Hi everyone, We're excited to share our first big update for Landnama! It's been almost exactly two months since the release and we have been hard at work to address all your feedback, and we'll continue to listen so we can evolve Landnama into the game you want it be. While staying true to the core gameplay mechanics, we've overhauled many of the game systems to add more depth and strategy, reworked difficulty scaling, and removed a lot of the punishing random elements that didn't feel fun. To play the beta version of v2.0.0 right-click Landnama in your Library and choose "Properties". In the following menu select the tab "Betas" and choose the branch "v2_beta". Please note the beta branch is fully localized only in English, German and French as of now. We'd love to hear your feedback on the changes, it has been and still is crucial in helping us shape the future of this game! Heres what this update is bringing to the game:

Objective and Upgrade System

• Rather than paying for an upgrade with heart, players now need to reach a certain level of production per harvest.
• Once the harvest threshold has been met, the upgrade automatically begins, but is only completed via player interaction.
• Heart capacity is now increased by building houses and is no longer tied to the upgrade system.
• Upgrade levels have been reduced from five down to four.
• Players will now need to build right up until the final threshold is met, creating a more consistent experience throughout a settlement with less waiting.

Difficulty

• Hagalaz difficulty levels have been changed from five levels to three and streamlined for a more intuitive difficulty scaling.
• Hagalaz levels now impact the upgrade threshold requiring higher production.
• Effects are no longer time-based but now last for the duration of a settlement, and negative effects are no longer as punishing.
• The Althing has been removed entirely.

Events

• Events no longer happen on their own, but are found when exploring unique tiles giving the players choice about when to engage with them.
• Events have a chance to be either positive (blessings) or negative (curses), with the ratio of positive to negative changing along with increased player-chosen difficulty levels.
• Hagalaz levels determine the ratio of positive blessings to negative curses, with more blessings than curses occurring at normal difficulty while scaling up to exclusively curses at Hagalaz 3.
• The challenge auto-pause setting has been changed to an event auto-pause that triggers for both positive and negative events.

World Generation

• The biome algorithm has been tweaked to make regions more distinct with a predominant biome that will feature more prominently.
• Glaciers are now unbuildable dead tiles with their frequency increasing based on the difficulty level indicated on the region selection screen.
• Higher difficulty levels make finding buildable biome clusters more of a challenge.
• Unique tiles are more evenly distributed and have been increased to 25 per map.
• Exploring unique tiles will reveal an event, curiosity, or the landmark, and more will continue to appear as you explore.

Buildings

• Each production building now has two support buildings that unlock with home upgrades for powerful builds that grow with a settlement.
• All buildings now have adjacency requirements and synergies with adjacency being a core element of how the entire build system functions.
• Each building also has both a primary effect and a secondary bonus that is given when built on a quality tile.
• Sacred buildings have been reimagined as a separate, unique heart production group.
• Caches have been replaced with Houses which are now the only avenue to increasing heart capacity.
• You can now open the build and home menus while the action is disabled.
• The building auto-pause setting now triggers not only when buildings are built but also when they're salvaged or destroyed.

Play Modes

• There is now a quick play mode where the player can select a clan, region, and difficulty level for a single settlement.
• The daily challenge still exists but can now be played multiple times, though only the first play will count towards the leader board.
• The monthly leaderboard now only allows one entry per player.

Masteries

• Once a player completes a home upgrade they receive a point to spend on a static mastery bonus tree.
• Each mastery has three tiers tied to a production type for choice based on need and strategy, and allowing the player to better adapt to map generation.

Clans

• Clans now have a starting bonus and a clan ability allowing for different play styles and strategies.
• Sagas will now require settling each region with a different clan, though if a settlement fails that clan may be used again.

Winter

• The winter formula has been simplified to depend only on the settlement's production.
• The Vegvsir now lets the player survive winter at the cost of all available Heart.
• Fixed an issue where you could click the Vegvsir button after finishing winter.

Renown

• A new rewards system for unlocking boosts, clans, and other game elements. The player accumulates renown by playing the game, with increased difficulty providing higher payouts.

General

• The top UI has been redesigned to be more clear and intuitive.
• Exploration time is now capped between one and six months.
• The game no longer auto-saves at the start of the year but after the last harvest.
• In the settings you can now override the language chosen via Steam UI.
• The Steam Cloud now properly syncs between different platforms.