Holy Orders are now out, in a very early form, on the beta-branch.

Intended as a more complex feature, which'll be off by default before the player has won a victory with the snake god, they're intended to be as varied as possible, and introduce map-specific strategic decisions.

They start as hero-like factions, which perform some desirable task for humanity, chosen from a list of possible options (tenets). Examples are curing plague and spreading plague immunity, raising awareness, or spreading wards.

By manipulating the orders, the player can then either change them to a form which is less damaging to the player's plans, or to turn them entirely towards the darkness, and use them as a way to harm humanity across the faith's national-border-ignoring territory.

It also updates Witches, to become a dark-aligned Holy Order, which is slightly easier to swing to your side. They would need help to expand, but if so, you can choose how they act, letting you deploy the witches as a powerful second set of agent-like units.

Details:

Gameplay:
-Holy Orders added
-Bribe Guards can't be stacked
-Possession now cancels the action the unit is taking when it ends
-The Cursed now fulfills her vow of vengeance if the target dies, even if she did not kill the individual
-The Cursed's vow of vengeance now also gives her paralysis trait a 5-turn distruption to the hero she attacked (if they survived), making her a better disruption hit-and-run unit
-Mammon's Give/Take has been removed, and replaced with a shadow market/smuggling pair, which allow you to siphon wealth off from an infiltrated city to another. This is designed to make Mammon require agents, and give heroes more ways to counter you
-Ghasts require more death modifier in a location (15% -> 25%), menace for creating ghasts increased 7 -> 10, shadow generation reduced by 20%
-Ghasts now properly recognise they can't enshadow an area with high wards
-Vampires are now necromancers and can create ghasts, feed heals them to full
-Monsterous armies, such as ravenous dead or the First Daughter, now motivate the creation of the grand army by the Chosen One and for weaker nations to join The Alliance
-Added "Organise Dissent" challenge, which adds a long lasting modifier which decreases security and increases unrest
-If orcs are disabled, adds the statistically equivalent 'bandit king' (no unique talents)
-Dark Coronation is now a command challenge
-Menace gained from armies driving back heroes increased from 5 to 20
-Bountiful harvest buffed: Does more, drains the locus less and AI heroes are far more enthusiastic about using it
-Heroes can now remove shadow from rulers if the ruler is below 50% enshadowment, using the drive back shadow challenge
-Shadow averaging: Rulers lose shadow when they cause their settlement to become enshadowed, and vice-versa, till they reach a near-equal degree of enshadowment
-Victory points now include population lost, replacing settlements lost
-Orc banners can now target other orc hordes for war
-Added "plague ships" challenge, which spreads plague along sea trade routes to the next port
-Quarantine effectivess increased (requires plague > 140% for spread to occur)
-Orc hordes can now be unified together by a character holding two banners
-Mammon now increases minimum world panic, the same as other gods
-Ophanim doubt now less random, more consistent in its appearance, while still being based on the same factors
-Ophanim now works on a percentage based system, where the VP gained is a proportion to the population in Ophanim controlled nations
-If you colonise unclaimed areas, humanity will attempt to do the same to keep up
-Alliance locations now prevent infiltration from being attempted
-Ophanim faith now reduces security, to a max of -3
-She Who Will Feast now gains the ability to enshadow along trade routes using her new power "Serpent's Coils"
-Ophanim has his own Holy Order, with unique tenets
-Vinerva grants access to the "A Darker Nature" tenet in the witches, which allows them to increase the effects of her gifts
-She Who Will Feast grants access to the "Sect of the Serpent" tenet in Holy Orders, which transfers menace away from your agents to their acolytes and temples (can't drop below minimum)
-Iastur grants access to "Maddening Insights" tenet in Holy Orders, which causes rulers to go insane while mages research Arcane Secrets
-Mammon grants access to "Indulgences" tenet in Holy Orders, which causes rulers of the faith to transfer gold to your agents when in the same location
-She Who Will Feast now starts at 200HP, and grows only by 1HP/turn, down from 3/turn
-National colours will try to avoid duplicating each other, to improve map readability
-Map icons changed for: Ward, Devastation, Ophanim Faith, Ophanim Doubt and Mammon Influence. Surrounds the map location graphic, to allow a second icon to be displayed alongside them


