Empfohlene Zugreihenfolge basierend auf Spielzeit:

== Balance ==
The following 2 changes are added to the changelog of v1.23 (please check the link and note the 2 changes that may not be implemented due to technical issues):
Ne21
Ghouled cities can be Plundered and Hasty Plundered (was only possible to Purify, Raze or – if playing Necro – Migrate them)

Ro17
Succubi cost 150 gold and 30 mana (was 170 gold and 30 mana)

The rest did not make it due to insufficient feedback in support of them.

If all goes well, v1.23 should be released on the beta branch by the end of next week.
The target is to get the changelog of v1.24 confirmed for the end of round 6 of the 2vs2 Tournament, i.e. in about 3 months.

== 2017 PBEM Duel Tournament ==
It was previously said: "v1.22 used for round 5, probably v1.23 for round 6". It now seems short to use v1.23 for round 6 given that only 38 days are left before the end of the round. As a consequence, v1.22 will be used for round 6. v1.23 will be used for round 7.

== 2016 PBEM 2vs2 Team Tournament ==
Reminder: round 7 will use v1.23.

== Misc ==
A new poll has been launched: What are the best mods according to you? Time to vote!

Marcus released several advanced strategy tutorials on his channels, check them out:
- how to get a stack of Shadow Stalkers by turn 20: https://www.youtube.com/playl... />- challenge: possible to get the following 3 units at Elite by turn 17? King Serpent, Queen Spider, Shaman: https://www.youtube.com/watch... />- how to get Eldritch Horror by turn 25: https://www.youtube.com/watch...

Henrysix joined !!

== Tournaments ==
We cannot give specific rules for the number of warnings before disqualification because that would encourage people to suddenly have X-1 reloads in a game, where X is the number we announced as the level where you get disqualified.
Basically, the principles are: a small number of warning without proof in one game = disqualification or game loss; if you get many such warnings in separate games, you still get disqualified; if you have an abnormal number of warnings, even with adequate proofs, you also get a game loss or disqualification.
So there is a difference between both types of warning: with proofs judged adequate or without such proofs, and the count is both by game and on the whole tournament. But judges have some flexibility to avoid people trying to get through loopholes.

== Balance ==
The preliminary changelog of v1.23 has been released: http://aow.triumph.net/forums... />
These changes require additional feedback and are considered for v1.23 (if enough positive feedback by next week) or for v1.24:

3 changes whose main idea is to prevent early clearing of sites that give Secret Spells that can break games:

GC26
Forbidden Sanctum's batte enchantment is Mass Bless / Mass Curse and Shock Missile cast every turn on a random enemy unit

GC26a
Forbidden Sanctum no long have a defender set containing Nymphs and Shamans

GC27
Sunken City's battle enchantment is Frost Missile (cast every turn on an enemy unit)

And a few more, including a variant of Gas Masks where Choking can't be dispelled to avoid the AI getting crazy trying to dispel, wasting CP in auto:

Ne21
Ghouled cities can be Plundered and Hasty Plundered (was only possible to Purify, Raze or – if playing Necro – Migrate them)

Dr18b (same as Dr18a except that Choking can't be dispelled to avoid the AI getting crazy trying to dispel, wasting CP in auto)
Dreadnought heroes can choose Gas Masks at level 7 for 5 points: units in the stack led by this unit get 40% Blight Protection and are immune to Choking Fumes and Suffocate. Undead, Elemental, Machines and Incorporeal are not affected.
Choking Fumes target all units on the battlefield when it is cast and gives them Choking until end of battle (was a battlefield enchantment and could be disjuncted to remove Choking). The Choking ability is a blight passive debuff: it can be removed by Cure Disease (but not by Dispel Magic).
Magma Forge casts Choking Fumes every turn (the battle enchantment can be disjuncted to prevent Choking Fumes to be cast every turn but units will keep Choking, except if cured or dispelled).

