Dominions 6 new Features and Changes

[Turin Turambar]

As most people won't be on the Discord channels where the beta testers are teasing stuff, I will put here a compilation:

Scales

Scales by default now go from -2 to +2. Pretenders modify those limits as explained below, and nations can have modifiers on top of that (like Berytos being Heat +1 or MA Ermor being Death +2, or Yomi Turmoil +1). Some spells and random events can also modify a province beyond the default limits, going up to -5 and +5. However, extreme scales like these are not natural and will have negative consequences, even when we are talking positive scales, like Order 5 making mages less creatives reducing their research, or Magic 5 horror marking people in the province.
Scales effects are the same, except Growth/Death scale affects less the % income.
Seasons change temps by –1/+1.

Pretenders

Pretender choice is a bit more important, because they can modify the scales default limits (toward the positive or negative side). One can move the max limit to growth+1 (meaning, the limit will be 3 instead of 2), another can give you turmoil and death +1. some pretenders give a bonus starting site (even if imprisoned), usually +1 gem. Apart from that we can expect the typical changes (new Pretenders, rebalanced existing ones).
Another tidbit: almost all Dominions 2 monsters got inept forge and research (but they got cheaper), and natural magical attacks.
A few Pretenders has a nice new ability, Power of Death: Gives (+2Str/Att/Def/CS, +1 MR) for every death. The value of Power of Death represents the max amount of deaths you can have that buffs the value.
There is a mention of something called Scar Souls which could be a Pretender ability too, with this hint: Extra Lives=Province Dom/2
Some monster Pretenders have been given an AoE1 attack.
New Pretenders we know of:
-Durga, Devi of Strength! F1S1N1, rides a giant tiger who has fear and shares her bless and dominion stat modifiers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durga
-new non-seasonal monster, it has high base prot and some built-in woundfend.
-New immobile, the Sacred Geyser, cheap and possibly with +Heat and W2F1.
-Crystal Soul, another immobile, G2E1, it gives a glamour site, but it’s 200 points.
-God Spider monster pretender, 19 base prot, fear and woundfend 2.


Provinces

Provinces can change more. Heat/Cold 4 and 5 give neighboring provinces to have the chance to modify their temps up to +3 and +4, respectively. Strong death scales can transform a province type from forests to plains, and from plains to waste (or the opposite with Growth). There are some spells to change province scales too, and even the type more directly, like flooding a province.
Some nations forts protect of the adverse (to population) effects of high heat/cold. Like Abysia, Niefel, MA Caleum.

Provinces now have a very small population growth by default, even with Growth 0, btw. And it seems there is some kind of limit per province type, meaning population won’t grow exponentially forever.
Indie armies in neutral provinces will be somewhat stronger than before, to compensate for the bigger armies we will have. Although it has been added that there are less heavy cavalry, at least in LA.
Finally, there is ‘fog of war’ on the strategic map, you cannot see the provinces of the map beyond the ‘province name range’ (1 in EA, 2 in MA, 3 in LA).

Blesses

Blesses are more flexible, because any magical points beyond the first give bless points, and they all go to a common pool. 2 Fire, 3 Astral => 3 bless points, or 5 Nature, 2 Atral, 1 Water => 5 points, for example. Blesses themselves still have adequate prerequisites, so you need high nature to get regeneration. That said, you don’t get the ‘extra’ points for having 3 in all sorcery paths or all elemental paths.

+stat blesses are cheaper but weaker, generally 2 points for +1 rather than 3 for +2 (att, def, mr). HP is still 1-for-1, and Undying is 1-for-2. Swiftness still gives +1 def, +30% combat speed but costs A4 rather than A3. Flaming weapons does 8ap damage.
-There is a ‘blur’ glamour bless (-2 to att on the enemy) and ‘displacement’ glamour bless (-5). So how the glamour trait/spell works has changed.
-Obfuscate (stealth) is a G6 Incarnate bless. There is a G7 bless that is like a fear aura countered by Spirit/True sight.
-Quiet Stride (+20 stealth) is a G2 bless. True Sight is also G2 (similar to Spirit Sight but without DV100).
-Some other blesses counter glamour, one gives fear aura but it doesn’t work against people who see through the glamour.
-Blood blesses: Enchanted Blood: B4, 0.5 HP regeneration/round, +1 MR, profuse bleeding stops instantly. Strong Vitae (B1, +1 HP) and Strong Blood (B3, +5 poison +80 disease resist) blesses
- New Fire bless, where you get bonuses if a sacred nearby dies!
-News air bless: A3 for Unsurroundable 2.
- Reconstruction bless is now E5, but also gives 5% HP regen.
- Floating bless, it halves the armor encumbrance penalty (and immunity to some spells like Earth Meld).
-new weapon blesses that slow or deal acid damage. Both incarnate. acid weapons are 7 AP for W6F2. These are on-hit weapon blesses, while others are usually ‘on damage’.
-Luck is G8 instead of S9. Ethereal is S8 instead of S10.
-Flaming Weapons bless do 8 AP in melee too, in addition to at range, F8.
-Frost Weapons have been replaced by Frost Mist, it creates a cloud. Incarnate bless.
-There's a life drain weapons bless too. B8D4, AN 3 life drain.
-Sight Vengeance (attackers must check MR or be blinded) is another expensive bless, 12 points.
-Heroism glamour bless: stackable +50% xp gain bless for 1 point
-Inspirational presence is 3 bless points.
-Flying and Flying in Storm blesses.

