NOT COMPATIBLE with saves from previous versions (more information).

TLDR: Events which demonstrate a character's strength or weakness will now change the public's respect for that character, small set of story events added, more music, various fixes.

Respect

Opinions of a character now change when they demonstrate strength or weakness.  This works a little like morality, i.e. when certain events happen, a character gets a universal positive boost or negative penalty to their general opinion (which also effects each individual's opinion of that character).  This shows up in updates like moral actions do, with a different icon.  You can see the contribution past events have made to a character's opinion by looking at the "Respect" section of the opinion breakdown.

I'm pretty happy with the way it's playing out in my early testing, although it probably needs balancing.  The initial impact seems to be 1) to make aggression a little easier politically, because a successful campaign will earn you some positive public opinion, and 2) to make wobbles in fortune a little more dangerous.  I would love some feedback on how this dynamic plays out in your games.

Story Events Prototyping

The other significant change in this update is an initial tiny set of story events; smaller snippets of narrative to bring the world and your character’s story to life.  This is very much a prototyping effort for now, as I work out what kind of tool I can build internally to create these story events, potentially opening up it up to modders later to extend the game.

Improvements

• Additional background music tracks (thanks Matthias)
• Various icons have been replaced (thanks Alan)
• The first time the game is loaded after it has been updated, the release notes will be automatically shown in the main menu
• The "Recent Events" window can now also be closed by pressing the Spacebar or Enter key (thanks Steven)
• As an alternative to Middle Click, you can now Shift + Click on an object to move the map to its location (thanks Holly)
• When deposing a ruler as part of pressing another's claim, the depose ruler gets the opportunity to resist militarily or rebel
• Various tweaks to text (thanks everyone)

Balance

• When a system rebels, it is then less likely to rebel for 5 years
• The contribution of various factors to system rebellion risk has been tweaked
• Rulers are less likely to opt for rebellion when an attempt is made to depose them
• Reduced the likelihood of incest romances
• Claimants are now grateful to all characters that escalate their claim, not just the initial champion
• The "Large House" warning is now shown in amber if the player's house size is not yet larger than the fair limit

Fixes - Game Mechanics

• Fixed an issue where characters where sometimes not morally penalized for failing to repay a favour, e.g. when asking for assistance in attacking a system
• Leaders can now demand surrender from a war opponent when that opponent is not at war with anyone else
• Fixed a bug where leaders were gaining a weak leading claim to a faction too quickly
• When a noble house rebels on a vassal leader's capital successfully, that capital is no longer removed from the league
• Fixed a bug where your wife would get mad at you when it was revealed that you had an affair with her in the past
• House members were getting mad at you multiple times for accepting their assignment request and then changing your mind (thanks Antonia)
• System rebellions were happening more frequently than shown in the Rebellion Risk panel
• When you declare war to support a relative who is in a defensive war, the crime of declaring war is now correctly mitigated

Fixes - UI

• Fixed an issue where the combat prediction map mode was corrupting the UI during some events when a system's ownership was being transferred (thanks Sarissofoi)
• Fixed a memory leak in the Recent Events screen where, eventually, clicking on an update within it makes the game unresponsive (thanks Zahari)
• When an update is shown, the portraits displayed on the map are now shown immediately in the correct position
• The default map mode no longer tooltips vassal wars
• Fixed a bug where sometimes text was being highlighted incorrectly
• Fixed a UI corrupting bug under some home system changing scenarios
• Removed "Set Tax Level" actions from the context action list for non-player leagues (thanks Holly)
• Fixed a UI corrupting bug in a vassal rebellion scenario
• The context actions control was sometimes refreshing during event resolution and corrupting the UI (thanks Holly)
• Press the Insert key during a game now correctly takes a screenshot (thanks TheRealGC13)

Fixes - Visibility Bugs

• Fixed a bug where the player was not getting visibility of all the systems of a league when they joined as a vassal
• Fixed a bug where vassal leaders were not getting visibility of their archon's enemies if the faction leading a league changed
• Fixed a bug where vassal leaders were not getting visibility of the new enemies of their archon when the latter absorbs a surrendered faction
• Fixed a bug where a player character change following the acting leader stepping done made some factions unknown
• Fixed a bug where the player was not getting visibility of distant factions resurrected by known characters
• Fixed a bug where the player might not be aware of the house head to whom they are offering a marriage
• When you are asked to champion a claim, you now become aware of the claimant

Thanks to everyone who uploaded a crash report when the game misbehaved.