Age of Wonders 3

[baud]

Would it be a good game for someone who's never played 4X?

You shouldn't have any trouble picking it up. I don't know if it will give you an absolutely correct idea of what 4x games are like. It's not exactly typical of that genre. Nothing wrong with that though.

Thank you, I was more asking for the difficulty for a newbie to pick it up.

Honestly, skip AoW 2. It's pretty disappointing. Its expansion pack Shadow Magic makes it amazing, but SM is standalone, so AoW 2 is a bit pointless. But AoW 1, AoW SM, and AoW 3 are all excellent games that are IMHO among the best in their genre, second only to MoM as far as fantasy TBS goes. The series as a whole benefits a lot from understanding what it does well (combat) and focusing on that. Combat isn't 100% the entire game, but everything in the game serves combat in some way or other.

And if I had to choose only one (I think I'll buy only one since I don't have much time right now)?

As for the combat, I got that from this thread, that's why I was thinking of buying.

 

[MilesBeyond]

And if I had to choose only one (I think I'll buy only one since I don't have much time right now)?

Hmm, hard to say. AoW 1 is simpler. It's more Warlords-y and most maps can be completed in a couple hours. It's probably got the best atmosphere of the three. AoW 3 has the best gameplay IMHO (though plenty of others will disagree) - it's really refined the tactical combat and added in a lot of mechanics and abilities that really make fights more engaging. It's also got the class system, which blows things wide open and provide a lot of replayability and variety. Unfortunately, it has the least amount of races by a fair margin and the atmosphere isn't quite as good. It's also got shorter campaigns, but as the real meat of the game is the RMG, that's not an issue. You also need to spend some extra money on its two expansions. They actually aren't mandatory, as most of the mechanical improvements they made were patched into the base game, but they add a lot of cool stuff that gives the game more variety. If you only get one, make it Eternal Lords. Tigrans and Frostlings, the Necromancer class, and the racial governance mechanics are all awesome.

AoW SM is, in a way, the most MoM-like of the series. It has more emphasis on chucking overland spells than the other games (unless you're playing AoW 3 as a Sorcerer), and kind of strikes a balance between the first and third installments in terms of complexity. It's got the most races, but a lot of its races are unfortunately very same-y, moreso than the other games.

 

[muds_animal_friend]

And if I had to choose only one (I think I'll buy only one since I don't have much time right now)?

Well the games are a real time sink. Shadow Magic is the best value proposition though (it's $2.50 on GOG right now), and has the most community support in the forum of fan patches, mods, and a ton of scenarios. If you get it also check out the community patches on http://aow2.heavengames.com/

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Haven't played the others yet but since I recently finished AoW1 I might at least throw in that the game was tons of fun. Even though they are all kinda different beasts (and thus all have their place) I personally liked it better than HoMM2 and also Disciples 1, both of which I have finished more or less recently.

 

[baud]

Thanks for the answers.
I've picked up AoW 3, I'll try to play next week (no time this week-end, sadly).

 

[MilesBeyond]

Honestly the thing I love about the AoW series is that all the games are different enough that there isn't really a sense that newer installments make older ones obsolete. I absolutely love AoW 3, but it never got me to stop playing SM or AoW 1. Because each one delivers a unique experience that scratches different itches.

Except TWT. Fuck that game.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I still think AoW3 is very underrated, it's definitely my favourite of the 'recent' 4x games by a large margin.

 

[Raghar]

Tigrans and Frostlings, the Necromancer class, and the racial governance mechanics are all awesome.

They added all that details in two expansions. Original release was kinda bland, and these classes actually hurt gameplay.

 

[Absinthe]

Original release was very bland. The main problem was that AoW 3 definitely took the reductive approach to competitive balance. All the races were absurdly bland and equivalent to one another with the more interesting units largely moving to dwellings. Class units were heavily preferred and they have the more powerful units so race was largely treated as a collection of stat modifiers whereas previous games gave various races more distinctive units and abilities. In addition there was a reduction of general gameplay options in terms of overland enchants and the weakening of spheres/specializations. It felt like there was just much less to do and fewer ways to customize in AoW 3. The expansions and some patches did a bunch of work on that front to make it better and add variety to the various races, but ultimately I'm still left feeling somewhat unsatisfied at it all and I don't like the concept of having to pay for expansions to have a non-shit game either.

The various DLCs did add much better races and specializations but even there there's questionable design. AoW 3's alignment system for instance is an ill-conceived mess punishing you for various strategic decisions, so forcing players to keep to one alignment with the highly powerful alignment-based Eternal Lords specializations is very annoying from a strategic perspective. I also think that the Cardinal Culling spell from the Grey Guard master should not exist. It was a very hamfisted approach to punishing making repetitive T4 stacks, but that also punishes strategic decisions where having all units of the same type serves a specific purpose. For instance, a High Elf player might want a full stack of Unicorn Riders to cover a lot of ground fast and capture poorly defended cities (their Phase ability is key to getting past walls). Or a Rogue player might want an all Shadow Stalker stack because it's their only effective unit against Manticores or Undeads. Or for that matter an all Assassin stack to take advantage of their concealment abilities to sneak around. I also find it silly that Keeper of the Peace has so many morale-boosting abilities (Bolster, Inspiring Aura, Arch Angels) and yet it's the Grey Guard that has the best perk for high-morale strategies (doubled crit chance).

