I've been the playing 2018 version of Magister Modmod for a while and forgot to check for updates, so I'm pleasantly surprised to see this is still being updated.
Some of my impressions and possible bugs on playing a game after 4 years of changes in one go:
What are these (+1) and (-1) next to the 0 and 1 mana numbers?
Mana does what now? This magic promotion system keeps getting more complicated.
Huh, F-keys are fullscreen now.
That's a lot of new religions. But only the classic ones appear to have holy cities to do Great Prophet stuff with.
Svartalfar have a "Stealing" or "Kidnapping" mechanic (are these different things?) due to being Sinister, but I can't find this in the 'pedia to figure out how it works.
Miscast system is both annoying and confusing, some spells seem to have no penalty for miscast and I simply try again until it works.
Lanun OP, nerf pls. The AI rushed Heron Throne and ran away with the game, seemingly because the Lanun are now guaranteed many solid tiles + some great tiles on water. (Pirate Port a whopping 5/3/6.)
What is up with these Great People of several types starting at 26/37 experience and no promotions when spawned?
Rescuers can steal a rival's population while at peace. I have no idea about the balance on this, but it's hilarious keeping the Calabim capital at 1 population and harvesting it for about 50 shields of settler every few turns.
Why do I see "Tank" at the end of the tech tree now? (In 2018 it stopped at Arquebus, iirc.)
AI turns get longer faster.
AI still able to get stuck inland by planting its capital 1 tile away from coast and marginalizing other tiles so it's stuck with a single city. Poor Amelanchier. I will have to invade and take his yggdrasil fruit at some point.
Workers still hella costly and slow, unimproved tiles in my capital ring on turn 300.
Oh wow my Rescuers can even make rival cities lose culture *threshholds* so their influence contracts. This feels like it shouldn't work.
It feels weird that the game incentivizes me to repeatedly flip between Way of Leaves to cast Bloom and get ancient forest tiles, and Council of Esus (or other non-Way) to build lumbermills on the forests.
I discovered the Khazad late this game. Their starting position feels unfairly bad. Maybe there should be slightly less mountain-weighting, or hinting at the AI to move starting settler. Resources in the vicinity are Ice mana, Copper, Jewelry.
Also why is "Jewelry" a resource when there's already Gems and Gold??
Oh wow, I can build the Grand Menagerie for once. I think that's never happened to me before outside of the scenario for it.
Stonewardens can cast Diligence now? Very cool, still going to aim for the Earth+Creation setup for my adepts, have one sit in each city.
WTH, WTH, WTH? I was invading the Calabim and had them down to their last city when suddenly "Mahon the Butcher has signed a Permanent Alliance with Falamar. Falamar has declared WAR on you!" despite Falamar having +11 Friendly opinion of me on the turn before.
I got a Great Prophet who can cast Summon Imp. I try it out. He *miscasts* Summon Imp, it's hostile, and attacks the city. My archer got easy XP from that. I'm going to cast this every turn now, it's like Spell of XP.
A Vicar cast "Found Temple of the Empyrean" in a city with Council of Esus. I got two messages about the resulting fight, one saying that each of Esus and Empyrean won, and when I checked on the city, it had both.
In retrospect, the AI appears to have mostly stopped the old bad habit of building 20 Warriors to defend the capital. Now it has fewer, high-tier units instead.
I got a message about Falamar completing Heron Throne again on turn 445. Does it move?
The link from "Machinery" to "Railroad" in the 'pedia is broken.
Priest of Leaves' "Call Animal" says "Lion or Wolf", but sometimes it gives a Bear.
What do I need to do for a Priest of Leaves to cast Bloom? Way of Forests state religion is apparently insufficient. Can they not cast it at all? I know I had someone casting it but I lost track of whom.
My high-production wonder city is the holy city of 4 religions thanks to religion-founding wonders. They're starting to blur together and feel like filler, except for the railroad-building Tinkers.
Speaking of which, Tinkers and Artificers have the same 300 hammer cost, shouldn't Tinkers be 150 because they're a tier lower?
I recall Fertility used to be +7 food and was a reason to rush Creation mana. Now it's in Life and is +7 food, +50% food, staggeringly powerful, but Mages seem to have been nerfed and made rarer.
Huh, settlers changed from 2 to "Cannot found within 3 plots of city". Forced spacing?
Great work, Magister!
Had a blast though!
