In this update we introduce the possibility of escaping the confinement of your hometown's continent or island and expand overseas, by using military transport ships. The rules involving the previously underpowered rank of Count have been overhauled, and the taxation system has been redesigned in a bottom up fashion, for a more balanced game, such that more players can get involved as allies within the same Kingdom. Within the city, the stock targets system has been generalized to all buildings that need it, allowing fine control of production when a single worker can perform multiple crafting jobs.

Ships

Cities that lie within a 10 km radius of some ocean connected sea are marked in blue on the map, and can be used as starting location or destination for embarked armies. Two types of ships have been added as products that can be bought on the Market, with the ability of building and selling them being left for a future update. The Galley is a fast ship with limited range that can only travel along the coast, and therefore cannot reach to a different continent or island. The Caravel has increased range and transport capacity, and can also cross the ocean. Like the carts in the city, ships spawn on the map automatically when issuing attack or relocate orders, and afterwards they take damage while moving, so they have a limited total sailing distance before being destroyed. Ships will only be used if the destination cannot be reached by land without crossing through unfriendly territory. The server will determine the necessary ship transport capacity when clicking on the "attack" or "relocate" buttons, and an error message will be displayed if not enough ships of the required type, range, health or location are available. If all is OK, the armies will embark, travel and disembark automatically, after which the battle is processed as before.

Colonies

Until now, a Kingdom could only have one connected region. Kings can now expand their Kingdoms with up to 2 overseas colonies. If either the capital region or the colony loses sea access, the colony gets dismantled, like all disconnected regions before this update. When expanding, if the province capital of a coastal province is not itself on the coast, the King can firstly attack a coastal town inside that province, and later start a second attack over land to the capital. Empires can span the globe and have no colony limit, but Emperors can only directly conquer overseas Kingdoms if their capital is on the coast. Otherwise, one of their Kings must first establish a colony there, after which the old neighboring Kingdom rule applies and the Emperor can attack the capital.

Counts & bottom up tax collection

The rank of Count has been severely underpowered due to some technical limitation when it was first implemented. It was unattractive to players since, unlike all other ranks, including the Baron, the Count could not expand their domain other than by creating a Kingdom. But more importantly, the mere presence of a Count was already a threat to the current King, causing most Kings to include as part of their daily routine the removal of Counts from their Kingdom. This has a tendency to chase away many active players from the World Map, and leave behind large Kingdoms where a single player is politically active. We are tackling this game balancing problem with an overhaul of the Count system, and the introduction of a bottom up tax collection rule. Counts can now hold not just one, but up to 5, not necessarily connected, provinces from the same Kingdom. A new Kingdom is formed only when the 5th province is conquered, and only if all 5 are connected. In this way, a Count can signal their King that they do not intend to overthrow them or reduce their tax income, by conquering 2 distant provinces, such that the formation of a new Kingdom is not even possible. In such cases, if they change their mind, Counts must first abdicate and start over with connected provinces. Moreover, we introduce a new tax distribution system that makes the presence of Barons and Counts necessary for the King. Taxes are now collected bottom up, meaning the Baron first collects all tax from their town, keeps their cut, and sends the rest upwards to the Count, but only if the position is filled, and so on to the top. For example, if a province is ruled by Traitors, the King will receive no tax from that province, with their cut being redirected to the "Gods" (Partner Funds). Just like for kingless Kingdoms, Provinces will secede from their kingdom after 7 days of being ruled by traitors. We currently set a probability of 1% per day of this event happening (after the first 7 days), in order to prevent sudden border changes on the map, considering that most current large Kingdoms are composed of such lawless provinces, but we'll increase this chance in the following weeks.

Referral bonus

We implemented a daily referral bonus of 100 gold for active referral, for the first 50 days after the referral's account being activated. Both receiver and referral must have been active within the last 48 hours.

Final remarks

We are doing our best to make this game as enjoyable as possible. We hope these changes will bring more active players on the world map, considering this game has been conceived from the start as an economy focused multiplayer grand strategy game, and not just a base building single player simulation or RTS. More details about this update can be found in the changelog. Enjoy the new freedom that you have now in the game and cross the seas to build your own Empire!