Ro17
Succubi cost 150 gold and 30 mana (was 170 gold and 30 mana)

Or03
Orc Impalers get “Impaling” (Impalers get a chance with each attack to immobilize the attacked unit) and cost +5 Gold

GC53
Draconian Charger, Dwarf Deepguard, High Elf Union Guard, Halfling Farmer, Human Halebardier, Orc Impaler are available at Barracks (was War Hall).

I would like to raise a question on the topic of warnings given to players for reloads.
From what I understand, there should be some sort of difference between warnings for reloads with proof and without those.
Can anyone explain what is the difference? also how many warnings are leading to serious disciplinary action? are warnings counting towards a single game or the tournament?

== PBEM 2vs2 Team Tournament ==
Round 6 of the PBEM 2vs2 Team Tournament is about to start, we are waiting for Fistandantilus and Warlord Keldon to report their victory.
Unfortunately both games on round 5 ended up by score. Fortunately, the two eliminated teams will get another shot at staying in the course for the Final through a qualification game to replace team West Coasters: Bastards of the North will face rrrrookie & Jonny Thunder in parallel to the normal matches of round 6.
Reminder: round 7 should use v1.23 of the balance mod.

== Balance ==
One topic has been slow to move forward and is slowing down the whole balancing process so more feedback would be welcome. The topic is how to make rarely used units more useful/interesting. The list of proposed changes for non-Dwelling units is split into three different posts in the same thread on the forum. It would be very very useful if 1 or 2 players could provide feedback on the forum on that thread. Here are the three posts:
http://aow.triumph.net/forums/topic/making-currently-rarely-used-units-more-useful/page/3/#post-253326
http://aow.triumph.net/forums/topic/making-currently-rarely-used-units-more-useful/page/4/#post-253654 at the bottom
http://aow.triumph.net/forums/topic/making-currently-rarely-used-units-more-useful/page/6/#post-257408

v1.23's preliminary changelog will be announced in about 1 week.

These changes are confirmed for v1.23:
GC33a
Combat Healing starts with an initial 3 turns cooldown (was 4 turns).

GC49
Public Bath costs 120 gold (was 150)

GC40a
Spell upgrades for heroes cost 4 (was 5), except:
– Chaos Rift (stay at 5)
– Chain Lightning (stay at 5)
– Last Stand (stay at 5)
– Slayer’s Doubt (stay at 5)
– Stiffen Limbs (stay at 5)
– Repair Fortification: costs 3

GC51
Heroes appearing in Cosmic Events have Mind Control Immunity


These changes require additional feedback and are considered for v1.23:
GC52
A new setting is available for “Defenders Strength”: “Strong with Normal rewards”: Treasure sites do not give +50% reward value any more

This one is the potential replacement for Gas Masks. It has some significant difference, so we need more feedback on it:
Dr18a
Dreadnought heroes can choose Gas Masks at level 7 for 5 points: units in the stack led by this unit get 40% Blight Protection and are immune to Choking Fumes and Suffocate. Undead, Elemental, Machines and Incorporeal are not affected.
Choking Fumes target all units on the battlefield when it is cast and gives them Choking until end of battle (was a battlefield enchantment and could be disjuncted to remove Choking). The Choking ability is a blight passive debuff: it can be removed by Cure Disease or Dispel Magic.
Magma Forge casts Choking Fumes every turn (the battle enchantment can be disjuncted to prevent Choking Fumes to be cast every turn but units will keep Choking, except if cured or dispelled).


== Misc ==
A vote on the best mods for AoW3 as of 2017 is being prepared. A shortlist of 20 mods need to be selected, please express your support for your favourite mods which are in the list in this post (follow the exact link, it's just 1 post on p.2, no need to read the whole discussion): https://steamcommunity.com/ap... />
I started uploading the videos of my game vs El Lobo on Round 4 of the 2017 PBEM Duel Tournament. Here is the link to the playlist, starting with turn 1:

Hiliadan (Tigran Warlord) vs El Lobo (Human Necromancer)

== Balance ==
About 10 days left to produce a first draft of the changelog of v1.23. I followed up with the two extended groups of discussion for balance to get more opinions on the proposed changes. If you didn't receive any PM but would like to participate in the discussions, please contact me.

