This one is mostly about fewer clicks. You all know my biggest battle is too many screens and too many steps, so some good progress is here this week: a party's training and automation now live in one place, End Week can fold its popups into the summary and the War Table another update. More is on the way.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━FEATURES━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
• Gatherers sent to a frontier region now show on the War Table as a basket mark. It shows a count when more than one works there, wears a red rim while one is hurt and fades while they idle or are away. Hover it to see each gatherer's weekly risk or status. Click it to open the region.• The Field tab lists "Gatherers afield" by region and the Map key names the gatherer mark.• A gatherer hurt or killed in a frontier region now shows in Dispatches and on the "Week N on the frontier" card.
• Saved formations now work outside the Tactician desk:
The CCL Loadout has one-click chips for the three standard formations and every line you saved. Name the line on the board and press "Save this line" to keep it.
In a Rival Challenge your saved lines sit beside the standard formations once five heroes are named. You can save a hand-drawn line there too.
The Tower Loadout keeps named layouts. "Save layout" stores the current tiles. Click a saved layout to stand the thirty on it again. Anyone the layout does not name waits unplaced.
The Raid Formation panel keeps named three-party picks with "Save raid formation". Each picked party also shows its "Starting Formation" in miniature with chips to change it (War Room Tier 2). That change carries over to the party's quests.
• Each order on a party's order sheet can now dictate who follows it: "Everyone", "Tanks", "Melee", "Ranged" or "Healers". Only heroes who fight in that role carry the order and nobody else spends memory on it.• Each role can carry one order of its own that takes no order slot ("Draft a role order"). A sheet now holds up to 5 shared orders plus one per role. An order written for a role nobody in the party plays is marked "nobody to carry it".
• A Devoted hero may now have "Something to tell you" in their Rapport tab. If your word lands they confide: a hidden flaw comes to light at once, with a feed entry in their own words. A rebuffed confidence closes the subject for 8 weeks. • When two heroes' rivalry, grudge or distrust reaches 60 and they have been on a quest together in the last four weeks, one of them is now "At odds" in their Rapport tab. A word that lands cools the feud by 20 and can end a rivalry in mutual respect. One that glances cools it by 5. A rebuff heats it by 10. Saying it plainly works best.• With an Astrologer on staff, the Rapport tab no longer marks one approach with 🔮. It shows "Your Astrologer's read" instead: one line on the hero's sun and one on their moon ("Fire sun: blunt in a fight.").• Every word that lands or is rebuffed now teaches you one of the hidden reasons a hero answers as they do: a trait, a flaw or "Their own way". The Rapport tab lists it under What you know ▸ What moves them.• A landed word with a hero who is Grieving, Let down, Benched, Restless, At odds, has Papers due or has Something to tell you now gets a reply written for that moment. Each has a pool of replies.• A revealed Gambler can now make amends: pledge 2,000g, earn 15,000g after the vow, then win their Reckoning quest to lose the flaw and gain Frugal. The Temple's 40,000g Purification Rite is no longer the only cure.
• New "Advance Week popups" setting under Settings ▸ Gameplay ▸ Advance Week: Digest or Every popup. In Digest, battle reports, level-ups, finished construction and the Crown certification result stop popping up one after another. The week summary lists them instead: quest and raid rows open the full report (with Watch) and new "Construction finished" and "Crown certification" sections link to what changed. Choices, deaths, memorials and big fights still get their own moment.• New "Skip cinematics" switch (off by default) skips hero ascensions, limit breaks, the year-end celebration and the Grimoire binding. Everything they record is still kept.
• Custom Settings has a new "Undying Roster" switch that does the same in any single-player run. Injuries still happen and rival guilds are unaffected. It counts as an easier setting in the run's difficulty rating and is not available in leagues.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━BALANCE━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
• Party drills now properly roll the injury risk their intensity shows: 2% per hero per week on Standard, 5% on Intensive and 10% on Extreme. Light stays safe. Guild injury prevention lowers it, up to half. An injured hero leaves the drill to recover (1-2 weeks, 2-4 on Extreme) while the rest keep drilling. If fewer than two remain the drill is canceled and the feed says why. ⚠ Extreme drills now carry real risk. A five-hero Extreme drill has about a 41% chance of at least one injury each week. • An auto-repeating drill no longer loses its repeat for good when a hero is hurt late in it. The repeat pauses ("Auto-repeat paused") and resumes once every member is home and fit.• Guild injury prevention now also lowers solo training injuries. The Sparring Pit gives 3% at level 1 and 5% at levels 2-3. Other guild injury reductions stack on top up to the 50% cap. The Training tab's Injury Risk numbers show the reduced risk, with a "Guild injury prevention" line in the tooltip.
