Release Notes: Version 0.5.4229 Community Demo Release

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!

Notable Changes

Gameplay & Balance

• More Animations: All Castles now proudly display banners, and updated the visual offset of culture-specific castles on hilly terrain. Also added new (WIP) Labourer animations for Ecclesiastical Fiefs covering both exclusive variants: Monks and Winegrowers

• Updated the Rain effect.

• A new Color Theme setting lets players choose how Company and Castle flags appear in-game. Currently: Friend or Foe (based on diplomatic status) or Mixed (based on CoA/affiliation). A fully heraldic CoA-based system is coming soon.

• Major Economy & Resources rebalance:

  • Food and Timber are now treated as more abundant, lower-value resources. Labourer output (Fishermen, Herdsmen, Farmers, Hunters), Production Line demands, and market expectations have been all adjusted accordingly.

  • Farmland territory increased by 20%, with matching expansion of related labourer slots.

• Population Dynamics:

  • Food rations matter more: with food now more accessible, reducing rations will cause stronger public backlash. Rations also have a greater impact on both Social Wellbeing and Public Health.

  • Morale, Health, and Stability systems rebalanced, with additional pressure levels introduced for finer control.

  • Health bonuses from freshwater access are now more detailed.

    • Morale & migration penalties from hostile presence have been reworked to be less punishing and more progressive

    • Stability changes: Morale and Unemployment modifiers are now more granular, and unemployment is slightly less punitive.

• Strategic Warfare changes:

  • Improvements now play a greater role in combat — their level and type significantly affect battlefields, and can heavily alter the default terrain modifiers

  • Virtue gained from winning battles and clearing raiders has been significantly increased.

  • Unit Edges and stats were rebalanced for more variety.

QoL / UX

• Region Jump (Wasteground): The jump-to button will now cycle through all Wasteground tiles, making navigation much smoother. (Community-requested!)

• Tooltips for Improvements and Terrain now visually display Battlefield Widths along combat modifiers, improving strategic clarity. (Community-requested!)

• Diplomatic Proposal Timeouts: Data type changed to allow for larger thresholds. (Community-requested!)

• Discord Integration has been updated to use the latest Discord API.

• Company Paths: You’ll now only see the last x (moddable setting) ticks of movement paths for Companies you don’t have favorable diplomatic status with.

• Garrisons: no longer receive their defensive bonus if they are fighting on a different tile.

• After-Battle Reporting: All participants now get updated unit compositions and stats, even if they died before the end of the battle.

• Charting has been optimized for smoother, faster performance (UX comes next!).

• Animation System Overhaul: Major backend improvements — better caching, smarter selection, and more automation. This makes it much easier to add new animations going forward.

Bugfixes

• Fixed missing or outdated text in the military tile claim dialog. (Community reported – thanks!)

• Fixed a bug where Garrisons didn’t receive terrain + improvement defense bonuses when attacking. (Community reported – thanks!)

• Fixed an issue where the Battle Card displayed the defender's terrain bonus for the attacker if they were a Garrison. (Community reported - thanks!)

• Fixed Garrison Defense bonus incorrectly showing on the Battle Card when the Garrison was not actually defending. (Community reported - thanks!)

• Fixed a visibility issue where a Company could be seen through. (Community reported - thanks!)

• Fixed a bug where Company animations could get stuck and also show incorrect combat strength. (Community reported - thanks!)

• Fixed an issue where transfer unit command highlights didn’t show targets on mouse hover.

• Removed the misleading “Feudum created” world rumour when a new player joins.

• Fixed a division by zero error in the battle display under rare conditions.

• Fixed a bug where generic labourers were shown in animations even if the terrain had no labourers.

• Fixed and optimized animation lookups, and added robust error handling to prevent animation failures.

• Fixed misleading warnings during Lay Claim when the tile was unclaimable or the player was over the claim limit.

• Fixed various typos in labourer-related localizations.

• Fixed a missing localization string for the highest Morale level, and updated fallback logic for better matching when localization entries and system levels don’t align.

• Fixed Battlefield Width tooltips ignoring the Minimum Width setting.

• Fixed misaligned Ecclesiastical Fiefs when placed on hill tiles.

• Clarified some localization strings related to the Feudums list.

• Fixed an issue where the highlights for transfer unit commands did not show the target on mouse hover.

• (Additional fixes on backend)

Until the next update... Enjoy Feudums!

There's more coming soon, so make sure you click the Follow us on Steam and the newsletter to stay in the loop :) Have fun!