Old World May Update: Crossbow buff, tech cost rebalance and Map Search

Main Branch 1.0.83499 release 2026-05-06

Headline changes

• Crossbow strength buff

• Tech cost rebalancing

• New Map Search function

Design

• Crossbows now have +50% strength against melee (from +50% attack)

• Tech costs for columns in the tech tree changed to 100, 150, 250, 400, 700, 1100, 1600 (from 80, 120, 200, 400, 600, 1000, 1600)

• Increased flat science from difficulty level by 2

• At least two non-trashable tech cards will be offered if possible, to prevent all tech choices being bonus cards

• Slingers are now obsolete at Bodkin arrow (previously also required Windlass)

• Gold and Silver mine output increased to 50 money (from 40)

• Reduced culture requirements for Market class improvements (Market requires Weak, Grocer Developing and Fair Strong) and adjusted some ambitions accordingly

• Units can repair any improvement they can build (affects Disciples and Brahmins)

• Ship build queue options added for each harbor in a city, in addition to each body of water that does not have a harbor, to allow choosing where the ship spawns

• Improved city site distribution for 2-team maps

• AIs will no longer have child leaders, instead using the next adult in the succession or generating a new character if needed

• Rising Star trait now replaces Infamous and Unpopular

• All Hindu cities can now build Brahmins, without requiring Holy City/State Religion/Tolerance (Empires of the Indus)

• Decreased Indian Unique Unit vision to be in line with other units, with the exception of Steppe Riders which retain extra vision (Empires of the Indus)

• The owner of the unit, not the upgrading player, needs Polis to upgrade Steppe Riders (Empires of the Indus)

• Mahapadma's unknown mother now has a name (Empires of the Indus)

• Added Phidias, a Builder Artist, as a starting courtier to the Pericles dynasty (Heroes of the Aegean / Wonders and Dynasties)

• Can no longer recruit Fanatic Raid units in the Wrath of Gods scenario (Wrath of Gods)

• Slightly reduced frequency of Jade spawning (Empires of the Indus)

Programming

• Renderer initialization split across four 4 frames instead of 1

• Improved performance when rendering timeline GIFs

• Moved the minimum number of non-trashable techs offered to XML (MIN_NON_TRASHABLE_TECHS_AVAILABLE)

• Stale network games are cleared from the database on failed connection

• Potential improvements to Bluetooth audio output

• Replaced custom map element names with TextTypes on Empires of the Indus premade maps

• Family Control scores are now moddable (Empires of the Indus)

UI

• Added Map Search function, accessed via the magnifying glass icon on the top left of minimap. Can search for Cities, Units, Improvements and Resources, by player

• Added Tech Tree to Extras menu, to allow viewing the tree without being in a game

• Added banded overlay effect for cities that will soon have a religion due to building a shrine when the religion is selected

• When selecting a unit with a General, the General name is now shown in brackets instead of replacing the unit name

• Added a Mission concept to help explain the Maurya ability

• Score list now sorts Wonders and Holy Site VPs together

• Map element names now take priority over family-defined first city names

• Unit effect tooltips show to the right of the promotions panel

• Pressing ALT now shows health bar damage preview of non-hostile units, in addition to the damage preview text that is displayed without ALT

• Specialists on pillaged tiles are now shown in most city UI counts, with warning color

• Map cameras now adjust the center of their view to avoid featuring large out-of-bounds areas

• Handling of possessive character names now language dependent

• Updated Map Size tooltip to show the actual maximum player count

• Bridges now only