Ymir News

This first "Quality of Life" update is focused on farming with a set of features to make fields management easier and more time efficient.
It notably allows to create fields of custom dimensions which also ignore map borders and river tiles.


Fields now include cosmetic fences like pastures, and reflect their productivity visually with empty tiles.


No more placing 8x8 fields one by one and headache to figure out the most efficient way to manage river banks and map borders: fields can now be placed in a single drag & drop click and will ignore invalid tiles.
You can now create fields overlapping with a river or the map borders and it will automatically fill the valid space, making full use of it.
Fields can be moved or resized, and compatible fields can be merged with the annex tool (provided the result of the merge forms a rectangle, so they must be adjacent and sharing an edge).



It is now also possible to convert fields to different resource types, saving you the hassle of destroying an recreating it and the cost in tools to do so. You also recover some of the seeds of the previous resource type.
Livestock pastures can also be converted for free between animal producing and wool producing (for the relevant animals)



Production Skill points no longer increase efficiency of farms, requiring to readjust fields for every farm every time a change is made. Instead, production skill points only boost productivity of the fields, not changing the amount of fields per farm.
Level 4 farm upgrade now boosts productivity instead of efficiency in the same way, meaning after lvl 3 the amount of fields per farm becomes constant and will no longer require re assignments.



This update contains other various minor QOL features that are detailed in the full changelogs below, including the ability to place multiple buildings at once (ground storages or houses), a new annex menu, seeing the parent building max workforce usage while placing annexes, various fixes about the Casus-belli past update, some balancing changes and more.



The Farming QOL update
v0.6.2

- Desert type spawns now have higher odds of a starting mineral resource as well + bigger food sources
- increased valley size of Desert climate
- buffed truffles resource: unlocked production skills, increased natural sources production, wealth 0.15, increased quality
- added "unload all" button for formation inventory
- added "taxable income" details to government budget for treaty money transfers
- "war reparations" treaty now has punishment breaking clauses for both parties
- allow swapping resource type of fields and pastures
- adding summary of upgrade comparison to the building upgrade button
- wool and meat pastures can be swapped as free upgrades
- Meat and Wool no longer requires an initial production skill to unlock
- increased space efficiency of chickens and rabbits
- allow fields placement over invalid tiles (to make full use of river banks and map edges)
- made skillpoints in agricultural production improve only productivity instead of efficiency
- lvl4 farms and lvl4 cattle farms increase productivity instead of efficiency
- implemented separate productivity stat for buildings
- new annex building menu displaying more informations and options for annexes
- visual feedback of productivity and fertility of fields
- Display parent building max workforce usage when placing annexes (ex fields of a farm) to know when enough are placed.
- optimized display of auto-fenced buildings
- recycling fields gives back portions of invested seeds as well
- annex tool allows merging compatible fields together
- making fields and pastures dimensions dynamic
- allow some building types to be built multiple at once with one mouse drag
- adding more logs to diagnose server issue with building auto-placement
- fixed "patrol" order not showing up unless formation is on the same territory
- fixed issues with war resolution treaties not properly triggering and remaining 'war pending' even after the war ended
- fixed white peace treaty still triggering on top of other war resolution treaties for main belligerents
- fixed issue with price market study increasing the influence of richest population classes for rare resources
- fixed bug where player can't settle or move when starting out, showing 0 expansion points.
- fixed networking problem of receiving data update while its loading
- fixed Server auto-wipe happening at 0;00 instead of target hour
- fixed issues with server buildings auto-placement
- fixed new server battle crash
- fixed multiple bugs with patrols not triggering properly.
- fixed Partisan rebellions count towards war morale
- fixed war declaration not auto-expulsing enemies that were trespassing
- fixed Defeating an enemy combatant in a war sends any troops you had on them to a random friendly city despite the game giving you a "war passage" treaty

Previous Patches:
- tech project failed from insolvency: made different event notif
- improved auto-deployment defensive zones choice
- made leadership coup generate a fixed amount of rebels instead of a popular uprising
- territorial claims casus belli duration +1 day
- annexation war option not showing up in declare war menu despite having a valid claim
- defeated retreated armies not dropping their inventory as battle loot (porcoderthals)
- fixed battle display crash related to unit positions in troops
- fixed paper bombing exploit
- fixed bug with un-reinforcable units despite meeting requirements
- fixed spawn terrain generation error
- fixed patrol range 2 not including formations of movement 4
- fixed bug getting auto claims when occupying another capital
- fixed problem of rebels spawning inside fort
- fixed bug with unit type in population auto-defense
- fixed bug setting patrol to idle not cancelling patrol
- fixed primitive tribes rebellions not allowed to breach/climb/embark
- fixed server battle crash
- fixed problem of auto-generated peons displacing normal troops when deploying
- fixed militia being able to patrol

This update is focused on bringing a second batch of improvements on the new war mechanics while also focusing on battles.

For the occasion of the new update, Server 4 is being restarted with a fresh new game starting today.




