Dev Journal: New Race Upgrade System

Posted on January 2, 2015 by SikBok in news

[Update 3 March ’15] : Race Command has been extended to be part of a bigger system and renamed to Race Governance. It will be part of the upcoming expansion and not released with a free patch.

Happy New Year!  Today we resume our Dev Journals,  this time it is one of the new mechanics for the upcoming expansion: Race Command.

Race Command will unlock race specific bonuses as you spend more time with cities of that race in your empire. Those bonuses fit the overall race theme, thereby strengthening race diversification. Each race has five levels of race command upgrades, which come in two flavors for a total of ten bonuses per race. At each level you get to choice between the two mutually exclusive perks: which are either Empire or Military upgrades. The top level race command upgrades are designed to be ultimates and will likely have a big effect on the end-game

racelistNew race overview panel in the diplomacy interface.  Note you can now see the % each race takes up along with happiness and an XP bar per race. While we were at it, we also revised to top part of the leader info in the diplomacy screen, listing all a leader’s class picks with ToW shortcuts.

 

Some examples of the upgrades you can get are:

  • Lvl 1 Halfling Empire: Store Houses are 35 gold cheaper to build
  • Lvl 1 Dwarf Military: All Dwarf Crossbowmen units now have an additional +2 range damage
  • Lvl 3 Human Empire: Builders, Roads, watchtowers and forts cost 60% less to build.
  • Lvl 3 Dwarf Military: All First Born get the Ancient Ancestor ability (+300 morale to adjacent dwarven units) and +2 Fire Melee Damage
  • Lvl 5 Goblin Empire: All Goblin Cities generate an additional +1 gold for every Wetland Hex in their domain.
  • Lvl 5 Draconian Military: All Draconian Infantry, Irregulars and Pikemen get fire weapons and deal an additional +3 fire damage

So, how do you get a race command upgrade? Well, each turn you gain race command xp for each city you own of a particular race. The bigger the city, the more xp you gain. The xp you get from cities is multiplied by a modifier determined by how much a race likes you. Yes, that’s linked to the upcoming Race Happiness feature. I’ll be telling you more about that in a future dev journal. The xp for each race is added each turn and when you hit the amount required for the next race command level you get an upgrade.

racial_upgrade

The Race Upgrade list. You’ll be notified via an event similar to Hero Upgrades.

 

As for impact on game play, if you focus on a single race you will likely get an upgrade every twenty turns. Which means race command skills will spice up multiplayer. When you spread attention across several races, it will take a pretty epic singleplayer game to max out race command for all races on the map.

We’ve are still testing and balancing race command based on feedback, so let us know what you think in the comments below.

 

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Home › Forums › Dev Journal: New Race Upgrade System

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This topic contains 129 replies, has 69 voices, and was last updated by  Sartarius 5 years, 6 months ago.

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  • January 2, 2015 at 15:04 #144280

    Lennart Sas
    Keymaster

    Happy New Year!

    See News Post: http://ageofwonders.com/dev-journal-new-race-upgrade-system

    January 2, 2015 at 15:07 #144283

    BLOODYBATTLEBRAIN
    Member

    Woot, 1st!!

    January 2, 2015 at 15:11 #144288

    Jolly Joker
    Member

    Happy New Year!

    The feature sounds AWESOME!

    January 2, 2015 at 15:12 #144290

    Ravenholme
    Member

    Happy New Year Triumph and Forumites!

    (Now to read the journal)

    January 2, 2015 at 15:12 #144291

    GrassMudHorse
    Member

    Well top five to reply and happy new year! 😀
    Just wondering how fast does the exp accumulate?

    January 2, 2015 at 15:15 #144293

    Ravenholme
    Member
    GrassMudHorse wrote:

    Well top five to reply and happy new year! :D<br>
    Just wondering how fast does the exp accumulate?

    They give an estimate in the journal – Around one level up per twenty turns if you focus exclusively on one race.

    And this sounds awesome.

