Dev Diary #67 - World Map Content - Expanding Oceans

Hark, sailors of the seas! I’m Bas, a Senior Game Designer at Triumph Studios. Here to offer you a spyglass pointed to some of the new locations and events in the Silver Seas, the new expansion coming up for Age of Wonders 4 on November 3rd!

This Dev Diary will be split into two parts. The first part will talk about the new locations that can be found on the oceans presented by yours truly. While the second part will be about the new Oceanic Happenings that will change the ocean currents forever, written by my partner in maritime crime, Pablo!

Part 1: New Ocean Locations

Silver Seas, as many suspected, aims to bring the ultimate maritime explorer fantasy to the world of Age of Wonders 4, so we first need to make some impressive destinations players want to venture out into the oceans for! The current ocean only had 2 infestations, 2 nodes, and 2 pickups. It was time to design some new locations!

One of the key points we took in while designing these was that there were 2 distinct themes/experiences we wanted to hit:

• Pirate Legends: locations in the oceans are by nature isolated from busy landlubbers and prying eyes, so they become safe havens for exiles and pirates of the seafaring races in Age of Wonders 4. These locations combine natural formations with haphazard buildings or wrecks left by all kinds of dubious folks, resulting in the stuff of legends.
• Exotic Marine Life and Environment: both flora and fauna in the ocean are almost alien-like in nature and have some fascinating visuals and science behind them. There are also some incredibly weird-looking places in the ocean in the world due to water erosion and other environmental conditions. These locations take that unique organic vibe and elevate it further by combining it with our own fantastical wildlife and magic.

Let’s dive into the new locations we created!

Infestation: Spawning Shoal

First up was a new Infestation that practically designed itself. We had 2 existing infestations in the water in the base game:

• Pirate Cove
• Bronze Tier
• Mostly featured embarked racial units

Forsaken Cove

• Gold Tier
• Mostly featured Undead with some racial units and wildlife mixed in.

We also knew we were going to have a bunch of additional sea wildlife units. And so, the new infestation formed in our minds pretty quickly:

• Spawning Shoal
• Silver Tier
• Exclusively featured Amphibious, Water, Flying and Floating wildlife units.

It being silver tier filled up the missing gap in the possible infestations in the water, and the wildlife exclusivity made it properly distinct from the other 2 infestations and showed off a bunch of the new units. It also made use of a lot of ocean flora props we created to beautify the ocean combat maps!

Pickups: Abandoned Eggs and Luminous Waves

Next up were new pickups; we had 2 existing pickups in the oceans: the Galleon Wreck and Flotsam. Both offered similar rewards in the form of Production, Gold, and occasionally hero items.

More importantly, both of these were human-made in nature as they are the result of shipwrecks. So for these new locations, we wanted to add more organic stuff to offset it, balancing out the 2 key experiences.

The new Luminous Waves and the Abandoned Eggs are 2 new organic pick-ups that can be found in the Ocean!

The former provides valuable knowledge and Mana, while the latter lets you readily gain amphibious and water animal units of the oceans that were previously hard to come by without going into Nature tomes. Be sure to take care of your new pet penguins!

Magic Material: Pale Tidebloom

A new magic material was going to give players another good reason to explore the waters. Early on we knew that we were going to reintroduce the Accursed and Ghostfire thematics via the Tome of the Damned. We decided to tie this Magic Material to that theme, appearing as an almost ghostly plant found in the seas. The new Pale Tidebloom expands the Plant category in the same way Blood Glass did for the Ore category.

To drive home its connection to the Accursed theming, the Pale Tidebloom grants infusions in the item forge that unlocks abilities to summon Accursed units, passives to inflict Ghostfire status effects that were previously not available in the item forge! It also unlocks passives to inflict the new Ember Dust status effect from the Tome of Piracy.

Ancient Wonders: The Uncharted Harbor and the Pearltide Dome

Something that was high on the wishlist for both us and fans was to introduce Ancient Wonders that only appear in the oceans. These wonders aim to fill the gap in the oceans left by the absence of impressive economic hotspots that required a decent army presence to claim.

