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Dev Diary #41: Feudal Culture

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.

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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.

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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.

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The Aspirant Knight trait, letting the Aspirant Knights promote into full Knights.

Unit Line-up​

Tier 1​

Militia (Formerly known as the Peasant)
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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.

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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
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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.

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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)
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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)

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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.

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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

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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​

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Monarchy features three skills, 2 of which are shared with the Aristocracy as well and will be explained below.

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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​

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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!

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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!

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You can change the name, emblem and secondary color of any house at any time to be what you want them to be!

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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!

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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:

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This is quite a hefty bonus for a Renowned governor, befitting their status as the House’s Liege Lord.

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Aristocracy shares most of its research skills with the Monarchy, but uniquely has access to Hold the Line.

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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!

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Congratulations on taking Feudal from the culture I've never once even played to one I look forward to trying both branches of (although primarily Monarchy).

I suspect my first faction will be Welsh.
 
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Aspire instead of evolve was the right call, it's just not used enough. Feudal's culture roster is the perfect opportunity to showcase an army that potentially improves after every fight, besides rank medals and exp. Even peasants could have the potential to aspire, which gives an incentive to preserve them instead of simply summon and throw away.

The way the roster is now, players can only make use of longbows and knights, or liege guard and knights. Why not both for both subcultures, and throw in a decent t3 polearm unit?
 
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So you think it's healthy gameplay if all Feudal players feel forced to run the same Tome?

Having the Aspirations work like Evolutions, which is all they actually are, would not, in fact, make Feudal players feel forced to run the Tome of Evolution.

Sure, it would help them get Knights and upgrade to their cultural units, but just because they pick the culture, doesn't mean they would have to focus on them.
 
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Congratulations on taking Feudal from the culture I've never once even played to one I look forward to trying both branches of (although primarily Monarchy).

I suspect my first faction will be Welsh.
Heh, actually I think I've also might've not played it even once. Was too bland and boring. Now I kinda want to :)

Btw playing as a Dragon Lord + Monarchy kinda twists the "knights vs dragon" trope where knights serve the beast. And Dragon Lord + Aristocracy feels like a spoof on Game of Thrones xD
 
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Heh, actually I think I've also might've not played it even once. Was too bland and boring. Now I kinda want to :)

Btw playing as a Dragon Lord + Monarchy kinda twists the "knights vs dragon" trope where knights serve the beast. And Dragon Lord + Aristocracy feels like a spoof on Game of Thrones xD
At baseline before it seemed too much like "Dark, but with all the interesting bits removed." I also hated Stand Together, because straight damage buffs with such an easy fulfillment condition is effectively just a base damage nerf. Huge improvements all around, it's thematically and mechanically intriguing, not to mention more aesthetically pleasing.

Those both sound like good faction themes. I'm going all-in on "red dragon commanding a faction full of longbowmen."
 
It's very cool. Looks great and i'm glad i got the season 2. This game is becoming the best aow ever.

I will support for sure a season 3 with my wallet.


p.s. There was a suggestion on this forum to switch the longbow to aristrocracy and liege guard to monarchy since they make way more sense lore wise. Really hope it's under consideration. The king should have the guard and the local nobles the longbow.
no, liege guard for aristocracy is perfect, any non-noob will play it since its the more infepth and interedting choice and i want my liege guards, nit some random bowmen.

keep it the wqy it is.
 
So you think it's healthy gameplay if all Feudal players feel forced to run the same Tome?

Currently there are 3 elements that impact units with "evolution":
- Rapid Evolution Enchantment - Tome of the Dragon - +20% and slip away for T1 & T2 for increased upkeep
- Youthful Rejuvenation - Tome of the Dragon - increases healing from 18 to 36 and adds resurgence for the combat /unit will still end the fight at 1 HP)
- Forced Evolution - Secret Spell - Evolves unit for 80 Mana

Having these affect Aspirant units seems not powerful enough to make a mandatory pick
 
Currently there are 3 elements that impact units with "evolution":
- Rapid Evolution Enchantment - Tome of the Dragon - +20% and slip away for T1 & T2 for increased upkeep
- Youthful Rejuvenation - Tome of the Dragon - increases healing from 18 to 36 and adds resurgence for the combat /unit will still end the fight at 1 HP)
- Forced Evolution - Secret Spell - Evolves unit for 80 Mana

Having these affect Aspirant units seems not powerful enough to make a mandatory pick
Considering the entire cultural roster is now built around two evolve units per type, one of which is a cultural T4 that is both a racial and mounted unit while the T3s look quite strong themselves, I don't see what other tome you would ever start with instead.