Other:
-Wars now give AI reasons
-Issue where a national action might appear on the UI for a location with no nation is fixed
-Map view buttons in bottom right are now a collapsible list and give the currently assigned key
-The game now recalls map settings, such as size or orc presence
-The game now remembers its previous size if resized in windowed mode
-The magical arms race can be toggled off in the map options
-Military escorts from rulers can also be disabled
-Units now arrange themselves to avoid overlapping the place name if there are fewer than 4 in a location
-Added new game option for islands type map
-Various views in the scrollable right-hand side can be given filter text
-Non-guitar music disabled due to copyright hits

Bugfixes:
-The Cursed now properly applies defence reduction
-Volcanic Eruption range fixed
-Madess effects at locations can only occur once while the madness effect is active
-Vampires will no longer cast well of shadows on locations without enshadowable neighbours
-Medical Experiments now requires the appropriate amount of plague
-Heroes driven off by armies won't continue their attack
-Ophanim's 'Duality' trait will now flip states properly
-Confessor heroes won't drive themselves insane
-Names will be less likely to be repeated in people/houses
-Difficulty buttons fixed
-Sectarian violence, if it reduces population to zero, will now properly remove the settlement
-Armies will now engage agents properly
-Game will now check for resolution in full-screen mode more consistently, when minimising
-Heroes will now dismiss military escort knights if they are over their command limit (or other minions)
-Minions and items will now be lost if Iastur's Supplicant uses the 'favourite toy' trait

BETA-PATCH NOTES:
-Heroes motivation to influence holy orders reduced by default, given bias if they like the religion
-Heroes now like the religion more if they are present when a preacher preaches
-Holy orders won't join the alliance
-Holy orders gain an international relations button
-Holy orders won't be as likely to cause the world to descend into violence spirals
-Holy Seats can now be enshadowed as per normal
-Fixed bug in events which was causing a null reference
-Holy Orders now require you to get to -3 alignment to get -3 tenet status
-Fixed UI bug with f1/f2 keys
-Prevented insanity occurring from invisible characters
-Witches gain new tenet 'arbormancy' which allows them to do geomancy equivalents at their covens, similar to 'bountiful harvest' but without being a channelled magic. Positive tenet only
-Heroes have less desire to influence orders which aren't in need of fixing
-Holy Orders can now have a vampiric tenet added at the seat of their order (so no witches), to gain a powerful new way to spread shadow
-Neutral evil creatures, such as orc upstarts and ghasts, can no longer become prophets of a faith
-If a temple is built in a 100% infiltrated location, it too will be infiltrated immediately
-You can now choose for holy orders to randomise the available traits
-Number of witches choosable at map spawn
-The Holy Order randomiser no longer removes structural tenets
-Fixed bug with agent portraits
-Holy Orders now require tenets to be appropriate for corrupted acolytes to perform the respective holy challenges
-Acolytes can now spend their own cash to preach or fund temples
-Influence gain from funding holy order halved
-Ophanim now expells all holy orders
-Fixed Holy Order random tenets option
-Fixed bug with shadow becoming negative for some rulers
-Intransigent faith now requires Elder influence to cause civil wars and societal breakdown
-If a Holy Order's seat is destroyed, that is now properly reflected in the Holy Order's behaviour
-Influence gained from prophet and infiltrated seat reduced. (5 -> 4) and (4 -> 2) respectively
-Snake god's "serpent's coils" shadow gain set to desired 1% turn, down from 100% per turn
-Ophanim reverts back to VP-per-location based scoring, pending a more complete VP update next patch

Change Buffer 21:

