The Watcher Update is Here!

Hey Rulers,

After a long (and hopefully worthwhile) wait, we are finally ready to present to you the Watcher Update!

With this patch, we are introducing numerous quality of life changes based on community feedback. Some of the main features include:

• A reworked Magic Victory system
• New and improved Underground
• Crossplay between platforms
• Research scaling with unlocking Tomes
• Various balance changes and bug fixes
• and more!

Some AI changes were also implemented during this update. While we don’t consider them final as there is always room for improvement, we hope that you will already experience some improvements today! Please continue to send in bug reports and save files, they are extremely valuable for our research.

Once again, we’d like to extend a huge thanks to all the players who made comments, suggestions, and the occasional multi-page analysis posts throughout these few months as well as during the Open Beta process — they made a difference!

After Watcher, our next major patch will be the Golem Update in Q4. Like the previous Wyvern Patch and Dragon Dawn combo, this will be a free update released closer to the long-awaited Empires & Ashes Expansion, where steel will meet the magical world of Age of Wonders!

Now we will leave you to conquer your realms. Please keep letting us know what you think of the game and what you want to see come next, your comments are always welcome!

Regards,
Triumph

Game Version: 1.004.000.82125

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 an 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 Culture 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.
  
• 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.

Magic Victory Rework

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
  

Summon & Casting Changes

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.

• 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.
• Summoning Spells can now only be targeted on hexes next to your City, your Ruler or your Heroes. Previously they could be targeted on any visible hex.
• 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.
  

Map Improvements

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
  • Replaced the Far setting with a new Very Large setting, which has a greatly increased distance between players.
  • Added a new Large setting which has a map size in between that of Medium and Very Large and gives players room to expand before meeting another player.
  • Added Tooltips to better explain the provided experience on each Map Size
  • Changed the Continents generation to allow for more varied maps, and small islands to form in the water.

• Underground Improvements
  • Improved player placement in the underground to better take into account the positions on the surface
  • 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.
  • Exploring an Underground Passage gives you vision on both sides
  • Added a world map visual for when an underground passage is in an owned territory.
  • Magic ingredients are now split between the surface and underground, where Ores are only able to spawn in the underground.
  • Excavatable provinces in the Underground now have a special FX to show that a structure or node is hidden underneath.
  • Excavating no longer spawns a roaming stack of monsters that follow you. You can now uncover infestations and guarded nodes instead.

Starting with the Watcher update, Cross Play is fully enabled between all different supported platforms. This means console and PC players can play multiplayer games together as long as their Cross Play setting is enabled. Thanks for your patience!

• Enabled Cross Play functionality between Steam, GoG, Epic, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Microsoft Store.
• Added Cross Play setting to the Online settings tab
  • The Cross Play setting is enabled by default when playing on a PC platform (excl. Microsoft Store)
  • Console and Microsoft Store players will receive a pop up asking them to set their Cross Play setting when going into Online Multiplayer (if not set previously)
  • Disabling this setting means Cross Play sessions do not show up; this includes previous sessions
  • Cross Play is disabled when playing with mods
  • Achievements/Trophies cannot be obtained in Cross Play enabled sessions

• Improved Memory Efficiency in the Animation Systems
• Improved optimizations for Tactical Banners and images that frequently update their Opacity
• Increased the Racial Affinity Points given by Traits from Race Council Events from +1 to +2.
• Renamed Publish to Build in the PackageManager, as it’s more fitting for the process that happens when you press this button.

AI World Map Behaviour Updates

• Mission Generation & Evaluation
  • Updated the AI aggression when calculating the army powers required to fight
  • Updated the AI mission army calculation when targeting independents
  • Added survivability and damage modifiers based on the world threat settings
  • Increased the mission distance range to generate more things for the AI to do at a longer range

• Updated Defense Logic
  • Cities with Walls no longer have the “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

• Updated AI Summon Logic
  • Removed a limit that restricts summons to 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 the Units they would Summon

• Expansion Updates
  • Added simple support to stop Friendly or Allied AI’s from expanding towards the players domain
  • 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
  • Implemented new free city expansion rules, when fully independent they will expand in a circular pattern, when they are a vassal they will default to pick the highest value again

• 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.
  • The impact of the “Need a Friend” and “Need an Ally” modifiers is reduced for Warlord and Isolationist Personalities.
  • The “Need an Ally” modifier now only applies if either side of the relation has a War, to make sure the AI doesn’t radically shift opinion (to positive).
  • The system now takes Defensive Pacts into account more and no longer waits for a Full Alliance before applying certain factors.
  • Some AI players will now have a predisposition in their threat level towards higher / lower threat
  • Generally AI rulers should initially act more threatened and hostile.

• 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.

• Added a 2 Turn cooldown to the AI for manually sending a Call to War after the Diplomatic State with the player they call into a war has changed.
  

AI Economy Updates

• Normal Difficulty
  • Increased Mana Income Modifier from 1 to 1.2
  • Increased Knowledge Income Modifier from 1 to 1.1
  • Removed Unit Upkeep and Unit Cost Discounts

• Hard Difficulty
  • Increased Gold Income Modifier from 1.2 to 1.3
  • Increased Mana Income Modifier from 1.2 to 1.3
  • Increased Knowledge Income Modifier from 1 to 1.2
  • Reduced Unit Upkeep Discount from 33% to 15%
  • Removed Unit Cost Discount

• Brutal Difficulty
  • Increased Gold Income Modifier from 1.3 to 1.4
  • Increased Mana Income Modifier from 1.3 to 1.4
  • Increased Knowledge Income Modifier from 1 to 1.3
  • Reduced Unit Upkeep Discount from 50% to 30%
  • Removed Unit Cost Discount
  • Removed Unit Stat Bonus

• Updated 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 50%
  • Hard 75%
  • Very hard 100%

• Changed Disbanding Units Logic.
  • No longer disband units on Cities and Victory Condition Structures that are under threat
  • Never disband units on cities that are under siege

• Block the AI from replacing Gold, Mana and Special Province Improvements, providing a stronger economy
  
• Added support for the AI to save up imperium in the late game to buy the city cap empire tree skill
  
• Changed AI Research values to have a focus on Units, Transformations and Unit Enchantments.
  
• Changed AI Evaluation for the Magic Victory Condition research
  

The full patch notes continue here

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