v1.42: Work, wealth, and the halls of power
July 24, 2026 · Fallowborn devlog
Versions 1.33.0 through 1.42.0 give every rung of Fallowborn more to manage. Commoners build a household economy through work, apprenticeships, guilds, and enterprises. Noble vassals bargain with their liege in the Estates, while kings and emperors depend on a royal council with ambitions of its own. Armies and buildings are more tangible too, with real troop composition, local construction, and continuing costs.
Every household member can earn a living
Livelihoods now belong to individual people. You can choose work for yourself and eligible members of your household, apprentice children from age ten as each trade allows, and watch them enter their career at sixteen. A family can divide its labor across several trades, giving spouses and grown children an economic role of their own.
Commoner families can own several enterprises across their home settlements. Fields, orchards, presses, workshops, market stalls, trading houses, and fishing boats pass to the family's heirs, but each needs a resident worker with the right livelihood before it can earn anything. Craft and merchant guilds now offer ranks from ordinary member to guildmaster, with better profits and grander businesses waiting higher up the ladder. Marrying into a guildmaster's family also brings a real guild connection.
The Estates bargain with the crown
Barons, counts, and dukes sworn to a liege now sit in the Estates. About once a year, the assembly votes on the terms of noble service. The crown can seek a greater share of noble revenue, the benches can refuse, and a vassal can sponsor a motion for redress. The Estates may also establish scutage, letting a lord answer a summons with shield-tax instead of joining the war levy.
Votes depend on rank, Diplomacy, prestige, and the liege's favor. A duke carries more weight than a baron, but a lesser lord with enough standing at court can still move the benches. Wartime sessions may grant subsidies, other lords bring grievances of their own, and the Estates deed keeps the current terms visible between sessions.
The royal council has ambitions
Kings and emperors now appoint five great officers from among their vassals. The Seneschal improves taxes, the Constable strengthens levies, the Treasurer cuts building costs, the Almoner adds piety, and the Chamberlain watches for schemes. Each office is only as useful as the living, loyal lord who holds it.
Councillors can flatter, offer gifts, and scheme against an unwary ruler. Extraordinary taxes, revoked fiefs, and dismissals raise crown authority while souring the council. A hostile board may demand a charter of liberties or answer a refusal with armed defiance. Let authority fall too far, however, and the council can block the crown's harsher deeds.
Armies have a real composition
A host is now made from peasant levies, archers, men-at-arms, and mercenaries rather than one interchangeable headcount. Men-at-arms fight hardest and die last, while the levy absorbs most losses. Rest restores ordinary levies but not the professional core, so a long campaign gradually wears down an elite force. Barracks and Archery Butts add trained troops, Stone Keeps and Mail Hauberks strengthen them, and AI realms build mixed armies of their own.
Every building has a place and a price
Buildings now stand in particular settlements. The ledger shows what is already there, stays open while you raise the next work, displays its exact price, and records demolished buildings as ruins. Repeating the same work within a county costs more, while major improvements charge seasonal upkeep that appears in the gold breakdown. Unwanted works can be demolished to end that expense.
A woman follows the levy
A new year-long story follows a low-station woman whose intended is swept into the war levy. She can cut her hair, take a man's name, and follow him through enlistment, drill, issued kit, pay, and the shield-wall. The campaign can bring skill, loot, scars, or death before a reunion she resolves on her own terms. The story adapts its military language for Christian, Muslim, and pagan lands, and adds the humble Padded Jack as a new piece of armor.
Balance and patch notes
- Deeds: Actions are grouped into collapsible Work & Wealth, Life & Family, Faith & Community, Rank & Realm, and War & Diplomacy sections. Only visible deeds take number-key slots.
- War: Routed hosts get time to limp home, refused tribute remains refused for that war, and war-camp troubles occur less often. Revolt sieges and wars over prizes that change hands now end correctly.
- Titles: Baronies can be declined graciously, automation pauses for title and independence choices, and repeated grants from the same liege are much less common. Italia now includes both Italy and Sicily, making its imperial crown attainable.
- Buildings: Granaries are limited to one across the demesne and Stone Walls to one in the home county.
- Learning: Improved Husbandry, Martial Drill, and the Royal Catalogue can be adopted repeatedly at a rising scholarship cost.
- Training: Ordinary arms training follows the male levy path. Women can Keep the household or Cultivate the court; female rulers still command hosts and declare wars.
- Treasure: A full family hoard no longer distorts item rarity, and stealing another chest no longer trains Intrigue.
Bugs & ideas: GitHub issues · argue about balance: Discord · keep the barley free: Ko-fi