Hello everyone!
Today we're happy to announce that we’re putting the next update for Age of Wonders 4 into Open Beta! This previews some of the improvements that are part of the Watcher update, due later this summer. This coming update focuses on what we feel are the issues that are most important to you, and we’d love to get your feedback on what we’ve managed to do so far.
It’s important to remember that this is a work-in-progress patch. This means that it may be unstable or imbalanced and that the features we’ve added may not work entirely as we want them to. It also means that we may revert certain changes later if we feel that they aren’t achieving what we want them to or if we’re inspired to replace them with something better!
Instructions, Patch Notes and F.A.Q. are provided below
To fix this we have implemented a system where the cost of skills in a tome depends on how many tomes you have unlocked previous to that tome. This means that the skills in the 5th tome you unlock will always cost roughly the same amount of research, regardless of whether it’s tier 1 tome or a tier 3 tome.
We have also reduced research speed in general, since we felt that players were accessing new units and spells so quickly that they didn’t have time to enjoy the things they unlocked before they were made obsolete by something new.
In order to achieve victory you will need to annex a number of Gold Ancient Wonders (amount depending on the map) and then bind them with a spell that you can research once you unlock a tier 3 tome. When you unlock a tier 5 tome, you can then research the Age of Affinity spell which can only be cast once you have bound enough Wonders. This finisher works similarly to before, but now you need to defend your bound gold wonders, so no more turtling to defend 3 structures that you’ve hidden in the heart of your empire!
We have also disabled the independent armies that attack you during the final phase of the victory. Since your empire will be much more spread out to capture multiple ancient wonders, the AI controlled enemy rulers should be capable of trying to stop you.
To combat this we’re trying out a one spell per turn limit on casting spells on the world map. You will be able to increase this limit to 2 by building the Channeling Chamber in your Wizard’s Tower.
To fix this we’ve changed the summoning rules so that you may only summon units to hexes adjacent to your cities or your Ruler’s army. This means that you will still be able to use summoning magic to reinforce your main army, but in other cases they’ll need to walk like everyone else!
Increased Hero Upkeep
When you break the maximum hero cap, each hero costs 30 gold per turn upkeep. It was the intention that this would be expensive enough that players would only break the cap in emergencies, but we’ve noticed this isn’t really the case as this penalty does not scale with game phase.
To change that we’ve increased the penalty upkeep level to 15% of your gross gold income. This means that the upkeep you pay for each hero over the cap will scale up in price as your empire grows. If you are playing with the Chosen Destroyers or Megacities traits, then you will unlock a new line of buildings that you can build in your throne city to increase your hero cap without acquiring another city.
We have now implemented a system that means, once a hero commits to removing an item from one of their equipment slots, it goes into limbo for a single turn. While in limbo, the item cannot be equipped by another hero and will also not generate income for Dragon’s Horde mechanics.
See below for more patch notes like balance fixes!
Before you try out the beta, there are some very important things to remember:
That being said, to access the beta you will need to do the following:
Open Steam Discussions
You can leave feedback and report bugs in the open beta here. You can also press the Report Feedback button in the in game menus and send us a message directly!
Today we're happy to announce that we’re putting the next update for Age of Wonders 4 into Open Beta! This previews some of the improvements that are part of the Watcher update, due later this summer. This coming update focuses on what we feel are the issues that are most important to you, and we’d love to get your feedback on what we’ve managed to do so far.
It’s important to remember that this is a work-in-progress patch. This means that it may be unstable or imbalanced and that the features we’ve added may not work entirely as we want them to. It also means that we may revert certain changes later if we feel that they aren’t achieving what we want them to or if we’re inspired to replace them with something better!
Instructions, Patch Notes and F.A.Q. are provided below
Open Beta Highlights
Here are some of the highlights of what we’ve done so far (there will be a complete set of patch notes at the end!)Research Pacing
Previously the cost of research was determined by the tier of the tome the research was in. This led to players researching lots of early game skills very quickly, acquiring too many Tomes and Affinity points, which caused a lot of serious balance issues.To fix this we have implemented a system where the cost of skills in a tome depends on how many tomes you have unlocked previous to that tome. This means that the skills in the 5th tome you unlock will always cost roughly the same amount of research, regardless of whether it’s tier 1 tome or a tier 3 tome.
We have also reduced research speed in general, since we felt that players were accessing new units and spells so quickly that they didn’t have time to enjoy the things they unlocked before they were made obsolete by something new.