It would be a neat synergy (especially because, given my intention for faction theme, I'm probably STILL taking those tomes), but its definitely out of line. It would probably be outright too strong, but even if not there's absolutely no other starting tome you would take with a synergy that strong.
 
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Considering the entire cultural roster is now built around two evolve units per type, one of which is a cultural T4 that is both a racial and mounted unit while the T3s look quite strong themselves, I don't see what other tome you would ever start with instead.

It would be a neat synergy (especially because, given my intention for faction theme, I'm probably STILL taking those tomes), but its definitely out of line. It would probably be outright too strong, but even if not there's absolutely no other starting tome you would take with a synergy that strong.

Do not forget these bonuses only apply to the units with evolve, aka the T1 Archer or Defender and the T2 Aspirant Knight.
The T3 & T4 units they evolve into lack the "Evolution" ability and as such gain neither the enchantment nor the additional healing and resurgence.

And Forced Evolution is a reward from a gold wonder, so the ability to split recruiting a T3 or T4 unit between draft and casting points /at a slight discount for the T4) hasn't broken the game so far with the current availability to it.
 
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Do not forget these bonuses only apply to the utis with evolve, aka the T1 Archer or Defender and the T2 Aspirant Knight.
The T3 & T4 units they evolve into lack the "Evolution" ability and as such gain neither the enchantment nor the additional healing and resurgence.

And Forced Evolution is a reward from a gold wonder, so the ability to split recruiting a T3 or T4 unit between draft and casting points /at a slight discount for the T4) hasn't broken the game so far with the current availability to it.
Forced Evolution is less of an issue, but being able to give massive buffs to your core units and then also shove them up, including to T4, as a faction that may also have an army with no upkeep, seems too strong to me. The buffs stop when they evolve, but that still means you either have the buffs or the evolved unit they helped you get far too easily.
 
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Again, the buffs are "+20% XP, slip away" and better healing spell.

Picking another tome you can get IMO similar buffs, and the no-upkeep applies there too.
I'm not saying there is no synergy here, but the synergy doesn't seem "This is too powerful" strong.
 
Absolutely love this update. Feudal as-it-is-now is pretty horrible. Stand Together, as noted in the dev notes, heavily pushes you to pair it with other adjacency bonuses, but clustering your troops up, especially after the first turn, is basically always a bad plan in multiplayer. You *will* be taken advantage of. There are just too many spells that, if you can hit 3+ units with them, are ridiculously strong.

So all those adjacency bonuses are generally F and D tier level in multiplayer games. They do fine in single player, because the AI is terrible at punishing clumping up.

This change to Feudal removes that reliance on adjacency in favor of more globally useful power bonuses (fight with Monarch or fight with Liege). In addition, they give Feudal a much stronger path to "play their culture strongly". Before, if you were Feudal, the only "good" thing you could do was pair your chosen Food Hero in a town that needed more food production. Which wasn't exactly engaging gameplay when you'd then just leave him/her there for 30 turns. Now you're either playing a "my ball of death ruler army and support armies" or "divide and conquer, my armies are all strong on their own, but don't mix and match much".


So you think it's healthy gameplay if all Feudal players feel forced to run the same Tome?
Exactly this. Especially true when Feudal is Order themed (Order/Nature at 1/each, but the Society Traits that line up strongest with Fuedal tend to be Order more than Nature). And Dragon is a Nature/Chaos tome. The Nature isn't a big deal, but basically being pushed into an Order/Chaos split isn't good.

Having the Aspirations work like Evolutions, which is all they actually are, would not, in fact, make Feudal players feel forced to run the Tome of Evolution.

