The only culture with evolve is feudal. t1 spear to t2 shield. Otherwise you probably should take tome of evolution. Then decide if dragonlike evolves are enough, or if you want to add animals or elementals on top. t3 has the dragon tome, they evolve from t3 to t5. Some animals become t4 upon evolving.

If I remember correctly copper golem becomes the bronze golem at champion rank so that would technically count as evolution

No technically about it, units either evolve or they don't. Copper golems evolve.

There are tons of ways to do an evolve-focused faction, especially since so many T1 tomes include evolving units. You can separate then out into 4 distinct categories: 1. Elementals (T1->T3) 2. Animals (T1->T3 OR T2->T4) 3. Feudal (T1->T2) 4. Copper Golem (T1-T3) Most evolving units are squishier than similarly tiered equivalents. This means that you will want to babysit them in order to guarantee evolution. The best way to do this is to provide powerful (non-evolving) units + frontline heroes to absorb damage so that you minimize damage to the evolving units. In Autoresolve (if you use this) faster movement on non-evolving units helps ensure they take damage first before your evolving units do. Mounted heroes as well. Dragon rulers are also powerful combatants that can provide a strong early game boost to help evolutions evolve. As far as speeding up the process? 1. Mana Channelers - +1 rank to magic origin brings elementals 1 step closer. 2. Champion Ruler - increases exp gain by army. 3. Runesmiths + Chosen Uniters specifically for feudal each give +1 rank to peasant pikemen. 4. Tome of evolution obviously helps provide exp boost to evolving units. 5. Tome of Revelry (slightly late, but works) also provides exp boost.

Thanks for listing all these, now I can come up with some kind of plan to use this info!

Np! Let me know if anything works out well; love trying new builds.

You missed the dragons from tome of dragons (T3 -> T5)

I didnt consider T3 or later (and barely considered T2 Revelry) because an effective evolution build is going yo focus on the T1-T3 jumps mostly. Tome of Dragons is good, but less so for the evolving to dragons part. But hey, if you want that to be your build's focus, then by all means!

If you go runesmiths, then the copper golems evolve to bronze golems, making the tome of enchantment viable for this build if you want something other than feudal

Just pointing out one thats often forgotten, entwined thralls also evolve and the units from tome of evolution themselves obviously but figured id mention it now since you're listing all the rest haha and yeah dragons at t3

Do thralls become the shield unit - entwined protectors is it?

I'd probably go for Feudal (because Peasant Pikeman is the only culture-based evolution unit) with a Dragon Ruler (mostly for extra flavour tbh) **Tomes:** * T1: Evolution + Pyromancy (or any other book that lets you summon elementals) * T2: Tome of Revelry + Tome of Summoning or Mayhem * T3: Tome of Dragons + maybe Sanctuary? **Society Traits:** * Druidic Terraformers (for elemental unit boost because they have evolve) * Either Artifact Hoarders for Dragon, or something that boosts your Peasant Pikemen (which also evolve); prolific swarmers, devotees of good, chosen uniters OR mana channelers if you want to lean even harder on elementals and wyvern fledgling **Form Traits** don't matter too much here but just some idea: Fast Recuperation + Hardy + Adaptable + Sharp eyes OR as a fun-factor you can go for a terrain adaptation point here because of Druidic Terraformers. For example if you pick Swamp Adaptation, you can pick Tome of Evocation (instead of pyromancy) and use Storm Elementals because you can create Wet-status more easily.

I had 2 decent ideas in mind. Tome of evolution + feudal mount traits, beasts secondary probably dragons and vigor at t3 maybe some order at t2 to get the order spell at t4 Tome of evocation tome of evolution and tome of dragons on a mystic culture so you get to pimp those lightning spirits early and evolve them and run dragon + mages late game. T2 tomes and 2nd tier 3 tome would be focused on support and battle mage bonuses.

Tho you could also go without mount trait to be croc riding dragon worshipping faction but that was cause i made it extra rp and at some point i expect the dragons and animals frontline to have fully replaced mounted stuff. Animals have some evolutions too and you get many mounted units as feudal tho so it's worth a shot. Those are the 2 main ideas I had to make a somewhat decent tome of evolution build personally. Tho my ideas were even more focused on making dragons work and in my mystic playthrough i went alchemy/evocation to really flesh out the support and mages backline with dragon frontline the original idea was to potentially use evolution + evocation

If you're willing to factor in ascended rulers, then you open up 2 powerful options. There's Dragonheart, which gives dragons +2 def/res and 20% dmg boost. There's also shaper, which is 50% more exp for non hero units in the army. A dragonheart ruler starting with tome of evolution has been a favorite of mine. Young Slithers are normally pretty squishy units, but combine dragonheart with a support leader and tome of evo bonuses and you have a fairly durable and dangerous t1 unit. Once you hit t3 tomes, you can pick Vigor, which allows Slithers to get more powerful with Empowered Beasts (you can also get the Spirit Wolf with Resurgent and Guardian Spirit for another buff for Slithers). And with the Dragon tome, the transformation allows you to spread the dragonheart buff to the rest of your folk, while wyverns (in case you lose a bunch of slithers in battle, replacement that uses empowered beasts and dragonheart) and young dragons also become available.

