Greetings Giant Kings and other, more respectable Godir. I am Thomas Schuiten, Designer at Triumph and today I get to share with you the details of the rework to our oldest Culture: Feudal!
Alongside the release of Giant Kings on April 1st we are as always releasing a free update to the game alongside it, the Ogre Update, which features improved underground, lava gameplay, more options for your faction creation and most importantly for this particular development diary: a rework of the Feudal Culture.
Queen Lyanne is not to be trifled with. (ok maybe a little as a treat)
Why Feudal?
So, why did we choose Feudal to be the next priority to update?
- It is the oldest culture, made at the start of AoW4’s development, when our style and the implied “power level” of cultural units wasn't really laid down as strongly yet. Peasants started looking a bit odd sharing their tier with Dawn Defenders and other more professional unit themes.
- Strategically they had very little going for them, at release they had the Feudal Lord hero skills which gave them a bit of identity, but didn’t really do much in the grand scheme of things. This was made even more glaring after the Hero rework which left no space for these old skills to be made available.
- Lastly the fantasy of a Feudal empire was not really satisfied, no noble lords leading their house to war, and not enough cavalry or classic feudal associated units.
The goal then is to rework Feudal into a culture that can work as a solid, uncomplicated starting point, but also give enough for veterans and players who seek to go into that particular flavor something to sink their teeth into.
To achieve this, we’ve split Feudal into two subcultures:
Monarchy, where the ruler is absolute, an uncomplicated culture ideal for beginners that rewards keeping things simple, benefiting a playstyle focused on the Ruler’s armies and defense.
And Aristocracy, where each of your empire’s cities is host to a noble House, led by its governor, which each field cheap and effective armies under their banner.
I will tell you about these in detail further below, but first we must speak of the characteristics they share, the Feudal Culture as a whole.
Feudal as a Culture
The Feudal culture represents the more “mundane” type of empire, it covers the classic fantasy trope of the more grounded kingdom as compared to the magic and otherworldliness around them.
Thus to start with we identified the key aspects of the Feudal “fantasy”, what are their associations?
- The King’s divine right to rule
- The Feudal Systems reliance on lesser lords and their levied armies.
- Cavalry, Knights and Bannermen charging into battle.
When designing the Culture’s rework, we sought to ensure we could effectively represent these 3 fantasies in gameplay and theme.
The unit line-up of the Feudal culture has seen some pretty significant changes to accommodate these new themes. Perhaps most notably, their old passive effect “Stand Together” was removed, in favor of the benefits both subcultures grant their units based on their Monarch or Liege Lord.
Stand Together, the old feudal unit passive
Stand together worked in the sense that it created a specific type of gameplay, one where formations are vital to success. It however also had flaws; it made choosing form traits that grant other adjacency benefits a no-brainer and it was easy to accidentally lose the bonus by moving units in the wrong order.
Most importantly, it runs counter to the behavior one would expect or desire of a Cavalry focused culture, requiring the player to move their cavalry into melee range, send a second unit adjacent to them, before attacking with their charged cavalry unit to get the maximum benefit.
For the units, feudal had a unique feature in their tier 1 Peasant units, who evolved into Tier 2 Defenders upon reaching max rank. A clunky feature that could throw people off, as the unit's role would change between evolutions.
Moreover we judged that the concept of a Peasant of all things evolving into effectively the noble warrior class was simply counter to the very essence of the Feudal system. But as the gameplay implications were interesting we reworked it into something more natural and controllable: promotions.
These are contained within the new Aspirant traits, which function similarly to evolve but with two key differences: They do not benefit from effects that modify evolution (they are not evolving after all) and they require a particular condition to be met before they are able to promote into the higher tier unit.
The Aspirant Knight trait, letting the Aspirant Knights promote into full Knights.
Unit Line-up
Tier 1
Militia (Formerly known as the Peasant)
A tier 1 polearm unit, militia are weaker than most tier 1 units, but extremely cheap to maintain and obtain. Not able to be recruited in cities, but rather “summoned” through a strategic spell that creates two militia in the target owned city. A great way to get a new army up and running, or to scramble a defense!
Their visuals got updated as well to grant them a little more in the way of armor, representing their role as militia to fill out your ranks.
Scout
The scout is unchanged, remaining an uncomplicated scouting unit.
Defender
The Defender is now a Tier 1 unit, filling the role of the primary frontline combatant for Feudal cultures. They retain their heavy shield passive, ensuring they remain a stalwart, simple shield unit to keep the enemy at bay.
For the Aristocracy Subculture, the defender has the Aspirant: Liege Guard property, allowing them to be promoted into the Tier 3 Liege Guard unit when reaching max rank and the appropriate structure is built in the empire.
The Defender also gained “Optional Cavalry” letting them function as an early mounted unit for cavalry focused builds.
Archer
The Archer is a mainstay of the Feudal culture, the baseline ranged unit all others vary from. They have gotten a slight buff to help them fulfill a more synergetic role with the cavalry; their attacks now inflict Sundered Defense. Ensuring that the follow up charge of the nobles will hit all that much harder.