Finally, take in account that you will have less sacreds in the game, proportionally speaking (see Economy changes).

Economy

You start with 50% more gold (600g). You gain around 30% more gold than before, as provinces have a bigger population, however, Infrastructure is more expensive, with temples being 50% more expensive, labs 20% more, and forts 70% more (aprox. numbers, it may change per nation!), and mages are 30% more expensive. Fort improvements (ie. Going from Palisades to Fortress) hasn’t increased in price, so they are comparatively more attractive, but they all need one more turn to be built.
Wall siege strength is higher than before.
The net result should be having a bigger ratio of mundane troops vs mages/sacred (as sacred are still limited by sacred points), also a bit more of use of indie troops and non-forts national recruits. About sacreds, the more expensive ones like big Giants, Ifrit Sultans and Zhadeyans cost 2 holy points.
Some sites have been buffed, too, examples: Great Gold Mine (100->150 gold from Dom5) and The Steel Ovens (still Const 20%, but 75->150 resources).

Cavalry

Cavalry has been reworked. Mounts and riders are different units, with different stats, and they can die and the other survive. Mounts can be affected by buffs, in fact they are specific spells for them. They have barding, with a magical slot for magical barding items. They can have different weak and strong points than the riders (say, low MR and lower max age, or lacking cold or heat resist the rider have). Some horses have more protection, others are faster.
If the mount is killed, the troop can be rehired at the home province with a 50% discount (edit: if they find the way to the home province successfully, it’s a %). Another new skill that mounts can have is ‘smart mount’ which means, if the rider is killed but not the mount, the same effect as described before (recruiting unit with 50% discount) will happen.
If there are some spare horses and spare riders after a battle (because they lose riders and mounts, respectively), they will merge after battle.
There is a new unit trait that is fairly common for elite cavalry, Skillful Rider, gives a defense and morale bonus to the mount. Less effective with heavy barding as the encumbrance of the barding is subtracted to the bonus (but with a floor of 0). Bouth mount and rider get xp on battle.
Some cavalry are more expensive, though. And cavalry doesn’t get the ‘half-point harassment’ rule that had in Dominions 5 (where it was less affected by being surrounded by many enemies than a normal infantry unit).

