Greetings Warriors of Calradia,

War Sails v1.2.5 and Bannerlord v1.4.5 are now live on PC, with the console release planned for early June, once the release process for them concludes.

Join us in watching the video below as we walk through the key highlights included in this update. Prefer reading instead? You can find the full text breakdown further below.

Your fleet can now make port in coastal villages to trade, recruit troops, and resupply. This not only makes long-distance naval travel far more practical, but also introduces an entirely new Viking-era activity — the Seaborne Village Raids.

Naval raids expand both the strategic and immersive layers of the game. On the campaign map, they act as a new way to disrupt the enemy economy, allowing you and nobles to strike coastal settlements directly from the sea or by navigating rivers. Additionally, they contribute to a stronger naval presence among lords, making the sea feel more active and contested.

These raids are not just limited to the campaign layer. Once underway, they transition into the mission in one of the new amphibious raid scenes. Your ships approach from the sea or river, landing on beaches and in shallow waters. From there, your warband disembarks and pushes inland to meet defenders scrambling to respond.

Seaborne raids also introduce new strategic considerations. Fleet composition is now of greater importance as naval raids require shallow-draft ships. At the same time, attacking from the sea allows you to more easily evade responding enemy lords - opening up new tactical opportunities and challenges.

In addition, we expanded on AI nobles’ behavior to increase purposeful activity on the water. During wartime, enemies now actively seek out town and village port locations to harass your noble parties, convoys, and fishing ships. Combined with seaborne village raids, this should increase the number of naval travels and meaningful encounters between factions.

Further, we’ve re-balanced AI assessments so nobles are more inclined to prefer naval travel as opposed to land for longer journeys. Together with other changes like longer naval battles and increased view distance at sea, the amount of naval activity and engagements have increased quite a bit.

The naval campaign gameplay balance and feel were also things we wanted to revisit.

Naval combat is inherently costly, so we adjusted the risk–reward balance. Experience gain for troops in naval encounters is up 50% to better offset the losses that come with fighting on the water. Further, party wages and food consumption have both been reduced at sea.

Additionally, river travel has been made faster, with a 50% speed increase for parties, improving the utility of inland voyages.

Naval battles have seen major improvements, aimed at creating a more fun and tighter experience.

You can now delegate command of your ship, letting your crew take the helm while you move freely and fight.

Further, we’ve refined spawn distances, ship handling, and boarding for smoother engagements.

Finally, victory conditions have been reworked with battles now ending when all ships on one side are out of action - meaning sunk, burned, or critically undermanned - rather than when every troop was defeated.

On the content side, two new ships have been added to the War Sails roster, giving Northern factions more options for ranged-focused naval gameplay.

The Battanian Barlinnger was built to hold the line in larger naval engagements. Sharing traits with the Birlinn, it is slower and less responsive, but its broad deck and raised mid castle make archers and skirmishers especially deadly in ranged combat.

The Nord Battle Knarr, on the other hand, is an oversized and reinforced knarr built to carry ballistae as well as a large crew. When a longship won't do, the Battle Knarr steps in.

We've also added two new body armors - the Reinforced Mail Coat and the Nordic Long Heavy Mail, alongside 9 new Nord helmets such as the Nordic Spectacle Helmet and the Brass Vendel Helmet. Finally, there are ten new armor variants, with seven in War Sails and three in Bannerlord, including the Heavy Mastercrafted Northern Armor, Reinforced Huscarl Armor, and the Reinforced Wolf Head.

Beyond the battles themselves, crew management now comes with more options. We've added two new naval party roles: the First Mate, which is tied to the Boatswain skill, and the Navigator, tied to the Shipmaster skill.

To support these roles, three new Nord wanderer types have been introduced: the Easterling, the Boatswain, and the Sea-Raider - bringing the total to 11 new wanderers in War Sails.

And across both the expansion and the base game, clan members can now hold up to two party roles at the same time, reducing the pressure of companion limits.

Moving on with changes that apply to both War Sails and Bannerlord - let's talk about armies.

The AI army creation system has been reworked. Armies now require a more sizable force before they can be formed; the influence threshold to create one has been doubled, and AI nobles are willing to spend more when doing so. These changes should result in fewer but stronger armies on the map.

Further, AI army formation and disbanding have been reworked to reduce ineffective defensive behavior. Armies no longer form or persist purely for defense and will disband if too weak to go on the offensive, giving nobles time to recover.

Individual nobles respond faster and more efficiently to threats, which leads to a greater number of successful settlement defenses, reduces rapid settlement ownership changes, and frees up parties for mid-sized engagements.

Finally, auto-resolved sieges now take twice as long, giving additional time for reinforcements.

Staying on the strategic layer, diplomacy has likewise seen significant changes.

On the war front, kingdoms without shared borders will no longer go to war and are more likely to seek peace when conflict stalls. This should reduce wars that exist only on paper.

Building on that, alliances and trade agreements have been expanded beyond their initial foundations. Their creation now better reflects the state of the world, taking into account factors like inter-faction marriages, existing diplomatic ties, and, particularly for alliances, owning settlements of another faction’s culture. This is especially interesting in the case of the Empire’s factions. Furthermore, breaking either of the agreements by declaring war incurs honor and relationship penalties.

Moving to alliances, specifically - they are now formed with improved reasoning, which puts a greater focus on surrounding threats. Further, they conclude with a Renewal prompt that gives kingdoms the chance to extend their partnership, while helping prevent immediate wars between former allies.

Responding to your ally also comes with additional consequences - refusing a Call to War damages the relationship, while accepting one strengthens it.

Finally, trade agreements are now limited to neighboring kingdoms and provide tangible, ongoing value. Caravans and naval convoys of trading partners generate gold with each settlement visit, which is then distributed daily among vassals.

Shifting to the covert side of things, hideouts have seen meaningful improvements to create a more challenging and responsive experience that rewards stealth.

In the stealth mission, you're no longer required to eliminate sentries before approaching the campfire - and reaching it without killing or alerting anyone earns you a Roguery experience bonus.

We also added a skill-based success chance when sending troops to clear a hideout. Finally, Assault and Stealth approaches offer distinct rewards - Stealth grants access to the hideout stash, while Assault doesn’t.

Back on the battlefield, encounters should now feel less punishing, with the medicine skill scaling better to provide a higher likelihood of troops being wounded rather than killed.

Combat has received further iteration as well. Melee units should commit to attacks more reliably, spear troops have improved aiming against cavalry, and cavalry is better at timing and choosing swing directions.

All two-handed maces can also knock enemies down.

Finally, the default cavalry bonus in auto-resolve has been removed, reducing the disproportionate advantage of horse-heavy factions.

That covers the highlights for War Sails v1.2.5 and Bannerlord v1.4.5. Here’s an image to recap the important changes as well.

Initial Beta Changelog:

The following changes are specific to the War Sails expansion and are not part of the base game.

Clan and Party

Changes

• Added a new AI party behavior for offensive naval patrols that seek to disrupt enemy forces and economy during war.

  • These target town and village "port" locations to harass Lord Parties, Convoys, and Fishing Ships.

  • This should contribute to lord sea presence, but, more importantly, to a greater number of naval engagements for lord parties.

• Increased AI nobles’ willingness to travel by sea.

  • AI lords were overestimating how much damage they would take at sea. We adjusted that to make their calculations more reasonable.

  • This should make longer naval travel more acceptable to nobles.

• Added New Naval Party Roles

  • Players can now assign First Mate (Boatswain skill) and Navigator (Shipmaster skill) roles.

  • Updated some perks to have First Mate and Navigator role-specific effects.

• Added 3 new Nord wanderer types: "the Easterling", "the Boatswain", and "the Sea-Raider".

• Mariner Skill Changes

  • Added Mariner skill to all Mariner troops.

  • Reworked how the Mariner skill affects combat performance during naval engagements.

    • In Campaign/Sandbox mode and naval battles, heroes now use their Mariner skill to reduce combat penalties when fighting on ships. A Mariner skill of 200 fully cancels these penalties, while heroes with 0 Mariner skill receive the full penalties.

