Events:The seven Councilmen have prepared reformation projects, each in the branch he or she is responsible for. The Empress heeds and seems to approve the voiced projects, but She has got something of Her own to reform, something Her Council will not like - demoting their military power and reassigning it to the Lords.
Interesting facts:Electrons exist in fantasy world, too :-) The short lecture about Jumpets by Bilir was not related to any update, just used to portrait his scientific nature.
The Dark Elf Warlord Kh'Everst is a character from the Chronicles of Skunder. It is to be revealed further how this character appeared to be in the circle of Her Majesty's most trusted councilors.
Updates:
Even the short version is rather long. For those who do not need all the details, an even shorter TL;DR is available in red font.
Part 1. Graphics, Commodity & Interface.
1) Transfer filter available for all players. There are two main filtering criteria: by nickname and by transfer type (the latter is divided into subtypes: resources, elements, artifacts, leasing etc.) These two criteria are independent, only one is applicable at a time. A player can only filter his or her own transfer log.
2) Multiple commodity features added to Flash combats.
- Full screen with/without scrolling option available in every combat;
- Combats now fully operable with mouse. Middle button click on a stack displays creature/character info (as Ctrl+click). For actions equivalent with "Shift+click" (such as hit-not-run or shooter melee attack) hold left mouse button for over three seconds;
- "Defend" button changed from "Space" to "D".
3) Creature combat animation pack has been widely updated.
4) Battles page now displays by default last 100 combats currently in progress. Option to display all current combats also present.
5) The new autumn woods battlefield landscape will hopefully let you have a fresh look at this final month of beautiful fall.
6) Magi and Lorekeepers now have a highlight for their shots, which reveals the direction of those shots.
Part 2. Global & Gameplay.
1) Laborers' guild mechanics reconsidered. Any Lord who has worked 10 workshifts in a row at Empire's facilities since his or her last victorious combat, shall suffer an efficiency drop of 20% at each further enrolment, down to 10% of the usual efficiency. One victorious combat of any type restores it back to full 100%.
2) New arena hosting six-fold "Every One For Oneself" combat types open. Lords of combat level 12 and above can choose a range of levels when creating this kind of challenges.
Experience and skil points are warded as follows. First one out gets 30% exp, 50% fsp; second - 40% exp, 65% fsp; third - 50% exp, 80% fsp; fourth - 60% exp, 120% fsp; fifth - 70% exp, 135% fsp; last man standing gets 100% exp and 150% fsp gained. In case if less than five Lords joined the challenge, the combat will be held off the arena - just as an ordinary EOFO.
3) Introduced Overlay system for spells of Holy and Darkness schools of magic, antagonistic to each other. Thus, Rapid and Delay, Bless and Curse, Chastise and Weakness do not replace each other, but co-exist as long as both effects are in action.
The Overlay effect for each group of spells is as follows.
4) Team experience allocation. Players of combat level 9 and above who host team group battle challenges are able to choose in which way the experience and faction skill points will be distributed.
The new option check box is available for "Evenly" and "Random" group battle types, if the bottom combat level of participants is above 8. Such challenges will be listed appear with a "+exp" signature.
If the "TEA" option is on, the formula for calculating experience is as follows:
Exp = [Total exp of team] * ([Character level]^2 / [Sum of squares of all character levels] + [Character AP] / [Total AP of team]) / 2
Which means, the lesser AP deviation within a team, the more evenly the experience will be allocated, provided that the combat levels are same.
Faction skill points are then allocated in the same proportion as the experience.
5) Merged hunts became subject to slight changes. From now on, if the factions of the two creature groups differ, their morale is 0. If one of the groups is undead and the other is neither undead, elemental, nor mechanical, the other group's morale is -1. Also, experience and faction skill points will be divided equally between the two merged hunters. In case of merged Necromancer hunters, they will still split gained skeletons depending on their Necromancer skill level.
6) New artifact storage building called Cache now available to all Lords who have constructed the Citadel in their castles. The new building is available for diamonds since level 12, for gold and resources since level 14.
7) New factories for producing artifacts for 7-8 combat levels opened their doors at several locations of the Empire map.
8) First Estates posted on Empire auction. Their function is to quicken troops and mana regeneration rates to the owner and his or her guests, as well as storing owner's artifacts. The basic Estates hold room for 10 items and increase regeneration by 10%. An estate can be upgraded by constructing various types of annexes.
