1.4: Wars you can declare, fight and end

This is the release where the map fights back. A country can declare war, and the war is fought over fronts that have width, depth and a supply tail: a general who pushes past what logistics can carry finds out. Coalitions share their casualties by the size of the side rather than the size of each flag. Peace is negotiated, and the terms can go past money to territory and to the losing country's system of government.

Presidential elections were rebuilt on top of that. Primaries spread across a real calendar and build momentum, a nomination with no clear winner goes to a multi-ballot convention, endorsements carry organisation, and a running mate can campaign for the ticket. Every race freezes its rules the moment it opens, so a balance change never lands on a campaign already under way.

Countries nobody plays stopped being scenery. They plan foreign policy, run war operations, and every country now has an intelligence service that can read another's army, economy or nuclear programme. Germany got its Question, and the answer arrives as a declared war or a negotiated settlement.

Also in 1.4

The Chancellor's Budget now changes tax and spending law

A Budget with real authority

• •Set tax and programme law together. The Chancellor can choose legal tax targets and statutory programme levels, then table the package as one annual Commons confidence vote.
• •Ordinary Acts still matter. A Budget uses the same law and fiscal ledger as every other Act. Whichever measure passes later controls the setting.
• •Preview before tabling. The authoring panel shows projected receipts, spending, surplus or deficit, category changes and how many turns a tax change will take to phase in.
• •Vacancies no longer stop the Budget. The Prime Minister can act while the Chancellorship is vacant, and authority transfers when a Chancellor is appointed.
• •Clearer Treasury figures. The Budget page explains raw and smoothed debt-to-GDP, primary balance, debt interest and the one-percentage-point tax phase-in rule.

The current world is now 1.0

The live world was labelled "Iteration 4" internally. It now reads as 1.0 wherever an iteration or season name is shown. Alpha 1, Beta 1, and Beta 2 are unchanged.

Ask credits flagged questions back and notifies you in-game

Ask answers you can hold to account

• •Flagged answers are free. If Ask's own quality checks find problems with an answer, on the spot or in a later audit, that question is credited back to your daily allowance automatically.
• •You hear about it in-game. Corrections and credits arrive as inbox notifications with a link back to Ask, so you can re-ask and get the fixed answer. Discord askers with a linked account get the same treatment.
• •Watch alerts in your inbox. Alerts from Ask watches, such as an exchange rate crossing your threshold or new bills appearing in a country, now also arrive as in-game notifications instead of waiting for your next question.

Freight supply agreements are back, one state at a time

Contracted haulage

• •Freight is back in the agreement form. Pick Freight & Transportation, then the state the contract is fulfilled from. Only states where you have plants producing freight are offered.
• •Fulfilled where it is based. Freight is haulage capacity in one state, so the contract reserves your capacity there for the buyer's plants in that state. It cannot reserve Texas trucks for a New York factory.
• •Same rules as every other contract. Price band, volume cap against your plants in that state, shortfall damages and cancellation notice all apply. The agreement card shows the state.

No plant can be paid to run

Corporations (PR #1311)

• •Profit is bounded by revenue again. Under plants, each sector carries a calibrated residual cost line. On a few sectors that line had become a credit larger than every other cost put together, and it scaled with output, so one NPC mining corporation was booking income hundreds of times its revenue and dominated the exchange and the Global Top 50 index. The credit can now cancel a plant's real bills at most, never more.
• •Affected valuations unwind. Corporations that were priced off that phantom income reprice from their real earnings and book value from the next turn.