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FEATURES
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The big ticket item this week (and likely next week as well) is the Goblin Siege World Event. In short, it is a multi-phased multi-tiered event that touches on a lot of aspects of the system (ranging from tiered fights to legendary named monsters to physical item impact), so I am using it as my "guinea pig" to get it dialed in properly so the rest of the World Events in the future have all the modules and ingredients needed to look good and function as intended.
So! This means a lot of progress has been made in short period of time, but more is on the way ;)
The Goblin Siege: Warlords
Nine named goblin warlords now lead the strongest hosts, each with its own signature ability. A tier-3 or tier-4 host from a warlord's own warband marches under him.
Break a warlord's host and he is dead for good. You earn 15 renown, and the defenders who broke his host earn the Warlord-Slayer record.
A warlord still standing when the siege ends escapes and returns in a later siege with a grudge. Each grudge means one more grinding fight to break his host, up to three more.
After you have faced a warlord, the Bestiary shows a Warlords section with how often each was faced or escaped, and a "Slain" stamp.
Warlord hosts carry a crown on the map. The muster card is titled with the warlord's name.
The Goblin Siege: At the Gate
The gate strike uses the Tower's muster. Pick individual defenders, up to two parties' worth, then pick a line on the formation board. "Breach and Lanes" is the default line.
"Hold with last week's line" fights straight away with last week's defenders and formation.
Adventurers who are not in a party can be raised as a levy to fill the wall, up to five.
Sorties and gate strikes you actually fight now pay XP: half of what a one-week raid would pay for the same fight.
Each host you break pays a one-time bounty of 10 + 10 × its tier in renown.
Each host threatens a named gate: Harbor, North, East or West. The town remembers which gates have fallen. Holding a gate that already fell says the breach still gapes; it no longer says the town is untouched.
An overrun sortie, and the fight that ends the siege, play out after the Week Report. Set Battle Presentation to Always to watch every one.
Muster party rows show a Favored, Even or Outmatched forecast for the host you would face.
Host cards show the host's ROVR and a wider painting. "Expand" opens the muster in its own movable window.
Hovering a warband on the Frontier map shows its tier, its ROVR and how many weeks out it is.
The warning week's report says where the hosts are forming and what to prepare, with a button to the War Table.
The arrival cinematic is restyled. If you have a Guild Commander, a second screen gives their situation briefing.
During a siege, the World Event card's button reads "Muster the defense" and opens the War Table. Quests blocked by the siege are marked "Blocked · Under Siege".
The gate result and the Week Report point you to the Guild Hall to rebuild burned buildings.
Rapport
The Dossier has a new Rapport tab. You get one Quiet Word a week for the whole guild. What lands depends on what the hero is going through and their temperament.
AS USUAL, this is one step of many. This one is tricky because it's a lot procedural dialogue across 18 languages, so there are a lot of moving parts. In turn, this one will be a long-term project that I'll be chipping away at over time.
Each hero shows a Bond level, from Devoted to Estranged. Bond feeds their mood at re-signing. A Devoted hero is half as likely to entertain a poaching offer, and a Close hero a quarter less likely.
You can spend the week's word on a promise. A kept promise adds 8 bond and 3 morale. A broken one costs 10 bond and 6 morale.
A "word unspent" chip in the header takes you to the hero who needs it most.
Letting a hero go costs each of their close friends on the roster 8 morale.
Redemption Arcs
Four flaws can now be outgrown instead of bought off:
Coward becomes Brave after 8 underdog victories.
Drunkard becomes Consistent after 25 weeks questing.
Glory Hog becomes Inspiring Presence after 15 witnessed level-ups.
Hothead becomes Stoic after 12 quests in a row at 70+ morale.
The pledge costs 2,000 gold, and only deeds done after it count.
Then a two-week Reckoning quest posts. The hero must go and nobody on it can die: a lethal blow becomes a critical injury instead.
Passing the Reckoning clears the flaw and grants the paired trait. Failing costs 10 morale and the Reckoning posts again.
Guild & Roster
With a Quartermaster, you can save up to 5 named gear loadouts and re-equip them in one click. Deployed heroes, locked pieces and broken gear are skipped.
Batch training: "Train all eligible" for staff and gatherers, and "Send all to seminar" for crafters. Both show the combined tuition before you confirm.
Rival Academy commissions now take the graduate: an on-spec graduate joins the rival, and you are paid 6,000, 12,000 or 24,000 gold by tier. Faction grants still let you keep the graduate. A new switch stops new commissions from being offered.
Hard roads pay more. Tagged Drives and Ascensions grant +1 (hard) or +2 (punishing) extra stats, plus bonus fame. The Tower-Climber title also gives the party +6% injury reduction.
All eight lore Callings now grant a named Legendary relic at Ascension.
A "Greatest Quarry" record in the career tab shows the strongest creature each hero has felled, or helped fell.
