Feb 8, 2024

Master of Magic: Scourge of the Seas is out now

Master of Magic - Cherry

Master of Magic enthusiasts,

Brace yourselves for a magical double whammy as we unleash not only the highly anticipated Scourge of the Sea DLC but also a fantastic free update that promises to elevate your gaming experience to unprecedented heights.

Scourge of the Seas - Unleash the Depths:

Dive into an enchanting adventure with new races, wizards, and heroes, exploring the mystical seas of Arcanus. The Scourgers, once fearsome orcs turned spectral pirates, are ready to bring mayhem and conquest to your gameplay. Discover new lands, face monstrous bosses, and harness the power of the sea with unique buildings and units.

Buy Now:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2689110/Master_of_Magic_Scourge_of_the_Seas/

And That's Not All! A completely free upgrade will be coming alongside the DLC:

In conjunction with the DLC, a complimentary update will be released.

It will include:

Engaging water combat visuals - rafts for units without swim
Breakdown of a town's production incomes
In construction manager, Ability to queue items that require prerequisites
UI button to show resource icons on map
Diplomatic and AI improvements such as:

Improved AI city defenses and how to manage units
Spell of Mastery will be more attractive for AI to use
Implement visual feedback within treaty requests and conversations after diplomatic actions. Also, integrate diplomatic trade into the relationship, reflecting the impact of a trade and changes to the trade evaluation. Furthermore, consider Fear and Relationship as factors influencing trade acceptance, affecting the potential acceptance of a tribute or an unfavorable trade. Added visual improvements to depict the current status of a relationship with the AI.
Fixed AI town danger rank estimation scale even in peace or panic mode issues and AI relationship changes to prevent unilateral overrides and data loss.
A Few Changes to AI: traverse water including fixes to transport settlers targeting oversea locations; now towns should have sensible armies defense appropriate to AIs current production ability. AI will be open for more diplomatic efforts and less war trigger
Improving Treaty evaluation and relying on relationship as gain from the treaty is beneficial regardless of the situation

Don’t miss it! DasTactic will be playing the game on SlitherineTV Twitch Channel Today at 4:30 PM UK time.

The new DLC for the game means that older save games will no longer work.

The scale of the improvements that we have done to implement and create the new DLC for the game means that older save games will no longer work.

But don’t worry, there is a solution!

You can use the legacy Steam Branch to play those save games. To access the legacy branch, right click Master of Magic in your steam library list, select Properties, then select Betas. In the Beta Participation section, choose "legacy - v1.06.45' in the drop down menu. This will install the legacy build that will allow you to continue with your save games.

To celebrate the launch, the entire Master of Magic saga is now on sale at a discount of up to 50% off from until February 12th
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1623070/Master_of_Magic/

Feb 8, 2024

Dev Diary #27: Primal Fury Tomes

Age of Wonders 4 - fangirlcrazily

Hello, my name is Luis and I am the main gameplay designer for Primal Fury. Today I will be going over the two new tomes you can unlock in this new content pack, and what they provide.

Watch the latest Primal Fury First Look as we explore the tomes!

The two new tomes are the Tome of the Fey Mists and the Tome of the Stormborne. They are Tier II and Tier IV respectively and both have the Astral and Nature affinity.

Tome of Fey Mists

The Tome of Fey Mists is all about placing otherworldly mists into the world around you so that they can protect and enhance your units.

These mists make your units hard to hit and, with the fey touched transformation, grant them random positive status effects as well!

Spells like Lingering Mists can place a Misty effect for 3 turns on a target province that reduces vision ranges for units in the affected province, while also making them invisible to perceive by units outside and inside the Misty effect.

Provinces affected by this Misty state create mist clouds in combat, which apply a new status effect called Clinging Mist to all units ending their turn in the mist, enemies included.

Clinging Mists increases evasion to all attacks, including melee, by 20% and potentially stacking up to 3 times. The effect is countered by the Marked status effect, so factions like the Reavers have a few tools to counter this.

Fey Embrace allows you to place these mist clouds on a location of your choosing during combat, allowing for greater control of who gets Clinging Mist, as well as giving two random positive status effects to units.

And Staves of Mist grants your support units the Fey Blessing ability. This is a free action ability that heals 10 Temporary Hit Points, grants a stack of clinging mist and gives them a random positive status effect.

This is also the hero skill ability granted by this tome.

Now, with all these mists going around you don’t really want your enemies to benefit from them. That’s when Feytouched comes in. This minor transformation lets you avoid the penalties to vision granted by Misty and the accuracy penalties of Clinging Mist.

This transformation also gives a new passive, which all Fey now have by default, called Fey Guile. This new passive grants units that end their turn on mist clouds or on obscuring obstacles (like trees and bushes), a random positive status effect.

This tome contains a new Fey unit, a strategic summon called the Mistling. This unit is a Tier III skirmisher and was partly designed as a counterpart to the Gremlin.

While the Gremlin unit teleports to a random position when attacked, the Mistling has Misty Strike, a single melee attack that teleports it 3 hexes away from its target after attacking. This makes it great for the hit and run tactics skirmisher units excel at.