Combat

As you have more gold to recruit troops, battlefields are also larger, around 25% bigger.
Unit Size scale changed to 1-10, from 1-6, to have more granularity. Goblins are size 2, Humans are size 3, cavalry is size 5, giants can be size 9, dragons are size 10. This makes harder to hit the torso and head of giants by humans.
Piercing damage type nerfed to -15% prot (with the reduction rounding down). blunt to +25% damage BEFORE protection, instead of 50% after prot (still head hits only!)
The battlefield can have props (trees, rocks), which disrupt formation, and have HP and be destroyed. Some of them can be, for example, poison explosive mushrooms in swamps.
There is a ranged weapon slot for commanders too so you can give a guy a sword and a shield and a sling or whatever and they can use all of them when appropriate.
Heat/Cold Auras from close units are now grouped together into a stronger one that also can have bigger AoE, but it also means enemies only check against a single ‘common’ aura, instead of 5-6.
Some other misc changes:
-poor amphibian att/def penalties are reduced to -2/-1
-Swimming bless (2 pts, before it was Water Walking) reduces that penalty to –1def and +1 enc.
-Bark/Stone/Iron spells are slightly less effective for units that rely on armor. Details:
Barkskin: +7 nat prot up to 10, +1 if 9 or higher. (Dom5: nat prot 10, +1 if already 10 or higher)
Stoneskin: +10 up to 15, +3 if 12 or higher. (Dom5: nat prot 15, +2 if already 14 or higher)
Ironskin: +13 up to 20, +5 if 15 or higher. (Dom5: nat prot 20, +3 if already 18 or higher)
-Army of Gold/Lead is also changed, as it’s based on Ironskin.
-Sermon of Courage somehow counters (or counters better at least?) the Fear effect.
-Ethereal tramplers deal half damage
-Human average hp and strength is slightly higher than before.
-In addition of doing damage, Poison will reduce attack and defense, and the debuff is % of the affected stat. 25% debuff when poison reaches total hp, 50% when it doubles it.
-Sleep resistance is a trait.
-Chaos Power benefits more of unrest.
-Tramplers are better at attacking while trampling. Elephants can attack with tusks, and riders can fire archers from above at the same time. Also elephants are a bit cheaper.
-Cold Blooded penalty is less strong now (+2 enc per cold scale).
-Cold Res 5 halves the penalty from Cold Blooded, Cold Res 10 removes it entirely
-Rain/Storm make clouds effects dissolve faster.
-There is a new ‘spiritform’ tag that makes some ethereal units to not be able to be buffed by some spells, like Ironskin for example.
-Some magical creatures like seasonal spirit summons got magical natural attacks.
-glamour and mirror image have been reworked, now you dont lose mirror image when you have been hit, instead you lose a charge when mirror image negates damage so it slowly ablates
-Elemental resists scale up better at higher levels, and they have a small % resist component in addition of the flat bonus. Formula seems to be Resist X is: Final damage = (incoming damage - X) * (50 - X/50)
-A few creatures ‘natural’ ranged attacks are fatigue based, instead of a set number of uses per battle.
-Bows and slings scale up with strength slightly better (1/2 of STR, instead of 1/3).
-Asassination maps are different, the "warning" ability on items now no longer allows more bodyguards but can prevent assassinations altogether.
-False horrors are ‘glamoured’, so they will be like stronger horrors if units can’t see through the illusion.
-Unit size is compared to know if a unit can block the movement of another. Big Units won’t be blocked by small units with a difference of 3 or more.
-Corpse eating has been nerfed, they have a cap in how much hp can gain, and the corpses consumed decay after a while. ¿?
-Assassins and seducers can’t act in sieged forts without wall climbing ability.
- False Damage (from Glamour magic and the attacks of illusion units) bypasses Damage reversal and Blood bond and isn't healed by Regeneration.
-Raid action has been removed, and it has been replaced by ‘Move and Pillage’.
-Chain Lightning and Orb Lightning are better at finding guys to jump at, and Orb Lightning is buffed.
-Homesickness doesn’t case affliction anymore.
-New ‘tight rein’ ability that allows to give orders to undisciplined animals.
-The max turn timer/turn limit (turn 100 to turn 150) for battles have changed. Now in Turn 100 the Twilight phase of battle start, where a series of effects occur, with units getting really exhausted and magic running out (I interpret this as battlefield enchantment and personal buffs going *puff*, and I suspect berserkers will lose their berserk status, there was a comment hinting at it time ago). On turn 150 auto-routing start, and we can imagine the insta-death turn have been delayed to turn 175 or 200.
-Fear effects are more powerful.
-Units in a squad can rout individually.
-Mossbody can ‘pop’ even if it doesn’t get a big hit (although bigger hits will have an increased chance to do it).
-Units with more than one weapon get +1 encumbrance per extra weapon.
-there is a new trait, that the Nephilim line of giants have, they have a morale penalty on sea, because they are scared of God sending another flood to kill them.

Magic

Some AoE spells are larger, to make sense in the larger battlefield, too. However, the 100% battlefield wide spells are harder to cast and more expensive (for example, Foul Vapours is one more path and one more gem). Instead, there are some new similar ‘mid range’ spells, with biggish AoE but without reaching 100% of the battlefield. For example, a lesser ‘Fog Warriors’ that is “just” AoE 20 and 1 gem to cast, while the previous 100% BF Fog Warriors spell is Alt8 and cost 3 gems.
There is a new magical Path, Glamour, the magic of illusions, phantasms, dreams and the stuff of forgotten legends. It has its own new gem type.
The three types of communions are not shareable anymore. You can’t use a crystal matrix to join a blood communion.
Several summons have more units, around 60 - 100% more per gem. Some examples: manticores, sea dogs, forest giant, shade beasts, fire snakes, draconians, etc. Ogres are 30% cheaper.
Level 9 spells are to be researched individually (an optional setting).
Evocation spells usually are faster than others, with a 75% casting time.
Some of the Globals have different effects depending on the province type you cast them in. For example, Earth Blood Deep Well provides extra gems if you cast it in a Cave province, incentivizing you to find a cave to cast it rather than just in your easily defensible capital.

