Dev Diary #4 — Realms and the Pantheon

[HeyTiko]

Hello everyone, I'm Thomas Schuiten, a designer at Triumph Studios. Today in this dev diary I will give you some insight into the many Realms you can explore, and the Magehaven from which you do so.

The fourth Age of Wonders brings the return of the Wizard kings, but more than that, with the barriers between worlds torn open, many Realms are now within reach.

This new freedom calls for a different approach to Scenarios and maps than Age of Wonders has known in the past, and it's an excellent fit to build upon the lessons of Planetfall’s Empire Mode.

In this age you will form a Pantheon of god-like characters through your conquests. A Ruler may ascend to the Pantheon by conquering a Realm, from where they may join future conquests, or oppose them…

There will be more info on the Pantheon further down, but first we must choose a Realm to conquer.


Realms

There are 3 kinds of Realm to choose from:

• Story Realms, with custom lore and story content that tells the story of the Fourth Age of Wonders and the return of the Godir,​
• Challenge Realms, where an interesting set of traits is gathered together to give a unique Realm to be explored and conquered.​
• Custom Realms, these are your own creations, making a custom Realm lets you pick Traits as you see fit to make something unexpected.​

Each Realm is made up of various Realm Traits, these are divided into 5 types based on which aspect of the Realm they affect; Geography, Clime, Inhabitant, Presence and Miscellaneous (further referred to as Misc).
Each realm can feature 1 of each of these (except for Misc traits, of which a realm can have 4)

Geography Traits determine the shape of the world and can have a huge impact. This is where you find “Continents” and “Islands” map types, but also a few unique twists such as “Lava Divide” where the realm is roughly split in two by an ocean of impassable lava (only connected through the underground)

Clime Traits are next, and they modify the environment of the realm, making certain climes more or less likely to appear.If you want a desert realm or a frozen wasteland this is where you can find it. (Or if you want some real chaos you can choose Forming Realm and watch the world form around you as you build your empire)

Inhabitant Traits affect the prevalence of particular creature types on that Realm as well as certain structures, perhaps left behind by the Realm’s previous inhabitants. This is where you can make the Realm dominated by undead creatures, or have enormous beasts stalking the wilderness.

Presence Traits add Empires to the realm that have special starting conditions and provide a unique challenge, for example the Pretender kings adds 3 kings with substantial kingdoms in the midst of a succession war.

Lastly there’s Misc Traits, these modify the rules of the game, or otherwise modify the realm in a manner that can be mixed and matched with any other trait. Want to make a realm where Free Cities are less common, leaving ruins instead to mark valuable locations? The Ruined Realm trait will do that.

When you’ve obtained some experience in the game, misc traits are where you find interesting twists to change up your play through, like with for example the Megacities trait.

Your Pantheon

The Pantheon is where you collect your Ascended rulers, each ruler you complete a Realm with may ascend to your Pantheon, from where they may aid or hinder future conquests. It is also where you spend the Points you’ve earned with your Pantheon XP to unlock new customization options for your leaders!

During your conquests you gain Pantheon XP for completing certain actions, clearing infestations, conquering cities, defeating players and gaining vassals are just some examples. Completing a Realm through victory, defeat or by abandoning it adds this XP to your Pantheon and gives you Points with which to unlock new items in the Pantheon tree.

These include hats and cloaks as seen above, but also Leader origins and society traits that will add new options to your empire creation.

As you gain Pantheon XP you will also unlock new Realms to explore, each bringing a unique Presence trait to the table that you may then use in your own custom realms as well.

I hope you enjoyed this introduction to the Realm and Pantheon system, there is much to be explored and experimented with. I look forward to seeing the Realms that you create and reading the stories of your conquests!

Stay tuned for a new dev diary next week as we are going to talk about Factions creation. Also, consider adding the game to the Wishlist!

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[Triumph Jordi]

Looks really cool, but can you get these pantheon points only by completing singleplayer maps or also in multiplayer?

Any Map you play, whether it's a Story Realm, Custom Realm or even a Multiplayer match will allow for ascension of Rulers and gaining Pantheon XP.

