Hi everybody,

The team has been hard at work with the feedback we’ve got since release. Before we roll out the first patch officially next week, we have decided to release a beta preview patch. This optional update is placed in a separate branch on Steam and will be available officially next week on both Steam and GoG. This allows users to check whether system incompatibly issues have been fixed for them, as well as getting gameflow feedback from the grognards on an experimental balance pass. If this patch doesn’t work for you, or if you want to start multi-player with friends not having the V1.08 beta patch, you can easily revert to the current official build. First we’ll list the fixes, then we’ll describe on how to switch to this V1.08 Test Branch in the Steam Client.

If this patch resolves the issues you have, then please let us know in this topic. If you find any new critical issues in the patch, please let us know about that too.

Some of the balance changes – especially those slowing down research and obtaining large stacks of end game unit – are experimental. We’d love to know what you think of these changes, so we can make adjustments. If all this switching and test code is not for you, you can stick to the current build (i.e. change noting) and wait for the official patch to auto-update later.

How to Switch to the V1.08 beta Patch in the Steam Client

We’ll deliver the Beta of this patch to you in a branch on Steam, before making it available to everyone. If you are experiencing one of the issues noted below, this is how you can move over to that branch.

1. Right Click ‘Age of Wonders 3’ in your Steam Library and select ‘Properties’ from the menu that appears.

2. Select the ‘BETAS’ tab in the ‘Properties’ window.

3. Set the top most combobox to ‘patch_v1.08_beta – Patch test build’.

4. Close the ‘Properties’ window.

To move back to the official version of the game, repeat these steps but switch to ‘NONE – Opt out of all beta programs’ on step 3. Please note that if you wish to play a multiplayer match, everyone needs to have the same version.

Note for GoG Users

We are sorry for any GoG users wanting to participate in this test, but the DRM free installer means there is no branching / reverting / auto updating system available for us to deliver this beta patch to you. You’ll get the polished, official patch next week!

Change Log:

Fixes:

• WQHD / QHD (up to 2560 x 1440 / 2560 *1600) native resolution display support (the Black & White boxes and blurry text should disappear). Fix has been verified to work up to and including a resolution of 2560×1660.

• Fixed an issue for people using Intel HD Graphics – specifically for HD4000 and Surface 2 Pro – in combination with certain driver version, that caused a crash when opening interface screens – e.g. starting the game, opening options menu, skill book, etc.

Performance

• Fixed frame drop when armies were selected.

• Fixed decreasing frame rate occurring during extended play, particularly in longer battles.

• Fixed a memory leak when Windows was locked.

• Optimized a feature effecting maps with water, which should now show increased framerate.

AI Improvements

• Fixed some cases where the tactical AI would come out from behind the walls of cities and fortresses too soon.

• Stopped the AI spamming disjunction, so players can now use global magic more easily.

• Fixed an issue where the tactical AI would cast a resurrection spell on an invalid target.

• Made ‘squire’ AI easier to beat.

• AI settings for players were changed to compensate for this change, to keep the same level of challenge on normal difficulty.

• Using the ‘restart’ option in a campaign map now returns the player to the briefing, allowing map difficulty to be changed.

Scenario & Campaign

• Campaign: Heroes being mind controlled no longer causes you to instantly lose a campaign map if you rescue them by the end of combat.

• Campaign: Heroes which are protected by the ‘resurgence’ effect – e.g. the theocrat’s ‘rebirth’ spell – can now die in tactical combat without causing you to lose the campaign map, as long as you win the battle that they die in.

• Blightmouth Crater: Closed a gap in impassable mountains.

• Blightmouth Crater: Removed two superfluous hearts of the blight.

• Blightmouth Crater: Fixed the behavior of independent armies.

• Elven Resurgence: Player 6 now starts with more gold mines, making the starting positions more balanced.

• 4th Elven Court map: Independents no longer interfere with one of the starting quests.

• 4th Commonwealth map: Fixed a message that missed an icon under specific circumstances.

• 5th Commonwealth map: A ‘defeat leader’ quest no longer reveals that leader’s position.

• 5th Commonwealth map: Fixed a story message that had overlapping lines of text.

• 6th Elven Court & Commonwealth maps: Prevented story characters from dying when you are victorious.

• 6th Elven Court and Commonwealth maps: Added a few building upgrades to starting cities to give the player a better starting situation and more options.

Other Fixes.

• Fixed settings – e.g. graphics settings – not being saved when using the ‘guest’ profile.

• Fixed the stack confirm movement button being disabled in some situations when a stack was auto-moving.

• Fixed a rare crash caused by a player razing a city with a heart of blight, tropics, etc in its domain

• Fixed an issue where a backstab bonus wasn’t being correctly applied. This led to situations where a unit could backstab a target without flanking it.

• Fixed a crash triggered by clicking on a “You lost your throne city!” event.

• Fixed a crash triggered by selecting a ‘Egg has hatched’ after loading the save game.

• Fixed the ‘Remove army from event list’ shortcut key function so armies are properly removed from the list.

• Fixed an issue where the ‘Protect your leader and throne city’ quest failed to complete on victory.

• The game now ignores controller input, to prevent camera drift when a controller is plugged in.

• ‘Spring of life’ now rewards units when explored.

• When creating a new custom leader, the field for setting a name is now left empty by default.

Balance:

• ‘Shrine of smiting’ is no longer ‘Devout’, nerfing ‘Shrine of smiting’ doom stacks which relied on stacking ‘Devout’ bonuses for the ‘Smiting prayer bolts’.

• ‘Shadow stalker’ now does cold damage. This fixes an issue where rogues had limited options vs. blight immune troops.

• Increased the research costs of skills to slow down progression through the skill tree.

• Increased cost of racial tier 3 unit building to 300 gold and 100 mana.

• Decreased the base production of cities.

• Fixed issue with ‘Libraries’ and ‘Observatories’ generating too much knowledge.

Features:

• Added buttons on either side of the city name that cycle through cities owned by the player.

• We added a quick save option, bound under CTRL+S by default.

• Added extra text to the preview popup when attacking a city wall. Players can now see the hit points the wall have remaining as they plan their attack.

We hope we’ll this patch resolves some of the issues you might have encountered. We plan to roll this patch out to all our players early next week and we’re already working on the next patch, so please bear with us if your issue did not make it into patch.

Thank you for all of you feedback. With your input we’ll make the game even better!

-The Team @ Triumph Studios.