v1.245 Patch Notes

Hi all, this is a big new update, adding new event models and a proper pop system.

Settlements now use a proper pop system, power blocs have been rebuilt into active political factions with their own interactions, armies can be merged and retrained far more cleanly, and the events now react to births, deaths, executions, spies, and rebellions.

New Features

Unified Pop System

Settlements no longer treat population, culture, and religion as mostly separate top-level values. They now track actual pops defined by both culture and religion, and growth, unrest, conversion, and assimilation all happen at that level. The settlement sidebar now shows a sortable demographics table with detailed breakdowns, religious diversity has been expanded across the map, and rebellions now emerge from the most aggrieved group instead of abstract unrest.

Power Blocs & Senate

Power blocs now feel like real political constituencies instead of passive modifiers. The old Senatorial Aristocracy has been reworked into the Senate, blocs now have 12 distinct interactions tailored to their interests, and interactions can have proper durations with visible progress. That means actions like holding triumphs, granting tax exemptions, dispatching imperial aid, offering sinecures, commissioning audits, packing or purging the Senate, and convening ecumenical councils are now part of day-to-day rule. Characters can be given the Senator trait, which grants them the ability to participate in the Senate.

The Ecumenical Council has also moved into clergy politics and now resolves through narrative events.

Dynasties & Reactive Events

Dynasty tracking has been rebuilt around a proper dynasty system (previously it was based on surnames which was a bit of a mess), historical rulers are tracked across all factions with regnal lineages, and the Faction Overview now has a Previous Rulers panel. Important campaign moments now trigger reactive events too - births, family deaths, executions, discovered spies, and rebellions all use events to properly notify the player.

Military

You can now merge armies and navies directly from the military sidebar, and Ctrl+right-click merging can spin the result into a new formation template. Formations can also upgrade or downgrade unit lines with full retraining support, saved retraining progress, visible tier buttons, and proper tooltip costs.

Military units now track their source culture, so auxiliary troops behave more cleanly when recruited, disbanded, and shown in tooltips. There is also a new barbarian auxiliary recruitment system, ports support right-click dock and blockade orders, and bishoprics map mode can show land borders.

Local LLM & Event Generation

The local LLMs have had some improvements for stability and have been replaced with new models based on Qwen 3.5. Models now load asynchronously after startup, the settings UI shows loading progress and VRAM requirements, unsupported hardware is handled more clearly, GPU crashes are caught more safely, and there are new Frequent and Very Frequent event settings for players who want a busier narrative game. I've also added the Large model which is now available as an optional download.

UI & Quality of Life

• Modifier indicator widgets with proper source breakdown tooltips, now integrated into the faction overview/policies panel
• Two-column layout for the power blocs screen
• Sortable settlement pop rows and richer tooltips for growth, unrest, assimilation, conversion, and imprisonment
• Steam Deck detection with performance-friendly defaults, larger UI scale, a 30 FPS cap, and automatic on-screen keyboard support
• Character finder now shows all characters by default
• Camera recentres on settlements when cycling with the arrow buttons
• Character tooltips now show where prisoners are being held
• Natural and manufactured resources are distinguished more clearly in the UI
• Cloud save deletion for Steam and Epic
• Vietnamese language support

Content & Modding

• Character and scenario setup has been moved to human-readable JSON instead of CSV/DataTables
• Scenario JSON can now define the player faction, preserve custom courtiers, and persist province region colours
• Added historical dead rulers and regnal histories across all factions
• Added new faction/settlement data and starting characters for Lupara and Umessia
• Barbarian factions can now sign diplomatic treaties and fight wars with each other

Balance Changes

• Religion conversion now uses per-pop dynamics with resistance and persecution instead of flat settlement-level pressure
• Conversion pressure now needs at least a 5% religious share before it starts to matter
• Per-pop unrest now slows cultural assimilation
• Relocate Population is now a timed interaction with a gold cost instead of an instant free action
• Rebellions now emerge from the angriest demographic group, making local demographic tensions much more important
• Occupying an enemy capital now gives additional war score
• Tutorial army cap enforcement has been fixed to prevent them building massive armies

Bug Fixes

Military

• Fixed navy command radius visuals being scaled incorrectly
• Fixed subordinate list indentation and scaling issues in the military hierarchy UI
• Fixed negative faction effectiveness causing broken battle damage values
• Fixed recruitment drawing population from cached totals instead of the actual pop array
• Fixed click-to-merge, retraining, and formation UI edge cases
• Tutorial borders regenerate correctly

Characters & Politics

• Dead bishops and court position holders now vacate their offices immediately
• Prisoners are now handled correctly in war goals and peace deals, and are freed properly when captured settlements change hands
• Designated heirs are now respected in non-vassal succession
• Faction destruction no longer leaves characters in broken states
• Marriage selection is restricted to eligible realm characters and no longer disappears for valid relatives
• Power bloc owner/autonomous rebellion state now serialises properly
• JSON-defined courtiers are preserved during scenario rehydration
• Western Rebels naming issues fixed

UI

• Inapplicable interactions are now hidden instead of just greyed out
• Interactions that need an initiator no longer appear when no valid initiator exists
• Modifier indicator tooltips refresh correctly after assignments
• Duration and Instant are shown correctly on interaction buttons and tooltips
• XML rich text no longer wraps trailing punctuation onto a new line
• Treasury deficit warning now points at the correct icon
• Province creation UI no longer mishandles capital selection
• Character finder defaults and filters behave properly

Technical

• Fixed a dangling event image crash and reduced false memory watchdog triggers
• Local LLM event timing now applies frequency multipliers correctly
• Scenario initialisation no longer depends on the old Initializer actor setup