In his sporadically coherent The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot yearned for the seasonal cycle of death and rebirth to apply to human society, not just the natural world. As it turns out, that also pretty much explains why it was once such a staple of high school English Literature classes: though it’s almost quaint today, in the long, benighted period before social media, teenagers actually wanted to leave the house and smoke alcohol, listen to drugs, and drink rock and roll.
It’s also a terrifically tortured metaphor for our most recent Age of Wonders 4 DLC, Rise From Ruin. And for my carpal tunnel’s sake, those will be AOW4 and RFR from here on out.
Not only is RFR itself about the great cycle of destruction and rebirth, this DLC also feels like a bit of a turning point for AOW4. There’s a definite sense that the music has started to play and is slowly getting louder as a crude neon sign reading “WRAP IT UP” pulses rhythmically just off camera.
Thrones of Blood already felt disconnected from AOW4 – more like reddit fanservice than something from Age of Wonders. That or they were scraping the bottom of the idea barrel. But hey, one “meh” fanservice DLC out of eight wasn’t the worst thing in the world, and leader DLCs tend toward being sparse anyway. It’s a totally forgivable miss – assuming quality returned to normal next time.
Well, it didn’t. RFR is by no means abysmal – it’s even enjoyable – but it’s not especially compatible with AOW4. Nor is it particularly well implemented. This is easily the buggiest release by far – which is no great surprise given how Nomads bend and break so many of the patterns defined by AOW4.
That and general engine exhaustion lands me on Eliot’s side – I think it might time for Triumph to put AOW4 out to pasture and move on to the next thing, lest AOW4 depart not with a bang, but a whimper.
The Scorpion Patch
As always, there’s a big, free patch for anyone who owns AOW4.
Scorpion looks like a workhorse patch focused on balance and consistency. There are no shiny new features outside of a pickier color picker (no longer is there a tightly constrained pallet, if you cared). Instead, the patch focuses on buffing out some of the mechanics that never quite worked as intended: Movement Speed and Experience.
“Movement Speed Normalization” makes it so all units now have the same number of move points on the map. Movement type is not changed, so flying units can still cross things and avoid difficult terrain that land-bound units can’t, but on open, flat, clear terrain, all units now move at the same speed (to be more specific, all units now have 40 MP). To represent “old” move speed, there’s a new stat called Combat Movement, which only applies in tactical combat. Agile units will be agile and lumbering units lumbering, but only in a fight.
Experience was also reworked – units now get XP automatically at the end of each turn. They’ll still get XP from battles, but that amount has been halved compared to the pre-patch value.
The experience issue was pretty simple: there was no way to level without fighting. Garrisoning a town was largely worthless as a result: unleveled units mostly get steamrolled by leveled ones. Additionally, if you wanted to muster troops in a peaceful area of your empire… well, they weren’t going to level. So clearing lairs arguably had an element of anti-synergy to it.
Honestly none of this ends up playing much different than before, but hiding in the notes is a modestly named feature that does actually stand out: the “Province Transfer Update.”
If you read no further, at least marvel at this screenshot:
It only took three years, but vassal provinces are no longer totally immutable short of genocide! You no longer need to seethe at your minions for sitting on resource nodes they’re completely inept at utilizing, nor do you need to purge the xenos just because they passive-aggressively picked up the one province that cut off a dozen more provinces from you, their liege lord. If you’re got population and are looking to expand, and your borders are adjacent to a vassal, you can now just buy the province from them for Imperium.
Additionally, capturing enemy provinces is much more intuitive now. And before you ask: Yes, it’s possible to capture enemy provinces! It’s actually been in the game since release, but it’s extremely easy to miss and was actually a kind of arcane process. Anyway, now you just need to pillage the neighboring enemy province and expand into it with pins like normal. Easy!
There’s one more big rework you’ll definitely feel: Defense and Resistance. This comes with a reclassification of many units to the new “Magic Fighter” type, which we’ll explain in a moment.
Triumph has this to say in the patch notes:
We’re updating how Defense and Resistance work across all units to bring them back in line with their original design intent. The new system changes how damage reduction is applied, focusing on the source of damage rather than the type of damage dealt.
So what’s this mean? Before, Defense covered Physical Damage and Resistance covered everything else (Fire, Frost, etc). Now, all attacks are tagged with one of three classifications: Melee, Physical Ranged, and Magic. Defense covers all of the damage of Melee and Physical Ranged typed attacks. Resistance covers all of the damage of Magic attacks.
So the Steelshaper’s Steel Blast, which does 16 Physical damage, checked Defense before the patch (Physical damage goes to Defense), but after, since it’s tagged as a Magic attack, it checks Resistance. Similarly, if you enchant your Fighter’s weapons with Fire, their swing checks Defense, not Defense for the Physical part and Resistance for the Fire part.
