Patch 1.4.5.69.4994 (20 March 2017)

Ranked:
- The game now has a ranked mode. From now on the players can gain points and progress in the ladder either by playing ranked or casual matches. Due to frequent match evasion and hacking offences, we decided to reset the ranks of all players, giving everyone a fair chance in the new season. Below are the main differences between the two:

Ranked games:
- You can launch it only by pressing ""Quick Play"" or by creating a special room in the multiplayer shell
- The starting options are set and cannot be changed
- All user created modifications are disabled
- Victory grants a lot of points;
- The match is considered ranked only if the game lasts more than 10 minutes.

Casual games:
- Launched from the multiplayer rooms
- The starting options are chosen by the host
- User created modifications are allowed
- The following starting options are set for the ranked mode:
- Type: Team versus Team, 3 vs 3, if there's not enough players the game will automatically switch teams to 2 vs 2 or 1 vs 1;
- Nations: random;
- Starting resources: 5000;
- Peace Time: 10 minutes;
- Map type: Land.
- For a more convenient way of finding ranked games, players can now use the 'Quick Play' button, which will automatically find suitable opponents for the player.
- You can invite up to two players to queue up together for a ranked match. To do this, create a special room and invite your friends, then you need to set the lobby eligible for the Ranked mode. You and your friends can only play on the same team.
- You have 2 months to get a desired title, as the ranked season lasts till the second half of May. The rewards will be distributed at the end of May as well.
- We leave the right to reset ranks of certain players if there will be proof of unsportsman behaviour, match-fixing or cheating.

General:
- The Balloon upgrade now removes Field of View for allies as well.

Cheating
- Cheaters will receive a more severe punishment from now on. We remind you that if you encounter a cheater, you can always send a report letter with a replay and a short description of the supposed hacking to support@cossacks3.com.

Errors:
- Dealt with bugs that prevented some players from seeing their Early Bird bonuses
- Fixed an issue that caused the game to use a wrong localization.
- Fixed a bug with the statistics screen, when after pressing the ""Replay the game"" button the new session used the settings from the previous game.
- Fixed a problem, when the keys responsible for camera controls (arrows) wouldn't respond if the player holds the Shift or Ctrl keys.
- Fixed typos in some texts.
- Fixed an error, when the ""Random nation"" option would never choose the last nation from the list.
- Fixed a bug in the 4th mission of the Prussian campaign, where an enemy's blockhouse wasn't considered hostile.

Multiplayer:
- Fixed an error, when after a several consecutive multiplayer games, the new session had a chance of suddenly ending or displaying chat messages from other games.
- Fixed an issue with MP room exiting, when the player would get a notification that he was kicked although he wasn’t.
- Fixed an error, when after a re-hosting the session wouldn’t count as ranked.
- Fixed a bug, that broke the re-hosting process: the notification about loading of another player would never go away and the game would refuse to start.
- Fixed an error, that caused the shell to appear empty after exiting a session.
- Fixed an error when the player wouldn’t get any points for winning a ranked game.
- We’re going to save TOP 100 players of this season to give the players rewards in the future.

Hotkeys:
- There is an alternative hotkey that allows the player to select all military units – Ctrl + Shift + A and Ctrl + Alt + A.

Balance
- Increased the formation bonus for a 400 units’ template from +2 to attack/+3 to defense to +3 to attack/+4 to defense.
- Increased the amount of peasants that can chop the same tree from 1 to 2, which increases the efficiency of wood gathering.
- Increased the rate at which each next building gets more expensive from 3 to 4%


Unit changes

Housings:
- Increased the amount of slots housings provide from 15 to 25.
- Increased the cost of construction from 50 wood and 50 stones to 100 wood and 100 stones.

Pandur (Austria):
- Reduced the production time from 18.75 to 10.32 seconds

Chasseur (France):
- Increased the production time from 9.38 to 10.32 seconds.
- Increased the range of vision
- Decreased the fire range from 1050 to 1000.
- Increased the price by 10 gold

Peasant:
- Increased the melee range from 50 to 65

Hussar:
- Increased the production time from 14.84 to 17.8 seconds
- Reduced the bonus to armor after all upgrades by 2

Hussar (Prussia):
- Increased the production time from 10.16 to 13.16
- Reduced the bonus to armor after all upgrades by 2

Pikeman, 18c:
- Increased the attack after all of the upgrades by 2

Pikeman, 18c (Sweden):
- Increased the attack after all of the upgrades by 2
- Increased the health from 85 to 95
- Increased the basic attack from 11 to 12

Archer (Algeria):
- Decreased the arrow damage from 199 to 40
- Increased the production time from 0.78 to 1 second
- Reduced the amount of time it takes to shoot another regular arrow from 9.22 to 5 seconds
- Increased the minimal range of regular and fire arrows from 300 to 350 (the same as the mercenary archer)
- Increased the maximum range of regular and fire arrows from 600 to 700 (the same as the mercenary archer)