0.7.972 - Update 1

Full changelog

Major changes

The King's Tax (or Annual Royal Tax, name undecided)

The tax is collected annually from all players (main player and AI) and goes to the liege. It is calculated per population, serving as a counterbalance for players hoarding huge wealth despite non-optimized economies.

Currently, players can incur debt without consequence. In the future, failure to pay will result in losing the king's favor and eventually facing the king's army as enemies.

Global/Local Trade Switch for Trading Posts

Players can now switch trade to "local only" in the trading post for each type of good, allowing them to exchange goods between their own regions while ignoring free merchants. Two trading posts (one in each region) are still required to make this function work. Employed traders will prioritize traveling to the location with the best prices to commence trade, potentially including regions owned by other Lords. The transport distance factor is reduced to make it more predictable for players where traders will go (to the place with the best price). Regional wealth is still required to exchange goods between regions with a trading post to maintain regions as independent economic units, simulating a more realistic economy.

Gameplay balance

Resource management & agricultural adjustments

• Food Consumption: People now pick a random food resource instead of eating food in a specific order.
• Crop Fertility: Fertility is no longer drained after crop growth reaches 100%, making early harvest micromanagement less necessary. Yield may still increase over 100% growth if max yield is not reached.
• Yield Cap: will now never increase past 100% growth to avoid confusion about exceeding 100%. Even when fertility reaches 0%, there will still be a small possible yield.
• Harvesting Efficiency: When harvesting, crops are directly added to the field inventory instead of the villager inventory to reduce bottlenecks from harvesting walk times, especially for large fields.
• Oxen Prioritization: Prioritized oxen plowing over transporting resources to the granary and warehouse to reduce oxen walking back and forth from the plowed field every time new resources are available for transport.
• Plowing Shed: Plowing shed now adds 2 livestock worker slots.
• Food Distribution: Food-producing residential plots no longer stock up on their produce before sharing with the marketplace.
• Sawpit Log Storage: Increased sawpit log storage space to 5.