• Quest support staff no longer stack. Only your best Cook, Diviner, Chirurgeon, Chronicler and Cartographer each add their bonus to a quest. At full strength (skill 90) that is up to +7.5% party power from the Cook, +22.5% critical chance from the Diviner, 22.5% fewer injuries from the Chirurgeon and +15% renown from the Chronicler. The Cartographer gives up to 15% fewer ambushes and 7.5% faster travel. Extra staff in a role still cover for the best one when they are stationed or hurt. ⚠ Guilds that hired several of one role lose the stacked bonus. Three skill-90 Cooks used to give +22.5% party power, for example.• The Staff Aptitude Preview for a retiring hero now spreads out by profession. Jobs that suit the hero's own stats score higher and the rest score lower, instead of most jobs landing on the same number. A new line explains how the scores are set and converting a hero gives the score the preview shows.• Heroes growing with age now favor their class's primary and secondary stats over the rest, on your roster and among veteran free agents. Average OVR is unchanged.
• Gear now sells for one price however you sell it. Bulk Sell and one-click sales of Common and Uncommon pieces now pay the market price the Rare+ confirm already used, which counts condition and rarity, plus building bonuses (and the Bulk Deals bonus on Bulk Sell).
• The Paladin's Lay on Hands is now Hammer of the Faithful. Hammer of the Faithful deals 220% damage to unholy and undead enemies and 140% to everything else.
Healer Balance Changes:
Bard: Discordant Blast is now Restoring Chorus, which heals every ally 5% a round for 3 rounds.
Balance Monk: Fists of Fury is now Pressure Point Revival, which heals the whole party for 50% of their health.
Tide Shaman: Crashing Wave is now Gentle Current, which heals every ally 5% a round for 3 rounds.
Arch Priest: Holy Nova keeps its name and now heals the whole party for 15% of their health.
Oracle: Fate's Bolt is now Fate's Reprieve, which heals the whole party for 15% of their health.
Oracle: Starfall is now Starlight Vigil, which heals every ally 5% a round for 3 rounds.
• Choosing New Path at a Milestone now costs one rank instead of starting the new skill over at rank I. A rank IV hero takes up the new skill at rank III, a rank III hero at rank II and so on, never below rank I. The Milestone card shows the real starting rank. • In the Rapport tab, the right word for a hero now depends on their traits and any known flaw as well as their sun and moon. A hero with no telling trait has their own way. Sun and moon alone now point to the right word about half the time.• A word far off the mark (5 or more points below the right word) is now rebuffed in any situation, not only the sensitive ones, for −3 Bond and −3 morale. Before, a wrong word outside those situations still gave +1 Bond and +1 morale. Guessing now has a cost. • A word that only glances now clears an old Works or Avoid mark it contradicts under What you know.
• Academy graduates now roll a flaw like any other recruit, scaled by Negative Trait Frequency and never with Negative Traits off. Under Guaranteed Flaws (including October's challenge) every graduate carries one. Hidden flaws come to light after a few weeks, as they do for other recruits.
