2016.01.23 - v1.100: Added Basic Outposts; added Economic, Scietific, and Military Outposts; Added Allied Kingdoms; more adjustmenets to minor faction attributes and spawn rates.

2016.01.22 - v1.001: Increased the attributes of Hard minor factions; increased the spawn rate and army sizes of minor factions on faction all difficulty settings; carving out your piece of Auriga should now be more of a challenge!

2016.01.19 - v1.0

More Difficult Minor Factions

The world of Auriga is now brutal and punishing. Minor faction difficulty has received many adjustments. Because the AI does not handle tough minor factions exceptionally well, you might consider this to be the equivalent of a new game mode. Minor faction villages and roaming armies are now the main threat--surpassing the traditional rivalry of AI empires--to your success as a leader.

Fighting minor faction units is now a war of attrition: These units are much harder to fight (often outclassing you) and you will almost always lose units when you engage them in battle. You will need to build up armies (some of which will inevitably be killed in battle) in order to brute force conquer a region. You will want to do pacification quests. In many cases, saving up Dust to bribe villages will be the most efficient way of pacifying minor factions. Gone are the days of roaming the map clearing minor faction villages.

Minor faction units are now much tougher: This is tied to the difficulty setting (found in Advanced Settings -> World Difficulty when creating a new game). Easy approximates the vanilla game. Normal is significantly harder and Hard is downright punishing. Hard is the recommended setting for this mod.

Minor faction spawn rates: These are greatly increased. Garrisons grow faster and roaming armies spawn more often. Minor factions are now able to defend their villages and home regions better.

Minor factions armies are leashed to their regions: Once you manage to pacify a region, you are mostly safe from the roaming armies that spawn in nearby regions. Exploring, colonizing and pacifying new regions is now a major undertaking.

Minor factions no longer siege cities: Roaming armies simply attack your cities with all of your current fortification points intact. Combined with the militia and unit xp changes (see below), this means that you have a successful chance to fight these much more difficult armies off if you invest in your militia and fortification. This also helps to protect AI cities.

Larger & More Capable City Garrisons

Added Militia Units: Palace and City Hall each add +2 militia units (for a total of 6 Militia). Cantina and Military Reserves each add an additional +2 militia units, which can bring the maximum number of militia units in a city up to 10 units.

Increased Xp/Turn for all military buildings: Stronghold Architecture now provides +3 xp/turn (was +1xp/turn) and Imperial Kennels now provides +5 xp/turn (was +2 xp/turn); along with a change to no Idle Hands, it is now possible to train your militia into a meaningful military force with significant investment in the right hero skills and city improvements. When a militia unit dies, its replacement loses all accumulated xp, so militia units are no longer completely expendable (because you lose a tangible resource and are weakened when one of them dies).

Increased recruitment bonus for all military buildings: Conscription Center now provides +100 xp (was +40 xp) when recruiting a unit on new units; Army Manual now provides +200 xp (was +100) when recruiting a unit on new units; Inoculation Station now provides +250 xp (was +120) when recruiting a new unit on new units

A Fully-Functional Outpost System

Outposts are a fun, thematic way to control territory without having to micromanage an additional city. There are many stories that you could use to describe an outpost. It could be a little border town, a trading stop or a backwater mining community. It could also be a bustling metropolis (if you convert an older city into an outpost) that has established its autonomy; it is still a part of your empire and is allied with you, but you acknowledge and respect that region's right to rule itself independently of your main empire.

Outposts are created from cities: You settle a new city and then you build the non-salable, Outpost city improvement at a cost of 1 Industry and 100 Dust to create your Outpost. Because Cultists cannot build new settlers/cities, they are unfortunately unable to create outposts.

Outposts control a region: Just like a new city, if you establish an outpost in a region, it cannot be colonized by another empire.

Outposts provide no FIDSI or trade routes and have a nominal cost: Once converted to an outpost, a city produces 0 food, industry, science, and influence. Outposts also do not have any trade routes, although they can serve as a trade route partner and they can also function as a link in a larger trade network (see below!) Outposts also cost 10 Dust to maintain. Even if you assign a hero with boost capacities to the outpost or buy a structure out, it will never, ever produce any FIDSI.

