European Knights 2.6.5: Lands, Learning and Silver

Castles

• 51 historical castles are now places on the map, where they stood, marked with a tower. Among them:
  • Harlech, Conwy, Caernarfon, Dover, Bamburgh and Alnwick
  • Tantallon and Urquhart
  • Château Gaillard, Carcassonne, Coucy and Loches
  • the Alcázar of Segovia and La Mota
  • the Wartburg, Burg Eltz and Kufstein
  • Chillon and Habsburg
  • Karlštejn
  • Wenden and Narva
  • Hunedoara and Spiš
  • Vyborg and Oreshek
  • Krujë, Poenari and Bran
  • Castel del Monte and Monteriggioni
• Each has a castellan's hall and a line of its history, and can be besieged and held.
• A castle fief is a stronghold, not a purse:
  • little rent
  • warband +8
  • walls that start strengthened in a siege
  • protects up to four hamlets
• The castles that were only pictures on the map before are now real places.

Three new skills

• Horsemanship: +1.5% speed on the road per level, and a better chance to escape capture. It rises as you ride, hunt and keep stables.
• Learning: +2% experience in every skill per level, and a little more piety. It rises with masters at the universities, schools in your fiefs and colleges you endow.
• Commerce: +1.5% better prices when buying and selling per level (up to 30%), and safer ventures. It rises as you trade, invest and join the guilds.
• The merchant, hedge-knight, pilgrim and younger-son backgrounds start with some of these skills, and heirs inherit half of them.

Things to spend silver on

In every town, a new last option leads to the ways to spend your money:

• Masters. Study for four days with a master-at-arms, a master of horse, a herald, a steward, a guild merchant, a man who knows secrets, or a doctor of the university.
  • Each lesson gives most of a level, and each master can teach you again after sixty days.
  • Lessons cost more as you grow: about 90 groschen at level 0 and about 2,400 at level 15.
• Loans to your crown (in its cities): 500, 2,000 or 6,000 groschen.
  • Your standing rises at once.
  • The loan is repaid in six months to a year with 20–35% interest, unless the crown cannot pay. A crown at war, or one that dislikes you, is likelier to default.
  • A great loan may be repaid with a castle in fief.
• Ventures (in the ports): a share of 200, 800 or 3,000 in a voyage.
  • It returns in two to four months with a quarter to double again, if the ship comes home.
  • Commerce makes the ship likelier to come home. Up to three can be at sea at once.
• Endowments (in towns and cities):
  • a chapel: piety, and more every week for life
  • an almshouse: prestige and standing
  • a hospital: the pestilence takes hold half as often
  • a college, at a university: Learning +1
• The guilds and the city.
  • Joining a crown's merchants' guild gives Commerce +1 and 5% better prices in every town of that crown.
  • Feasting a city, once a year, gives prestige and standing.

Your fiefs, managed

• Prosperity. Each fief now has a prosperity score that raises or lowers its rent by up to 30%.
  • Mills, markets, low taxes, charters, fairs and protected hamlets raise it.
  • High taxes, labour dues, unrest, famine and the pestilence lower it.
• Ten buildings, three tiers each: walls, market, church, barracks, mill, granary, hospital, school, stables and watchtowers.
  • Each tier does more, and the screen shows what the next one brings.
  • The school and stables train your Learning and Horsemanship every week. At the third tier the school teaches your children too.
• One law per fief:
  • Charter of liberties: calm and prosperous, but less rent
  • Labour dues: more rent, more unrest
  • Militia: a larger warband
  • A yearly fair: prosperity, at a weekly cost
• Hamlets. Take nearby villages under a fief's protection, each adding 12% to its rent:
  • a town protects two, a city three, a castle four
  • to take one, visit the village, or answer when its headmen petition you
• Petitions. Your people now bring you matters to decide, with real costs and gains:
  • floods, wolves, guild disputes, a crooked reeve, a fair charter, bandits, refugees from the pestilence, a bumper harvest and hamlets asking for protection
• Villages you visit. Sit in judgment over the villagers' quarrels (choose the law, the work, a compromise, or the bribe), or pay for a well and a bridge.
• The fiefs screen now shows your loans and ventures too.

Fixes

• Skills now show correctly on the knight page when a save has no value for a skill yet.

European Knights 2.6.4: Hearth and Company

The household

On your knight's page, under Family, every member of your household now has a row with a bond bar and a button. Once every ten days for each of them you can sit with your spouse, spend time with a child or talk with a companion. Each visit is a short scene with a choice, and what you choose is remembered.

Your spouse

• Ten scenes, including:
  • the steward's accounts
  • homesickness
  • your long absences
  • the children's schooling
  • a fever in the night
  • news from court
  • a brother-in-law's debt
  • Mass on the feast day
  • a bad dream
  • an evening of music, if Pierrot rides with you
• The bond matters:
  • It changes how many children are born.
  • At a bond of 7 you become of one mind: Diplomacy +1, and fief income +3% while the bond holds.
  • At −6 your spouse goes home to their family. No children are born and your fiefs are worse kept until you ride to win them back (100 groschen, 5 days).
• Letters from home reach you on long rides. Answering them, or not, also counts.
• A knight who is a lady now marries a husband.

Your children

• Seven scenes for children aged 4 to 17, including:
  • a wooden sword
  • letters and sums
  • being caught in a lie
  • "Are you going to die?"
  • a request to ride as your squire
  • a quarrel between siblings over a falcon
  • a question about God
• Lessons in Martial, Diplomacy, Stewardship and Intrigue add up. When that child inherits, they become real skills (up to +4 each).
• Traits you shape stay with the child for life: Brave, Pious, Honest, Diligent, Ambitious, even Deceitful.
• A child who loved you carries more of your prestige into the new generation. A child left cold begins with less piety.

Your companions

• Each companion now has a personal story told in four parts, with choices along the way:
  • Brother Anselm: the plague that made him a friar, the village he burned at seventeen, a letter from Assisi, and a full confession that blesses you for thirty days.
  • Konrad the Swabian: the company that sold him out, a daughter in Ulm, a stolen chalice, and his oath. Once sworn, he will never desert you.
  • Pierrot: the Pope's chapel, the father who never spoke to him, a rival minstrel in the square, and the song of your house.
  • Esther of Toledo: the riots of 1391, a friar's accusation, the knife or the priest, and her book of wounds, which helps your veterans heal.
• Quarrels. Companions who ride together now quarrel: over loot, a song about Konrad's nose, prayer against medicine, the wine ration and songs in Lent. Taking a side pleases one and costs you with the other.
• After a companion's story is told, you can still sit and talk with them.

Balance

• Veterans were too strong. A whole deck could reach +3 within a few wins.
  • Ranks now need 6, 16 and 32 experience (was 3, 8 and 15).
  • They give +1, +1 and +2 strength (was +1, +2 and +3).
  • Only the first copy of a card in play fights as veterans, and no more than three veteran companies count in any one battle.
  • Existing veterans are re-ranked by the new thresholds.
• Campaign: a first win now pays 125 groschen (was 100).

Fixes

• Take ship did nothing. Most harbours had few or no voyages, and some, such as Königsberg, Lübeck, Lisbon, Hamburg and Constantinople, had none, so only the ship showed.
  • Sea routes are now found by sailing the sea itself, round capes, down rivers, out of lagoons and through the straits.
  • Every harbour is now joined to the sea lanes, and on average each offers about 20 destinations.
  • On the map, a voyage follows the coast instead of cutting across land.
• The hunt flickered like a strobe light. The hunt's grass lay at exactly the same height as the scene's own ground, and the two flickered through each other as the camera moved. The grass now sits just above it.

