Feudums News

[p][/p][p]As the TurnBasedThursdayFestival soon wraps up, we're going out in style — with blood, steel, and high-stakes warfare. The next Pretender Wars round kicks off in the next couple hours, based on the latest demo update![/p][p][/p]

[p]New to the game? This event is recommended for players already familiar with the basics — but there’s always at least another, more relaxed game running for newcomers. Whether you want to explore the systems, meet other Houses, or prepare for future battles, it’s a great place to start.[/p][p]Feeling bold? You’re absolutely welcome to join the Pretender Wars too — if you’re up for the high stakes![/p]

[p][/p][h3]How to join?[/h3][p]Just look for the game called Pretender Wars to join the fray (remember, you can set an alert for upcoming games on our 💬 discord!).[/p][p][/p][h3]Know Thy Enemy![/h3][p]House Elliott still holds the throne after last round’s contenders let victory slip through their fingers.[/p][p]Remember the Coat of Arms of the current Pretender. Burn it into memory — so you’ll recognize it the moment it appears on the battlefield. No excuses. No surprises.[/p][p][/p][p]Remember, going solo in the Middle Ages was... unwise. Players can form alliances of two or three and win together. Competing parties may cooperate to take down the Pretender or other competing parties — but only one of those alliances can claim victory in the end. Use diplomacy, trade, and military might to rise above the rest![/p][p]Don't forget, you can now create outposts using the Pacify Company Stance:[/p][p][/p][p]Will this round see new champions rise, or will House Elliott hold on to its claim?[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Rewards[/h3][p]A heraldry package 🛡️ and the "Pretender House" achievement, that will appear on your player profile. The active pretender(s) also receive a special, highlighted 🜲 Pretender role on our discord server. [/p][p][/p][h3]Guides & Community[/h3][p]You can still find a few starting tips for the ranked games in a bite-size guide here on Steam: [/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink]We also have a dedicated chat for Pretender Games on our 💬 discord! [/p][p][/p][p]To arms, and enjoy Feudums![/p][p]
[/p][p][/p]

[p]Join the Noble Houses! ➻ ✉️ Newsletter | 💬 Community Discord | 💗Patreon[/p]

If you'd like more consistent, bite-size updates, or don't want to miss the updates on the single-player version, consider joining our Discord, where I’m more active. Alternatively, we have a newsletter for milestone community polls and major game updates.

[h3]Ladies and Lords of the Realm,[/h3]

We've updated both our servers and the game client today — everything should be back online and running smoothly! The updated client will roll out on Steam shortly.

This patch brings a mix of community-requested features — including a few real game-changers — plus quality-of-life and UX improvements, and a healthy batch of bug fixes to help streamline the multiplayer experience. Some of these changes continue to lay the groundwork for the long-awaited siege mechanics, so we’re steadily inching toward that major milestone. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy exploring what’s new!

[h3]A Glimpse into the Future[/h3]
While we keep rolling out regular updates, sieges and vassalage basics are both getting closer, and development on the long-awaited single-player mode is progressing well — things are looking promising!

That said, the project is still entirely self-funded, which continues to be a challenge and may affect our timeline as the year unfolds. So far, 2025 doesn’t look any less unpredictable or complicated than the past few — but I'll keep marching on.

[h3]Pretender Wars Returns![/h3]
A new, ranked multiplayer clash begins next week — let’s see if someone can finally dethrone the pretender! If you’re around, sharpen your lance and join the fray — glory awaits.



You'll find a summary of the key changes below. As always, thank you for being part of this journey, and remember: your feedback drives everything!

If you are able, you can also support me and Feudums (while unlocking awesome perks and exclusive heraldry) on Patreon!

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
[h3]Gameplay & Vibe[/h3]

• Alliance Victory Conditions: Victory conditions for alliances now scale based on the number of members. A full alliance must meet the original victory thresholds, while smaller alliances need to reach proportionally lower goals — with a slight penalty to keep things competitive.
  
• Military Can Claim Territory Now!
  A new tactic modifier has been introduced. Units using a stance that allows claiming can attempt to establish control over unclaimed tiles, even far from their main territory. However, they cannot initiate combat and are more vulnerable to surprise attacks. If disrupted and unable to resume their activity within a timely manner, their claim progress will be lost — so bringing escort troops is highly recommended.
  
• Gossip & World Rumours: Various in-game events can now spark rumors that spread across all courts, based on game session settings. These whispers aren’t always accurate or complete, but attentive lords and ladies may still find them useful.
  
• View Past Reports: you can now review past reports — and rumors — depending on your game’s settings. This applies to all report types, making it much easier to trace events that unfolded while you were away, or to finally shed light on incidents that had remained without a known culprit.
  