For the Monarchy Subculture, the archer has the Aspirant: Longbow property, allowing them to be promoted into the Tier 3 Longbow unit when reaching max rank and the appropriate structure is built in the empire.
Tier 2
Bannerman
The Bannerman has long been an excellent support unit, AoE buffs provided it a powerful niche, though the way it functioned incentivized stacking up early to spread the buff, rather than being mobile as a cavalry culture would wish to be.
Thus a rework on them was necessary, but in a way that seeks to retain their theme.
The bannerman has a new passive effect; War Banner.
This ensures the Bannerman is a constant benefit to the units it joins near the frontline, and though this effect doesn’t stack with other bannermen, it does stack with the benefits of Defense Mode: warding.
Its abilities got rolled into a singular, low cooldown, touch range heal. This can be used every other turn, even while engaged. Healing the target, improving morale and putting the bannerman in defense mode, making them an even more effective anchor for their adjacent allies!
Lastly the Bannerman gained the “Optional Cavalry” trait, letting them follow the cavalry charge closely should you wish to lean into the cavalry theme harder.
Aspirant Knight
The Aspirant knight may look familiar, mostly retaining the look of the old Feudal Tier 3 knight. The Aspirant Knight is instead a tier 2 shock cavalry unit with some unique benefits over other shock units, leaning into more of a skirmisher role than a full knight would.
Aspirant knights have exceptionally high damage for their tier, but they function best against isolated targets. Isolation Slayer means that their damage is reduced if they strike non-isolated targets, while Slippery gives them the ability to reposition rapidly and seek out those isolated targets.
As their name implies, the Aspirant Knights uniquely are able to promote into a new unit. A Tier 4 shock unit, the Knight. This is the only way to acquire Knights, as they cannot be directly built, making them rare and valuable assets to your kingdom.
Tier 3
Longbow (Monarchy Subculture)
A powerful ranged unit with an exceptionally long reach, not only do their base attacks have additional reach thanks to their “Longbow” trait, they also have access to the Longshot ability, a powerful full action shot that reaches out to a whopping 7 tiles away!
This range advantage lets them support even an aggressive cavalry charge and take down high value targets that other ranged units would struggle to strike.
Liege Guard (Aristocracy Subculture]
The Liege guard are guardians of their Liege lord, sturdy and uncomplicated shield units, retaining the Heavy Shield property of their lesser colleagues, and uniquely having the Sworn Bond ability.
The Liege Guard is the ideal protector of your valuable Heroes, able to suck up damage that would otherwise lay their mighty lord low and strengthen them in the process.
Tier 4
Knight
Yes you see that correctly, that is a cultural Tier 4 unit. The Knight is an archetype that we wanted to do more justice, especially for the Feudal culture where it is so quintessential.
The Knight is uncomplicated but potent, only accessible by the promotion of an Aspirant Knight unit.
It retains the Slippery trait of its squires, but gains Giant Slayer in addition, ensuring that the valiant knight may be the one to strike down the beast.
Knights also gain Graceful Charge, letting them take engagements other shock units would potentially avoid. Lastly, Inspiring Killer lets them grant more morale for any opponent they successfully bring low!
Subculture: Monarchy
Your rule is absolute, the people follow their Monarch and fight to defend them and their kingdom.
Monarchy subculture is relatively uncomplicated, serving as a good introduction to the game while supporting the classic kingdom fantasy.
When playing as Monarchy all your units gain “For the Monarch”, a simple but always welcome boost to their effectiveness as long as they are either within the kingdom’s borders, or fighting in battle alongside their beloved Monarch.
In addition, the Monarch’s own army follows them without question, requiring no Upkeep for the privilege. This lets the Monarch field expensive units earlier, and form a powerful early economy.
Monarchy additionally has access to the Tier 3 Longbow unit, a powerful ranged unit that their Archers are able to Promote into if their service proves valuable enough.
City structures also vary for the monarchy, the Workshop and Blacksmith are replaced with the Militia Barracks and Royal Smith respectively, each granting additional stability to reinforce the Monarch’s rule.
Their Unique structure, replacing the Lord’s Manor is the Retainer’s Estate, granting a powerful economic benefit as long as the city is connected to the throne city's domain.
The special province improvement is the Farmstead, and is shared among both subcultures, and provides a very effective source of food for Monarchs or Liege’s who wish to grow their population rapidly.
Monarchy features three skills, 2 of which are shared with the Aristocracy as well and will be explained below.
Call to Glory is available to both Feudal subcultures and provides a battlefield wide bonus to morale over the course of 3 turns, the seemingly small bonus stacks up rapidly with the amount of units it affects.
Call Militia has been discussed in the Militia unit’s section, suffice to say it is a cheap, gold-costing Strategic Summon spell that can only target friendly cities. This gives a quick influx of expendable tier 1 Militia units to defend your kingdom or rapidly replace losses during your campaigns.
