*** RELEASED 11/13/2015 ***
New Features
Stamina
Most combat abilities require Stamina, normal ones require 3 (Impale, Howl), powerful ones require 7 (Trident Strike, Battle Cry). This keeps players from simply using abilities as soon as they become available, forces decisions about saving for special abilities and makes battles more dynamic. It also allows us to make special abilities more powerful since players can’t trigger them all first turn.
Starting Stamina is how much Stamina the unit starts the battle with, it defaults to 1
Stamina Growth is how much Stamina the unit gains per action in battle it defaults to 1, this is given at the end of the units action (to allow enemies to react to it before the unit can use it)
Defending gives the unit +1 Stamina (this gives a bonus Starting Stamina to defending armies since they start defending). This makes Defending more advantageous since it allows the unit to unlock special abilities faster.
Stamina is cleared at the end of battle (it doesn’t carry over from one battle to another)
Being knocked prone removes all Stamina
Many monsters have modifiers based on their stamina. Some get more powerful attacks, some unlock special abilities, some increase their defenses. As the battle goes on, they will increase in power, kill them, or use your abilities to take out their stamina.
Racial Abilities
Sovereigns and Champions have new abilities in their skill tree based on their race. So each unit’s available abilities to select when leveling up will be based on their class and race. Players may prefer Krax Defenders for their ability to stay in battle and knock down opponents Stamina, or Tarth Assassins who can make use of stored Stamina until they launch their powerful Assassin’s Strike. These racial abilities are also available in unit design so you can make your armies even more distinct.
Additions
Added the Hope spell: All allies gain 5 Stamina (Mage tree, unlocked by the Compassion skill)
Added the Hopelessness spell: All enemies Stamina is reduced to 0 unless they resist (Mage tree, unlocked by the Necromancy skill)
Added Assassin’s Strike ability: +3 Attack per Stamina, consumes all Stamina (Assassin tree)
Added Battle Fury passive ability: +1 Initiative per Stamina (Monster)
Added Ambush passive ability: +8 Initiative on the 1st round of combat (Altarian)
Added Dogpile passive ability: +8 Attack vs Prove units (Urxen)
Added Exhaust passive ability: Attacks also do 1 Stamina damage (Krax)
Added Macabre Pleasure passive ability: Killing an enemy provides 3 Stamina (Wraith)
Added Lament ability: Do 5 Stamina damage to all adjacent enemies (Wraith)
Added Trip ability: Knocks adjacent victim prone unless they resist (Urxen)
Added Fire Eater passive ability: Double damage from Flame Tongue (Quendar)
Added Halt ability: Stops Stamina growth for 3 turns (Altarian)
Added Furnaceborn ability: Does Fire damage to all adjacent enemies (Quendar)
Added Immune to Poison passive ability (Ironeer)
Added Momentum passive ability: +1 Stamina on a successful attack (Warrior tree)
Added Naja Dance passive ability: +2 Dodge for point of Stamina (Tarth)
Added Outrage passive ability: +1 Attack per Stamina (Monster)
Added Predator Stance passive ability: +3 Accuracy per Stamina (Tarth)
Added Preparations passive ability: +1 to the Army’s starting Stamina (Commander tree)
Added Rally ability: Allies gain +2 Stamina (Commander tree)
Added Rally II passive ability: Allies gain 3 Stamina instead of 2 when using Rally (Commander tree)
Added Rally III passive ability: Allies gain 4 Stamina instead of 3 when using Rally (Commander tree)
Added Readiness passive ability: +1 Starting Stamina (Mancer)
Added Recoil passive ability: +1 Stamina each time the unit is struck in battle (Defender tree)
Crushing Blow now is an attack with +1 per Stamina instead of double attack that costs a turn
Added Arcane Bond ability: Consume mana to gain 3 Stamina (Amarian)
Added Amarian Legacy passive ability: Soul Spark does double damage (Amarian)
Added Pommel ability: Melee attack that reduces the victims Stamina to 0 if it hits (Ironeer)
Added Second Wind ability: Heal 14 hit points for 7 Stamina (Mancer)
Added Take Aim ability: +4 Stamina (Assassin tree)
Added the Trident Strike ability: Launch 3 attacks for 7 Stamina (Krax)
Added Zephyr Boots: +1 Stamina Growth (item)
Added Necklace of Teeth: +1 Starting Stamina (item)
Added the Forge Guard unit, replaces the Quendar Defender unit, and starts with the Furnaceborn ability
Added the Nightwatch unit, replace the Tarth Defender unit, and starts with the Naja Dance ability
