Hey Polytopians! This year is a time of change, a time to show some much-needed love to our maritime friends, the Aquarion! In this update, we have given them tons of new toys, art, and mechanics to play with! This is a beta, and you can expect to find bugs, glitches, and oddities. You can find instructions on how to join the beta at the bottom of this post. We're going to lay out this post in this order: - Design Philosophy - New Mechanics - New Units - New Buildings - How to Join the Beta - Changelog So, without further ado, let's talk about the plethora of changes to our fishy friends. [h2=design]20,000 Design Philosophies Under the Sea
The Path of the Ocean showed us that the game's naval mechanics needed improvement before we could work on the Aquarion - a naval-oriented tribe. But now that it's out of the way, we can do this rework! Aquarion has always been focused on the water, which makes sense - they're fish people. So, we wanted to align them to that idea much better, blending them with the water in some very unique ways. As you'll see, we've given them new naval units, new aquatic buildings, and a totally new look to match! We want the Aquarion to be superb on the water, which is their home biome, but less effective on land. They still have ways to contest land and coastal cities, but they might have to get resourceful and understand their limits. [h2=mechanics]Let's Spin You a Nautical "Tail"
So, the first thing you probably noticed when you saw some of the promo images is that theres now a big pink, fin-looking thing that seems to have replaced the average Aquarions lower torso. That, my friend, is a mermaid tail, and it represents the fact that all of the Aquarion's land units are now amphibious! Yes, you can now waltz into the open seas without issue at any time with any land unit! Of course, this flexibility comes at a cost, as their land movement is reduced, as it's really hard to walk on land or use a road when you have a fish tail where your feet would be. All Aquarion land units have been replaced with "mermaid" variants, which otherwise function identically to their land-based counterparts. And lastly, yes, we know that "mermaid" isn't a gender-neutral term (since the Square's inhabitants are genderless), but are you really going to tell the Aquarion they can't be mermaids?
To make it easier for the Aquarion, all of their land terrain has now been given a new tag - "Flooded". Flooded tiles count as both land and water, so your "land" units are unrestricted on their own home terrain and naval units can sail on them without issue. Units can also flood tiles outside of their borders, so that you can move your troops on land more effectively.
Nabbing those land cities is now a little tougher for the Aquarion, so we've given them an alternative. If you uncover a ruin on the water, instead of getting the normal bonuses, you'll get a city! Yes, a city on the water!!!!! It functions like any other city and can be captured by your opponents. Obviously, it's "on the coast" for the sake of units that can only be trained in coastal cities, like Raychi. This should give you some incentive to work your way out into the oceans as fast as possible. Note: you'll only get a city if the ruin is far enough from other cities, otherwise you will get normal ruin bonuses, and this only works for ruins on the water, but it doesn't matter if it's on the Water or Ocean. [h2=units]Hic Sunt Dracones
We figured it was time to make Aquarion a bit more fun to play by giving them new naval units instead of the Scouts, Rammers, and Bombers that everyone else uses. Contrary to the name of this section, Aquarion doesn't get any dragons. Tridentions, Amphibians, and Crabs are all effectively unchanged, so there's no point in mentioning them here.

Shark

Yelly Belly

Atoll

Aqua Farm

• OS: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
• Processor: Dual Core 2.0 GhzMemory: 1 GB RAM
• Memory: 1 GB RAM
• Graphics: 128mb Video Memory
• Storage: 400 MB available spaceAdditional Notes: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system

• OS: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
• Processor: Dual Core 3.0 GhzMemory: 2 GB RAM
• Memory: 2 GB RAM
• Graphics: 256mb Video Memory
• Storage: 400 MB available spaceAdditional Notes: Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system