    January 2, 2015 at 15:22 #144297

    Gloweye
    Member

    Sounds awesome. Can’t wait for it. (I missed the Dev Journals…)

    Also, Happy New Year everyone!

    EDIT: Just realized, this is gonna make it a whole lot more difficult to incorporate things like this into the Wikia calculation templates…

    January 2, 2015 at 15:25 #144301

    RMZ1989
    Member

    This is just sick! I love it, you are doing an amazing job guys, keep it up! Can’t wait to play this. 🙂

    Happy new year folks!

    January 2, 2015 at 15:30 #144302

    Hunter
    Member

    Sounds fantastic. Race bonuses plus race relations / happiness system. Devil in details of course, but the outline sounds ace.

    January 2, 2015 at 15:39 #144305

    iblis86
    Member

    Great news, sounds exciting!

    I’m very happy about the fact that this part of the free patch, meaning that this upgrade will likely be EVERYWHERE – the scenarios, the campaigns, etc.

    The only thing I’m still missing is one additional unit per race so that we have 8 race-specific units again, just like in AoW 2. But of course, I might demand too much from Triumph Studios with that. Just saying…

    January 2, 2015 at 15:45 #144308

    Ravenholme
    Member
    iblis86 wrote:

    Great news, sounds exciting!

    I’m very happy about the fact that this part of the free patch, meaning that this upgrade will likely be EVERYWHERE – the scenarios, the campaigns, etc.

    The only thing I’m still missing is one additional unit per race so that we have 8 race-specific units again, just like in AoW 2. But of course, I might demand too much from Triumph Studios with that. Just saying…

    Well, I suspect that it will be disabled for the campaigns that weren’t made with it in my mind, because otherwise they possibly would end up having to be remade to balance these additions.

    And yeah, races are now only half of the paradigm, what with classes involved now.

    January 2, 2015 at 15:51 #144310

    LordTheRon
    Member

    Happy New Year guys! And woohoo this sounds like another sweet addition. This xpack is getting bigger and bigger.

    Edit: wow, this is in the free patch I just noticed, even better!

    January 2, 2015 at 15:54 #144312

    rohirrimelf
    Member

    Nice. Looking forward to this bit of free dlc.

    Keep working on this game and ill continue buying your dlc 🙂

    January 2, 2015 at 16:06 #144313

    wilendar
    Member

    Looking great, more customisations are always awesome!
    I’ve got an Idea! How about making public beta test for everyone that purchased game? Then you’ll get plenty of feedback and balance about new features from Your own community !

    January 2, 2015 at 16:07 #144315

    Leyrann
    Member

    Absolutely awesome.

    Already looking forward to play with this, Frostlings and all that stuff. (probably not gonna play a lot of Necromancer though. I’m not really a fan of undead)

    January 2, 2015 at 16:11 #144316

    Gloweye
    Member

    I’ve got a little question….I assume that buffs referring to buildings, like the halfling empire #1, only benefit buildings by that race?

    Someone had the idea of additional units…what if the LvL 5 upgrade could enable an additional unit for productions? This could be a nice, balanced way to get more racial units. For example, when you start, you can only build the skewers, but butchers get available at racial upgrades 2(And skewers evolve? I wouldn’t mind in a case like this. After all, they are making the skewers nearly obsolete.)

    I might add, aside from having 5 HP and Life Steal more and 2 damage and Armor Piercing less, the Butcher is exactly an Elite Skewer for as far as we can see. Though I must add, this would be even better if Mystical City upgrades would persist past Evolutions(which sounds like an awesome idea anyway…all those Enchanted Armor, Vigorous Mount human cavalry…).

    IDEA:
    Lvl 5 Elf Military: All Elven Archers gain +1 Range. (Now THAT’s a game-changer)

    January 2, 2015 at 16:12 #144317

    Dagoth Ur
    Member

    Oh god oh man oh god oh man!

    This is really cool. Probably the best way to implement race diversification.

