Age of Wonders 4 News

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s dev diary on Intrigue Happenings! My name is Michelle (@MichelleTriumph), narrative designer at Triumph, and I’m here to talk about the new Intrigue Happenings you will encounter during your time playing Age of Wonders 4: Ways of War! Lest you forget: Ways of War will release on November 5th, and is part of Expansion Pass 2!

[h2]Watch the recording of a Dev Stream with Michelle on our YouTube channel![/h2]





First of all, a warning for those who like to go into the new narrative content without being spoiled. This dev diary consists of two parts. First I’ll talk about the global design and intent of the new content, this section is relatively spoiler-free and will mainly feature pretty pictures provided by our talented artists.

The second part goes in-depth into the new Intrigue Happenings, their design and intent, and will show some actual content to illustrate the intended flow. I will warn you and hide the actual content so you can browse at your own convenience.

With that said, onward!





In the Eldritch Realms DLC we introduced Cosmic Happenings - global Events and effects that shake up the game for all players involved. Intrigue Happenings use the same system… on a more personal level.

Intrigue Happenings are event (and quest) chains, designed to target an (AI) Ruler on any single-player non-Story Realm. They aim to shake up the mid-game diplomatic status quo and encourage you to investigate and decide on the fate of the affected Ruler - who may be affected by internal turmoil, or may have been replaced by another entity entirely. The affected Ruler, meanwhile, will start to influence the realm in their own ways.



Details of the Intrigue Happenings differ, but their core design revolves around a longer quest-chain that you can complete, after which you can decide on how this story will resolve. You can opt out of the chain whenever a new quest is presented, which sometimes brings its own rewards.

We have wanted to introduce quest-chains outside of Story Realms for a while now, and this is our biggest attempt so far!

Design for an Intrigue Happening, with some branching narrative.

Age of Wonders 4: Ways of War will feature six (6) unique Intrigue Happenings, with a total of 90 unique Events.

[h2]Conditions and Constraints[/h2]
All these Intrigue Happenings have different flavors and quests, so we applied conditions and constraints to ensure they only happen in fitting situations. For example all Intrigue Happenings require for you to have met the affected Ruler, and all of them require that the Player is not at war, nor in an Alliance with the affected Ruler.

Next to that, the different Intrigue Happenings have unique requirements to ensure they only happen to fitting AI Rulers. Examples are Alignment, Ruler Type, or Affinity. This means that in some games, specific Happenings may not be able to trigger

Intrigue Happenings will also have a cooldown, which means on average only one should show per realm, and over multiple realms Happenings that have not shown before, will be prioritized.

A condition script for the Dawn of Calamity Intrigue Happening. It requires an AI Ruler to have at least 5 chaos affinity, and no other affinity that surpasses it.

Due to the global and expanded design of these narrative-heavy Happenings which affect (AI) rulers and specific quest-lines, the decision was made to make this an experience for single-player only, meaning they will not happen in multiplayer games. Multiplayer brings its own challenges and edge-cases which can break these Happenings, especially since the quest chains can run for tens of turns.

For example: what if another Player decides to kill the Ruler you are investigating? What if another Player decides to fight (or invalidate) your quest objective? What if…

To ensure this would work as intended would take more development time, meaning less content for you… So we decided to focus on enhancing the single-player experience instead.

[h2]Make It Happen[/h2]

If you want to ensure you encounter these piles of content in your game, you can increase the likelihood of Intrigue Happenings triggering by starting a game with the new Unfolding Mysteries Realm Trait, and by playing the new Realm: Paradise Divided!

The new Paradise Divided Realm Template and Unfolding Mysteries Realm Trait will increase the likelihood of an Intrigue Happening to… happen.

Next to that, Intrigue Happenings fall under all other Happenings - like Toll of Seasons and Cosmic Happenings, and will thus be affected by any personal settings related to them. Something to keep in mind!

Any personal settings related to Happening Intensity will also influence Intrigue Happenings.

Now we go into more detail below!

[hr][/hr][h3]SPOILERS BELOW![/h3]
The following will feature more in-depth descriptions and images of the actual Intrigue Happenings. Be warned!
[hr][/hr]


Below I will share a few images of the “Fiendish Takeover” Intrigue Happening to walk you through its flow in a bit more detail! Like any Happening, the Intrigue starts with an event that shows you what changed.

