Dev Diary #66 - Trade Routes and Mercantile Culture

Hello Godir and Mortals alike, I am Thomas Schuiten, Senior Designer at Triumph studios and today I’ll be sharing with you a bunch of info about both a new system coming in Manta update for free, and the new culture included in Silver Seas.

Being that the culture interacts with this new system, we shall start with the Trade Routes!

Trade Routes

Trade routes are a concept new to Age of Wonders 4, introduced in the upcoming free Manta update. These are effectively connections cities can make to Free Cities, Outposts or Cities of other Empires with which the player has the right agreements. These connections grant the city income depending on what the route connects to.

This primarily affects two areas, Outposts and Free Cities. Trading with other Empires we will address a bit later, as it is entirely new.

Outposts no longer give income automatically, they also no longer cost upkeep. To gain the income from their domain, a city must make a Trade Route to the Outpost.

Doing so will add all income gathered from the Outpost’s domain to that of the City, this means at last outposts controlling Food, Production or Draft Nodes and Wonders will be contributing their full value to your economy!

Magic Materials it should be noted are still gained by simply having them in your domain, with or without a Trade Route, the income from the Node however passes through the Trade Route just the same.

Free Cities can be connected to if your Empire has at least a Pact of Cooperation with them, when you do, the Route will grant the originating city an income in all resources based on a percentage of that of the connecting Free City. Thus a free city generating a lot of Knowledge or Food will grant more of it through the Trade Route than another free city which may generate much more Gold!

Without an active Trade Route, Vassalized Free Cities will still grant an income of Gold and Mana, but to access all other resource incomes the City has, a Trade Route must be established.

It is also worth noting that an active Trade Route gives a decent bit of Relation with the Free City as well, which can help you gain their Allegiance faster!

Trading with Free cities got altered as well, you can still pay them in exchange for access to their Magic Material should you not have it yet, but the other resource exchange options now instead take the form of Resource Focus. You pay the Free City an upkeep of imperium to increase their income of that resource type substantially, and thus the income you gain from the Trade Route as well. Asking them to focus on Gold increases the proportion of income they pass along the trade route by 50%, a Vassal would pass on 65% of its Gold income instead of the 15% it would previously!

Establishing Trade Routes

Distance matters when it comes to Trade Routes, they cost Draft to create, and this cost scales with both the target (Outposts cheaper to connect to than cities) and distance. The distance being measured is done in move points, using a racial mock unit. What this means is that if your race is faster on certain terrain types, the Trade Route will take that path and be cheaper as a consequence. Likewise, Trade Routes over water are almost always the most efficient, letting you connect to cities further much more easily if there is a path over the water to them!

Raiding Trade Routes

This distance of course leaves them vulnerable to Raiding, which is why each Trade Route has an Escort that will protect the Route should it be Raided.

The Escort is not powerful enough to fight off full-scale armies, but small bands of raiders and sneaky scouts will be kept at bay by them. The power of the Escort stack increases as you build Trade Route upgrades in the origin city as well.

To Raid a Trade Route, an army needs to stand on a hex the Route passes through and click the raid button, similarly to how it is done for Pillaging provinces. Note you can view the income the route provides its owner, where it came from and where it is going. Successfully raiding the route will grant you 3 turns worth of the Route’s income, thus seeking out profitable routes to raid provides a more ample reward.

Empire Diplomacy

There is a new Agreement that can be reached between two Empires that have at least a Wizard’s Bond, the Free Trade Agreement. This bilateral agreement lets both sides establish Trade Routes to Cities belonging to the other Empire.

Trade Routes leading to these “Foreign Cities” grant an income of gold and mana only, but the amount gained is significantly better than any but the most loyal Vassals, allowing for a nice boon to the economy.

Upgrading your Trade Routes

Trade Routes connecting to Free Cities grant increased income as their Vassalage state increases. But there are other ways to improve your Trade Routes as well, primarily through a couple new City Structures.

Each City has a Trade Route Capacity, this determines the amount of Routes the city can have active at once, this generally starts at 1 and can be increased by building the Core Trade structures available at City Tier 2, 3 and 4 respectively.

These core structures additionally improve the strength of the Escort stack and give a bit of gold income for each Trade Route connecting to this city that you do not own, letting you profit a little extra from any Free Trade Agreements you may have with other Empires!