Necromancer I'm a bit iffy on. They seem to get entirely too many perks to their units if you ask me, and they tend to do rather well against pretty much everything but Theocrats (and even there they have a solid fighting chance, esp. if playing Tigrans and/or using Shadowborn master). Necromancer vs Rogue is probably one of the most unbalanced matchups there is, as the Rogue's hit and run tactics do not work well against undead who can Animate Ruins any razed city, their Bards' and Succubi's mind control abilities also do not work against undead, their blight damage (Assassins, Rain of Poison Blades, Age of Deception, Poison Mastery) and backstab does not work against undead (immune), and their city and unit morale ruining abilities do not work on undead (Panic Attack, Mass Battlefield Panic, Age of Deception, and Plague of Brigands, which can even feed population, research, and cadavers to undead). The one nasty thing Rogues can do to undead is Incite Revolt which hurts undead city population massively and Guild of Shadow Thieves to weaken income maybe, but in terms of outmaneuvering and direct combat rogues are in a terrible spot. At least Shadow Stalkers can hold up fairly well against most undead, unless they're Frostlings with that 100% frost immunity. It's mostly a slow game where the Rogue stalls the Necromancer's already slow economy, but eventually just gets ground down anyway, unless his specialization or hero picks do something particularly impressive, like spamming Arch Angels with Keeper of the Peace master (which are a massive drain on mana) or throwing down a Chaos Rift using a Sorcerer hero.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Base racial units were a lot more diverse and interesting than they were in SM, though. Well, to an extent. AoW 2 and SM had a thing where the new races they added were interesting and unique, but the ten races brought over from the original game were incredibly same-y. There was literally zero difference between a Halfling Swordsman and an Orc Axeman. There was one single priest per alignment, and they were all pretty similar anyway. In SM it wasn't until T3 that races became unique (well, half of T2 was unique). In AoW 1, many races had distinguishing factors between the lower level units. The difference between a Halfling Swordsman and an Orc Swordsman there was absolutely massive. So considering the differences between your average swordsman, archer, or cavalry is much bigger in AoW 3 than it was in SM, and considering that these things are essential from a competitive perspective because they determine your early game tempo, I don't really think we can say it's the product of a reductive approach to competitive balance. I think it's rather the result of a somewhat clumsy approach to integrating the new class system.

What AoW 3 did that was controversial was replacing high tier racial units with class units. At first I hated this. It felt like it neutered the game and made it much more bland. I think it was Patch 1.2 where they began implementing racial differences between class units, and that was cool. I honestly don't know what you mean by class units superceding race, though. The only class where I could see that happening is Warlord. Every other class needs the racial units in there to compensate for the class's shortcomings, and finding a good race/class synergy was about so much more than just finding the best racial modifiers for your class units. Hell, some of the best synergies revolve around racial units. Draconian Rogue, for example, or Halfling Theocrat.

Necromancer I'll agree on. It's totally broken. You didn't even touch on the biggest part of that: Necromancer heroes getting Control Undead at level 5 + massive amounts of high-tier wandering Undead monsters = gg. It's in desperate need of balancing.

I will absolutely agree that atmospherically, AoW 3 is probably the most bland of the series. But then, that's been going downhill since the first game.

At the end of the day, though, to me it comes down to the combat. AoW 3 has far and away the best tactical combat of the series, and frankly of any 4X I've ever played. That alone makes it awesome.

 

[thesheeep]

Necromancer I'm a bit iffy on. They seem to get entirely too many perks to their units if you ask me, and they tend to do rather well against pretty much everything but Theocrats (and even there they have a solid fighting chance, esp. if playing Tigrans and/or using Shadowborn master). Necromancer vs Rogue is probably one of the most unbalanced matchups there is, as the Rogue's hit and run tactics do not work well against undead who can Animate Ruins any razed city, their Bards' and Succubi's mind control abilities also do not work against undead, their blight damage (Assassins, Rain of Poison Blades, Age of Deception, Poison Mastery) and backstab does not work against undead (immune), and their city and unit morale ruining abilities do not work on undead (Panic Attack, Mass Battlefield Panic, Age of Deception, and Plague of Brigands, which can even feed population, research, and cadavers to undead). The one nasty thing Rogues can do to undead is Incite Revolt which hurts undead city population massively and Guild of Shadow Thieves to weaken income maybe, but in terms of outmaneuvering and direct combat rogues are in a terrible spot.

All of that sounds relatively awesome.
Sure, unbalanced, but that is where things become interesting.

A game like AoW3 has no competetive scene (except a few pockets like a Steam group), nor should it have. Competitive focus in a game where each match can take hours (!!)? Absurd. No way this would ever catch on big.
Instead, such games are for exploring builds, testing stuff, having fun with friends. Somewhat similar to Dominions actually. I prefer co-op, but whatever works for people.

