*** Released 04/26/2013 ***
Features
Added the Cautious Sovereign ability (allows the sovereign to escape from battle)
Added Sovereign Bond as a sovereign talent (allows the sovereign to summon familiars)
Added the Soldier’s Boots (available for unit design, +1 init)
Added the Soldier’s Gloves (available for unit design, +5 accuracy)
Added the Soldier's Cloak (available for unit design, +10 magic resist)
Added the Scaled Cloak (available for unit design, +25% fire resistance)
Added the Warboar monster
Added the First Aid Kit (available for unit design, +2 hit points and +1 healing rate)
Added Rations (available for unit design, +3 hit points)
Added achievements for winning as Capitar and Umber
New tactical maps added
Fixes
Fixed an issue keeping the Life V icon from showing up
Fixed an issue keeping pikes from upgraded to lightning pikes
Fixed an issue keeping longswords from upgrading to boreal blades
Fixed bow upgrades
Fixed an issue with chainmail gloves issue that was cuasing them to recolor with cloth color 2 instead of metal color
Fixed an issue with the chainmail hood that was keeping it from being recolorable
Lots of fixed stamps from Parrottmath
Lots of updated tactical battles (blocked tiles set)
Fixed bug where part of the improvement loading process didn't get told it was loading a game, which could cause modifiers to get reapplied when they shouldn't be
Fixed bug where you could get repeat recruited champions after loading a game
Fixed an issue where if you had an army led by a champ that was not the sov, and he died in battle, but the rest of your army won the battle. When this happened the entire army would be transported back to a city and immobilized rather than just have the champ that fell in battle be injured and stay with the army on the map
If a unit is standing on a city at the end of its turn, and it doesn't have a destination set to leave at the start of the next turn, it will auto station that unit in the city
Roads will now not pass through wildlands. When a wildland is cleared, each city reevaluates its connections with other cities and has another chance to build a road if applicable
Fixed yields on captured Deorcnysse
Fixed a clipping issue on cliff corners
Fixed an issue allowing caravans to be killed even if you have the legacy of serrane
Fixed an issue with the Produce Mana project
Lots of fixed tactical maps
Fixed an issue keeping some traits form being applied after a game was reloaded (most notable with the Veteran and Experienced traits)
Fixed an issue keeping Shield Bash from showing the damage
Fixed an issue with guarded strike not proving its defense bonus
Fixed crashes
Balance
Reduced Charge from +3 to +2 and instead the training cost
Scholar moved from a talent to a profession
Padded Breastpiece added as a designable equipment
Reduced Stables from from 1 horse per season to 0.5
Reduced Kennels from from 1 warg per season to 0.5
Moved the Adventurer’s Guild from Heroes to Breon’s Letters
Arctic Wolf Cloaks no longer require a tech
Removed the Resistance bonus form the ring of embers, of the glacier and storms
Increased the training cost of mounts
Removed the init bonus form the Athican longsword
Decreased the amount that increased production pace increases production
Increased the strength of the bandits from the Bandit Lord ability
Increased the Noble profession from -5 Unrest to -10
Increased the Scholar research bonus from +10% to +20%
Reduced Warlock from +50% spell damage to +25%
Reduced the Fame from quests from 20 to 15
Balance gives +10 to dodge and -1 to init instead of +5 to dodge and -1 to hit points
Charge gives +1 moves and +2 attack instead of +3 moves and +3 attack
Defender gives +10 defense when defending instead of +5
Impulsive gives +2 init instead of going first in battle
Muscle gives +1 to attack and -1 to init instead of just +1 to attack
Strength is no longer a unit design trait
Reduced base trained unit accuracy from 70 to 60
Reduced maces init from -3 to -4
Reduced Battle Axe attack from 15 to 12
Reduced Boar Spear attack from 11 to 10
Reduced Short Sword attack from 10 to 9
Reduced Pike attack from 16 to 15
Reduced Longsword attack from 18 to 14 and +2 init
Reduced Great Axe attack from 21 to 17
Reduced Maul attack from 25 to 22
Removed the Heroes tech
The amount of Fame quests grant has been changed to be per quest instead of a global value (so more difficult quests grant more fame)
The army that didn't attack starts in defensive stance in tactical combat
Kasst increased from 1 move to 3
Increased the xp given from combat slightly
Reduced the level and hit points on Hergon Sows
Increased the dragon level int he Ghost Helm quest from 7 to 12
Razing cities does slightly more damage to surrounding terrain
Increased Ascian to 4 moves
Reduced the training cost of the Fast trait form 20 to 15
Horses give +2 attack and Init for their first action in combat (warhorses gives +3 to both instead)
Increased all Sharp weapons form +1 crit chance to +5
Increased all Razor weapons from +2 crit chance to +10 crit chance
AI
Monster behavior improvements
Fixed AI bug that kept it from "seeing" enemy armies approaching its cities in certain cases
