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Patch #15 — Alliances and random map generator

September 30, 2026 · v0.81.02

Up to date

In short

  • ›Alliances: team and co-op play, permanent simultaneous turns, trading resources, armies and artifacts between allies.
  • ›New fully random map generator, in Quick Start, designed for PvE.
  • ›Ranking reset: everyone starts again at 1000. HeavenlyForge's tier lists move to Season 2.
  • ›Temple: the Sacred Lands law is replaced by Sacred Protection, which makes allied heroes immune to negative effects.
  • ›More than thirty bug fixes, including Reality Distortion, Naira's Kiss, traps and several AI freezes.
  • ›Found in the data: Shackles of War no longer prevent fleeing for the whole battle.

Alliances

The most requested addition since launch: you can now ally with other players, in PvE as well as PvP. If just one of the allies meets the map's victory conditions, the whole Alliance wins.

Playing in an Alliance

  • •Turns stay simultaneous at all times online: two allies who meet on the map do not switch back to sequential turns.
  • •A temporary lock protects players and objects during a battle: while a player is fighting, their ally cannot interact with their heroes. The lock is lifted as soon as the battle ends.
  • •Allies share the fog of war and see each other's planned paths.

Trading between allies

  • •Allied heroes can trade freely through the usual exchange window: each player can give and take artifacts and armies.
  • •Resources can be sent and requested through a dedicated interface, a first for the series. The player list shows more notifications to make these exchanges easier.
  • •Through Remote Footholds and the Pocket Dimension spell, allies get access to a shared Alliance storage, to transfer artifacts and armies to each other remotely.

Starting an Alliance game

  • •With friends, in co-op against the AI or team versus team (2 versus 2, for example): create a lobby from the Multiplayer menu.
  • •With an AI ally against other AIs: go through Quick Start. Five new templates appear there, which the developers present as pre-configured for Alliances: Countdown, Syndicate and Three of a Kind in Classic mode, Horns and Mayhem in single-hero mode.
  • •To set everything up yourself: Custom Game, with any existing template or the Broken Alliance map.

Fully random map generator

Until now, the random map generator relied only on templates. It can now also build a unique map from scratch, without using the existing templates, for PvE players who prefer total unpredictability to balance. Templates remain available, especially for PvP.

Available settings

  • •Only available in Quick Start, in single player, at the patch's release.
  • •You choose: the mode (multiple heroes or single hero), the map size, the number of players, Alliances (teams drawn at random when possible), zone richness and content density, overall difficulty, map symmetry and the victory conditions.
  • •You then choose your faction, your hero and the difficulty level, as in a regular Quick Start.
  • •The developers announce that these settings will be expanded later on.

Matchmaking and ranking

The matchmaking system is reworked, and the ranking is reset so that everyone can compete for the top spots again.

Reset

  • •All players start again at a rating of 1000, regardless of the level chosen before the calibration matches.
  • •During calibration, wins grant points on top of the base gain.

Points calculation

Lowest rank: win / loss→+40 / −10
Highest rank: win / loss→+10 / −40
  • •Points gained and lost now depend on rank: the higher it is, the less a win brings and the more a loss costs.
  • •The rating gap between the two players weighs much more on the points gained or lost.

Cheating

  • •An automated cheat detection algorithm and a low-priority system have been added.

On HeavenlyForge: Season 2 of the tier lists

  • •To follow the ranking reset, HeavenlyForge's tier lists move to Season 2 and start again from zero. Season 1 matches are not deleted: they remain recorded.
  • •The rank tier saved on your profile has been reset: you will be asked for it again the next time you report a match.

Temple

Sacred Lands → Sacred Protection

Loi de faction
  • •Before: allied creatures were immune to negative effects when fighting on their native lands.
  • •Now: allied heroes are immune to negative effects, in battle and on the global map.

Gameplay changes

Mixed

Emerald Resonance Controller

  • •The artifact now also protects temporary creatures from banishment.

Fire Larvae

  • •Max HP bonuses no longer reduce the number of Fire Larvae summoned onto the battlefield.

Siege traps

  • •Traps created automatically during a siege take priority over other traps and can no longer be destroyed by them.

Battle camera

  • •The alternative camera position chosen in battle is kept from one battle to the next, and applies immediately.

Interface

Save and load

  • •Interface and file organization completely overhauled. Each game has its own profile, which groups its saves.
  • •Separate Single Player and Multiplayer tabs. Filters by type (Campaign, Template, Scenario, Map, Tutorial, Challenge, Other), and by connection type in the Multiplayer tab (All, Hotseat, Online).
  • •Sorting by date, by name and by in-game time, bulk deletion, and direct loading from this window without going back through the lobby.
  • •Each save shows a minimap screenshot, the hero roster and other information.
  • •Saves made before the patch are stored in an "Unsorted" category.

