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).

Version 0.74 released

This version was a big redesign of the Great Council. I reviewed how it works, disassembled it and basically redid it from scratch using the parts that worked. Now it’s all more clear and logical, plus you can make a speech to alter the voting! Another feature is robots and androids population (build your own citizens). There is also a bunch of very nice interface improvements, the traditional removal of several features that were assessed as too weak and rebalance.

– [feature] The Great Council redesign.
– [feature] Three additional glorious achievements from Centralization.
– [feature] Robots (population type) introduced. Must be enabled via technology “Mechanical Servants”, this population is automatically manufactured depending on number of cities and provide labor only (everything explained in tooltips).
– [feature] Added option to mass order to mark for conquest even unexplored planets of that race.

– [misc] Aristocracy tax now affects opinion of noble houses.
– [misc] Adjusted initial budget points allocation.

– [removed] Ministry actions removed (only one action was implemented and it was not very useful anyway, better is such things are handled via audience events).
– [removed] Removed planetary markers concept (it looked great on paper but I could not find a way to make those work in game, those might be back in future in some other form).
– [removed] Removed unused Intriguer and Easy to Bribe traits.

– [balance] Rebalanced reforms (houses support and popular support grant higher bonus, reforms take longer to finish by default). Which means that now assuring a proper house support before attempting a reform is much more important.
– [balance] Number of glorious achievements required for coronation increased from 12 to 15 (because of additional sources of glorious achievements).
– [balance] Administrative points for audience events rebalanced (overall, on average audience options now require more administrative points).
– [balance] Opinion of houses for audience events rebalanced (on average audience options now affect houses opinion more). This change is intended to better reflect the opinion needed per reputation tier and make it more meaningful.

– [content] New technologies (robots related).

– [interface] Added mass orders tab on diplomacy screen (according to feedback many numerous first time players had trouble finding this option on the planet screen, it should be much easier to find now).
– [interface] Option to rename fleets and ships.
– [interface] Ships quick selector on Ships screen (ships marked as obsolete will be skipped by quick selector).
– [interface] Aliens quick selector on Intelligence screen.
– [interface] Beautified encyclopedia slightly (note: encyclopedia has no content yet).

– [fix] Incorrect population summary.
– [fix] Banquet option window now was not reacting properly to ESC key.

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 0.73 released

This version focuses on combat mechanic. Some rules were redesigned (like ground combat), some missing mechanics finished and many rebalanced or altered. More like many small changes to many rules than anything groundbreaking. Introduced defensive installations which are somewhat similar to those in the prequel but provide a flat bonus to squadrons rather than a bonus on itself. It has not that much of an effect on a tactical level, but much bigger on a strategic one since it makes defense easier than offense. The last thing was a slight redesigned the ground combat, which now should be more intuitive and work better with other mechanics, which includes merge of the combat reports, now you would be getting just one report per planet and it would include all the information related to combat over that planet (always the highest category is reported, so if planet was lost you would be getting only planet lost report and no more additional combat progress report). Oh yes, there were also some combat balance changes (missiles less effective, since it was needed due to extra missiles provided by defensive installations).

NOTE: Custom options have been reset to default (due to introduction of a new option “Screen Edge Panning”). You need to set them again.

– [feature] Implement several smaller missing combat effects (like officers competence, extra tactical maneuvers chance, etc). Also altered some minor combat mechanic (like jamming).
– [feature] Defensive installations introduced. Those are ground installations which provide extra fighters and missiles to squadrons fighting over the orbit of the planet. Can be destroyed by invading troops. Constructed and reinforced similarly to ground troops (the cap and pace determined by the Army budget).

– [misc] Changed Fortress World mechanic, now it adds more defensive installations, more ground troops and provide faster reinforcements.
– [misc] AI fortress works identical to player Fortress Worlds. Also AI fortress is now always destroyed on planet takeover.
– [misc] Ground combat redesigned. Now there are no ground combat casualties and the planet is taken over when the invader accumulate at least twice ground power than defender (and controls space orbit). Invading troops start to retreat rapidly if the invader lost orbit control.

– [balance] Missiles are less effective (deal less HP, Point Defense is more effective at shooting them down, easier to be jammed, etc).
– [balance] Unguided missiles are now slightly more resistant to Point Defense fire.

