Patch Notes
Areteion v1.0.13
Overdraw
So far, drawing with a full hand was always just skipped, which led to lots of frustration and confusion. Now drawing an 8th card will be possible, but immediately afterward a choice will force the player to offer one of the 8 cards in hand to the Olympians. Only then, further effects will continue to run.
AI
AI now uses a completely new neural network based strategy. Its playing strength should be slightly increased. Its "personality" may differ substantially. In some situations it will play better, in some worse.
Further AI improvements have become much more achievable and will hopefully ship in the next few patches. For now, no difficulty settings or AI bonuses have been altered. There will be a big rebalancing effort as soon as substantially stronger AI opponents are available.
Salient Keyword
Added the Salient keyword, it is like Wild but with NO restrictions on the opponent's territory. It will allow a select few cards to directly challenge the opponent as soon as they are played, mostly with additional restrictions placed on the card to balance it.
Poseidon
Thanks again for the great feedback on this issue, see the community discussions for more. This patch tries to significantly increase Poseidon's play options.
Pirates now always spawn in versus matches and most of the time in Hero's Journey matches (visible before the challenge is selected). This makes fighting pirates a valid strategy. To balance it out, ship combat strength has been reduced across the board.
Epibates are now Salient and some ships reward the player with additional copies. This should make an invasion from the sea a good aggressive playstyle option.
Map generation has been fixed, there should now no longer be any maps with two disconnected seas.
Ares
Extremely aggressive play has been nerfed. Military Camp can no longer be used as an outpost, it is now just a heal.
Features
AI strategy changed to neural network.
Added the Salient keyword: can be placed outside your territory, even on an opponent's tiles.
Forced Offering on Overdraw: your hand can now briefly hold 8 cards. Whenever it does, you must immediately offer one card to the Olympians for Favor before doing anything else.
Versus AI and multiplayer matches now spawn a Pirate Hideout at roughly equal distance from both players' starting positions. Barbarian Camps still don't spawn in these modes.
Added keyword explanation boxes: hovering a card on the board shows an explanation for each of its keywords (Ranged, Seaworthy, Elusive, Choose, Unique, etc.) next to its tooltip, plus a rarity box.
Added a fullscreen card view: right-click any card on the board to see it fullscreen with the same keyword and rarity boxes. Click anywhere to dismiss.
Balance
Military Camp (Ares)
Keyword: Wild → Salient.
Type: Structure → Camp. No longer increases influence.
Tropaion (Ares)
Text: "Wild, must be placed adjacent to a character that destroyed an enemy this turn" → "Requires a character that destroyed an enemy this turn."
Hunting Camp (Artemis)
Type: Structure → Camp. No longer increases influence.
Epibates (Poseidon)
Keyword: Wild → Salient.
Ability: "When played, deal 2 damage to all adjacent enemies" → "End of turn: Heal 2, if adjacent to a Ship you control."
Pan, God of the Wild (Hermes)
Keyword: added Wild.
Quadrireme (Poseidon)
Added: "When played, add Epibates to your hand."
Attack 4 → 3. Health 8 → 6.
Quinquereme (Poseidon)
Added: "When played, add two Epibates to your hand. They cost 0."
Attack 7 → 5. Health 11 → 8.
Harbor (Poseidon)
Text: "repair adjacent Ships to full health" → "repair adjacent Ships by 2" each turn.
Trireme (Poseidon)
Removed: "After attacking, gain Poseidon 1 and 3 Arete."
Health 5 → 4.
Libation (Poseidon)
Text: "loses 1 Attack and 2 Health" → "loses 1 Attack and 1 Health."
Leontophoros (Poseidon)
Attack 10 → 8.
Argo, Ship of Heroes (Hera)
Cost 7 → 8.
Hippeus (Ares)
Attack 4 → 3. Health unchanged at 4.
Kataphraktos (Ares)
Attack 6 → 5. Health 7 → 5.
Anchovy, Mackerel, Red Mullet, Gilt-head Bream (Fish)
Keyword: no longer Elusive.
Madness (Ares) now targets your highest Attack character, instead of your highest Arete character.
Bug Fixes
Game maps (all modes): the sea is now always a single connected body, instead of sometimes splitting into separate pockets. The Pirate Hideout and Barbarian Camp no longer occasionally fail to spawn on constrained maps.