Compare opened from a hero seeds their role's guild averages at nearby potential tiers. A filter rail is added.
Settings & Sandbox
Event Sandbox (Settings ▸ Gameplay) lets you start any released world event on demand. The save is marked Sandbox and cannot earn Steam achievements. It is unavailable in Multiplayer or while another event is running.
New Custom Difficulty options:
a Starting Gold slider (0–50,000, default 10,000)
a No Market Purchases switch
Bonus Instructor Slots (0–6)
Prospect Quality (×0.25–2)
Prospect Volume (×0.5–3)
an F-Tier Graduate Bounty (0–60 renown per semester, up to 500)
Your scout, gambit, Commander's Orders, doctrine and formation templates carry into new games. You can turn this off in Settings.
Battle Doctrine has two new targeting orders: focus the enemy with the lowest HP or the most wounded.
The Quest Board shows the three quests your Commander would pick for an auto-questing party.
Back and Forward buttons sit at the left of the tab strip.
Multiplayer
Trades with other guildmasters use your Trade Routes caravan slots and per-trade volume cap.
Contested free-agent bids weigh the clauses you offered and how close your term is to the recruit's preferred term, not only wage times years.
Hosts can list or unlist their lobby. Lobbies with no human left drop off the public browser.
The public browser and the Join preview show each league's difficulty tier.
The shared free-agent bench favors trades it is short of and always offers a Mason and a Carpenter.
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BALANCE
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Combat
Units can now move through hexes held by their own allies in every battle. Enemies still block. This change makes fights a bit easier, so I'm keeping an eye on this. That being said, let me know how it feels.
A quest your party loses in battle now counts as a loss. It is no longer rounded up to a partial success when your party outranks the quest.
Lifesteal passives now heal in PvP bouts: Crown Cup, CCL, Rival Challenge, Champion's Challenge, Proving Ladder and Sparring Pit spars.
Earth Shaman, Hexblade and Spellblade now count Strength toward their offense.
On quests, a charged active the hero cannot cast keeps only 20% of its bonus.
Enemy trait slots now open at creature tiers 1, 3 and 5, and bosses get a fourth. Special-quest creatures roll traits too.
Young veterans retire from lethal blows less often, so some of those blows now kill.
The Lich's aura on tower floors now drains about 1% of max HP each round (roughly 1 → 10 on a 1,000-HP hero). Combat text says "drained" instead of "bleeds".
Warlord kits and the Lich aura now show on their enemy cards.
Goblin Siege
Sieges come more often: the weekly chance rises from 0.028% to 0.05%, and the cooldown drops from 8 to 5 years.
Open-field sortie foes are slightly weaker. The gate strike is unchanged.
A host that overruns a sortie keeps marching on the town.
Clearing a siege now actually pays its 120 renown.
Skarn, Grukk and Redtooth can now lead tier-3 hosts. Grukk and Redtooth gain Counterweight Swing.
Goblin warlords Vhrek and Ashcrow are tougher (~875 → ~1,458 HP), and their Shield Charge now actually fires, as their ultimate.
Factions
Favor nodes now stack; a later node no longer replaces the ones before it. For example, a Temple guild holding every node now gets 35% death prevention, up from 5%.
Favor nodes that did nothing now work. Some examples:
Rich Veins: +25% quest materials
Military Advisors: −30% injuries and +20% death prevention
Tactical Briefings: 15% easier quest outcome rolls
Broker's Runners: +10% scout speed
Noble Favors: +10% certification approval
Exalted now begins at 750 standing, not 1,000.
Standing losses no longer ripple to rival factions. Gains ripple the same way through every source, including contracts and letters. Underworld gains now cost Merchants 20% of the gain.
A congratulations letter can raise a rival's trust only as far as Friendly.
Economy & Progression
Tutorial tasks now pay 30 renown in total instead of 253, and 11,400 gold instead of 7,400. Your first promotion is earned in play.
The Scavenger and Rich Veins material bonus now pays its advertised +25%; it was paying about +50%.
Weekly auto-repair now restores gear to full for the price it charges.
Rival counter-offers value your goods by what that guild actually needs.
Elite applicants now really arrive +3 to +7 OVR.
An F-Tier Academy prospect's odds of graduating into an ultra-rare class drop from full odds to almost nothing.
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BUG FIXES
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Goblin Siege
If the last host broke on the siege's final week, you now get the full clear payoff instead of losing it.
The final gate break is no longer counted twice ("4 of 3 broken").
Battle Reports for sorties and gate strikes are now working as expected.
Heroes lost at the gate now count in the year's losses. Undying and death saves protect them there, and a Commander who falls at the gate is replaced at once.
A party ordered out on a sortie is locked until the sortie is cancelled or fought, so it can no longer be double-deployed.
One wounded party-mate no longer greys out the healthy heroes in the gate muster.
Pressing Escape on the alarm no longer bars the gates by accident.