– [interface] Added Screen Edge Panning (Disable Edge Scrolling) option in Options Menu.
– [interface] Improved tooltips on planet military to explain invasion mechanic better.
– [interface] Merged space and ground battle reports (also won/lost). Which means that each planet is reported only once (using the most important report, so for example if the planet was won only this will be reported and the space/ground battle report will be omitted).

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.70+ 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 0.72 released

This version introduces Empire wide projects. It is a feature I was planning for a while in order to provide you with more strategic options. A new tab on Industry screen was added and it allows you to initiate various grant projects (like expansion of the imperial palace, construction of a grand industrial complex and so on) which will benefit the Empire in various ways. Those are intended to allows you a more direct interaction with improving the Empire while avoiding the micromanagement by making those on an Empire level instead of a planetary level. Generally you need first to unlock those projects (via reforms or technologies) and then spend a significant number of turns waiting for their completion while paying a significant cost with an option to speed it up for an even greater cost. The second thing I focused on in this version was rebalance of economy. I tweaked many numbers and some rules to provide a more challenging gameplay (some of those are difficulty dependant, so now selected difficulty level also affects economy). Oh yes, there is a also a new hotkey to make worlds core which people who play on a huge galaxy setting should appreciate a lot.

– [feature] Projects (on Industry tab). Basic 3 projects are unlocked at start, each reform unlocks one project (for example Officer corps reform unlocks “War College”) also some technologies unlock additional projects.
– [feature] Additional flat bonus to Economy Points for Young Empire (the bonus slowly goes down by -1% per turn, so at turn 100 it perishes completely). The exact value of the bonus depends on difficulty level.

– [misc] Safeguarded the code from potential negative tax rate, trade income or tribute (since if those become negative for any reason, although it should not be possible in the first place, at any point it would make some financial stuff behave quite strangely).
– [misc] Only first 3 levels of diplomatic influence trigger the audience event (since only 3 diplomatic perks are implemented at the moment).
– [misc] Diplomatic stance “Ignore” will cause the negotiation progress bar to no move (also any treaties about to be ratified will not be presented for ratification).
– [misc] Diplomatic stance “War Preparations” doubles the pace of Infiltration progress.
– [misc] Diplomatic stance “War Preparations” and “Ultimatum” chance for that race to declare a war.
– [misc] All hostile diplomatic stances (all which are marked red) slow down all treaty negotiations to half the pace.

– [content] Added 4 new technologies: Synthetic Metals, Peacekeeping rules, Cheap electronics and Stars exploration administration.
– [content] Administrative Act law replaced with Budget Restructurization Act.

– [balance] Significantly reduced base tax income.
– [balance] Tripled squadrons upkeep cost.
– [balance] Old Empire relative difficulty as if +100 turns passed instead of +50.
– [balance] Old Empire starts with basic Trade agreement signed with all races.
– [balance] Increased base bureaucracy cost.
– [balance] Base bureaucracy cost now affected by difficulty level.
– [balance] Increased penalty for exerting budget (note that with new projects & laws, which can affect budget, it might actually be cheaper to overstretch budget assuming you prepare for it).
– [balance] Base tax depends on difficulty.
– [balance] Reduced trade income.
– [balance] Doubled ships manufacturing cost.
– [balance] Making world core cost doubled.

– [interface] Improved Young/Old Empire tooltips.
– [interface] Added agents number to research bonuses screen.
– [interface] Added HotKey ‘o’ for make core action.

– [fix] Peaceful Coexistence diplomatic stance caused no treaties to be signed.

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.70+ 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 0.71 released

The next version is here. It focuses on the long due diplomatic system overhaul. It was basically redesigned and reimplemented. Diplomatic points are no more, now you select diplomatic stances which tells your diplomats what you want and they try to do it. There are still ways to deal with diplomacy directly by inviting alien ambassadors and many things can be done both ways (like you can declare war directly via Diplomacy screen or invite the ambassador to tell him yourself) with the main difference is that one is doing it instantly and the other at a lower cost. Note that since the diplomatic system was just redesigned it’s most like unbalanced (the balance will be done when I gather your feedback about the new system). There were also changes to combat engagement rules and colonization balancing. Of course also the usual share of fixes and interface improvements.

