Age of Wonders 3

[Arrowgrab]

What expansions should I get? Fuck they are full-priced...Can I obtain a high sea expansion and connect it with the steam base game or that won't work?

Well, if you already have a legitimate copy of the base game AND you're morally fine with yarr-ing the expansions... then ethically speaking, yarring a copy which has both the base game AND the expansions in a setup that works for sure shouldn't be any worse than only getting the expansions under the brave black flag.

Not that I'm advocating anything, mind you.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Ah shit, I missed out on the free game.

 

[Raghar]

Ah shit, I missed out on the free game.

You'd need golden realm DLC anyway. Get it from nice person with parrot and eyepatch, and pretend you grabbed it in time. MP is quite SLOW, and SP is fine with available versions.

 

[Ibn Sina]

What is the stance on age of wonders planetfall guys. It is out in a few days. Do you think it is going to be good?

 

[Raghar]

What is the stance on age of wonders planetfall guys. It is out in a few days. Do you think it is going to be good?

It's cash grab. Paradox cut out content and sells it as DLC.
From what I seen, factions are bit clishe Amazons, protection suit wearing inspired by Dwarf looks, standard corporation faction, insectoids, XCOM inspired, and perhaps only original faction Assembly (They looks like when merging zombies with metal went wrong, but at least they have style. A zombie on motorbike looks funny).

 

[BING XI LAO]

What is the stance on age of wonders planetfall guys. It is out in a few days. Do you think it is going to be good?

More of the AoW3 case I think, good balanced gameplay but a bit homgenised/streamlined, and utterly awful aesthetics and writing.

 

[Johannes]

Any good 3rd party maps available, that are a nice challenge even against AI?

 

[BING XI LAO]

Threadly reminder that we play AoW1 and AoW2 PBEMs at the GoG forums gog.com/forum/age_of_wonders_series

 

[Suicidal]

What is the stance on age of wonders planetfall guys. It is out in a few days. Do you think it is going to be good?

From what I've seen from the gameplay videos, I think Planetfall has the potential to be better than AoW 3 - the factions seem a lot more diverse in terms of gameplay mechanics and units, the unit upgrade system they introduced looks very interesting and may allow for better faction - class (secret tech) combos than AoW 3 did, the combat also looks more tactical. I agree with what the others said about the factions being boring aesthetically - most are just a variation of space humans and seem to mirror the traditional AoW races like space marines = humans, amazons = elves, dvar = dwarves, etc. I think they should have just made AoW 4.

So on launch I think the game will be better than base AoW 3 but that's not saying much. Now I like AoW 3 quite a bit but when it launched it was a very bare-bones game and it took 2 expansions and multiple updates to make it good. If Planetfall gets the same level of support then we could be looking at something great but Triumph are Paradox slaves now so I fully expect multiple 10$ DLCs that add a couple of new units or something stupid like this, hopefully I'm wrong.

 

[Norfleet]

To be fair, most games don't have particularly amazing concepts for enemy factions. I mean, what were you going to get instead? Humans vs. Other Humans, only in SPACE? Humans vs. Bugs? Humans vs. Psychic Space Aliens? Humans vs. Culturally Homogenous Rubber Foreheads? Humans vs. Zombies? Humans vs. Rocks/Trees/Animals?

Name ONE space game that has an "original" faction that isn't one of these. Hell, how many non-humans can you name with more than two, maybe three cultures that aren't basically "light, dark, some hamhanded attempt to have a middle ground". If a given non-human even has any other cultures, it's because those other cultures are Manicheaistically opposed to each other.

 

[cvv]

Guise I'm stumped. I wonder if anyone else has the same problem with the campaign missions.
So I stopped playing AoW3 despite enjoying it a lot. My problem is this:

I'm playing a campaign mission, I spend a few hours doing your standard stuff when suddenly BLAM, a blue AI rolls in with a fucking armada and puts a giant spiked club up my arse. "Ok," says me, "so what I need to do in this map is hurry up and blitzkrieg this bitch". A few hours down the drain but ok, let's restart. This time around I attacc the blue dick as soon as I can but it's a protracted battle and after a few hours BLAM, a purple AI takes me from the side and there it is, a spiked club up my arse again. It takes two more restarts and about 6 hours of lost gameplay to figure out the map.