This is where Magic Fighters come in. Magic Fighters use Magic in melee via an attack straight out of the original Age of Wonders called Magic Strike. This attack is tagged as Magic, so it checks Resistance (regardless of the fact it deals damage in melee range). Similarly, the same Fire enchant applied to a Magic Fighter would mean all damage in the swing still checks Resistance.
Typed damage isn’t gone though. The elemental resistances and vulnerabilities of the past are all still here, though now they’re called elemental protections, to signify they will contribute to both Defense and Resistance checks against that element.
If your eyes glazed over at all that, I don’t blame you. Here’s the executive summary: if you only stack Defense like before, your first encounter with Magic Fighters will be a very rude awakening.
Wherever I May Roam
To experience the new changes and Cataclysm events I used the newly added “Fractured Realm” under Premium Realms (the topmost option, apparently the map name is selected from a random list each time for some reason) on the default difficulty settings for the map (from a quick review, it seems to be Hard AI on a Normal World Difficulty). Though the AI is supposed to be better at dealing with infestations in this latest patch, I wanted to stick to the map defaults.
I of course made bunny Nomads. This is a review after all.
Nomads’ big mechanic is the ability to move their cities by packing them into “Barges” and plopping them down elsewhere. That’d be useful by itself, but you’re encouraged to do this as Nomad towns “Overharvest” resource and magic material nodes, granting the towns “Essences” which are permanent versions of those resources, but destroy the resources in the process. The downside of the wandering lifestyle (and a balancing measure) is very slow population growth.
Nomads have two choices for sub-cultures: Scavengers (1 Materium) or Conquerors (1 Chaos).
- Scavengers can overharvest both nodes and wonders, and in combat can loot fallen enemies for a stacking buff (+1 Defense, +1 Resistance, +20% Damage and Healing, stacks up to 5 times). If you’ve ever wanted to eat a wonder, well, here you go.
- Conquerors thrive on expansion through annexation of enemy provinces (not necessarily cities). Province annexation rewards a one-time Draft, Production, and Gold bonus. Furthermore, Pillaging rewards extra food. In combat, Conqueror units get Momentum (+20% Damage and Healing) when they move at least three hexes before acting.
Played as intended, you’re a roving band of locusts devouring everything that isn’t already claimed (or, in the Conqueror’s case, ideally things that are already claimed). Restoring depleted resources is possible, but prohibitively expensive (I’ve seen 500 Mana Crystals to restore a Gold Deposit, for instance).
It’s reassuring to find that the AI does indeed know how to play Nomads, and will pack up and move their cities once the resource nodes around them are depleted. Granted, they left their vulnerable city barge completed undefended, but they were far from any other players – or so they thought.
For fun, I declared an unjust war and had my nearby scout attack the barge. Since no other units were present, no battle could be simulated – I simply instantly won, getting the option to capture or instantly raze their unit (and thus city). Funny enough, it turned out this was their Throne City in barge form, causing the entire faction to instantly be vulnerable to elimination were their leader to die.
Nomad units are, appropriately, hit-and-run and flanking-oriented. Mechanically, they’re neat – the Tier 1 Windwalker Shield unit can swap places with a friendly unit in melee range and apply a small heal to both units while also leaving an action point free to drop into Defense Mode. The Tier 2 Dustweaver Support has a heal that pulls the target unit next to the Dustweaver, and can either apply the Conqueror’s bonus to a unit without them moving, or actually pick up and fling dropped Loot to another unit as a Free Action, and the Tier 2 Strider Archer has a Free Action 3-hex range blink that grants a stack of Fortune.
For sub-faction units, Conquerors get the Raider, a beefy-for-Tier-1 Shock Unit that can optionally be cavalry which additionally applies a stack of Burning if they hit while they have the Conqueror-specific Momentum buff, and the Champion, a Tier 3 Shock unit with a Charge that leaves the Champion in the defensive “Stormstance,” and a melee range knockback combo that leaves the Champion in a mobility-oriented “Windstance.” Unlike the Tier 1 Raider, these guys can’t be cavalry.
Scavengers get units that play with the Loot mechanic. The Tier 1 Looter is a Skirmisher and optional cavalry which doesn’t trigger opportunity attacks and can pick up and throw Loot to other units as a Free Action. Offensively, they’ve got a basic melee attack and a crossbow. The Tier 3 Collector is a Polearm unit that wields a… Halberd Shovel (?), comes with a knockback-move attack to push back enemy units and take their old position, as well as the “Dig Up” range-2 free action that destroys a corpse for a free stack of Looted Power. Yes, they power up by grave robbing in combat.
