Version 0.70 released

The game entered the stage where I’m focusing more on making all the things work together and less on introducing new features. There are some major features not ready yet, but with this version the priorities shift to gameplay, balance, reexamination and redesign of existing features. In short I try to tie all the loose ends and make it all work together as a complete unit. This also means in some areas there might be regressed compared to v0.6x branch if some features are evaluated to be substandard and removed/partially redesigned (like Great Council that is being redesigned right now). This version introduces many small changes and adjustments aimed at finishing existing mechanics (like ministries bonuses), streamlining stuff that might be needlessly complex or confusing (like colonization mechanic or Old Empire mode), explaining things better (tooltips improvements) and rebalancing numbers to provide a better challenge (like food consumption).

– [feature] Diplomats & Xeno Experts get bonus to Competence & Charisma from Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
– [feature] Available additional Extra Rules: Population consume less food, Population consume more food, Minerals processing efficiency reduced (so 3 optional extra rules that let you adjust how much of a problem managing food and minerals will be).

– [remove] Removed unused “Wild” rulesets (now there are 3 rulesets).
– [remove] Removed rebels as a political entity (rebels will be portrayed as an imperial planet property/modifier in future versions).

– [misc] Renamed rulesets to better convey the playstyle for each of those. Also listed additional core rules (not implemented yet, I added those to avoid confusion that those rulesets are only about technologies, now it will give you a better overview what those rulesets are meant to represent) and extended the ruleset tooltips.
– [misc] More logical and intuitive rules how a noble house votes (relations based).
– [misc] Conquest orders will change into establish outpost orders if a planet lost ownership for whatever reason before the conquest was completed (so it assures the planet will be taken over by the player as desired regardless of potential rare cases).
– [misc] Civilized races at peace/truce with the Empire will not target for conquest any planet that has imperial space forces on (this will avoid rare cases when both Empire and a civilized race targeted the same planet for conquest). This rule applies to aliens only, not the player.
– [misc] Outpost speed and Colonization speed redone into a +X% modifier (for consistency with other technological bonuses).
– [misc] Overmind will never spawn on Toxic or Barren planet upon game start (consistency with after game start overmind placement rules).
– [misc] Great Council obligatory bills changed to “Minsters approved” and “Taxes approved” (penalty to efficiency of all ministries and penalty to tax efficiency).
– [misc] On “Old Empire” mode all megalopolises are already placed.
– [misc] On “Old Empire” mode the game starts at turn 1 but aliens starting technology is calculated as if 50 turns have passed, same for base bureaucracy cost and corruption. This will make things less confusing (I noticed some players being puzzled why the starting turn is 50 instead of 1) while achieving the same effect.

– [balance] Slower colonization (previously even on the Young Empire mode with the penalty to colonization it was only two turns, far too fast). But also simplified colonization and now all colonization ships provide an identical pace (so having more colonization ships has a bigger impact now since each one counts as a full efficiency colonization ship).
– [balance] Slightly slower outpost construction speed (also adjacency to colony has lower effect on the outpost speed).
– [balance] Doubled penalty for core worlds adjacency to non core worlds (after analyzing the saves beta player provided, I noticed people don’t care too much about core world placement, while it’s not a big deal and not a hard rule I wanted to give more incentives to make people want to clump core worlds together).
– [balance] Laws rebalance (no bonus to extension of Ministry of Protocol since it made no sense, no extra bureaucracy cost from Administrative Act, added more extension of a ministry effects to existing laws, some laws removed, some numbers adjusted, etc).
– [balance] Food consumption increased by 20%.

– [content] Techs that grant bonus to Diplomats & Xeno Experts Competence.
– [content] Law which grants bonus to Diplomats Charisma.

