As I've mentioned in my review, Total War: Thrones of Britannia is equal parts innovative and flawed. It features a variety of interesting new systems, as well as improved versions of ones we've seen in Rome 2 and Attila, yet due to the incredibly easy campaign very few of those systems actually have any meaning. With that in mind, I am very glad to say that the upcoming balance patch will be addressing these problems directly.

The list of changes is fairly extensive, so if you're interested in all of the details you should head on over to the official website. On the other hand, if you prefer the short version, allow me to share the most interesting and impactful changes. The list is still a bit on the lengthy side, but I'm afraid there's no helping that given how many truly important changes this update is bringing with it. Anyway, have a look:

• Increased cost of buildings, in particular higher tier buildings

• Food costs for higher tier buildings increased, and more food cost for some Market income buildings added

• Adjusted some bonuses from Market income buildings to tone down how much income some late game provinces could get

• Estates now cost -100 gold for each one not held by your King

• All tax levels now give public order penalties, halved public order hit from occupying settlements from -10 to -5

• Changed Victory Conditions for many factions to improve variety of play styles and fix some instances of too-early victories

• Reduced some bonuses from technologies so they are less overpowered, in particular the +15 melee skill technologies are now +6 bonuses as the previous value was a huge increase for many unit types

• Reduced upkeep and recruitment cost reduction bonuses from traits from -50% to -25%

• Adjusted AI bonuses from difficulty levels

• Change to Supplies so armies start with a lower value and some bonuses from buildings reduced and Supplies lost in enemy territory increased so Supplies has more of an impact

• Changed when different negative faction food penalties are applied so harsher penalties apply earlier, and changed the effects to have more impact

• Made changes to War Fervour so only changes to score in last turn shown, and impact of War Fervour technology changed as well

• Some unit balance adjustments made, in particular to Berserkers

• Made changes to increased the length of melee combat so battle line will be closer to the length we want to see

• Changed spotting values so units in trees can hide better

While I'm not exactly keen on the Estate changes since I feel this just makes them more annoying than useful, the rest of the update seems to be exactly what I asked for: a better AI and campaign mechanics that prevent players from snowballing into an unstoppable force by turn 10. Whether these changes will managed to do just that, only time will tell, but it's a pretty solid effort from Creative Assembly regardless. 

If these tweaks sound like something you would love to add to your campaign as soon as possible, you might want to opt in into the newly launched Steam Beta. Simply head on over to Thrones of Britannia, right click and go into properties, and from there select 'Patch 1' in the Betas tab. Once you're done the patch will begin downloading automatically and you'll hopefully have a much trickier and much more exciting time conquering Britain. 

Have fun!