Greetings Dark Lords, Maidens, and Despots unknown. I am Thomas Schuiten, Senior Designer at Triumph Studios, and today I will proudly share with you a rework of one of the most popular cultures: Dark!

Thrones of Blood releases on November 11th and will be accompanied by the Gargoyle update. What better time to rework the Dark Culture than alongside an expansion all about those gothic, edgy themes?

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Dark was always a somewhat unusual culture. It was the only culture in the base game that lacked a Support unit in its lineup and featured some unconventional interactions with city stability and heroes held in prisons or crypts. All these features, while evocative, felt like they left something to be desired and were not as effective as hoped. Despite this, their themes and visuals have ensured they remain a popular culture among players.

Their culture passive, "Cull the Weak," had already been reworked in the past but never quite hit the sweet spot, failing to be as successful at opening up new builds as might be hoped.

The goals of this rework were thus:

●     More effectively serve the obvious thematic fantasies that Dark culture reflects:

○     Evil overlords, scheming tyrants, cults, black magic, and assassins.

●     Ensure the culture's mechanics support interesting (new) builds when combined with Tomes.

●     Give the culture as a whole a clearer niche among the available cultures.

The Dark culture represents many things: tyrants, overlords, dark wizards, and sinister cults all at once. These themes have been divided among the two new subcultures of Dark, while the Dark culture as a whole is themed around a central question: How do you treat those you defeat?

If your answer is, "Use their remains for eldritch or nefarious purposes," then congratulations! You are a perfect fit for the Cult of Death subculture, where heroes are embalmed and used as resources, and during combat, each fallen friend or foe empowers those who fight on!

If your answer was perhaps a more pragmatically questionable, "Imprison them and use these new hostages as leverage," then you might be better served by the Cult of Tyranny. Defeated heroes are captured and used as leverage to control your vassals, while in combat, you oppress your enemies with the relentless application of debuffs.

Affinities: Shadow + Nature

Theme: Power from death

Combat Focus: Expendable units, Critical Strikes, anti-healing and Blight

The Cult of Death subculture is one where sacrifice is the norm and a tool for those in power. Their units gain power from the deaths of both their allies and their enemies, critical strikes coming more steadily as the slaughter continues.

This subculture prefers expendable units and critical strikes.

The above is an exact excerpt from the original design doc for the subculture, which summarizes the subculture quite well. The Cult of Death was the first concept  to solidify as I personally always wanted a culture that worked around “expendable” units and fit for a bit more of an “occult” theme as well. They would gain power as units die, more if they slew them personally, and thus logically flowing from that for their strategic gameplay they would use the Crypt. This in turn led to the logical split in subcultures, with Tyranny using the Prison instead.

In early drafts the Crypt interactions were significantly more complicated, having the player build structures in their cities to unlock “Embalm slots” for their heroes in the crypt. These heroes would then be assigned to cities that have available embalm slots and provide a bonus to that city. In the end this system was simply too clunky, required bespoke UI and could frankly just be simplified while retaining the same overall feel.

Power from death, likewise, went through a lot of iteration, in first drafts granting a quite unhinged 100% crit chance when at full power. This obviously could not really survive, not only would it be too powerful, it would undermine any combo with other sources of critical hit chance the player might build towards.

Lastly, the chosen affinities for this subculture reflect their focus on death, both mechanically and thematically. Being partially Nature lets them naturally flow into animal summon builds, fitting with the Tome of Cycles and utilizing Decay and Blight, which are often associated with the domain of Death alongside Frost. This also helped set them apart from the Cult of Tyranny, whose pure shadow focus leads them towards Frost damage.

Now with the hypotheticals and “what could have been” out of the way, let us talk about what we actually have!

Power from Death (Culture Passive)

●     Units with this trait gain the following when any unit dies:

○     +1 Mortal Blessing (+2 if this unit struck the killing blow)

■     This unit gains +5 Max HP per stack (And heals for +5)

■     +2% Critical Hit Chance

●     Last until end of combat

●     May stack up to 10

Though the effects are relatively simple, this is a rather powerful effect, resulting in a solid 50 HP and 20% crit chance when fully powered!