Lastly, uniquely for the Monarchy subculture there is the Monarch’s Decree. A combat enchantment that lets the units on the battlefield know they fight with the blessing of their monarch, activating “For the Monarch” for 2 turns as though the monarch themselves were on the field. A useful tool for when the Monarch is busy elsewhere.
Subculture: Aristocracy
The lords and ladies muster on the fields of battle, their house banners flying high over their armies. Each ready to follow their Ruler’s house to war.
The Aristocracy subculture places emphasis on each house and their own armies, with each of your Liege Lords fielding their own army to take the field in your name.
Playing Feudal Aristocracy is a balancing act, requiring investment in multiple cities, and balancing the capability of each city to recruit and field their own house armies, which follow their Lord or Lady into battle.
In the most simple of gameplay terms, this functions as the following:
- Each Feudal city in your empire has its own Feudal House, led by that city’s Governor, who becomes its Liege Lord.
- Units produced in these cities become part of that Feudal House, gaining Experience as their Liege Lord gains Renown.
- When a unit is in battle with the Liege Lord of its house, it gains powerful bonuses that scale with their Liege Lord’s renown.
The basic effect this has is that your heroes become much more important, since their Renown improves their army as well as the city they govern. Match each Liege Lord with an army of their house and reap the benefits!
When you first assign a governor to a city the new House is born, it’s given a name and banner that you can edit any time to make them what you want them to be. Note that any units produced in that city before this point will still join this house, so no need to wait with starting to draft your new house’s army!
You can change the name, emblem and secondary color of any house at any time to be what you want them to be!
The banner and sigil of the house will be visible in the army panel as well as on the city, letting you easily match which units follow which ruler (also a neat little detail is that it calls out which house the army belongs to).
The Liege Lords give benefit to both their own army and any units of their house that may join them on the field of battle. Units in their army that share the same house gain increased regeneration and reduced upkeep, while any unit of their house in a battle alongside their Liege Lord gains increased max HP and Morale. Both of these benefits increase as the Liege Lord gains higher Renown levels, so show your Lieges the way to glory and they will bring you victory!
The Feudal House mechanic has a bunch of complicated rules under the hood that you won’t have to know of as intimately. But I will call out a few here regardless since they were explicitly included in this design to make the experience as natural as possible:
- Summoned Units and Units gained through pickups or events join the House of the nearest non-scout led army.
- If the unit is summoned in the domain of a city, it will always join that city’s House instead.
- Units recruited through Rally of the Lieges join the House of the city they were sent to, letting you reinforce your noble houses through your Vassals.
- If a House’s city is lost, captured by the enemy or destroyed, it remains the home of that House and must be retaken if they are to gain new members. The Liege Lord and their units remain however, and still get the benefits from fighting alongside their Liege Lord, letting them quest to retake their ancestral home!
- Even if another empire absorbs it, as long as you retake it and absorb it once more, the house is restored.
- If a Liege Lord is replaced, the city and units of that house will suffer a Stability/morale penalty for a few turns as they adjust to the sudden change in leadership.
- Note that a Hero remains the Liege Lord even in death, in case they are revived. They have to be actively replaced should you wish to do so.
- The Liege lords themselves benefit from the morale and HP bonus they grant their house as they gain renown.
- Units built in a city before it has its governor assigned (and thus “founds” the house) are still assigned to that house, it just isn’t visible until the house is founded. Thus units built in a house city before the house is founded will still join that house as one would expect.
These rules are complicated if you go in depth, but as a player you will not have to think of these, the experience should work as you expect it to, supporting the fantasy of a kingdom of noble houses naturally.
Economically the Aristocracy subculture leans more into Food and Draft than the Monarchy does, since they want to get new cities up and running quickly to field their House armies. They have alternate structures for the Store House and Granary; the House Hunting grounds and Serf Quarters, each giving Draft in addition to their regular food benefit to help the house field its new army quickly.
Their unique structure is a redesign of the old Feudal Lord’s Manor:
This is quite a hefty bonus for a Renowned governor, befitting their status as the House’s Liege Lord.
Aristocracy shares most of its research skills with the Monarchy, but uniquely has access to Hold the Line.
This is a unique buff spell, letting you prepare for an incoming charge or otherwise augment your defense for the upcoming enemy turn while still dishing out the damage with your units.
And that should be it for the Feudal Culture, they are relatively straightforward in both their units and mechanics, and should reward a playstyle that leans into their themes.
If you wish to create an equivalent to Rohan, the kingdoms of Westeros, a classical fantasy kingdom or anything in between or beyond, this should be the culture for you!
I sincerely hope you enjoy playing with it and find your conquests interesting. May your reign be prosperous!
Next week we will take another peek into Bas’s mind, as he elaborates on the Lava and Underground gameplay updates. All of that (and this Feudal rework) will be in the Ogre update, if you play the game through Steam there is currently an Open Beta available if you wish to give it a try early. Otherwise, you wont have to be patient for too much longer as it is releasing for everyone for free alongside Giant Kings on April 1st!
Get Expansion Pass 2:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3181480/Age_of_Wonders_4_Expansion_Pass_2/
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