Oh yeah, big winner is "hides wizard domain borders"

That one jumped out at me.

Also:
-Explorer is cheaper to acquire.
-The number of pioneers a player can build are effectively limited by price (5th or 6th pioneer will now cost 4650, if this change log is correct. My attempts to salt the earth will stick!). [Edit: Apparently rebuilding is now done by some other unit, and pioneers just make new cities.]
-Razing zeros movement, so you need an extra unit to deal with the indies (and no raze and escape on the same turn).
-Some spells are locked behind other spells. So I wouldn't get Black Angel as my second spell to research.
-Trap always enslaves instead of rolling again.
-Summoner, Enchanter, War Mage all block each other.
-Violent Storm cost tripled. XD

And that's just some of it

Are the tool tips updated to reflect all this? Like the new unit abilities and changes to existing abilities?

Stuff like ability ATK/DAM is automatically updated - it's not even possible to make them display inaccurately.

Good grief. Killing a gold medal unit gives double XP? Yuck. They might be harder to kill (emphasis on might), but not THAT much harder.

Edit: Gah! That makes feeding heroes by using low level units even more effective. Your units wear down the opponent unit, die in the process and maybe give them a medal, and your hero jumps in to kill the enemy unit that is both worn down AND worth more XP? Gack!

Nomads get shafted in the gold department, being unable to grow crops. [Edit: Looks like their cities get a straight gold bonus instead, so nevermind. They might actually come out very slightly ahead here, being immune to crop damage and terrain that wouldn't allow for crops while not reaching full crop-equivalent gold bonus until larger city sizes.]
Races with Production bonuses are even better, getting more gold from Merchandise. As if they needed the help. x.x

What about stuff like Explorer just gives +4MP to any unit?

No more building watch towers, instead you can just make a tunnel to the underground? Huh.

I was thinking about stepping back in for another loss, but this is looking like learning a new game, except I'll be making mistakes because things work differently.

You're way over analyzing this. I didn't even go through the changelog beyond the first page or when I wondered why a gold medal unit had an unexpected ability. It's still the same basic game.

Plus, this map is a fighting oriented map. No time to build a bunch of stupid outposts or research a Level 4 summons. :)

You're almost certainly correct. :)

I'm just getting flashbacks to when I first started and I kept getting rude surprises. Also, I lean heavily on the mechanics when playing. There are certain things like how the research overflow conversion to mana now has a massive reduction that would irritate me to find out the hard way.

I'll probably try to install MPE tonight and see what happens, if I get the time.

Speaking of time, forewarning: I may sometimes have delays beyond the usual 48 hour expectation, in case people care. I'm guessing the response is "slow game > no game", but I'd like to be upfront about it.

https://i.imgur.com/CWccfpr.png
Here's proof! I think that sort of alteration is easily made using the MLD editor.
Oh yeah, there are a few crazy things like that even though as a whole the mod is conservative and scrupulous.
Get a gold medal on an earth elemental and dig a new cave opening next to your enemy's tower!
It's funny though, you care more about the details of the game than I do, and I nearly made a mod for AoW2 before gettign distracted by AoW1.

Excellent. As long as the tool tips and such are all updated, I should be able to muddle through without too much embarrassment.

That's the sort of shenanigans that I like to be aware are an option to be used and guarded against. You know, before Mimo shows up at my tower with a death stack or three. :)

True enough. I like knowing the rules and options even if I generally don't care about making my own mods.

Okay, that was easy. Southern, test game me!

This works with the wrapper, right?

Thanks Southern, it looks like I'm good to go.

Let's get this party started and see how long I last. Hard to imagine I'll again end up in a situation where Southern and Mimo kill each other, leaving me to mop up both their empires and eventually win.

I can't even remember the last game I won. I've been on a good and long losing streak. Not kidding! My fragile ego is on life support...