Balance
Clan of the Crow gain the Predator Stance ability
Knights of Calder gain the Readiness ability
Marrowguard gain the Dogpile ability
Redwatch gain the Ambush ability
Disciples gain the Arcane Bond ability
Carrion Men gain the Trip and Dogpile abilities and lose Rage
Tower Mage gain the Amarian Legacy ability
Platinum Knights gain the Second Wind ability
Witchriders gain the Lament and Macabre Pleasure abilities
Blades of Athica gain the Halt ability
Drolgard gain the Pommel ability
Karavox’s Honorguard gain the Exhaust ability
Fire Eater replaces the Quendar Scout unit, and starts with the Fire Eater ability
Cenotaph gain the Immune to Poison ability
Spikes of Krax gain the Trident Strike ability
Reduced level requirements for armor proficiency for commanders and assassins
Fervor ability now costs Stamina instead of “charges”
Amhah gains the Battle Fury and Lament abilities
Ashwake, Clambercoil, Sarog, Storm and Fell Dragons gain the Readiness ability
Assassin Demon gains Assassin’s Strike ability and lose Immune to Counterattack
Banshees gain the Hopelessness ability
Coal Golems gain the Recoil ability
Coastal Skath and Silt Skath gain the Momentum ability
Earth Elementals gain the Recoil ability
Fire Elementals gain the Furnaceborn ability
Hergon and Hergon Sow gain the Exhaust ability
Timber, Ice and Shadow Wargs gain the Readiness ability
Ignys, Naja and Ophidian gain the Naja Dance ability
Lurk gain the Second Wind and Macabre Pleasure abilities and lose Cloak of Fear
Obsidian Legion gain the Recoil ability
Plaguestalkers and Stalkers gain the Predator Stance ability
River Slags and Slags gain the Outrage ability
Sand Golems gain the Exhaust ability
Cindercorpses gain the Vulnerable to Cold ability
Torax gains the Recoil and Invincible abilities
Umberdroths gain the Outrage ability and lose Overpower
Vetrar gains the Momentum ability
War Boars and Wilding Riders gain the Battle Fury ability
Killing Titans (including the Titan of Gold) now gives better loot
Fixes
Performance optimizations
Fixed crashes
Fixed the bug where Tactical AI Units could stand on the same tile as one another
Fixed a DX error that can show up if the computer goes to sleep (if you leave the game on while watching the Bachelor… okay that may just be me)
Optimization for billboard sorting to prevent unnecessary sorts if the camera has not moved
Fixed some usage of uninitialized variables to prevent crashes and/or unpredictable behavior
Fixed bug where SetTransform and GetTransform trickled through switch to other types of transforms (this is probably how Megatron was created)
When looping through your monitors, game will not complain about ones that do not meet the minimum resolution, unless they all don't meet it.
Fixed a crash in UpdateZOCSource() if passed in tile X/Y is out of bounds
Fixed a bug where 3d sfx would play even if sfx volume was set to 0
Addressed some situations with goodie hut guardians that caused invisible units
Added code so that auto-patrol units do not accidentally army-up with goodie hut guardians
Fix for invisible units (most commonly shown in enemies that became armies under the FOW)
Fixed issue where non-infocard tooltips would not obey the tooltip delay set by the user in the options wnd
Fixed an issue where once the highlight gfx in a text entry field were told to show up, a single mouse-click did not make it go away, such as it does in Windows.
Custom list box and entry usability tweaks
When clicking a listbox entry, listbox would first unselect the entry that is currently selected, and then select the new entry (if it was selectable). Now, it only unselects the first entry if the second one can be selected.
Added engine support for UI scaling
Fixed a logic issue in a debug message, where it would always say "Trying to access [buttonName] as a button but it's not a button", even if the control in question was actually a button
Commented out some output that was spamming the output Wnd of VS and/or the debug.err file
Improved performance of edge scrolling
Added code to run game in "high performance" mode (meaning do not use embedded gfx chip)
Fixed a bug in DxAtlasWin that prevented force regen of screens so screens could get garbed in some situations
Fixed a bug that caused particle effects not to play, under certain circumstances
Fixed an issue where the AI will use their ranged action before waiting for their move to end
Fixed bug where formatted description of spell entries in the spellbook would not show a caster-specific value when viewed from tactical battle.