A new “Ruler” rises, at the cost of Cinren. How unfortunate for him.

One turn (or a few turns) after the Happening is introduced, you will be requested to investigate. Do you want to see what happened, or do you want to deal with this new Ruler in the usual, conventional ways?

They must be truly desperate to come to you for help…

Whenever you get a quest related to the intrigue, you can decide to opt out of the intrigue. The deeper you go, the more tempting this may become, lest the affected Rulers become aware of your investigations…

If you tire of intrigue, there is always the option to keep your new infernal frenemy close.

Every few turns, a random event may spawn in which the Ruler affects other entities on the map, for example other Rulers. The longer this situation goes on, the more it could affect, so you may want to hurry (or not, depending on whether you think this is a great development).

Ignoth goes to war with another Ruler. Oh no!

If you decide to investigate, you will enter a quest chain of two to four quests, culminating in a finish where you can decide whether to bring back the former Ruler… or for the new Ruler to stay and conquer the realm together. You are the Godir hero of this story, so the choice is yours.

An infernal contract! With enough chaos affinity, you could alter it…

[h2]Intrigue Happening Types[/h2]

Ways of War will introduce 6 Intrigue Happenings, divided into a few groups:

• Possession
  
  • In this type, an AI ruler is taken over by an entity (as the example seen above).
    
    • With four variations
• Usurper
  
  • In this type, an AI ruler is taken over by a hero from their own faction, with ill intent.
• Takeover
  
  • In this type, the player can aid a Hero who aims to take over an Empire during a rebellion instead.

Ways of War will introduce 6 Intrigue Happenings.

Dusk is looking forward to meeting you.

We are very excited about the new Intrigue Happenings, and we hope you are too! I cannot wait for you to experience them. :)

Cheers!
- Michelle

[h3]Get Expansion Pass 2:[/h3]

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Reverent Rulers,

WoW! It's a new Ways of War stream! 👹 Join us this Thursday at 14:00 CEST for hilarious dev shenanigans!

[h2]Watch Here on our YouTube channel![/h2]

Watch the stream VOD: HERE

[h3]What time is the stream for me?[/h3]

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• MDT: 6am
  
• CDT: 7am
  
• EDT: 8am
  
• GMT: 1pm
  
• GMT+3: 3pm
  
• GMT+7: 7pm
  
• GMT+8: 8pm
  
• GMT+9: 9pm
  
• GMT+11: 11pm
  

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Hello again! I am Luis Ferreira, a senior designer at Triumph Studios. This time we are going over the Tomes and Wildlife that will be available to you on the first pack of our second expansion pass, Ways of War.
​



[h2]Tome of Discipline[/h2]



The Tome of Discipline is a Tier I tome of Materium and Order affinities. This tome is all about channeling inner strength and conducting its magic to empower or heal your units.



The Monk is a Fighter that conducts the tomes empowering magic into its strikes. It punches its enemies and on a third strike in the same turn it triggers a Spirit explosion on the target that also hits adjacent enemies. They have a Leap free action ability which allows them to jump up to 2 hexes, which helps them position and trigger that explosive third strike. Additionally, it also has a Meditate ability which heals, removes 2 Negative Status and places them in defense mode, making the monk a nice allround unit to have!



The minor transformation Inner Mastery grants a small bonus to status resistance while also giving your racial units increased healing in battle.



To further help sustain your units you need a healing spell to trigger Inner Mastery’s extra healing. Mantra of Purification is a powerful spell that does just that while also removing all their Negative Status Effect.



The Tome of Discipline has two unit enchantments. Empowered Strikes grants shield, polearm and fighter units extra damage and gives a similar effect to the Monk, where the third strike in a turn causes it to have a chance to stun their target. Focus Aim gives an ability that as a free action grants the unit True Strike for that turn, meaning their attacks cannot miss.


[h2]Tome of Shades[/h2]



At Tier II and giving Materium and Shadow affinities is the Tome of Shades. This tome is all about blinding enemies in combat and then eviscerating them in their moment of weakness.



