Elemental: War of Magic - v1.1 Live [Update]

Elemental v1.1 is now available. Log onto your Impulse account to update your version of Elemental. There's no official announcement yet, but my copy of Elemental was just updated an hour ago.
As Dhruin mentioned, you can go here to read the complete changelog.

[Update]
Here is the official announcement:

PLYMOUTH, MICHIGAN - December 14, 2010 - Stardock is releasing a massive update to its fantasy strategy title, Elemental: War of Magic today. Fans will be able to download it via Impulse, the digital distribution platform (www.impulsedriven.com).
"The 1.1 patch for Elemental: War of Magic is an opportunity to enhance and refine the game. In a limited timeframe, the team was able to implement major features. As a result, the game has been rebalanced to remain fun and challenging throughout. It impacts nearly every aspect of gameplay, the interface and most significantly the role of Magic," said Derek Paxton, lead producer of Elemental: War of Magic.
Elemental: War of Magic is a PC strategy game set in a fantasy world that puts the player in command of a growing Kingdom or Empire bent on expanding their influence across the world. Players build cities, raise armies, research technologies, go on quests, recruit heroes, negotiate treaties, learn spells and much more in this epic strategy game.
The full change log can be found here: www.elementalgame.com and a summary of updates is below:
Global Mana System- Instead of having mana per unit, mana is a player resource. Players must balance between using their mana to enchant their cities and units, summoning creatures, attacking their enemies, or saving up for powerful late game spells.

New Spells- New spellbooks and spells have been added to make magic more unique and strategic. High level spells can wipe out cities, raise volcanoes and hit enemy armies with powerful tornados that scatter their units across the countryside.

Population as a resource- Players must consider how their population should be used. Population is the primary factor for the player's economy through taxes and each improvement and unit the player builds requires population. Players have to choose if they want to allocate people to a study researching techs, a workshop producing materials or as a scout to explore the world.

Dramatic update to the UI- Nearly every screen and interface has been improved to be more useful and intuitive for the player. Important information has been brought to the main interface, and greater detail is provided in the detail screens so the player can see exactly how his empire is running.

Rebalance of the game- The core stat mechanics were reworked and every unit, equipment and monster stat was reviewed and tweaked to make for a more balanced and even playing experience.

More monsters from the beginning- Exploring the early world is a dangerous prospect and bandits and animals roam the world looking for weak groups to pick off. Some creatures may form powerful armies and travel the wastes together looking for victims to kill and cities to raze.

Multithreaded AI- The AI now has a separate thread so it can plan its strategy while the player is taking their turn. This dramatically reduces the between turn wait time (the time a single threaded AI has to spend planning their turn) and improves the AI by allowing us to have it factor in more conditions that would slow the game in a single threaded model.

Players who purchase the game by December 31, 2010 are eligible to receive the first expansion pack free of charge. Elemental: War of Magic is available at most retail outlets or can be purchased and downloaded via Impulse at www.elementalgame.com.

More information.

Multithreaded AI sounds like a good thing. I haven't had any real time to play Galactic Civilizations yet, but from what I hear the AI in that game can do some amazing stuff. Hopefully they'll be able to do the same with this one.

I wonder if it's worth a re-review yet?

I came here to see if anyone had any comments on it yet. Its been about 4 months since the release which is about when I figured it was time to check back if it was fixed yet. So yes its about time though dont think it I will get around to it again for a couple of weeks.

Originally Posted by Zloth
I wonder if it's worth a re-review yet?

v1.1 is a milestone, so I'd say yes. Is it worth a purchase yet, well that will have to wait for some reviews…

Then you'd need to re-review it every 3-6 months.

Why not wait until it's actually finished, beyond bug fixing.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Then you'd need to re-review it every 3-6 months.

Why not wait until it's actually finished, beyond bug fixing.

I don't think a game like this will ever be finished, but 1.1 could be a bit early.
Better to re-review it when they add the first expansion, basically review the expansion including the core game.

Originally Posted by wolfing
I don't think a game like this will ever be finished, but 1.1 could be a bit early.
Better to re-review it when they add the first expansion, basically review the expansion including the core game.

But I'm curious now.

The patch notes do tempt me to try it again. I actually didn't think this much would be done within the time frame.

I bought the game last week and already, a patch!

Quite a lot changed. I feel I kinda have too much mana now. In my current game, I have several hundreds mana acumulated so basically every fight my sovereign is included in, are pretty easy.

Cities now grow fast! I have to keep building hovels all the time, especially in my capital city.

I feel that technologies are somewhat too slow to research. I destroyed two other faction so far and my heavy infantry still use leather armor, and my character hasnt married yet… So many techonologies to research… and it can be very long to research each of them.

The changelog mention that you have to manage your population carefully.. hasnt been an issue to me.

Still, so far, after 10-12 hours, I enjoy the game. It has so muich potentiel… I hope they keep working on it.