Fixed AI bug where AI would declare war soon after having made peace
Fixed AI bug in tactical where it would cast tangled web on a ranged unit (edge case)
Fixed diplomacy bug where the AI would seemingly declare war on you for no reason (there was a reason but not the one given)
UI
Better looking river banks from Kay
Pedestrians are no loner displayed in tactical battles
Added Mountains back to minimaps
Steam notifications now popup in the upper left corner instead of over the turn button
Added a new quest completion window
Consolidated all the upgrade actions into a single upgrade button
Added a new unit upgrade screen
Added icon category icons to the train screen (so you can see what type of unit they are)
Double-clicking on perk or path entries in the two unit level up screen will select the perk and close the screen
New texture for Ongr the Unbound
The spellbook remembers the last strategic spell you cast and starts there when you reopen it
Battle window now states what city is being attacked, if a city is being attacked
The camera will no longer recenter on your unit at the beginning of each turn if that unit was already selected
Previously we hid units in the train window if you didnt have any of the materials needed to train them (but they were greyed out if oyu had at least 1). Now we display them greyed out all the time. This caused issues where oyu would unlock mages or juggernauts but not see them because you didnt have any crystal or metal.
Now all the goodie huts you get tresure form have treasure chests in them (color based on how valuable they are)
I have never considered road placement much of an issue. It feels like it fits the world. These are still, essentially, outpost cities out on the current frontier, and I never felt the world's people have the luxury of designing the precise, modern road system that evolves instantly when a new frontier city is built. That seems artificial to me.
Derek, PLEASE let us leave the hero level up - skill picking screen without having exhausted all our skill points... this is a relatively small change IMHO but will very positively affect two elements of the game:
1. Will allow people to "hoard" their skill points and save them for higher-level skills (a useful trait), and
2. MOST IMPORTANTLY, it will avoid the "stuck on level up screen" when a hero has exhausted all their skill-picking options and gains one more level. This issue is described in detail here: https://forums.elementalgame.com/443519/page/1/ and is a big problem for those of us who like playing huge maps on epic setting with dense monsters and lots of opponents...
Many thanks, YS
While I agree with this outlook, one additional aspect needs to be considered:
Assuming you are allowed to store a cache of skill points upon a champion, at what time would you be allowed to cash in those points? Is it simply a matter of clicking your hero and adding them (because that may give unfair advantage as you approach a combat)? Or would you only be able to cash them in upon level up screens?
i don't like the idea of hoarding level ups. too "gamey" of my taste. i can live with the abstraction of experience points and levels - that's pretty standard. but let's not forget what those abstractions actually represent: the process of learning. in the real world, you don't sit down and do generic "learning" and spend your accumulated "learning points" on a goal afterwards - that's already pretty gamey, but that's the way video games worked for a long time, so that's ok. but hoarding several level ups is just too much, IMO
@GfireflyE, I would suggest that they only be useable during subsequent "level up" screens, to avoid the obvious cheating you mention, and also to minimize the new functionality needed.
@Azunai_, while I agree with you, there still remains the problem of not being able to leave the skills screen if you've taken all skills - which is a GAMEBREAKING bug for those unfortunate enough to reach that point... perhaps the points hoarding is not the most elegant solution, but the problem needs to be fixed somehow.
Perhaps another idea would be a repeatable "final" skill like the infinite "advanced research" etc. technologies, which can be upgraded continuously...
except that spear units destroy them before you can do anything. Spears ignore the counter attack and also ignore a decent % of whatever armour you happen to have. So you might as well not be in plate armour - unless everyone else is using maces/swords.
Spears need to have the armour piercing bonus moved to maces. Maces are very slow, but a slow armoured target is easier to hit.
Another option is for Spears to lose the no counter bonus.
I have to agree here but going to take it a little farther;
Spears need to lose armor pierce but gain bonus damage to cavalry.
Axes should gain an armor pierce but lose accuracy.
Blunt should gain a higher armor pierce than axes and also an armor destruct/reduction per hit instead of bash.
Make bash a trainable trait that requires a shield or blunt.
Swords are fine this way without separate damage types. If separate damage types are re instituted they should have a selectable attack for a stab and a blade flat strike for blunt and lose counter attack.
