Version 0.84 released

Finally, the game is feature complete. Every mechanic that was meant to be implemented before v1.00 is there. It does not mean that there won’t be new mechanics in future, but those would be done as regular updates after full release, if needed. Although I would rather resist making completely new mechanics after this point and rather focus on content, balance and possible tweaks of existing mechanics (for example secrets could use a redesign). There is still a bit of content still missing (like science perks) but overall it’s quite similar to what there will be in v1.00.

If everything goes according to plan there will be also v0.90 version and after that the full release somewhere next month.

– [feature] New game dynasty customization (house name, crest and color).
– [feature] All diplomatic stances implemented (some were removed in order to simplify).

– [misc] Experimental feature (needs to be enabled via options): ethnic customization (for now it supports only commoners).

– [balance] Rebalanced technologies levels.
– [balance] Rebel points generation rebalanced (to make rebellion more likely to happen).
– [balance] If rebellion was crushed at least once all future rebellions require double number of rebel points to prepare.
– [balance] Starting at difficulty 6+ additional rebel points are generated per turn, also difficulty affects rebel suppression points.

– [content] Most science perks implemented (all except two).
– [content] Additional technologies (usually two per tier).

– [interface] Assured that ships stats and squadron statistics always fit on the screen (auto resize fonts if needed, etc).
– [interface] Many tiny interface tweaks and improvements.

Compatibility note: INCOMPATIBLE, this version will not work with old saves (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.83 released

Another step on the quest to the feature complete version. We are almost there. Civilized races can declare war or ask for peace, scenarios enabled, etc. The big change is redesign of planetary infrastructure, which now makes infrastructure points quite valuable and useful even at the late game. A lot of changes aimed at rebalancing the game on a more fundamental level (like no more free Opinion of noble houses from taxes, tools to fight off bureaucracy via courtiers traits, etc). Note that due to mechanics redesign this version might have wrecked the existing balance and it most likely will need to be readjusted in the next version. Same for civilized races which might declare wars quite chaotically since it’s the first version which introduced this feature for them.

As usual, I count on your comments and feedback on Steam forums or Discord.

– [feature] Game Scenarios (Conqueror of Stars and Unifier of the Empire) for people to control if they prefer to focus on external or internal threats.
– [feature] Planetary development level and infrastructure redesigned. Now infrastructure of a certain level is constructed using infrastructure points (maximum level can be increased by researching infrastructure technologies). Infrastructure is then used to calculate planetary development level. Strategic weapons and xenos devastate infrastructure instead of development level. This change made infrastructure points relevant through the whole game (since you will be gradually unlocking new infrastructure levels which need to be constructed) and therefore made infrastructure bonuses/penalties from tax/budget quite important.
– [feature] Civilized races declare war/ask for peace.

– [remove] Removed Public Works since it made no sense with the new infrastructure system (plus, I never liked it in the first place).

– [balance] Slightly fewer sources of rare resources.
– [balance] Tax effects flattened slightly (lower tax giving decent income), also overall base tax increased.
– [balance] Tax effects rescaled, now “Low” is considered neutral and “Average” starts to give penalties.
– [balance] Aristocracy Tax effect on opinion adjusted, now it is a “percent chance of Opinion -1” (so it has a much smaller impact and can not be used to improve opinion anymore). Previous numbers very way too high here so using anything below Very low was unsustainable.
– [balance] Totally changed how infrastructure points are being generated (flattened greatly, now huge population does give a boost but is not enough, so tax setting affecting infrastructure points is important).
– [balance] Trait: Professional bureaucrat impact increased drastically, also made the trait more common (to give you more tools to fight off bureaucracy upkeep).
– [balance] Banquet cost is now based on the average income of noble houses.
– [balance] Noble Houses impact on legislation points gain (positive and negative) halved.
– [balance] Laws cost is no longer affected by in which row the law is (all laws now have the same cost, increased only by the number of laws passed and not by their position).

– [content] Additional technologies to unlock maximum infrastructure levels (8 technologies total).

