Age of Wonders 4: Arcalot Guide

Quick Links

• Allies and Enemies

• Main Quests and Side Quests

• General Tips and Strategies

The "Eldritch Realms" expansion for Age of Wonders 4 comes with two story realms. The first realm, "Tharru'Cath," covers the escape of a Godir from the realms corrupted by the Umbral Abyss. The second is "Arcalot," which covers the invasion of Athla by Urrath and Lithyl Nightweaver.

Much like the last story mission of the main campaign, "Arcalot" is a tough scenario that pits a group of factions against an overpowered enemy who likes to cheat. However, "Arcalot" is harder than "Grexolis" thanks to the extra enemies who can show up, the conditional allies, and a timer that's always counting down.

Allies and Enemies

When you first start "Arcalot," you can choose one of several boons to start with. They include:

• Your ruler gets one free level, and your starting units get three free experience ranks, but everyone starts at half HP.
• You gain access to the Umbral Flesh minor race transformation.
• Your faction gets Underground Adaptation for free, and gets to see much of the Underground layer immediately.
• You get a faction ruler as a free hero, but you lose all your non-scout starting units.

For this choice, Umbral Flesh is easily your best option. Umbral Flesh gets rid of all the penalties that Gloom provinces impose, and turns them into benefits. Activating this spell will make navigating the Gloom-covered areas of the map much easier. You normally get access to this spell by bargaining with an Umbral Dwelling, but all the dwellings in Arcalot are automatically and permanently hostile. This initial boon is the only way you can get access to the spell during the scenario.

Like other scenarios, "Arcalot" has a randomized layout. However, the general directions are always the same. Your faction starts out on the south edge of the map, and the main enemy faction, the Chosen of Urrath led by Lithyl Nightweaver, is near the north edge of the map. The other factions also start out in predictable areas:

• Alfred Elderstone starts in the southeast corner.
• Meandor of House Inioch starts underground, northwest of your location.
• O'neron starts in the southwest corner.
• Serena starts in the middle of the map, somewhere between you and Lithyl.
• Sumuskira the Grovetender starts in the northwest corner, near the Dreamroot Oak.
• Merlin starts on the north edge of the map, further north than Lithyl and close to Sumuskira.

As a pair of Covenant members, Alfred and Meandor are in a permanent alliance with each other. Serena is part of the Shad'rai, the Covenant's main enemy, but the traditional enemies have set their differences aside thanks to the Umbral invasion. O'neron is present to fight Urrath, but is primarily an ally to the Covenant.

Players are free to choose their friends and enemies during this scenario. Every time you meet a new faction, you get three dialog options: one gives you +300 Relations with the faction, one gives you -300 Relations, and one leaves the relationship neutral. This includes the two Covenant members, O'neron, Serena as the Shad'rai representative, and Sumuskira, a draconic ruler who joins the Covenant alliance once you find either her or Merlin.

For their parts, Merlin and Lithyl are permanent allies to each other, and are permanently at war with everyone else. Defeating them both is the only goal of the scenario, and so there's no reason to antagonize or fight the other five factions. You have the opportunity to do so, unlike with your allies in "Grexolis," but you shouldn't attack them unless you really want the extra challenge.

Arcalot also features plenty of Free Cities and Umbral Dwellings. The Free Cities all have the Gloom Strider major race transformation, but you can vassalize and incorporate them like normal. On the other hand, all the Umbral Dwellings are allies of Lithyl, and will declare war the moment you make contact.

Finally, at around turn 20, Lithyl will cast a spell on Serena that converts her and her people into Gloom Striders. This forces her to switch to Lithyl's side, which is a problem since her territory is between you and the other enemies. Lithyl tries the same spell again on Alfred on turn 30 or so, but Alfred resists and blasts Lithyl for good measure.

Main Quests and Side Quests

After you meet the Covenant members and O'neron, Meandor will give you the time limit of main quest, and O'neron will give you a side quest you don't have to complete. According to them, Lithyl is working on a Nightweaver Ritual that will infect the entire realm with Umbral energy, and you have 15 turns to stop her. However, you can add one extra turn to this limit by destroying six of Lithyl's Thralls.

Something to note is that the Thralls counted by the quest have nothing to do with the Thrall resource you get to use as an Eldritch Sovereign. As the quest's text explains, every enemy unit with the Gloom Strider or Umbral Flesh race transformation counts as a Thrall. This may include your own units, which means that losing a battle or two will at least slow down the timer. The quest will constantly keep track of how many turns you have left, how many Thrall units you've killed, and how many Thrall units other Godir have killed.

As the game continues, you'll learn about other ways you can add time to the clock.

