SpellForce: Conquest of Eo News

All mages on deck! SpellForce: Conquest of Eo, a turn-based masterpiece, finds its perfect home in the palms of your hands. Aspiring wizards, your goal is nothing short of becoming the mightiest spellcaster of all time. Choose from three distinct schools of magic, amass a formidable army of dozens of henchmen and mythical beasts, and lay waste to your enemies' lands.

On the Steam Deck, the game seamlessly unfolds with controls as intuitive as waving your magic wand. Being turn-based, there's no rush—feel free to gaze out the window during your bus or train ride without missing a beat. SpellForce: Conquest of Eo offers a truly chillaxing experience on the Steam Deck. Join the magical ride and check it out!

Thank you for your Steam Awards nomination!

Good news, PC players! The free patch 1.3 has been published today, adding new content and features to the game:

Additions

• Quest overview – allows you to quickly find and navigate to active quests on the world map
  
• A new hero: Galtrak, the orc blood mage brings his own kind of magic that may even unlock new spells for your wizard…but they come at a price
  
• New world locations: The sullied village
  

Improvements

• Strong performance improvements to optimize your experience on lower-end systems and speed up loading times
  
• Improved gamepad functionalities and guidance
  
• Reworked magic school distribution so they do not spawn in completely unreachable locations anymore where apprentice would get stuck.
  
• You can now jump to the next/previous valid target while casting a spell on the world map
  

Fixes

• Fixed various character outlines not being displayed correctly
  
• Fixed battle being stuck when an units gets routed (morale)
  
• Fixed game being stuck on the world map when you freeze an enemy stack
  
• Fixed an issue where the tower stayed contested after leaving an enemy influence area.
  
• Teleport/Recall spells now wipe a stacks memory, so they do not teleport back again if movement was queued
  

The latest patch makes the battle for Eo's fate more challenging for experienced players, improving the Circle Mages' armies and defenses on higher difficulties. It also improves auto-combat massively, taking into account a number of additional factors such as spells, resistances and skills as well as equipment. Players can focus on the battles that really count and do away with manually playing clear-cut victories to prevent unnecessary losses. Add to this over 40 improvements and bug fixes as well as a new Energy Leech skill that allows to leech life from fantastical creatures and Conquest of Eo has become even more fun to play!

Additions

• AUTORESOLVE 2.0 - The new formula accounts for most of the skills, promotions and abilities in game which makes it take into account supportive units and strong builds much better than before. Still does not play like a human...
  
• Added new Ability "Leech Energy" (Life leech vs Fantastic units). Can be found as an artifact, crafted (Glyph of Occultism) or gained from level up for certain units.
  

Improvements

• Watchtower and Inn are now spawned in Uram Gor
  
• Changed wishing well adventure to give one cool reward and diminishing returns after that
  
• Build Golem does not have universal upkeep anymore and does not count as summon, instead the upkeep depends on the created golem. Only newly built Golems are affected
  
• Added exception handling if settings file is corrupted to avoid black screens on startup and instead load the default settings as fallback
  
• Tweaked camera angle on world map (better taking mountains into account) and the camera in battles can now zoom in more closely
  
• Tweaked location and resource overlays to cause less occlusion
  
• Spell school dialogue condition displays number of required spells in that school (e.g. [Death 5])
  
• Faction tool tip now displays effects that are active in that faction's domain
  

Balancing

• Antagonist Power Overhaul - Partially affects all difficulties (slight changes to army pools, fixed bugs that prevented final stack from attacking player) but mostly impacts hard and impossible difficulty (stronger antagonist tower and attack stacks, stronger final stack, additional battle enchantments for antagonists on those difficulties, increased attack wave intensity). Also circle mage tower battles have to be fought manually.
  
• Earthlore spell correctly considers ore rarity of region its being cast in. (before that it was basically 50/50 to get adamantinum)
  
• Shortened cast duration for Aether Beast skill cast
  
• Build Golem spell does not have universal upkeep anymore and does not count as summon, instead the upkeep depends on the created golem. Only newly built Golems are affected
  
• Kennels don't block everyone else from getting Follower (checking against active promotions, not all)
  

Fixes

• Fixed issue where markers for how far you can go in a multi turn path where off by one.
  
