I agree Vallu.

I check every friday but havent noticed any changes yet. So i guess they arent doing much progress.

Or Brad just slacks for some reason. Might be that Impulse thing. Carrying bags of money from the trucks to the basement can be quite exhausting. Or so i was told.

I don't understand why people aren't separating the idea of the AI sovereigns vs the player's sovereign.

Keep the sovereign the same for the player and make the changes to the AI players.

Or, if the player's sovereign is affected, then the player controls whoever takes over. It seems simple to me.

I strongly feel that the dynasty system needs to be expanded. It could be a great aspect of the game.

Updated.

One thing that may be cool with the dynasty system. It'd be cool to be able to negotiate a seedy treaty to assassinate another sovereign. So, if you have the best relations with a kingdom/empire, and you want to get their land, but dont feel like warring, you can setup a treaty with another faction to try to kill that sov. Of course, this could backfire on you, and you could end up at war with that faction. This may be a bit hard to implement though. Just a random thought that popped into my mind.

Ah yes, more cool stuff from AoW.

I hope the channeler wont have to be stuck in a tower though...

• Tactical battles: AI re-design
• Magic tech: Clairvoyance (allows remote channeler to cast spells into a battle)
• Tactical battles: Casting time on spells.

Does this mean that you finally have the reigns of the Tactical AI Frogboy?

Grammar Nazi: Kings reign, horses have reins.

1. Yeah! Really badly needs done.

2. As it currently stands wouldn't this make it useless to get Intelligence ever? Just cast with your intelligent undepedent sovereign anywhere anytime.

3. Cool

Minor factions. 

First, instead of taking the last one out, put them all back in.

Second, Put their Sov inside of the freaking city.

Third, Make the City un-raze-able.

Fourth, instead of it being a "city" make it a special spot like a city that can produce troops and sell special items.

Fifth, these troops are not designed, they are like darklings or dragons, they are what they are, but they reflect the minor civ.  The Orekeepers have a special armor they make.  So the troops could be just "Orekeepers" and they could have longswords and Pressed iron Armor. 

You could still have diplomacy with them, marry, or whatever.  If you conquered them, you can't, as those people are dead, but can still sell the special items and make the special troops.  If you ally with them, or take them over through influence, then you can still use diplomacy. 

Sixth, make their city produce the crap they need to build troops.  So they might not have to build any thing, but their special city produces metal, resources, etc so they can.  They could produce troops, but can't declare war, they as minor nations can only have war declared on them, OR go to war to defend an ally.

Nice! It's looking good so far (though I'm a little dissapointed to see the essence thing removed). I wonder if the same Imbue mechanic will still be in place... Also, has anyone heard anything about what "exotic things" are, exactly?

Appreciate the continued work, can't wait to see it! 

Magic needs much more love man MUCH more. Right now I don't even bother with the magic in the game cause it doesn't matter. All I have to do is get 7 people with battle axes and leather armor; game over.

More spells are needed. Better weapons too.

Get rid of the if your a good guy race you can't use Darklings because now they're a waste of space in my lands, the same can be said about Wargs.

Actually that was a good thing from AoW Shadow Magic. It makes the game easier to balance and they can make him just as physically strong as they believe is best since he will not go around with the army and annihilate things.

I was thinking that the distance the channeler is from the army would have some effect. either in terms of casting time or the umph of the spell.

Just saw the casting time on spells.  Maybe that should be a function of things like techs and maybe stats/items?

A base time for a spell, then modifiers like INT (having below-INT needed for a spell like some sovs would have should make the spell take longer, having huge INT should improve casting time), also magic techs and enchanted staves/rings should lower casting time.

Spells should not end a turn like they do if this system is implemented.

As you are probably aware, MoM used a higher mana casting cost for the distance. I like the idea of using mana cost, but I would improve the system slightly with what we have available in WoM that MoM didn't have. Not the distance, but the nature of terrain:

Normal cost for spells in own domain.

1½ the cost for spells in neutral domain.

Twice times the cost for spells in another faction's domain.

You can of course tweak the cost however you want. Double for neutral, three times for enemy or whatever.

That way the player would be aware of the cost. In MoM you didn't know the multiplier before entering a battle. Hiding information from player = bad.

Perhaps it could be related to the units in the army?

Only base soldiers, 1 umph.
A champion, 2 umph.
Spellcasting champion, 3 umph
Family member, 4 umph

Not cumulative then of course and perhaps only within your own zone of control.

This would make it easier to know how much umph you're bringing into battle.

I like this idea for mana cost, possibly combined with something like Magog_AoW's suggestion for spell power.

Best regards,
Steven.

Would it be possible to add to that running log damage formula recalculation so that factions with an armor advantage never actually have immortal units.

Other than that, keep up the good work.

What if the nature of the spell changed?  Spells could be more focused and deliberate if the caster is close and less precise if the caster is further away.  (Perhaps a fireball that hits one target for a high amount of damage becomes a meteor that hits a larger area but does less damage).  Kinda like shining a flashlight at something a few feet away vs a dozen yards.

updated

I like the sound of morale coming back. I would love to see morale a little bit like in the TW series where morale effects unit performance. Like I think it would be cool if morale could effect the hit percentage or dodge chances.

I need morale because I originally intended it as a way to force the player to attack the AI players.  When it got removed, they changed the AI to just run out after the human players (to their death).

I want to make the AI focus on getting to good strategic positions on the map if it has the morale advantage. The defender will tend to have the morale advantage.

Not willing to ruin the party here but i thought patch 1.3 was to try to finally fix the game. Don't get me wrong, i have a lot of fun with solo but when it was first advertised ( way back now) multiplayer was a core feature and now...well, let's just say that i waited till now to finally buy the game, thinking that after all this time multiplayer was truly working and i'm feeling like i lost my money on something that will never happen.

Again, it's not random complaining and not a flame post, i always was fond of stardock products and game policies but seeing that the main flaw of this game( which had a great potential) will eventually be adressed in an other standalone game that will cost between 30 and 50$ for sure disappoints me a lot to say the least.

Yeah, the caravan system needs an overhaul, it's even less fun then freighters in GC2.

Is it possible to have morale tied to terrain somehow? That could make terraforming spells a bit more interesting.

Morale sounds cool but this time around can you please explain what the beep it does?