Outposts do not impact Empire Expansion Disapproval, Empire Plans or Boosters and only slightly affect Empire Approval: Outposts won't increase the plan of boosters or empire plans by design. They also do not create expansion disapproval (like a traditional city does). The approval rating for an outpost is forced to 100 Fervent, so establishing an Outpost will actually help your overall Empire Approval rate (no way around this as far as I can see).

Outposts can build roads and link regions: The Right of Way improvement is now available from the start of the game (it no longer requires a tech unlock). The Right of Way city improvement is now established for all cities at a cost of 1 Industry and 500 Dust. You can think of this as investing in a trade network to get your trade routes up and running. Because of the way roads are coded (which is to say that I can't find any way to access them through xml), this was the simplest and most elegant situation I could find.

Outposts can build luxury and strategic resource extractors and watch towers: You can build these like normal, but you must buy them out with dust as the outpost does not have any production. Thematically, you can liken this to hiring crews of engineers to come in and build these regional buildings.

Outposts are much more vulnerable than a city: Outposts only have two militia units for innate defense and they will never have any fortification points. This means that outposts need to be protected by traditional armies and peace treaties if you expect them to survive. They are especially vulnerable to roaming armies (which are now a lot stronger), so make sure to pacify a region's villages!

You must raze the Outpost to build a traditional City: The outpost improvement cannot be destroyed. If you wish to properly resettle a region with a traditional city, you must Salt the Earth and then resettle your city. If you salt the earth, you lose the 100 Dust you paid for the Outpost improvement and you also lose the 500 Dust you optionally paid for the Right of Way improvement for that outpost. This helps eliminate any abuse that would occur if there were a simple toggle

2016.01.19 - v0.001

Combat Changes

The following buff/debuffs now last six rounds (i.e. the entire battle): Barkskin, Exhaustion, Increased Fire, Slow Down, Unleashed Potential, Unsteady. These buffs/debuffs are not applied when a unit is defending, so they can always be interrupted by a faster, melee unit (esp. high mobility cavalry)

Ardent Mage Pillars

The dust cost for each type of Ardent Mage pillar is now determined independently; previously, summoning any type of pillar would cause the cost of all types of pillars to increase. (inspired by the Community Balancing Mod & Propbuddha)

Technology

Search Party (Era 1 Technology) now gives +1 vision to all armies (inspired by the Community Balancing Mod & Propbuddha) and completely eliminates the chance to not get loot when searching ruins (normally you have a 20% chance to receive nothing).

Hero Skills

Indiana Bones (Hero Skill; Common/Middle Tree): Reduced to a single level. The first point completely eliminates the chance to not get loot when searching ruins (normally you have a 20% chance to receive nothing).

No Idle Hands (Hero Skill; Common/Middle Tree) now gives +2/+2/+3 xp per turn; was previously +1/+1/+1 xp per turn

Fast Healer (Hero Skill; Common/Middle Tree): Reduced to a single level. +5% Army health regeneration and -50% to cost of instant heal for a disabled hero in the Academy Screen.

Rigorous Training (Hero Skill; Common/Middle Tree; replaces Defender): Two Levels; +50xp/+100xp when recruiting units on new units.

Single Combat (Hero Skill; Common/Middle Tree; replaces Siege Mentality): One level; gives +20 Initiative to hero (This needs testing!)

City Improvements

Increased the xp/turn for all military buildings: Stronghold Architecture now provides +3 xp/turn (was +1xp/turn); Imperial Kennels provides +5 xp/turn (was +2 xp/turn);

Increased recruitment bonus for all military buildings: Conscription Center now provides +100 xp (was +40 xp) when recruiting a unit on new units; Army Manual now provides +200 xp (was +100) when recruiting a unit on new units; Innoculation Station now provides +250 xp (was +120) when recruiting a new unit on new units