An important feature missing in the casus-belli update was a war escalation system, allowing a main belligerent to pursue multiple casus-belli within a same war or a defender to push for its own casus belli in return if he wins.
More details on Porcopedia




Patrolling is an Action that can be performed by Formations. This action puts the Formation in a permanent patrolling state until a different order is given to it. While the patrolling is active, the formation monitors adjacent territories and auto-intervene against enemies in range if the conditions are met.
More details in Porcopedia


It is now possible to ignore the lack of right of passage with another State and pass through anyways, but it allows the other State to attack any intruders on its territory without a war declaration. It also triggers any Patrol.
More details on Porcopedia


Population auto-defense has been re-implemented, meaning it no longer is possible to raid a 300 habitants territory with only 2 soldiers.
More details on Porcopedia


The update also introduces the "indirect co-belligerence" penalty to discourage the practice of parallel bogus wars used by large nations.
More details on Porcopedia


It will no longer be possible to deploy multiple troops in the same position, as they now occupy tiles which are displayed in red when using the strategic tool.



As armies can move in and out of territories, it is still possible to end up with troops having colliding deployment orders. In such situation, the troops are auto-redeployed. First trying to place them in the same area, then in nearby areas, and then if everything is full they get redeployed randomly nearby.

Defensive mode no longer requires manual defensive zones: instead it will default to the local "area" (any contiguous enclosed space).
This means you no longer need to fill your fortifications with defensive zones to match each enclosed space: you can directly put the troops in defensive mode and they'll defend the whole area.

The strategic tool view has also been cleaned up to make more complex fortifications easier to see.



The new implementation of "threat maps" which should significantly improve the battle AI behavior is almost completed.

This means that now, the battle AI can consider the threat of enemy positions and not just the terrain and fortifications.
It can now select to breach walls or climb in the places that are not covered by defenders instead of going for the cheapest way in, and it can walk around the range of archers or towers.



There will now be a maximum number of allowed gates and towers depending on the status of a territory.
The current upcoming limitations are:
- countryside: no gates, 2 towers, no walls, 20 platforms
- outpost: 1 gate, 4 towers, 40 walls, 20 platforms
- hamlet: 2 gates, 4 towers
- village: 4 gates, 8 towers
- town: 6 gates, 12 towers
- city: 8 gates, 16 towers
The goal of this feature is to reduce the over fortification of countrysides causing wars to be too static and too centered around sieging. This will prevent the turtling of fortifying every single countryside and will favor more pitch battles in open fields.



This update introduces "survival rates" and retreats after battles, meaning a formation that was entirely "killed" in a battle will no longer be completely destroyed.
Some units will survive and the broken formation will retreat in a nearby location.
A broken formation will auto encamp, have 0 AP, and all its troops will have to recover before they can battle again.

This means in the example of a troop of 20 archers "killed" in battle, after the battle you could end with about 6 "wounded survivors".
This will be represented by a troop of 0/6 remaining archers (same as when there's insufficient population to maintain a troop), that will slowly recover to 6.
This represents the convalescence of soldiers.
- Defeated defenders in regional centers cannot retreat, and a defeated formation is therefore really destroyed.
- The winner of a battle gets a better survival rate than the defeated.
- survival rates are currently between 30 and 45%


This update brings visual improvements to battles, now with dust & blood.
Units also have better collisions during melee top stop all of them merging into a single tile where you can't see what's going on, as well as a reaction from defending units bracing for impact.








The battles update
v0.6.1

- increased minimum default distance between primitive spawns in persistent preset to "1.8"
- added option to control spawns target nb and minimum distance in "new game" UI
- cleaned up "new game" UI
- blocked ordering relocation of capitals to non-regional centers
- automatic territorial claims when a foreign state settles a territory adjacent to your capital
- increased Politics Points rewards from startup missions
- added "famine" loyalty factor: below 50% vital needs population loyalty drops exponentially (max -75)
- added 'indirect-cobelligerence' ( one army is assisting defense of another army against a common enemy but not sharing a common war) morale penalty in battles
- in raiding campaigns, war escalation for the agressor is immediate
- implemented war escalation system
- cost of fabricating claim during a war +50%
- implemented "Patrol" action for formations
- rebellions and partisans now use "Peons" instead of "Snouts".
- re-implemented territory people's auto-defense
- added new "peon" unit (peasant snout)
- added auto withdrawal of troops when breaking rights of passage
- it is now possible to violate rights of passage, but armies can be attacked by the owner of the territory without a war declaration
- implemented survival rates after battles
- troops below 25% of their max troop size now merge with other troops of the same type automatically.
- fortification now limited by territorial status
- reorganized resource categories to allow better targeting in raid orders
- fixed embarked units able to land on elevated tiles without climbing
- allies in a war now also have the action "liberate" instead of "occupy" , returning territories to the original owner automatically instead of becoming occupants of their own ally's land
owner during war
- improved battle melee visuals: added dust fx for moving units and combat
- improved battle melee visuals: added blood fx
- improved battle melee visuals: better matching of enemy units in combat
- battles AI: implemented threat map
- battles AI: improved inter-area pathfinding
- battles: climbing now disabled for formations including animals, cavalry or elephant units.
- battles: fixed bug of battle display not starting when already in the territory as a battle starts
- battles: fixed ally units inter-zone pathfinding sometimes ignoring gates as a free passage causing them to break or climb instead
- fixed UI bug with mouse coordinates on platforms and water
- deployment tools: allowed defensive mode outside of defensive zones -> defaults to defend whole area instead
- Battles: implementd area limit of deployments based on the area surface of fortifications.
- optimization: migrated troop units coordinates calculation to the c# DLL
- deployment tools: improved display of defensive zones and areas.
- optimization: migrated nodal pathfinding to c#
- improve readability of fortification display layer
- migrated & unified pathgrid zoning to c#
- fixed bug of characters still paying taxes to previous nation superior even after leaving the nation
- fixed bug of territory staying with "occupied" status when auto-liberated during armistice
- fixed territory culture stat calculation issues in very low population territories
- fixed raiding campaign bug causing battles morale to not affect agressors
- fixed problem of settlements with 0 Actives unable to rebel
- fixed ground items spawning over stairs
- fixed bug allowing to change stock policies of resources in occupied territories
- fixed buf with missing war reparations in a multi-parallel wars situation
- fixed bug allowing to diband formations in empty territorial claims
- fixed issues and bloat with territory deployment data
- fixed pathfinding bug + minor optimization
- fixed battle display glitch where units still target dead enemies in melee
- fixed bug where "liberate" action was unavailable on indirectly occupied countrisides
- fixed bug of indirectly occupied sub-territories remaining as occupied when freed by its original
- fixed issue causing too frequent spawning of herds near settlements.
- fixed bug where troop units would not collide with cliff edges of walls.
- fixed bug where main belligerents could get a "whitepeace" treaty on top of the normal armistice treaty.
- fixed 0 produced culture issue for new settlements.
- fixed building water platforms not updating dynamic water properly
- fixed Postal building not auto distributing service