    • Regular troops can only cancel these penalties if they have the “mariner” tag. Troops without this tag receive the full penalties during naval combat.

  • Adjusted how Mariner skill behaves in Custom Naval Battles.

    • All troops (including heroes) will cancel all Mariner penalties if their default Mariner skill is greater than 40.

    • Troops with a value below 40 receive the full penalties.

  • Adjusted how swimming duration scales with the Mariner skill.

    • Maximum Mariner skill now grants up to +20 seconds of additional swimming time, allowing experienced mariner troops to survive longer if they fall into the sea.

  • Fixed several agent stat calculation differences between Campaign/Sandbox and Custom Naval Battles. Both modes now use consistent calculations, with the exception of personal and captain perks, which are only applied in Campaign/Sandbox mode.

• Improved AI party behavior by enabling pirate parties to surrender when their relative strength is significantly lower than the opposing force.

• Increased experience gain for non-hero troops in naval encounters by 50%. This change applies to both missions and auto-resolution. It should help offset higher troop losses at sea.

• Added a 40% View Distance penalty when the player party is inside a storm.

• Increased the party View Distance at sea by 30%.

• Reduced party wages while at sea.

• Reduced food consumption while at sea.

• Increased the river party naval speed by 50%.

• Decreased the roaming range of fisher parties.

• Adjusted the armor pieces used by Sea Hound troops so they are consistent with their tier.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that allowed parties to travel through the obstacles on the campaign map.

• Fixed a bug that prevented players from entering the raft state when released from captivity at sea.

• Fixed a bug that caused some naval parties to miscalculate enemy party strength and thus make ill-informed decisions whether to engage or flee.

• Fixed a bug that caused the player’s ships to be left behind after dying at sea and choosing an heir, resulting in a single ship stranded at a settlement instead of being transferred to the new party.

• Fixed a bug that prevented wanderers of Nord culture from spawning.

Naval Battles

Changes

• Added a system to handle campaign naval battles that do not fully exhaust at least one of the sides. The previous system allowed the player or AI to defeat the enemy as a whole, even if they had more remaining ships & troops that did not fight in the initial battle. Both sides now disengage from the encounter and consider their next move.

• Added the ability to delegate command of your ship.

  • Using the "Delegate command" order, the crew takes control of the ship while the player freely moves and acts on deck.

  • If the order is given while the player controls the ship, the control is automatically relieved. The order ends automatically if the player manually takes ship control, while disabling the order will stop the ship's movement.

• Improved mission victory logic for naval battles.

  • Previously, all troops had to be down or in the water for a side to be defeated. A side is now considered defeated only when all of its ships are out of action (sunk, burnt, or critically undermanned). This doesn't apply to actively contested ship islands.

    • The mission will not conclude while a player-controlled agent is alive and not until at least 20 seconds have passed since the last player-controlled agent’s death.

• Adjusted the way the spawning distance between teams is calculated in missions.

  • The distance between teams in naval battles is now determined by ship count rather than total crew capacity. This change should result in shorter distances for engagements between a few ships and greater distances for larger fleets.

• Increased ship figurehead loot drop chances from defeated enemy nobles.

  • Defeating a Kingdom Leader: Increased from 50% to 60%.

  • Defeating a Clan Leader: Increased from 25% to 50%.

  • Defeating a Clan Member: Increased from 10% to 40%.

• Added a boarding indicator to show which enemy ship is currently being boarded.

• Added the ability to cancel an active boarding order by holding the boarding key on the targeted ship.

• Added separating forces that apply when ships become tangled, helping them break apart.

• Improved boarding bridge connections so that they are harder to break.

• Made troop pathfinding improvements for moving on ships.

• Ships that were given the targeted Engage order on an enemy ship remained inactive after clearing it and any other attached enemy ships. Now, they will automatically detach and find new enemies to attack.

• Adjusted the speed threshold for oar-assisted turning to be more tolerant. Ships turn faster when using oars on both sides.

• Reduced the fire damage of a missile that passes through a sail before hitting a target.

• Adjusted ship ballista rotation and projectile type behavior so different ballista types feel more distinct.

• Improved ballista direct control mode visibility by enabling movement of the ballista during reload.

• Adjusted the ship ballista camera behavior so it automatically switches to a different camera view when the ballista is unmanned, making it clearer when the ballista is not being used by a troop.

• Ranged accuracy of troops now decreases with the ships' movement.

• Improved the efficiency of getting back onto the ship by enabling multiple troops to use climbing nets simultaneously.

• Increased auto resolution time for naval encounters.

• Increased mariner troop strength in naval battle simulations by 20%.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that prevented AI ships with the Engage order from connecting with and assisting allied ships during naval battles. Ships given the Engage order will now correctly update their boarding targets, throw hooks, and board enemy ships as intended, including when multiple allied ships are engaging the same target.

• Fixed a bug that allowed the minimum troop count in Naval Custom Battle to go below the operable troop count, resulting in immediate battle end.

• Fixed a bug that caused figurehead drop chances to be lower than intended.

• Fixed a bug that caused the "Use oars at half power" command to trigger an incorrect number of oarsmen and improper ship steering behavior.

• Fixed a bug that prevented troops from being assigned to oars during initial battle deployment.

• Fixed a bug that caused collision issues inside Roundship and Dromon, causing units to get stuck.

• Fixed a bug that caused ship reinforcements to continue spawning while a ship is burning.

• Fixed a bug that caused burning sails to still apply wind forces.

• Fixed a bug that caused the default player character camera to be reset to third person when relinquishing control of the ship.

• Fixed a bug that caused troops to continue using ship interactables while they are in the water.

• Fixed a bug that caused troops to collide with boarding bridges when swimming underneath.

• Fixed a bug that caused troops to appear outside of a ship in Order of Battle, when switching ship selection.

War Sails Storyline

Changes

• Added a tooltip for the reasons the dialogue option to set sail with Purig is disabled during the naval storyline.

• Improved naval storyline progression clarity when Ostican is hostile to the player. Gunnar can now be accessed via town and port menus during the naval storyline, even if the player is at war with Ostican’s owner, ensuring the storyline can still be progressed without entering the settlement.

• Improved proximity detection for notifications and music cues during the “Defeat the Sea Hounds” naval storyline mission, ensuring banner messages and audio events trigger reliably as ships move into range.

• Increased food and gold given in naval storyline quests, to ensure reaching quest objectives with enough provisions.

• Adjusted the main storyline Conspiracy quest settlement target selection to exclude island settlements that could cause navigation issues.

• Changed Gunnar's home village to Lagshofn instead of Bjorenbyr.

• Removed Sea Hounds' spears from the Naval Storyline Act 3 Quest 5 Escape phase.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that prevented the "Free the sea hounds' captives" from restarting after retreating from the mission.

• Fixed a bug that allowed player inputs during the "Purig's ship is here" cutscene in "Free the sea hounds' captives" quest.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the Sea Hounds from triggering an encounter in the “Defeat the Sea Hounds” quest if the player did not move their own ship.

• Fixed a bug that caused repeating dialogues at the end of "Speak to the Sailors in Omor" and "Hunt Down Emira al Fahda" quests.

• Fixed a bug that prevented horses from jumping during the "Speak to Sailors in Omor" quest.

• Fixed a bug that caused rescued crew members to try using oars that were already in use during the naval storyline captivity mission, leading to broken rowing behavior when switching rowing power.

• Fixed a bug that caused party visibility and settlement information around Ostican to not update correctly after the player was teleported there during the naval questline.

• Fixed a bug that caused repeating dialogue in the conversation with Purig in the naval storyline quests.

• Fixed a bug that allowed Nord settlements to be selected as a main storyline conspiracy quest target settlement.

• Fixed a bug that caused capitalization errors during the naval storyline.

Art

• Added two new ships:

  • Battanian Barlinnger - To hold the line in larger naval engagements, the Battanians built the Barlinnger. Sharing characteristics with the Birlinn, the Barlinnger is slower and more cumbersome. However, its broad deck and raised mid castle make archers and skirmishers deadly in ranged engagements. This ship was also favoured by the Vlandians for the same reason.