These changes will be confirmed for v1.23 if no further feedback:
GC33a
Combat Healing starts with an initial 3 turns cooldown (was 4 turns).

GC49
Public Bath costs 120 gold (was 150)

GC40a
Spell upgrades for heroes cost 4 (was 5), except:
– Chaos Rift (stay at 5)
– Chain Lightning (stay at 5)
– Last Stand (stay at 5)
– Slayer’s Doubt (stay at 5)
– Stiffen Limbs (stay at 5)
– Repair Fortification: costs 3

GC51
Heroes appearing in Cosmic Events have Mind Control Immunity


These changes require additional feedback and are considered for v1.23:
GC52
A new setting is available for “Defenders Strength”: “Strong with Normal rewards”: Treasure sites do not give +50% reward value any more

GC40b
CP upgrade costs for heroes are reduced to 5+5+5+5+6+7+7 = 40 in total to get to 85 CP (was 5+5+7+7+7+9+9 = 49)
Destabilized Mana Core costs 60 CP (was 50 CP)

== 2017 PBEM Duel Tournament ==
Almost all the matches started or about to start.
Only missing the class/race of Mr. Hawk.

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU STARTED WITH THE MAIN BRANCH of the balance mod. If you started with the beta branch, please contact judges immediately and pause your game.

== PBEM 2vs2 Team Tournament ==
Some issues happened on the match Bastards of the North vs Sinners. As Fistandantilus is involved in the match, Markymakr and I decided to nominate a 3rd judge to help us: Marcuspers will help on this case.

Some final checks need to be made on the other match but the winning team should be announced soon.
So round 6 is delayed a bit but hopefully should be able to proceed soon!

The pbem++ mode is great - the changes are very few - but their impact is big. Fast currents are giving players with fly-ing scouts too much of an advantage ): we have to move that in the main branch

As a follow-up to the release of v1.22 of the balance mod, Jean and I have released a new version of our http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=952663062, in which we've added the Gas masks upgrade to Dreadnought heroes. This change had been planned to be added to v1.22 of the balance mod, but didn't make the cut due to time constraints. So we added it to PBEM++ in order to allow people to use it instead of waiting for the next release of the balance mod.

For those of you who haven't tried the PBEM++, it's sort of a 3rd party extension to the main balance mod. We use it to tackle the issues that the balance mod team either doesn't have the time to work on or can't integrate because of the goal of targeting single-player mode as well as PBEM. Probably the most impactful example of that is we got rid of the starting spell unfairness, which can have a huge impact on the fast-paced duels played on tournament maps. But there's obviously more good stuff implemented, you can check this document to see the full list of changes as well as the reasoning behind them.

As the new round of the tournament starts today, I'd recommend to take a closer look at our nice little mod and consider using it for your tournament games if you like it. Obviously, every little change will have the people who are for it and the people who are against it, but the objective bottom line is it does make the competitive games more fair, which is good for the tournament games, right? =)

== Balance mod ==
Thanks a lot Mr. Hawk (and Tass by PM) for reporting the issue... We did test everything since mid-July and did several corrections in the last few days with Zaskow but it looks like some bugs were introduced and unspotted in the last update. Very sorry about that! At least now we know we need to pay extra attention when abilities' descriptions are updated (that's what caused the bug, for instance for Flying, we added "Gives +2 Vision Range" in the description, that's a quality of life improvement).
A fix has been released. For players who had already opened their games with the faulty version, it seems the only possible fix is to delete the PBEM saves from that game and then try to open the game again, which will redownload the turn from scratch. Sorry about the trouble and lost time...
Please come to the chat if you face issues, so that I can help there: https://www.the-battlefield.c... />
== 2017 PBEM Duel Tournament ==
Please note that Round 5 will be played with the main branch of the balance mod, I repeat the main branch. Please make sure NOT to use the beta branch (which was used for Round 4, but NOT for Round 5) as it will be used for tests on v1.23 of the balance mod. As a general rule, tournament games use the main branch. Only in specific cases will the beta branch will be used and in these cases, it will be required by judges and announced here.

