Fantastic update! Lot's going on in 0.951

Comments as follows:

• I'm a little leary about having 'road building' units. I fear that we're going to get road-spam in addition to pioneer-spam now. While it's definately worth testing, I still think the best way would be to build segments of road at a time and allow for some unknown in the road building.
• No mention of AI focusing on %unrest buildings. This is a concern for when you take over an opponent city...none of the %unrest buildings were focused on.
• Glory could become broken...unless there is upkeep to the spell. I'm going to assume that it's a turn based 'conversion' spell: 1 mana -> 1 Prestiege that can be cast multiple times.
• Still would like a zzzzz comment informing you that you have an idle city (even if it were an selectable option).
• Really like that units will now pass through opponent caravans! Your own too?
• AI looks like it got a strategic overall. Solid!
• Like how clicking on a resource draws a line to the connected city. However, would rather see a line drawn to the connected outpoint, and clicking an outpost draws a line to its connecting city.

Thanks for the release! Looking forward to Thursday!

Actually, the outpost has nothing to do with the surrounding resources. 

You can have an outpost connecting to 'city A', while a resource only one tile away can be connecting to 'city B' if it's closer.  Click on the resource (improved) to find out which city it's connecting to.

Quite true. 

Just Seems odd that it works that way.

It makes more sense (at least to me) to have a resource transported to its nearby outpost and then from there, transported to the outpost's 'mother-city'.

Ugh.  Why do you guys keep clinging to this mechanic?  I hated it in War of Magic and I hate it now.  It's frustrating mechanically and absurd conceptually.

The whole point of accepting a surrender is that it means you don't have to waste time crushing an opponent who can't possibly stand against you, but cities magically disappearing on surrender means that it's a complete waste to do it.  I could get a bunch of extremely valuable cities for minimal effort (and basically no economic cost; since prestige never rounds below 1, the difference between 6 and 20 cities is basically nothing for most practical purposes), or I could get absolutely nothing.  Gee, I wonder what I'll pick.  It's not like taking the cities is going to be ever remotely difficult, or they wouldn't be willing to give up to begin with.  Why allow surrenders at all if you're going to discourage them so vehemently?

And why would a thousand people burn their homes and flee into the wilds just because their Sovereign lost a war?  Do the citizens of Pariden really thing they're better off living squatting under trees in a monster-infested forest than living in a mighty city under Tarth's administration?  It's so stupid.

A surrendering side should just be forced to give all their cities to the victor.  Or at the very least they could become neutral and be easy pickings for whatever side gets to them first.  Having them just evaporate into thin air is awful.  It makes demanding surrenders worthless unless the side is down to its very last city and you'd rather have the sovereign's spell schools.

Ahem. Nothing, I mean NOTHING is more stupid than dragging a game that already ended needlessly with creating new empty space that other already inferior enemies can suddenty take, and you have to spend another 30 minutes to an hour to conquer and rinse and repeat with every enemy left. Just let it end fast enough.

I agree with DragonRider862, it is extremely absurd to just mass destroy cities when a sovereign surrenders!  A better mechanic is to make all the Cities go neutral and available to the first Sovereign to claim it, by moving a unit onto it and defeating the defenses (Cities should still believe they are a part of the original soverigns empire for at least a few turns until they get the news or their Sovereign shows up in person auto aligning the city!  This would add a whole new mechanic and concept to the game, especially when you have to worry that a nice city the surrendering sovereign once had may be taken a-la-carte by an enemy before you secure it!

The idea behind raze is to make it so that the city is just gone and can't be built on in that area again (we expanded the # of tiles raze effects too). That way, the game moves along.  Having another half dozen cities to suddenly manage isn't fun (at least I don't think it is).

I just finished a game as Pariden where I made each and every sovereign surrender. It worked out quite nicely as somehow Markinn had Curgen's Hammer (that 50 attack 2h mace with overpower). It was awesome to get that hammer. However...

Here was my thought process. I knew their cities would magically go poof so I took over each one up until the last city (and killed the sovereign and heroes multiple times while doing so). I then waited until the sovereign healed and popped his head out of the final city, then took the city, and then demanded surrender. Net result was I took all the cities first and then got the sovereign out in the open. It felt "cheap" to do it that way. The goal wasn't cheap (demand surrender, get everything) but the way I had to do it felt cheap and less than optimal.

So yeah, I'd like to see a mechanic where if you demand surrender you get the sovereign (and at least the city the sovereign is in) and maybe a slight chance the other cities would go neutral, join you as demanded, or join a nearby empire/kingdom that has influence. Something other than the magical disappearing poof mechanic (similar to rampaging monsters automatically razing cities). I have to agree I don't like either mechanic as-is.

Having more cities helps you win at no real cost, ergo anyone playing optimally will take the cities.  Self-destructing cities doesn't eliminate micromanagement, it eliminates surrender demands, effectively increasing micromanagement (in terms of armies and battles).

Hell, even Magnar, who may well want the cities razed, is obligated to conquer them by hand so they can get the slaves from razing them personally.  What does that tell you?

But the game doesn't move along. In fact, you're empire has taken a step backwards.