If you go into these games expecting some kind of perfect balancing, you have no idea what the point of these games is to most people.

Of course, one choice being completely superior to almost all others calls for nerfs, even if you do not want perfect balancing.

 

[Absinthe]

Base racial units were a lot more diverse and interesting than they were in SM, though. Well, to an extent. AoW 2 and SM had a thing where the new races they added were interesting and unique, but the ten races brought over from the original game were incredibly same-y. There was literally zero difference between a Halfling Swordsman and an Orc Axeman. There was one single priest per alignment, and they were all pretty similar anyway. In SM it wasn't until T3 that races became unique (well, half of T2 was unique). In AoW 1, many races had distinguishing factors between the lower level units. The difference between a Halfling Swordsman and an Orc Swordsman there was absolutely massive. So considering the differences between your average swordsman, archer, or cavalry is much bigger in AoW 3 than it was in SM, and considering that these things are essential from a competitive perspective because they determine your early game tempo, I don't really think we can say it's the product of a reductive approach to competitive balance. I think it's rather the result of a somewhat clumsy approach to integrating the new class system.

I think it's both. I certainly agree that it's a clumsy approach, especially the way class is just stapled on top of race with your 3 nigh worthless class buildings cranking out all the class units instead of using normal base facilities, but I also think that it was a lazy way of maintaining easier competitive balance. Several changes like letting all units cross mountainous terrain or giving embark instead of using transports made the differences between movement types much less important for the sake of balance. As was simply removing all overland enchant spells.

What AoW 3 did that was controversial was replacing high tier racial units with class units. At first I hated this. It felt like it neutered the game and made it much more bland. I think it was Patch 1.2 where they began implementing racial differences between class units, and that was cool. I honestly don't know what you mean by class units superceding race, though. The only class where I could see that happening is Warlord. Every other class needs the racial units in there to compensate for the class's shortcomings, and finding a good race/class synergy was about so much more than just finding the best racial modifiers for your class units. Hell, some of the best synergies revolve around racial units. Draconian Rogue, for example, or Halfling Theocrat.

It wasn't just class units obtaining racial differences in 1.2. It was also racial units starting to obtain more distinctive abilities. Originally all the units were very bland with minimal utility aside from the slightest variations and all the interesting abilities and more powerful effects were loaded onto class units. High Elves were pretty much the only distinctive race on launch I think, since their Longbows and bonus ranged damage made massing archers more viable, plus they had the only cavalry stacks that could capture walled cities between Unicorn Riders with phase and Gryphon Riders. For the most part though if you wanted to have any interesting units you were frequently just going straight class unit, and you need to focus on class units for the T4 spams. It's not that you didn't use racial units, but that racial units were horribly overshadowed by the much more useful and frequently more powerful class units.

Necromancer I'll agree on. It's totally broken. You didn't even touch on the biggest part of that: Necromancer heroes getting Control Undead at level 5 + massive amounts of high-tier wandering Undead monsters = gg. It's in desperate need of balancing.

There's also the tactic of using Reanimators to Inflict Despair on any wandering T3 or T4 unit you like until it obtains 100% spirit weakness (as a special rule, 100% weakness means you auto-fail all resist checks of that type) at which point you have a Death Bringer hit for a guaranteed ghoul curse, letting you freely add them to your army. In PBEM multiplayer it's simply ridiculous how powerful they are, which is part of why the community started moving to a PBEM balance fanpatch.

All of that sounds relatively awesome.
Sure, unbalanced, but that is where things become interesting.

I'm going to have to strongly disagree with this notion that unbalanced content is somehow a good thing. If anything that makes the game less fun once you learn how to exploit the imbalances.

A game like AoW3 has no competetive scene (except a few pockets like a Steam group), nor should it have. Competitive focus in a game where each match can take hours (!!)? Absurd. No way this would ever catch on big.

You would be sorely mistaken. AoW 3 actually does have a competitive scene. It's where a lot of AoW 3's existing rebalances have come from, and even more in the form of the PBEM fanpatch. The presence of a competitive scene is the special distinction of AoW 3.

If you go into these games expecting some kind of perfect balancing, you have no idea what the point of these games is to most people.

I think you've seen a lot of shitty balancing and decided to yourself that all balancing is inherently bad for fun, when in reality you just saw shitty balancing by lousy game designers. Asymmetrical balance with a depth of options is certainly doable, but homogenized, reductive balance is the only way bad game designers with their lack of insight manage to accomplish it. I think you've just settled for lower standards in your own way, where you figured it was futile to expect both good balance and fun gameplay.

 

[thesheeep]

All of that sounds relatively awesome.
Sure, unbalanced, but that is where things become interesting.

I'm going to have to strongly disagree with this notion that unbalanced content is somehow a good thing. If anything that makes the game less fun once you learn how to exploit the imbalances.

