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Full Age of Wonders 4 update
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- Gameplay
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Age of Wonders 4 changes
Greetings, esteemed Godir! My name is Luis, a senior designer at Triumph Studios. I am here to share that new tomes have been uncovered and you too can find them in the first Story Pack for Age of Wonders 4: Secrets of the Archmages.
There’s more new tomes on this Story Pack! But today I am going to tell you about the three tomes that can be taken at the start of the game.
Tome of Abjuration
The first of the three tomes I will showcase is the Tome of Abjuration. This hybrid Order and Astral tome focuses on granting your units the Grace, Status Protection, and Precognition status effects.
While this tome does not unlock a standard unit, it features a special tactical unit that can be conjured in battle: the Abjurer Pylon.
Like most summoned towers, the Abjurer Pylon cannot move once summoned. However, it possesses a ranged Magic Shield support ability that grants two stacks of Grace and Status Protection. Protecting the unit from negative effects while healing it a bit when it gets attacked.
Abjurer Glyphs grant your Ranged and Skirmisher units a new property called Battle Shields. This provides protection as a unit's health drops in combat by granting Precognition, causing the next incoming attack to miss.
This effect triggers once the unit reaches 60% and 30% of its maximum health.
Mage Armor provides exactly what the name suggests: it grants two additional Defense to your Battle Mage, Magic Fighter, and Support units, making them more durable against physical attacks.
Other Spells and Unlocks:
Curse Reversal: A combat spell that removes and, if applicable, inverts any negative status effect on a single unit. For example, if used on a Poisoned unit, it removes the condition and grants Regeneration instead.
Abjure Violence: A combat spell with a strong chance to Pacify a unit, preventing it from attacking. The success rate decreases as the target sustains damage, making it most effective against healthy enemy units at the start of battle.
City Wards: Grants a city or free city Stability and Fortification health. If used on a free city it grants a small amount of Allegiance per turn.
Glyph Tower is a special province improvement that provides a stability bonus to the city. This bonus and the city's fortification health increase further for each adjacent conduit.
Tome of Gluttony
Next, we have the Tome of Gluttony. A pure Chaos tome, it focuses on empowering your units as they feed on the essence released by their kills.
While I usually start by introducing a tome's unique unit, I want to first discuss the minor transformation Demonic Hunger, as this tome revolves around it.
This transformation allows your units to gain the Gorged status effect whenever they kill an enemy.
Gorged is a permanent positive status effect that cannot be dispelled and persists after combat. Each stack grants the unit +2 total Hit Points.
Upon reaching five stacks, it converts into Demonic Satiation. This permanent property grants the unit +5 maximum hit points and a permanent +5% damage increase.
This process can then repeat, allowing units to devour chaos energy and grow stronger. Demonic Satiation stacks up to 10 times, potentially providing a total of +50 Hit Points and +50% Damage.
Additionally, these units heal by 25% of their health when participating in pillaging a province.
To help your units feed, there is the Gluttonous Imp. This new Infernal Fiend unit has a special ability called Imp’s Hunger, which grants it a stack of Gorged at the start of battle and whenever it scores a kill.
Instead of gaining Demonic Satiation at five stacks, the Imp heals all allies within a 2-hex radius. If those allies have the Demonic Hunger transformation, they also gain a Gorged stack, propagating the effect across your army.
Other Spells and Unlocks:
Infernal Jaws: A single-target damage spell. If it kills the enemy, adjacent allies are healed and gain a stack of Gorged.
Illusory Feast: Combat spell that inflicts Distracted to a single enemy and has a chance to stun them.
Corrupt Pact: A sustained strategic spell targeting a Free City not at war with you. While active, the city's relations with other players are reduced, and you steal 80% of its food production.
This tome also unlocks a unique province improvement: the Hungering Maw. It converts 10% of a city's food production into mana and grants the city 50 food whenever you win a battle.
Tome of the Sprite
The third and final tome we are discussing is the Tome of the Sprite. This provides an early entry into the Fey archetype, offering two Fey units, enchantments and fey trickery.
The tome features a summon spell, Summon Sprite, which allows you to choose between summoning a Morning Sprite or an Evening Sprite.
The Morning Sprite is a support unit that inflicts Burning and Poison with its attacks. Its Morning Boon ability grants Regeneration and Strengthened to a target while removing one negative status effect.
This unit can evolve into either a Spring Fairy or a Summer Fairy, both of which are the Tier III Fey support units you know from the base game.
Conversely, the Evening Sprite is a Battle Mage focused on Frost and Lightning damage, featuring a debuff ability, Evening Bane, that Blinds and Slows a single target.
Like its counterpart, it evolves into either a Tier III Battle Mage: an Autumn Fairy or a Winter Fairy.
The tome includes two enchantments. The first, Fey Bond, can be applied to all non-Mythic units. It grants 10 Morale at the start of battle and provides Status Resistance (+2 at neutral morale, +4 at high morale).
The second enchantment, Fairy Dust, applies to Battle Mages and Support units. It grants a free action ability that has a high chance to Distract, Blind, or Slow a target unit.
Other Spells and Unlocks:
Captivating Lights: A combat spell that cancels an enemy's defense mode and retaliations while inflicting Distracted.
Catnap: A strategic spell that consumes all movement points from a friendly army, healing each unit by 1 Hit Point for every point removed from them.
Fey Woods is a Forestry province improvement that increases a city's food and draft income, providing additional mana for each adjacent forester.
I hope you are looking forward to experimenting with these tomes! You can acquire them when the Story Pack, Secrets of the Archmages, releases on June 16th. Join Bas next week as he reveals the secrets of the Shrouded Isles.
That’s all for now but there will be three other tomes to find on the Story Pack!
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