*** Released 04/11/2013 ***
Features
Added Kulan of Umber as a starting sovereign.
Added General Carrodus of Capitar as a starting sovereign.
Added a new empire champion, Corinne the Archivist (a ghost champion)
Added a new kingdom champion, Pellion the Bright (a lightbringer champion)
Added a new construct, the Armored Sentinel, an animated suit of armor with immunity to poison, crits and swarm and the archign Shield Bash ability
Added Battle Cry as a new Commander trait
Removed Encumbrance. Instead we have chain mail proficiency and plate mail proficiency that enables the use of those armor types. Defenders get chain mail for free and plate mail early on. Warriors get chain early and plate in the middle of their trait tree. Assassins get chain mail in the middle of their trait tree.
Added new tactical maps
Redid the Defender trait tree
Defenders get to use Chain mail armor for freeDefender I trait increased from +5 to +10 defense when defendingDefender II trait increased from +10 to +15 defense when defendingRemoved the Defender III traitEndurance trait gives +10 hit points instead of +1 per levelAdded the Endurance 2 defender trait (it gives +15 hit points)Converted the general Graceful trait to the defender Stand Firm traitRemoved the Guardian III traitAdded the Arching Shield Bash defender trait (shield bash 3 adjacent units)Added the First Aid defender trait (heals an ally within 1 tile)Added the Hold the Line defender trait (sets all allies defending and gives them bonus Dodge until their next action)Added the Invincible defender trait (caster becomes immune to physical damage until its next action)Removed the Spell Resistance III traitAdded the Summon Sentinel trait (summons an Armored Sentinel into tactical combat and boosts the defense of all surrounding alliesAdded the Eternal Guard defender trait (+5 levels for summoned sentinels)Added the Ironskin defender trait (+3 defense)Added Plate Mail Proficiency, it enables the use of plate mail armor
Fixes
Fixed an issue that was keeping new champions from spawning with their special consumable gear (potions and scrolls)
Fixed an issue causing the hit chance for dodgeable special abilities to be incorrect
Fixed an issue keeping the Pariden spellbooks form showing up in on the choose sovereign window and in the tech tree
Fixed an issue keeping Krax’s Ice Spear and Lightning Pike form showing up in the choose sovereign window and tech tree
Fixed the provides tages on the Berserkers Axe and Berserkers Broadsword
Fixed an issue where the AI can ask for peace even if you aren't at war
Fixed an issue with the Tremor spell not removing Dodge correctly (fix by Parrottmath)
Fixed an issue that could allow a troll Shaman to kill himself by casting Barbs
Fixed an issue with the tactical spell Command, where depending on when it was cast, it could cause the target unit to always go next, over and over and over
Fixed an issue causing swarm bonuses to be exponential (it was normal with 1 allied units, but 2 did x4 the bonus, 3 did x9 the bonus, etc)
Fixed some broken tactical maps
Fixed an issue that could cause to many guardian statues, catapults or assassin demon city defenders to be spawned
Fixed crashes
Balance
Remade all the level 7 Empire champions
Remade all the level 7 Kingdom champions
Remade all the level 9 Empire champions
Remade all the level 9 Kingdom champions
You now have visibility for 1 tile outside of your borders
Lethal 1 increased from +1 attack to +2 attack
Lethal 2 increased from +2 attack to +3 attack
Lethal 3 increased from +3 attack to +4 attack
Warrior Muscle trait also gives +1 attack now
Increased the default players on the Huge map from 8 to 10
Administrator III trait lowers the unrest in all cities by 10% (instead of just the city the champion is in)
Increased the CityCountUnrestPenalty from 2 to 3
Reap II increases the damage form damaging an opponent from 1 to 3 and Reap III increases it from 3 to 6
Enchanted Backpack gives an init bonus
Golden Belt gives 25% Splash damage
Strength and Muscle traits give bonus attack
A full suit of Chain Mail gives -3 init
A full suit of Plate mail gives -6 init
Warriors get an Endurance trait that increases their hit points
Spell Leech has a 5 turn cooldown to fix an infinite mana exploit
Broke magic staves in Fire and Cold staff categories for unit design
Eye of Abeix trophy increased to +50% growth and +5 init for defending units
Head of Amhah trophy increased to +50% growth and -50% unrest
