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Age of Wonders 4 News

The Watcher Update is Here!



Hey Rulers,

After a long (and hopefully worthwhile) wait, we are finally ready to present to you the Watcher Update!

With this patch, we are introducing numerous quality of life changes based on community feedback. Some of the main features include:

  • A reworked Magic Victory system
  • New and improved Underground
  • Crossplay between platforms
  • Research scaling with unlocking Tomes
  • Various balance changes and bug fixes
  • and more!

Some AI changes were also implemented during this update. While we don’t consider them final as there is always room for improvement, we hope that you will already experience some improvements today! Please continue to send in bug reports and save files, they are extremely valuable for our research.

Once again, we’d like to extend a huge thanks to all the players who made comments, suggestions, and the occasional multi-page analysis posts throughout these few months as well as during the Open Beta process — they made a difference!

After Watcher, our next major patch will be the Golem Update in Q4. Like the previous Wyvern Patch and Dragon Dawn combo, this will be a free update released closer to the long-awaited Empires & Ashes Expansion, where steel will meet the magical world of Age of Wonders!

Now we will leave you to conquer your realms. Please keep letting us know what you think of the game and what you want to see come next, your comments are always welcome!

Regards,
Triumph


Game Version: 1.004.000.82125




Research Scaling

The way knowledge costs are determined for skills in Tomes has changed. Instead of the tier of the skill determining the cost, the knowledge cost is now based on the amount of Tomes you have collected so far. Every new Tome you unlock will have an increased knowledge cost of skills compared to the Tome before, regardless of what Tier the Tome or the skill is.

  • The general Knowledge cost of Tome skills is increased, especially near the mid and late game Tomes.
  • The base knowledge cost of skills for tomes are as follows:
    • 1st Tome, General Research and Culture Research: 250
    • 2nd Tome: 400
    • 3rd Tome: 600
    • 4th Tome: 800
    • 5th Tome: 1100
    • 6th Tome: 1500
    • 7th Tome: 1900
    • 8th Tome: 2400
    • 9th Tome: 3000
    • 10th Tome: 3600
    • 11th Tome: 4300
    • 12th Tome: 5000
    • Every Tome afterwards has an additional +1000 knowledge cost per skill.
  • Individual skills in a Tome now have a skill level (Adept, Intermediate or Expert). This adds a modifier on the knowledge cost. Different skills inside of a tome can still differ in cost as they did previously.
  • Changed Tome Tier unlocking. Instead of needing 2 tomes of the previous tier, you just need a certain number of tomes of any tier. This means that players can choose more lower level tomes without slowing down their progress towards higher level tomes.
    • Tier II - 2 Tomes of any Tier
    • Tier III - 4 Tomes of any Tier
    • Tier IV - 6 Tomes of any Tier
    • Tier V - 8 Tomes of any Tier
  • Tier 3 tomes now require 3 Affinity Points to be unlocked.


Magic Victory Rework

The new Magic Victory Rework focuses on the binding of Golden Ancient Wonders to eventually cast the Age of Affinity Spells. By using Ancient Wonders the Victory Condition becomes more active and makes it different from the Expansion Victory.

  • Upon selecting your first Tier 3 Tome, a new global research skill appears "Bind Gold Ancient Wonder"
    • It's a sustained strategic spell that must target an annexed golden ancient wonder in your empire.
    • While bound, provides research bonus, but more important of all, a number of them are needed to cast the Age of Affinity spell.
  • The Age of Affinity spell appears when you first unlock your Tier 5 Tome, in the same place as the Binding spell.
    • You can channel it while having enough bindings, but if you lose enough bindings during channeling the spell will be canceled.
    • You lose a binding when your wonder or the city it's attached to gets occupied or changes ownership.
  • Global Spells are a separate Research pick, not part of the three randomly drawn ones and can be started/paused at any time once it becomes available.
  • The amount of Golden Ancient Wonders required scales based on the size of the map


Summon & Casting Changes

We've added a system to limit how many spells can be actually launched each turn, as well as tightened the rules about where units can be summoned.

