We reworked how fiscal policy works in 1.12, with two goals at once: make the game more flexible for players who want to go into governance rabbit holes, and simpler for everyone else.

Here's the simple part. By default, your city now runs on just four taxes: income, property, sales, and corporate. That's it. If you just want to build a good city without fiddling with policy, the defaults are fine and the screen stays clean.

Here's the flexible part. Everything beyond those four basics is now optional. Bus fares, pensions, business license fee, etc. When you want a policy, you have to develop it from the new policies panel. You can't develop when your approval rate is low, and you only develop one policy at a time, just like in real cities, policy takes time and political capital.

We will expand this system more in the next versions, but 1.12 already adds three new policies that weren't there before.

• Progressive income tax. Once your city unlocks it, citizens are taxed on their salary by social class instead of a flat rate. Tax the rich, spare the poor, or don't. Your call.
• Private security. Companies can hire their own guards to deter break-ins, and they pay for it themselves. A guard turns a building into a patrolled zone with less crime, but it never arrests anyone and it only covers the building that pays for it. The shop next door without a guard becomes the easier target. And a company too broke to afford one falls back to normal police patrol (you).
• Unemployment benefit. Pay a stipend to anyone out of work for up to a year (after that, the city stops paying). You set the amount. It lowers crime among the unemployed, but it also makes them slower to take the next job.

That's the whole idea. Some of you will switch on every policy and run a full welfare state. Some will pick the two or three that fit your vision. Some will leave it all off and rule with the bare minimum, all is game.

Also in 1.12: a winter mode that wraps your city in cold, foggy light, new soundtrack music from Pablo Rubio, a redesigned City Hall, fairer ransomware rules, and big performance gains for cities past 25,000 citizens.

Happy Building! We are eager to discover what different type of cities can be possible with this new feature.