Gargadusa's Tower · beta, public · first seen
Another giant live patch this week, things are really ramping up in the Gargadusian universe.
I wanted to ensure that the new portraits system and races came out at the same time, so thank you for waiting for this long-overdue update, it was an absolute beast. But! You may have noticed that the vibes are becoming increasingly immaculate in-game as these big moves have had big positive side effects pushing me to implement new tech and healthier long-term approaches to many (soon to be all) of the game's systems. More work is coming on that front and you'll see bigger evolutionary steps in the coming months (looking at you Crafting and Gear).
Also! The game's key art on Steam has been updated to reflect the amazing handcrafted artwork that was done for the game (and the book). I love that art so much and I feel honored to have it in the game (thank you, Sylphie).
Also x2! Friend of the Gargadusians, Bretticus, is releasing his excellent Fantasy Manager game Dungeons & Dynasties today, go check it out!
There is an absolute ton to unpack when it comes to these two new features, so head over to the full breakdown blog here to learn about both:
Painted battlegrounds are in! You'll see fancy new battlefields in fights and they even change with the seasons, very exciting. More of these are on the way, so I'll roll those out as I get them.
Watching a joint quest or raid shows the same seasonal painting as the fight does solo.
The game’s big moments now have fancy animations/ui on paper: the Death Memorial, signing a recruit, the Crown’s answer to a tier petition, a finished building’s hallmark (a Low-Quality Build cracks the page, which is pretty cool tbh), a Limit Break and an item’s path choice.
The Year-End Review is one page on a winter night with your place, the year’s verdict and what it paid. Hold “Close the year” to turn it to spring. “Read the full chronicle” opens a book with everything the old review showed.
The Crown Cup results are now six pages: Final Standings, the Battle Report, the MVP spread, the All-Tournament Team, Records and Your Rewards.
You can send a fallen hero’s family the guild’s gift (13 weeks of their wage) from the Death Memorial. It eases their friends’ and party’s grief and earns 5 renown.
Deploying a party now feels so satisfying. A little animation sends the party down a path-accurate road on the Hiltcrest map. Back home, its banner drops and its pay counts up until you read the report. Ending the week counts your treasury to its new total.
Dark Mode --> Settings > Display > Interface Effects > “Night paper” shows ceremonies and reports on dark paper.
NOTE: The visuals are definitely me experimenting, so expect me to shift and move things around as I get better making these moments feel good.
A new Standard game can now open with Callum's Old Hands: five veterans who stayed on after his death, already formed as a party called The Old Hands. Pick it under the new STARTING CREW row on the New Game board. "Callum's Old Hands · 5 Veterans" is the default and "None · Empty Hall" keeps the classic opening.
The Old Hands are ages 31 to 38 with an OVR of about 42 to 50. They cover Tank, Healer, Melee and Ranged, have C-Tier potential and work two-year contracts at half pay. They can quest from week 1 but their best days are definitely behind them.
Callum's Unfinished Contract waits on the board for them and a welcome ceremony, "The Ones Who Stayed", introduces them. The Founding Tasks then ask you to recruit, form and level heroes of your own. Leagues and Challenge Runs don't get this by default.
Graduation is now a fancy moment, as well. A diploma reveals the graduate's name, class, career plan, potential and category marks in the game's tier colors, then the mentor signs and the Academy seal goes on. Hold to sign the graduate or choose Release (stamped "Released" in red ink) or Decide later. The old four-step graduation window is gone.
Elves, dwarves and fae can also enroll in the Academy. Every race studies the same number of semesters as a human of the same roll, so an elf who enrolls at 21 graduates at 25 after eight semesters.
Long-lived peoples gain stats more slowly in the Academy: dwarves at 85% of the human rate, elves at 75% and fae at 72.5%. Orcs and goblins learn at the human rate. Halflings now learn at 97.5% (was 100%).
NOTE: This will be a bit of a moving target balance-wise due to lifespans, so keep me posted about what is feeling good/bad/weird.
The Dossier has been redesigned with a new left rail that stays put while you switch tabs. It shows the hero's face large (since we have the awesome new portraits in higher resolutions), their name and class, the Scout's Read, OVR and Potential, HP and Morale. A gold band marks a hero who is away: on a quest, raid or contract, in the Tower, on Garrison or Patrol, Ordered Out, Dispatched or at an event. Below sits a ledger of Level, Age, Trained, Fame, Race and Party, then the Ambition steps and the hero's actions.
New rare trait: Unwoven. An Unwoven hero is cut off from magic: Arcane stays at 0 for life and every school of magic hits them softer. Heals and wards from allies reach them at about a third of their strength. It only appears at recruitment on classes with no Arcane stat and no Healer role, roughly 1 in 2,500 recruits. An Unwoven hero cannot evolve into a class that trains Arcane or heals. Thanks to Yrlo for the suggestion!
The nine Dossier tabs now run Profile, Career, Ambition, Chemistry, Rapport, Chart, Intel, Notes and Portrait, laid out as ledger rows on the dark page. Repeats are gone: Chemistry drops its second morale bar and Behavioral Profile and Career drops its second fame circle. Companions shows five with a Show all button, the Commander's Word leads the Intel tab and Notes is a plain text box.
Personal tags now show as one-click "+ Tag" buttons after the presets in the hero Notes tab and the party editor, most used first (up to 12). Star a custom tag to "Save as a quick tag" so it stays offered after the last hero with it leaves. Typing a custom tag also suggests your guild's tags.
The Notepad now has a Reminders tab. Leave yourself a note due in a set number of weeks or on an exact later week, with an optional repeat (up to 50 reminders). When one comes due it heads the week summary and a reminder card opens with Done, Snooze 1 week and Open Notepad. A new Reminders row in Custom Alerts picks a popup or a summary row and a dot on the header's More button shows while one is due.
New Sage's Challenge list: the Desk Lessons, between Founding and Growth. Six steps teach the header tools: Find Anything, The War Table, Read the Week, Make It Yours, A Place for Notes and Arrange the Desk. Each step pays 100 gold and finishing all six pays 500 gold and opens the Growth Tasks. They appear from week 4 and saves that already finished Growth skip them.