• Dragging a party's coin from Hiltcrest along the roads to a quest by the shortest way now takes one week off a quest of 4 or more weeks. The drop card shows it before you deploy ("Shortest road route: the trip takes 5w instead of 6w."). Any other route, or clicking the coin and then the mark, changes nothing. It does not stack with Route Optimization, so a trip still loses one week at most.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
QUALITY OF LIFE
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• On the painted board the week card, hover cards, drop notes and legend strips are now parchment notes with dark ink. The week number is pressed into wax and a pinned hover card wears an iron tack.• Each quest mark on the painted board sits on a parchment token whose rim shows its state: gold once one of your parties took it, red while it ends within two weeks and dashed while you have not worked that region yet.• Opening a region shows a painted view of it at the top of its panel.• The bottom-right corner now has + and − zoom buttons, Reset view while zoomed and a "Key" button. The Map key names every mark on the table: each quest kind, your party coins and the siege marks while a siege stands.• One scroll of the mouse wheel now zooms at most about 10%, so a single notch no longer jumps most of the way in.• Place names, party labels and warband and event tags no longer shrink below a readable size at the full view.• The legend strips share one row clear of the siege pill. The siege legend names only the marks on the table. A drop note near the edge flips inside the map instead of spilling past it.• A region panel now opens on one line: who holds the region and the race ("you 6 · leader 35"). The tier-cap note and Hold priority stay in view. The hold's effects, the bar to hold it and the rival garrison fold under "Control details", closed by default.• Surveying now has one name everywhere: "Not surveyed", "Surveying · 2/5 quests" or "Surveyed", with a "Surveyed +5%" badge.• The Field tab's region list is now "Who holds what". The War Table's Sage page has two new sections, "Reading the table" and "Giving orders".• A hurt gatherer now shows how long they really need to heal ("Hurt · 3w to heal" or "Hurt · back next week"), on the War Table and on their staff card, instead of a risk they don't roll that week. A gatherer away on a training trip or a Salvage Run shows "Away" instead of a risk.
• Party cards on the Parties tab show a "Get ready" button when members are training. One confirm lists each member's program, weeks left and what stopping costs, then turns off the party's training for good: each hero's auto-training, Train when idle, the party's auto-train window, any gambit train rule and a repeating drill. Tick "Stop now" to also cancel sessions under way so the party can deploy this week (refunded if no progress yet).• Each party has one "Training" section, on the Parties tab and in the Quest board's orders editor: "When idle: Train / Stay ready", the auto-train window and a line saying which setting wins.• Hero rows, roster rows and the Dossier show how trained a hero is ("80% trained"): each trainable stat against its scouted ceiling, averaged. Party cards show the party average and name the lowest member.• "Disable all auto-training" now follows the Training list's Party filter and also turns off the party-level training switches above, so training no longer comes back the next week. Its count matches the confirm window.• The bulk-training bar no longer covers the trainee list. It sits above the list and shows only while heroes are ticked. Program cards then show "N of M can start" and the right column lists every reason a hero can't start.• The trainee list has more room: tabs stay on one line, filters share one row and picking a hero no longer unfolds their training record.• Bench is now a small chair icon (placeholder) in the top-right corner of a hero's row, always visible. Benching from a party roster or the Training list shows "<name> is on the Reserve bench." with Undo for 8 seconds.
• The Parties roster has a "Sort: Idle" button (also under "then…") that puts the heroes idle longest first. Heroes idle 2 or more weeks show an "Idle Nw" tag.
• The Commander tab's Standing Orders card has a "Pause automation" panel: the guild hold, the Tower's Hold for Descent with the week it started and "Parties paused: X of Y".• Every party has the same automation switches (Quests, Contracts, Ops and Gambits when it has rules) on the Commander tab, the Quest board and the Parties tab, with "Pause all" and "Resume". Pause turns all of them off. Resume turns Quests, Contracts and Ops back on and leaves Gambits off. The Front Desk chip reads "Automation: on" or "Automation: paused" with a "Details" link.• Editing a party's orders while it is linked to an Orders Template no longer unlinks it, so "⟳ Update" pushes your edit to every party on that template. Flipping a switch never unlinks it either.• The feed now says why a Commander's Orders party stayed home: a missing role, a hurt member under "Rest if hurt" or no quest on the board that fits its orders.• Risk Tolerance chips now read "Low only", "Medium or lower", "High or lower" and "Any", which is how they always worked.
• With No Party Restrictions and "Limit to one Tank and one Healer" both on, "Commander Fills All" and Commander Fills Party try a Tank in seat 1, a Healer in seat 2 and a DPS in seat 3, then fall back to anyone so no seat is left empty.