v1.22 has been released on the main branch a few minutes ago so Round 5 can now officially start!
As announced in my previous post, Mr. Hawk replaced DarkRider (randomly picked among players who lost in round 4 and were interested to play round 5).

@players hosting: please post screenshots of the settings as usual, ideally in windowed mode. Wait for the greenlight of judges regarding settings and class/race.

== PBEM 2vs2 Team Tournament ==
Deadline of end of round expired, both ongoing matches are going to be decided by score unfortunately.
The decision tree described on this Player Pool on 2017-07-16 18:49:06 will be used: for this round and for this tournament, if the game is not finished by the deadline, then the winner would be decided by comparing in this order: 1/ the combined total (general) score of living players of each team, 2/ the combined military scores of living players of each team, 3/ the combined domain scores of living players of each team. If no team has a clear superiority (not just 1 point more; clear superiority is assessed by the judges) in any of these, then the team with the highest combined total (general) score of living players win (same as 1/ but without need for "clear superiority").

Match The green elephant vs rrrrookie & Jonny Thunder: waiting for Melciar to come back from business trip to play his turn, do a back up, then surrender, send the scores to judges, then sends the turn to the next player.
Match Bastards of the North vs The Sinners: Warlord Keldon will play his turn, then AlX will do the same thing as Melciar: play his turn, do a back up then surrender, send the scores to Markymark and me and then sends the turn to the next player.

== Anti-cheating ==
AlX proposed to make video recording mandatory for tournament games. We have 2 other opinions so far, if more express themselves, we can maybe launch a poll.

== Balance ==
The idea is to get v1.23 for next rounds of the 2 tournaments so a first version of the changelog should be proposed in about 2 weeks. That means many of the changes that have not received enough support will be pushed to v1.24.

Something strange is happening in the game, after the latest updates it seems gone mad ...maybe "Stranger Things"
Jokes apart, the mod must have a bug especially with flying creatures but there are probably other things. Try to create a test game and you'll find out (summon like as drone or crow are created but are "invisible" and mana upkeep, other flying creatures do not fly and do not walk but they can only navigate)

I think mandatory recording is not a bad idea for tournament games. Even a low-quality recording is a pretty good anti-cheat measure. For all ranked games such a requirement might be too much of a deterrent for new players, who might sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed even with all the current stuff (creating games, reporting, game settings etc.).

Then again, it's easy for me to say, since there probably isn't going to be another PBEM duel tournament in my natural lifetime

As for the cheating case, I share Gilafron's ideas regarding the pursuit of full transparency, since even though it might cause harm short term (which is debatable), I believe it's almost always for the best in the long term (generally, the more knowledge there is of cheats, the harder it is to cheat and get away with it). I do of course respect the fact that not everyone shares this ideology.

@Hellbrick, as I said - the right software, which would not ask a lot from system. Also, AoW is well-optimised and with the settings set on min it should be do-able. 

either way this is a proposal, and before there will be tons of "why this can't happen", it'd be good if we think whether or no it'd improve the competitive play.

I'm afraid mandatory turn recording is going to make things too hard for the people who either use old laptops that can't handle both the game and the video recording or simply are not tech-savvy enough to set it up easily. I know for a fact that we have players that fall into both these categories, and such rule would effectively exclude them from competing.

As I stated previously in my personal reply to the main judges - I would like to clarify, that the temporary judges were able to review the proof of cheating, without the access to specifics on "how" it was done. I personally was more interested in the game developers reply, but due to sensitivity of that we were not given access to it, only general conclusion.