Glamour spells: New battle spell to make someone invisible, there are spells to grant true/spirit sight, another grants the blur effect to units, and another can stun units in an aoe. A new spell, Astral/Glamour, to make horrors ignore a province, regarding Magic Duel, there's a glamour spell that ensures you only get brain damaged instead of killed. Glamour also has 'false damage' spells, the damage will evaporate if there is no glamour mage on the bf, and will kill a unit once enough dmg has been accumulated and the MR is breached.
- Phantasms summoned with Glamour are closer to normal units (more than 1 hp, prot, etc) than illusion units from before (ie. Phantasmal warrior). However they cost gems to summon in battle and have bad damgage.
Other Glamour summons include stuff like "fay" warriors that can kill the mindless with their (pretty fancy) swords.
-There is Conj7 G4 20gem ritual that boost your magic paths for the next month (1 turn)
-A spell that allows you to evade death but gives you a chance of never waking up again
-New spell: Elf Shot. 50% casting time! 100 fatigue! Decent range!...MR negates, obviously
-Dome of Misdirection, it's a glamour dome that has 70% chance of redirecting spells (including friendly) targeting the province to a neighboring province.
-New spell to hide a fort (including one being built).
-Wailing Winds is Glamour/Air now.
- a battlefield enchantment, that requires the absence of the sun, G5S1: It basically causes everyone to roll MR or get stunned.
-There are buff units that give Fear or Awe. G2D1 gives fear on the caster only, G4D1 has AoE 5+. Interesting there is no AoE 1 version. Awe has more options (caster, AoE 1, 5+, 20+), with the weakest starting at G1F1.
-A Evo4 Glamour spell G3, 7+AN false damage, aoe 4+, mr negates, low fatigue, 40+ range.
-G1E1 spell to summon 5 kobolds that give +5 res each to the province.
-G/S ‘Geas’ spell, that makes units fights randomly against other nearby units. It can be resisted in later combat rounds, but the unit remains cursed. Now exclusive to TNN/Eriu/Man
-Gnomes are G2E2N2, you summon them with G2E2, 30 gems.
-Bluecaps are E2G1, +25 resources in mountain/caves, G2E1 to summon.

Air new spells: +patrol ritual, AoE pure damage (low, but decent AoE), levitation, a high-precision high-damage (but not AP/AN) projectile, +% range buffs, several new spells that improve Precision, air mailing gems/items between commanders. There are new mid tier AoE versions of air shield/mistbody.
-Wind Guide protects more against Storm.
-Charge Body changed to Air8, but much more buffed.
-A1 summon hawk spell, 20 fatigue.


Nature new spells: You can animate Vine Men in battles from local vegetation (will feel familiar to CoE players, a shrub is 20 HP 9 prot cs4), there is a new interesting non-unique, high-level Nature summon, dark-vision buffs, Alt5 N2 spell called Blood Poisoning: 30 range, 25 poison damage, AN (like Frozen Heart but with poison), there is a new Poison Arrows spell, similar to Flaming Arrows. Also a spell that buff attack and morale of animals (+2), and another for mounts (+2morale and mr).
-Swarm is N2 now.
-Web is now AoE3.
-Gift of Health was changed to not affect lifeless &undead units.
-Charm animal is MR easy now.
-There is an 100% BF version of Army of Giants.
-A N/W cheap summon, Spine Frog, a size 10 frog with a grab and swallow attack
- N/A spell called Poison Mist, like a wider poison cloud.
-Poison Darts N1 spell, 5+ darts, damage 9 AP piercing but capped at 1, deals 5 poison on damage.

Fire: A new spell, +2att/+2morale point buff, three variations:
Battle Fury, F2, thau 2, AoE 1
Furious Warriors, F2, thau 4, AoE 3+
Gift of the Furies, F3, thau 5, AoE 20, cost 1F
New global, F/S level 8 that does AN fire damage to anyone using gems, in combat or out of combat.
-Fireball doesn’t do fatigue damage as extra secondary effect, but real AP8 damage.
-Flaming Arrows spell that affects the entire BF is moved to Ench 7, there is a lesser version that is normal AoE x.
-Fire has a new Swam-like spell that summons salamanders, in Conj4.
-Eternal Pyre locally raises temp & dispels darkness.

Earth:
-New buff spell that gives melee attacks a stun effect.
-Earth gets a spell that detects/attacks spies.
-Another detection spell? (or it the same?? Did it change at some point??), Earth sense, 6 gems + 1 per 3 turns. It works like Weavers of the Wood, but without spiders helping, and it dispels if the caster moves.
-Earthquake can stun units now.

Blood has been tweaked a bit. Examples: vampires are more expensive, but devils are cheaper.
A new global called Blood Moon that raises effective Blood level for hunting and rituals.
Level 9 blood summon spells are around 66% more effective. Some more than 100% (Ghost Riders). Vamp Lords are level 8. Damage Reversal and the Prison spells are down to level 8.
-Blood Boil changed from pure to fire damage, prec 3->100, casting time 125%->100%, otherwise looks unchanged
-Blood is not a sorcery path anymore, so ‘sorcery boosters’ don’t boost blood.
-Blood gets an imp-powered Cloud Trapeze but with size limit.
-Blood Hunters with B1 or B2 are slightly less effective (lower success rate)
-Succubi are G2 mages, the spell is B4G1, the price is the same, 66 slaves.