• On the Gear tab, filtering by a party shows an "Auto-equip this party" button that runs Auto-Equip Best for every member. Members never grab the same spare. Deployed heroes are skipped with a note.• Bulk Sell gains "Select All", rarity picks ("D-Tier", "+C-Tier", "+B-Tier") and "Clear". Shift-click selects a range. Mass picks skip equipped, vaulted, unique, relic and locked items.• Bulk Sell now asks first. The button turns into "Confirm Sell N? +X g" with the gold total, a "Rare+" count when your pick includes Rare or better gear. Cancel backs out.• The Quartermaster has a new "Improve gear" button with a grade picker (D to S, default B). It fills every open improvement slot on equipped gear at or above that grade with the improvement that best suits the wearer, using only materials on hand, then reports what it applied and skipped. Each improvement still lowers that piece's max durability, except on set pieces.
• Guild Trading's "All / Material / Adventurer / Poach" filter now sits at the top and filters the whole tab, All Offers included. Guilds with offers of that kind move to the top with a count.• In Guild Trading, "Asks/u" shows whenever you filter by a material they have and sorts cheapest first. It turns amber only when the ask is above what the guild would accept after your discount.• The Exchange has a new "Why" filter that keeps only materials whose price moved for a given reason: Bid up, Pushed down, Settling up, Settling down or Drift.• The Treasury's Transaction Ledger has Week and Category filters, defaulting to the newest week. The Weekly Statement explains Financial Health, Weekly Net and Gold Runway under each figure, not only on hover.
• Hovering a unit in battle now lists its status effects on its hover card, each with what it does and "Rounds left": Stunned "Loses its turn", Bleeding "Loses N HP each round", Slowed "Speed cut by N%, so it acts later", Withered "Healing received cut by N%" and Warded "Absorbs the next N damage from attacks". Burning is now called Bleeding everywhere, with a drop of blood for its badge.• Hovering a row in the battle HP panel shows that unit's hover card and ring on the board.• Hovering an obstacle, hazard or high ground tile explains it: Obstacle "Stops movement and line attacks", Hazard drains 6%, 12% or 18% of max HP a round by level and High Ground gives +25% damage.
• The Guild Block and Trading Block lists now have the sortable "Cmdr" column: your Guild Commander's score for each hero, with the verdict as a tooltip.• Scouting "Priority Order" lists: type a position number to move a row there in one step or drag it by its grip. The arrows still nudge one step.
• Guild ▸ Memorial now has In Memoriam and Honorable Retirement tabs, each with its count. A guild with only one of the two opens straight on that list.• Heroes who have fulfilled their Ambition now carry an "Ascended" auto-tag. Hovering it shows their legend title. It works in roster and party filters, roster search and the CSV export.• Right-clicking one of your heroes on Registry ▸ Stats opens the same quick-action menu as the Adventurers tab.• The SV (Saves) column's tooltip now says what counts: a heal that reaches an ally at or below a quarter of their max HP. A party never in danger makes none. The Realm Clutch award is now called Realm Heroics on the Year-End card and in the Annual Report.• The Weekly Report bar shows Debits, Credits and Net with thousands commas. A week with no outgoings reads "0g" instead of "-0g".• Battle reports after End Week have a "Skip remaining reports (N)" button. Skipped reports stay on the Front Desk.• On the Quest board, a party that can't go shows the full reason instead of its first word.
• The dossier's Attributes column marks primary stats with ★ and secondary stats with ☆, like the hero detail view. Hovering a category's tier badge shows its ceiling ("Arcane potential: D-Tier (ceiling: 45)") and a stat above its ceiling is explained as innate class talent.• Heroes on the Reserve bench now sort after everyone else in the "A word unspent" list.
• In the Salvage Run, "Search all" is now "Search the rest and walk out", so the button says it ends the search. All four Salvage Run buttons explain what they do on hover, keyboard focus or long-press.
