There have been many changes in the game engine, check out the manuals for all the information, but here is a summary of how each phase has changed.
General Changes
- Tech Points have been replaced by Gold, which functions slightly differently:
- It is mined by workers
- It can be spent on upgrades
- It does not provide additional attacks
- It cannot be destroyed by missiles
- It can be stolen by spies
- Players now have a tech level, which can be increased by spending gold, and governs how many attacks they can make.
- The feel of the game is more like "Advanced WoK" (WoK V) but without the complexities of economy management or the spells.
Bombing.
- Missiles now only hit ARM, DEF or SPY
- The number of armies killed per hit has been reduced to 1
- The number of spies killed per hit has been reduced to 1
- Long range is now "neighbour of a neighbour" rather than "± 3"
Attacking.
- Number of attacks is based on Tech Level, which cannot be reduced.
- Only succesful attacks count towards the attack limit
- PATT and PDEF are not displayed in the turn report (so you can't calculate your opponent's EFF after a one army fight, but you get a feel for it after a decent sized battle)
- Combat rolls include fractional values so every increase to power helps.
- LEV bonus for taking an empty province is 0.2 / current LEV
- Troops that lose their combat roll by less than half (e.g. 5.5 to 8.1) are only injured.
- Injured troops on the victorious side recover at the end of the fight.
Entropy.
This is a new phase, but not new functionality.
Previously EFF loss happened during the growth phase, now it happens here.
Working.
- Workers on TEC replaced with workers on MIN, producing gold coins
- Only three workers required to make one MIS
- Only four workers required to make one EFF
- LEV increase is inversely proportional to the number of armies and their level.
Transformations.
- Only successful army transforms count towards the limit of 3.
Growth.
No changes!
Movement.
No changes!
Upgrades.
- Rebrand of the tech trade phase
- Three orders per turn
- Same cost regardless of what is being upgraded
- But subsequent orders are more expensive
- Each order allows the upgrade of one thing. These can be repeated or combined as you choose:
- +1 Tech Level
- +30 EFF
- +0.5 DEF in all provinces
- +0.3 LEV to all armies
- +5 MIS in all provinces (not just those with workers)
- +2 SPY in all provinces (not just those with population)
Workers' Aim.
- The build TECh aim has been replaced with the MINing aim.
Spying.
- Complete overhaul
- Spy orders no longer affect your EFF
- Only one order type affects your opponent's EFF
- All operations have the same chance of success
- Sending additional spies gives a real improvement to the success chance.
- Any province neighbouring your empire is short range
- Spies in the target province automatically provide counter-espionage defence
- Successful spies are not lost, and can be used again on the same turn
- No more 'Sabotage DEF', 'Sabotage MIS' or 'Steal POP' operations
- 'Spy Player' now returns the totals for the target's empire
- New 'Spread Propaganda' order for reducing opponent's EFF
- New 'False Orders' order stops the target's workers from working.
- New 'Steal Gold' option to steal gold (tech points)