The Dreamwood Oak

First, you can visit the Dreamwood Oak, which is a gold Ancient Wonder in the middle of Sumuskira's territory. Don't try to explore or claim the Dreamwood Oak while Sumuskira controls it. Doing so will cause your faction to declare war on the dragon. Instead, use the unique "Enter the Dreamwood Oak" option that appears on the Oak's status menu. This will give you a menu of options you can use to delay Lithyl's ritual.

• Spend 1,000 Mana to add 5 turns.
• Use Nature Affinity to add a number of turns equal to your current Affinity score.
• Use Astral Affinity to add a number of turns equal to your current Affinity score.
• Sacrifice 75 percent of your visiting hero's HP to add 5 turns.

You can only visit the Oak once per turn, and you can only choose each option once. Entering the Oak five times will give you nothing.

However, Sumuskira and Merlin will fight each other throughout the course of the scenario, and they're so far away that it's hard to help the dragon out. Sumuskira has a good chance of defeating Merlin one-on-one, but if Merlin gains control of the Oak, he'll cut your current turns remaining in half.

Shadow to Shadow

Several turns into the game, Sundren of House Inioch will show up and offer to join your faction. If you accept her help, you'll get a level 9 hero with some powerful equipment, and you'll get another way to delay the timer:

• Each time you destroy an Umbral Infestation, you get 7 more turns.
• Each time you destroy an Umbral Dwelling, you get 12 more turns.

Destroyed Umbral Dwellings also become the provinces you can use to build Sanctuary Outposts, giving you a way to add more Magic Materials and Ancient Wonders to your empire. Sundren also gives you the special Umbral Rift spell, which creates a new Umbral Rift that connects the Surface layer to the Umbral layer in the same location. The starting Umbral Rifts normally connect to random locations in the Umbral Abyss, so this spell acts as a kind of shortcut that can get you straight to an Umbral Dwelling and straight back out.

The Flame of Revelation

When you first encounter O'neron, you can accept a side quest where you agree to learn more about the Gloomwatch. The quest will point to an Umbral Rift to the west of your starting location. On the other side, you'll encounter a small spiral island with five Soothing Shrines. Visit each shrine to learn about the history of the Gloomwatch, and fight the enemies in this area to learn powerful spells like Demonic Onslaught and Summon Living Fog.

Once you visit the final Soothing Shrine, the game will give you free access to the Tome of the Cleansing Flame, a tier-three "Eldritch Realms" DLC Tome full of magic designed specifically to fight Umbral Abyss enemies. You can also choose another tier-three Tome if the Cleansing Flame doesn't suit your faction build, or you can turn down both options to get some Good alignment points.

General Tips and Strategies

• The timer is more of a danger in the early game than in the late game. Once you start invading enemy territory and destroying several army stacks at once, the timer will shoot up to a number too high to worry about. Still, destroying an Umbral Dwelling or two early on can give you some much-needed breathing room.
• There are no major bodies of water on the map, so don't bother with any water-based abilities. Most of your enemies are on the Surface, too, so Underground exploration is only useful if you're looking for a way around Selena.
• A Good alignment is more useful than an Evil alignment in this scenario. None of your allies on this map are guaranteed to be allies, and all of them (Serena doesn't count) are Good. Being Good yourself will make it easier to deal with them and achieve the Alliance bond.
• Sumuskira can take care of herself, so don't bother rushing to the north end of the map to help her out. However, just in case Merlin gets the upper hand, you should spend some time exploring the Umbral Abyss. You should find a shortcut or two that will land you in Sumuskira's territory and bypass Serena and Lithyl.
• Defeating Serena is worth the extra effort, even though beating her isn't one of the win conditions. Taking her out will get rid of a major source of enemy troops, and you can use her cities as forward bases in the fight against Lithyl.
• The AI tends to be active in fighting Merlin and Serena, but passive when it comes to Lithyl. This is to give you the opportunity to be the hero of the day.
• Keep in mind that Lithyl cheats. The developers designed her to be a threat even when outnumbered, so expect to see more troops than you can field, heroes with more items and upgrades than you get, and the maximum number of city defenses.
• When you finally have the troops you need to threaten Lithyl, go straight for her capital city. She'll throw everything she has against you the moment you enter her territory, and if you can survive that, it won't matter how many cities she has.
• Don't even try to enter Lithyl's territory unless you have at least four or five armies full of experienced low-tier units or tier four and five units.
• While any faction could potentially beat "Arcalot," a good build for this map is Chaos and Nature. Nature will help you expand your territory fast, and Chaos will give you plenty of cheap units you can use to defend your land and mount rapid assaults.

Platform(s) PC , PS5 , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S Released May 2, 2023 Developer(s) Triumph Studios Publisher(s) Paradox Interactive Genre(s) Turn-Based Strategy