Visiting several estates/rented rooms is redundant, only the one with highest rate will give effect. Regeneration only has effect on its user only if he or she is in the same location as the Estate. Manipulations with stored artifacts are also possible from home location only.
Each estate has a rank representing its development. The highest rank is five full stars, but upgrading to one of those is a costly luxury.
More estates auctions will be posted at a much later date, and the number of such lots will be considerably lower.
9) Military clans introduced. Any clan can be upgraded to military provided that:
- No single member of that clan is already a member of another Military Clan;
- Number of clan members (including pending invitations) does not surpass 250;
- Clan treasury holds enough gold to militarize.
Militarization cost is 2,500,000 gold + 4,500 gold per clan member. Clan can be militarized only if all of the three conditions above are met. Once militarized, the invitations to that clan will cost 5,000 gold.
Military clans have their distinctive attributes, such as Coat of arms and Icons. Icons are displayed in clan member profiles and in their forum posts. It is possible to toggle the displaying of Icons in each player's personal settings. Military clan member cannot be ambushed by his or her clanmate thief.
Military clans compete for influence, control over land and certain facilities, and unique rewards during wartime events. To earn honours to their clan, players are supposed to participate in clan challenges during such events, not solitary (neutral) challenges.
10) New Enchanters' Guild Mechanics to be introduced since November, 21. Linear dependence of elements to spend on enchantment efficiency is changed to non-linear:
Enchantent efficiency
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Number of element sets
1
2
4
6
9
12
15
19
24
30
11) New Thieves' Guild Mechanics to be introduced since December, 1st. The Guild invitation will only be given out to thieves once, to those who achieve the 5th level in the Guild. Those who have already received an Invitation at Guild level 2, will not receive any more invitations. Battlefields for Thieves' Guild ambushes and Mercenaries' Guild brigand quests have been increased to 18x18 cells. Experience granted for TG caravan combats has been doubled.
12) Many new Mercenaries' Guild quests now available. The new quests include:
-Vanguards of Elves, Barbarins and Demons;
-Remaining Demon MG quest types (Army, Invaders, Brigands);
-Brand new quest type called "Factions-conspirators".
Part 3. Factions & Balance.
1) Tier 5 creature upgrades now available to all players. These creatures will as well be encountered at hunt and on Mercenary errands. The buildings are available for diamonds since level 13, for gold and resources since level 14:
2) Faction skills, talents, creature count etc. thoroughly rebalanced:
- Creature count altered for all factions at level 10 and above;
- "Cold steel" talent effect reduced to 10%;
- "Lightning" and "Ice clod" spell damage increased when "Chaos magic" talents chosen;
- "Dominion of Fire" talent effect formula changed to [Spell power] * 2%, but not bigger than 50%;
- Faction skill level 9 effect replaced by +2 attack +2 defense;
- Knights' Escort damage reduced to 100%;
- Royal griffins damage through battledive reduced to 100%;
- Knights' "Defense" talent sector cost increased to 8;
- Wizards' mini artifacts efficiency reduced, "Luck" and "Magic shield" parts removed. Mini-artifacts are now free, their cost fully refunded to each player. Number of parts now depends on combat level (lvl 5 for double, lvl 9 for triple mini-artifacts), their quality still depending on faction skill level;
- Wizards' "Erudition" talent sector cost increased to 9, "Sorcery" cost decreased to 7, "Chaos magic" cost decreased to 10;
- Barbarians' Magic proof ability effect reduced to 6 * [faction skill level] + 5;
- Barbarians' "Defense" talent sector cost increased to 9;
- Dark elves' "Offense" talent sector cost increased to 8, "Sorcery" decreased to 7;
- Demons' "Defense" talent sector cost decreased to 9, "Chaos magic" to 10. All Lords are advised to re-recruit troops and re-apply talents.
3) Innate magical resistances of creatures, Barbarians' unique racial Magic proof and artifacts granting magic resistances now only have 10% of their usual effect in relation to enchanted weapons. Note that Armorer enchantments keep their full efficiency against Weaponsmith enchantments.
4) New artifacts for Lords of combat level 11 and above added to Artifact shop:
Part 4. Easter Eggs.
There are more updates that were not covered in this list and that we have decided to let you find. Some of them are expected, some not at all, and I believe that discovering all of them would be fun and surprise.
Thanks for reading and thanks for gaming!