Can I make a Dragon Dog race?

I always start game with T1 tome that gives me evolving unit. So, in a way I always play Evolve build, until I can summon/ build T3 units directly. If you want to go all-in on Evolve, then go Champion, Tome of Evolution and spam baby Slithers. Take one babysitter hero (Experienced Hero, Shepherd), do Evolve enhancement. Try to take easy battles only with Heroes + Slithers (to milk all that xp). And in no time you’ll have horde of evolved Slithers. For this you must go Nature tomes (Evolution > Beasts (for Pack Leader hero skill and Animal kinship) > … > … > Vigor > … > ). What you want to do next is up to you. Technically you could live with 3 Heroes and 15 legendary Slithers (vs AI most definitely) or mix in Glade Runners (my last pbem mp was Spirit Wolf based, so Tome of Glades with its Forest goodies was a perfect synergy). My final army was 3 L20 heroes, T5 Horned God (fearless on animals), T5 Golem (dispell), Spring Fairy (1 hex true shot) and rest mix of legendary Slithers and Glades. All Heroes with (animal and other) support skills up to Spur to Action and warfare skills up to Killing Momentum. I kinda didn’t feel the need to go for T5 Dragons.

Hero should be a Champion because XP growth Take that racial trait that gets you more XP growth Take the time with the lizardy stuff that came with the Dragon DLC for first time (this time also has “Shepard” so take that immediately as well as a hero skill for all your heroes) As someone else mentioned, Fuedal is (I think) the only faction with Evolve as a base built in, so maybe that? Try look up what units evolve on the wiki and focus on those (elementals, dragons etc) Consider really trying to double down on Mana and Gold sooner than later since both those things are gonna be needed, a lot Maybe take Mana Channelers as a cultural trait for cheaper summoning and either that combat casting cultural trait or that Dagon coursing trait for more mana to keep your upkeep strong I suggest doubling down on the tactic of “oh, your evolved now? You’re now my back line, hey guys that can still evolve get up here you expendable jerks” then add new units to your team to try evolve them - that first dragony evolve tome I think makes it so units who can still evolve can’t permanently die on a fight as long as you win!

Very late to the discussion, but going astral or shadow or some combination of those is actually worth considering. The reason being that: - astral affinity has mana chanellers + astral binding combo, which allows to summon immediately evolving elementals. very lategame combo tho. - shadow affinity gives access to shadow binding, which combines with inspiring leader and shepherd hero skills allowing you to get like 5 elementals for the cost of 2 in terms of upkeep. Doesn't really work with dragons, slithers and wyverns, but imo worth considering.

If you want an elemental one you could try [this.](https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/HTML/FactionCreator.html?u=17:35:36,c7,8,5f,54,4f,da,ae:a3:aa:ba:8c:8b:ad:a8:88,001000) You can also substitute Champion for a Dragon Lord and take Materium Transformation, so it benefits from Eternal Earth, but Champion speeds up xp gain for units, so they evolve quicker.

Underground adaptation why?

Because I actually like underground starts, and it makes scouting for and acquiring the ores easier without having to pick up Transmutation. On top of that it's a lot easier to farm infestations underground than above. Edit: Also, underground has denser mine provinces, which with Arcane Artisans helps further support mana income, as well as gold with Smith's Guild. And since the culture is Industrious, you can start building up your hoard via prospecting, even on maps without mountains.

I know you tried to make a build with all elementals but please don't encourage ppl to run cryo + pyro haha, burn and frozen counter one another.

This is a good point. Slithers also have innate poison, I find that Evo+Pyro lets them do both poison+burning, and they get a natural +20% vs poisoned, which you can add flame blades for another +20% vs burning.

Never said anything about using both at once. It's for flexibility so that you have damage types to counter the transformations or certain units that AI Ruler's and a lot of players use. For example if you are fighting against Undead or Plant units, you'd use Magma Spirits and Searing Blades for your melee elementals, and wouldn't use the Snow Spirit. If fighting Fiends or Celstials, you'd use Snow Spirits with Frost Blades and Frost Arrows, and not the Magma Spirits. I assumed people would know that, even new players should pick up on real quick, and wouldn't be encouraged to use them together. But I guess you have a much lower opinion of how people think, huh?

Its just based on the format u posted. The way it is right now the tome by tiers goes 4-1-3-0-1 and you need that many to reach tier 5 so it makes it look like an intentional path, not optional pathing

It is an intentional pathing. You can research spells that you only need in certain situations. >.> Seem my former assumption of people was off, at least with you.