– [feature] Introduced Diplomatic stances (Peaceful Cooperation, War Preparations, Trade Alliance, etc) which let you give direction for imperial diplomats what are your goals and priorities for a given race. This serves as the basis of diplomatic events.
– [feature] Introduced Treaty negotiation. Now you don’t use diplomatic points (which were removed) to sign treaties. Instead imperial diplomats will conduct negotiations automatically based on priorities you provided via diplomatic stance setting. There is a progress bar (on Diplomacy screen) which let you see how fast those negotiations progress (the pace is based on Competence & Charisma of diplomats, distance, etc). Once the negotiations are over you are presented with a “Ratify treaty” event for the given race.
– [feature] Diplomatic influence level added (for civilized races only). There is a progress bar how fast the diplomatic influence increases ()based on Charisma of diplomats and other factors, all of those are listed in the tooltip). Once there is sufficient influence accumulated for a next level an audience will pop up with a semi random choice of perks vs this race to choose from.
– [feature] Infiltration level added (for civilized races only for now, but later probably also for Xeno races). Similar to diplomatic influence mechanic but with some changes (for example infiltration progresses during war).
– [feature] Invite ambassador audience options redone, now you can declare war, make peace, make truce and cancel truce.
– [feature] Subsidy Embassy option on Diplomacy screen added. You can spend money and administration points to instantly increase diplomatic influence progress, infiltration progress and treaty negotiations progress.
– [feature] Added two more treaties: Cultural exchange and Excavation rights.

– [remove] Removed diplomatic points (now administration points and other standard resources are used).
– [remove] Removed old espionage system (since it got replaced with a new one).
– [remove] Removed some unimplemented treaties (Alliance and Protectorate), those might be back in future.

– [misc] After signing a truce/peace treaty all military forces will auto retreat from each other’s planets (regardless of the reason why they are there).
– [misc] Space forces will not engage if the orbit controller is at peace/truce (to avoid fighting at peace/truce over third party planets), but the forces might stay and see how it resolves (if the planet is taken over by the attacker they will retreat, if the attacker loses orbit control they will attempt to take the planet for themselves).
– [misc] Colonization target algorithm likes planets adjacent to Terra even more and dislikes border and near border planets even more.
– [misc] Diplomatic relations now affect all progress bars (treaty negotiation progress, diplomatic influence progress, infiltration progress).
– [misc] Treaties have no upkeep cost anymore (which might change in future).
– [misc] Other minor changes to diplomacy (renamed Rare resources sale treaty to Resources market treaty, moved some now unused Supremacy to Experimental, etc).

– [balance] AI rebalance (civilized races make more military offensives now).
– [balance] Major races “planets number difference relations bonus” reduced from +30% to +10%.
– [balance] Trade value rebalanced. Base trade value reduced from 50% to 30% (since “Merchants connections” can now provide additional +20%).

– [interface] Outpost and Colonization reports split into separate folders.
– [interface] Treaties are now listed, no buttons (since now treaties are signed/ratified via audience events and there are no diplomatic points anymore).
– [interface] Diplomatic stances selector (War Preparations, Ultimatum, Embargo, Ignore, Peaceful Coexistence, Trade Alliance, Military Alliance, Cultural Unification, Make Protectorate) on Aliens diplomacy/intelligence screen where you can select how imperial diplomats should negotiate.
– [interface] Find Homeworld button on Aliens diplomacy/intelligence screen moved to very bottom.
– [interface] Trade income tooltip redone (much more clear now and lists all factors).
– [interface] Alien race status planetary tooltips (Civilized/Xeno/Minor/Major) all implemented and improved.
– [interface] Other small improvements.

– [fix] Colonization algorithm was using the logical colonization rules for the first colonization ship only which made the subsequent colonization target choices bad.
– [fix] Wrong War/Peace status displayed next to an ambassador of a civilized race on audience window.
– [fix] Incorrect random order range for Light industry and Advanced light industry technologies, which made them appear in reverse orders in some cases.
– [fix] Construction treaty was not working properly (foreign planets constructions always auto destroyed next turn as if during war).