  • Added a Spell Slot system that limits the number of spells that the player can prepare without actually casting them. This prevents the player from banking up a lot of spells, only to cast them all at once.
  • Summoning Spells can now only be targeted on hexes next to your City, your Ruler or your Heroes. Previously they could be targeted on any visible hex.
  • Starting Casting Points increased from 30 to 45.
  • Changed Casting Point cost of Combat spells to make it easier to cast higher tier spells and have casting points left for other spells and to make it so casting many low tier spells less free. Mana costs have stayed the same.

    • Tier 0: Increased from 5 to 10
    • Tier 1: Increased from 10 to 15
    • Tier 2: Increased from 15 to 20
    • Tier 3: Increased from 20 to 25
    • Tier 4: Stays at 30
    • Tier 5: Decreased from 40 to 35
    • Tier 6: Decreased from 50 to 40
    • Tier 7: Decreased from 60 to 50
    • Tier 8: Decreased from 80 to 65
    • Tier 9: Decreased from 100 to 80
  • Several World Map spells have been made more consistent. They have their damage or other effectiveness increased while being slightly harder to cast repeatedly. Making for fewer but more impactful actions.


Map Improvements

We’re tackling several elements of the Map Generation that we’ve seen the community provide feedback on. The focus for these improvements will be on the Underground Experience, but we’ve touched up the overall Map Generation as well.

  • Reworked Map Generation
    • Renamed Player Distance to Relative Map Size
    • Replaced the Far setting with a new Very Large setting, which has a greatly increased distance between players.
    • Added a new Large setting which has a map size in between that of Medium and Very Large and gives players room to expand before meeting another player.
    • Added Tooltips to better explain the provided experience on each Map Size
    • Changed the Continents generation to allow for more varied maps, and small islands to form in the water.
  • Underground Improvements
    • Improved player placement in the underground to better take into account the positions on the surface
    • Cities can now annex Provinces on the opposite layer through Underground Passages. This is possible when provinces on both sides of a Underground Passage are annexed.
    • Exploring an Underground Passage gives you vision on both sides
    • Added a world map visual for when an underground passage is in an owned territory.
    • Magic ingredients are now split between the surface and underground, where Ores are only able to spawn in the underground.
    • Excavatable provinces in the Underground now have a special FX to show that a structure or node is hidden underneath.
    • Excavating no longer spawns a roaming stack of monsters that follow you. You can now uncover infestations and guarded nodes instead.
Crossplay

Starting with the Watcher update, Cross Play is fully enabled between all different supported platforms. This means console and PC players can play multiplayer games together as long as their Cross Play setting is enabled. Thanks for your patience!

  • Enabled Cross Play functionality between Steam, GoG, Epic, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Microsoft Store.
  • Added Cross Play setting to the Online settings tab
    • The Cross Play setting is enabled by default when playing on a PC platform (excl. Microsoft Store)
    • Console and Microsoft Store players will receive a pop up asking them to set their Cross Play setting when going into Online Multiplayer (if not set previously)
    • Disabling this setting means Cross Play sessions do not show up; this includes previous sessions
    • Cross Play is disabled when playing with mods
    • Achievements/Trophies cannot be obtained in Cross Play enabled sessions


  • Improved Memory Efficiency in the Animation Systems
  • Improved optimizations for Tactical Banners and images that frequently update their Opacity
  • Increased the Racial Affinity Points given by Traits from Race Council Events from +1 to +2.
  • Renamed Publish to Build in the PackageManager, as it’s more fitting for the process that happens when you press this button.




