Normal Difficulty Beta 5 - SK Doesn't Attack Crystal Shards

No, they are being attacked in the game I played (The B5 opt-in)

In my three games I have played with B5, it is only in the last game (started yesterday) that I saw the SK attacking shards. And this happened in the middle phase of the game.

It looks like the opt-in fixes the issue.

So, my unsolicited advice is to load the B5 opt-in. 

There you go again with that type of advice!

Yikes, that sucks. I have a good LP going with the first B5 and opted in, but it doesn't seem to be fixing it.  Perhaps I'll start over...

We've gotten intermittent reports of this.  For those who have seen it, has the SK attacked your cities in the same games?

In this game (not finished yet) the SK did not attack any city of mine, nor has he taken or attacked iirc any shard so far. I found a castle near to a lieutenant, he just stands there and doesn't do anything. i could even move some administrator past him or park my hero besides him, he ignores all. In fact, the SK is quite the nice guy, offering me stuff every now and then. I think with me already owning about half the shards on the map he should be more concerned

^ Like the gentleman above, my Let's Play on YouTube highlights this exactly. Aegethon just sits on one tile and in 80+ turns, not a sinfor shard has been attacked or a fortress been built.

Just a thought. While you have a zero threat rating, non of the SK's forces should attack you anyway.

But I've allied with the Dwarves, started a second city, and have done some stuff worth of increasing the threat and...nothing.

Also, now that you mention it, my threat level IS zero.

I think that opt in should not be an opt in.

I've had this experience as well. In Beta 4 and the Beta 5 opt-in, I've had several games where the sorcerer king doesn't send units to attack anything. In fact, in Beta 5 opt-in games where this happens his units don't seem to leave his territory. In Beta 4, he just seemed to stop spawning units very early on (or maybe never did, if he starts with an army). I can't comment on Beta 5, as I didn't bother playing it what with the save/reload bugs.

In fact, the only time shards have been attacked in my last 3 games have been when neutral units attacked them. Is that supposed to happen?

Also, I played normal difficulty in Beta 4, but bumped the difficulty up to hard in Beta 5, so there's another wrinkle for you.