After playersbeat the Enchanted Archipelago mapinAge of Wonders 4, the next story mission takes place in the Crimson Caldera. And while the villains of the first two story scenarios are the Shad’rai, in this mission, the player faction will be a member of the group.
The Crimson Caldera also represents a big step up in difficulty from the earlier missions. While players can ally with other factions or at least with free cities in other maps, in thisAge of Wonders 4scenario, war is the only option, and players must defend themselves on two fronts as they expand across the map.
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Setting Up
The Crimson Caldera has three special conditions that players must keep in mind as they choose or build their faction. First, every faction and free city can only be at war with one another, which means the only way to use Whispering Stones on this map is to bolster an owned city. Even if players conquer and vassalize another city or faction, players can’t give them Whispering Stones, and their relationship will eventually degrade and fall back into war. This means playerswill have to rely on owned cities and outpoststo control the map and extend their reach.
Next, the center of the Crimson Caldera is a massive pool of lava that no faction can cross. This means the shape of the map is a large ring, and the player faction starts in the northwest corner. The lava also means that there are no water provinces, so don’t bother with Basic Seafaring or Expert Sailors.
Finally,every few rounds during combat, a random set of friendly and enemy units are affected by Berserk. This condition gives the unit more damage, but it also forces them to move to the closest enemy unit and use their basic attack against it. If there are no enemies in range, the unit will instead attack the nearest friendly unit instead. Between this curse and the constant warfare, players should choose a faction with a strong Chaos affinity and good attack units, avoiding those that focus on Order and defense.
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The Mind Thread
Once players encounter one of the other five factions, a fellow Shad’rai named Lithyl Nightweaver will speak to the player and give them the special Mind Thread spell.This is a strategic spellthat doesn’t need a target; instead, players can click the “Launch” button at the bottom of the screen and then choose one of the enemy faction leaders they’ve contacted. Doing so will start a special quest, and completing the quest will defeat the faction leader and turn all the cities they controlled into free cities.
Cinren Toliath is the closest faction leaderclockwise from the player’s start position. His Mind Thread quest is to brew a love potion and to do so, players must control a Silvertongue Fruit and an Astral Dew magical material. Remember that an outpost is good enough to control a material, but players must also clear any monsters on its hex. The game will highlight the closest material of each type to the player faction’s starting city, assuming players don’t own the material already.
Karissa the Red is the closest faction leader counterclockwise from the player’s start. To finish her, players must track down and defeat a Mage Bane. A wandering group of enemies will spawn once this quest begins, and players simply have to track it down and defeat it. Like with Cinren’s materials, a quest icon will highlight the Mage Bane’s position.
The faction farthest to the east belongs to Khir Uranon. The Mind Thread doesn’t work on him, which means players must defeat him normally. Still, for using the spell on him, Lithyl will give players a large amount of mana and a six-unit army of magic-origin units.
To the southwest is the faction of Frikka. Players can defeat her by destroying three Ritual Circles, which are a type of infestation. The quest highlights all three of their locations, and they all sit close to Frikka’s territory.
The last faction in the southeast corner of the map belongs to Meshara. To defeat her, players must find and defeat a Shrine of Smiting. Unlike the Mage Bane, the Shrine doesn’t move, but it’s a tier 5 unit in the company of a Balor (another tier 5 unit), along with two Chaos Eaters, a Nightmare, and a Skald. This isn’t an easy fight, but it’s at least more straightforward than defeating an enemy faction.
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Getting Things Done
Of course, players don’t have to cast Mind Thread and use its special quests to beat their rivals. In fact, they can’t use this shortcut against Khir Uranon, and players can get the rare achievement “I’ll Fight You All” bybeating all five factions the hard way.
Either way, players will have to explore every corner of the Crimson Caldera map to get everything they need, and since war is the only option, players will need to keep their units safe while they explore. After the first few turns, players should only move their heroes aroundas part of a group of armies. If it’s affordable, explore in both directions around the central lava pit with at least 18 units on each side. If not, players should guard the border they don’t explore with at least 12 units. The Chaos skill Lure of the Horde is especially useful since it spawns reinforcements in the field.
Something else to keep in mind isthe large number of free cities on this map. All these cities are just as unfriendly as the enemy empires, and razing them is probably the best way to deal with them once players have reached their city cap. However, enemy empires may try to sneak in and use the city ruins to quickly expand. This means it may help to vassalize free cities sometimes even though the relationship is doomed from the start.
Age of Wonders 4is available now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
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