Sure, it would help them get Knights and upgrade to their cultural units, but just because they pick the culture, doesn't mean they would have to focus on them.
I'm thinking you don't value Slippery highly enough, especially for multi-player games where auto-battles are required. Having slippery on your units is the difference between 1 in 3 units evolving, and 1 in 10 units doing so. This is *especially* true with front-line units, because the AI is incredibly stupid, and will send them into melee even if they began a fight at 30% health. Slip Away won't help the Knight Aspirant, as tier 3, but the 20% bonus experience and access to double benefits via Youthful Rejuv can be well used by the AI still.

Even on manual, Youthful Rejuvenation is an absolute beast of a spell on evolving units, to the point where I would agree that, if you're actually building units with ability to evolve, Dragon is as close to required as it gets. The only reason not to take it is if your build plan can't deal with taking a Chaos/Nature tome.

Considering the entire cultural roster is now built around two evolve units per type, one of which is a cultural T4 that is both a racial and mounted unit while the T3s look quite strong themselves, I don't see what other tome you would ever start with instead.

It would be a neat synergy (especially because, given my intention for faction theme, I'm probably STILL taking those tomes), but its definitely out of line. It would probably be outright too strong, but even if not there's absolutely no other starting tome you would take with a synergy that strong.
Slip Away for the tier 1 units is huge, and Youthful Rejuvenation on the Knight Aspirant is equally powerful.

And, it's also worth noting the other parts of Feudal Culture - specifically Monarchy's access to -100% upkeep reduction. Being able to rush build an army of 3 Aspirants is pretty nice already - since the "counter" to them is to bunch up or pair off your units, which makes them vulnerable to many available combat spells in the game. And if any unit isn't bunched up, it's in danger. And then getting to upgrade to tier 4, and still pay zero upkeep is a huge power spike, without the usual downside of having an army of early Tier 4 units.

As is, I see the ability to play a race with +10% experience, and a Champion Lord for a flat 2/turn as a strong move for rushing tier 4 upkeep-free knights. Especially since you'll also have the ability to retain fewer defensive troops due to access to Call Militia. Normally, your rapidly inflating income is kept in check by the need for a similarly expanding army (and their upkeep), but Feudal-Monarchy has the ability to circumvent that if played properly, allowing them to take advantage of greater gold and mana reserves for tactics such as rushing buildings or spamming spells in and out of battle.

Having +20% more experience, AND the massively boosted survivability provided by Dragon for evolving units would be a large enough benefit that I think it would result in Dragon being in 80-100% of Feudal Builds.
 
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Having +20% more experience, AND the massively boosted survivability provided by Dragon for evolving units would be a large enough benefit that I think it would result in Dragon being in 80-100% of Feudal Builds.

And I disagree for a very simple reason: Not everyone wants to powergame.

You literally pointed out that Tome of Evolution is a Nature/Chaos tome, and the fact that Chaos is the opposite of Order, a key aspect of the Feudal Culture regardless of the subculture means that there are plenty of people who will avoid picking up the Tome of Evolution even if it is, mechanically, the greater choice.

Furthermore, your main emphasis for the strength of Slippy is one autobattles, and what if a person hates autobattles and is happy to take every battle manually, or would take over autobattles if they dislike the results? You said in multiplayer it is a necessity, which, sure. But not everyone plays multiplayer. In fact, isn't it well-established that only a rather small % of individuals play AoW4 multiplayer, and most people play it single-player?

All in all, I believe turning the evolving units from the Feudal Culture into 'Aspirants' where it is evolution, except not for 'reasons' is an unnecessary action that diminishes the game of AoW4. The joy in discovering synergistic combinations and the engagement born from realising the fact that the Feudal Culture works well with the Tome of Evolution is worth the potential fact that multiplayers using the Feudal culture will often start with the Tome of Evolution.
 
And I disagree for a very simple reason: Not everyone wants to powergame.
So, your argument is "many people will pick for thematic reasons not balance reasons" - but your argument then is self defeating.

Balance to a game must exist for a multi-player community to thrive. Let's imagine a world where Ignite deals 250 damage instead of 25. So it just auto-kills one unit in the battle.

