the funny thing is, I think it is too powerful instead - at least, due to the way enshadowing works in this game right now
currently, unlike in the previous game, you can just enshadow a hero via a single agent practicing blood magic - which was, in fact, in the last game the first agent I got. I basically started placing a web of guilt and web of hate everywhere - but even if I only did web of guilt, it would basically make sure that I would have evidence that needs to be researched which also in turn enshadows the person doing it. this in turn would basically spread shadow out into other locations because the heroes would travel everywhere - like having to go to a university, or rest and resupply at a city. while this did not usually enshadow a location fully - most places were "only" at 20-60% shadow (from people taking 6 turns to investigate evidence) which, while unable to spread shadow to other locations itself, would enshadow any hero that would rest at that location - effectually creating a self perpetuating spread of shadow. in addition, by going a bit into magic, I basically forced any hero that would have been capable of stopping me to only participate in the magical arms race instead of doing things like cleansing their friends souls (on that note, I want to say that cleansing a family member always had positive motivation, even if they themselves were at 60% shadow; and even after a person got enshadowed, they still retained dislikes of people who committed an act marking them as their nemesis, which usually was something like stealing money or spreading shadow). combine that with people still enshadowing due to researching evidence as well as getting disrupted due to hearing how the warlock cast a spell, making him their nemesis, and getting hit with a 10 sanity debuff (not usually enough but sometimes making a hero insane) and 20 turns of disruption after just getting a single arcane secret meant that the heroes were purely a detriment at that point, spreading shadow for either enhanced infiltration, enshadowing other heroes, or if I was actually smart I could have dome something like start a cult of shadow and do the thing that spreads shadow everywhere where it is 5% or more (since every place is at least somewhat enshadowed, and at that point it would have started to spread full shadow to neighboring locations) but instead I was just content with doing that only and would have won via dark empire and finishing the final battle if it was not for my supplicant having only rats and then getting bombarded by random spells, before the game broke for an unknown reason (bug fixes can come later when it is more stable, I have no clue why it broke but I could no longer end the turn and there was no red text)
at least those are my thoughts currently, after playing with it once more. oh yeah, away from the critique - I really like that we now get shown what creates or does not create evidence. and slaughter inquisitors has menace now, so that is neat too. it allowed me to find out that, as an example, the cult of decadence has no evidence - so one possible course of action is probably to just get money the hard way via the intrigue challenge to peddle shitty goods till you have enough and start up a decadent cult as a sort of "no evidence gameplay". unless that was an oversight of course (in which case, I think cult of decadence really needs a buff given the high cost). the monarch is also able to declare themselves the dark lord again like before, though it now needs infiltration on top of enshadowment, but its more clearly communicated now
as a side note, death magic cannot be learned anymore it would seem - only blood and geomancy are options, which either was an oversight that it was not added, or the warlock being able to get death with their spawning trait is the oversight instead
as a last question, is this the best form of giving feedback/communicating, or would you prefer/have a different method by chance, sir? it at least feel like I am replying all over the place and I cannot tell if that is good or not
Did some more playing. so far I have noticed that: