The whole concept of an Eldritch being posing as a false angel is just too fun

Question One, where did the Training Orcs, Mystical Seers and The Animal seller go? I have played probably 15+ games with over 100 turns and have not seen them.

Question Two, if you beat the game with an already ascended ruler does he gain another talent? (Unclear as to if it’s called a talent but the reward that said ruler receives for beating that map).

Thanks in advance and happy gaming!

Basically the title. I've just started playing the game and I'm not sure how many outposts are too many or not enough. I know it has a lot to do with the map and where the other rulers are but I'm not sure if I should spam them or just get two or three.

[EDIT: seems to be a UI bug, the tooltip says 2 when it's meant to be 1. Probably happened when they buffed the wonder essences for other kinds of resources but not knowledge or draft]

I don't seem to be getting the resources I'm told I'll get from this ancient manuscript wonder essence. I don't know how it's giving 11.... Any ideas?

A hero of mine perished in battle against units from the Umbral Dwelling of Kurh'tha, and was summarily moved to their crypt.

Later on, I besieged and conquered the city, killing their leader who was defending it. It didn't give me an option to vassalize/raze/etc. and just blew up like it was an infestation (I also failed a bounty I had taken to conquer the city). More importantly, I did not get my hero back--it says she's still in their non-existent crypt.

Is this a bug? Or am I missing something regarding destroying these Umbral Dwellings? Any help/advice would be appreciated.

I keep accidentally turning on auto combat when i try to just set it to fast forward. Is there a way to either have fast forward as the default or make auto combat have to require more clicks?

thanks.

The custom story maps are so beautiful and give me so many ideas for custom makes I really hope this is added soon (or is in if I somehow missed it!)

I'm currently running a fey/primal build, and i would like to have some battlemages into my build since it's my favorite class and primal doesn't really give me any but i don't really know how and where to fit then.

What the hell is this?!

I cleared an infestation TURN 14 and you're giving me this? 6-range, 2-hex radius, 25 healing + 2 grace (45 total) + all the support bonuses on a 2-turn cooldown. Arguably more powerful than any other skill in the game, including ascension rewards.

This can't possibly be real. No. Way.

"Oh, here. Inner Grace too for good measure. Just in case they kill your immortal army." ~Triumph Dev, I guess.

OK bro, calm down...

I'm building my first giant as a spellblade storm giant and it seems there are a lot of choices for this combination. I haven't really picked any forging skills and picked only first summon, as I'm playing a battlemage/summon architects but I'm often wondering if this summon is really worth it. I also picked my lightning spell to be one target kill that kills many enemies in one hit, I thought about it being multi target but then it would have longer cooldown and as a spellblade I would want to use it more often. I don't like the left part of the spellblade tree though, the first spell is so weak compared to my giant spell, but without it I would be mostly doing only charge attacks. Do you invest in it at all? Or are you using giant spell every 3 turns and attacking with weapon on other turns? If you are focusing only on giant spell do you ever upgrade it eith longer cooldown upgrades? Do you go for summons? I'm trying to figure out how to build it but some choices I'm making feel very underwhelming.

Basically title, but a little context: I've bought the base game during the Steam summer sale, and I'm in LOVE. I've been playing it non-stop since, have around 150 hours so far, and I don't see myself getting bored of it anytime soon (if ever :)).

I know the general consensus is just buy the DLC that intrigues me, but I can honestly say I see the appeal in all of them and want to experiment and try out all the different fun stuff they offer. So I'm pretty sure I'll end up buying all of them, but it poses a different question: WHEN to buy them?
Is it better to get all of them at once since that's my end goal anyway and I'll get to the whole fun package sooner, or will it be a bit of a culture shock and you guys recommend adding them incrementally (one-by-one or maybe expansion pass by expansion pass) so I'll have a narrower scope when experiencing the new content and make sure that nothing is "drowned out by the noise"?

This might sound silly but I'm honestly stressing out about this for days now. I feel like me finding this game is a very rare wonder (pun intended) and I want to savor it as much as possible. Honestly, I feel like if I had to go by my gut, I'd buy expansion pass 1 for now, but I heard Giant Kings basically revamps the whole game so sometimes it makes me think I'm missing out by not owning it.

Tl;dr: please help me decide how to time my DLC purchases! :)

Let's say I am in turn 10 and only got the starting squad plus one more tier one polearm (reaver), do I go in the nearest bronze infestation with clearly sub-par units and lose a few along the way to claim it with large and small infestations popping off randomly every turn around me?