– [fix] Rare resources availability was not cleared between games (so if you started a new game several times you could have extreme rare resources abundance).
– [fix] Fixed slightly incorrect taxes display.
– [fix] Rebel points gain using illogical modifiers when rebel points are negative (now modifiers get reversed in such situation to make it work as intended. Note it still displays the usual non reversed % values in a tooltip for simplicity).

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.80+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.82 released

This version is one big rebalance. Overall, now economy is easier to handle at the beginning and more tricky later. When you load an old save with a well established Empire expect to immediately adjust your finances (bankruptcy danger). The overall goal was to get rid of mid-late game excess money and manufacturing. There is also a new feature some of you requested a lot. Now you can give a directive to the Imperial High Command to retake lost planets. This is done by marking a planet as claimed by the Empire. In addition more forces were allocated to strategic reserves, which combined with shipyards output rebalance, makes the imperial forces being utilized at a much higher pace. The last thing is experimental orders priority which let you control which planets should be conquered first.

– [feature] Claim/Unclaim planet button on planet screen. It marks the planet as target for auto conquest/reconquest/outpost construction. It can be set/unset manually or automatically (if such directive is given to the Imperial High Command). Withdraw order overrides claims. Claims on non owned planets are shown on the starmap (similarly to orders).
– [feature] Experimental feature (first needs to be enabled via Options) High Priority conquest order. It allows you to control which planets should be conquered first. Note that it does not fit well with interface (that’s why it’s marked as experimental feature), so if you have ideas how to rearrange that part of UI let me know.

– [balance] Homeworld gets +100% to cities output for being Capital of the Empire and additional +30 max cities.
– [balance] Salaries doubled.
– [balance] Trade value halved.
– [balance] Bureaucracy upkeep adjusted.
– [balance] Taxable economy points are now non linear (which means relatively higher taxes per economy point when fewer economy points but still it’s better to have more economy points). Also increased base taxes.
– [balance] Shipyards output is now non linear (effective manufacturing output being lower than nominal value). Made to reduce massive stockpiles of squadrons in storage for very economically potent Empires.
– [balance] Forces allocation percentages adjusted (more forces allocated for strategic reserves at the expense of fleets forces).
– [balance] Space combat made faster (especially vs weaker enemy).

– [misc] Noble fiefs income simplified (now just a % of total economy, not just from core worlds). It’s a minor thing, intended more to make it simpler to explain, since most economy comes from core planets anyway.
– [misc] “Bureaucracy” renamed to “Bureaucracy upkeep” for clarity.
– [misc] “Squadrons in reserve” renamed to “Squadrons in storage” to make it more distinctive from strategic reserves.

– [fix] Missing level 8 electronics technology on Total Control ruleset.

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.80+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.81 released

Just a quick update to address various bugs and imbalances introduced in the previous version.

– [balance] More turns need to pass before squadrons start being decommissioned due to an old age. But very old squadrons fall apart (get decommissioned) much faster now.
– [balance] Rebalanced manufacturing and minerals so in general you need less minerals.
– [balance] Added a free quota of raw minerals (especially useful for Young Empire starts), listed as “Mining from asteroids”.
– [balance] Space borne creatures attack pattern and power redesigned.
– [balance] Cyber March made much less aggressive.

– [interface] Improved squadrons tooltips. Added number of squadrons decommissioned last turn (individually per squadron and globally as a summary).
– [interface] Biohazard tooltip improved (mentioned Slugs spread it).
– [interface] Rare resources tooltips unified and cleaned up.

– [fix] Stalemate on leftover existing forces when an alien race was annihilated while attempting to conquer imperial worlds (now all annihilated races have all their forces disbanded).
– [fix] Grand Legislator online achievement not triggering properly.
– [fix] Datalink upgrade incorrectly possible to install when the ship already had Datalink as standard.
– [fix] Space borne creatures being spawned only on a single planet at once instead of on all planets on the galactic rim.