Previous Patches:
- animals can no longer burn down buildings
- fixed territory menu icon showing up for empty claimed territories
- fixed still being able to change territorial status of indirectly occupied territories
- fixed bug in market order in server 1
- character changing status (ex becoming inactive) now also triggers timer that prevents despawning
- fixed inactives still despawning while at war
- fixed inactive territories despawning before minimum decay timer after a change in ownership
- cleanup timers in regdata for despawning and cultural integration
- fixed bug allowing some capital buildings to be functional in non-capital territories
- fixed advanced government buildings missing the requirement for proper builders
- fixed barbarians raiders not despawning when back to camp
- fixed being able to only build 1 water mill per territory

Today's patch includes multiple fixes and war mechanic modifications and improvements, following the big Casus-Belli update.
It also includes at the bottom of the changelogs all the cumulated previous smaller hotfixes and patches that have been applied since the last news which have focused mostly on server stabilization, optimization, and war mechanic modifications as well.


Following this 1st war patch, more are to come to stabilize and balance the new war mechanics: a system of war escalation, fixing the issue of 'needle forts' with deployment capacity limitations based on surface area, and fixing the over fortification of countrysides overpowering defense currently by limiting the capacity of fortifications based on territorial status.

After that will come an update of "Quality of life", then an update for Slavery, and then finally a new system of accounts to implement Hogs properly and get ready for getting out of early access if all goes well.



Patches
v0.6.54

- Politics Points now capped to 300 (placeholder)
- Losing a Humiliation war generates a temporary (non stackable) penalty of -30 Legitimacy + cannot declare humiliation war if humiliated yourself
- added arbitrary +2 to base cost of cattle resources (placeholder)
- added auto cease fire engagement treaty between all belligerents when any war ends
- implemented "unadministered" territorial status for newly received territories to give time to reorganize them.
- "unadministered" territories reduce Politics Points production by 30% each + notification event
- in overexpansion, territories will now decay to "unadministered" instead of outposts.
- added "liberate" action to lift occupation on your own territory occupied by the enemy, that is always available
- no longer possible to raid or sack your own territories that are occupied by the enemy
- if winner of annexation war breaks peace treaty, now gives a punishment casus-belli to defender instead of just reparations
- Policy of "regional administrations" now allows to claim non-capital regional centers directly if one of its subterritories is adjacent
- increased distance penalties for raiding wars
- declaring wars cost: added rivalry cost reduction and distance factor penalty
- now impossible to declare rival if his score is below 80% of yours
- postal service now consumable and provides up to -10% waste
- added "capital occupation" of +2 damage to annexation wars for the agressor
- allow raiding in annexation wars
- fixed issues with auto production cost of resources being too high in territories with no active production for some resources (ex: meat)
- fixed bug with production cost of leather >0 in territories with no active leather production
- fixed discovery chronicles tech name not working
- fixed issue with cancelling a pending treaty offer not removing treaty event for other party
- fixed resource menu UI bug with state backing costs appearing to buy negative amounts
- fixed problem of towers proximity being circumvented by placing different types of towers -> now category related
- Fixed "liberation" casus belli not working.
- fixed bug of warehouses providing wealth even without worker
- fixed partisans uprisings not lifting occupation status
- fixed problem with zones accessibility discrepancies in battles
- fixed bug with rivalry notifications at server start
- fixed troops auto-withdrawing from territories that are annexed when an annexation war ends
- fixed bug of abandoned territories retaining cultural data
- fixed bug where rivalry claim reduction was active even for non-rivals
- fixed visual bugs in battles with units and buildings sunk in terrain
- fixed bug of positive battle morale gains not applied to wars

