Is this still bland and boring?

[Flickmann]

I last played this shortly after release and was put off by the bland civs and tome overload. Has the game changed substantially since then?

[Terrkas]

Well, we have more tomes now, is it that what you wanted?

Next week is a big patch and dlc. It adds 3 variants to mystic.

The cultures mostly stayed the same so far. but maybe you like reavers or primal instead?

[Mr. 1000 Years]

Yeah I only played for about 10hrs after release and was disappointed. The updates since then have made me happy to buy the DLC and sink in another 70hrs

[Balekai]

Things that have changed off my head since near release:

- Tome Overload has been addressed. Rainbow leaders/factions are very hard to accomplish now. New base affinity requirements were added for Tier 3+ Tomes, while the requirement for higher tier tomes was cut and now you just need the proper amount of affinity + a certain number of any Tomes regardless of their tier. Research costs of Tomes significantly increase as you research more of them, slowing down a lot by Tome 12-14 unless you have tons of knowledge, and abuse costs mechanics by wisely researching cheap research to warp speed later game Tome progression. This made getting to T5 Tome take about 1.5-3 times longer as it did previously.

My own experience more or less was unlocking T5 Tome around turn 40-60ish on Hard/Brutal fast game speeds before changes. After Tome research changes it now takes about 90-115 turns on the same difficulties/game speed. Normal speed games can easily be like 150-160+ turns to get T5 Tome. The side effect of this of course is that it's quite harder to reach late game potential. some games will end before reaching T5 Tome.
https://aow4.paradoxwikis.com/Tomes For changes.

- AI in general and Free City/Vassal AI are a lot better since release. Vassals can now be coordinated with. You can send Vassal armies to defend your own cities or attack enemy players/infestations sort of like how Rally of the Lieges is done among other things changed like having Tome units based on various things.
https://aow4.paradoxwikis.com/Free_city

- There's Bounties now that are a soft war coordination with other Factions. You or them can set bounties for everyone to go after for a set reward. This even allows you to set enemies against other enemies etc. as it is a bounty system. https://aow4.paradoxwikis.com/Diplomacy

- Item Crafting is now in the game.

- Dragon Lords were added. Along with Dragon/Evolutionary dual affinity tomes with a Dragon theme. New Lizard Form.

- With the Empire and Ashes DLC we got a magic tech faction with guns and is a fairly interesting and thematic culture. A very dark Steampunk/90s Final Fantasy makeover of AoW3 Commonwealth/Dreadnaught class. Along with 2 more Story DLC, a few more dual affinity tomes including the Dreadnaught Tome (where the AoW3 Ironclad resides). We got Bird people Form.

- Primal Fury added the Primal culture which is arguably the coolest culture for nature themed customisation and has inspired some other culture changes like the upcoming changes to Mystic culture as mentioned. It's a Nature/varying affinity culture based on which spirit animal you pick. This changes your damage channels, spirit boons, favoured/spreading terrain type etc. Lots of ability summoning and ability buffing through spirit animal mechanics. It also added Wolf and Goat forms. Lastly we gained a couple dual affinity Tomes. The Tome of Fey Mists (Feytouched and OP Fey fog cloud mechanics) and Stormborne (Naga transform, Water based Tome, best unit in the game the Stormborne T4 unit lol).

You can mess around with https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/HTML/DualTomes.html?type=tome_of_evolution& to check all the new Tomes added with DLC.

- More Pantheon mechanics. Ascended rules now get special ascended traits and can keep things like transformations (for the leader) playthrough to playthrough. Some of these ascended traits can be very powerful and build defining. Others not so much. :p :P

- Again Mystic Culture is getting a rework (free) where it will have subcultures much like Primal Culture (Attunement, Potential and Summoning in Mystics case). They may even expand this to other cultures but not set in stone yet (Producers might be the biggest hurdle here based on Dev stream lol). Eldritch Sovereigns are coming being super lovecraftian Leaders from the Umbral Abyss. Handcrafted "zones" are making their way into the game beginning with Umbral Abyss realms. Basically dimensional rifts in which Umbral demons poor out of and are a new layer (with dwellings making a comeback too) like Underground layer. AoW4's version of AoW2 Shadow Realms and Planetfall's Voidbringers. They're also implementing beefy random events and set events. Check out the 3 latest dev diaries and 2 newest dev streams.


Whether the game is actually less boring for you because of all of these changes I can't say. You can probably get a good sense of many of these changes if you still own the base game, because most of them were implemented with massive free updates. The paid DLC content being the new Leader(s), Forms, Story Realms, Dual Tomes, and Culture stuff. I think most of the mount additions if not all of them are free and included in the free updates. :) :)