– [interface] Added “Political capital” section on house screen (replaces/extends old “Favors” section). It lists favors, secrets and vote promises acquired towards this house.
– [interface] The Great Council screen shows a simplified list of passed bills when there is no voting in progress (showing which house voted on what last time was too confusing and not really needed).
– [interface] The Great Council screen now lists below each crest % of votes the house holds (color coded so you also see the “relations of the votes”).
– [interface] Outpost progress tooltip to explain how outposts construction works.
– [interface] After coring a world max cities and cities output bonus are updated instantly.
– [interface] Beautified planet tooltips (since these were one of the oldest tooltips not up to date with the newer ones)
– [interface] Added an exact tax income effect for each tax slider tooltip on Finances/Tax screen.
– [interface] Beautified Finances/Budget tooltips.

– [fix] The Great Council bills not cleared properly upon new council voting (which made bills not on agenda voted on as well).

Compatibility note: INCOMPATIBLE, this version will not work with old saves (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.62 released

This is most likely the last version of the v6x branch. It has several interesting features. First, fiefs are finally implemented. I have decided to do a thing I rarely do and I implemented it with the primary goal of adding to the mood to the game rather than as a hard mechanic. Of course fiefs have a gameplay purpose but for this alone I could just replace those with numbers. Still, I felt (also evaluating your feedback on the forums) that such a feature makes sense with the overall premise of the game. Most likely it will be fine-tuned further (like there is no difference which world a house has a fief on) but overall it’s a first working model of the fiefs system. Next was Centralization, which was moved from experimental to regular features and altered a bit. Coincidentally, when I was sitting and coding it suddenly occurred to me it could be tied also to reforms which worked out very well. Now reforms also provide Centralization, which is quite logical and intuitive and simple. When Amendments to the Great Imperial Charters are implemented it would be a well rounded feature. Oh yes, Centralization also triggers certain audience events, especially the Modern Aristocracy one is quite fun since it let you remodel feudal society to aristocratic society where nobles care more about their position in the imperial palace that about their feudal fiefs. The last thing is introduction of an option to review imperial officials (for now an experimental feature so it’s disabled by default, but it’s quite complete so you can try it safely), which is more in the likes of the dynamics of the prequel where you got those audience events that let you deal with various officials in bulk. Now you can do it by your own choice without waiting for an event, but for a price of course. Overall, this version has several features which solve several problems in the game, are intuitive, fit well with the rest of the game and do not introduce extra complexity which is a thing that always makes me quite happy as a designer.

– [feature] Centralization moved from experimental to regular features. Now it is also affected by reforms and it has 2 additional effects (triggers powerful events after reaching a certain centralization threshold). Note that The Great Imperial Charter Amendments, which are a major source of Centralization, are not implemented yet, but the reforms alone can still make you reach the threshold to trigger all events (so, in the final version it will be basically easier to reach it, but the mechanic will be the same).
– [feature] Fiefs implemented (at a basic yet functional level). Those are handled automatically according to the Great Imperial Charter regulations but you can grant other houses extra fiefs.
– [feature] Summoning the head of a house (the noble can be summoned from the house screen) now allows you to grant/revoke fiefs. Granting a fief can earn you favors with noble houses, but revoking a fief is a more costly matter.
– [feature] Experimental feature (needs to be enable via gameplay options), to let you review (dismiss incompetent, etc) officials by your own request (without waiting for an event). It’s done via a new button on audience screen (next to banquet button) ant it basically let you pay and you get appropriate “Review” event during the nearest audience.

– [remove] Removed unused Claim to the Imperial Throne.

– [misc] Each implemented reform grants +1 Centralization (in addition to the usual effects).
– [misc] -1 Stability penalty per each lost core world (the penalty is lifted when the core world is retaken).
– [misc] Fiefs now provide authority bonus (similar to monarchism bonus).

– [balance] Negative treasury now causes fixed -1 Stability per turn (instead of progressively more depending on how long the treasury stayed negative). This is a sufficient deterrent already.
– [balance] Monarchism bonus from fiefs reduced but increases fiefs cap.