Water:
-there is an AoE 5+ W2 slime spell that's uw-only. "Gooey Water"
-Alt 7 W3 has Crawl, an AoE 6 + 2/level slowness (-2/-2, halved combat speed & only attacking once every 2 turns.) spell. Costs 1 gem
-Rain is W3, Evo 3. +50% to fatigue doing fire magic instead of +100%.
-Water has a new anti-berserk spell! And it is in Thaumaturgy. And by anti-berserk I literally mean it's supposed to reduce/remove berserk, not that it directly harms berserkers. MR resist.
-Ice strike is buffed to AoE 4 (and+2 scaling).

-There is a new global spell D/W global that spreads Death in coastal & sea provinces - it's much more effective in seas, where it can eventually cause disease.
-Another new global that is a “mega dispel” with a chance to dispel several things, but attracts horrors. It has the secondary effect of creating new global slots?!
-Disenchantment is another interesting one. It's a harder to cast version of Dispel which has the added effect of permanently reducing the target global's overcast value if the dispel fails.
-There is a new global that makes sure only you can cast globals.

Death
-Burden of Time is Thaum 9 spell.
-Dust to Dust and Wither are now MR negates half.
-Tartarian Gate is 7 gems.
-Shadow Blast is now MR negates half, but damage is 8+, and AoE 9+.
-Shadow Bolt is AoE1, damage 78+, MR negates half.
- Lichcraft is now a research level 9 ritual that transforms the caster, rather than a summon a ritual. It also empowers the caster in death, and some units have a special "lichcraft shape" (similar to how Twiceborn gives different results depending on caster in dom5). Cost is size dependent. 25 gems +/- 5 per size.
-Twiceborn is 10D gems for size 3, +/- 3 gems for size.


-Elementals are harder to summon and/or has been nerfed.
-Legions of Steel has been split in three versions of it, with different amount of power. Level 2 Temper Armors with AoE5. Level 4 Soldiers of Steel (AoE 25?). LoS is level 6, E4 1 gem, still 100% aoe,
-With the Ether Gate spell now you can spend extra gems, that makes the gate stay some turns, giving +2 magic scales and a buff to ether warrior spells casted there.
-S3D1, summon 3 ether warriors for 15 pearls at conj 5.
-Some existing spells have been modified to also change province scales. Like Mother Oak giving +2 Growth.
-New spell: Blizzard, similar to storm, but also changes temp to Cold (but can’t be casted in a Hot province). Alt 7, A4W3.
-Alchemical Transmutation / Distill Gold / Transmutate Fire have fixed gem cost and gold gain but the gold gain ratio is higher.
-Some global enchantments are ‘localized’, like Mother Oak is lost (but not stolen) if someone captures the province where it was casted. Gengems spells mostly affected.
-Antimagic is Ench 7, S3, 2 gems. Still battlefield-wide. Ench 4 has an AoE 20+ version, S2 & 1gem.
-Arcane Analysis is a level 9 25 gem ritual to determine the overcast strength of globals.
-Demon cleansing is nerfed, protection helps against the damage received.
-Stellar Strike is a level 9 remote attack meteor shower for 10 pearls.
-Abominations, Tarrasques and Ancient Presences are 15 gems, from 25 in Dom5.
-Astral Travel is level 8 research spell.
- There is a new level 9 research spell, S5E3, to make a permanent connection between a normal province and the Nexus in the Void plane (that’s the whole point of the new Nexus/void plane, seemingly, this single spell, so given it's level 9, don't expect to interact with it in most games!)
This plane only consists of a single, unique province. The Nexus province is a magic 5 scale province, and has a 4 pearls magic site, and a guaranteed 20% Alteration Ritual discount.
The connection being permanent, it can be used by the enemy if the province where it was casted is conquered.
Travel to the Nexus is cheap movement wise, if you cast the spell in two provinces, armies can go from province A to Nexus to province B in the same turn.
We don't know any other details (does the troops have a penalty if they fight there without the void sanity skill? are you horror marked if stay there, or are there random horror attacks?)
-Stellar Focus give more gems, but it’s more expensive too.
-Domes protect against the effect of some Globals that were unaffected before (like Wrath of God).
-Iron walls also gives magic walls (ethereal blocking), and some stuff like wizard tower might get the trait too.
-A ‘Ice Walls’ spell that give +integrity based on cold scales and the same ethereal-proof effect

-Fear spells:
Despair, G2 Range 30, AoE5+, MR negates, no FF, "Frighten 4 (max -5 morale penalty)"
Terror, FF on, "Fear 3 (max -10 morale penalty)"
Panic, AoE5++, no MR check, no FF, "Frighten 1 (max -5 morale penalty)"
Frighten, AoE1, no MR check, FF on, "Frighten 5 (max -5 morale penalty)"
Frighten effects seems to lower the morale, while fear effects (like in Terror) also causes a morale-check.