Make a +1 counter attack a trainable trait called riposte.
That is all.
This is based upon how each weapon works as well as how it was actually used.
Would somebody be so kind as to press the red button? The one marked with the letters R.E.L.E.A.S.E.D.
Thank you.
No way, you forgeting backswing. Reduced accuracy for axes wont make a difference bacause of backswing. You will have chance to repeat if you missed. So you want armor piercing with nearly guaranteed hit. I think thats to much.
Spears armor piercing could be reduced to 30 - 40 perc. instead of 50 at the moment. If you remove oiercing at all then why to take spear then ? Swords would become better with shield on other hand ant init. bonus.
I think, as petrasvu suggested, the armor piercing effect of spears should be reduced to 35 %.
The bash chance of blunt weapons should be increased to (inflicted damage x 2) %, because it is currently very rare that a target is knocked prone.
The counterattack damage of swords should be increased to 75 %, because the counterattack is currently too weak against armored targets.
Yeah, many warrior and defender abilities (parry, expert swordsman, ...) should be available as abilities for trained units.
The problem lies within the expectations that the way the game portrays most weapons is sort of correct. I can tell you I have probably spent about 40 hours doing independent research for armors and weapons to figure out how to apply how they actually work for a weapons armor mod that reflects this. What I listed above is how they were used and how to apply this in game. If you are making suggestions to my suggestion you are trying to balance what is in game, I am suggesting a different kind of balance, such as how it usually works. Let me be a little more in depth for each weapon and how they worked in combat.
Blunt - They started as clubs and cudgels and evolved into hammers and axes and eventually mauls. This the game does correctly and I applaud it. However the point of these weapons was simple past a club, to get past armor and bash it in making it harder to move. Armor crumpling and piercing of armor through the means of spikes or hammers narrow heads allowed these weapons to literally tear armor apart or make it useless in comparison to the weapon. A maul would crush plate armor like a tin can making moving in it almost impossible then your secondary warriors would come in and stab a heavy plate wearer through his visor with a specialized dagger for going through eye slits. Brutal warfare but very effective.
Axes - Started as a tool and rapidly was adapted to warfare. Started primarily as a thrown axe and then moved to the large two handed axe. Eventually it moved to a hand axe and shield. The strength of the axe is its small cross section with high weight allowing a specific area there the force it applies to pierce armors. It left deep and very horrible wounds that did not heal right back in the days of its use. So a more accurate secondary effect instead of backswing would be a bleed effect as that was kind of the point of an axe, leave a debilitating wound that eventually kills you even if you live through the first hit.
Spear - Also started as a tool but mainly for hunting and also adapted for warfare, actually it is the oldest weapon known for warfare. The main thing for spears is that they were used almost entirely short spear and shield up until the two handed spears were made to which the pike evolved from. In game this can be reflected with a simple defensive bonus of immune to counterattack as they were a defensive weapon. The pike however was by far anti cavalry and it was very good at it. A giant spear with a long spear head almost a shortsword at the end. Make the pike have anti cavalry bonuses and make it strike up to two squares away not through two squares that becomes gamey and not tactical. If you want make spear master get the ability to do a strikethrough making it a reward for gaining spear mastery.
Swords - Alright this one is tricky. Daggers have been around forever in many different mediums from stone, bronze, iron and eventually steel. Short swords evolved as basically a longer dagger and eventually the rest of the swords in Europe evolved from there. So the briadsword would be next followed by the longsword. The longsword was the first sword that could reliably be used with two hands and as such became a fearsome weapon. From the longsword eventually the greatsword evolved which was considered the pinacle of sword crafting at the time as it was strong enough to do a great deal of damage but still able to maintain the swordmans edge. Speking of the edge that swords give here it is. The sword had two main strengths where were weight and versatility. A sword generally weighed less than five pounds with a great sword never weighing above ten pounds. The versatility of the weapon comes from the many different attacks that could be made with a sword. It could thrust and do a piercing attack, it could chop or slash for a cutting attack, or you could use the flat of the blade to bash someone. The piercing and blunt attacks were weaker but they were there when the swordsman needed them. Now the downside to the sword was also two-fold; it required much more extensive training and it also required a long manufacture time for even the most basic sword. So in game terms this means higher training time since we don't have a manufacture timer since its incorporated into training times.
Bows/Crossbows - This one I have had several talks on this board over and then did more research to look it up after finding several preconceptions from childhood archery wrong. Bows can shoot really far but that does not mean that they are always effective at that range nor are they accurate. Bows have an effective range for when they can pierce armor. Bows take a LOT longer to train than crossbows but are lighter and faster. Generally bows are cheaper to maintain but are longer to build up so in game this should reflect with a armor piercing attack that has a higher accuracy but the base bow and crossbow should have reduced accuracy to reflect being out of optimal ranges.
