Ara: History Untold | Invisible Hand Update Explained
A new update that fixes a lot of the game's issues
News by Arne on Nov 15, 2024
Ara: History Untold had an almost turbulent release, with around 68% positive reviews on Steam. Yet, it is obvious that Oxide Games is sticking with the product and is committed to making the game a better version of itself. The game’s first major update, the Invisible Hand, brings many changes and additions that all do a good job of creating a wonderful experience and really improving the game.
One of the most prominent additions is the inclusion of the divisive John A. Macdonald to the game’s roster of historical figures. As the first prime minister of Canada, Macdonald led his nation as a balanced leader with unique traits to help him endure all the acts.
John A. Macdonald comes with three common traits; ‘Disciplined’ allows him to have higher build production for government and military improvements, while woodsman increases the timber for logging camps. Both of these are pretty thematic and make him a good candidate for rapid expansion.
His final trait, ‘pacifist’, is a debuff that gives a -10% to Force Strength outside your territory, meaning your military game would be slower than most. His unique trait is that Boreal Forests grants you +1 Fur per turn and +3 Housing in all cities. This is more of a niche trait, albeit one that clears up a lot of building space for further expansion.
The other big highlight is the National Economy Screen, a brilliant addition that saves you a lot of time. The new window collates all your nation’s improvement screens, which previously only belonged to individual cities, into a single screen, allowing you to manage the production, assign experts, and upgrade them regardless of where the cities are.
Together with this comes the many quality-of-life improvements, including one that further automates supplies for improvements. Both of these are great negations of the micromanagement aspects of the game, streamlining the annoying parts to make room for the fun stuff.
Another quality-of-life thing is the ability to upgrade units after they are deployed, something that has been asked for a while now. No more sticking with your spearmen until the modern age as they can be upgraded or, get this, sent back to the reserves to be redeployed. This is crucial, as before, most units would just get decommissioned or die before they leveled up, so it wouldn’t be surprising if you forgot that units have levels and can be leveled up.
Other features include a new advisor category as well as the advisors becoming more prominent and doing a bit more advising, with promises to see more from this mechanic in later updates. Among bug fixes, features, a plethora of improvements, and balance changes, you also have the anticipated earth map. The earth map closely resembles our planet but has some changes to make way for gameplay balance. The earth map also has historical locations and allows for a more historical approach to your games.
The many new amenities seem incredibly useful, seemingly made in response to the many issues with food as you expand. With amenities such as fresh produce, biscuits, and baked goods, you no longer have to build a hundred farms to sustain your cities.
Finally, Ara: History Untold now has modding support for all your modding needs. All in all, the update seems to turn many of the game’s issues in over their heads and improve many of the game’s issues, from smaller ones to some of the biggest gripes with the game. It’s interesting to see what the developers have in store for us.
Check out our review and other guides on Ara: History Untold:
Editor, NoobFeed
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