This update is a mixture of bug fixes and progress on the Undead/Death/Necromancy theme. The next one can be expected to have a similar focus, but shifting a bit from Death mastery to Necromancy and improving the various unique mechanics related to those dark arts. Full patch notes below.
Misc and Bug Fixes
- A failed sally forth by the defenders of a siege now has a 50% to progress the siege by 10-20 points. If a General was present to lead the siegers during the battle and was not killed, the chance is increased to 80%.
- Fixed Tribal Destiny: No Retreat not giving the expected Tribal Destiny and Prestige despite the battle report saying so.
- Fixed a crashbug related to AI exploration.
- Fixed a crashbug related to inspecting leader-less cities.
- Fixed a bug where the Character window in selection mode, would sometimes allow the selection of invalid characters (as indicated by tooltips and/or hint text).
- Fixed a bug where Undead Enslavement events would have no message text (showing a useless debug message instead).
- Fixed Ice Bridge showing up as an available spell (with no effect) during battles. It is no longer counted as a battle spell.
- Changed "Generic" pops to not display as "Generic", but as "Commoners" or the relevant sub-type, if any.
- Cities under Undead Enslavement are now unaffected by the regular population growth mechanics.
Spells
- Power Word: Death. Unlocked by Death Mastery 9. Powerful True damage spell that can only affect living targets. Cost is 20 Mana.
- Healer's Bane. Unlocked by Death Mastery 4 (secondary Mastery: Order). Battle spell which blocks healing spells and effects on target unit. Duration 4 rounds. Cost is 2 Mana.
- Entropic Blast. Unlocked by Death Mastery 5 (secondary Masteries: Time, Destruction). Battle spell which deals 16-30 hits of 3 Arcane Damage. Elder/Eldritch targets cannot be targeted by this spell. Target is afflicted with Entropy for 1 round, which blocks all healing spells and effects, and counters Vampiric, Feast, Limited Regeneration and/or Regeneration. If the target has the Plant and/or Life tags, True damage is inflicted instead of Arcane. Cost is 9 Mana.
- Rest in Peace. Unlocked by Death Mastery 2 (secondary Mastery: Warding). Hex enchantment which blocks spells from raising the dead from battlefields, burial sites, etc. Cannot target hexes with level 2+ of conditions: Blighted, Darkened, Demonic Taint. Duration is 9 turns. Cost is 10 Mana.
- Spectral Anchor. Unlocked by Death Mastery 3 (secondary Mastery: Shadow). While affected, target Unit loses Semi-Corporeal and resistance to Physical damage. Can only target Spectral and/or Semi-Corporeal units. Duration is 2 rounds. Cost is 3 Mana.
- Funeral Pyre. Unlocked by Death Mastery 7 (secondary Mastery: Fire). Battle spell which deals Fire damage to up to 50 individuals in the target unit. The damage is equal to the Hit Point attribute of the unit (on an individual level), but cannot exceed 12. Cannot target Elemental, Fire, Extra-Planar or Elder/Eldritch units. Gain 1 Mana for each individual slain by this spell. Cost is 32 Mana.
- Doom. Unlocked by Death Mastery 4. Battle spell which afflicts target unit with -1 Toughness, -1 Courage, +1 Vulnerability to Physical/Arcane/Darkness/Radiant. Duration is 7 rounds. Cost is 13 Mana.
- Anguish of the Fallen. Unlocked by Death Mastery 6. Battle spell. Can only be cast once at least 20 living individuals have been slain during the battle. Target unit suffers a number of hits equal to 50%-100% of the number of slain living individuals. If there are more than 20 individuals in the target unit, the number of hits cannot exceed this. Hits deal 9 Dark damage, if there are more casualties on the opposing side to the target unit; 6 Dark damage otherwise. Cost is 11 Mana.
- Reaper's Due can now be cast during battles.
Known Issue: Casting "Raise Battlefield" on a non-ancient battlefield will not yield any new units.