• Feudum Statistics: You can now view historical data for key indicators of a given feudum on a chart, covering a timeframe based on your game’s settings. This feature is still a work-in-progress and not yet optimized — but I wanted to give you a glimpse of what’s coming, and not only to feudums, but also for other entities. Feedback is most welcome!
  
• Company Animations & Banners: Company animations have been improved and now loop smoothly. Units also proudly display properly drawn banners, which respond to wind direction. Their banners and some uniforms now reflect the owning player’s Coat of Arms base color (while enemies and allies remain colored according to the Friend-or-Foe scheme).
  
• Default Ruleset Tweaks: Numerous balance changes and rule adjustments have been made to economic, military, and diplomatic settings based on extensive, community-driven testing & feedback — affecting the default ruleset going forward!
  

[h3]Further Quality of Life Changes[/h3]

• Farmland UI: Improved layout and tooltips for farmland-related UI elements.
  
• Tile Info Cards: Tile cards now conveniently show the battlefield modifiers of constructed improvements for both attackers and defenders.
  
• Claiming-related hints and error messages have been revised for clarity and consistency. Minor flow tweaks included.
  
• Commands now show (next to costs) if Administrative Reserves can be used on them.
  
• Several company tooltips have been clarified or updated — including clearer display of Line of Sight (LoS) and Area of Control (AoC) mechanics.
  
• Chat: You can now copy messages from the in-game chat. (Note: scrolling is disabled over copy-paste areas.)
  
• Badge Lists: More usable space for the company, feudum and diplomacy lists.
  

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

• Fixed: Company animations now loop properly.
  
• Fixed: Garrisoned companies were shown as Companies in specific case.
  
• Fixed: Companies’ armor tints now age correctly over time.
  
• Fixed: command dialogs no longer blocks interaction with the top-left side of the command queue.
  
• Fixed: Advisory comments can no longer be clicked through (e.g. during claiming).
  
• Fixed: Reports were not showing correctly (were cut too soon) due to an incorrect setting (regression).
  
• Fixed an issue with Economy Report's sprite lookup
  
• Fixed: The Farmland Settings's top (land distribution) handle was not interactive.
  
• Fixed: Command costs over 99,999 are now displayed properly without breaking text layout.
  
• Fixed: In a specific case, a design-time placeholder text was shown in the Diplomacy dialog.
  
• Fixed: Some tile tweening issues.
  
• Fixed: Tweening error when the Welcome Message was closed abruptly.
  
• Fixed: Various server-side issues.
  

Until the next update... Enjoy Feudums!

Join the Noble Houses! ➻ ✉️ Newsletter | 💬 Community Discord | 💗Patreon

If you'd like more consistent, bite-size updates, or don't want to miss the updates on the single-player version, consider joining our Discord, where I’m more active. Alternatively, we have a newsletter for milestone community polls and major game updates.

[h3]Ladies and Lords of the Realm,[/h3]

Once the current game wraps up (expected on Wednesday), we'll hit pause for a technical break to update both the server and game client. We expect to be back later the same day.

No new games will launch during this downtime — but trust me, it's worth the wait.

This patch packs dozens of bug fixes and rolls out a bunch of community-requested features and some key gameplay tweaks, all pushing us closer to that major milestone - with sieges and all - you voted for.

I'll share the details and the changelog right after the update goes live. Until then — thanks for helping shape this world with us. Your feedback drives everything.

Join the Noble Houses! ➻ ✉️ Newsletter | 💬 Community Discord | 💗Patreon

If you'd like more consistent, bite-size updates, consider joining our Discord, where I’m more active. Alternatively, we have a newsletter for milestone community polls and major game updates.

[h3]Ladies and Lords of the Realm,[/h3]

We've updated our servers and the client today. Everything should be up and running now, and the client update will roll out on Steam shortly. This update, just like the last one, mostly includes Quality of Life, UX improvements, and bug fixes, to make the multiplayer game mode more streamlined to our community. While these may not always be immediately visible, there's often a lot of hard work behind them, and the small changes hopefully all add up, while they often also make integrating future features much easier. I hope you enjoy exploring them!

[h3]A Glimpse into the Future[/h3]
While we continue with these regular updates, behind the scenes, we're working on the much anticipated siege mechanics, minor changes to attrition, and other exciting, related features, such as blockades. We're also actively developing the single-player version — I hope to share something from it later this year, but it depends on how much time I can dedicate to the game versus breadwinning. There my goal is to combine the classic 4X feel with the strong, character-driven grand strategy vibe, centered around your house and legacy. A unique, full experience — that still stays true to its roots.



You'll find a list of the key changes at the end of this message. As always, I'd love to hear your feedback — let me know if the transparency is worthwhile! So join us on Discord and share your thoughts! 😊

If you are able, you can also support me and Feudums (while unlocking awesome perks and exclusive heraldry) on Patreon!