Their other ability is Fey Trick. It deals Physical, Blight and Lightning damage as well as having a base 90% chance of applying a random negative status condition to the enemy it hits.

On top of this, the Mistling’s Trail of Mists ability creates a mist cloud below themselves at the end of their turn, which triggers their Fey Guile ability to gain a random positive status.

Last thing I want to mention from this tome is the Special Province Improvement, Feywater Pond, which when built grants +3 Mana per adjacent Forester as well as covering the whole domain of the city in which it is built on with the Misty effect. Here’s what it looks like:

Tome of the Stormborne

The second and final tome in this content pack is all about storms, lightning and harnessing the storm’s power over the sea.

Lightning Storm is a combat spell that uses the power of the storm to place the Wet condition on all units in combat and then deals deadly lightning strikes to enemies!

You can also place Wet on all units in a province with Downpour. It applies downpouring to a province for 3 turns as well as turning that province into a Swamp.

Downpouring gives all units in the province Wet and Slowed in combat, reducing their lightning resistance and their movement. Though Amphibious and Water Moving units are not affected by this.

Which brings us to the Major Transformation of this tome, the Naga Form:

This new transformation makes all racial units embrace their serpentine side, with a transformation that for the first time removes a part of a unit's body and then replaces it with something else, in this case a coiling naga tail.

This transformation gives a lot of benefits:

Fast Movement in combat and in the world map.
Immunity to the Electrified status effect.
Amphibious movement for entering water faster without slowing down or embarking on a transport.
Slip Away, which once per combat revives them immediately after they go down.
Blight and Lightning resistances.

The downside being that riding a mount without legs is a hard endeavor, so cavalry units lose their mount. Heroes and Leaders affected by this transformation also lose their Mount and Leg slots.

Bounty of the Sea and Stormport are economic research skills made to work on coastal cities.

The first is a Sustained City Spell that doubles the resources from Coastal Province Improvements, which makes it an ideal spell for cities with a lot of coastal sectors.

The second is a city structure that rewards having multiple coastal cities. Stormport grants a flat mana gain plus extra mana and gold for each stormport built in cities with a coastal province.

This tome also unlocks a new racial skirmisher Tier IV unit, the Stormbringer.

It is a potent skirmisher specialized in hitting multiple targets and applying Electrified. Its Storm Strikes ability not only deals damage to the target but can also hit up to two other units for 20% of the damage dealt and it has a base 90% chance to apply Electrified to all those it hits.

The Stormbringer can also throw its storm trident, which hits up to 3 units in a line and guarantees they receive a stack of electrified while dealing a decent chunk of damage from a distance.

Being in the same tome as the Naga Form Major Transformation this unit was made with it in mind, and art did a fantastic job with it!

And we don’t want the heroes to lose out on the fun of striking multiple enemies, so the Hero Skill Arcing Weapons allows a Warfare Hero to apply the bouncing strikes from Storm Strikes to all melee and physical ranged base abilities.

And with that we went over all the things the new tomes unlock. I hope you enjoyed the dive into these new tomes and are excited to try them out when this content pack releases on the 27th of February!

Join us next week as our art director Rich takes us over the art for Primal Fury.

Wishlist Primal Fury now!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2401850/Age_of_Wonders_4_Primal_Fury/

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Feb 8, 2024

[Announcement] Twitch Drops are Back!

Crossout - XO_Team

Survivors!

Twitch Drops are back with some new rewards!

Tune in to Crossout streams from 16:00 UTC on February 8, 2024 to 16:00 UTC on February 15, 2024 to get special Cartridges! You can exchange them in the game (Engineers workbench “Secret workshop”) for special rewards:

Short pink lamp
Pink lamp
Long pink lamp
Purple pixel
LUL
POG
Not like this
Cheese
Where's my popcorn?
Clownduck

FAQ

[expand type=details]
What are the Twitch Drops?
These are game rewards for streaming viewers on Twitch.

You mean I can get something in Crossout?
Yep! The longer you watch our Crossout streams, the more Cartridges you’ll get.

Er, cartridges?
They’re a unique resource created specially for Twitch Drops that you can exchange for rewards in Crossout. Special blueprints will be available in the game until the end of February, 18.
NOTE! If you don’t use all your cartridges before the end of February 18, they’ll remain in your warehouse so you can use them next time.

Awesome! What I need to do to be able to get the rewards?
You need to link Gaijin and Twitch accounts:

Sign up or enter your Twitch account details on the website.
If you are playing via Steam, on this page click on the corresponding icon below without entering any data into the empty fields, then click the "Link" button.
Press the “Allow” button!

What broadcasts do I need to watch to be able to earn rewards?
Watch Crossout streams marked “Drops enabled!”.

How do I know that I have received a reward?
You will receive a reward message on the Twitch broadcast page. Once you see it, you will need to click on the “Get” button. You can also do this in your Drops inventory.

ATTENTION! You can only get a reward while the Twitch Drops campaign is active! Otherwise, the reward will not be added.