– [content] Duties of the Modern Aristocracy perk events (active after you selected the default option during Modern Aristocracy event which is triggered after reaching a certain Centralization threshold).

– [interface] House screen tooltips improved (more details, more flavor text, etc). Especially fiefs tooltip improved, now it shows guaranteed share of fiefs according to the Great Imperial Charter and extra fiefs (if granted by the Emperor).
– [interface] Tooltip for ‘Make Core’ button shows more details regarding fiefs and lists the penalty of losing a core world.

– [fix] Bug where courtiers supporting warlords tradition house were getting competence boost (should be for officers only).

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.60+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.61 released

This version is a mix of small redesign, cleanup and rebalance. Basically, I removed tiny bits of outdated features and managed to replace them with something that is more logical, more fun, easier to explain and looks prettier on the screen. All of those at the same time (as you can imagine I very rarely manage to pull off something like that, so I’m very content). Fleet screen now has bars with average officers’ stats and with all effects listed in tooltips. Staff officers were redesigned, now they provide bonus vs certain alien races. The staff can be promoted/demoted which allows you to decide which bonuses you want to focus on. Also, it let you to change your mind, at a cost of course, if you want to wage a war against another target for example. Note that not all of those effects are handled by the battle engine yet, I wanted first to gather your feedback before the full implementation of those. Next are the old ministry related events. I can’t imagine I have delayed it for so long (and even more surprising is that you never complained about those), but finally, all those events are up to date with Stellar Monarch 2 mechanics. Yay! There is also an early attempt on house traditions perks (some effects are placeholder but otherwise it’s fully functional), rebalance of rebel points (which are not really meaningful yet since the rebellion is not implemented, but I wanted to fine-tune the numbers before I start implementing the actual rebellion) and two new extra rules which can be enabled via options. There is also a bunch of smaller improvements and fixes.

– [feature] Tradition house perks, unlocked by relations with a noble house (Neutral/Cordial/Friendly). Each relation tier unlocks one perk. Note that some effects are a placeholder in this version and will be replaced with proper effects in future.
– [feature] Two additional optional extra rules “At the Brink of Rebellion” and “Rebels Everywhere”.
– [feature] Imperial High Command staff grant tactical bonus vs certain alien race (each officer specializes in different aliens). The bonus depends on the staff rank.
– [feature] Ability to promote/demote Imperial High Command staff.

– [misc] Negative rebel points (reduction) are now only generated by the Court, Stability and events (all other factors can only add rebel points but never remove any).
– [misc] Cleanup of audience events/effects (removed instances of obsolete project pts, finished tooltips for conditional personnel modification, etc).
– [misc] Natural Born Leader trait also affects Vice Admirals.
– [misc] Officers who are supporters of houses with Warlords tradition get +1 Competence.

– [balance] Required 5’000 rebel points (previously 10’000) for rebellion to reach 100% readiness.
– [balance] Court and planet rebel support affects rebel points generation significantly more.
– [balance] Corruption trait of officers impact increased, also now affected by officer’s rank (similar to Courtiers).

– [content] Cleanup up of ministry related audience events (all of them are finally redone to match the SM2 mechanics).

– [interface] Replaced unused readiness/morale bars with average officers’ stats bars (Competence/Loyalty/Charisma) on Fleets screen.
– [interface] Audience options tooltips show the number of turns a temporary modifier effect will last.
– [interface] Noble Houses traditions tooltips list the effects for house supporters (Old Aristocracy and Warlords bonus).
– [interface] Tooltip for officers stats states the exact impact of stats depending on military rank.

– [fix] Bug where every noble house head shared the same name if the custom emperor’s name was chosen.
– [fix] Other potential vulnerabilities fixed (code review).