AI World Map Behaviour Updates
  • Mission Generation & Evaluation
    • Updated the AI aggression when calculating the army powers required to fight
    • Updated the AI mission army calculation when targeting independents
    • Added survivability and damage modifiers based on the world threat settings
    • Increased the mission distance range to generate more things for the AI to do at a longer range
  • Updated Defense Logic
    • Cities with Walls no longer have the “Always Defend” flag, this opens up additional units for the AI to use.
    • When under threat the AI will defend accordingly towards the threat
    • Throne Cities under Siege will become a forced defense
    • Changed how the AI takes Siege Durations into account when attacking and defending
  • Updated AI Summon Logic
    • Removed a limit that restricts summons to when there is a combat nearby. Now the AI will summon units as soon they are primed
    • The AI no longer needs to have a standing threat near their leader or cities to start summoning units
    • Increased the Research Priority of Units and Summons
    • Increased the priorities of each summon spell by the Tier of the Units they would Summon
  • Expansion Updates
    • Added simple support to stop Friendly or Allied AI’s from expanding towards the players domain
    • Changed rule regarding clearing Ancient Wonders. The AI will now clear them when they are in annex range to Cities or Outposts
    • Changed empire development rule, ruleset now includes taking into account free cities that could be integrated instead of only new cities
    • Implemented new free city expansion rules, when fully independent they will expand in a circular pattern, when they are a vassal they will default to pick the highest value again
AI Diplomatic Behaviour Updates
  • AI Update for the Threat system:
    • The threat system has been expanded to look at several new factors and has been tweaked to achieve more competition with nearby rulers and rulers that are competing in overall ranking.
    • The impact of the “Need a Friend” and “Need an Ally” modifiers is reduced for Warlord and Isolationist Personalities.
    • The “Need an Ally” modifier now only applies if either side of the relation has a War, to make sure the AI doesn’t radically shift opinion (to positive).
    • The system now takes Defensive Pacts into account more and no longer waits for a Full Alliance before applying certain factors.
    • Some AI players will now have a predisposition in their threat level towards higher / lower threat
    • Generally AI rulers should initially act more threatened and hostile.
  • AI update for making declarations:
    • The amount of declarations that will be made on a player by the AI is now more balanced.
    • The AI should no longer abundantly declare friendships on a player, unless that player declares a friendship on them.
    • Isolationists no longer declare friendships unless it is declared on them.
    • An issue was fixed where the influence of ranking on declarations was inverted.
  • Added a 2 Turn cooldown to the AI for manually sending a Call to War after the Diplomatic State with the player they call into a war has changed.


AI Economy Updates

  • Normal Difficulty
    • Increased Mana Income Modifier from 1 to 1.2
    • Increased Knowledge Income Modifier from 1 to 1.1
    • Removed Unit Upkeep and Unit Cost Discounts
  • Hard Difficulty
    • Increased Gold Income Modifier from 1.2 to 1.3
    • Increased Mana Income Modifier from 1.2 to 1.3
    • Increased Knowledge Income Modifier from 1 to 1.2
    • Reduced Unit Upkeep Discount from 33% to 15%
    • Removed Unit Cost Discount
  • Brutal Difficulty
    • Increased Gold Income Modifier from 1.3 to 1.4
    • Increased Mana Income Modifier from 1.3 to 1.4
    • Increased Knowledge Income Modifier from 1 to 1.3
    • Reduced Unit Upkeep Discount from 50% to 30%
    • Removed Unit Cost Discount
    • Removed Unit Stat Bonus
  • Updated Unit Production Logic. The AI will no longer always produce units but tries to keep up with the strongest human player. They try to have at least X% more army power than the human player.
    • Easy 5%
    • Normal 50%
    • Hard 75%
    • Very hard 100%
  • Changed Disbanding Units Logic.
    • No longer disband units on Cities and Victory Condition Structures that are under threat
    • Never disband units on cities that are under siege
  • Block the AI from replacing Gold, Mana and Special Province Improvements, providing a stronger economy
  • Added support for the AI to save up imperium in the late game to buy the city cap empire tree skill
  • Changed AI Research values to have a focus on Units, Transformations and Unit Enchantments.
  • Changed AI Evaluation for the Magic Victory Condition research


The full patch notes continue here


Find out when we sacrifice a fresh goat to the Jira gods
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System Maintenance Tomorrow at 08:30-09:30 CET



Watcher will be dropping in 24 HOURS at 15:00 CET!

