[img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43512488/ab2139867b72f9c28b589ca315a802c7db41d604.png[/img] Hello everyone! This is a joint Dev Diary by Jordi, QA Specialist and Tom, Lead Designer. Today we’re going to be talking about the Wolf Update which is coming out on February 27th with the Primal Fury content pack. Everything in this update is free, you just need the base game to get it! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43512488/50e2d70ddb5c0f66d97ba5a2b95b9942581aae67.gif[/img] [h3]New Feature: Bounties[/h3] In the golem update we added the War Coordination system for vassal cities. In this update we’ve brought similar functionality for coordinating attacks with other rulers in the form of [b]Bounties![/b] Bounties are Ruler created quests that can be offered in exchange for a reward. Any non-hostile Rulers may choose to accept your Bounty. The Ruler that completes the objective within the given timeframe will receive the reward and complete the Bounty. [list] [*] Bounties can be made and managed in the Quest Overview. [*] Bounties can target Cities and Victory structures that are viable for other Rulers and offer a reward for achieving the bounty [*] Multiple rulers may accept the bounty, but only the Ruler that completes it will receive the reward. [*] AI Rulers can post Bounties for completion. Accepting these will add them to your Quest Tracker and completing them will see you earn the Reward. [*] AI Rulers that accept bounties will send messages giving updates on how their attacks are going. [/list] [h3]New Content: Pantheon Expansion[/h3] As well as adding new content to the Pantheon system, we’ve done a big pass on the tech, flow and gameplay aspects. The main goal for this update is to make Ascended Rulers feel more special, by granting them a special trait when they complete a realm, and allowing them to keep their racial transformations. We’ve also added logic for an ascended ruler to remember the tomes they collected during the game, so that the AI can pick the same tomes again if it takes control of them! [u]Ruler Management[/u] [list] [*] Once a custom ruler ascends, they will now be moved into the pantheon and out of the custom rulers list. [*] A new tab featuring all the pantheon rulers is now visible in faction creation and selection. [*] Pantheon rulers can now be edited and campaign rulers (when not edited manually) will automatically update to the latest settings. [*] Removing a pantheon ruler will place it back in the custom rulers list (if it was a custom ruler). [*] Already ascended rulers can ascend again to update their recorded information and race transformations. [*] Pantheon Rulers gained from Story Realms now default to act as Rulers and not as recruitable heroes. Only applies to newly ascended campaign rulers, you can always change this setting in the pantheon screen. [*] A warning has been added when a ruler is worthy to ascend but the maximum rulers in the pantheon has already been reached on finishing a session (already ascended rulers may ascend again however). [/list] [u]Ascension[/u] [list] [*] Added 26 Ascension Traits. One trait can be chosen at the end of a game upon ascensions of a Ruler. [list] [*] The Traits one can choose from are based on your Affinity and the Tomes chosen during the game. [*] If you ascend again, you can choose a new trait to replace the original one. [/list] [*] When conquering a Realm your applied Transformations are maintained. Your Ruler will be under the effects of these Transformations when next played by you or an AI. [list] [*] Ascended Champions gain the choice to not partake in new Transformations cast during a Game. [*] Dragon Lords will benefit from their Aspect skill, their Transformation remains dormant until the appropriate level has been reached. [/list] [*] When conquering a Realm your researched Tomes will be remembered and when this ruler is next played by an AI that AI Ruler will attempt to research the same Tomes as you originally did. [*] A new option has been added to Advanced Setup to disable the Ascension mechanics and bonuses during a session. [list] [*] Prevents rulers from starting with ascension traits, transformations and skills. [*] Pantheon rulers will not show up as heroes during a session. [*] On winning the session, your ruler will not ascend. [/list] [/list] [u]New Pantheon Content[/u] [list] [*] Added New