Hungry Air and Armageddon
Thanks to the map I chose, I’m able to experience the alternative game conditions added with RFR. As always, these are simply map traits, so they can happen in your random games or be added to custom realms you build out
When a realm is under the effects of Devouring Winds, magic gets a little funky. As world map spells are cast, the Winds get more unstable and a Cataclysm bar next to the minimap starts to fill up. When it tops out, it’s party time.
And that bar will fill up. Despite dropping by 10 points a turn (which sounded like quite a bit), the first Cataclysm I saw was as early as turn 10. It turns out the bar is tied to how many Casting Points are being used on the World Map per turn, so right as everyone finishes casting their first enchantments, there’s a decent chance one will go off.
Cataclysms do not really live up to their name… at first. Each time one fires, the bar is reset and the secondary Cataclysm Counter increases by 1. The value of this counter indicates the intensity of the next Cataclysm. A bigger number means more provinces get microwaved.
Fortunately, you’re usually not totally blind to which provinces are in danger. At the bar’s halfway point, the provinces doomed to destruction become illuminated in a sickly green glow, potentially giving players the chance to react. Of course, if the bar maxes out in a single turn, there’s no time for any such warning.
As a final warning, there’s a big penalty for being the one to cause the Cataclysm cup to runneth over: all other rulers get a whopping 20 Grievances on you. You may see the AI begin to behave very carefully as the bar nears the top to avoid incurring this penalty.
The counter also has another effect: it dictates the chance spells (both World and Combat) will “Backfire.” This sounds nasty, but it’s more similar to something like wild magic than the purely negative connotation “backfire” has. So far I’ve seen an in-combat AOE heal also teleport its recipients to random locations three hexes away, which was actually pure upside in my situation. The chance of backfire seems to be 10% per Cataclysm Counter, but I didn’t managed to get the Counter exceptionally high to test if diminishing returns kick in.
The last element of this modifier is a set of Fated Regions out in the world that, if conquered, promise some kind of control over the Devouring Winds and Cataclysms. This is just as strong as it sounds, being an outright win condition unique to this modifier, assuming you choose to use it to wipe out your foes. If you want a different type of victory, you need not push the big red button.
Provinces hit by a Cataclysm become desolate “Astral Barrens,” a nearly unchangeable terrain type that produces no resources. Additionally, all resource nodes in the province are destroyed, and they often generate Infestations that spew spooky “Fractured” units which are some of the most obnoxious enemies to fight this side of Voidtech from AOW: Planetfall. Defeating said Infestation is one of the only ways to remove the Astral Barrens.
Books and Beatdowns
The cherry on top of any DLC is, of course, the new Tomes, which consistently add more variety to the game on any kind of map. As usual, we have three new tomes, and Tier 5 remains stubbornly vanilla. Much like Empires and Ashes brought back the AOW3 Dreadnought, two of the three tomes in RFR focus on reviving the Warlord class from AOW3, while the last tome is a call back to the Azracs of AOW and the Nomads of AOW:SM.
Tome of the Warband (Tier 1, Chaos/Materium) is a straightforward, no-frills tome focused on mundane buffs to unit effectiveness like morale, XP, and HP. Notably, includes research that simply gives all heroes a passive trait (+40 XP to the lowest XP unit per turn) without requiring any kind of casting.
It also includes the racial recruitable Lieutenant unit, a Tier 2 Fighter that’s an all-rounder who buffs nearby units based on the actions the Lieutenant takes during their turn, and comes with a potent debuff that inflicts 2 Sundered Defense and Resistance for 3 turns to all enemies of a certain type (ie, their unit category). They’re a fine early game rank and file unit, though remember despite being racial units, they don’t inherit your culture’s mechanics unless you first cast the spell that grants it to them.
While the Tome of Warband is kind of dull, that’s the point: it fulfills the fantasy of raw martial prowess that AOW4 really hasn’t catered to at all.
Tome of the Warlord (Tier 3, Chaos/Chaos) is Warband’s big brother, similar in its straightforward quality, though augmented by performance enhanced infernal magic. Warlord has a unique enchantment that gives all melee units an extra retaliation attack, and, as a totally intended side effect, a stack of Infernal Might (a stacking buff normally only accessible from the Tier 5 Tome of the Chaos Lord) when it attacks.
There’s also a large radius buff that grants Infernal Might and +15 Morale, which is then doubled for Tier 1-3 units, some potent options for sieging, and especially razing, cities, and a racial Mythic unit called the Warlord, a potent melee unit that can also issue powerful Command buffs.
There’s great synergy here with Chaos’s portfolio: you’ve got buffs to lower tier units if you’re pursuing a Horde strategy, but also buffs to Fiends if you decide to go that route. And yet it’s also still a great tome to simply dip into on its own merits if you’re employing a scorched earth strategy but want to use a different racial transformation instead.