Right now I'm playing a huge map with a lot of towns to conquer, ocean and marsh terrain everywhere, movement is restricted everything takes ages. It's my second try, been playing this map for 6 hours. It's a stalemate, I'm progressing at a snail's pace. I already feel I might be stretched too thin and the AI could take huge swaths of land back. Maybe I'll need to restart again.

I don't know. It feels like in every map there's a specific thing you need to do and if you don't you have to restart and restart and restart until you figure it out. Honestly this sucks away all fun for me. There don't seem to be many options for in-scenario recovery, you just make a mistake and you're thoroughly fucked. Plus the maps are increasingly bigger and bigger and it takes longer and longer to realise what you've done wrong and what is the right tactic for that particular map.

Is it just me? Am I too dumb for this game or is this the way you're supposed to play, at least the campaigns?

 

[Raghar]

Guise I'm stumped. I wonder if anyone else has the same problem with the campaign missions.
So I stopped playing AoW3 despite enjoying it a lot. My problem is this:

I'm playing a campaign mission, I spend a few hours doing your standard stuff when suddenly BLAM, a blue AI rolls in with a fucking armada and puts a giant spiked club up my arse. "Ok," says me, "so what I need to do in this map is hurry up and blitzkrieg this bitch". A few hours down the drain but ok, let's restart. This time around I attacc the blue dick as soon as I can but it's a protracted battle and after a few hours BLAM, a purple AI takes me from the side and there it is, a spiked club up my arse again. It takes two more restarts and about 6 hours of lost gameplay to figure out the map.

Right now I'm playing a huge map with a lot of towns to conquer, ocean and marsh terrain everywhere, movement is restricted everything takes ages. It's my second try, been playing this map for 6 hours. It's a stalemate, I'm progressing at a snail's pace. I already feel I might be stretched too thin and the AI could take huge swaths of land back. Maybe I'll need to restart again.

I don't know. It feels like in every map there's a specific thing you need to do and if you don't you have to restart and restart and restart until you figure it out. Honestly this sucks away all fun for me. There don't seem to be many options for in-scenario recovery, you just make a mistake and you're thoroughly fucked. Plus the maps are increasingly bigger and bigger and it takes longer and longer to realise what you've done wrong and what is the right tactic for that particular map.

Is it just me? Am I too dumb for this game or is this the way you're supposed to play, at least the campaigns?

You'd have to tell us what campaign you are playing and what map. And if DLC are installed.

 

[Suicidal]

Guise I'm stumped. I wonder if anyone else has the same problem with the campaign missions.
So I stopped playing AoW3 despite enjoying it a lot. My problem is this:

I'm playing a campaign mission, I spend a few hours doing your standard stuff when suddenly BLAM, a blue AI rolls in with a fucking armada and puts a giant spiked club up my arse. "Ok," says me, "so what I need to do in this map is hurry up and blitzkrieg this bitch". A few hours down the drain but ok, let's restart. This time around I attacc the blue dick as soon as I can but it's a protracted battle and after a few hours BLAM, a purple AI takes me from the side and there it is, a spiked club up my arse again. It takes two more restarts and about 6 hours of lost gameplay to figure out the map.

Right now I'm playing a huge map with a lot of towns to conquer, ocean and marsh terrain everywhere, movement is restricted everything takes ages. It's my second try, been playing this map for 6 hours. It's a stalemate, I'm progressing at a snail's pace. I already feel I might be stretched too thin and the AI could take huge swaths of land back. Maybe I'll need to restart again.

I don't know. It feels like in every map there's a specific thing you need to do and if you don't you have to restart and restart and restart until you figure it out. Honestly this sucks away all fun for me. There don't seem to be many options for in-scenario recovery, you just make a mistake and you're thoroughly fucked. Plus the maps are increasingly bigger and bigger and it takes longer and longer to realise what you've done wrong and what is the right tactic for that particular map.

Is it just me? Am I too dumb for this game or is this the way you're supposed to play, at least the campaigns?

I'm playing the AoW 3 campaigns right now on the hardest difficulty. The AI definitely cheats like an asshole - he either has increased resource income or unlimited resources. I noticed that in the second mission of the elf campaign where I conquered most of the enemy towns pretty quickly but they still managed to field bigger armies than I could from their 3 or so cities so every couple of turns I had to deal with 2-3 stacks of tier 3 and 4 units that they wouldn't be able to support if they were playing fairly and it took me several long ass loss-minimizing save-scumming castle sieges to turn the tide in my favor a bit.

