That spell needs a global cooldown btw. Not to go off on bugs/tweaks, but a few I've been facing lately (I play exclusively empire =/)

#1) Custom Empire Civ can't build Sions [even after creating Sion temples] if they're not an 'Empire' race. Possibly not ever. IE, I have a 'Man' custom civ, empire aligned. Recruits darklings and such just fine, but can't build Sions. 

#2) Call to Arms needs a global cooldown. As long as I have, oh, 500 mana spare, I can be peaceful peaceful peaceful... then in *one* turn, teleport home, turn out 3 raids (36) of max-level Umberdroths, and teleport them to the front... then go waltzing through my opponent's armies and terrorize their cities.

#3) Call of the Titans *should not summon Caravans, PLEEEEASE* ... I love the idea of the spell, and I'd love a single target version of it too [for summoning my kid out to level with the sovereign in peacetime] but the one time I used this spell, I suddenly had 30 caravans in my lap. D'oh.

#4) Empire pioneers have combat speed 2, while peasants have combat speed 1. If you build a unit by upgrading the peasant, they have fewer moves per round. However, if you upgrade off the pioneer, you can't build groups of them - even after removing the pioneer pack. Sigh! This is definitely true for Resolyn and custom races based off trogs or wraiths, not sure if it's 100% true for all empire races.

#5) Random monster umberdroths have sprint & magic immunity. My umberdroths... are channelers?!!?!?!?

Other than that, I'm having a lot of fun. I wish there were more spell options and it takes a while for my spellcaster sov to be a serious threat - some of the old low level elemental spells felt far more powerful/diverse. But ... the above bugs have been pretty annoying. I can't play a custom empire race with sions, I can't play a normal empire race without losing combat power on any group I create.

Also Brad, why more resources?

If something make the game easer, it should still only have a minimal effect on the ridiculous setting, the same as if something makes the game harder, it should be barely noticeable on the easy settings.

Someone already mentioned a form of this bug, but it's making the game much less enjoyable for me, so I think it bears repeating.

When I lose a fight, by fighting and fleeing with some of my heroes, any units that were killed in the fight are still alive in the fleeing stack with zero hit points.  This really ruins the feeling of immersion for me, as I really don't like seeing units that should be dead still alive.  I suppose I could just disband them, but it really makes things feel broken.  I noticed this in the 1.1c build, but I suppose it's possible it was also in the 1.1 version.

Maybe they're zombies?

More likely wandering spirits.  They didn't finish something in that life and refuse to go on.

Yea, the fix for the crash issue is having that side effect. I think I fixed it today. Will have to double check though.

I'm going to play around with resource placement too.

I have to say that I feel like 1.1c had too many resources in general.  I liked the feeling that resources were scarce in 1.1.  1.1c just feels like resources are too easily available.

I think a good pacing for resources  might be, lessee quick number crunch

5 spaces in between towns

town1 ***** town2

             ^ 1 resource in between

maybe  spread them out in 2 directions o you might not find it right away

15 x 15 area (12 x 12 =144, 15 x 5 is 100+50 +50 +25 = 225)

so in a 225 area square you would probably find (assuming 2 players starting in the area)

2 starting seeded +2 starting seeded + 3 inbetweeners which are random to fight over

+ those spawned by adventure tech (which would potentially be 2 food types + 1 mine type +1 crystal)

+ those spawned by diplomacy

the random ones would best be the wild horses/warg, shards, arcane, tech, materials

(EDIT: this adds up to approximately 20 resources, which ends up nearly to 1 resources every 10 squares which might actually be pretty close to the experience i have playing on ridiculous - so yeah, this fine tuning is a little twitchy, you want just enough to fight over but not enough to make it a cakewalk)

and you need to decide how much mana generation (ie total number of shards) you want per 225 map area with a total of at least one of each type for people to fight over in order to cast master of magic spell

side note: i think the entertainment portion of the civ tech tree would be interesting to have an extra effect that unlocks information about the other factions, rather than being able to look through all of their stuff simply by clicking on it. Have and equivalent function tied to the arcane school system/ shard upgrades where your arcane staff provides info on the arcane might of your opponents including types of shards controlled and progress other s have made on finding teh spell of mastery - which should set off  alarms bells when cast so people try to stop you from winning the game

Adventure tech should unlock info on the notables and hero strengths available to other factions as well as showing their progress towards winning the game in that manner, you need to know if you have to hunt down their heroes so they can't win the game that way.

It would be a riot to get the message "you lose, Gilden cast the spell of mastery and you fled for your life as your magic is drained away" completely out of he blue, just as you were about to pillage the countryside with your army of doom - you'd think you were a complete chump and had been taken by the game.

might be neat if the civ tech let you built a wonder of the world that inspired uprisings of the peasants against their sovereigns making it easier to take all their cities - maybe a percentage chance that they revolt to your side that increases every turn to a maximum number (25% or something)

(EDIT Number 2: One the one hand i would say you should never have 2 of the same resource beside each other because it seems to break the system and encourage steamrolling - On the other hand you have it set up so that you can build as many of the same type as you want for basic building so having the twin resource there really only saves you 15 population and 3 or 4 gold per turn, plus some spare change in materials or gold in a lump payment which in the long wrong isn't that bad - it's a just a big shock to suddenly have 10 tech or 10 arcane research to churn out some quick tech or spell advances)

The thing the double start saves in the long run is time, which is critical.

The resource thing: the only solution that will be satisfactory is to introduce sliders, and probably very detailed sliders on top of that.

Did play a few games tonight- AI did seem to be much improved, though I think it shows how powerful warfare is in relation to other stuff in the early game, which could be reworked, but that might hurt the AI.  Right now I'd say the AI is good enough, though of course I want much better (and with Stardock expect it in a way I wouldn't from others)

Monsters on challenging world settings can be a real, real pain in the early game, unless you pick a high-STR leader.  DEX seems a little too useless right now.

As for the founding a settlement while under enchantment, I think that's fine, but a double-check would be nice. I did something similar in a game I played last week once, and it felt fine.

all you have to do i go to the main game directory and open up the zip file. before you do this i would back up your elemental.exe file as this will be the only file replaced by the contents of the zip folder

edit: hmm i think im having more fun in the forums than the games right now  

the state of the magic play is really hurting for me - it's very static ho hum at the moment, I never get around to the late game magic that people are saying is too powerful so there is some really strange power curving going on or some error checking is not happening to prevent use of the spell in an unintended fashion.

I think I'll wait for the next patch.

I am adventurous [in the game]..lol..but when it comes to messing with game files, I get all chocked up and thus prevent myself from trying a file update.

Brad,

1. Also getting the 0 hp units, but getting another odd bug too. When I ckick on an empty square to move my units I have hit invisible NPCs and then can buy them. They do not show on map, but do show in the left side pic list. If you click on them the cursor jumps to the lower left part of the map (outside of the medium map I'm playing too).

2. I have a 1.1 game which has an odd save corruption. When I load the game the map is blank and there is no data in any screen. It was the same for the two autosaves at that point as well. The debug file listed a Memory Buffer Overrun during the Load operation. I still have the save game and a save made from the "broken" load.

3. I agree with the AI settings request. Some form of AI/Game Settings form would really help I think.

4. There also needs to be a way to equip and trade in the tactical map. There are times I would like my Sov and Heros to change weapons based on the fight layout.

Keep up the good work and have a Happy New Year!

it's just a new .exe.  You can backup your old .exe and it's fine to try.