Nova Patria Weekly Update

Ave Patricians!

Another week of progress across the Empire. This week’s updates focus on visual expansion, economy balancing, and foundational platform features, alongside continued improvements to UI clarity and performance.

Here’s what the team has been working on:

🎨 Art & Visuals

The world of Nova Patria continues to feel more alive with expanded environmental animation:

• Added additional animated coast tile and beach tile sprites

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⚖ Gameplay & Balance

Several adjustments were made to better tune progression and economic pacing:

• Monastery upkeep / Benefice cost doubled

• Slight reduction to House Tax Revenue

• Total Wealth goal increased from 500,000 → 1,000,000

These changes help better balance long-term progression and make budgeting and spending decisions more challenging and fun.

🏆 Steam Achievements

We’ve implemented the groundwork for Steam Achievements:

• Backend systems for tracking and unlocking achievements now in place

• Initial base set of achievements added, based on Nova Patria's Goals and Perks system.

🧠 UI / UX Improvements

Several updates were made to improve clarity and usability:

Economic Clarity

• Added “per month” values alongside “per day” in:

  • House tax tooltips

  • Tech Tree Benefice tooltips

Save / Load Improvements

• Save files now display:

  • In-game time passed

  • Icons for Population and Time

Interaction & Controls

• Improved “close all” behavior:

  • Cancel inputs now properly retract UI panels that are still animating open

• Updated Time Control tooltip to use consistent iconography

Storage Building UI

• Transport status is now more accurate:

  • Transports that have not yet entered the map have their corresponding zoom-to button inactive

  • Tooltip now reads “preparing trade” instead of “waiting for opportunities” if transport has a trade route selected, but hasn’t dispatched yet

⚙ Performance & Optimization

• Reduced resource range prebake load when loading saves to prevent temporary unresponsiveness during load

• Continued improvements to rendering performance via sprite compression

🖱 Tools & Development Support

• Added a hide UI cheatcode for cleaner screenshots and capture

🛠 Bug Fixes

• Fixed quickstart objectives re-enabling after being turned off

• Fixed traveler visual movement issue at camera edges

• General fixes and polish across UI and simulation systems

Each week brings Nova Patria closer to a fully realized experience - refining systems, expanding the world, and laying the groundwork for features like achievements and long-term progression.

To everyone following development and sharing feedback - thank you. Your continued support helps shape the future of Nova Patria.

If you’re interested in becoming a part of our community, whether as a playtester or enthusiast, and follow development more closely, come hang out with us on Discord:

https://discord.gg/jPsPvhMSYv

More soon!

Ad victoriam, - The Nova Patria Team