Major Features - Multi-team maps — 2 new maps: Melee (2v2v2, 3 teams, arctic) and FFA (1v1v1v1, 4 teams, desert) with CW/CCW lane routing and team elimination - Game Settings scene — Map selection screen before lobby with iso/fog/private toggles - Isometric rendering — Full isometric projection mode with sprite system overhaul, depth sorting, facing fixes - PWA manifest — Installable as a progressive web app - Stun status effect — New CC type added to simulation - Locked build mode — Toggle to stay in building placement after placing Rendering & Visuals - Per-unit projectile sprites (unique projectiles per race/unit type) - Title screen logo update + per-unit projectile previews in title duels - Isometric depth sorting fixes and camera zoom clamping - Mini icon floating texts for combat feedback - Hut sprite scaling by tier - Human wizard caster sprites added - Rendering perf optimizations (cached UI assets, iso facing fixes) - Isometric arc export fix Maps & Layout - Multi-node resource rendering (multiple gold/wood/meat nodes per map) - Nearest-node harvester routing - Hut grids moved inward, simplified iso depth sorting - Preserve zoom level on build-area pan - Grid layout for 3-4 team lobbies Balance - All upgrade node costs reduced ~10-15% across all 9 races - Crown cost tuning - Per-resource affordability coloring in build tray (red/green per resource) - Horde valuation tuning for bot AI - Bot ability timing improvements UI & UX - Multi-team HUD bars (supports 3-4 teams) - Haptic feedback on mobile - Concede fix for multi-team games - Lane-aware summon targeting - Tenders seed timing fix - Tower details improved in unit gallery - Title duel attack timing preview refinements

Gameplay and Multiplayer - Improved multiplayer connection stability, especially around backgrounding and reconnect behavior. - Concede handling is now resolved consistently across clients. - Fixed party creation and state timing issues. - Party setup now correctly carries bot race and fog-of-war settings into matches. - Added open lobby count visibility on the title screen. Balance - Crown: Swordsman HP increased from 110 to 120, Bowman damage increased from 11 to 13. - Horde: Melee building cost reduced from 40 to 35 meat, Caster building cost reduced from 90 to 75 gold; Brute HP reduced from 140 to 130 and damage reduced from 16 to 15; War Chanter received an attack-speed buff. - Goblins: Hexer caster tree reworked into a B-path slow+chain route and a C-path burn+AoE route; bot profiles updated for earlier caster mix-in. - Geists: Caster tree reworked so life drain and skeleton summon effects are split more cleanly across paths; Shadow Sorcerer now uses life drain instead of summon. - Oozlings: Detonator explosion damage reduced from 90 to 70. - Numerous upgrade node cost and stat adjustments across races. - Horde research and ability costs rebalanced. - Research text and stat previews updated to better match actual gameplay effects. New Combat and Upgrade Behavior - Added new projectile-hit upgrade effects including Vulnerable and Wound. - Added life-drain scaling for Geists casters. - Expanded chain-lightning support to additional races. - Added innate dodge behavior for Goblin melee units. - Improved handling for explosive and suicide attack interactions against HQs. Performance and Visuals - Improved renderer performance in several high-frequency systems. - Minimap rendering is more efficient and updates more smoothly. - Improved unit facing and attack visuals when targeting structures. - Updated the TitleScene party panel layout and party-code presentation. - Improved unit portrait sizing and stat presentation in UI panels. - Added rich-text stat icons across building, research, and unit UI. - Added a DPS stat icon. - Improved icon sharpness on high-DPI displays. - Added a touch controls setting (auto / on / off) in both menu and in-match settings. - Pressing R now toggles the research popup closed. Audio - Reduced pops at the start of sounds and music playback. Bot AI and Analysis - Bot evaluation now understands additional upgrade and special-effect types. - Horde and Goblins bot profiles were adjusted for better unit composition. - Wild frenzy behavior now requires a larger nearby ally cluster. - Balance analysis now considers more upgrade-path combinations and more special-effect interactions.