Magical items

The magic research needed for items have changed a bit:
level 1 is trinkets, 3 is lesser magical items, 5 is greater magic items, 7 is very powerful magic items, level 9 is artifacts.
-There are some new temporal gem items
-New item: Blade of Grass. Like vine whip but with higher damage.
-There is a new glamour magical item that 'feeds' you but it's an illusion, it only serves to 'not be sad until you starve to death'. We can imagine there is a new series of items for the new Glamour path.
-Item that gives you a retinue homunculus that fires elf shots and helps you research. Like the Imp Familiar.
-New artifact that is basically a mobile magic dome.
-New artifact: dancing weapon with (MR Hard negate) 30 AN damage, 5 attack, length 3 damage and 6 damage.
-Berserker Pelt finally gives +1 berserk! It also gives +4 HP.
-Lifelong Protection is now Const5, it can’t be used by mindless units, give 1-2imps per round, after round 25 or so the amount decreases.
-Some items like Goblet and Manual of Water Breathing are buffed (3x!) in number of troops affected.
-there is a pair of cheap magical items (5 gems) that give the wall climbing ability, one for Air, another for Nature.
-A new stealth item (a Glamour robe).
-the Pixie Spear, who does 25 AN fatigue damage as secondary effect.
-Other glamour items: pixie boots, toy sword (false damage), Singing Sword (autocasts AoE 5 stunning), Unseen Sword (big +attack if the defender doesn’t have spirit sight, +patience).
-The Glamour research booster is one that lets you remember your dreams when you awake, and so can't be used by creatures that can't dream.
-Armor items now give additional hp. Hydra Armor is also +8, Dragon Scale Mails are +6. There's a new Const 7 armor that has +16 HP AND regen 10% but also massive enc. Cloaks/robes/shroud are +2. Trinket armor is +4.
-Frost Brand is Const 6 and keeps the AoE damage (at some point it was removed). But nerfed from 12 AP to 8 aP.
-Mace of Eruption nerfed to +1 atk and 8AP fire damage but it’s cheaper (F1/5gems instead of F2/10 gems).
-Ring of the False Prophet, construction 7, f2g4 mage to forge, costs 10f25g, it’s a holy booster.
-Ring of Invisibility too. G5, 40 gems. Gives invisibility, +20 stealth, applies to mount too.
-Artifact (in misc slot) that gives 2 extra hand slots.
-Lion Pelt is now Prot 6, Invulnerability 18.
-There are some new crowns, we know two of them: one gives you sleep aura, another gives you a false damage aura (both sounds like glamour items to me).

-There are some events , activated once you have someone able to make artifacts, where it says ‘x artifact yearns to be made’, and you get a discount to make it.

Layer/Planes

There is a second layer in the strategic map, for a caverns ‘plane’, a bit like in Conquest of Elysium games with their multitude of planes. There is a third plane, ‘Nexus’, which is only seemingly used for a single level 9 spell (see Nexus in Magic section).
Modders/map makers can make custom planes.

Some nations start in the cavern layer, like Agharta, Xibalba, etc.
Cave layer don’t have UW provinces but it has ‘flooded’ cave provinces, and there can be cave entrances in UW provinces. There are new province types, like cave forests, crystal caves, and drip caves. Caves are ‘insulated’ and don’t get the temp seasonal changes of the overworld.

UI/QoL
-PD starts at 1
-remote spell attacks can be watched on the battle screen, as part of the battle report
-Magic attacks & magic movement are indicated by icons/arrows on the strategic map
-different sized arrows for different army sizes, improved side menus in the UI
- new table screen to manage your magical items and who owns them. You can preview the possible forgeable items, and filter by path. There is now a filter in the forging screen for "view magic path boosting items only", and you can highlight items that are discounted or exclusive to your nation too.
- y key shows people who will be in the target province, not the ones inside a fort. There is an option in this panel to show armies that are already there, armies that are moving there, and armies that are magically moving there.
-Click on treasury will tell you how much you are spending this current turn on various stuff (commanders, troops, buildings...)
-clicking on income will show income by province and upkeep per unit.
-The score graphs for gem income now display income from things other than magic sites and globals
-New filters on the F1 screen.
-You can more easily change battle orders from the army position setup screen (and click and drag to select and move several in one go!), and the squad and units has labels in that screen.
-Stealth commanders can now hide and wait in friendly provinces.
-Hold tab in the battlefield to highlight all commanders.
-Mages can auto-‘wander and search magical sites’.
-In Pretender creation, you can preview what items will be forgeable. You can see pretender's paths and scale modifiers from "Select physical form".
-not exactly under UI but: “when the world is under global darkness the whole map appears darker too visually”