• Fixed an issue that sometimes caused the AI to freeze in battle when one of their units would rout
  
• Fixed Elixir of Subjugation item costing focus to use (unit-skill still costs focus)
  
• Undying units don't get offered death defy in level up
  
• Fixed several occasions of Skills (mostly throw potions skills) not profiting from additional Ability-range (or wrongly from Missile-range)
  
• Parry Stance does not replace Guard Stance anymore
  
• Fixed Loss end nodes -> unchecked further engage or added new end node with unchecked further engage
  
• Fixed Wendigo not having the passive Corpse Consume heal
  
• Fixed selection cursor in Elynn's Revive As Shaikan
  
• Fixed Flesh Colossus not displaying its On Death ability
  
• Fixed Death abilities of several units triggering twice
  
• Fixed infinite loop that appeared when two units with On Death abilities kill each other
  
• Fixed -% to willpower changes accumulating to below -100%, actually granting willpower for getting damage (masochistic spider queens)
  
• Fixed Purity Hollow Guards being in Hokan's Forge
  
• Fixed toggle buttons not working correctly with gamepad
  
• Fixed a bug where a fight in an adventure had a higher stack power than the option said (the other case, lower power than anticipated, is still possible if the AI can't spend all that budget)
  
• Fixed spawning adventures on the player's instant castles; also added validator check and fixed for Isgrimm as well
  
• Fixed Metor VFX not playing correctly when off screen
  
• Fixed toggle buttons not working correctly with gamepad
  
• Fixed a bug where a fight in an adventure had a higher stack power than the option said (the other case, lower power than anticipated, is still possible if the AI can't spend all that budget)
  
• Canceling fly spell during execution - abort spell is now blocked when busy.
  
• Fixed bug with moving location onto stack which builds a lodge
  
• Fixed component colors in tool tips
  
• Fixed a crash in combat that sometimes occurred when a unit with charge damage attacked an enemy from an adjacent hex
  
• Fixed a Rohen adventure where there could be a loop created by not destroying source location
  

Today’s patch for SpellForce – Conquest of Eo is all about choice and setting up the game the way you want to play it! Now you can completely individualize your preferred difficulty setting from enemy aggression to antagonist power and AI behavior to economy as well as choosing the Circle Mages you face in the game. Pro Tip: Simply pick the ones you love to hate, to make victory that much sweeter!
We have also been busy with over 50 smaller and larger fixes and improvements to the game based on community feedback as well as major performance optimizations, so more people can enjoy a smoother experience.

Time to visit Eo and make your way from humble beginnings to becoming the greatest of mages – if you survive!

This is the complete list for the patch 1.1:

Additions

• Added a variety of custom difficulty settings - set the game up exactly the way you like to play it
  
• Added antagonist selection at campaign start - choose whom you face in game!
  
• Display quality of slotted artefacts/glyphs in unit details
  
• Added essence filters for inventories in the tower menu - filter your ingredients by essence type
  

Improvements

• Several performance improvements on worldmap leading to reduced system memory usage, improved loading times and smoother framerates (especially on weaker systems)
  
• Improved colors of crafting essences, to be better readable for people with various color vision deficiencies
  
• Can now assign build lodge action also into known fog of war
  
• Improved performance when gaining status effects in battle
  
• Increased supported concurrent domains displayed per faction from 50 to 128 (looking at you, Instant Castle spam)
  
• Tooltips correctly differentiate between "can cause"(30% chance) and "inflict"(100% chance unless resisted) status effect
  
• Made description of Thunderstorm and similar skills clearer
  
• Follower explains that it overrides Enslaved
  

Balance

• Resistances are now stacked relative chance based on difference to 100% (30% Resistance Base = 30% Resistance, add 20% from Spell/Glyph= 30+(70*20%)= 44% Resistance). This allows units with 100% resistance to still be immune, while providing diminishing returns for stacking resistances and prevents immune murder stacks.
  
