Difficulty update

Hello, based on feedback I've now released a new (bigger) update targeting difficulty.

Besides bugfixes and tweaked values it contains some full new features which might be more suitable for a bigger update, but during tests they turned out to be more effective ways to tune difficulty than nerfing the threats.

There's still more to do around difficulty, I still expect a minimum of one more patch in the next couple of days/weeks. And since this is very hasty feature update I think we'll also find some new bugs around. But I think the bigger problems around difficulty should now be near-solved.

Cheers,

Ondrej

[h2]'Crisis Spiral' reduction[/h2]

• All Economy heroes now have a Toggle ability similar to Leadship heroes. When active these abilities reduce Risk. The difference (for now) is only in resource cost (gold/autonomy per sec) and whether it affects All risks or One Highest risk.
  
• Hostile civilization war risk is now based on proximity to your tiles. Neighbour tiles give 10%, 1 tile distant give 5%, all others give 1%.
  
• Send Diplomat quest is now twice as fast.
  
• Quest speed modifier now showing on map. (yes with a breakdown popup)
  
• Added a 'contingency ability' called Horn of Resolve which can wipe all existing disasters and crises (no rewards) and activate Grace Period (no risks for 5m). This ability needs to be recharged in ascension shop for Gold Lotus (after unlocked with Medieval Era). This is to provide better alternative to dying a slow death in a crisis spiral. Cannot be used for Confusion of Tongues.
  
• Civilizations which are initially Hostile can now spawn on Tier 1 after Unlocking Industrial era. This is to introduce its War risk challenge earlier than during the Tier 2 difficulty big-bang.
  
• Removed social crisis risk from Internet
  
• Default crisis reward reducing risks now reduces 10% for 5 minutes instead of 5% for 3 minutes.
  
• Removed Wood boost reward from default crisis crisis reward pool.
  

[h2]Disasters & Crisis Perks[/h2]

• Social Crisis on Tier 2 now has new Resist Heavy Unit perk instead of Thorns perk.
  
• Uprising on Tier 2 now has new Resist Light Unit perk instead of Fast perk.
  
• Fire now has the Fast perk instead of Hard to Block Perk.
  
• Disease now has the Hard-to-block perk instead of Resist light unit.
  
• Thorns Perk is no longer spawning by default on any Tier 2 standard crisis.
  
• All disasters now have duration of 2 minutes instead of 3 minutes.
  
• Stacking disasters now increments duration instead of stacking their effects.
  
• Resentment now grants Thorns Perk to new crises instead of its Click Heat increase.
  
• Thorns granted from Resentment deal more damage than original Social Crisis thorns.
  
• Thorns Deaths no longer reduce Autonomy.
  
• Unit buttons now showing indicator when a Thorns Perk would affect them
  
• Rats now add new Poisonous Perk to Crises instead of giving extra attacks. Poisonous perk deals low amount of unblockable damage over time.
  
• Rats now give Growth efficiency penalty instead of Disease Risk.
  
• Storm now grants 3 unblockable attacks instead of 1.
  

[h2]Generic Hero trait drop changes (only for newly dropped)[/h2]

• Risk reduction now more likely on blue heroes
  
• Unit Cap increase on blue heroes increased.
  
• Crisis slowdown now spawning as a random trait for Blue and Red heroes
  
• Fixed incorrect odds of various traits.
  
• Unit recharge speed increased for Purple heroes (also for Mercenaries skill, which applies retrospectively for older heroes)
  
• Quest speed values scaling fixed (also retrospective for previous hero versions)
  

[h2]Other Bugs & Tweaks[/h2]

• Gold rewards from crises on Tier 2 should scale with the Era (meaning lower gold rewards early on). Same applies for certain Dillemma costs.
  
• Fixed a bug causing Babel Tower scenario not to be won correctly if the last Confusion of Tongues was defeated by Autocombat in one tick (which became more likely thanks to previous Autocombat multi-attack-per-tick patch)
  
• Babel Tower can no longer be destroyed by Wonder Crisis Attacks preventing you from winning the scenario.
  
• Added game speed buttons to hud.