    January 2, 2015 at 16:20 #144318

    Nyanko
    Member

    Happy New Year and thanks for this update on race bonuses, looks awesome!

    January 2, 2015 at 16:23 #144319

    Slouch
    Member

    … on that screenshot above, shouldn’t Diety instead be Deity … sorry

    January 2, 2015 at 16:48 #144321

    Arlow
    Member

    wow, love this!
    happy new year everyone

    January 2, 2015 at 17:08 #144323

    UltraDD
    Member

    This is amazing. My only hope is picking an upgrade shows a confirmation dialogue if that isn’t in yet :P.

    January 2, 2015 at 17:36 #144329

    Bjmolf
    Member

    Awesome update! keep up the good work!

    January 2, 2015 at 17:41 #144330

    phalnax811
    Member

    Well golly, butter me up and call me excited for this.

    P.S. I’ve looked a few places…has anyone seen a tentative release date for the Frostlings expansion?

    January 2, 2015 at 18:04 #144334

    Ravenholme
    Member
    phalnax811 wrote:

    Well golly, butter me up and call me excited for this.

    P.S. I’ve looked a few places…has anyone seen a tentative release date for the Frostlings expansion?

    There has been none given yet, just theorising by us forumites. (I feel Late Feb into March)

    Also, Devs – One suggestion, but instead of “Race Command” maybe “Racial Governance” would sound better?

    January 2, 2015 at 18:07 #144336

    LordCameron
    Member

    Triumph you are amazing. I am incredibly excited for this update! Looking at the human empire upgrade I want to play them again. I love my roads.

    Question though: For upgrades like the halfling and human ones you have shown above, do those bonuses apply to your empire or to the race in your empire that got it? For example if I have -35 gold cost for store houses can a build a cheaper draconian store house or just a halfling one? If the upgrades only apply to the race then I could see a big reason to homogenize your empire.

    January 2, 2015 at 18:11 #144338

    MartyD81
    Member

    Looks like you have found a perfect way to further expanding both the Empire/Military aspect and the Happiness “resource” and race differentiation as well! Hopefully, the race command bonuses will be a little more interesting than Mystical Upgrades… Good to see that the diplomacy system is also being improved, even though only indirectly, as a result of these changes.

    January 2, 2015 at 19:19 #144351

    Yelok
    Member

    Nice stuff, with dangerous potential, great job folks.

    Cheers.

    January 2, 2015 at 19:23 #144352

    Althea
    Member

    I can only say awesome and wonderful update. A dream update for me, this is such a very good way to increase the significance of races. Thumbs up Triumph.

    One question though, it is said in the dev journal above that this race command upgrade seems to favor fewer race in the empire, which mean player need to migrate to better take advantage of it, which mean leaning more to evil, how can good player stay at good alignment whilst still being able to fully reap the benefit of the race command upgrade?

    I may be mistaken in this because there will be racial relation in the next journal, which probably will address evil modifier in migration?

    Anyway, i just hope good and evil player can equally take advantage of this new feature. Or if good player won’t be able to take advantage of it as well as evil player, i hope there will be a compensation for it.

    January 2, 2015 at 19:28 #144356

    Eomolch
    Member

    Amazing news, I almost expected the two seperate paths to be for good/evil alignment (since there still seems to be some unused potential in the consequences of your leaders alignment) but economic/military is probably the better choice since alignment can change during a game. Now I only hope the expansion wont be released to early cause it looks like I’m gonna spend a tremendous amount of time exploring all the new features and content. (something I couldn’t afford at the moment :P)

    January 2, 2015 at 19:34 #144358

    Chimaira
    Member

    Well evil players obviously can gain favour with chosen race quicker via mass migration.

    The system looks like really elegant solution to provide another layer of racial diversity and will make racial relations matter more as hinted in the journal. Can’t wait to try it out 🙂

    I have one question though, on the second screen where draconian buffs are shown – shouldn’t the fifth tier be titled “Deity” instead of “Diety”?

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