Happy New Year! We have a little hotfix today, addressing the two issues!


(Build Number: 1.0.23641.F)

• Fixed an issue that could cause AI players to go into Age of Atom inappropriately, which could leave the game in a bad state.
  
• Fixed an issue where advancing into the Age of Alchemy would sometimes fail.

This hotfix was pushed live in December last year on the open beta branch!

Hello Millennia people!

The game updated earlier today, with Build Number: 1.0.23492.F, all the content in this update is listed in detail in the Open Beta post for the update, with a couple minor additions of:

• A few localization issue fixes
  
• A fix for an issue with Naturalist Pathfinders ideal

You can find the full notes listed here: Link to Paradox Interactive Forums[forum.paradoxplaza.com]

The Paradox Portfolio of games is on sale during the Autumn Sale! With savings of up to 90% off items in the catalog of Paradox Games!

For Millennia, you can get 50% off the base game or 30% off the Premium Edition!

Lead your people through times of crisis and ages of discovery, face great challenges and opportunities, and build a civilization that prospers through the ages.

Check out Millennia here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1268590/Millennia/

Or the Paradox Autumn Sale here:
https://pdxint.at/PDXAutumn2024

Good day!

The hotfix today addresses some localization issues, AI issues with air units in older save games and a couple more fixes!

• Fixed some missing / unlocalized strings in Chinese, Polish, and Spanish.
  
• Fixed an issue where undoing certain naval battles could leave the navy in a bad state.
  
• Fixed an issue with the AI being unable to use air units in older save games.
  
• Turned on achievements for both Ancient Worlds & Atomic Ambitions.

This hotfix will also be pushed to the open beta branch at the same time!

Millennia is free to try over the weekend, until the 18th of November!

Dictate the course of history across ten ages, from the first cities to space travel. Accomplish certain objectives and you can move time into a Variant Age - an alternate history with new rules, new technologies, and new units. But beware Crisis Ages; following a path of chaos and disorder may plunge the world into a future filled with war, sickness or ignorance. Then again, a wise ruler can always turn a crisis into an opportunity.... Choose the path with care, as the ages you pass through will have a lasting impact on your people and the world.

That is not all, currently the base game is on sale for 50% off and the premium edition for 30% offn until November 26th!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1268590/Millennia/

Take a look through the wiki[millennia.paradoxwikis.com] for more information on game mechanics. Or join our Discord or watch our tutorials, linked down below this post!

Hello all!

We have a small hotfix today, targeting one crash related to game language! See the notes below for more information.

• Fixed a bug that resulted in a crash if you control a Wasteland Hills in any language except English or French when you select that region

This hotfix will also be pushed to the open beta branch at the same time!

Hello! Atomic Ambitions and Update 6 have been released! We will now have a look through what that entails below in the changelog!

---

These notes cover the Atomic Ambitions DLC and Update 6 for Millennia.

If you last played when we released Ancient Worlds, you might want to peek at some of the changes since then. In particular, the Multiplayer Update[forum.paradoxplaza.com] at the end of September was substantial.


Details for all of the new things added in Atomic Ambitions can be found the original announcement[forum.paradoxplaza.com] and in the Atomic Ambitions Developer Diary[forum.paradoxplaza.com], but a summary of the major new additions follows:

• New Strategic Warfare System: Reduce an enemy’s ability to fight by targeting and damaging their Buildings using the new Strategic Warfare system. This system is part of the free update, but the Atomic Ambitions DLC provides additional ways to engage with it, such as the Siege Masters National Spirit.
  
• New Nuclear Weapons: The most powerful weapons known are now included in Millennia’s arsenal. Update 6 adds the Arms Race system and the basic set of nuclear options for all players, but Atomic Ambitions adds exclusive new options (the ICBM and Dirty Bomb Powers), the DEFCON system, Age of Wasteland, and the Nuclear Superiority National Spirit.
  
• New Pollution System: Pollution-related items, “Bads”, are now part of the overall Goods model and must be dealt with to avoid their negatives. Update 6 adds this new element for all players, but the Atomic Ambitions DLC adds and exclusive option for processing later-game pollution through the new Cooling Tower Improvement.
  
• New Age of Wasteland: A unique new Age, Wasteland can become the future if Nations are a little too free in their use of nuclear weapons. Scavenge the irradiated world, fight with Mutants and Battle Cars, and attempt to rebuild civilization.
  
• New Age of Atom: A new Age 7, Atom is Wasteland’s peaceful cousin, an Age that involves the early discovery of atomic power and widespread enthusiasm for the peaceful uses of nuclear everything.
  
• New Flower Child National Spirit: A new Age 8 National Spirit, Flower Child allows you to adopt an anti-nuclear war stance and attempt to prevent Armageddon.
  
• New Nuclear Superiority National Spirit: Dominate the Arms Race with Nuclear Superiority, a new National Spirit that allows you to become a nuclear superpower.
  
• New Siege Masters National Spirit: This new National Spirit allows you to focus on siege starting in Age 4. Build Siege Camps close to enemy Regions and construct Ballistae, Trebuchets, and Siege Towers to make short work of their defenses.
  