Pantheon Rewards [list] [*] Crow Master’s Bow Hero Origin [*] Druidic Terraformers [*] Primal Good Banner Icon [*] Primal Evil Banner Icon [*] Keeper’s Helmet [*] Marauder Helmet [*] 6 Mount Visualisations [list] [*] Lion [*] Panther [*] Tiger [*] Stag [*] Zebra [*] Warhound [/list][/list] [*] Added 8 new events for Pantheon Godir that can join the player as heroes. [list] [*] 2 alignment based events [*] 6 affinity based events. [/list] [*] Increased the rarity of Pantheon Hero events, which should increase the chance of a pantheon hero event showing. [/list] [h3]Overhaul: Hero Recruitment[/h3] When looking at how the hero cap worked, we became unhappy with how it interacted with acquiring new cities. Since getting more cities and getting more heroes were both very strong strategic approaches, having them intrinsically linked by saying that each city grants an extra hero was making the game’s meta very narrow, since simply grabbing as many cities as possible was the only viable approach. The new system disconnects heroes from cities, allowing you to spend imperium to speed up acquiring more. This means players must choose between using imperium to have lots of cities OR lots of heroes, rather than always getting both. Alongside these changes comes a new interaction between Heroes that are part of the same Stack. We felt that multi-hero stack armies were undermining the core idea of the game, by reducing the importance of normal units in armies. To try and counter this we’ve added a penalty that stacks the more heroes are within a single army. [list] [*] The hero cap now increases over time instead of being linked to the number of cities. The first hero cap increase happens in 10 turns, subsequent increases each take 5 turns longer. [list] [*] The hero cap can be instantly increased in the hero overview screen by spending imperium. [*] You can no longer recruit heroes beyond the hero cap. [*] When integrating a free city, their ruler will no longer be given directly, instead their ruler will become recruitable (for free) in the recruitment screen. [*] Existing save games will automatically upgrade to the new system and set the current cap to either be based on the current turn number or the number of cities the player has (whichever is higher). [/list] [*] Added “Leadership Clash” to all Heroes and Rulers. This will reduce the Morale and XP gain for heroes, if more than one hero is in an army [/list] [h3]Overhaul: Necromancy [/h3] The base game’s version of Necromancy wasn’t quite where we wanted it to be in terms of player experience. In too many respects it felt like all the other styles of magic, and wasn’t really hitting the goal of making you feel like the master of an ever growing army of the dead. To address this we’ve been doing some major reworking of the necromancy tomes, giving them a focus of spending souls to directly reanimate the enemies you slay as skeletons under your command. Using an early game piece of research you can start bringing back normal racial units as skeletons, with the type of skeleton you raise based on the unit that you slayed. So instead of just having a bunch of skeletons with pikes, you can now have skeletons with swords and shields, bows and even skeletal mages. Later on you can start raising more powerful creatures as Bone Horrors and Bone Dragons too! We’ve made a raft of other changes as well to smooth out the experience, and boost the power level of the tomes which many felt were lacking when compared to other tome lines. [u]General[/u] [list] [*] Lowered soul gain per kill from 2/3/4/5/6 to 1/2/3/4/5. [*] Soul rewards on kill are now granted during combat, allowing you to spend Souls on spells immediately. [*] Soulbound now also causes a unit to have a 30% chance to transform into a Decaying Zombie under your control until the end of combat when it dies. [*] Constructing Skeletons no longer comes with any Necromancy Tome. Instead you can now use the three new Reanimation Skills to raise undead units after combat. [/list] [u]Post Combat Raising[/u] Researching the appropriate Reanimation Skill, allows you to raise fallen units as Undead. After combat you're presented with a list of Units that can be raised, any amount of them can be selected provided you have the Souls. The system uses all units that entered the battle on the Enemy side and have died to determine which units are able to be raised as