Update

New

• A new spell at Magic 7, Prosperity: a city of yours or a guildmate's makes a quarter more of every resource, its tax included, for 6 + Magic hours. It costs three quarters of what it adds, one stands on a city at a time, and an enemy's Dispel ends it.
• A new spell at Magic 9, Earthquake: an enemy city's two most valuable buildings each lose a level — walls, Warehouse and Mage Tower included, the Keep never below 1 — and the levels count to your Renown as if you had sacked them. A city can be shaken once a day, and when it costs a Warehouse or Mage Tower level, both sides are told how much mana was lost.
• A new spell at Magic 10, Stonesong: the building under construction in a city of yours or a guildmate's finishes up to 6 + Magic hours sooner, and the rest of the queue moves up behind it. It works on buildings only, never on research.

Changed

• The score is now Renown: what you have built — every building in your cities and half your research, at what it cost, as a fading three-day average — plus what you have destroyed. Building levels you sack in a capture or shake with an Earthquake count at three times their price, enemy troops killed at a small share of theirs. The leaderboard shows Built and Destroyed beside it, as the result if the round ended now; Land, Conquest and Loot are gone.
• Armies march slower, so a column you spot can be caught or met before it arrives: Tier IV troops take half an hour to cross an open hex, Tiers II and III an hour, and Tier I an hour and a half. Each troop type now shows the time it takes to cross a hex instead of a speed number, and Forced march cuts every march to three quarters of the time.
• Each Magic level unlocks spells: Arcane Eye at 1, Farsight and Haste at 2, Slow and Mire at 3, Dispel and Ward at 4, Freeze and Fury at 5, Breach and Firestorm at 6, Prosperity and Muster at 7, Recall at 8, Earthquake at 9 and Stonesong at 10. Lasting spells run longer the higher your Magic: Haste and Fury 2 + Magic hours, Slow and Freeze 4 + Magic, Breach 1 + Magic, Ward 2 + twice Magic and Farsight 1 + twice Magic, and Mire takes 1 + Magic hours off a siege.
• Rounds now last 28 days, four weeks, instead of 30. The day counter on every world now runs to day 28.
• A city under protection now shows its shield on the map, and the attack button counts down the hours left: "Attack in 14 h" stays greyed until the protection ends.
• Units no longer show a melee or cavalry role: the Guide drops its Role column and the mark beside each unit, and a finished recruitment shows the recruit helmet. The role never changed how a unit fights.
• The computer players cast their spells more sparingly and at the moments that decide a fight: fewer scouting eyes on the same target, mana saved for the great spells, and wards and freezes where a city is about to change hands.
• Each race now marches at its own pace over terrain: Elves move faster through woodland and forest, Orcs over grassland, tundra and steppe, and Dwarves cross hills and mountains faster than any other race but march a little slower everywhere else. Your route and the time it takes show the pace of the army marching it.
• Dwarven mines yield more iron.
• Each race now has one economic edge: Elven Mage Towers make a fifth more mana, Dwarven mines a fifth more iron, Military science costs Orcs a tenth less, and Undead cities store more mana while their troops eat a fifth less.
• Troop stats on the recruit screen and army pages now read in words, "Attack 17 · Defence 20", instead of symbols. The race picker also works with the arrow keys.
• Spellcasters are gone: every spell is now cast from one of your cities with a Mage Tower, on targets within the tower's reach, and Arcane Eye and Farsight reach twice as far. Mage Towers make mana the way Farms make food, from the day you research Magic 1, and your mana store holds two and a half days of what your towers make, so spend it before it fills. Muster now finishes the troops training in a city several hours sooner at once.
• An army now costs the same wherever it marches, and half inside a city of yours or a guildmate's; the far-from-home and field rates are gone. A troop eats 6 food an hour at Tier I, 9 at Tier II, 11 at Tier III and 41 at Tier IV, and Military science no longer cuts upkeep.
• Waiting past a siege's clock no longer strengthens the storm; the storm is as strong as the army at the gates.
• An army's size no longer slows its march; its troops' average pace and the ground set the time. A host of a hundred thousand crosses a hex as fast as a band of ten of the same troops, so the arrival time you see is the one you get.
• Slow, Freeze and Earthquake can hit the same target only once a day, and Firestorm and Mire once every 12 hours, whoever casts them; the mark stays even after a Dispel, and an army split off a marked one keeps it. Stonesong and Muster go on your own cities only, once a day each.
• Every unit now shows its magic resistance beside its attack and defence: 10, 30, 100 and 400 for Tiers I to IV, more for Elves and Undead and less for Dwarves. A city resists magic with its Keep, its Mage Tower and the troops inside, and its page shows all three. Magic science no longer changes what a spell costs, yours or an enemy's: it unlocks spells and makes them last longer.