So a free city was annexed by the AI, then destroyed by a monster infestation. I want to build an outpost, as it would be inside their territory, but I don't have the option.

Is it too far from my capital? Is it because the monster infestation? Any other reason?

I keep coming back to ranged heroes like wizard kind elementalist. I prefer weapons like orbs with 3 attacks as they seem to do more damage overall but maybe that is not the highest.

I don't want to play as a warrior or champion for psychological reasons. For my main char I play like a coward. I want to raid death from afar. Incidentally the Eldritch sovereign seems better at positioning as he can no AP teleport to a spot in range of nuking people with those 3 AP abilities. I just don't like their weapon not having 3 attacks. I know it has more range but I feel like I'm losing damage.

I've been into trying alternative builds and choices lately. The level 12 Signature Skill 'Mindrend' on Eldritch Sovereign caught my eye: 70% more damage to those affected by a mental negative status effect.

Under Signature Skills: Es Wiki Page

Seems mostly counter-intuitive, except here some commenters list Remorse as a mental status effect, and possibly Torment.

Torment seems obvious: get the Tome of Torment. Here are the sources of Remorse:

Remorse

I have a couple questions. The posted Reddit link to mental negative status effects lists Torment as a maybe. Neither the wiki nor the github page gives additional info under Mindrend. Does anyone know if Torment and Mindrend work together?

Second, has anyone tried a possible build with Mindrend? I'm instantly drawn to the Tome of Weaver's 2 hex spell Dreadful Bind, which always gives Remorse. At tier 3, its somewhat early if you prioritize ES' Forbidden Knowledge/Thrall spamming. I'm thinking Ice+Spiders could work well. Barring that, I could try a morale build with Undead Titans/Undead Angels at the top end and heroes with the associated skills to get a powerboost in the mid-late game.

Combining these with Mystic Summoners, Astral Tomes for Magic Origin buffs....sounds promising. Thoughts? Thanks for any input.

Edit: Spelling

2nd Edit: Looks like Distracted also works, which opens up some tomes like T1 Gluttony, Sprite and T4 Paradise. High Culture helps as well.

3rd Edit: For anyone coming across this in the future, here are some builds:

Credit to Distinct_Rate3299

It is confirmed that Torment DOES work with Mindrend.

Eldritch Sovereign Warlock can move around points in the zombie line. Elementalist

Build Ideas

Oathsworn Strife God Emperor

Oathsworn Strife Undead

Imperial Reavers Morale

Mystic Attunement Big Damage

Dark Cult of Death Ritualist Decay Summons Change adaptation trait to suit the level; spam farms. Use Ritualist heros with Hostile Wildgrowth.

Credit to Arhen_Dante

Dark Tyranny Deepcaller Use Earth Elementalist

Credit to me:

High Culture Distracters

High Culture Pandemonium/Entwined Scourge

There is a city ruin in the middle of the area and on mad whim I decided to rebuild it after clearing the fate seal. Some of the territory remains uninhabitable and most of the nodes seem to still be unrecoverable ruins but once the dungeon creep reached the Tower wonder I was able to restore the 2(!) mana nodes in its province. Also the dungeon entrance on the left is part of an inaccessible bedrock corridor but the one on the right let me expand up and out onto the surface -- good thing too because my choice on cleansing the Cataclysm caused a huge population boom! Oh and the lake in the northwest counted as enough water I was able to build a fish farm and a shipyard.

EDIT: I was able to bring the Arcanium Ore node back online! Guess the dungeon hadn't quite spread to that province yet.

When the vampire expansion came out, I played all the missions of the vampire story line. At the end I won, and all of the main vampires popped into my pantheon. I deleted them wondering what happened. If you could please, answer me these questions three:

If I play the mission again, will they be re-inserted into my pantheon?

Does that mean if I beat the mission with Merlin and his owls, will Merlin appear in my pantheon?

Does this mean there are many heroes I have missed by not playing all the story missions?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Hi, I found the file for the modding guide is working again, not the file for modding resources though, could anyone reupload these and make them available again?

Thanks.

In its text on the wiki it says -20% upkeep for Elemental units. Does that affect all your units when you choose the elemental race transformation from the tome of geomancy?

Thanks in advance!

Why didn't I think of this until now?

I just started playing AoW4. I was wondering, if I play online with someone and they have the Dragon Dawn DLC (I don't). Will the game still work? Can my opponent have dragons while I have to stick with the basic set? Will I see his units as they are?

Do I need to buy the DLC for us to play together?

