Age of Wonders 3

[octavius]

Honestly, the only thing I remember from AoW2 campaigns was raping everything with my heroes. Don't think any sort or shape of boat would help there. But it was a good cheese.

Boats were irrelevant in the campigns, because the way the maps were made.
But it affected many user made maps, like the classic Ancient Europe map.
Fortunately you can use SM to play AoW2 maps.

 

[MilesBeyond]

I'm not sure why AoW 2 is considered so inferior to Shadow Magic. I've played both, and they are near identical, except for the addition of 3 races and a few units/spells. I think the campaign in AoW 2 vanilla was more solid as well.

AoW 2 had atrocious balance and very little diversity. On the surface it's very similar to SM but in terms of the mechanics it was awful. The additions made by SM aren't really the issue here, because AoW 2 didn't suffer from a lack of content. It suffered from the content it had not being all that great.

First, in AoW 2 the races were... horrific. Just really bad. IIRC Draconians, Tigrans, Archons, and I think Elves? Were ridiculously powerful. Undead, Halflings, Goblins, and Frostlings were awful. Humans, Dwarves, Orcs, and Dark Elves were really the only races with some semblance of balance. And these tiers were very obvious - as in an Undead player vs a Draconian player would never be an even remotely fair fight. This made MP for the game pretty unfeasible.

Then there's the units themselves. Beyond adding a new unit for each race, SM also gave a bunch of abilities to existing units. In AoW 2, most units just feel like they took the Human unit, pallette-swapped it to a bunch of other races, and called it a day. A lot of the interesting differentiations (both in terms of stats and abilities) didn't come around until SM.

Then there's the magic system. Locked in to one sphere? No thank you. Take Cosmos which gives you access to literally every spell in the game? lolwut

Then there were some fundamentally broken aspects of the game. The AI. Pioneers. The AI using Pioneers. Bugs galore. IIRC there were some ridiculous production exploits as well.

There's also a ton of little things that were really off-putting, especially at time of release. Why were there no unit descriptions? Why were there only generic priests? Why are the battlefields so damn small? Who the hell made these decisions? Why does the campaign have no branching paths?

Plus, for me, anyway, most of the hours of enjoyment in SM came from the RMG. AoW 2 didn't have that, and the scenarios that shipped with the game weren't nearly as good as the ones that came with AoW 1.

I guess all of this is to say that most of the improvements that SM made were subtle. It wasn't the addition of three races or more spells that made SM so much better. It was the way that it took everything that was awful about AoW 2 and tweaked it so that it worked.

 

[MilesBeyond]

To be fair, I think some of it was the transition to larger numbers in AoW 2. I mean in AoW 1, whether a unit had 2 DAM, 3 DAM or 4 DAM was an absolutely massive difference. Like the units would play and feel radically different. Compare an Elf Swordsman, a Human Swordsman, and an Orc Swordsman. However, in AoW 2, because stats in general and HP in particular were so much higher, it didn't make nearly as big as a difference. So, for example, the Goblin Wolf Rider had only 6 DAM to the 7 DAM that most other cavalry had, but because HP was so much higher it wasn't a big deal at all. Compare AoW 1 where the Elf and Dark Elf cavalry units were incredibly weaker as a result of doing one less damage.

 

[the_shadow]

So after playing the hell out of AoW 2: Shadow Magic, I've finally caved and bought AoW 3 + the expansions.

So far my impressions are rather mixed. Is it just me, or is it much harder to see your units, and to differentiate between units, on the strategic map? Even when I focus directly on a unit, I can't tell what it us unless I click on it. It's also difficult seeing some resources eg. I completely missed a bandit camp that kept spawning bandits even though it was a few hexes away, just because of poor visibility. I dunno, I just find 2D and isometric graphics to be way easier on the eye than blocky 3D graphics. Maybe I'll get used to them after I've invested more time in the game.

My other problem is that they went overboard on unit properties. In Shadow Magic units were pretty straightforward with obvious areas of differentiation, but now even basic units have a dozen different properties. And then add on all of the bonuses they get from veteran levels on top of that! Again, I'll probably come to terms with this the more I play the game.

 

[Irenaeus II]

It's ok, stick with SM. We all have AoW3 to have fun with.

 

[MilesBeyond]

So after playing the hell out of AoW 2: Shadow Magic, I've finally caved and bought AoW 3 + the expansions.

So far my impressions are rather mixed. Is it just me, or is it much harder to see your units, and to differentiate between units, on the strategic map? Even when I focus directly on a unit, I can't tell what it us unless I click on it. It's also difficult seeing some resources eg. I completely missed a bandit camp that kept spawning bandits even though it was a few hexes away, just because of poor visibility. I dunno, I just find 2D and isometric graphics to be way easier on the eye than blocky 3D graphics. Maybe I'll get used to them after I've invested more time in the game.

My other problem is that they went overboard on unit properties. In Shadow Magic units were pretty straightforward with obvious areas of differentiation, but now even basic units have a dozen different properties. And then add on all of the bonuses they get from veteran levels on top of that! Again, I'll probably come to terms with this the more I play the game.