Nations

There will be new nations, we know so far only Pyrene, inspired by Basque Country. We know it’s at least EA and MA, and possibly in total there will be eight new nations.
Pyrene has some unique blood spells or summons. And a flying witch. Also a national item, a witch ointment that gives flying ability (blood/air item) in battles only.
Eriu is getting a rework to make it more unique. Eriu Fir Bolg are now stealthy, including a new 2H axe berserker. Also a human Earth mage and chariots.
La Ctis gets a bit of undead freespawn. Ctis soldiers have better stats. There is banefire crowssbow sacred unit. Keeper of the Tomb is a H2 reanimator.
MA Ctis dominion transform provinces to swamps.
LA Agartha's national Death mages gained the ability to heal corporal (non-ethereal/spiritform) undead. Yes, presumably this includes Tartarians. The ability has the slightly quaint name of "Corpse Stitcher" and ranges from 1 (Attentant of the Dead) to 5 (Ktonian Necromancer).
La R’yleh has better freespawn. It also has a promotion system where units gain void sanity with eventually. Illithids have Glamour instead of Death randoms.
They have a new Ascension mechanics: Anything without void sanity, which is at least 25% insane, can transform into ethereal stealthy void beings, that deal magic false damage. Mages can lose non-astral/glamour paths, and can gain glamour. They also lose upkeep and the need to eat.
Fomoria will have a Balor-themed mass blindness spell. Glamour/Death.
Asphodel Forts protect against popkill. Dominion level also influences how much the fort protects against it. They create forests in their Dominion.
Machaka got slightly better elephants, used to only have +1 morale but now they also get +1 MR and slightly more HP. That's nice.
Bandar starting army now has Vanara Infantry instead of Atavi.
EA T’ien Ch’i mages:
Student of the Way: W1 100% ASNG, sacred, both in and outside forts Student the Five Elements: 100% FAWEN, sacred, only outside forts Master of the Way: W1 100% AWSNG twice (unlinked), sacred, only outside forts So in forts you get Masters of the Dead (unchanged) and Students of the Way, outside you get Students of the Five Elements and of the Way plus Masters of the Way.
Celestial Master also again Glamour and G1.
Vaettiheim : gyja are w1g1d1 + 100% w/n/g/d/b, so lose access to important n2s.
Knight of Avalon is now a sacred unit. Man has a new national spell, Herd of Unicorns.
Similarly, Ys has a Herd of Mor'varch.
Man's Longbowmen (even the LA ones) have strength 12 now.
Knight of Ys kelpies have no armour, Morvarchs have bronze barding (prot 18, so pretty heavy) but in general they are nerfed with respect the Dom5 unit.
EA R’yleh Mind Vessel can be casted at 2 province range. Aboleths get glamour.
Machaka has a new forest-only ritual, Weavers of the Wood, giving +100 patrol in the forest province with the ability to see invisibility and spiders will help patrollers in combat. +3 turn per extra gem.

Piconye

They are like Ind in that they have 3 sacreds to recruit in the capital (sacred crossbows, sacred swordmen, sacreds with the bacculus that does bane of heresy) and gain +1 holy points for every temple. Temples are also cheap for them.

Troopline generally has 15def as a rule or higher. Shields can take it to 19+. They usually need 15-20 res, same rec points. An example:
-piconye defender... 7hp, 17prot, 11att, 19def (base 15, 7 parry, -armor), 12dmg short sword (half piercing), 13MR, (athough combat speed 2!) all for 9 gold
-piconye soldier.. 8g for 14prot, 12dmg short sword, combat speed 5
-they get 7g crossbows
-spearmen are 7g, low damage spear but but 14prot/15def
-bird knights have 32 map move
-they get H2 inquisitors and a cap only H3 inquisitor
-the bird commanders aren't sacred unless you prophet them. They're just your totally normal 100 leadership map move 32 flying commander
-Cheap mage is an E1 + 100% FWSN random w/ research bonus (not sacred).
-Workhorse standard mage is FES + 100% FWESN that's H1 / sacred, 260gold, 2cp, recruit Out of fort
- can summon the Ashdod/Gath angels

Feminie
-Hidden dominion like Ind, Divine insight researchers like Man, they get cheap temples, solid cavalry, solid sacred, mages have obfuscation to hide troops. They can summon Grigori.
-Sacred infantry (battle nuns!) with glamour and stealth (but human stats), armor and 2h weapon, for 22g.
-120g S1 + x1 random mage.
-Sorcerer: F2S2G2 no random 2cp recruitable. She has bad stats, don’t have a thuggable chassis.
-Lore mistress: F1S1G1 + X2 4cp recruitable w/ +6research bonus, she isn’t cap only. Randoms are FWSNG.
-Sage-Queen: F1S3G3 (+10% FSG randoms), sacred, cap only.
-Priests: H1 is 65g for 4RP, H2 is 6RP for 115g. Both are out of fort recruitable.

A new nation has been announced by Illwinter itself: Muspelheim, a Norse nation of Fire Giants.
Their big recruitable commander dude, the Muspel Jarl, has a built in aoe on his sword. The troops do not, but their swords are magical. They also have heat auras.