The Shade is a Tier III skirmisher with a kit that is all about poking enemies from afar and then going in for the kill. Throw Shadow Dagger is a ranged ability with a chance to Blind and when this unit is ready to engage in melee their main ability Fatal Strike is there to finish their enemy off, as its damage increases based on the missing Hit Points of their target.



Living Shadows is a minor transformation found on this tome that grants evasion against ranged attacks while also retaliating against attackers by attempting to blind them.



Shadow Blades is what makes all these Blind status pay off. Melee units with this enchantment ignore 50% of the target’s Defense and Resistance if the target is Blind, vastly increasing damage done against high defense targets.


[h2]Tome of Prosperity[/h2]



Prosperity is a Tier IV Nature and Order tome. This tome is all about protecting your units and it also grants access to the Prosperity wildlife units which we will talk about in more detail later. It focuses on applying a new status effect called Grace: When a unit with this effect is hit by an attack, they regain 10 Hit Points and lose one stack of this effect. It can stack up to five times.



Summon Prosperity Dragon grants access to a new tier 5 unit of the same name. This is a powerful support mythic unit and so its spell costs extra gold in order to cast. The other Prosperity units are accessed by building this tome’s special province improvement, the Shrine of Prosperity.



The two enchantments from this tome both give Inner Grace. This ability grants a stack of Grace if a unit starts its turn in combat without a stack of it.

Staves of Grace gives an ability called Cleansing Rain which dispels negative status effects from friendly units and positive status effects from enemies in a 1-hex radius. It additionally gives all support abilities a stack of grace in addition to their other effects.


[h2]Tome of Calamity[/h2]



The other side to the Tome of Prosperity is the Tome of Calamity. Also Tier IV, this Chaos Shadow tome is all about Accursed Fiend units, Ruin provinces and the Ghostfire effect.

Ghostfire is an existing effect but it was rarely used, it functions like Burning but deals 2 Fire and 2 Frost damage per stack. Additionally it doesn’t remove the Frozen status from an enemy like Burning does. To help this work a bit more smoothly, we’ve also made it so that if any Burn stacks are present on the unit or any are added while Ghostfire is present, they are converted to Ghostfire.



Summon Calamity Dragon summons a T5 offensive mythic unit. Like summon prosperity dragon, it also has an extra cost in that it can only be cast on an owned province and it will ruin it, as if it was pillaged. The Accursed Shrine gives access to the Accursed unit wildlife line, which we will talk about very soon, and it also makes it so all the Ruins this tome can causes can benefit your lands!



Accursed Armors applies to your melee units and makes them tougher while making their bodies cursed with calamity magic: melee attackers against this unit have a chance to suffer from Ghostfire and Misfortune. Accursed Projectiles gives your ranged units attacks a chance of applying Ghostfire while also adding Fire and Frost damage to their projectiles and magic.



In this content pack Wildlife is split between the forces of Prosperity and the forces of the Accursed. There’s also a new Inhabitant Trait, Land of Conflict, that places more of these two wildlife families in the world!


[h2]Prosperity Units[/h2]
The prosperity units are a group of Celestial Dragon units, meaning they have Dragon Rage, Inspiring Killer and Control Loss Immunity as well as having Inner Grace inherent to them.



The Blessed Dragon is a Tier II Support Unit. Its Graceful Rain heals and grants a stack of Grace to all units in a 1-hex radius!



The Radiant Guardian is a Tier III Shield Unit whose special ability is its Radiant Transposition. The unit enters defense mode and swaps places with a friendly unit, dealing damage to all adjacent units after swapping. The ability also has a chance to apply Pacified to enemies, which disables their attacking abilities.



The Tier IV Righteous Judge is a Mythic unit with Zeal and a powerful melee attack that can apply Sundered Defense and Resistance. Its Righteous Judgment ability is a free action ability that doubles its damage against Condemned enemy units. If the double damage doesn’t trigger, then the target becomes condemned so that you can smite them harder next time you use this ability.



The Prosperity Dragon is the pinnacle of the Prosperity units, a Tier V support unit that has a long range main attack and that can give all friendly units in combat Grace while also removing one negative status effect with its Rain of Prosperity ability.