As Polished as the Desert Sands
Otherwise, you get a Minor Race Transformation that gives some big Desert bonuses: Sand Walk, Sand Camouflage, Very Fast Movement in combat on Sand, and +20% Flanking damage on Sand. Inversely, if you chose a Desert Adaptation race only to spawn on a glacier, don’t fret: you can blast a province and all connected provinces with Sand, instantly giving them the Sand trait (and removing most incompatible traits like Snow, Swamp, and Gloom).
In combat, you have the ability to summon a Sandstorm – a 2-hex radius whirlwind that Slows anything in it and has a 60% chance to inflict Blind. Better yet, units with Sandwalk are totally immune to these effects! You can also summon a Sand Scorpion, a Tier 3 Shield unit that, surprise surprise, is good on Sand, but also makes for a surprisingly deadly tank. Finally, you can learn to enchant your units’ weapons with the Sand Scorpion’s venom, giving a 60% chance to inflict Weakened and Poisoned, and an extra +2 Blight damage – but only on Flanking attacks.
As Polished as the Desert Sands
Nomads are unique, but they sit in that awkward spot where they’re way too unique for AOW4 norms to work, but simultaneously not unique enough to shatter those norms and do their own thing.
Mostly this comes down to how rigid borders are in real world AOW4 play. The early game is a rush to claim critical choke points and box in your neighbors since failure to do this rapidly leads to forever war as you rack up Grievances for expanding into territories other players have distant claims on. Or worse, forever war because you need to knock down a stupid outpost you were boxed in by.
Because of this, the Nomad design may have put the cart before the horse: your shtick is being migratory, great, but you have no way to mitigate penalties from crossing borders. Secondly, you still need to build other cities and play the border game! Hopefully this was intuitive to you, but it wasn’t to me – given they have the ability to eat resource nodes, I really expected Nomads to be a one-city faction. They’re not.
With that aha moment, I realized I picked really dumb traits for my roving rabbits and restarted. Now knowing what I knew to begin with, I more carefully reviewed the Trait list – and realized it’s full of anti-synergies. So many traits are oriented to static city positions. For instance, there are plenty of traits that boost bonuses from resource nodes… but Nomads eat resource nodes. Do these traits then also apply to Essences? It seems overpowered if they do, but it’s a dead trait if they don’t.
Of course, there are unique synergies as well. For instance, Hermit Kingdom, a strong but notoriously difficult to maintain trait, is great for the Nomads’ moving cities (specifically the Scavengers, given Conquerors live on drive-by shootings).
There’s the definite sense that AoW4 isn’t really designed for the Nomads and vice versa. I regularly run into things that make me ask “but wait, does that work with Nomads?” And the game’s answer is always “I dunno, test it yourself.”
Another example is how the city moving process:
When you move a city, I’d expect construction and spells to simply pause. Well, no. Everything gets canceled, including, most obnoxiously, spells. So not only do I need to dig into menus and manually make note of what spells I’m sustaining on the city to make sure I restore all of them, I need to spend both the mana and casting points to put them back up. This doesn’t feel like a game balance choice, but more of a technical hurdle that couldn’t be overcome in time for release.
There’s just not much polish here – from the vague tooltips and mechanics to the plethora of bugs at launch to the samey, recostumed Nomad units (the Raider appears to be a copy/paste of the Berserker save for clothing, for instance).
The Paradox of Choice
With most of the bugs squashed and fires put out, Rise from Ruin is a decent DLC. Nomads bring some spice to the strategic layer, even if it sometimes clashes with the rest of the dish. The Fractured units and battlefields are all very attractive and well done. And Cataclysms could use a popup tutorial in order to spell out things like “it’s tied to casting points” and “the whole map gets 20 Grievances on the dumb-dumb that triggers one.”
That said, the road AOW4 is on is getting notably bumpier – which pretty much everybody anticipated given Paradox’s DLC strategy. I’m grateful AOW4 is still alive, but it’d break my heart to see it go the way of Stellaris et al.
Unfortunately, it already may be. Maybe it’s just me, but with each new DLC, the game feels just a little more sluggish. Scrolling to the paper map has a weird frame drop hiccup, which is no big deal really, but wasn’t there before. Skimming the map occasionally gets a little jumpy when it didn’t in the past. And when I play AOW4 on my laptop, it’s gone from “warm” to “literally too hot to actually put on my lap” in the past year.
Where is FSR4 or DLSS? Failing that, why can I still not tell AOW4 to render in 1080p so I can hand it off to Lossless Scaling? We’re three years in here, and still the only thing AOW4 has for resolution or scaling is a “Render Scale” bar, which is a complete black box and produces something worse than FSR1 in Ultra Performance mode.
This just doesn’t seem like a foundation that can handle another year of stuff thrown on top.
A victim of Heroes of Might and Magic II in his formative years, Boho has been a rabid fan of tactical RPGs and turn-based strategy ever since. Truly a cautionary tale.