Paradox

Paradox will release Silk & Silver, the next Crusader Kings III major expansion, on 17 November. It adds Merchant and Republic government types, a new trade system and two bookmarks, 1066 and 1178.

• —Merchant: a landless trading-company government with trade routes for over 40 goods and three specializations: Caravaneer, Creditor and Artisan.
• —Republic: patrician families vie for the role of doge through an Assembly, laws, and a chosen administration; Trade Leagues give commercial and military benefits.
• —Two new bookmarks: 1066 Channels of Commerce and 1178 Guelphs & Ghibellines.
• —Historical Italian flavor includes civic carnivals and the Guelph and Ghibelline conflict in Northern Italy.

Update 1.4 adds Expeditions, Tariffs, Canals and a Political Influence resource, changes how war leadership is assigned and rebalances cavalry. Paradox says a 1.3 save loads but recommends a new campaign. The Across the Pillars pack released alongside it.

• —315 new Advances for Iberia and the Maghreb; Crusades and Jihads get a two-phase structure with a shared war chest.
• —War leadership is no longer handed to the strongest country automatically; it is offered or demanded.
• —Some Expeditions are global races where only the first nation to succeed gets the reward.
• —Rolling back is through Steam's Game Versions and Betas tab; 1.4 Beta saves are fully compatible with live.

Patch 1.19.4 adds automation for resource trading and diplomatic responses, a repair priority queue and volunteer recall, and folds in the Summer Edition open beta's tank, doctrine and faction-rule balance changes.

• —Faction-rule penalties halved: Declare War Faction Leader Only now costs 5 percent Stability and War Support (was 10); Call to War costs 5 and 2.5 percent political power (were 10 and 5).
• —Volunteers can be recalled when none are encircled, with a long cooldown; pings now show the sending nation's flag.
• —SAM missiles are roughly nine times stronger; motorized infantry HP rises from 25 to 27.5 and cavalry gains 20 percent breakthrough.
• —Multiplayer fixes include the division designer losing changes on autosave, a BBA rocket-engine out-of-sync, and server ID and password masking.

The 4.5.3 Cygnus open beta is on the stellaris_test branch, mostly bugfixes to habitability, districts and subject jobs. Multiplayer desync checks now compare every colony, fleet, ship and country. Live release is expected next Wednesday.

• —Betharian Processing, Exotic Gas Capture, Rare Crystal Extraction and Volatile Motes Harvesting are limited to one per planet.
• —Occupied subject colonies no longer produce job resources for their overlord; subject jobs scale with workforce rather than pop count.
• —Clients can now downgrade Deep Space Citadels without causing an out-of-sync.
• —Habitability display no longer caps at 125 percent for species that reach 175 or 250.