Break up the ships you cannot berth, a siege rebalance, and a long list of fixes
This release is mostly balance and repair. One new thing you can actually do, two numbers that were working against you, and a lot of small breakages cleared out.
The yards will take them apart
Until now a ship left your books only by sinking. Ask, and your yards will break up ships and war engines, handing back a quarter of the materials they were built from. You will find it on any hull or engine in your Army and Ships lists, under Break Up. Only what stands at the island can be broken up, so crews at sea are beyond the shipwright’s reach until they come home, and the salvage goes straight to your stores, where anything past what your storehouse holds will spoil within hours. Soldiers and hounds are another matter. They are living, and a Governor does not break up people.
Catapults are worth massing again
Siege had been punishing the player who sent one big fleet. Past the fifth level in a wave, each further level cost double the last, and because that reset every wave, splitting a fleet into many small landings beat sending it once by a wide margin. The doubling is gone. Every level costs the same flat pool of siege points, and the per-wave cap of five levels is the only limit. Ten catapults take a level, whichever level it is.
Every mouth eats now
Troops and crews away from home draw their rations from the island that raised them. A fleet at sea and an army standing garrison on an ally’s shore both eat from home stores, so an island that only looked fed because its army was elsewhere will feel the truth of it. The mercy shown to young settlements now protects islands rather than armies: a small island still finding its feet cannot starve, but park a great army on it and it will eat like one.
A lighter hand on Governors who go quiet
Auto-shutter is retired. A quiet realm is no longer force-shuttered at day 12, so abandoned islands turn Forsaken on the normal 14-day clock and can be liberated by the players around them. Shuttering stays a manual choice for a real absence, and it no longer costs you your alliance seat. Alliance leaders may now shutter too. Alliance removal happens only after 14 days of genuine silence, and an absent leader’s mantle passes to the most senior member remaining instead of the alliance disbanding. The Black Tide holds off claiming an inactive Governor’s islands until 30 days of absence, so days 14 to 30 belong to you and your neighbours.
Islands say a little more about themselves
Above the Stores you will find a list of what ails an island and what favours it, with each entry naming its cause and what to do about it. It is a first step rather than a finished thing, and right now it mostly speaks up when a fleet has outgrown its berths, the catapults have outgrown the Barracks, or the people have outgrown their housing. Fix the cause and the notice clears on its own.
These are notices only, for now. Nothing on that list costs you anything this release. It is there so you can see where your islands stand and put them right in your own time. In the next release those same notices begin to bite: an island left over capacity will start to lose morale, and a choked harbour will slow the coin coming in. You have this release to sort it out, and breaking up what you cannot berth is the quickest way to do it. One thing worth knowing before you reach for the obvious answer: sending the overflow to sea does not clear the books, because a ship on a voyage still belongs to its harbour and a soldier garrisoned abroad still musters from home. The count follows the flag, not the anchorage.
The Chronicle also picked up two additions. Each release now arrives as a Harbour Board handbill, posted once after your morning paper and kept on the shelf to read again. And on Sundays the paper stops reporting and starts inventing: a made-up tale of the realm each week, with the running cast and real Governors in walk-on parts.
New
- Break up ships and war engines for a quarter of the materials back, from the Army and Ships lists or straight from the island notice that named them.
- Release leaflets: each release arrives as a Harbour Board handbill, posted once, and kept on the Chronicle shelf.
- The Sunday Story: the Sunday paper leads with a made-up tale of the realm, with real Governors in walk-on parts.
Improved
- Siege cost is flat again. Every building level costs the same, so massing catapults in one landing is no longer worse than splitting them across many.
- Troops and crews away from home now eat from home stores, and the new-settlement starvation mercy protects islands rather than oversized armies parked on them.
- Islands now list what ails them above the Stores, starting with fleets, engines and people that have outgrown what the island can hold. Notices only this release; they begin to cost you in the next one.
- Auto-shutter retired: a quiet realm is no longer force-shuttered at day 12, so abandoned islands can be liberated on the normal clock.
- Shuttering no longer costs your alliance seat, and alliance leaders may shutter. An absent leader’s mantle passes to the most senior member instead of disbanding the alliance.
- The Black Tide waits 30 days of absence before claiming an inactive Governor’s islands, leaving days 14 to 30 as your liberation window.
- The Black Tide keeps what it takes: a captured island holds its buildings, stores and troops under Tide colours, and allied garrisons stationed there sail home with a notification instead of vanishing.
- The wild-shore withdrawal toll now applies only to raids. Attack fleets and settler escorts pay none of it.
- The curse view now says what to do, gather the makings then lift the curse, with the button in reach at the bottom.
- Saturday’s week in review grew into a proper long read, and the Chronicle shelf became the Governor’s Almanac.
- Front-page engravings now match their story’s subject and stop repeating on consecutive days.
- Notices and Classifieds became one Back Page, and the small ads stop repeating day after day.
- Governor of the Day now leads the Chronicle’s Realm News page.
- Raiding a treasure island with ships alone now explains in the report that a landing force is needed to claim the chest.
- Your Estate drops the day-in-figures tally, and resource gains no longer overlap on a phone.
Fixed
- A fleet whose target island is freed while it is at sea now turns around and sails home with no losses, instead of winning on an empty shore and paying the withdrawal toll.
- Scoreboards no longer list Governors who have lost all their islands or are Shuttered.
- Alliance depot deposits work again when another resource sits over cap after a rank drop.
- The alliance member list shows rank groups in the order set in the rank editor, and profiles show your rank’s real name instead of a generic one.
- Alliance quests that need several different contributors now show a Crews needed gate and warn before the deadline, instead of failing at a full bar.
- Every alliance quest shows its own guide copy instead of borrowing text written for another quest.
- The island view no longer freezes on mobile after closing chat. Waves, ships and birds keep moving.
- Island metric breakdowns name the research, condition or good behind an effect instead of an internal code.
- Research screens show Combined Attacks for that unlock instead of a code.
- The Strike from the stores dialog is readable again, and its keep-them button sits properly.
- Tapping a tideline find you already sealed says the reward is safely in your stores, and the dead card clears away.
- The Chronicle’s front-page bulletin no longer lists the same Governor twice, its headlines no longer print map coordinates, and its standings no longer hand the same Governor the top spot every morning.
- The Chronicle’s daily articles no longer re-report the small hours twice, and Saturday’s review covers the whole week.
- The marketplace no longer blanks the offer list on a background refresh.
