Open Alpha (Demo) Updated!

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Dear Ladies and Lords,

The update is now live and games will be running again in a few minutes.

Steam should also auto-update the game any moment now.

This update introduces one important new feature, alongside a collection of quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes. I know many of you were expecting the siege update — unfortunately, for several reasons, it wasn’t ready to be finalized yet. From here on, though, the next update (aside from patches if needed) should be that one.

Thanks to everyone who contributed feedback and suggestions!

The changelog can be found at the end of this post.

Happy skirmishes!

- Mat

Changelog

Gameplay & Vibe

• Dominion Limit for Professional Squads Based on player feedback, a dynamic limit has been introduced for the number of squads that can be maintained simultaneously. This limit is influenced by the player’s noble rank and constructed improvements (each improvement card now shows how it modifies squad capacity). If a player exceeds the limit:

  • no additional squads can be recruited

  • an economic penalty is applied for each unit above the limit (visible in Dominion Reports)

  Intent: While lances always depended on drafting local families, squads weren't sanctioned (other than with higher costs and slower recruitment) which turned to be a loophole for players chasing certain victory conditions. Now squads are properly tied to the "prestige" of your dominion. Combined with the recent increases in upkeep costs of squad units, maintaining large mercenary armies is now significantly more challenging - and capped.

• New games now start with a 9-feudum limit, feature longer report and chart histories, faster Administrative Reserve accumulation, and extended game duration.

Quality of Life

• Construction, Demolish and Downgrade commands now gets suspended when a battle or enemy company is present on the tile. (A garrison leaving for battle still only blocks start and completion of a command).

• Garrisons engaged in battle no longer block occupation.

• Expanded Badge tooltips, now including unit-related rulebook settings (e.g. recruitment settings for lances & squads), so this information is no longer just available via Rally Troops.

• Improved tooltip clarity across multiple areas, including Rally Troops.

• Chat: private messages now also use server timestamps for self messages, ensuring correct ordering even with out-of-sync client clocks.

• Improved clarity of alliance displays (with multiple members) on the victory screen.

• Confirm buttons for eligible commands now automatically show potential Administrative Reserves usage (but will not automatically use it, the player needs to enable it by toggling the option). Tooltips updated accordingly as some were outdated and thus misleading.

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where an enemy company could disappear after construction ended on their tile.

• Fixed an issue where garrison downgrade could exceed unit slot limits if a company transferred units after the downgrade was started.

• Fixed an issue where “Create Feudum” could transfer oversized companies into new garrisons if they were standing on the tile that became the manor.

• Fixed an issue where player names could contain leading/trailing spaces.

• Fixed an issue where diplomatic proposals showed incorrect values (deltas instead of outcomes).

• Fixed an issue where claim bid's upper limit was ignored.

• Fixed an issue allowing claims into non-adjacent feudums in edge cases.

• Fixed an exploit allowing unit transfers between unconnected, garrisoned wasteground tiles (transfers from such positions are now limited to adjacent tiles