Meanwhile

• Animal Units are Common
• Marauder Animal Units gain Empowered Beasts

The group of Animals is quite big and varied, and you haven't seen yet what Empowered Beasts does

Maybe I missed it, but what does Tier 3, Tier 4, Tier 5 stand for in the Realms-selection screen?

Challenge Tiers are used to indicate the Difficulty of a Realm. We assign those based on the combination of Traits a realm has, so higher Tier Realms have more challenging combinations of Realm Traits.

 

[Triumph Jordi]

This looks cool, but can we also just play like a random map with no pantheon and just setup a game with custom leaders, teams (can we even make teams in AOW IV?), etc like in Age of Wonders III, or is AOW IV's single player experience completely tied to only pantheon? I am not familiar with the empire mode in Planetfall because I have very limited time in it, and the time that I spent in Planetfall, I've just played random maps. Will AOW IV work similar to how Planetfall is in this aspect? One mode for just random maps and one mode for empire/pantheon?

There's no real Pantheon Mode in AoW4, it is woven throughout the entire game. Whether you're playing a Story Realm, Multiplayer or a Custom Realm. You gain XP for the actions you take during a game which allows you to progress in the Pantheon.

When setting up a Custom Realm you can choose any of the traits, or leave them empty for a default Realm, and in the Advanced Settings you can set whether Random Rulers are chosen from the Pre-Made Rulers, your own Custom Rulers or even randomly Generated but you can also manually assign every slot a Ruler. The Advanced Settings still exist as they have in the past, it's just that the Realm Generation is now handled through Realm Traits.

Me encantó el diario de esta semana, pero saber que la próxima semana se centrará en la creación de facciones me emociona por lo que tendremos la próxima semana.

Yes, next week will be very interesting. I do want to remind you that this is an English forum and all post should be made in English.

 

[Avoxel]

Looks really cool, but can you get these pantheon points only by completing singleplayer maps or also in multiplayer?

You can gain XP and use your Pantheon unlocked items in multiplayer as well. Realms are also playable as multiplayer maps ^^

How big are the customization options for the first character we create?

There's quite a wide variety of customization items available to each mortal Leader (based on their culture) or Godir. The Pantheon merely adds a few additional options unbound by culture for you to make some new combinations ^^

Great stuff, I am happy about all the options and possibilities! So the obvious question is: will the pantheon progression offer draconians or lizardmen at some point?
And: when a leader reaches my pantheon, s/he will still be there to start more raids - aeh visits (did I say raids?) *cough* - on further relams?

Ascended leaders that have joined the pantheon can be reused and edited without a problem, they may also offer to join you as a Hero (if you are not already playing as them of course).

All of this looks very promising.

I have a question: There is an option "Underground start" here. Does this mean that *everyone* starts underground, or only some players? Will there still be maps where some start locations are underground and some are on the surface?

Underground start would force all Players to start underground. Outside of that any Player can start underground by picking the Underground Adaptation Form trait in race creation.

Sounds (and looks) very good. Especially liking 1) the Geography Traits that dramatically impact the world like the Lava Divide., 2) the Presence Traits providing unique challenges and 3) the Misc Traits that give different game rules. Mixing these in different ways should also garantuee extra replayability.
And gaining XP to unlock things is always a nice bonus.

Maybe I missed it, but what does Tier 3, Tier 4, Tier 5 stand for in the Realms-selection screen?

The Tiers are assigned by hand when Realm Templates are made, it is a vague indication of how hard/complicated the realm makes the game. Wouldn't want anyone starting out foolishly picking to fight the Demon King and getting absolutely demolished. :^)

will there be also options concering realm size - like small, medium, large, gigantic realms?

Map size is governed by the "Player Distance" setting combined with the amount of players. It can be set as normal and is independent from the Realm Traits.

Question: Is turning city founding off still an option in the game rules, as in AoW3, or is it strictly tied to realm type? Cause I confess I nearly always played with that option.

It is included as a Misc Trait. there is no separate option for it however.

What exactly is a realm, story-wise? Is it comparable to a whole planet? Or is it more like a small pocket dimension? And is Athla an example of one of these realms?

The game looks great btw! So excited to play it!

Realms are regions on a world, there are many worlds, with Athla being an example, the Valley of Wonders for example is a Realm within Athla.