Fixed bug in the context area of the spellbook in tactical, where spell damage was added to the listbox with an entry that was too wide
Fixed some typos
Fixed an issue keeping the AI from building some Sion’s
Fixed an issue blocking the AI from using some Trog units
Fixed the Thunderstrike ability on the Star Forged Greaves
Fixed the Mysterious Pit to not spawn 3 stacks of Naja
Fixed the Choking Breath so that it doesn’t do fire damage if resisted
Fixed the Mantle of Oceans to correctly lower mana costs by 40%
Fixed a bug where you couldn't build world achievement's in a 2nd game if they had built built in the 1st game and you hadn't restarted
Fixed an issue where enchantment count was displayed incorrectly in the ledger.
Fixed a crash from a missing string
Fixed an issue with the Dogpile ability
Fixed an issue with the Macabre Pleasure ability
Fixed an issue keeping the Fire Eater ability from correctly applying its bonus
Fixed an issue keeping the Rally upgrades from applying their bonuses
Fixed an issue keeping the Amarian Legacy ability from applying its bonus
Fixed an issue keeping Assassin's Strike from doing it's full damage
Fixed an issue where the AI was ignoring cooldown times (ie: Darkling Shamans would summon darklings each turn)
Fixed an issue keeping some unit design traits from correctly unlocking their abilities (Trident Strike, Trip, etc).
Fixed an issue causing the Dagger of the Leech (and other items using the Reap effect) to give the leeched hit points to their opponent instead of the wielder.
Fixed an issue causing the Imprison scroll to require stamina
Fixed the description on Rain of Arrows to the actual effect
Fixed an issue keeping Morian from showing up on the Asaq map
Fixed an issue causing Momentum and Recoil to give the stamina to the enemy instead of the user
More crash fixes
Fixed an issue causing some abilities to show up in the action list twice (once as an ability and once as a spell)
Fixed the Slow effect to correctly lower initiative by 5 (it was lowering by 3 instead)
UI
Added a blue bar under the hit point bar in tactical combat which shows how much Stamina a unit has
Lots of tooltip and help info on Stamina, entry about it in the Hiergamenon, it shows in the stat display in the battle queue in tactical, etc
Awesome, you the man!
Did Yithril/Trogs get skipped over in the racial bonus handout?
Thanks for the great update. While the Stamina concept adds a boost of fresh air, I'm especially amazed by the AI's new tactical behavior. AI units are no longer immobilized by adjacent player units and will still move around to strike a preferred target. Well done. Some issues: Reap effect is no longer working correctly, it provides the opposite effect by actually healing the target and causing all kinds of issues (such as resurrecting killed units on the strategic map, a bug mentioned upward by BeelzebossErik). Comparing it with the previous version, the <ApplyToCaster>1</ApplyToCaster> tag is missing from the calculation modifier. Same problem with Momentum, it gives the extra stamina point to the target (adding <ApplyToCaster>1</ApplyToCaster> fixes this). Same thing with Recoil, it boosts the attacker and not the defender (adding <ApplyToCaster>1</ApplyToCaster> fixes this).
I'm willing to bet that is some of the stuff they backported from SK.
Certainly is great to see this update, and an update to it already as well!!
This 2.0 update looks awesome.
I really only have one complaint. Can we find a better name for the new mechanic than 'stamina'?
In general, stamina doesn't build up during a battle, it depletes. So gaining stamina as you do things seems like a weird concept.
I'd prefer it be called something along the lines of Battle Readiness. That makes sense as something that can dynamically change during battle. Maybe someone else has a better name and admittedly that's a small nitpick but it does bother me a bit.
Also, has the Dead seen any AI improvement on the strategic side? I'd really like to include them in my games apart from just playing as them.
Yes, this happens a lot, sometimes I have to attack the same enemy nine and ten times to finally kill them. Its a game breaker for me - just way to frustrating to have army tied up while monsters chew up my few cities. I'm out till this is fixed. No borders is showing, OK.
N/A
...