  • Nord Battle Knarr - Though Nords and Sturgians favour quick boarding engagements, they know the value of naval artillery. Since regular longships lack the stability and space to mount ballistae, they used the Battle Knarr. These oversized and reinforced Knarr, can accommodate ballistae as well as a large crew.

• Added two new body armors and assigned them to troops:

  • Reinforced Mail Coat: Nord Marksman, Nord Shield Biters

  • Nordic Long Heavy Mail: Nord Hearthguard, Nord Warfang, Nord Marauder

• Added new variants of armor pieces and distributed them to Nord troops.

  • Reinforced Northern Mail Mittens

  • Chainmail Shoulder Guards

  • Reinforced Wolf Head

  • Heavy Mastercrafted Northern Armor

  • Reinforced Huscarl Armor

  • Wolf Pelt Cape

  • Mariner Gambeson

• Added the unique town scene back for Omor.

• Added floating debris when ships hit and scrape against each other.

• Added a new railing lantern model to suitable ships.

• Added new port prefabs on the world map.

• Increased the walkable area of the Aft on Sambuk.

• Updated some of the loading screens and encounter artworks.

• Updated Walrus Tusk and Whale Oil item models.

• Fixed a bug that caused improper bridge floor spots in Hardgard.

• Fixed a bug that prevented interaction with the tavern door in Lycaron.

• Fixed a bug that caused the Nord kingdom's banner to duplicate when the ruling clan changed.

• Fixed a bug that caused color LOD issues on ship roofs.

• Fixed a bug that caused issues with naval army visuals if the army leader had no more ships left.

• Fixed a bug that caused some ships to appear submerged on the campaign map during a blockade.

Campaign Map

• Reworked rivers to improve mesh generation and eliminate floating or overflowing water. This should prevent ships from appearing submerged.

• Improved overall visual coherence, including flora adjustments, new decals, and better settlement positioning.

• Improved environmental simulations, including wind behavior, river flow directions, and snow coverage.

• Polished river to sea intersections.

• Fixed numerous navigation mesh issues, particularly along coasts and rivers, reducing cases where parties could become stuck while embarking or disembarking.

• Fixed a bug that prevented storm clouds from casting shadows below them.

• Fixed a bug that caused the outer mesh intersection to be blurry.

UI

Changes

• Added different map icons for different shipyard levels.

• Added a new UI icon for the "Stop controlling the ship" button indicator.

• Added a warning tooltip to equipped ship upgrade slots in the fleet management screen when interaction is unavailable (for example, when not in a port or when the ship is damaged).

• Added ballista ammo count visuals when directly controlling ship ballistas.

• Added log messages for fire damage during naval battles.

• Added ship control hotkeys to the Options - Keybindings menu.

• Made drowning and fall damage to now display both at the center of the screen and next to the health bar.

• Removed the ship control description text while the player is not allowed to control or capture a ship.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused some tooltips to briefly appear on the top-left corner of the screen.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the “Charge” order from being highlighted in naval battles, despite being active.

• Fixed a bug that prevented entering higher crew counts in the naval Order of Battle.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the name of the player's sister from showing in her encyclopedia description.

• Fixed a bug that caused incorrect menu text when encountering a besieged settlement where both sides are neutral to the player.

• Fixed a bug that caused missing speed effects from refreshing in the party speed on the hover tooltip.

• Fixed a bug that caused the "Take" button to show incorrect text in the ship loot screen after naval battles.

• Fixed a bug that caused the land encounter menu background to show when the player joined an ongoing naval battle.

• Fixed a bug that caused troops' and prisoners' ordering to be broken after transferring the latter in the Party screen.

• Fixed a bug that prevented you from scrolling up and down with the right analog stick in encyclopedia.

Animations

• Added additional rowing animations.

• Improved rudder usage animations.

• Fixed a bug that caused oarsmen to change their rowing animation frequently, causing them to flicker.

• Fixed a bug that caused oarsmen to fail to return to their designated seats, despite still performing the rowing animation, while the ship was moving at high speed.

• Fixed a bug that caused musicians in Vlandian shipyards to have improper animations.

• Fixed a bug that caused combat animations to carry over to a conversation screen if initiated closely before the conversation.

Character Development System

• Added a Trade skill bonus to the Corsair Traders background option in character creation.

• Decreased the "Popular Captain" perk effect regarding ship combat deck size from 10% to 5% and made it a Party Leader effect instead of a Captain effect.

• Renamed the perk "Nimble Surge" to "Favorable Tide".

• Renamed the perk "Crown on the Sail" to "Fair Winds".

• Fixed a bug that caused Mariner skill gain during naval storyline from non-naval gameplay and friendly fire.

• Fixed a bug that caused naval battles to reward Tactics instead of Mariner experience.

Audio

• Fixed a bug that caused audio errors and incorrect voice-over playback for Purig due to mismatched dialogue data.

• Fixed a bug that caused voice-over issues in the naval storyline, including missing audio playback, incorrect line splits, and lip-sync problems.

• Fixed a bug that caused excessive drowning sounds in the background during the fireship set-piece in the naval storyline.

Settlement Actions (Town, Village, Castle and Hideout)

• Updated and reordered icons in town and port menus for clearer navigation.

  • Moved “Take a walk around” to be above “Leave” and “Wait” in campaign menus.

  • “Call Fleet” no longer appears if your fleet is already present.

  • “Call Fleet” now opens a dedicated sub-menu instead of triggering immediately.

• Increased Hvalvik’s starting wall level to 3.

• Fixed a bug that caused Townswoman to be shown as Townsman in port scenes.

Other

• Added encyclopedia text for Gunnar, Purig, Lahar, Fahda, Bjolgur, and Crusas.

• Replaced placeholder text for ship descriptions in the encyclopedia.

• Corrected the name of “Berserker Reinforced Cloak” to “Berserker Reinforced Helmet”.

• Adjusted the weight values of some body armors.

• Fixed Nord Axe Warrior equipment sets.

• Fixed a bug that caused shipwright NPCs to exit the port scenes.

• Fixed a bug that caused shipwright NPCs to have combat equipment in Port scenes.

• Fixed a bug that caused the two-handed axe to be held incorrectly when swinging from a horse.

Save & Load

• Added ship ownership information to the Saved Campaigns screen.

• Fixed a bug that caused character portraits to be missing or incorrect for sandbox saves in the save/load screen.

Localisation

• Improved localisation across all languages.

Performance

• Fixed a bug that caused corpses to be rendered more than once in naval battles.

• Fixed a bug that caused water reflection issues in Performance Mode on consoles.

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred in Naval Custom Battle when clicking the "Ready" button during Order of Battle.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when controlling a ship ballista with no ammo left.

• Fixed a crash that occurred due to the naval battle scoreboard being triggered during a land battle.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when the "kill agent" cheat was used during the naval storyline alley fight.

• Fixed a crash that occurred in naval battles due to idle animation issues.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when lifting your blockade during a siege.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when the player died during the transition to the big fight in the "Free the sea hounds' captives" quest.

• Fixed a crash that occurred due to a deployment-related issue during the loading for a "Defeat The Sea Hounds" quest battle.

• Fixed a crash that occurred due to ragdoll movement in naval battles.

• Fixed a crash that occurred due to ships not finding correct navmesh paths on some occasions.

The following changes are part of the base game and apply to the War Sails expansion as well.

Armies

• Reworked the AI army creation system.

  • Added a minimum army size requirement based on the overall mobile military strength of the kingdom. Kingdoms with more noble parties will now form proportionally larger armies than smaller kingdoms.

    • This minimum army size calculation does not include mercenary clans, allowing larger kingdoms or those employing multiple mercenary clans to still form additional armies in the late game.

  • Increased the minimum influence required for AI clans to create an army from 50 to 100.

  • Increased the amount of influence AI nobles are willing to spend when forming an army.

  • These changes should result in fewer but stronger armies on average. They are also intended to facilitate more free parties that don't join armies.

• Reworked the AI army formation / disbanding logic regarding defensive activities.