Magic Victory Rework
We had a lot of complaints that the magic victory was boring and too easy. After a lot of discussion we have decided to totally redesign the system so that it encourages players to engage more with the game world and other Godir.In order to achieve victory you will need to annex a number of Gold Ancient Wonders (amount depending on the map) and then bind them with a spell that you can research once you unlock a tier 3 tome. When you unlock a tier 5 tome, you can then research the Age of Affinity spell which can only be cast once you have bound enough Wonders. This finisher works similarly to before, but now you need to defend your bound gold wonders, so no more turtling to defend 3 structures that you’ve hidden in the heart of your empire!
We have also disabled the independent armies that attack you during the final phase of the victory. Since your empire will be much more spread out to capture multiple ancient wonders, the AI controlled enemy rulers should be capable of trying to stop you.
Underground Layer
We know that a lot of people want more from the Underground experience and have been working hard to improve it. We still have a lot of improvements planned, but so far we have:- Underground cities may now annex surface provinces (and vice versa) by annexing provinces with cave entrances. This makes smaller underground pockets much more viable and introduces new strategies.
- Removed the roaming marauder armies that can spawn when you excavate earth
- Excavating the earth can now reveal guarded nodes, and infestations in rare circumstances
- First pass at improving the generation process, specifically the placement of cave passages.
- Improved the lighting to make the underground easier to read.
Spell Casting Limitation
We’ve been seeing issues, especially in multiplayer, of players casting multiple spells per turn on the world map. This undermines strategic gameplay by allowing players to quickly obliterate enemy armies with stacking damage spells, or rapidly heal and replenish depleted armies.To combat this we’re trying out a one spell per turn limit on casting spells on the world map. You will be able to increase this limit to 2 by building the Channeling Chamber in your Wizard’s Tower.
Summon Spell Targeting
On a similar level we’ve noticed that the current rule of allowing summon spells to target any visible hex on the world map is also causing issues. Players are overly favoring summoned units over units constructed in cities since they can be summoned to the front line so quickly, as well as doing things such as sniping provinces by summoning units directly on top of them.To fix this we’ve changed the summoning rules so that you may only summon units to hexes adjacent to your cities or your Ruler’s army. This means that you will still be able to use summoning magic to reinforce your main army, but in other cases they’ll need to walk like everyone else!
Increased Hero Upkeep
When you break the maximum hero cap, each hero costs 30 gold per turn upkeep. It was the intention that this would be expensive enough that players would only break the cap in emergencies, but we’ve noticed this isn’t really the case as this penalty does not scale with game phase.
To change that we’ve increased the penalty upkeep level to 15% of your gross gold income. This means that the upkeep you pay for each hero over the cap will scale up in price as your empire grows. If you are playing with the Chosen Destroyers or Megacities traits, then you will unlock a new line of buildings that you can build in your throne city to increase your hero cap without acquiring another city.
Hero Item Limbo
Age of Wonders 4 allowed players to instantly teleport items between heroes, which led to a number of exploits, such as all of a player’s heroes sharing the same flying mount to quickly move across the map.We have now implemented a system that means, once a hero commits to removing an item from one of their equipment slots, it goes into limbo for a single turn. While in limbo, the item cannot be equipped by another hero and will also not generate income for Dragon’s Horde mechanics.
Strategic AI, Crashes and Multiplayer Stability
We know that these are a big priority for a lot of you and we’ve been working really hard to improve them across all fronts. Getting these things right is a huge task and very much a work in progress, but we hope you see big improvements in all 3 of these areas in this update!See below for more patch notes like balance fixes!
Getting into the Beta - What you need to know
Before you try out the beta, there are some very important things to remember:
In order to keep things manageable for us, we are only able to support an open beta on the steam platform. Apologies for those of you who play on console or have the game from other storefronts, we hope to have the final Watcher update ready to roll out to all of you within the next 2 months.
The changes in this update have all been done very recently, so there has been no time to translate any of the text to other languages. This means that this beta is English Language Only. If you play with another language then you will often see missing or incorrect text, which will make things very confusing.
If you play a multiplayer game with the open beta, you will only be able to play with people who are also in the open beta. This includes games that you have already started before downloading the beta, so make sure you do not use the beta in multiplayer without checking with the other players first, once a multiplayer game session has been updated to use the open beta, you cannot go back to previous versions!
Once you make a save in the open beta version, that save may not function properly or may crash if you revert to an older version of the game.
Since it is not the official/most updated version of the game, there is a high risk that mods created on this branch will be unstable and can cause issues to the players.
