Old World News

Old World January 28th Updated Test Build

[h3]Old World test branch update 1.0.81799 Test 2026-01-28[/h3][p][/p][p]Most known issues from last week's Unity/URP upgrade are now resolved and work continues to fix the remaining problems. We would appreciate everyone's help in checking for any configuration specific issues. Please do give the test branch a try and report any problems you find.[/p][p][/p][p]To switch to the test branch, right click Old World in Steam and select Properties, open the Game Versions & Betas tab and select 'test' in the version list.[/p][p][/p][h3]Known Issues[/h3]

[p]Portrait Age Interpolation is not working and has been disabled regardless of the player setting[/p]
[p]Timeline screen does not always render fog of war correctly[/p]
[p]Volcano display issues[/p]
[p]Improvement recommendation and unit icons can be hidden behind city widgets[/p]

[h3]Design[/h3]

[p]When randomly assigning archetypes, characters with governor effect traits are much more likely to be assigned a governor archetype, and similarly general archetypes for characters with general traits[/p]
[p]Killing Raiders now contributes towards goals to kill units of their original tribe[/p]
[p]Raiders are less stubborn about raiding, if the shortest path is blocked, and will hit opportunity targets instead[/p]
[p]Doubled Master/Elder Scribe money per Citizen, to +2/+4[/p]
[p]Anchoring and Unlimbering states are not interrupted by attacks that apply new cooldowns (i.e. Immobilize, Stun)[/p]
[p]Killed civilian units now count for Assyrian orders, Hero Leader Training, Epics Culture, etc[/p]
[p]Units can pass through hostile civilian units, as long as they don't end their movement on their tile[/p]
[p]Families and Religions get upset when their civilian units get killed and suffer -20 opinion for 40 turns per unit killed[/p]
[p]Programming[/p]
[p]Added Latin supplemental characters U+100 to U+17F to Avalon, Trajan and Judson assets, to assist Polish translation mods[/p]

[h3]UI[/h3]

[p]End Turn button now always eligible to be clicked with 0 orders, will cycle to required items when clicked[/p]
[p]Added Reset option when editing hotkeys[/p]

[h3]Bugs Fixed[/h3]

[p]Fixed map generation sometimes placing trees under water[/p]
[p]Fixed some popup scaling aspect ratio issues[/p]
[p]Fixed incorrect material on cataphract archer combat portrait[/p]
[p]Fixed blur vignette rendering incorrectly in Pharaohs of the Nile scenarios[/p]
[p]Fixed changing graphics preset in game causing a crash[/p]
[p]Fixed Assyria urban tiles displaying incorrectly[/p]
[p]Fixed rivers drawing over and display of city widget idle production icon[/p]
[p]Fixed barbarian widget being partially occluded by unit models[/p]
[p]Fixed exception during loading of incompatible asset bundles[/p]
[p]Fixed Coastal Rain Basin boundary mountain range[/p]
[p]Fixed Hardwood Forest player start position issues[/p]
[p]Fixed missing clutter materials on Honey groves[/p]
[p]Fixed opinion graph hover exception[/p]
[p]Fixed hotkey assignments sometimes incorrectly being labeled as conflicts[/p]
[p]Fixed inaccurate opinion sometimes showing in city governor tooltip for Grand Viziers[/p]
[p]Fixed timeline FOW rendering incorrectly[/p]
[p]Fixed some Chinese text localization issues[/p]
[p]Fixed Drought and Earthquake display issues (Wrath of Gods)[/p]

Old World January 22nd Updated Test Build

[h3]Old World test branch update 1.0.81703 Test 2026-01-22[/h3][p][/p][p]This update contains a major systems upgrade. The engine has been upgraded to Unity 6.3 and the graphics rendering code reworked.[/p][p]Bugs are expected, please refer to the Known Issues list below and report any other issues you encounter via the in game bug report system.[/p][p][/p][h3]Known Issues[/h3][p][/p]

[p]Portrait Age Interpolation is not working and has been disabled regardless of the player setting[/p]
[p]Changing graphics settings whilst in game can cause a Unity crash to desktop[/p]
[p]Egypt scenarios do not render correctly[/p]
[p]Assyrian Urban tiles can cause errors on display and do not render correctly[/p]
[p]Timeline screen does not always render fog of war correctly[/p]
[p]Cataphract Archer texture is missing in combat previews[/p]
[p]Volcano display issues[/p]
[p]Improvement recommendation icons can be hidden behind city widgets[/p][p][/p]