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.80+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.80 released

Originally, I planned to make this a feature complete version but, well, I didn’t make it in time. There are still some features missing related to military and aliens but other than that, in this version, most features are in place. So, let’s say it’s an almost feature complete version. Numerous small things were finished (all laws, all effects of all reforms, ruins, etc), all Xenos are active, steam online achievements can be unlocked and so on. Note that by features I mean game mechanics, not content (so not all technologies all there yet for example) and that those features are in the basic form in some cases and might require further refining and redesign. Still, it’s a pretty solid version. In addition I decided to change the font, I decided to prioritize readability over the aesthetics. The new font is simpler, and kind of less sci-fi like, but definitely much more readable. As a bonus I managed to rearrange the UI a bit which allowed me to make the default font size slightly bigger, so it’s even more readable. I also made many adjustments to the game rules, and many rebalances, that make it more logical and playable and a few smaller features (like administrative points being more widely used, courtier starts redesign, allowed replacing ministers during rebellion, ground combat made faster, rebel points from audience events increased, added option to persuade courtiers to change house affiliation, etc).

Overall, if there are no major setbacks, I estimate the game should reach v1.00 in no more than 3 months.

– [feature] All political agendas implemented (Desires Ministerial Positions, Desires Court Influence, Desires Honorary Titles).
– [feature] Option to persuade courtiers to change the house affiliation (except closely affiliated ones). Useful for managing new political agendas of noble houses.
– [feature] Redesign and cleanup of courtiers positions effects. Ministers and Advisors have their stats impact x3 (listed in tooltip), no more Competence boost for Advisors. Removed Inspectors.
– [feature] All laws implemented.
– [feature] All projects implemented.
– [feature] Online achievements.
– [feature] High Command Directives which allows you to alter how the High Command operates, especially sending reinforcements to planets under invasion.
– [feature] Spawn Space Borne Creatures on rim planets. Also now imperial border guard will station space units on planets with cosmic radiation since those are considered permanently in danger.
– [feature] Slugs and Cyber March basic behavior (those races will launch attacks now).
– [feature] Slugs spread biohazard (-5 Habitability) on planets they control (note that the biohazard icon is a placeholder and will be replaced later with a proper one).

– [remove] Unused Artifacts tab removed (it might be back in future if I get a good idea how to use it).
– [remove] Removed unused Goals tab.

– [misc] Technologies tiers adjusted.
– [misc] All court and ministers actions (appoint, dismiss, etc) now also require Administrative points in addition to Emperor focus points.
– [misc] Allowed Ministers and Courtiers actions during rebellion but at much higher cost and no option to banish from the Court. Traitor Ministers can be purged for an extra Stability hit.
– [misc] Added a flat bonus to rebel points generation based on houses relations below neutral (listed as “Nobles secretly supporting rebels”).
– [misc] Ruins increase the chance and rarity of the Archeology audience event.
– [misc] Enabled production of bio bombs. Bio bombs are cheaper than chemical bombs but spread biohazard.
– [misc] Adjusted ground combat rules. Now you take over the planet if you have more ground power (not twice more) and control orbit. This should speed up ground battles and make the rules more intuitive.
– [misc] Default Minimum Offensive Power Difference increased to 300% (to take into account defensive installations). Also removed global M.O.P.D. setting (really no need to clutter the interface when it’s just a few clicks to adjust it for all races anyway).
– [misc] Adjusted ground combat rules. Ground troops are started being dropped when the attacked has twice more squadrons (regardless of quality of those) on orbit than defender (note that you still need to control the orbit to take over the planet, so ground situation alone is not enough, but since ground troops can destroy defensive installations it also impacts the space battle).

– [balance] Reduced communication range increase from budget (now it should be more tricky to assure a decent coverage).
– [balance] Audience rebel options increase/decrease rebel points by at least 100 each (everything below 100 is insignificant by audience standards).
– [balance] Increased modernization points gained from the Ongoing Modernization science perk.
– [balance] Start with extra I.S.M. and bombs (because it’s fun to be able to use those from the start).
– [balance] Reduced ground defensive installations for aliens (more in par of how many the player has).
– [balance] Fine-tuned battle loses to make space battles faster when one side is clearly inferior.
– [balance] Increased ships manufacturing cost.

