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. For more information on the feature, you can hear from Ara: History Untold Creative Director, Brad Wardell, here:
How Ara: History Untold’s First Major Update is Packed with New Features – Xbox Wire
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
- New Amenities
- 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
- 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
- Earth Map
- 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
Manage your nation’s crafting, supplies, and policies from a single screen, replacing the crafting panel for streamlined management.
Over a dozen new craftable amenities added, offering additional strategic choices:
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.
Canada joins the world stage, expanding your diplomatic and strategic options!
Added as a pre-made map focusing on gameplay over strict geographical accuracy:
Reform armies with units being sent back to your reserves for better strategic flexibility.
Changelog
Performance Enhancements
- Memory Optimization
- Rendering Optimizations
- LOD Optimization
- General Performance Improvements
Improved game performance on lower-end hardware.
Enhanced framerate stability for lower-end systems.
Better visuals and object clarity while maintaining higher framerates.
Several performance enhancements have been made to improve overall game stability and experience.
UI Updates
- Region Yields
- Improvement Renaming
- Supply Availability
- Technology Display
- Customization Slider
- Notification System
Added region yields to the title bar in the city panel for better resource tracking.
Players can now rename their improvements for personalized management.
Improvements with available supplies now glow to indicate their availability.
Items now display the required technology to unlock them.
Added a slider allowing users to customize when the nation overlay and the Living World Buildings fade in/out.
Players receive notifications when they run out of crafting resources.
AI Updates
- Improved Prioritization
- Data-Driven AI
- war declaration Intelligence
AI better prioritizes city improvements and optimal dwelling locations.
Supports data driving, allowing designers and modders to enhance AI prioritization.
AI becomes more strategic and intelligent in declaring wars.
Map Generation
- Human Priority
- Biome Weighting
Humans are prioritized for mild climate locations during map generation.
Adjusted to make starting positions more interesting with fewer snowy starts.
Gameplay Fixes
- Late Game Stability
- La Grand Place
- Road Spawning
- Duplicated Unlocks
Fixed a crash bug occurring in the late game.
Resolved the issue of La Grand Place not appearing in Act 1.
Prevented detail roads from spawning underneath improvements.
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
- Barracks 3D Asset
Enhanced road texture fidelity for a more polished look.
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
- Gameplay Connections
- Natural Barriers
- Real-World Locations
Canadian Shield and Gulf Stream are now accurately represented.
– Britain and Ireland connected as a single enlarged island.
– Italy and Sicily connected for enhanced gameplay dynamics.
Tweaked mountain ranges to provide more natural (and slightly exaggerated) barriers for improved gameplay.
Added real-world locations for nations, ensuring a balance between accuracy and gameplay.
National Economy Screen Feature Overview
- Centralized Management
- Automatic Supply Allocation
- Supply Order Management
- Global Harvester Management
- Crafting Management
- Global Improvement Upgrading
Replaced the crafting panel with the National Economy Screen for unified management.
Set the game to automatically add supplies to various improvements as they become available.
Define the order in which supplies are allocated automatically.
Control resource harvesting globally across all regions.
Manage crafting from the National Economy Screen without needing to visit each city.
Upgrade improvements on a global scale for efficiency.
Balance Adjustments
Nation and Building Limits
- Print Shop
- Inns
Nation limit increased to 3.
Limited to 1 per city instead of 1 per nation.
Building and Production Buffs
- Barracks
- Blacksmith
- Citadel
- Docks
- Drydock
- Naval Base
- Workshops, factories, Crafting Guilds
- Residences & Skyscrapers
- Foundry & Forge
- Hwaseong Fortress
- Library of Celsus
- London Eye Buff
- St. Basil’s Cathedral
- Forge
Security set to 15 for level 1 and 25 when an expert is added.
Can now be supplied with Tools and Anvil Goods.
Construction no longer requires Concrete.
Production buff after adding an expert reduced from 20 to 15.
Default production buff increased from 10 to 20.
Production buff after adding an expert increased from 20 to 30.
Default production buff increased from 10 to 30.
Production buff after adding an expert remains 30 with additional benefits.
Can build Anvils and Mining Picks.
Residents can now use Soap, improving living standards.
Can use Anvils and Fuel Cells to increase production.
Available for construction throughout Act 2 and 3.
Available for construction until Act 3, extending its utility.
Corrected; Security buff changed to Prosperity.
Now only provides 1 Security per Engineer or Artist Paragon.
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
- Production bonus for the Second Ingredient
Reduced from 1000u to 500u.
Reduced from 750u to 500u.
Resource Adjustments
- Marble
- Meteors
- Obsidian
- Tobacco
Now more common.
Now provide Metal Ingots instead of precious metals, eliminating the need for smelting.
Now more common.
Yields less money than before.
Unit and Population Adjustments
- Dragoons & Zamburaks
- Prestige Reward
- Horses
- Population Tier Requirements
- Stat Penalties
- Tax Revenue
- City Leveling
Can now be produced in Act 3.
Capturing an enemy city now provides a prestige reward.
Take slightly longer to tame to balance availability.
Slightly increased.
Reduced for low-level cities to gradually introduce urbanization effects.
Cities generate slightly more tax revenue to make governments more impactful.
– Levels 7-13: Slower leveling for better pacing.
– Levels 11-23: Receive an additional amenity slot.
Manufacturing and Production Changes
- Factories
- Workshops & Crafting Guilds
- Ceramic Shops
- Clothing Production
- Rope Usage
- Plows
- Furs
- Sneakers
Can now manufacture Toys, PDAs, and Sewing Machines.
Hourglasses can be produced here.
Can produce Mosaic Tiles, now an ingredient for many Triumphs.
More involved to produce but provides significantly bigger buffs.
Added as an accelerator for Barrel and Carriage production, and Festival setups.
Substantially more expensive to produce without appropriate resources (e.g., horses or oxen).
Harvest Buff increased from 50% to 100%.
Must be turned into Leather and can no longer substitute for leather directly.
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.
Haberdashery reclassified from religious to industrial.
Events and Quests
- Forest Fort:
- Piercing Request:
- Honoring Their Memory:
- Political Piety:
- workers of the World Quest:
- is It Hot In Here? Event:
Aesthetics debuff decreased from -3 to -2 for consistency.
Option 2 now asks for Stone Tools and provides a small capital prosperity buff.
First option debuff updated to -1 force strength.
Third option now imposes a -2 happiness debuff.
Removed happiness debuff from the first option.
Wealth is now a required cost.
Removed duplicated reward buff.
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:
- Localization:
- Other Improvements:
Added a slider allowing users to customize when the nation overlay and the Living World Buildings fade in/out.
Continued updates to all language localizations for better accessibility and user experience.
Several performance enhancements have been made to improve overall game stability and experience.