• New Wasteland Terrains: Age of Wasteland introduces new Wasteland terrains.
  
• New Wasteland Start: This new Game Option allows you to start a new game in the Age of Stone but on a post-apocalyptic Age of Wasteland map.
  
• New Starting Bonus: Atomic Ambitions adds a Diplomatic Favor Starting Bonus.
  
• New Music: Atomic Ambitions adds awesome new tracks for Age of Atom and Age of Wasteland (and also a few in the general Future and Modern music sets).
  
• New Landmarks: Six new Landmarks and their associated Expeditions are added by Atomic Ambitions – Wulingyuan, Rio Platano, Wadi Rum, Old Harry Rocks, Serengeti, and Ngorongoro Crater.
  
• New Chaos and Innovation Events: Atomic Ambitions adds a new set of Chaos and Innovation events, along with four new Innovation Buildings – Stonehenge, Great Sphinx, Ipet-Isut, Chateau De Chambord.
  

You can purchase Atomic Ambitions here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2829690/Millennia_Atomic_Ambitions/

Simultaneous Multiplayer has been steadily improved since being introduced with Ancient Worlds. (Thanks to everyone who has helped with testing in the public beta branch.)

This feature is now ready for general use. We debated removing the “Beta” from it for Atomic Ambitions, but we felt it needs a little larger scale testing before we’ll allow it to completely graduate.

There are specifics in the notes that follow, but the short version is that the version of Simultaneous Multiplayer included in Update 6 is ready for all players.


Items below are part of Millennia’s free update and available to all players.

• Added new default Nations:
  
  • Italy: An AI Personality of Opportunist, and default starting bonus of Regional: +Influence.
    
  • Australia: An AI Personality of Diplomat, and default starting bonus of +Movement: Naval Units.
    
  • Poland: An AI Personality of Cooperative, and default starting bonus of Regional: +Unrest Suppression.
    
  • Mexico: An AI Personality of Isolationist, and default starting bonus of Regional: +Food.
    
  • Mongolia: An AI Personality of Aggressive, and default starting bonus of Age I: Warband Unit.
• Added a new Advanced Start to Game Options. You can now start games in Age 4, 6, or 8 and will begin the game with a setup reasonable for the Age. This also works in Simultaneous Multiplayer.
  
• Strategic Warfare changes:
  
  • Most Units that can take part in Strategic Warfare have new Unit Abilities. Land Units, like the Catapult, have a Barrage Ability (in addition to Siege Defenses) that allows them to attack enemy Armies. Air Units, like the Propeller Bomber have a Strategic Bombing toggle that allows them to switch between targeting Armies and Buildings.
    
  • Units capable of delivering nuclear attacks now have a Unit Ability to specify this action, such as Nuclear Strike on Submarines or the Load Nuclear Payload toggle on Bombers.
    
  • Siege Units can now attack at range, depending on the Unit. Guided Artillery, for example, can Siege Defense 3 hexes away.
    
  • Damaged Buildings do not produce their normal Resource output, Goods output, Unrest Suppression, or Regional Efficiency.
    
  • Damaged Buildings repair passively, based on the Production of the Region.
    
  • Building damage shows in tooltips and in the City UI, where they now have HP bars.
• Refreshed the Machinery National Spirit:
  
  • New Ideal unlocks a Charcoal Furnace Improvement, generates 1 Engineering XP and converts 2 Logs to 4 Charcoal.
    
  • New Charcoal Good (2 Production). Charcoal can also be used as fuel for Power Station, Power Generator, and Mega Powerplant.
    
  • New Apprenticeship Ideal provides additional worker slot to Charcoal Furnace and Tinkerer.
    
  • Trebuchet Ideal changed to Gears and Pendulums, unlocks Clock Tower, unlocks and spawns a Trebuchet.
• Refreshed Spec Ops National Spirit:
  
  • Tactical Insertion can no longer target tiles inside an enemy's borders.
    
  • Laser Targeting replaced with Air Supremacy Ideal, unlocks and spawns VTOL, increases Strategic Power, Strategic Targets, and Attack on Air Units.
    
  • Sabotage Ideal unlocks a Briefcase Nuke Unit Action for the Special Forces Unit.
    
  • VTOL Ideal replaced with Contact Local Resistance Ideal, unlocks Domain Power that spawns Rebels in an enemy Region.
• Refreshed the Colonialism National Spirit:
  
  • Eminent Domain Ideal no longer provides a power. It now is a one-time effect that converts up to three Minor Nations into Vassals and applies an Integration bonus to all Vassals. For each Minor Nation that cannot be found (such as from none being left) a Settler spawns in your Homeland instead. The ideal was also moved from Tier 1 to Tier 3.
    
  • Macro Economics Ideal moved from Tier 3 to Tier 2.
    
  • Overseas Colonization Ideal moved from Tier 2 to Tier 1, and now only spawns 1 Settler, down from 2.
    
  • Added nested tooltip for the Colony Outpost Specialization to the Placer Claim Ideal / Power.
• Added new Resource and Reward Camp Abundance map generation Game Options.
  