Couldn't disagree more. Learning the exploits and/or maybe deciding for yourself not to use them, to hamper yourself on purpose by going for something you know to be weaker for the challenge - that is fun.
Or just screwing around with ridiculous nonsense for shits and giggles - awesome!

In a game that is "well" balanced, none of that is possible. There are no exploits, no underdogs to challenge yourself with. Nothing that would make anything interesting. You could only play shitty on purpose, but I doubt that is attractive to anyone.
Nah, in that case, you can only play the best strategy with your choice of race/nation/whatever and that's it. Everything else is just playing bad.
Might be for you if you have some inherent need to grow your e-penis, but I just don't care about that.

AoW 3 actually does have a competitive scene. It's where a lot of AoW 3's existing rebalances have come from, and even more in the form of the PBEM fanpatch. The presence of a competitive scene is the special distinction of AoW 3.

Don't make yourself ridiculous.
A few hundred people do not make a competitive scene
Might as well claim Dominions has a competitive scene. It has a bunch of loyal fans who like to fiddle around with crazy strategies. Playing against each other does not make a scene competitive.
You can go ahead and ask the current players, which are still very numerous for such a game, how much interest they have in tournaments or if they are just playing for fun, with friends, solo, campaigns, etc.

Or compare the number of owners, of people who played the game for a few dozen hours to the ones playing. You should get a better picture of what most people actually do with such a game.
Only a fraction of people playing strategy games are even interested in competitive gaming. Unfortunately, a very vocal minority.
Guess that, too, has something to do with compensation.

I think you've seen a lot of shitty balancing and decided to yourself that all balancing is inherently bad for fun, when in reality you just saw shitty balancing by lousy game designers. Asymmetrical balance with a depth of options is certainly doable, but homogenized, reductive balance is the only way bad game designers with their lack of insight manage to accomplish it. I think you've just settled for lower standards in your own way, where you figured it was futile to expect both good balance and fun gameplay.

There is always a need for some balancing. Shit cannot be totally random. But anything more than that always - and there has never been an exception - just ruins the sense of exploration and "trying out things".

 

[Absinthe]

Couldn't disagree more. Learning the exploits and/or maybe deciding for yourself not to use them, to hamper yourself on purpose by going for something you know to be weaker for the challenge - that is fun.
Or just screwing around with ridiculous nonsense for shits and giggles - awesome!

In a game that is "well" balanced, none of that is possible. There are no exploits, no underdogs to challenge yourself with. Nothing that would make anything interesting. You could only play shitty on purpose, but I doubt that is attractive to anyone.
Nah, in that case, you can only play the best strategy with your choice of race/nation/whatever and that's it. Everything else is just playing bad.
Might be for you if you have some inherent need to grow your e-penis, but I just don't care about that.

That is completely wrong. In a game that is badly balanced, you can only play the best strategy and that's it. Because that is the road to victory and everything else gets shat on and only exists to screw you over. The whole point of good balance is to maintain a larger freedom for decision-making and tactical complexity without simply feeling pigeonholed towards a single strategy if you actually want to win. Otherwise the exploits dominate out and make everything else not merely redundant but self-sabotage on the road to victory. Similarly, if you have matchups where it doesn't particularly matter what you do because your advantages overwhelm your enemies, strategic or tactical decision-making is a moot point and there is no longer any accomplishment in creating a special strategy. Good balance gives you a large variety of options and likely some of them will indeed be more powerful or weaker than others depending on the circumstances and how you play to them, but so long as any one strategy does not become the one strategy to rule them all, that is fine.

In a badly balanced game, given that one class is significantly weaker than the others, the solution becomes to simply not play that class if you ever want to win. Or if one class is significantly better than the others, the popular option becomes to simply play that class. That sort of thing happens. In fact it already happened in PBEM, with Necromancers dominating hard enough that a community PBEM rebalancing patch was made.

Don't make yourself ridiculous.
A few hundred people do not make a competitive scene
Might as well claim Dominions has a competitive scene. It has a bunch of loyal fans who like to fiddle around with crazy strategies. Playing against each other does not make a scene competitive.
You can go ahead and ask the current players, which are still very numerous for such a game, how much interest they have in tournaments or if they are just playing for fun, with friends, solo, campaigns, etc.
Or compare the number of owners to the ones playing. You should get a better picture of what most people actually do with such a game.
Only a fraction of people playing RTS games are even interested in competitive gaming. Unfortunately, a very vocal minority.
Guess that too has something to do with compensation.

By that logic DotA does not have a competitive scene either. After all the overwhelming majority (90%+) of players are casuals following the same standard build paths / hero guide for their heroes every single game or are just dicking around randomly rather than strategically adjusting their playstyle to fit the situation, lineup, and tempo of the match. Yet there is a decidedly pronounced presence of competitive play within the community which informs both game strategy and game balance on the whole.

What's your point anyway? Never doubt the power of stupid people in large groups so you'd better bend over and cater to them? Stupid people don't even know what makes a game good anyway. I think what you're really saying is that you just don't like competitive scenes so you'd rather downplay and discount them.