Previous Patches:
- optimization: stat_res_price, modify frequency for offline players
- annexation wars: increased morale damage from occupying objective to 8
- fixed terrain generation error causing missing water or terrain tile resources that should be there
- fixed client crash from building display when destroyed or ruined
- bug with capitals conquered not losing their capital tag
- optimizing world prices refreshing
- fix issue with server NPC factions
- disabled auto-despawning of 0 pop territories
- fixed bug with auto-rival loop
- fixed class_building display causing client crash
- fixed free traders slippage exploit
- more server memory improvements
- Raiding barbarian de-state ownership of resources, even when being whipped out in the raid
- fixed multiple bugs in new c# pathfinding
- continuing work on anti-cheat
- spawn on inactives disabled if at war & occupied
- fixed bug of corrupted Politics Points generation on server 2
- optimization: lower infrastructures refreshs if offline + uv_to_iso results baking
- networking overload from corrupted buffer causing piling up
- server tick rate optimizations
- server memory optimizations
- improved procedural terrain from terrain resources that are still undiscovered
- fixed zones inaccessibility being broken
- fixed production range of buildings allowing to exploit tiles out of bound
- newtorking issues
- improving servers errors management
- improved tutorial failsafes for building toolmakers and woodcutters
- optimization: battle logs reduced cost by 99%
- occupied territories AP regen +2
- reduced annexation war declare cost to 100PP
- fixed program launch failure for some users
- fixed bug of claims over ancient capitals messing up capital
- increased morale gained from damage done to enemy
- added factor of lives lost in regards to total population in morale loss calculation instead of just military power lost
- adding military power killed/military power lost ratio effect
- eliminating enemy cobelligerent gives +5 morale to main belligerent
- bug of missing belligerents from war in wars with too many belligerents
- humiliation wars: base morale +10 for att and def, and max distance morale malus for attacker reduced to 5
- fix bug in annexation resolution failing to transfer target territory to winner
- fixed issues with insufficient meat & gathering production to complete starting missions
- add research points rewards for thriving agriculture
- include political cost of breaking treaties in declare war UI
- added "breaking conditions" option to treaties
- fixed annexion war declare cost being lower than reward : set both to 150
- allowed 'vengeance' casus belli breaking clause in manual treaties of subjugation
- added auto annexation claims for territories invaded by barbarians or rebels
- fixed bug in humiliation war defeat chronicle.
- fixed bug with barbarian raids
- double duration of casus bellis for reparation or vengeance
- ensured occupied territories still count as connected to prevent SP collapse.
- bug with reveal map exploration event not working
- fixed bug pillages targeting already ruined buildings and fields
- friendly countrysides AP regen +2
- added Politics points reward for completing chieftain's hut mission
- bug with movement cost of abandonned settlements
- fixed avatar factions flags are missing
- inactives should not be elligible to despawn if involved in a non raiding war
- fixed bug in researchers menu
- removed passive morale effects on cobelligerents
- allow raiding for agressor in humiliation wars
- multiplied construction speed of buildings in persistent mode by 3
- fixed server 2 infinite battle -> pathfinding failure
- fixed "fabricate claim" action being available before annexion wars are (requires leadership)
- fixed bug where pillaging houses generated more coins than they should
- territories occupied by enemy should still count as Expansion points
- fixed bug with wars not ending against no longer existing characters
- optimized character avatars -> now stored in cache to prevent redundant loading
- optimized loading of faction colors and banners + display for everyone all the time
- fixed bug where occupying foreign capital would cause administration penalty of distance from capital in your own capital
- added AP reward for completing mission of recruiting first warriors
- decreasing speed of barbarians spawning on primitive spawns
- territories under occupation generate extra resistance from total population
- renouncing control of barbarian occupied territories now turns it to anarchy instead of returning to barbarian
- added true "endless'" property to the Forever server (game no longer in "won" status + no limit of VP)
- fxied problem with the forever server score board
- disabled auto-rivalry in non persistent games
- fixed "rebellion risk" phantom even poping up and disapearing
- fixed revoking traits event display doesnt show mission ui

It's been a while since the last update. Indeed, as the game moves closer to "release", I'm trying to favor less frequent updates with more content and hopefully more stable instead of faster paced more experimental ones.

This update represents many months of work and focuses on a complete redesign of war mechanics with the introduction of casus-bellis, war types, war morale and war automatic resolutions.

A long lasting issue with the game was caused by human nature and the inherent multiplayer nature of the game: players almost always refused to negotiate or make peace, and every single war would escalate into a war of total annihilation as it was always considered better than leaving a potentially vengeful player around.
This however was detrimental to the game and created an effect of condensing all wars in early days then to leave the server uneventful once the initial cleansing was over.
Cleansing that was often done by veterans ganging up on anyone they didn't know around them simply because of risk management.

The goal of this update is to add rules of war to counter the suicidal and intransigent behavior of players so that it creates more realistic conflicts and reduces the better spans war across the game's progress instead of everything happening in the early days, as it will be harder to insta-eliminate players in a single war.



Wars now require a motive to be started. This then defines the war type, each one with its specific properties. 
The war types comes with predetermined war resolution effects which are applied when either side wins the war.



This update replaces Honor with Politics Points, which are now used to perform some actions and especially declaring wars or signing treaties with some specific terms such as Joining a Nation.

Politics Points are produced by having a positive Legitimacy. The higher the legitimacy the more points. 

Like Honor, Politics Points are also used as a commitment to respect treaties and it is lost if illegally breaking a treaty. There's now also a minimum engagement for all treaties.



Winning or losing a war is now defined by War Morale: each belligerent in a war has a war morale specific to the war, and if it reaches 0 the belligerent is auto-eliminated and war effects apply.
Of course it is still possible to end a war "manually" if both sides agree to peace, but experience shows this rarely happens hence this update.

The starting war morale is defined by the war type and casus-belli. War morale mostly only decreases, like the "life bar" in a fight. 
The parameters reducing the war morale are also casus-belli dependent: for instance in an annexation war, it will be mostly who controls the target territory that affects war morale. 
In other wars, it can be the proportion of territories being occupied.
Aggressors also often suffer a passive decay which insure wars can't last for ever.
In most wars, battle results also affect morale based on the ratio of lost troops with your total armies.



