Yes, finally it’s out!
For those who haven’t been using the experimental versions, a summary of new features:
-There is an additional difficulty level now in the middle. Levels have been removed to Easy, Normal, Advanced, Expert, Master and Lunatic, out of which Expert is the “new” level. Master is Extreme, Lunatic is Impossible. Advanced is a bit easier than Hard was.
-High end summons are now cheaper to cast.In general rare and very rare repeatable overland spells are cheaper but creatures are affected the most.
-The AI learned to build and use doomstacks. It’s not as good as the human and it’s limited to intercontinental movement capable units but it’s much better than before. As the AI commits more powerful units on offense, its garrisons might be unfortunately a bit easier to defeat.
-The AI is smarter at using intercontinental stacks and picking targets for overland attacks in general.
-The AI has a completely new procedure for picking overland spells to cast so it’s also improved in this area.
-Banished wizards can now cast spells in combat (at a major cost penalty) and receive power income but the other effects of being banished remain.
-Sorcery realm has been rebalanced – it should be slightly better in the early game and it should be slightly less overpowered in the late game, tho this will probably need further changed. Most importantly, it has an uncommon overland summoning spell now!
-In many ways I tried to make the game a bit more “player friendly” for example changed how the AI is allowed to use Spell Blast and removed Nature’s Wrath from the game. Also, while changing designing the new difficulty levels, several diplomacy formulas have been altered to be less harsh towards the human player on higher difficulties. As the AI is now quite powerful, being forced into a 4v1 war is no longer results in a playable game on Master and above in most cases so it should happen less frequently.
-Very rare creatures gained the ability “Supernatural” which allows them to deal a bit of damage even if their damage would otherwise get reduced to zero. Note that this is not the same as Armor Piercing – it doesn’t reduce enemy armor effectiveness, unless it would reduce the damage below this “minimal amount”. This shouldn’t affect most of the gameplay and is only relevant against high level heroes with top equipment – the only counter to those is supposed to be a large stack of very rare creatures but with enough defense they were able to take zero damage even from a Great Drake.
-There is a new racial unrest table, and it’s no longer possible to change your starting race through Move Fortress.
Happy almost Halloween! Thank you for revitalizing the game!
Big thanks for modification of a beautiful game! Best of luck to you, Good Sir