Which platforms are rewards available for?
Rewards are available for everyone who plays Crossout on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series.

How do I turn on Drops on my channel if I am a streamer?
Drops are enabled only for streamers who are part of the Crossout partnership program and some of popular streamers from the community. If You want to become a part of the partnership program you can apply via the form.
[/expand]

For more information on Crossout, follow these channels:

Feb 8, 2024

Patch 4.2 Shadows of Change Content Additions - Part 1: Cathay

Total War: WARHAMMER III - CA_KingGobbo

Hi everyone,

I’m Richard Aldridge, Game Director for Total War: WARHAMMER. Today I want to share some news with you on the new content that will be arriving soon for Shadows of Change with Patch 4.2 - free for existing owners, and bolstering the DLC for anyone picking it up post Patch 4.2.

I’ll be covering what you can expect going forward from the Total War: WARHAMMER series, taking a peek behind the curtain as to how we go about planning, creating and making our DLCs, and having a close look at the new additions Grand Cathay will be receiving as a part of the 4.2 update.

Reflecting on Shadows of Change

I’ll cut straight to it, we didn’t give you enough new characters and units to play with at the original release of Shadows of Change.

We believe we can put this right for you, having listened to your feedback these past months to provide you with better and more varied options for your armies. We know that you, our community, are as passionate about the game as we are, and we’re pleased to say that many of your suggestions are being enacted upon. Not all ideas and requests are possible, though. The Era of Karl Franz is, as you’ve come to expect, a rich and exciting setting for Total War, and we work closely with The Warhammer Studio to ensure that the content for this era of Warhammer is as faithfully represented in our game as possible.

All of the forces featured within the Shadows of Change DLC can look forward to a sizable collection of reinforcements, but we won’t be adding Hag Mothers as Generic Lords, as Mother Ostankya is the only Hag Mother of Kislev. Similarly, the relationship between Gospodars and Ungols is taking a back seat as we look less at the tensions of historic Kislevite culture, and more at what defines Kislev as a unified military force in the Era of Karl Franz.

Similarly, we won’t be adding beaks to Tzaangors, as while this avian characteristic occurs in other Warhammer settings, these elite Gors in the Old World represent those Beastmen who have drawn the eye of the Changer of Ways, rather than a totally separate offshoot breed. But as ever, we aim to ensure that whatever we do add to Total War: WARHAMMER III is as authentic an experience of the world of Warhammer as possible.

What to expect moving forward

Looking to the future, the team and I love the Warhammer universe and want to make as much content for it as possible. Whether that be to add further exciting characters like the Golden Knight, spectacular units and creatures (Yes, I’m looking at you mighty “Hotpot”) or other unexplored lore. We still plan to make many more DLCs for Total War: WARHAMMER III, with some of them like Thrones of Decay following the same premise and composition as Shadows of Change where we will add to and develop three existing races from across the Warhammer world. Accompanied by our patches and updates, this will give us the opportunity to go back to some of your most beloved races and give them some attention.

Below I have laid out what you can expect to see for Shadows of Change and Thrones of Decay in terms of the content and features for these products moving forward.

DLC Content – Shadows of Change & Thrones of Decay

3 Legendary Lords – Each playable in the Realms of Chaos and Immortal Empires campaigns
Unique gameplay mechanics for each legendary lord
3 Legendary Heroes – One per race
3 Lords – One per race
3 Heroes – One per race
5 Units (Infantry/Cavalry/Monsters/etc…) per race
3 Regiments of Renown per race
1 FREELC Character (Aekold Helbrass for Shadows of Change and a Legendary Lord for Thrones of Decay)

Potential Further Content

New Spell Lore*
New Mounts*
New Additional FREELC*

*Subject to the IP, theming of the DLC, and where applicable

Thank you again for your invaluable feedback since the release of Shadows of Change, and in particular the thoughts on improving the rosters and having parity across the races with the content we are adding as a part of them.

As mentioned above; each race will now have a Legendary Lord, Legendary Hero, Lord, Hero, 5 units and 3 Regiments of Renown. This, we hope, will allow you to lead thematic armies that are better connected to the Legendary Lords in the DLC, add both lower tier troops and big centrepiece monsters and start to fill some of the gaps and needs of the races in the game that you have asked for.

Where possible, with “Further Content” we will also be adding thematic lores of magic, mounts for new and existing characters to make use of, and making some much-requested FREELC where it makes sense (Cough, cough, Katarin’s Sled).

I hope that everything I’ve mentioned above looks much more in line with your own expectations for the DLC, as we move to significantly bridge the gap to our past products like Chaos Dwarfs in what we will offer moving forwards, starting with Shadows of Change.

Now onto the exciting stuff you’ve all come to see!

It's too much for us to fit into a Steam post, so head over to the full blog post below to find out more about the Celestial Lion (pictured above) and the other new content coming to Grand Cathay, as well as the latest news on when you can expect this content to arrive.

Read the full blog here

Chat to you all next week!

—Rich Aldridge (Game Director) & the Total War Team

For the latest news and announcements, drop by our official social channels. Steam Discussions X Facebook Instagram Discord