• New map type – Enclosure. This map features harsh mountains and glaciers trapping all nations within a single landmass with one body of water. An arena-type map that forces all nations to fight for what little territory they have, with each open area separated by thick hills and forestation.
  
• New Chaos and Innovation events added to Age of Heresy, Age of Harmony, Age of Revolutions, and Age of Dystopia.
  
• Diplomacy UI now shows an AI player’s chance of accepting an offer, as well as a brief summary of some of the factors influencing that chance.
  
• Added the ability to Compel in Diplomacy. This allows Diplomatic XP to be spent to guarantee acceptance of a Diplomatic offer (when dealing with an AI player).
  
• A new Megaproject, the Manhattan Project, has been added. When completed, this unlocks nuclear weapons.
  
• After nuclear weapons are discovered, the Arms Race system becomes active. This is a Faction system that provides bonuses or penalties based on each Faction’s nuclear weapon stockpile.

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT BALANCE CHANGES WILL ONLY APPLY TO NEW GAMES.​

• Updated overall Power economy.
  
  • 1 Coal Worker = 1 Coal and 1 Power.
    
  • 1 Petroleum Worker = 1 Petroleum and 2 Power.
    
  • 1 Uranium Worker = 1 Uranium and 3 Power.
    
  • Stored Energy Good is now worth 10 Power Need (increased from 5).
    
  • Adjusted Aether and Matter-Energy Condenser to both fall in line near Petroleum, but worse than Uranium.
• Any Riots active when Age of Dystopia ends are now cleared.
  
• Added Arts XP bonuses to the Religion-related techs in Ages 3 and 4 to make the Arts Domain, and thus Religion, easier to access if you weren't working on Arts previously:
  
  • Age of Kings: Organized Religion (+10 XP).
    
  • Age of Monuments: Worship (+10 XP).
    
  • Age of Plague: Sanctuary (+10 XP).
    
  • Age of Kings: Spirituality (+5 XP).
• Computer Labs Improvements are now their own upgrade line (instead of being part of the Laboratory line).
  
• Changed Age 7 Power Station and Age 8 Wind Farm to cost IP (to make it easier to bootstrap Power in Regions).
  
• Imperial Bombardment Ideal now buffs Strategic Power and Strategic Targets.
  
• Increased City Attack power of Castles from 23 to 28.
  
• The Ancient Seafarer Legacy Ideal now includes Deep Water Utility Ships too.
  
• Age of Singularity no longer unlocks Civil Bunker, now unlocks AI Warehouse.
  
• Buffed the Howitzer unit from 42 to 48 ATK.

• Existing Events that involved Capital Building damage or destruction were revised to use the new Strategic Warfare building damage system.
  
• Added new Chaos Events that damage Capital Buildings.
  
• Age of Ignorance Chaos Events no longer occur after the Age of Ignorance.
  
• When AI players evaluate Diplomatic offers, they now weight differences in Power differently. Specifically, when Power between two Nations is similar, it no longer has any impact on the chance of accepting or refusing the offer.
  
• Towns and Vassals can now be placed atop Goods (this destroys the Goods tile).
  
• Removed or revised a number of Events designed to reveal nearby Camps; the current implementation was confusing.
  
• When a City is destroyed, any air Units there are now also destroyed.

• Improved the AIs use of warships.
  
• Improved how the AI uses siege weapons against cities.
  
• Improved how the AI selects and builds Improvements.

• Added a new icon to represent bonuses that increase Army size (to differentiate from Warfare XP-related upgrades / bonuses).
  
• Adjusted the Army banner art to make player color more visible.
  
• Added support for showing more than four possible future Ages in the Technology screen.
  
• Fixed issue with text overflow on Envoy.
  
• Improved tooltip clarity around rivers and lush terrains to better call out the terrain bonuses received from these locations.
  
• Improved text related to Spec Ops National Spirit.
  
• Fixed an issue with Unrest Suppression from Goods not always showing correctly in the Goods tooltip.
  
• Updated Diplomacy text to highlight Alliance and War warning information.
  
• Fixed an issue where “small penalty” was not showing in the Faction panel.
  
• Fixed an issue with how Goods that provide Unrest Suppression are shown in the Region panel.
  
• Added Unrest icon to relevant tooltips.
  
• Updated and improved numerous Infopedia entries.
  
• Deforestation Domain Power now shows that it generates IP when used.
  
• Added Lush terrain tooltip for Food production.
  
• The Build Helper no longer shows tabs for suggestions of what to build if you want more Chaos or more Unrest.
  
• Updated Shogunate Innovation tooltip for clarity.
  
• The Diplomacy UI now uses “+ +” and “- -“ to indicate factors that have greater impact on the AI’s decisions.
  
• Updated the Diplomacy state tooltips to clarify the effects of each state.
  
• National Spirits that have been completed now show a “completed” icon.
  
• Tooltips for starting bonuses now show bonus value.
  
• Added missing Age of Ecology Infopedia and Help topics.
  
• Added sounds to a number of buttons that were missing these.
  
• Improved tooltip for Bow Hunter’s Harvest ability.
  
• Revised the left column of the main UI (where Technology, Culture, and Domains are shown).
  
• Revised terminology around Victory Ages to be consistent
  
• Changed Expansion Overlay to show number of turns until expansion.
  