Six new Special Raids, each with its own legendary boss and posted once per save: The Reedmother Wakes, The Bell Under the Bridge, The Thaw at Cold Horn, The Cinder Marquis, The Squall That Walks and The Last Foreman. They start appearing from Year 2 for established guilds and pay like the ordinary raid of their kind.
NOTE: Unique and legendary raids will start to crop up more and more now that the World Bosses system has been finished, I get to use it for other stuff ;)
The mission squad picker for faction Request missions and World Event missions have been reworked to be on ceremony parchment with portraits. The writer's portrait heads the letter and one strip shows the pay on a win, the danger for the squad you picked and when they are back.
Your squad sits in portrait seats with an OVR seal and a remove button on each and the picker names what each party is left with until the squad returns. One list of heroes replaces the chip row, with a party filter plus "Fill from this party" and "Pick the strongest". "Decide later" brings the offer back next week while it stands.
The CCL Squad Registry now has a "Replace the N who can't march" button. One click swaps wounded heroes, heroes who left and heroes outside the event's roles, bringing in the event's fit backups first in your order, then your best fit heroes. Heroes on the Reserve bench are skipped. When it can't act, the reason shows beside the button.
On a full squad a party card now offers "Swap in this party". Heroes who can't march leave first, then the lowest-rated named heroes outside that party.
+ Squad and + Reserve now stay visible on every roster row and a short how-to tip explains naming, backups and the seal week. The head of the Registry now says where your list came from: "The same heroes who fought last year's…" or "Named by you on this screen".
Traditional Chinese (繁體中文) is a new language in the language menu, with its own fonts. Steam set to Traditional Chinese and browsers set to zh-Hant, zh-HK or zh-MO open in it.
Simplified Chinese has been updated from end to end: one name per faction and character, Chinese punctuation throughout and heroes no longer given a guessed gender. Hero and character names now appear in Chinese script.
Headhunts now have a race parameter. Pick any race or one people on the headhunt form, for role, class, staff, crafter and gatherer hunts alike.
Each refinement adds to the search's price: asking for a gender is free and a race adds half of the base cost, times 1.5 for elves, orcs, goblins, dwarves and halflings and times 3 for the fae. An uncommon people adds 1 week to the search. The fae add 3 weeks and cap the shortlist at 2 candidates. An unrefined hunt costs and lasts what it did.
Targeting a race needs a Scouting Post at Tier 3, which now grants Refined Headhunting. Below that the race choice is grayed out with "Requires Scouting Post T3 to target a race". The scout row, staff card, Scouting dashboard, week summary and feed name the refinement, for example "Healer (Female, Elf)".
The week summary now gives each finished headhunt its own line in the Scouting section, naming the scout and how many candidates it found, with a link to the free agents or the Academy prospects.
This is a QoL change I'm already constantly using: the Recruit tab gains a Scouted sub-tab listing every scouting report from the last 4 weeks in one place. Click a row (or use the arrow keys) to load the hero into the side card. "Open in" jumps to their home board. A badge counts new reports since you last looked.
The Scouted list shows OVR, class, role, potential and a tier for each stat category (PHY, VIT, MEN, SOC, CMB, HER and ARC) and sorts by any column. Unscouted values read ? and sort last. Heroes you signed read Signed, youths you enrolled read Enrolled and ones who left read Gone.
New Custom Settings switch under Roster & Talent: "Humans Only" (off by default). With it on, every new adventurer, Academy prospect and rival hero is human, with a human face, name and lifespan. Heroes who already have a race keep it, as do relatives and transfers who bring one. Leagues always play with races. This feature is specifically designed for folks who like to upload their own Portraits and races and don't want variance to enter the picture.
A change in Settings ▸ Difficulty that moves the run to another difficulty now asks first ("Change this run's difficulty?"). If the change would also forfeit a live CCL tournament, that warning sits in the same dialog. This has been put in place for players who swap between the Bet and Live versions so their difficulty settings don't reset (I'm sorry, Scratch).
Every applied difficulty change now posts a feed line ("Difficulty changed: A-Tier → Normal.") and goes into a new Difficulty History list under the Difficulty editor's header. New runs record the difficulty they started on. Runs started before this update begin their history at their next change.
League CCL fights now properly use the line and orders you set on the Loadout, plus the owning party's Tactician orders. Before, the league fought every human guild on a preset line with no orders. Each guild's orders are held to what its War Room can carry.
New Sage's Wisdom page under Equipment & Crafting: Material Sources. One chart covers every magical and refined good: the gatherers that bring it in (with the Guild Tier for rare finds), the building that hires each one, the crafter who refines it and the station level and Guild Tier a recipe asks for. It reads against your guild: a building you still need is named and a gatherer or crafter already on staff is marked Hired.
NOTE: A big rework to crafting and gear is coming, so I'm keeping time spent on this part of the game pretty limited until then.
Every ward and vigil now cuts about a third less damage, in single player and PvP alike. Wards cut 18%, 20%, 25% and 33% of damage by strength (was 27%, 31%, 38% and 50%). Vigils cut 18%, 20%, 26% and 39% (was 27%, 31%, 40% and 60%). How long they last and their cooldowns are unchanged.
Enemy traits shown on a quest (such as Ironhide or Ashborn) now take effect in the quest's battle properly. Each trait's weakness or resistance changes how hard your heroes' hits land. Before, the fight ignored them.
Repairing a single piece now charges only for the durability that click restores, at the same per-point price as Repair All. Before, each click charged for the whole gap, so mending a badly worn piece click by click cost about twice as much. The repair prices in the Armory list, the item panel and the emergency patch now show the discounted price you actually pay.
A Grimoire of Capricorn now raises each of the hero's MAX stat ceilings along with their stats (up to 99, never lowered), so the hero can keep training toward the new numbers. The best possible hero is unchanged.
A Tier 1 guild's Combat License now allows quests up to ROVR 45, up from 35, so D-rank work reaches the first-year board. The Tier 1 raid cap stays at 35.
Missions now appear on the quest board from 25 renown, down from 40. This mostly matters on the harder difficulties, which start with less renown.
A Tower garrison's skirmishes now count the guards' equipped gear properly, so the hold fights at the Party OVR the garrison panel shows. Before, gear was ignored and guard parties the panel rated above the floor could be wiped, most often on shallow floors. A guard wearing a World Boss gift also keeps its cast.
NOTE: A couple folks called out Garrison fights being silly hard, this bug fix SHOULD fix that (and did so in my sims). Let me know if it does not.