Each war opposes 2 main belligerents: a main agressor against a main defender.
The war resolution effects only apply to the main belligerent, and a war ends only if a main belligerent is eliminated or capitulates (or signs a manual peace).

Other States can also participate in wars as co-belligerents. They can be eliminated individually from the war if their morale falls to 0, which does not end the war. 
Co-belligerents are not affected by the war resolution effects. If they lose they are condemned to pay war reparations (pending the war resolution and only if their side loses), and are unaffected if the war is won. They participate strictly as allies of the main belligerent to help him in his goals.

Co-belligerence is mostly automatic: as a subordinate you are automatically called into the wars of your liege even if its a war where he is the attacker: a Nation king entering a war will therefore now have all its nation automatically at war with him as well, unlike before where it was only defensive.

While subordinates are forced into wars of their lieges, when its the other way around joining the war is optional for the liege: if a vassal declares war, he can chose to "call-to-arms" his liege which is free to refuse with no consequences or to accept and join the war as cobelligerent (bringing all its own vassals with him, escalating the war).
Note that nations still include a defensive pact making everyone of the nation enter as cobelligerent of the defender regardless.

Co-belligerents get a "war participation" score.
If a war ends and with a very low participation, the main belligerent can choose to publicly "denounce" them, inflicting a great political penalty.
This mechanic will allow players to punish fake allies or uncooperative vassals not fulfilling their duties.





When a main belligerent is eliminated the war ends and its effects are automatically applied based on the war type. At any point a main belligerent can also chose to capitulate, thus triggering the auto-resolution of the war as well.

Effects generally include Political penalties and war reparations for the agressor if defeated.
For the defender the effects are more dependent on the war's casus-belli: losing a territory in an annexation war,  being forced to pay tributes, becoming subjugated, losing Victory Points etc...
These effects come as au automatic "armistice" diplomatic treaty between the 2 main belligerents which also creates a forced cease-fire during its engagement period with hefty penalties if broken.
That engagement period also depends on the war type.



Breaking some of these more serious armistice treaties (such as breaking a subjugation treaty) can now have more interesting consequences: instead of being either ignorable (and making the agressor unable to rely on it) or unbreakable because of honor penalties (and making the defender give up with no perspectives), what it does now is that it gives a special "punishment" casus-belli to the other party.
This allows to start a second war. However, if won again, this war will KILL the treaty breaker for good as he is deemed unreliable and rebellious, unworthy of negotiating.

This creates a dynamic of allowing a player who lost a war to still try an "all or nothing" rebellion, while the agressor can see this opportunity to finally get rid of an uncooperative player for good, offsetting the frustration of having to win a war a second time.





This update introduces "rivalry", a new diplomatic status which comes with special effects. Most States can only design 1 rival State at the time.

Rivals can't merge in a Nation and having diplomatic relations with your rival hurts Legitimacy. However, rivalry gives you different perks against your rival State: a special casus-belli of "humiliation" which slashes Victory Points of your rival by half if won, protects you against subjugation, gives war morale bonus, makes your cities more resistant to occupation, and reduces political costs to fabricate claims.

The top 5 nations also get something called "forced rivalry": they are automatically rival with their superior in ranks: nation 5 auto-rivals nation 4, which auto-rivals nation 3 etc...
This will force the leading nations to oppose one another, and prevent the classic cartel strategy of veteran groups which remain split as different pretend-nations to farm more Victory Points then to merge and instawin the game before anyone can react.
It will now be in the interest of the big allied players to merge into a nation as soon as possible to prevent the risk of ending forced rivals, thus making Nations better reflect the reality of alliances.
Not only that, but joining another nation now comes with the effect of forfeiting 75% of your victory points, which will hopefully put a definitive end to this strategy of last minute nation merging.



Raiding is now the default casus-belli which is always available and has a low cost of Politics to be started.
Raiding wars are particular that they do not auto-resolve and can only be won by manually ending it through a treaty, much like wars before this update.
However they only permit raiding: you cannot for example occupy enemy territories with this war.

Raiding battles have also been improved to become more viable.
It's now finally possible to loot monies from raiding buildings: raided houses or production buildings give money pillaged from the population. 
Pillaged government buildings give more money, which is taken from the enemy's treasury as well. 
And finally, the special buildings of the Palace and the Treasury, if pillaged, will transfer 20% of the defender's treasury to the raiders, making those critical buildings to defend against raids.

The battle "AI" for raiding has also been improved, and is now better at choosing buildings to raid and to spread more efficiently for a faster battle.

It is also now possible to specify raiding targets to prioritize: resources or coins (or slaves, not implemented yet). You can also specify a particular resource category to prioritize (ex foods).





In addition to the raiding battle improvements, I've also added the first battle options to affect the behavior of attackers during battle: you can now filter which "siege actions" a formation can perform in a battle: disabling breaching, climbing, or embarking. 
This means you can for example send raiders with the order to do neither of these things, which will result in them only targeting things directly available in the area where they deploy instead of trying to cross a river and break in an impossible fort.
This is available for all battles: you can for example send an army only allowed to breach (gates & palisades), which will allow you to make sure that they wont be try climbing cliffs or walls, or wont try to cross water.



