Here we go again!

This edition covers 11–18 October 2026, both inclusive. This week brings prepared region recovery, clearer war objectives, more useful inventory screens, market fixes and improvements to language handling.

War Planning and Region Recovery

The war protections announced for 15 October are now part of this week's update. A country's president, vice president or defense minister can prepare an eligible recovery of its provisionally occupied region while a third-party battle is taking place there.

The attack cost is reserved once. The current battle finishes normally, then the game rechecks the situation and starts the prepared recovery against the resulting occupier when eligible. If the preparation is cancelled or can no longer start, the reserved Gold is returned. A third-party victor without a supporting active war against the legal owner returns the provisional region to that owner.

This protection follows the legal owner recorded before the temporary occupation. Permanently annexed regions still require ordinary reconquest. You can revisit the original announcement for the recovery rules.

  • Objectives follow ownership. New war goals can include the target's own land temporarily occupied by a third country. Ordinary invasion requirements still apply.

  • Conquest requirements count owned territory. New declarations include temporarily occupied owned regions in their starting totals. Existing declarations keep their recorded requirements.

  • War aims are easier to inspect. Open a war's flag in country relations to see each side's claims, conquest progress and deadline. Defenders without declared objectives have a clearer hold-out explanation.

  • Clearer battle modifiers. The attacking side's military-base surround damage and accuracy bonuses are now visible in the battle interface.

  • Fewer duplicate proposals. The declaration form blocks another proposal against a country already at war with yours or already targeted by a pending declaration in that Congress.

Inventory: Know What an Item Will Do

Item details now put the useful information together: the item's effect, active-buff countdown, relevant energy or food status, remaining daily uses and trading restrictions.

  • Clearer use states. Supported items explain when they cannot be used, such as an already active effect, full energy or an exhausted daily allowance.

  • Keep the details open. After a successful use, the item sheet stays open and updates the remaining stock and effect information.

  • Compact actions. Use and Sell controls have a cleaner layout, with their status or trading information beside the action.

  • Temporary stock is handled separately. Expiry information is available for temporary items, and spending uses the soonest-expiring copies first. Transfers, sales, auctions, contracts and tournament prizes use permanent stock.

Markets and Transaction History

  • Stock-market buy offers work again. You can sell holding shares into an existing buy offer, with the appropriate ownership, funds and permission checks.

  • Company-sale notifications. Players selling a personally owned company on the Business Market receive a notification with the company, price and transaction link. These messages appear under Market.

  • Country ledger fixes. Transaction histories now handle stock-market entries correctly instead of failing on those entries.

Recruitment Rewards

The remaining automatic inviter Gold extras have been removed from Piggy Bank, Battle Pass Gold, Roulette Gold, top-builder rewards and Battle Hero awards. These were extra payments to the inviter; the player's own rewards are unchanged.

National Recruitment milestone rewards remain in place. Gem Cashback per Referral remains a separate benefit governed by its event's rules. The classic referral page has also been updated to describe the current programme.

These deletions are part of the cleanup following the referral system rework two months ago. They relate to extra gold payments from the previous referral system that are no longer applicable.

Diplomacy and Interface Comfort

  • Time remaining on relations. Alliances, embargoes and pacts show time left, sort by expiry and highlight their final day. Expired entries refresh out of the list.

  • Clearer Congress terms. Proposal screens explain alliance duration, renewals and the post-war non-aggression period.

  • A top menu for the static map. Desktop players using the static map can choose Top Menu Bar in place of the side navigation. The Simple Interface preset enables it.

  • More consistent language choices. Email, guest and Steam signup carry the selected language through account creation. Browser-language detection and restoration of the saved account language after login have also improved.

If an existing account is already saved as English, select your preferred language once in Settings to update that preference.

Event and Forge Improvements

For Hephaestus Forge events, level progress, stat previews, drop sources and chances are clearer. Eligible special-item contributions can carry excess points into the next level. An unforged mould can be deleted and redesigned, but any contributed progress is lost. Level-ups renew duration-based lifetimes; fixed expiry dates remain unchanged.

The day's first Forge material drop gets a full reveal; later drops use a shorter notice. Event availability, costs and lifetimes remain defined by each event.

Reliability

Round, war and tournament resolution have improved retry handling. Independent auctions, elections and holding proposals can continue processing when an unrelated military resolution needs to retry. The Steam client's anti-cheat integration has also been improved.

Next Up: 22 October

The previously announced Scavenger Gold rules and Desert and Forest squad adjustments remain scheduled for 22 October 2026. Those are the next balance update; the notes above cover this week's changes.

Thank you for your reports, feedback and patience. Keep showing us where the game gets in your way, and we will keep working through it. See you in game!