I've fine-tuned the content of the playtest manuscript over the last few months. I hope you find it more readable, with holes filled, and with a more helpful guidance. The combat section has been streamlined and rough edges polished off. 

There's now more guidance where I feel the game really shines. Namely, in the cooperative nature of developing the Hird, Characters, Series, Books, and Episodes between players and GM on the front end (say, Session 0). The Appendix has new charts to help guide the more complex Scenes (Passage and Plunder). I think this game does a great job of helping groups tell good stories together but I think that fact didn't come across well in the previous versions.

Combat is now limited to a single action per round, regardless of Tier. This was a big change but a necessary one as the complexity of multi-action turns wasn't worth the cognitive burden of resolving everything satisfactorily. It's much cleaner to say "you can do one big thing in 5 seconds" of a turn. This helps the turns resolve quicker (2-5 minutes), giving everyone a chance to react and plan their next action accordingly.

I added a box to the Hird sheets for Named Crew among your Fleets. It's such a small thing without any game mechanics associated with it, but I think naming some of your followers gives them faces and backgrounds so that they feel like part of the story you're telling instead of some vestigial add-on. Similarly, I've explicitly called out the outlook of Midgardians toward violence and death in a few more places, as well as spelled out the consequences of having high Corruption, and how important Carae are to your characters. None of these have (or in my opinion, need) strong game mechanics, but they have large implications for the story you're telling.

The last big change that took some real doing was the formatting with the new art. I've now eschewed all AI-generated art in favor of publicly-available, open-license art and photography of actual historical artifacts and places. I have to admit the vibe isn't the same, but since the initial release of the playtest manuscript, AI-art has come to mean something pejorative to me so I'm doffing it from the game. I don't feel burdened to discuss the matter any further, except to say that the game is overall better without AI art and it sits better with me.