It's here! We can't believe it's been over a month since the last update, but #3 is now available and it's easily the biggest update yet. Thanks to everyone in the community who helped us balance and test it and please keep the feedback coming since we'll be jumping right into work on the next update.

For those who haven't been following the beta, 3.0.3 includes some major engine improvements, a complete overhaul of the opening objectives, balance adjustments to almost every unit, plus AI improvements, bug fixes and more.

Despite all of the changes, the update is intended to be backwards compatible so if you run into problems loading a saved game please let us know. And as always we welcome questions, bugs or comments in the forums or you can e-mail them directly to rob@longbowgames.com And, if for some reason you're having severe problems, the old version is still available in the 'Last Release' branch in the game's properties window.

And finally, this is the last weekend for the loyalty discount! So if you own Hegemony Rome or Gold but are still undecided about Hegemony III, you don't have much time left to get your 20% off.

cheers,
The Longbow Team

Change Log 3.0.3 Rev 36843

Engine

• longer zoom range on the 3D map
• longer zoom range on strategy map before miniatures fade out
• map now streamed from drive in 32 bit mode to reduce memory usage
• high detail settings now available in 32 bit mode
• fixed late-game performance bug with very large empires

Map

• more city construction animations
• fixed multiple incorrectly blocked map regions

Graphics

• improvements to water shader
• improvements to strategy map transition
• new weapons for the Illyric units

Balance/Gameplay

• increased defenses for walled bridges, forts and cities
• adjusted units stats to increase difference between tiers i.e. spearmen to hoplite to legion
• standardized more unit sizes to make cost comparisons easier
• adjusted garrison size and defense stats for bridges, camps and cities
• battleline formations are now considered broken when a unit is out of food or crossing a ford
• significantly increased cost of colonists
• added initial gold costs for building upgrades
• units in battleline stance now press forward more to attack the enemy
• fixed bug with hastati ranged fire
• removed field range from factions who don't have archers
• Added Military Reform skill to unlock Hastati and Velites earlier
• added ranged attacks for later Sabellic units
• capturing one bridgehead of a ford will now automatically capture both
• bridge construction can now be paused and resumed
• adjustments to hegemony achievements
• brigade morale now drops gradually when you're out of gold in proportion to your deficit. When morale hits zero a brigade may disband or defect.

Interface/GUI

• improved display of garrison stats
• cleaned up how miniatures are drawn for groups
• fixed bug with group direction after dragging group formations
• added more information to colonize button tooltip
• victory screen is no longer displayed again if the game is continued
• fixed issue selecting units near forts/bridges
• added objective target markers to the strategy map
• completed sub-tasks no longer appear in the objective tracker
• added cancel objective button to the objective tracker
• added more diplomacy and faction skill information to the faction pedia page

AI

• ai puts more emphasis on building unit upgrade buildings
• improved ai use of skill points
• adjustments to when the ai builds forts and bridges
• fixed a few ai resource management bugs
• fixed bug that caused ai to downgrade stone walls to wood
• more emphasis on per-faction AI behaviour
• defeated factions will now start abandoning farms, forts and bridges

Objectives

• overhauled prelude objectives
• objectives are now triggered by visiting independent cities
• new Ancient Rivals objective chain
• new sandbox options to disable tutorials and start with all indie cities
• more general and unit rewards in the prelude

Bugs

• fixed bug causing overlapping dialog windows
• fixed issue connecting water trade routes
• fixed graphical bug with command wheel close button
• fixed bug resuming bridge construction when loading a savedgame
• fixed bug connecting supply lines to a bridgehead during construction
• fixed rare crash when the ai is make supply lines
• fixed crash with routing ai units
• fixed false 'out of food' messages when a unit leaves a fort/city
• fixed crash deleting upgrade when the asset list is open
• fixed movement bug when javelineers were engaged in melee combat
• fixed bug loading groups from saved games
• fixed bug with trees falling when a city comes into view
• fixed bug displaying AI group miniatures