This update centres on making the economy realistic and a rewritten population / urbanisation model, plus a lot of map-control and UI improvements. Wherever a change affects gameplay rules or how you do something, there's a summary below.
Population & Urbanisation (more realistic simulation)
- Cities rise and fall. People now migrate: connected, prosperous, job-rich places attract them; poor, isolated ones lose them and shrink.
- Grow a town into a city. Assign a development policy and connect the town by road to trigger an in-migration surge — a few thousand people can become several hundred thousand over a few decades, then plateau. Without roads it barely grows.
- Five new development policies for settlements with less population (smallest to largest target): Rural Revitalization, Tourism Resort, New Town, Coastal Trade, and Special Economic Zone.
- Lists and the city detail now show Population Growth (colour-coded ±, sortable).
Economy & Tolls (more realistic simulation)
- Tolls are billed on real traffic and capacity — no more assuming 24/7 full load, so runaway income on busy roads is fixed and payback is realistic.
- Pricing has a sweet spot: price too high and traffic diverts or trips drop, so maxing tolls actually earns less.
- Fairer upkeep, sub-linear multi-lane cost, plus new depreciation and a 5-year overhaul cycle (staggered per road).
- Road/rail lists and popups add maintenance / depreciation / revenue / net columns, all sortable.
Map & Controls
- + / − zoom now centres on the cursor (like the mouse wheel).
- Located cities get a highlight ring; click a place name in the demand/road detail to jump to that city.
- The congestion overlay defaults to a "Peak" view, with an Average / Peak switch.
- ~4× faster map loading with a progress screen; more natural coastlines.
UI & Building
- List panels are resizable and remember their size; the province list adds a Population Density column.
- New km ↔ mi unit toggle in Settings; airport/policy info moved into the city detail; airport-built toast.
- Demolish roads/rail/waterways from the info popup; reliable snap-to-road when founding a settlement; promote a city to a province (special city/zone).
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a loan-panel crash, stuck popups, Space advancing the month, lost rail names, province borders not re-highlighting on load, and more.
Read full change log (with mechanics details)
Thanks for playing — feedback welcome!