Urgent bugfix patch! Fixed a bug where the new warnings could fail, affecting some players. I can proudly report the new automatic error reporting mechanism is working well & already reported 950 errors in 2 days ( fortunatelly, it's mostly spam from Unity not playing nice with some controllers ). Also fixed 3 more bugs that were very rare and not game breaking, but got picked up by the system. Expect even more stable builds with the new system, as it's just warming up with reports from older, harder to reproduce bugs.

[ 2025-07-27 16:43:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

New features: * new warning system! It will draw your attention if you have businesses that have halted production because you need input goods, if you're attacked by pirates, if you have broken ships, etc. Please send me more ideas on what kind of warnings you'd like to see in the game! * new error collection system! Errors and crashes are now logged and sent to the server. None of the data colected is personal or can be linked back to players. You can turn off the system entirely in the settings. * quest details now show the date by which an answer is needed for the quest * started a new epic around mayors! * mayors can now fill their own quests and goals slowly, over time! * mayor elections no longer happen on the same day, instead they're staggered, over time. * you can now vote for mayors if you have enough reputation in a city! An election quest will pop up and you can choose who to support. Depending on your reputation in the city, your support could have a very big impact on results. * you will receive additional respect from a mayor if you voted for him Bugfixes: * an empty warehouse would still show the average price of the goods it used to contain * hovering a city on the world map did not play a sound

[ 2025-07-26 08:22:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Set it and forget it?

Automated convoys are one of the most powerful wealth-building tools in-game. They allow for a bunch of different strategies. Collect goods from all of your businesses in 1 or several hubs (then distribute them to surrounding cities), straight up carry everything on your back, and haggle throughout the world or anything in between!

One of the problems with convoys has been that after creating your route, you were a bit in the dark in regards to exactly what happened while they were trading. That stops today!

Granularity first

The new system registers up to 11 trading runs, with each one of them ending after the last city on your list is visited. In these runs, you can see where the convoy has stopped, what goods were bought, sold, loaded and unloaded, how the total cargo capacity changed, etc.

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/44879008/874db92d3c94e22a2b5effcc71b3d88c8f2066a0.png"][/img]

You can even filter your view to only include 1 single good! Moreover, you're only shown goods that have actually been traded in that run. This will help you debug your routes and ensure you buy/load exactly what you need and sell as much as possible, for the best prices!

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/44879008/dc11178c6fa5a8dbd0d2c0e77c5dea6181555694.png"][/img]

Here's an example: I have a route where I buy every single production bonus good from every city I visit, and then try to sell them everything else.

Here's what I mean:

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/44879008/0a0f7f58056f3dd18db9ceefc9133a3a443675a9.png"][/img]

Here's how I've been doing in my latest run on Iron bars:

Bought:

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/44879008/13f822b7663b2fd524e2d704660c0051b08587b6.png"][/img]

Sold:

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/44879008/1f85338acd338b8783c2040eb8f6de122145b2eb.png"][/img]

As you can see, I managed to load up on 10 bars on this run (in Pellin and Alemstra), and sold all of them by the end (and an extra 4 crates that I picked in a previous run!). Pair this info with my convoy's hold having no more bars, it's a pretty good indication that there's good demand right now! I might increase the prices a little bit or pick up more bars to further increase my profit.

What about available cargo space?

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/44879008/dd8e81cdc40d6a27c8659a93ab4c50b344200491.png"][/img]

My convoy has about 650 total cargo capacity, and the max I reached in this run is 368. I'm good for now, I don't need to add any more ships in, I could even pull a tinier ship or 2 into some other convoy!

What is profit after all?

You might notice there's a couple of different ways profit is presented. That's because you can look at profit in different ways!

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/44879008/5bb4bdc8d709e3222c8173c4d5a63fb2ba5e9c9d.png"][/img]

If you just look at all of our income and spending, that's the simplest way to consider profit! We sold stuff, bought more and then repaired our ships. Simple enough, right?