Multiplayer

Maximum number of global enchantments (in the game setup) have increased from 9 to 15.
There will be a new lobby system so people can more easily find and join games. Most probably, it will be the same lobby system that exists in Conquest of Elysium 5, the other Illwinter series.

Mapping

There is a new blueprint system, that easily allow for random maps based on basic layout types, like ‘islands’, ‘ponds’, etc. There are a few included in the game. Somehow this system can also be used to easily load a user image and make a new map based on it, as they are interpreted as a template.

Modding

There is a template system for the AI pretenders, that allow for them to load predone pretenders, including some modifications that go beyond what would be a valid pretender build.
Workshop support for mods looks almost guaranteed.
Bless modding has been confirmed.
Some new tags for site modding. New events commands.
A modding command for holy point costs has been added.

AI / Diplomacy
-You can now have a different diplomatic status with each AI (3 settings, enforceable NAP3, non enforcerceable NAP3 and none), there are several such as "apprehensive" (default), "at war" and "NAP-3", you can offer AIs NAP-3s.
-If a NAP offer isn’t accepted, you lose one candle in your capital.
-There is a setting where the diplomatic status between players will be enforced by ingame mechanics (ie. you do a NAP in a UI, you can’t attack).

edit: I'm not a beta tester, so this is all semi-official hearsay. Chances are, I misunderstood some stuff here and there, even if the changes are real, so take all with a pinch of salt.

[Maerlande]

For people looking at the screen shots and thinking there are not many UI changes, I want to comment that there are quite a lot of under the hood improvements.

For example, the keys to sort the nation overview (F1) are very significant. There are a lot of new hotkeys.

[Torgon]

Did you say sort the province screen? Hallelujah!

[Demonsthenes]

Will it be possible to remove PD? PD starting at 1 does mean one won't be able to cede a province to another player for them to take using a scout; and for some nations with thug/mage PD commanders (like EA Vanheim or Lemuria), it might require significant investment to take a province negotiated to be transferred in a multiplayer game.

[Turin Turambar]

Updated OP with some new info of spells and blesses

[Torgon]

Is spell singing communion a generic glamour spell now or is it still MA Man specific?

[Captain Einsicht]

I hope there will be a diplomacy system (for Singleplayer too) and some buildable buildings like farms mines and stuff like that , economy buildings

[Torgon]

Originally posted by Captain Einsicht:

I hope there will be a diplomacy system (for Singleplayer too) and some buildable buildings like farms mines and stuff like that , economy buildings

Doubtful on economic buildings. They had more customizable forts in Dom4 that sort of did this and they dropped it for Dom5.

[Mormacil]

Originally posted by Captain Einsicht:

I hope there will be a diplomacy system (for Singleplayer too) and some buildable buildings like farms mines and stuff like that , economy buildings

They stripped roads, fort upgrades and taxes because they want us to focus less on the economy and more on the battles. So a push in the other direction feels unlikely. But with terraforming as a potential new part of the game some might make sense. But then again what happens to your mines when the land is flooded or the farms when they landis turned into a wasteland?

[Zonk]

Originally posted by jpmcconnell:

Is spell singing communion a generic glamour spell now or is it still MA Man specific?

(source: I'm a beta tester) It's still MA-Man only.

[Turin Turambar]

UIpdated with the new -skin spell changes and with more accurate infra cost changes

[kristoffer]

Originally posted by jpmcconnell:

Originally posted by Captain Einsicht:

I hope there will be a diplomacy system (for Singleplayer too) and some buildable buildings like farms mines and stuff like that , economy buildings

Doubtful on economic buildings. They had more customizable forts in Dom4 that sort of did this and they dropped it for Dom5.

I imagine the world as being full of farms and mines already. The different nations did not appear in the world a year ago. Even independent kingdoms have been around and prospered for centuries.
This has been the case since Dom 1 design. We wanted to make a war game and not an economic simulation/game. Instead we wanted magic to be the field where development was being made.

So construction of roads for example is unlikely to appear in the game, but a ritual that enchants roads so that you move faster between two (or more) provinces is a lot more likely.
(Roadbuilding is probably the one infrastructure feature I can imagine being added outside of rituals)

[Twogun]

thank you for this

[Kref]

Can we expect moddable strategic AI? Generally people should be able to make "blackboxes" which should get xml with description of visible for players situation and produce xml with orders.
With all fuss about neural networks for last few years, people are likely to make something intresting out of it.

[Kref]

Also there are things in AI that should be fixed anyway. For example AI shouldn't sent pretenders and unique heroes to the arena without good reason.
Once upon a time I've send for some reason a hero to the arena, he killed some pretender there and I've got an unwanted war, like "you killed our god".

[Turin Turambar]

I wish they make AI improvements, and having moddable AI would be super cool, but... things don't look rosy in that regard. :(