• Steadfast now grants 50% resistance against status effects instead of full immunity
  
• Life leech only works against Mortal units to make it less universally powerful
  
• All summons in battle appear without actions to reduce summon spam strategies
  
• Specific Titan Spells can only be kept active once, like Global Enchantments (affects Forgemaster, Lightbringer, Primordial Treant, Shaper Golem)
  
• Consume Corpse now always heals the unit post battle for its healing value, but is rarer in levelups, so you don't have to hunt down or miss out on corpses in battle
  
• Balanced Magic Coffer/Gift/Reputation Increase spell values
  
• Made Dancers Potion and Unstable Elixir more viable
  
• Lowered strength of Copper Rune of Ashen and Copper Rune of Elementalist to match other runes of same powerlevel
  
• Enslaving a unit does not trigger moral loss/onDeath effects anymore
  
• Increased Damage for Berserker Trait, increased resistance for Quick Reflexes, lowered Resistance of BathedInLight
  
• Motivate has 1-turn cooldown and Motivate and Command cannot target the source unit (stops endless action exploit)
  

Fixes

• Fixed savegame menu to show all savegames despite unknown files being present
  
• Fixed flyers not being able to fly over destructibles
  
• Fixed post battle unit state bugging out and not being displayed from then on
  
• Fixed Leech City not working on Westguard's Bastion
  
• Fixed Hokan Ashir having Purity troops, now has proper undead version
  
• Fixed loop in Estwal settlement adventure and adventure existing more than once
  
• Fixed Audale shops not properly unlocking the spells you bought
  
• Fixed an issue that caused kennel upgrades to override enslaved for all units instead of only beasts.
  
• When all combatants die during a battle, we now make sure one unit stays alive for winning faction to avoid errors with adventures
  
• Implemented fallback to make saves work again where multiple locations are saved at the same position
  
• Credits menu can now be exited with controller
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the follower spell to not work once kennel feeding pits have been built
  
• Fixed an issue where having a Draw result in a adventure battle caused the game to stop responding
  
• Fixed an issue that caused certain sacrifice unit options in adventures to stop you from progressing the adventure
  
• Fixed incorrect saved path adjustment if path was blocked or interrupted
  
• Fixed cocooned unit aborting attacker's melee skill
  
• Fixed crash in Silver Drift Hollow Mine adventure when fleeing from second fight
  
• Fixed issue where spawning a primordial forest inside your domain wouldn't instantly apply additional modifiers from rooms
  
• Fixed issue where apprentice join notification could break savegames
  
• Made sure correct message is displayed when no valid crafting recipe was found
  

Esteemed mages,

our game has been out for a week now and we couldn’t be happier with your reactions and feedback. We have been listening and reading as much as we can and we immediately got to work on improving the game and fixing any bugs you have encountered. The current patch contains over 60 fixes, improvements and additions to the game!

We will of course continue to further improve the game and your feedback and support in this is invaluable. Thanks for helping us make the game better!

Today’s patch will address some of the main topics and the two major bugs that hindered people from enjoying the game fully.

Some balancing changes and improvements will only work if you start a new game, especially for Antagonist behaviours, quests and starting locations.

• Fixed game crashing when it could not save to the hard drive due to Windows Defender or antivirus preventing that. (You will still need to manually add the game as an exception and allow it to create and write into folders)
  
• Fixed an issue where autosave would be triggered between an adventure and starting a battle inside of it causing incorrect behavior after loading that autosave.
  
• Added Quick save and Quick Load (F5/F8)
  
• Primary school now determines first apprentice's followers to add more variety to early game troops and decrease initial difficulty.
  
• New Hiring Locations were added for Start Regions to increase variety of initial units available.
  
• Antagonists do not spawn stacks close to your tower when going to war now, to prevent curb-stomping your tower out of nowhere. This should make the mid-game smoother and provide less of a difficulty spike.
  
• Antagonists also announce they are about to take actions against player via notifications.
  
• We tweaked Antagonist reputation loss (lose more when you bring the fight to them, less anywhere else) + Antagonist AI can send Titans now! That should keep end-game difficulty more even.
  

There were a bunch of further balancing and quality of life improvements, some nerfs and a few fixes that affect gameplay and balancing as well, so here is a lit of all the changes:

Additions

• Implemented Quicksave (F5) and Quickload (F8) on world map (1 quicksave slot for now and quickload only loads quicksaves not any other) & don't allow to save over quicksaves
  
• Primary school now determines first apprentice's followers to add more variety to early game troops
  
• New Hiring Locations for Start Regions to increase variety of initial units available.
  
• Added floating text when a unit resists a status effect attempt through their working resistance.
  
