Going Medieval Update 10 (0.16.6) Patch Notes

Going Medieval update 10 (0.16.6) is now available to download on PC. According to the official Going Medieval patch notes, the latest update adds a comprehensive water system and fishing mechanics, significantly enhancing the game’s realism and strategic elements.

Previously, a major Going Medieval update added new changes, fixes, and gameplay improvements. Unfortunately, players are still experiencing several issues since the release. Today’s Going Medieval patch 0.16.6 will fix a few of these issues.

Check out more details below.

Going Medieval 0.16.6 Patch Notes – November 21, 2023

Water – [Community request]

Water is finally in the game! It will appear on almost every map type as bodies of water like lakes and rivers, as long as a new game is started. There’s a chance for a map to not have a river or a lake on it, but that’s because the seed is randomly generated and calculated.

It will move when given the chance, so digging a hole next to a lake or river will make the water go to that empty spot. The way water is simulated is not supposed to be very realistic, but is instead simplified and follows some basic logic.

Levels of water

Water is consistent, meaning that a full voxel of water will spread out on more voxels while lowering its core level. For the gameplay purposes of Going Medieval, water will have 3 levels: Shallow, Low and Deep. This will also make it clear if water can be traversed by foot or if it is deep enough to swim in. Here are key notes for each level:

Shallow water

About 30cm real world depth (1/10 of the whole voxel).
Settlers, raiders and animals can walk/run through it (yes, even rats and small animals. We are ok with this. :D).
Settlers can construct stuff, pickup piles, eat & drink, they can also harvest/slaughter/train animals.
Production buildings and beds don’t work in this depth.
Leisure activities (praying and backgammon) and furniture are allowed in this depth.
All plants and trees start to lose HP in this depth except reeds & willow trees.
Crop Fields can’t be placed on this depth except willow trees.

Low water

About 170cm realworld depth (around 3/5 of the whole voxel).
Settlers (regardless of their height), raiders and animals swim in this depth.
Leisure activities (praying and backgammon) and furniture are not allowed in this depth.
Settlers can still construct stuff, pickup piles, eat & drink (they will not use chairs in low water).
Settlers, raiders and animals can’t climb out of low water without ladders or stairs/slopes.
If there is a floor that above low water, settlers, raiders and animals will swim under it,
Settlers can’t harvest/slaughter/train animals while the animal is in low water (or deeper).
Enemies can’t attack prod buildings that are in low water.
Traps will not work on this depth.
Torches and braziers will not work on this depth, but wall torches will.

Deep water

3m of water (one whole voxel).
Settlers (regardless of their height), raiders and animals swim in this depth.
Settlers can still construct stuff, pickup piles, eat & drink.
Settlers, raiders and animals can climb out of deep water without ladders or stairs/slopes.
Animals can’t eat bushes that are in deep water, can’t eat piles or carcasses that are in deep water.
Enemies can’t attack prod buildings that are in deep water.

Fishing

Fish can spawn in rivers and lakes and can be marked by the player to be fished and used as a resource. Fish spawn logic is similar to plants in a way that they spawn on a location (in this case water) and the settler comes and harvests them. Here is what you need to know about this process:

Animal handling skill will influence fishing performance.
Fishing is a part of the hunting job and is performed via order located in the bottom right side of the screen or right clicking on fish after you’ve selected a settler.
Fish spawns in all bodies of water.
Hovering on the fish group will display the fish type in the lower left corner of the screen.
Fish will die if the water is drained and will drop a small amount of resources in its place.
Fish pile is forbidden by default if fish dies, but allowed when a worker catches it.
You can fish for pike, trout and eel.
Pike is just one fish and offers a larger chance of failure during the fishing process, but provides more meat if caught.
Trout flock offers multiple fishes to catch and a smaller chance to fail, but there is not that much meat in the flock.
Eel are somewhere in-between pike and trout when it comes to chance failure and resource gain.
Map types can have a different combo of fishes. For instance, marsh maps have more eels and other maps have a combination of trouts and pikes.
Location in relation to the shore is also influencing what type of fish it spawns.
Once fished, you can smoke and salt them and turn them into corresponding meals.

Marsh map

What makes a marsh different from other map types (valley, hillside and mountain) is that their terrain will be covered with 50% of shallow water. Here are other notable things you can expect on the Marsh map:

Marsh soil – similar to the regular soil, but leaves shallow water where it is dug out. It appears only on marsh maps and gives only 1x soil instead of 3x like regular dirt voxels.
Willow trees – similar to regular trees, but mostly present on marshes,
Reeds – located mostly on marshes. They offer hay, albeit less when compared to tall dry grass.
Water Vole – similar to a rat. Gives good leather and mostly spawns in marsh map types. Can be held in pens.
Mallard – medium-sized waterfowl species that spawns on marsh maps. Can be held in pens.
Metal and limestone are not present on this map type so you’ll have to acquire them via trading.

Due to integration of water bodies, the look of old map seed will change if you try to start them on a new game.
Humans and animals can fight on all water levels.
It is possible for humans to use water for purposes of swimming upwards if there are multi storey buildings filled with water.
Piles rot and decompose much much faster if in water (except fish piles, their decay is slowed down in that case).
Flora doesn’t spawn in water (except willow trees and reeds).
Reed will start dying if it’s deprived of water.
If you start a trade with another village located in the marsh map type, expect that the stock of that village will probably lack limestone but will offer more herbs.
Piles stored on shelves will not be affected by the shallow water.
Water is not drinkable.
Rain will not fill the empty pit with water.
Irrigation is not a thing as of now.

Some of these things might be revisited later in the development process, while others (like introduction of drawbridges) will be incorporated in the upcoming months.

Urgent Haul is a new order type located in the Jobs panel that is separated from the regular haul. This will give you more control when it comes to prioritization and which settler will respond to the Urgent Haul order. Here is how it works:

There is a new “Urgent Haul” button located in the lower right corner of the screen.
Settlers that have only urgent haul on (regular haul off) will only haul urgent marked piles and not the ones that are not marked.
Settlers that have haul on (urgent haul off) will haul urgent marked piles too, but they will not prioritize them during the hauling process.
Pets will follow urgent haul orders, too, regardless of their owner’s priorities.
A pile can’t be forbidden and urgent haul marked at the same time.
A pile that’s on a stockpile can’t be marked as an urgent haul except if the pile can be moved to a better stockpile.
Shelved piles cant be marked for urgent haul.

Quality of life changes

Limestone (impure) is a new type of the voxel we’ve added. It looks exactly like the regular limestone but gives less resources, has less HP and is faster to dig. It will only be found on mountain maps. This is so players can dig those maps faster and not have a gazillion limestone around. Don’t worry, ordinary limestone is still present on mountain maps and is the same as before.
Using the Overview tab now pauses the game.
Rain will not appear as frequently in Spring and Autumn.
Some dropdown issues were solved (dropdowns in the Manage panel were scrolled too slow with the mouse wheel).

Bugs and Fixes

Fixed the bug that indicated that food reserves are low, even when they weren’t.
Fixed the bug where installing a rug under a bookshelf would cause the books to fall down.
Fixed the issue that occurred when the settler with a high enough skill (10) to smoke meat returns from a caravan, during which time no other settler could have performed an ongoing order to smoke meat, the smoke house order does not update. It will continue to say no settlers with enough skills are available.
Fixed the issue where the high motor function would slow down certain activities.
Fixed the issues where some piles would never be hauled.
Fixed issue where piles would not decay form rain if the game was loaded during rainfall
Fixed issue where piles would rot from ground even with floors under them