[h3]Design[/h3][p][/p]

[p]Adjustments to Family Archetype character tendencies:[/p]
[p]Champions have more Zealots and less Heroes[/p]
[p]Riders have more Heroes and less Zealots[/p]
[p]Improvements to Carthage campaign persistency[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Programming[/h3][h3][/h3]

[p]Unity updated from 2022.3 to 6.3[/p]
[p]Graphics code converted to Unity's Universal Rendering Pipeline[/p]
[p]The URP upgrade improves graphics performance, letting the game render with fewer draw calls and use fewer shader variants[/p]

[p][/p][h3]UI[/h3][p][/p]

[p]Restart Game button renamed Reroll Game. This keeps the same map and preserves nation/dynasty of random AI opponents but now rerolls the random seed[/p]
[p]New Map button renamed to Reroll Map. This button is not shown for games on predefined maps[/p]
[p]Valid Improvements, Rural, and Urban worker filters show improvements valid anywhere in the city rather than just for current tile[/p]
[p]Character XP is now shown when they have upgraded at least once but progress to next level is 0[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Bugs Fixed[/h3][p][/p]

[p]Fixed character peak legitimacy including previous leader's ending legitimacy. "Legitimacy" in the HoF tooltip now "Final Legitimacy"[/p]
[p]Fixed Bulwark Cuirass UI issue[/p]
[p]Fixed Unyielding Banner reassigning general to non-player units[/p]
[p]Fixed scores not updating after effectPlayers change[/p]
[p]Fixed event decisions not getting restored after clearing selection[/p]
[p]Fixed tutorial videos not showing in the encyclopedia on Linux[/p]
[p]Fixed Wrath of Gods scenario warnings[/p]

Old World January 14th Updated Test Build

[h3]Old World test branch update 1.0.81509 Test 2026-01-14[/h3][p][/p][h3]Design[/h3][p][/p]

[p]Added new national ambition - Control three of each Legendary Improvement[/p]
[p]Changed Control Six Legendary Cities national ambition to Control Five Legendary Cities[/p]
[p]Send 20 luxuries is now a tier 9 ambition instead of a national ambition[/p]
[p]Disciples can now clear vegetation[/p]
[p]Cannot build an improvement that removes vegetation if the unit cannot clear the vegetation[/p]
[p]Traders no longer get a court merchant when founding their seat [/p]
[p]Prevented building improvements on Marsh, except for Farms with Centralization[/p]
[p]All fresh water sources supply fresh water to their own tile in addition to adjacent tiles[/p]
[p]Remove Free Silk and Free Ebony bonus tech cards[/p]
[p]Moved Free Porcelain bonus card to be unlocked by Coinage and reduced tech cost accordingly[/p]
[p]Free Porcelain and Free Perfume bonus cards now give 2 instances of their luxuries[/p]
[p]Autonomous Rule project is removed when a city is breached[/p]
[p]Characters cannot give birth more than once a year (relevant for non-yearly turn scales)[/p]
[p]Free laws that replace an existing law do not increment the law change count[/p]
[p]Raiders can capture empty cities and city sites[/p]
[p]Carthage scenario 2 now automatically uses the families that were founded in the first scenario and carries over goal memories[/p]
[p]Increased maximum effect of god opinion on religion opinion in Wrath of Gods scenario (200 -> 500)[/p]
[p]Reduced Tribal raid range in Wrath of Gods scenario[/p]
[p]Disabled Venerate mission for and demands being given by Abandoned god in Wrath of Gods scenario [/p][p][/p]

[h3]Programming
[/h3]

[p]Many UI optimizations[/p]
[p]Memory leak fixes[/p]
[p]Improvements to Safe Mode[/p]
[p]AI border expansion tweaks[/p]
[p]AI law value correction to avoid frequent changes[/p][p][/p]

[h3]UI[/h3][p][/p]

