Going Medieval’s Diplomacy Update gives the colony sim twelve factions to court, pay or defy

Every colony sim eventually has to answer for the world outside its walls. Going Medieval, the castle-building survival game from the Serbian studio Foxy Voxel, has always been at its best inside the palisade: the stonework raised before winter, the settler schedules, the defences built against bandits and beasts. Beyond the gate, the region was thinner, a map you sent trade caravans across and the direction raids came from. The Diplomacy Update, the first major content update since the game left early access, is an attempt to fill that map with politics.

The instrument is still the caravan, but its cargo has changed. Sent to a neighbouring settlement, it can now seal an alliance, press a demand or offer a favour to keep the peace. Twelve NPC factions share the region, and each has to be weighed through trades, relationships and pacts rather than a simple friend-or-foe switch. The announcement is candid that not everyone will play along: some factions will not budge on their own demands, and some are simply too bloodthirsty to befriend.

A caravan route across the Going Medieval region map with faction banners — Image: Foxy Voxel / Mythwright

The most interesting design idea is that the neighbours now double as a labour market. Nearby settlements post jobs, and a colony short of hands can hire miners, scholars and smiths from them, or recruit mercenaries to hold the line against hostile encampments. A settlement no longer has to grow every skill from its own population. It can buy expertise instead, which also means depending on the goodwill of whoever is selling it.

Trade gets the same treatment. Each faction now has its own specific resources, an economic identity of sorts, and the system is built to push players toward diversifying both what they produce and whom they trade with. New in-game events and a round of quality-of-life improvements fill out the package, and Foxy Voxel has released a developer playthrough, the video above, that walks through the new systems in practice.

Settlers defend a wooden palisade with a trebuchet during a raid in Going Medieval — Image: Foxy Voxel / Mythwright

The update arrives at a settled moment for the studio. Foxy Voxel, a team of seasoned developers that has worked on Going Medieval, its first game, since late 2018, kept it in early access from June 2021 until its full release on March 17, 2026. It is published by Mythwright, the independent label behind Thronefall, Scriptorium: Master of Manuscripts, Bladesong and TerraTech Legion.

The Diplomacy Update is available now for Going Medieval on PC through Steam, the Epic Games Store and GOG. A game about rebuilding civilization after a calamity was always going to need neighbours eventually. Now it has twelve of them, and every one of them keeps score.

Tags: video game updates, colony sims, Foxy Voxel, Going Medieval, Mythwright

Going Medieval’s Diplomacy Update gives the colony sim twelve factions to court, pay or defy

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