Towns and cities can now be fortified with palisades and city walls to slow the decline of citizens' morale during sieges. Construction is commissioned at the workshop, so they become available as soon as the workshop is unlocked.
Palisades and walls only need to be constructed once per city, and grow automatically as the city gets larger.

To capture cities fortified with town walls more rapidly, trebuchet masters stands ready to assist you as a new military unit. They can set up their trebuchets near hostile cities and bring down city walls. However, they should never venture out without protection, because being unable to defend themselves, they are a popular target for enemy troops.

Previously, a competitor obtained the title for a region as soon as he controlled a certain share of that region. This makes the entire region visible to the competitor.
We have supplemented this region title mechanism: each time a competitor obtains a new title, the region's military leader joins his ranks. Each military leader affects a particular bonus on nearby friendly troops. Military leaders cannot die - however, once defeated they flee to the nearest town. A region's military leader will also defect if you lose the title. Let the fighting for the regions begin!

In addition to settlers, you can now build colony ships. These - very expensive - ships can sail an unlimited distance and found a new settlement on any coast. It can extend your existing empire as a port town or become the first town of a new colony.

You can now command your troops to take a particularly defensive or aggressive stance when a battle is underway. You can also order an automatic withdrawal when a troop has declined to 20% HP.
Battle options only apply to the battle at hand. The options are deactivated as soon as a battle and adjacent skirmishes are over.

After a prolonged playing time (no earlier than the rank of Grand Duke), pirates will begin to appear sporadically and loot merchant vessels. They can be hunted and destroyed with warships.

• Fixed an error that involved AI growth. It now grows more slowly in the early stages of the game.
  
• Regional map under "Your Empire" tidied up and revised to show military leaders.
  
• Minor adjustments to fighting power of several troops (Sabres Fighter, Beserker, Flailsman, Crossbowman, Spearman, Horse Archer, Knight, Mounted Warrior).
  
• Scouts now have twice their previous HP.
  
• If the fast-forward button is activated via the Options menu and pause is deactivated during dialogue, fast-forward will remain activated even when opening a dialogue window. This speeds up multiplayer games (particularly in the beginning).
  
• Resolved two issues involving the alerts "Excess production" (city dialogue) and "Balance" (cash).
  
• Manual merchants now emit an acoustic signal upon reaching their target town.
  
• Diplomacy: Revised the demand to attack an enemy's town. Players can now only select the demand if the other party is willing to comply.
  
• For example, if one is to attack a hostile competitor by diplomatic means, the competitor's colour will be displayed in the dialogue.
  
• Resolved a number of minor text issues and bugs.
  
• Resolved an issue that occurred when taking over trade routes after taking over a competitor. The captured trade routes are now shorter and more efficient.