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.60+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.60 released

This version has the new game screen redesigned and finished. You can select core ruleset, extra rules, customize emperor’s name/sex, spend dynasty points, etc. A few things are still missing (like customizing the royal house crest) but majority of it is finished. Next, introduced a new mechanic, the Grand Imperial Banquet. It basically allows you to invite all heads of the noble house in bulk and then chat with them on various topic (chat individually or make toasts to address certain issues). Please give me feedback what you think about this mechanic. It’s a bit rough right now but definitely within the mood of being the emperor. Next is a small thing which will become very important later, centralization mechanic which is right now an experimental feature (needs to be manually enabled). I also added a bunch of much needed new random events and cleaned up & finished the existing ones (except the dreaded ministerial events which are still unfinished). Overall, with this version I tried to finish some basic stuff that was long due and to take a step back and reflect on the gameplay and see what needs redesign or a different approach.

– [feature] Banquet can be organized which allows to invite heads of all noble houses and discuss various things (there is a button on Audience screen for this). It’s expensive and time consuming (Emperor’s focus points) but it allows to strike deals and smooth rough edges with relations.
– [feature] New game screen was redesigned and there is now “ruleset selector” which replaced the old rules checkboxes. Basically, now you select what options you want in bulk, tailored to a specific experience you desire (like if you want more/less randomness and control).
– [feature] Option to play without manual technologies selection (add to queue is disable then and the technology is selected by imperial researchers). This is to simulate even more “ruling from the heights of the imperial throne” premise since some people requested to have less control over such mundane tasks. You need to select “Hands off” ruleset to enable this option.
– [feature] New game screen now has “extra rules” which you can select in any combination you wish. Most of those make the game harder.
– [feature] 5 extra rules (Surrounded by Idiots, Surrounded by Traitors, Surrounded by Ugly, Surrounded by Thieves, Complex Laws).
– [feature] New game screen “Start Dynasty” button works now. It allows you to customize the Emperor/Empress (name, sex, portrait). Note that house customization (like crest selection) is not implemented yet but it will be in the same place.
– [feature] Start Dynasty allows you to select various dynastic perks (very similar to the ones from Stellar Monarch if you played the prequel). Unused dynasty points are converted to extra Stability (which is also done automatically if you select “Quick start”).
– [feature] Experimental feature (needs to be enabled by going to Options and checking “Enable experimental features”): Centralization. It will make a new parameter to be displayed on the top bar and this mechanic is going to be a very important one in future. Right now there is no way to increase Centralization level and it does not affect Coronation Ceremony, that’s why it’s marked as experimental.

– [content] Many more audience events. Also finished unfinished events (except ministries related ones).
– [content] Added banquet preparations related events (musicians, cooks, poets, etc offering their services).

– [misc] Renamed game modes to scenarios.
– [misc] Military ranks slight cleanup.
– [misc] Audience events are properly randomized now (in the previous versions some of the events appeared in a fixed order).

– [balance] Increased cost of laws.

– [interface] Top menu tooltips cleaned up, unified and improved.
– [interface] Bureaucracy tooltip on finances screen shows details what are the sources of bureaucracy bonuses/penalties.
– [interface] Escape key properly closes all windows in all parts of the game while always retaining/restoring the higher level window.

– [fix] Various small bugfixes.

Compatibility note: INCOMPATIBLE, this version will not work with old saves (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.51 released

This version focuses on ministries and character statistics. The character stats were explained so poorly that even I could not make heads and tails out of them sometimes, so I reviewed all those tooltips and stats rules, clarified them and simplified. In addition extra modifiers to stats were added. Now it should be much more clear what affects courtiers and what ministers. The second big thing is bonuses from ministries. Now each ministry provides a bonus each turn, listed conveniently on the ministry tab. The calculations of ministry efficiency were redesigned and simplified (now everything is just a bonus or a penalty to competence of the minister making it all more logical). The last thing was redesign of the high command screen with a clear separation of support staff and line admirals.