– [content] Archeology audience event gives more options to choose from.

– [interface] Manage officials button moved from experimental features to regular.
– [interface] Finished all research bonuses/statistics tooltips (also rearranged order of those those).
– [interface] Displayed ruins and research points gain per turn (with proper tooltips) on Technologies screen.
– [interface] Font changed to a more readable one. Also adjusted the UI so a bigger default font size can fit (so it’s even more readable now). (maybe with an option to keep the old font for people who like it but let’s see if people request it; Also, as a bonus I somehow managed to rearrange stuff on the UI and the base font could be enlarged as well (so the average font size will be also bigger!)
– [interface] Display total power of ground units on the planet view and on reports.
– [interface] Many other smaller interface improvements.

– [fix] Load button was only greyed out but still allowed loading a wrong save file if you clicked (BTW, no one ever reported clicking it).
– [fix] Bug causing excessive reinforcements for aliens.

Compatibility note: INCOMPATIBLE, this version will not work with old saves (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.79 released

This version is about finishing the combat mechanics. I reviewed all mechanics related to combat, tracked any unimplemented ones, any not explained properly, etc, etc. Redesigned some technologies related to combat and redesigned or altered some combat mechanics. Overall, everything regarding low level combat should work as intended and be properly explained. In addition, I took a look at balance of research and altered it heavily. Fixed some bugs and included several nice interface improvements.

– [feature] Combat mechanics fully finished and explained.
– [feature] Crew effects redesigned and fully explained (via tooltips and battle simulator events).
– [feature] Competence and Charisma of officers triggers special events during combat. You can also now select an exact fleet on the battle simulator (to observe the officers’ stats effects).
– [feature] Ship modernizations redesigned. Now those use modernization points, split modernizations to regular and specialized and there are certain “discounts” for Compatible modernizations (for example all hulls from Electronics field of science get Encrypted Datalink cheaper).

– [remove] Removed governors economic traits (those were kind of weak regarding the scale of the game anyway, because, why would you care if you have hundreds of those governors).

– [misc] Nukes production enabled (while the old “prohibited by the Great Imperial Charter” felt nice lore wise, I count not figure out how exactly acquiring those should work, so at least for now nukes are considered regular strategic weapons).
– [misc] All Bio hulls got Regenerating ability.
– [misc] Combat rules small adjustments (for example now Hardened Armor also halves damage received from bombs).
– [misc] No ruins, larvae and other unusual features on Terra. Also now Terra always start with a moon and a yellow sun.
– [misc] No larvae and other hostile planetary features within 2 jumps of Terra.
– [misc] Assure Arachnians (and other races) will not spawn within X jumps of Terra (previously it checked only distance in parsecs which, in case of long starlanes, could lead to them starting too near the player).
– [misc] Guaranteed at least 3 Terran type planets within 2 jumps (especially useful for Young Empire start).
– [misc] Ships starting abilities adjusted.

– [balance] Adjusted (increased) most combat bonuses for aliens.
– [balance] Adjusted many combat related bonuses from technologies (many increased significantly).
– [balance] Alien (AI) tech progress each audience, not each season.
– [balance] Alien (AI) ships buffed with abilities.
– [balance] Reduced research points gained per turn significantly (people are too quick to max out techs), also redid the base of research points (now it values more the overall development of the Empire than its size). Note that old saves will show incorrect research points gain until you press end turn.
– [balance] Research cost per tech level increase made more steep (high level techs are now even more expensive than those on the low tier).

– [content] New technologies regarding Thrusters (also maneuverability renamed to thrusters).
– [content] More varied ships for aliens (all Xeno races use an unique ships style while civilized races use one of the three standard ship styles).
– [content] Added several new ship abilities.
– [content] New modernizations: tractor beams, less crew required, cheaper.

– [interface] Most combat related tooltips (HP, Fighters, etc) implemented.
– [interface] Various art assets updated.
– [interface] Houses screen bar widened (now also displays grudges, income, shares, estate level).
– [interface] Displayed full ship tooltip (with all details) on squadron overview.
– [interface] Displayed ships on alien Diplomacy & Intelligence screen (with detailed tooltips containing all parameters and abilities).