### New Features - **Tutorial system** — 16-step guided first-time match with spotlight overlays, gated input, and saved progress - **Dynamic weather** — 8 weather types across 5 biomes with layered particles, wind transitions, and upgraded rain, wind, sandstorm, and thunder audio - **Post-match replay** — 30s minimap replay with nuke markers, hero highlights, portraits, and scrollable scoreboard - **War Hero awards** — Reaper, Iron Wall, Battle Sage, and Life Weaver with animated presentation - **Unit info panel** — Sprite art, stat breakdowns, and buff/effect display - **Ability upgrade trees** — Unique 4-tier race ability paths for all factions - **Quick chat radial menu** — New team callouts including Save Us, Sending Now, and Random - **Tri-resource economies** — Tenders and Horde now support deeper gold/wood/meat management - **Per-node upgrade costs** — Every race now has explicit resource costs on each upgrade node - **Expanded Horde auras** — New attack speed, healing, and dodge support auras - **Race combat music** — Distinct thematic music during matches - **AI building sprite overhaul** — New race-specific building art across all factions ### UI & Rendering - **Stat icon upgrade** — Clean SVG icons now replace old emoji-style stat markers across tooltips, upgrades, buffs, and floating combat text - **Building popup stat bars** — HP, damage, DPS, speed, range, and spawn-rate previews now show upgrade impact before purchase - **Unit Gallery overhaul** — Better layout, Elo display, clearer stat rows, and improved upgrade detail views - **Title screen updates** — Rotating duel subtitles, wider ribbon, and cleaner presentation - **Mobile improvements** — Two-tap upgrade confirmation, reduced accidental hover/tooltips, better truncation, and cleaner touch behavior - **Post-match polish** — Better hero cards, minimap clarity, and summary formatting - **Audio/UI feedback polish** — Better open, close, tab, back, toast-dismiss, and slider feedback sounds - **Rendering cleanup** — Fixed panel/tile seams, improved isometric building sizing, added flipX support, and removed outdated Tenders hut tinting - **Race flavor pass** — Upgrade-aware building names and race-specific tray icons ### Balance - **Stone renamed to Meat** across the game - **Faction/unit tuning** — Buffs to Horde Brute, Bowcleaver, Demon Overlord, Tenders Treant, and Tinker - **Geists rebalanced** — Lifesteal reduced, soul costs increased, and skeleton survivability lowered - **Economy tuning** — Crown, Oozlings, and Wild resource costs reduced - **Combat tuning** — Burn/poison now suppress regen; tower sell refund now scales by remaining HP - **Progression updates** — Spectator achievement requirement increased; Goblin boar units renamed ### Simulation & AI - **Centralized `isAbilityBuilding()` helper** for cleaner ability-building logic - **Support/tank tracking** — Added `totalBuffsApplied` and `damageTaken` stats - **Tenders seed rework** — More deterministic growth timing with shared renderer/sim constants - **Performance gains** — Spatial grid optimization and fog-of-war throttling - **4th-tier race abilities** added for all 9 races - **Retroactive research buffs** now apply to existing units - **Bot AI upgrades** — Better difficulty scaling, stronger profile steering, better harvester behavior, smarter worker allocation, earlier hut logic, and improved Bowcleaver valuation ### Multiplayer & Performance - **Desync protection** — Better remote hash comparison and disconnect buffering - **Deferred turn resolution** — Safer Firebase turn processing - **Firebase rules tightened** — Improved slot-specific write controls - **Frame-time improvements** — Cached Y-sort pixel coords, fewer iso projection calls, viewport-culling for ambient particles, and removed heavy shadow ellipses

