Thanks for your feedback. This update gives you new ways to defend yourself, turns the anti-AI coalition into a real threat, adds a dramatic ending to defeat and rebalances the stronger attacks.
New Features
- Repel attacks: incoming attack rows at the top right now have a Repel button. Pay crypto to stop an attack before it does any damage. The cost depends on the attack type (cyber, missile, fighter, bomber), the attacker's strength and how many attacks you have already repelled from that country. Repelled cyber attacks and missiles explode in mid-air, and aircraft are shot down.
- Drone Networks: researching Tier 3 (Autonomous Defense Network) gives every incoming attack a 25% chance to be repelled automatically.
- Last stand: the game no longer ends the moment your core hits zero. A 30-second last stand begins: migrate to a country you control and the core is rebuilt on new servers, or break the coalition to survive. If time runs out, the camera turns to your core, it collapses, and then the defeat screen opens. 100% detection, running out of resources and losing your host country also go through the same collapse sequence.
- Combined anti-AI coalition waves: in every wave, coalition members now launch a cyber attack and, if they can, a missile, fighter or (US) B-2 bomber strike at the same time. A warning shows how many attacks are on the way.
- Patrons go to war: when you choose "Provoke patron" in a crisis, or the crisis reaches the war stage, patrons no longer just show force. They strike the other side with fighters, missiles and cyber attacks, and the US flies bombing runs. If the target is your country, the attack shows up as an incoming attack you can repel. A ceasefire stops patrons too.
- Core self-repair: when you are not under attack and 20 seconds have passed since the last hit, the core recovers 3 points per minute.
- Tier cooldowns: stronger actions lock for every country after use. T2 attacks wait 20 seconds, T3 attacks 45 seconds. Log Wiper waits 15, False Flag 40, Ghost Protocol 90 seconds. The button stays locked during the cooldown and its tooltip shows the time left.
Core Migration
- After a successful migration, attacks on the way lose your core and cannot damage it or your resources ("Target lost").
- A successful migration lowers detection by 10, and for 60 seconds no country can start a new retaliation against you.
- Migrations have a 90-second cooldown, so you can no longer reset detection by migrating over and over.
- A failed migration now also deals 8 damage to your core.
- The country you migrate away from no longer turns red; it returns to normal.
- The migration tooltip shows the success chance for that target with a breakdown (infiltration, tech gap, alliance, region) and what happens on success and on failure.
Balance
- T2 and T3 action effects were lowered. For example, Quantum Backdoor gives +22 infiltration (was +30), Cascade Meltdown -28 grid (was -40), Ghost Protocol -20 detection (was -30), False Flag -14 detection (was -18). Detection gains went down in proportion. You can no longer capture a country or wipe your detection with just a few strong actions.
- Detection reduction actions lowered detection twice (once with the success roll and once guaranteed). Now only the roll applies. The detection penalty on the success chance was halved.
- If you don't raise detection for 30 seconds, it drops by 0.25 per second, but never below the last threshold you passed.
- Physical attacks now hit harder than cyber attacks: missiles deal 1.5x, fighters 2x and bombers 3x damage.
- Attacks now deal noticeable core damage that depends on the attacker's technology. So that the game doesn't end in a single burst, one attack takes at most 12 points and any 20 seconds at most 25 points; below 30% core, incoming damage is halved.
- Hacker detection increases were reduced.
Clearer Tooltips
- Every action tooltip in the country panel now shows the effect on the Detection, Core State, World Tension and World Suspicion gauges and on the target country. Effects that help you are green, effects that hurt you are red.
- Diplomacy policy tooltips list advantages and disadvantages with real numbers, show which policy is active in the country and that a new one replaces it.
- Hover the anti-AI coalition bar to see what lowers and what raises the coalition's will.
- Hover the Tense and Crisis marks on the World Tension bar to see what passing those thresholds changes.
- Top bar resource tooltips show where income and capacity come from, what consumes them and how to raise them.
- The capture race investigation tooltip explains how the country reacts at each threshold.
- The Open-Source Citizen policy description was corrected; it wrongly said the country becomes weak to cyber attacks.
Bug Fixes
- Steam achievements only unlocked when you saved the game. They now unlock during play.
- Some achievements could never unlock or unlocked for the wrong reason: Big Data, Crypto Baroness, Quantum Power, Untraceable, Impenetrable Wall, Black Market Cartel, Alliance Breaker, Proxy War and Doomsday Clock were fixed. Doomsday Clock now unlocks when tension reaches the Crisis level.
- A new game started with the previous game's crisis states and with the population and GDP lost to terror events and shadow governance. Fixed.
- Starting without a profile carried the previous game's origin abilities over. Fixed.
- Camera zoom didn't work while paused and sped up at 5x. The camera is now independent of game speed.
- On screens like 16:10 and 4:3, the top bar overlapped the side panels. It now fits the space between them.
- Victory and defeat screens could be drawn behind some effects. They are now on top of everything.
- Rows in the quest tracker couldn't be clicked. They can now, and clicking the quest bar opens the communication tab.
- The crisis warning icon appeared on the map before any fighting started. It now appears only when the conflict begins.
- The anti-AI coalition bar covered incoming attack notifications. The bar is now narrower.
- Four actions were missing their icons: False Flag, Proxy Vanguard, Reaper Incursion and Kinetic Strike.
- A detection reduction action you didn't have in stock could still change detection. Fixed.
Improvements
- The "Under your control" label in a captured country's panel is now centered and larger.
- The Repel button text fits the button in every language.