Well, what happens with goods you already had on your ship? What about those loaded or unloaded in different ports? Deciding on profit for those is more complicated.

The 2nd profit formula looks at individual sales and what cost you to get that product. Say you had 10 crates of Iron Bars on your ship and got those for 185 coins per crate. When you sell them, the profit (or loss!) will be tracked. Adding the profit from every single transaction (and subtracting ship repairs) gets you the 2nd profit type!

In the example above, the simple profit is lower. That's because we loaded up on some goods that we didn't sell! We'll sell them eventually & then the simple profit will be higher!

More convoy updates?

Yes! But after the new UI gets implemented. There's still a lot of stuff that's too complicated, especially when setting up trade routes. I think you'll love the new UI. I actually started working on its design. Leave a comment if you'd like a sneak peek, or would prefer to be surprised.

Until next time,

Happy trading.

Lexy.

[ 2025-07-23 07:26:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Urgent fix of a bug introduced yesterday, preventing game saves. If your save failed, please use the most recent autosave. Sorry for the inconvenience :(

[ 2025-07-17 06:25:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Automatic trading statistics are here! Bug fixes: * there were still scenarios where you could end up with perpetual winter :( * in the main menu, people could walk outside the roads * deleting a ship from a convoy could incorrectly change the leader of the convoy * the quest history could show up empty Changes & new features:

* there is now an interface to see what, where, and how much your convoys have traded!

* ports can no longer freeze in the Tutorial * adaptive consumption is now no longer used in the calculation of prices (prices won't jump lower after you buy some goods) * Timberyard recipe no longer requires logs * added 4 new difficulty levels! I've postponed the last and whackiest of them all (needs more time) * ai traders now have a small preferences towards returning to their home town. Also changed where they spawn to be more balance * re-ordered monthly input goods & build cost goods to ensure they're alphabetical

[ 2025-07-16 14:30:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfix: - winter would sometimes fail to end :( Quality of life: - you can now choose which difficulty modifiers you would like to play with. If you don't like one in particular, you can turn it off. - added a new option to Prevent ports from freezing during winter. - there is now a hotkey to Focus the selected ship in world view. - there is now a hotkey to show the Town Hall. - you can now replace the Mayor's last goal! It costs 50 respect and you'll be able to choose 1 of 3 different options. - you can now reset all your movable windows (just the scratchboard) to their original position & size. Optimizations: - multiple optimizations to materials and meshes, removed Depth Of Field effect from start menu as it was (probably the one) causing some GPUs to heat up quickly.

[ 2025-07-04 14:48:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Many tiny QoL updates - there is now a warning (in the build window) when you have insufficient reputation to build. - hovering over the warning also gives extra information about reputation tiers and how much you can build for each one of them. - moved reputation information from Traders Hall to Town Hall in preparation for more details being added. - there is now a bit more info about reputation in the town's hall. - mayors will now no longer give a flat rate for goods sold as part of a quest. Instead, if a city has a lot of cheap goods, the mayor will also offer the same price as buying from the market directly. - updated screenshots of ships in the Shipyard build menu so it contains the new sea. - moved info about ship type and made it bigger. - there is now a list of the most recent 10 seeds you've played in your games and the starter cities for each one of them, so you can more easily find the right one. - every list allowing a file to be loaded or saved will now also allow you to double click to load / double click to save in addition to clicking an item and then clicking the load / save button. - there is now a confirmation window when making a new save with the same name as an existing one (e.g. overriding the existing save). - you can now set up keymaps to quickly select your ships! - tooltips for city production and consumption now clearly specify this is monthly production / consumption. - you can now drag the world and city maps around by clicking the ground. Can be disabled in settings. - you can now temporarily disable the price guard until you close the trade window. It will allow you to do 'bad' trades for strategic reasons, but only until you close the trading window and open it again. - I've adjusted some ship characteristics: Skiffs now need an extra sailor (6 instead of 5). Caravels and Carracks now have way larger cargo holds but also need considerably more materials to be built. - the new business window now shows production with city bonus included, as well as information about the base production for cities having a specific bonus. - winter production is now also shown during the summer, to allow a more informed decision. Bugs: - winter production would not be shown correctly in the UI - after creating a new game with a custom map, if you loaded an existing save with a different custom map, the world generation would get confused and load in the wrong terrain.

