Like most fantasy 4X games,Age of Wonders 4features both a wide variety of scenarios and a story mode that helps explain who all the faction leaders are and what wonders the title is referring to. There are five story scenarios in total, and the first one is named “Valley of Wonders.”
Age of Wonders 4a tutorial scenario, and while the Valley of Wonders isn’t quite as straightforward, it still goes easy on players and helps explain some concepts that are missing from the tutorial. This guide will supplement this experience by providing more information about these new concepts and by explaining which decisions have which impacts.
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Breakaway Cities and New Neighbors
The first thing players will notice about the Valley of Wonders scenario is that the list of factions to choose from is restricted. This is because the two factions for the scenario are set in stone. Additionally, for story reasons, the player faction has to have a champion leader rather than a wizard king leader. If playerscreate a completely new faction for this scenario, the wizard king background isn’t an option.
The exact map for this and every scenario is randomized, but players will always start at the north end, and their nearest neighbor is a free city of the player’s race. This city was founded by a breakaway faction, and once players find it they can choose tobefriend and vassalize them, conquer them, or ignore them.
After heading south, players will run into the first of two factions on this map.Sundren of House Iniochgreets the player’s ruler and mentions that Yaka the pyromancer is farther to the south and plans on conquering the Valley of Wonders. At this point, players can choose the easy path,which is to cooperate with Sundrenand find the Tower of Destinies. To make things harder on themselves, they can choose to anger Sundren and fight both her and Yaka for control of the Valley.
Ruins and Invaders
Something else that happens early on is the"Hunters from Beyond"quest. Scouts have spotted a group of monsters from the Astra Sea nearby, and the populace worry it’s because of the faction leader’s magic. Players can respond to this by accepting the quest and eradicating the enemy group. This group will have a giant golden goblet floating over their heads, and players can always use this indicator to find their objectives.
This quest is unique to the Valley of Wonders, but it follows a fairly standard formula players will find in regular scenarios. The game asks players todefeat a random group of unaligned enemies, and once they do, they can choose a special reward.
Nearby, players will also find city ruins. Players can’t annex city ruins into another city’s domain, and they can’t build outposts on the same province, but they can bring a hero to the ruins and found a new city. Doing so is cheaper than building a new city, and skips the outpost phase. Players can also generate city ruins by capturing an enemy city and razing it to the ground.
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The Tower of Destinies
The Tower of Destinies isa special gold-level ancient wonderthat sits close to the center of the map. Players can find and explore the Tower even if they anger Sundren, and the reward is the same even without the actual quest.
The fight isn’t too difficult, and it’s possible to win using the faction’s starting army. Beating it will give playersearly access to a major race transformation, something that normally isn’t available until after players research a tier 4 tome. The list of transformations offered by the reward is based on the empire’s affinities.
Tower of Destinies can also provide a Bone Dragonas part of the Rally of Lieges. Bone Dragons are a tier 4 unit, making them incredibly useful early on, plus players who recruit one will get the Fiery Friend achievement. To take advantage of this, players should build an outpost next to the Tower and annex it. Players can upgrade the outpost to a city if they like, but annexing with an outpost is enough to get most of the Tower’s benefits.
Yaka the Pyromancer
While players can choose to be Sundren’s friend or enemy, there’s no choice when it comes to Yaka. As soon as players encounter Yaka’s forces, he’ll declare war, and it’s impossible to end this war through diplomacy. Defeating or allying with Sundren is optional, becausethe win condition of this scenario is to defeat Yaka. Fortunately, he doesn’t expand much beyond his starting city, although he may grow his empire by vassalizing nearby free cities.
Always try to bring three armies to any siege attempt. Three armies are the most that can take part in any fight, and Yaka’s forces can be dangerous if players aren’t prepared for him. This goes double if players choose not to befriend Sundren and end up having to fight her, too. Still, early access to tier 4 units and spells should make this scenario go by relatively quickly.
Age of Wonders 4is available now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