European Knights 2.6.3: Tournament Nights

Tournament nights (online)

• On the Online page (Card match), choose Tournament night to raise a tournament for 3 to 8 riders.
• You set:
  • a name and an optional passcode
  • the entry fee (0, 25, 50, 100 or 250 groschen)
  • the number of riders (4, 6 or 8)
  • own decks or skirmish decks
• It is listed with the other lobbies, and riders join from there.
• When the host begins:
  • every rider pays the entry fee into the pot, and the bracket is drawn
  • each pair plays an ordinary online card match
  • the winners go on, round by round, to the final
  • an odd rider out gets a bye
• The champion takes the whole pot. Tournament matches pay nothing else, so the pot is the prize.
• The hall shows the riders, every round of the bracket, who is playing and who has won.

Fixes

• Watch the round on a bye (tourneys on the road): when you had the bye in the lists or on foot, "Watch the round" did nothing and the tourney could not go on. It now plays the round and gives you your 3 points for the bye.
• Online matches with skirmish decks: the host's deck was drawn again for every message it sent, so the two players could start the same match with different host decks, and the match would freeze partway. The deck is now drawn once per match. This also fixes rare freezes in ordinary skirmish-deck lobbies.
• Back-to-back online matches: leaving one match closed the connection a moment later. If the next match opened in that moment, as it does in a tournament, it was cut off before it began. It now stays open.

European Knights 2.6.2: Faith and Patrons

Faith at character creation

• A new knight now chooses one faith: Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant or Islam. His nation's usual faith is picked to begin with (Orthodox for Muscovy and the Balkans, Islam for the Ottomans, Catholic for everyone else), and you can change it.
• Your faith is your knight's church in the game (on the knight page, at shrines and in towns), and it decides which patrons you can choose.

Patrons

You choose one patron, for life. You can only choose a patron of your own faith. Each patron gives +1 to one skill and a very small lasting gift.

Catholic saints (with icons):

• George: Martial +1, prestige +2%
• Michael: Martial +1, escape +3%
• Martin: Diplomacy +1, piety +2%
• James: Martial +1, road speed +2%
• Andrew: Diplomacy +1, Diplomacy XP +3%
• Wenceslas: Stewardship +1, fief income +2%
• Stanislaus: Diplomacy +1, standing +2%
• Mark: Stewardship +1, contest fees −2%
• Louis: Diplomacy +1, prestige +1%
• Hubert: Martial +1, hunt tally +3%
• Sebastian: Martial +1, healing +2%
• Barbara: Stewardship +1, Stewardship XP +2%
• Christopher: Stewardship +1, road speed +1%
• Nicholas: Diplomacy +1, 3% less danger at sea
• Catherine: Intrigue +1, Intrigue XP +3%

Orthodox saints (with icons):

• George, Michael, Andrew and Nicholas
• Demetrius: Martial +1, plunder +2%
• Sergius of Radonezh: Diplomacy +1, piety +3%
• Alexander Nevsky: Martial +1, standing +2%
• Sava: Diplomacy +1, Diplomacy XP +2%
• Paraskeva: Stewardship +1, healing +2%

Protestant examples of faith:

• Jan Hus: Diplomacy +1, piety +2%
• John Wycliffe: Intrigue +1, Intrigue XP +3%
• Jerome of Prague: Diplomacy +1, standing +2%
• Saint Paul the Apostle: Stewardship +1, road speed +2%

Islam, spiritual guides:

• The example of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ: shown only by his name in calligraphy, never a likeness. Diplomacy +1, piety +2%.
• Rumi: Diplomacy +1, Diplomacy XP +2%
• Hacı Bektaş Veli: Martial +1, wages −2%
• Sheikh Edebali: Stewardship +1, fief income +2%

Keeping faith and patron together

• If your knight changes church later (at the church in a town of another faith), his old patron's gift stops. The knight page then lets him choose a patron of his new faith. The +1 skill is given only once per house.
• A Muslim knight is never offered the Christian churches, and a Christian knight is never offered Islam.
• Your heirs keep your house's faith and patron.

One choice per category

• Character creation now always has exactly one of each: nation, background, age, faith, patron, and one trait of each kind (personality, body and mind, calling). A trait is filled in for each kind to start with. Clicking a chosen trait no longer leaves its kind empty.

Knights from older saves

• A knight made before 2.6.2 has a Choose a patron button on his knight page, showing patrons of his current faith.

Art

• The icons and portraits are public-domain works from Wikimedia Commons, listed in Credits.
• John Wycliffe is from a 1548 woodcut, Jerome of Prague from a 15th-century portrait, and Saint Paul is by El Greco.

Coming next

• 2.6.3: tournament nights, online brackets for 3 to 8 riders with an entry pot.

European Knights 2.6.0 — Blood, Stone and Glory

The Black Lance (nemesis)

• A brotherhood of robber knights: five warlords and ten captains, each with a name, a home, strengths and weaknesses, and a memory of every meeting with you.
• They fight each other for rank: duels, ambushes, feasts and trials. A captain who beats you rises, and may be raised to warlord.
• Now and then one crosses your road, never more than once a month. He greets you by what he remembers ("You again? After what I did to you at Prague?"), and your heirs are greeted for their fathers.
• Strengths shape the battle: pike walls, master bowmen, heavy horse, an old campaigner's men, and the cunning that keeps an extra card in hand.
• Weaknesses are how you beat him: fears guns, horse-shy, drunkard, proud, superstitious.
• Learn his secrets from rumours bought in taverns, from beaten captains you make talk, and from your companions and library.
• When you beat a captain, choose his fate:
  • Kill him. One left for dead may come back scarred, with a new name.
  • Make him talk. He gives up a secret of another captain.
  • Spare him, for renown.
  • Win him to your banner, once you know all his weaknesses. He then rides as a card of your own.
• A captain's feast day leaves him with only half his guard. The board on your knight's page shows the whole hierarchy and the latest news of the Brotherhood.

Veterans

• Every unit you field on the road or in the campaign earns experience. At 3, 8 and 15 it becomes a named veteran company (★), 1, 2 or 3 stronger.
• A veteran company cut down in a battle you lose is gone for good, card and all, and goes on the Roll of the Fallen. Cut down in a battle you win, it only takes a scar.

Companions

• Brother Anselm, a friar: your piety grows each week.
• Konrad the Swabian, a mercenary sergeant: your Foot are +1 in road battles.
• Pierrot, a minstrel: your prestige grows faster, and he brings rumours of the Black Lance.
• Esther of Toledo, a physician: half your fallen veterans live.
• Each likes and dislikes your choices and says so. Earn their trust and they ask for help with a wish of their own, which brings a lasting reward.
• Lose their trust and they leave. Push Konrad too far and he robs you and joins the Black Lance.

Your keep, in 3D

• Hold a fief and raise a keep there. There are eight works in three stages each: walls and towers, chapel, stables, barracks, great hall, kennels, library and market hall.
• Each work brings its own bonus: Foot when defending your fiefs, piety, Horse, a larger warband, prestige, the hunt, secrets of the Black Lance, and silver.
• The keep is shown in 3D as a walled town that grows as you build. Scaffolding shows where work is under way, horses stand at your stables, hounds in your kennels and cattle in the fields. Drag to look around.

The hunt

• Ride to the hunt with a town's lord, through the forest behind your hounds, as stags, hinds, wolves and foxes break cover.
• Hold to draw your bow and release to loose; lead a running beast. Stags and wolves take two arrows.
• Hounds bring the quarry to bay, and your kennels make them faster.
• Beat the lord's tally to win his court's favour.

Court intrigue

• At a royal court you can seek an office or ruin your rival, in a six-round duel of Whispers, Gifts, Bribes, Spies, Blackmail, Guards and Alliances, played at the same moment as your rival.
• An office pays 30 groschen a week, and draws plots you must face or lose it.