Completely agree on both counts. I have to confess that I love AoW 3 in spite of the visuals. They're not bad, necessarily, but things can get a bit cluttered, and I would definitely have preferred a more 2D style, but oh well. Some of it is art direction, too, though. I still have trouble distinguishing between Hunters and Shamans at a glance, and this is after hundreds of hours of playtime. I mean I get that they wanted each class to have a visual theme tying things together, but occasionally it becomes a bit too much, with different units either looking too similar (the aforementioned Hunters and Shamans, and occasionally even Scoundrels and Assassins) or the class style overshadowing racial features to the point that it can be hard to tell what race a unit belongs to at a glance.

Fortunately this is never an issue for me on the field of battle, but on the strategic map it can be a bit of a pain.


The second point, however, is one that I actually think is a good thing. It definitely takes some time to wrap your head around the unit distinctions - at least, moreso than past AoW games - but once you do, for me at least, it becomes a highlight. Almost every unit feels and plays differently, and I love it. It does mean that, relative to other AoW games, you have to "learn" each race, but that's not as arduous a task as it might seem.

 

[Irenaeus II]

The sheer DIVERSITY of unit properties are amazing and makes for a lot of replayability with different strategies and tactics.

 

[Papa Môlé]

I just started the campaign after the tutorial and the first map is taking an eternity to beat. Am I doing it wrong?

EDIT: It's the first draconian mission.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Yeah, I took me a long time to beat it.

 

[Papa Môlé]

Are all the maps like that in this one? Not that I mind long maps, I'm just wondering what I am in for.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Depends on playstyle. Like most campaigns, the maps can be ridiculously short (and easy) if you blitz your way as far as possible with your starting forces, or ridiculously long if you take the time to build up and explore things.

 

[Makabb]

AoW 1 or Aow 3 ?

 

[the_shadow]

So I've been investing a lot of time in AoW III, and playing the third Elven Court map (Promised Lands) required a paradigm shift. At first I thought I would remain at peace with the Goblins/Orcs/Humans and lay down outposts near any unclaimed territory with resources. After I had about 8 towns and a decent sized army with a few tier 3 units (around turn 50), I declared war on the goblins. I was *spanked*. The goblin king alone outnumbered me, but then I was tag-teamed by Orc shock troopers who completely owned my scant Flier units.

I decided I'd change strategies and rush the enemy, and as a result I steamrolled all opposition. The same issue cropped up with the next map (goblins vs dwarves and humans), where I was flooded with Dwarven Firstborn while I was still chipping away at the first enemy's empire, who had also managed to erect stone walls. For my second attempt I rushed his core set of metropolis' (which didn't even have time to build stone walls), and was able to claim victory.

I suppose having to rush your opponents in these circumstances makes sense. They start off with multiple cities and metropolis' with very high production values, whereas you start off with one or two outposts/villages that can only produce Tier 0 units. If you try and outproduce your enemies while not crippling their means of production, you're going to be badly outmatched. The only problem with rushing the AI is that it's pretty touch and go. If you lose one critical battle, you're boned because you've lost your momentum. It's *painful* that you need to spend 4-5 turns absorbing cities into your empire before they can produce.

 

[sser]

You do have to take a scorched Earth/fast as hell approach to the campaign. It's one reason I don't care for most of the single-player maps spare a few here and there.

 

[MilesBeyond]

AoW 1 or Aow 3 ?

Depends on what you're into, as they're radically different games. AoW 1 feels much more like a spiritual successor to Warlords than anything else (even though it's often called a spiritual successor to MoM, I don't think the similarities are actually that prominent). City and empire management, and even spellcasting to a lesser extent, is pretty bare-boned. The main difference, I would say, is the combat, where AoW 1 offers quality tactical combat.

Basically, if you want something fun and simple, where you can reasonably run through most maps in an hour or two, go for AoW 1. It's also got, IMHO, the best atmosphere of the games (and of any fantasy strategy game, really, though I'm sure some will disagree rather vehemently on that point). The game is full of beautiful, hand-painted artwork, and I thought it was really cool how they worked the scenarios into the world-building, with all but one of them allowing the players to fight a major battle from the timeline leading up to the events of the campaign. Speaking of which, it's still got my favourite campaign out of all the games.

It's also probably got the most problems. In contrast to the artwork, the animations didn't even look good at the time, forget aging well. The AI is questionable as well (though still orders of magnitude better than Firaxis or Simtex AI). By far the biggest problem, though, is balance. While the races themselves aren't that bad (some are better than others but there aren't any races that are broken or unusable), flying units with ranged attacks, units with Physical Immunity, and heroes can shatter the game very, very quickly. The simple fact that units have unlimited retaliations meant that with the best Defense score (which was actually 9 - it goes up to 10 but due to a strange bug, 9 ends up being better than 10. Go figure). It's actually not uncommon to beat the campaign "solo" - that is to say, to avoid building armies in any mission and beat every map with your leader alone.

In a way, it's still my favourite of the series. There are so many things I love about it. But objectively, it's got a lot of mechanics that were implemented poorly or improperly.

