The game now works with the 1.5 version of the SGS engine, which includes in particular the most important Loyalty system (already used in SGS We The People) as part of its design.

Loyalty

The loyalty system is a major change in gameplay, as you no longer just go through a region and take it for you: if the region is loyal to the other side, you need to maintain military presence over time to “rule” it, otherwise it will return to its original owner. Disloyal regions will allow your opponent to build units, so you cannot leave them unguarded.
Also, retreat in regions loyal to you will be allowed, even if just captured by the enemy.

Loyalty will also affect income (a region 50% loyal to you will bring only half income), and fog of war: you can see all details of enemy forces in regions that are stringly loyal to you…

This will come with a dozen of extra cards for each side, adjustment of older cards and events effects, and many more events.

So in short, a complete new (and improved) way to play

More Events

We will add new events to them, as provided to us by some of our dedicated players. Most good suggestions will be retained and implemented, such as:

• Firefly warship capture (1860)
• Baocun village anti-taiping rebellion (Zhejiang, large force, 1861+)
• Ling Gong revolt in Taiwan (1853)
• Shuntian Army uprising (Sichuan, 1859)
• Alternative choices for Tianjing massacre (you will have the choice of which leaders to keep and which to execute, or to pay a – risky – wait and see game)
• The change of course of the Huang-Ho river in 1855
• Etc…

More Units

New leaders, such as Augustus Frederick Lindley, Song Jingshi, Lan Chaozhu or Zhang Zongyu
Unrest units (like local discontent people, they don’t fight really good but their presence seriously degrades loyalty)

The 1.5 Engine Update

The engine has been also updated with many more features, as described in the other announcement (see here and this short summary below).

NEW

Battle view: Battle location highlighted on the map for easier recognition.
Battle List: the participants appear in a popup over the battle location name in the window, allowing examination of the units involved on both sides, quite useful to make later use of battle cards, among other advantages
Ergonomics: WASD keys to move the map (is QZSD on Azerty keyboard)
Information: more detailed Terrain info now provided in region windows, dynamically calculated from map conditions.
Combat System: new feature with specific modifiers now possible for some specific units in specific rounds (e.g. in a forthcoming project, Japanese Samurai units will have a special close combat bonus in the last round of battle, or, in SGS Dien Bien Phu, VM units will have lower long-range fire but higher close-combat power with this system.)

IMPROVEMENTS

Movement: Right click move on stack with immobilized units will select only the units that can move (no longer need to split them out of the stack to activate a move)
Retreat: land retreat is now possible if the region contains only camouflaged units of the other sides (they no longer prevent retreat)
Naval retreat and embarkation upon port capture: naval units in a just captured port will sail away, and land units inside port will embark (loading space permitting) on the retreating ships.
Combat: combat bonus are capped at -4/+4 (all modifiers of all kinds added)
Morale boosters are capped (designer choice, in SGS Taipings this is +4)
Morale can not exceed 9 (this is max cap, all modifiers from all kinds added)
FoW: reconnaissance cards can only view units not under fog of war now (but may be changed by specific scenario rules), so you no longer see or select yellow spots not visible normally.