Keep in mind this is a VERY generalized post and if you want more information you can learn more by looking it up, thank guys for taking the time to listen to this, I hope.
Thanks.
Yea I was playing tonight and Skyped Derek "Hey, just saw the AI units, full health, running away.". That's something new for sure.
The big strategic change, well it should be really noticeable so I won't say other than that it should be significantly harder to walk over the AI on harder levels.
The AI is NOT done by any means. It still has idiotic declare war logic. I fixed a bug that was in there which made it clear where it was but it's going to take a day or two to redo the diplomacy calculations there.
Getting jealous of the road discussion, are you
Just finished a game and was having a blast. One thing that struck out that the AI factions were not prioritizing production improvement buildings very high and that caused them to lag. Whenever I play, workshops, lumber mills and bell towers are my first builds. Always. The cities I captured had several buildings, but none of them had any of these improvements. Granaries, studies, merchants and other stuff that would be more useful to build after production efficiency is taken care of.
I've noticed this as well, it's very rare to capture an AI city with a workshop, don't think I've seen but a couple with masons.
I wanted to suggest something like this in my "champion trees are full of filler picks" thread, but forgot.
I do think one should be able to exit the screen without selecting a pick, and I don't see how hoarding is actually a problem as people are suggesting, though.
The only bad thing about these patches is that just when the AI starts getting good because they're using my unit designs, Derek releases a new patch and renders all those designs obsolete.
I know, right! This keeps happening to me as well. I make all these neat units for each faction, and then a patch comes along and is like: "Whoops, sorry, you might want to redo that."
And because you can't design a unit until you have the tech to actually build that unit, I have to play through an entire game with each faction to re-make my unit designs. I swear there should be an external "Faction Unit Creator" where you have access to every item that faction can make available for unit design.
I believe there's a cheat that unlocks all tech, enabling you to design all the units.
Excellent ideas here! I support all of them.
Was 'Blood Curse' spell fixed?
Brad, Derek & co. are either working really late or we're not going to see .85 tonight. I can gladly wait a little longer if more fixes are complete!
If they fixed that spell they would have fixed strategic spell calculations.
0.85 is looking awesome. Little worried about the auto charging horses.
Please Please let it be that the AI no longer builds troops out of newly built towns (then build bazaars). The AI will never beat me as long as its not building troops out of its Fortresses and intelligently investing in industry from towns and conclaves.
Hi Derek! Thanks for taking the time to reply. First, I'd like to say, I actually don't mind the way auto-roads build, most of the time. And I am delighted to make the tradeoff of the occasional awkward road layout without any of the hassle of having the BYO. I understand that it irks a lot of people but personally I think this is a minor issue with the game. I agree with you that this is a perfect example of something that bothers die-hard fans that would never occur to most players.
Road networks grow the way your empire does, that's a good thing. But your empire often grows in weird ways that ideally would lead to some roads becoming obsolete as other roads are built. I think a lot of the problem is that "mistakes" made early in the game get compounded as the game slavishly keeps old roads that really don't make sense anymore. That's why I made my suggestion: to provide a means of automatically removing old roads that no longer make sense.
What I had in mind is something like the following scenarios that are actually things that happened to me in previous games (on the left is the road network the game would generate, on the right is the "optimal" road network)
In this example, a terrain feature makes it impossible to link C directly to the road between A & B, so a road is built from B to C. But that means that to move from A to C/D I need to travel across my entire empire and moving overland would probably be faster. If I had settled C first, my road network would be much more effective.
Here my empire has grown in a circle. The road network is perfect! Except, again, to get from A to E I need to move through my entire empire. If I had settled C or D last, my network would be better, but ideally the road network should be a full circle.
Basically the algorithm would try to create the most optimal path to connect all your cities to each other using the least number of roads. That's the sort of calculation I assume you do when wildlands are cleared, so that's why I suggested recalculating that every time a new city was taken/founded.
It might not be practical to do this given the low-end computers you're targeting as minimum specs. I gave up thinking about algorithm complexity when I left college. But IMHO, this is the sort of thing that people want their road networks to do and find frustrating about the automatic roads in FE. If the road networks adjusted themselves as your empire grew, I think most of the complaints (except the "road through dragon's den") would be solved.
I don't think this would necessarily be an issue, as the re-calculation would only need to take place when a new city is built, and not every turn.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account