• Amount of Wealth gained from deploying a Merchant now displays correctly on the same turn the Merchant is deployed.
  
• Changed Culture and Domain Power buff icons to use the icon of the Power instead of the icon of the resource gained / spent on the Power.
  
• Improved Expedition tooltip for clarity.
  
• Updated the Influence Infopedia entry.
  
• Fixed tooltips for National Spirit Legacy items to correctly show that they come from the Legacy Ideal (not the National Spirit itself).
  
• Tweaked the glacier terrain texture.
  
• Clarified tooltips for Crusader Ideal when Secular.
  
• Made Sheep animate correctly.

(Some of these changes were part of the earlier MP Update but not in the notes.)

• Fixed several issues caused by splinter Nations in simultaneous multiplayer.
  
• Fixed issues caused when too many players attempted to join a restored simultaneous multiplayer game.
  
• Fixed an issue where, while using speech-to-text, the chat dialog could fade and disable inputs.
  
• Fixed issues related to player positions in lobby when restoring a simultaneous multiplayer game where a player has been previously eliminated.
  
• Fixed OOS condition related to Vassals.
  
• Fixed multiple out of synch conditions (almost all OOS conditions are now fixed).
  
• Fixed issues with lobby not allowing multiplayer savegames that involve splinter nations to load / resume.
  
• Fixed an issue with locked workers causing a desynch.
  
• Unsupported symbols in player names are now stripped out and not displayed (so if you have a bunch of emoji in your player name, you won’t see []s).
  
• Added a ready button to the multiplayer lobby (and automatic countdown when all are ready).
  
• Added a “healing system” to Simultaneous Multiplayer. This can detect and repair most desynchs between turns.
  
• Added a host migration system to Simultaneous Multiplayer. This allows games to continue if the host has been eliminated.
  
• Updated Simultaneous Multiplayer load system to use the correct loading screen art.
  
• Made Advance Start Game Option work in Simultaneous Multiplayer.

• When playing with a larger number of players, it is possible that two players will swap positions (and nations) when transitioning from lobby to the game. We're working on a fix.
  
• The Lobby can sometimes incorrectly assign player positions when re-hosting and loading a saved MP game. Once in game things will be restored correctly.
  
• If the host of a MP game is eliminated, the next human player becomes the new host and is now responsible for saving the game and re-hosting future sessions. This is not yet communicated in game. You can tell if you're the host if you have an enabled Save button in the Pause menu.
  
• There are still cases where a MP game can go out-of-sync between the host and clients. These issues will be resolved on the next turn the vast majority of the time. However, if the out-of-sync indicator is on every turn for multiple turns in a row it may be a good indication to have the host save the game, re-host the lobby, and load that saved game to clear any lingering issue.
  
• Using the advanced start feature in a MP game is more likely to generate initial out-of-sync issues, but they usually fix themselves over the first turn or two.

• Added an additional single-placement Map Cluster type.
  
• Fixed an issue with modded Goods not showing in the Resource overlay.
  
• Modding no longer “beta.”

• Fixed some incorrect warnings shown on loading old savegames.
  
• Fixed issue with Guided Artillery using incorrect move sound.
  
• Fixed missing sound effect on Unite Tribes and Keshig Unit Abilities.
  
• Fixed issue with Age of Monuments not properly following game speed setting.
  
• Fixed an issue with being able to promote Leader Units to Generals multiple times (for no effect but at a cost of Warfare XP).
  
• Fixed an issue with the Flower Wars Ideal causing more religious conversion than intended.
  
• Fixed an issue where undoing a Utility Ship upgrade could cause problems.
  
• Fixed missing hover sound on Vassal Destroy Region button, Integrate button.
  
• Fixed missing hover sound on buttons in Victory / Defeat screens.
  
• Fixed an issue that would cause odd visuals with mountain terrain when completing Quests in Age of Heroes.
  
• Fixed an issue with resources that start the game hidden not playing their selection sound after being revealed.
  
• Fixed an issue where queueing the same Unit to be multiple times would sometimes cause the Unit to not show or to show an incorrect number of turns to build.
  
• Fixed issues related to territory lost to Town destruction. This also fixes issues related to count limited Improvements being incorrectly left behind after Towns are destroyed.
  
• Religious Improvements in a Region are now destroyed if the Region is captured (preventing Nations without a Religion from generating Faith when they should not).
  
• Removed bombing Unit Actions from Supersonic Lancer (fighter-type air Unit).
  
• Fixed the Floods Chaos Event to not occur when there are no valid targets.
  
• Fixed an issue with correct display of itemized buffs on some Capital Buildings.
  
• Fixed Innovation Units, Buildings, and Improvements sometimes not unlocking their Infopedia entry.

• Improved performance, especially performance in late-game interface.
  
• Improved general pathing behavior to deal better with situations that involve overstacking.

• If you undo the destruction of a Transport Ship, it will leave the naval stack in a bad state.

---

2024 Roadmap
With that we come to the end of the changelog, we also come to the Roadmap for 2024, which we have updated below:

Hello, I’m Ben Friedman, Design Lead for the Millennia DLC, and in this Developer Diary I’m going to go over a full breakdown for all of the exclusive features for the Atomic Ambitions DLC.

