The Progression Update is released!

 

Here we are - v2.7.0 is now live on the main branch! Concurrently, the game is now on sale to celebrate!

Please note there are minor save compatibility issues (no crashes expected). If needed, you can access v2.6.3 via the Steam beta branch.

 

The Progression update focuses on the two main forms of progression in the game: The maps and the heroes. This is a really large update, perhaps even larger than the v2.6 Great War update. Not only that, I believe this might be the best update the game has seen since v1.4. It changes so much of how the game is played in the direction of there being much more to explore - whether we are talking literally about map exploration or figuratively about exploring the various avenues of hero skill synergies.

 

The headlines of the update are as follows:

 

New, more compact maps with height differences, win conditions, and an open number of player slots

New skill system sorting skills into categories and adding 120+ new subskills

New units, new spells, new adventure map buildings, new art upgrades

Various QoL improvements and balance changes

~70 bug fixes

 

 

If you want a development log about what’s changed and some thoughts about why, you can go check out the previous announcement - or you can see the short form of the patch notes below.

 

It’s been a long development process stretching across 23 pre-releases, and I want to thank everyone who played and gave feedback on the features as they were being worked on. It is thanks to them that we now all can enjoy this wonderful update. Oh, and thanks to the wonderful community artists who submitted ideas and designs for the various community art updates.

 

Now that v2.7.0 is out, I can start working on v2.8. I’m doing my best to make sure the next update will be a lot smaller than the last two updates, both of which have been much too big.

 

 

PATCH NOTES SUMMARY

 

MAP GENERATION REWORK

 

Map generation completely overhauled

All maps have been replaced. Some new maps share name or shape with old maps

New UI for setting up games

5 new win conditions for some maps (incl. 5 new buildings)

New system for creating templates for the random map generator

Resource piles now have different levels of wealth depending on what part of the map they spawn on

Maps now generate with cliffs

Two new terrains: Gold Beach and Dreamscape

New large terrain art assets for all terrains

 

 

 

SKILL SYSTEM REWORK

 

The game now uses Skillsets instead of Skilltrees for hero progression by default

Sorted all current skills into 47 major skills and the rest into subskills

Reworked the following skills: Tactics (now called Strategist), Champion, Aeromancy, Swiftness (now called Wind Pace), Weightless Soul (now called Wing Master), Fortune, Terramancy, Heavy Soul (now called Stone Heart), Enchanting, Swordsmith, Armorsmith (now called Shieldsmith), Pyromancy, Leadership, Armorer, Hydromancy, Offense, Mysticism, Summoning, Avatar, Engineering, Wisdom, Demoralise (now called Horror), Tragedy, Mastery, Scouting

Added 2 new major skills: Carnage, Faith

Added 54 new general subskills: Affinity, Gambler's Wheel, Inspiration, Lucky Star, Grave Guard, Life From Death, Demonic Reduction, Demoncaller, Possession Cataclysm, Fireleaper, Inferno, Heroism, March Onwards, Persistence, Plating, Lifelink, Aggression, Manalife, Underdog, Grand Physician, Vigour, Belch, Digest, Spit, Betrayal, Survival, Stormbringer, Luckyguards, Life Aether, Jewelsmith, Mana Drain, Demon Blood, Rainstorm, Sapper, Swallow, Conversion, Elite Guard, Brawn, Skepticism, One on One, Dragonform, Guard of None, Dragonslaying, Prism, Customisation, Whimsy, Productivity, Nobility, Forceful Strike, Cult of Muscle, Gold Teeth, Putrid Air, Undying

Added 36 new faction subskills: Salary, Royal Tribute, Old Mirth, Elven Artillery, Lunar Rites, March of Nature, Mage General, Spire Attunement, Scholar, Coil of the Dead, Frost Lich, Turn Living, Ritual of Power, Venomus Demonicus, Great Feast, Sandcaster, Hero's Horde, Ritual of Flesh, Swamp Silver, Bog Witching, Scale Lord, Doppelganger, Tunnel, Dragon Whisperer, Ways of the Sea, Pearl Crown, Fire Dance, Gold Digger, Carve Guards, Earthen Eternity, Uphold Tradition, Serene Meditation, Tea Master, Umsql, Cult Recruiter, Romance