A little concerned about how society trait unlocks will work for multiplayer, needing XP for gameplay options there could be a problem. Will everything be available in MP? Or can you beeline to skip the cosmetics and just get the gameplay unlocks fairy quick?

the Society traits unlocked through the Pantheon system are not necessarily more powerful than the ones available by default, they are variations to allow new approaches for advanced players.

What's the difference between a character that is in my Pantheon and one that I've created but not yet played in a Realm? Does the former get bonuses or cosmetics that the latter doesn't? Can a custom character show up as a random opponent even if they're not (yet) part of the Pantheon?

Any custom leader can show up as an opponent regardless of them being part of the Pantheon or not. (if you do not disable this of course). Pantheon leaders may show up as Heroes during your conquest while custom leaders will not.

This looks cool, but can we also just play like a random map with no pantheon and just setup a game with custom leaders, teams (can we even make teams in AOW IV?), etc like in Age of Wonders III, or is AOW IV's single player experience completely tied to only pantheon? I am not familiar with the empire mode in Planetfall because I have very limited time in it, and the time that I spent in Planetfall, I've just played random maps. Will AOW IV work similar to how Planetfall is in this aspect? One mode for just random maps and one mode for empire/pantheon?

Everything is unified in one mode, but all options are still present.
If you want a completely random map, simply start a custom realm without selecting any traits. (Except for the Geography one, which is required) Just pick continents and nothing als and press go, and you will have a basic random map.

i know its abit early but can you provide me some napkin math how long would I need to grind, to get specific origin from pantheon I really like ?

thank you so much if u can, love what I see so far

Progression pace depends on the game length (As a lot of xp is gained from in game actions), Victory or Defeat counts for the largest chunk however. On average it is expected you'll get between 3-5 points from a conquest which should get you through a particular theme unlocks. (of course if you want some of the stuff further down in the tree it'll take a bit to get there.

Then the question is will main story mod give you end game rewards?

And can you jump between story mode and regular mod, will too many unlockable making story mode easier?

Story Realms are part of the Pantheon system as well, there is no separation between the two. And unlockable society traits are not necessarily more powerful than the regular available traits, thus they should not make the game any easier. (if you want it to be easier you can always adjust the difficulty settings of any realm you chose to play on, Story or otherwise)

Out of curiosity, I just went into Empire mode in Planetfall to see the setup, and appears we cannot make teams in it. Just to confirm, in AOW IV's Pantheon, are we able to assign teams to the ruler slots in the advanced settings?

contained this in an above reply but yes, you can add players as normal if you like and set their teams as well. ^^

Question about Custom Realms - will there be options in multiplayer for each player to have a say in the Realm's traits, or will it all be host controlled?

A 'drafting phase' of realm traits would add a really interesting meta layer to the game

It would be neat indeed, however we have to keep scope in mind and as such the setup is Host controlled, does not stop players from having them selected on house rules or playing a particular custom realm anyway though ^^

Everything i have seen so far looks amazing. The freedom in creating race/culture/affinity combinations plus a custom campaign builder like the pantheon system is taking AOW to the next level imo.

How i understand it everything including the story campaign (story realm) is part of the pantheon. Sound amazing!

What i love about the empire mode in PF is that you can unlock almost any unit/doctrine/mod and choose 3 of each to be available on a planet.
Its so much fun to have your favorite faction unit by your side, finding new synergies outside of your race/secret tech or even preparing in advance for a specific challange on a planet.
Is something like this part of the pantheon system?

Also as a modder i am burning for intel on the modding tools/system. Will it be like or similar to PF? Any major changes or improvements?

There is no requisition system like the Empire Mode in PF, this is due to the nature of AoW4's Tome system. You can already mix and match tech as you like, and nothing is off limits as it was in Planetfall. Thus adding a system like this would be redundant. You'll be able to make any build you want and adapt to challenges in every game thanks to the Tome system, but talking about that is not my domain so ill leave that for another time

As for modding, I've mentioned it earlier in this oversized reply post, but the intent is that any modder can add an RPK with whatever they desire, and as long as it uses the correct resource the Realm system detects it and lets you choose it as a custom realm trait, adding whatever content it contains. Though moddability is something we still need to properly test, it is one of our aims. I'm not the most technical person so hope that helps.