The next update for Millennia brings sweeping updates to Siege, adds Pollution, introduces nuclear power, puts nuclear weapons in your arsenal, and much more. The exclusive content in Atomic Ambitions further enhances your experience with all of these free new features.

One of the two new Ages included in Atomic Ambitions, the Age of Atom, explores a more peaceful path.

While nuclear power is available in the free update, this new Age provides unique ways to put it to use, at much earlier point in the game.

Age of Atom’s final form is the result of a lot of competing concepts and iteration. The initial seed for the Age came from wanting to introduce Uranium before Age 8 (which is where we intend to unlock it for “normal” gameplay). We had a few interesting pitches for how we wanted to handle “early Uranium” (including an “Age of Nuclear Alchemy” where the mysterious properties of Uranium would be expanded in a mythological, superstitious direction). In the end, we found that an ahistoric retro-futuristic Age was perfect for the blend of mechanics and theme we wanted.

The retro-futuristic look (or perhaps “futuristic” look if you take the viewpoint of the citizens living within the game), is not just skin-deep. We designed the content of the Age to reflect the emotion of the era we’re inspired by. A sort of fantastical time with near sci-fi technology, creative uses for Uranium with little downside, and a positive view toward future driven by atomic energy.

Uranium is still a great a power source in the Age of Atom, but it can also be converted into a variety of new Goods, including Ferrouranium (the substitute for Steel in this Age), Luminous Paints, or Delicacies.
While Age of Atom likes to focus on a hopeful future, the second theme of the Age is the responsibility that comes with this new power. This is represented by the Age’s Network Stability system.

When you enter the Age of Atom you’ll unlock Fission Reactors, Water Cooling Towers, and the Network Stability Meter. The meter tracks the state of your Fission Reactors, which are the staple use for Uranium in the Age. These Fission Reactors generate power but they are unstable and run hot. The hotter you run your reactors the better they serve you, but if they overheat they will suffer a meltdown and spread Fallout in your Regions.

You might want to keep your Reactors cool by building Water Cooling Towers to offset their heat, or you might want to push the Reactors to their limits and reap extra rewards each turn that they stay in the red. The responsibility is yours.
Once you leave the Age of Atom, you’ll notice another subtler effect that plays on the theme of danger and responsibility. Relying on Uranium for so many Improvements can have some nasty byproducts. Once the new sheen of the Age of Atom wears off, the Radioactive Waste byproducts are no longer suppressed for your Uranium based Improvements, and it might be time to reconsider your reliance on Uranium. You may discover that there are some nasty side-effects to the Radium Kitchens that are feeding your populace.

Age of Atom’s more warlike cousin is the second new Age introduced in Atomic Ambitions, the Age of Wasteland.

This Age focuses primarily on one consequence of nuclear power: nuclear weapons.

The upcoming free update brings the ability to unlock the Manhattan Project (a Megaproject, like the Space Race) in each of the Age 8 variants. With the Manhattan Project, you’ll research the secrets of the atom, discovering how to split the atom, then ultimately creating nuclear bombs.
Once any Nation has unlocked the ability to create nuclear weapons, two things happen:

First, the Arms Race begins and we start tracking your Warhead stockpiles in the Faction screen. Each member of the Faction that owns the largest Warhead stockpile will gain a bonus to Unrest Suppression, while all other Faction’s Nations will suffer an Unrest penalty. This models national feelings of security or insecurity – if the other side has more bombs that you, your people get worried.

Second, if you have the Atomic Ambitions DLC, we activate the DEFCON meter. Once nuclear weapons are in play, going to war becomes more dangerous than before. DEFCON tracks the likelihood of nuclear war breaking out, and any hostile action will push the meter closer to DEFCON 1, where tensions become too high to avoid total nuclear annihilation.
Atomic Ambitions includes two new Age 8 National Sprits that enhance these new systems and directly affect nuclear warfare and DEFCON.

The Flower Child National Spirit seeks to stop the risk of apocalypse through de-escalation and denuclearization. With this Spirit, a Nation cannot make use of nuclear weapons and they will encourage their Allies to disarm their own stockpiles in exchange for rewards. Flower Child Nations are also shielded from the penalties of the Arms Race, and can spread that effect to friendly Nations.
On the other hand, the new Nuclear Superiority National Spirit relies on, and puts to great use, nuclear warheads. Warheads are cheaper to produce and are more potent in the hands of the Nuclear Superiority Nations. They also get bonuses when winning the Arms Race and when DEFCON has escalated past DEFCON 3. They’re going to be pressuring the DEFCON system and pushing it to its limits, but if any other Nation stands against them, they’re very likely going to tip the timeline into the Age of Wasteland.
If you follow the temptation of the Nuclear Superiority, or you can’t stand against the tide of the nuclear Arms Race escalation, you’ll see DEFCON 1 and then mutually assured destruction will be upon you. As the dust settles in the new war-torn world, scarred with the ruins of Regions destroyed in the nuclear apocalypse, all Nations will be advanced into the Age of Wasteland with no hope to correct the course of history.
The Age of Wasteland changes Millennia into a post-apocalyptic world, a harsh, cruel, desperate place filled with Old-World Ruins, Survivor Camps, and Scrap Heaps.