Another big improvement of this update is the offloading of the first big game component into the Ymir c# DLL: regional pathfinding. 
This means performances gains for server battles, as pathfinding is now much more efficient and can finally take advantage of multi threading which the current engine previously made impossible.
Larger battles can now be more fluid, with less "pauses" between each battle turn.

The pathfinding between different defensive areas of territories during battles has also been improved to be more accurate as a proper nodal-pathfinding system which should result in a better navigation of troops through complex fortified cities.



Main world events such as war declarations and resolutions or important discoveries now generate automatic chronicles so that all players can be more aware of what's going on and to make the world feel more eventful.
A global world channel has also been added in the diplomatic chat.





Notably, 2 new food types have been introduced to replace Apples as a stock food: turnips for the north and pumpkins for continental.
Apples are now like grapes: a pleasure food and a material for cider.
There's also new sprites for potatoes and carrots.





I'm well aware that since the increase in server load with the addition of countryside territories, the server lag has made late-game almost unplayable. 
This update already includes some optimizations to improve things, but the next update will be one focused mostly on technical aspects to optimize the game by migrating more components to the c# dll.
It will also focus on a long list of pending "quality of life" features to reduce the time consumption of managing your State.



For the occasion of this new update, Server 5 is being restarted with a fresh new game at 18:00 Paris time.

Meanwhile, following community polls for the Server 1, its been decided to keep the Server 1 on the previous version for a few days. The server is being moved to the "previous version" branch meaning that to still play on it you must make sure to change your "beta" version to "previous version" in Steam (right click on the game > properties)