– [feature] Ministries now provide additional bonuses based on the ministry level like savings, rebels control, corruption reduction, etc in addition to adjusting the chance for a good/bad audience event. Those bonuses are quite powerful (for example a very competent Minister of Treasury can provide savings equal up to half of the bureaucracy costs), so now competent Ministers can be very valuable. Note that Foreign Affairs ministry provide no bonus yet.
– [feature] House relations affect loyalty of the character supporting that house (as explained in Loyalty stat tooltip).
– [feature] House with Old Aristocracy tradition grants +1 Charisma bonus to all characters that are their supporters.
– [feature] Officer Corps reform increases all officers salaries.
– [feature] Added Colonels and Political officers to Fleets.
– [feature] All military personnel (High Command and Fleet officers) can be interacted with (they have just one option right now).
– [feature] Able to fire officers from the royal house fleet or from any fleet if the officer’s corps reform has been passed. Also political officers can always be fired from any fleet.

– [misc] High command redesign (portraits moved to right, simplified, removed unused Ground forces tab).
– [misc] No traits for high command staff and political officers.
– [misc] High command staff ranks renamed to “Staff” (which make it more clear who is the staff in the high command dealing with military plans and logistics and who is the line admiral leading a fleet to battle).
– [misc] As of this version all reforms are finished (they might be fine-tuned later but all their existing effects work).

– [content] Some reports got new art.

– [interface] Ministers got special hats, color coded to their ministry, to make them more prominent on the screen.
– [interface] Greatly improved characters tooltips (more intuitive, more informative, more colorful, more beautiful).
– [interface] Beautified and improved all tooltips on the Ministry screen.

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.50+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.50 released

This is a quite unusual version, its purpose is to consolidate things and remove the weak parts. It has few new features but a lot of tinkering with existing ones. Basically, I took a look at all the mechanics and content and decided to get rid of some, permanently or temporarily, or redesign those. Noble Houses got rearranged, their positions, crests, traditions, etc, all to feel them more coherent and to allow me to build later a sort of story and background for those, like some are warlike, some come from an old aristocracy and some are upstart industrial mongers. Reforms and laws were tinkered with as well. Finished two long ago promised features, rare resources and science perks. In addition ministries were redesigned.

– [feature] Rare resources (effects, descriptions, random generation). Note that those are somewhat bleak, definitely to be fine-tuned later. Also description style of those differs a lot, it’s because I wanted to test which style would be better. So it’s more like a first iteration of rare resources, not the final thing.
– [feature] Science perks (for now only one science perk per field is implemented but those fully work).
– [feature] Ministries redesigned. Now the level of ministry is Competence of Minister modified by various bonuses and penalties. Which is more clear and logical. Also, the size of the Empire drastically affects the penalties, so you need to expand ministry offices in order to keep up with growing Empire or face growing government inefficiency.

– [removed] Commerce reform removed (felt that exactly 7 reforms would be the best).
– [removed] Voltar, Fungoids, Automated Worlds removed (probably will be back later, once there are more fleshed out).
– [removed] Crime concept removed.
– [removed] Consumer goods concept removed.

– [misc] Voting Census reform replaced with Imperial Protocol Reform which allows more focus points for the Emperor.
– [misc] Moved Former Ministers Act law effect to Administration reform and the law was removed.
– [misc] Noble Houses crests and colors rearranged (to make it feel better, with left size more peaceful and right side more warlike, etc).
– [misc] Noble Houses traditions rearrangement (now there are 3 primary and 6 secondary traditions).
– [misc] Xeno races decolonize worlds they conquered.
– [misc] Technical: optimization of the executable (a minor thing).
– [misc] Technical: game version now includes build type (Release/Steam/GOG).

– [balance] Noble Houses max squadrons are now mostly based on the number of cities in their fiefs (uncapped) which is more intuitive and logical.
– [balance] Officer Corps Reform grants +25% max squadrons (instead of flat +20 squadrons).

– [content] More laws. Some were added some were removed.

