TL;DR: Kin earn and spend gold, battles run in real time, and victory ends with your family's record.

• Emberfall is now Heirdeep. Existing saves still load.
• Wages and purses: in a town, working adults earn daily gold based on rank. The ruler receives civic pay, fighters receive hazard pay, and elders without a job receive a pension. Kin spend their own gold automatically on gear, their children's tutoring and comforts. You can see their balance and saving target. On death, their gold goes to their living children, or back to the hold if none survive.
• Armoury: kin buy weapons and armour made for them. There is no communal stock or lending, and equipment no longer drops in the Wilds or from battles. Owned gear can pass to a child at death. A level-5 Armoury holds six armourers; each fills one order a day, or repairs gear when no orders are waiting. Older saves keep carried gear and distribute useful spare stock once.
• Tutoring: parents pay 3 gold for two after-school sessions at 19:00 with an assigned teacher who isn't their parent. A completed course adds one learned stat point and pays the teacher. Children with all four stats capped don't queue.
• Dubious research: a level-5 Apothecary has four research cots. Adults sign up automatically, paying 8 gold plus 4 per previous treatment and one salve. A healer supervises for 24 hours to raise a lowest inherited base stat by one. School bonuses don't count towards the base cap, and children inherit the gain. Patient and healer leave their ordinary work during treatment; cancellation gives no refund.
• More room: at level 5, the Lodge sends 12 explorers, the Hearth, Deepwell and Lumenworks hold 12 workers each, and Quarters hold 30 kin. New games start with ten beds and a free level-1 Lodge. Lodges cannot be demolished. Storehouse capacity is doubled.
• Gate and room defence: battles play out blow by blow. Guards shoot or strike from behind the wall and cannot be hurt until the Gate falls. Call To arms to bring workers into the fight, and choose each guard's bow or blade role. A level-5 Gate has 640 health and ten guard slots. After a breach, raiders fight defenders individually, with doorway limits rather than attacking everyone at once.
• Warbands: attacks on rival holds are real-time battles too. Watch the fight, direct your archers, rally or retreat. Forecasts simulate the fight and show an odds range, with better information after scouting. Wounded fighters can die after a defeat; salves can save those knocked out defending your Gate.
• Battle visuals: curved arrows, damaged gates, charging warbands and new combat sounds. Large raids show the nearest 24 attackers, with a count for those behind them.
• Rival holds: rivals continue growing after the first month. Sworn holds lose loyalty with time, tribute and signs of weakness, and warn you before breaking free. A show of force or reduced tribute can keep them loyal.
• Room and menu art: the Armoury, Counting House and Barracks now have paintings for all five levels, matching the other rooms. The main menu adds marching soldiers, a bridge skirmish, a traveller and a supply wagon, with a softer fade into the valley. Its music-reactive light and embers remain.
• Victory and history: your family record scrolls over the saved valley to “What We Leave Behind”, with rulers linked in gold and war and building events between generations. The song loops through the ending. Continue returns to your hold; New hold starts again. Settings lets you replay it with current data after winning. Wars, builds, upgrades and demolitions keep their dates beyond the Chronicle; older saves start recording when loaded.
• Performance and help: reduced redraw work in large holds and battles. The Pairing Bench pauses the game while open, with suggestions and Best match calculated in the background. Existing suggestions stay visible until their replacements are ready. Surface slots say “Build here”; underground slots say “Dig here”. Help text uses the 12-day year and no longer asks you to build the parked Beacon.

I'm trying to automate the kin economy and actually wrap up the game so it has a proper ending and feels as polished as possible.