In Detail:

Gameplay:
-Victory is now calculated, in most cases, as percentages of population
-Ophanim's sap life only drains one temple's population, as opposed to all temples
-If you force a hero to retreat when attacking you, the default menace/profile gain is now lower
-The hunger is now a level 2 blood magic
-Heirophants' special abilities now cost 40 complexity, but add 50% of their intrigue to the progress per turn
-Rulers preference towards Deep One now increases or decreases the cult's maturation speed
-Theocracies won't join battles if they risk attacking other theocracies
-Your agents can cure madness in a location, if need be (not madness effects in locations, however)
-Holy Orders now worship minor divine entities, which have an agenda, and will reward/punish you for changing the world to fit their desires
-Sovereigns can now appoint 'national religions' which will force all their kingdom to adopt their Holy Order
-Your corrupted acolytes or agents from nation-state religions can preach to sovereigns to get them to like your Holy Order to a higher degree
-Your agents can 'undermine religion' in an infiltrated temple in a multi-faith nation to reduce the sovreign's liking for the temple's religion

Other:
-Mod loader added, to allow you to enable or disable mods and to re-order them if necessary
-Mods can now change parameter file
-Mods can add cultural naming schemes
-Map view for population added
-Game now checks for resolution issues more aggressively, and should avoid being in the wrong resolution in fullScreen mode, regardless of minimising and system resolution changes mid-game
-Dark tendril graphics now cover more of the face, to be more obvious in dark background situations
-You can now click on a unit's task on the left-hand-side to go to its destination, if it is performing a "go perform challenge" task or a "go to location" task

Bugfixes:
-Holy Orders can't be turned into Dark Empires
-Fixed graphical issue with orc warlords
-You can no longer perform 'unite the hordes' while either horde is at war
-Fixed Iastur's mechanics description
-Ghasts (and other uncontrollable evil units) can no longer be stolen from
-Witches covens can now turn into Deep One sanctums
-Organised dissent now properly ends on the death of the ruler
-Bugfixes to orc expansion behaviour in locations with ancient ruins
-Attempt at reducing the risk of clicks outside of the game causing undesired inputs

Bugs
-Hives don't enshadow
-100% infection notice in message bar still occurs for drones

Typo
-'don't enter cities over 50% shadow' should be 'under 50% shadow'

The new god is really fun!

Will there be an option to have the old, milder tendril effect? The new tendrils are rather thick and face-covering and don't look so good to me somehow. We have the old black strikeout effect as an option, so perhaps we can have the old mild tendril one too?

Originally posted by crawlers:

Will there be an option to have the old, milder tendril effect? The new tendrils are rather thick and face-covering and don't look so good to me somehow. We have the old black strikeout effect as an option, so perhaps we can have the old mild tendril one too?

Yes, those latest ones are kind of placeholder, I intend to change them because they're not great, but at least they don't fail to cover some of the faces. As such, they're needed to avoid the tendrils being missed until the better tendrils can be finished up.

Insect God has been removed from the most recent beta branch (but not the backup branch) -was this intended?

Originally posted by SDSkinner2011:

Insect God has been removed from the most recent beta branch (but not the backup branch) -was this intended?

Try the 'mod config' button on the main screen. I changed that, and I suspect the problem might be that it's got the insect god off by default? I recently implemented a list of mod settings, to remember your changes, but there might be a bug which causes it to make some disabled by default (is my guess).

I'll try to fix that behaviour by next beta-branch patch

I had to download a mod to get it more then a blank screen, but it fixed it.

Suggestion- there should be a power to turn all 100% infected heroes into infested drones. We already have the ability to do it one by one, but it feels a bit more... perfect to mark the end of mankind with a single click.

Originally posted by SDSkinner2011:

I had to download a mod to get it more then a blank screen, but it fixed it.

Suggestion- there should be a power to turn all 100% infected heroes into infested drones. We already have the ability to do it one by one, but it feels a bit more... perfect to mark the end of mankind with a single click.

Alright. Added that power on the third seal (when I reckon you'll have enough to make it worth it. I don't want to add it off the bat, because it'll just confuse people if you've only got one drone option). I also added 'airborne spores' to turn a hive into an infection device.

Just gotta add a power or two for the fourth seal and then it'll be done for a first pass, and I can focus on balancing it and polishing the remaining bits (missing art and missing text especially).

I think I fixed the issue with modSettings.txt, and it should now be working as intended, and avoiding wasting time loading mods you don't currently want.

Synchronized infection isn't working, even targeting a hero who can be individually infected. Also, geomantic support combat doesn't support the swarms.

Deaths of drones can trigger house vendettas, which seems inappropriate because they're effectively dead when infested.

You can drone the Chosen One.

Seat of holy order is disappearing for 2 out of 3 orders with the newest beta. They exist at the start of the game but vanish latter.

Edit: might just be conflict with a mod.