With a focus on Battles and Dungeon Expeditions this update is named 'Valor' as a reference to the courage of those delving into the dangers of haunted crypts and fiery depths, and the ranks of poor infantrymen who stand on the battlefield bravely receiving the charges of Phoenixes, Zombie hordes and Death Knights. Patch notes are below. I'll add a few more words to the update in a separate post on the forums later. If you're curious about what happened to my plans for cities or if the Golem update is next, those question should be answered there. I'll update this with a link when I've made that post. A big thanks to P. Casimir and Verroth for submitting an awesome amount of Dungeon flavor text. You can enjoy this in your game by enabling the new Lore Module. Optional Grid-Based Battles

• You can now enable a new Battle Resolution system from the Game Settings window. This allows you to enable and disable this option at any time before or during a game. There are still many planned improvements to the grid-based battle system, and it has not been made the default. That will probably happen in 1.0.3, or before, depending on player feedback and pace of development progress. There are no plans to remove the classic mode when the default mode changes.
• Custom Battles can be launched from the Main Menu completely separate from the 'normal' game mode. You select the roster for the two armies and can then fight it out against the AI.
• Custom Battles can be named and saved to a file. This allows you to replay battles and to store favorite rosters. The files can be shared manually between players - but workshop integration is planned along with more options for setting up battles, randomizing rosters and creating linked battles. The campaign mode will (of course) remain the focus of the game.
• If the Grid-Based system is enabled, you can set up default deployment, formations and orders for your armies by opening the Army Window (ie inspecting an Army), selecting Army Details and then clicking Army Deployment button.
• Units can be grouped into Formations, which you create and name during Deployment. Orders can be given at the Formation level, saving a lot of time. You can still give member Units separate orders. If the Unit order is more 'aggressive' than the Formation order, it will override it. But if you wish a Unit to Hold when the Formation is Advancing or Charging, it must leave the Formation.
• During Deployment, if the Formation panel is open and a Formation selected, shift-click will add units to that Formation. This is a quick way to setup Formations.
• After the Deployment phase, you can multi-select units by using shift-click.
• When right-clicking an enemy unit, you have the option to set it as ranged and/or melee target for the currently selected friendly unit(s). You can always clear the target. Depending on orders and opportunity the unit will attempt to follow this priority.
• Units are locked in melee with adjacent enemy units unless they have the Skirmish or Blink ability. Units with Skirmish can lock other Skirmishers in place. Blink units can always disengage.
• Resolution speed and turns per 'next' can be configured at any time during battles. You can also 'skip to end', but make sure the current unit orders are what you want before pressing this.
• Characters have a somewhat bigger impact on battles in the new mode, and the mechanics/bonuses are fully described/previewed when assigning characters and inspecting unit info.

• The Game Setup Window has been overhauled and divided into four tabs.
• You can now name you Game World. If you do not choose a name, it will use the default name 'Mortal Plane'. You can also choose to use your name as the World Seed.
• The World Seed can now be a text string. It will still be converted to an integer via a hashing algorithm, so the underlying Seed system has not been changed. But you can now tell other players to check out CarrotWorld rather than an arbitrary integer.
• World and Rules settings have now been separated into two different tabs. A few settings could arguably belong in either, but separating the two makes for a less cluttered user interface.
• New Rule Setting: Recruitment Pools (Disabled or Normal). This allows you to disable the Recruitment Pool mechanic, which is a somewhat harsh mechanic that not all players enjoy. For new players it will be disabled by default.
• AI Rivals now have a separate panel, and you can choose up to 9 Rivals, rather than a maximum of 6 as before.
• Custom Presets can now be created and saved/loaded. With an increasing number of settings, it had become rather laborious to select the favorite setup every time when starting a new game. This new panel allows you to store the current set of settings and choices as a named preset. You can create any number of presets, and can also choose one of these as a default in place of the built-in default.
• Lore Modules is a new concept to manage optional and discrete content. The existing 'Silly Events' setting has been migrated to a Lore Module. A new collection of Dungeon Flavor text authored by two players (P. Casimir and Verroth) has been added as the other inaugural Lore Module. It has 52 unique Dungeon descriptions. Enabling Lore Modules function like the other three categories of settings and are stored as part of a preset.

• The Dungeon Window, used for forming and managing Dungeon Expeditions has been greatly reworked. No longer are expeditions sent immediately on selecting the party, which was a confusing departure from the UI in the rest of the game.
• A 'preview effects' panel has been added, which shows whether various party role requirements are fulfilled. Tooltips show the effects of meeting these (or failing to do so).
• Important Tags are now shown in the Dungeon Window making it a bit easier to pick followers based on the challenges posed by the specific Dungeon.
• The Expedition Log has been split into 'Recent Events' and a Log of previous turns. You see the recent events directly in the window, and the log can be inspected via a button.
• You can now inspect the Log(s) after an Expedition has been completed and/or a Dungeon cleared.
• Deities now have an interest in many Dungeons. Depending on the type of interest (Opposing or Protective) you will gain Divine Favor or Divine Wrath if you clear the Dungeon. Including a Religion-class character in the expedition affects this mechanic, allowing you to placate and/or champion specific deities for decreased/increased impact.
• Dungeon Flavor text. A very basic description has been added for each dungeon type. The new Lore Module describe above includes 52 unique descriptions applied based on Dungeon theme and danger level.
• Three new Dungeon Themes: Arcane, Eldritch and Fae. These have associated Tags

• Wizard players now have an 'Advisor' action which will show a window with a number of suggestion on what to do. Clicking a suggestion will go to the relevant window and/or selection. The suggestions are based on the current game state and player resources/assets. I expect to expand the quality and range of suggestions with future patches.
• The Advisor action, the new default settings (e.g. disabled recruitment pools) and less cluttered game setup window are meant to make the game slightly less daunting to new players. I think the Advisor concept has potential to greatly help avoid the feeling of being lost, and perhaps in time also help expose to sub-systems and mechanics which are easy to miss.

• Continents are now named during World Generation.
• The Encyclopedia now includes World Info (name, continents, oceans, etc.)
• Map Hexes now have a tooltip which list Hex Conditions and Resource Specials.
• The tooltip for a selected entity on the world map will now list a summary of other relevant entities in the hex.
• In the Global Game Settings you can now disable 'Floating Tooltips'. This will lock tooltips to the location of the mouse when they're shown. If you dislike tooltips following the cursor after being shown, this gives a more classic style of tooltip displaay.
• Faerie Dust: The 20% sell price penalty has been raised to a 90% sell penalty. This greatly widens the gap between buy and sell price for this resource.
• Bow of Destruction: New magic item which gives +5 to Combat Challenges and +2 Siege Progress (does not stack on multiple owners for the same siege).

• Battle indicators on the world map are no longer lost when loading a game.
• Fixed a few bugs relating to Mysterious Sites.
• Fixed a number of spelling errors.
• Fixed a crash bug relating to unit recruitment.
• Fixed a crash bug relating to AI processing.