Old World April Update: Unit and tech tree rebalancing

Main Branch 1.0.83036 Release 2026-04-08

Headline changes

• Unit and tech tree rebalances

• AI will no longer found religions very early, before it is possible for players to do so

• Network code improvements

• Added player option Manual Bonus Placement

Design

• Crossbow strength reduced to 6 from 8

• Polybolos strength reduced to 8 from 10

• Windlass now requires Coinage instead of Manor

• Windmills require Windlass instead of Hydraulics. Watermills are still available at Hydraulics

• Free Court Soldier moved from Infantry Square to Stirrups

• Free Court Merchant moved from Chain Drive to Cartography

• Free Court Merchant moved from Fiscal Policy to Manor

• Free Longbowmen moved from Manor to Battle Line

• Free Horse Archer moved from Land Consolidation to Composite Bow

• AI no longer gets shrines and pastures for free as part of their initial development handicap, to prevent very early religion founding

• Judaism no longer requires Labor Force

• Lowered civics cost of Fisher, Trapper, Rancher, and Gardner specialists to match other rural specialists

• Schemer order buying now costs an extra Legitimacy point every time it's used. Cost increase resets for each leader

• Kartir event triggers less often

• Game of the Week no longer varies city site numbers

• Slight rebalance to Gatherer cognomen line (Empires of the Indus)

Programming

• Network code improvements

• AI no longer skips laws and basic improvements in order to save for future Wonders

• AI pushes culture harder in its highest culture cities

• Non-raider tribe AI tweaked to keep them more focused on nearby targets

• Pathfinder tweak to prefer single tile paths whenever possible

• Border renderer and shader optimizations

UI

• Added player option Manual Bonus Placement. This skips the popup prompt when placing a bonus improvement from an event or city founding bonus

• Tribe sites now display both Next Unit turns and Development turns

• Road map pins now appear with the Contextual Map Tacks option enabled when Engineer units are selected

• Added tooltips to ping improvement dropdown

• Renamed 'Exploring' trait to 'Traveling Afar'

• Adjustments to reduce blur on text displayed on world UI

• Reintroduced very simple lighting to the minimum detail level for standard shaders

• Removed random option from City Site Number options

• Added explanation to non-city site camp tile tooltips

• Improved helptext for General traits which aren't valid for some units

• Worker positions with and without height overrides are no longer mutually exclusive

• Cities owned by Tribes or in Anarchy now show in the Timeline Screen

• When gifting, hiring, or recruiting a unit, the helptext specifies that the cooldown is for the unit (and not the action)

• Rendering layer cleanup

• Added rendering layer for minimum detail objects, which will always render to the timeline and minimap. This means minimum detail rivers will now always render in the timeline and minimap

• Removed "Reduce Animation Detail" option and replaced with "Disable Idle Animations"

• Occurrence end chance increment, current and minimum durations added to Occurrence helptext

• Changed color of unit health bar difference to green, when health is increasing (Zealot kill or heal action)

• Order movement now shows below yield preview

• Adjusted selection circle animation for tutorial

• Added some references to bonus UU techs to Tech Encyclopedia and Culture links (with advanced help)

• Forest and Jungle on Mountains are now partly hidden, for clarity

• Disabled Mirror Map option on Desolation & Ebbing Sea mapscripts (Wrath of Gods)

• Added description for Vassalize Tribe mission (Empires of the Indus)

• Added description to the Hinduism tooltip (Empires of the Indus)

• Edited World Religion concept to include Buddhism (Empires of the Indus)

Bugs Fixed

• Fixed unit banners being visible when they shouldn't in some cases during hotseat games