– [interface] Ministers have all unique colors making them easier to identify (ministers’ bars colors, tabs on ministry screen, laws related to ministry colors, etc). Also Advisor and Inspector positions got unique colors.
– [interface] Personnel tooltips have colored stats (Competence/Loyalty/Charisma) with a description how much above/below the average the value is.
– [interface] Cleaned up and beautified diplomacy left side section.
– [interface] Reform button shows progress bar if a reform is in progress.

– [fix] Order of reforms changes after initiating a reform bug.
– [fix] Infinite prototype promotions bug.
– [fix] Small non critical memory overwrites (inside data structures only so most likely overwriting non critical stuff) also additional memory safeguards and cleanup.

Compatibility note: INCOMPATIBLE, this version will not work with old saves (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.46 released

This is the last version from the v0.4x stage and it’s focusing on finishing things introduced in the previous version and on cleanup. Mostly finetuning ships and aliens diplomacy/intelligence screen redesign plus some smaller features you requested. It has no spectacular features but makes the overall experience much nicer by smoothing many rough edges.

– [feature] Ships now can have abilities which affect this ship only (decoys, armor piercing beam weapons, etc). All existing ship hulls from older saves will auto adjust to those on game load.
– [feature] AI techs improve over time (at different pace, depending on race).
– [feature] Rebels have technological level cloned from imperial techs and then reduced a bit (because rebels have no access to the top most advanced imperial techs immediately).

– [removed] Option to set border priorities via intelligence screen (it should be done via High Command screen).
– [removed] Outpost construction speed bonus from communication range removed (needless complexity for marginal decision making since at the beginning you have all potential planets for colonization in good comm range anyway).

– [misc] Ship abilities cleanup (removed useless ones and added more cool ones).

– [balance] Rebalanced all ships.

– [content] All ships have unique abilities.
– [content] All ships have unique names and custom descriptions.
– [content] Extended alien races descriptions.

– [interface] Diplomacy/Intelligence screen redesign and cleanup. Also added an option to cancel the truce (cancelling a truce is free at any time).
– [interface] Truce is displayed instead of War if truce is in effect.
– [interface] Battle simulator action logs have mini tooltips (HP/Shields/Armor/etc) for ship names in the action log.
– [interface] Fleets details screen got improved selector for quick access to other fleets (later the same selector will be added for aliens screen and ships screen).
– [interface] Communication towers tooltip list ALL effects (people are confused) {Cities output bonus, loyalty of planets, tactical bonus}.
– [interface] Ship details screen list all ship stats (very crude, without tooltips for now).
– [interface] Hull origin notes on various tooltips/screens (field of science, blueprint type).

– [fix] House support a reform option will now disregard completed reforms since supporting those makes no sense anymore.

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.45+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.45 released

This is a quite exciting version I would say. A lot of stuff which I was coding in the last month and which were disabled due to being incomplete became finished and enabled now. Which means two big features. The first is the battle simulator which allows you to examine how the squadron you designed performs in a real combat versus an enemy squadron. It comes in two versions, Quick one which lets you check the overall results and Full which lets you examine detailed action logs showing which ship targeted which ship in which combat round and how much damage went to shields and how much to the ship’s hull, which ship was targeted by missiles, how many guided missiles were jammed, which ship was assaulted by fighters and how many of those were fended off by point defense weapons and how many bombs hit the target. The second big feature is the ship hulls unlocked by technologies and the ships screen. The screen allows you to examine all ship hulls, promote blueprints to prototypes, speed up the prototyping period and use some monetary incentives to make the imperial designers work harder and faster without their lame excuses why the new ship hull can’t be ready for production yet. In addition there are bunch of other features and changes like auto queuing of research option, redone houses relations, more alien races, etc. This also means this version might be quite unbalanced (note you can still play the old v0.44 via the Beta branch) and also note that the new stuff might be somewhat rough (but not necessarily, the battle simulator is decently polished for example although not 100% complete).