– [fix] House relations not updating instantly (but next turn) when sending letters and gifts.
– [fix] When moving from Battle simulator to Ships it switched to Rename ship option.
– [fix] ESC key was incorrectly closing whole Planet window when on subscreen (now it closes subscreens of Planet screen).
– [fix] Battle simulator was using old scroller.
– [fix] Some modernizations were not working correctly.
– [fix] Sometimes ships showing blank lines for abilities.
– [fix] Incorrect finances expenses (not all items included) on Finances screen.
– [fix] Ships which start with Datalink still required taking a Datalink upgrade for Tactical Net and Encrypted Datalink upgrades.

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.74+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.78 released

It was foretold this version would be one big bug fix and rebalance. Well, it turned out to not be that bad after all. A bunch of bugs were reported in the big v0.77 which needed fixing. Some stuff needed to be rebalanced and a few more things were improved. No new features introduced in this version (well, maybe except the Decadence mechanic but it’s more about balancing).

– [misc] All ship hulls now have at least one ability (just because!)

– [balance] Introduced Happiness “From Decadence” -1 per 10 turns (capped at turn 500).
– [balance] Happiness cap on loyalty reduced to +50% (from +100%).
– [balance] Happiness “neutral” threshold introduced. Now everything below 50 happiness is considered bad and gives a penalty, above 50 if good and grants bonus.
– [balance] Happiness grants cities output bonus (positive if above 50 happiness, negative otherwise).
– [balance] Happiness from technologies increased a bit.
– [balance] Happiness from government (court) increased massively (now you can not afford to overlook Charisma of your high rank personnel). Also increased the threshold so it’s easier to get positive happiness bonus from courtiers.
– [balance] Base happiness reduced and now also is affected by difficulty.
– [balance] Happiness from food adjusted so it’s a big penalty when food is negative but provides only a small boost when there is food surplus.
– [balance] Max stored Emperor Focus Points increased to 24 (from 12).

– [interface] Separate reporting for losing/retaking planet control from rebels (to have a better overview which planets were taken by aliens).
– [interface] Ships screen tooltips added. Not all implemented but it looks better.
– [interface] Bigger scroller (all screens).

– [fix] Organize rest of the Emperor option cost being ridiculously low.
– [fix] Modernization not being persistent (deactivated after end turn).
– [fix] Milestone for crushing the rebellion not triggering at the end of the rebellion.
– [fix] Power vacuum event had incorrect display of the house name in third option.

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.74+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.77 released

Very feature heavy release. A lot of new bugs introduced (I can bet) and many unfinished and unpolished features see the light of the day for the first time. Possibly a very messy and untested version (but not necessarily). First, rebellion is there, yes fully functional. Do not let the single “Rebellion” log entry deceive you, if I were to list all the changes it would be 50 or so items long (but since this feature was never available I did not have to list the “changes”). I was working on rebellion, secretly, in the last months, but it was always in production and always disabled. Now it’s the day where it reached enough maturity to be left in the wild (still it will additional design). I also made the long due ship modernizations. Just very bare bone feature, functional but not pretty, enabled it only because I wanted to gather your feedback. The last big item is Grand political events and political agendas fine-tuning. That one is polished and balanced, also possibly quite fun and providing many strategic dilemmas on the political front. Oh yes, I also did what I love to do recently which is removal of unfinished features. New ones were slated for deletion or to be disabled till I figure out how those should work. The usual tiny interface improvements and two small fixes end the list.

To make it clear, this version introduced new features which are potentially very fragile (I already can see how the upcoming v0.78 will be one big bug fix and rebalance) and require a lot of love (read: your feedback) since those definitely need to be improved and rebalanced. So, make sure to post some comments!