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.70+ 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 0.70 released

The game entered the stage where I’m focusing more on making all the things work together and less on introducing new features. There are some major features not ready yet, but with this version the priorities shift to gameplay, balance, reexamination and redesign of existing features. In short I try to tie all the loose ends and make it all work together as a complete unit. This also means in some areas there might be regressed compared to v0.6x branch if some features are evaluated to be substandard and removed/partially redesigned (like Great Council that is being redesigned right now). This version introduces many small changes and adjustments aimed at finishing existing mechanics (like ministries bonuses), streamlining stuff that might be needlessly complex or confusing (like colonization mechanic or Old Empire mode), explaining things better (tooltips improvements) and rebalancing numbers to provide a better challenge (like food consumption).

– [feature] Diplomats & Xeno Experts get bonus to Competence & Charisma from Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
– [feature] Available additional Extra Rules: Population consume less food, Population consume more food, Minerals processing efficiency reduced (so 3 optional extra rules that let you adjust how much of a problem managing food and minerals will be).

– [remove] Removed unused “Wild” rulesets (now there are 3 rulesets).
– [remove] Removed rebels as a political entity (rebels will be portrayed as an imperial planet property/modifier in future versions).

– [misc] Renamed rulesets to better convey the playstyle for each of those. Also listed additional core rules (not implemented yet, I added those to avoid confusion that those rulesets are only about technologies, now it will give you a better overview what those rulesets are meant to represent) and extended the ruleset tooltips.
– [misc] More logical and intuitive rules how a noble house votes (relations based).
– [misc] Conquest orders will change into establish outpost orders if a planet lost ownership for whatever reason before the conquest was completed (so it assures the planet will be taken over by the player as desired regardless of potential rare cases).
– [misc] Civilized races at peace/truce with the Empire will not target for conquest any planet that has imperial space forces on (this will avoid rare cases when both Empire and a civilized race targeted the same planet for conquest). This rule applies to aliens only, not the player.
– [misc] Outpost speed and Colonization speed redone into a +X% modifier (for consistency with other technological bonuses).
– [misc] Overmind will never spawn on Toxic or Barren planet upon game start (consistency with after game start overmind placement rules).
– [misc] Great Council obligatory bills changed to “Minsters approved” and “Taxes approved” (penalty to efficiency of all ministries and penalty to tax efficiency).
– [misc] On “Old Empire” mode all megalopolises are already placed.
– [misc] On “Old Empire” mode the game starts at turn 1 but aliens starting technology is calculated as if 50 turns have passed, same for base bureaucracy cost and corruption. This will make things less confusing (I noticed some players being puzzled why the starting turn is 50 instead of 1) while achieving the same effect.

– [balance] Slower colonization (previously even on the Young Empire mode with the penalty to colonization it was only two turns, far too fast). But also simplified colonization and now all colonization ships provide an identical pace (so having more colonization ships has a bigger impact now since each one counts as a full efficiency colonization ship).
– [balance] Slightly slower outpost construction speed (also adjacency to colony has lower effect on the outpost speed).
– [balance] Doubled penalty for core worlds adjacency to non core worlds (after analyzing the saves beta player provided, I noticed people don’t care too much about core world placement, while it’s not a big deal and not a hard rule I wanted to give more incentives to make people want to clump core worlds together).
– [balance] Laws rebalance (no bonus to extension of Ministry of Protocol since it made no sense, no extra bureaucracy cost from Administrative Act, added more extension of a ministry effects to existing laws, some laws removed, some numbers adjusted, etc).
– [balance] Food consumption increased by 20%.

– [content] Techs that grant bonus to Diplomats & Xeno Experts Competence.
– [content] Law which grants bonus to Diplomats Charisma.

– [interface] Added “Political capital” section on house screen (replaces/extends old “Favors” section). It lists favors, secrets and vote promises acquired towards this house.
– [interface] The Great Council screen shows a simplified list of passed bills when there is no voting in progress (showing which house voted on what last time was too confusing and not really needed).
– [interface] The Great Council screen now lists below each crest % of votes the house holds (color coded so you also see the “relations of the votes”).
– [interface] Outpost progress tooltip to explain how outposts construction works.
– [interface] After coring a world max cities and cities output bonus are updated instantly.
– [interface] Beautified planet tooltips (since these were one of the oldest tooltips not up to date with the newer ones)
– [interface] Added an exact tax income effect for each tax slider tooltip on Finances/Tax screen.
– [interface] Beautified Finances/Budget tooltips.

