General
- New "Active Effects" tab in the Magic window. Allows you to get an overview of active spell effects and cancel them (if applicable).
- Added a UI action to inspect the Garrison of a site.
- Improved the map generator and the pseudo-simulation of tectonics used to create the geography. This should give better-looking coastlines and more pleasing/interesting continent shapes overall.
- Ancient Evils of relevant types now also exist as a Deity/Religion entity.
- Salt added as a resource.
- Improved the allocation of specials to hexes during world generation to take additional climate and terrain factors into consideration.
- Improved the AI power estimation routine. This includes the ability to separately consider melee, ranged and combined power levels to a greater degree than previously.
- New Unit: Bears.
- New Unit: Hungering Wisps. A slightly stronger version of Wisps with a vampiric attack.
- New unit special ability: Stupid. This has the advantage of reduced impact of some psychological effects (positive and negative), but also a lack of ability to cope with several situation.
- Streamlined and unified the Character travel logic used by various events, actions and tasks. The same logic is now always applied.
- Site and Character Name generation improved with more variety.
- Units now have Alignment tracked on an individual basis, allowing it to diverge from the Unit Type / Cultural default.
Battles
- Improved the battle initiation UI. Instead of several "attack" buttons requiring mouse-over to see what army/site they affected, a single action button now opens a window with various options for initiating a battle.
- Battle initiation now includes special actions in some cases.
- Special Army Action: Plunder Outskirts. Can be used to plunder gold and spoils from cities without directly assaulting the defenders.
- Special Army Action: Probing Attack. Somewhat risky way to gain more information on the composition an enemy army or garrison. An alternative to creating a one-unit army and suiciding to reveal the enemy during the battle resolution.
- Added fatigue to battle resolution. This will impact some units and decrease their fighting capability and morale after extended active engagement in combat and/or use of ranged attacks.
- Slightly reduced the impact of Effectiveness.
- Reduced the default rate of Effectiveness loss during battles.
- Expanded Skirmish mechanics to include ranged attacks and fatigue. Not having a sufficient Skirmish screen can cause an army to suffer much greater casualties from ranged attacks and fatigue/effectiveness loss from skirmishers during the initial phases of the battle.
Characters
- Some characters now have an upkeep cost. Wizard traits and Clan/Tribal mechanics can modify this cost. The Trusted Retainers trait in particular has a potentially strong impact, reducing the cost by progressively more as the duration of service/employment increases.
- Characters can now accumulate private wealth through various events and actions. They will be saving up the cash for the patch which adds ways for them to spend it.
- Character item possession expanded to include more than the current "inventory" type items. For example, under certain circumstances artisans may create items for themselves rather than their faction.
- Added a couple of new personality traits: Brave, Craven, Patient.
- Added character traits to represent lack of free will and limited free will.
- Artisans now have a "generic" craft item task (in addition to the "diplomatic gift" task) which will result in some gold, and sometimes an exceptional item. This is currently not exposed in the UI and only usable by the AI, but this will be fixed in an incremental update very soon.
- Tribal Chief Prestige now affects character loot share (during plunder, pillage, etc.) High prestige increases the amount taken by characters, and negative prestige reduces it.
- New character types: Strategist, Poet, Lout, Storyteller, Administrator. These will be generated/assigned according to cultural traits.
- Improved the random character generator to take additional cultural characteristics into consideration and give more thematic results. Some hitherto extremely rare character types are now more common, and some of the overly common types have been reduced in frequency.
Spells
- True Sight. Divination spell which will destroy illusionary unit and reveal enemy units.
- Borrowed Sight: One randomly chosen unit in target army is affected by the Borrowed Sight effect for 7 turns. During this time the army containing this unit will grant vision and exploration. Level 3 Divination/Shadow.
- Locate Mana Node: Has a 25% chance to reveal a Mana Node (including ones in unexplored territory). If another Wizard has more mana nodes than the caster, the chance is increased by 20% times the difference in number. When randomizing the node to be discovered, ones closer to the Wizard's territory have a higher chance to be chosen. Level 4 Divination/Arcane.
- Scotosynthesis: Grants production bonuses to a farm, vineyard, fae garden or city. It must be located in a Darkened-affected hex. Can also be used on a unit with Slime, Plant or Fungus type. This will allow the unit to replenish in any hex with Darkened (regardless of supply lines, etc.), with a bonus depending on the level of the effect. Level 3 Darkness/Life/Enchantment.
- Depravity spell has been split into three variants.
- Lesser Depravity: Corresponds to the old Depravity spell (+1 Crime, +2 Decadence, -5 Unrest, 3 Turns).
- Depravity: +2 Crime, +3 Decadence, +1 Prosperity, -8 Unrest, +2 Squalor. 9 Turn duration. Level 3 Abyssal.
- Greater Depravity: +3 Crime, +4 Decadence, +2 Prosperity, +1 Martial, -12 Unrest, +5 Squalor. 15 Turn duration. Level 5 Abyssal.
- Chaotic Creation: Create a random batch of resources. Level 2 Creation/Chaos spell.
- Chimes of Harmony: Buff the discipline, courage and melee skill of a unit. Will disable the Frenzy ability if the unit has it. Level 3 Creation/Order spell.
- Conjure Fortress: Conjure a Fortress out of nothing. Level 7 Creation/Earth/Artifice spell.
- Ice Bridge: Now creates a 1-length road connecting two hexes bordering the same river (to represent the bridge).
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a balance issue with dynamic market price calculations.
- Fixed a bug related to the Paving the Way and Veins of Civilization spells. Certain temporary sites could be chosen as targets which was not intended.
- Fixed a bug causing the battle log to omit many events and attacks.
- Fixed a bug relating to Planar Portals.
- Fixed a bug relating to Fortresses and incorrectly calculating siege duration.
- Fixed a bug relating to the Festering Wounds effect being applied to the attacker (and not the target) in some cases.
- Fixed several crash bugs.