Empire mode in AoW4

[Sotnik]

Single player currently feels like a showcase of builds before multiplayer or an extensive tutorial without having no other value. There is no meta progression. Success and fails are not consequential. There is no conventional challenge or bench mark of player skills. Players do not really have to play inventively and significantly adjust their strategies to a specific scenario. All that reduces the overall epic quality and immersion.

Planetfall tried to solve part of these issues with the Empire mode, although it was far from perfection. I hope there are plans of implementing something similar. Here is how, in my mind, the Empire mode of AoW: PF could be implemented in AoW4 without inheriting its drawbacks.

1. The Empire mode is played as a campaign split into of scenarios. Playing one scenario progresses the campaign by one turn. A player can play multiple campaign at once. One of the later scenarios is more special than the others, it might contain scripts, and it has a faction that is considered to the "final boss". There is a story connecting the protagonist (the ruler of the starting race) with the final boss from the 1st scenario (for example, in a form of procedurally generated texts like descriptions of races are constructed). Beating this scenario is considered as the victory in the campaign with achievements granted. Players can go on playing the campaign and progress afterwards.

2. Every turn players can choose one of a few proposed scenarios/realms with no control over these scenarios' variables. Realms cannot be rerolled, however players can find maps (an arifact type or quest reward) to add more options to the next scenario pool.

3. Difficulty is selected at the start of an Empire mode campaign and then slowly grows with consecutive scenarios.

4. First realm tend to be smaller, with the probability of larger realms increasing with more scenarios completed.

5. The player starts with 1 customized faction (race+ruler) to play in scenarios and can add conquered factions to the pool.

6. Winning a scenario allows to decide the fate of the strongest enemy faction:
- to assimilate in into your empire: you can choose it as the player faction for a scenario;
- to curse it: replace it with an entirely customizable new race and ruler. The process takes 2 turns. This is the only way to make changes to player factions;
- to sacrifice it: reduce the cursing or recovering duration by 2 turns.

7. Losing a scenario removes the player faction selected for that scenario from the faction pool. If the starting faction was selected for the lost scenario, it becomes unavailable for 2 turns of recovery instead. Loosing a scenario denies the rewards to the player while the campaign difficulty keeps on rising. If the starting faction is the only remaining player faction and it is recovering, the campaign is lost.

8. An optional hardcore/ironman/roguelike saving system with additional achievements.

9. Meta is changing with every new scenario. At the start of the campaign, human players and AI are restricted in the max tier of units to recruit and control, max tier and number of spellbooks to unlock, max tier of hero items. Realms and AI players difficulty progress with every scenario despite of who won the previous one.

10. Winning a scenario grants human players with a special currency that can be spent on metaprogression within the campaign for all the player's races and rulers. Upgrades differ in their costs. Enemies get some of these rewards regardless of who won. If a player lost metaprogression currency due to being defeated, they get bonus meta progression currency for the next 3 victories until the lost amount is not reimbursed.

Upgrades:
- max number of spellbooks that could be unlocked in a scenario increases;
- max tier of spellbooks that could be unlocked increases;
- a researched spell becomes researchable in any scenario without unlocking the respective spellbook. Unlocking its spellbook tier is still required. These spells are always available as additional options and can be researched instantly with paying mana or gold;
- bonus affinities points are given at the start of each scenario;
- max tier of craftable items increases;
- a specific unit type of a specific tier becomes unlockable in further scenarios. 3 unit types of a lower tier should be unlockable so that unit type of a higher tier could be selected;
- a unit of the main race that was recruitable in that scenario now can be recruited in further scenarios without requiring access to that race and without need to learn the respective unit spell. Unlocked type/tier and respective city structures are still required. This unit preserves its original racial characteristics (including transformations) and enchantments regardless of their availability in the current scenario. Recruitment and upkeep costs of that unit rise with racial transformations and enchantments it has, but these cost modifiers are negated if respective racial transformation spells are researched (without need to cast) or enchantments are cast in the current scenario.

[Blanch Warren]

Originally posted by Sotnik:

Single player currently feels like a test ground of builds

While this topic is reiterated every other week, just FYI that is what I paid for, apart from the franchise. Eventually I will bother to join some PBEMs.

[darkholyPL]

While I would certainly not say no to an empire mode, I don't get the 'single player is a test ground' and the rest of that first paragraph.

I mean, that's what you get in many other 4x games as well. You start a game in civ, you end it, the end.
How is this any different? Apart for the fact you get some unlocks here, and not in civ.