MilesBeyond
Cipher
- Joined
- May 15, 2015
- Messages
- 716
Yes. IMHO improving T4 spam is one of the things AoW 3 really did well. It's still there, to an extent, but it's nowhere near as prominent as it was in SM or AoW 1, and I think this is largely due to all attacks auto-hitting - because it means that even the weakest unit is guaranteed to inflict at least some damage on the strongest (assuming immunities don't come into play). I would say that now there's a distinct system where, generally speaking, 2 T1 units can bring down a T2 unit, 4 T1s can bring down a T3, and 6 T1s can bring down a T4. This is a huge (and hugely welcome) change from the days when a lone T4 could carve its way through multiple stacks of T1 units like a knife through butter.
With every installment, the gaps between the tiers has been slowly closing. AoW SM with having retaliations drain movement, and now 3 with all attacks hitting, flanking mechanics, etc. I love it because for the first time in a 4X game, I feel like there's actually something of a viable choice between fielding vast armies of soldiers, or smaller forces of elite troops and fantastic monsters. Actually, another big thing 3 changed for that is adding in several ways to manage unit upkeep, since in the previous games that was another huge obstacle for fielding larger armies of trash units. I remember how frustrated I was when I found out that upkeep costs were hardcoded in SM. I wanted to mod the game to have my Goblin hordes, dammit!
Mostly disagree. While I definitely feel that AoW 3 could only benefit from having more races, I feel that it still ends up having more content than previous games - just the content is spread to different areas, in particular the classes. I actually really enjoy the introduction of classes, because to me it adds more replayability. I found that with SM once I got to a certain skill level my games would all look the same, because unless I was RPing I'd be using migration and race relations and spell trading so that I'd end up having the same optimal force every game, no matter what race and spheres I started with.
Also, patches have done a great job of diversifying class units. I remember patch 1.2 was when I first began to really like this game, because that's when they began to give a lot of different distinctions to the different class units (e.g. Human Scoundrels getting Throw Net, Draconian Evangelists getting a ranged attack, High Elf class units with Shortbows getting Longbows instead, etc). Suddenly class units stopped feeling like a copypasta between the races and instead each racial class unit began to take on a life of its own. Human, Orc, and Dwarf Assassins now all felt and played differently. While I feel that it's not until EL that AoW 3 really came into its own, 1.2 was the point where I said "Wow, this game is actually awesome"
Agree. I'm often frustrated by the graphics sometimes obfuscate details. Especially given how climate and terrain features are so much more important in this game, it can sometimes be hard to tell at a glance what's what (especially the difference between fertile plains and barrens on some climates). Not to mention the fact that fighting in dense forests or jungles can sometimes be a pain due to it being difficult to see around some of the trees. Good call on the optimization, though. I hadn't even noticed it but yeah even in the late game it seems to still run pretty well. AoW has always been pretty good for that, I feel.
Finally! I've been complaining both here and on the official forums for ages now about how sad I am to see strategic unit enchants gone and you're the first person I've encountered who backs me up on it. I miss that a ton. I just loved the feeling of taking your little Goblin Spearman who somehow managed to survive to gold medal and rewarding him with an Enchanted Weapon or Stone Skin. Plus the way you could use more powerful enchantments to do amazing things. Like in SM, taking Life magic to give all your T4s Resurgence. Oh man.
I mean, I get why they're gone. The reason they gave is because they couldn't teach the AI to use it properly, and this was definitely a huge issue in past games. All you have to do is just wait until the end of the turn before attacking and often the AI wouldn't cast any spells because they'd wasted all their casting points on enchanting some border garrison somewhere. And I get that it's really difficult to program an AI to intelligently use enchants. I mean even as a player I have no idea how I'd write a strategy guide for when and why to enchant units. For me it's always been, when it's time to enchant, you just know. There's something intuitive about it that I can't really express.
The lack of crazy strategic map spells has always been a slight disappointment with AoW in general, as far as I'm concerned. The only one that comes to mind is Flood and the Mastery spells from AoW 1. I guess maybe the Mastery spells from AoW SM, but they always felt less crazy (despite being arguably far more powerful, but whatever). I mean, I get that AoW has always been intended to represent a smaller scale than MoM, but still. Now that's a game that had some seriously awesome strategic map spells. Nothing like them in the AoW series - or, come to think of it, really any other 4X series. I feel like the closest is Age of Death in AoW 3 to MoM's Zombie Mastery.