  • Removed defensive activities as a valid condition for both creating and maintaining an army. Armies will still move to defend settlements, but if they are not strong enough to besiege enemy settlements, they will now disband after two days.

    • This should reduce situations where armies move from one failed defensive attempt to another, gradually losing their strength and effectiveness. It is also intended to give individual nobles from the disbanded army more time to recover.

    • Since individual nobles respond to enemy offensive and defensive actions (such as sieges and raids) faster than armies and recover their losses and food supplies more efficiently, there should now be more successful settlement defenses. This should reduce the constant change of ownership of border settlements.

    • It is meant to also result in more noble parties remaining active on both sides to harass and engage enemy forces, leading to more noble encounters and an increased number of mid-sized targets for the player.

• Your army will now be disbanded if you kick out all the army members.

• Fixed a bug that caused armies to get stuck in the gathering phase and stop moving after an encounter while going to the gathering location.

Kingdoms and Diplomacy

Changes

• Improved AI war and peace decision-making by removing the second-degree neighbor exposure from diplomatic considerations. Kingdoms that do not share direct neighboring settlements will no longer declare war on each other and are more likely to declare peace, which should help reduce the occurrence of prolonged inactive wars.

• Revised Alliance Mechanics

  • Added an alliance renewal decision. Once an alliance ends, whether through cancellation or completion, both parties are immediately prompted to decide whether to renew it. This should lead to more consistent diplomatic behavior between kingdoms, as they won't consider other diplomatic options like war declarations until the alliance renewal has been resolved.

  • Improved the reasoning behind forming alliances, making kingdoms more responsive to surrounding threats.

  • Alliance considerations are now influenced by additional factors:

    • Inter-ruler clan and ruler-to-any clan marriages (the latter matter less)

    • Owning settlements of another faction’s culture is now treated as hostile occupation by their original owners. This is especially impactful for the Empire factions, making them less likely to ally with one another.

    • Being in a trade agreement with each other

  • Added a penalty to alliance scoring for kingdoms that attempt to form a new alliance while already bound by one, making second alliances less likely. This should prevent too large coalitions when a threat is not too powerful.

  • Added honor and relationship penalties for declaring war on an allied kingdom. This applies to the player if they initiate hostilities or propose a war decision against an ally, provided that these actions result in war.

  • Call To War

    • Added penalties for denying a Call to War from an ally, decreasing the relationship between the ruler of the denying kingdom and the ruler of the calling kingdom.

    • Added a bonus for accepting a Call to War from an ally, increasing the relationship between the leaders of the calling and accepting factions.

    • Improved the interaction between alliance and Call to War durations, ensuring that if a Call to War lasts longer than the alliance itself, its duration extends the alliance to prevent it from ending mid-conflict.

    • Improved diplomatic commitment behavior so that kingdoms called to war by an ally will not consider peace offers for that war until the Call to War duration has ended.

  • Improved how alliance conditions are displayed in the proposal tooltip, with clearer explanations when the player is unable to propose an alliance.

• Revised Trade Agreement Mechanics

  • Trade agreements can now only be formed between neighboring kingdoms. Kingdoms without shared borders will no longer consider trade agreements. Additionally, kingdoms with only port towns can no longer form trade agreements with kingdoms that lack port access (War Sails).

  • Trade agreement considerations are now influenced by additional factors:

    • Inter-ruler clan and ruler-to-any clan marriages (the latter matter less)

    • Prosperity of kingdoms

    • Security of towns

    • Being allied to each other

  • Adjusted relationship and exposure considerations, making trade agreements more likely between allied kingdoms and kingdoms that share larger borders.

  • Added honor and relationship penalties upon breaking a trade agreement by declaring war on a partner. Trade partners are now less likely to declare war on each other.

• Improved trade agreements to generate ongoing economic benefits for kingdoms. Caravans (and naval convoys in War Sails) now generate gold for the owning kingdom on each settlement visit, with the income distributed daily among vassals and clearly shown in the Kingdom Diplomacy screen.

• Adjusted how initial relationships between AI nobles and notables are generated to create a more natural and varied distribution. Relationships are now less clustered around neutral values, with traits playing a stronger role in shaping positive and negative opinions. This results in clearer rivalries, stronger friendships, and more meaningful relationship-based decisions. Additionally, we increased the threshold for considering another hero an enemy to -50.

  • Adjusted starting relationship calculations between faction leaders to check for clashing traits.

• Adjusted the support level display for kingdom decisions in the Diplomacy screen to use descriptive levels (Low, Slight, Good, Strong) instead of percentages.

• Adjusted war progress value normalization so that one side is always displayed as 0, (e.g. 60-0 scale instead of 80-20).

• Added an option to abstain when voting on kingdom decisions as the ruler, preventing forced support for opposing outcomes when lacking sufficient influence.

• Added a blue highlight to settlements and parties belonging to kingdoms allied with the player’s kingdom.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused tribute values in the Diplomacy screen to be displayed as negative (e.g. Tribute Paid: 8000 | -8000). Tribute values are now correctly displayed (e.g. 8000 | 0).

• Fixed a bug that prevented effects from applying to certain kingdom policies. The affected policies are Effects of Crown Duty, Imperial Towns, Lawspeakers, Royal Privilege, Castle Charters, and Royal Commissions.

• Fixed a bug that caused incorrect tax calculations for the "War Tax" and "Debasement of the Currency" policies.

• Fixed a bug that allowed alliance and trade agreements to be finalized with the player’s kingdom even when the other side did not support it.

• Fixed a bug that caused the player to pay influence when the peace notification was ignored or closed.

• Fixed a bug that caused a declaration of war notification to trigger when a clan is successfully convinced to defect to the player's kingdom.

Stealth & Disguise

• Adjusted stealth visibility, awareness, and detection behaviors for improved consistency and balance.

  • Refined agent vision cones and uphill visibility behavior.

  • Improved reactions to corpses and alarmed agents.

  • Reduced handheld torch impact on visibility.

  • Adjusted cautiousness indicator behavior.

  • Improved detection responsiveness at close range.

  • Adjusted sneak attack effectiveness for throwing knives.

• Improved the Stealth Tutorial clarity and flow with minor scene adjustments.

• Improved the stealth system by making hiding in the shrubs consistent across different character builds.

• If you are spotted during the prison break mission, you need to eliminate the guards soon or fail the mission. Added a countdown to now clearly illustrate that.

• Added the ability to trade in hostile towns after setting up contact, if the Smuggler Connection perk is active in the Roguery skill.

• You can no longer access the Port while in disguise.

• Fixed a bug that prevented larger character builds from hiding in bushes during the Stealth Tutorial.

• Fixed a bug that caused the player to remain hidden in shrubs while holding a torch.

• Fixed a bug that prevented alert indicators from being visible through walls during stealth missions.

• Fixed a bug that caused the stealth mission fail counter to remain on the screen even after it was no longer applicable.

• Fixed a bug that caused the player’s stealth equipment to use banner colors in the inventory screen instead of the darkened version.

• Fixed a bug that caused player alley members to spawn and fight against the player as town guards during disguise missions.

• Fixed a bug that caused musicians’ instruments to be missing when the player was disguised inside taverns.

Hideouts

• Hideout Stealth Mission

  • Improved the Hideout stealth mission by removing the requirement to eliminate sentries before interacting with the campfire. Players can now trigger the fight phase regardless of sentry kills.

  • Implemented a roguery XP bonus after reaching the hideout campfire without killing or alerting the sentries.

  • Made improvements to all hideout scenes to accommodate the new mission rules.

  • Removed sentry indicators when pressing ALT during hideout stealth missions.

  • Improved the Hideout mission clarity by removing the alarm state bars once the open battle is triggered.

  • Added objective trackers during stealth and assault hideout missions.

  • The campfire highlight now gets disabled after it is used.

  • Fixed a bug that allowed the player to sit on chairs during hideout stealth missions.

  • Fixed a bug that prevented the deletion of the stealth fail counter.

  • Fixed a bug that allowed the player to use the campfire during the hideout sneak-in mission while an enemy was alerted.

