Yes, the update helped. I even returned the previous graphics settings (maximum, and earlier I reduced the graphics by 2 levels).

A new year, a new ELCP! Remember to join my [Discord Channel], if you want to have a chat. Further information for newcomers on [Page 1].

The main focus of this version was bug fixes. Many older issues were adressed, but also some new ones that showed up as a result of "bugfixes" done in the last version of ELCP (oops!). The most notable new feature is the increased maximum number of Empires. You can now play with up to 15 Empires! However keep in mind that the EL engine already slows down with the vanilla empire cap of 8, so playing with more empires should only be done by players that have good computers and a high tolerance for slowdowns. The main impetus for this feature was to provide more slots for spectator games, as multiplayer lobbies can now assign "proper" spectator slots.

Downloadlink (Installer) || Downloadlink (Zip) || Downloadlink (Mac)

Note: Multiplayer saves from older versions are not compatible with newer versions (Singleplayer saves are fine)

Changelog for v2.5.4:

General

• Newly spawned Armies will collect Pearls on the tile they are standing on
• The "Fortress Exodus" quest will no longer consider overgrown cities
• Buying a faction quest specific hero from the market (after the original empire was defeated) no longer activates faction quest lines of that empire
• AIs will no longer get the Endless Day quest (and the free hero) when the achievement has already been unlocked
• Fixed an ELCP-Bug that could lead to fortress vision growing out of control, revealing the whole map and tanking performance in the process
• Fixed an ELCP-Bug that could lead to endless turns in multiplayer when a Mykara player was present
• Fixed Urkans being able to die due to negative regeneration (like from winter effects), they will be reduced to 1 HP instead
• Certain Regeneration effects are no longer applied twice to uprooted Urkans
• Fixed a bug where Skyfins could apply unlimited stacks of Shifting Awe to a unit
• The Elimination Victory warning no longer triggers when all players are still alive (which happened frequently in games with low player counts)
• Fixed some more AI pathfinding related hitching issues
• Fixed an old Vanilla bug where battle effects would trigger even though the necessary prerequisites where not fullfilled - most notably chainlightning and disease working against armored units (thanks Jojo_Fr)
• Fixed another old Vanilla bug where defeated empires would sometimes show up as still living in the diplomacy screen
• Fixed an issue where the militia of newly settled cities would take a while until it was set up correctly, resulting in the militia not being able to join battle encounters that started soon after city creation
• Fixed a bug in the ELCP Fortification ruleset, where Fortification was not correctly assigned to all eligible units when two cities where involved in a battle
• In Multiplayer, Client players should no longer have their empire controlled by the AI when they lose their connection to the steam servers
  • Instead only a short warning will display in the chat box
  • Note: If the host loses connection to the steam server, the game will disconnect a short while after the warning displays, so a host with a stable connection is still recommended
• Battle fields are now correctly revealed for Spectators (thanks Xephi-Zero)
• Map features like tower locations and Resources are now revealed for Spectators once at least one Empire can see them
• Players can now select a "Spectator" faction in multiplayer lobbies, this faction will spectate from the beginning and will not influence the spawn positions of other empires
  • You can also assign AIs to Spectator slots, which essentially leaves them open for human spectators to join during the game
• The maximum number of player slots has been increased to 15
  • This feature is mainly intended to provide additional viewing slots for Spectator matches
  • However you can also play with more than 8 players now (Human and AI), but at your own risk! Performance and turn times will suffer!
  • A new drop-down menu in the new game screen allows you to switch between the first 8 and the latter 7 empires
  • High player counts no longer restrict small map sizes (to prevent spectator slots from restricting certain map sizes)
  • Since more empires require more colors, new colors have been introduced to the game's palette
  • Keep in mind that palette mods that dont provide enough colors may lead to bugs when playing with more than 8 empires
  • Note: I have no clue what a good colorblind palette constitutes, I have just copied over my new colors - if you have better alternatives, feel free to make suggestions (same goes for the Endless Space palette)
• On high empire counts, increased the "aggressivenes" with which AI actions are computed after a player hits the "end turn" button
  • That means the game may lag a bit more (but since the player finished their turn, it shouldnt matter that much), but turn times are reduced

UI

• Fixed an ELCP Bug where the effects of towers wouldnt display in the tooltips of technologies that unlock them

Balance [XML]

• The "Mothers in Distress" Quest now also rewards a single Era 4 Ceratan Mercenary
• Urkans are now immune to weather effects (Lightning, Fog, etc.)
• The cost for taming an Urkan now rerolls every 20 turns (scales with game speed)
• Each Urkan now rolls its taming cost independently
• Both Privateers enabling technologies now grant +3 fortification damage to all Mercenaries
  • This is done to promote pillage play and mercenary usage across all factions
• Reduced the number of Battleborn Necrophages gain by consuming Recycled Stockpiles during Eclipse from 2 to 1
  • Early in Infernos Lifecycle this effect was buffed in Vanilla from 1 to 2. This change never sat right with me as it makes Necrophages gameplay very binary, revolving completely around Eclipses.
  • Necrophages have received a number of "soft" buffs in ELCP over the last year, so that hopefully they no longer require an Eclipse effect this strong

AI

• Improved Village Conversion Commander AI a bit, AIs are now able to reconvert recently destroyed villagers immediatly and will no longer stand around doing nothing
• Improved Skyfin pearl collection behavior
• Improved Avoidance behavior of armies, they now take capacities (like friendly banners) and the enemy's movement radius into account when deciding whether avoiding an army is necessary

Modding

• With modding tools enabled: Since there are now up to 15 major empires in the game, you can now select empires 11-15 by pressing shift+1 - shift+5

Awesome!