Besides these, each unlocks some mutually exclusive options which let you specialize your city’s preferred connections a bit, gaining more from Outposts, sourcing Imperium from Foreign Cities etc.

Conclusion

With this new system, Outposts should be more valuable, Vassals and their physical relation to your empire a bit more relevant, and a good relation with another Empire should be significantly more profitable!

There should be more to fight over, these routes providing important points of interest for you to attack and draw out a potentially decisive battle!

Mercantile Culture

The Mercantile Culture, which will be arriving with Silver Seas is one of cunning and profit. Their penchant for Trade draws them to the seas, where they uniquely are able to build their Cities. Growing them into immensely powerful centers of prosperity through their many Trade Routes.

Both Subcultures approach this in their own unique way however, the Barony plays it above-board, seeking to claim any profitable land through Outposts and making profitable Vassals.

The Mercantile Cartel instead finds more cunning methods of profit, through their hidden Trade Routes they profit off neutral and even hostile Cities.

Both Subcultures are able to found cities from Water Outposts, this lets them take unique locations on the map from which they can run their Trade Routes efficiently and potentially be hard to reach for rivals.

Subcultures

The Barony

Affinities: Shadow + Materium

Theme: Wealthy trade princes, barons and nobles, mercenary armies.

Combat Focus: Surprisingly sturdy frontline, powerful ranged damage.

The Mercantile Barony prefers a more classic approach to attaining their wealth. They are well suited for rapidly claiming land across the map through their Outposts. Which their Envoy scouts can place for them without need of a hero. In addition these Outposts have an Improved version of the work Camp, which lets the Outpost claim two additional provinces instead of one.

In combat the Barony assigns bounties to particular units. Support units and Heroes gain the “Assign Bounty” ability, which lets them place a Bounty on an enemy unit. Meanwhile all other culture units (and more once the Culture Enchantment is active) gain “Bounty Hunter” this makes these units more resistant to damage dealt to them by units with Bounty, while increasing the damage they deal against them.

Any unit who slays a unit with Bounty gains some extra Experience, even if they do not have Bounty Hunter.

Their unique Province Improvement and City structures give them an edge when it comes to exploiting Trade Routes compared to other Cultures.

City Structures

The Special Province Improvement, the Trade District, can be built on either water or land provinces, granting a decent gold income at base, but more importantly granting an additional gold income for each Trade Route connecting to this city. This means each Route established from it, but also those from other Empires that connect to it!

Their replacement structures likewise give benefits for any Trade Routes connecting to and from the City. These are the Warehouse and Food Markets, each granting the city a boost to its growth for each Trade Route.

The unique Tier 3 structure for the Barony grants them an additional Trade Route Capacity, in addition to stability for each Trade Route connecting to and from the city. This should ensure the city can become a prosperous trade hub.

Unit Lineup

The Mercantile Subcultures share a bunch in their unit lineup, but each has a unique Scout, Tier 1 combat unit, Support and of course Tier 3 unit. This is primarily because their playstyles are subtly different enough. Barony gets a bit more heft in their frontline early through the Marine, and a bit more ranged firepower through their tier 3, the Silvershot.

Tier 1

The Tier 1 units for the Barony are all simple yet specialized into a slightly unique role. Uncomplicated tools for cunning Trade Princes to wage their wars of profit.

Envoy

The Envoy is a simple scout, though they by default travel on foot they can gain mounts should the faction use any of the mount traits. In combat they can come in handy in a pinch early on, able to assign bounties like Support or Heroes can.

But their primary strength comes from the Outpost Builder trait, similar to Barbarian scouts, they can build Outposts. And for the Barony these are of particular value, as they are able to cover more domain with the Improved Work Camp!

Marine

A simple yet useful tool for early combat, the Mariner is a sturdy shield unit with an empowered defense mode, granting it First Strike and unlimited Retaliation attacks. They are specialized in getting in front, digging in and not letting the enemy advance.

Hireling [Shared]

The Hireling is a Ranged unit that uniquely prefers mobility and flanking where it can thanks to its single shot ranged attack. The Carbine’s shots additionally may slow their enemies, preventing retaliations and potentially keeping them from reaching their preferred targets.

In addition, these cunning mercenaries have perfected the art of escape, using Slip Away when they would take fatal damage to potentially survive where other ranged units could not.

For the Cartel, this unit’s ability to flank is especially prized.

Tier 2

The tier 2 units provide some more powerful striking ability for both subcultures, and a unique support as well.

