During hard times where my internet in my country is going to become locked off from global internet, I am trying to explain what new changes I found from the previous patch to the current, as much as I can despite this probably becoming the last post I will make until the times will become better, and hopefully I wont die or get caught while trying to escape the Combine occupied country in Europe that is currently in war against Resistance members who are fighting for their lives while we fight for our survival.
So in order:
The new overworld map building options are great, depending on your main character, such as beacons that can be used to have map vision and free stabilization if you have 3 or more, rewarding exploration, workforce builds that allow you to harvest resources and claim them when needed, camps that allow you to remotely drop off gear/characters while looking for new items to get/characters to recruit, and so on. By far, alongside new materials, like scarabs gotten from chopping trees and other options, the fairly good one to have for your needs to make a portal a good place to get resources you want to farm and new recruits to get.
The change to brothel income is fairly high, since it used to be by far the most money making strategy you could pull due to massive amount of tips you would get, breaking the gold economy in the process, but now it is more or less balanced, its still fairly high if you put effort, but it does make the very specific strategy that is used by certain strategic folk to get to challenge rank 20-30+(I am still waiting for new ones to come)harder than it was before. Still, it is now balanced, still high if you put in effort, but not to terrifying levels as before, and show money is still the same, meaning it is more or less balanced as a result.
There's no new achievements, but changes to the familiar portal give it a meaning beyond a place that you only visit to upgrade one of your special characters, get a special material for an extra equipment piece to craft, or get a special party member, extra special characters to recruit, or skill training from events in town if you clear it from its rulers, but now it has far more - a special unique character, more events, an actual reason to stay in that world, but also a reason to open it and secure it for your needs.
The normal new characters are related to a special rare biome and certain requirements such as worm creatures being in your party, and while I have to see what they do yet, the fact that rare biomes can now overlap and having more than one in a map is a good change, since it makes said portal more valuable to stabilize and develop.
The dating got new cards and characters got new art related to it, like the guild member having petting related actions, new events that reward resting when you have no good actions to use, rerolls that can be refilled from events/tavern actions and many other dynamic systems that make it better to play. You can still recruit certain characters day 1 with dating modifier if you do the right steps to secure your early game.
Overall, while this update has no new achievements yet, the features, balance changes, fixes and such makes it good overall, and hopefully it will continue is that way.