The Slayer and The Champion Callings can now be finished by their damage, protection or healing roads as readily as by the top-performer road. The Slayer's damage dealt drops from 69,500 to 32,500. The Champion's damage dealt drops from 102,000 to 46,500, damage prevented from 182,500 to 83,000 and healing done from 123,000 to 56,000. Progress already made is kept.
The Renowned's Calling asks less on its role roads: 74,000 damage dealt on quests (was 83,000), 132,500 damage prevented (was 149,000) or 89,500 healing done (was 100,500). The 18-MVP road is unchanged.
Career Transition (retiring a hero into a staff post) now follows each people's lifespan instead of a flat age of 35. An orc qualifies at 30, a goblin at 29, a halfling at 39, a dwarf at 72, an elf at 116 and a fae at 140. Humans still qualify at 35. The roster assessment and the rival intel's aging-veteran line read age the same way.
Camp scenes now appear about half as often. The guild now sees one at most every 4 weeks (was 2) and the same hero comes to camp at most every 12 weeks (was 6), so they no longer pile on top of the End Week cards.
NOTE: After a few playthroughs, it just felt like too much to me. If you feel differently, I'd love to know!
The game now loads only your own language when it starts. Startup is much quicker and uses far less memory: about 6.8 MB to download instead of 31.1 MB. Switching language mid-game loads the new one on the spot.
Ending the week is quicker on large saves: the week's own calculation runs about 18% faster in my sims, with the same results. On the web version the autosave is now written in the background, so the screen stalls less at the end of a week.
Opening the Gear screen, Auto-Equip Best and Optimize All run noticeably faster on large rosters, as do the Front Desk and the Commander tab.
The Guild Block's All Guilds view opens and responds much faster on large saves. It now draws the list a screen at a time as you scroll. Filters, sorting, search and counts still cover every hero.
Filters and sorts are now remembered on your device instead of resetting each visit: the GEAR tab (hero picker, Storage and Vault), the Registry roster and staff sorts, the Party Manager picker and its element and tag filters, Train, the quest board (including Bonus Obj and your hidden factions), the Trading Block's role, class and favorites-only filters, the roster's tag, Ambition, Race and stat filters and the Tower Muster picker. A remembered choice that no longer applies to your roster is dropped. Search text still resets.
The main screens now fit at 1280x720 and on the Steam Deck a lot better. Signing dialogs and the week report keep their buttons on screen and the header stats stack their labels instead of hiding them. The quest deploy footer, Tower survey, Loadout, Recruitment Office header and filter rows no longer overlap or clip.
The minimized Founding and Growth Tasks bar docks bottom-left with a CLAIM mark when a reward waits. Both task windows hide during tower and visitation battles. The party editor scrolls its center and roster columns together in short windows and Escape now closes an open slot picker instead of opening Settings.
Ceremonies and the scenes built on them (level ups, retirements, bonds, Hall of Fame, victory, World Boss scenes, the camp, the dispatch, the Week Ledger and the reminder card) now follow Text Size and High Contrast Text from Settings > Display. Large text folds a scene to its narrow layout when it no longer fits.
Ceremony buttons now lift and glow on hover, press in on click and ease back on release.
The Front Desk feed now opens on a new "Your Guild" tab: the news about your own guild without the ambient color (Guild Life scenes, rumors, market gossip, zodiac lines, astrologer readings and other guilds' routine business). Everything hidden is still under All or its own tab and a footer counts how many lines this week went elsewhere. Rival news that concerns you stays in Your Guild. If you already picked a tab, you keep it.
A scouting report on a Guild Block or Trading Block hero now posts one feed line instead of two. Quiet weeks no longer post filler lines such as "A quiet week. The guild hall stands steady."
The Front Desk's Commander panel now shows your Guild Commander's open asks from the Ledger (up to two, soonest deadline first) instead of the weekly note. The Commander's weekly note has been gutted, big time.
A new guild meets fewer Sage pop-ups in its first hour. "Forming a Party", "Choosing a Captain", "Taking on Quests" and "Quest Assignment" no longer pop up on their own: the Parties and Quests tab guides already cover them. All four stay in Sage's Wisdom. "Personal Ambitions" now waits until one of your own heroes is past the first stage of their ambition and a Sage tip no longer tells you to look for a tab you're already on.
The beta welcome's "Coming from V1?" page now shows only on a save brought over from V1. Contract Negotiation for a new hire or staff member now opens on TERMS, where you make the offer.
Sage's Wisdom has twelve new pages: World Bosses, Rapport and the Quiet Word, Call for Aid, Charters, Active Skill Ranks, Alerts: What Opens on Its Own, The Weekly Report, The Field Dispatch, Joint Jobs, Gear Bonds, "How Does Age Change My Adventurers?" and "Does a Masterwork Building Carry Over When I Upgrade It?"
Following a link out of the week summary (such as Open building) now takes you straight there. The expiring-contract, members-at-risk and festival-squad notices no longer pop up over the page you chose. They wait in the summary's "things need you" list with where to find them and Continue still shows them in order.
The game opens sooner: it starts loading its main code and stylesheet the moment the page opens instead of waiting for your language to download.
The Chemistry tab's Companions list and the signing screen's Preferred Companions now show which party each companion is in.
My tooltip revolution continues! Every tooltip in the game now shares one look: a dark slip with a titled heading, a serif body and gold key phrases. It turns to paper on paper screens and darkens with Night paper. Plain hover hints, disabled buttons and long-press tips on touch use the same panel. Once one tooltip is open, the next one opens with no delay while you read along a row.
New tooltips in the Dossier and roster explain the morale states from Demoralized to Excellent, the captain mark, the Limit Break mark, the potential word (including "Potential reached") and the stat radar's Base, Gear and Buffs modes. The class line shows how many of that class are on your roster, in a party, aging and up for trade. The roster's Pot, Morale, Status, Term, Renew and Outlook headers explain each column.
Long tips that pop up on their own (War Table, Surface Breach, Alliance Quests, Equipment, Academy and Treasury) now show only their first few paragraphs. A "Read the full page in Sage's Wisdom" button opens the whole page.
The Recruit lists (Adventurers, Staff, Gatherers, Crafters, Academy Prospects, Guild Block and Trading Block) join Edit Layout: move, hide and resize their columns as on the roster.
