Open Beta Update 13/7/2023

Hello All!

It’s been a week since we released our open beta and there has been an awful lot of feedback for us to go through. Thank you all for the effort you’ve put into trying out and commenting on the things we’ve worked on. Even if it was negative, or we didn’t agree with all of it, it was all very important for us to understand what people want from the game and where we should focus our efforts.

Firstly, the most important news:

We are beginning to finalize development of this update

We need a lot of time to fully test, translate and prepare this patch ready for full release. This means from now on we will not be able to make any more big changes to it.

We will not be stopping completely! We can still:

• Tweak numbers like damage values and costs of spells, abilities and bonuses
• Fix crashes and bugs
• Improve the AI

We will need to completely stop in around 2 weeks, but until then please keep sending feedback! Even if we cannot implement your suggestions now, we can still take them on board for future updates. Remember we have a subforum on steam for open beta feedback.

You can read the full list of Watcher Update Patch Notes here.

Onto the update itself, a number of the features that we released were unpopular, so we’ve made some changes:

Spell Casting Limit
It is very clear that the large majority of you disliked this, so we’ve removed it from the game. We still however need a way to slow down the player’s ability to cast a lot of spells in a short amount of time, so we have done the following:

• We have implemented a system of Spell Slots which determine how many spells you can prepare and store without actually casting. This means that players with a lot of casting points will still be able to cast a lot of spells, but those without will no longer be able to prepare a large number of spells over time and then release them all at once.
• We have done a pass on player casting point income and the cost of spells. The main goal here was to make higher levels a bit cheaper, and lower level spells a bit more expensive. This reduces an issue where a spell that has a reasonable cost early in the game, can be endlessly spammed later on.
• We have upped the power of a number of world map attack spells. Many people complained they felt weak and were not effective, and we agree!

Hero Cap
While people generally feel that the cost for breaking the hero cap was too low, many people felt the percentage of income approach was overkill. We’ve removed that, and gone to a system with flat values instead:

• The first hero over the cap will cost 30 gold and 5 imperium (the same as before the patch, plus 5 imperium)
• The second will cost 60 gold and 10 imperium (for a total of 90 gold and 15 imperium, when added to the first hero’s cost)
• The third will cost 90 gold and 15 imperium
• Etc.

This means the first hero will be pretty much as before, but the cost will slowly rise if the player goes too far.

Summoning Rules
In general a lot of people liked the direction of this change, but felt the rules were a bit too restrictive. To address this we’ve made it so you can now also summon units next to any army with a hero.

Research Pacing
Responses to this were mixed, with many liking the direction but not the details of the implementation. We’ve decided to not change the basic idea behind how the research cost scaling works, but we’ve changed 2 things:

• We’ve changed the requirements for unlocking research tiers to simply be a number of tomes unlocked. So, to unlock tier 3 tomes, you just need to have 4 other tomes unlocked, instead of 2 tier 2 tomes like before. This means you will have more freedom to grab lower level tomes without always slowing down access to high level ones.
• We’ve added small affinity requirements to tier 3 tomes, so that you need to have some investment in those tomes’ affinity before you can choose them (dual affinity tomes are excluded from this). This was added to address complaints that it was too easy to just cherry pick the best tier 3 tomes even if they didn’t match the rest of your build

Ranged Accuracy
Once again mixed responses to this, with some people finding the change annoying to play with, while others welcomed the end to dominance of ranged units. We’ve decided to:

• Roll back the changes to attack range which meant that long range penalties kicked in sooner, so your archers and battle mages are generally more accurate again.
• We’re keeping the various tweaks that make it harder to get bonus accuracy from enchantments and buffs
• We’re modifying some of the ranged attack enchantments so they’re less focused on damage and more focused on applying debuffs. We’ve also changed some of the melee attack enchantments so they do extra damage to units with these debuffs. The goal here to keep ranged units useful but also make them synergize better with melee units instead of obsolete them

There are plenty of other changes, please see the full patch notes at the end of this post!