• Hideouts

  • Added a success chance when sending troops to clear a hideout. The chance is influenced by Tactics and Roguery skills. On success, the hideout is cleared, but no loot nor XP is gained.

  • Clearing a hideout using the Assault option now grants only loot obtained from defeated enemy troops (battle loot only).

  • Clearing a hideout using the Stealth option now grants additional loot (hideout stash/trade goods).

  • Increased the number of bandit troops in Hideout Assault scenes to 20-29 and adjusted the scenes accordingly.

  • Hideouts now have a different icon that indicates the number of bandit parties in them.

  • Disabled the campfire highlight in the hideout assault mission.

  • Fixed a bug that caused the Stealth option to reduce the loot when clearing hideouts."

  • Fixed a bug that caused incorrect troops to spawn using player troop selection when launching a Hideout assault.

  • Fixed a bug that prevented troops from gaining XP in hideouts.

  • Fixed a bug that caused only one bandit troop type to spawn in hideouts.

Art

• Added new variants of armor pieces and distributed them to various troops.

  • Wrapped Mail Mittens

  • Mail Mittens with Bronze Plate

  • Mail Mittens with Plate Guard

• Made further improvements to the land scenes' atmospheres.

  • Added new night atmosphere variations.

  • Refined lighting balance, reduced excessive sun flare, and softened harsh cloud shadows.

  • Fixed overly dark enclosed areas.

• Added the female versions of Long Leather Vest and Nordic Luxury Tunic meshes.

• Improved LODs for certain axe heads.

• Repositioned the defender's siege weapons in Car Banseth to prevent friendly fire.

• Fixed a bug that caused beards to clip with certain helmet types.

• Fixed a bug that caused LOD issues, making some objects disappear at very short distances.

• Fixed a bug that caused improper ground textures and a terrain spike in the Vostrum town scene.

• Fixed a bug that prevented you from interacting with the doors in Tyal.

• Fixed a bug that caused sigils to flicker on campaign siege camp banners.

Battles and Sieges

Changes

• Reverted survival chance changes (made with BL v1.3.3) for all battles involving the player - now making troops more likely to be wounded instead of killed.

  • Blunt damage probability is again 30% for player battles instead of 10%.

  • Casualty survival chance is again +0.01% per Medicine level instead of +0.0025%.

  • Effect “Your medicine skill partially applies to enemy casualties, increasing potential prisoners” of the perk “Doctor’s Oath” is again 1% instead of 0.1%.

• Doubled the duration of auto-resolved sieges.

  • This gives defending parties more time to reinforce them.

• Adjusted the way the spawning distance between teams is calculated in missions.

  • The distance between teams in land battles now depends entirely on the count of initially deployed troops, as opposed to including reinforcements. This should, on average, reduce the approach times, leading to earlier combat action.

• Improved deployment logic for land and naval battles (War Sails). When there are multiple teams on the same side (allies), they should now be positioned along valid spawn paths, undeployable zones are properly respected, and reinforcement behavior has been improved.

• Removed the default cavalry bonus from auto-resolve battles in an effort to balance horse-dominant factions’ power. Terrain-specific effects still apply.

• Improved ranged siege weapon AI target selection by factoring in terrain and line-of-sight. Ranged siege weapons should no longer fire at targets obstructed by terrain, walls, or other objects, and will more accurately select valid targets they can realistically hit in sieges and naval battles (War Sails).

• Added knockdown functionality to all two-handed maces and adjusted their stats accordingly.

• Updated the encounter texts for breaking in or out of settlements to display the party member with the highest Tactics skill who devises the plan.

• Increased the reach of bash attacks with one-handed weapons to match the reach of bash attacks with two-handed weapons.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused a besieging army to be fully defeated after retreating from a siege mission, allowing the player to imprison all remaining troops and acquire all the loot.

• Fixed a bug that caused besiegers to continue their assaults immediately after retreating from a mission instead of rethinking their position, healing their wounded, rebuilding siege equipment, or lifting the siege if needed.

• Fixed a bug that prevented pikemen in mixed-troop formations from bracing due to standing behind shielded troops. If a formation has troops capable of bracing and is under cavalry charge attack, those units will now move to the front of the formation to brace.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the player from capturing all wounded troops as prisoners after a battle.

• Fixed a bug that prevented selected formation banners from being highlighted correctly during battles.

• Fixed a bug that caused formations without troops to be included in deployment.

• Fixed a bug that caused certain formations to continue moving during the Order of Battle phase.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the player from being deployed and moving with the assigned formation during the Order of Battle screen.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the Auto Deploy button from distributing units correctly during the Siege Order of Battle phase.

• Fixed a bug that caused captains to stay in the wrong positions after being assigned to a formation during Order of Battle.

• Fixed a bug that caused troops to spawn in the wrong formations during the Order of Battle screen.

• Fixed a bug that caused reinforcement formations to face an incorrect direction during deployment.

• Fixed a bug that caused post-battle influence gain notification to trigger even if there was no influence gained.

• Fixed a bug that caused AI to overevaluate the surrounding allied party strengths and get a penalty to the besieging score.

• Fixed a bug that caused siege defender parties to engage the player without waiting for other defender parties, and start an encounter when they were weaker than the player.

• Fixed a bug that caused siege defenders to have unlimited ammo when ambushing the besiegers.

• Fixed a bug that prevented garrison morale from resetting after capturing a settlement.

• Fixed a bug that caused issues with column formation retreat.

• Fixed a bug that caused issues with the column formation siege ladder and siege tower usage.

• Fixed a bug that caused troop types that spawn in battle to be incorrectly homogenous. Troop types should now spawn proportionally to their ratio in the party.

• Fixed a bug that caused AI agents to switch targets when the targeted agent was the player and had jumped.

Clan and Party

Changes

• Campaign map party visibility is now affected by party size and terrain. Larger parties and armies can now be spotted from farther away, while smaller parties like bandits and villagers must get closer before becoming visible. Parties moving through forests are also harder to detect than those in open terrain.

• Improved party role management by allowing each clan member to hold up to two party roles at the same time, reducing pressure oncn companion limits. Role assignment and dialogue options have been updated accordingly.

• Reduced the initial clan tiers of several Vlandian clans while raising the starting tiers for select Battanian clans.

• The "Tell your men to ignore the superstitions of villagers, and press on." choice in the "Cries in the Mist" random event now grants points towards Calculating, Daring and Closefisted traits, decreases party morale and has a chance of injuring multiple troops.

• Updated player sibling generation so they can get any hairstyle from the player's culture.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused player clan parties to donate troops to garrisons when visiting a settlement. They should now donate troops only after conquering the settlement via siege.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the "Hand in the Strongbox" random event from displaying the town name.

• Fixed a bug that caused a party morale reduction in the "Honor the Slain Foe" random event, instead of increasing it.

• Fixed a bug that caused AI nobles to recruit low-tier bandits.

• Fixed a bug that caused your troops to receive experience when donating items to your companions.

• Fixed a bug that prevented parties from being clickable when they are very close to a settlement.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the Auto Allocate Clan Member Perks option from working for the older brother.

• Fixed a bug that caused defeated nobles and companions to spawn in foreign settlements.

• Fixed a bug that caused impassable areas on the campaign map to be accessible using alternative movement keys.

• Fixed a bug that caused patrol parties to get stuck at certain map positions.

UI

Changes

• Added a new Gameplay - Campaign option that allows players to customize how double-clicking affects campaign map time controls. Players can now choose between the default behavior, an alternative mode that toggles between Play and Fast Forward, or disabling double-click time control entirely.

• Added a cross icon to the town management screen to speed up the process of removing items from the queue.

• Added zoom in/out functionality to the item inspection popup.

• Added a warning pop-up when cancelling changes via the exit hotkey in the inventory, party, and fleet (War Sails) management screens.

• Revised order formation selection controls for gamepad use; restored options such as selecting a single formation without manually deselecting others, while retaining the new additions, with the ability to mix and match selected formations.

• Made the "+" and "-" icons in the party and inventory screens more consistent.

