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Dev Diary #36: Intrigue Happenings

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s dev diary on Intrigue Happenings! My name is Michelle (@MichelleTriumph), narrative designer at Triumph, and I’m here to talk about the new Intrigue Happenings you will encounter during your time playing Age of Wonders 4: Ways of War! Lest you forget: Ways of War will release on November 5th, and is part of Expansion Pass 2!

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Be Warned, Ye Unspoiled​

First of all, a warning for those who like to go into the new narrative content without being spoiled. This dev diary consists of two parts. First I’ll talk about the global design and intent of the new content, this section is relatively spoiler-free and will mainly feature pretty pictures provided by our talented artists.

The second part goes in-depth into the new Intrigue Happenings, their design and intent, and will show some actual content to illustrate the intended flow. I will warn you and hide the actual content so you can browse at your own convenience.

With that said, onward!

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Part One: What’s Happening?​

In the Eldritch Realms DLC we introduced Cosmic Happenings - global Events and effects that shake up the game for all players involved. Intrigue Happenings use the same system… on a more personal level.

Intrigue Happenings are event (and quest) chains, designed to target an (AI) Ruler on any single-player non-Story Realm. They aim to shake up the mid-game diplomatic status quo and encourage you to investigate and decide on the fate of the affected Ruler - who may be affected by internal turmoil, or may have been replaced by another entity entirely. The affected Ruler, meanwhile, will start to influence the realm in their own ways.

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Details of the Intrigue Happenings differ, but their core design revolves around a longer quest-chain that you can complete, after which you can decide on how this story will resolve. You can opt out of the chain whenever a new quest is presented, which sometimes brings its own rewards.

We have wanted to introduce quest-chains outside of Story Realms for a while now, and this is our biggest attempt so far!

Highlander DLC5 - Intrigue Events Design (V3)_ Demonic Possession.png

Design for an Intrigue Happening, with some branching narrative.

Age of Wonders 4: Ways of War will feature six (6) unique Intrigue Happenings, with a total of 90 unique Events.

Conditions and Constraints​

All these Intrigue Happenings have different flavors and quests, so we applied conditions and constraints to ensure they only happen in fitting situations. For example all Intrigue Happenings require for you to have met the affected Ruler, and all of them require that the Player is not at war, nor in an Alliance with the affected Ruler.

Next to that, the different Intrigue Happenings have unique requirements to ensure they only happen to fitting AI Rulers. Examples are Alignment, Ruler Type, or Affinity. This means that in some games, specific Happenings may not be able to trigger

Intrigue Happenings will also have a cooldown, which means on average only one should show per realm, and over multiple realms Happenings that have not shown before, will be prioritized.

Screenshot_Script_HappeningConditions.png


A condition script for the Dawn of Calamity Intrigue Happening. It requires an AI Ruler to have at least 5 chaos affinity, and no other affinity that surpasses it.

Due to the global and expanded design of these narrative-heavy Happenings which affect (AI) rulers and specific quest-lines, the decision was made to make this an experience for single-player only, meaning they will not happen in multiplayer games. Multiplayer brings its own challenges and edge-cases which can break these Happenings, especially since the quest chains can run for tens of turns.

For example: what if another Player decides to kill the Ruler you are investigating? What if another Player decides to fight (or invalidate) your quest objective? What if…
To ensure this would work as intended would take more development time, meaning less content for you… So we decided to focus on enhancing the single-player experience instead.

Make It Happen​

If you want to ensure you encounter these piles of content in your game, you can increase the likelihood of Intrigue Happenings triggering by starting a game with the new Unfolding Mysteries Realm Trait, and by playing the new Realm: Paradise Divided!

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The new Paradise Divided Realm Template and Unfolding Mysteries Realm Trait will increase the likelihood of an Intrigue Happening to… happen.

Next to that, Intrigue Happenings fall under all other Happenings - like Toll of Seasons and Cosmic Happenings, and will thus be affected by any personal settings related to them. Something to keep in mind!

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Any personal settings related to Happening Intensity will also influence Intrigue Happenings.

Now we go into more detail below!


SPOILERS BELOW!
The following will feature more in-depth descriptions and images of the actual Intrigue Happenings. Be warned!

Part Two: The Flow of Intrigue​

Below I will share a few images of the “Fiendish Takeover” Intrigue Happening to walk you through its flow in a bit more detail! Like any Happening, the Intrigue starts with an event that shows you what changed.

Screenshot_Intrigue_Demon_1.png


A new “Ruler” rises, at the cost of Cinren. How unfortunate for him.

One turn (or a few turns) after the Happening is introduced, you will be requested to investigate. Do you want to see what happened, or do you want to deal with this new Ruler in the usual, conventional ways?

Screenshot_Intrigue_Demon_2.png


They must be truly desperate to come to you for help…

Whenever you get a quest related to the intrigue, you can decide to opt out of the intrigue. The deeper you go, the more tempting this may become, lest the affected Rulers become aware of your investigations…

Screenshot_Intrigue_Demon_3.png


If you tire of intrigue, there is always the option to keep your new infernal frenemy close.

Every few turns, a random event may spawn in which the Ruler affects other entities on the map, for example other Rulers. The longer this situation goes on, the more it could affect, so you may want to hurry (or not, depending on whether you think this is a great development).

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Ignoth goes to war with another Ruler. Oh no!

If you decide to investigate, you will enter a quest chain of two to four quests, culminating in a finish where you can decide whether to bring back the former Ruler… or for the new Ruler to stay and conquer the realm together. You are the Godir hero of this story, so the choice is yours.

