Dear community,

RC14 Beta is now available and it opens up new possibilities in terms of tactical game play and in-game variety.

NOTE: This test BETA, DOES NOT INCLUDE OLD CAMPAIGNS!, stay on RC13a if you are currently playing the campaign.

>> Full change list <<

>> Installation guide <<

>> Download <<

Major changes:

1. CREATURES

All creature hp boosted by 20-25% to achieve the following goals:

-Improve unit movement tactics
-Weaken exploitative 1-unit blocker tactics, boost stronghold that lacks the ability for such tactics
-Lower importance of first turn and effect of RNG on battle outcome.
-Higher danger level of melee neutrals.
-Lower danger level of ranged and destructive neutrals.
-Weaken destructive heroes a bit (could have been done by other means but it was already a welcome side effect).

2. SKILLS

A fundamental change is that Scholar and Wisdom are heavily modified to allow heroes to learn high level spells from 'unusual' schools (not in the towns mage guild). this will greatly improve the tactical variation in the game

3. CLASSES

Generally, almost every class has underwent some changes in skillwheel to equalize early game and there is much more room for each faction to experiment with 'unusual magic'

-Haven: now has 2 knight classes, a dark and a light one, instead of paladin which was basically a weak knight offering little difference from the real knight
-Inferno: gatekeepers have rare option to learn light magic
-Sylvan: new Avenger class focused on imbuing arrows with dark or destructive magic, ranger is more conventional 'forest knight'
-Necropolis: Since Raise dead was moved to dark magic, a new heavy magic class is introduced: Nethermage, the necromancer is now the balanced class and has pretty much same development as TOE version.
-Dungeon: weak Assassin class replaced with Trickster class starting with luck, modified minotaur guards to work with soldiers luck, has rare option to go for light magic
-Fortress: Runemage is now offensive balanced class with better access to summoning and dark, Flamekeeper is heavy magic class for light+destructive combo
-Academy: Seer replaced with enchanter starting with light magic, elementalist is nerfed and renamed conjurer and is balanced class, Wizard is heavy magic class
-Stronghold: balance improvements to skillwheels (as with all factions)

4. HEROES

The changelist here is massive and I'm not writing it down since it can be observed mostly from browsing through the heroes in custom game menu.
A lot of heroes will have different specs or haved moved between classes as a consequence of class and skillwheel changes. In the process of moving heroes to appropriate places a lot of bios have been updated to H7 lore status and mistakes in lore have been corrected, most TOE heroes have their 'lore specialization' back. (such as deleb having iron maiden again). The starting skills of the hero will be mentioned in the spec description.

5. ARTIFACTS

-All +% DMG boosting artifacts reduced to 30% from 50%
-All -% DMG protection artifacts reduced to 40% from 50% OR 20% from 25%
-All scrolls also give +2 Knowledge
-All wands also give +2 Spellpower
-ring of vitality is minor
-ring of banishment is relic
-dwarven smithy hammer is minor
-sword of might improved to +3 attack
-beginners magic wand improved to +3 Spellpower

6. ADVANCED RMG

-2 new template series (Ladder & Gladiator) for multiplayer games with starting towns far apart