• A spell now costs more the more its target resists, but less than in step: an army four times the size costs about twice the mana, and the price is the same whoever casts it. A Ward doubles every enemy spell on what it guards, Earthquake, Breach and Dispel included, and a Dispel costs a quarter more than the spell it ends would cost on that target now.
• A won raid now carries off three quarters of the food, wood, iron and gold the raided city holds. A city holds its share of your stores and gold by how much Warehouse it has, so a raid on a city with a small Warehouse takes little, and a raided city is safe from the next raid for a while.
• A captured city's buildings lose only their top levels, about a level from each large building, so a capture hurts without wiping them out. Small buildings keep their levels, and the Keep never drops below 1.
• Sacking a city that changed hands in the last three days earns no Renown. The buildings are still damaged, the stores still taken and the troops you kill still count.
• Tier III troops now unlock at Barracks 32, so your heavy infantry takes the field well before the elite.
• War spells hit harder: Firestorm burns 8 % of an army's troops plus 1 % for each Magic level (14 % at Magic 6, 18 % at Magic 10), and Fury makes an army attack a quarter harder in every fight it starts.
• The computer players no longer let a full mana store spill: mana they would lose within half a day goes on any spell that still helps — a Firestorm on a smaller army, a Freeze or a Slow on a marching column, a buff on their own troops, an Earthquake on an enemy city. Those without war magic now spend it too: they scout a threat or a target with an Arcane Eye or a Farsight, hasten a column marching to a raid, a siege or a relief, and ward an army heading into a fight.
• Science prices now follow one curve on every track, and no science costs food: Economy and Magic are paid mostly in wood, Military in iron, each with a little gold. Economy adds up to 60 % income at level 10 and brings Granaries, Roads, Charters and Stewards; Military adds an army at each of its first four levels and two more at 6, 8 and 10, and brings Forced march, Siege engines and Outriders. Training speed is now the Barracks' alone, and Magic 9 and 10 cost less and take 30 hours each.
• Walls gain more from their higher levels, up to two and a half times the defence behind them at the top. A siege now takes 12 to 24 hours before a full-strength storm, so there is time to send help. A captured city stays in unrest for a day and yields nothing, and cities held past your city limit produce 60 % of what they would.
• An enemy army resting inside one of its own cities is no longer shown on the map or offered as a spell target, even after an Arcane Eye. Its troops are listed in the city's Arcane Eye report instead; to hit them, cast on the city.
• A battle is now fought, then the loser's survivors are pursued: a close defeat costs about 30 % of the army instead of 80 %, while a crushing one costs far more, about 85 % at four to one. The winner still loses less the bigger its lead.
• Bandit camps now come back once a day through the world's first week, each time stronger and richer. No camp appears after the world's day 7, so a player who joins late sees fewer of them. The first camp holds less loot than before.
• Casting is quieter: each target in the spell list, and the aim bar on the map, now shows just its mana price, without the long calculation under it.
• When a world's round ends, its next round now opens on a freshly drawn map. Returning guilds keep their places and their side of the front.
• Orc units hit 10 % harder than the other races' and train faster, but cost 15 % more to train, so an Orc rush still strikes hardest without beating every other way of playing outright.
• Computer players that follow a plan now choose one of five styles — rusher, attacker, defender, builder or mage — and play it with more care: they scout before a fight, gather their troops before a big strike, pull back from a fight that has turned against them, and hold on to the cities they take.
• Warehouses hold twice as much: a well-built city now stores about a day or more of its income, so your stores don't overflow overnight.

Fixed

• An army standing where a new city is founded no longer finds its siege ready at once: its hours at the gates count from the founding, so the new city gets the whole siege clock before it can be stormed.
• A frozen army now stops on the nearer hex of its route, and recasting a march changes only when the army sets off, not where it started from.
• A Haste or a Ward bought for a small army no longer covers a large one merged into it: each now works in proportion to how much of the army it was bought for, a marching army slows to match when troops join it, and the army page says so ("Haste, on 40 % of this army").
• The Guide and the in-game explanations match the current rules again, in plainer words for new players and in the same words as the rest of the game. Each unit card shows its value, upkeep, speed and magic resistance at a glance, each spell card says what it does in one sentence with its target, duration and mana as short tags, and game words are underlined: hover or tap one to see what it means.
• In a large window the map could keep redrawing its coasts while you weren't doing anything, keeping your computer busy and the game slow. It now finishes drawing and rests.
• When an order can't go through because something changed at the same moment — a market price, a battle, a spell landing first — you now get a short message saying why instead of an error page.