Elemental: Reforged v1.01 - AI Improvements, Balance Tuning, Stability Fixes

Published on Monday, March 30, 2026 By redskittlesonly In Elemental News

Elemental: Reforged v1.01 - AI Improvements, Balance Tuning, Stability Fixes

v1.01 is now available. This update focuses on AI decision-making, balance adjustments, performance and stability fixes, and a long list of bug and text corrections reported by the community since launch.

Get it Now  |  Full Changelog

 

Smarter Non-Cheating AI

The AI settles cities more intelligently and no longer picks barren tiles. Spell usage and outpost construction decisions have been improved across the board. We also fixed an issue where AI champions could select an extra talent path they weren't supposed to have. The AI plays by the same rules you do.

 

Balance & Tuning

Champions now reduce Unrest, giving them strategic value beyond combat. Champion count is no longer tied to map size, so smaller maps don't punish you. Hergons have been rebalanced with gender-specific stats. Attack boost traits were being incorrectly factored into unit stats - that's fixed. Several other ability and trait corrections are included.

 

Performance & Stability

Memory leaks have been fixed and rendering stability has been improved for better frame rates. Save game loading is more resilient to edge cases. Crashes have been resolved across tactical battles, AI turns, spell usage, and various UI operations.

 

Bug Fixes & Polish

Quest triggers throughout the game have been fixed - quests that weren't properly triggering, giving rewards, or showing correct UI prompts should now work as intended. The battle freeze when a unit uses escape while allies are still engaged has been resolved. Spell targeting in tactical battles now handles unavailable targets correctly. Crafting recipes obtained as loot now appear in the crafting UI. Tooltips have been overhauled - flickering fixed, incorrect information corrected, and alignment issues resolved. Cutscene subtitles have been added in English. Extensive text and localization corrections are included throughout.

 

 

Full Changelog Below:

Key Features

Improved Performance & Stability: Added in lots of optimization improvements by fixing memory leaks, improved frame rates, and resolved numerous crash scenarios across the game

Smarter AI Opponents: AI now makes more strategic decisions by settling on better terrain, smarter spell usage, and improved outpost construction

Refined Gameplay: Resolved quest and combat issues including battle freezes, missing rewards, and unclear quest text throughout the game and campaigns

April 1st, 2026 Hot Patch

AI

  • AI no longer wastes casts stacking the same debuff on a target

Gameplay

  • Fixed the “Eight Legged Troubles” quest not granting unit rewards after a battle victory

  • Krax Betrayer ability updated to result in 25% of a defeated enemies joining them as population

  • Improve monster lair variety and smooth out sudden enemy population spikes on large maps

  • Recruited champions now have stronger, more fitting abilities that better match their intended roles like warrior, mage, or assassin

  • Nerf Destiny's Force scroll - reduce Combat Speed bonus from +2 to +1 and increase recipe ingredient quantities

Stability

  • Fixed a crash that could occur when the game tried to clean up certain objects too early

  • Improved save/load reliability and fixed threading issues that could cause crashes or visual glitches during gameplay

  • Fixed stability issues on high-end GPUs where the game could crash or glitch when the graphics card outpaced the processor

  • Fixed a rare crash that could occur when cities transitioned to the trade screen

UI

  • Fixed the Propaganda spell to use the correct icon

March 30th, 2026 Changelog

Campaigns

Prelude

  • Fixed player confusion by disabling the party eject button in campaigns for champions

  • Edited confusing text that implied splitting the party was possible for champions

  • Fixed confusing text that implied Lord Markinn gives spells to players

  • The campaign will identify if a player has completed a quest objective even if they have not gotten the objective yet

    • This will resolve players getting stuck on the “Troll Menace” quest

FE

  • Fixed the Temple of darklings not giving a popup once clearing it

  • Upscaled and fixed some units in the campaign

  • Fixed confusing UI popups for the Glint of Glass location

  • Champions when dying in combat no longer duplicate themselves

Gameplay

  • Added support and fixed issues where Units will appear off their tile when moving around the map

  • WASD camera movement has been fixed in sandbox and tactical battles

  • Fixed issues where outpost improvements would disappear on reloading a save game

  • Made sure the Sovereign's Call spell/ability does not lock its city growth to zero

  • Resolved Noble's Legacy trait causing lag

  • Fixed battle freezing when a unit uses escape while allied units are still engaged in combat

  • Made sure units can no longer cheat by walking on cliffs around enemies

  • Fixed lots of quests throughout the game not properly triggering, giving rewards or showing incorrect UI prompts

  • Generic attack boost traits were incorrectly being factored into a Unit's attack stats

  • Made sure custom units get correctly assigned a creaturetype and trait when saved

  • Hergons have been balanced, female and male Hergons have different stats

  • Completed a balance tweak to Champions so the number of champions isn’t dependent on the map size