All is not lost. Send explorers into the wastes to find survivors to kick-start your attempt at rebuilding civilization. Seek out the resources needed to regrow your population, settle new Regions, and fight off the threats of the wasteland.

A key resource in this Age is Scrap, gathered from Scrap Heaps and the Junk Yard Improvement. All of the new Improvements unlocked in the Age of Wasteland require Scrap to build, and are much easier to work than the Improvements of old, based on the fact that the Grasslands, Forests, and Goods Tiles around the map have been turned into Wastelands and Dead Forests by nuclear blasts.
The Age of Wasteland is a Terminal Age, meaning there is no Age 10 to follow. You have broken the timeline and must now end the game with only the scraps you salvage in the wasteland. It is also a Victory Age. If you can rebuild your Nation back to the population level of the pre-apocalypse, you can win without having to eliminate your fellow survivors.

The Technologies in the Age of Wasteland serve both of these purposes.

Regrowing your Nation is hard without the traditional ways of meeting your people’s Needs. Build Radiation Shelters, Movie Theaters, and Oases in the wasteland to satisfy your population’s demands. Explore the Old-World Ruins with your Wasteland Scavengers to gather supplies lost in the calamity. Train Hazmat Units to clear the toxic Fallout from your Regions. Use your time in the wasteland to heal the wounds of the old world and try to rebuild.

Alternatively, you can use the opportunities presented by the shattering of the status quo and focus on unlocking new weapons of warfare. Build Battle Cars, arm them with close-range nukes, and race across the landscape to knock-down your rivals. Upgrade your armies into Mutant Soldiers by injecting them with mysterious medicines to get a leg up on the battlefield. You don’t have to stand very tall as long as you’re the last one standing.
We’re also rolling out the Strategic Warfare update in the next update, which changes how Siege Units and sieging Cities work. At a high-level, Siege Units have better Unit Actions to attack from a safer distance, and Sieging a City now damages the Buildings in that City. (Find more information about this update in the previous Developer Diary)

Those changes came about as a result of how we wanted nuclear weapons to behave, but we’ve also updated the existing Siege mechanics to follow suit. Now that Siege is more interesting in the early Ages, we created a new National Spirit to amplify that experience: the Siege Masters National Spirit, included in Atomic Ambitions.

Siege Masters rely on their Pioneers to establish Outposts on the front-lines. These Outposts are homes to the new Siege Camp Improvement, used to build Ballistae, Trebuchet, and Siege Towers at that Outpost.
Siege Units built by the Siege Masters also get bonuses to their Barrage damage and Siege damage, cementing their legacy even in the later Ages when you Decommission your wooden war machines in exchange for Cannons and Field Howitzers.
The free update included with Atomic Ambitions adds a lot of of new gameplay to Millennia and, as before with the Ancient Worlds DLC, there are also a lot of smaller updates and general improvements tagging along (and some that aren’t so small, such as Simultaneous Multiplayer and new Advanced Start options that allow you to begin games in later Ages).

Atomic Ambitions enhances the new free content, providing additional ways to explore alternate histories propelled forward or demolished by the atom. Also included in Atomic Ambitions are new Landmarks, new Chaos and Innovation Events, new starting bonuses, and new music.

We hope you’re looking forwards to the release of Atomic Ambitions, available on November 12th on Steam. Thanks for reading, and a special thank you to those of you in particular who have engaged with us on our Forums and Discord and everywhere else, that have given us great feedback on Millennia. We hope you continue to share your feedback with us as we make the game better and we look forward hearing from you once y’all get your hands on this DLC!

Good day Millennia fans!

Welcome to the atomic future (or wasteland)! Before we head on in to see what has been cooked up by the developers. The second expansion for Millennia: Atomic Ambitions will be released alongside Update 6 on November 12th.

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Hello Millennia fans, I’m Ben Friedman, the Design Lead for the Millennia DLCs, and we’re back with more Developer Diaries, this time about our upcoming DLC Atomic Ambitions!

This DLC is larger than our previous Ancient Worlds DLC and I’m here to give an overview of what we have in store for y’all, so if you don’t mind me skipping a long pre-amble, I’ll dive right into it!

This DLC was designed to answer the “What if?” questions around harnessing the greatest power source known to man, the atom. The atom represents both awesome possibilities and incredible danger. To explore each path to its fullest, we’ve added two new Ages to Millennia, the Age of Atom and the Age of Wasteland.

We specifically placed the Age of Atom and Age of Wasteland in Millennia’s timeline to spread out content that would otherwise need to be unlocked in the historical Age 8 period, which is already a rich and dense time period in Millennia. Age of Atom is an early peek into Uranium and nuclear power, while Age of Wasteland comes after your typical Age 8 gameplay as a result of your actions in that Age.

The Age of Atom is an Age 7 Variant, it’s our way of exploring a potential early discovery of atomic power and a craze for an “atomic future.” The prototype technologies of this Age will rocket your Nation into an early modern period, and a widespread enthusiasm for the new technologies provide futuristic dreams to shape your Nation.

