Hey everyone!

Let's get straight into it!

Economy Rework 💵

This update massively changes how gold is generated and used in the game!

Say goodbye to the simple "Make money while at peace, lose it while in war"-system.

Nations now have a more detailed panel showcasing how exactly gold is generated, and how it is lost.

💰 Nations' gold now changes in economic "ticks", instead of every frame. This change is based on different positive or negative "Bonuses" they have during that tick.

⭐ Some of these bonuses are fixed, like land and core income, or expenses like regular cities. There are some nation specific constants, like having mostly harsh environment, which gives a small economic penalty.

⚔️ One of the biggest changes is that the main expense when it comes to war is now Combat Efficiency, which previously had no impact on gold generation.

♟️ There is a new default Combat Efficiency Setting called "Dynamic", in which nations prioritize lower and cheaper CE during peacetime, and higher and costly CE during wartime. CE cost varies wildly between nations, bigger ones usually having it be more costly to balance their bigger income.

⌛ Occationally, nations will get temporary buffs & debuffs, like having to pay war reparations, or suffering from harsh winters, which can affect their current standing quite a lot. Can you find all of the different ones? I plan to add more in future updates!

You can also balance nations by giving them a permanent positive or negative bonus!

Check the full patch notes for a full breakdown on the system.

Some notes for scenario makers:

The overall amount of gold in the economy in this system is a lot lower than previously. Having over a 1000 gold is now a lot of money.

This update does still keep your previous custom gold amounts for nations, so check your scenarios, and if your nations have like tens of thousands of gold, maybe consider changing that, if you want to.

Major Battles ⚔️👑

This update introduces Major Battles, which can pierce through the frontline and change the course of a war quickly!

Other Stuff

📈 This economy change is pretty major, and it's impossible to test its balance for every type of scenario and map out there. So test it out, and let me know what you think about it.

Are some bonuses too strong/weak?
Should temporary bonuses last longer?
Do nations run out money too often/never run out?

Let me know and I'll try to address them in the future! Compared to the old system, this new system should be more transparent and easy to follow and give feedback on. 😊

Pretty recently Unity found a security vulnerability in the engine version this game (and pretty much every Unity game) was using. Even though the vulnerability shouldn't affect this game, I decided to update the engine version just in case. I tried to test it thoroughly, to make sure nothing broke and performance didn't become worse. But if you notice something, let me know!

v4.3.0 Full Changelog

Additions

• Added Major Battles, which can turn the tide of war on specific areas of the frontline
  • Added a World AI Setting for Major Battles
• Reworked Income and Expenses
  • Instead of Gold changing every frame, it now changes every 5 seconds on normal speed
  • Added a new Economy Tab in the Nation Panel, which explains their per "tick" gold change. This is also shown in the regular nation view next to gold
  • The Economy Tab displays Fixed incomes/expenses in gold boxes
  • Nations will also spend on Combat Efficiency and Revolt Suppression
  • Nations can gain temporary bonuses during the simulation, which will be shown in bronze boxes with a timer
  • You can give a custom buff/debuff to any nation
  • The general amount of gold in this version of the economy is a lot lower than previously. Having over a 1000 gold is very good. In this update I decided to keep all old custom scenario gold amounts the same, but I might change this based on feedback, if they should all be reset to 100 or something
  • Gold can now go into negatives, you can also set it below 0 yourself
• Added a new Combat Efficiency setting, Dynamic mode
  • Dynamic mode means nations will prioritize high CE during wartime and lower CE during peacetime
  • Progressive mode is the same as Dynamic but can only change by one step each turn
  • Static mode and CE Lock now uses the Dynamic mode to determine the cost, but keeps the actual CE value at whatever it was set to. I might change it to so that the cost actually reflects the locked in value, if players want that
  • Random remains the same, completely randomizing CE every turn
  • If the player manually changes the CE manually outside Static Mode, it will keep that value for 2 economic ticks

Bugfixes & Improvements

• Income Map Mode & Statistics are now based on the last 7 economic ticks instead of only the the current moment, which should make it less constantly flashy
• Reduced passive revolt progress gain on cities during war time by 30%
• Maybe improved game performance
• Removed Maximum Gold mechanic
• Reduced the Unity loss speed from having less than 5 members in a union
• Changed the formula for determining core creation cost. It will now start at 200 gold and slowly increase based on core count
• Updated Unity version
• Fixed Pause icon showing up in scenario editor
• Fixed alliance name sometimes flashing on screen when a new one is created
• Fixed grasslands being counted as desert when evaluating income