If they "survive" the first fight w/ 1HP, you should be able to kill eradicate them from the map w/ Strategic Auto-Resolve. Granted, that's not ideal, but at least you won't have to fight them more than twice until the next opt-in update. Otherwise, what Hellions suggested seems to fix it, at least for these abilities/spells.
Are you saying that auto resolving the battle (the second time you attack) actually addresses this issue? Cool. Not sure what 'strategic' auto resolve is - I'm assuming its the auto resole a battle? Will Check it out!
The dead faction needs to work better for the AI. Also, Can the diplomacy Ai work better? I often find that they'll declare war or peace very suddenly and then flip flop on it. Oh and please buff the rewards from killing those elemental lord bosses by a ton! Finally, any word on buffing underused stuff like bandit lord and adventurer and PLEASE BUFF DELIN, PYRE OF MAN SUMMON! its not worth it just for that few turns.
it always bothered me how small the ice summon was. Can we increase his size a tad bit? And make that pet snake that's immune to magic stronger, he gets outdated way too fast.
This is simply a stunning game, the best fantasy 4x I've ever played. So many wonderful features, like designing your own units and RPG leveling up.
I've started a game with the new patch and it is the best game I've played of Legendary Heroes. The monster AI is smarter which makes tactical battles very interesting.The stamina system is working so well and also makes the tactical battles more interesting.
The game is more challenging, I'm struggling to build my kingdom up and that's great gameplay.
And it amazes me that Stardock would still work on a patch like this. Truly a labour of love. Well done!
There's a mod for that...
Also XtraDeconstruct has features to improve Undead AI.
I've seen people wanting a different name than Stamina. Why not something like Focus? The longer the fight goes where you don't pull some big flashy thing that disrupts your focus, the more it grows, the more 'in the battle' you are. With warriors and assassins naturally having an edge in getting primed for those big flashy things through the assassin sizing up the mark, or the warrior just getting into the thick of things, vs the defender's 'path of what I was going to do anyway' method of simply being so hard to kill that their focus builds up and lets them suddenly unleash some terrifying reprisal against those attempting to bring them down or reach their charges.
The name seems more natural for the mechanic, and seems to fit better for tireless, yet aware things like Iron Golems, and the Undead.
I'm seconding the request for some work on the Dead AI. Especially as it is a purchased DLC, I really think some effort should be made to have it be competitive in the base game.
I'm not opposed to mods, but I really just want fixes for the Dead. The mods suggested seem to add other things that I'm not that interested in having right now.
This is a concern of mine too. I see them as starting with higher Stamina, allowing them to use special abilities sooner than the other factions, but they don't gain Stamina per round. Instead, they can only gain Stamina by taking damage or hurting themselves.
Trogs are big vicious aggressive nasties. I wouldn't see them gaining by being masochists. I'd see it more like the Warrior ability. Instead of gaining over time, gaining by dishing out damage. (And Trog champs/sovs who pick warrior stack the two dealing damage gains, rewarding them heavily for a very, very aggressive policy on the battlefield.)
Yes I can see that.
Is it just me or is there no blue bar under the HP bar in tactical combat displaying stamina like this note says there is:
@ Derek
Will LH 2.0 also attempt to address many of the polish and fleshing out concerns the community has had over the various updates?
My collection can be found here (some are major adjustment suggestions while others are polishes or tweaks for game balance or game emersion):
https://forums.elementalgame.com/452034/page/1/#3443809
Thankyou Stardock! I've been patiently waiting to fire up LH again and now it seems my waiting has not been in vain
What I see are mostly spell and combat changes. Will there be any changes to the economic system? I don't want to sound too greedy but it would be cool if there was a 4th unique pathway to upgrade your city alongside the Town, Conclave and Fortress; the Capital. This city class could be a jack of all trades type of city but doesn't specialise as much as Towns, Conclaves or fortresses - obviously you can only have one and you can choose to make a city a capital when it reaches level 2. It also gives you some unique upgrade buildings and traits that you can't get in other cities....
For one thing - it's cool to have a capital that does some stuff that you can't do in other cities - that's a plus for roleplaying.
Secondly if you lose your expo cities, your capital can still allow your empire to function reasonably well, i.e. in producing mana, armies and food.
Also sometimes the map just deals some pretty poor dirt with few options to expand to. In this case having a capital city can compensate for having a few poor expansion sites.
Thank you all who have submitted reports here. I've compiled them and sent them off to Kael.
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