The Age of Atom allows you to make use of Uranium in a number of new ways. Primarily, it is a potent power source, but it can also be converted into Ferrouranium, a variant of Steel, as well as other experimental Goods. Try new things, like Luminous Paints, or convert Uranium directly into Delicacies in your new Radium Kitchen.

Early atomic power is a risky endeavor, humanity is not yet ready or able to create safe Nuclear Reactors, instead you’ll be building prototype Fission Reactors which consume raw Uranium to create power, at the risk of having a catastrophic meltdown. Keep your reactors hot for massive gains, or play it safe to avoid losing control of the technology.

The Age of Atom is about sunshine, rainbows, and endless possibilities, but once you leave the Age, you’ll discover some of the side effects that come with relying too heavily on Uranium for every-day Goods. Enjoy your time in the Age while it lasts!

The flip-side of this coin is the Age of Wasteland, an Age 9 Crisis trigged by the rampant proliferation and abuse of nuclear weapons.

As you unlock and stockpile Nuclear Warheads you’ll inevitably end up in an Arms Race against other Nations and Factions in Age 8, and if the pressure builds too high then the timeline will be sent down the path of Age of Wasteland.

The Age of Wasteland is a Global Crisis, meaning every Nation contributes to bringing about the Age. Progress towards the Crisis Age is tracked by the new DEFCON meter, showing everyone the current likelihood of total nuclear annihilation. It’s your collective responsibility to use nuclear weapons responsibly, or better yet not at all.

If instead you set off the chain reaction of global annihilation, you’ll find your world transformed into an apocalyptic wasteland. Your goal in this bleak Age is to rebuild civilization, which will be a challenge given the war scarred state of things.

The potential future where global thermonuclear war wipes out the majority of the world’s population has lots of downsides, but the silver lining here is that you unlock cool new technologies on your path to rebuilding civilization! Discover new uses for Junk, find stockpiles of Canned Foods preserved in Old-World Ruins, and turn your precious Textiles into Rag Dolls to keep your Nation’s Unrest down.

Jokes aside, there are cool technologies to be discovered in this age, like Battle Cars, the Thunderdome, and new radioactive “medicines” that turn your armies into Mutant Soldiers. The Age is not just our way of punishing players that over-use nuclear weapons, but also an homage to our favorite post-apocalyptic media. Use every resource at your disposal to be the Nation that rebuilds from the global catastrophe, or at least stop your competition from rebuilding faster than you… have fun!

To compliment the Age of Wasteland we also have a new Game Start Setting, Wasteland Start, which allows you to experience being literally set back to the Stone Age after total nuclear annihilation. You get to explore a Wasteland-scarred landscape and rebuild civilization from scratch, for real this time.

We had originally promised “a new National Spirit” for Atomic Ambitions, but after seeing the potential in the themes of this DLC, we actually made THREE new National Spirits!

The first two, as you might expect, are Age 8 National Spirits that focus on the DEFCON system and nuclear warfare, the Flower Child National Spirit and Nuclear Superiority National Spirit (or the NS NS as we call it internally).

The Flower Child is a voice for peace, they befriend other Nations and ask for disarmament of nuclear weapons in exchange for Arts XP, Diplomacy XP, and Culture bonuses for themselves and their Allies.

Nuclear Superiority cares about one thing, and one thing only: have the most nuclear weapons and make sure everyone knows you’re willing to use them. Building a large stockpile of weapons grants bonuses, and you can use the weapons in public Ballistic Testing demonstrations for even greater bonuses.

These two National Spirits compliment each other and interact more directly with the new DLC content. That’s not to say they’re the only National Spirits that do that, we’ve also made some updates to existing National Spirits in a way that works for players that don’t own the DLC but will also enhance your experience with Atomic Ambitions.

The third National Spirit is called the Siege Masters National Spirit, available in Age 4. The Siege Masters care about building the best Siege Weapons and putting them to great use against their enemies, unlocking unique Siege Engine Units and the ability to build them on their front lines on-demand.

The reason we made this third National Spirit is because the Siege mechanics in Millennia are getting an update to support the new nuclear weapons. The Siege Masters are intentionally available early in the game so that you can have an in-depth experience with what we’re calling the Strategic Warfare update.

The Strategic Warfare update polishes the existing Siege mechanics we have and introduces a new layer that allows you to hit your enemies where it hurts. The goal of this system is to deepen the options you have for waging war in Millennia.

Previously, the way to reduce an enemy’s ability to oppose you was generally limited to total conquest – you had to capture an enemy Region to take it out of your enemy’s hands. With the Strategic Warfare update you can now reduce a Region’s capabilities by bombing it from a distance, damaging buildings in the Capital, similar to how you can raze Improvements.

Siege Units were previously like other Units in an Army, they were best used in direct fights, risking damage to the Siege Units. You could not use artillery to wear down an enemy from a safe distance. Now you can.

Siege Units, starting with Catapults in Age 3, have Barrage and Siege Defenses Unit Abilities. Barrage allows you to damage enemy Armies from range while Siege Defenses damages both defenses and buildings.