[h2]Changelog[/h2]
[h3]UX & Gameplay[/h3]

• Labour Policy Presets: Save and load your labour policies across feudums — or even different games— as long as the rulebooks are compatible!
  
• Command Queue Highlights: The map now visually highlights command targets, when hovering over the queued commands, for better clarity.
  
• Improved map highlights – Company and garrison area of control now highlights only the surrounding tiles, manors are highlighted when creating a feudum, and unit swaps between two locations are now also explicitly highlighted on the map by direction, among other refinements.
  
• Animations: Refined the underlying animation system for greater flexibility in handling and customization.
  
  • Woodcutters now have higher-quality animations.
    
  • Added company animations.
    
  • Yes, a lot more of these to come!
    
• Command Dialogs Overhaul – Various fixes for improved stability and usability across nearly every command dialog, eg:
  
  • Open command dialogs now update correctly with each new tick.
    
  • Abandon Tile – Now highlights the tile when issuing a new command, not just in view mode.
    
  • Manage Company – Tactics are now sorted by localized name, with "Normal" always listed first.
    
  • Train Unit – The spawn point highlight now dynamically updates if the target garrison is destroyed or rebuilt.
    
  • Create Feudum – Now displays neighboring manors that could block the command.
    
  • Manage Unit Command – Now also supports cherry-picking multi-selection with CTRL+click (SHIFT+click remained for continuous selection between two units). If multiple units were selected and one of the selected units is clicked, the clicked item will be the only one that stays selected (instead of the previous behaviour were all items were deselected)
    
• Diplomacy Dialog – Clauses and Standing Popups have been updated, additional tooltips were added, and several instances have been rephrased for better clarity.
  
• Company Path now draws from the previous command, not from the company's current position, if there is a previous guard or move command.
  
• Better Command Queue naming
• Better tooltips – eg. for unit edges, company edge cases, various soft error cases, diplomatic entries, etc.
  
• Updated Edge of the Map visuals – No more ugly dark borders, the edge now blends into the starry sky! ;)

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

• Fixed a bug where the construction command in the queue displayed the wrong time estimate before it was submitted to the server.
  
• Fixed a bug where animations would not change to a different worker type.
  
• Fixed a regression bug of worker animations not dimming based on tile age.
  
• Fixed a bug of the company display not dimming with tile age.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Steam auto-login setting was not saved.
  
• Fixed a bug where the game server's name was missing from the communication panel in some cases.
  
• Fixed "Train Unit" command: When changing priority, the item selection now properly follows the item, not the slot.
  
• Fixed a bug where the "Train Unit" command highlighted the wrong tile.
  
• Fixed a bug where Encounter Strategies were displayed as unset in View mode of the Manage Company command.
  
• Fixed a bug where previous company paths were not cleared from the map when clicking the second move command in the queue.
  
• Fixed a bug where the construction indicator was shown on the wrong tile and the under-construction display was missing.
  
• Fixed a bug where the command submit button didn't work if the command card was not active.
  
• Fixed a bug where the command submit button's state icons weren't always visible.
  
• Fixed a bug where the client let a defeated player to send in commands (client validation error).
  
• Fixed various edge-cases on command dialogs.
  
• Fixed various spelling mistakes.
  

Until the next update... Enjoy Feudums!

Join the Noble Houses! ➻ ✉️ Newsletter | 💬 Community Discord | 💗Patreon

[h3]Dear Ladies and Lords of the Realm,[/h3]

If you'd like more consistent, bite-size updates, consider joining our Discord, where I’m more active. Alternatively, we have a newsletter for milestone community polls and major game updates.

TLDR; New Pretender Wars round has begun - and "unranked" games are running continuously!

[h2]The Age of Pretenders Continues[/h2]

House Elliott has remained the pretender to the throne, defeating other conspirators and defenders of the crown four times in a row. But the next Pretender Wars round is starting now, giving you another chance to dethrone them and restore order to the realm!

[h3]The prizes of this noble deed are hereby declared![/h3]

The house winning a Pretender War game should receive unique heraldry items and a "Pretender Bloodline" achievement that will appear on their player profile. The reigning Pretender also receives a special highlighted role on our discord server (if they are present there).

Need a head start? Check out the bite-sized Steam guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3353070835

Bannerlords and ladies, to Arms!



[h2]Demo Games[/h2]

We’re also constantly hosting (unranked) demo games to fine-tune rulebook settings, test different scenarios (all game rules are moddable!), and identify UX/QoL improvements based on community feedback. Whether you aim to ultimately dethrone the Pretender or just want to explore the game, it’s a great place to practice and learn the basics!

Join the Noble Houses! ➻ ✉️ Newsletter | 💬 Community Discord | 💗Patreon