Quick Start

  • •Templates and scenarios show much more detailed information, with a short description of what awaits the player.
  • •Added sorting, and tags to find the templates and scenarios that suit your play style.

Emoji Wheel

  • •Now available in battle and in towns, in addition to the global map.
  • •Much more complete customization, and new emojis.
  • •The player list shows notifications sent by other players, in both expanded and collapsed view.

Bug fixes

Combat and creature mechanics

  • •Double attack effects now apply to the alternative attack of the Onyx Dancer and the Jasper Dancer.
  • •Traps now trigger when a stack is forcibly moved onto them, and when they are inside the area of the Overwatch effect.
  • •Landing on a Spatial Snare no longer lets a stack continue its turn when positive Morale triggers.
  • •Applying Speed and Initiative bonuses to summoned creatures now recalculates the turn order.
  • •Energy Phoenix: its death at the end of a round no longer makes the first stack of the next round skip its turn, and no longer freezes the battle, whether with Reality Distortion or with negative Morale triggering at the same time.
  • •Reality Distortion now deals its damage at the end of the turn in the last round of its duration.
  • •Effects of the "prevents health restoration" type now block healing from every game mechanic, without exception.
  • •The Mist Qilin is now protected by its passive ability against Speed and Initiative reductions.
  • •The Murderous Glee passive now triggers even if the stack has already killed an enemy with a counterattack.
  • •Naira's Kiss now triggers even when a stack ends its turn after the timer runs out, and its damage is now reduced by bonuses of the "reduces all incoming damage" type.
  • •The Buckler now allows counterattacks against an enemy with Swift Strike, if that property was gained during the battle.
  • •A Phoenix resurrected by the Immortal passive can no longer use abilities before it awakens.
  • •Under the Berserk effect, stacks with Ranged Attack behave correctly, creature passives trigger, and Iriyads no longer damage themselves.
  • •Abyssal Envoys under Will of the Abyss no longer gain an extra turn when positive Morale triggers.
  • •Several mechanics and effects that failed to trigger after the last enemy died now work.

Creatures

  • •Infiltrator: the Sharper Blade passive now works, and the Shadowstrike ability now ignores the target's Defense.
  • •Hive Queen: the Squash the Weak! passive now works.

Spells and skills

  • •The Sorcery skill now enhances traps.
  • •Pocket Dimension can no longer be cast on a location the hero cannot reach.
  • •Xirr's specialization no longer leaves him susceptible to negative effects in battle.
  • •Uses of global map spells obtained from scrolls are now counted correctly when the scroll is passed to another hero.

Artifacts

  • •The Vortex Robe no longer triggers several times with multi-hit spells.

AI and stability

  • •In battle, the AI no longer bypasses the restrictions on using hero abilities.
  • •The AI no longer freezes when trying to capture a neutral town that belonged to a player who left or was defeated, nor when one of its heroes takes a portal whose exit is occupied by another hero.
  • •In rare cases, the turn froze after a player was defeated: fixed.
  • •Fixed a rare bug that prevented loading a save.

Found in the data

Found by comparing the game files v0.80.45 → v0.81.02. The comparison also covers the September 3 update (v0.80.49), released without patch notes. The official note is accurate: no errors found, and a single hidden balance change.

Shackles of War: the ban on fleeing is no longer permanent

  • •Before, the artifact prevented both sides from fleeing and surrendering for the whole battle.
  • •Now, it applies a negative effect to each side, built like the one from the Orb of Inhibition and with the same duration: the ban only holds during the first round of the battle, and it can be dispelled. After that round, fleeing and surrendering become possible again.

Jebus Tournament: generation tweaked

  • •Came with the September 3 update, never documented. In the guarded central zone, the contents of Pandora's Boxes are reshuffled, and the weight of one of the content groups drops (275,000 → 200,000). A list of Pandora's Boxes is added for the guarded starting zones.
  • •The tournament format itself does not change: 5 rounds, 3 to win.

Arena Mode: John Johnson

  • •Came with the September 3 update. Two of his arena bonuses appeared twice in the data: each now appears only once.

Technical changes with no numerical effect

  • •Hive and Schism laws: several bonuses change internal type, with strictly identical values.
  • •Sentinel of Glory: the healing from Arina's Path is tied to the ability's target instead of the creature itself. Its in-game effect cannot be identified from the data.
  • •An internal parameter of Just One More Time (Grove faction skill) changes. Its effect cannot be identified from the data.

French translations fixed in the game

  • •In the French version, the artifact « Robe de Diplomatie » is now called « Écharpe d'Ambassadeur », matching the English name (Ambassador's Sash). The French descriptions of Spatial Snare, Overwatch and several unit abilities are reworded.

The new Alliance templates

  • •The five templates mentioned above are indeed present in the files (65 templates in total). The data does not make it possible to check which ones are reserved for Alliances: every template declares a number of alliances equal to its number of players.