Heirlooms

• When your chronicle ends in 1560, hand down one heirloom: a sword (your heroes +1), your house's name, a Legendary card, a veteran company, an old grudge with the Black Lance, or the family treasure.
• A new knight may carry one into the new chronicle.

The daily battle

• One battle a day, the same for everyone. You have three tries, and the three scores add up to your total for the day. Your history, your best day and your streak are kept.
• Open it from the map menu.

Sieges, furnished

• The town behind the walls now has a real castle and church.
• The besiegers' camp has tents, weapon racks, stores and catapult stones.
• The defenders on the walls are crossbowmen, crossbows shouldered and aimed at you. You hold a crossbow yourself when you shoot at the walls.
• When you defend, the ladder nearest you is gone, so every climber can be shot in time.
• Aim assist with a controller: a shot loosed near a target snaps onto it, on the walls and in the hunt.

New 3D art

• Animals: stag, hind, wolf, fox, hound and cattle from Quaternius's Ultimate Animated Animals (CC0).
• Castle, town and siege models from KayKit's Medieval Hexagon pack (CC0). The crossbow is from KayKit's Adventurers pack (CC0).

Coming next

• 2.6.2: patron saints at character creation, with Catholic and Orthodox icons, Hussite martyrs, and for Muslim houses the Prophet's name in calligraphy and the Sufi masters. Character creation also changes to one choice per category.
• 2.6.3: tournament nights, online brackets for 3 to 8 riders with an entry pot.

European Knights 2.5.0 — The Map Is Home

A new main menu

• The main menu is now a simple front door. A large Continue card shows your knight, town, date, purse and cards, and takes you straight onto the map.
• With no knight yet, the card reads Begin and starts your house in 1360.
• Below it: Saves (load, start or name a save), Online and Settings, plus the Handbook, Rules and About. The desktop apps also have Quit.
• Choosing a save now loads you straight into it, on the map.

The map is where the game lives

• A menu bar across the top of the map holds everything that used to be on the main menu: Campaign, Skirmish, Draft, Online, Muster roll, Chronicle, Allegiance, Honours, Handbook and Settings.
• On narrower screens the bar shows icons only. On phones it becomes a single Menu button that opens the same choices.
• Every page now goes back to the map instead of the main menu, including campaign chapters, quick battles, decks and records.
• The map's corner button and Main menu in the pause menu take you back to the front door.
• Messages now appear just below the menu bar instead of on top of it.

Also included (from 2.4.3)

• Your own keys and controller buttons (Settings → Controls).
• Xbox and PlayStation controllers are now told apart correctly: Xbox pads were sometimes shown with PlayStation button names.
• The colour-blind palette now also marks stronger and weaker cards with ▲ and ▼ and numbers the tier gems.

European Knights 2.4.3 — Easier to Start, Easier to Play

Computer houses in shared worlds

• Shared worlds now have houses run by the game, alongside the human riders. There are two by default; the host can set from none to four with the Computer houses button on the shared-road bar.
• They ride the map, take fiefs in towns no rider holds, and grow richer and stronger over time. Their fiefs carry their banner on the map.
• A house whose crown is at war with yours may challenge you when you meet. Refusing costs 5 prestige.
• You can challenge any house yourself. Win and it pays you a tenth of its silver (up to 300), and its fief if you beat it in its own town. Lose and you pay a tenth of yours. Houses at peace with you offer friendly bouts instead.
• Everyone in the world sees the same houses. The host's save keeps them, so they're still there when the world is opened again.

Your first year

• A new knight no longer meets every system at once. After the first steps, the road opens in five stages:
  1. The town and its contests
  2. Trade and gear
  3. The lords' halls and the War room
  4. Royal courts and marriage
  5. The great tourneys and the circuit
• Each stage opens when you do what the previous one asks, or by itself after 60 days of riding, so nobody gets stuck. Finishing the year pays 150 groschen.
• A box on the map shows the current goal. Open everything ends the guide at once, either there or in Settings. Existing knights and shared worlds are not affected.

Keyboard

• Battles can now be played fully from the keyboard:
  • When a card asks for a target, ← → move between the glowing cards and Enter chooses one.
  • A horn asks for a row: 1 Foot, 2 Missile, 3 Horse.
  • Q and E play a card to the left or right end of its row.
• On the map: + and − change time speed, T opens your town and K opens your knight.
• Tab and Enter now work in every window, and a gold ring shows which button is selected.
• Press ? anywhere for the full list of keys.

Controllers

• Xbox and PlayStation controllers both work. Button names follow the pad you hold: ✕ ○ □ △ on PlayStation, A B X Y on Xbox.
• Older PlayStation pads that report a raw button layout are now put back into the standard layout.
• LB / RB (L1 / R1) move through your hand in a battle.
• The pad rumbles on kills, Bombards and the lance's impact. Rumble can be turned off.

Your own controls

• Settings → Controls: choose your own key for each action, and your own controller button for each pad action. Choosing one that's already in use swaps the two.
• Choices are kept on this device for every save.
• Enter, Escape, Tab, the arrows, the number keys, the D-pad and the sticks always stay the same, so the game can always be steered.

Access

• The colour-blind palette now also shows stronger and weaker cards with ▲ and ▼ in blue and orange, and numbers the tier gems.
• Reduce motion stops card and screen animations. Your system's own reduce-motion setting is still followed.
• Screen readers now announce each move in a battle, whose turn it is and the score. Every card is labelled.

European Knights 2.4.2 — Balance

Legendary cards are guarded like heroes

• Legendary cards (the sixth tier) now have the same protection as heroes. Weather, wounds, curses, the Bombard, routs, ambushes and other removal cannot touch them, and enemy cards cannot target them.
• Only a hero-slayer can reach a Legendary card, and it does half its damage to one, rounded up: a slayer that takes 4 from a hero takes 2 from a Legendary.
• Unlike heroes, Legendary cards still take boosts from their own side (horns, morale, captains).

Campaign pay

• The first win of each campaign battle now pays 100 groschen (was 150). Winning it again still pays 40, and the daily first-victory bonus is unchanged.

Professional is rarer

• The Professional tag (the card goes back to your hand after a lost or drawn round) was on 129 cards. It now belongs only to soldiers who fought for pay: the free companies, the condottieri, Söldner, the Swiss and Catalan companies and their captains. 52 cards keep it; city militias, local levies and household knights lose it.

Campaign decks reinforced

• Campaign battles use your deck for that nation, which is often thin. For the battle only (your collection is not changed), its weakest men are swapped for better men of the same nation until the deck is about 20% stronger. The enemy is matched to your own deck first, so the reinforcement gives you a real advantage.
• In a sample of 70 campaign battles, each played several times by the computer on your side, wins rose from 39% to 53%.

European Knights 2.4.0 — Keeping What You Built

Your saves, safe and portable

• Export this save / Import a save in Settings. Your save becomes a small file (.ekp) you can keep as a backup or carry to another computer or phone. Before an import replaces anything, the game backs up what you were playing.
• Automatic backups. The game keeps two backups of each save, taken a few minutes apart while you play, and you can restore either from Settings. If the device ever runs short of storage, the backups make way, so they can never cost you the save itself.
• Shared worlds travel too. In Online → Your worlds, a host can Export this world (.ekw), with every house in it. Import a world file on another computer, and you host it from there.

Online

• Check my connection (Online screen): it reaches the matchmaking server and opens a test link. It tells you whether hosting and joining will work on your current network, before a friend sits waiting. It names the likely cause if something blocks it, such as a firewall, a school or work network, or a VPN.
• Behind the scenes, unused duplicate online code was removed, and the online rules (lobbies, shared worlds, the host keeping every house) now live in clearly separated parts. Card matches, spectating and the shared-world lobby flow were re-tested end to end.