[ 2025-07-01 09:12:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Winter is here!

If there's one thing a high sea trader loves, that's opportunities for profit! Winter is definitelly one of them.

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/44879008/42e913810e92e2e7876452a7c3995dc8ebddeee2.png"][/img]

Jump in and discover some goods that have reduced production during winter & the impact that has on consumption, pop happiness and your own businesses!

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/44879008/5eadf2dbe14ddcb740ef00b6584c3f4f15df2698.png"][/img]

All smooth sailing, right?

There's never a free meal, capturing these new opportunities comes at a cost: plan around ports freezing, ensure your supply chains are up to date and there's enough stock to pass a long winter. Or just risk everything, hope for a short winter and dump as much grain into cities as humanly possible! It's up to you.

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/44879008/f8eb29ccedfaf92d539faff645c7703d2e368d49.png"][/img]

Smarter convoys

New options have been added to allow you to instruct your automated convoys on how to act around frozen ports.

[img src="https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images/44879008/2de3af5a1521ca2fb22546a2f794761136f813b4.png"][/img]

There's a few more effects / QoL updates that will roll out soon impacting winter mode. There might even be some difficulty modifiers targetting the new season.

Please give it a shot and let me know how it feels!

Happy trading,

Lexy.

[ 2025-06-23 10:00:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

Winter mode is here! More info in a dedicated changelog, or just go ahead and test it out!

[ 2025-06-21 09:21:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Major optimizations to turn simulation: * autosave is done on a separate thread now and no longer stutters the game * introduced some object pooling on world ships which decreases number of stutters * dramatically improved pathfinding algorithm to almost completely remove end of turn stutters Bugfixes: * explicitly saved game screen mode setting (which is normally managed by the game engine) since it was not implicitly saved for some players Goodies: * new custom map, the Caribbean! This is the most dense map to date, featuring 60 cities! The map is directly inspired by the Port Royale 2 map.

[ 2025-06-11 09:38:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

As some of you might know, I've been on an epic month-long vacation. It's a first for me, and it has been incredible. The time of vacation-ing has ended. The time of building is now upon us! In this post I'll present the game's Roadmap. It's a pretty long read. Strap in!

Loose ends (June-July)

There are many tinier features that were planned, but deprioritized for the release. There were other, more important things that needed to be in the game. Its now the time to tie all these loose ends.

• remaining difficulty modifiers
• winter mode!
• big list of QoL features
• rebalancing ships perks + pirate encounters
• trade routes: statistics + more advanced management tools
• mayors: election process, player managed city-owned shops, auctions, more mayor quests
• notification / warning system for broken ships, businesses missing resources, pirate attacks, etc.
• ship customization
• the Sarnis campaign (FINALLY!)
• mark campaigns as completed (major oversight, sorries)
• free-play goals
• new warehouse building

New UI + localization (July - September)

The most consistent complaint Ive seen is that the font is hard to read. Youre absolutely right. Additionally, the biggest feature request (BY FAR) Ive received is support for other languages. These 2 areas are actually connected. The font that the game uses wont allow a bunch of the characters that other languages need. If we also add in all the awesome feedback you gave about what the current UI does terribly, we have ourselves a full UI-centric update!

• new UI system thats cleaner, has a better font & nicer overall aesthetic
• improve many of the windows (looking at you trading window, buy 1, buy 5 shenanigans)
• more tools to manage fleets, trading routes, global inventory view & upgrades
• localization for the first language set: german, spanish, french, russian

The sandbox (September - November)

Its no secret that the biggest inspiration for High Seas has been Patrician 3. I just love that game. I do however want High Seas to also further develop its own identity. I always felt that with the procedural map, this game is a bit more open to a sandboxy environment. Moving forward, I want to lean a bit more into that.