• Improved visual quality of icons on the campaign map and on perks.

• Removed the extra tooltips for faster perk selection.

• Updated the tooltips in areas such as the character screen, smithy, leaving heroes at settlements, and town management.

• Improved the lighting in the item inspection pop-up.

• Adjusted color highlights for the battle scoreboard; enemies will be shown with a red highlight, while the player's side will be shown with a green one.

• Expanded the "Hide Battle UI" option to additionally hide crosshair, name markers, and ship control UI (War Sails).

• Improved clarity of the inventory item tooltips by hiding the item modifier information.

• Made skill info to now be displayed as a single paragraph instead of separate buttons, allowing you to see all the information at once.

• Changed a line in the Food tooltip text from "Inside Production" to "Local Farmlands".

• Fixed a bug that caused workshops to be in running state in the workshops tab even if the workshop is "Halted".

• Fixed a bug that caused the UI to display incorrect information about the cost of changing a workshop’s production type.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused faction banners to turn black during a Parley.

• Fixed a bug that caused the “There isn't any unit under command” message to appear twice when issuing an order.

• Fixed a bug that caused army members to show up twice in the encounter screen.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the cancel action from working correctly when using the "Let me inspect your equipment" option.

• Fixed a bug that caused incorrect appearance of the quest exclamation mark when the hero tracked by the quest is a prisoner in the player's party.

• Fixed a bug that caused parents to be incorrectly displayed in the encyclopedia.

• Fixed a bug that caused arrow damage info to be shown using an incorrect text format.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the Siege engine deployment UI from being fully visible when zoomed in during the bombardment phase of the siege on the campaign map.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the "Create Army" button from being greyed out when the player already has an army.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the character button from blinking during the "Choosing Skill Focus" Tutorial.

• Fixed a bug that caused Order of Battle sliders to reset to 0 when the mouse cursor left the slider area while dragging.

• Fixed a bug that caused the “Enemy Clans Destroyed” statistic on the Game Over screen to display incorrect values.

• Fixed a bug that caused incorrect alley log entries in the encyclopedia at game start.

• Fixed a bug that caused settlement information (such as quests and occupants) to remain visible to the player even after moving far away from the settlement.

• Fixed a bug that caused drag and drop positions to be dependent on where the target widget is grabbed from (e.g. hero widget in OoB).

• Fixed a bug that prevented Workshop Finance elements from being updated when workshop changes were made.

• Fixed a bug that caused the "This Action Will Start a War" tooltip to appear on the encounter menu options even when already in war.

Settlement Actions (Town, Village, Castle and Hideout)

• Players can no longer recruit from or trade with villages belonging to factions they are at war with.

• Increased wall repair speed for towns and castles.

• Fixed a bug that prevented cancelling a boardgame request with a noble before the boardgame started.

• Fixed a bug that caused musicians' instruments to disappear when trying to have a conversation with them inside taverns.

Character Development System

• Fixed a bug that prevented some perks from applying to couches and braces.

• Fixed a bug that prevented skill XP gain from random events if the learning rate of the skill was less than x1.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the "Effort for the People" perk effect from applying when the "Send troops to clear" option was used for a hideout.

Crafting

• Made all Two-Handed Nord crafting pieces usable as One-Handed.

• Reduced smelting outputs for Highland Dagger, Tribesman Throwing Daggers, Wooden Hammer, and Pitchfork.

• Enabled Jambiya Blade and Dark Jambiya Blade usage with civilian clothing.

• Adjusted the stats of Long Steel Mace Handle and Long Steel Bottomed Mace Handle.

Quests & Issues

• Fixed a bug that prevented quest progress from being shown after loading a save file during the "Unify the Empire" quest.

• Fixed a bug that prevented you from interacting with Arzagos' doors in Car Banseth and Dunglanys.

• Fixed a bug that caused the conversation with the player's brother to play both during and after Galter's execution.

• Fixed a bug that caused no gold to be awarded when turning in bandit prisoners for the “Landowner Needs Manual Laborers” quest.

• Fixed a bug that caused incorrect troop count requirements for the hideout objective in the “Establish Your Clan” quest.

• Fixed a bug that caused parties to be able to capture conspiracy troops during the main storyline quests.

• Fixed a bug that caused the quest logs for “Village Needs Draught Animals,” “Headman Needs Grain Seeds,” and “Rival Gang Moving In” quests to be displayed incorrectly.

• Fixed a bug in the “Headman Needs Grain Seeds” quest that allowed Tier 1 troops to be sent with a companion despite the minimum required troop tier being 2.

• Fixed a bug that caused the “Extortion by Deserters” quest to trigger a field battle instead of the village raid mission.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the “Lord Needs Garrison Troops” quest log from updating the acquired troop count after recruiting the required troops.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the gold requirement from being displayed in the dialogue for the “In and Out” quest.

• Fixed a bug that prevented troops who died during the mission battle in the “Rival Gang Moving In” quest from being removed from the player’s party.

Conversations & Encounters

• Reordered dialogue options when talking to defeated nobles. The option "You are my prisoner now" should always be at the top.

• Fixed a bug that caused horses to become temporarily unresponsive after ending a conversation.

• Fixed a bug that caused items that NPCs are holding in settlement scenes to disappear after starting a conversation with them.

• Fixed a bug that caused some characters to display wrong colors on their outfits.

Animations

• Fixed a bug that caused incorrect sitting on the barber's chair.

• Fixed a bug that caused idle animation issues for female companions in civilian scenes.

• Fixed a bug that caused animation issues when mounting a horse while it was underwater.

Other

• Adjusted the weights of certain daggers.

• Adjusted the various stats of Work Horse, Sumpter Horse, Pureblood, and Storm Chargers to bring them on par with other horses in their respective tiers.

• Renamed “Padded Leather Cape” to “Padded Leather Cap”.

• Renamed the two-handed mace “Sledgehammer” to “Maul”.

• Updated the armor values of the Ornate Cap and marked it as a civilian item.

• Updated weapon data by adding missing cultures and item modifiers, and resolving duplicated or incorrect weapon names.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the Blackened armour set from being available in shops.

• Fixed a bug that caused misspelling of the Majestic Iron Boots.

• Fixed a bug that caused duplicate and wrong names of certain items.

Save & Load

• Added marks to the save games to show if achievements are enabled or disabled.

• Fixed a bug that caused heroes in older savegames to sometimes appear with equipment not matching their gender.

Performance

• Improved the performance of the target point finding of fleeing parties.

• Improved memory allocation during the Order of Battle phase.

• Fixed a bug that caused FPS to drop when the Engage order was given during a siege mission.

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred at launch due to a missing text file in game folders.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when an army player helped another army’s siege while the player was not the army leader.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when an agent routed from a battle.

• Fixed a crash that occurred if a required official module was disabled via manual xml/config edits. Upon opening the launcher, the required official modules will now be automatically set to enabled.

• Fixed a crash that occurred during a siege with multiple attacking factions when a peace event was triggered between one of the attackers and the defending faction.

• Fixed a crash that occurred in some battle scenes due to spawn path issues.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when resetting the changes in the character creation and the barbershop.

• Fixed a crash that occurred randomly when trying to save the game.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when trying to equip a female outfit as a male.

• Fixed a crash that occurred during formation updates in siege missions.

• Fixed a crash that occurred during battles due to an issue when a noble dies.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when a companion was assigned to resolve a town issue while simultaneously being targeted by another companion’s gathering action.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when a player's clan party fulfilled the requirements for forming an army while the player was imprisoned.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when a lord party was trying to defend a village from a hostile lord.

• Fixed a crash that occurred during sally out missions due to the error with assigning an ally team when there was none.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when a party was destroyed due to peace being declared.

• Fixed a crash that occurred in the launcher due to graphics drivers.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when leaving a kingdom while the "Smugglers" quest is active.

• Fixed a crash that occurred due to a quest party from the "Gang Leader Needs Weapons" quest not being removed after finishing the quest.

• Fixed a crash that occurred while convincing an enemy noble to defect during the “The Conquest of the Settlement” quest.

