Update 0.4.5 restores beehives, adds storefront stock targets and adoption, and improves the economy and cart protection.
Beehives and business
Build beehives from Private Structures, enter them, lure in a swarm, tend the bees, and harvest honey and beeswax to sell at the marketplace. Bees can also be trained for special tasks. Further production-chain uses for honey and beeswax are planned.
Right-click a crafting recipe to choose storage, storefront delivery, or a target stock amount. Items above the target can go directly to the storefront. Crafting pauses with a notification when storage is full.
Price displays now show the best and worst current city prices and historical minimum and maximum prices. Tooltips explain factors such as base price, buying markup, negotiation, storefront discounts, supply, and local unrest.
City treasury income was rebalanced around tax collection and imperial payments relative to city renown.
Dynasty and politics
Children can now be adopted as a workaround for the unresolved inability to remarry after a spouse dies. Suitable courting candidates should now always be available.
Dynasty renown is the sum of its members’ renown, counting the current dynasty head twice.
The Fencing Master gains a crime-suppression action weaker than the Colonel’s version. The character sheet shows the current office more clearly.
A quick-navigation button opens the guild house. Right-click closes windows except interactive areas such as recipes and portraits. An interaction guide is available from the main menu.
Carts, balance and saves
Players can buy further carts again, and escorts no longer expire after their first fight. Ambushes were made less frequent and more predictable; the notes give no new attack probabilities.
Crime, unrest and burglaries were rebalanced. Several item effects were added, and the Hard to Kill trait no longer makes characters effectively immortal. The notes do not identify all affected items or publish replacement numbers.
Performance was improved, especially late in a campaign, and several crashes were fixed. The game keeps four autosaves per playthrough and preserves manual saves.
Existing saves should remain compatible. If a save causes problems, the developers suggest starting a new game or using the version_0.4.1 branch.
The first-week update previewed 0.4.5 and outlined the planned October business and dynasty update.
Released in 0.4.5
The beehive, storefront stock target, pricing tooltip, performance and cart fixes previewed here were released on September 25. See Update 0.4.5 above for current behaviour.
Announced for October
The developers plan fuller Master and Overseer controls: promote workers to Overseers or assign family members as Masters, then give management orders. Coordination with storage-shed managers is intended to support production chains between businesses.
Arranging marriages, ending engagements, and naming dynasties, children, buildings and carts were announced for the October update. These are plans, not features added by the September 24 announcement.
A building Master can now be removed. Masters preserve crafting ingredients unless storage is completely full, use only empty carts, and correctly craft goods requiring multiple ingredients.
Master-managed carts no longer repeat the arrival announcement. AI decision and UI updates were improved to reduce micro-freezes, especially in Nuremberg.
Cart ambushes and evidence
AI cart attacks became much less frequent, target more valuable carts, and no longer happen immediately after dispatch. Update 0.4.5 later adjusted ambush frequency again.
Fighting an ambush requires an escort. Choosing Fight has a 50% chance to yield evidence of strength 2.
Denounce now grants Vigilant Driver, allowing the cart to be used again in the same turn without another attack. The bug awarding five weak evidence pieces instead of one strong piece was fixed.
Other fixes
Quarter-improvement actions execute correctly, skill training increases the skill reliably, and crime evidence generation was fixed. Babies no longer press charges; the tutorial’s false-accusation issue became less likely.
AI invests more readily in quarter improvements to counter problems such as crime. The previous version remained available on the version_0.4.0 branch.
Early Access launched September 17, alongside an updated demo, family business Masters and a revised economy.
Playing the launch version
Old demo saves are incompatible with the updated demo. Start a new save, or use the demo_0.3.0 Steam branch to finish a previous demo campaign.
A trained dynasty member can manage a business as its Master. Character creation now includes selectable names, backstories, crests and portraits; additional customization remains planned.
Prices depend on supply and demand, the season, skills and building improvements. The marketplace adds sorting, search and an option to hide out-of-stock goods.
Time speeds are 0.5x, 1x, 3.8x and 10x. Applicants cannot vote for themselves when seeking the highest office in a chamber.
Stock and replenishment were reduced for Silver Ingot, Gold Ingot, Precious Stone, Oakwood Board, Slate Tile and Musk. The choices in Exhaustion Plagues Your Business were weakened; exact replacement effects were not published.
More building interiors and interactions, a crowd-density setting, German text and German narrator audio were added. Remarriage after a spouse dies remained a known issue; adoption was later added in 0.4.5.
The launch lineup was confirmed as eight professions and six cities, with combat professions and multiplayer scheduled for later updates.
Early Access lineup
The eight launch professions are Smith, Tailor, Joiner, Stonemason, Priest, Innkeeper, Alchemist and Perfumer. Stonemason and Priest are also known as Stone Mason and Preacher.
The six starting cities are Kuttenberg, Graz, Nuremberg, Wrocław, Freiburg and Landsfort Herle, the tutorial city.
To appoint a family member as a business Master, first have them join the appropriate profession guild. The initial automation may spend funds or use carts needed elsewhere.
Future milestones
The combat update is planned to add Thief, Robber and Guard, alongside combat and duel improvements. These professions are not playable at the Early Access launch.
A later multiplayer update is planned for up to 12 players, dynasty rivalries and alliances, economy changes and another city.
Moneylender and Trader are planned for version 1.0, alongside expanded guild, family, crime and punishment systems. The roadmap does not announce a 1.0 date.
