I understand...sniff.... hehe

I hope you enjoy your well deserved rest....1.45 is amazing!

I like all the ideas you listed for 1.4x.....let's see, my thoughts...

You want to make the Undead and Azrac's stronger?....since unit abilities/stats can be done within the Editor, it seems less important than the other changes you mentioned.

But, since we are on the topic, maybe make 'cursed' status last several turns longer, and so there would be more need to remove the curse status via the spell 'heal, or 'dispel'. Would 1) make undead slightly stronger overall and 2) would make priests a little more useful (for dealing with curses)...

How about making the Azracs and Lizards friendly? Since Lore-wise, they would NEVER compete for territory (drylands/desert vs swamplands/coastal) = they only have reason to co-operate.

Lightning/Frozen combat status are super powerful, I wouldn't extend them. While less powerful during combat, Cursed/Poisoned/Vertigo also have the advantage of enduring (3 game turns). The only odd effect out is Fire Strike....it helps a little that you extended the combat duration to 4 turns, but it still is FAR inferior to any of the other type of 'effects'.

Maybe give fire strike 'burning' a penalty to resistance and/or defense while on fire (for 4 combat turns)? This would represent units flaying around trying to put out the flames.....

As far as faster animation speeds....I've never really found their speed to be a problem.

fastest animation would be great. I would not need to use cheat engine anymore.

well if there is 8 units or more per side. And you looking at enemy dudes moving, the time wait for your turn, start to be feelable.

Despite my obsessive griping about certain numbers, even I think 1.45 is great.
Terrain: is that only Tunnelling (ie dirt walls) movement cost?
It might also be cool to see snow and desert cost 5 movement points - ideally reduced to 4 with Cold/Fire Protection or Immunity.

AoW2's MPE engine modification makes snow cost 5 movement points, reduced by ''Snow Wanderer'', an ability which he adapted from an unused ability. Since the AoW2 engine has many points of similarity, there are probably things you could transfer from MPE to AoW+. If you ask Hellbrick at hellbrick@gmail.com he might be able to give you useful info

IMO you don't need to worry about Azrac diplomacy too much, theirs is not the worst and they have elephants. Maybe nerf the elephant less? Or you could do what you mentioned might be an option - default self-race relations at Polite for most races, but for some, like the Theocratic imperial Azracs, it could be Friendly.

As for the Undead, like I mentioned a month or so ago, the game copes okay with lizardmen swimming, goblins having 4 HP, etc - Undead could simply get +1 HP across the board. Comparable to the Highmen having 30 movement points. I know, I know, another ruleset-style change....

What do you have in mind regarding AI targeting?

https://github.com/HellBrick/AowSdk/tree/feature/player-race-default

This might also interest you, regarding MPE / AoW2 / Hellbrick.

Thoughts on boosting Life Stealing? Currently it is okay, but it only exists on units which already have a strong attack. For example, Executioners have an offensive attack that rolls up to 6/4 damage. Assuming they hit, this means they typically do 6 damage per round, and heal themselves for only 2 damage - a third of that, even before considering defensive strikes where Lifesteal is not applied.

Lifesteal plays like a minor auxiliary ability. That's fine, but I'd find it fun if it was a more defining and powerful ability, with 2 HP healed per hit. This would allow units with the ability to be readjusted to have weaker stats - more reliant on and defined by the ability, which I would find more interesting. Probably a bit radical and unnecessary though.

Also, could you boost Fury? +2 ATK, -1 DEF is weak compared to Stoneskin, Enchanted Weapon, even Bless. It's part of why people have long viewed Fire as the weakest sphere. Even considering that it's cheap. Maybe +3 ATK, -1 DEF?

Missing the good old days of TS 1.0 where it did apply.

As with Leadership the description is defined elsewhere, so the duration is the only thing I could change without contradicting in-game information. Since this won't be an issue with AoW+ v1.5x I will likely not make any further changes in v1.4x.

Depends on what turns out to be possible. I will look into the AoW2 binaries when I start working on AoW+ v1.46.

Nothing in particular yet since I don't know what is possible.

See Leadership and Burning.

Could you make concealment work on all forests, not just the densest type? This is another change which you'd want to do an ability description edit (achievable via Ruleset, unlike spell descriptions) for, though. Posting it prematurely so I don't keep forgetting.

"the following simplified rules largely apply: ... - Desert, ice, and snow are universally disliked."

I thought it was basically saying "here's the universal rule unless otherwise noted". Some race descriptions go out of their way to say they don't dislike surface ice/snow, but others (like the Frostlings) don't mention anything about surface snow/ice.

It is intuitive to think that Frostlings like snow and Azracs deserts but it wasn't stated. I never know what to expect with some mod ideas. The clarity is good!

Please post feature requests for v1.5x in the v1.5x thread; otherwise I will probably forget about them.

It also says "racial attitudes can deviate from these rules where thematically appropriate" which is clearly the case for Azracs and Frostlings on desert respectively ice/snow.

The reason the descriptions for Azracs and Forstlings don't mention these terrains is precisely because they are not disliked. There are no "liked" terrains in AoW+, only terrains that are disliked to varying degrees.

It was ambiguous and now clarified, thank you.

@ And G

AI Targeting Priorities = A GOOD IDEA!

Right now, in tactical, the AI is hopeless. If your leader takes a bit of damage, you can run him around = the AI troops will often ignore your troops that are in range, and will instead rush after the MUCH faster leader/hero! This allows you to pick apart a much more powerful AI army.

Especially potent against the AI (in the above situation) is parking your melee units next to their units. During the AI turn, it will try to move it's units closer to your injured Leader = the AI troops take heavy loses from attacks of opportunity. Repeat + repeat + repeat = you can win a battle against a MUCH more powerful AI army!

Seems really quiet here...I guess everyone is waiting for the next update.

@ And G

Is there anything we can do at this point to help with the next update?

Feature request:

First strike to apply before touch-based abilities.

Example: a nymph can seduce before a pikeman has the chance to use first strike.