What I started doing after that in every map is conquering all of the enemy's cities except for the capital as soon as I could (it's pretty easy to do with a stack of high level heroes on flying mounts), then wall off his capital with an army and then take my time exploring the map and clearing dungeons at my leisure.

I'm pretty sure in every map the AI develops his tech at the same pace as you (he starts with pleb units and basic spells and has to research everything like you do) so at the beginning his armies will suck dick against any heroes powered up from previous missions that you have.

Also make sure to clear every map completely before doing the main objective - some of the items you can find in the dungeons are pretty busted.

 

[cvv]

What I started doing after that in every map is conquering all of the enemy's cities except for the capital as soon as I could (it's pretty easy to do with a stack of high level heroes on flying mounts), then wall off his capital with an army and then take my time exploring the map and clearing dungeons at my leisure.

That works often but not always. The ocean map I talked about (it'S also the elf campaign, you not there yet?) you can't do it. The map is enormous and it takes ages to go anywhere.

I can't put my finger on what pisses me off about these scenarios so much. Been playing 4Xs for 20 years, I haven't felt like that about any of them. The AoW3 basic gameplay loop is great but either the scenario design or the AI balance are off somehow.

 

[Raghar]

Is it that map with rogue enemy and lot of oceans?

 

[Raghar]

So far I found they found the worst twitch streamers to stream AoW: Planetfall. So far only Cringer is decent. I managed to put some new twitch streamers on black list, one after hearing T-Shirt, followed by Tankception.

 

[Suicidal]

What I started doing after that in every map is conquering all of the enemy's cities except for the capital as soon as I could (it's pretty easy to do with a stack of high level heroes on flying mounts), then wall off his capital with an army and then take my time exploring the map and clearing dungeons at my leisure.

That works often but not always. The ocean map I talked about (it'S also the elf campaign, you not there yet?) you can't do it. The map is enormous and it takes ages to go anywhere.

I can't put my finger on what pisses me off about these scenarios so much. Been playing 4Xs for 20 years, I haven't felt like that about any of them. The AoW3 basic gameplay loop is great but either the scenario design or the AI balance are off somehow.

If it's the map where you're against the human pirate then I've beaten it and I followed the same plan. I don't remember how exactly I did it but I just explored everything thoroughly and as soon as I encountered the AI's army I dropped everything I was doing and just rushed his towns, splitting my army as much as possible (my draconian druid hero, for example, could solo a decently sized army by himself due to call lightning + regrowth allowing me to almost infinitely kite the enemy units in combat). Having flying mounts on all hero units is crucial in this mission.

Because the AI cheats, he builds stuff in his town faster than you can, and because he is the same class as you in that mission, if you capture his towns you can instantly convert them into strong unit producing bases for yourself.

Another thing about that map is that the ocean surrounding the main islands is full of treasure chests so having a few crow scouts collecting them at all times ensures that you don't run out of money.

It's kind of a slow tedious mission with a lot of multitasking but the 2 that follow it are a lot more fun IMO.

 

[cvv]

It's kind of a slow tedious mission with a lot of multitasking but the 2 that follow it are a lot more fun IMO.

Ok that's good to know. I'll force myself to finish the stupid pirate map then.

 

[cvv]

It's kind of a slow tedious mission with a lot of multitasking but the 2 that follow it are a lot more fun IMO.

Ok that's good to know. I'll force myself to finish the stupid pirate map then.

You were right, the last two maps were good, even great.

I ended up just cheat-skipping the pirate map, I think I just wasn't aggressive enough (hard to do in a map where everything is ocean or mountains or marshes, it takes fucking ages to get anywhere) and gave the AI time to develop. It was pumping tons of shadow stalkers who ended up floating all over the map and taking over my cities which I couldn't prevent because protecting a city with normal units is not enough against shadow stalkers, you need your main army and if your units aren't all flying or floating (which they never are) you can't keep up. So yeah, fuck this stupid map.

But the last map was a lot of fun.

 

[Suicidal]

It's kind of a slow tedious mission with a lot of multitasking but the 2 that follow it are a lot more fun IMO.

Ok that's good to know. I'll force myself to finish the stupid pirate map then.

You were right, the last two maps were good, even great.

