Ara: History Untold Patch 1.1 is now available!

[Zoeff]

Official Link: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2021880/view/6633333780228603907

From the developers:
The Ara: history Untold team could not be more excited for today's release - our first major feature update. Below are comprehensive release notes detailing the new features as well as the balance changes and updates.

We've also addressed a large number of player reported bugs and issues with this update, and can't wait for you to give it a try!


Highlights

National Economy Screen

• Manage your nation's crafting, supplies, and policies from a single screen, replacing the crafting panel for streamlined management.

New Amenities

• Over a dozen new craftable amenities added, offering additional strategic choices:
• Anvil: Provide a 150% buff to improvements that can be supplied with them.
• Biscuits: Grant players a +25 to food as an Amenity.
• Mining Pick: Add +50% harvest rate to improvements.
• Fuel Cell: Gives 150% craft rate at improvements, or 100% harvest rate to improvements, +3 City Health.
• Sewing Machines: Sewing Machines add 200% craft rate to improvements.
• Fresh Produce: Grant +200 food per turn, +5 health per turn as an Amenity.
• Scrolls: Grant +15 City Knowledge as an Amenity.
• Baked Goods: Give +50 Food/turn, -5 City Health as an Amenity.

...and more!

Unit Upgrades

• Upgrade units within your army directly by issuing the new Upgrade Order, but be mindful of the resource and turn cost to complete the upgrade.

Advisors

• Introduces a Sovereign Advisor.
• Each advisor provides suggestions to enhance your strategy.
• This feature will become more intelligent in future releases.

John A. MacDonald

• Canada joins the world stage, expanding your diplomatic and strategic options!

Earth Map
Added as a pre-made map focusing on gameplay over strict geographical accuracy:

• Britain and Ireland share an enlarged island.
• Features like the Canadian Shield and Gulf Stream are accounted for.
• Enhanced mountain ranges for natural barriers.

Redeployment

• Reform armies with units being sent back to your reserves for better strategic flexibility.

Changelog

Performance Enhancements

Memory Optimization

• Improved game performance on lower-end hardware.

Rendering Optimizations

• Enhanced framerate stability for lower-end systems.

LOD Optimization

• Better visuals and object clarity while maintaining higher framerates.

General Performance Improvements

• Several performance enhancements have been made to improve overall game stability and experience.

UI Updates

Region Yields

• Added region yields to the title bar in the city panel for better resource tracking.

Improvement Renaming

• Players can now rename their improvements for personalized management.

Supply Availability

• Improvements with available supplies now glow to indicate their availability.

Technology Display

• Items now display the required technology to unlock them.

Customization Slider

• Added a slider allowing users to customize when the nation overlay and the Living World Buildings fade in/out.

Notification System

• Players receive notifications when they run out of crafting resources.

AI Updates

Improved Prioritization

• AI better prioritizes city improvements and optimal dwelling locations.

Data-Driven AI

• Supports data driving, allowing designers and modders to enhance AI prioritization.

War Declaration Intelligence

• AI becomes more strategic and intelligent in declaring wars.

Map Generation

Human Priority

• Humans are prioritized for mild climate locations during map generation.

Biome Weighting

• Adjusted to make starting positions more interesting with fewer snowy starts.

Gameplay Fixes

Late Game Stability

• Fixed a crash bug occurring in the late game.

La Grand Place

• Resolved the issue of La Grand Place not appearing in Act 1.

Road Spawning

• Prevented detail roads from spawning underneath improvements.

Duplicated Unlocks

• Removed duplicate unlock of animal resources.

Event System

Triggers Added

• Added triggers for improvements when they have no items in the queue and when they begin crafting.

Visual Improvements

Road Textures

• Enhanced road texture fidelity for a more polished look.

Barracks 3D Asset

• Improved the 3D asset of Barracks for better visual appeal.

Modding Support

Advisor Data Driving

• Added data driving capabilities for advisors to support modders.

New Feature Details

Earth Map

Geographical Features

• Canadian Shield and Gulf Stream are now accurately represented.

Gameplay Connections

• Britain and Ireland connected as a single enlarged island.
• Italy and Sicily connected for enhanced gameplay dynamics.

Natural Barriers

• Tweaked mountain ranges to provide more natural (and slightly exaggerated) barriers for improved gameplay.

Real-World Locations

• Added real-world locations for nations, ensuring a balance between accuracy and gameplay.

National Economy Screen Feature Overview

Centralized Management

• Replaced the crafting panel with the National Economy Screen for unified management.

Automatic Supply Allocation

• Set the game to automatically add supplies to various improvements as they become available.

Supply Order Management

• Define the order in which supplies are allocated automatically.

Global Harvester Management

• Control resource harvesting globally across all regions.

Crafting Management

• Manage crafting from the National Economy Screen without needing to visit each city.

Global Improvement Upgrading

• Upgrade improvements on a global scale for efficiency.

Balance Adjustments

Nation and Building Limits

Print Shop

• Nation limit increased to 3.

Inns

• Limited to 1 per city instead of 1 per nation.

Building and Production Buffs

Barracks

• Security set to 15 for level 1 and 25 when an expert is added.

Blacksmith

• Can now be supplied with Tools and Anvil Goods.

Citadel

• Construction no longer requires Concrete.

Docks

• Production buff after adding an expert reduced from 20 to 15.

Drydock

• Default production buff increased from 10 to 20.
• Production buff after adding an expert increased from 20 to 30.

Naval Base

• Default production buff increased from 10 to 30.
• Production buff after adding an expert remains 30 with additional benefits.

