| In this momentous release we began the era of Naval war and colonisation on the Midnight Ocean. From hence forth Islands shall be fought over by Flags, ruled by their appointed Governors, and colonised from rustic havens into thriving metropoli.
In addition we launched Bazaars, the next phase of the Puzzle Pirates economy, allowing each and every player with a few pieces of eight and the wherewithall to get some commodities together to participate in shopkeeping.
Along with that are the usual slew of bug fixes and minor tweaks. Arr!
- Island Blockades are introduced, whereby a Flag can declare its intent to blockade an island and, through naval dominance of the blockade board, win Governorship. Documentation coming soon, for now this thread has good information.
- Bazaars are implemented, wherein any officer can rent stalls and conduct business. Newly colonised islands are required to build Bazaars of the various types before ordinary shoppes. This will lead to greater competition in the Midnight economy. Bazaars will appear on the established islands over the next few days following the release.
- In order to find the best price, all shops now use an Agent ordering interface that searches the island for the best price and delivery time for an item. If you wish you can choose to 'shop at this shop only' at the top of the order panel.
- All buildings now have a rent due, including shoppes and stalls. The Governor can increase this rent in tax or lower it as a subsidy.
- Ship to ship and ship to shop transfers are implemented, from the hold or manage shop interface, along with the ability to dump goods to Davy Jones. Shops can no longer buy and sell goods that are not involved in the recipes that they create.
- Orders placed but not yet worked on may be cancelled, for a 15% restocking fee. Orders with an estimate of longer than 60 days are quotes as taking 'A Long Time'.
- Shop keepers do not receive the money from an order right away; the funds are held in escrow until the product is complete. Then the shopkeeper receives the funds net of any labour costs.
- Buildings are now created via a construction site, which is created when the Governor sets down the deed. The site must be stocked with commodities and labour before it begins work on the building. Buildings cannot be placed on top of herbs and minerals, or too near the dock portal.
- In Sea Battle the pillager must use Grapple tokens to board their opponent. This can be used in place of cannons on a turn. Ships can now ram each other, causing damage to both parties, and larger ships will push smaller ships around. In addition cannons now fire either to the left and right, larger ships can only move three times a turn, and 'auto sails' can be used to avoid micro-managing token creation. Grapples are not used in blockades. Going out of the sea battle board bounds causes damage, like hitting rocks. In addition sailing Tokens now decay after a few turns, currently six.
- The Island Map was revised to be made more useful.
- Bank Transfer fees were raised to 15% within the archipelago and 30% between archipelagoes. Time to ship yer money!
- The terrible skeletons now frequent many different islands, and their curse is more pronounced.
- Markets will now produce more basic commodities and no longer require labour. You will lose any market jobs.
- Muttonchops have been added as a male beard option. Yes, we will be adding a way to change your hair/beard etc. in the future. Conquistador armour and pantaloons have been tweaked.
- The usual array of various other bug fixes and tweaks! In particular we had to make a vast number of fundamental changes to names (which as you might imagine, permeate the entire game) in order to support our new localisation partners.
Phew! This one is gigantic, so bear with us as there are likely to be strange problems in the mix. Please report any bugs, after making sure that they aren't in the known issues. Expect a small bug-fixing release on Friday.
Thanks for bearing with us the last two months as we slaved away on this monster. We hope to resume the normal schedule of more regular updates from here on out. Fair winds!
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