During a siege, the Tower tab no longer offers the Wardens' Repel or Parley choice.
Trade & Markets
A Trading Block trade no longer celebrates a signing that did not happen. Complete Trade shows why a trade is refused.
Rivals no longer accept a swap worth less than 95% of the asking price.
A counter-offer shown as fair is no longer rejected by the same guild.
The Treasurer's "Now %" buy rules buy at the price shown, and the card shows the price the rule actually enforces.
Advance Week
A pending CCL event that no screen can show no longer greys out Advance Week. The tooltip now says what to do and an "Open CCL" button appears when a CCL event is what's blocking.
Turning on "Disable CCL Events" during a live tournament asks before forfeiting it.
Return to Main Menu works when a memorial is waiting behind a battle report.
Academy
Graduate odds now respect potential-tier rarity gates and the career-track picker shows each class's graduation chance.
Traits, Category, and Years on the Prospects board sort by what they show.
Scouts can target a new season's prospects the week they arrive.
The header counts seated faculty, and warns when instructors are hired but not seated.
Offered commissions no longer show a penalty for declining.
One time only, on load, career tracks aimed at a class the prospect can never graduate into are cleared.
Quests & Recruitment
A finished building now brings applicants of the crafter or gatherer role it unlocks.
Quests named for terrain, such as coast roads and mountain passes, now appear in matching regions.
The death and injury estimates on the deploy screen now drop as your party outmatches the quest, and follow the Injury Rate difficulty setting.
Founding tasks stay claimable after their condition stops being true.
The ambition badge no longer claims a quest advances a requirement the hero has already met.
Applicants who join already aged start with the HP their level and stats warrant.
The Preferred contract term is now always a term the recruit's sign actually favors. The contract-length bars show how cheap each term is to sign.
The Crown's Oath of Service no longer breaks over letters whose reply window has closed. Oaths broken this way are healed once, on load.
House Ravencroft's patronage letter now delivers Aldric Ravencroft III and only one of him, lol.
The Floor 30 Surface Breach crisis now pays what its full-commit buttons promise. The Surface Breach Doctrine whisper chain can now start.
The Drowned Ledger special quest, meant for a later update, no longer posts. An unaccepted copy is removed from the board.
Multiplauyer
Human guilds no longer forfeit the Summer Festival.
The Ready banner is back when you re-enter a week you already readied.
Other guilds' enrolled prospects no longer linger in your Prospects list.
CCL Watch replays show the recorded winner.
CCL standings show other human guilds' real tier.
Other guildmasters' rosters no longer appear on the Guild Block or accept direct trades.
A CCL series band no longer shows a score before the match is fought.
Display
Steam and itch builds show battleground ground and obstacle art instead of broken-image icons.
Header stat tiles no longer overlap in narrow windows on the Parchment and CleanOS themes.
Disabled buttons on CleanOS read as disabled again.
The Week Report shows a scouted free agent's OVR range, not the exact number.
Recruitment-pool applicants who age out no longer appear as guild retirements.
The morale trend shows "+0.2/wk" instead of a long decimal.
A fallen hero's dossier shows their memorial, not their health.
Damage numbers clear heroes standing on high ground.
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QUALITY OF LIFE
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Parties & Roster
The Parties tab is tighter: one availability line, compact member cards, and a crown on every card.
The party picker:
search matches nicknames, notes and tags
filter by tag
a Synergy sort, plus a second sort level
the chemistry chip is labelled
preferred party mates are marked with a ♦
"Needs Action" is a filter
rows show the hero's current Calling
The hover card shows party preferences and its portrait opens the dossier.
The Trading Block has sortable columns and filters. Recruit-board sorts and filters are remembered.
"Expiring" chips filter the roster in one click.
Information
The dossier "In battle" section shows moves per round and marks which two stats drive damage.
New and corrected Sage's Wisdom pages cover:
what makes a hero hit hard
Tempo
Grimoires (six books, real drop rates)
Focus charges
the full Class Synergies list
Career Tracks
the F-Tier bounty
Tooltips now explain the ★/☆ stat stars and the at-ceiling ✓.
Current ability shows as an OVR or skill number. Tier letters now mean potential only.
Academy potential shows the tier range the hero can reach.
The Commander's Ledger spells out patrol requests and deadlines.
The Markets portfolio shows this week's sell and buy prices beneath each material's market price, and the trade builder shows what the partner guild pays per unit.
The oath panel shows when compliance will lapse.
The building screen shows staff slots and has Hire links.
The weekly "Proving Grounds" section is now called "Free-Agent Parties".
Level-up pop-ups appear only when a hero crosses a multiple of 5.
The Founding and Growth task windows can be closed, and a pill brings them back.
The ⧉ pop-out button is always visible and no longer covers Compact.
Russian building and class text is polished, and the formation board is translated.
The website party simulator orders roles Tank, Healer, Melee, Ranged, sorts by true rarity or A–Z, and shows damage types.