Heart of Delin trophy increased to +50% growth, defending units are immune to fire and trained units get fire resistance
Heart of Morian trophy increased to +50 growth and +50% hit points for trained units
Horn of Sarog trophy increased to +50% growth and +1 fame per season
Head of Torax trophy increased to +50% growth and +3 attack and defense for defending units
Fist of Vetrar trophy increased to +50% growth, defending units are immune to cold and trained units start with Cold resistance
Storehouse increased from +40 food per grain to +50
Rusty Armor gets increased defense but becomes rarer
Aegis Robe Defense increased form 5 to 6 and it gains +5 Dodge
Increased the CombatRatingToExpMultiplier from .05 to .06 (ie: increased the amount of xp gained from combat)
AI
AI smarter in relations
AI smarter about when to ask for peace
Monster AI tweaks
UI
New waterfalls from Parrottmath
In tactical combat the button for the spell or ability you are using remains highlighted
Fixed the Spearman Expert and Master icons (they were reversed)
Even better water
New selection tiles in tactical
There will be a bunch of considerations that they will have to go through and adjust. Warhorses, Trogs, etc. I note that the backpack has been done, and gives + init. But that is not the biggest thing. All weapons, armor and shields have weights, and now this whole system is being thrown out? I wonder why frankly?
Maybe they'll be changed to give an initiative bonus?
Yes, it'll take a lot of work to go through all the kinks.
Warhorses should be able to grant a 3 square charge that bashes enemies over in addition to the heroes regular attack damage if equipped with a spear-type weapon.
...
Ugghh. Fine sure, just please do as some have said and at least make heavier armor decrease dodge.
Possibly by a percentage rather than a fixed number, so high dodge units suffer proportionally to low dodge units. Or even better, by a percentage but have a minimum dodge reduction number too for heavy armor.
Does Champion Armor have penalties, or not because it is special magic armor? I would be comfortable with no penalty, and everyone can wear, because it is late game gear and very expensive too.
Also, you will have to work out where Light Plate and Masterwork Chainmail sit in all of this. Maybe instead of Chain Mail Proficiency, you have Medium Armor Proficiency (includes Light Plate and Chainmail) and instead of Plate Mail Proficiency you have Heavy Armor Proficiency (includes Masterwork Chainmail and Plate) and there would need to be some sort of disadvantage for Light Plate and advantage for Masterwork Chainmail, otherwise they would always, and never, respectively be picked as Faction Traits in the new system.
I understand the first instinct of a designer is to just cut a mechanic that doesn't work out as envisioned, but I had thought the encumbrance overhaul should have gone the other way, by making it deeper and cutting the unnecessary base initiative bonuses from weapons.
By release the game is going to be a console friendly strategy-and-rpg lite. Not good.
No more encumbrance? How is that going to work with Yithril and their racial passive?
I think this is a good thing for the game as it limits gimmicking units based upon the encumbrance system that used to be. This is also a great way to be able to limit a unit to a specific armor type, archers using only leather or chin and not auto upgrading to plate. This is a really good thing as it opens up a tremendous amount of mod-ability and I am ecstatic over this. This opens up the ability to create custom armors that will be used in the upgrade system and not overwritten because of a higher defense piece even though it was tremendously heavier.
Gimmicking in what way?
They could still have armor-type proficiencies - which I like by the way - while keeping and improving the encumbrance system, and it would definitely need a lot of improvement. The two aren't really related.
bah - nm
You are right it would be ideal to have both system but if we have to lose one for the other to work I would rather have the proficiencies over the encumbrance system. However it may be that they change it back and re add the encumbrance system or leave it in place for modders to add back in as they see fit, we won't know until we see how it works in game and within the game code.
Up until now they've never removed system from the xml, instead leaving them but not using them.
