Yeah, you are right.  He was pretty awesome last time I got him, game changing.  But I forgot I moved the letter to be uncommon instead of common.  So i'll cut the gildar cost.

When will this be released?

Could we use this piece to advance level 10 bear cubs into level 1 bears and furhter on to cave bears?

unless those mercaneries were good units instead of crappy ones.

Derek, seriously, why is Alliance tech so late in the tech tree? I would love to wage wars between pacts of kingdoms vs empires, or to face the threat that small civilization I am about to sack has powerfull ally. I remember both things from Galciv II and it worked great, spicing up the late game. But now, by the time alliances are possible, its usually all over.

Also, there should be more options for diplomacy/influence rich sovereign, like breaking NA treaty, Alliance and more...which should, in reverse, be not available for the non-diplomacy/influence poor nations (no more AI cancelling the NA treaty at will, please!).

Diplomacy needs some love!

alliance tech unlocks a victory condition and it would be too cheap to achieve if it were unlocked earlier.

So, in theory, is possible to convert the unit in anything other? And tranform the actual upgrade mechanism in something more similar to GalCiv's one? (So you can convert your old units in new designed ones, with a cost in gildar/material/crystal and maybe turns?)

I ask that, because the actual upgrade is pretty obsure (usually I save the game before upgrading a unit, because i'm never sure about the outcome of the upgrade)

I still wish to see an upgrade size of unit option.  (so you can make a unit size 4 if they're 3)- should only work with trained units, not Panca Archers or Brothers Sparus.

Mkay, did not registered about that victory conditions. But arent we sacrifying big and funny part of the game, by getting alliances soo late?

It is in core elemental defs. You can upgrade unit members number in master affliction mod.

That could be helped with defense pacts and trading military units for gildars resources etc.

Does this apply specifically to the units called Mercenaries which spawn from the village resource, or does it include Hunters and Knights of Asok as well?

Yes!  And if people are concerned about the alliance victory, you can make it have to be cemented by 25 or 50 turns of being allies to win the game.  Or add an additional layer called Unity or Assimilation or Resistance is Futile   that reflects the victory condition.  But this game can use  much more diplo depth.  Who were those manipulators in GC2?  They were sneaky bastiches!

As far as Wallace, no Braveheart is he   I suggested that he be a 3-stack or a henchman-like character who can recruit other shady types to your banner here:

 https://forums.elementalgame.com/437702

Or at least make him an Archer to give him a little longevity.  Then he would be worthwhile.  Thanks for the nerd stuff, Derek, and keep on with the tweaking and fixing, you all are doing a heck of a job!

You do have other diplomatic options.  I cannot manage this on insane and have not tried it on ridiculous, but in lower difficulties you can have a non-aggression pact, trade agreements and caravans and this combined with a higher "power rating" than the other sovereigns will be sufficient to keep all of them from fighting you (so your power rating can be based on puffed air useless troops, because they will never see combat except if you need some of them to fight monsters).  Once you've gone a few rounds of this you can also start charging significant coin (and when they run out of coin, small bits of influence) to for the privilege of not fighting you. Charging them gildar also helps keep them alive because if you are doing it to all of them you are hampering their abilities to kill each other off...

I see. But i still think that making alliances (not the victory condition) earlier would be a great thing though. It would create delicate situations (aka GalCiv II) and also help the AI - weaker kingdoms/empires could have powerfull allies, making it even more interesting for player to decide, whether to sack them... Pacts could be created, waging wars along different fronts with differents allies. Few other ideas: https://forums.elementalgame.com/437881/page/1/#3290390.

Its not about holding AI off my back, I can do that perfectly with other options (military and sov, mainly ). Its about making the game more interesting and intrigued.

By the time I/AI get alliances tech in my current games, its usually all over (and I have already won).

That powerful allies mechanism exists already, though it's slightly different -- you and the AIs can both pay another sovereign to go to war on your behalf.

The game interest thing needs better AI coding, but can be approximated by increasing the AI difficulty.

This mechanism can still not replace full-scale alliance. By the time he would pay other sov to declare war on me (1) I am usually at war with him already, (2) considering I have at least mediocre power rating, it would require him to pay lump sum of money, which is okay. Alliance, on the other way, could be cheaper to get and would act preventinely.

P.S.: I have never seen AI doing so anyway, or at least good old "Other power has paid as to destroy you..." notice from GalCiv was not implemented.

Yes, the game gives you no notices when one sovereign pays another to declare war on you.

Something I'm sorta wondering...

Normally incrementing from 1.0x to 1.1 is a fairly major step for any software. What is the 'centerpiece' change for FE that is, for lack of a better term, justifying the .1 increment? Everything we've seen in the changelog so far looks like a .03 level change.

I have to agree with this. This seems like a fairly small patch.

I´m sure the changelog will grow until release.

I'm sure it will too, I just haven't seen a log note or really even dev journal that has talked about what the signature change of the .1 version increment is focused around. So far its just fixes and some numbers balancing.

EDIT: I guess this dev journal says it's memory & AI, and the changelog says there are lots of crash fixes. I suppose I was just hoping for something a little more sexy, which is probably my own fault for having my hopes up.

From our perspective 1.1 means that it spends longer in QA and gets more attention.  It is a significant update, as compared to a .01 update which is assumed to have a smaller risk level.  In this case the memory fix is awesome but so big that when I asked the developer what was the chance it would introduce new bugs his answer was 100%.  And he was right, we had lots of issues to fix with it.  But that answer meant that there was no chance it was going out in a .01 update.  It was held for 1.1.

Thanks for the answer. From outside the industry, we're used to a .0x update being some little fixes and minor balance changes and a .x update being some sexy new features. Obviously we see it in a layperson's fashion.

Wraith and Amarian buff, yay!