Workshops, Factories, Crafting Guilds

• Can build Anvils and Mining Picks.

Residences & Skyscrapers

• Residents can now use Soap, improving living standards.

Foundry & Forge

• Can use Anvils and Fuel Cells to increase production.

Hwaseong Fortress

• Available for construction throughout Act 2 and 3.

Library of Celsus

• Available for construction until Act 3, extending its utility.

London Eye Buff

• Corrected; Security buff changed to Prosperity.

St. Basil's Cathedral

• Now only provides 1 Security per Engineer or Artist Paragon.

Forge

• Can now be unlocked by Precision Engineering.

Metallurgy and Steel

Metallurgy

• No longer unlocks Steel. Steel crafting is postponed until later ages when Forges are available.

Fuel Recipe Changes

Production Cost

• Reduced from 1000u to 500u.

Production Bonus for the Second Ingredient

• Reduced from 750u to 500u.

Resource Adjustments

Marble

• Now more common.

Meteors

• Now provide Metal Ingots instead of precious metals, eliminating the need for smelting.

Obsidian

• Now more common.

Tobacco

• Yields less money than before.

Unit and Population Adjustments

Dragoons & Zamburaks

• Can now be produced in Act 3.

Prestige Reward

• Capturing an enemy city now provides a prestige reward.

Horses

• Take slightly longer to tame to balance availability.

Population Tier Requirements

• Slightly increased.

Stat Penalties

• Reduced for low-level cities to gradually introduce urbanization effects.

Tax Revenue

• Cities generate slightly more tax revenue to make governments more impactful.

City Leveling

• Levels 7-13: Slower leveling for better pacing.
• Levels 11-23: Receive an additional amenity slot.

Manufacturing and Production Changes

Factories

• Can now manufacture Toys, PDAs, and Sewing Machines.

Workshops & Crafting Guilds

• Hourglasses can be produced here.

Ceramic Shops

• Can produce Mosaic Tiles, now an ingredient for many Triumphs.

Clothing Production

• More involved to produce but provides significantly bigger buffs.

Rope Usage

• Added as an accelerator for Barrel and Carriage production, and Festival setups.

Plows

• Substantially more expensive to produce without appropriate resources (e.g., horses or oxen).
• Harvest Buff increased from 50% to 100%.

Furs

• Must be turned into Leather and can no longer substitute for leather directly.

Sneakers

• Can use Plastic instead of Leather.

Technologies

• Hourglass unlocked by Engineering.
• Mosaic Tiles unlocked by Architecture.
• Boots unlocked by Horseshoes.
• Trousers & Sewing Machines unlocked by Industrialization.
• Mass Food Supply Amenity unlocked by Synthetic Fertilizers.
• Toys & Sneakers unlocked by Leisure.
• PDAs unlocked by Internet.
• Fuel Cells unlocked by Robotics.
• Embarkation Pass moved to Navigation for better island nation strategies.
• Ironworking unlocks the Anvil.
• Precision Engineering unlocks the Forge.
• Metallurgy no longer unlocks Steel; Steel crafting is delayed until Forges are available.

Additional Technology Adjustments

• Haberdashery reclassified from religious to industrial.

Events and Quests

Forest Fort:

• Aesthetics debuff decreased from -3 to -2 for consistency.

Piercing Request:

• Option 2 now asks for Stone Tools and provides a small capital prosperity buff.

Honoring Their Memory:

• First option debuff updated to -1 force strength.
• Third option now imposes a -2 happiness debuff.

Political Piety:

• Removed happiness debuff from the first option.
• Wealth is now a required cost.

Workers of the World Quest:

• Removed duplicated reward buff.

Is It Hot In Here? Event:

• The +10 happiness benefit in all cities no longer appears twice.

Armies and Combat Enhancements

• Dragoons and Zamburaks can now be produced in Act 3.
• Capturing an enemy city now provides a prestige reward.

Miscellaneous Improvements

Customization Slider:

• Added a slider allowing users to customize when the nation overlay and the Living World Buildings fade in/out.

Localization:

• Continued updates to all language localizations for better accessibility and user experience

Other Improvements:

• Several performance enhancements have been made to improve overall game stability and experience.

 

[Zoeff]

Sorry @The_J I think I overwrote your edit - I was still adding formatting

 

[The_J]

No worries, I only added the link to the patch, which you did as well. So nothing lost .

 

[Civinator]

Here is a screenshot of the new worldmap. ARA is on sale at steam this weekend (20%).

 

[funguseater]

I love the new update, although I admit I edit the Better Start Mod v3 by Gvanov to
.vUnits =
{
{ "unt_Scout", 1 },
{ "unt_Scout", 1 },
{ "unt_Settler", 1 },
},
and remove the city's hearth, I prefer to choose my first city's location. I hope the UI and starting conditions can be officially fixed so it wont bug out if you dont have a city lol

 

[KayAU]

I haven't been very active here recently, for various real-life reasons, but I downloaded the update today, and based on a few hours of gameplay, I have to say: this is an excellent update, which improves Ara greatly. The star of the show for me is the new National Economy screen, which is a much more convenient way to manage crafting, and especially supplies. Like how I set up Farms and Workshops here:

Spoiler :

That's all I have to do for Farms and Workshops, they should now be slotted automatically as supplies become available.

It's not just the big changes either, there are a lot of smaller improvements, like new amenities, balance tweaks and UI improvements. Notice how the supply slot is highlighted when something is available to slot in, for example:

Spoiler :

Anyway, I'm going back to the game now. I got this nice start with Canada, and I want to see how things develop.