Open Beta is an additional branch of the game, featuring new content ¨which is still Work in Progress. The main goal of having the open beta is to collect feedback, see how the players will interact with the updated mechanics and fix more issues before the official update is released. This is where we can experiment with things without having to go through various certifications processes — which makes things happen much faster.
At the moment Steam is the main platform where we can have additional branches without touching the main version of the game. This flexibility helps us work on the game in a more efficient way with the limited resources we have — and it also means that we can make the main version of the game more delightful (not only for Steam but for all platforms)
In order to go back to the basic version of the game you need to go to the game Properties, Betas, and choose “None”. Steam will automatically update/install the live version of the game.
We created a dedicated section on Steam for you to share your feedback — check it out!
While the short answer is yes, the long one is — it depends. To be able to play in the multiplayer, all the players in the session should be on the same branch. Once one of the players switches to another version of the game, the other player cannot join the session until they either join the open_beta, or the main game gets these updated. The process is not revertible, so please be careful.
If you open a game from before the open beta with the open beta build, then it should work normally (although you will lose progress you have made towards magic victories). Once a game has been saved with the Open Beta, it is not advised to open it again in an older version of the game, since the game might become unstable.
Yes, this should work correctly.
For now we are determined to keep this branch active as it helps us work on the game improvements and game fixes much faster. We’ll see how it goes and will keep everyone updated on the situation.
Not always. Open Beta is where we test different scenarios and changes, and if we see that something is not actually working for our players and doesn’t make the game better — we will not add it to the main game and will look into the other options. This is why your feedback matters!
That being said, to access the beta you will need to do the following:
To switch to a custom branch in the Steam client, right-click on the game from the library page and select "Properties".
Among the available tabs will be the "BETAS" tab.
Your beta should be listed in the dropdown menu under "Select the beta you would like to opt into:"
Among the available tabs will be the "BETAS" tab.
Your beta should be listed in the dropdown menu under "Select the beta you would like to opt into:"
Leaving Feedback
Since this is an open beta, obviously your feedback is important to us! We have created a subforum on the Steam forums here:Open Steam Discussions
You can leave feedback and report bugs in the open beta here. You can also press the Report Feedback button in the in game menus and send us a message directly!
Complete Patch Notes
The following lists all changes made in this update so far:
Research Scaling
The way knowledge costs are determined for skills in Tomes has changed. Instead of the tier of the skill determining the cost, the knowledge cost is now based on the amount of Tomes you have collected so far. Every new Tome you unlock will have increased knowledge cost of skills compared to the Tome before, regardless of what Tier the Tome or the skill is.
The new Magic Victory Rework focuses on the binding of Golden Ancient Wonders to eventually cast the Age of Affinity Spells. By using Ancient Wonders the Victory Condition becomes more active and makes it different from the Expansion Victory.
We've added a system to limit how many spells can be actually launched each turn, as well as tightened the rules about where units can be summoned.
We’re tackling several elements of the Map Generation that we’ve seen the community provide feedback on. The focus for these improvements will be on the Underground Experience, but we’ve touched up the overall Map Generation as well.
Environment art
Feudal
AI
Research Scaling
The way knowledge costs are determined for skills in Tomes has changed. Instead of the tier of the skill determining the cost, the knowledge cost is now based on the amount of Tomes you have collected so far. Every new Tome you unlock will have increased knowledge cost of skills compared to the Tome before, regardless of what Tier the Tome or the skill is.
- The general knowledge cost of tome skills is increased, especially near the mid and late game Tomes.
- The base knowledge cost of skills for tomes are as follows:
- 1st Tome, general research and cultural research: 250
- 2nd Tome: 400
- 3rd Tome: 600
- 4th Tome: 800
- 5th Tome: 1100
- 6th Tome: 1500
- 7th Tome: 1900
- 8th Tome: 2400
- 9th Tome: 3000
- 10th Tome: 3600
- 11th Tome: 4300
- 12th Tome: 5000
- Every Tome afterwards has an additional +1000 knowledge cost per skill.
- Individual skills in a Tome now have a skill level (Adept, Intermediate or Expert). This adds a modifier on the knowledge cost. Different skills inside of a tome can still differ in cost as they did previously.
The new Magic Victory Rework focuses on the binding of Golden Ancient Wonders to eventually cast the Age of Affinity Spells. By using Ancient Wonders the Victory Condition becomes more active and makes it different from the Expansion Victory.
- Upon selecting your first tier 3 tome, a new global research skill appears "Bind Gold Ancient Wonder"
- It's a sustained strategic spell that must target an annexed golden ancient wonder in your empire.
- While bound, provides research bonus, but more important of all, a number of them are needed to cast the Age of Affinity spell.