There is always a need for some balancing. Shit cannot be totally random. But anything more than that always - and there has never been an exception - just ruins the sense of exploration and "trying out things".

I think there's a limit to "trying out things" if you're unwilling to thoroughly analyze why that is actually good or not. Face it, if you want to dig deep into a game's possibilities, you have to get good at the game. There are tactics and strategies you just won't think of if you're a bad player who disdains competitive play. Also, I was talking about Necromancers being quite possibly too good, and your only response was to get giddy and approve of that possibility as if that made the game better somehow.

 

[thesheeep]

In a badly balanced game, given that one class is significantly weaker than the others, the solution becomes to simply not play that class if you ever want to win. Or if one class is significantly better than the others, the popular option becomes to simply play that class. That sort of thing happens. In fact it already happened in PBEM, with Necromancers dominating hard enough that a community PBEM rebalancing patch was made.

Yes, that sort of thing happens. Among competitive players, who only see a sense in playing if it is for victory.
And unfortunately, competitive multiplayer is the standard way to go when balancing/designing even for titles where it makes little to no sense as matches just take too long for the average player of such games* - like AoW. And that then leads to balancing being done as you do for a competitive scene - until every choice is valid as every choice is more or less the same.
What could instead be done is to focus more on cooperative play, maybe having persistent online campaigns that don't even require you to play at the same time (as long as you do not meet each other in battle), or so many other things... that could then be balanced with a focus on how interesting and varied factions are instead of how you can bring them closer to each other to make sure none are too strong/weak.
Balancing asymmetrical factions for competitive gaming is an illusion. It isn't possible. Never has been, never will. And no, StarCraft or WarCraft does not have asymmetrical factions. They have some minor differences, that is all.

*In these cases, I'm not talking about the average player per se, I really mean the average player of turn based strategy games. That is not a large group. For most gamers, that just involves too much thinking and/or is too slow.
No, even the average player of TB strategy games doesn't want to invest the time that would be required to play matches regularly. Especially not competitively as that would mean an even larger time investment.

By that logic DotA does not have a competitive scene either. After all the overwhelming majority (90%+) of players are casuals following the same standard build paths / hero guide for their heroes every single game or are just dicking around randomly rather than strategically adjusting their playstyle to fit the situation, lineup, and tempo of the match. Yet there is a decidedly pronounced presence of competitive play within the community which informs both game strategy and game balance on the whole.

You are comparing a game that was made entirely for competitive online gameplay with a game that the majority of people play alone. DotA style games do not even have a world, a setting, a story, a campaign, offline scenarios, etc. Well, some may have an attempt at a world, but... I think that discussion would soon end in "lulz".
You cannot seriously believe that in both cases the game should be balanced the same way, with competitive gaming in mind.

What's your point anyway? Never doubt the power of stupid people in large groups so you'd better bend over and cater to them? Stupid people don't even know what makes a game good anyway. I think what you're really saying is that you just don't like competitive scenes so you'd rather downplay and discount them.

My point is that you live in your little competitive bubble, obviously oblivious to the fact that most people playing your game don't give a shit about competitive multiplayer.
And as such, it makes no sense to balance with that in mind. If you are looking to improve your success when balancing, balance for what most of your players actually want.

Just compare those two (and this time in a way that makes sense):

AoW 3 - http://steamspy.com/app/226840
Players in the last 2 weeks: 27,858 ± 4,932 (4.32%)
Players total: 580,912 ± 22,510 (90.05%)
Playtime total: 40:52 (average) 09:53 (median)

DotA 2 - http://steamspy.com/app/570
Players in the last 2 weeks: 9,962,506 ± 92,286 (8.57%)
Players total: 116,182,201 ± 276,460 (100%)
Playtime total: 195:31 (average) 04:22 (median)

Now, ignore the total number of players and focus on the percentages and times:

1) The average total playtime of people who actually played liked the game (didn't stop after a few hours). Do you honestly think those 40 hours on average were spent on competitive multiplayer? For real? Compared to all the alternatives like campaigns, scenarios, co-op, etc. ?
The reason the average playtime is so low (well, still way above average on Steam, but anyway...) is certainly not the lack of perfect competitive balancing. It is more the lack of things to do that interest the players - within or without multiplayer.

In DotA, it is pretty clear they were spent online in competitive gameplay - as it is the only choice available. You just don't play such games "just for fun" as trying out anything non-effective will just get you flamed. These communities are... famous for that
It makes sense here to focus on that kind of balancing.

2) The percentage of players still actually playing is about 9% for the purely competitive online game. It is 4% for the game where multiplayer is just one of many available choices (and within multiplayer, competitive gaming is just one of the choices).
Let's say that part of players is 1% (which would be 25% - most certainly waaaaay too high, but let's roll with it) and keep in mind the average playtime.
You want a game to be balanced focusing on 1% of all players. Does that make sense to you?
Wouldn't it make more sense to bring in changes that would increase the average playtime because they make things more interesting to the rest, not just "more balanced"?