Magewright

The Magewright is a powerful but simple healer, able to restore an impressive 40 HP while simultaneously granting the target Defensive Masters for a turn. This power comes at a drawback however, the Magewright does not have inherent abilities to deal with debuffs, unlike its Cartel counterpart who specializes in it.

Endurance Potion is perfect for getting heavily damaged units back in the fight. In addition, the Magewright is a source of assigning Bounty to enemy units, giving the rest of your army a boost against them.

Their base attack additionally inflicts sundered defense, letting your ranged units strike the target even harder.

Bravo [Shared]

This unit… This was the one demand visually for this culture to have. Because it looks damned cool.

Anyway, onto actual mechanics, the Bravo is a unique Shock unit, they love to fight one on one, applying Taunt to their targets with either a low chance through their basic strike, or more reliably through Taunting Advance.

Taunting Advance is a charge attack with a knockback that pushes any non-large target back, has a high chance to inflict taunt, and places the unit into Defense Mode.

This already makes them quite sturdy, but lastly they have a unique passive: Exploit Bravado.

This gives them an additional 2 Defense, Resistance and First Strike against units they have Taunted!

They are a powerful tool in any army, and I suspect they will see some use even later in the game with the right enchantments and ranks.

Tier 3

Silvershot

The Silvershot are made up of rich scions of the trade families, those who seek to “prove their worth on the battlefield”, but obviously buy themselves into the safest positions.

Regardless these Ranged units are exceptionally potent, the core of their power is their Steady Aim passive. If they start their turn not Engaged in melee then until they move they gain a whopping 50% accuracy and 20% more damage. This lets them hit hard even with their inaccurate base shot (which has an impressive range of 5).

But even more impressive is the powerful Silver Bullet Shot, a full action prohibiting movement, but with a range of 6 it can be hard to avoid. More than that it has a high base damage and Giant Slayer to boot, letting them lay low large late-game creatures in the right situations.

They are even capable of being mounted with the right traits should you so desire.

Research Skills

Bounty Hunter’s Writ

An enchantment granting non-Mercantile units Bounty Hunter, Support units however instead gain the Assign Bounty ability.

Mark Bounty

A cheap combat spell to inflict Bounty and a solid 3 stacks of marked, helping counteract particularly evasive enemies.

Shadow Negotiations

A useful Strategic spell that lets you win the race for allegiance of Free cities, reducing the allegiance gain rate of other rulers with the city, while increasing the effectiveness of your own Whispering Stone with them. It costs gold to cast, which the Mercantile Baronies will have in abundance, especially if they utilize their free city diplomacy wisely.

The Cartel

Affinities: Shadow + Chaos

Theme: Fighting Dirty, Manipulation, subterfuge

Combat Focus: Flanking, unfair fighting, stolen power

The Mercantile Cartel finds agreements and formal stuff a bit tedious, so instead they skip that stage and use smuggling routes instead. Hidden Trade Routes that they can establish towards cities of rival Empires, even hostile ones! They can of course still be destroyed if they are found out.

In combat the Cartel likewise does not play fair, their units have Observant, which lets them apply Leverage to units within a range of 4 each turn as long as they are not engaged in melee.

Leverage is a stacking debuff that increases damage from the next flanking attack by a flat amount, and lets it bypass Status Effect Resistance, letting you hit leveraged targets hard with damage or potentially a stun of even dominate ability.

Their City structures give them an edge when it comes to exploiting Trade Routes with other Empires in particular. Requiring more specificity than the Barony who benefit massively from all trade they can get instead.

Smuggling Routes

The Cartel’s Trade Routes are hidden, revealed to other players only while one of their units stands atop it, this lets them avoid raids and pass through territory others would find too dangerous or risky.

These Trade Routes can even connect to other Empires without requiring a Free Trade Agreement, but they give a slightly smaller income in return. The Cartel thus still benefits from negotiating a Free Trade Agreement, as this would give these routes their full power.

City Structures

The Privateers Camp Special Province Improvement lets the Cartel lean into a more aggressive approach to profit, for those who seek more aggressive paths to profit. The base gold income is solid, but its primary benefit is the temporary stability gained from Raiding Supply Routes or Pillaging Provinces. Raiding a route or two can swiftly turn a rioting city into a prosperous one.

This province improvement, like the Trade District of the Baronies can be placed on either land or water provinces.