I'm sure the encumbrance system will still be available for the intrepid modder if they do indeed decide to cut that mechanic from the vanilla game.
I would happily mod it back in along with the armor/weapons mod I have been messing around for a while now.
wait til you see megalopolis someday.
change cities to Distance 6, use snaking, snake 2 cities close to each other, and "merge" them.
I hope so! I am tinkering with items, weapons, armor, spells and other things to make modular. Like to be compatible with as many mods as possible, and you just never know what contribution you might make that will inspire someone.
They should just give in, and replace all the water with dioxygen difluoride.
+
New system seems less deep and strategical. Encumberance should have been improved by being made even more imortant. Was it too hard to understand this mechanism for the averege player? Is Stardock underestimating our intelligence?
Well. Guess we'll wait and see how it plays out. But count me in as skeptical.
I would suggest that all this is idle speculation at this point. The encumberance of a unit provided a different strategy to the game. These changes are dealing with the abstraction of the idea of encumberance. I look forward to the changes and here is why...
everybody wanted to reduce the initiative bonuses and / or penalties for each weapon. Each item had weight and people were basically running the same tricks to overcome the encumberance. I want to use this nice armor, but I have to spend triats on muscle and such, but it really would have been nice to use that armor with axes without spending two traits to increase intiative and strength to lift such items. Now, you have more trait slots (without adding more) to choose for your character instead. This allows you to make more dynamic troops... The strategic depth is not reduced but increased. They are adding some great potential here for troop design instead of adding trait slots.
So in the long run here is what the change is giving us... more traits to use (for trained troops) and reducing initiative penaties for using axes and maces. Two things players have been wanting. so No it is not less strategical and there is no less depth. The initiative penalties on the weapons are now not to balance the weapons, but to account for encumberance from using that weapon (in abstraction).
Of course the difference is that flaws that reduce strength are more meaningful, and because heavier armor is more viable to use, I won't be making all leather mage/archer/dodge squads with maybe 1 heavy armored dodge unit up front.
This allows armies increased strategies and begs for allowing Army Design improvements. I like more strategy and anything that makes an option better, i am in favor of. So having weapons be good and not spears, having armor be worth improving and not just on a champ/hero here and there, instead of flaws being obsolete (no ranged/light armor only, etc) and light plate/heavy chain armor being actually different....
I would say this isn't the biggest "change" in the world, but will increase the quality and value of choices significantly.
no changes to camera? wtf?
game unplayble with ranged units on player's side.
The Strength traits are going to turn into +initiative traits, like the fast traits. I really don't see how this is going to increase trait slots or make troops more dynamic. It's simply watering down mechanics into fewer and fewer elements.
I mean, why don't we just have one stat for each character, and call it "Awesomeness" and everything adds to "Awesomeness."
Then we all feel warm and fuzzy because our Awesomeness is always going up.
Pathetic.
EDIT: re-reading the OP now I see the strength traits just give attack. So now the only way to overcome wearing heavy armor and using heavy weapons is with quickness? That's a joke!
the encumbrance system was bad, especially since it used breakpoints instead of gradual penalties, leading to needless minmaxing to avoid those breakpoints. however i don't think the new system is that much better, where you have proficiencies to wear those armors. i am particularly worried for heroes that you acquire later in the game who cannot wear good armor because they lack the experience to get those traits.
imho heavier armors (the pieces themselves) should just give penalties to initiative and dodge (percentage based!) and proficiencies just lower those penalties.
next to remove it elemental\poison damage resistance...
Being able to use heavy armor will probably cost a trait.
This system is going to need mad work- I don't see how they are going to get this game out before June at the current rate. Just too much rebalancing work to be done all around (which is not a bad thing)
ability to use better armor cost tech already.
next to add trait to use swords\bows\potions?
YOU NOT ALLOWED TO DRINK POTIONS YOUR CLASS IS WRONG!!111
IRL anyone able to use modern combat armor and modern combat weapons, skills improve efficency of weapon, not ability to use it.
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