I do believe that was me....

Changes look sweet.

Bahaha.  This is fun.  Since I can't make a custom champion without crashing, I'm running with Procipinee/Pariden.  I started off next to a Syndicate base, which I decided to farm... which worked for a little bit, but then rapidly went horribly wrong.  Now I have 3k HP Syndicate stacks just south of my base... which I'm pushing back without using a single unit.  Arcane Monolith -> Warden immediately, they go '... oh alright, we'll move'.  I keep pushing them back, sooner or later I'm going to run them off that lair of theirs, and then we'll see who has the last laugh.

... of course, I do keep half expecting them to turn around and go '... we ain't movin'.

Insane world, dense monsters, expert AI.  .7b, 97 turns in.  I'm waaay at the bottom of the pack, faction wise, due to having pretty much no military to speak of and only one city, but I'm still alive.

Start with Sparse Monsters, Easy World Difficulty, Harder AI Factions. Factions are not wonderfully smart otherwise. If you are new to the game entirely, Fast Pacing and a Normal AI Faction setting would make it easier to learn the mechanics. But a sparse monster spawn makes all the difference in the world. Keep in mind that Normal Monsters will eat you alive. Dense is really just meant for when you make a custom faction that is OP.

1.0.008 is up. Changelog updated.

Yes. This is because there are some hero lairs that don't have a hero connected to them. I am not sure why they exist. I may cut them out and risk a causing a crash at some point. Or I could just add a hero to them.

jugs, golem and henchmen race ablity is still not working for me. I put a point in all or one of them and I never get the tech in the tree to research them.  However if i chose a race that can normaly use them without putting a point into it during a custom race buid they are still there as normal in the research tree. 

He said not to use the "Use Mods" option. Since your mod directly modifies core files it doesn't need that option ticked. I haven't run into any issues yet.

As an aside, is there ANY way to allow docks to be built from one tile away from a city? I know it's like this in vanilla but usually the decent city spots are very rarely right next to the river where you can build docks. I'd like for docks to be able to be built with one tile of land between the city center and the river. Can you mod this?

A mine to boost production similar to the lumber yard, but buildable in the hills that are impassable usually? That'd be pretty sweet in my book. I know allowing a one tile snake to rivers/lumberyards would reduce the amount of choice involved in placing a city, but personally I love building up my cities to have as many improvements as possible and I hate to be missing some. I'd be in full support of nerfing piers/lumbermills to allow one tile snaking.

You, milord, are a winner.

P.S.: Learning a lot of modding thanks to yours

Which traits do you have on Verga? I would not use him as your base scale for power because he is the powerful melee unit in the game. A level 9 normal hero is much much weaker.

For very high level heroes, weapons matter, but mostly for their special abilities. As you point out, counterattacks are important for Assailants. But if you are Path of the Defender, you can get a nice mace for bash with less of an armor penalty. In addition, each warrior class can get more counterattacks, leveling the field. It really depends on how many attacks your heroes are taking in tactical. If you have an army taking most of the blows, you are better off with something like a spear that can ignore armor or a greatsword that has maul. An axe for a hero means they can wear down enemy armor very efficiently. But as in real life, the weapon does not make the man. The man makes the weapon. What makes you think a dagger is a silly weapon? It was good enough to kill Cesar.

I will add some more attack to archers. This path is hard to get balanced with the rest of heroes.

Mages are a designed to play much differently than warriors. Mages are all about supplementing melee units. They can subdue an enemy from a distance and ignore all armor. They are superior is several situations. Especially a Cleric, who can do massive heals. It all depends on how you level them and what your overall strategy is. Judging any level 7 against a level 8 is not really fair. At level 8 you get a new path, which greatly increases power.

Backswing is not a good ability for trained units for the reason you suggest. It's not something we can mod, which is why axes have sunder armor in addition to backswing.

As to the game slowing down, This is simply something we have to deal with for now. The next vanilla update will increase performance by quite alot. The biggest reason the turn time is so long though is because I have the AI Intelligence Factor turned way up on Hard and above. It takes longer to go, but the makes much better decisions. You can alter it if you want, but I cannot imagine playing a dumb AI for the sake of speed.

The sweep and whirlwind animation bugs are vanilla problems. I can't solve them unfortunately.

Arcane Bolt should be fixed for 1.0.009. Also the melee applies spell issue will be fixed too. I am doing some other major changes, or I would post it tonight. 

Actually i just realized that my difficulty settings are messed up: there is Chuch Norris appearing somewhere in the middle. So when i choose expert, a description is shown for insane ... So i think that instead of playing experts i was playing insane.

Version 1.0.009 is up. 

This one does a total rebalance of unit design traits. They no longer cost any labor and have been balanced against each other. They are still a little rough in terms of trade off and which faction or race should have which. But the balance is solid enough to release. Spell also were very much balanced. Expect to get more power from spells to help deal with the world. Some paths were altered as discussed in this thread. Monsters were also balanced to make monster archers less invincible. Dragons are extremely powerful now as are many monsters on the epic side of things. Mites are less wandering and are fewer in unit number. 

Ah, so the tinkerer emerges from his flying city? Yes, those changes are in the changelog. Now back to work!