• Dead Hero + Active Spells first time screens added
  

Improvements

• Antagonists do not spawn stacks close to your tower when going to war now, to prevent curb-stomping your tower out of nowhere. Antagonists also announce actions against player via notifications.
  
• Tweaked Antagonist reputation loss (lose more when you bring the fight to them, less anywhere else) + Antagonist AI can send Titans now!
  
• [Alchemy] made Toxic Distillate and Plague Vessel more different from each other
  
• Now displays floating text when a unit resists a status effect attempt through their working resistance.
  
• Skills display when they END the turn instead of when they don't
  
• Added icon indicating the rewards when a new tower level is unlocked next to the floors
  
• Implemented error popup in case something is blocking access to the save game directory
  
• Created more specialized overlays for locations and plants to make them more lightweight
  
• Tweaked Summon Beast to have more variety
  
• Tweaked some worldmap hints for location spawning
  
• Cleanse Ally skill works on everyone (so you can cleanse mind controlled units)
  
• Charmed Status effect (Mind Control) now tagged as negative status effect -> cleansable on own units
  
• [Souls] Pristine souls are not ingredients (no essences)
  
• Word of Recall can be revealed sooner in spell book when owning the page
  
• Extra hiring-slot now shows different icon in location overlay ( hammers instead of unit+)
  
• Select tower/airship first when during flight to prevent accidentally moving units out
  
• Improved performance while in the tower menu or while viewing unit details
  
• Mitigation for everybody affected by the autosave + battle on turn start issue. We now explain what the problem is (needs windows defender allowing folder access).
  
• Improved Water Material in Region Alluvyan
  
• Changed Rohen horizontal faction banner color to Orange.
  
• Removed the story path where Castle Meldec would vanish
  

Balancing

• Adamantinum increased to 2 all-color essences
  
• Nerfed wisps
  
• Fixed coloring/image in Tower menu (Allfire flow had wrong color)
  
• Room extensions balancing (Illithian Chamber bonus increased to 2, Employee of the Month more expensive)
  
• Tweaked Necromancy starting items (from hamlet) for easier first crafting
  
• Better balance for Shaper Secret fights
  
• Increased upkeep for Build Golem spell
  

Fixes

• Summons in battle now have the "Summon" and "Expendable" traits
  
• Changed Fire Elemental to Fire Golem in spell book
  
• Fixed Silver Drift Hollow Mine did not award achievement for clearing the quest line
  
• Fixed the glyph and artefact equip window not being scrollable when using a controller
  
• Fixed selection cursor displaying "no valid targets" in reset exploitation skill (and for all skills that don't implement ValidTile-interface)
  
• Fixed Turn Animal only working on disordered or worse state; Turned state can be cleansed
  
• Flame armor has no resistance anymore -> cannot be resisted by own troops
  
• Fixed consume corpse working in any range, now only works in displayed range
  
• Fixed missile skill Volley previsualization showing wrong damage values and fixed visuals triggering delay when not in camera focus
  
• Fixed faulty tile definition on Cave 01 Battle map, near the entrance.
  
• Adjusted Visual representation of Mountain Tiles in Rushwater Down. was not clear enough.
  
• Fixed some Shaper Stacks being wrongfully assigned to New Purity of Light
  
• Fixed Hovered-Tile-Indicator not being rendered if occluded
  
• Fixed loca in Insight Spell popup
  
• Fixed imbalance in essences of poison coating/toxic distillate
  
• Fixed tower is still shown as next action after landing
  
• Fixed issue where autosave would be triggered between an adventure and starting a battle inside of it causing incorrect behavior after loading that autosave.
  
• Hide new tower levels until unlock says so
  
• Fixed not localized collect button in apprentice school
  
• Fixed hex highlight in WorldMapBattleEffect
  
• Fixed some elven stacks’ power in Alluvyan adventures not scaling correctly
  
• Fixed faulty tile definition on Worldmap in Region Westguard.
  
• Reworked hand-placed mine locations in Draycott and Stoneblades.
  
• Fixed bug that caused not triggering "War" when immediately dropping to 0 reputation
  
• Fixed reload/recharge statuses being cleansable
  
• Fixed Demon-form being cancelable by Steadfast/Cleanse
  
• Shaper Golem now has Construct trait
  
• Clarified "No Upkeep" wording in summons/mind controlled traits
  
• Fixed FireBeetle missile attack not being usable as default skill