Hi everyone! Were thrilled to release the first major update to Landnama, and its a big one! Weve overhauled the game quite a bit and are really excited to hear what you think. One of the main areas we really wanted to focus on was how difficulty worked in the game. Weve tried to move away from anything that felt too random or unfair, and changed events to allow more player choice with less punitive outcomes. Frequency of negative events is now tied to player chosen difficulty levels and the region selection has become part of the difficult scaling. Overall we wanted to give players autonomy around deciding what kind of challenge they wanted and when. Another big area we wanted to focus on was adding depth, especially with how a settlement played out. With this in mind, the building system has been rethought entirely and has been completely rebuilt around production. From there we streamlined how the upgrading system works, basing it on harvest thresholds for a more organic path to the objective. These two rethought systems work in tandem to make settlements feel exciting and engaging throughout. The following is an overview of the biggest changes, but there have also been many more quality of life tweaks. This is a big shift, so please share with us what you think, what you want to see, and any feedback you have on these core changes. For those of you that would like an experience more in line with the launch version, there is Landnama Classic branch available on Steam. Theres more coming, but we want your help and ideas as we move forward, so please do continue to share your thoughts! A massive thanks to our Discord community for providing crucial feedback and bug testing, especially with the recent beta of this update. We honestly appreciate it so much. Your feedback around what you like and what you would still like to see is crucial in helping us continue to evolve Landnama. Were excited to get this in your hands for feedback, thank you so much for playing our game and we hope you enjoy the changes!

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

• Now three main variables that impact difficulty: the player-selected Hagalaz difficulty levels, events that players choose when to interact with, and map generation that changes based on region.
• 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.
• Special tiles like the Landmak

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 accessible.
• 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 and is less punitive towards exploration and building.
• Fixed an issue where you could click the Vegvsir button after finishing winter.
• Vegvisirs now reduce both your Heart and Winters Toll to 0 when used.

Renown

• Players now collect Renown after each successful settlement.
• Playing a Saga rewards more Renown (Saga multiplier) but you can earn Renown for playing both Expedition and Daily Trial modes.
• Renown can be spent to unlock new Clans as well as Favors which are permanent bonuses. The Renown menu can be accessed from the main menu.

General

• The top UI has been redesigned to be more clear and intuitive.
• Added Production breakdown tooltip when hovering over the production per harvest number in the top UI.
• 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.
• The Demo was updated to allow to play an entire settlement (would previously end after 7 years).