We’ve also updated some Naval Units to play a similar role to Siege Units, and they have an anti-Navy Torpedo Unit Ability and an anti-City Missile Strike ability.

As technology advances, the range of these attacks increases, making it possible to engage enemy Armies or Capitals from greater and greater distances as time goes on.

Similarly, bomber aircraft now have a Strategic Bombing Unit Ability that allows them to target and damage enemy buildings.

These are only the non-nuclear options for the Strategic Warfare. Once you have discovered nuclear weapons and started to manufacture warheads, you can use some of these same Units to deliver them. Bombers gain a Load Nuclear Payload toggle that switches them to dropping nuclear bombs when attacking. Submarines gain a Nuclear Strike Unit ability that allows them to launch a similar shorter-range nuclear attack. And, if you’ve gone down the Special Operations National Spirit Route, there is also the option of equipping a Special Forces Soldier with a Briefcase Nuke.

In later Ages, you can advance your technology to a point where ICBMs are available and no settlement on the map will be safe from potential destruction.

Conventional and nuclear weapons generally do similar things in Strategic Warfare. Nuclear weapons just do far more of it. This is especially evident if you erase a Capital City with an attack or target them on several enemy Armies that happen to be close together:

They also leave behind Fallout, which is typically not something you want to have around.

When buildings take damage they stop working and must be repaired. Damage to buildings can be seen on your City UI or in the tooltips for the Capital.

Damaged Buildings are repaired passively each turn based on your Production income, as if you’re “rebuilding” the Buildings, but this does not take away from your actual Production income (so the Region can build something new while also repairing).

We toyed around with the idea that repairing Buildings would be similar to upgrading them, you’d have to put them back into your Production queue, but that felt really punishing (and tedious to queue up damaged buildings each turn to top-off their health). We also considered the auto-repair dividing the Production points between all damaged Buildings, but that too felt harsh as your economy would already be diminished from losing the Buildings in the first place. If you had a dozen damaged Buildings at once you could potentially never fully repair any of them.

This auto-repair design, where your Production income is duplicated across all damaged Buildings, is what felt the most practical and forgiving, while still making players feel the pain of their Buildings getting damaged.

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Alongside our main pillars in Atomic Ambitions, there are numerous other updates.

We have updated various Improvements to produce Pollution. With the addition of Uranium to the game we felt Radioactive Waste was a natural addition. This byproduct of Uranium provides negative value to your Region, and is referred to by economists a “Bad” (which feels silly, but has the same logic to why we call things “Goods” in the first place).

Once we decided we were going to add Radioactive Waste, I pitched the idea of retroactively adding other Bads to our fossil fuel Improvements, and that conversation grew to the new Pollution update.

Some Improvements early in the game provide Waste, later fossil fuels Improvements provide Pollution, and Uranium Improvements provide Radioactive Waste. All of these Bads provide negative value to your Regions, but can be cleaned up by the Recycling line of Improvements which convert the Bads into things like Fertilizer and Recycled Materials, depending on the Age.

The Improvements that now produce Bads have been rebalanced to account for this negative output, the most notable will be sweeping changes to the Coal, Petroleum, and “green energy” Improvements, which have been rebalanced to against each other and the new Uranium Improvements.


We have also made an important update to the Diplomacy system.

We wanted to make our Diplomacy system more transparent, both so that players understand why the AI does or doesn’t make decisions or agree with your requests, but also to help players see the differences in the AI Personalities.

You can now see the weights that the AI Nations use to accept or decline Diplomatic Actions.

These range from generic modifiers, like Diplomatic Opinion, relative strength of your Nations, and so on, and also modifiers specific to their Personalities. These insights should both help you understand what kind of Personality you’re dealing with, but also allow you to make informed decisions when you send a request, whether you’re sending a risky shot in the dark or a guaranteed success.

We have also added an option to Compel the AI to agree to your requests at the cost of additional Diplomacy XP.

Compel only works on AI Nations, it isn’t available to use on other human players in a multiplayer game. It’s unlocked as you progress through the game and has a scaling cost based on how likely the AI was to agree to your request originally. Compel can be used to top up the success chance to avoid feels-bad RNG moments, or it can be used to strong-arm a hostile AI into playing along with your plans. The world is your oyster!


The last major update I feel we need to call out here is a new Game Rule that allows you to start new games in later Ages

You can select your Starting Age for new games and pick up at the start of Age 1, 4, 6, or 8 (the Ages that unlock National Spirit slots, aside from Age 2 which we felt was close enough to Age 1 that players would prefer to start in Age 1 anyways), and you’ll begin with a procedurally generated world state fitting for that Age.

Using the Starting Age setting you can jump into the middle of a game of Millennia and test out Age of Atom and Age of Wasteland right away!

This is a large DLC and there are a number of other changes: Simultaneous Multiplayer is greatly improved, there is a new map, we’ve added new default Nations, new Events, new Expeditions, new Landmarks, new music, reworked several National Spirits, added a number of UI improvements, and done our normal rounds of bug fixing and balance improvements too. It’s big!

Atomic Ambitions brings a lot of cool new stuff to Millennia, and we’re excited to get it into your hands! Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more Developer Diaries.