In the meantime, our database will be updating tmrw from 08:30 - 09:30 CET:

- Multiplayer will be inaccessible
- Single Player will not be affected
- If you receive a Login Failure on the PDX Launcher, simply press Play to skip

We apologise for the inconvenience caused and hope you are looking forward to the update like we are!


When is Watcher dropping for me?

PDT: 6am
MDT: 7am
CDT: 8am
EDT: 9am
GMT: 1pm
BST: 2pm
GMT+8: 9pm
GMT+9: 10pm
AEST: 11pm

Open Beta Final Update

Hello everyone!

Today we’re putting out the last update for our Open Beta, from this point on we need to stop all work on it so we can start preparing the update for full release. We still need to work on translating the update into other languages, as well as preparing for release on other platforms, but we hope to have it released properly in the next few weeks! We will be leaving the Open Beta branch live on steam so you can keep playing it until that time.

This last update has a few AI updates and one important fix that will reduce the number of out of syncs people experience during combat in multiplayer. Although we’ve been working hard in those 2 areas, we recognize that there’s still a way to go. We will continue to work on improving both of these in the future!

I want to thank everyone for all the feedback that they have given us, it has helped us immensely. Even if we were not able to take into account your feedback for this update, we have read it all and there are still many updates to come for us to improve things. Though we will not be holding one for the Golem update coming in Q4, this will likely not be our last Open Beta. So please keep letting us know what you think of the game and what you want to see come next, your comments are always welcome!

Game Version: 1.004.000.81950
​


  • Updated the Icons for Bolstering Matrix and Amplifying Lens
  • Removed old Production from the City Expansion Automation dropdown




  • Added simple support to stop friendly or allied AI’s from expanding towards the players domain
  • Increased difficulty army power scale vs player
    • Normal 50%
    • Hard 75%
    • Very hard 100%
  • Fixed issue where the AI would leave a city under siege to pick an easy fight
  • Fixed issue where the AI could only cast one primed spell per turn
  • Fixed issue where the AI would occasionally walk on an allied structure
  • Fixed a small issue to the AI unit production loop to make sure the AI produces enough units to match the difficulty settings.


  • Winds:
    • Increased the radius of dust storm to 2 hexes
    • Increased the base damage of the Wind Rager by 1 and reduced the cooldown of Whirlwind to 1 turn
  • Fixed a multiplayer out of sync that would often trigger when observing combats in multiplayer
  • Fixed the missing Ocean layer in Combat
  • Fixed the Soother Staff appearing behind the Soother when the Crocodile Head is selected
  • Fixed a Crash that occurred in the Setup Casting Point Breakdown



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Dev Diary #22: Underground Changes



Greetings everyone! My name is Jamie, I’m a gameplay programmer at Triumph Studios and one of my main responsibilities is the Random Map Generation (RMG, not to be confused with RNG, although it plays a big role!). I’d like to give you an update on some of the upcoming changes to the Underground, and we’ll start off with a bit of general insight on how maps are generated in Age of Wonders 4.

[h2]Map Generation[/h2]
For Age of Wonders 4 we’ve made an iteration on the Random Map Generator based on the foundation created in Planetfall. One thing you might have noticed is that the size of our provinces is considerably smaller than they were in Planetfall, but we still wanted to make sure that connecting provinces could feel like they are part of a whole. This is why we’ve opted to adapt this system to generate the map based on Regions of variable types and sizes. These regions are then subdivided into the provinces you see when you play on the map. This means we can create large mountain ranges and oceans, while having smaller provinces for Ancient Wonders, or create a player starting area with neighbouring provinces that will always have a set number of resource nodes to exploit.

