Faction Creation for Age of Wonders 4 Expanded

A new update was released for Age of Wonders 4 last week. It introduces a lot of new features along with improvements to the game. One of these is the Faction Creation being expanded.

This is made possible with the new Advanced Settings menu and allows players to have more control over how their custom Factions behave when controlled by the AI. The main reason for this change is to give players a more consistent and immersive experience. This should make a lot of players happy, especially for those who have worlds where their own custom Factions show up.

Here are the details of this change:

- Added Advanced Faction Settings to the Finalize Screen in Faction Creation

- Moved Personality Setting to the Advanced Settings Menu

- Added City Name Lists

• Space for 20 City Names

• These City Names are used when founding new Cities of your Race or Migrating to your Race.

- Added Hero Library

• Space for 15 Heroes

• Allows for Visual, Name, Loadout, Ambition and Governor Trait Customization

• These Heroes are always part of your Race (Form, Culture etc.)

• Created Heroes replace the Unaffiliated Heroes in your Recruitment Pool

• Can be disabled from the Advanced Settings - Hero Settings

- Added Tome Pathing

• Determine the Tomes for your Rulers when played by AI Rulers

• First Tome is always based on your Tome Choice in the Creation Flow

• Normal Tome Restrictions apply

Combat Difficulty

The update also introduced Tactical AI profiles to replace Handicaps. These profiles change the behavior and difficulty of the combat AI. What this means is that Tactical Combat should feel more balanced, dynamic, and satisfying. Profiles can be selected for Rulers, Free Cities and Marauders independently. Here's what to expect:

Forgiving

• Less focus on killing off low health enemy units

• Less focus on optimal unit positioning

• Less intelligent unit targeting

• Free City/Players: At the start of combat, the AI moves its units forward in formation until at least 10% of its army is within 6 hexes of their nearest enemy unit.

• Marauders: At the start of combat, exit Cautious Approach immediately.

Challenging (default)

• Focusses on killing off low health units

• Picks safest positioning for ranged units

• Melee units prefer to stand on the frontline

• Lowered priority for targeting summoned units

• Free City/Players: At the start of combat, the AI moves its units forward in formation until at least 60% of its army is within 6 hexes of their nearest enemy unit.

• Marauders: At the start of combat, the AI moves its units forward in formation until at least 10% of its army is within 6 hexes of their nearest enemy unit.

Challenging+

• Same settings as Challenging

• Deals 20% more damage

• Receives 20% less damage

The new update also adds "Flaws" to the characters which you can read more about here. Check out the complete patch notes here.

Age of Wonders 4 extends the time-honored blend of 4X strategy and tactical turn-based combat with players getting to guide a faction as it grows and transforms with the expansion of their empire. Get Age of Wonders 4 on Steam now.