What's new in the Election update:

In the game, the citizens of cities can now vote every few years on whether the player may remain in power.
Elections become available as soon as the citizens of a city have reached the worker class for the first time.

If the player wins the election, he can continue to play, if he loses the vote, the game ends for him.
The election system is still very basic and at the moment ONLY takes into account the happiness of the population in the cities.

The player can make his citizens happy by constructing appropriate buildings and by supplying the population with enough of the required manufactured goods.

It is planned that events from other parts of the game will also affect the happiness of the population in later updates.
For example, bandit raids could have a negative effect on the citizens happiness, while the construction of farms could have a positive effect.

There is always a certain random factor in the election results, especially if the citizens are not completely happy, but also not completely unhappy. This will change in later updates when additional criteria are taken into account by the population.

Note:

As long as the election system is still under development and the random factor is high, the player can continue to play the game even after losing an election in order to prevent frustration.

In addition, a few things have changed in the game in terms of citizen happiness.

• Only wheat now counts as food for the city inhabitants.
  Fish, meat or crabs count as "luxury goods" and only increase happiness.
  (The previous system was too complicated)

• All classes of citizens need pottery.
  Pottery requires clay from clay deposits and a pottery in the city for processing.

• Citizens of the labourer and aristocrat classes need salt.
  Raw salt can be extracted from salt ponds and processed in a salt works in the city.

• Aristocrat class citizens need coffee. 
  Coffee can be grown in tropical savannahs and processed on farms in a coffee roasting plant.

There are now skilled labourers for all new raw materials and manufactured goods.

Native tribes:

There will be a separate update for the natives later.
However, many bugs have been fixed since January 2024.

• The Native units no longer constantly block each other.

• It is now possible to give goods to the native tribes to improve relations with them.
  This feature was already built in before, but unfortunately never worked.

• Natives are more likely to be annoyed if the player takes land from them or hunts bison on their territory.

• The magnifying glass can be used to click on an native village. The player then gets information about the status of his relations with the respective tribe.

What else is new in the game:

• Some more sound effects

• Minor improvements to pathfinding (...a never-ending story...)

• A new whale species in the sea

• Many more little things...

Note:
This update is not compatible with previous save files of the game.

Notes on the current state of the game:

• Computer opponents
  I'm not sure if I will be able to integrate computer opponents into the game at all.
  Of course I'll keep trying to add easy enemies, but I can't guarantee that I'll succeed.

• Interaction options with natives are still very limited.
  The customisation and development of the natives is an ongoing process. New functions and interaction options will be added from time to time

• Supplying the city population is currently very time-consuming and, in larger cities, turns into extreme micro-management of trade carts and resource management. I will come up with some ideas here, including automatic trade routes.

Notes:

• Settle the World can be played on the PC using the free Steam Retro Arch emulator via Steam Remote Play with multiple players.
  A player simply loads the Settle the World HDF file into the emulator and can then invite a Steam friend to play.
  The Steam friend then does not need to download anything to their computer.
  
  No copyrighted KickROM is required for the emulator, as Settle the World works fine with the free AROS KickROM replica provided by the emulator.
  
  You can download instructions here:
  https://www.theotheoderich.de/settletheworld/divers/SettleTheWorld_SteamRetroArc...
  

• Unfortunately, it has not worked well to provide regular development versions for download.
  The effort required is too great and not manageable for me.

• In fact, the further development of Settle the World is becoming increasingly complex and time-consuming.
  As a developer, I sometimes have to spend hours playing and testing small changes to see if everything works, whether everything works.
  
  Please understand that further development will be very slow.
  I get very little feedback from players and I don't have anyone to test Settle the World more intensively.
  My main tester has unfortunately cancelled for personal reasons.
  
  As things stand at the moment, Settle the World will probably remain in a state of "Early Access" for a very long time.