Cult of Death players may seek to bring many expendable units to quickly power on this effect, summoned chaff or using the new Immortal Tier 1 unit swiftly power this effect on. But even without that, focusing on damage and assassinating weak enemy units can also provide a certain source.

And yes, slaying your own unit can grant you two stacks of this blessing!

Embalming is a relatively straightforward mechanic, Heroes in your crypt can be Embalmed. This is an alternative option to selling the bodies for gold, granting Mana (in equal amounts) and an Embalmed Sacrifice.

Embalmed Sacrifices are required for the Cult of Death’s unique city structures, as well as a uniquely powerful Strategic spell that we will show further below!

The Mausoleum is a knowledge granting province improvement available to the Cult of Death, powerful but costly as it requires Embalmed Sacrifices to be built.

Cult of death has, similar to most cultures, 2 replacement structures in their city, in their case these replace the Obelisk and Temple. These replacements still provide mana, but in much larger quantities in addition to some city stability. A useful economic boost that can allow a Cult of Death to fund early summons or undead armies!

They also have their Unique Tier 3 structure, the Soulvault. An expensive structure, requiring two Embalmed Sacrifices to be built, it provides a unique benefit to the governor of the city it's built in: Passive XP gain!

The Dark subcultures have a unique unit lineup -  featuring no support units, they focus on aggression. Though the two Cults share their Tier 1 units, their Tier 2 units are variations of each other, with their Tier 3 unit as with other subcultures, being wholly unique.

Tier 1

As mentioned the Tier 1 units are shared, so the Immortal and Pursuer are shown here, not in the Cult of Tyranny section.

Immortal

The Immortal, formerly known as the Dark Warrior, has always been a difficult unit to balance and is considered by some to be the weakest combat unit in the game. As a shock unit, it is aggressive and strikes first, especially in auto-combat, often leaving it exposed. However, as a Tier 1 unit, it lacked the stats to survive such aggressive moves.

The solution was to simply lean into this by making them truly expendable units.

The Immortal now has two passive traits: Lesser Resurgence and Expendable.

Lesser Resurgence is simply a less powerful variant of Resurgence, the unit may die in combat and survive as long as you are victorious, but it does not return with as much HP and does not return with move points, as though it had fled the battle. This was done to allow the unit to be expendable without allowing for too much reckless movement on the world map.

Expendable itself is new, but its effects are not. Many would not have known but things such as Combat Summons already had this built in. (I updated the tooltip to clarify this as well)

The Immortal however, not being a summon needed this property to grant it the same treatment. It is worth noting that this same Expendable property has been extended to Skeletons as well. (as had been requested)

The Pursuer, while in less trouble than the Dark Warrior it shared its tier with, had a bit of an identity problem. It did not really do much other than shoot and apply weakened, an effect that was eventually extended to all ranged attacks of the Dark culture. It also did not really live up to its name.

Thus the new Pursuer is simple, it lost its inherent weakened application, but instead gained a powerful positioning ability: Relentless Pursuit.

This short range jump lets them aggressively move into a prime shooting position, or escape from encroaching enemies, but there is a catch. It starts on cooldown, and after its first use it only recharges when the Pursuer themselves makes a kill. So use it well!

Tier 2

This is where the variations come in. Where Cult of Tyranny has the Warlock, Cult of Death instead has the Mortalist. And where Tyranny fields the oppressive Tyrant Guard, Cult of Death instead fields the extremely resilient Death Guard.

The Mortalist is a more mobile and support oriented variant of the Warlock, it has a decent magical attack, but more importantly: Death Hex.

A single action ability that can suppress enemy healing through applying Decaying, while providing a source of healing through Life Seed.

A useful bonus for slaying your enemies!

Death Guard

The Death Guard is a simple unit, a sturdy polearm unit that makes particularly effective use of the Mortal Blessing stacks gained through Power from Death.

Deathly Vitality is a powerful self-heal that lets the unit enter Defense mode, its healing scales more the more Mortal Blessing stacks the unit has. In addition this obviously gains more value the more max HP the unit has, which again combines neatly with the effects of Mortal Blessing.

The Death Stalker is your stereotypical Assassin unit, it's always felt like somewhat of a missing archetype in the game except for Ways of War’s “Shade” unit. The Death Stalker is an even more specialized take, as a Fighter they are purely melee.

