Key Features

Smarter AI - AI factions now raise real field armies behind their champions and sovereigns, send their leaders out to clear threats instead of idling behind a full garrison, pick fights they can actually win, garrison their cities properly, train harder in wartime, and stop asking for peace the turn war breaks out.

Rebuilt Loot and Crafting Economy - Gear now drops about a third as often with crafting ingredients taking its place, bandits carry three times the gold, wolves drop pelts, and lairs award an item roughly a third of the time

A Safer Start on Easier Difficulties - On Novice, Beginner, and Easy, wandering monsters leave your cities alone until turn 500 while still fighting your armies in the field and raiding AI cities, giving new players room to find their footing

September 30th, 2026 Change Log

AI

• AI factions now keep real field armies led by champions or sovereigns, scaled to how many cities they hold, instead of leaving their leaders sitting at home

• AI cities keep a proper military garrison

• Pioneers and caravans no longer count as defenders

• AI cities that were stuck on research because they only trained pioneers will now train soldiers when the garrison or a champ army is short

• AI pioneers weigh city sites and unclaimed resources on the same scale and will range further out from an established hub to claim them

• Extra AI troops form support stacks that wear down an enemy city's defenses before the main army moves in

• The AI picks off weaker enemies next to it without abandoning a longer march

• AI opponents no longer beg for peace the turn war breaks out. They will not suggest peace for at least 20 turns, or 40 when a Kingdom is fighting an Empire

• AI cities train troops more aggressively in wartime and will train the largest group they can afford instead of holding out for a full company

• AI sovereigns and champions no longer sit idle in a well defended city while monsters roam nearby. They now count the escorts they would take with them when sizing up a fight

• AI sovereigns only commit to a fight when they clearly outmatch the enemy, so they stop throwing themselves at armies that will kill them

• Unrecruited neutral champions no longer pin an AI sovereign in their home city for the whole game

• The AI can no longer equip the same item on two different units.

Gameplay

• City build queues and resource totals now match what you saved when you load a game, instead of appearing empty and filling in afterward

• Your treasury can no longer fall below -100 gildar. You can still run a deficit, but it will not overflow into a nonsense number

• Unit, army, city garrison, and faction strength now read consistently across auto-resolve, tactical battles, and the interface

• On Novice, Beginner, and Easy, wandering monsters no longer march on your cities before turn 500. They still fight your armies in the field, and they still raid AI cities. Normal and above are unchanged

• A single scroll can no longer be cast by every champion in the same battle

• Despair and Fireball scrolls now turn up less often

• Units you finished training no longer disappear when you load that turn's autosave

• Outposts can no longer be placed within 4 tiles of any city. The pioneer action and the outpost spell now tell you why a tile is refused

Loot Balance

• Gear drops from monsters roughly a third as often, with crafting ingredients largely taking their place

• Bandits now carry three times as much gold

• Wolves now drop pelts

• Great Wolf necklace and cloak drops fall from 34 percent to 12 percent

• Wolf, bandit, and Hergling starter camps now give pelts or gold two thirds of the time, and their original item reward the rest

• Lairs award an item 32 percent of the time instead of every time

Balance

• Prowlers now appear less often.

• Fixed Tower Shields duplicating in your inventory

Map Generation

• Monster lairs no longer generate within 8 tiles of an AI capital.

• Starting monster lairs no longer clump together next to each other.

• Roughly fifteen starting area features, including Lost Libraries, Quendling Dens, Desert Oases, and Abandoned Caravans, now appear near starting positions as intended. Previously they could never be placed at all.

Localization

• Fixed the Economics technology tooltip showing placeholder text instead of its Road Level bonus in non-English languages

Stability

• Manual saves, autosaves, and campaign saves now go through one system, so ending two turns in quick succession no longer corrupts the autosave slot

• A damaged or incomplete save now fails cleanly instead of loading with missing data

• Fixed crashes when loading mods, and when returning to the main menu and starting a new game

• Auto-resolving, skipping, or retreating from a battle no longer produces a combat text error

• The cloud reveal at the start of a tactical battle no longer stutters or freezes while the battle loads

UI

• Fixed the HP bar on the unit equipment screen replaying its fill animation every time the screen refreshed, such as when reading an XP scroll

• Fixed treaty tooltips in a trade proposal describing the deal from the proposer's side, so an AI offering you tribute no longer reads as though you were paying it