BUILD EMPIRE: Construction

■ Pay can now be typed in A player told us they could not raise or lower staff pay after buying Premium. In 1.7 the −/+ buttons for grade pay did not update the numbers on screen (fixed in 1.8), and each press moved pay by only $100, so catching up with the market rate after a stage-up took dozens of presses. On the Premium pay screen you can now type the monthly pay for staff, seniors, managers and directors directly (in units of $100, from 18 to 300). The −/+ buttons still work. There are also new buttons to move every grade's pay by ±1% or ±5% while keeping the ratios. And when a stage-up raises the market rate above your pay, the stage-up screen now tells you, with a "Review pay" button. ■ Expert difficulty: a fairer start A player told us that on Expert, winning two or three jobs at the start meant going bankrupt from start-up costs and payroll, and asked for the right starting funds. Over 7,000 simulated games showed that more starting cash alone did not reduce bankruptcies. There were two causes: • The month after your first jobs, the game warned that cash was about to run out (86% of Expert games), even though payment for the work simply arrives a month later. The warning now judges "if this month carried on", and the temporary dip right after starting work is shown separately as "⏳ Start-up costs on new sites", together with the payment due next month. • Even with no work coming in, April's graduate intake kept adding staff. While your company is starting out (up to STAGE 2 and 24 completed jobs), graduates are hired only in line with your order book. Expert's starting funds also rise. In the simulations, taking three jobs at the start and then advancing the months led to bankruptcy within three years 2% of the time instead of 66%. ■ Banks and cash flow (new companies) A player found that refinancing over and over meant you could never go bankrupt. • The overdraft now has a limit, set by revenue and net assets. Go over it and you are warned; still over at next month-end and the company goes bankrupt from running out of cash. • Banks now look at what you owe the other banks. You can refinance, but not borrow past the three banks' combined limit. So games in progress are not suddenly ended, these rules apply only to companies started after this update. ■ ¥50T and ¥200T investment projects A player wanted to invest all their spare cash but could only put in a few trillion at a time. Investment Development now offers projects up to ¥50T from Lv21 and ¥200T from Lv25, including a new "Space & cities" type (space solar, floating cities, lunar bases and more). ■ Rivals chase you after No. 1 A player said the game turned into mindless tapping once they were No. 1. Now the top three rivals close the gap every year after you take the crown. Keep growing to stay on top; stand still and they overtake you. How hard they push depends on difficulty. ■ Also • Privacy policy added to the App section of the menu (opens in your browser) • Fixed the World Ranking screen in English showing "Overall{0}" instead of the help icon • Long company names in the World Ranking now wrap onto two lines instead of being cut off • Fixed "latest" running into the version number on the update-notes tabs