Also, as I've wrote the judges while reviewing the proof, I believe that:
We need to expand rules to make the recording of one's turns mandatory. From the moment game is being opened to the moment it's uploaded on the server (breaks in the between can still be made with the turn divided in several videos). Each player must keep the recordings of the turns of a specific game, until the next round begins (or even send the links to all of the turns to the judges for review after the game ends, or just on demand). If we are to do that - it'd make a hell'uva tougher for the cheaters to cheat, while the honest players would get reassured that the game is as fair as it can be. This would probably need to be regulated - e.g. in what resolution the recording must be done to be discernible, with what software (as we know, some programs make AoW glitch with them) and there will definitely be those that will think of reasons against that, but from what I see - this is probably one of the best ways to catch cheaters spot-on. 

Personally, I usually don't record my turns, but if we're to implement this rule - I will gladly do it. Fair lose is still better than cheated win. 
I would actually go as far as to suggest making poll whether community would like to implement this measure. 

== Cheating case ==
So AlXStormrage, Olop and Marcuspers reviewed evidence demonstrating DarkRider had cheated and the elements we had that led us to think SeeR knew about the cheating (but as stated before, we do not believe SeeR himself cheated). Among the 3 judges, Fistandantilus, Markymark and me, there may also have been changes of mind since the beginning of the case.
In the end, the conclusions were:
- all 6 agreed the evidence demonstrated DarkRider had cheated.
- 4 considered SeeR very likely did not know about DarkRider cheating, 2 considered very likely that he did know (there are more nuances actually, but to simply that's the 2 broad positions).

As a consequence, the ban on DarkRider for all PBEM Tournaments and all ranked games is maintained. The ban on SeeR is reverted. SeeR won't be able to continue the 2vs2 Tournament as he is now alone in his team and replacements are not allowed. We however hope he will continue the Duel Tournament as well as ranked games.

In the name of the 3 judges and the 3 players who reviewed the case, I'd like to apologize to SeeR for the harm caused to him by the judgement process.

The other judges or reviewers may like to complete this picture, I'll let them do so. @all: please keep in mind that, as explained before, the details on what happened, etc. cannot be shared, so I hope everyone will be reassured by the fact that we got unanimity regarding the cheating and will not feel the need to ask for more details.

== 2017 PBEM Duel Tournament  ==
Round 4 has just been completed!
As DarkRider is eliminated, one seat is open on round 5. Fistandantilus and Marcus (as I will be playing the player who will replace Dark, I was not involved in the decision) agreed that the best replacement would be one of the player eliminated on round 4. Potential players have been contacted and Mr Hawk was randomly drawn by Marcus.
Round 5 will use v1.22 (reminder: changelog in this article) on the main branch, which means we need to wait about 48 hours, for v1.22 to be released on the main branch. So please do NOT host your games for now. As soon as v1.22 is on the main branch, you can start hosting the games.
Meanwhile, please send your class/race to the judges (if you don't need to wait for the replacement of DarkRider to be announced). We already received a couple of class/race.

== PBEM 2vs2 Team Tournament ==
48 hours left to end of round.
@players involved in round 4: please unsubscribe from the main branch temporarily. That way when we update the main branch with v1.22, you'll stay with v1.21 (if you have other games with the main branch, they'll have to wait until your tournament game finishes, before you can play your turns in these games, but that should be pretty fast: v1.22 will be updated shortly after the deadline, and then you should be able to play your turn with v1.21 in less than 24 hours I guess, meaning you'll be able to resubscribe quickly).

I can't commit to keeping the findings confidential, so I won't be a judge with that constraint.  Knowing me, I'd probably give the information to wikileaks.  Seriously, I'm an advocate for transparency.  I believe more good comes from it than bad.

Yes, I would like to review the case also.

Hi, 

yes, would like to act as a temporary judge to review the case.

