Hello all!
I have released a small update focused almost entirely on performance.
A few calculations that looked harmless were doing far more work than intended once countries became extremely large. Normal scenarios often hid these problems but stress-testing a world where every region began as an independent country exposed them very clearly. And if you're wondering about that scenario here it is:
The affected systems included manpower generation, frontline captures, cultures, food, population and parts of the in-game UI. These systems now reuse calculations instead of repeatedly scanning the same country and its regions.
Nothing about the simulation has changed. Countries use the same bonuses, frontlines choose targets in the same order and food, population and culture follow the same rules. The game should run much more smooth. Especially in the late game when only a few enormous countries remain.
The Rankings panel has one small change: it now displays the top 100 countries rather than trying to maintain hundreds or thousands of live UI rows. Rankings also refresh less aggressively, reducing unnecessary UI work while keeping the information current.
I have also been working on something people have requested for a very long time, a custom map editor.
This is no longer just a design document or an early experiment, it's being actively developed. You can draw boundaries, fill enclosed regions, edit adjacency, generate sea zones and build the result into a working scenario. Custom maps can already load into the simulation with countries, buildings, frontlines, world wrapping and naval invasion routes.
The editor also supports reference images that can be moved, scaled and faded while drawing. Maps can be saved, reopened and edited again.
I have been putting this feature off for long, because I had other plans that were more interesting to me. But recently I have made a poll on Discord to see what did you guys care about the most and this was the winner. So I decided to drop everything to work on the custom maps.
There is still polishing and testing to do before I release it publicly. Custom maps touch almost every part of Observe, so I want to make sure saving, loading, Workshop distribution and unusual map layouts remain reliable.
I may also hold a community map-making competition after the editor is released. The best original maps could become part of the base game, with Steam gift cards for the winners. More details will come once the editor is ready for everyone.
Thank you for playing.