Again, you are part of a (unfortunately vocal) minority. Have a look for example at what Mr. Vincke said about development and balancing for D:OS 2 in interviews - looking at forums, it seemed that many people did not like something. But looking at their actual statistics, most people were perfectly fine with it. It was just a vocal minority in the forums and they decided not to listen to them too much. And it worked out perfectly - just have a look at the average playtimes for the game: Already more than AoW3 in average despite being much younger - and whopping 28h median! Certainly most people buying the game actually play it for more than two dozen hours. Some right decisions were made.

Now, I really tried my best to make it obvious even to you that to focus on a marginally small part of your game and its community for balancing is just.... downright stupid.
The problem here is that "competitive gameplay" so far is the only available, "tested" theory. It is what all developers go for, because all other developers go for it and so far nobody has dared to step away from it**, even if it is obviously wrong to focus so much on it.
Meanwhile, some people realized that shortcoming and are waiting for the day when it finally won't dominate the thinking behind balancing any more - because it almost never made sense to begin with.

Now, you might want to decide to keep living in your bubble, and there is no official statistic proving even to you that most players of the game do not even touch the multiplayer button (because they do not want to play competitively and think it is the only available choice to them in MP, because it almost always has been).
I wish there was, trust me. And I actually think a lot of companies have that statistic. Some of them should just decide to release it so we can finally move on.

**Actually, IIRC Command & Conquer 4 was developed with co-op campaigns as a focus. Unfortunately the game was utter shit, completely changed the series' formula and so that interesting focus went down mostly unnoticed with the shitty rest of the game.

 

[Absinthe]

Age of Wonders is a competitive game by its nature, whether you play online or against AIs. The only victory conditions are conquest and seals, both of which are a competition. The idea that competitive balance is overrated and misaimed in the genre is frankly idiotic. It sounds like you were hoping for a different kind of game and taking out your frustrations at not having that game by praising the presence of shitty balance. I actually have nothing against cooperative gameplay design and I certainly wouldn't mind some good co-op maps either, but the idea that this goal is somehow exclusive with competitive balance is just fucking dumb. You're going to have to prove how those goals are mutually exclusive first, something you have consistently failed to do.

You then asserted that balance is inherently homogenizing, which is also not true. I spent a decent bit of text above explaining that asymmetric balance is a thing and homogenization is just shitty balance by lazy designers, and your only response is to take it for granted that any attempts at balancing a game require excessive equivalency anyway, thus proving you are a failure when it comes to reading comprehension. I'm not sure what your complex against balance is, frankly, because the things you want aren't things that require bad balance by any stretch of the imagination. But this is all needlessly abstract when coming to the point that you are a fucking retard for praising Necromancers being potentially overpowered as if that improved the game. And hating competitive doesn't justify your stupid opinion.

 

[thesheeep]

Age of Wonders is a competitive game by its nature, whether you play online or against AIs. The only victory conditions are conquest and seals. The idea that competitive balance is overrated and misaimed in the genre is frankly idiotic.

So, because a game has victory conditions and you defeat your enemy, or in other words, you can "win", that means it is a competitive game for you?
You really are quite something

It sounds like you were hoping for a different kind of game and taking out your frustrations at not having that game by praising the presence of shitty balance.

You kidding me? I really liked the game. I think I spent about 80 hours or so with it before I stopped. And I stopped ironically because I couldn't stand the puzzle-like campaign design that forced you too much in playing a certain way. I did hope for a different kind of campaign, that's for sure.
I would've played it a lot more if a large portion of my friends weren't cheap bastards

Actually, I did play with my GF for a while. Unfortunately, I'm simply much better at most digital games than she is - and for some reason, she beats me and everyone else at every board game. So it just didn't work out fun for everyone. We played together, of course, but the AI was too hard for her while it was too easy for me.
If there had been a faction that was just much stronger than the others, she could've taken that and it might have evened things up - but back then, there were no Necromancers.
A proof right there that competitive balancing actively hurt co-op. Because with competitive balancing, co-op very much requires all partners to be more or less on the same skill level.

Now, I'm not saying you cannot have both. It would be possible. SC2 has a different balancing in the campaign than in skirmish and online, I think. You could have another set of balancing - or actually as many sets of balancing as you want.
However, you have to develop all of that, which is costly.
It just makes more sense to balance for most players, not for minorities.

You then asserted that balance is inherently homogenizing, which is also not true. I spent a decent bit of text above explaining that asymmetric balance is a thing and homogenization is just shitty balance by lazy designers

Actually, you haven't. You just claim to.
And I also never claimed that balance is inherently homogenizing. Competitive balance is. Because it must be fair. And "fair" is not achievable if factions are not equal, there will always be serious advantages or disadvantages in asymmetry.
Again, there is not a single case where asymmetrical factions were perfectly balanced for competitive play. At best, it was in a region that many found "acceptable" enough to play.