Featuring what one might expect from the archetype, they benefit from Universal Camouflage on the world map, and Slippery in combat, letting them move into advantageous positions to strike.

While they specialize in destroying weakened foes through the Death Stalk ability, their basic strike is not to be underestimated either, providing a decent strike while staying mobile that may inflict 2 stacks of Decaying, ensuring that the foe stays weakened.

Death Stalk, the signature ability of this unit, is a powerful jump attack that displaces the target and takes their place. More importantly its damage increases the more health the target is missing, letting it finish off weakened or exposed foes swiftly. It recharges only on kill, so use it well.

A pair of passive effects let it exploit Mortal Blessing more effectively than other units: Blessed End and Fatebringer.

Blessed End lets them stack up Mortal Blessings faster than any other unit, this stacks with the default Power From Death effect, meaning that if the Death Stalker gets the kill they get 3 stacks of Mortal Blessing in one go!

Fatebringer gives the Death Stalker a bit more oomph out of Mortal Blessing, increasing their damage alongside the other effects it normally gives. This means that at 10 stacks the Death stalker has a whopping 50 max HP extra, 20% critical hit chance and 50% increased damage!

An enchantment that spreads the Power from Death property to non-culture units.

A unique tactical spell that lets you give doomed units another chance to prove their worth, or force a breakthrough. It can even be used to save at-risk units as it does grant Resurgence as well!

A strategic spell that costs an Embalmed Sacrifice to cast, but in return for this, it affects multiple armies in the same province and gives them a full heal as well as powerful buffs for their next battle. It even grants Camouflage should you wish to surprise your foe.

Affinities: Shadow + Shadow 

Theme: Subjugation of the weak

Combat Focus: Status effects, control and Frost Damage

The Cult of Tyranny subculture sees domination as the ultimate show of power; they specialize in debilitating their opponents and grinding down their weakened foes. Strategically, they utilize Vassals to great effect, enforcing their dominion through tyrannical might. While in combat, they specialize in breaking the enemy’s resistance and controlling them through powerful status effects.

This subculture took longer to materialize; there were versions that focused on morale and stability at first, but these systems proved too volatile. Morale is a tough system to interact with without making it a mandatory build focus, while stability likewise does not grant as much benefit as to be worth the focus of the culture. Both elements still remain to an extent in the culture but did not become the primary focus.

If you are familiar with the old Dark Culture, the Cult of Tyranny may feel most natural to you. Their culture passive, “Cult of Tyranny,” has quite some similarities to the old Cull the Weak effect but allows for more build variety.

• Cult of Tyranny (Culture Passive)

  • Adjacent enemy units suffer -1 Status Effect Resistance

 (this effect stacks with itself and other units)

• Repeating attacks and abilities gain 60% chance to inflict 1 Status Vulnerability and heal the attacker for +5 HP

• Single Shot attacks and abilities gain 90% chance to inflict 1 Status Vulnerability and heal the attacker for +10 HP

This effect may seem more complicated than it actually is, but to put it very simply, when playing as the Cult of Tyranny, your units lower the status resist of adjacent enemies, but much more importantly: they have a chance to inflict status vulnerability with their attacks and when they do, they heal themselves.

This chance naturally improves as the enemy’s status resistance is diminished, letting the cult of Tyranny terrorize foes and bury them in debilitating effects.

Strategically, things get a little more interesting. I’d always wanted to do a more “hostile” take on Vassal diplomacy, and this subculture seemed like the perfect chance to do so. Rather than slowly placating Free cities to obtain new Vassals, the Cult of Tyranny instead greatly benefits from acquiring their Vassals through warfare. They do this by utilizing Hostage Diplomacy.

Whew, that is a lengthy tooltip. But to make a long story short: Defeat heroes to take them hostage, having any hostages counts as though you had a whispering stone with their home city, and each hostage adds additional allegiance on top.

The third bullet point might stand out, this ensures that whenever you conquer a city and choose to release it as a vassal you always gain another Hostage. This is also to provide an additional benefit for fully conquering a free city rather than just making peace with them once you gained enough Hostages.