Added 23 new skills for Rogue Realms: Chemistry as a new major skill, and 22 subskills: Mana Crystals, Buying Life, Golden Blood, Dragonskin, Bestial Fury, Life summoner, Rootcaller, Questing, Analysis, Test the Flesh, Research, Midlife Crisis, Spore Spreading, Budding, Neurotoxin, Mychoral Guard, Artillery, Mechpriest, Inspiring Drum, Energetic Jam, Peace Binding, Province Guards

Moved several subskills from Rogue Realms exclusivity to be part of the base game; of the old Rogue Realms exclusive subskills, only Call Beasts, Chemistry, Infest, Tinker, Lovely Tune, Exploitation and Crystal Assembly remains locked to Rogue Realms

Designed new skillsets for all heroes

Changed which skills and subskills heroes start with

Changed, on a skill to skill basis, how many ranks a hero can learn, and what requirements exist for the skill

Added 64 new spells for the new skills

 

OTHER NEW CONTENT

 

12 new units added: The Blood Golem, Medician, Mercenary, Nighthowler, Herculean, Terraformed, Questing Raffe, Aether Witch, Vulpella, Life Reaper, Blood Aspirant, Rune Beacon

15 new adventure map buildings added to the game

Sea towns have been added as a special type of Brine town for players owning Rogue Realms DLC

Added 6 new spells: Nightmare, Dream, Slumber, Detonate, Reap, Root

Hand Designed Skirmishes - these were previously randomly generated

 

COMMUNITY GRAPHICS IMPROVEMENTS

 

Improved default boat during naval combat

Divine Vessel spell now creates a unique boat with unique overworld and in-battle graphics

Lizardfolk heroes now create Turtles instead of Boats at the docks. These have a unique overworld and in-battle graphic

Most factions get unique new walls during sieges (by DeadSaracen)

All factions get a new unique look for their first aid station warmachine (by SleepyMage)

Updated art for Crusader, Paladin, Bloodsucker, Firestinger, Corruptor, Boneliath (by DeadSaracen)

Updated art for Enclave units by AntRose

Implementing 2 minor graphical updates + 1 overhaul to the pheromones subskills (drawn by AntRose)

 

MINOR CHANGES

 

All hero classes now get a unique silhouette for their artifact equipment screen

Guardposts made by Mason now are guaranteed to give their units to the hero defending them when attacked, instead of there being a chance for the enemy to attack the guardpost but not the hero, or a guarantee for this to happen if the hero was uncamped

Bodyguards/entourage losses are now calculated differently and more accurately

Now all types of entourage units regenerate at 15% each day

Week of X unit can no longer roll into technical units such as gods

General artifact set and Champion Statue now give +1 Entourage instead of the Bodyguards skill

Entourage time scaling now limits entourage units during early game for longer

Rogue Statue now gives +3 daily movement instead of the Logistics skill

FOW can now be cleared to the very edge of the map

More player colours

Units with damage reduction now show small glimmers during battle

Lorane now starts with Nighthowlers

Obelisk visions now look different

Tide now starts on Gold Beach terrain, and Delirium starts on Dreamscape terrain

Reduced the frequency of Death Coil killing huge amounts of units by increasing the damage dropoff per jump

Hex and Toadify spells are now Water-school instead of Earth

You can now see what a unit will bloodwarp into by holding B while looking at an expanded unit tooltip

Transformation from Apothecary no longer clears curse of undeath from Malediction or Bane

Air Shield now stacks with units that already had Ethereal, and stacks with itself when cast multiple times

New sprites for the following artifacts: Mesmer's Wall, Batal's Gloves, Ruby Band, Ring of Power, Conjurer's Cape, Champion Banner

Reduced the amount of Firepower/Waterpower/Airpower/Earthpower given by artifacts to 1/10th, to match the new spellpower mechanics

