hint with personalized information

• The politician action “intimidation at night” provokes guards - whoever lands the first 10 hits wins. If the guards win, the politician pays 300 coins to all guards who participated in the fight. Weapons are not used in this fight

• A new type of social thoughts has been added - fear (displayed in purple)

• Fear-based social thoughts are not taken into account when determining whether a lord is a “Friend”, i.e. whether they will grieve after this character’s death, get angry over title removal, etc.

• If a character has the weakness “Hot-tempered”, provoking them into a duel on the global map does not worsen relations with the matriarch

• The “Gift from a Lord” order issued by the player can only be performed by the ruler, their allies, or puppets

• The player cannot conclude trade agreements with vassals and alliance members if their suzerain or leader has relations with the player <= -25

• The chance of a vassal uprising, if they have relations <= -25 with the player and have equal military strength, has been increased from 10% to 50%

• The algorithm for determining possible targets for vassalization by AI has been changed. If the target is a vassal or a regular alliance member, the required relations threshold for attacking them is reduced from -15 to +25

• Fixed a bug where a neighboring ally’s help to a politician during an uprising was canceled at 11 AM if the neighbor was a vassal, suzerain, or in the same alliance as the player; after ignoring a politician’s demands, when they start an uprising, they do not start it instantly but give time to hand over the crown peacefully, also 2 hours before reinforcements from a neighboring ally arrive, the rebels will start gathering in groups