[h3]Underground Generation[/h3]
To give you an idea of the process involved in generating the Underground map layer, these are the steps we take:

  1. Start with an empty map, with a size based on the maximum number of players on one of the map levels.
  2. Generate positions for players and free cities.
  3. Generate regions by using the generated positions.
  4. Generate passages between the underground and surface.
  5. Generate caverns around existing locations, cities, passages.
  6. Generate additional caverns to reach the desired amount.
  7. Generate Ancient Wonders inside existing caverns.
  8. Generate Bedrock/Lava/Water on the remaining regions.
  9. Generate region flavors (empty regions, valuable regions).
  10. Generate themes (general, hot, cold) to create variations on a per cavern basis.
  11. Generate large sectors by combining bedrock.
  12. Generate overlays (rock, mushroom forests, snow, etc) based on the theme of the cavern.
  13. Generate rivers.
  14. Generate tunnels to connect the caverns.
  15. Generate structures, magic materials, pickups, etc.
  16. Generate provinces that can be excavated, filling up provinces that have something of interest
  17. Generate roads to connect important locations on the map

[h2]The Underground[/h2]
When we set out to create the Underground map layer for this game, we had the following design goals in mind:

  • Players should be able to create viable underground empires; especially for players with the Underground Adaptation.
  • The Underground should have a unique feel in terms of gameplay, look, structure, and encounters.
  • The Underground should be readable and visually appealing.

For this update we used these as a starting point to improve the overall experience of the underground.



[h3]City Expansion[/h3]
The main issue with starting in the underground was the fact that a lot of the time, cities couldn’t grow to their full potential. It could be stuck in a corner of the cavern, or the cavern itself was simply not big enough. Even when there is some value to be gotten in smaller values with Ancient Wonders and valuable nodes, the city could never grow big enough to be worth it compared to the surface.



What we’ve done for the Watcher update is that cities can now expand through Underground Passage to the other map layer. This allows those you players to capture the smaller caverns full of value from the surface, or grab a couple of farms on the surface while creating mines in the underground.

For players using the Underground Adaptation mind trait, we added a little bonus to their cities with one additional annex range, allowing them to make full use of the caverns they settle in.

[h3]Excavation[/h3]
Many provinces in the underground are filled with earth and need to be excavated to create usable terrain for cities and exploration. In the wyvern update we’ve added Nodes and Magic Materials to be uncovered by this process, but the experience could still feel lacking and too dangerous for scouts to handle due to the roaming armies that could spawn as a result of this. The roaming stacks were initially added to reach the quota of fights to level up your stacks during the early game. But besides being forced fights, they also didn’t give any rewards.



For this update we’ve decided to change things up a little bit. The first thing you’ll notice is that some provinces will now be glowing, this means they have a structure underneath them, this could be a Resource Node, Magic Material, or an Infestation! This should help you find a good settling spot for a new city at a glance, rather than first having to excavate all provinces. When excavating a province, you will uncover these structures with defenders on them, these structures still include their rewards for clearing them. This way you can decide how you want to react, but do be careful with those infestations, as they will directly claim their territory and give you limited time before they wake up.

[h3]Structures[/h3]
We’ve made a couple of adjustments to the structures in the Underground. First of all we’ve made the Ores group of Magic Materials be the only materials that spawn in the Underground and in greater numbers. There is now a better distribution on the rarity of Ancient Wonders in the underground, leading to a more varied pool. When traversing the water you can find the occasional pickup, making traversal through these rivers even more worth your time.



[h2]Continents Map Type[/h2]
The continents map type could feel a bit repetitive when played multiple times. You would always end up with similar overall land shapes and a large ocean area in the center. To combat this we’ve decided to give the generation process more freedom, this includes that we no longer force the shape of the ocean. But we also allow it to generate small islands in the ocean. This gives us more opportunities to generate underground passages on these islands, and with the change to annex provinces across map layers, will make for worthwhile and defendable settling positions.

Original Continents Map

New Continents Map

In conclusion, we’ve made a number of changes to make your adventure through the underground more exciting! And hopefully the insight into the generation process made for a good read. If you have any more questions about the process, feel free to ask!