- The Age of Affinity spell appears when you first unlock your Tier 5 tome, in the same place as the Binding spell.
- You can channel it while having enough bindings, but if you lose enough bindings during channeling the spell will be canceled.
- You lose a binding when your wonder or the city it's attached to gets occupied or changes ownership.
- Global Spells are a separate Research pick, not part of the three randomly drawn ones and can be started/paused at any time once it becomes available.
- The amount of Golden Ancient Wonders required scales based on the size of the map
We've added a system to limit how many spells can be actually launched each turn, as well as tightened the rules about where units can be summoned.
- Summoning Spells can now only be targeted on cells next to your city and your ruler (previously they could be targeted on any visible hex)
- We’ve added a limit of casting one spell per turn on the world map! This can be extended to 2 by building the Channeling Chamber in your Wizard’s Tower.
We’re tackling several elements of the Map Generation that we’ve seen the community provide feedback on. The focus for these improvements will be on the Underground Experience, but we’ve touched up the overall Map Generation as well.
- Reworked Map Generation
- Renamed Player Distance to Relative Map Size
- Added a new Very Large setting which has increased distance between players and larger total map size.
- Changed the Continents generation to allow for more varied maps, and small islands to form in the water.
- Cities can now annex Provinces on the opposite layer through Underground Passages. This is possible when provinces on both sides of a Underground Passage are annexed.
- Excavating no longer spawns a roaming stack of monsters that follow you. You can now uncover infestations and guarded nodes instead.
- Improved player placement in the underground to better take into account the positions on the surface
- Rebalance
- Removed unit upkeep and unit cost discount from normal difficulty
- Removed unit cost discount from hard and very hard difficulty
- Reduced unit upkeep discount from 33% to 15% on hard difficulty
- Reduced unit upkeep discount from 50% to 30% on very hard difficulty
- Removed stat bonus for units on very hard difficulty
- Changed Unit Production logic. The AI will no longer always produce units but tries to keep up with the strongest human player. They try to have at least X% more army power than the human player
- Easy 5%
- Normal 20%
- Hard 30%
- Very hard 40%
- Changed Defense Logic:
- Cities with walls no longer have always defend flag ( this opens up additional units for the AI to use)
- When under threat the AI will defend accordingly towards the threat
- Throne Cities under Siege will become a forced defense
- Changed how the AI takes Siege Durations into account when attacking and defending
- Changed Disbanding units logic:
- They will no longer disband units on cities and victory condition structures that are under threat
- Never disband units on cities that are under siege
- Improvements to AI summon logic:
- Removed rule that the AI can only summon units when there is a combat nearby. Now the AI will summon units as soon they are primed
- The AI no longer needs to have a standing threat near their leader or cities to start summoning units
- Increased the research priority of units and summons
- Increased the priorities of each summon spell by the tier of units they would summon
- Increased the mission distance range to generate more things for the AI to do at a longer range
- Economic focus changes. The AI should no longer replace gold, mana and resource improvements, providing a stronger economy
- Changed rule regarding clearing Ancient Wonders. The AI will now clear them when they are in annex range to Cities or Outposts
- Changed empire development rule, ruleset now includes taking into account free cities that could be integrated instead of only new cities
- Tactical combat AI will now choose more varied spells
Environment art
- Added drips pfx to the underground stalagmites on WM
- Added pointlights to the underground lava WM
- Added pointlights to the underground water WM
- Texture pass on the underground mushroom forest
- Texture pass on the underground digable walls
- Fixed vertex snap issue with wizard tower city structure
- New siegecraft icon
- New Bind Ancient Wonder PFX
- Modified the XP gain cap so that dragons and rulers soloing battles earn less XP - a solo unit will now only earn 25% of the battle’s total XP (previously it was 50%)
- Added a small wait time in between turns to make turn transitions less jarring.
- Slowed - In addition to slowing movement also disables Retaliation Attacks
- Fortune and Misfortune - Reduced stacking from 5 to 3.
- Evasion effects now correctly only work on Physical Ranged and Magic attacks.
Feudal
- Defender - Heavy Shield also gives +1 resistance.
- Bannerman - Reduce defense by 1. Reduce damage of Banner Smite by 2.
- Knight - Now has Giant Slayer, and does an additional 30% damage to large targets
- Seeker Missiles:
- Renamed to Seeking Arrows
- No longer increases accuracy.
- Awakened now grants +3 Spirit damage instead of +4.