First up is the new Bronze Ancient Wonder, the Uncharted Harbor, which falls within the Pirate Legends experience. This Wonder is a secluded and eerie island featuring a skull-shaped entrance to a water cave. How inviting! Inside, you will find evil exiles, shipwreck survivors, and a certain crab-crazed character. All have made their home in this large water cave and built a shabby-looking dock and/or camp out of it.

We recently changed how units move when embarked, penalizing them for turning. This posed an extra challenge when designing this wonder's map, since adding too many choke points and obstacles would be a big problem for them. Designing the new Water Combat Maps was a challenge. As always though, I think the environment artists have knocked it out of the park with the art pass for this map.

Next is the Gold Ancient Wonder, the Pearltide Dome. This is where we wanted to focus on a place for Exotic Marine Life, where we wanted to create some kind of almost alien-like structure. Pearls in real life are objects created by marine life for reasons that were long unknown to us, yet we put great value on them because of their visuals. Did you know pearls are just the result of oysters and mussels trapping parasites and other nasty stuff to protect themselves?

Well, how did this large pearl-within-a-pearl come to be? We’ll let you speculate. But each adventure of this Ancient Wonder dives into a different potential origin.

Both wonders’ effects, next to their pure economic value, try to further improve your time spent in the vast oceans.

Landmarks: The Tempestuous Vortex and the Armada’s Fall

Next up, we wanted to put the cherry on top of the new oceans by adding 2 new landmarks uniquely found in the oceans. But an idea inspired us very early on to try and connect them together.

First up was the Tempestuous Vortex, inspired by the many legendary accounts of giant whirlpools in the ocean, including a certain famous scene in a very famous pirate movie.

The theme of the Tempestuous Vortex was large water currents, which are often used by marine life for migration. An idea came to mind to connect this landmark to the new Lightning and Storm Rune Crab units. What if these crabs created the currents with their affinity for lightning and used this Vortex to slingshot across the seas?

And thus, the Tempestuous Vortex became a good fit for the Exotic Marine Life experience, being interconnected to some of the wildlife of Silver Seas.

The Tempestuous Vortex offers a decent mana income with its connection to lightning. It can also slingshot your armies by granting them increased movement, just like the crabs who created it! But beware, as the waters surrounding the Vortex are tumultuous. You might find yourself in one of its smaller offshoot vortices in combat.

As with any strong currents over long periods, whirlpools have the ability to erode land. In rivers, this can often lead to potholes. But for the Vortex, we had the idea that this could potentially drill holes into the seabed. Dig deep enough, however, and where would you end up? That’s right, the vast caverns of the Underground!

The Armada’s Fall is a direct result of the Vortex, therefore this landmark is spawned right underneath the Vortex if space is available. This goes back to the Pirate Legends experience, where plenty of sailors have met their end in this treasure trove of shipwrecks.

You might find yourself here when you end up in one of the aforementioned Vortices. If you’re lucky, you’re the first, and there’s plenty of treasure to be gained here.

This landmark spawns new undefended pickups every 10 turns around it. Next to that, should you want to collect a steady stream of booty, annexing provinces nearby will provide a good income for quarries and mines in particular!

Underground players will be longing to find this in the Underground, but with this added connection to the Vortex, it could even lure some surface players to have second thoughts about settling a city Underground.

Dwelling: Bond of the Free Captains

Perhaps the most imposing of the new locations are the Pirate Dwellings, which only appear with the Bond of the Free Captains Realm Trait. These are seaborne forts built from ships and rocky spires, each housing a Free Captain - a charismatic, bloodthirsty, or avaricious leader with whom you can only improve relations through tributes or quests.

Dwellings originally mainly had a particular subtype of units representing them, such as Umbral Demons for the Umbral Dwellings and Elementals for the Crystal Dwelling. But for this dwelling, we felt like we wanted to use all of our fancy new pirate cosmetics and have the player approach an actual pirate captain. As you’ll read down below, the many unique features of this dwelling are very piratey in nature.

Each Pirate Dwelling is led by a charismatic Pirate Captain, who you can complete quests for and pay tribute to improve your standing.

Free Captains will have particular personalities which define their likes and dislikes, their behavior and finally, their quests, with 6 different unique quest lines; exploring the story of these captains and rewarding a powerful artifact at the end!