Screenshot_Intrigue_Demon_4b.png

An infernal contract! With enough chaos affinity, you could alter it…

Intrigue Happening Types​

Ways of War will introduce 6 Intrigue Happenings, divided into a few groups:
  • Possession
    • In this type, an AI ruler is taken over by an entity (as the example seen above).
      • With four variations
  • Usurper
    • In this type, an AI ruler is taken over by a hero from their own faction, with ill intent.
  • Takeover
    • In this type, the player can aid a Hero who aims to take over an Empire during a rebellion instead.
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Ways of War will introduce 6 Intrigue Happenings.

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Dusk is looking forward to meeting you.

We are very excited about the new Intrigue Happenings, and we hope you are too! I cannot wait for you to experience them. :)

Cheers!

- Michelle


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Amazing! Lots of replayability value here! As if there was not enough till now, hehe :)
Please keep this trend of new additions coming and keep the Flame of AOW burning!
We are with You, dear Devs. :)
 
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Kind of disappointed it can only happen in single player games. Toll of Seasons is effectively for only 1 player as well and can happen in multiplayer games.
Is there a possibility we could get an option to turn it on for multiplayer games with the forewarning that other players could break the quest-line?
 
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Combined with Cosmic Happenings, this adds MASSIVE replayability value and a much needed high-stakes quest and also some element of unpredictability to the game. Seriously, great job. Can't wait for the DLC.
 
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Devs said they prioritized the single player expierience for now. That doesn't mean they won't add a mechanic like this to the multiplayer in the future.
 
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isaacaderogba said:
Also disappointed we won't be seeing this in multiplayer. Had a lot of fun playing through Toll of Seasons with my brother, so was hoping to see more of them.

Are these also disabled in local hotseat?
Click to expand...
It's player focused to prevent shenanigans from other players.
Like it's easier to script everything when there is only one human player.

Also, out of sync plague won't be a problem for that quest chain.
 
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Astronlmo said:
It's player focused to prevent shenanigans from other players.
Like it's easier to script everything when there is only one human player.

Also, out of sync plague won't be a problem for that quest chain.
Click to expand...

I first thought its locked because its unfair. Imagine Player 1 gets an event to vasallize AI 2s cities by starting a rebellion. Then player 2 would be essentially getting the short end of the stick.
 
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... and over multiple realms Happenings that have not shown before, will be prioritized.
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Oh wow, so game is tracking that, impressive.

Would be cool if something like that were tied to Pantheon heroes and their previous adventures.
 
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do this rulers have access to items and transformations?? do this new rulers can be replaced by others? for instance the Ignoth been replaced by the calamity dragon? are any of those rulers target as well of other cosmic happenings like Toll of Seasons?
 
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everruche said:
do this rulers have access to items and transformations?? do this new rulers can be replaced by others? for instance the Ignoth been replaced by the calamity dragon? are any of those rulers target as well of other cosmic happenings like Toll of Seasons?
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I suspect that with the exception of the Hero replacing the old Ruler, the new Rulers like the Balor and the Reaper will be like the Umbral Tyrants that govern the Dwellings: They have the same base stats and attacks as their non-Hero counterparts, but they cannot equip any item at all.

Speaking of the Umbral Dwelling governors, with the upcoming changes to Heroes, what will be their Class? Mage or Ritualist?
 
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Hmmm, I am tentatively hopeful about this. Some sort of quest-chain system has been a request I've been hoping to see for the longest time, and even though it is bitterly disappointing that you are keeping this as DLC exclusive, the simple fact it exists is a positive sign.

6 Unique Happenings does not sound too engaging... but having 90 different variants gives this a great depth, and we can see this system fleshed out further with more Unique Happenings to be found in future DLC or updates, which I am very hopeful will be done.

Beyond all this, however, I have one question: How moddable are these Unique Happenings going to be? Because I seriously hope the team have done the legwork to make this system Mod-friendly. This is the perfect subsystem to let people add their own Unique Quests/Happenings into the game and flesh out the game even more! Tomes? Who needs Tomes when we have Quests?
 
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I wonder if development of this is why they have not said if we will get any new Story realms until the Archon expansion. It's possible Intrigue/Cosmic Happenings will be sold in future DLC's in place of Story realms since it looks like the same work goes into making them.
 
Arcantos_the_Storyteller said:
Hmmm, I am tentatively hopeful about this. Some sort of quest-chain system has been a request I've been hoping to see for the longest time, and even though it is bitterly disappointing that you are keeping this as DLC exclusive, the simple fact it exists is a positive sign.

6 Unique Happenings does not sound too engaging... but having 90 different variants gives this a great depth, and we can see this system fleshed out further with more Unique Happenings to be found in future DLC or updates, which I am very hopeful will be done.

Beyond all this, however, I have one question: How moddable are these Unique Happenings going to be? Because I seriously hope the team have done the legwork to make this system Mod-friendly. This is the perfect subsystem to let people add their own Unique Quests/Happenings into the game and flesh out the game even more! Tomes? Who needs Tomes when we have Quests?
Click to expand...
Glad to see so many of you are excited!

Note that what we call "Story Events" (or sometimes just "Events") are the narrative blocks you see when you get a quest, finish a quest, start a story realm, enter or finish an Ancient Wonder et cetera. Every "screen" of this we call one "Event". For example, the Fiendish Takeover Happening contains about 16 Events, as can be seen in the wireframe shown in the top. One such Event is "A Disturbing Announcement", shown in the spoiler section.

90 Events means there are 90 of these content blocks, not 90 different outcomes/variations to these Happenings.
---

As for it being moddable: I believe the modders can use the same tools as us developers. In essence these are elaborate quest and event chains, so if you can make those, you should be able to mess around with these Happenings as well ^^
 
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