 

[Absinthe]

So, because a game has victory conditions and you defeat your enemy, or in other words, you can "win", that means it is a competitive game for you?
You really are quite something

Look pal, if you want to pretend you're just playing a tactical RPG or whatever the fuck while you're playing Age of Wonders 3, you're not proving that AoW 3 is not a competitive game. You're just LARPing by yourself. Maybe that's your sense of fun, but that's not how you win the game. It's about warfare. Your enemy tries to kill you and you try to kill your enemy to win. That's how it works. Now maybe that's not as challenging against AIs as playing against actual human beings, sure, but the trend of getting better at the game is certainly a competitive mindset. And if you start playing multiplayer (because, say, the AI is terrible), then the need for competitive strategies becomes much more serious. Back when I played Civ V, I played virtually all my games online because the AI was so terrible.

If there had been a faction that was just much stronger than the others, she could've taken that and it might have evened things up - but back then, there were no Necromancers.
A proof right there that competitive balancing actively hurt co-op. Because with competitive balancing, co-op very much requires all partners to be more or less on the same skill level.

You could also just donate resources to your GF so she can perform better. That was also an option. Or you could've focused on class/race combinations that are easier for her to play. For instance, Rogue is probably the least newbie friendly class there is. Warlord on the other hand is extremely straightforward. The only problem a newbie might face is healing up units after combats. So you pick Draconians because all their units get a free Fast Healing through their race. Suddenly you have a Race/Class combination that is easy to play without really messing up. And on a theoretical note, even with competitive balancing it would be possible to instate a handicap feature to disadvantage yourself or boost her so that you don't outperform her.

Just because the Necromancer class is quite possibly more powerful than the other classes, by the way, does not mean that it is also better for low-skill players to play. I'll bet you that abusing Inflict Despair for guaranteed ghoul curse is not something your GF is likely to do, even though it is a hideously powerful move for necros. And adjusting to the fact that ghouled undead units have -1 defense and do not naturally heal when you are trying to creep can also cause a lot of unit losses if you're not familiar with how to play them, because you'll need those reanimators to keep your stacks going. And if she avoids creeping she might find that her cities are growing very slowly because undead cities have the worst growth and depend on creeping (and Undead Plague) to grow their population. Even outside of that, Necromancers have the worst economy of all classes, since they cannot have high morale cities. Coupled with the fact that the AI tends to cheat and build up fast, you could ruin yourself with this kind of slow build-up phase. So depending on how bad you are, playing the Necro could be much worse than playing other classes, even if better players can wield them to devastating effect.

And I also never claimed that balance is inherently homogenizing. Competitive balance is. Because it must be fair. And "fair" is not achievable if factions are not equal, there will always be serious advantages or disadvantages in asymmetry.
Again, there is not a single case where asymmetrical factions were perfectly balanced for competitive play. At best, it was in a region that many found "acceptable" enough to play.

There is nothing wrong with advantages and disadvantages. As long as both sides have a reasonable ability to defeat each other it's fine. There is something wrong with one class overwhelmingly outclassing others, however. And there is definitely something wrong with pretending that somehow improved the game. Whatever your complex is about balance supposedly being so bad for gameplay enjoyment, you're going full retard when you hit the stage of arguing that adding unbalanced one-sided crap somehow made it a better game.

 

[Absinthe]

Nowadays it's Humans with the T4 in drag. Thanks to Racial Governance your Knights can end up being built with 82 hitpoints, 15 defense (plus Shield, for another 2 against non-flanking), 12 resist, and 21 phys attack on top of devastating charge (+10 when charging). In the hands of a Necromancer they would be 95 hitpoints, 14 defense (plus Shield), 13 resist, and 24 phys + 2 blight attack.

Sorcerers with Age of Magic can also spam spells like Chain Lightning or Chaos Rift an extreme amount.

 

[Matalarata]

The best strategy games are all unbalanced and asymetric, case closed, thanks for listening.

Balance is otherwise very important in sports. Solution: leave your mom basement to do some real sport. Come back home to a good, unbalanced, strategy game to find new interesting strategies and rest your weary body while entertaining your mind. If you think something like AoWIII has a "scene" or "competitive play" seriously re-think your life priorities, you're wasting your precious time and fooling yourself.

Eidt: also, only in "balanced" games you apply the same strategy over and over, 'cause it's the best one, the reliable one. That's why games like LoL or SCIII have a "meta" (LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL) while MoO is considered a timeless classic and a masterpiece.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Eidt: also, only in "balanced" games you apply the same strategy over and over, 'cause it's the best one, the reliable one. That's why games like LoL or SCIII have a "meta" (LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL) while MoO is considered a timeless classic and a masterpiece.

...that's the exact opposite of the truth. Literally the entire point of balance is trying to make all options viable. Unbalanced games are the ones with the same strategy applied over and over, because there are some units, factions, or abilities that are just way beyond anything else, and so the game becomes a repetitive slogfest of either constantly using those or constantly using what few things can stand against them. Wanting a game to be unbalanced means looking at it and saying "Boy, it sure would suck to have a game where every unit has its uses. I'd much rather play something where some of the units are just shit and never get built, and other units are godtier and all you build."

The only time you can do whatever sort of strategy you want in an unbalanced game is if your opponents are significantly worse at the game than you are - which is normally the case with AI. The goal of a balanced game is to make as many diverse strategies as possible viable against an opponent of equal skill level.