I would also like to thank the community. This is my fourth Early Access game and I can say that the Stellar Monarch series fans are the most forgiving when it comes to my experimentation with the new versions and those who understand the most the true nature of E.A. This attitude grants me a lot of freedom during experimentation and redoing/breaking/replacing features without the fear of the community’s reaction. This really speeds up the development process and let me make a better game in the long run, for which I want to thank you very much! Appreciated.

– [feature] Military/Ships screen with ship hulls listed, filters, option to mark favorite hulls, etc.
– [feature] Ship hulls are now properly unlocked by technologies.
– [feature] Ship hulls Blueprints can be promoted to Prototypes.
– [feature] Option to buy extra Prototype promotions (quite expensive) which can be used as an alternative to scientific research.
– [feature] Battle simulator works now. Divided into “Quick” (where you see just the result vs a selected opponent) and “Full” where you can see detailed action logs describing what happened and why it happened.
– [feature] Noble Houses relations redone to 7 tiers, also rescaled opinions to 100 opinion per relation tier and simplified it a bit (now opinion directly translates to relations without a delay).
– [feature] Gameplay option to auto queue technologies (for people who are too lazy to click on those or who thinks the emperor has better things to do than deal with research). The algorithm will strive to queue it in the way that you reach the top level technologies as quickly as possible. You can toggle it on/off anytime.

– [remove] Removed armada (since this mechanic made no sense with the new wide front combat model anyway, maybe it will be back in another form later).

– [misc] Renamed Parasites to Arachnians (I plan to use parasites as a planetary feature).
– [misc] Switched naming of ship class with ship type (to make it like in the real world).
– [misc] Various ships cleanups (hull materials names, AI ship weapons compositions, removed unused Drones, etc).

– [content] More ships (all ships from all technologies unlocking ship hulls), more technologies unlocking new hulls.
– [content] Additional technologies.
– [content] Added all planned alien races (some are only defined and not activated in the game yet). Also properly divided population into biological/mechanical (later it could be used for different effects of weapons for example).

– [balance] Redone and rebalanced AI civilized offensives (now also takes into account racial luxury percentage, which means powerful but decadent races who spend most income on luxuries will not be that much of a threat).

– [interface] Load/Save tooltip with a more clear explanation of a failed load savefile due to old version save which also indicates the Beta version availability.
– [interface] Added luxury percentage value to intelligence screen.
– [interface] Improved noble houses relations tooltip (now displaying clearly how much opinion each tier of relations requires) and improved several other house tooltips.
– [interface] Intelligence screen shows the emperor’s portrait for the Empire, also rebels portrait is randomized now.

– [fix] Small bug where super hostile house was overwriting the super hostile one upon start.
– [fix] Civilized races were making no offensive plans in mid/late game making the quite passive as the game progressed.
– [fix] Parasites never woke up the entire game (note that Parasites were renamed to Arachnians).

Compatibility note: INCOMPATIBLE, this version will not work with old saves (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.44 released

This is the kind of version which is very ungrateful to write the changes logs for. Most of the stuff I implemented is not even listed below because it was mostly about internal mechanics, not visible to the player at all but very, very important for the future features (read: battle simulator which is starting to take a nice shape but is not enabled in this version yet). So, here it is, a bunch of fixes, small interface improvements and content updates.

– [feature] All summon to audience options now use Emperor Focus points, can’t be cancelled and have no limit to the number of people summoned per audience (so now all “summon” buttons use the same mechanic). Also, regular governors can be summoned as well, but for a higher cost than governors of megalopolises.
– [feature] Traditions for noble houses (affects initial reforms support, how the house votes, perks, etc). Very barebone for now.

– [misc] Optimized saves filesize (it went a bit excessive).
– [misc] Renamed Hospitability to Habitability which is much more intuitive.
– [misc] Renamed Emperor’s Attention points to Emperor’s Focus points.
– [misc] Note that behind the scenes combat mechanics were changed heavily (but I tried to not upset the current gameplay balance, so ideally you should notice no difference here).