It now has to fallow all the ground of the fallen empire and find acceptable spots to build brand new cities, instead of conquering functioning cities. It's needed to expand your empire's economy and military might so that you can grow to fend off the next opponent.
If the cities converted, you get to choose which ones to keep and which ones to raze (I imagine you'd just raze the bad ones... ), and move on with the best that opponent had to offer, thus propelling you forward in the game.

Not to mention, there is nothing more glorious than subjugating you're opponents capital into submission....

At worst, it would be nice if it were an option in the menu: 'How do you want your surrenders to operate?" a) disappear b)razed cities c)neutral cities d)convert

This way, you can choose how your AI responds. Personally, I would like neutral cities, without having to worry about the sovereign anymore. I can then spend more time detailing through the neutral cities and deside which ones to keep and which ones to sac as I come accross them....flows nicer.

I don't mind that the cities get destroyed, I thought it was silly that they just disappeared in the previous version. The main benefit of having factions surrender is A ) they get out of your hair and B ) you get free prestige! Awesome! 

You can even get powerful faction abilities like -50% unit wages from having an extra sovereign. You still have the option of taking the cities if you want, but I like the ability to have them destroy everything.

Maybe a good compromise would be a way to "Buy" all the remaining cities as an alternative to normal surrender. So maybe it would be 150 gold per city plus 50 per city level, so a big empire of 6 cities that are level 2 and 3 could cost  1200-1500 gold, which is reasonable.

If you cant afford that, simply take a few and buy the rest for half as much. 

Exactly.  If you want to keep all of your opponents cities then you need to take them over.  If you force them to surrender, then the remainder of their cities are gone.  What's wrong with that?

Because it breaks verisimilitude in a heavy handed way? Because it could be solved with a subject state system better? Because getting a surrender is far too easy and this will permanently destroy (at least effectively, in unmodded) a huge swath of land which could otherwise make for another interesting late expansion conflict?

The AI folds too easy as it is. With the freed land I find that it at least gives enemy AIs a chance to become stronger, possibly enough to challenge me if they take enough land and become larger than they were before I annihilated an enemy.

Why can't you rename the remainder of the empire "Remnants of ...." and they are defeated when all their cities are taken over?  It's one thing to have the cities disappear.  It's quite another thing that the Sovereign will kill all the rest of his people AND raze their cities to the ground.

I don't know, I think I agree with Frog on this one.  I'm about making it more fun.  If you want the cities, don't demand surrender.

It does seem a little extreme. I'm not a big fan of a lot of people and whole cities just disappearing over a turn. It looks ugly and leaves a lot of empty room to be filled.

YES! God I hated this so much - pin monster with tremor, attack monster next turn, kill monster, monster runs onto outpost anyway. Being shot of that could be the only thing in the patch and I'd be happy.

Hell yes. Been waiting for this one.

I loved the one hero who had this, so a big woop for rolling it out to all governers. If Mancers/Capitar are getting some love again, can we have a fix for Legacy of Serrane (Warhorses not showing up in shops)?

Sounds interesting, as I've said elsewhere ice elemental buffs are very welcome. Will now have to find out what Frostborn does, but like the sound of it.

Nice.

All very exciting, can't wait for Thursday!

Oh, and:

This would have scared the crap out of me if I had ever seen it. Thanks for sparing me the heart attack.

EDIT: Oops, I missed a whole page of discussion before posting. With regard to surrenders, all I have to say is that my main objection is to how easy they currently are to obtain and that I intend to harp on about this until they're harder to extract from the enemy than a peace treaty.

Are we there yet?  I wanna play. 

I don't see a fix for superstrong monsters like Ashwake Dragons spawning too close to starting positions and wiping out players by turn 100 :/

i love the long list of fixes and balancing! 

Only thing I'm worried about the above is the rarity of a Path of the Governor Champions. Usually if you have one you'd rather he stay in the city to provide his bonuses. In between trying to get him into early fights to level him up some and building roads I feel like we might be spreading that one champion too thin and he won't be able to provide his main city governing duties.

It might be better to allow all Pioneers to do so after researching a certain tech. With the Mancers being able to do it from turn 1.

I think this is just another decision we have to made. Should the governor stay in city and the player will profit from his abilitys to manage the city/production or should we send the governor out to build roads. Could be fun...

Patch today according to a somewhat amphibious source.

I think the Arcane Veil spell is great, but it should be a TACTICAL spell as Diamondskin, because otherwise the player can create units that are immune to every magical effect before the combat started. That would reduce the usefulness of magic.

Diamondskin should have a casting time of 1 to give the player the chance to disrupt the spell.

The casting cost of the Kill spell should not be very high, but the spell should have a casting time of 2 to give the player enough time to disrupt the spell.

I think Blizzard was already VERY powerful, because the damage was multiplied with the number of units. I would NOT change the damage of the spell.

I guess Flame Dart will inflict the same damage as Burning Hands, right?

In my opinion the experience points to level up were very good and i would only reduce the path level requirement from 4 to 3.

@TorinReborn:

Great list, lots of welcome improvements and some very needed bufixes. Hope the bugfiixes continue to pour in, since there's still much to do. Good to see the gamebreakers like corrupted saves are fixed. Hope to see the stacked burning blade get added to the list soon.