Finally a note on Diplomacy and Strategic AI

We’ve been working hard to make improvements here, and while we realize we still have a long way to go, we hope that some of you have been seeing marginal improvements in the AI’s ability to perform. This latest update tries to make the AI less friendly in general (especially in the early game) so that you get into more wars with the AI, as well as numerous other fixes.

We do have a request though, we are aware that there is an on-going issue with the AI launching attacks on the world map, but then running away instead of actually getting into combat. However, we’re trying to collect more information about how and when this actually happens:

If you have a save game where, when you press end turn, the AI runs away when you feel it should attack, please can you email it to us at [email protected].

Once again, thanks for all your feedback, we couldn’t have made this update without you all!

Open Beta Update - Version 1.004.000.81302

General

• Champion leaders now gain +20 draft on their throne city, providing a faster way for them to rally troops in the early game.
• Wizard Tower now has affinity specific city upgrades at tier 2 and 3 that buff spells of the associated affinity.
• Traits from race council events now give +2 of their respective racial affinity points (was +1).
• Ingredient Experimentation knowledge bonus decreased from +15 to +10.

AI

• Added code support for the AI to understand the Magic Victory changes
• Added support for the AI to save up imperium to buy the city cap empire tree skill
• AI update for making declarations:
  • The amount of declarations that will be made on a player by the AI is now more balanced.
  • The AI should no longer abundantly declare friendships on a player, unless that player declares a friendship on them.
  • Isolationists no longer declare friendships unless it is declared on them.
  • An issue was fixed where the influence of ranking on declarations was inverted.

• AI Update for the Threat system:
  • The threat system has been expanded to look at several new factors and has been tweaked to achieve more competition with nearby rulers and rulers that are competing in overall ranking.
  • Generally AI rulers should initially act more threatened and hostile.

• AI rulers will now mention the Magic Victory when they declare war on the player.
  
• Fixed issue where the AI would not use siege projects
  
• Fixed issue where the AI would see less priority to build a wall for a city that has no walls while at war.
  

Heroes

• The first hero over the cap costs 30 gold and 5 imperium. Each additional hero over the cap costs 30 gold and 5 imperium more per turn than the previous one.
• The cap that prevented solo units farming piles of XP was broken. It has now been fixed and should work correctly
• Reworked the needed amounts of experience for heroes to level up. They now get their first level slightly faster and after that it should feel about the same until level 6. After that it starts getting slower.
• Weaver Hero Skill: Can refresh all abilities. Is now a single action. Places hero on defense mode.

Interface

• In the army panel, you can now see predictions of HP your units (as well as allies and enemies) will regenerate in the next turn. This is a yellow section in the health bar on each unit slot.
• Improved the annexation on controller. LB/RB for cycling between provinces.

Research

• Changed Tome Tier unlocking. Instead of needing 2 tomes of the previous tier, you just need a certain number of tomes of any tier. This means that players can choose more lower level tomes without slowing down their progress towards higher level tomes.
  • Tier II - 2 Tomes of any Tier
  • Tier III - 4 Tomes of any Tier
  • Tier IV - 6 Tomes of any Tier
  • Tier V - 8 Tomes of any Tier

• Tier 3 tomes now require 3 affinity points to be unlocked.
  

Spells

• Spell casting limit has been removed
• Added a Spell Slot system that limits the number of spells that the player can prepare without actually casting them. This prevents the player from banking up a lot of spells, only to cast them all at once.
• Summon spells can now also target cells adjacent to heroes
• Starting Casting Points increased from 30 to 45.
• Changed Casting Point cost of Combat spells to make it easier to cast higher tier spells and have casting points left for other spells and to make it so casting many low tier spells less free. Mana costs have stayed the same.
  • Tier 0: Increased from 5 to 10
  • Tier 1: Increased from 10 to 15
  • Tier 2: Increased from 15 to 20
  • Tier 3: Increased from 20 to 25
  • Tier 4: Stays at 30
  • Tier 5: Decreased from 40 to 35
  • Tier 6: Decreased from 50 to 40
  • Tier 7: Decreased from 60 to 50
  • Tier 8: Decreased from 80 to 65
  • Tier 9: Decreased from 100 to 80

• Several World Map spells have been made more consistent. They have their damage or other effectiveness increased while being slightly harder to cast repeatedly. Making for fewer but more impactful actions.
  