== Cheating case ==
Sorry for the delay to follow up on this, we were waiting for an answer from the devs and I was also on a quite busy business trip, so it took more time than wished.

Once again, I am sorry we are not fully transparent but the nature of the cheating and detection method means we cannot share it publicly without causing harm. I can understand people are not happy with that but it's a bit like asking spies to explain all what they do and be fully transparent: that would make them totally ineffective to fight terrorists, etc.

We prepared a series of proofs of the cheating which can be shared with a limited number of players, if they agree to act as the judges are doing and keep the information confidential. Gilafron, Olop, AlX, Marcus, you expressed their interest in seeing this, please tell us (by PM or here) if you want to examine these proofs.

Regarding SeeR's ban, we are reviewing it following the discussion here and with some players. We might also request the opinion of 1-2 other players to decide what to do. So please be a little more patient on this.
Thanks all for your feedback, it made us rethink the case somehow.

Hellbrick wrote "IIRC, there was a precedent of cheating in another team game, which didn't lead to any disciplinary actions against the teammate of the cheater". Yes, it was in a game involving Marcus and Evgendil where Evgendil cheated. As Marcus pointed out, the cheating happened only on the last turn and was spotted (by me) before Marcus could do anything, so it's very different from now as Marcus could not know about it.

Regarding what Marcus said, we did send all the information to Triumph.
And the ban for DarkRider was 3-0, not 2-1. Same initially for the ban for SeeR but things evolved following the discussions, and it may further evolve following additional elements sent today. We'll see for the final decisions in a few days.

I'd also like to clarify that Triumph did not specifically said DarkRider cheated, but rather their explanations of some stuff we observed strongly pushed the "cheating" case. I am quite vague but, again, being more explicit could help some to cheat more easily...

As I said previously, we have ways to detect cheating. They're obviously not automatic and explaining all the details would help potential future cheaters. So my advice is that anyone having a doubt, or noticing something weird should report it to judges.

== 2017 PBEM Duel Tournament ==
13 days left and 1 match still ongoing, which will probably require the whole remaining time and be decided by score.
Depending on the results of the process described above, DarkRider and maybe SeeR, should be replaced.

@all players already knowing their opponent for round 5, please send your class/race to judges: Fistandantilus, Marcuspers and me, if you're not playing one of us.
v1.22 used for round 5, probably v1.23 for round 6.

== PBEM 2vs2 Team Tournament ==
9 days left and 2 matches still ongoing unfortunately, which means probably both decided by score...
3 more rounds to go so probably about 9 months.
Round 6 will use v1.22.
Markymark and I discussed the replacement of West Coasters (as it will affect his team, Fistandantilus was not involved): the two teams that will lose in round 5 will be proposed to replace West Coasters on round 7, because they have the same number of victories (3 victories, 2 losses, and West Coaster = 3 victories) so are the closest in terms of success/strength. If both are interested, a qualification match will be organized between the 2 teams.

Thank you $eer, we had much fun in games with you in the battlefield.
Was a honor to Play with you in much games.

Since now, no one is banned (when you are banned really : can not more Login to the page and no one can Play here with you)

The ban is for the 2on2 tournament firstly. But we discuss if a Player get a permanent ban too, but it is not decided for now.

When you have a problem with a certain Player, it is not the only once player at this place, and we are sports man, so making not a huge Problem.

About cheating, when you think, the cheats can not used  in live games (or it is difficulter) , you are think false. Maybe the last live tournament was won by a cheater. The cheats can be used in live multiplayer games too. Can be used in discord games too or in all others communities. And competive games make cheats more interest.
So it is sometimes better to play just for fun (without Prices)

So it is hard to Play competive game in aow3, because normal Players will think the winners using cheats (when i talk to normal Players, i hear exactly this, some Players like gabthegab are winning too often).
About PBEM
Normal Players can not Play live games, because they have no time for it, so pbem is a good solution for all players.

Not make anti-advertisement against PBEM, i think PBEM can be used from much more Players.