Patch 1.256

Hi all, this an update that's a got a bit more background work going on that should help for the next patch which will include the new UI, and ability to play as other characters. The main event here is migrating the game to UE5.7 from 4.27, which has allowed some noticeable visual improvements as shown below - you can see a much better-looking ocean and better lighting on the forests, and the image itself looks sharper and doesn't have the blurry effect the game had on UE4. It also includes a bunch of bugfixes and balance changes.

Steam post imageSteam post image

New Features

Economy Automation

There is a new auto-buy option that fills stockpile shortages before army supplies are handed out. That should stop armies taking attrition just because the faction was briefly missing a resource at the wrong moment.

Auto-sell thresholds and auto-buy settings are saved properly, and trade value now refreshes with monthly income so the ledger stays in sync.

Cities, Coastlines & Map Visuals

Cities should look better and sit more naturally on the map. They now support parks with tree placement, settlement placement snaps more cleanly to the landscape, and city layouts are smaller but denser, so they take up less space while still looking busy.

Walls and palisades have also been cleaned up, including fixes for visible wall gaps and bad scaling. An inner sanctum has been added for larger cities.

The coast gets shoreline waves, kelp, and better ocean materials. Missing Kyrnos assets have been fixed, city walls have been darkened, and army/navy command radius visuals should be clearer.

Custom Military Names

Custom army and navy names are now saved and restored properly. If you rename a formation, it should still be there when you load the campaign again.

Performance & Stability

This update should make the game much less CPU-bound, especially in bigger campaigns.

A lot of repeated work has been cut out of the UI, map modes, settlement glances, income updates, pop unrest, convoys, fog of war, characters, and power blocs. The building browser also spreads out its setup work instead of trying to create everything in one hit, so opening it should feel less harsh.

The result should be fewer frame spikes when moving around the map, less stutter when opening heavy screens, and better performance once the world is full of settlements, characters, armies, navies, and convoys.

Navigation & AI

Sea navigation is now stricter about what is actually water. Sea paths are checked against the map, and the game can build a safer route when a path would otherwise cut across land.

Armies and navies also check whether merge and blockade orders can actually be reached before accepting them. That should mean fewer units getting stuck trying to carry out an impossible order.

UI & Quality of Life

• Income breakdowns now separate replenishment and construction costs instead of blending them together

• Policy changes refresh income and expense numbers immediately

• Commander auto-assignment costs are now charged correctly and split cleanly in expense displays

• Auto-assignment can now create new army commanders when needed

• The family tree mouse wheel zoom is much faster

• Fullscreen resolution switching has been fixed

Balance & Gameplay Changes

• All buildings have been rebalanced so that upgrading never means losing ability

• Succession now enforces male-only dynastic heirs consistently across heir designation, sidebar selection, effective heir checks, and ruler death

• Player succession now looks for real same-dynasty candidates instead of falling back to unrelated courtiers or generated characters

• Designating an heir is now the reliable way to avoid a succession crisis

• Game-over checks use dynasty IDs instead of surnames

• Auto-buy can protect army supply from temporary stockpile gaps

• Pop unrest calculations have been sped up

Bug Fixes

Military & AI

• Fixed being unable to update templates after reloading a save

• Fixed merge and blockade orders being issued when the target could not be reached

• Fixed AI paths cutting across invalid land routes

• Fixed navy distance-based visibility and mesh animation overhead

• Fixed supply loading ignoring military resource capacity

• Fixed formation template panels using a stale player faction reference

• Fixed auto-assigned commanders not always charging appointment costs correctly

• Fixed peacetime AI garrisons being reassigned too aggressively

• Fixed AI war planning waiting too long after settlement captures

• Fixed battle hint timing issues pausing the game

Economy & Settlements

• Fixed packaged tributary income

• Fixed building modifiers and several tax breakdown issues

• Fixed income modifier clamps and displayed income totals

• Fixed resource processing tooltips looking up the wrong resources

• Fixed policy application not forcing income and expense recalculation immediately

• Fixed construction blocking lookups missing the right building in some cases

• Fixed religion share refreshes leaving stale clergy eligible lands

• Fixed city mesh pool updates so they are faster

• Fixed city generation running too early during load

• Fixed generated settlement walls leaving visible gaps

• Fixed settlement inner sanctum layout issues

Characters, Succession & Game Over

• Fixed generated characters losing enforced identity data

• Fixed succession after failed executions

• Fixed designated heirs not being tracked correctly before ruler death

• Fixed succession crisis classification after a designated heir takes over

• Fixed dynasty extinction checks using surnames instead of dynasty IDs

• Fixed the game over screen not dismissing when loading a game

• Blocked autosaves, manual saves, and loads after game over or while the player ruler is already dead

• Fixed Rephsian and Histria character dynasty data

• Fixed court subordinates failing to populate when the office holder was not set to auto-assign

UI

• Fixed first-open screen hitches

• Fixed hidden settlement glance layers still doing unnecessary work

• Fixed settlement sidebars refreshing inactive tabs

• Fixed building browser z-ordering, desaturation, and animation edge cases

• Fixed family tree zoom being far too slow

• Fixed gold change broadcasts firing when the value had not actually changed, which was slowing the game down

• Fixed income breakdown rows for construction and replenishment