Someone need to explain to me how to make mage troops do some damage... Is their dmg based from attack as well? If so, the base 4 attack of the first ranged attack staff really blows lol.

Also, what controls the behavior of a monster stack "patrol" for some reason in pretty much every game i have either a stack of knights of ashok or something like that , or like right now i had a 2.2k hp guardians of stone something stack just outside my starting city, by turn 40

Is it possible to make stacks like that "activate" their patrol routine after a certain amount of turns?

All the games where normal world ai and moderate frequency.

Sorry Werewindle, I cut out the burning from staves. Too buggy. The 1st tier of staves does 2-4 damage. The staff has no weight, allowing for full leather and the staff at 40% encumbrance. That means 20 initiative plus any traits you use. Attack bonus traits don't work on elemental damage, so  you should stick to accuracy and initiative. You can add the two rings to get 3-6 damage. That is better than any weapon  against better armored units and you are at range. Getting Glyph Stones further increases damage, but then you are spending massive amounts of crystal. Going to tier 2 staves fires in a radius of 1. Hitting 6 units is a hugely powerful thing. The third tier hits all enemy units. You can image how ridiculous that kind of weapon gets. This is the main reason why Pariden is so strong. They can go all Conclaves, get all the unit bonuses and crystal production increases. They can use Leht Staff and Staff of the Oncoming Storm. These do better damage and lightning resistance is extremely rare.

how do you unlock the hill mine? i settled on/near a hill and used raise/lower land, but nothing unlocked it

you have mentioned in the changelog that tarth gets 4 traits but i can only choose 3

Sean, did you try play on epic setting? I found it just nearly impossible to play because of really slow tech progression, and relatively too fast monster strength increase does not match well.

You tried to play on expert? Are you mad? I don't ever play above a normal world difficulty. The faction AI can be set to expert or higher. I like them on Chuck Norris as it provides a side step from Expert. The world difficulty increases how fast lairs upgrade. Don't go above what you can handle. The mod is designed to provide infinite challenge at the higher difficulties. Epic pacing will take most of your life to get through. Otherwise it wouldn't be epic.

We want balance, but you have to realize that some people are infinitely great at the game. The game is balanced at easy levels. It will destroy you at higher ones. The faction AI quite simply has trouble with the puny unit designs it has. I am working on a unit package, but it takes forever to get the right number of units.

Govs got a fix. It's in next update.

Sweep is awesome if you know how to use it. In addition to losing a turn, they lose half of their defense. Bring some axes to mass sunder those prone units. There is a different attack for fighters called Whirlwind that does damage in a radius. They have two different uses. Verga is a great solo unit, but the mod is designed to favor bringing some trained units. The +25% attack is the main bonus for him. That scales to ridiculous amounts later on. There is no greater attack boost in the game.

I play on expert/expert and i am doing very fine Actually, i am now trying to play on expert/insane because poor AI is getting destroyed by the world.

Sweep was fantastic, now I agree, is useless. When i play Verga now i basically never use it. Before it was nerfed, i loved it. I think there is enough monsters out there already resistant to prone plus there is cavalry on AI's side, that this skill's usefulness mostly count in an early game. In the early game, however, the risk of missing and ending your turn surrounded by enemies is so high that it is always better to kite and look for good position to strike. I think for an entire play through i use sweep once or twice. Before i used it every fight. I think sweep should have long cooldown but be more effective.

If you have sweep, just make sure there are at least 4 units around you. You will hit a few most of the time. I might up it to 50% chance though. 

Flurry gives 3 actions, but they are not free. You get your actions early, but then have to wait until those early turns would have gone by normally to get your next one. It can be a great ability for the right situation. But your 3 turns require some thought to make sure it is not a waste.

Spears and leather can kill bandits pretty easy. Just make sure you bring 6 total units.