Sub-tab rows wider than their column now fade out on the side with more tabs. A mouse wheel over the row scrolls it sideways and a newly selected tab scrolls into view.
Battle narration, the Crown Cup herald, the live feed and the Guild Commander's lines are rewritten in a plainer, more concrete voice, at least, I think so ;). Faction conversations drop their repeated stage directions. All 18 languages follow the new text.
This patch updates about 30% of in-game text to not be touched by AI and instead by these grubby mitts.
The separate Tower provisioning screen ("Craft or buy provisions »") is gone. Its party picker did nothing: the descent always fields the thirty from your Muster. The Loadout is now the one place to get ready. Its "What they carry" card has the Craft and Buy buttons on each provision, the one-click Auto-Provision button (with + Feast when available) and the workshop-time notes. The "Call up the garrison" switch sits just above BEGIN TOWER DESCENT.
Tower Auto-Provision set to "Always" now runs where you actually start descents (the Loadout and later floors), each week. Before, it only fired on a hidden screen. The "Always" checkbox also sits on the Loadout's "What they carry" card.
A ticked provision that your stock no longer covers now says "short" in place of the check, on the Loadout and between floors. Auto-Provision no longer ticks a provision whose buy ships by caravan. The Buy button marks it as a bulk order arriving by caravan and the "couldn't fully fill" note names it as inbound. This applies to bounty provisions too.
The Tower Loadout uses one scale. The floor card reads "boss OVR" (was "floor difficulty"), the Read says "our OVR" (was "our power") and a line explains the comparison. The Tower observation invite shows the boss as OVR, not ROVR.
The Tower Muster picker's filters now fold behind a Filters header, as the Parties roster's can. A dot marks a folded filter that narrows the list.
The low treasury warning now says its runway is built on your 12-week average spending, reads "less than a week" instead of "0 weeks" and adds a line such as "Last week alone closed 80g up." when the last week ended ahead. The week report's red Treasury tile is now "Week's net" and the letter says how much of a shortfall went on building.
The Week Report gains a Gatherers section after Materials Gathered. It lists gatherers lost, injured (with weeks out) or recovered.
The End of Week checklist has a new Festival squad row ("3/5 named") in the weeks before a festival's rolls seal. It is on by default and has its own switch in Settings.
A new hire with nothing between you yet now shows a "New" bond for their first 4 weeks. A hero signed back to the guild never shows "New".
The contract extension screen no longer labels the top two market-value lines "S-Tier" and "A-Tier". They now read "Among the best" and "Proven".
Every flavor line in the feed can now be switched off. Notification Types gains three switches: Guild Life (the downtime vignettes about your adventurers between jobs, plus the Tavern week card), Chemistry (bonds, milestones and rivalries between your adventurers) and Town News (seasonal happenings in town). Astrologer chemistry readings now follow the Astrologer switch and headhunt finds follow the Scouts switch.
Pinned headhunt finds now sit under the Scouts tab like the rest of its lines. In tab edit mode, the × on a Live Feed tab now explains that hiding a tab does not hide its lines from All.
In the Squad Registry, a hero who has left the guild now shows as an open seat: "Left the guild. Filled at the bell from your reserves, then your roster", with the hero the Crown would seat today. At the turn of the year, heroes who have left are cleared from the Registry.
The Registry's warning now reads "Open seats: N. The Crown fills them at the bell" in a calm tone. It warns and badges only when you can't field the squad at all. A festival already fought no longer badges.
The Festival Roster Reminder (popup and letter) now fires whenever your squad has open seats, from a hero who left, is wounded or was never named. Before, it went quiet from your second season on. It counts reserves who can march toward your squad. The Crown Cup no longer sends a reminder letter.
When too few of your heroes are fit and eligible to fill a festival squad, the pre-seal letter and popup now warn that your matches will go to your opponents as byes ("Your festival squad cannot be fielded"). Before, they promised the Crown would fill the seats. The seal reminder popup only offers Abandon when abandoning will actually take effect.
Scouting a hero on the Guild Block, the Trading Block or an Academy prospect can now borrow a scout on Watch Mode and the scout keeps the progress it had built watching that hero. A scout busy elsewhere can queue a Guild Block rival as their next target and a scout freed from a target now starts on the next one in their queue. With no scout to send, the button reads "No Scout Free" with the reason as its tooltip.
On a Front Desk letter offering you a rival's adventurer, the hero's name now opens them in Recruit › Guild Block.
A new "After a scout only" switch sits beside the Adventurers auto-dismiss floor. With it on, new applicants are no longer dismissed on arrival. The floor judges only the tier a scouting report shows, including reports from scouts on Watch the Board. A recruit you sent a scout to directly is never dismissed.
Each recruit board's Dismissed view now explains what your auto-dismiss floor removed and why.
The Cmdr column on the Adventurers, Guild Block and Trading Block boards now has a tooltip explaining Commander's Call and its 65 and 40 lines. Potential, Rumors, Impression, Teamwork, Outlook, Wage/yr (Value on the blocks) and Notes headers also get one-line tooltips naming the Sage's Wisdom page behind each.
The headhunt link in the week summary now opens the right Recruit section for what was found (adventurers, staff, crafters or gatherers).
The Receptionist's Budget Cap slider has a new last stop, "No limit": the desk pays whatever each hero asks. The raise cap and renewal budget still apply. The auto-renewal desk now shows a "Held this year" line naming how many members each limit is holding back and a new Sage's Wisdom page explains "Why Won't My Receptionist Renew Everyone?"
A crafter's Registry card now has a seminar section: pick a tier with its cost and expected skill gain, see "On a seminar" with Recall while they're away or read why a busy crafter can't go. The seminar confirm list has a checkbox beside each candidate, so you can send one, several or all.
The Crafting panel gains a stat filter beside the category chips. It shows only recipes whose item carries that stat and rings the artisans who can make one.
The Registry roster's Columns picker gains "Adjust widths" to drag the column dividers and its column headers now line up with their columns.
Gatherer Est. Output and the training-trip rows now show the real weekly yield to one decimal, instead of reading "2 → 2/week" on almost every trip.
Each crafting station's upgrade panel and Upgrade Roadmap now list the refining each level unlocks with any Guild Tier requirement beside it. For example, Jeweler's Bench level 2 shows Polish Gems and Refine Silver.