- Dawn Defender - Gained +5 HP
- Daylight Spear - Gained +1 Resistance
- Awakener - Dormant Trait: Seeker Missiles Replaced with Dormant Trait: Blinding Radiance
- Battle Mages now get Dormant: Radiant Light instead of Dormant: Seeking Missiles from the High Enchantment.
- Hero Skill “Coordinated Strike” is now an Expert skill (from Adept) and Marked now has a 60% chance to apply rather than being guaranteed.
- Steelshaper: Grant defense becomes a free action, cooldown to 2
- Industrious Bastion
- Now has defensive masters, so it always enters defense mode at end of its turn
- Inspired Defense is now a free action on a 2 turn cooldown
- Arcanist - Reduce resistance to 1
- Soother now has Star Blades
- The trade value for equipment is back to the original item value and extra limits have been added to make sure the AI will not ask for/offer resources in return that deviate too far from the original value.
- The costs for starting a declaration (of friendship or rivalry) are now fixed at 100 gold instead of scaling over time.
- The costs for boosting the allegiance of a free city during negotiations are now shown on the button directly.
- Declaration of Rivalry now has a new effect where it generates “Rival Justification” over time, this allows the player to ignore part of the opposing ruler’s grievance points when they declare war on that ruler.
- Made some text adjustments to better explain how the impact of war justification works on imperium when involved in multiple wars.
- Changed Moderate Justified war Imperium gain from +10% Imperium to +10 Imperium.
- Changed Extremely Justified war Imperium gain from +20% Imperium to +20 Imperium.
- Removed the Imperium gained when releasing a city as a vassal.
- Added an Imperium cost for releasing cities as your own vassals. This cost increases as you release more cities.
- 1st city: Free
- 2nd city: 75 Imperium
- 3rd city: 150 Imperium
- 4th city: 225 Imperium
- 5th city and up: 300 Imperium
- Sustained City Spells that grant economic bonuses no longer work on Vassals.
- Advanced Scrying, Forced March and Siege Project Slot are unlocked earlier.
- Advanced Scrying now also increases vision range by 2.
- Skilled Raiders now gives 20% as the description implies instead of 25%
- Philosopher soldiers now explains the amounts gained for each rank in its description.
- New Empire Skill Added: Advanced Logistics. It has the following effects:
- Move Point cost of roads outside of the enemy domain is reduced to 3 instead of 5.
- Units gain Fast Embark and when embarked, they have Very fast Movement speed.
- Gave Shira Snowblood the White Wolf trait properly
- Elaborated what the Form Adaptations do mechanically. The different Walk properties also state what the movement costs are before and after the property.
- Fixed various minor issues with traits not displaying correct values and text
- Quick Reflexes: Reduced evasion from 30% to 25%
- Defensive Tactics now gives 10% evasion on top of +1 defense and resistance
- Water Adaptation has been renamed to Swamp adaptation.
- Swamp Adaptation now also gives River Walk.
- Underground Adaptation now grants +1 annex range on cities in the underground of this race.
- Society Trait: Chosen Destroyers: Now has access to city structures that can increase Hero Cap. One can be built every City Tier of the Throne City.
- Wizard King: Overchannel starts on a 1 turn cooldown.
- Wizard King: Now only gains +5 casting points every other level instead of every level
- The upkeep cost for each hero over the hero cap has been changed from flat 30 gold to 15% of the player’s gross gold income.
- Implemented a limbo system for hero items. When you unequip them it takes x turns to:
- Become available for other heroes to equip
- Can not be traded with other players
- Can not be sold
- Does not count towards arsenal effects (like hoard mechanics)
- Hero Background traits
- Affinity Adept hero background traits now grant +1 empire affinity instead of 3,
- Distracting now has 60% chance to inflict distracted rather than 90%
- Precision Training no longer gives Critical Chance.
- Lightning Evoker - Increased damage from 10 to 14.
- Endurance Training - Reduce HP from 15 to 10.
- Weaver - No longer works on Summon abilities and Overchannel from the WK.
- Channel Power - Is now a free action that gives a 50% damage boost to magic attacks for the current turn only.
- Summon Elemental - Now works in water maps
- Comet Breath:
- Is now a full action
- Had its range increased to 5 from 4
- Rebalanced Dragon Auras
- Order Aura, Materium Aura and Astral Aura no longer gives bonuses to the Dragon Lord itself
- Chaos Aura redesigned:
- Now gives Burning to adjacent enemies
- Now has a 90%chance to proc a random negative status effect on random enemies
- Now gives a random buff to adjacent allies
- Shadow Aura redesigned
- Now gives Slowed and Weakened to adjacent enemies
- Now has a 60% chance to freeze adjacent enemies
- Nature Aura
- Now no longer gives Regeneration to the Dragon Lord itself
- Now gives Decaying to adjacent enemies
- Added notes to status effects to explain which status effects counter other status effects
- Added a notification when finishing excavating a province.