Changed the effect of some artifacts to no longer give +1 skill point, but instead to use proficiency/entourage/command

- Mesmer's Eye

- Rabbit's Feet (daily gold income)

- Tusk's Immortality

- Rogue Trousers

- Bluepearl Ring

- Locket of Death

Removed Learning from a series of artifacts and replaced it with an Experience rate bonus. These are nerfs

- Ring of Victory

- Regal Tunic

- Pompous Crown

- Artisan Helmet

- Tusk's Helmet

- Mandel's Gem

Special artifact bonuses such as "Shadowbetrayal", "Grizzly Guard" and "Unit Speed" will now show up in the UI as skills and will now have tooltips explaining their effects

Most units have had their living status sorted into more accurate categories (undead, human, draconic etc), and you can now see a unit's living status in its tooltip

Heroes now have a per-hero setting for living status

Some new living status categories have minor buffs or debuffs, such as Plants taking double damage from the burning status

Improved various aspects of the Manage Heroes screen

Warmachines now show tooltips when you hover your mouse over them during combat

Tailtoads and Snowbeards now have their damage scale correctly and display correctly

Infernal Gate is now weaker for armies with very few units (less than 100 unit power)

Units that transform still retain proficiency bonus; this includes Lacks

AI now prioritises fighting an enemy hero head on over teleporting home to defend their town from that same threat

AI now prioritises developing and defending their strongest towns first, and will no longer become confused when two towns close by each-other both are threatened

Higher levels of AI now prioritise hiring two heroes immediately when the tavern is bought

Projectile Protection now also reduces ranged attack damage by 25% and is now named Deflection

Fighter hero classes now gain Knowledge slightly faster

Extended the differences between Mob Strength: Low and Mob Strength: High advanced map setting

When hovering over the hero's movement bar in the HUD, the number of tiles in the current path is shown on the map

Forts and Citadels that require more creature dwellings to build now also show other requirements in their tooltips.

Changed the depth at which the Devour text is drawn, to be drawn on top of instead of underneath blood particles

Made the resources given by Buried Treasure more controlled; now a certain number of piles will always give gold and a certain number of piles will always give rare resources

Reduced the power of Buried Treasure for starting areas for small maps

Amount of resources, amount of artifacts, and power of artifacts given by roaming heroes now scale with their level

In battles where you gain more unit power than lost, the game will no longer phrase it as losing a negative number

Oligarchy now affects entourage units

Rewrote the tooltip for Statue of Physique to explain that heroes need to know Might or Ardour to be affected

Updated the Elemental Crystal spell in Sample Mods to now use the new, more straightforward mod functionality for summoning spells

Prevented the AI from casting Swift Retreat randomly during battles

Updated the text in the window that explains army limit size

Extended "Force Symmetry" to also guarantee same results when opening chests

Extended "Force Symmetry" to also guarantee placing the same artifacts

Reduced the variability of undead units by half, tieing the outcomes to specific heroes

Heroes who specialise in undead units now have a significantly higher chance of creating those undead units

The Idol unit will no longer become converted by Blight Ritual

Updated lists of faction units for Custom Skirmish to include v2.6 and v2.7 extra-faction units

Improved the tooltip for towns; the size of the small buttons, and the area for the cursor within which the tooltip will stay active

Increased the Command of structures that use a lot of unit power, such as the Arena (by +1 command for each 25k gold worth of units)

All Units list in Lexicon can now search for unit names or ability names

All Units list in Lexicon can now filter for unit tiers

Adjusted distance that AI is able to find buried treasure, making it more dependent on number of clues that they have found

AI heroes now keep track of cooldown for individual spells during combat, increasing the time between casting the same spell twice

Made it possible to right click units into and out of unit conversion buildings

Changed how gold cost of Training Grounds is displayed

Added Wildren Shrine to Wild's lexicon page

Combat will now end faster when fighting Betrayal units that are out of health

The mana display on the HUD now more accurately shows mana pct when you have between 0-20% mana

Adjusted the number of units summoned by summoning spells to scale more accurately, incl. a lower number of units for low spellpower, incl. fewer units summoned by a single unit casting a summoning spell