[p]Added Peak Legitimacy and Peak Legitimacy per Leader to Hall of Fame (requires regenerating HOF for existing games, won't display on very old saves)[/p]
[p]Added on-map icon to units that have been disarmed[/p]
[p]Added hotkey for extending turn time (Alt-E)[/p]
[p]Updated ZOC help text[/p]
[p]Enabled gold cost to buy yields for recommended improvements tooltip[/p]
[p]Added color-coding for Send/Return text in Luxury Management[/p]
[p]Improved consistency of city build production cost tooltips[/p]
[p]Trait opinion of leader now shown in trait tooltip even without advanced help text[/p]
[p]Pagan religions are shown in the Adopt State Religion menu even without Divine Rule, with explanatory text[/p]
[p]Yields from disciples on improvements are shown when disciples are selected[/p]
[p]Anchor mission help text includes water control range[/p]
[p]Condensed enlist ability help text[/p]
[p]Greyed out effect for dead character portraits applied more consistently[/p]
[p]Improved Settler Found City tooltip[/p]
[p]Cities with zero yield are included in the nation yield breakdown[/p]
[p]When a non-server network game has disconnected human players and the turn timer is counting down, a warning is displayed next to the turn time [/p]
[p]Improvements to Citrus resource and Grove models[/p]
[p]Improvements to Ruins model
[/p]

[h3]Bugs Fixed[/h3][p][/p]

[p]Fixed Valid Improvements worker filter [/p]
[p]Fixed stun, immobilize, and panic effects sometimes being applied to units inside cities[/p]
[p]Fixed events that kill units not incrementing stats and goal counters[/p]
[p]Fixed temporarily hidden unit pathfinding[/p]
[p]Fixed some AI unit movement cases where it would trip over itself when there were units in the way[/p]
[p]Fixed some minor AI combat issues[/p]
[p]Fixed audio bug that occurred when only one music track was enabled[/p]
[p]Fixed some unit panel icon issues[/p]
[p]Fixed some tribal events incorrectly remaining after tribal elimination[/p]
[p]Fixed Caravan mission button saying that there are no players when out of orders[/p]
[p]Fixed some cases where city effects were not displayed[/p]
[p]Fixed boundary tiles in Caucasus on the Old World map[/p]
[p]Fixed character opinion load/save bugs[/p]
[p]Fixed family seat icon data bug[/p]
[p]Fixed State Religion reminder not opening submenu[/p]
[p]Fixed build specialist tile highlights not showing with border expansion[/p]
[p]Fixed Foreign Marriage mission in No Events mode[/p]
[p]Fixed temporarily hidden units sometimes still being rendered for other players[/p]
[p]Fixed village upgrade turns and improvement help text with Lighthouse[/p]
[p]Fixed Occurrence effects not being removed when ended by an event/bonus (Wrath of Gods)[/p]
[p]Fixed Veneration jealousy penalty being applied to both religion and god in Wrath of Gods scenario [/p]
[p]Fixed tech helptext not listing non religion-based project unlocks in Wrath of Gods scenario[/p]
[p]Fixed Carthage scenario 3 load/save bug[/p]
[p]Fixed ModManager panel trying to update when not active[/p]
[p]Text and event fixes[/p]

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Old World January Update: Added Point Symmetry maps and new Ballista icon

[h3]Main Branch 1.0.81366 release 2026-01-07[/h3][p][/p][h3]Headline changes[/h3]

[p]New Point Symmetry mirror option for MP games[/p]
[p]Healing Shrines now give Healer effect to all units[/p]
[p]New Ballista unit icon added[/p]

[h3]Design[/h3]

[p]Added Point Symmetry option to MP setup when Mirror Map option is selected. This enables radial mirroring around the map's midpoint, producing a layout symmetric in all directions from the center. Players will start in opposite corners of the map[/p]
[p]Healing Shrines now give Healer effect to all units including non-promotable ones[/p]
[p]Heliopolis gives 0.5 orders per shrine instead of 1[/p]
[p]Mourning trait no longer has a chance to make characters ill [/p]
[p]If the player doesn't have enough yields to sell to cover debts, then a queued build with no progress is cleared to get enough yields to sell, if possible[/p]
[p]Added event for when AI forfeits a city site due to player having attacked the camp more[/p]
[p]Many event tweaks including a buff for the Shrine of the Unknown God[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Programming[/h3]

[p]AI avoids building Wonders in border cities, and especially in cities that are in danger of being captured [/p]
[p]AI uses disciples to build religious improvements before further spreading the religion, if possible[/p]
[p]Pathfinder prefers to keep units hidden, have them occupy good defensive terrain, and avoid marsh, all else being equal[/p]
[p]Added support for local storage for persistent scenario data[/p]

[h3]UI[/h3]