I ended up just cheat-skipping the pirate map, I think I just wasn't aggressive enough (hard to do in a map where everything is ocean or mountains or marshes, it takes fucking ages to get anywhere) and gave the AI time to develop. It was pumping tons of shadow stalkers who ended up floating all over the map and taking over my cities which I couldn't prevent because protecting a city with normal units is not enough against shadow stalkers, you need your main army and if your units aren't all flying or floating (which they never are) you can't keep up. So yeah, fuck this stupid map.

But the last map was a lot of fun.

I'm glad you liked the last missions. Which route did you go for btw? Cause I went with the good/rebel one so I don't actually know anything about the part of the campaign if you choose to remain loyal to the elves.

I don't condone cheating but I can understand skipping the pirate mission - it is quite boring and I think it took me over 100 turns to finish and at some point I was just skipping turns to get my armies from 1 point of the map to another.

Also I think rogue vs rogue is the worst matchup in the game cause the only thing that can fight shadow stalkers are other shadow stalkers and shadow stalkers can barely damage each other cause they're immune/resistant to their own elements. I love playing theocrat vs rogue cause the laser shooting shrines can oneshot those cunts.

 

[cvv]

I'm glad you liked the last missions. Which route did you go for btw? Cause I went with the good/rebel one so I don't actually know anything about the part of the campaign if you choose to remain loyal to the elves.

Yeah I went with the Torchbearers too. Imma watch a video with the other result if I can find one.

The last map was fun, I took over the human half of the map, imprisoned the emperor and was preparing for the other half takeover when the elven king suddenly showed up by my throne room. He had a strong army, a bunch of Eldritch Horrors, but I knew I don't have to save my champion units anymore so I kamikazed him. I lost almost everything but eventually whacked him over his head with the Merlin rod and then just waited a few turns for the campaign to end. Saved myself a few hours of taking over the elven half of the map. Sometimes the AI does strange things.

Other times it throws you curveballs annoying as all fuck. I started the Necro campaign, having A LOT of fun with the new races and mechanics, when someone casts Dread Siege on my capital and the next turn two different AIs show up to kill me. This fucking spell man. It was on turn 15 or so too, very early in the map, it's super annoying to dispel, plus the AI keeps strengthening it. I don't know if I can salvage the map, I'll probably have to restart (and probably see it happening again).

 

[Raghar]

I ended up just cheat-skipping the pirate map,

Noob.

 

[Suicidal]

Other times it throws you curveballs annoying as all fuck. I started the Necro campaign, having A LOT of fun with the new races and mechanics, when someone casts Dread Siege on my capital and the next turn two different AIs show up to kill me. This fucking spell man. It was on turn 15 or so too, very early in the map, it's super annoying to dispel, plus the AI keeps strengthening it. I don't know if I can salvage the map, I'll probably have to restart (and probably see it happening again).

I also started the necro campaign now and on turn 10 while I was still clearing my surrounding areas 1 enemy bumrushed my undefended capital with an Obsidian Dragon (where the fuck did he get that) and another AI came in on another town with 2 full stacks. Took me a while to get my territory under control and now I'm at the end of the mission.

I think the rest of the campaign will be super easy though - my main necro hero is already strong enough to take on small armies by himself thanks to an artifact I found that gives 3 armor and unlimited retaliations + life steal and because necro heroes can turn units they kill into ghouls I can attack small independent armies with him alone, win with no losses and get units for free.

 

[Lacrymas]

I've been playing the AoW series recently, AoW2 and 3 concurrently actually after finishing AoW1's Keepers campaign (will finish the Cult one later), and my attention was drawn to hit mechanics. I don't know if this has been discussed before, but what do you guys think about the way AoW1 - SM vs AoW3 handle this?

 

[Citizen]

I've been playing the AoW series recently, AoW2 and 3 concurrently actually after finishing AoW1's Keepers campaign (will finish the Cult one later), and my attention was drawn to hit mechanics. I don't know if this has been discussed before, but what do you guys think about the way AoW1 - SM vs AoW3 handle this?

Both systems are alrite, AoW3 combat is way more predictable, while AoW1-2 is more risky and random. AoW1-2 hit mechanics leads to high defence units being practically unkillable by weak attack units tho, which further empasizes the difference between unit tiers. So in AoW1-2 high tier units are killing machines that can destroy endless waves of tier 1 units without getting a single point of damage and in AoW3 high tier units can be easily overpowered with few t1s