– [content] Added option to summon a head of a noble house to discuss reforms.
– [content] Events: Galactic Stock Exchange, Galactic Bank.

– [interface] Added Relation/Opinion/Favors on noble personnel audience screen.
– [interface] Audience events tooltip for modifiers list all the effects of the modifier.
– [interface] Audience events tooltips improved to make audience effects display more clear.
– [interface] Noble Houses ornamental bar on houses screen (with traditions icons added).
– [interface] Squadrons screen improved.

– [fix] Race descriptions: Outdated Terran race description (race details – society), fixed one wrong alien portrait also added some basic description to all xeno races.
– [fix] Wrong tooltips descriptions for some planets in the Astronomy minimap mode.
– [fix] The back button in the construction menu working incorrectly.

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.40+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).

Version 0.43 released

Fourth update since E.A. has started. This version contains many small but very nice interface improvements, the premise being “less clicking”. Hotkeys were redesigned and assigned to the most frequently used actions. The reports auto zoom on a planet which is being reported (can be toggled on/off) and other small improvements. In addition strategic interstellar missiles were implemented and space exploration rebalanced.

– [feature] Interstellar strategic missiles (like strategic bombs but without the need for the orbit control, requires an imperial starbase in range).
– [feature] Strategic weapons production changed. You can produce as many strategic weapons as you want, but the price increases each time you purchase one (the counter resets upon Council gathering (each season)). Also, the base price increases a bit each season.
– [feature] Upkeep for starbases/fortresses/comm towers implemented (for now the cost is very low).

– [remove] Removed happiness reduction over time (too confusing and growing decadence of the Empire can be portrayed by other means anyway).
– [remove] Temporarily removed biological bombs (those will be back later).

– [misc] Overmind is killed when a civilized race takes over a planet.
– [misc] Custom options have been reset due to storage change (just recheck those as you wish and those will save properly).

– [balance] Requirements for planet ‘s loyalty glorious achievement reduced.
– [balance] Crime reduced (possibly the whole crime mechanic might be removed later, we will see).
– [balance] The number of exploration attempts each turn is now affected by the galaxy size.

– [content] Adventurer on audience event for additional exploration attempts. He will show up at later stages of the game (with a very low chance at the early stage) also the chance of showing up depends on the ratio of unexplored planets to the galaxy size.

– [interface] Finances tax tab beautified.
– [interface] Reports: auto find target planet on a report change (can be toggled on/off).
– [interface] Beautified right side report buttons and added “All” folder. Also tooltips on reports buttons listing hotkeys.
– [interface] “Find” planet button now has [f] hotkey (and a tooltip listing the hotkey).
– [interface] Removed several less used hotkeys (e/r/t) to free those for other uses (beside, those were assigned to not so often used actions anyway).
– [interface] Hotkeys redone: Now [q] is used for a “quick” access to the most used/logical action in the current context (for example on planets without any owner it would be “Establish outpost”, on alien planets “Conquest” on unexplored “Priority exploration”). Basically it means that you can click on a planet and then press ‘q’ and in like 80% of cases it will be exactly what you wanted to do. Also it’s used to cancel to just selected quick action. All [q] hotkeys are listed in the appropriate tooltips.
– [interface] Hotkeys [r] to open/close reports.
– [interface] Establish outpost and exploration priority displays on the starmap as orders (so you can see those on a glance and it’s more logical/consistent). Also added shades of the order marker so you can spot a difference between the outposts that can be established now and those that are not neighboring the imperial borders yet.

– [fix] Glorious achievement “All techs of level 10+” was not triggering.
– [fix] Other small fixes.

Compatibility note: NO CHANGE, this version works with v0.40+ savefiles (note that each time a savefile compatibility is broken a new Beta branch with the old version is created so you can always finish your game in progress).