Happy to see such a positive response! I'll try to keep up to date if there's further questions but hope these answers help! ^^

 

[Triumph Jordi]

Say: I played an evil hero and win a conquest and after that I play a peaceful good hearted champion, will the evil one be a possible companion?

You control yourself whether a Ascended Ruler can join as a Hero. There's a checkbox for each Ruler that will enable or disable them from showing as a Hero.

 

[Triumph Jordi]

This was the first DD to up my worries. Gating cosmetic and gameplay customization options through play brings only one thing to mind: grind. And in most games, I don't think that is justified.

The main thing is that many of the things you do during a Game will award you XP naturally, including winning or losing a game. The current balance would result in approximately 4 Pantheon Points at the end of an average realm.

 

[Avoxel]

That "Forming Realm" option sounds like it'll be chaotic as hell and crazy-fun to play!

Couple of questions about the maps/realms I have that I hope somebody could answer for me...

Is there an option to create a realm with a variety or mish-mash of the various climate options?

Will the map edges be "seamless"? I'm not sure if that's the correct term, but what I mean is can you basically circumnavigate the map, like in Planetfall? Or will there be a hard border around the edges of the map, like in AoW3?
Going by one of Joridi's answers to another question, I'm guessing the maps will have a "hard" border like in AoW3, but figure I'd ask anyway.
I would love an option to have a seamless map though.

What way are players/Ai opponents placed around the map? Are they placed in a circle near the edges of the map equidistant from each other? Or are they placed randomly all over the place?

You can simply not pick a clime trait to have all of them included, however when it comes to picking traits unfortunately they cannot mix as they would overwrite each other, hence only 1 can be picked at a time. Though modding in any combination you'd like should be really easy. (though I hope to have covered obvious choices)

The map is not circumnavigable on account of the map not covering an entire "world" but rather a Realm within that world. There were some techy reasons too but I can't help with those ;^)

Empires are placed based on the Player Distance setting, if you want them closer and have a smaller map you set it to close, same the other way around. ^^

 

[Triumph Jordi]

Is a cost of "1" typical for such cosmetic unlocks? What is the lowest and highest unlock cost of some of these abilities, currently?

Everything in the tree requires 1 Pantheon Point at this point in development. To unlock a item you need to have one of the connecting Nodes unlocked.

That gives you enough information to figure out the rest

 

[Triumph Jordi]

I get rewarded just from being able to play the game. I get rewarded when my hero levels up, or I take the enemies last city.

So those are rewards during a game, but that ends once you're finished. The aim of the Pantheon system is to provide rewards for finishing those games. You've just conquered a cool Realm and now you can unlock new cosmetics. With those cosmetics you can make even more ruler fantasies to go into a Realm with.

There is a chance I might have to do or play a certain thing or certain way I would not normally otherwise do just to unlock something I want to try, and that is just not usually a good experience for me.

Like we've detailed, you gain experience for things you will naturally do during a game. You don't have to play a certain way or with a certain thing to gain experience. Even if all you play is Multiplayer you'll gain xp, points and eventually be able to unlock things.

 

[Triumph Jordi]

The dev diaries were showcasing the interesting amount of customisations available only to reveal later that some of those will not be available from the start.

Nothing of what we've shown in Dev Diaries so far is unlocked through the Pantheon. That's all available from the start.

 

[Triumph Jordi]

I was talking about the Frozen Realm, it is a realm trait that needs to be unlocked by reaching pantheon level 4 right? So some other realm traits are further down the level. And the crown, if I unlocked it but didn't like how it looks I wasted points for nothing. I would like a preview of unlockable cosmetic items.

How many hours do you think is needed on average to unlock all the unlockables.

The Frozen Realm is a template/challenge Realm made by us, that is added to the list once your Pantheon reaches level 4. Some of the Traits that make Realm also become available for custom Realms. You still start with plenty of Challenge Realms and Realm Traits.

All of the items in the tree have icons that show what it looks like and the Hero Loadouts/Society Traits explain in the tooltips what they do. You're never making a blind choice.