The Recruit tab's seasonal tip now states the real guarantee: each season brings at least one applicant for every unlocked staff role plus at least one crafter and one gatherer. A crafter or gatherer type you can hire that hasn't shown up for 3 seasons is sent your way.
The gatherer Est. Output figure notes that it is before season and guild bonuses and that each week's haul rounds down to whole units.
A staff member's Vitals tab now has a color key: blue names mark the key stats for their role and values turn green at 50 and gold at 70. Hovering a key stat names the role that makes it key, on the signing screen and the staff mini dossier too.
A building upgrade's Construction Crew row now explains that a build needs at least one crafter or laborer and names the two best professions. A full crew builds faster. Quality follows the foreman and the crafters' skill. Clicking the row opens the Construction Crew tab.
The Sanctum's Meditation now says how it works: at the start of each season, every adventurer at full morale gains +1 to a random stat, up to their cap. When it lands, the feed names who gained what.
Gear waiting to specialize can now pick its own path without an Equipment Marshal. The Gear Bond scene adds "Choose for me" and "Choose for all of them" and the Armory adds "Choose all pending (N)". Each item gets the path that suits its wearer's role.
After a big gear reassignment the Soul Bond scene now plays three plates and folds the rest into one "And N more" plate. A new Skip the rest link ends the gear bond scene at once.
Set cards now read "3/4 equipped" across the guild with a second line such as "1/4 on one hero", the count set bonuses actually use. The set detail explains that bonuses count pieces worn by one hero and names your best wearer.
The Quartermaster's Upgrade advice gains a Party filter and a "Group by party" toggle. Grouped, each party gets a header with "N empty · N to improve" and any empty slot with no fix reads "no fix in storage or the workshop". The Armory hero list and the Quartermaster's gear rows show each hero's party.
The Craft button on a Quartermaster gear row now opens the hero's advised craft for that slot and hides when no free crafter can start it or the workshop tier is too low.
With a hero selected in the Armory, storage pieces their class can't wear are dimmed.
Gear Demand rows now label each gain "in battle" or "fit" and name the item's stats that count in that hero's fight, such as "counts in battle: DEFENSE/ENDURANCE".
Every equipment piece in the Armory and faction vendor details now shows "Worn by", with "Any class" for pieces everyone can wear. Big groups read short (a Sword reads "Tanks, Melee fighters (not Monk)"). With a hero selected, the line turns green or red for that hero.
The Fortify and Upgrade plates for outposts now show a caravan chip for any missing material already on the road, such as "Iron Ore · 12 inbound by caravan".
On a Guild Trading offer for a rival hero, the hero's name now opens their Recruit page and the portrait opens their mini-dossier card. On Recruit, a rival hero with a pending offer to you shows a "View in Markets" chip.
A rival guild's detail in Markets ▸ Guild Trading now has a "Guild profile →" link to its CCL profile. Guild Trading's material filter no longer hides a guild with a pending offer for you; such guilds always show and sort first.
On the Markets Exchange, hovering the HMI tile explains the Hiltcrest Materials Index: the average market trend across the town's materials, where 100 is normal and below 100 is cheaper than usual. It leaves out the shortage and town-demand markups, so the prices you pay can be higher. Hovering the net-worth bar lists the gold value of your Cash, Materials and Gear.
A new Sage's challenge, "Know Your Rivals": open a rival guild's profile on the CCL Standings tab or put a hero On the Block. It pays 600 gold and 1 renown. Sage's Wisdom and the CCL intro now name the CCL tab and its Standings view and the intro's button reads "Enter the League".
The "Pair with a guildmate for a talk" picker now says why heroes are missing: already close friends, at odds, out of the hall or resting from a recent talk.
A quest that answers an open promise to a Townsfolk now carries a "Promised · N weeks left" tag on the quest board card and in the quest details. The tag turns gold when 2 weeks or fewer are left.
The War Table's Map key now opens with a Layers list. Each layer the board has has its name in text and its own on/off switch. The nine layer icons in the board's top row are now one "Layers" button.
The map now names all 7 holdable regions, including The Bridge, Mountain Pass and The Eastern Workings. The Map key lists who holds each one and a tap flies the camera there. The Tower's Shadow is marked "Quests only, can't be held".
The War Room's supply line limit (1, 2 and 3 lines at Tier 1, 2 and 3) now shows on its building card and tier roadmap and the region panel says what the next tier allows when you hit it.
The popped-out War Table window now has a Map button on its list view. The List button has a tooltip: "Show the quest list instead of the map".
Japanese, Korean, German, Russian and Latin American Spanish have each been updated from end to end in one voice, with one word for each game term. Hero and character names now appear in katakana, Hangul and Cyrillic. German letters address you as Ihr, Latin American Spanish speaks to you with tú throughout and Russian rival guilds read as Гильдия «name».
Hundreds of screens and lines that still printed English now translate in every language, including the Tower's lore and watch letters, faction crisis, oath and service letters, the Great Sage's notes, the scout's field report, the week summary, save slots, the Academy, signing talks, rival scouting, league screens and the victory screen.
More Crown Combat League text now reads in your language: Season Event, Rival Challenge, Exhibition, Proving Ladder and Guild Duel wager rows and tiers, withdraw and forfeit lines and gossip letters about materials. Zodiac sign names in the feed and party chemistry are translated too.
Rival news at the Front Desk now reports one of a rival's real quest or raid results from that week, brought in by your Receptionist, instead of made-up wins, setbacks, celebrations and Tower floors. A better Receptionist brings it more often. The Receptionist's random rival-and-material rumors are gone, as is the rival "raid group returns victorious" line that fired even on lost raids.
Tavern rumors now say only what is true about your guild: injuries, training, veterans, gold, your Tower floor, expiring quests, the top free agent, renown and a stronger rival. The stock rumors and made-up lines are gone. A week with nothing true to say posts no rumor.
The Astrologer's weekly readings now say only what the stars really do. A quest reading appears only when a hero on that quest was born under the week's ruling sign. The random "challenging house", rival star, party pairing and "I warned you" lines are gone.
The Great Sage's weekly advice now speaks only about your Crown charter: when you're ready to apply for the next tier and a kind word after a denial. Gold, infirmary and party-gap warnings stay with the Guild Commander.