- When a unit gains a benefit from Pack Hunter, Animal Kinship, Defensive Tactics or Overwhelm Tactics, this is now displayed
- Removed inspect option in reward screen for units
- Removed the casting cost in strategic transformation screen
- Locked the camera zoom layer when annexing provinces
- Enabled the Launch Now button for tactical spells that have no specific target
- Moved the ‘Center View on Selected Object’ to the correct keybinding category
- Custom Realms with DLC traits will now gray out if the DLC is not owned or not enabled.
- Allied victory checkbox now grays out when teams are enabled.
- Now remembers the position of the scrollbar after inspecting a unit in the unit production list in the city interface.
- The about pages are now the same size, so buttons to click next align with each other.
- Multiple out of sync issues fixed
- Stability fixes mostly related to Tactical Combat
- Added a “Blocked Underground” misc Realm trait.
- Megacities Trait: Now gives all players access to city structures that can increase Hero Cap. One can be built every City Tier of the Throne City. (Does not stack with Chosen Destroyers)
- Ashen war Realm trait now no longer gives its quest and event in team games.
- Updated Magic Victory tutorial
- Combat tutorials are now properly hyperlinked
- Tomes always give +5 Casting Points, regardless of their tier. Previously T3 and T4 Tomes gave +10 and T5 tomes gave +15.
- Scrying:
- Summon Watcher - Increased Mana cost from 100 to 150 Mana
- Amplification:
- Amplification Pylon:
- Now grants +50% damage increase for tactical summons
- Has Static Charge, dealing 6 lightning damage to melee attackers with a 30% chance to Stun them.
- Amplification Pylon no longer has Blight Immunity
- Amplification Pylon:
- Summoning
- Conjure Astral Keeper - Now works in water maps
- Horde
- Spawnkin - Now gives 10% evasion to heroes instead of extra damage (non-heroes still get 20% damage)
- Blaze of the Horde - Now does 20 damage to a single target, with an extra 4 damage for each adjacent friendly unit
- Fury of the Horde - Now costs 20 mana and 20 casting points
- Battle Seeker Training - Now gives 1 defense, 1 resistance, 1 status resist and 5hp to tier 1 units (instead of 20% damage)
- Artificer:
- Artisan Blades: No longer applies to Ranged Units.
- Winds
- Zephyr Archer:
- Zephyr Shot damage reduced from 34 to 30.
- No longer has Slippery
- Zephyr Archer:
- Golden Realm
- Added +10 Gold income on the Reagent Refinery.
- Beasts
- Summon Wild Animal now has a chance to spawn a wyvern hatchling or a slither hatchling when used over temperate terrain (requires the Dragon Lord DLC)
- Glades
- Glade Runner - Tacker's Mark now only applies 2 Marked
- Vigor
- Summon Greater Animal now has a chance to summon a Slither or an adult Wyvern, depending on the location summoned to (Dragon Lord DLC is required, except for the Fire and Frost Wyverns)
- Zeal:
- Legion of Zeal now affects Ranged Units
- Faith
- Removed the +5 Imperium income on the Covenant of the Faith spell.
- Added +10 Gold income on the Covenant of the Faith spell.
- Inquisition:
- Inquisitor’s Zeal:
- Renamed to Inquisitor's Mark
- No longer grants Zeal and Accuracy
- Grants:
- Base 30% for base attacks to apply Condemned.
- Base 30% for base attacks to apply Weakened
- Base 30% for base attacks to apply Slowed
- Upkeep cost increased.
- Inquisitor’s Zeal:
- Sanctuary
- Increased mana income of the Sanctuary Special Province Improvement from +10 to +15.
- Sanctuary no longer functions as a spelljammer.
- Exaltation
- Reduced Imperium income on the Statue of the Leader from +5 to +3.
- Reaper
- The Reapers Finger of Death now summons a decaying zombie, not a normal zombie
- The Harvest Population spell from the Tome of the Reaper now is a sustained city spell, while active, the city’s food income is blocked (including from converting draft to food), it loses -20 stability, but gains +10 souls income.
- Youthful Regeneration - Now grants Resurgence to Evolve units.
- Rapid Evolution Enchantment - Grants Tier 1 and 2 Units Slip Away rather than Resurgence
- Draconic Vitality - Now caps at level 5 when giving a bonus to heroes.
