Some brilliant son-of-a-gun has put out a mod (read unofficial patch) for this game.
I'm four shards into the campaign and consider this an extraordinary game for a couple of reasons:
The strategy layer has a huge, variable tech tree that will evolve over the 100+ hour campaign.
The tactical layer HAS NO RNG.
If you like TB at all, it should hurt you to ignore this game now.
MOD NOTES > > > >
Changes to hero classes:
•Recruiting a hero class you have already is only twice as expensive, down from 10x.
•Combined hero classes can learn skills of both classes up to Mastery Level 5 after reaching level 20.
Pure Warrior
•Berserker gains Round Attack (Stamina Cost: 7).
•Chieftain gains Battlecry ability — Neighboring ally units gain +1 speed until the end of turn and up to 6 morale. Neighboring enemy units lose 2 morale. Does not expend turn but is deactivated until next melee attack.
Warrior / Scout
•Slayer gains the skills First Strike and Slayer (30) — Has 30% more attack against heroes and rank 4 units. 15% more against rank 3 units.
•Master Slayer gains Precise Shot (3) and Slayer (60).
Warrior / Commander
•Holy Knight gains 1 Resistance, Regeneration (1), Aura of Healing (2), Aura of Resistance (2) and Smite Evil value is now 2. In addition, he gains Faithful (3) — 3 extra Resistance against Sacred spells and they benefit from 3 extra spell power, duration and summoning power.
•Champion gains 2 Resistance, Regeneration (2), Aura of Healing (4), Aura of Resistance (3) and Smite Evil value is now 4.
Warrior / Wizard
•Dark Knight Soul Steal value is now 5, and he gains Madness (3) — 3 extra resistance against Chaos spells and they benefit from 3 extra spell power, duration and summoning power. In addition, every mortal unit in his army start battles with Dark Pact binding them — A demon of the same rank is summoned in their place when they die.
•Death Knight gains Master of the Undead — Units slain by him (excluding spells) are raised as undead. In addition, he gains Undead Summoning Power (8) — Raised undead are 8 levels higher.
Pure Scout
•Sharpshooter gains Precise Shot (5) and has its stamina cost reduction of Double Shot removed.
Scout / Warrior
•Adventurer gains 30% more experience and gains the skill Adventurous (15) — Morale lifted when clearing province locations. Can spread to other units in the army and reduces upkeep with mercenaries.
•Mercenary speed bonus reduced to 1 and he gains Agility — Enemies can't counterattack against him.
Scout / Commander
•Ringleader can plunder provinces after conquering them without spending an additional turn, and gains Infamous (1) — Reduces the morale of enemy defenders and lifts the morale of allied evil units when attacking provinces. Infamy increases by plundering provinces.
•Raider grants all units in the army +1 speed.
Scout / Wizard
•Ranger gains 3x random Terrain Knowledge (8), Stealth ability and grants temporary Stealth to all army units at the start of a battle unless he has lower initiative and is the defending party — The temporary Stealth wears off from all units without Stealth ability when they move on the battlefield.
•Ranger and Pathfinder province exploration bonus increased 15. Ranger gains Spiritual (2) and Pathfinder gains Spiritual (4) — Extra resistance against Elemental spells and they benefit from extra spell power, duration and summoning power.
•Sabotage bonus (which Ranger and Pathfinder have) is twice as effective with False Alarm and Raise Panic.
Pure Commander
•General and Marshal have their attack and counter-attack bonus removed.
•General gains Authority (50) — Medal upkeep cost of the army units is reduced by 50%.
•Units under Marshal gain 25% more experience.
Commander / Warrior
•Warlord gains Parry (2) and Battlecry ability — Neighboring ally units gain +1 speed until the end of turn and up to 6 morale. Neighboring enemy units lose 2 morale. Does not expend turn but is deactivated until next melee attack.
•Warlord grants 3 Attack and 2 Counter-Attack to all units in the army instead of 1 Defence/Ranged Defence.
•Battlemaster gains Parry (4) and grants Recuperation (2) and 2 Defence and Ranged Defence to all units in the army, and has its regeneration bonus removed.
Commander / Scout
•Tactician and Strategist ranged attack bonus for units removed.
•Tactician gains Volley ability — All ranged units fire simultaneously at a 7-hex area damaging all units within and gaining bonuses depending on how many units are in the area and how many shots are fired.
•Strategist gains +15 Siege and grants +1 Ammo to all units that use any type of ammo, excluding summoned units.
Commander / Wizard
•Priest bestows Smite Evil (1) on non-evil units and Regeneration (1) upon living units in the army, and gains Faithful (2) — 2 extra Resistance against Sacred spells and they benefit from 2 extra spell power, duration and summoning power.
•High Priest gains Faithful (4) and bestows Regeneration (2) upon living units in the army.
Pure Wizard
•When recruiting a new wizard he gains random spell school expertise — 1 extra resistance against spells from that school and they benefit from 1 extra spell power, duration and summoning power.
•Mage gains three randomly distributed spell school expertise points.
•Archmage's second cast gem cost is multiplied by the spell level of the first cast. Furthermore, the combined levels of both spells cannot exceed 6.