The Live Feed no longer posts tavern atmosphere lines (adventurer chatter, bartender observations and the visiting stranger), a filler line on quiet weeks or "N% through training" lines. Lore fragments now share the weekly feed space like other news.
Factions no longer send "Word on the Street" gossip letters or seasonal letters. Faction news comes from their regular, crisis and event letters. Letters already in your inbox still open.
A hero you release to the league's shared pool who never gets an answer from the league now writes a "No Word from the League" report instead of vanishing without a word.
The mini dossier that opens when you click a portrait now shows the hero's age and race under the class line. Staff cards show it too.
The level-up parchment now names the hero's party and their place in it (Captain or their role).
The Name Book can now keep a name to certain races: add them after the name with commas (for example "Gimli, dwarf"). A name with no race goes to human heroes. While only your names are in use, it goes to every hero.
The Grimoire's hero list gains a Retiring sort that puts the heroes closest to retirement first, so a 46-year-old orc ranks above a 120-year-old elf. Click the active sort again to reverse it.
Each hero in that list now shows their age, about when they retire, their race and life stage. An Endurance grimoire's preview shows the selected hero's real retirement shift, such as "Retires ~48 → ~72".
Auto-training and Party Training's "Auto-repeat when complete" now have a "Stop after" picker: Until stopped or 1, 2, 3, 5 or 10 more sessions. When the planned sessions are done the repeat switches itself off and the feed and the Training Log say so. Heroes and parties in training show how many sessions are left ("2 more" or "Last session").
A shared settings code now carries the Starting Crew pick (Old Hands or none), so two players on one code start with the same crew.
The Numbers font size slider now works on the Parchment tabs too. The Italic slider now sizes all italic text in the game. The Body font size slider is retired since it only reached the title screen and a few Settings rows. Body keeps its font picker.
The Grimoires guide, the Grimoire of Capricorn description and How Potential Grows now say the tome raises every stat ceiling by 10 (max 99).
The aging guide now explains other peoples' age gains differ in size and the role longevity bonus counts in human years.
The guide now says Scouting Post T3 gives 5 headhunter slots (was 4). Expert Reconnaissance says it speeds up every scout assignment except headhunts. The Retirement Role Stat Weights guide lists the Treasurer and Overseer.
The Materials & Gathering guide now says each gatherer is hired once its building stands and Guild Tier only gates their rare finds.
When you watch a quest fight, each enemy card now names its rolled traits as tinted chips beside its role: green for a trait that gives it a weakness, red for a resistance and amber for both. Hover a chip to read the trait.
A hero who dies on a faction Request or story mission is now recorded like any other death: in the week report, the Movement Log, the year and season death counts and with the death memorial card. Their notes and tags clear and survivors' bonds with them close. Before, they vanished from their party with no log line.
Deaths in Tower battles, siege strikes, joint operations, Surface Breach homecomings, Grimoire overloads and the Severance now also write their line in the Movement Log. The mission squad picker shows the picked squad's clear chance, injury risk and death risk, with a new Severe band and the mission outcome letter lists who went, who came back and who fell.
The Grimoire of Metamorphosis now rolls the hero's new abilities from their new class the way Class Evolution does, at least as rare as their old ones and the class card previews the exact kit. Before, every hero landed on the new class's base kit. A hero who changes class mid-recharge no longer shows a wait longer than the new skill's own cooldown.
Adventurer Detail no longer calls a stat "Innate class talent" just because a Cook's meal pushed it past the hero's ceiling. A dossier stat now shows its at-ceiling check mark when a Cook's meal fills the last point.
Ambition deeds with several routes now say "Any one of:" or "All of:" and the condition that fits the hero's role carries a "Your role" tag. At the Drive stage a hero who can evolve also sees their Legend roads beside the evolution road.
Injury weeks now count every source, ranks below the top read "Final rank" and a Drive fulfilled at a former guild reads "Before they joined".
Fixed an odd screenshot during hero conversations.
The level milestone ceremony no longer offers the skill a hero already wields as its "New path" card. Reawaken no longer rolls the skill the hero already has, so it no longer wastes a charge.
Uploaded hero, staff and guild portraits now keep up to 512 by 512 pixels, the same size as the ink faces, instead of being shrunk to 128 and stretched. Portraits you uploaded before stay as they were until you upload them again. Hall of Fame, Memorial and year-end records no longer store a second copy of each uploaded portrait, so saves stay smaller. Very detailed uploads are shrunk automatically to keep your save small.
A staff member who ages into an older life stage on their birthday now shows the older face right away. A staffer reporting in the Live Feed shows the same face as on their staff card, at their current age.
On desktop, a hero who retires into a staff or instructor role keeps the face you picked for them. Opening the Portrait tab no longer marks a file in your art folder as taken.
The mini dossier's Party row now names a hero's training party instead of reading Unassigned.
The Ambitions Star Chart's arcs, trophies and region titles show their hover hints on desktop again.
A hero who wore a piece from outside their class can put it back on after it is taken off (by Strip All, a saved loadout, a crafting auto-equip or a break) and Quick Equip, Optimize, Fill Empty and the weekly Deepforge upgrade no longer swap it off. Stat requirements still apply.
The Gear Demand list on an item now names only heroes who can actually equip it. Before, off-class heroes with an empty slot filled the top five.
Mage and healer classes can wear the Cloth Hood again (it is now a cowl) and casters may wear any Hood. The Forgemaster's Crown is now a Helm, so a Tank can wear all four Forgemaster's Legacy pieces. The Zodiac Circlet and the Crown of Stars are now Circlets mages can wear too. Pieces you already crafted change with the recipe.
The Parrying Dagger no longer gets refused by every class after a reload. The Arcanist's Grimoire keeps its Tome wearer requirement.
The Salvage Station's Protect Equipped checkbox is gone. It did nothing: worn gear is never auto-scrapped. Auto-scrap no longer sells a worn piece that broke and is waiting to go back to its hero.
The Sage's Runestones & Glyphs page now says Soul Bond grants +1 to +3 to all stats by rarity, paid once per item. Bulk Improve now counts pieces it skipped because nothing would help.
The Gear tab now includes dedicated training parties. They appear in the hero filter and the Party sort, the party auto-equip button works for them and their heroes show their party name instead of reading as partyless.