Phone and web

• A new web build that runs in a phone or tablet browser. It can be put on itch.io (or any website) and added to the home screen, where it opens full screen like an app. Once it is served from a secure (https) address, it keeps working offline after the first visit.
• Phone layout: the map's bottom bar now scrolls sideways instead of overlapping, and the shared-world bar, chat and hints move clear of it on small screens.

Lighter builds

• The game's paintings and other media now sit beside the game as ordinary files instead of being packed inside one huge page. The page is about 21 MB, down from 176 MB. It starts faster and uses less memory. Nothing was cut or reduced in quality.
• Unused runtime languages were removed from the Mac and Windows apps. Downloads: Windows 233 MB (was 244), Mac 186 MB (was 197). The phone/web build is 64 MB.

Balance

We ran 4,800 computer-against-computer skirmish matches, with every faction playing every other from both sides.

• Burgundy won 69.5%, well clear of everyone else. Its starting leader, John the Fearless, put its deep, strong cavalry onto the field for free. Burgundy now starts with Philip the Good (The Great Bombards); John the Fearless is still there to choose.
• Bohemia and the Hussites (41.7%) and the Balkan Princes (40.8%) were the weakest. Their weakest common troops each gain 1 strength: Pavise-bearer, Orphan Brother, Priest of the Chalice, Táborite Woman, Vlach Shepherd, Ragusan Crossbowman, Wallachian Light Horse and Moldavian Archer.
• After the changes, the same 4,800 matches put every faction between 42% and 58% (before: 41% to 70%). Burgundy is now 58%, Bohemia 43% and the Balkans 45%

European Knights 2.3.5 — One Save for the Table

Shared worlds now work like a game of Civilization.

• Everyone starts fresh. A new shared world begins with a new house for every rider. Bringing copies of solo houses is gone.
• The host saves for everyone. The world and every rider’s house live in the host’s save. Guests keep nothing on their own machine: their house is sent to the host every half minute and when they leave.
• Online saves are their own files. They never mix with solo saves, and they can only be opened by hosting them online.
• The world loads only with its riders. To continue a world, the host opens it from Online → The shared road → Your worlds, and waits in the lobby.
  • Each rider rejoins with the lobby code and takes back their own house.
  • Load the world stays locked until every rider of that world is back and ready.
  • New riders may join with a new house.
• A new world is begun from the lobby once at least two riders are there and ready. Everyone then founds their house, and the clock starts when all have.
• If a rider drops mid-game, the world waits for them. The host can choose to play on without them.
• If the host leaves, the session ends for everyone, and nothing is lost: it is all in the host’s save.

European Knights 2.3.0 — Playing Together

The shared road, rebuilt

• Its own saves. Every shared world has its own save. Your solo games are never touched. Found a new house for the world, or bring a copy of one of yours. Worlds you have hosted or joined are listed under Online → The shared road → Your worlds, and you can raise them again or rejoin them.
• One world for everyone. The host's game decides the world: the date, who holds each town, the wars and armies on the march, sieges, the plague, rival free companies and market prices. Every rider sees the same Europe.
• Choose when it starts. Begin a new world in 1360, 1410, 1453 or 1500.
• If the host leaves, the longest-standing rider keeps the world going.

A fair clock

• Time runs for everyone at the speed of the slowest rider: each rider's speed button now sets how fast they would like to go.
• Anyone can pause. The bar on the map shows who paused, and who is holding the speed down.
• Engaged riders. A rider in a battle, a story scene or a menu is engaged: their party stands still while the world goes on. Time a rider spends on their own (a pilgrimage, a month in a cell) leaves them engaged until the world catches up.
• A ready check before the world begins. The host can send a rider away.

War about land

• Besiege a rival rider's fief. They must ride to its defence or give it up. Win and the fief is yours; lose and a quarter of your men stay before the walls.
• Prisoners. The loser of a battle between houses at war is taken prisoner and must pay a ransom (a fifth of their silver) to the winner, escape, or wait it out.
• Rules of war: one challenge a day, a week's truce between two houses after any fight, and no shame in refusing a far stronger house.

Co-op

• Call allies into your battles. Riders of the same or allied crowns close by can each send eight of their best cards to fight beside yours. They share the spoils, a quarter each.
• Stand together in sieges: an ally in the same town adds three quarters of their strength.
• Share a mercenary contract with an ally.
• Stand together at a stage of a story chain: the choice is announced to everyone, and allies who were there gain prestige.

Trade

• Offers instead of gifts. You put up silver and cards, and they accept or refuse. Your side is held until they answer, and returned after two minutes without an answer.
• A cap per day: at most 600 groschen and 5 cards.

Talk and news

• Riders' talk: chat, plus quick words (Hail!, Help me!, Truce?, Well fought…).
• Marks on the map: right-click, or long-press on a touch screen.
• A shared feed of what each house does: fiefs taken, sieges won, sides declared, faiths changed, deaths.
• Word when rival banners come within 60 km.
• Changing sides is announced. A turncoat may not attack their former allies for thirty days.

Lobbies and card matches

• Lobbies show their date, whether they are mustering or under way, and how strong the houses are.
• Card matches:
  • A 75-second turn timer.
  • A best-of-three score.
  • An optional ranked ladder with a rating.
  • Anyone can watch an open match from the stands.
• Fixed: with skirmish decks, the host played their own deck while their opponent saw the skirmish deck. Both now use the same.

The end of a world

• In 1560 the houses of a shared world are compared in one chronicle, and the first house is crowned.

European Knights 2.2.0 — Online

New

• Online lobbies. "Online" on the title screen now lists every open public lobby. Raise your own with a name, or lock it behind a passcode: private lobbies are never listed, so give friends the five-letter code and the passcode. A wrong passcode simply finds nothing.
• Card match. One battle against another player, like Skirmish: pick your crown and play with the full skirmish deck, or switch to your own deck from the muster roll. Play again as often as you like.
• The shared road. Up to four houses ride the same Europe at once, on the host’s calendar and speed. Everyone keeps full control of their own knight, warband, fiefs, chains and choices; you see each other’s banners moving on the map.
  • At war (your crowns are enemies): ride within 40 km and challenge them to battle. Refusing costs face; the loser pays a tenth of his silver to the winner.
  • The same crown or allies: ride together (follow another rider wherever they go), send groschen, give spare cards, and when you stand in the same town your warbands fight together: each adds half its strength to the other’s sieges.
  • At peace: spar in a friendly bout for honour, and trade silver and cards.
• With a friend’s code still works as before.

European Knights 2.1.5 — The World Answers

New

• First-time hints. A short note the first time you meet a market, the plague, free companies, infamy, the Schism or the Reformation, a civil war, your first child, night, weather, late news, a rival company, and the approaching end of the chronicle. Switch them off (or back on) in Settings.
• Paintings on every new page. The plague, the market, civil wars, the Church, the printing house, raids, children's upbringing and the chronicle now open with a period painting.
• Haggling. At any market, haggle over five loads at once: strike while the needle is in the gold. Diplomacy and Intrigue widen it; a merchant haggles once a week.
• Markets answer your trade. Buying raises a good's price in that town, selling lowers it, and prices drift back over a few weeks.
• Raids played out. A free company now chooses how to take the country: ride in at dawn, fire the barns, or take hostages, each with its own loot, infamy and danger.
• Rival free companies roam the map under black banners, ravaging the country (grain gets dear where they pass). Ride to their town and hunt them down for their loot and the town's thanks.
• Weather and night change the road. Snow slows riding most, then storms, then rain; night slows it a little and makes robbers bolder (storms keep them home). Storms at sea can cost a day and cargo. The weather over a town is now the weather in its lists, butts and sieges; at night, it is fog.
• Children on your knight's page, with portraits, ages, the heir marked, and where each was brought up.
• ×5 time speed on the map (the speed button now cycles ×1, ×3, ×5).
• 13 new honours: Lived through it, Captain of a free company, Scourge of the countryside, Company breaker, Merchant adventurer, A share in a galleon, Backed the winner, Turncoat, In print, Another faith, Three generations, A great house of Europe, and One life.