• Fixes a crash that occurred after speaking with Deserter Parties related to the Extortion by Deserters quest.

Combat

• Fixed a bug that caused thrust attacks to have weapon trails.

• Fixed a bug that caused stance desynchronisation when moving sideways.

UI

• Fixed a bug that prevented dropped weapons from being highlighted.

• Fixed a bug that caused visual glitches on the end-of-match rank and XP progress bar.

• Fixed a bug that caused the generic avatar images to have the wrong colors.

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred when loading a Multiplayer Siege scene with mangonels.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when adding a new friend on PlayStation.

Combat

Changes

• Improved AI attack timing and targeting behavior. All melee units now commit to attacks more reliably and face their targets correctly. Spear infantry can better challenge mounted units by aiming more effectively, and cavalry is timing and choosing swing directions better.

• Increased the reach of bash attacks with one-handed weapons to match the reach of bash attacks with two-handed weapons.

• Disabled staggering of the archers readying their weapons when approached by mounts.

• Reduced the accuracy penalty for throwing weapons when moving in the direction of the throw.

• Improved AI throwing weapon usage while moving. AI troops will now use throwing weapons while running instead of slowing to a walk, aligning with the increased throwing accuracy when moving toward the aimed direction.

• Made sling accuracy dependent on the throwing skill.

• Added shaky camera in the vicinity of missile shots with area of effect damage.

• Added logs to help us identify a crash related to missing UI resources.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that prevented mounted ranged attacks if the player mounted while crouched.

• Fixed a bug that caused crouch movement speed to increase when performing fast attacks while crouched.

Art

• Rebalanced the wind speed in 174 scenes. Previously, many scenes had no wind strength, while some had too much. This caused the scenes’ flora to behave unnaturally.

UI

• Added a warning to the launcher that notifies you if a required driver is missing.

• Added the ability to swap keybindings in the options menu.

• Added keybinding conflict information to show which actions share the same keys.

• Added remaining PC input key visuals.

• Enabled saving keybinding changes on consoles when using a keyboard.

• Improved the Enable Touchpad Mouse option on PlayStation controllers to works mid-game and apply immediately.

• Fixed a bug that prevented some keybinding changes from being saved when changed from the main menu.

• Fixed a bug that caused in-mission keybindings and Options - Keybindings to go out of sync when a controller was connected or disconnected mid-game.

• Fixed a bug that caused some input key visuals to not update when changing keybindings during gameplay.

• Fixed a bug that caused Xbox button icons to appear on PC when using a PlayStation controller.

• Fixed a bug that caused PC key texts and visuals to appear on consoles when the gamepad was disconnected.

• Fixed a bug that prevented the "Reset to Defaults" button from resetting values for some gameplay options.

Audio

• Fixed a bug that prevented 5.1 surround sound from working.

• Fixed a bug that caused troop responses to orders to always be in predominantly male voices. The responses to orders are now correctly based on the gender ratio of the troops in the formations.

Performance

• Optimized and polished the Screen Space Reflection algorithm, and added a new configuration option allowing players to choose between Low and High presets. The Low preset offers improved performance with old visuals, while the High preset provides better visual quality with no performance improvements.

• Reverted mission water rendering to the “legacy” system for all Native scenes (in War Sails for all scenes without naval combat).

• Improved the performance of the quad system maintenance.

• Improved performance and reduced disk usage through a comprehensive optimization pass of all FMOD project assets.

• Expanded FMOD sound modding support, enabling modders to create their own sound events in FMOD Studio and replace existing game sound events.

  • Added a sample FMOD project under modding_resources\\FMOD Sample Project\\FMODModdingProjectExample. It requires FMOD 2.02.x. The project includes the mixing structure, which should be followed to have full performance benefits.

  • Added 4 new modding documentation pages to cover Audio Modding - Audio Modding with FMOD Studio[moddocs.bannerlord.com], Event Setup[moddocs.bannerlord.com], Scene Audio[moddocs.bannerlord.com], and Audio Systems & Optimization[moddocs.bannerlord.com].

• Added a new modding documentation page to cover the new XML merging system introduced with BL v1.3 - Merging Module XML Files with Native[moddocs.bannerlord.com].

• Added a pop-up warning on game launch to notify players of mod-related conflicts and identify which mod is causing the issue.

• Added the no_slim XML attribute to hand armors to prevent using the slim version of body armors.

  • Suggested by xenoargh here[forums.taleworlds.com].

• Horse armors can now be colored via the UseTeamColor tag. Horse armors now use the correct team colors in missions, the inventory screen, and the save-load screen.

  • Reported by Litauen here[forums.taleworlds.com].

• The item_holsters.xml file can now be merged with XSLT or our engine's merge algorithm.

  • Suggested by Empire96, KingKilo, Ulfkarl here[forums.taleworlds.com]. 

• Re-added FontAtlas.exe to the Modding Toolkit (used when creating custom fonts).

  • Reported by \[TAOM] Thyrell on the modding discord.

• Improved the OverrideBrush feature for UI Brushes. Now the overrides stack on top of each other (depending on the mod load order).

  • Suggested by Artem.

• Added VerticalSpaced layout to UI ListPanels.

• Fixed a bug that caused the UI ListPanel vertical layouts to be incorrectly reversed. VerticalTopToBottom and VerticalBottomToTop should now act as intended.

• Fixed a bug that prevented player mouse input from working when setting a custom camera using MissionScreen.CustomCamera.

• Fixed a bug that caused terrain spikes to appear after saving a scene in the editor.

  • Reported by Litauen here[forums.taleworlds.com] and Espeiron, Lord Eastwood, Jojoba, Savo, Hart, Bullero, and others on the modding discord.

• Fixed a bug that caused the spritesheet generator to potentially corrupt some game files if War Sails was installed.

  • Reported by Litauen here[forums.taleworlds.com].

• Fixed a crash that occurred when modding managed_core_parameters.

  • Reported by Ulfkarl here[forums.taleworlds.com].

• Fixed a crash that occurred when a faulty water material was selected.

  • Reported by Reginald.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when starting the GI baking process.

  • Reported by LizardWizard420 here[forums.taleworlds.com], Reginald and Bullero.

• The following native issues were also discussed by the modding community:

  • Reverted mission water rendering to the “legacy” system for all Native scenes (in War Sails for all scenes without naval combat). However, the “legacy” system also received shader and material changes. Water rendering type also has no impact on the ability to swim or not. Your modded non-naval scenes should, by default, utilize the “legacy” system.

    • Reported by Snorri, Reynauld, and Litauen here[forums.taleworlds.com]. 

• Fixed a bug that caused LOD issues, making some objects disappear at very short distances.

  • Reported by Snorri here[forums.taleworlds.com] and Litauen here[forums.taleworlds.com].

Seaborne Village Raids

• Campaign

  • Added the ability for both players and AI to raid or defend raids against coastal villages directly from the sea or rivers.

    • Initiating or helping against a raid requires 15 healthy troops and shallow draft ships.

  • Upon starting a raid, the village militia will decide whether to resist or let you raid based on the balance of power.

    • If the militia chooses to fight, a seaborne village raid mission is triggered. Winning the encounter allows looting to begin.

    • If the militia does not resist, looting begins immediately.

  • You can “Send troops” to the raid, but this limits the number of attacking soldiers per round to the deck size of the present shallow draft ships. The auto-battle has the following new bonuses. 

    • Attacker horse archers receive a 50% power penalty.

    • Defender archers receive a 10% power bonus.

  • You can determine which troops will accompany you in the raid mission.

  • During the initial fight or the looting process, other parties may still intervene, leading to different missions depending on the situation.

• Mission

  • Once the mission begins, your ships will sail toward pre-determined landing points along the shoreline or in shallow waters, depending on the terrain of the scene.

  • Upon landing, your troops will disembark automatically, at which point you can issue standard land-based commands. If no orders are given, they will charge forward and engage the defenders.

  • Defending forces will attempt to hold back the assault and prevent attackers from reaching the village. Melee units will secure key chokepoints, while ranged units take position on elevated ground, raining volleys down on the advancing enemy. Defenders do not have access to ships.