Blight Ritual will no longer convert your hero's specialty unit if the hero has the Mastery skill

Reduced occurrence rates of unlockable heroes to 1/3rd of main heroes

Inner Health can no longer be cast on Undead units

Increased the stats of catapults that are used during defense

Added a description of heroes specialisation unit and starting spells to map selection and lexicon

 

BALANCE CHANGES

 

Siren Song has been made more powerful, its effect increased by 25%

Changed how fear works, making it less likely to affect high power units

Added fear resistance. Each time a unit is terrified, the duration of its next fear becomes shorter

The fear from Wail is now strongly reduced by fear resistance

Morale now additionally shortens / lengthens duration of fear

Halved the rate at which Tailtoads inflict freeze

Increased the attack cooldown of Psychotrophs, Sludge Spitter and Absurdum units

Fireflies burst damage now reflects their attack damage

Increased Fireflies' attack damage by 50%

Reduced Betrayal proc chance from 100% to 100% for player owned and 80% for neutral owned

Gilded Pearlshells now have a slightly lower proc chance for both Petrification and Midas Touch

Incinerate now deals 150% damage to burning units instead of 200%

Buffed stats of following units: Dragonworm, Farmer, Child of Midas, Hound Dog, Hound Tamer, Imp, Glutton, Anima, Forest Spirit, Militia, Halberdier, Spawnling, Deckmate, Soulmage, Lich

Nerfed stats / increased cost of following units: Slickspitter, Sneagle, Malcorvid, Infernal, Hellgoat, Sorcerer, Psychotroph, Sludge Spitter, Absurdum, Kroll Bowman, Freshling, Songblade

Halved the power of Entourage so it now works like its description and how it was meant to work

Entourage can no longer give more units than the total power of all your real units on all your heroes and towns

Reduced the xp cost of summoning demons to 1/3rd of what it is

Demonology now summons slightly more demons early in the game and slightly fewer units later in the game

Reduced the mana cost of Necromancy by 1 mana

Reduced the scaling of Necromancy with number of enemy units by 20%, but increased its base strength (same change as what happened with Demonology)

Reduced the AOE of Freshling attacks

Increased the base health and damage of Shadowcasting and Shadowcloning copies, making these skills less reliant on several ranks

Number of Boneguards created by a Bane hero now scales with their level: Number = hero level + 6 * bane rank

Taxpayer unit ability now gives +5 gold per power instead of +2 gold per power

Increased health of Ophidians, Monster Trogs and Hollow Champions

Increased health and damage of Corpseeaters, and health of unupgraded Zombies

Removed high level summoning spells from the list of spells that can be cast by Release

Reduced the proc rate of release slightly for Amberodes (from 20% to 17.5%)

Reduced the duration of Insensate for units not owned by any players to 75%

Buffed Goblin health by +5 and Voodoo health by +3

Gave leap units a very short immunity time after landing from a leap

Reduced the power of Possession from units that do not belong to any player by 33%

Infirmaries are now able to heal any unit that can be hired in town, even if those units are not faction units

Nerfed the cost and thus difficulty estimation of Wildren unit

Increased Slickspitter cost; decreased Slickspitter growth

Increased Venom Darter cost

Increased Agony Beetle cost

Neutral Roaming heroes now either have half mana, or 30 + one quarter of their mana, whichever is lower

Reduced the damage of Cannonneers manning the turrets of Tide walls for neutral encounters

Reduced number of Cannonneers manning the turrets of Tide walls from 3 to 2

Greatly increased Health and Damage of Sorcerers

Halved the duration of the immunity given by Swift Retreat

Changed summoned/miraged units with Midas Touch turning into golden statues to now just leave normal corpses to fix an unintended gold gain

Warding now protects against Comet Strikes

Projectile protection and range reduction now works against Arrow Rain

Avatar now scales off the average of the mana cost of the spell and the actual mana spent on the spell; this reduces the number of units created up to by 50% in case all of the spell's mana cost is paid by Buffer or similar mechanics