The Casus-belli update
v0.6.x

- reworked effect of treasury reserves on monetary unit values to lower its effect. effect is now factored by state's total GDP.
- minimum distance of 1 tile between towers
- simplified forced distance between buildings (mine shafts, clay pits...) to be more rectangular on low distances (1 or 2) making it simplier to plan
- distance between mining shafts reduced to 1
- destroyed buildings (ex palace) no longer invalidate policies/territories relying on it
- pillaging the treasury or the palace steals 20% of the defender's treasury each
- coins pillaged from government buildings (state power & admin) will affect the player's treasury
- battles: optimized management of building districts for pillages
- battles: improved troops pathfinding between defensive layers
- implemented coins loot in pillage
- random territory events are now only for regional centers
- militias in invalid territory types (countrysides) now auto-disband
- added "steal tributary" casus-belli if trying to subjugate and already subjugated state (with the liedge state).
- added display of full title name in avatars of characters
- lowered max inter-state taxes to 15%
- partisans uprising odds are more likely when there's no occupying forces on the territory or low forces compared to resistance amount
- moved "tributaries" knowledge (subjugation) after "council" instead of "governance" to be available earlier in game
- reduced base wealth of goods besides gold & silver by -25%
- increase Freetrader prices for stores of value (gold & silver) by 30%
- increased gold bar wealth to 2
- disabled speed boost event
- added politics points reward in startup missions to provided initial capital
- server save backups now auto-zip to prevent disk space overuse
- dynamic armistice durations for annexion wars based on quantity of annexed territories & importance
- non linear legitimacy penalty from political debts
- new casus belli "vengeance" if a defeated character illegally breaks its armistice treaty (ex after a subjugation) wich then kills the character if he is defeated again.
- moved techs "cuves" and " barrel" to bronze age
- Politics points cost of fabricating claim is proportional to total population of target territory
- added averaged market sales incomes to state taxable incomes for inter-state taxes (nation & treaties)
- fixed many State income factors missing from inter-state taxable incomes
- Non capital hamlets & village are now disabled under City State policy
- movement cost on enemy territories increased by +200% (except claims)
- added 'internal' succession mode in nation (now default) which controls if character is available as a spawn
- implemented option to "denounce" co-belligerents that failed to honor their engagement in a war (no meaningful participation)
- harmonized stats of 4 alcohols crops: barley, sugarcane, apples, grapes
- increased & improved Free Traders prices decay from Free Traders stocks
- added war automatic resolutions and predetermined victory effects based on casus-belli type
- eliminated co-belligerents give auto rights of passage to all enemies until war ends
- new casus belli: liberate city, if a territory is lost from an annexion war
- formations in enemy territories are auto-repatriated to nearest regional center when hostilities cease.
- added global chat channel
- cleaned up and improved the "send missive" UI
- added signup political cost to "join nation" treaty term
- added minimum political engagement of 25 to treaties.
- added a confirmation event to launch military coup when ready, after completing the leadership mission.
- new sprite for potato fields
- new sprite for carrot fields
- changed apples into pleasure food
- new resource pumpkins as continental/oceanic basic food
- new resuorce turnips as nordic basic food
- potential fix for autowiped servers not changing world seed causing the same map to repeat.
- difficult techs can now require to complete innovation project multiple times before unlocking (ex Iron working)
- blocked overstacking researchers in innovation projects
- moved tavern service from social to entertainment as a placeholder measure.
- reduced work of military innovation projects to make them faster
- rustic house 4 cost +1 saw
- comfortable house 4 cost changed from 2 saws to 1 pickaxe
- comfortable house 3 cost -1 plaster -1 stonebloc -1 saw +1 life quality
- removed saws from paddock 3 building materials
- Philosophy idea easier to trigger
- added automatic chronicles for joining or leaving Nations
- blocked building platforms, walls, towers, or modify terrain heights near territory borders.
- added notification events for cobelligerants dragged into wars
- added automatic chronicles for war declarations & resolutions
- UI: improved world news menu
- added automatic chronicles for first discovery of important techs
- casus belli events can also provide a passive war morale bonus in case of war from other.
- new casus belli: breaking treaty 'war' clause creates a "broken treaty" casus belli for the other party instead of immediate war
- co-belligerants in a war do not trigger breaking clauses of treaties when force-entering a war (ex subordinates of the attacker)
- allow 100AP army to attack/invade adjecent tile even if total AP cost is above 100.
- changed treaties minimum duration in solo and persistant presets (increased)
- territories can only be transferred by treaty if other party has made a claim of it, or if transferring an occupation within a common war
- added "call-to-arms" request when declaring war for non-mandatory co-belligerents where they can choose to join the war or not
- cleanup UI code of event display
- distance from defender affects negatively initial war morale, based also on war type.
- added "fabricate claim" diplomatic action to gain an anexion casus belli
- new menu for war declaration to preview allies and war effects
- new war events & UI for ongoing wars to monitor belligerents, objectives, casus belli and progress.
- implementd possible timeouts for events (territory claims, choice events)
- choice events will default to 1st option if no choice is made before they timeout
- splitted armor weapon stat into 2: melee armor & ballistic armor
- heavy shield -0.5 melee armor, +1.5 ballistic armor
- wood, bronze, steel shield +1 ballistic armor
- longsword +1.5 damage +0.7 offensive skill
- battle axe reach -0.4, attack skill -1, defense skill +0.5, attack speed -5%
- characters lose 75% of their victory points when joining a different nation
- characters lose war morale when losing troops in battles, based on a ratio of troops-power lost / total military power
- partisans will now spawn as units of loyal character if that character is still at war with the region owner (instead of generic rebels)
- changed worker type of charcoal clamps and sawmills to woodcutters
- simplified design of events UI
- performances: migrated 'bytemap' datastructure to c# ymir dll
- performances: migrated pathfinding to c# ymir dll
- battles: removed cover bonus for non-defenders.
- added "rivalry" diplomatic action to designate another State as rival
- added "politics points" replacing honor and generated from positive Legitimacy.
- Nation leaders of top5 have automatic rivalry with nation leader of the rank above.
- trade offers of occupied territories are now disabled
- Increased resolution of flag icons x2
- fixed State ownership incorrectly changing in automated trades, making auto trade less viable and causing economic losses.
- fixed issues with meat production amounts and production skill points
- fixed bug of houses being destroyed during battles not showing up until reload
- fixed bug allowing to move ore shafts on invalid ore types
- fixed bug preventing countrysides/claims on some coastal territories
- fixed bug with administration penalty per nb of extra regions counting the capital
- fixed military actions on a tile with high AP cost leading to encampment on the territory instead of starting the action
- fixed bug of troops targeting same building in district when pillaging
- fixed bug blocking the upgrading of community hall because of Expansion Points
- fixed bug blocking disbanding entire formations directly
- fixed bug with goods price in production chains / state buying prices
- fixed glitch with brute huts in battles spawning 1 unit troops.
- fixed bug with starting mission events disapearing if losing capital or migrating
- fixed bug in state buying resources not accounting for levies rate
- fixed problem with occupation freeing after subjugation
- fixed UI bug of recruiting troops costs not considering state ownership
- fixed bug of settling on abandoned city giving empty previously attached countrysides
- fixed stored wealth not counting for population class wealth from privileges
- fixed bug allowing to change the territorial status of occupied territories
- fixed bug in events spawning ennemies where they appeared with defensive roles and retreated from battle
- fixed data refreshing issues on regional transfer routes modifications
- fixed bug with battle report cached data ending up partially corrupted if going back to world map while viewing an ongoing battle
- fixed formation events of deserting formations not deleting when obsolete
- fixed bug with population number when removing researchers from a project
- fixed bug of being able to complete the same mission multiple times
- fixed bug causing a server to be missing from the server list
- fixed bug of formation related events not disappearing (ex militia decay)
- fixed UI issue of Events menu constantly refreshing causing flickering.
- fixed bug allowing to access trading UI of occupied territories
- fixed bug of occupation actions failing on undefended territories because of combined cost of movement + occupation.
- fixed missing battle report events
- fixed glitches with event flags UI
- fixed bug causing state buying expenses in gift economy

Previous Patches:
- added military innovation to academia as a temporary gap-filler until it specific gameplay is implemented.
- rebalanced calculation of Free Traders buy price to better reflect average production costs.
- moved construction innovation to "construction" tech instead of "architecture"
- fixed error of expansion points check when trying to upgrade town halls.
- fixed bug of fish herds not loosing inventory from fishing actions
- fixed bug with scavenging cool-off not working
- lowered amount of fish resources per fish unit from 5 to 3
- national armies can no longer perform civilian actions (scavenge, woodcut, prospect, hunt... )
- fixed bug allowing to disband settlers in occupied territories
- rebalanced "plaster" idea trigger
- fixed culture conversion problem when releasing occupied territories
- reduced weight of knowledges in score calculation by 50%
- fixed bug with loyalty corruption in territories with 0 actives
- fixed UI issue needing a scroll to the government's active policies tabs.
- fixed bug of invalid high resistance growth from occupied inactive or NPC characters
- fixed occupied territories upkeep still affecting treasury
- tile movement costs: removed "is settled" effect for enemy territories
- fixed networking issue affecting some players, especially in solo mode.
- problem with external IP not working for server listing
- State-buying does not deduct costs based on levy % for agricultural goods

[h3]City-State policy[/h3]

This update rebalances the gameplay for "mono-city" players as opposed to the default wide gameplay of "multi-cities players.
Until now, players who couldn't or would not grow beyond a single capital region in the copper age would suffer only disadvantages against players growing wide as much as they can and who accumulate more production, population, and military power.
The Democracy policy that was introduced in previous updates existed, but came way too late to make any meaningful difference.

