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Dev Diary #19 - Dragon Dawn: Lizardfolk, Tomes and Units

Hello everyone! My name is Luis and I am a designer at Triumph. I got the privilege of being the main designer for Dragon Dawn, our first content pack. In this dev diary I will go over the new Lizardfolk form and the new tomes of magic, as well as their units.

Lizardfolk​

Lizardfolk are very thematic for the dragon themed dlc and we knew people have been wanting them since the game was announced, so we are very excited to give players access to this new form.

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By default they have a new body trait that is going out with the free Wyvern Update, the Poisonous trait. This has a 30% chance to Poison melee attackers and also gives them a bit of Blight resistance. Lizardfolk also come with the Cold Blooded mind trait, which reduces the morale they lose in battle.

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There’s a lot of ways to customize your Lizardfolk with a variety of heads and decorations, from snakes to crocodiles to chameleons and others, so you can make what your heart desires.

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Tomes​

For the first time we will be doing mixed affinity tomes, and you can expect this trend to continue as new content and expansion packs come out.
For Dragon Dawn I wanted the tomes to represent the power of destruction and creation that is often associated with dragons so both new tomes come with the Chaos and Nature affinity.

Tome of Evolution - Tier I

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As the name suggests this tome is all about evolving units and comes with two units that benefit from this.

Slither Hatchling

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The slither hatchling is a skirmisher that counts as an animal and a dragon unit, so they have the Low Maintenance most animals have as well as the damage increase granted by Draconic Rage (this triggers when a dragon unit drops below 60%hit points). They can also apply Poisoned with their ranged attack and their melee attacks deal extra damage to Poisoned units!

Of course, this is the Tome of Evolution, so when they reach the champion rank they turn into a Tier 3 unit, the Slither.

Slither

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The Slither is a Tier 3 unit and has all the benefits of the Hatchling, just stronger. It also has the Slip Away ability that triggers once per battle when it takes fatal damage. This makes the unit quickly escape to a nearby hex and regain15 health.

Wyvern Fledgling

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The Wyvern Fledgling is a fighter unit and a strategic summon from this tome. It is a very simple dragon unit that can evolve into a random Tier 3 Wyvern. That includes the Fire and Frost Wyvern but with this pack we also introduce the Golden and Obsidian wyvern which this unit can also evolve into!

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Unit Enchantment - Rapid Evolution Enchantment

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To make sure you can evolve your units, we added an enchantment that only affects units that can Evolve. It grants XP gained from combat as well as giving Tier 1 and 2 units Resurgence, meaning that if they die in battle but you are still victorious then the unit comes back with low hit points after battle.

Minor Race Transformation - Draconic Vitality

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So other units benefit from this tome, we have a minor race transformation that takes the concept of growth causing units to benefit more from their unit ranks more. Draconic Vitality grants +3 Hit Points per rank the unit has and makes them look more reptilian and spiky.

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Tome of Dragons - Tier III

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The second tome you can unlock is all about the power of and acquiring Dragons and turning your units into Draconians.

Young Dragons

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Young dragons are Tier 3 Fighter units. While they may look like their adult counterparts they don’t yet have their elemental breath weapon or the extra damage on their claws. Once you research this skill you will be able to draft the Young Frost and Fire Dragons in your cities. Gold and Obsidian Dragons are new in this content pack and you can also get their young versions as long as you meet certain alignment requirements. When these units reach champion rank, they evolve into their Tier 5 adult forms.

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Unit Enchantment - Flamer Focus

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The flamer focus is a reference to the Draconians from Age of Wonders 3, the Flamer unit had a Fire Bomb ability which this enchantment is recreating for Age of Wonder 4. It applies to Battle Mages and grants a full action ability that deals damage to a target and half to adjacent units while also applying Burning and Bleeding to those affected.

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Major Race Transformation - Draconian Transformation

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The draconian transformation turns your race into Dragon humanoid hybrids. The Dragon type grants all racial units Draconic Rage, increasing their damage when they are under 60% hit points. This transformation also gives Burning Immunity and Natural Regeneration which causes units to recover hit points up to the amount they started battle with.

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This is a brief view of what you can find in the tomes. The Dragon Dawn content pack is coming out on the 20th of June and I hope to see your Lizardfolk and Dragon Lord creations and mighty dragon armies!
 