Wizard / Warrior
•Battlemage gains Spell Imbuement ability — Can imbue melee weapon and armor of himself and allied units with spells that are unleashed every time the unit attacks or takes damage until the spell is worn out.
Wizard / Scout
•Necromancer reduces undead upkeep cost by 1 gem per unit rank, heals undead 10% per turn outside combat and gains Magic Shot. In addition, he gains Occultism (2) — 2 extra resistance against Necromancy spells and they benefit from 2 extra spell power, duration and summoning power.
•Master Necromancer reduces undead upkeep cost by 2 gems per unit rank, heals undead 20% per turn outside combat, gains Occultism (4) and inflicts Disease on melee and ranged attack.
•Spell cost reduction removed from Necromancer and Master Necromancer.
Wizard / Commander
•Enchanter gains the skill Group Enchanter — Enchantment spells are cast on 7-hex area where the perimeter targets get half the duration of the spell. Gem cost is increased based on the number of targets.
•Enchanter's spell duration bonus reduced to 2 and Master Enchanter's spell duration bonus reduced to 4.
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Skill changes:
•Precise Strike no longer affects Round Attack.
•Round Attack now requires full movement points.
•Precise Shot no longer affects Double Shot.
•Double Shot has its range reduced by 2.
•Master of the Undead now raises slain rank 3 and 4 units as Ghouls instead of Skeletons.
•Stealth mode no longer depletes 5 Stamina at the start of every turn.
•Attacks and spells ignore the respective enemy defence/resistance by 3 when done from stealth mode.
•Stealth is revealed and cannot be reactivated if there are enemies in neigbouring hex cells at the start of turn.
•AI seeks stealthed units only if there are no visible units present on the battlefield.
•Marauder now takes a fixed amount of looting gold and no gems.
•Web (Giant Spider skill) duration now depends entirely on the target's attack, stamina and morale. Furthermore, Web now exhausts 1 stamina every turn and no longer grants extra defense.
•Entanglement (Centaur Huntsman skill) no longer works on units with Entanglement Immunity and its duration is reduced on units with over 20 attack or 50 hit points.
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Hero perk changes:
•Combat (Warrior) no longer grants Round Attack and instead gives +2 Parry at level 5.
•Constitution (Warrior) grants 1 more Hit Point at level 1, 2 and 4. In addition, 1 more Stamina at level 2 and 1 less Stamina at level 5. Furthermore, 1 extra Regeneration at level 5.
•Willpower (Warrior) grants 1 more Morale every level.
•Scouting (Scout) now grants +10 Province Exploration at every level. Scouting cost reduced to 10 gold. Poison water supplies default poison strength is now 2 damage per turn for 3 turns.
•Diplomacy (Scout) now grants +20% reward bonus at every level.
•Discipline (Commander) grants 1 more Hit Point at level 2.
•Concentration (Wizard) grants 1 more First Aid at level 3 and 5.
•Necromancy (Wizard) undead summoning power bonus at level 5 reduced to 1.
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Unit changes:
•Shaman gold upkeep reduced to 4 gold and gem upkeep increased to 2 gems.
•Crossbowman Hit Points increased to 14.
•Ballista gains Tireless and its Range is increased to 6.
•Catapult gains Tireless and its Range is increased to 7.
•Skeletons are unaffected by armor-piercing shots.
•Ghost now has 100 Defence and Ranged Defence making it actually immune to physical attacks.
•Vampire gem upkeep increased to 20.
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Spell changes:
•Extra turn granted by spells can only be gained once per player turn.
•Spell effect durations can now stack with diminishing returns.
•Web spell's duration now depends on the target's resistance, attack, stamina and morale. Furthermore, Web now exhausts 1 stamina every turn and no longer grants extra defense.
•Information about the magnitude of non-damage non-duration spells is now given when hovering over the spell target.
•Area spell highlighting now differentiates between empty space, immune targets and potential targets.
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Other changes:
•Resurrecting heroes is 30% cheaper.
•Mercenaries are now only 50% more expensive, don't require extra resources and their price is unaffected by stronghold buildings.
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Bug fixes:
•Guards will now resurrect over time at a maximum rate of one unit per turn per squad.
The chance to resurrect is the inverse of current HP% of the squad + 10% (e.g. 20% hp squad has 90% chance to resurrect a unit while 70% HP squad has 40% chance and so on.)
If the guard squad consists of different ranks of units lower ranks have a higher chance of resurrection.
•Swiftness ability no more allows casting spells after attacking.
•Battlecry now correctly depletes stamina.
•Foreign Quarter building descriptions corrected.
•Medal of Resilience description corrected.
Report any bugs, although for people who experience invalid access errors, the root cause is somewhere in the game engine so on script level which all these changes are, there is little do about that. It's been said that it's more prevalent for computers with an Nvidia graphics card.
Also, this mod was created and tested for latest Steam version with Allied Forced DLC. How it behaves with other versions is unknown to me.
Jesus said, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body."[Matt 10:28] God can totally destroy us. Jesus also said, "For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”[John 6:40] Eternal life is conditional. His disciple John wrote, "Whoever has the Son has eternal life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have eternal life. [1 John 5:12] Eternal life is optional.