Tomes

Astral

• Evocation:
  • Lightning Blades: Removed the chance to electrify. Now deals +20% against Electrified units.
  • Lightning Weapons Hero Skill: Now applies Electrified at 30% chance.
  • Lightning Torrent: Damage increased to 20 from 10. Now applies -3 Lightning Weakness instead of 2. Cost increased from 40 mana and casting points to 80 each.

Chaos

• Pyromancy
  • Fiery Arrows: Damage Reduced to +2 Fire and decreased the Physical damage penalty to -1.
  • Fiery Weapons Hero Skill: Now applies Burning at 30% chance instead of dealing +20% damage against Burning targets

• Demon Gate
  • Abyssal Flames damage increased to 20 from 10.
  • Abyssal Flames cost increased to 150 mana/CP from 120.

Materium

• Rock:
  • Gargoyle:
    • Reduced Spirit Weakness from -6 from -3;
    • Reduced Fire Resistance from 4 to 2
    • Reduced Blight Resistance from 6 to 3
    • Can now retaliate when in Defense Mode

  • Lesser Stone Elemental:
    • Is now a Shield Unit;
    • Reduced main attack's damage by 2;
    • Reduced Spirit Weakness from -6 from -3;
    • Reduced Fire Resistance from 4 to 2
    • Reduced Blight Resistance from 6 to 3
    • Unit has +5 Max HP
    • Like the Stone Spirit it now has Earthen Fury on its main attack (+20% dmg vs Slowed or Immobilized units)

  
  
• Terramancy
  • Earth Shatter damage increased to 20 from 10.
  • Earth Shatter cost increased to 100 mana/CP from 80.
  • Stone Elemental:
    • Is now a Shield Unit;
    • Reduced main attack's damage by 2;
    • Reduced Spirit Weakness from -6 from -3;
    • Reduced Fire Resistance from 4 to 2
    • Reduced Blight Resistance from 6 to 3
    • Immobilizing Phase now deals 8 damage (was 6)
    • Quake is now on a 1 turn cooldown rather than once per battle;
    • Quake and Immobilizing Phase chance to Immobilize increased to 50% from 30%;
    • Unit has +10 Max HP

  
  
• Crucible
  • Meteor Arrows extra damage reduced from 5 to 4.
  • Pyroclastic Eruption damage increased to 20 from 15.
  • Pyroclastic Eruption cost decreased to 100 mana/CP from 150.

Nature

• Beasts
  • Wildlife Sanctuary:
    • Removing the Hunter Spider
    • Added Vampire and Dread Spider Hatchlings to replace it

  
  
• Roots:
  • Poison Blades: Renamed to Blight Blades. No longer applies Poisoned.
    • Now deals +20 damage against Poisoned units.
    • Now also applies the +20% damage on units with Decaying.

  • Poison Arrows: Damage Reduced to +2 Blight and decreased the Physical damage penalty to -1.
    
  • Entwined Thrall:
    • Now evolves into a Entwined Protector
    • Its main attack applies poison at a 60% chance
    • Its Poison Needle attack applies poison at a 90% chance (from 60%)

  
  
• Glades
  • Create Forest cost reduced to 30 mana/CP from 45.
  • Glade Runner:
    • Tracker’s Mark: Applies 2 Marked and 1 Sundered Defense; It used to be 2 Marked, 2 Sundered Defense and 2 Sundered Resistance.

  
  
• Fertility
  • Restore the Land cost reduced to 30 mana/CP from 45.

• Cycles
  • Projectiles of Decay: Reduce the chance of applying Decaying from 90% to 60%

• Nature’s Wrath
  • Destructive Regrowth damage increased to 20 from 10.
  • Destructive Regrowth cost decreased to 100 mana/CP from 120.