Art & Rendering - Race-specific building sprites — 4 purchased asset packs (Human, Orc, Elf, NightElf; 205 PNGs) mapped to all 9 races with upgrade-path inheritance fallback chain - Nhance Spell Icons — 92 painted icons replace emoji in the research popup, with bordered frames and ownership coloring - Oozlings animated mound — spawn wiggle + idle wobble animation with elliptical glow effect - "Now Playing" display — music track name on title screen, auto-fades after 10s - 15 combat music tracks renamed with thematic names for Now Playing display Simulation - 4th-tier race abilities for all 9 races: - Crown: Timber Surplus (+40% wood returns) - Horde: Trophy Hunter (Troll +2% HP/dmg per kill, persists across summons) - Goblins: Elixir Mastery (permanent potion buffs) - Oozlings: Ooze Vitality (2 HP/s regen) - Demon: Mana Siphon (+50% mana from workers) - Deep: Purifying Deluge (cleanse debuffs every 2s) - Wild: Savage Instinct (frenzied units gain 15% lifesteal) - Geists: Hungering Dark (lifesteal % also increases damage) - Tenders: Ironwood (tower upgrade costs -50%) - Retroactive research buffs — existing units get HP/damage/speed on research purchase - Spatial grid optimization — O(1) neighbor lookups for auras, knockback, towers, AoE - Fog of war throttled to every 3 ticks (was every tick) - Fireball damage buff (base 25 to 35, mana bonus 0.5x to 0.7x) - Tower sell refund prorated by current HP (damaged towers refund less) Balance - Geists lifesteal nerf — base lifesteal reduced from 20% to 10% across all unit types - Geists Death Grip/Soul Arrows bonus reduced from +10% to +5% - Geist skeleton summons lifesteal tuned down (melee 15% to 8%, ranged 10% to 5%) Bot AI - Difficulty redesign — decision intervals + mistake rates replace spawn caps - Stronger profile steering — 1.5x multipliers for race build targets, 0.3x for skipped categories - Research value overhaul — scales with spawnerCount^1.5 - Early hut value boost — 1.8x/1.3x for first 2-3 huts UI - Race-flavored building names (e.g., "Brute Camp", "Tidecaller Shrine") - Improved sell refund display — shows 50% of all invested resources (base + upgrades) - Hut grid slot placement — click specifies exact slot - Race-specific icons in building tray - Unit Gallery overhaul — 4th tower column with stats, building sprites behind units, 1.8x display scale

Changelog Gameplay - Stone resource renamed to Meat across all races, docs, and balance tools - Horde building and unit costs rebalanced UI / Lobby - Two-column team layout for party and custom game lobbies - Join popup redesigned — larger scroll background, CANCEL/JOIN sword buttons, mobile keyboard support with paste - New UI icons: Dice, Arrows, Nuke, Research, Star, Mana, Ooze, Souls - General mobile UI improvements across popups and panels - Keyboard shortcut hints hidden on mobile - Top bar cleaned up for mobile — less clutter, better use of space - Building and ability names truncated with ellipsis when too wide - Suppressed native long-press context menu on mobile Audio - Race-specific combat music for all 9 races (Crown, Horde, Goblins, Oozlings, Demon, Geists, Tenders, Wild) Gallery - Unit gallery overhaul with detailed stat views and sprite previews Bug Fixes - Fixed minimap click-through bug - Fixed gallery click-through from prior scene tap - Bot AI and balance tuning pass

Changelog Post-Match Overhaul - Minimap replay — watch the full battle replay on the minimap after each match, with nuke effects and war hero highlights - War Hero & Support Hero awards with damage/kill/healing stats - Scrollable scoreboard with tabbed post-match stats New Features - Race ability upgrade trees with per-node Elo tracking - Unit info panel — tap a unit to see sprite art, stats, and WoW-style buff icons - Bot composition profiles with tick fairness shuffles Visual & Audio - Geist summon telegraph effect - Oozlings globule blob sprite - flipX sprite support and mana diamond icon - Isometric projection fixes Balance - Crown & Oozlings costs reduced ~15% - Wild stone costs reduced - Burn/poison now suppresses regen - Geist soul scaling adjustments Bug Fixes - Fixed 1px seams in 9-slice and 3-part UI rendering - Fixed minimap replay exceeding 30s target duration - Resource leak and performance fixes - Upgrade name display fixes