undead. [list] [*] This means it does not interfere with the capture or mind control conditions since those units need to stay alive. [*] This means that units that have been summoned or have routed are not valid. [*] You buy these units using Souls. [/list] [i]When killing Racial Units of any tier[/i] (15 Souls - requires Skeleton Reanimation) You will always get a Tier 1 skeleton that costs 15 Souls. But depending on what the role was of the unit that is killed, you can raise one of 4 different types of skeletons as follows: [list] [*] Shield (Shield, Fighter, Hero) [*] Polearm (Polearm, Shock) [*] Archer (Ranged, Skirmisher) [*] Battle Mage (Battle Mage, Support) [/list] [i]When killing non-racial units[/i] [list] [*] Tier 3-4: Tier 3 Bone Horror (50 Souls - requires Bone Horror Reanimation) [*] Tier 5: Tier 4 Bone Dragon (100 Souls - requires Bone Dragon Reanimation) [/list] [u]Tome Updates[/u] [list] [*] Tome of Necromancy [list] [*] Now a Tier I Tome [*] New Skill “Skeleton Reanimation” - Empire Bonus that allows you to raise Tier 1 skeleton units from slain racial units after combat. The unit that you can raise depends on the role it had: [list] [*] Shield Skeleton (Shield, Fighter, Hero) [*] Polearm Skeleton (Polearm, Shock) [*] Archer Skeleton (Ranged, Skirmisher) [*] Battle Mage Skeleton (Battle Mage, Support) [/list] [*] New Combat Spell “Necrotize” [list] [*] Target Unit sustains 10 Frost/10 Blight Damage [*] Target Unit becomes Decaying [*] Summons a Decaying Zombie under your Control on Unit Death [/list] [*] Necromancer - Now a Tier 2 Support unit instead of T3. [*] Combat Spell “Rotting Explosion” - Can now also target skeleton units [*] Unit Enchantment “Necrotic Magic” - Increased upkeep from 2 to 3 Mana [*] Hero Skill “Unholy Leader” - Now also increases the resistance of Undead units in the army by 1. [*] The following skills were moved to the Tier II Tome. [list] [*] Special Province Improvement “Soulwell” - Increased Soulwell Income from 3 to 5 [*] World Map Spell “Soul Collection” - Increased income from 6 to 10 [/list] [*] The following skills were moved to the Tome of Souls [list] [*] World Map Spell “Restore Undead” [*] World Map Spell “Summon Corrupt Soul” [/list] [*] The following skills were removed [list] [*] Combat Spell “Raise Zombies” [/list] [/list] [*] Tome of Souls [list] [*] Now a Tier II Tome [*] New Skill “Bone Horror Reanimation” - Empire Bonus that allows you to raise non-racial T3-4 units as Bone Horrors after combat. [list] [*] The Bone Horror is now a Tier 3 unit instead of a T2. [*] The Bone Horror unit no longer transforms into Skeletons on death. [*] The Bone Horror unit now spawns a Zombie unit when its HP drops under 50%. [/list] [*] Unit Enchantment “Soulbinders” - Increased additional damage against Soulbound units from 10% to 20%. [*] Hero Skill “Soul Collector” - Increased additional damage against Soulbound units from 10% to 20%. [*] The following skills were moved from the Tome of Necromancy [list] [*] World Map Spell “Restore Undead” - Renamed to Restore Undead Army. [*] World Map Spell “Summon Corrupt Soul” [/list] [*] The following skills were moved to the Tome of Necromancy [list] [*] Combat Spell “Soul Overflow” [*] World Map Spell “Soul Collection” [/list] [*] The following skills were removed [list] [*] Combat Spell “Soul Fire” [/list] [/list] [*] Tome of the Great Transformation [list] [*] New Skill: Bone Dragon Reanimation - Empire Bonus that allows you to raise Bone Dragons from T5 units after combat. [/list] [*] Tome of the Reaper [list] [*] Unit “Reaper”: [list] [*] Added the Ethereal Unit Type [*] Melee Strike [list] [*] Changed from 20 Physical damage to 10 Physical and 10 Frost damage [*] Added Piercing - Ignores 50% of the target's Defense [*] Added Breaching - Ignores 50% of the target’s Resistance [/list] [*] Finger of Death [list] [*] Changed from a Full action to a Single Action ability [*] Reduced Range from 4 to 3 [*] The 45 Frost damage from failing to kill now ignores all resistance the target has. [/list] [*] Dark Rites - Now grants the Reaper 1 Strengthened and 10 Hp for each enemy that dies in battle. Doesn’t count Summons, Siegecraft and Towers. [*] Now displays a property that tells that it has a 5 Soul Upkeep but a -50% Mana and Gold upkeep [/list] [*] Siege Project “Construct Soul Siphons” - Now applies Soulbound to all enemies and deals 3 fortification damage [*] World Map Spell “Harvest Population” - Increased Soul Income from +10 to +30. [*] Combat Spell “Mark for Death” [list] [*] Renamed to “Marked for Death” [*] Target unit: [list] [*] Sustains 15 unblocked Physical Damage [*] Loses 10 Morale [*] Has a decaying zombie appear adjacent to them [*] Gains a Debuff called Visions of Death that triggers the above 3 effects at the end of each turn. [/list][/list] [*] Combat Spell “Greater Reanimation” [list] [*] Reduced the Soul Cost of this spell from 35 Souls to 20. [*] Revives Undead units with 100% of their Hit Points [*] Revives non-undead units as Corrupt Souls. [*] Enemy Undead units and Corrupt Souls gained in combat with this spell can be purchased for Souls at the end of combat if they survive. [/list][/list] [*] Tome of the Eternal Lord: [list] [*] Unit Enchantment “True Death Magic” [list] [*] No longer applies Marked for Death [*] Now grants an ability called ‘Curse of the Reaper’, a Full Action ability which cares about engagement in close combat version of the Finger of Death ability from the Reaper unit. [/list][/list][/list] [h3]Quality of Life Updates[/h3] As well as the above balance changes, we’ve been working hard to bring you a whole host of quality of life changes! [u]Added Random Realm/Realm Trait Randomization[/u] You can now get the system to generate a randomized realm for you, if you don’t feel like picking out a realm’s traits for yourself. [u]Added new Free City Upgrades[/u] Free cities will now start making use of tome units in the late game, instead of only culture units. These tome units will also be available to the city’s masters via the rally of lieges! [u]Added Dismantle Province Operation[/u] It’s now possible to dismantle a city’s provinces, if you want to switch their territory to cover a different area. Only provinces on the edge of a City are eligible for dismantling. [u]Added Enchantment & Transformation Visual Toggle[/u] We’ve added functionality to the spell book that lets you hide the visual effects of unit enchantments and transformations. This means you can have better control of what your race looks like when you take multiple, overlapping transformations or enchantments. It also means you can take a transformation for its mechanical effect, without needing to have it visually update your forces. For technical reasons, transformations that give you wings (Angelize and Demonkin) or replace your legs (Naga Transformation) cannot be disabled. [u]Faction Creation Improvements[/u] We’ve added the option to explicitly specify a name for the faction’s starting city, as well as rewrite the faction’s biography, so you can make a faction more your own. Also, to reduce some confusion, it is now possible to overwrite an existing faction when you edit it (previously you only had the option to save your edited faction as a new one) [u]UI Updates[/u] We’ve made a bunch of UI improvements as well, including: [list] [*] Added a Realm Overview so you can see the traits and settings your realm has active [*] Added a Combat Overview so you can see an overview of which units are still alive during manual combat [*] Updated the Combat History to a Side Panel that remains open while you play [*] Updated the Special Province Improvement UI/Flow to be easier to use [*] Added brand new Parchment Images, just because they look cool! [/list] And that’s about it for big new things! Obviously we’ve also made a huge assortment of balance changes, bug fixes and general improvements, all of which you can read about in detail: [h2][url=https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/dev-diary-29-wolf-update.1624885/]Read Full Patch Notes[/url][/h2] The Wolf Update will roll out across all platforms on February 27th, along with the brand new [b]Primal Fury[/b] content pack! [h2]Wishlist Primal Fury now![/h2] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2401850/Age_of_Wonders_4_Primal_Fury/ [i]Be the first to get information about Primal Fury:[/i] [list] [*] Share your thoughts on the [url=https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forums/age-of-wonders-4.1129/]Forum[/url]! [*] Chitchat on [url=https://discord.gg/SmbeaYnRGD]Discord[/url]! [*] Have fun with us on [url=https://twitter.com/AgeOfWonders4]Twitter[/url]! [*] Follow us on [url=https://www.facebook.com/gaming/AgeOfWonders4]Facebook[/url]! 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