Rebuild All keeps a pinned captain in charge when they stay in the lineup. When idle: Train no longer opens a one-week training window when a party has one week of recovery left.
Disable all auto-training now reaches the Train tab's training squads. Tutelage now builds in party drills and instructor drill mode. The Gambits switch now needs a Guild Commander, since gambits only run under one.
Party Focus now uses the 13-week contract window. Quest cards no longer read the auto-train switch alone as training. The training panels drop the instructor's "+N% stat" bonus, which did nothing.
A Tower floor won with any hero injured or killed no longer shows FLAWLESS VICTORY; it reads VICTORY and splashes green instead of the gold flawless splash. The Guild Commander no longer says a party took a floor "without a scratch" when a hero came back injured. The Tower report marks a hero saved by Undying.
The Tower read's "A death", Injury and Success numbers now come from measured fights at your party's power ratio and the floor's difficulty. A party that far outpowers a floor no longer reads about a 35% chance of a death and a party at 1.0x to 1.29x of the floor no longer reads 78% Success where it clears about 99% of the time. Deep floors account for weaker healing.
The tower's death, injury and Success odds now keep following a fight above difficulty 400 (up to 475) instead of stopping at the 400 reading.
The battle report for a won Tower Skirmish now shows the XP each surviving defender earned instead of 0.
Heroes with a hold position battle order no longer stand still in a Surface Breach chamber while the rest of the party fights alone. In a breach chamber every hold order is now set aside.
The Surface Breach descent plate now shows the chamber range ("8 to 11 chambers"), then "Chamber N of M" once you have reached or seen the lair.
The CCL Loadout screen now counts your real squad: "Your three" at the Summer Festival and "Your fifteen" at the Autumn Festival, where it always said "Your five".
The Seal letter no longer counts a hero twice when they are both wounded and the wrong role. A named hero who died or deserted now shows as missing instead of ready to march. During a festival, the Registry header follows the live lineup after a substitution.
Academy prospects now keep the category grades you scouted, so the first semester review no longer drops three or four categories without a word. The Semester Log now lists every grade a semester changed. League youth get the same fix.
The Prospects tab now scrolls as one when Training Commissions and Academy Faculty are both open. The "lost their mentor" notice no longer fires for a trainee who was already dismissed.
Free agents and rival heroes now gain HP right away when aging or the proving grounds raise their Constitution or Vitality. Free agents who age up and vendor recruits, kin and Twitch applicants who join mid-season, now show their current OVR to rival guilds at once.
A scout taken off Watch on a Guild Block listing no longer leaves a stale entry that blocked assigning a scout to that hero. The cull after scouting now spares a recruit you scouted by hand.
Links into the Guild Block now open on the target's own guild with the role and class filters set to All, so a remembered filter no longer hides the hero you jumped to.
A Watch-mode scout that drops a Guild Block or Trading Block target now drops its half-done report too, so other scouts can scout that hero again.
Dismissing several recruits at once or an end-of-week cull now also removes them from your custom shortlists.
A recruit with the Natural Talent trait now asks a wage priced on the stats they actually arrive with. League free agents are priced the same way.
A rival hero signed from the free-agent pool now shows the same OVR before and after you reload. Rival rosters sort by current OVR.
Rival guild names now take the right possessive in rival letters and scenes.
A faction letter that sends you a hero now stays answered after a save and reload, so it can't offer that hero twice. Faction reaction letters now count raid and garrison deaths, raid earnings and auto-scrap gold from the same week.
Townsfolk who lived in Hiltcrest before you heard from them now introduce themselves as someone who has watched your guild for a while ("A word, long owed").
Forged Credentials no longer turns up in the Underworld's rotating stock (or on an older shelf) and the Revered Shadow Operations rank no longer promises a detection bonus, since nothing in the game launches shadow operations yet.
Both Crown curfew letters now ask for discretion instead of ordering a stop and Comply says what it really does.
A repeat Crown denial letter now counts only your earlier applications for that same tier.
A once-per-save Special Raid that expires on the board without being sent now comes back later. It only counts as used once you deploy it.
A building's estimated duration now uses your real build speed before construction starts, including an overseer who is a recently retired hero.
Growth tasks now tick off as soon as you finish a building, a workshop station or appoint your Guild Commander. "A Voice at Your Side" is now translated.
The Sanctum's Spiritual Awakening event no longer lowers a stat ceiling. A Grimoire of Capricorn reader keeps the ceilings the tome raised.
The Buy buttons in the faction favor tree and the Oath sheet now quote what the click actually charges. The outpost and Armory Buy buttons are translated and name the material and price. The Sell button applies your sale price setting and Buy all names what your gold can't cover.
On the Guilds list the Asks/u colors now agree with the trade builder, under vs market and vs my price alike and recent Exchange buying no longer moves them. Under a material filter, a guild listed only for its offer to you shows a dash.
The trade builder's lists wrap their numbers on small screens instead of hiding names and its price chip shows just the price ("→ ~420g/u") so it fits in Japanese, Korean and Chinese.
A faction vendor's Epic or Legendary piece now says "No hero of a class that can wear it" when no one on your roster has a fitting class, instead of blaming a stat.
Opening a guild's trade from the Guilds list's "They have" filter no longer pre-fills a 1-for-1 draft that hid the material. Materials already in your request stay in the guild's surplus list with an "In request" tag.
Auto-Provision now buys a raid or tower provision the market can fill right away, even while caravan cargo of that material is on the road.
The week report no longer prints a hero's training gains twice. It now says when a planned curriculum is locked in, lists the reasons for a denied certification and shows a hero's Tower level-up gains on their quest row.
Turning off Long history now asks first and says how many records it will trim.
The Week Ledger's wax seal no longer gets cut off at the letter's corner on windows narrower than 1,360 pixels.
A repeating reminder whose card you closed without Done now rings again on its next repeat.
The Alerts help page now says the Digest preset still opens big fights, as it does in play.
The autosave now keeps up when you end weeks quickly with a large roster. Before, it could stop saving after the first week.
Import Save now refuses to overwrite a locked active save slot. Founding a new guild no longer deletes the War Table notes kept under its name.
Older saves now call renamed Townsfolk by their new names on clients and quests. Letters they signed before keep the old signature.
On Cloud, autosaving a very large save on a slow computer no longer gives up partway. The save now gets more time the bigger it is, with at least 5 minutes.