PATCH NOTES 2.1.0 

What’s new:

• Night and day: time passes as you ride, with a day on the road starting at 8 in the morning. Night is shaded from where the sun really is on that date, so darkness reaches Constantinople before Lisbon. The far north gets white nights in June and short days in December. Dusk glows along the edge, and towns light their windows after dark.
• Weather: rain, storms and snow drift east across the map from the Atlantic. Summer thunderstorms have lightning, and thunder if a storm is near you. Winter storms bring snow.
• Snow on the ground: in winter the north and the mountains turn white, spreading and melting with the season.
• Beside the date: the time of day and your local weather, for example “· dusk · rain”.
• Off switch: in Settings, for slower machines. It doesn’t change gameplay, only looks.

What’s in 2.0.5:

• Plague comes back in waves on the real years. Towns that have it show a ring on the map. You can catch it, and a physician halves the risk.
• The ending comes in 1560: a written chronicle of your house, a legacy score, and a list of the best houses. You can keep playing past it.
• Ironman: a checkbox when you found your house. Choices can’t be undone, and the game ends if your line dies out.
• Free Companies can be raised once you have ten men. They can burn the countryside or sell towns protection. Infamy can close markets, bring bounty hunters and get you excommunicated.
• Trade: markets with 15 goods. Printed books arrive in 1470, sugar in 1490 and galleons in 1530.
• Faith: the Schism (1378–1417) and the Reformation (from 1517). You can change your faith and buy closed monasteries’ lands.
• 20 civil wars where you pick a side. History decides who wins.
• Children are sent somewhere to be raised at 7 and 14, and the heir keeps what they learned.
• News travels at about 40 km a day, so distant events reach you late.
• 1480–1560 content: 28 new story chains (100 in all), map history up to 1558, 68 new cards and 12 new leaders with real portraits.
• Paintings on every chain stage.
• 42 leaders who were showing someone else’s portrait now show their own.
• New sounds for all of the above.

2.0.0

A hundred and twenty years of story

• Every knight begins on 23 April 1360, the year of the Treaty of Brétigny. England holds a third of France, the Ottomans have just crossed into Europe, and Charles IV rules the Empire from Prague.
• 72 story chains with 362 stages, two to five per crown, from 1360 to 1480. Each chain falls only within the years its crown existed:
  • Valois Burgundy runs from 1363 to 1477.
  • Before the Union of 1397, the Kalmar crown stands for the Nordic kingdoms.
• Stages open at their real dates and places. A battle stage opens a few weeks before the battle, while the armies gather. Sieges and councils stay open as long as they lasted.
• History holds. The side that won still wins, and the chain goes on even when your side loses.
• Every kind of stage is played:
  • Battles and sieges are card battles, or you can stand in the ranks.
  • Challenges are duels on foot.
  • Court stages are a contest of words against a rival courtier. Each round you speak plainly, flatter and promise, or open your purse: plain speech beats flattery, flattery beats gold, gold beats plain speech, and your skills weigh in.
• Choices weigh even when history can’t change. Each option leaves something behind:
  • someone who joins your household and raises a skill;
  • an enemy who may stop you on the road years later;
  • a town that remembers you (a friendly one tends your wounds for free);
  • wounds, captivity, cards, fiefs and men.
• Your reputation matters. Choices can make you known as Bold, Honest, Faithful, Shrewd, Cunning, Merciful, Ruthless or Pious. Every two marks of the same name raise a skill.
• Memories. Some choices are remembered, and later stages, sometimes in another crown’s chain, offer options only because of them.
• Missed stages happen without you; the chronicle records them and the chain goes on.
• The Herald’s Calendar is on the map bar and your knight’s page. It shows every chain and what opens next, where and when. A herald announces each stage when it opens and reminds you ten days before it closes.
• Undo a chain choice. The game saves before every chain choice, and you can undo that one choice right after.

The map through the years

• The map starts as it stood in 1360: Poitiers, La Rochelle and Limoges are English, and Edirne is Byzantine.
• Towns change hands on their real dates:
  • Edirne to the Ottomans (1369)
  • Poitiers back to France (1372)
  • Flanders to Burgundy (1384)
  • Rouen to England (1419), and back to France (1449)
  • Constantinople to the Ottomans (1453)
  • Marienburg to Poland (1457)
  • Burgundy to France (1477)
  • and about 100 more. The herald announces the ones that touch your crown.
• History pulls the map back. The wars between the crowns can still take towns for a while, but towns held against history may rise and return to their real owner.

Real portraits

• 30 people in the chains have their own face, cropped from real paintings of them. Among them:
  • Charles the Bold (Rogier van der Weyden)
  • Federico da Montefeltro (Piero della Francesca)
  • Lorenzo de’ Medici (Vasari)
  • Hawkwood (Uccello)
  • Matthias Corvinus and Mary of Burgundy
  • Louis XI and Henry IV
  • Skanderbeg, Hunyadi and Vytautas
• Everyone else gets a 15th-century portrait of an unnamed sitter by van Eyck, Memling, Petrus Christus, Bouts, Antonello or Pollaiuolo.
• Every painting is listed in Picture credits.
• Your household rides with you. In battles of war and story battles, each companion adds +1 to one of your rows: Martial companions to Horse, Intrigue to Missile, the rest to Foot (two companions at most).
• Your household and enemies appear with their faces on your knight’s page.

Ships

• Sail between harbours by cog, galley (Mediterranean only) or carrack (from 1420).
• River ports such as London now have harbours.
• Pirates prowl the Mediterranean, the Baltic and the North Sea. Fight them, flee or pay them off.

Getting started

• A guided first hour: six steps through the Herald’s Calendar, riding, hiring men, a first card battle, a first choice and the Handbook.
  • You finish with 100 groschen and perhaps a squire.
  • You can skip it at any time.

Settings, saves and controller

• Six save files instead of three. Each shows its knight, crown, start year and current date.
• New settings: sound volume, graphics quality (Fast, Balanced or Best), text size (Small to Largest), and a colour-blind palette that also spells out the Foot, Missile and Horse rows in battle.
• Controller support:
  • The left stick moves a pointer, the D-pad jumps between buttons, A selects, B goes back and Start pauses.
  • In the lists, the butts and duels, the stick aims, A strikes or draws the bow, B guards and LB holds your breath.
• Twelve new honours, including “Saw it through”, “Herald of a crown”, “Friends on both sides”, “Heard at court”, “An old score settled” and “A hundred and twenty years” (see your house through from 1360 to 1480).

Fixes and balance

• Character creation:
  • Dragging across the name field no longer closes the menu.
  • Hover pop-ups are no longer cut off at the screen edges.
  • You now pick one trait each for personality, body and mind, and calling.
• Shields now sit on the forearm instead of floating in front of the chest.
• Archery is harder:
  • more aim sway as your arm tires;
  • stronger wind;
  • a smaller target;
  • smaller bonuses from bows and arrows;
  • sharper rival archers.
• New Handbook sections cover story chains, the map through the years, your household in battle, and saves, colours and undo.

European Knights — Patch Notes

1.9.9

The map through the years

• New start year. A new knight can now begin in 1470, as well as 1380, 1410 or 1440.
• The map matches your start year. For example, Flanders is French in 1380, Rouen is French in 1410, and Sweden is its own kingdom in 1470.
• Towns change hands on their real dates:
  • Flanders to Burgundy (1384)
  • Rouen to England (1419), and back to France (1449)
  • Paris to Burgundy, then England, then France again
  • Constantinople to the Ottomans (1453)
  • Marienburg to Poland (1457)
  • Burgundy to France (1477)
  • and about 100 more. The herald announces the ones that touch your crown.
• History pulls the map back. The wars between the crowns can still take towns for a while. Over the years, towns held against history may rise and return to their real owner.
• A town’s page says when history moved it.