The last point requires perhaps the most explanation, it is important that this mechanic still works even against cities conquered from other players, thus this particular rule was added. The function is quite simple: if you conquer a city from another empire and Vassalize it, any heroes of theirs that you have in your prison become Hostages of the newly created Vassal. This does not affect any heroes of that empire you capture afterwards, those would be assigned to the next city of theirs you vassalize should you choose to do so.

The Prison UI needed an update to represent all this. Thus, prisoners and bodies in the crypt are now generally grouped by their faction. For the Cult of Tyranny in particular, you can view the allegiance they gain from each Vassal or Free city.

They can further exploit this additional allegiance on their Vassals through Tyrannical Exploitation, a unique strategic spell that converts Allegiance into additional income from the Vassal. The details will be in the Research Skill section further below.

Lastly this culture has some simple yet interesting City Structures. Their two replacement structures grant a significant amount of gold at the cost of stability.

The Overlord’s Tower is a unique source of additional Imperium, while also granting more Stability the more Vassals your empire controls!

The Special Province Improvement you may recognize from the old Dark culture: The Dark Forge. It got a bit of a boost to its usefulness though. Rather than granting 7 gold and Draft (with more draft for mines or quarries) it now simply grants 10 gold income base and 5 Production per adjacent mine, quarry or forester, letting it be used as a much more versatile improvement than before!

As both subcultures share their Tier 1 units, I will not reiterate them here.

The focus on status effects is reflected in the Tier 2 unit variants the Cult of Tyranny fields: the Warlock and the Tyrant Guard.

The warlock is mostly as one remembers them, having been a favored unit even when the culture as a whole was considered weak.

Sundering Curse in particular had some changes, its impressive range remained. And its ability to apply debuffs likewise does but has become a bit more focused, instead focusing on sundering the defense and resistance of their targets. This has a 90% chance now rather than being guaranteed, but applying 2 of each on success combined with plenty of sources in the culture to reduce enemy status effect resistance, this should result in a more effective sundering of your foes!

The Tyrant Guard is a powerful anchor in the frontline. Utilizing status effects to lock down their foes and weather their attacks with contempt. Their base attack has a 60% chance to inflict Immobilized, which ensures their foes stay in melee with them rather than running away to strike more vulnerable targets.

More notably their passive, Armor of Contempt, lets them weather attacks from debuffed enemies without suffering much of a scratch. They are exactly the unit you would want if you wanted to lock down the frontline while you barrage the foe with withering debuffs!

Tyrant Knight

The Tyrant Knight, formerly the Dark Knight, after stealing the name from what is now the Subjugator, has taken on a new identity.

The Tyrant Knight inflicts Weakened with its base attack, but more interestingly it has a new ability: Trample.

Knocking back the enemy and taking their place, this lets the Tyrant Knight disrupt enemy formations, getting as many enemies into its Aura of Tyranny as possible. And getting maximum use out of its passive effect: Despotic Vitality.

To keep your Tyrant Knights in the fight, simply send them into the midst of battle. You will need to be careful not to overextend them of course, but they will prove disturbingly resilient to foes who fail to finish them off.

Mark of Tyranny

This unit enchantment spreads the culture’s mechanic to non-culture units. Not much more to be said.

Baneful Curse

Unlike the old version which inflicted 1 weakened, sundered defense and resistance, the new version is more focused. Inflicting 2 weakened and Misfortune lets this be a powerful control debuff to reduce incoming damage from a dangerous group of foes! (and combo’s nicely with weakened resistance, or any Tyrant Guard you may have in the frontline!)

This strategic spell is rather unique, costing no upkeep, rather this spell converts the Allegiance gain of the target Vassal into a modifier of their income. 20% per point of allegiance is nothing to scoff at and provides a powerful benefit to high-allegiance vassals well beyond maximizing their loyalty to your cause!

This was a lot of writing in the end, and the culture’s creation likewise was a lot of work. In the end, I hope this provides you with new ways to express your characters, stories and build your empires in Age of Wonders 4. Whether you choose to be a Death Cult of assassins, Tyrannical Despots, Necromantic Theocrats or conniving Barons. I look forward to seeing what you create when you get your hands on them.

These changes should be available in the Open Beta on Steam if you wish to give it a try early, and become available to everyone when Gargoyle update releases alongside Thrones of Blood on November 11th!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3976440/Age_of_Wonders_4_Expansion_Pass_3/

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