Emperor's and Explorer's Rejoice! Update 1.4 is here now.
This update brings fresh strategic depth to your campaigns, centering on historical trade and exploration, political influence, and a greatly improved game pacing. We are introducing new mechanics, including trade policies to manage your wealth and Expeditions that allow you to search for distant riches across the map.
What's New In 1.4:
New Content & Flavor (Iberia & Maghreb)
315 new Advances go to Iberian and Maghrebi tags and cultures. Both regions got new flavor including: new events, decisions, and unique buildings for Aragon, Castile, Granada, Navarre, Mallorca, Tunis, Tlemcen, and more. New holy sites and monuments have also been added, alongside a full Jewish and Sephardi flavor with their own characters, dynasties, and government reforms.
Expeditions
A new system lets you send a leader and gold on a voyage across the map, from transatlantic exploration to grand diplomatic tours and religious pilgrimages. Some expeditions follow a fixed historical route, others chart their own path, and a few are global races where only the first nation to succeed gets the reward.
Religion
Cardinals are now full characters with their own subpanel and map mode inside the Catholic Church. Crusades and Jihads get a two-phase structure, a preparation period followed by the war itself, along with new leadership roles, a shared war chest, and dozens of new actions and events. Religious Orders also arrive with their own callings and crown actions.
Economy
Tariffs let you tax or subsidize foreign trade to balance revenue against diplomatic standing, and Trade Orders become far more customizable. Canals open new naval passages for a steep gold cost, with full control over who's allowed to use them. A new Default on Creditors action and an area-based Promote Industry system round out the economic toolkit.
Politics & Diplomacy
Inheritance Contracts and Betrothals add new ways to secure a dynasty's future, while a new Political Influence resource reflects how much authority a ruler actually commands. Republics and Theocracies each get their own new crisis events. An Oligarchic Capture disaster for decaying republics and a Crisis of Faith for theocracies in decline.
Military
War leadership is no longer automatically handed to the strongest country, instead it can now be offered or demanded. Estates with the appropriate privilege can field their own private armies, and rulers can press them into royal service at a cost. Cavalry and infantry balance has also been adjusted so that building nothing but cavalry is no longer the META (we think), encouraging more combined-arms play.
Exploration & Colonization Quality Of Life
Colonial Charters can now be aimed at forming a new Colonial Nation, expanding an existing one, or integrating territory directly. New migration tools let you deliberately resettle pops after a conquest or into underdeveloped land, and colonization UI gets clearer health indicators and milestone messages throughout the process.
Quality Of Life & Tools
The Laws panel, Road Builder, and Peace Treaty screens all got UX passes, alongside new Budget and Building Queue management tools. Save file sizes have been observed to be much smaller. The Mod Manager also receives a round of improvements.
Performance Boosts
One of our goals with 1.4 was to increase performance, especially into the mid and later stages of the game. And so far based on the Open Beta testing this has been a success! If performance has been a sticking point for you, 1.4 is a great time to try things out again.
A full feature list can be found below:
How To Rollback To Previous Versions:
- Right click the game in Steam
- Go to Properties and select the tab called "Game Versions & Betas"
- Pick the version you want to play from the list.
- Allow the game to update
- Make sure, before you load any save, that the version number in the game is the one you want.
- If the previous step fails, exit the game, right click -> properties -> local files -> Verify integrity of game files and wait for all files to be verified before going back to step 5.
FAQ:
Are Saves Compatible Between 1.3 And 1.4?
On the technical level yes, on a gameplay/balance level, no. A 1.3 save will load just fine into 1.4! However it's very likely you'll find various issues, and depending on the circumstances possibly unrecoverable from a gameplay/balance perspective. For this reason we highly recommend starting a new save with 1.4!
Are Saves Compatible Between 1.4 Beta And The Upcoming 1.4 Live Version?
Yes, Saves here are fully compatible.