- Ranged Units:
- Reduced the optimal range for ranged attacks of Skirmisher, Ranged and Battle Mage units. This means that they now start getting long range penalties when 3 hexes away rather than at 4 hexes away from the target.
- Ranged unit Legendary Rank no longer grants accuracy
- Decaying Zombies will no longer apple morale penalties to their allies when they’re killed
- Went through the various spells and abilities that summon zombies. All those that summon a zombie from a corpse now give the zombie 3AP when it appears. Those that spawn a zombie when a target is killed by an ability are unchanged.
- Cavalry and Giant Slayer now appear on the ability tooltips.
- Dragons now display a High Maintenance tag in their stat sheet that explains they cost more upkeep than normal (they always had the upkeep modifier, but it was invisible before)
- Plague and Stormscale Serpent’s Elusive ability renamed to Fleeting to not clash with the Elusive racial mind trait
- Wyverns and Birds move faster.
- Dread Spider Matriarch
- Now has 8 blight resistance instead of blight immunity
- Dire Penguin
- Now correctly has faster movement in Swamps due to Amphibious ability
- Bone Wyvern
- Now has a 30% chance to apply poisoned with its attacks
- Now has 40 move points
- Fire Wyvern
- Now has a 60% chance to apply burning with its attacks
- Now does 9 physical, 6 fire damage with attacks
- Now has 40 move points
- Young Fire Dragon
- Now has a 60% chance to apply burning with its attacks
- Now does 12 physical, 5 fire damage with attacks
- Now has fire resistance and frost weakness
- Frost Wyvern
- Is now a Skirmisher
- Now has the Freezing Burst ability
- Now has a 60% chance to apply slow with its attacks
- Now has 40 move points
- Young Frost Dragon
- Now has a 60% chance to apply slow with its attacks
- Now does 12 physical, 5 frost damage with attacks
- Now has frost resistance and fire weakness
- Frost Dragon
- Now applies slow with its attacks
- Obsidian Wyvern
- Now does 9 physical, 6 lightning damage
- Now has 40 move points
- Young Obsidian Dragon
- Now has a 60% chance to apply electrified with its attacks
- Now does 12 physical, 5 electricity damage with attacks
- Now has lighting resistance and spirit weakness
- Gold Wyvern
- Now has a 30% chance to apply distracted with its attacks
- Now has 40 move points
- Young Gold Dragon
- Now has a 30% chance to apply distracted with its attacks
- Now does 12 physical, 5 spirit damage with attacks
- Now has spirit resistance and blight weakness
- Gold Dragon
- Now has a 60% chance to apply distracted with its attacks
- Tide Spirits and Lesser Tide Spirits are now permanently wet, and have had their damage resistances adjusted to compensate for being Wet, so they are no longer weaker compared to other spirits.
- Kraken Spawn now does 12 damage
- Increased time of the Living Vines summoned by the Horned God from 1 to 2 so they don’t immediately die at the end of the turn.
- Moving through a vassal city’s domain will now provide the friendly domain movement cost modifier.
- Starvation now destroys the province improvement
- Wizard Tower no longer functions as a spelljammer.
- Increased Imperial Essence Imperium income from +10 to +15.
- Removed the +5 Imperium income from the Lucky Clover.
- Added +10 Food income on the Lucky Clover.
- Fixed issue where the AI would wait in certain moment for reinforcements while they have enough units to attack
- Fixed AI city target values
- Fixed AI victory condition target values
- Fixed issue where the AI would move to the ancient wonders understrength
- Fixed small issue where the AI would would target unprotected nodes in a hostile domain
- Fixed issue where becoming another ruler’s vassal would cause your vassal cities to declare war on you.
- Fixed issue where the Show Ruler button in Diplomacy for declarations would show a non-functional hyperlink on the button itself.
- Fixed a crash that would happen on assigning a whispering stone to a Free City if the allegiance per turn would then become 0.
- Industry Compound no longer also buffs the Draft to Food conversion ratio.
- Added conditions to several rites to prevent these from being activated while you don’t own a city.
- Wild Expansion now only triggers on province annexation through building an improvement.
- Spoils of Destruction and Destined Conquerors now both only trigger on razing conquered cities, not your own
- Crimson Caldera
- Fixed recruited rulers in story realm 3 still being governor of their throne city after being defeated.
- Fixed recruited rulers in story realm 3 still auto picking skills after being recruited
- Fixed multiple issues that would occur if you recruited a dead ruler in act 3.