AoW 3 is, IMHO, an improvement in a lot of ways. The combat is by far the best of any 4X game I've ever played (and I've played most of them), and the mechanics are, IMHO, much better. Getting rid of the Attack stat and having all attacks hit made the game a lot more about strategy than random chance, and also minimizes the tier difference - though it's still there (by tier difference I mean the disparity in power between units of different tech levels). Elemental damage has been implemented in an awesome way that means Protections are no longer useless, and nearly every unit in the game feels and plays very different (in AoW 1, and especially AoW 2, the rank-and-file troops were extremely similar). City development and empire management are much more involved (though still simpler than they are in a game like Civ or MoM), and I think they struck a really good balance - it's just deep enough that the question of how to develop your cities is interesting, but not so deep that it detracts from the main focus of the game - combat.

It also added the class system, which I love. I think it allows for a ton of replayability because every game becomes hugely different (moreso than before).

At the same time, though, it's missing something that AoW 1 had. A certain charm, atmosphere... I don't really know how to put it. AoW 1, more than any other strategy game I've played before or since, feels like you're actually participating in Lord of the Rings. It feels more LotR-y than the Battle for Middle Earth games. It's classic, high fantasy at its best. And man, does it rock.


So... I guess like I said, it depends on which of those two appeal to you more. I play both regularly, so you can't really go wrong either way.

 

[thesheeep]

Something that annoyed the hell out of me in almost all AoW campaigns (no matter which part) is that on many maps you have to know what is going to happen beforehand or you will die.

Like in one of the AoW3 expansions, you could trigger something (or it happens on its own after X turns) that would let a new rather large enemy army spawn and attack your cap.
From the water side, which you can normally assume is completely save from campaign AI.

That is just some principle of mission design that I loathe.
That pure knowledge of the system is not enough to beat a mission. You have to know exactly what will happen in order to beat it.
I already find that annoying in games like Prince Of Persia. But in games where each mission can easily take hours (!!) it just becomes painful.

 

[Sranchammer]

Is there a mod that removes the 3d?

 

[tindrli]

no.. maybe in a future

 

[the_shadow]

I got stuck on the 4th scenario for the Elven Court (pirate map). Despite rushing and shooting out a few fire giants/ogres, I still found myself getting overwhelmed by tier 3/4 units, including those damn orc succubi. I could have won if I stuck with it, but was getting a bit frustrated, so I stopped.

I decided to play a random map, and holy hell, the game is just so much more enjoyable. Everyone starts off on even footing, and you all rush to expand and claim territory. I must be up to turn 30, and still haven't reached the borders of neighboring empires, as I'm integrating independents into my own dominion. I've gotten used to the idea that there are no longer any evil/good races, and actually enjoy being able to mix and match races so they complement each other. In some ways this game reminds me more of Civilization than AoW 2, in that you need to build 'culture' (or reputation) to absorb neighbors into your empire.

I'll also say that the tactical combat is better. I'm still not sure how I feel about them removing the hit/miss mechanics, but everything else feels much better.

My gripe about the 3D graphics is still the same though. Whoever suggested 2D graphics is right on the money. I want to be able to just scan my eyes across the tactical battle map and tell from a glance what all my units are.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

I wonder if the campaign maps could be modded to give the AIs more units and some forwardly positioned attack stacks, but less starting economy from cities and mines.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

It's pretty strange, I didn't touch the vanilla campaigns, but did complete both dlc ones and did not see any of the mentioned problems. And those dlc campaigns are supposed to have higher difficulty.

I also really recommend the Eternal Lords campaign. Especially the first scenario is really cool in the way the mechanics of playing as a necromancer are introduced. This faction is actually different and this idea of units being class dependent really works for necromancer.

 

[the_shadow]

I've invested what must be 60+ hours into AoW3, and it's really grown on me. Perhaps the best addition to the game is the implementation of the necromancer class. In Aow1 and 2 the undead were a separate playable 'race'. In AoW3 'undead' is a trait that is conferred on a necromancer's units, although you can still summon/build unique undead units separate from any other race. The mechanics of playing necromancer are pretty innovative. At first I was struggling because my undead towns weren't growing, and therefore had low production and gold/mana income. I was assuming that they would grow automatically without any input (expect perhaps 'produce housing'), like the living races. As a result my economy was crap. Then I realised that the undead grow their population mainly by slaying the living (as you'd expect them to do). While you can gain population from building certain structures, you also gain population by winning battles, using strategic spells to reduce enemy cities populations, and 'ghoulifying' captured cities. Resurrecting enemies is also key to dominating early game. This has to be the best implementation of an 'undead race' I've ever seen in a strategy game.

I really miss have a Tier IV unit for each race, though. In Aow3 you can usually only get one type of Tier IV unit (dependent on your character class). If you're lucky you can get one or two more types if the map has cities with rare races (eg. Naga).

 

[Seethe]

Underrated as fuck.

 

[Markman]

http://aow.triumph.net/aow3-sales-milestone-the-new-game-and-gdc/

Sold over 500k of main game and similar amount of DLC. Not too bad.

 

[muds_animal_friend]

What's the new game they mentioned? I've been expecting a return of the shadow demons in a future game. The plot of the necromancer campaign was basically an advertisement for AoW 3: Shadow Magic.