To make the choice or remaining a single-city more viable to compete against the wide players, a new "City State" policy is introduced with the Council knowledge.
It gives notably a +50% in culture and +20% in buildings efficiency, as well as reductions of waste and conflict, and the ability for the capital region to claim 2 more countryside territories.
This earlier policy now compounds with the later Democracy which requires it, giving a potential maximum of +100% culture bonus yielding much more Civilization Points, which is something wide players can't compete with no matter how powerful.
The other perks are here just to reduce the gap between the two playstyles.
Some penalties to multi-city gameplay have also been added on the other side: more waste and more penalty for very high taxes.

[h3]Occupations[/h3]

This update also starts to fixes numerous issues with occupations since the introduction of regional territories.
The integrity of territorial statuses is now better preserve, so that occupying a region center no longer makes the countrysides attached to it lose their status. Freeing an occupation also reverts to the previous status of the territories.
Besides that, resistance rules have been modified: an occupied territory now needs to be pacified before its status can be changed and resistance only decreases if troops are present. Otherwise, it keeps growing expodentially.
Lastly, occupied territories are now in a 'frozen' state to prevent exploits and sabotage from occupants: they have no budget and no growth.
The occupant no longer has any access to territories beyond simply visibility. They can't edit, build, demolish or access resources.

[h3]Managing the update[/h3]

Main nerfs:
* +10% waste from for the elites and +10 from regional administrations
* taxes higher loyalty penaly, especially for high rates. about -20 loyalty difference at max tax rate.
* bugfix in building incomes from state backed productions causes decrease in tax income for those buildings.

Main buffs:
* doubled leader contribution effect
* privileges more efficient as stored wealth now counts
* brutes hut available again after code of laws
* gold and silver mines now generate lots of income through free traders.
* City State policy for single city players

Players most affected negatively by this update are multi-city players in post bronze age.
Potential things to change to re-stabilize:
* re enable privileges with at least 10% leader. This will now reduce 20% of costs which can easily yield a few 100s of additional income.
* add a few percent for officials as well: you will need richer officials to counter the waste.
* reduce taxes if above 60% , re enable agricultural levies, relocate farms away from cities to lower farmer penalty
* cut back on excessive state backed productions
* re open brute huts or new guard towers.


After this update, i'm off for the holidays: so have a nice Christmas and New Year!


The City-State update
v0.5.2.x
- "democracy" -2 expansion points, military support capacity +50%, state power +20, +2 capital countrysides
- added new "city state" policy: +50% culture, -20% waste, -20% conflict, +20% efficiency, +2 capital countrysides, -3 expansion points
- "Aristocracy" reduced upkeep to 20 coins, reduced added Oligarchs to +5, increased Oligarchs support to +15
- "for the elites" influence lowered to 0.8 and added 10% waste
- "regional administrations" policy +10% waste and revokes "city state"
- removed "code of laws" disabling brute huts
- fixed bug of gaia claims becoming outposts when cutout from regional centers
- fixed evacuation failing because of loyalty or resistance
- treaties reset engagement period when renegociated
- fixed bug where building revenues considered state purchases made at retail price instead of gross price, causing inflated incomes
- growth frozen in occupied territories
- budget frozen in occupied territories (no costs, no incomes)
- russian translation update
- resistance now decreases in occupied territories based on strenght of occupying formations in the territory
- resistance now grows in occupied territories based on already existing resistance
- fixed regional transfers interrupting when region is occupied
- removed honor penalty when partisans of resistant territory win
- fixed countryside of occupied regions reverting as outposts
- fixed claims of occupied regions auto-unclaiming
- coinage tech now requires treasury
- "store of value" property makes free traders buy & resell at 150% production price and available to all
- added "store of value" to gold and silver
- rebalanced free trader buy/sell prices to better reflect world price averages
- blocked settling of new territories if insufficient Expansion points
- disabled haste for innovation projects
- doubled innovation projects research time
- reduced research points production from population
- Rebalanced taxe rate loyalty penalties to be more parabollic (higher malus on high rates)
- Privileges are applied to total region wealth instead of only produced wealth again.
- doubled effect of leader contribution (10% privileges now reduce costs by 20%) and reduced max privileges rate to 25%
- Changed back culture XP production to consider only State culture production.
- Nepotism culture penalty increased to -20%
- added UI locators to locate production buildings when trying to build over max territory limitation
- Renaming status "regional territories" as "countryside"
- Increased maintenance costs of Libraries to 15 and 25 for each tier.
- increased merchants distribution capacities to 8, 15, and 20 for each respective evolution.
- removed prodskill requirements for schools and academias
- removed prodskill requirements for all stone types (ex Limestone, Marble, Sandstone...)
- Moved back tier 2 Forum earlier (bronze age)
- Fixed merge failure of free traders offers visibility
- Fixed pressing "Esc" crashing the game.
- rustic house 3 uses shovels instead of saws, and planks instead of wood