Order

• Faith
  • Army Heal now heals 25 Hit Points instead of 20.
  • Army Heal cost increased to 80 mana/CP from 60.

• Inquisition
  • Burden of Guilt damage increased to 20 from 10.
  • Burden of Guilt cost increased to 80 mana/CP from 60.

• Sanctuary:
  • Sanctuary Province Improvement now increases pillage time by 2 turns and decreases pillaging yields by -30% instead of blocking pillaging entirely.

• Supremacy
  • Condemn Army Condemned status effect increased from 5 from 3 strategic turns.
  • Condemn Army cost decreased to 80 mana/CP from 120.

• Exaltation
  • Shrine of Smiting: Divine Vengeance no longer ignores Faithful units and only hits enemies.

Shadow

• Cryomancy:
  • Frost Arrows: Damage Reduced to +2 Fire and decreased the Physical damage penalty to -1. Now applies Slowed at a 30% chance.
  • Frost Weapons Hero Skill: Now applies slowed at 30% chance instead of dealing +20% damage against Slowed or Frozen targets
  • Blizzard: Damage increased to 20 from 10. Now applies -3 Status Vulnerability instead of 2. Cost increased from 40 mana and casting points to 80 each.

• Doomherald
  • Prelude of Doom now inflicts 3 Demoralized instead of 2.
  • Prelude of Doom cost increased to 80 mana/CP from 60.

• Cold Dark
  • Flash Freeze damage increased to 20 from 10.
  • Flash Freeze cost increased to 100 mana/CP from 80.

• Oblivion
  • Fog of Insanity chance to inflict Insanity increased to 20% from 10%.

Units

• Reverted the Optimal Range nerf to Ranged, Skirmisher and Mage units.

World Map

• Exploring an Underground Passage gives you vision on both sides
• Magic ingredients are now split between the surface and underground, where Ores are only able to spawn in the underground.

Ancient Wonders

• Ancient Wonders can now be transferred between different cities of the same empire
• Capturing Ancient Wonders now takes 3 turns
• More consistent amount and distribution of Ancient Wonders both in the surface and in the underground, which also means more consistent and less extreme numbers of Ancient Wonders required for magic victory

Magic Materials

• Astral Dew - Lowered World Map Casting Points from +20 to +15.
• Archon Blood - Lowered Combat Casting Points from +20 to +15.
• Cosmoflux Elixir Collection bonus - Lowered Knowledge and Mana Bonus per Mana Node from +10 to +5.

Fixes

Diplomacy

• Fixed issue where the AI could send an insult or compliment to the player on the same turn they met.
• Fixed issue where the AI would not end their declarations of Rivalry and Friendship when the relation had changed.

Interface

• Fixed issue where the quest failed notification would be empty (only applies to quests that fail with the new fix in place).
• Fixed issue where the buttons of the Free City interface would not refresh when opening another interface (e.g. Empire Development) and then closing that back to the Free City interface.
• Fixed the informational text strings at the bottom of ability tooltips to have line endings when needed.
• Souls Tome: Soul Overflow buff now correctly displays that the unit has +20hp

Research

• Fixed an issue where the game was presenting players with the wrong skills when a game started

Story Realms

• Eternal Court - Fixed issue where Sundren would sometimes respawn on a different side than the player’s after being defeated in combat

Units

• Fixed bug where Frost Wyvern didn’t had Slow on main attack
• Fixed bug where Obsidian Young Dragon didn’t had Electrify on main attack

World Map

• Fixed crash when a pillaged province starves.
• Fixed issue where you could not teleport to a Vassal City’s Teleporter, Chrono Gate or Demon Gate province.
• Fixed issue where having vision on any location inside the domain of a free city would not trigger meeting them, only having vision on a structure or army would trigger a meet.
• Fixed crash that could occur on vassalizing a (conquered) city due to properties not being assigned to the correct side.
• Fixed an issue that meant capturing heroes after battle would malfunction in various ways when playing in the default “Winners get dead heroes after battle” mode.

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