The Mother Lode Update

1.4
14 October 2026
Areas
21 changes in this update

Added

8 changes
The Mother Lode
  • Waiting for the other player to attack first no longer wins versus battles: a rich seam of gold breaks the surface in the middle of the field a minute in

  • Stand your army over it with no enemy among them to claim it, and while you hold it your miners pour out gold and XP every second

  • It pays more in later ages and more with every minute it has been open, so the longer a standoff lasts, the richer it makes whoever holds the middle

  • A dig with a winch and a banner marks it, a meter shows who is winning the ground, and the versus panel shows who holds it and what it pays

Two new campaign stages
  • Brimstone Ridge: break an enemy dug in along a ridge of Gunpowder Age batteries while rockslides keep coming down

  • The Mother Lode: a Steam Age battle for a gold seam in the middle of the field, against an enemy that wants it first

  • The campaign now has twelve stages and 36 stars; Glass Towers and The Last Age are now stages 11 and 12, and every stage you have played stays open

Fire
  • The Fire Catapult's burning pots set the enemies they splash on fire, burning them for 8 damage a second for 3 seconds

Improved

11 changes
  • The Viking Age's Arrow Loft is now the Dragon Prow: a longship's carved dragon that snaps its jaws open to spit arrows, with smoke curling from its nostrils

  • Every Viking turret has new animations: the Javelin Rack's pole whips forward and quivers before it is cranked back, and the Fire Catapult rocks up as it throws, its fire basket swinging

  • Viking turrets stay alive while they wait: flames flicker, pennants flap and the dragon breathes

  • The Arcane Age's dragon now flies: it hovers on beating wings, rears back to draw breath, dives to pour fire on the ground ahead, and falls out of the sky when it dies

  • The dragon's fire has its own fireball woosh

  • Back row units now keep behind your front line instead of walking out ahead of it and dying

  • Burning enemies show flames and orange damage numbers, and turret tooltips show their fire

  • The Fire Catapult's direct hit deals a little less (56, was 72) now that its fire burns on

  • The campaign and the Warpath were rebalanced for the back row change

  • The Warpath boon Mother Lode is now called Golden Vein; it works the same

  • Both versus players need this update to battle each other

Known Issues

2 changes
  • The enemy on The Mother Lode stage doesn't head for the seam on purpose; it marches and fights as on any stage

  • The Arcane Age's magic bolts use a generated placeholder sound for now