Also I'm confused by the second half of your sentence. Do you feel that MoO doesn't have a meta? Every game has a meta. A game's "meta" literally refers to the way the game is played by a community, and the understanding of the game that they've developed. MoO has a meta - things like Repulsive being the best choice of negative trait, for example, or bonuses to ship and ground combat generally not being worthwhile. Even mostly or exclusively singleplayer games have metas, because the way people play the game is often shaped by the community they're a part of. Hell, kids hanging out in the schoolyard talking about their favourite game are cultivating a primitive sort of meta - they swap strategies and eventually arrive at conclusions about the better and worse ways to play the game.

Starcraft has a particularly restrictive meta, yes, but that's not because it's balanced. It's because the game is so focused on mechanics and micro that it more or less requires players to have their build orders and strategies mapped out ahead of time so that they don't have to think about it as much in the moment.

 

[thesheeep]

Literally the entire point of balance is trying to make all options viable. Unbalanced games are the ones with the same strategy applied over and over, because there are some units, factions, or abilities that are just way beyond anything else, and so the game becomes a repetitive slogfest of either constantly using those or constantly using what few things can stand against them. Wanting a game to be unbalanced means looking at it and saying "Boy, it sure would suck to have a game where every unit has its uses. I'd much rather play something where some of the units are just shit and never get built, and other units are godtier and all you build."

The only time you can do whatever sort of strategy you want in an unbalanced game is if your opponents are significantly worse at the game than you are - which is normally the case with AI. The goal of a balanced game is to make as many diverse strategies as possible viable against an opponent of equal skill level.

You are completely missing the point.
Why not have a bunch of units that are generally barely built, but have a very small niche or are just fun to play for some people?
You are judging everything based on how viable it is in a competitive environment.
Fuck competitive environments, we have more than enough of that.
What we need are more interesting games that allow people to play how they want, including trying out hilarious "nonsense" just for fun.
Games where players can figure out what is viable and what not - but what is still fun to play for some - are interesting precisely because of this discovery process. Does that lead to clearly superior strategies in a competitive environment? Sure.
But who cares? Only the small, very vocal minority of competitive players.

Eidt: also, only in "balanced" games you apply the same strategy over and over, 'cause it's the best one, the reliable one. That's why games like LoL or SCIII have a "meta" (LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL) while MoO is considered a timeless classic and a masterpiece.

Also I'm confused by the second half of your sentence. Do you feel that MoO doesn't have a meta? Every game has a meta. A game's "meta" literally refers to the way the game is played by a community, and the understanding of the game that they've developed. MoO has a meta - things like Repulsive being the best choice of negative trait, for example, or bonuses to ship and ground combat generally not being worthwhile.

I think the point was that SC2 has a "meta" - quotation marks-, while MoO has a real meta. That's how I understood, anyway.

 

[Matalarata]

Yep, sarcasm is lost vs autism, unlike balance which thrives with it.

 

[Raghar]

I shudder what they would do with WH2 and WH 1 after they enable all factions in MP. All these nerfs balance changes that would wreck single player campaign...

 

[Absinthe]

I think the primary complaints of thesheeep and matalarata are rooted in the fact that they are bad players and thus do not understand and refuse to acknowledge that there exists a strong discovery process in well-balanced competitive play. Instead they are in that in that lower end of the competitive curve where strategies are spelled out to them with minimal variation, which they incorrectly assume to be the essence of competitive play. Since they cannot improve, their desired solution is to drag others down to their level because they feel less threatened in their own enjoyment this way. Matalarata's complaints about the "meta" probably stem from the fact that in those games when you play online you are strongly expected to play in a very specific way (what mediocre players do) unless you know what you are doing and can improvise successful variations (what better players do), which is typically referred to as the "meta". He doesn't realize that for skilled players, you can still dick around in unconventional ways to great success. Back when I fiddled around with LoL for instance, I messed around with Janna which is a fragile AP (ability power) support hero, and yet I primarily played her like an AD (Attack Damage) carry to great success because I played to Janna's strengths in an unconventional way and the build just amused me. I'm sure that was never the "meta" build for that hero (where you are strongly expected to support), but that didn't keep me from doing it and consistently winning.

Basically they're bog-standard bads who bitch about players telling them how to play and wish there were no community of better players to annoy them and drag down their sense of fun. It's very juvenile overall and born primarily of being a sensitive little bitch as well as a lack of insight and unwillingness to get good at games. They usually make their excuses by bitching that they have a life, as if other players do not. In reality, it's just their own low IQ and unwillingness to learn from their failings that makes them bad. The most galling thing about these bads is that they want to ruin what makes these games so fun for other players by destroying tactical depth and complexity in favor of dumb unbalanced shit just so that they don't feel judged for dicking around like retards.

Well you're on the codex, kids, and here there are standards, so if you want to be a retard, you can fuck off somewhere more accommodating to your brand of shittiness. I hear NeoGAF and reddit are recruiting.