The Sage's pages on Ready to Advance, the Sovereign Charter and Grimoires now point to screens that exist and the Grimoires page's "Related tab" button jumps straight to the Gear tab's Grimoires.
Front Desk letters from scouts, rival guildmasters and the Great Sage now show a matching silhouette and the Great Sage's letters in the Crown inbox show his own portrait.
Holding Space or Enter from the week summary no longer dismisses a reminder card before you read it or skips the Active Ranks introduction.
With reduced motion on, the level milestone ceremony now shows its story page before the skill cards. Long ceremony headlines no longer draw their second line over the first and the Armory's Improvements list no longer bounces on hover.
In battle, wards get their own hover line and a shield reads Shielded. On the CCL, Crown Cup, Rival Challenge, Trial by Fire, Guild Duel and Sparring fight screens, a hero's ultimate now announces under the hero's own ability name. Popped-out windows stay on their own screen.
Charter Tier 3 no longer lists "License to compete in the Crown Cup" as a requirement. Any guild that tops its division in annual renown qualifies, at any tier, as it always has.
The roster's Renew column tooltip now says it right: with the switch on, the hero is re-signed near the end of their final year and your Receptionist sets the price.
Craft ▸ Artisans, Registry ▸ Staff and Registry ▸ Adventurers no longer clip their labels on narrow windows. Their filter rows wrap instead.
On the free itch.io web demo, the War Table map no longer draws blank in every season but summer.
The War Table no longer suggests surveying The Tower's Shadow for a supply line, which that region can't take and its hover card shows the survey hint with Dungeon Mapping.
Joining a league by code no longer fails on an older or self-hosted server. Finding a league, opening an invite link and JOIN still show the league when the server can't verify your Steam sign-in.
Co-op leagues now always play the quarterly exhibition, declared Proving Ladder matches and the Champion's Challenge as friendly matches, with no renown at stake.
If your accepted Guild Duel five is no longer valid, you now get a "Duel Acceptance Refused" report and the challenge goes back on the board. Duel wagers settled after the Crown Cup count toward the new season.
A Diplomatic Summit can no longer be opened as a joint job. A joint job's writ explains when its pay reads below the board card. In a competitive league, opening a joint job with no guilds invited is refused at once and joining more joint jobs than allowed gets a refusal instead of silence.
"Sim the rest" in a festival bracket now asks for a second press and says what is skipped. A league duel's replay and the league victory ceremony now take their turn in the End Week order.
The "Single player only for now" list now matches your league's format. A hero signed from a league's shared pool starts a fresh Hall of Fame record and a released hero no longer carries your guild's bonds. Leaving a league no longer loses the materials a pending offer was holding.
The Black Hand's division-leader bleed applies only for a guild that owns Black Hand Membership and a co-op assault's Siege Breaker Kit discount is capped at the buff the guild holds. A paused league with no turn timer is now kept for a year.
In a league's CCL festival, a reserve who stepped in now appears on the lineup card properly.
Players in a language other than English now see transaction types, feed labels, milestones, the year schedule, building categories, custom difficulty categories and Crown Cup rewards in their own language. A mid-game language switch updates them too.
Crown and faction letters no longer drop English sentences into a translated letter or turn into English snapshots after a reload. CCL season letters name the event, venue and sponsor in your language.
More text is translated: the save overwrite confirmation, expired offer lines, Merchant Consortium tithe lines, Academy commission and Amends lines, Movement Log death entries, Settings ON/OFF labels and smaller Commander, contract and Tower strings.
Tower Visitation creatures are now named in your language everywhere: the battle screen, feed lines, the Tower report, the Memorial and Week Summary death lines, a hero's strongest-foe record and the Hall of Fame. All 83 bestiary creatures have translated names.
Death causes on Memorial cards and Movement Log rows (story arcs, the Severance, the Grimoire, a Siege Strike, joint jobs and Surface Breaches) now read in your language and follow a language switch.
Crown certification letters and screens now show their denial reasons, probation terms, probation cleared and revoked letters, refund line and repeat-application line in your language. Faction and Crown letters an older load froze in English read in your language again.
Headhunt targets, the headhunt restarted and stopped lines and the target list now read in your language and the list sorts in your language's order.
More text is translated: quest milestone lines in the feed, the faction vendor's purchase button, the Guild Hall's gatherer chips and permit line, the Rival Challenge member tooltip, the Commander's operations count, Callum's Unfinished Contract and the amends pledge row in the ledger.
Japanese, Russian and Korean players whose device reports a regional language now see hero names and possessives in their own script. In Turkish, stat names keep their dotted İ in capitals.
A scouted staff applicant's detail header now shows the profession in your language, gatherers and single-role staff included.
Home-frontier rival letters plus Visitation, memorial and rival news lines read correctly in German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch and Portuguese.
The Materials & Gathering guide now reads fully in Thai. The Norwegian held-contract vendor label and two Spanish (Latin America) Potential tooltips are corrected.
The hero and enemy cards in battle replays now show their labels, role chip, Bestiary Codex block, damage types and Close button in your language.
Stop Auto-Refine in the Workshop no longer wipes your hand-set "Auto to" targets. Stop now saves them and a new "Resume Auto-Refine" button puts them back. The "Auto to" box now holds the 9,999 that Auto-Refine All fills in. After a Stop, Auto-Refine All asks "Forget the saved targets?" before it overwrites them.
The Salvage list's "more held back" count now follows the search and filters.
The Great Sage's letter when the Ashen Stag leaves now reads "the roads it closed are open again" and arrives in your language instead of English.
A World Boss announcement that brings no boss to your save (a challenge run or a save that never saw the boss) no longer leaves an empty "A Quiet Word" letter in your inbox.
Font picks in the Appearance window now reach every screen, including the Factions office, the CCL, the Quest board, the Tower and the ceremonies. With no pick, every screen keeps its usual type.
Text Size now also scales the small fixed-size labels it used to skip, mostly on Recruit's scouting strip and the CCL boards. The Header slider now sizes headings across the game, Parchment included. The Subhead slider now sizes the small uppercase section labels and column heads.
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| 4377371 | 5053610271895615114 | — |
| 4377372 | 1767329100575417021 | — |
| 4377373 | 3840772014791353278 | — |