The replacement structures for the Cartel fit into the gold producing line, these are the Smuggling Network, which in addition to its gold income gives you food for each Trade Route the city has to a Foreign City, and the Black Market, which grants additional gold for each Foreign City Trade Route instead!

The unique Tier 3 structure for the Cartel takes the form of the Informant Network. Providing a nice bit of city stability at base, but its main draw is the Imperium it grants you for each Trade Route connecting this city to a Foreign one!

Unit Lineup

The Cartel unit lineup has some differences with that of the Barony, emphasizing Flanking and trickery over straightforward firepower.

Tier 1

The Tier 1 units for the cartel emphasize their ability to gather information on their opposition and use it to great effect.

Informant

The Informant is a simple scout, like the Envoy it can optionally be mounted, but unlike the Envoy, instead of building outposts, the Informant specializes in spying thanks to Universal Camouflage. Letting you ignore borders as long as you aren’t spotted to find targets for your smuggling routes.

Should it be necessary, they can help out in early combat as well, contributing to the gain of Leverage through Observant, and with their single shot attacks they are surprisingly useful for triggering Leverage themselves in a pinch!

Goon

Hired Goons, weak, expendable, useful.

A Fighter unit with a useful Observe ability, this lets them build up additional Leverage on a target before going in, giving themselves some evasion and entering defense mode as well.

Should they fall in battle (and they will), they can easily be “replaced” at the end of combat thanks to Replaceable; This lets you buy back the unit from death using gold, retaining all XP the unit had before and giving them a hefty heal in the process.

Hireling [Shared]

The Cartel shares this unit with the Barony, but thanks to their mechanic and line-up they use them even more explicitly as flanking assets, something their single shot attacks make them perfectly suited for!

Tier 2

Curse Peddler

The basic attack of the Curse Peddler inflicts Weakening, helping control the damage you would take a bit. But their primary selling points are their twin abilities:

Divine Weakness is an extremely potent method of applying Leverage to enemies and controlling their damage by applying Weakened, it targets all units of the same type, so it is ideal against stacks of spammed units, Zombie hordes and Blood Maggots beware!

Second they have a unique support ability: Curse Inversion, it heals only 10 HP at base, which is not much, it does however dispel all negative status effects from the target, and when it does it heals an additional 10 for each debuff the target had! This is a powerful ability against debuff heavy builds, but struggles potentially early on compared to more straightforward healing abilities.

Bravo [Shared]

Like the Hireling, this unit is shared between the two cultures. But for the Cartel they emphasize using the Taunting Advance even more, as they would prefer not being engaged, letting them apply Leverage.

Tier 3

Mage Slayer

The Mage Slayer is a unique unit, a Magic Fighter that specializes in defeating spellcasters and units brimming with buffs.

Their basic Magic Strike has an extremely high chance to inflict Mana Drained, which disables Magic, Support and Debuff abilities. This lets them shut down Mages, even certain Heroes extremely effectively.

Second, they have access to Arcane Interrogation, a powerful ranged ability that steals all positive Status Effects from the target, giving them to this unit instead. For each effect stolen the target takes Frost Damage, Leverage, and the caster is instead healed. This ability can let them flip the tide of battle and punish enemies who are overly reliant on buffing up single units!

This unit, like the Silvershot, may be mounted as well should your faction have a mount trait.

Research Skills

Signia of the Cartel

An enchantment to give your non-Mercantile units Observant, letting them apply Leverage as well.

Scry Leverage

A combat spell that lets you place 2 stacks of leverage on a target and 2 additional targets in a range of 3. This is useful for setting up a strike when you lack enough leverage to hit them hard. Or for re-applying it after using the stacks the enemy started the turn with!

Bribes and Incentives

Money solves many problems, such as pesky infestations. Bribes and Incentives force an Infestation to become Neutral against you and not launch any attacks against you for 10 turns. This costs gold to cast and maintain of course, but it is a bargain compared to the potentially expensive endeavor of kicking them out of their nest.

Conclusion

I hope that this gave you some interesting insight into the Trade Routes coming with the Manta Update and the new Culture arriving alongside it with Silver Seas! A lot of work and love went into making these smooth and interesting additions to the game, and I for one look forward to seeing what sort of characters, builds and stories you all will make out of them!

Thank you very much for reading, hope you will enjoy our hard work when Silver Seas releases November 3rd!