If you already want to enjoy these changes and start your own expedition through the underground, then you can join us on the Open Beta branch on Steam, to get an early start on the Watcher Update.


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Open Beta Update - 25/07/2023



Hey All,

We have a small update today as we’re coming out of the Weekend. First and foremost we’ve reverted the changes that tied Combat Advantage to AI Difficulty. We’ve updated the AI vs Independent Settings to give a larger bonus to the AI based on the World Threat and increased several income modifiers across difficulties.

We’re in the final week where we can make changes to the Watcher Build. Keep in mind when giving feedback that:
  • We can't change text, so all future changes need to be as minimal as possible
  • We still have time to fix crashes, make balance changes and other tweaks
  • Bigger changes will need to wait until a future update

Once again, thanks for all your feedback and hope you all have a great week!

Game Version: 1.004.0000.81806


  • Removed combat advantage from AI difficulties
  • AI difficulty setting changes

    • Normal

      • Mana income from 1 to 1.2
      • Research Income from 1 to 1.1

    • Hard

      • Gold Income from 1.2 to 1.3
      • Mana income from 1.2 to 1.3
      • Research income from 1 to 1.2

    • Very Hard

      • Gold Income from 1.3 to 1.4
      • Mana income from 1.3 to 1.4
      • Research income from 1 to 1.3
  • Changed the AI vs Independents settings

    • Added survivability and damage modifiers based on the world threat settings
  • Changed AI research values to have a focus on Units, enchantments and transformations ( in this order )
  • Changed AI Evaluation for the Magic victory condition research
  • Fixed issue where the AI would prime an operation they could not use
  • Fixed issue where the AI would not target a victory condition structure


  • Slow now lasts 2 turns instead of 3


  • Improved the UX on the siege screen when adding siege projects. The side menu will now stay open until all slots have been filled. You can manually close the side menu now.


  • Frost Arrows now does +2 frost damage with -1 physical damage. The chance for afflicting slow is now 60%.




General
  • Fixed a crash during map generation.
  • Fixed a potential leak in the Swamp_FX
  • Improved Memory Efficiency in the Animation Systems
  • Improved optimizations for Tactical Banners and images that frequently update their Opacity


Diplomacy
  • Fixed several issues where it was possible to declare wars while being vassalized to another ruler:

    • It was possible to declare war on your overlord by moving an army onto a structure/army of a Free City that is their vassal.
    • It was possible to declare war on other players by moving on their armies or structures.
    • It was possible to declare war on other players by using a hostile spell on them.
  • Fixed issue where in the Ashen War realm AI players would not declare war on the player.
  • Fixed issue where binding an Ancient Wonder would give allied players a Grievance.


Free Cities
  • Fixed issue where gaining a bonus to the Rally of the Lieges would initiate the timer even if the first Rally had not been triggered yet.


Heroes
  • Fixed an issue where the Berserker’s Belt would give Steadfast and Berserk for one turn too long.


Interface
  • Fixed issue where the tooltip in the research screen when using a controller would overlap the new magic victory spell research. Tooltip has now been moved to the right bottom corner in this specific instance.
  • Fixed issue where in the shield tooltip the Threat level value would not show a breakdown of the threat level.
  • Fixed Alignment Penalty not showing in the Pillage Tooltip unless you stand on the Province.
  • Fixed the Sell button become active when hovering over Disabled Items
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when selecting/deselecting Item Slots
  • Fixed the incorrect Miscellaneous Slot getting selected
  • Fixed items disappearing when you equip a new item and then de-equip it without confirming


Controller
  • Fixed being able to Sell Items in Transport


Pantheon
  • Fixed issue where the Bannerlords 50% reduction of Rally of the Lieges timers was not being applied.


Tomes
  • Tome of Sanctuary: Fixed an issue where Keeper’s Mark would sometimes give steadfast for too long.


World Map
  • Fixed issue where an excavatable sector with only an infestation in it would be incorrectly highlighted.


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