Steam topic about rebellion mechanic: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1437750/discussions/0/3471730015121196263/
Steam topic about ships modernizations mechanic: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1437750/discussions/0/3471730015121200899/

– [feature] Rebellion fully functional! When you reach 100% readiness a rebellion will start. Since it’s an untested (and unbalanced) first iteration of the feature you will have an option to opt out (via audience options) if you wish.
– [feature] Ship modernizations. It a very, very crude and totally unbalanced version of modernizations feature. Included purely so I can gather some feedback. So feel free to take a quick look at those and ignore (but still those fully work if you wish to deal with their extremely unpolished state).
– [feature] Grand political events (audience events) focusing on political agendas. Also added new political agendas, rebalanced those, made a more accessible display of those, etc.

– [remove] House traditions removed. After fleshing out political agendas I realized that’s what I actually wanted to make, so those kind of replaced traditions.
– [remove] House perks removed (those were getting on my nerves for too long, accused of being not fun, slated for deletion). I might go back to this concept later, if I get a reasonably fun idea how thouse should actually work.
– [remove] Edicts tab removed (maybe it will be back once edicts are implemented, no need for it to hang there empty and useless).
– [remove] Fief tab from planet interface removed (since it’s useless right now, might be back later or might be integrated with Administrate screen).
– [remove] Removed planet Administrate tab since it’s accessible from the below portraits button anyway, which left only Overview tab… so I removed it as well since just one tab is totally unneeded. Yay! Extra space for future use, me very happy.

– [balance] Political agendas distribution rebalanced. You start with just one Rival and new ones can appear via Grand Politics events, but you can avoid those, usually at a high cost, if you wish. There are also “Reconciliation”events which let you get rid of undesirable political agendas. In practice, you can either go for very hostile houses with deadly political agendas or to almost or all friendly ones (for a high price) if you wish. Therefore, you can shape the political landscape to a great degree via your choices.

– [content] Event “FED Directorship meeting” (positive, triggered up to 3 times per game), can be used to issue new FED shares.

– [interface] Reform up/down buttons now have small up/down icons.
– [interface] “Find” button replaced with magnifying glass icon button.
– [interface] Beautified planet list, also added “Find” button for convenience if you just want to locate the planet, not open it.
– [interface] Improved slightly minimap button tooltips.
– [interface] Better tooltips on audience noble visit (so you have all the info at your fingertips).

– [fix] Projects which were unlocked by technologies were auto stopping upon end turn.
– [fix] Tiny bug where you could access Administrate section on non core planets and therefore have an option to “illegally” summon a minor governor.

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.74+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.76 released

This version is one big fix and finetuning of the noble houses related mechanics and events based on the feedback you provided. Tons of small fixes, tooltips improvements, rebalance of events, rebalance of houses finances, etc. There are two new features. A political marriage option where you can marry a member of your house to another house to strengthen the ties and get rid of the annoying grudges. The second feature is shares of the Feudal Economic Directorate. Each house has number of shares in the F.E.D. which are partially tied to the house rank and determine what share of income from imperial fiefs the house gets (in future most likely there will be options to trade shares with other houses). This feature complements nicely with the new rule that house related options are usually (with exceptions) tied to the income of such house, therefore if a house is poor you can get stuff done cheaper since they basically expect a smaller financial compensation.

All this was possible thanks to the great feedback you provided! I know I mentioned this before, but again, I love making an Early Access game under such conditions. Not only you forgive me the myriad of not working things, which let me focus on experimentation and forging out the best mechanics, but also you provide valuable feedback which allows me to direct my attention to the critical areas and basically make me aware what exactly needs to be looked into and adjusted or redesigned. Thanks a lot!

– [feature] Political marriage. Over time you get audience events that young ones from your family are ready for arranged marriage. This can strengthen the ties with other noble houses and let them forget old grudges.
– [feature] Feudal Economic Directorate shares for noble houses (determine percentage of fiefs income the house gets). Shares are based on rank.

– [misc] Relations of houses naming altered to make them sound more logical.
– [misc] Your spouse actions changed to “Progressively expensive action” and the base cost of those actions significantly reduced.
– [misc] Proxy (non functional) option on the Emperor’s dialog box to embark the imperial flagship (to test how the feature would feel).

