Ara: History Untold Patch 1.0.4 is now available!

[Ara: History Untold]

Fixes for stability, pacing/balance, and translation quality (German / Korean / Chinese)
(Note - patch will be available @ approximately 12:00 PM PDT)

For this week - our focus remains on responding to audience feedback on pacing, balance, stability, and performance. Additionally, this patch features many improvements to four non-English languages (German, Korean, and Simplified and Traditional Chinese), with more fixes in these and other languages to follow in our next patch.

Next week – In addition to hotfix patch 1.0.5, we’ll be sharing our plans for our first major game feature update, tentatively slated for release in early November. The team is excited for what’s coming, and as always, thank you for your ongoing support for Ara: History Untold!

Balance

*Grain production from Rice has been increased from 50 to 100 Production.
*Rice nodes now provide Grain instead of Rice.
*Soap is available to be slotted into the last Supply slot for Dwellings.
*Codex can be crafted in the Great Hearth, Gathering Hall, Town Center, and City Hall.
*General Hospitals now have two Supply slots for Soap and Power.
*Fertilizer now costs 500 Production, and Production bonuses have been increased.
*Unit costs are more consistent throughout the ages.
*Herbal medicine costs are increased if you don't have the ingredients.
*Food requirements are now lowered for higher-level cities.
*Starting locations have been adjusted to favor spawns nearby food.
*Grapes no longer spawn in Savannas.
*Herbal Medicine wealth acceleration costs have been updated.

Fuel Recipe Changes

*Production Cost changed from 1000 units to 500 units.
*Production Bonus for the second ingredient changed from 750 units to 500 units.

Improvements

*The Apothecary is now a science domain improvement.
*You can now build One Grocer per city, increased from 1 per nation.
*You can now build One Inn per city, increased from 1 per nation.
*Windmills are updated to be in line with Mills and are now 8 per nation.
*The Sawmill can now be unlocked by Engineering, Metallurgy, and Shipbuilding.

Techs
Research costs for some Techs are updated:

*Ancient History - lowered by 15
*Bronze Age - lowered by 25
*Iron Age - lowered by 25
*Antiquities - increased by 100
*Early Middle Ages - increased by 100
*High Medieval Era - no change
*Renaissance - increased by 100
*Enlightenment - increased by 100
*Machine Age - increased by 100
*Atomic Age - increased by 100
*Information Age - no change
*Singularity Age - no change

Stability

Several conditions which could cause the game to crash have been fixed.

Localization
Significant updates to improve translations for the following languages:

German
Korean
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese

[Takfloyd]

Good to see at least some work on the many broken aspects of game balance, but I was hoping for more, since so many of the issues are immediately obvious and also easily fixable with just some number changes. Sea regions being terrible for example.

We also didn't really need lower food upkeep for cities, it was already easy enough to feed large cities up to maximum size even in food-poor areas, since farms give such enormous amounts of food later in the game.

[lusciouslanguidity]

why are there two different posts of the same thing

https://steamcommunity.com/app/2021880/eventcomments/6757179594729483156/

[Ara: History Untold]

One is on the main page- some folks don't use the forums, so just making sure you all can see it :)

[Ara: History Untold]

Originally posted by Takfloyd:

Good to see at least some work on the many broken aspects of game balance, but I was hoping for more, since so many of the issues are immediately obvious and also easily fixable with just some number changes. Sea regions being terrible for example.

We also didn't really need lower food upkeep for cities, it was already easy enough to feed large cities up to maximum size even in food-poor areas, since farms give such enormous amounts of food later in the game.

We hear you. This is one of many larger patches, so expect big things in the next few weeks! Thank you!

[kampfgulasch]

Thanks for the update but I can't hide my disappointment about the pacing changes I was looking forward to tbh.
I'm surprised at the decision to lower tech costs in the early game. It already felt too fast..

[mauporte]

extremely disappointing; now the first techs are even faster? I won't be playing this game anymore, and I will change my review to not recommended if the next patch keeps going on the opposite direction of what I'd like. It'¿s fine to choose an audience, and I'm obviously not part of it. maintenance costs lowered, techs are faster, rice is the same as grain... you will end up stripping the complexity out of the game which is why I stopped playing civ games

[skunkno1]

Glad to see the grocer and inn changes. Jury is out on the rest but I'll give it a try! Thanks.

[Marandor]

Well, I installed the update. Ingame 1.0.4 is shown, but it looks like nothing was changed. I just checked:
Rice still gives rice (not grain)
Apothecary is still industry (and not science)
Inn and grocery are still at 1 limit per nation.
Only creating a new game solves this. But really?

[Reevers Xtreme]

The early techs were already much too fast before this update imo. What a bad decision.

[Flusenjohnny]

Why do you make techs faster? They need to slow down like 3 to 5 time. Implement a techspeed slider I don't know why it is not in the game from the start. Its so obvious IMHO.

[carlotheemo]

isnt patches like made 2 weeks ago and only announced a week after while its still being made? (theres a quote somewhere in the forums)

tech slider may be still in the works.

also, yes earlier tech is faster but act 1 over all is slower by 45 units.

[tomcat885]

The update hasn't been applied to my existing save. For example, general hospital does not have supply slots, I can't use soap to supply dwellings, and I can't build more grocers. Does this mean I have to start a new game?

[Iamwinterborn]

Originally posted by tomcat885:

The update hasn't been applied to my existing save. For example, general hospital does not have supply slots, I can't use soap to supply dwellings, and I can't build more grocers. Does this mean I have to start a new game?

yeah, it seems based on last weeks patch and this week's patch, saves are linked to specific versions. Probably avoids major issues when they mess with things like building limits or change resources.

[moswald71]

hmm, I also was surprised, that some techs are now even faster, wrong direction IMO ... do you have some objective criteria to balance the game, like doing a lot of simulations with the AI vs. itself?

[CarperGaz]

So on my current game
Pubs - work fine 1 in very city now.
Grocery store - not working not able to have 1 per city