This update adds a guided introduction to sailing, makes market prices easier to compare, and removes several sharp edges from changing ships and continuing a voyage.
Learn to sail
- A new, isolated sailing tutorial teaches steering, sailing downwind and across the wind, tacking upwind, rowing, shore hauling, cannon fire, fishing, river navigation, docking, and selling your catch.
- New players are offered the tutorial prominently, and it remains available from the main menu whenever you want a refresher.
- Tutorial prompts follow the active control scheme, the wind, and the player's actual position instead of assuming one route through the lesson.
- Corrected the tutorial channel, river geography, fishing sequence, guidance arrows, wind display, and several presentation details.
Markets and voyages
- Merchants can now show a complete local price ledger, sortable by good, local buying price, or difference from the world price. Village merchants now quote their whole available inventory too.
- Pilgrimage journeys to Jeddah now follow the annual Hajj season. Their deadlines and remaining time are shown clearly, passengers give a final reminder, and missed pilgrims disembark at the next port. Captains who remain for the Hajj may also arrange a return passage afterward. Existing saves with older Hajj journeys remain compatible.
- Changing ships no longer becomes impossible merely because the new vessel has fewer bunks or less cargo room. You can choose cargo to sell or discard, dismiss excess crew, undo those choices, back out safely, and review the complete exchange before confirming.
- A player's first voyage now begins with a suitable commander automatically. Later commander choices include fuller skill and ship descriptions plus a nationality flag and tooltip.
- The main menu date now reads “Anno Domini 1522” so its meaning is explicit.
Controls and feedback
- Buttons now give consistent hover, keyboard-focus, controller-focus, and quiet click feedback.
- Rowing stamina and rest state are preserved correctly through saves and routine voyage checkpoints.
- Improved Steam autosave recovery so a failed checkpoint does not cause a storm of repeated save attempts.
Download and visual fixes
- Reduced the demo download substantially by compressing audio and omitting unused platform data and duplicate assets from packaged builds.
- Corrected the galleon's bowsprit artwork at several headings.
Thank you to everyone continuing to send careful reports and screenshots during the beta.