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I really hope that one of your DLCs or patches will add a feature that allows the players to not apply visuals during racial transformations. Just add a checkbox "Apply visuals" during spell cast.

Just look at that poor berserker. Not only he lost his unique cool looking helmet, which only that unit wears, thus losing its identity, it also looks like Zabrak race from Starwars, or non-red Darth Maul. Who wants to rule a race of Darth Mauls?

Or look at silly dragon transformation, which looks more like an imp transformation. Seriously, who do you think want to rule a race of Horned Darth Mauls with little imp wings?
 
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Is there any backstory to the lizardfolk? I remember in AOW 1 they supposedly went "extinct" thanks to Nimue's capriciousness. I know lore consistency isn't really a huge deal for age of wonders (its a pretty open world with vague boundaries) but I'm curious nonetheless
 
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Is there any backstory to the lizardfolk? I remember in AOW 1 they supposedly went "extinct" thanks to Nimue's capriciousness. I know lore consistency isn't really a huge deal for age of wonders (its a pretty open world with vague boundaries) but I'm curious nonetheless
They went extinct on Athla, AoW 4 is a multiverse deal.
 
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Seems the transformation makes your race bald like the wightborn one. Since this seems like it gives all of your race the same skin, horns and hair loss its going to remove most of your customizations and make it hard to tell hero's apart like with wightborn. I would prefer that lizardkin + draconian gave the traditional draconian look and the other kins had more a blend of their original kin mixed in with the draconian.
 
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Lol, beefy lizard best lizard.

Btw consider giving Gold and Obsidian dragons dual damage type, Fire/Spirit for Gold dragon and Frost/Blight for Obsidian dragon.
 
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Seems the transformation makes your race bald like the wightborn one.
On the Steam Page for Dragon Dawn there's an example of Zaethyl and her First Elves receiving the new major transformation, and she still has her hair in that screenshot, while also having horns (though the hair has turned green, so it does unfortunately overwrite the hair colour you chose at the beginning, it seems)
 
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I see looks like hero's keep theirs but your people don't based on that screenshot. That should help with keeping your heroes distinct from each other and preserving some customization. Think it would look better if it worked the same way with your people too but heroes are definitely the more important part.
 
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As with the Dragon Lords, the lizard folk optical customization looks amazing, top notch!

Have to agree however with the concerns raised already that the draconian transformation may look weird.
Wings seem to be way too small to even lift off from the ground, even more so since they seem to be massively perforated.

Doesn't seem to be obvious at all what the design idea or rationale has been here.
Prime candidate for a timely rework or mod IMHO.
 
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In general the DLC content looks good. As I said previously I'm not very much into the idea of playing a non-humanoid Dragon, but the lizard form looks marvellous and the new tomes look fun! Love how much the older Draconians are referenced in this!

I see looks like hero's keep theirs but your people don't based on that screenshot.

Right! That somehow didn't register for me. I think it's because the High cultured units usually wear helmets/cowls so I didn't "miss" their hair.
 
I think the wings are meant to be flawed or vestigial as the transformation says nothing about flying.
Exactly. The Tier 1 unit of the original Draconians from AoW2 had vestigial wings and couldn't fly. They had a specific unit called "Flyer" who had much larger wings and represented the only members of the species that could fly (apart from heroes)
 
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Exactly. The Tier 1 unit of the original Draconians from AoW2 had vestigial wings and couldn't fly. They had a specific unit called "Flyer" who had much larger wings and represented the only members of the species that could fly (apart from heroes)
It is consistent with slither too, they have same underdeveloped wings.

Orphalesion said:
On the Steam Page for Dragon Dawn there's an example of Zaethyl and her First Elves receiving the new major transformation, and she still has her hair in that screenshot, while also having horns (though the hair has turned green, so it does unfortunately overwrite the hair colour you chose at the beginning, it seems)
It could be just an early build, for example screenshot 8 (for base game) shows hero dual wielding magic orbs.
 
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Nice Dev Diary. Looking forward to the....ahum....
Draconian Lizard Beefserker shown
Has a bazillion hitpoints, natural regen, refuses to die and gets supermega angry if you poke it too much.
An amazing example!