Dear mother of god yes.

Booyah!

Take me to the river, Froggy, take a me to the water.

That is what will make it real ...        

Any idea how big the upgrade will be?  Im just curious because ill be out in the oil patch by the time it hits and I dont get very good speed out there.  Hopefully on this update, ill be able to use the update vs the full DL.

Hopefully here as well. Unfortunately, the internet I'm forced to use is both slow and unreliable.

"AI refinement". I like the sound of that!

Fastest way to check for that update and download the right content (for non-steaversion owners) would probably be the Stardock Central

This would be great for a true Happy Rosh Ha'Shanna

Is that pic of a dungeon?

Fastest way would be to keep an eye on this forum, since Brad's stated a changelog will be up as the next beta gets closer.  No changelog, no beta.

Not that i'm not excited and i don't want to sound negative but....

.....is the game ready for the final beta phase yet?

As far as i remember beta 5 is supposed to be feature lock time.
Can problems like pioneer spam, general game pacing or population only contributing to gildar production be countered by balance/polishing stuff?
Or are you still willing to overhaul something big time IF you should decide, that a bit of tweaking alone wouldn't do?

It's just a "feeling" but one or two major patches for beta 4 could have be a good thing maybe.

I had the same feeling in the Sins:Rebellion beta, and IMO it turned out, that the last finetuning stage came to soon and an extra beta phase (e.g. balancing the faction introduced last) felt missing.
And Sins didn't even carry such a heavy heritage as FE has got with E:Wom, it was an expansion to a very polished and solid product!
Still the community reaction, that all that essential stuff would be adressed after launch, led to some... uhm mixed reactions, to put it politely.


Please i really don't want to belittle all the amazing effort you guys have achieved until now, and while most of us are confident and supportive for an excellent FE release, there's still a long way to go.

Guess the changelog will be telling .

I solved pioneer spam with a simple mod. Doesn't sound like a major problem.

I solved game pacing with a slightly more complex mod. Could easily be fixed in the next update.

Population and buildings affect gildar. Towns are the major gildar producers and do roughly four times more than a Fortress or Conclave. The tax system is really a great game mechanic and didn't need any changes.

I don't see a reason why we shouldn't be moving on to beta 5. That is precisely the phase where pacing and balance can solve the issues you seem to have. Unless you are one of "those people" who want a pioneer to cost 200 gildar. They are the Tea Party of Elemental.

Something people have to understand is that Brad likes "land grabbing" to be a part of his strategy games.  GalCiv is the same way.  I've had to modify my Civilization strategies to fit Fallen Enchantress.  So to be good at FE, you need to start your games by cranking out pioneers just like the AI does.  Here are some suggestions based on whatever the real source of your "pioneer spam" pain might be:

1.  The AI gets all the good stuff: 

a ) Don't build so many buildings early on; instead crank out scouts and pioneers only.

2.  There are too many worthless AI cities for me to clean up in the end game: 

a ) Raze, baby raze!

3.  I hate it when the AI sticks an outpost in my territory: 

a ) SD should create a 10 turn minimum lock out diplomacy option when you tell the AI to leave your territory.  Tell Brad to FIX IT!

b ) City influence should put greater pressure on outposts causing them to convert (ala GalCiv).  Tell Brad to FIX IT!

c ) Get a monster to follow you around and walk him strategically towards an enemy outpost to destroy it (NOTE: this one of the reasons why I don't like playing Tarth... the monsters won't follow you around)

4. I hate it when an attacking AI army is filled with pioneers:

a ) Create another post in this forum and tell Brad to FIX IT!

5. Something else?

a ) Let us know and maybe we can have one of the modding gurus help a brother out.

It really depends on how one defines "Pioneer spam".

A big part of Fallen Enchantress is about claiming the land as yours. But cranking out pioneers is most definitely NOT the best way to win the game and the AI has been updated in Beta 5 to takes its cities a lot more seriously.

Rush. Boom. Turtle.  There's a 4th strategy that rarely gets covered but is very effective: Strangle.

When I was in PGL (Pro Gamer's League) this was the strategy I always used and it worked very well in games like Total Annihilation.  Strangle is where you simply control the whole map and you just strangle the other player of resources.

The counter, however, is that the Stranger's empire is brittle. If you're everywhere, you're very susceptible to a focused strike.

My job, and post-release the job of modders, will be to make heavy use of the AITraits tags because that is how I'm going to implement the other 3 strategies prior to release (Rush, Boom, and Turtle).

In Beta 4 (and to a lesser extent, as we begin Beta 5), the AI focuses on strangling.  It works.  But when players know how to counter that strategy, they can counter it for all time.  That's where my work begins to make sure their strategies are more varied.

But that's a *polish* thing.  At this stage, the AI plays the game.  Now it's about making it play the game WELL.