Age of Wonders III v1.7 Beta Patch, Modding Now Available

Triumph Studios has released a v1.7 beta patch for Age of Wonders III, which ushers in the promised modding capabilities to the strategy/RPG. The team has also noted that this beta is for PC players only for the time being, shared the good news that multiplayer games are supported, offered some setup guidance, and revealed the preliminary full patch notes in a lengthy post on the official forums:

I'm happy to announce that an Open Beta of the new Modding system is starting today!

This beta is for Windows/Steam users only. Unfortunately, as with the level editor, it is not viable for us to port all of the modding tools to run on MacOS or Linux. When modding goes live, MacOS and Linux users will still be able to use mods, they simply will not be able to make them.

Please note that we are finally nearing the end of the Open Beta process for the upcoming 1.7 update. We hope to be able to put all of this live for both GoG, Linux and MacOS users by the end of this month, at latest. Thank you for your continuing patience, we hope that you will feel all the work we've put into the next update has been worth the wait.

Beware!
It's a beta, so things might crash or malfunction. This can cause you to lose progress or wreck save games, so only switch to the beta if you are willing to take that risk ; )>

Also note that if you are playing online multiplayer or PBEM matches everyone in the match needs to move into the beta branch if you do. I suggest switching back opting out of beta when playing PBEM games, unless everyone agrees on moving into the beta. If you forget to leave the beta, a new warning window will appear to warn you that you're about to upgrade the game.

Finally, modding is multiplayer compatible. In order to play a modded multiplayer game, all players must be using exactly the same mods. The same is true for PBEM games, all players must have the same mods as the player who created the game.