Limited the effect of gold stacks spawned by battle turning into Artifacts to only happen via Hunter or Plunder

Reduced number of Runescribes manning the walls of neutral Earthen combat encounters

Flying units that do not belong to any player now can only use their pick-up-and-kill ability on units with 25% less health than before

Fixed low rank units turning into Wretched units when turned into undead despite weaker options being available

Nerfed amount of Soul power gained from combat to be more flat, closer to 20 per combat

Improved Dragon Temple's rate of upgrading dragons by 4x

Dragon Temple can now upgrade summoned dragons and entourage dragons, but only for the duration of that battle

Warding now protects against Comet Strikes

Projectile protection and range reduction now works against Arrow Rain

Changed the way that Summoning spells scale with spellpower, unit cost, etc. Overall, they are now a bit weaker but scale better lategame

Nerfed the secondary effect of the Hunting skill (giving artifacts when fighting beasts that did not come from Hidden Beasts)

Increased the time to attack for Ranged units with Wind-up, more accurately halving their attack speed

Reduced damage of Cultists and Spiritists

Increased Venom proc chance for low tier units, mostly affecting Cultists, Spiritists and Venom Darters

Reduced number of Grey Boys on avatars slightly for avatars after the first

Forbidden Tome can now at most give +10 knowledge

Units that summon units summon fewer units (see "Minor Changes: Adjusted the number of units summoned by summonings spells to scale more accurately")

Doubled the resources given by Commercial Centre town perk

 

MODDING

 

You may now specify unique targets for bloodwarping and other similar effects when doing unit mods by adding in a new line called "Elite Target: Nameofunit"

Heroes can now have their living status set

Global variables can now be read and changed by prefacing a variable with an @ instead of using the global_read() and global_set() functions

New function to make heroes unavailable by conventional means, allowing creation of special heroes

Complete overhaul of skill modding

New modding custom scripting functions:

- find_object_index(name)

- find_sprite_index(name)

- add_sprite(filename,number_of_frames,x_origin,y_origin)

- draw_sprite(sprite_index, image_index, x, y, x_scale, y_scale)

- draw_sprite_outline(sprite_index, image_index, x, y, x_scale, y_scale)

Two new functionalities:

- put @ before the variable name in variable_exists() to check if the named global variable exists

- array_create() and list_create() can now take any number of arguments to instantly put inside the list/array

Technical unit groups for the various factions now get generated BEFORE mods are loaded, allowing you to use these groups with mods

Implemented support for replacing unit sprites along with the new Unit Edit format

Implemented support for replacing unit sprites without using a Unit Edit data.txt file

 

BUG FIXES

 

Reduced the hard disc use when showing the battle menu

Docks building will no longer show up in the middle of battlefields when fighting near a docks

Heroes who gain knowledge when leveling up also gain the +10 to current mana

Fixed rooted units still being able to use Charge

Removed the graphical effect of True Strike (archery bonus) on Blaster attacks hitting own units

AI will no longer use Devour Own indiscriminately in fights against the player

Fixed a bug that might make the AI pay for a hero without getting them

Fixed AI not prioritising tavern for players with Rogue Realms installed

Fixed autobattle spellcasting simulations sometimes making a battle a loss that was a win before the spell simulation

Fixed Paradisic Meadow showing +1 bonus while giving a +2 bonus

Casting Chaos while in a naval battle will no longer scatter units into the water

Fixed a bug that made unlockable heroes have different town building layouts than other heroes

Fixed a bug that made Mercury Boosts draw half souls instead of full ones

Fixed Hydra Heralds not triggering correctly if dying in a battle that an enemy initiated

Fixed several other post-battle effects not triggering correctly when battle was initiated by an enemy

The daily ore income from Carver Stalls now is displayed correctly

Setting all players to be on the same team will no longer trigger any achievements

Taming now works correctly after autocombat

Fixed High Unit Growth advanced map setting quadrupling unit growth instead of just doubling it

Fixed a bug that would sometimes leave roaming heroes stuck on treasure

Fixed Swift Retreat giving immunity when used by an AI that wouldn't use it to retreat

Heroes with Infest can now interact with buildings that have already been visited specifically to Infest them

Fixed Buried Treasure giving 2x as much sulphur as other rare resources

Made sure that the Watering Well unit growth now rounds down when at 0.5 instead of sometimes rounding up and sometimes rounding down

Fixed a bug that made units with leap underestimate or overestimate how far to charge / leap, especially when dealing with units with taunt

Fixed Potency spells showing up in the Spellbook special spells tab

Fixed a bug that allowed Shadowlocked or Petrified units to leave the battlefield in rare scenarios

Fixed a rare bug crashing the game on the Last Week map

Fixed a bug that would sometimes end a battle before a unit with Splitting or Potent Soul could use its on-death ability if that unit were the last unit fighting on its side of the battle

Fixed flying units not scaling the walls even when permitted to or when the walls were breached

Fixed Soul Beacon mercury boosting showing a different amount of units than what is actually given

Fixed a bug that made the resource lost pop-up animation not show the number -1

Fixed a bug that would crash the game when Haste was offered in a scroll or pandora

Fixed a bug related to Pearl-searching particles being spawned off screen and piling up

Chaos unit ability can no longer teleport units from boats into the water

Fixed an exploit where you could force the Batal artifact set bonus to always proc by just not clicking the level-up button on your hero

Fixed Soul Beacon not triggering each day in Hotseat PvP games and for the AI

Fixed the tooltip for Pheromones spell stating that the spell deals damage when it in fact does not

Fixed new Unit Edit files not correctly desyncing abilities from base unit and upgraded unit

Fixed the Rogue artifact set bonus shadow heroes not syncing caster/fighter abilities

Fixed a bug that would crash the game when Haste was offered in a scroll or pandora

Fixed a bug related to Pearl-searching particles being spawned off screen and piling up

Changed summoned/miraged units with Midas Touch turning into golden statues to now just leave normal corpses to fix an unintended gold gain

Fixed Soul Beacon mercury boosting showing a different amount of units than what is actually given

Fixed a bug that made the resource lost pop-up animation not show the number -1

Fixed being able to dig for buried treasure while your hero is mid-movement, which would mess up the revealed treasure

Fixed a graphical error in the Carcass sprite

Fixed Academy being able to give lessons to avatars, which wouldn't do anything

Fixed typo in description of Second Wind and Chaos spells (batte instead of battle)

Fixed Diplomacy not combining separate stacks of identical units into a single stack

Fixed some UI overlap issues with the hero window

Fixed a bug that sometimes would have combat end before all units had deployed if enough units were killed at once

Fixed casting Transform on low tier units making the game lag and eventually turn them into random, higher-power units

Fixed Resurrection prioritising non-permanent units instead of prioritising permanent units

Fixed a bug that would make summoned units that had been hexed able to be resurrected into permanent units

Fixed a bug that meant that Balistas firing very far would deal no damage

Units can no longer drown in naval combat if they are victorious

Fixed a bug where certain buff spells could be repelled by Warding

Fixed a bug where certain v2.6 units were not considered technical units when playing without Rogue Realms

Fixed Entourage units not being considered when the AI is deciding to flee

Fixed Necromancy not giving mana to avatars when using the Drain option

Fixed the daily gold income of Exarch set bonus not being displayed in the gold income tooltip

Fixed Wildren Shrine and Loss Shrine not being translated correctly

Fixed a bug that made Forbidden Tome give one more knowledge than the number of spells you knew

Made sure mana regen is described as an integer in the tooltip for Knowledge even when the hero has the Regeneration skill

Fixed Lieutenant Hall not giving the same hero as what is displayed in the UI

Fixed a bug that would allow you to duplicate Delirium heroes

Fixed an occasional crash when the AI was trying to protect a town they'd town-portaled to

Fixed a bug with the save file compression algorithm that would prevent the final 1-128 values not be recorded when compressing a grid

Fixed certain combat encounters having no command (such as catapults) - now 1 command is minimum in all cases