Every kind of story stage is played

• Challenges are duels on foot.
• Court stages are a contest of words against a rival courtier.
  • Each round you choose to speak plainly, flatter and promise, or open your purse. Plain speech beats flattery, flattery beats gold, and gold beats plain speech.
  • Your Diplomacy, Intrigue and Stewardship weigh in.
  • Winning earns prestige and standing. As always, history decides the outcome.

Real portraits

• 30 people in the chains now have their own face, cropped from real paintings of them. Among them:
  • Charles the Bold (Rogier van der Weyden)
  • Federico da Montefeltro (Piero della Francesca)
  • Lorenzo de’ Medici (Vasari)
  • Hawkwood (Uccello)
  • Matthias Corvinus and Mary of Burgundy
  • Louis XI and Henry IV
  • Skanderbeg, Hunyadi and Vytautas
• Everyone else gets a 15th-century portrait of an unnamed sitter by van Eyck, Memling, Petrus Christus, Bouts, Antonello or Pollaiuolo.
• Every painting is listed in Picture credits.
• Your household rides with you. In battles of war and story battles, each companion adds +1 to one of your rows: Martial companions to Horse, Intrigue to Missile, the rest to Foot (two companions at most).
• Your household and enemies appear with their faces on your knight’s page.

Getting started

• A guided first hour: six steps that walk you through the Herald’s Calendar, riding, hiring men, a first card battle, a first choice and the Handbook.
  • You finish with 100 groschen and perhaps a squire.
  • You can skip it at any time.

Saves, honours and comfort

• Six save files instead of three. Each shows its knight, crown, start year and current date.
• Twelve new honours, such as:
  • Saw it through
  • Herald of a crown
  • Friends on both sides
  • Heard at court
  • An old score settled
  • A hundred years (begin in 1380 and reach 1480)
• Colour-blind palette in Settings. It switches the crowns’ colours to a palette that’s easier to tell apart and spells out the Foot, Missile and Horse rows in battle.
• Undo a chain choice. The game saves before every chain choice, and you can undo that one choice right after making it.
• New Handbook sections cover the map through the years, your household in battle, and saves, colours and undo.

1.9.0

Story chains

• 56 story chains with 305 stages. Every crown has one to four chains between 1380 and 1480. Each one falls only within the years that crown existed: Kalmar starts at its union in 1397, and Burgundy ends in 1477.
• Stages open at their real dates and places. A battle stage opens a few weeks before the battle, while the armies gather. Sieges and councils stay open for as long as they really lasted.
• History holds. The side that won still wins. For battles and sieges you can fight a card battle or stand in the ranks; winning your part of the field never changes who won the day.
• Choices weigh even when history can’t change. Each option leaves something behind:
  • someone who joins your household and raises a skill;
  • an enemy who may stop you on the road years later;
  • a town that remembers you (one that likes you tends your wounds for free);
  • wounds, captivity, cards, fiefs and men for your warband.
• Your reputation now matters. Choices can make you known as Bold, Honest, Faithful, Shrewd, Cunning, Merciful, Ruthless or Pious. Every two marks of the same name raise a skill.
• Memories. Some choices are remembered, and later stages — sometimes in another crown’s chain — offer options only because of them.
• Missed stages happen without you, the chronicle records it, and the chain goes on.
• The Herald’s Calendar is on the map bar and your knight’s page. It shows every chain, what opens next, and where and when. A herald announces each stage when it opens and reminds you ten days before it closes.
• Choose your start year. A new knight can begin in 1380, 1410 or 1440.

Ships

• Sail between harbours by cog, galley (Mediterranean only) or carrack (from 1420).
• River ports such as London now have harbours.
• Pirates prowl the Mediterranean, the Baltic and the North Sea. You can fight them, flee or pay them off.

Settings and controller

• New settings for sound volume, graphics quality (Fast, Balanced or Best) and text size (Small to Largest).
• Controllers are supported:
  • The left stick moves a pointer, the D-pad jumps between buttons, A selects, B goes back and Start pauses.
  • In the lists, the butts and duels, the stick aims, A strikes or draws the bow, B guards and LB holds your breath.

Fixes and balance

• Character creation:
  • Dragging across the name field no longer closes the menu.
  • Hover pop-ups no longer get cut off at the edges of the screen.
  • You now pick one trait each for personality, body and mind, and calling.
• Shields now sit on the forearm instead of floating in front of the chest.
• Archery is harder:
  • more aim sway, especially as your arm tires;
  • stronger wind;
  • a smaller target;
  • a smaller bonus from better bows and arrows;
  • sharper rival archers.
• The Handbook has a new section on the story chains and the Herald.

European Knights 1.8.1 — Patch Notes

Ransom and captivity (new)

• Taking prisoners:
  • Win a battle in the field and you may take a knight or banneret prisoner, or the enemy lord himself, worth well over 1,000 groschen.
  • Storm a town and you hold its castellan.
  • A knight you beat on foot may yield himself to you.
  • In the great tourney, knights you beat in the lists or on foot buy back their horse and arms with gold.
• Your prisoners (on your knight’s page, up to six at a time):
  • Send a herald, and the ransom arrives in a couple of weeks; good Diplomacy makes it faster and larger.
  • Or free a prisoner on his word, which wins standing with his crown and prestige.
  • Each prisoner costs 4 groschen a week to keep.
• Being captured: a bad defeat in the field or at a siege can end with you as the prisoner. You can:
  • pay your ransom;
  • ask your crown to pay (needs standing 8, and costs 8 standing);
  • wait out a season, which lowers the price;
  • try to escape (Intrigue helps).
• Captures, ransoms and escapes are written into your chronicle.

The Handbook (new)

• A short guide to every system: the road, seasons, your knight, warband, sieges, fiefs, courts, the great tourney, the circuit, card tournaments, ransom, gear and the chronicle.
• Open it from your knight’s page or the title screen.

Fixes and polish

• Gold can no longer go below zero. This happened when a life event’s cost was paid after wages had already been taken.
• Fixed a crash when a tourney bout ended after the tourney had closed.
• Fixed crashes from tapping a unit, the fallen pile or a card after a card match had ended.
• The escape chance can no longer show as negative.
• No life events arrive while you’re held prisoner.
• Rows of buttons on the knight, prisoner and decision screens are spaced properly.

European Knights 1.8.0 — Patch Notes

The Great Tourney (new)

• Every walled town and city now hosts a three-day tournament of 10–20 knights.
• Day 1, the butts: three rounds of shooting in groups of four.
• Day 2, the lists: three jousting courses against knights with similar scores.
• Day 3, combat on foot: three bouts against knights with similar scores, fought until one yields.
• You play your own bouts in the 3D minigames; the other knights’ results are decided by their skill. Each contest awards tourney points, and the champion takes the purse, prestige and a prize card.
• Circuit events are now full tourneys and award circuit points.

Card tournaments

• The Grand Tournament is now 7 matches. Each champion is harder, from 85% up to 112% of your deck’s strength.
• The last two champions think as deeply as a Balls of Steel captain, and the reigning champion also draws an extra card.
• The purse is now 3,600.

Difficulty, rethought

• Marshal captains now build a deck roughly as strong as yours (about 97%), using their own Premium, Exquisite and Legendary cards.
• New “Balls of Steel” captain in skirmish: about 110% of your deck’s strength, and he plans further ahead.
• No captain gets hidden bonuses, so good play still wins. In simulations a strong player won about half the top-tier matches.
• On Hard and Balls of Steel, the rivals in the lists, the butts and on foot get stronger as your gear improves, so good gear keeps you level rather than unbeatable.

