Awakening Enhancement Hack

Full patch notes and analysis of changes A fully mod-compatible average stats calculator is also available here! The Awakening Enhancement Hack is a mod designed to improve the general experience of Awakening by fixing the difficulty curve and removing frustrating mechanics through the minimum amount of required major changes, while keeping the core identity of the game as faithful as possible to the original version. This has been playtested extensively and balanced around both casual and high-level play, aiming to smooth out the metagame gaps between these environments and create a consistent and fun experience. This mod is intended as both an authentic vanilla-faithful minor revision of Awakening, as well a meaningfully distinct and more engaging gameplay experience, that I would describe as an "unearthing" of the core design buried within the game's established mechanics, maps, and balance. It's like if Conquest had originally shipped a broken character called Super-Seth who effortlessly destroys everything and basically overrides all decision making in a run, meaning that this game with him removed would have far more thoughtful design and balance that gets overlooked under the weight of his presence. The core new features of this game are a new Challenging difficulty mode that is scaled halfway between the existing Hard and Lunatic, custom scripts that remove ambush spawns/same-turn reinforcements and rewrite their logic to appear 1 turn earlier on Hard/Lunatic so that they initiate their attacks as on the same turn as vanilla (just now telegraphed!), and extremely carefully targeted nerfs (and buffs!) to remove the most broken "uninteractive" options in the game while preserving the fun and expressive ones that define Awakening's identity. (Also, if you would like to play vanilla Awakening with only these ambush spawn changes on their own, instructions on how to install the files for only these changes are included!) I have avoided placing my hand on the scale as much as possible in this rebalance, aiming to focus on broad sweeping mechanical changes that result in explicit positive and maximally fun effects in playtesting, rather than trying to rewrite the meta by hand by nickle-and-diming tweaks to every individual map layout or character's stats. This isn't to say that I didn't grant individual buffs to underpowered options when it felt like there was a clear and appropriate broader metagame purpose, but the vast majority of the game is still the exact same Awakening that you know and love, just with a bit of spice added. Challenging Mode has been tested extensively to allow earlygame units to fight on relatively even ground with individual enemies, but they will get overwhelmed if tasked with handling two or more, forcing thoughtful interactivity with the map layouts while still mandating Frederick usage to get the most out of your tools. He will now be mostly necessary for clutching out a kill or two per map to relieve pressure from your team, but unlike in Lunatic will not at all be necessary for handling the majority of the maps by himself. Training project units in this difficulty mode is a thoughtful yet accessible process. Challenging Mode is a very faithful adaptation of the original game that serves as a fantastic middle ground for providing more challenge to dissatisfied Hard mode players, and easing them into the process of learning the metagame to work their way up to Lunatic mode in the future if desired. The difficulty curve of the full game has been completely revamped to now properly gradually ramp up over time instead of getting easier and easier, and this is largely the result of only a couple changes, most notably heavy nerfs to Nosferatu and Sol. These tools alone allow players to essentially invalidate all of the game's intended challenges by scaling units to become completely invincible with an extremely low amount of investment and effort, meaning all of the content in the second half of the game can be essentially bypassed without strategic engagement. The domino effects of removing these broken tools from the player's arsenal near-singlehandedly changes the way the game is played in an overwhelmingly positive direction, being nearly the sole cause of the full difficulty curve being largely fixed and even causing the overall map design to play out far more thoughtfully than in vanilla despite being unchanged. This new environment has been balanced around and playtested extensively on Lunatic mode, and has proven to be completely balanced and comfortably beatable even in this notoriously punishing difficulty mode and even making the metagame SIGNIFICANTLY more diverse and interesting, especially with same-turn reinforcements removed as a threat. Hard and Challenging mode should still serve as accessible ways for players to engage with this version of the new and improved difficulty curve outside of the sheer challenge of Lunatic mode. (To a lesser extent, the other change wi