Release Notes for version 3.0

- introduced a sea crossing feature on the world map ~ cities residing within a ~ 10 km radius from the world ocean are marked as "coastal" and appear in blue on the world map - this applies only to seas connected to the world ocean, so cities on the coast of the Caspian Sea or other lakes are not considered "coastal" ~ added 2 types of military transport ships that can be used to cross the sea between 2 coastal locations, with attacking or relocating armies - Galley: can only move along the coast, so it cannot access another continent or island - Caravel: it can cross the ocean - ships can be bought from the market & in the future will be buildable in a special building - ships take damage when moving, just like carts in the city - ships have a speed, capacity (maximum number of soldiers) and a range (maximum distance in one go) - bought ships will be spawned automatically when issuing attack or relocate commands, when the destination can only be accessed by sea - when clicking on "attack" or "relocate" the server will check the total transport capacity at that location by considering all rules, including the ships having enough health for the trip (and a return trip for attacks), how many ships can be spawned & how many are spawned and located at that location, range, capacity, whether caravels are necessary, etc., and an error message is displayed if not enough capacity - after that, armies are embarked automatically, and when arriving at the target armies are disembarked, and then the actual battle takes place as before - the owner player can see their empty, anchored ships on the world map and as icons in the bottom UI list, after the free battalions - embarked moving armies are displayed on the map as animated 3D ships instead of soldiers, and when selected, the ships appear in the bottom UI list before the battalions ~ Kingdoms can have up to 3 connected components (before it was just 1), a main area including the Capital, and up to 2 colonies such that all 3 have sea access - if sea connection to the Capital area is removed, a colony is considered disconnected and lost - if the Province Capital is not coastal, the king must first attack a coastal town in that province after which they can attack the capital over the land - Empires can span the globe and have no limit in number of connected components / colonies - Emperors can directly conquer overseas Kingdoms, if the Capital is on the coast; otherwise one of their kings must first establish a colony there, and then the neighbor Kingdom rule applies as before - a Baron can conquer overseas if they have a coastal Town under their rule ~ removed old rule allowing armies to be relocated to hometown regardless of current location - armies cannot be moved to a destination if they must cross enemy / unfriendly territory, except for the direct neighbors, as before - in such cases the error says that the destination can only be accessed by sea - armies stuck behind enemy lines can get unstuck by attacking neighbor provinces, step by step - in other words, an army can always attack the current and also the directly neighboring provinces - updated taxation rules by introducing bottom up tax collection ~ city taxes are collected by the Baron, who keeps their cut & sends the rest upwards, and so on ~ if any position is unfilled ("Traitors"), all remaining taxes go to "Gods" ~ for example, a King will not collect any tax from a Province without a Count - updated world map rules involving Counts & Barons ~ a player can be Count in up to 5 Provinces, not necessarily connected ~ a Kingdom is formed only when the 5th province is conquered & only if all 5 are connected ~ the Capital is the province which was conquered first, or the hometown, if conquered ~ only Provinces residing in the same Kingdom as the capital can be conquered by Counts, but currently-held provinces are not lost when incorporated into a different kingdom ~ when a Count conquers another Kingdom's capital, all Count titles are lost (just like for Barons) ~ just like for Kingdoms, a Province without a Count (ruled by "Traitors") for more than 7 days will secede from its Kingdom with a probability of 1% per day - the probability above is low in order to prevent a sudden change of borders on the current map - in the following weeks & months we will increase it so that not much longer after the 7 day interval such provinces will secede ~ Baron titles are limited to 25, but players that currently have more will keep what they have - generalize the stock targets system ~ it can be used at any building where a worker can craft multiple items (Lumbermill, Thresher, Mill) ~ setting target to 0 will completely block production of that item (displays as red icon) ~ deleting the target value shows as "none" and means "no limit / target" ~ added arrow buttons to control priority ~ also updated soldier targets with these new features ~ stock targets work relative to the total quantity, not just that from the building - receive a daily referral bonus of 100 gold * number of active (past 48 hours) referrals ~ bonus is received for 50 days after the activation of referral's account ~ receiver must himself / herself have been active for the past 48 hours ~ an alert is received in the game - updated Unity to 2019.4.13f1 - added an outline effect when selecting characters and buildings - battle results panel: updated arrows color (green) & text tip when multiple armies are involved - battle results panel: made political results bottom info scrollable to fit all content - fixed log appearing in Lumbermill's stack when quantity between 0 and 1 - improved character messages with additional info regarding required/produced items - fixed client attempting to deploy from last 2 non Prince males, generating server error & quit - fixed building placement green model pushing characters when intersecting - moved / removed some props in archery lvl 2 - fixed wrong building upgrade materials quantities being displayed in alert - fixed "training time" label not showing up in research UI - fixed characters passing through Barracks & House lvl 2 fences - fixed Swordsman showing activity alert when having no energy