Increasing your standing with them as you complete quests will be well worth your while, as it allows you to buy various pirate items, spells and units from their shop.

Each Pirate Dwelling will also allow you to call in raids: attacks on other empires you and the Pirate Dwelling may or may not be at war with. Raids spawn armies that hoist the black flag and pillage surrounding province improvements of the target. You’ll even get a part of the booty in resources and even research skills the target has completed.

Of course, should you become a target of these raids, you could defeat these raiding armies and get a chance to figure out who called the raid on you (you’ll get a grievance against them too). But if you have bigger fish to fry, why not send a scout and simply bribe these brigands with some gold? All for one and one for all…

These new dwellings have plenty to offer, be sure to venture into the seas and check them out if you have the Realm Trait active!

Set Sail!

With all of these new locations, we really tried to push the worldbuilding elements of Age of Wonders 4. The ocean was a space that was ripe to be populated with all kinds of fascinating stuff. We hope to give you a real sense of adventure from sailing into the Silver Seas. But we’re not quite done yet! Story-teller and full-time Pirate Pablo is here to tell you all about the shifting tides of Oceanic Happenings!

Part 2: Oceanic Happenings

Hi! My name is Pablo, Narrative Designer at Triumph Studios and the one responsible for filling your seas with Krakens and storms. Today, I’m here to tell you how we charted the course towards the Oceanic Happenings.

For these global events, we’ve poured in everything we learned from Cosmic Happenings, Intrigue Happenings, and other global events such as the Fated Regions. Our goal was to create engaging water gameplay and invite players to sail the Silver Seas.

Oceanic Happenings will start appearing during the mid-game, announced by an introductory event and primarily affecting water areas. After eight to fifteen turns (depending on the Happening), the event will end, reverting its effects on the seas. At least, most of the time...

You’ll be able to customize how frequently these Happenings occur using the settings found in the Advanced Settings → Realm Content section during realm setup.

To make sure water gameplay feels fun and diverse, we have crafted 20 unique Happenings: 18 minor ones and 2 major ones, each with different effects and rewards. Some will completely transform the seascape, such as Frozen Seas or Volcanic Islands.

Others will bring beautiful effects to the waves, like Light of the Depths or Procession of the Drowned.

And others will let you compete against rival empires for a hefty reward, like Thalassal Hunt or Paragon of the Seas.

Major Happenings are a different beast altogether. These will offer players a more narrative-driven adventure, with several events along the way and an Artifact as a reward. If they can complete them in time.

As I mentioned before, our goal was to draw players out to sea, where they could fulfill their fantasies of adventure on the high seas. To do this, we first asked ourselves what kinds of adventures both our players andwe would like to encounter out there. Treasure hunts, pirate competitions, marine fairs, unfathomable storms, discovering unique fauna and flora...

With that first draft of ideas, we reserved the two strongest ones for the Major Happenings and started working out how these events could make players want to venture out to sea. Each Happening tries to achieve this differently: temporal resourcesor boons on sea, missions to complete, calamities to prevent, mysteries to uncover, or unique rewards created specifically for these events. Some spells, items, character traits and even a Major Transformation are unique bounties from Oceanic Happenings.

Happenings, like many other narrative features, need to create a cohesive world around them. They need to feel like part of a living, interconnected world, bringing together the waves of every other mechanic to create the Silver Seas. Some Happenings weave the adventures within water Ancient Wonders, water infestations, and water landmarks into larger global events. Others have unique interactions with well-known characters like Marinus (oops, I mentioned him), while some are deeply connected to other major features, such as the Free Captains Dwellings. There are even some with original sea shanties, or that can trigger future Happenings if the right conditions are met! Let’s see how many of these connections you can find.

I would love to spend hours talking about sea shanties and how we created them, but the voyage is long and the winds don't blow and it's time for us to leave them.

The Silver Seas are the culmination of this world building process, into which the entire Age of Wonders team has poured their love and marine fantasies to create an adventure worthy of our players. A legend that you shall forge, of seas that perhaps may never be discovered, for some legends are meant to fill the heart, not the pockets.

Do you want the treasures of the Oceanic Happenings? You can have them! I left them all in one place. Go find them! Everything I had, you’ll find in the Silver Seas!

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