Bestow Mask of Prosperity links this unit to another and all the damage that unit takes is transferred to the Dragon with a 35% reduction. Additionally the linked unit and the dragon gain 1 Grace each turn while the link is active.

When linked to a unit the Prosperity Dragon gains the Recall Mask of Prosperity ability which breaks the link but for each Grace stack the Dragon has it heals 10 Hit Points and gains a stack of Regeneration, making the Dragon not only a great support unit but also tough.


[h2]Accursed Fiend Units[/h2]

Accursed Fiend units are a new type of Fiend unit. They count as fiends for the sake of spells but have their own resistances, to Fire and Frost, and are weak to Lightning instead of Spirit. Unique to accursed fiends is their Accursed Body ability that makes it so melee attackers have a small chance to gain Ghostfire when striking them.



Of note, we updated the other fiend units to be known as Infernal Fiends, so we can make the distinction on spells when referring to Infernal Fiends, Accursed Fiends or both by just referring to Fiends.



The Accursed Ogre is a Tier II shock unit. Its Cursed Charge always applies a stack of Ghostfire while pushing and moving the ogre into the hex the target was in.



The Accursed Blade is a Tier III Polearm Unit. Like many in this line, its main attack applies Ghostfire while its Frozen Flame ability attacks all adjacent enemy units with a chance to Freeze them.



The Accursed Trickster is a strong Battle Mage unit. Its Maddening Phantasm is a full action ability that has a high chance to cause Insanity on a single target. Tricky Escape applies three stacks of ghostfire to a nearby enemy and makes the trickster teleport four hexes away from the target. On reaching 50% or lower of its hit points the Trickster clones itself. The copy deals less damage but acts like Astral Reflection in that if the original dies the copy takes its place!



The Calamity Dragon is the Tier V that sits at the top of the accursed fiends family. Like the Prosperity Dragon its main attack is a long range ability, but the Calamity Dragon deals more damage and also applies Ghostfire.

Its Ghostfire Storm ability places a Combat Enchantment that immediately deals Fire and Frost damage and applies two stacks of Ghostfire to three random units. This effect then repeats for the next 3 turns.

Force Mask of Calamity links the dragon to an enemy unit and gives them a stack of Ghostfire each turn. If the dragon is attacked while linked, the linked enemy sustains fire and frost damage.

Rip Mask of Calamity is available while the link is active which when used removes the link and deals damage for each stack of Ghostfire the linked unit had.




And there it is, tomes and the wildlife! I didn’t go over everything that a tome has but I hope this gives you a taste of what you can play with in the future, when Ways of War releases on the 5th of November! Hope to see you there, and join us next week for another Dev Diary!

[h3]Get Expansion Pass 2:[/h3]

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Rulers!

Our next Ways of War stream will be tomorrow at 14:00 CEST! Join us for sneak peeks of gameplay, reveals, and of course fun times with the devs. Join us this Thursday, October 10th at 14:00 CEST!



[h2]Watch Here on our YouTube channel![/h2]



[h3]What time is the stream for me?[/h3]

• PDT: 5am
  
• MDT: 6am
  
• CDT: 7am
  
• EDT: 8am
  
• GMT: 1pm
  
• GMT+3: 3pm
  
• GMT+7: 7pm
  
• GMT+8: 8pm
  
• GMT+9: 9pm
  
• GMT+11: 11pm
  

Follow us and be the first to know when we drop new content!

• Share your thoughts on the Forum!
  
• Chitchat on Discord!
  
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Rulers lend me your ears,

Sadly even the small updates aren’t always void of issues. Today we’re publishing the Piglet 1.1 Update to address a few of the things that have infested our poor Piglet. We’re hard at work on the Ways of War release for November 5th and are very excited to share more over the coming weeks.

May your Pantheons thrive

Game Version: 1.008.002.98172
[hr][/hr]

• Fixed a crash that could occur on Turn 1 due to a missing Hero Loadout on generated Rulers & Heroes
  
• Fixed an issue where the hero generator wouldn’t randomize the gender of the hero or leader correctly.
  
• Fixed an issue where using Melee Attacks on Elephant/Mammoth Mounts triggered a Vertex Explosion
  

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