[p]New Ballista unit icon added[/p]
[p]All Improvements filter shows all non-wonder improvements that can ever be built[/p]
[p]Removed crit chance from attack preview window when not applicable (i.e. attacking cities)[/p]
[p]Clicking cities listed for a selected luxury pans to city center[/p]
[p]Dead character portraits faded in Characters tab[/p]
[p]Trashed bonus cards faded in tech tree[/p]
[p]Non-improvement yield lost when building an improvement on a resource now shown on tooltip (with Advanced Help Text active)[/p]
[p]Leader General control immunity bonus no longer shown in archetype helptext, merged with extra movement unit effect[/p]
[p]Leading and trailing whitespace characters are now removed from manually entered player online IDs [/p]
[p]Help text for multiple traits from a bonus now properly takes fallbacks into account [/p]
[p]Renamed terrain target of Volcanoes or Mountains (Jerwan requirement) from "Mountains" to "Peaks" [/p]
[p]Actions panel now hidden when it would otherwise be empty[/p]
[p]DLC name shown in parentheses in dropdowns for map scripts[/p]
[p]Included map scripts shown on DLC Mechanics page in Encyclopedia[/p]
[p]Hid some redundant-looking missions in Encyclopedia[/p]
[p]Mod Browser UI is refreshed once workshop mod list is retrieved [/p]
[p]Traits that give yields now always show totals with Advanced Help Text enabled[/p]
[p]Orders history graph no longer subtracts unit consumption [/p]
[p]Schemer's Adopt mission now shows a reminder when available[/p]
[p]Yield totals in the stats screen graphs now include all sources, not just income[/p]
[p]Alt-1 to Alt-9 switch players when observing a network game[/p]
[p]Improved eligible unit trait help text [/p]
[p]Made tech unlocks helptext more specific and consistent [/p]
[p]Removed outdated references to save importing in Carthage scenario descriptions[/p]

[h3]Bugs Fixed[/h3]

[p]Fixed events not firing for killed units[/p]
[p]Fixed combat notification log categories[/p]
[p]Fixed children gaining archetypes randomly[/p]
[p]Fixed improvements from bonuses not being auto-placed on their intended tiles[/p]
[p]Fixed religion founding city randomisation[/p]
[p]Fixed Hamlet development turns tooltip being wrong before the hamlet has been completed and the Lighthouse is active[/p]
[p]Fixed Mirror Map being selected on map scripts that do not support that option[/p]
[p]Fixed entering observer mode and following a different nation after surrendering from a network game[/p]
[p]Fixed client Hall of Fame not being updated after completing a network game [/p]
[p]Fixed governor availability text not updating consistently[/p]
[p]Fixed options menu tooltips getting hidden behind dropdowns [/p]
[p]Fixed map generation bug that could result in a river delta on land[/p]
[p]Fixed trade network save/load bug[/p]
[p]Fixed a threading issue[/p]
[p]Fixed improvements with city effects that modify a city's overall yield not showing up on calculations before building improvement (i.e Patrons culture bonus)[/p]
[p]Fixed character tooltip position[/p]
[p]Fixed some random seed quirks causing courtiers appearing on the same turn to be identical[/p]
[p]Fixed luxury availability not updating immediately on canceling a trade deal [/p]
[p]Fixed AI making urban over resources[/p]
[p]Fixed invalid trait warning text color being reversed[/p]
[p]Fixed tile tooltip null reference [/p]
[p]Fixed resources getting added outside of map boundary[/p]
[p]Fixed being able to target non-visible tiles [/p]
[p]Fixed Tough promotion being double-counted on defense [/p]
[p]Fixed tribe units sometimes not healing[/p]
[p]Fixed AI sometimes taking over player units that are not automated, if there was at least one actually automated unit [/p]
[p]Fixed automated workers unstacking[/p]
[p]Fixed Barbarians not moving in players territory when they end up there whilst not allowed to enter [/p]
[p]Fixed Theology help not showing potential effects that do not currently apply[/p]
[p]Fixed MP scenarios overwriting the game name [/p]
[p]Fixed religion opinion graph disappearing after player defeat [/p]
[p]Fixed difficulty defaulting to Custom and preset difficulty showing as Custom in the Barbarian Horde scenario[/p]
[p]Fixed Duel and Tiny map sizes and Tumbling Mountain map script being available in the Barbarian Horde scenario[/p]
[p]Fixed some combat events potentially displaying incorrectly in Heroes of the Aegean scenario 5[/p]
[p]Fixed Wrath icon in Wrath of Gods scenario sometimes not displaying colour [/p]
[p]Fixed mods subbed from Steam client not copying from workshop cache to Old World mods folder [/p]
[p]Fixed mod sub checker not being able to check again if modio authentication is slow[/p]
[p]Fixed mod sub checker sometimes not closing[/p]
[p]Text and event fixes[/p]