• The league orientation card and the Online Leagues help entry list what is "Single player only for now": world events, story arcs and the Goblin Siege, World Bosses, the Deepforge Compact, Surface Breach, Trial by Fire, Garrison fortifications, supply patrols and detachments, frontier patrols, Ladder challenges, Featured Posting and the Quartermaster's gear optimization bonus. Those features say "No effect in league play". Key word is for now. • Another guildmaster's profile has "Propose a trade" and "Open My League" buttons. The in-game lobby's Join by code has a passcode field, so you can join protected leagues without leaving your game.• The lobby and the in-game Crown Cup League screen now share one standings table. The victory screen explains its score: renown plus 10 for every tower floor cleared.• In a league, the Crown Cup League intro and the Tower race describe the guilds in your league instead of "31 rival guilds". A guild that has left reads "(departed guild)" instead of a raw id.• League errors now read as plain sentences ("This league hasn't started yet.") instead of raw codes. Connection notices name the league code and why you were dropped. League pop-ups open as in-game cards.
• The league trade panel and turn notifications are now translated in every supported language. Trade amounts show thousands commas.• The dossier tier tooltip is now translated in every language.• Spellward's passive shows its current name, Mana Bastion, in 16 languages.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
BUG FIXES
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• Leaving a watched Tower battle ("Skip to Report", "Back to Report", the finale's Battle Report button, Enter or Escape) now opens the battle report once. You no longer get a second VICTORY or DEFEAT card or the report twice.• Group heals now read as heals on the Tower battle log and count toward Total Healing. They no longer show as hits on the boss.
• Healers no longer stop healing when their party's orders include an attack or hold order such as "hold position" or a focus order. Healers skip those orders and keep healing. The order sheet shows they don't carry them.
• Grave Bulwark, Soul Leech and Mana Bastion now heal in Surface Breach rooms too.
• Heroes on the Reserve bench are no longer re-enrolled in auto-training. They keep their setting and pick it up again once unbenched.
• With No Party Restrictions on, Auto-Quest, gambit "take a quest" rules and queued quests now deploy parties without a Tank, Healer or DPS, the same as a manual deploy.
• Quest reports no longer count the "took a hit" story beat as an injury. The Chronicle's Injuries counter and INJURY tags show only real injuries, on older reports too.• Quests Completed on memorial cards, retirement screens, the Hall of Fame ceremony and a hero's Guild Career block now matches the QC column in their dossier. It no longer counts Proving Grounds wins from before the hero signed or story missions. A hero bought from a rival from now on shows only the quests they ran for your guild.• The Season Stats table for a retired or fallen hero now labels their last season with the year they left instead of the current year.
• Under Immortal Roster (on in October's Never-Ending Patience) heroes' ages count up again, with an "Ageless" tag explaining they never decline or retire. A hero signed at 35 no longer reads 18 years later as 18. Runs in progress count up from the frozen age.• Ageless heroes are now priced like a hero in their prime. Contract asks and sale offers no longer discount them for age.• Turning Immortal Roster off now resumes each hero's aging from where it stopped, so your older heroes no longer all retire at once.
• Temple Sanctuary auto-send now also takes heroes hurt during the week as it ends. You no longer have to send them by hand after every advance.
• The Registry's "Ambition ✦" filter now lists Awakening, On a Path and Ascended heroes, so it no longer comes up empty beside the On a Path chip.
• The Treasurer header card and the Weekly Gold Budget card on the Markets Treasurer tab are readable again. They had been solid brass under brass text.
• "Reduce interface effects" now also skips one-time reveals: rank ceremony card flips, the Grimoire binding, the new-game intro, CCL event prompts, world event cinematics and the War Table settle at once. It now covers everything your system's reduced-motion setting covers.• Pressing Escape on the week summary now runs the same follow-up warnings as its close button. Escape over a report opened from the summary no longer closes the summary underneath.• When several heroes level up in the same week, each celebration now shows in turn instead of only the last one.
• In a league, the Recruit "Trading Block" tab is gone and the Guild Block explains why: the league server runs the rival guilds. Buyouts, trade proposals, selling contracts, direct offers for rival heroes and summoning Ghost Guilds are refused with a reason. They no longer half-complete on your side only.• League reports no longer claim another human guildmaster poached a hero, secured a patron, made a competing offer or was courting your adventurer.• An expired sealed bid no longer says "You can bid again" when that free agent has already left the pool.
• The Sage's Whisper Chains entry now names each chain's factions and the standing it really needs. The Crystal Network needs 3 of Merchants, Temple, Underworld and Military at 100+ standing. The Two Immortals needs Underworld and Temple both at 550+. A faction you haven't met yet never counts.