We continue to balance the game, making it easier for new players to get started on one hand, while addressing late-game imbalances on the other. For instance, the starting family will now include four lords, and the chancellery will use half as much paper for inspections (and we're not done with that yet). On the other hand, the Loving Family has prepared something you all adore—a progressive tax scale on trade and another threshold for increasing the army tax. Praise Mother Sophia for her caring generosity! We're also adding the "Target Archers" feature, as announced in the roadmap, which allows you to assign your units to attack either the enemy's melee fighters or their archers. Additionally, in the statistics menu, you'll now see the number of trees cut down by your lumberjacks, along with those that have grown during that time, to give you a clearer view of the forest's balance (I know many of you didn't realize that our forest regenerates!). We've also improved the optimization related to combat and training, but this is just the beginning of the work we plan to do in this area throughout August. It’s going to get better (at least, we'll do our best). [h3][b]New[/b][/h3] [list] [*] New squad option: "Target Archers." [*] Display in the natural resources statistics the number of trees cut down and grown yesterday. [/list] [h3][b]Balance[/b][/h3] [list] [*] New default family configuration at the start of the game: the king, his wife, and two brothers of the king. [*] An additional house of lords has been added in a new game. [*] After 7 vassals, the soldier tax will increase based on the selected difficulty level. The player will receive a notification about this. [*] On easy and medium difficulties, the chancery will consume 0.5 paper per inspection. [*] Different durations for inspection activity based on game difficulty: 20, 30, 40 minutes on peaceful, normal, and hardcore, respectively. [*] The cost of concluding a trade agreement on the global map will depend on the number of agreements already concluded and the difficulty level. [*] Updated mechanics for soldier tax increases based on the number of allies/vassals; now, a letter from the Matriarch will be sent upon the second increase or decrease in taxes. [/list] [h3][b]Stability[/b][/h3] [list] [*] Fixed a silent crash that could occur after the birth of another lord in an AI family with many children. [/list] [h3][b]Fixes[/b][/h3] [list] [*] Fixed a bug where, upon the simultaneous death of both the king and heir, a new king was not appointed. [*] Fixed a bug where leaving an alliance did not remove the thought about being in an alliance. [*] Fixed a bug where partially completed trade agreements would disappear after loading the game. [*] Instead of checking the relationship between the messenger and the merchant lord in the AI city (for the maximum discount), the relationship between the player's king and the merchant lord will be checked. [/list] [h3][b]Optimization[/b][/h3] [list] [*] Optimized battle processing, most noticeable when multiple training grounds are in operation simultaneously. [/list] [hr][/hr][h3]We’re continuing to work hard and look forward to your feedback and reviews! Thank you![/h3]