Gear you can see

• Every tier of every item has its own 3D model:
  • Weapons: arming sword, longsword, pollaxe, Milanese pollaxe, war hammer.
  • Shields: targe, heater, champion’s shield, pavise, duelling shield.
  • Body armour, from mail to fluted Gothic plate.
  • Lances, bows and arrows.
• Horses get a caparison (a full-length cloth) in your coat of arms from the courser up. The barded destrier adds steel on the head and neck, and the royal jennet gets cloth of gold.
• The armourer shows your knight and horse in a rotating 3D preview.
• Every knight now holds his gear properly. The shield is carried in guard before the chest. A sword hangs forward in a low guard and strikes in line with the arm; pole weapons stand upright at rest. Before this fix, swords were gripped backwards.

A painted map

• The map has been repainted from real elevation data:
  • Shaded mountains with snowy peaks.
  • Meadows, and medieval forests that are densest in the north and east.
  • Painted roads along the same routes the game uses.
• Every city, town and village appears as a 3D-modelled settlement: walls, towers, castles, churches and houses, with roof colours matching its crown. About 300 hamlets dot the open farmland, and nothing sits over water.
• 24 landmarks are painted and labelled, including Mont-Saint-Michel, Stonehenge, Hadrian’s Wall, Carcassonne, Meteora, Mount Athos and Crécy. Tap one to read its story or ride there.
• Bridges appear wherever a road crosses a river. Fording a river away from a bridge or town slows you down.
• The crowns’ territory colours are now a faint wash.

Fixes

• The Halt, Camp and speed buttons on the map now work (the map was swallowing the clicks), and so do the map mode buttons.
• “About 1 days” now reads “about 1 day”.

European Knights 1.7.0 — Patch Notes

Sieges

• Sieges no longer use cards. Joining a siege, laying one, or marching with an army takes you to the siege camp.
• As the attacker, you spend days and groschen before the assault:
  • Build up to 3 engines, each giving 2 more shots in the bombardment.
  • Dig a mine. If it holds, a stretch of wall comes down before the fight.
  • Starve the town out, which means fewer defenders and a weaker castellan.
  • Bribe a castellan.
  • Storm the walls.
• As the defender, you can strengthen the walls, sally out (costly if it fails), or hold the walls.
• Breaking a siege for a crusade now earns piety.

Gear and heraldry

• All gear now has period-accurate names, from the c.1300 mail hauberk to the Gothic harness.
• New helm slot, from the kettle hat up to the armet of Milan.
  • It reduces damage from visor thrusts in duels.
  • It lowers your chance of being unhorsed in the joust.
• Historical stats:
  • Plate harness absorbs blows.
  • Mail is lighter, so you start a duel with +1 energy.
  • A pollaxe or war hammer adds weight to heavy blows.
• Your 3D knight shows your gear. The helmet and weapon change with each era, the armour shines brighter at higher harness levels, and your surcoat and shield carry your arms.
• Heraldry designer: pick the tinctures, the shield division and the charge. It warns you if your arms break the rule of tinctures. Your arms also appear on your map banner.

The map

• Roads link nearby towns, and riding on them is 25% faster.
• Rivers: 13 great rivers are drawn, including the Rhine, Danube, Vistula and Loire. Fording one away from a bridge town slows you.
• Terrain: mountains and forests are drawn where they slow you down.
• Walled towns: towns and cities are shown with walls.
• Map modes:
  • Political: crown territories are shaded.
  • War: sieges are highlighted.
  • Trade: shows the great trade routes and the rent from your fiefs.
• Fog of war: armies, caravans and brigands more than about 450 km away show only as “?” rumours.
• Legend and search: an expanded legend, plus a search box to find any town.

A living realm

• Seasons: harvest (Aug–Oct) rents ×1.5; winter wages ×1.25 and riding ×0.8. Some years are famine years, with lower rents and restless towns.
• Fiefs:
  • Build stone walls, a market hall, a parish church or barracks.
  • Set taxes low, normal or high.
  • High taxes and famine raise unrest. If unrest gets too high, the town revolts and you lose the fief, unless barracks put the revolt down.
• Courts:
  • Favours (one every 30 days): gold, men, a fief, or a marriage. Each costs some standing.
  • Offices (needs standing 15 and the matching skill at 8): Marshal, Steward or Spymaster, each paying 50 a week with its own bonus.
  • Rival: every court has a rival lord you can challenge to a duel. Beat him twice and he leaves the court in disgrace.
• Tournament circuit:
  • 8 events a year across the great towns: the lists, the butts, and combat on foot.
  • A standings table tracks 7 named rivals.
  • At year’s end the leader becomes Champion of the Lists: 500 groschen, prestige, and a Legendary card.
• Chronicle: an illustrated record of your house’s marriages, births, deaths, titles, fiefs, sieges, tournament wins and Legendary prizes.
• The knight screen has new buttons for Heraldry, Fiefs, the Courts, the Circuit and the Chronicle.

Saves

• 3 save slots, each with its own name. You can rename a slot or wipe it to start fresh. Only slot 1 syncs to the cloud.

Patch Notes 1.6.0

Every card its own

• About 2,000 cards shared an exact profile (row, strength and abilities) with another card of the same faction. Each now has its own variant suited to its row. For example, a second identical Foot unit might gain Stakes, Bodyguard or Captain, or Vanguard 2, with strength adjusted to match. Heroes get variants too.
• A balance pass pulls cards that were far stronger or weaker than others of the same faction, row and rarity back toward the middle.

Legendary cards: a new sixth tier

• 85 new cards: 5 for each of the 16 nations and 5 neutral. They’re the famous companies, orders, weapons and days of the age, such as the Knights of the Garter, the Oriflamme, the Hill of Vítkov, the Basilica Cannon, the Theodosian Walls, the White Company and the Field of Kulikovo.
• They have a gold-red gem and a glowing frame.
• You win them only as prizes:
  • A Grand Tournament: a 30% chance that one of the champions offered is Legendary.
  • A double-or-nothing win at Balls of Steel: a 15% chance of a choice of three Legendaries.
  • A crusade you took the cross for and that triumphed.
• Opponents never field them, and a deck may carry at most 2.

Roleplay in character creation

• Nation of origin: you begin with 25 of its cards (cards you lack come first), and it becomes your house’s banner on the road.
• Eight backgrounds: Younger son of a lord, Hedge knight, Mercenary captain, Merchant’s son, Pilgrim knight, Squire of a famous knight (who gives you a Premium hero), Tourney champion and Exiled noble. Each gives its own starting gold, gear, troops, skills or standing.
• Starting age: 16, 22 or 30. Younger trades skill for a longer life.
• Existing knights are asked once for their origin and background. Heirs inherit them.

Quality of life

• Hover any card anywhere, including prize choices, the muster roll, the chronicle and draft picks, to see a panel with its art, tier, row, strength, every ability spelled out, and its history.
• Esc closes any open window. On the map, Space halts, rides on or makes camp.

Fixes

• The army, caravan and brigand screens now give the right number of days to reach them at the new riding speed.
• Fixed a rare visual error in the smoke and glow effects.

1.5.0: The Life of a Knight

Your knight

• Your knight is now a person: name him and choose up to three of 60 traits, with opposites like Brave and Craven ruling each other out. Hover over a trait to see its effects.
• Traits change four skills and can affect prestige, piety, learning, standing with crowns, fees, loot, wages, rent, riding and sailing speed, healing, children, lifespan and schemes.
• Skills grow with what you do.
  • Martial: a bigger warband, plus Foot +1 at 8 and Horse +1 at 14 in battles of war.
  • Diplomacy: better contract pay and faster gains in standing.
  • Stewardship: higher rent and lower wages.
  • Intrigue: better odds with schemes.
• Your knight ages. Old age eventually comes for him.