• fully featured map editor with a land painting tool, allowing the exact placement of cities and hand-crafting economies, setting up goals.
• steam workshop integration so that you can share your custom games + find new, interesting ones.

The future (November +)

I will always be adding more and more things I find fun to the game. Reality is however, I wont always be able to dedicate my full focus to it. At some point I will prototype some more cool games, and I hope you guys will be along for the ride!

• improve robot trader AI: robot traders will have goals, build their own businesses and more ships, allowing for a more immersive world, as well as making strategic use of them.
• v1 of mod support, probably in the shape of a demo mod, allowing new buildings, ships, UIs and hooking into the games event system
• a bunch of other stuff I have probably promised but am forgetting right now.

Maybe-land (2026 - 2099)

These are all random ideas and hard to implement features that people would like to see in the game. I would also love to have them! No promises though.

• extract the game core and open source it
• use the game core as a server and package it with the visual client, in order toooooo
• allow multiplayer
• add a pirate combat minigame (and becoming a pirate ofc!)
• church focused free DLC with new buildings, quests, economies and more stats to track!
• politics focused free DLC allowing you to influence elections or become the actual mayor
• community crowdsourced localizations for other languages or even a system to load localization packs from the workshop
• female captains & mayors

Goodies (all the time!)

Some of the updates above will be slow. I want to give you guys something fresh to try out from time to time! Thats where the goodies come in!

• more custom maps before the map editor is released (in fact, I have one in the works right now, and it has a crazy amount of cities in it)
• improved captains - be able to find captains in special places, earn them through quests or remove bad traits from existing ones. I also heard rumors about some kind of academy
• creating new settlements
• building dwellings and becoming a landlord
• more quests! in fact as soon as we have at least a decent pool of them, I should be able to re-enable quests in the free play since they wont be as repetitive anymore. Keep a look out in the Discord for some kind of quest-creation competition
• more campaigns!
• more achievements
• more city sizes (larger cities)

Lastly

I plan to start a lets play series on Youtube! I am not a Youtuber and Lord knows how consistent Ill be with actually uploading, but Id love to do at least a 30min - 1h episode a week. I think it could be cool to see how I imagined playing the game, as Im sure everyone will have their very own style. The channel's here https://www.youtube.com/@lexydotzip although I haven't uploaded anything to it in 4 months, and it has a grand total of 38 subs :) Thanks so much for all your support & your patience during my vacation! Please keep the awesome feedback and suggestions coming in either the feedback form or the Discord! Happy trading! Lexy.

[ 2025-06-04 08:16:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

2 bug fixes after returning from the vacation! * automatic placement of city-owned buildings would not take into consideration higher city levels * loading a save would result in weird values if the save was created on a different PC with a different culture

[ 2025-05-28 09:44:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bug fixes while on vacation! A bug on trade routes. 3 bugs on the new Hanse map. Have fun!

[ 2025-05-06 11:47:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Quick gift to all of the lovely people who have supported the game so far! I'll be off for a few days, but figured I can leave you with something nice to play until I come back: the first ever, custom map! And yes... it is... The Hanseatic League! The city positions and names are the ones you expect, but the economies are not. In fact, they're still driven by seed numbers. I set up a default seed so that you can play in Luebeck, if you're nostalgic for any specific game...