Gameplay:
-Iastur's end game changed. Now has 'Waves of Madness' at the Elder Tomb, a channelled power which causes insanity with each successful cast
-Iastur can add arcane fortress to the Elder Tomb, but power regen can make this a difficult choice
-Iastur only regenerates power when the tome is in a human settlement now
-Iastur now regenerates power at 33% speed, rather than 0%, when the tome is not deployed
-Heroes can no longer harm Iastur's soul. The Chosen One and heroes both have their own assigned win-game quest at the Elder Tomb, which serve well enough now that magic channelling exists
-If the Laughing Tome is held too long by heroes it automatically drops and is re-usable, without harming Iastur (prevents heroes getting distracted while carrying it)
-'Political Gridlock' challenge can now be performed even if the current location is experiencing political gridlock, allowing infinite chaining
-Monarch now gains "Make an Example" unique challenge, allowing her to execute a noble to reduce unrest and political agitation
-Orc Buccaneer added, able to raid trade routes at sea. Requires an orc shipyard, and is designed to harvest gold to feed to orc hordes and command them in battle, with traits which reduce her risk of attack while at high-menace
-Trickster's minion, Mister Edgar, can now steal items if the Trickster retreats from combat (or if their opponent does), and can retreat during the 'flee' phase
-Heroes have an aversion to acting in locations where they would take damage from an army due to their high menace and profile
-Possession menace gain doubled, 10 -> 20
-Relatives of possessed characters have a chance to hate the blood mage performing the ritual
-Blood magic warlocks will start with one arcane secret
-Insanity expanded. Effects are now more complex, to improve emergent gameplay, and support Iastur and future sources insanity. (partially complete, ongoing beta-branch project)
-Heroes now won't try to get another manticore trophy after their first one
-The Baroness' 'Command of Vermin' trait now gives one vermin every fifth turn, rather than up to 3 at the start of combat
-Manticores now don't die if the location they are in is destroyed
-The Dark Empire and Ophanim Theocracies allow your agents to take/give to nobles freely, by setting the "rob treasury" challenge to a 0/0/1 menace/profile/complexity challenge
-The First Daughter now requires a standard challenge on a human soul, replacing previous event-based trigger system
-Human armies will attempt to avoid over-committing, by avoiding engaging enemies which are already under attack by sufficient other human armies
-Human armies will remain at base if enough of the nation's military has been deployed against a lesser foe, allowing some to remain as defensive reserves
-Human geomancy can now be performed by agents (nurture and bountiful harvest)
-Vinerva Choking Spores slowly decay over time
-Human nations will gain motivation to perform a 'war on threat' against a nearby nation which has high-menace points of interest in one or more of its settlements
-Human Armies will now target high-menace locations during raid on threat wars, if they are not from the Dark Empire or an Ophanim Theocracy
-Heroes won't consider guarding other heroes from nations they are at war with
-The Chosen One can now called 'conclaves' which allows various rulers and heroes to support a collective action, to gain humanity an advantage in the face of their common foe
-Agents can now remove bandits
-Agents can now fund outposts, of either the Dark Empire or another nation if their menace is low
-Holy Sites now have a chance to have catacombs beneath them, which will accumulate the death from neighbouring locations
-The Alliance will automatically start an outpost when it razes a location
-Infamous now requires 20 menace and profile to become available
-Human settlements falling should have better feedback as to why they fell, as well as adding better info to the ruler death message
-Arcane secrets can now be given a 'dangerous knowledge' feature, which will cause them to cause sanity damage to any hero using them
-The CO will far more aggressively seek to fulfil the prophecy towards the game's end
-Plague spread nerfed slightly, population loss reduced when <100%
-Orcs will be less enthusiastic about attacking armies far away, especially refugees
-Orcs can now plunder from human settlements. This will take some gold back and place it in a 'orc plunder' modifier for your agents to draw from (if infiltrated). Heroes can raid this plunder for their own gain
-Iastur's "Just a game" sanity damage goes from 7 to 14
-Mammon's armoured populace now generates seal-breaking points for Mammon while they fight and raze
-Humans who die under The Hunger can now be returned to life as a full Vampire, who will automatically spread shadow. Vampires feeding will often cause The Hunger in a hero or ruler, who might then one day also become a vampire
-'Access Cache' challenge now gives a description of the contents of the cache
-Ghasts' enshadow is now blocked by wards, and they will avoid trying to enshadow a warded location
-Iastur's "waves of madness" tomb challenge no longer affects Ghasts, Deep Ones and Orcs
-After the game is won/lost, the heroes can no longer perform the win the game quests, and the CO can gain shadow and menace
-Heroes with The Hunger will now have a bias towards avoiding feeding in high-shadow areas, unless their hunger is high
-Trickster unique abilities reduced in menace
-Plague growth speed now scales with difficulty