Each change are good and welcomed.

Thanks again for your dedicated work!

Fantastic! Thanks!

To select 15 empires, need to specify something in the game settings in Steam, what? And this will disable achievements?

Praise. All hail ELCP

Rustam wrote:

@LeaderEnemyBoss The spectator mode - is an interesting and cool feature, it is only a pity that it is limited to multiplayer. I, and many other players, prefer a single player game with AI. Can you make spectator mode available for single-player play? I think, that the end of the turn should be available only to the player (and not earlier, than all AI did everything they wanted). Those, the spectator (player) looked at what he wanted, and clicked “end of turn”.

The reason the spectator mode is currently multiplayer only is because if the AI doesnt perform at its best capacity if no human player is present, because the AI uses the (usually longer) time a human takes to completes their turn to perform a number of optional tasks. If no living human empire is present, turns end very fast and the AI neglects some of these tasks.

However, you can still do what you want by opening a private multiplayer lobby filled with AIs (and you as spectator). You will however notice turns ending very fast at the start of the game, and AI performance will be somewhat diminished. This is also the reason why I lock this option away from Singleplayer, as I consider it as not officially suipported. What you suggest (voluntary turn ending for spectator empires in single player) would require additional work that I may do in the future but currently can not commit to. 

Rustam wrote:

To select 15 empires, need to specify something in the game settings in Steam, what? And this will disable achievements?

No you can do it as usual in the new game screen. Achievements are unaffected by this.

I'm wondering about the difficulty scaling in ELCP. I'm a returning player and I find that for me Normal is a complete stomp on the AI, but Hard is a huge spike in difficulty. Suddenly the AI is fielding 20-30 units before Turn 80 and is very aggressive.

I'm wondering if there's a way to find some middle ground? Are there behavior changes in the AI from Normal to Hard or is it just flat numbers? I was thinking maybe I could get a middle ground by setting it to Normal and giving the AI players positive handicaps but I'm not sure on what numbers to pick.

I have heard of several players going that route, but in the end you have to find out the perfect balancing for yourself. Difficulty setting affects bonus ressources (or lack thereof) and behavior of AIs.  Higher difficulty AIs are more aggressive, no longer ignore victory notifications and are quicker to focus on a victory condition themselves.

LeaderEnemyBoss wrote:

Rustam wrote:

To select 15 empires, need to specify something in the game settings in Steam, what? And this will disable achievements?

No you can do it as usual in the new game screen. Achievements are unaffected by this.

I couldn't do it. Specify the order of action.

@Slashman Again: AI diplomatic behavior is influenced by difficulty (but not in a "hate human players only" way). Not sure when or in what context I made my other statement

@Rustam Not sure what to say to you, here is a screenshot. If you cant select more empires, you installed the patch wrong

Note: a badly programmed mod could interfer with the Empire count setting.

LeaderEnemyBoss wrote:

@Slashman Again: AI diplomatic behavior is influenced by difficulty (but not in a "hate human players only" way). Not sure when or in what context I made my other statement

OK but the fact that you said it affects their pursuit of victory conditions is rather a big thing. If at normal they ignore vctory conditions and at higher diffculties they pursue them, then that is a radical departure from even just diplomatic differences. Because you're saying at normal the AI don't play to win...unless I'm misunderstanding something.

Slashman wrote:

LeaderEnemyBoss wrote:

@Slashman Again: AI diplomatic behavior is influenced by difficulty (but not in a "hate human players only" way). Not sure when or in what context I made my other statement

OK but the fact that you said it affects their pursuit of victory conditions is rather a big thing. If at normal they ignore vctory conditions and at higher diffculties they pursue them, then that is a radical departure from even just diplomatic differences. Because you're saying at normal the AI don't play to win...unless I'm misunderstanding something.

They still pursue them, it just takes longer until they "activate" their victory focus. Which makes sense as they tech slower and the whole game pace tends to be slower on normal games

LeaderEnemyBoss wrote:

Slashman wrote:

LeaderEnemyBoss wrote:

@Slashman Again: AI diplomatic behavior is influenced by difficulty (but not in a "hate human players only" way). Not sure when or in what context I made my other statement

OK but the fact that you said it affects their pursuit of victory conditions is rather a big thing. If at normal they ignore vctory conditions and at higher diffculties they pursue them, then that is a radical departure from even just diplomatic differences. Because you're saying at normal the AI don't play to win...unless I'm misunderstanding something.

They still pursue them, it just takes longer until they "activate" their victory focus. Which makes sense as they tech slower and the whole game pace tends to be slower on normal games

Ah I see. I thought that they completely ignored them because that would be more in line with easy difficulty.

LeaderEnemyBoss, great work on the patch.  I've been a fan for a long time.

I just started playing again afer a long break, and I have to say, the game is a lot harder. 

Before ELCP I used to be able to dominate the AI on Endless, the last few games I've played I can't even keep up on Impossible. The last few games the AI was winning just after turn 100.

Is anyone able to keep up on the higher difficulities anymore?  If so how has you game changed?