  • Reinforcements can arrive for the defenders during the mission, though this is less likely if only a small village militia is present. Attackers arriving by sea, however, will not receive reinforcements. If the assault fails but your attacking force still has sufficient ships and troops on the campaign map, you can attempt another raid.

  • These encounters take place in the 16 newly introduced reworked seaborne village raid scenes. We intend to further expand this pool.

    • Land raids on coastal villages will now also occur in these new scenes.

Settlement Actions (Town, Village, Castle and Hideout)

• Naval Interactions with Coastal Villages

  • Added the ability to make port in villages. This allows you to trade, recruit troops, and resupply without disembarking.

    • You can also disembark completely and leave ships in friendly and neutral villages to become a land party. 

  • Added the ability to set sail directly from villages without the embarking process.

    • This is only possible if your fleet is already in the village.

    • You can’t call your fleet to a village (only to Town ports).

  • You can’t make port or set sail from an enemy village unless it has been fully raided.

Campaign Map

• Repositioned several villages closer to the coastline and added drop-off points, creating new opportunities for offensive naval actions.

Art

• Added fore battlements to Dromakion and Qalguk.

• Fixed a bug that caused the Reinforced Berserker Helmet to have black textures.

Naval Battles

• Fixed a bug that caused ships to sink below the wave surface level.

Other

• Improved Nord Bersekir troop:

  • Increased Berserker Cloak body armor from 14 to 20.

  • Replaced the Berserker Helmet they use with the Berserker Reinforced Helmet.

  • Removed swords from Nord Berserkir troops. This leaves them with axes that can be used one-handed or two-handed. The damage dealt by those axes has also been slightly improved.

• Fixed a bug that caused ship upgrade part costs to be calculated incorrectly.

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred when loading a save file with the War Sails expansion.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when lifting a blockade during a siege.

UI

• Re-introduced the level progress bar on the Character screen. It now shows the current XP instead of skill points.

• Fixed a bug that prevented controller dpad navigation from working for custom battle troop weight sliders.

• Fixed a bug that allowed disabled dropdown items to be selected with the controller "click+dpad left/right" shortcut.

Other

• Fixed a visual bug that caused army members to break the army formation while raiding a village on the map.

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred when closing a mission.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when attacking hideouts.

Changes

• Added 9 new Nord helmets to the game and distributed them across Nord troop equipment sets.

  • New helmets added: Ornate Vendel Helmet, Vendel Noble Helmet, Brass Vendel Helmet, Nordic Spectacle Helmet, Nordic Spectacle Helm over Padded, Nordic Nasal Helm over Mail, Nordic Nasal Helmet, Nordic Iron Helm over Mail, and Nordic Iron Helmet.

  • Assigned to the following troops: Nord Sky-Gods Chosen, Nord Shield Biters, Nord Hearthguard, Nord Warfang, Nord Marauder, Nord Marksman, Nord Freeman Archer, Nord War-Proven, Nord Spear Warrior, and Nord Axe Warrior.

• Updated the names of seaborne village raid scenes in Custom Battle.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that removed port icons from villages when they were looted.

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred when trying to capture a ship.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when AI parties navally targeted villages without port during an ongoing raid.

• Fixed a crash that occurred during the seaborne raid when the defender had more formations than ship count.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused the encounter menu to appear again after closing it and allowing time to pass.

• Fixed a bug that caused hand animation issues related to helmets that fully cover heads.

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred when a call to war agreement was formed immediately after two kingdoms the player is not part of established an alliance.

• Fixed a crash that occurred during the launcher rendering process.

Changes

• The player can now start a seaborne village raid mission as an army leader.

  • The ship selection picks the best ships from all participating parties.

  • The selected player troops are spawned first, and any remaining deck capacity is filled by the allied troops.

  • The same logic now also applies to multiple raiding parties taking part in a raid without being in an army.

• Seaborne village raid simulations no longer pull all available troops into the calculation.

  • The number of troops included in the simulation is now based on the deck crew capacity of the participating shallow ships, with troops selected by priority that is controlled with Unit Spawn Prioritization in the game options.

Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused ranged units in seaborne village raid missions not to react to nearby enemies.

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred when retreating during a seaborne village raid simulation.

Changes

• Adjusted Army Formation Logic

  • Armies now require a minimum total strength of 1000 before they can be formed, and around 30% of a faction's parties will always remain available outside of any army. 

  • Kingdoms should now form multiple armies when their party pool supports it, while still keeping enough mobile forces available for defense against raids and sieges.

  • This replaces the previous system introduced with BL v1.4.0 that penalized armies based on faction-wide army count, which was indirectly pushing factions toward maintaining only a single army at a time.

• Units in tight formations, such as shield wall, now briefly step out of position to land their attack and return to formation afterward, allowing them to engage opponents more effectively.

Fixes

• Heroes & Equipment

  • When a kingdom's ruler hero changes, the new ruler now automatically switches into ruler-tier equipment, and the previous ruler reverts to standard lord equipment.

  • Companions who are promoted to lord status are now properly assigned culture-appropriate lord equipment (both battle and civilian sets).

  • Married couples and their children now display correct cultural equipment in marriage cutscenes and aging events.

  • Fixed numerous inconsistencies in equipment assignment for nobles, kingdom rulers, children, and teenagers.

  • Fixed a bug that caused some male heroes to wear female clothes and some nobles to spawn without weapons.

  • Fixed a bug that prevented heroes coming of age, reaching teen age, or being born from receiving the correct equipment set (including the "naked"/default-equipment appearance bug).

  • Fixed a bug that caused heirs and newly-promoted clan leaders to wear the wrong culture or fallback equipment.

• Fixed a bug that caused the stealth outfit to swap with the battle outfit when trading during a disguise mission.

Crashes

• Fixed a crash that occurred during a siege with multiple attacking factions when a peace event was triggered between one of the attackers and the defending faction.

• You can now test your scene directly in the Scene Editor by using the “Start Mission” or “Start Mission As” buttons. These launch the SimpleMountedPlayer mission.

  • The mission first attempts to spawn the player at an entity tagged with “spawnpoint_player_test”. If no such entity exists, it falls back to “spawnpoint_player”. If neither tag is present, the player will spawn at the scene’s zero point.

    • You can search for existing suitable tagged entities by using the search function and entering “t:spawnpoint_player_test” or “t:spawnpoint_player”.

  • Disabled the HideoutAmbush mission as it was causing a crash.

• Fixed a bug that caused weapons with modded crafting parts to appear invisible.

• Modding & API Changes

• Reduced the prices of light ships and trade ships (Corbita) to improve early-game accessibility. Made minor price adjustments to some other ship types based on their stats and overall balance.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when capturing a ship.

• \[MP] Fixed a bug that prevented the bottom-right orange ammo bar from being visible in Captain mode.

• Fixed a crash that occurred in the editor when a script that used XML data was added to an entity.

• Replaced Mariner perk "Brute Force" secondary effect:

  • Removed +50% melee knockback dealt by crew.

  • Added +20% more loot from naval raids.

• Renamed the Mariner perk "Forceful" to "Shield Breaker" and replaced its secondary effect:

  • Removed +30% shield hitpoints.

  • Added +25% naval raid speed.

• Fixed various ship landing issues and tactical positions of defenders in several seaborne village raid scenes.

• Fixed a bug that prevented ranged troops from advancing towards the enemy in seaborne village raids.

• Fixed a bug that allowed you to join a raid during the looting phase.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when helping raiders against a village.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when dying in stealth missions.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when rendering images in texts due to corrupt localization strings.

• Fixed a crash that occurred when inspecting quest journal logs in German, Polish and Russian.

• Fixed a bug that caused several helmet clipping issues in Multiplayer.

• Added a reporting system to the module shader compilation. This will help us understand why the shader cache size has increased in some mods with the War Sails Update. The file will be named "shader_compile_report.log", saved in the same folder as the .sacx bulk shader cache file (Modules/Module/Shaders/D3D11/).

• Fixed a bug that prevented the no_watchdog flag from working with the game's launcher (or via Steam).