With Eco 9 a year in development, it came with a long list of new features. With 9.1, we’re iterating on that giant update and moving to a monthly-ish release cycle. Here’s what’s new:
Elections Packages
One main point of feedback we got with the new government system is that citizens wanted to package multiple provisions together in an election, so we’ve added that! In 9.1, drafts for constitutions, laws, districts, titles, and election processes can be proposed in the same election. Constitutions will have the option to reference custom election processes and titles without an amendment. Districts can have special policies attached when they are first created. We are excited to see other ways this can be used to make interesting citizen-run governments in the game.
New Building Forms and Updated Block Art
Update 9.0 introduced our new building system with selectable forms and fill types. Our art team has been hard at work preparing a variety of new building forms that may be used during construction. In addition, we will be introducing visual improvements to existing blocks, for example Reinforced Concrete and Flat Steel
Chef Balance
The addition of labor has made chefs an even more essential part of society. Unfortunately, bakers have not experienced the same level of benefit as other chef specialties. We have upcoming improvements to Baking, Advanced Baking, and Milling specialties so they will be more useful and in demand. Our goal is baking will be a viable alternative to the traditional chef path.
Optimization and Bug Fixes
One of the primary focuses of 9.1 was fixing bugs and finding other ways to improve the user experience. We have been hard at work clearing out our backlog, and the full list of fixes is too large to fit into this announcement. This includes multiple optimizations to help improve performance.
We will include all changes in detail in our upcoming patch notes, but we wanted to provide a brief insight into our next update.
We’re already in the works for 9.2, and 10.0 after that. We’ve recently grown the dev team as well, so our velocity will start to be much faster, so expect more frequent updates. You can follow development and future plans on the Eco Tree on our website, check it out here.
Thanks all and look forward to your feedback!