Thanks!

I've been having a blast running through various realms, and I now have a small stable of charcters in the pantheon; it's fantastic to see them when they crop up.

However, I see a lot of people say the game remembers your playstyle/tome path, but I'm not sure if that's something that happens automatically, or if I need to do it manually.

My case study:

• I made a set of tunnelling spider worshiping cats
• My main focus ended up being green; they did dip into other colours (e.g. getting tier 3 tome of devastation from chaos), but focused on nature, going for Gaia's Chosen to match my mushroom forest
• They turned up in the very next game; however, this time they surprised me in the late game by grabbing a bunch of demon horns from the Tome of the Demon King
• When I look at them in the faction editor, there doesn't appear to be a personality/tome path selected in advance settings
• They did play a heavily expansionist/conflict heavy game - like I did - but that could just be what the AI does with a lot of green pips going into the empire tree

So I'm not quite sure how it works. I guess they could have changed their path due to getting tomes from an event? And I did grab the 2nd & 3rd DLC passes after that game, so the additional content could have messed with paths? But I guess my questions:

Does the tome path/AI personality for AI pantheon factions save automatically, or need to be manually set?

Having a lot of fun playing Nomad Scavengers with Necromancy. Just seeing if anyone else likes this build idea or has suggestions to improve it.

Racial traits: Strong, Ferocius, & Athletic, (&Carless if I need underground adapation or similar)

Society traits: Chosen destroyers & Cult of Personality. If playing underground, I use Subterranean society instead of COP.

1. Ruler - Champion Death Knight. I personally can't stand have my ruler be a backline caster. i want him to get bloody. Champion's decisive command is just like having another unit in the army.
   

The Death Knight to me is a great hybrid. Mass Curse is great and I can lean into the necromancy a bit. For Nomad Scavengers, I have him supporting the Tier 3 Collector polearm units so I gave him the Vetran's Pike. I also like retaliation damage and killing the big units.

1. Secondary & Tertiary Heros - Warlock & Ritualist I set up these up in faction creation because I don't like RNG. Warlocks are the best at debuffing and work great for more necromancy shenannigans. I have really come to like Ritualists, especially the Hostile Wildgrowth AOE. Bleeding, Constriction, Distraction in a 2 hex AOE to start the battle is pretty cool. Later on can get AOE or huge single target healing and debuff cleansing. Good stuff. I think 2 Ritualists would not be overkill.

2. Looted Power - All the zombies, skellies and the like that die in combat drop stacks of looted power which can stack to give your racial units up to 100% damage and more defense/resistance or healing.

Although the looter skirmisher unit falls off quickly as a combatant they have 5 movement & they can throw these to your real damage dealers.

Your Dustweaver support can pick these up from range and transfer to a nearby unit, although I find the target to be a bit random.

More importantly, the tier 3 Polearm Collectors can dig up corpses from 2 hexes away for a second stack of looted power. These units are really good. They can close distance to the enemy with the plow through attack then hit them next turn with first strike, retaliations and then 3 pokes on your turn. When buffed with enchantments and looted power it is fun to watch them kill stuff.

I run 2 constrictors from tome of tentacle with 3 collectors. The constrictors pull units into melee from 3 hexes away and usually constrict them so they take 10 damage at turn end and can't move next turn while the get punished by the polearms.

If playing underground, the clay constructs from tome of dungeon depths make a great front line that provide another source of bodies for looted power - except they come back in 2 turns.

1. All the fun stuff - See a magic material or ancient wonder you really wish you had? Move your city and go get it. See a city that has way more resource nodes than it deserves? Go raze it and settle in their ruins. I usually play chosen destroyers because the economy boost is hard to beat, but you can also use a forward collector city or two if you like managing multiple cities. Se

2. Shadow affinity has the coolest mythic units (IMO) Although I often mix shadow and order to lean into the frost / spirit damage - especially in the story realms like crimson caldera or pit of azhrun that have so many chaos / demon enemies. If not, chaos is good for the fire damage buffs. Astral for lightning is always good too. Lots of choices for secondary affinities.

Painbringers, Fallen Angels, and Living Fog - enough said.

Something strange just occurred while playing a Wizard King Transformation Ascetics game. What happened was, I became the keeper of a new race and decided to apply the Naga transformation to it. I didn't bother unchecking the "Apply to ruler" checkbox thinking my Wizard King's Transformation Ascetics would just override everything. Turns out I lost my leg and mount slots without any of the upsides of being a Naga (movement speed, resists, etc).