– [balance] Rebalanced costs of noble house actions (those called by clicking on a noble portrait), now those costs are based on income of the house.
– [balance] Each house gets additional flat +X income depending on rank (+160/+140/+120/+100). Useful for Young Empire start.
– [balance] Grudges removal cost (average one, affected also by other factors) equals 20 turns worth of income of the house that has the grudge (therefore removing grudges from poor houses is cheaper).

– [content] Event “Ambition of house X” rebalanced so the option to avoid getting grudge is more reasonable to select (much lower Administrative points cost and lower opinion with other houses penalty) but on the other hand now it grants higher Authority to the house.
– [content] Event “Dishonorable deed of the nobles” now has an additional option which let you resolve this issue by paying money.
– [content] New noble house event with mild effects (for a bigger variation of events and to not get you bombed with the high consequence ones all the time).

– [interface] Added notes to summoned nobles audience events about options availability depending on favors/secrets.
– [interface] Added breakdown of houses income in tooltips (rank income and fiefs income).
– [interface] Finetuned head & spouse of the house action tooltips.
– [interface] House member dialog box auto closes if the house window changes to another house (for any reason).

– [fix] Audience option selection bug which made in some circumstances wrong effects to trigger.
– [fix] Upon new game some core planets had no noble lord (auto corrected on first turn).
– [fix] Stability glorious achievement incorrect.
– [fix] Stability from imperial count incorrect upon game start (was correct only after the first turn).
– [fix] Incorrect planet attack report (switched description who was the attacked and who was attacked).
– [fix] One audience allowed using an option which required favors without having any left.
– [fix] Small spelling fixes.
– [fix] Other smaller fixes.

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.74+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.75 released

This version focuses on noble houses. Finally the long due heraldic bureau was designed and implemented (turned out to be quite simple, useful and straightforward, which I like a lot). Houses spying system redone and finished (now it’s spymaster centric). Removed house servants and added multiple new options to various nobles (rank dependent). Oh yes, also added house estates, a tiny feature that fits the game mood and other mechanics quite well. Note that due to the amount of changes the houses relations/opinion balance might be quite unbalanced in this version.

– [feature] Spymaster audience event with reports about houses spying actions (which replaced individual spies among house servants). Also, houses chance of being spied on is affected by relations (low relations houses being more likely to have a spymaster event generated), so you will tend to gather more secrets of houses that are unfriendly to you.
– [feature] Heraldic Bureau which issues honorary titles which you can grant to minor nobles for opinion, authority and monarchism boost.
– [feature] Grudges of noble houses mechanic (opinion penalty and relations cap).
– [feature] Political agendas of noble houses mechanic (houses now can have their own wants, goals and desires which can heavily affect opinion and relations).
– [feature] Estates of noble houses which increase authority. Royal house estate can be upgraded by interacting with the Emperor’s chat options. Non player houses auto upgrade their estate if the have ample funds.
– [feature] Emperor options (on house screen): House estate upgrade and extraordinary effort (can be called 3 times per game, boost Emperor’s Focus points).
– [feature] Royal spouse options (on house screen): making the Emperor rest properly and option to change administrative points into emperor focus points.
– [feature] Additional Head of the house options (on house screen): start official investigation (summoned to answer about secrets).
– [feature] Spouse of the house head options (on house screen) aimed at removing grudges and turning secrets to favors.
– [feature] Minor noble option (on house screen): “Find scandalous materials” to gain secrets, can be done once per noble.

– [remove] Removed house servants. At first I was thinking of removing them temporarily till I figure out how they should exactly work, but when I saw how much better the spymaster centric house spy events were compared to previous individual spies and how much more clear the houses screen became I concluded it will be most likely a permanent removal.

– [misc] Monarchism now also provide direct opinion bonus.
– [misc] Non player noble houses waste a bit of money each turn on luxuries.

– [content] New audience events related to nobles (aimed to add/remove grudges and overall make managing opinion of nobles harder).

– [interface] Authority & Monarchism tooltips list all effects which those provide (votes & squadrons, stability & opinion).
– [interface] Cleanup of various house related tooltips.

– [fix] Uniforms of some noble houses were incorrect color.

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.74+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).