The difficulty is quite dependent on the starting location. I once had a starting location with 3 essences and place to rush 2 additional cities in the first 12 turns. The 3 essence means that you get +3 research at the beginning, the cities placed that early let them build solid defense before the AI tries to attack them. A start like that makes the difficulty 2-3levels easier than a standard starting position. On the other hand, a starting position without any essences and no settling ground in a 15 grid radius will make the game much much harder.

The new inspiration is imho a bit too much, it was already a must-cast when it was a flat +1 research.

Alright, I'll reduce the research penalty for Epic. All that feature does is reduce production and research in a linear way. Since every tech is about double the cost of the previous tier, that is going to add up. Really, normal pacing takes a very long time to get to the late game techs. Normal pace is designed to let tech factions get to the end tiers by turn 500 or so. The weakest tech factions are balanced to be able to win from only midgame techs. From there they need to start conquering for research gains. Everyone else falls somewhere inbetween. 

As to not having difference in the core difficulty settings? Did you read any of the lore or intention of the mod? I am glad people like playing it, but this mod is for advanced users. The whole reason I started the mod is to provide more pain and suffering for expert gamers. If light users want to play it, the easiest possible settings make that possible. But you need to skill up alot to play on normal or better. I am not willing to waste difficulty settings on easy levels. The vanilla game panders a little too much to light users. The only thing they can expect from me is a kind word and the lash of a glass-encrusted whip.

To each their own. The thing I enjoy most about the mod is the added strategic depth and dangerous world. The stuff you enjoy is more of a garnish as far as my designs go. If that is your cup of tea, you are going to love Ivory Towers. It's a mod project that adds Tower as a fourth city specialization. You either specialize your city in summons or trained monsters, instead of normal troops. Basically, it adds summoning and beast domination into the core economy, instead of  hero leveling.

We are going to add more than just "balance". But I don't think Seanw3 has any 3D designer skills, and I certainly don't, so there won't be new models or textures. Also, because of the atrocious limitations of the FE modding engine, there's only so much interesting, genuinely new content we can add.

We'll update the mod a bit more slowly, with mostly bug fixes, tooltips, balance fixes. But behind the scene, we're redesigning tech trees and factions to make each distinct. The goal is the following: add choice, add personality. We want each tree to feel different, and we want to give players the choice to focus on a single tree and do well, which elemental certainly doesn't let you do right now. We want each faction to feel more different than they do now. Most factions will lose access to a few core techs, replace by another, more appropriate version. No more Pariden zweihanders. No more Gilden mages. Instead, stuff that reall fit the factions - spellswords and recruitable magicians for Pariden or more golems and other constructs for Gilden.

Version 1.01.014 is up. Changelog will be updated soon.

This one is compatible with 1.01 vanilla. Fortunately most of their changes were bug fixes, so it wasn't hard to update. Not too much changed on our side. Some minor balance changes as we will continue to do. We are doing the major faction work, so you should not expect too many drastic changes for awhile. In return, you'll get a big one later.

As to the hardcoreness, what do you even mean by that? The monsters at start are easy to kill. The tough guys have 0 moves. On normal world difficulty it is totally manageable if you play the game at a competent level. If you are not good enough yet, play on easy. 

"Without challenge, victory is hollow. Without pain, defeat is meaningless." -Sean W. III

I meant that and I still do. I don't particularly want light users to play my mod. I don't care if only I play it. I am building a hell for hardcore gamers. Do not understand the nature of our relationship. I am the tormentor, the deceiver, the bringer of light that fell to darkness, the usurper, the impaler of noobs on splintered wood, the king of pain, the ruler of misery, the author of your destruction. I allow to exist in my realm until I see fit to send my legions to your doorstep. Come and struggle against me if you dare. That is the nature of the Master's Affliction. This is not a game for the light of heart. It's an exercise in survival. If that is not something your twisted subconscious is secretly begging for, there is another mod out there for you.

The difference between this mod and the vanilla is that winning is something you can be proud of here. In the vanilla it is simply some that happens at the end of the game when you get bored.