- Eternal Court:
- Fixed issue where declaring war to Melenis or Meandor through an event would lead to the war being unjustified and unfairly penalizing the player
- When viewing a Race Council event, the characters of your race now have the appropriate transformations applied.
- When you choose a peaceful resolution for an army-engage event, the army now doesn’t play their death animations anymore, but they simply fade out.
- Fixed an issue that the “Mark of the Otter” destiny trait gave 1 Chaos Affinity instead of 1 Nature Affinity.
- Fixed issue where the pantheon bar would overlap the faction creation
- Fixed crash when deleting an empty save slot with controller
- Fixed issue where the pantheon fold out menu could not be opened with controller
- Fixed crash when trying to unequip an item with a controller in the hero screen while not having a slot selected
- Fixed issue where the ‘Toggle Hex Grid’ and ‘Toggle Army Banners’ keybindings would not work after exiting combat.
- Fixed issue when having a fullscreen interface open while winning the game at the same time, graphical issues would occur.
- Fixed issue where the turn count would be displayed in the encyclopedia entries of structures.
- Fixed issue where sometimes selecting multiple hero skills to level up would accidentally pick the wrong skill.
- Fixed issue where the mouse would be unresponsive in the tome selection of the faction creator.
- Fixed wizard kings having their race transformations marked as conflicting where it was the same transformation as is being cast.
- Fixed a bug where duplicates of already equipped items would not show in the equipment list.
- Fixed rulers in the pantheon overview not showing the right amount of affinities
- Fixed a crash when button mashing in the sector selection screen for special province improvements
- There is now a distinction between “Domains” and “Infestations” in the Legend on the Overview Map. Originally, “Domains” also filtered out the domain area of an Infestation. This has been moved to the actual “Infestation” checkbox.
- Fixed Artifact Hoarders income breakdown correctly display what item tier the income is coming from.
- Fixed an issue where some combat UIs would not properly refresh when a “Unit gets a buff/debuff when adjacent to another unit” effect was applied
- Fixed empty entry of magic materials in the casting point breakdown
- Fixed the spell list tab header upkeep cost to the correct upkeep cost, considering discounts etc.
- Removed experience required for next rank in the unit rank tooltip when unit is max rank.
- Dismantle Ruins operation now correctly displays why it cannot be activated if conditions aren't met.
- Lord of War now correctly mentions its buffs world map regeneration instead of healing after combat.
- Fixed Reaper upkeep cost in the spell list tooltip
- Removed the duplicate hero level in the hero level tooltip
- Fixed issue where tome skill slots selection would reset when reshuffling the research.
- Multiple language quality and grammar fixes for Polish & Russian languages.
- Fixed a flow where hero last names would not resolve in a proper way and kept showing grammar syntax
- Veil of Shadows now has proper description
- Fixed the Reagent Refinery having the wrong tooltip.
- Eyebrow customization slider header in leader customization is now properly localized
- Fixed missing description on the Warding Bond Tooltip.
- Lightning Torrent and Blizzard now correctly say they deal 10 damage (was displaying 20)
- Arcane Bond no longer ignores a target’s Status Resistance
- Consecrate Domain now displays the name of the Morale Modifier correctly when in battle.
- Primal Mark now gives the correct version of Primal Strike
- Fixed Burden of Guilt from stacking the movepoint loss, making armies unable to move by the second casting.
- Fixed an issue that Stand Together didn’t work with feudal heroes and racial leaders
- Eagle Rider now correctly gets their ranks from effects that grant bonus ranks to Shield Units.
- When embarking; transitions from land to water (and vice-versa) on the Strategic map should now animate a lot smoother.
- Outpost Watchtower is now removed upon converting the outpost to a city. As you cannot have a watchtower in your city except for the Wizard Tower.
- Improved performance on the start of a new round
- Fixed issue where an enemy can take over your siege weapons if they attack within one round of you capturing the city.
- Fixed endlessly looping dust effect after migrating a city.
- Fixed a crash when a riot is started on a building that is being replaced.
- Improved the animation blending during movement animations and in ability transitions. The blending should be a lot smoother, whereas it was very jittery initially.
- Reduced the amount of animation “sliding” when units stop running
- Combat Summons are now correctly free when used in owned domain with the Summoning Well Special Province Improvement.
- Fixed an issue that prevented multi stack battles on all cave entrances. Now multi stack battles are only prevented when you attack THROUGH the cave entrance
- Fixed rare crash in saves if a city was razed after the player lost their throne city.
- When multiple items are queued for dismantling they will no longer complete in a single turn.
- Fixed edge cases where rioting and starvation could disconnect ancient wonders from the city.
- 26
- 10
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