– [fix] The Great Council bills not cleared properly upon new council voting (which made bills not on agenda voted on as well).

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 0.62 released

This is most likely the last version of the v6x branch. It has several interesting features. First, fiefs are finally implemented. I have decided to do a thing I rarely do and I implemented it with the primary goal of adding to the mood to the game rather than as a hard mechanic. Of course fiefs have a gameplay purpose but for this alone I could just replace those with numbers. Still, I felt (also evaluating your feedback on the forums) that such a feature makes sense with the overall premise of the game. Most likely it will be fine-tuned further (like there is no difference which world a house has a fief on) but overall it’s a first working model of the fiefs system. Next was Centralization, which was moved from experimental to regular features and altered a bit. Coincidentally, when I was sitting and coding it suddenly occurred to me it could be tied also to reforms which worked out very well. Now reforms also provide Centralization, which is quite logical and intuitive and simple. When Amendments to the Great Imperial Charters are implemented it would be a well rounded feature. Oh yes, Centralization also triggers certain audience events, especially the Modern Aristocracy one is quite fun since it let you remodel feudal society to aristocratic society where nobles care more about their position in the imperial palace that about their feudal fiefs. The last thing is introduction of an option to review imperial officials (for now an experimental feature so it’s disabled by default, but it’s quite complete so you can try it safely), which is more in the likes of the dynamics of the prequel where you got those audience events that let you deal with various officials in bulk. Now you can do it by your own choice without waiting for an event, but for a price of course. Overall, this version has several features which solve several problems in the game, are intuitive, fit well with the rest of the game and do not introduce extra complexity which is a thing that always makes me quite happy as a designer.

– [feature] Centralization moved from experimental to regular features. Now it is also affected by reforms and it has 2 additional effects (triggers powerful events after reaching a certain centralization threshold). Note that The Great Imperial Charter Amendments, which are a major source of Centralization, are not implemented yet, but the reforms alone can still make you reach the threshold to trigger all events (so, in the final version it will be basically easier to reach it, but the mechanic will be the same).
– [feature] Fiefs implemented (at a basic yet functional level). Those are handled automatically according to the Great Imperial Charter regulations but you can grant other houses extra fiefs.
– [feature] Summoning the head of a house (the noble can be summoned from the house screen) now allows you to grant/revoke fiefs. Granting a fief can earn you favors with noble houses, but revoking a fief is a more costly matter.
– [feature] Experimental feature (needs to be enable via gameplay options), to let you review (dismiss incompetent, etc) officials by your own request (without waiting for an event). It’s done via a new button on audience screen (next to banquet button) ant it basically let you pay and you get appropriate “Review” event during the nearest audience.

– [remove] Removed unused Claim to the Imperial Throne.

– [misc] Each implemented reform grants +1 Centralization (in addition to the usual effects).
– [misc] -1 Stability penalty per each lost core world (the penalty is lifted when the core world is retaken).
– [misc] Fiefs now provide authority bonus (similar to monarchism bonus).

– [balance] Negative treasury now causes fixed -1 Stability per turn (instead of progressively more depending on how long the treasury stayed negative). This is a sufficient deterrent already.
– [balance] Monarchism bonus from fiefs reduced but increases fiefs cap.

– [content] Duties of the Modern Aristocracy perk events (active after you selected the default option during Modern Aristocracy event which is triggered after reaching a certain Centralization threshold).

– [interface] House screen tooltips improved (more details, more flavor text, etc). Especially fiefs tooltip improved, now it shows guaranteed share of fiefs according to the Great Imperial Charter and extra fiefs (if granted by the Emperor).
– [interface] Tooltip for ‘Make Core’ button shows more details regarding fiefs and lists the penalty of losing a core world.

– [fix] Bug where courtiers supporting warlords tradition house were getting competence boost (should be for officers only).

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.60+ 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).