  • Champions now reduce Unrest by 5

  • Fixed issues where the Assassin Demon Party was unattackable

  • Wildling Archers now correctly use ranged attacks with equipped bows

  • Fixed spell targeting when the intended target becomes unavailable in tactical battles

  • Players are no longer able to cast high mana spells unless they can afford them instead of casting a spell causing negative mana

  • Ophidians now properly drop Flawless Crystal ingredients

  • 100 unrest functions as intended instead of having no effect

  • The Krax Fortify ability no longer endlessly stacks

AI

  • AI is much smarter about where to settle and no longer settles cities on barren tiles

  • Made sure AI champions cannot cheat by selecting an extra talent path

  • Improved AI decision-making for spell usage and outpost construction

Items

  • Fixed powerful items costing 0 gold and making sure they can be sold

  • Splintered Staffs are only used and displayed as a crafting ingredient

  • Resolved equipping issues for the Warding Kite Shield

  • Tent item now correctly works as intended, heals an army and they lose their moves for that turn

Graphics

  • Removed the duplicate particle effect when units cast Fear

  • Fixed incorrect textures on Carrion Men and Swordsmen

  • Adjusted Norak's portrait pose

  • Fixed broken textures on Ongr the Unbound

  • Fixed the Antipathy spell to finish its effect when completed

  • Made sure when a quest or goodie hut gets correctly cleared its graphics will clear as well

Localization

  • Fixed some translation errors throughout the game

  • Fixed foreign language text clipping

Modding

  • Made sure the modding sync button is working correctly

Optimizations

  • Fixed rendering stability issues and optimized map/lighting performance to reduce potential crashes and improve frame rates

  • Hardened save game loading to handle edge cases more gracefully

  • Fixed a graphics memory leak

  • Improved tactical combat stability when hovering over units or casting spells

  • Fixed AI freezing during army management

  • Added autoplay memory leak fixes

Crashes

  • Resolved issues with the game crashing while using the Cartographer’s Table

  • Resolved a crash while loading up an old save

  • Resolved crashes that can occur in tactical battles

  • Fixed various crashes for opening and closing UI

  • Resolved crashes when attacking cities with no defending units

  • Fixed crashes during AI turns

  • Fixed crashes when spells killed an enemy (particularly Fireball with Focus, or Bottled Fire)

Text

  • Added cutscene subtitles in English

  • Fixed missing text when a troop is killed

  • Updated some tooltips to correctly reflect what they do/provide

  • Resolved cut off text throughout the game

  • Fixed +25 spell damage being shown as 2500% in a tooltip

  • Repeatable techs now show specific bonuses (+10 Food, +25 Mana, etc.) instead of generic text

  • Updated Cooperation tech description to reference Palace and Tax Office instead of buildings that do not exist

  • Removed outdated Watchtower catapult references

  • Consulate tooltip now correctly shows +1 Prestige instead of Growth

  • Resolved issues where quest given units have name discrepancies

  • Fixed missing names in the in-game modding tools

  • Fixed hard coded words that did not get correctly translated

  • Midnight Stone is now Lesser Midnight Stone

  • Fixed a missing string for +50% Tactical Spell Mana Cost

  • Fixed confusing/misleading text for the Loner Ability, Eye of Abiex, Scarred Trait, Charge Ability and Summon Crag Spawn

UI

  • Tooltips for a player's inventory now correctly work when hovering over an item

  • Queue tooltip displays seasons for Buildings and Units

  • Fixed tooltips flickering and showing the incorrect information

  • Made sure recipes obtained as loot from battles or exploration appear in the crafting UI

  • Tactical battle UI hot key now supports up to 10 keys and scroll bars are more friendly to use

  • Fixed issues where the yield icons the player is standing on during a new game did not show up until they moved

  • Added “Hold Shift to Lock Tooltip” hint to the bottom of any tooltip that contains sub tooltips

  • Fixed the Dispel Enchantment confirmation dialog to correctly show the target city/unit name

  • Added missing icons to player items, weapons, and armor

  • Fixed offset tooltip alignment in the Dynasty screen

  • Made sure City UI properly disappears when razing a city in sandbox and campaigns

  • Enhanced the Delete Save Game prompt to be more intuitive to use

  • Lair of Demons now has a cloth map stamp

  • Updated Active Effects to not overlap

  • Fixed white highlight color to yellow

  • Fixed some spells with hard to read icons

  • Fixed tooltips getting cut off in the custom faction screen

  • Fixed premade map tooltips appearing behind the map selection screen

  • Unit Design color picker is now correctly labeled and updates the units as intended

  • Updated Tactical UI to not clip below the player’s UI preventing the player seeing whose turn is next

  • Updated Crafting Recipes to have their own tooltip in the tech tree

  • Emberara on the dynasty screen no longer has a missing background

  • Resolved confusion with being able to equip more items than available slots