Prestige, piety and titles

• Prestige comes from victories, tournaments, sieges, fiefs, feasts and marriage. It raises you from Squire to Knight, Knight banneret, Baron, Count and Duke. The higher ranks also need fiefs. Each rank adds 5 to your warband and 10% to rent.
• Piety comes from pilgrimages to eight holy sites, gifts to the church, crusades and charity, and you lose some for robbery and raids. Spend 100 piety on a blessing: Foot +1 in battles of war for 30 days.

Marriage and heirs

• Seek a bride at the court of a great city of your crown or its allies. A marriage brings a dowry and +10 standing with her crown.
• Children are born over the years and inherit their parents’ traits.
• When your knight dies, his heir carries on with your cards, fiefs and half your prestige and piety. Inheritance takes 20% of your gold, and half the warband goes home.
• With no heir, your house ends and a kinsman starts again.

Events and decisions

• 14 events find you on the road: begging friars, insults, deserters, relic sellers, troubadours, feasts, plague, the bishop’s tithe, marriage offers, your children’s schooling and more. Each has choices with consequences.
• Decisions: hold a great feast, seek a bride, ask a blessing.

Schemes

• Bribe the castellan of a town you’re besieging: if it works, the gates open and the town is yours.
• Sow dissent in a marching army: if it works, a third of it goes home.
• Both depend on your Intrigue.

Crusades

• Crusades are called against the Hussites (1419–1434), the Turks, and Poland–Lithuania (the northern crusade, until 1422). Three strong crusading armies march on the target crown’s towns, marked with a cross on the map.
• Take the cross for piety and prestige. If your own crown is the target, ride out against the crusaders to defend it.

PATCH NOTES NEW UPDATE BATCH:

1.2.0

• Balls of Steel:
  • Archery: stronger wind, and rival scores of 52–60 set before the first arrow.
  • Duel: one less energy to start, slower recovery, and an optional 200-groschen double-or-nothing fight against the foe’s champion.
  • Joust: you can’t unhorse him, he unhorses you more often, and your lance sways more.
• Card tournaments: 1,250 to enter, a 1,750 purse, and a guaranteed Exquisite pick.
• Absorb now draws the first attack on its row and takes no damage from it. Shield draws attacks and soaks damage with its shield points first.
• Decks can hold 5 heroes.
• Hero-slayers wound by 2, 4 or 7 depending on their tier, and more cards now have the ability.
• Your own faction’s spies draw 3 cards; neutral spies draw 2.
• Inspire gives +1 to every unit played into its row afterwards, for as long as the inspirer stands.
• Redrawn cards are shuffled back into your deck.
• New battlefield features: a burning village, fog of war, a wayside shrine and a feast day.
• Allegiance:
  • Swear to one of 16 crowns, each with its history and key battles. Your first oath is free; changing it costs 5,500.
  • Allied towns are cheaper and lend you a random neutral card in every card game there.
  • Enemy towns cost more, and their regulars and lords play as Marshals.
  • Each crown tracks your standing with it.

1.2.5

• The map comes alive: marching armies you can join or ride out against, siege markers, and roaming brigands.

1.3.0

• Warband:
  • Recruit levies, crossbowmen, men-at-arms and knights.
  • Pay them weekly wages.
  • They strengthen your rows in battles of war, and you can train them up.
• Lay siege to towns with your warband and hold the ones you take as fiefs that pay rent.
• Armies are led by named lords, have a strength value, and fight each other. Break an army and you may capture its lord for ransom.

1.3.1

• Fixed the camera being blocked during the hand-to-hand fights in sieges.
• Lower wages.

1.3.2

• Merchant caravans you can escort or rob.
• Villages burned by passing armies, and your own raids on enemy villages.
• Mercenary contracts.
• A War room listing everything on the move.
• More armies and brigands on the map.

1.4.0

• Free riding: tap anywhere and your banner rides there in real time. A day lasts 15 seconds, with a ×3 speed button, and time stops while you’re idle or a panel is open.
• Chasing: chase armies, caravans and brigands, and be chased by them.
• Terrain and camp: take ship at ports to cross the sea, and expect mountains and forests to slow you. Camp to heal your wounded.

PATCH FIX 1.1.1

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• Ability badges on rewards: reward cards now show labelled ability badges, like “Volley 1” or “Scout”, the same as cards in your hand.
• Rewards no longer re-roll: I couldn’t reproduce the shuffle when going back and forth between “See the others” and inspecting a card; the cards stayed the same in my tests. What I did find is that a prize could be drawn again if a reward button was pressed a second time, so I made every reward screen reuse the cards it already offered. If you still see them change, tell me which screen it happens on (tournament, siege, tavern, the lists or the road) and I’ll track it down.
• Special cards: neutral weather and other special cards no longer count toward the 3-neutral limit.
• Special limit: decks can now hold up to 7 specials.

OTHER NEW FIXES IN 1.1.0 AND SOME EXPANDED

AI play

• Once you’ve pass: the AI plays only what it takes to win the round, cheapest first, then stops. In a test of 20 games against the hardest AI, it played one card each time, took the round and passed.
• When it’s already ahead after your pass: it passes straight away.
• When no card can win the round: it passes and keeps its hand, at every difficulty.
• Before you pass: none of this applies yet. It still plays its normal strategy, so it won’t give up a round early while you’re still playing.
• Who leads: the winner of a round now leads the next one.

Decks

• Limits: 20–45 units, 0–6 specials, and at most 3 spies, 3 neutral cards and 3 pillage cards. These apply to your decks, the AI’s decks and Draft.
• Saving: the muster roll edits a working copy, so you can empty it completely. The Save button only works once the deck is legal; until then your last saved deck is used in battle.
• Presets: each faction has 3 presets, each with Load and Store.

Weather fix: Hard Frost was secretly cutting the Horse row of anyone playing against Muscovy, and Muscovy’s own Foot was immune to frost. Neither was in Muscovy’s faction ability, so I removed both. I checked the other weather cards and faction exceptions, and they now match their descriptions.

Gear

• Prices: the three old tiers cost about 25% more.
• New tiers: each piece has two new top tiers, for example Barded destrier at 650 and Spanish jennet of the royal stud at 1,500. Tier 5 prices run 950–1,800.
• Wear: each contest wears the gear it uses by 5%. Even fully worn gear keeps 80% of its effect, and a full repair costs a tenth of the item’s price. The armourer shows each piece’s condition and has a “Mend everything” button.

Contest difficulty: the joust, the butts and the duel now ask Easy, Medium, Hard or Balls of Steel, and the rival gets tougher at each step.

• Card odds: they use your exact t5/t4 percentages. When the prize rolls a tier, you’re offered three cards from that tier.
• Completed tiers: if you already own every card in the rolled tier, you get 150 groschen for t5, 75 for t4, or 50 for t1–t3. Higher tiers are never forced on you.

Other changes

• Travel: journeys now take 80% of the days they used to.
• Version label: the version (v1.1.0) now shows in small print at the very bottom right of the main menu, and in About.
• Menu: the new menu from earlier will go into the Mac and Windows builds when I package.

NEW IN 1.1.0

The builds include the new main menu and everything from the earlier list. I ran the deck rules, presets, weather fix, armourer and difficulty prize roll in a headless browser, and the older tests still pass. I didn’t test the “winner leads the next round” change, and I haven’t played a full game by hand or opened the Mac and Windows builds.

On saving cards for later rounds, the AI now uses these rules at every difficulty:

• After you pass: it plays only the cheapest card that wins the round and then passes. In my test it won with one card each time.
• If no card can win after you pass: it passes and keeps its hand.
• If you have nothing left to play: it stops as soon as it’s ahead.
• Well ahead with more cards than you: it passes early to make you spend cards catching up.
• Hopelessly behind in the first round (22 or more): it gives up that round and keeps its hand.
• In a deciding round: it plays to win, with no holding back.