[ 2025-04-22 15:09:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Automated trade route quality of life: * you can now save & load city action sheets with prices * you can now save & load full trade routes * setting a buy / sell order on a good will now prefill the base production cost OR the last price you manually set for that good and seed, if any was set * there is now a new 'Quick price helper' widget which allows you to set prices based on a set margin percentage, push a price to all cities in a trade route or set a global price for all trade routes * there is now a warning icon next to cities in which you've set up actions that deal with warehouses (loading, depositing) but you don't have enough reputation to access the warehouse Bugs: * the start game button was not clickable when the interface scaling was set to max * in the main menu, some parks were offset and cutting the roads * in the ship details window, captain names would overflow awkwardly when they were very long * pressing escape while in the in-game settings window would not close the window but rather show the menu behind it

[ 2025-04-21 16:46:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

The highly requested city expansion is here! Yet another one of the features that almost made it into the original release! It was set aside to properly focus on the maaany things needed for the release, but it's here now! Help mayors achieve their goal and expand their cities, all of it while profiting from the expansion of course!
Also added Parks which are one more way to ensure your people are happy and thriving! Happy trading, Lexy.

[ 2025-04-19 10:01:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey there! The long awaited Steam Achievements are here! They were always planned for the release, but I never had the time for them. That changes today!
We also had a small competition in the Discord where members suggested achievements they'd like to see in-game! It was fun and they were rewarded with a rare T6 achievement: Actual VIP! The competition's closed for now, but I will open it up again in the future! So if you want to leave your mark on achievements or are just on the hunt for this rare one, jump into the Discord ( https://discord.gg/7sKhteQv4w ) Happy trading, Lexy.

[ 2025-04-17 12:29:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes: * a memory leak someone reported through in-game feedback! Thank you anonymous person! * getting sacked by pirates while carrying non-sellable goods (Old Sailor, Ambassador) would result in the game crashing because the game could not determine the value of the goods Pirates will now no longer try to take these non-sellables from your ship. * the Busy Bee campaign would not correctly register reaching 12 ships if they were obtained through fighting pirates and not through building in shipyards * you could not repair your ship for free (following event) if you had negative balance.

[ 2025-04-08 14:29:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes: * the window showing battle details would be hidden when the turn advanced, even if the pirate fight quest was still active * the icon above a ship that's engaged in a fight would only be shown for 1 turn when the fight began and would not be shown at all after loading a save where you were already engaged in a fight * completing a mayor quest when there wasn't a valid place for a building in a town would result in having the building placed at 0,0. * after fighting a pirate ship, ships could be stuck at sea indefinitely QoL: * You can now SELL SHIPS! It's a much-requested feature and a big blind-spot for me, I should have expected & implemented it earlier. Sorries bout that.

[ 2025-04-05 11:19:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

The launch

The launch was explosive! You guys rallied up faster than I could have ever imagined! THANK YOU! We managed to BLAST through the initial 10 reviews that Steam wants to see before recommending the game to more people, and that helped tremendously towards getting more than 900 players to date! That is incredible! The Discord has grown by 60+ members as well, and what I'm hearing from you is loud and clear: IT'S FUN! Well, tell you what: it's about to get EVEN MORE FUN!

The priorities

Bug Gods have favored us and there's no critical / game breaking bugs discovered so far! I have however just shipped a fresh batch of roasted tinier bugs for your enjoyment! It kind of sounds like I introduced new bugs, but I promise, I fixed them! Some quality of life features that didn't make the initial release also got bundled in. Automated convoys will now be able to repair themselves... automatically! Keymapping's a little bit better! Some campaigns detect your advancements more easily. Overall, there's a bit less 'Oh come oooon!' happening.

The upcoming

Your support has been incredible, and I want to reward that! There were a bunch of features I was thinking I could one day implement. Many of those WILL COME TO LIFE! Custom maps (and some historically accurate ones), more granular control over everything in free play mode, extended interactions with mayors (supporting elections, auctions and bidding for new types of buildings [hush, don't tell anyone, this is still very much confidential]) and who knows... possibly even... [spoiler]creating new cities![/spoiler] You guys are the best! I feel like I say that a lot in the Discord but maybe some of you aren't there yet (you should be though! https://discord.gg/7sKhteQv4w ) BUT you really are the best! Thanks so much for everything! Happy trading! Lexy.

[ 2025-04-03 15:32:43 CET ] [ Original post ]