Hi there, here’s a look at another new feature from the upcoming Golden Realms expansion. This time it’s the new magical sphere of Wild Magic. Players who choose this specialization have the ability to direct the flow of raw magical energy for spectacular results.

No one truly masters Wild Magic, as the effects of spells are generally not entirely predictable. But by learning the range of effects you can sway battles in your favor. As with the elemental specializations, Wild Magic contains an Adept and Mastery pick. Some of the new leaders have it assigned as default, and of course you are able to use the specialization on your own customized characters. We had lots of fun designing this magical sphere due to all the random or semi random effects associated with Wild Magic. It’s become a favorite pick here at the office.

Let’s take a look at its spells:

Warp Equipment

Warps the integrity of equipment at target location. Equipped Units and Machines within a Hex radius around the target suffer a defense and attack penalty until end of combat. Against more traditional armies of swordsmen and archers, this can be devastatingly effective, while the magical armies deployed by sorcerers and arch-druids will have less to fear.

Swap Locations

Target unit trades places with a random unit of the same tier owned by another player on the other side of the battle. This spell is excellent for disrupting enemy lines, especially during sieges. Defending archers can suddenly find themselves teleported into the middle of the attacking army, while their place is taken by a group of infantry who can cause havoc behind the walls.

Spontaneous Mutation

Gives a number of mostly positive random mutations to every friendly living unit until the end of battle. These mutations can make the unit tougher, more powerful or even change its role on the battle field by giving it a ranged attack!

Some of the mutations include:

Eyes Everywhere – Eyes have grown all over this unit’s body! It sees in every direction and can no longer be flanked by being struck from behind.

– Eyes have grown all over this unit’s body! It sees in every direction and can no longer be flanked by being struck from behind. Swollen Muscles – This unit’s muscles are swollen with power, it gains a melee damage bonus.

– This unit’s muscles are swollen with power, it gains a melee damage bonus. Spiked Hide – The unit’s skin is covered in spikes, any unit striking it in melee will take melee damage.

– The unit’s skin is covered in spikes, any unit striking it in melee will take melee damage. Leaden Bones – The unit’s bones are heavy as lead, the unit loses movement points, but gains a defense bonus

– The unit’s bones are heavy as lead, the unit loses movement points, but gains a defense bonus Bloated with Gas – This unit’s digestive system is out of control, its body is filling with noxious gases. The unit will explode when it dies, dealing damage to all adjacent units.

– This unit’s digestive system is out of control, its body is filling with noxious gases. The unit will explode when it dies, dealing damage to all adjacent units. Iron Skin – This unit’s skin goes hard as iron, gaining an defense bonus.

– This unit’s skin goes hard as iron, gaining an defense bonus. Hormonal Imbalance – This unit’s hormones are out of control, it doesn’t know whether it wants to laugh or cry. Unit loses morale.

Summon Lesser Elemental

One of the new lesser elementals is summoned to the target location. There are new, smaller versions of all existing elementals as well as new Spirit and Blight elementals. The lesser elementals may start small, but if used carefully, they can evolve into the more powerful greater elementals.

Warp Domain

Randomly changes terrain tiles in target city domain into blight, volcanic, arctic and tropical terrain. This spell also destroy all roads and bridges in that city’s domain. Although it’s possible to use this spell on your own cities, it’s better to use it on those of your enemies. Regardless of race, most cities will take major happiness penalties from the mishmash of terrain types, and if a player hasn’t chosen any terrain changing magic, they won’t easily be able to fix the damage!

Degenerate

Infects the target with a magical disease that weakens the creature at the fundamental level. The unit gains 60% weakness to all damage types until the end of battle. This spell is excellent for dealing with the pesky unit your enemy has brought along that is immune to your battle magic. Do you want to poison a poison elemental? This is the spell for you!

Unstable Transformation

The target friendly unit is saturated with powerful magic and transforms into a new random unit of equal or greater power (i.e. same or higher tier) The new unit is inherently unstable and will die at the end of battle. Units destroyed with this spell cannot resurge. This spell is best cast on units that are going to die anyways, since a random unit with full hitpoints is usually better than a dead one. This spell can transform one unit into just about any other non-racial unit in the game, so you could end up with a snake, a dragon or a flame tank, there’s no way of telling!

Pandemonium

All units get displaced to a random location within 5 hexes of their original position, and all enemies get a random 100% elemental weakness (Frost, Fire, Shock, Blight, Spirit or Physical). This spell is excellent in sieges, pulling defenders outside the city walls and pushing your own units inside.

So there we have it, Wild Magic. The only sphere where you can transform your human swordsman into an angry Dire Penguin with a hormonal imbalance and 7 extra eyeballs! Stay tuned for more information on Golden Realms before it is released September 18th!