At that point, if your goal is to win the game, you MUST take Tome of Pyromancy, or you'll lose battles constantly against other players. And, by extension, since you have Ignite, there's not much reason to care at all about any other combat spell, since casting anything else lowers your win chances.

This then causes every single build plan to include Pyromancy, which therefore increases the prevalence of higher tier Chaos tomes (since everyone is picking up 2 points in Chaos anyways).

Yet, despite this ridiculously overpowered spell, single player gamers can still somewhat easily avoid taking it, as AIs won't value Pyromancy higher due to an OP spell, and neutral monster armies never cast it. So you can make 'bad' choices without being overly penalized. Sure, maybe 2 of your 7 opponents might have Ignite and be a huge combat threat, but you can make peace with them, or just avoid 'fair' battles against them.

The reverse of this is that IF you balance the game perfectly, players who don't powergame can still pick the things that they enjoy. Thus, there's no reason NOT to balance things around the existence of multiplayer, unless the devs released a game without multiplayer support at all.

You said in multiplayer it is a necessity, which, sure. But not everyone plays multiplayer

Correct. And not everyone plays to RP only. The game needs to be designed so that as many players as possible can enjoy the game. And that includes making sure that the game is balanced well enough for multiplayer, since, as you pointed out, "RP gamers" will pick whatever seems fun anyways.

The joy in discovering synergistic combinations and the engagement born from realising the fact that the Feudal Culture works well with the Tome of Evolution is worth the potential fact that multiplayers using the Feudal culture will often start with the Tome of Evolution.

The problem with this is that no other culture has such a serious "required" tome in order to expand/exploit their core cultural mechanic(s).

Your culture should not bias you towards a specific tome, or it will stifle tome diversity for that culture. Sub-cultures biased towards tomes would be bad enough.

Barbarians already have a problem synergy - pairing with a specific society trait (Swift Marchers), and the multi-player community wants to see that removed, because it basically has evolved into everyone playing Barbarians taking that one trait, because of how well they pair together. But, at least with a trait, it doesn't as heavily bias you towards how you do the rest of your build, AND it overlaps Barbarian for alignment, without 'adding' another alignment direction.
 
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Balance to a game must exist for a multi-player community to thrive.

Correct, it does.

And having the new Feudal Culture keep its current synergy with the Tome of Evolution would not destroy the game's balance.

Your culture should not bias you towards a specific tome, or it will stifle tome diversity for that culture. Sub-cultures biased towards tomes would be bad enough.

I mean, except they already do? Barbarian's with Vision of Victory and Savage Strike pushes you towards Tomes that help land or empower critical hits. While Reavers work well with the Tome of the Horde (the Houndmaster does extra damage to marked targets, and the hound they summon can help mark targets) and the Tome of the Dreadnought (as that has great spells for marking).
 
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Correct, it does.

And having the new Feudal Culture keep its current synergy with the Tome of Evolution would not destroy the game's balance.
Why? Reasons have been put forward by myself and others that SHOW the issue.

I even bolded a key line in my last post:
Your culture should not bias you towards a specific tome, or it will stifle tome diversity for that culture.

You did not disagree with this specific statement, or provide a statement that shows an alternate outcome. If you cannot show that this statement is untrue, or why I am incorrect in making it, then simply saying "it won't destroy balance" is meaningless.

No other culture is as directly tied to a single tome as Feudalism and Evolution would be. At best, a Tome provides a minor addition to a Culture (like spells that cause Weakness for Dark culture) - but that's moot, since Dark already has a spell to do that (Baneful Curse).

Imagine if one of the Tier 1 tomes had a spell that added Devotion (the Oathsworn mechanic). It would immediately be an auto-pick for any competitive Oathsworn culture facation. Or if a tier 1 tome had an effect that amplified your next spell, and gave you +1 spell this turn. It would similarly be overwhelmingly picked by Mystic culture players (mainly Attunement & Potentional). These spells interfere with the game because they compound the effects/powers of a culture.

And, again, to emphasize the point:

No other culture has a tome that provides a spell that directly buffs/multiplies their cultural mechanic. None.

So why should new-Feudal get one?

It breaks the manner in which the game is balanced, but also the way the faction system is set up to allow and encourage creative choices without a reliant "must pick" competitive tome.
 
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