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Acropolis #1 continues past the Battlements stage, and we've got a lot to discuss in its wake!

Visual improvements have also been made, including the much-vaunted cloaking overhaul that we wrote about in previous installments!

This week's developments revolved heavily around the conclusion of Acropolis #1's Gauntlet stage, the casting of qualification series, the preparation for the Battlements stage, and the creation of the hype video embedded above. We had a lot of work to do in order to make sure the king-of-the-hill group phase of the tournament proceeded smoothly, and the general absence of technical troubles is a testament to our work!

The Battlements stage was also split across two days for the first time, which was only achievable due to some luck on the scheduling front. This allowed us to seed each group with a returning contender, an upper-bracket Gauntlet champion, and a lower-bracket one, creating a solid hierarchy for our group phase!

There were some concessions made due to scheduling, where players who had already brawled in previous stages of Acropolis #1 had to lock horns yet again - most notably, groups A and B featured upper qualification rematches in Newt vs 3crow and Art_Of_Turtle vs jakulangski. Despite this asterisk, we had some great showings from all parties, and there wasn't a single group that was over before it started!

While this phase of the tournament can be said to have gone according to expectations, there were a lot of twists and turns along the way! Join us later this week for the beginning of the Throneroom stage - our double-elimination BO5 playoffs bracket, which culminates in a BO7 grand finals!

You can watch the Battlements here:

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Hype video!

After appearing in two separate installments of this publication, the visual overhaul for cloaking has finally arrived! This change - achieved by project contributor DarkenedFantasies - significantly improves the fidelity of the cloaking remap, while also allowing for functional remapping of transparent images like the Warp Anchor pictured above.

Up next, structure work overlays for the Nexus and Stargate will receive the same remapping treatment, and the Archon's energy - remapped using transparency in Cosmonarchy - will follow suit!

In addition to the cloak overhaul, we've sourced overlays for some passive effects that previously had no reads. The Gorgon's Petrification debuff and the Autocrat's Controlled Opposition passive are among them. Meanwhile, the Cleric has been recolored to better indicate that the unit can repair mechanical units as well as organics!

And while Zerg birth visuals have been more or less completed, there's a lot more to do in the audiovisuals department. We'll have some more to show, next time...

Thanks in large part due to Cosmonarchy's competitive tournaments, there are a lot of thoughts - from a lot of different sources - swirling around game balance. We wrote about our broad philosophy on game balance in the first installment of The Cosmonarch's Compass, but suffice it to say we prefer slow and incremental adjustments until and unless there's a huge amount of evidence that drastic changes are required.

In the spirit of this approach to balancing and updating, we are considering some slight cost adjustments to a few of the units offered by the Terran Stockade. This infantry production structure can field two distinct addons - the Vestry for healing, and the Covenant for fire support. We have a good amount of data on the Cleric (formerly Medic) and the Savant, which appear to have settled in as useful tools in the Terran arsenal. We lack data on the Shaman (Wraith play notwithstanding) and the Eidolon (formerly Ghost). Here are some changes that may be warranted, and will at least increase the amount of data we get regarding those units:

• Shaman - mineral cost now 125, from 150
• Covenant - mineral cost now 75, from 100
• Eidolon - mineral cost now 50, from 75

Specifically reducing the mineral costs of the two units in question (and the Covenant addon) should allow Terran commanders to more easily incorporate them into mineral-demanding compositions in the early game. Should any or all of these changes be made, we would likely see more usage of the units, and that will give us more data on how strong they actually are. It may even be warranted to revert such cost adjustments in the future, should overly-powerful compositions be discovered.

There are also talks of adjusting the time costs of some tier 2 and tier 3 offerings that Terrans can deploy. The end goal would be to cement Terrans as the race with expensive, yet efficient production relative to comparably high-tech production structures of the Protoss, and would also improve their ability to amass potent armies against multi-base late-game Zerg.

Lastly, we've beheld demonstrations of the Mind Tyrant's potency, thanks to American Protoss GeneralAnakin, who used them to great effect in his qualifying series and in Battlements. While we wait to see what the reaction to this powerful psion's presence will be, an obvious correction to make to the current behavior is to make units with receding control turn neutral, so that the original owner doesn't automatically target them before regaining control.

The Throneroom stage of Acropolis #1 will certainly give us more thoughts to chew on, so expect more musings as that tournament continues on!

While this past week focused heavily on the competitive side, work on the Zerg tutorial, Autophagy, resumes in some force during the third week of April. Alongside that, you can expect more audiovisual improvements, and perhaps a new unit or two thrown into the mix.

Constructing and selecting additional melee maps is in the cards, as well, with map authors such as Btyb and The Shambler fashioning four-spawn offerings as of late. This likely means more tileset work, with new unique battlegrounds requiring new unique blends.

Some of the balance adjustments discussed above, along with ones we have yet to think about as of the time of writing, will surely foment as we continue to see competitive play - and we simply cannot wait!

And as always, you can find daily match casts on Pr0nogo's youtube channel! Here are some exciting matches that were released this past week:

• Tacocake vs TheBeaver99 - ZvT - BO5 for Battlements qualification!
• TopRamen vs ECalipso - TvP on Derelict!