Age of Wonders 4

[Zboj Lamignat]

It was rather integral to the game, since it had a lot of evolving units. Which was v cool. And also something scrubs would not get.

 

[Space Satan]

Yeah, I remember they joys of leveling dark priests, who had super trash accuracy and it was a miracle if you managed to level them without feeding them kills.

 

[Johannes]

It's boring af

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Yeah, I remember they joys of leveling dark priests, who had super trash accuracy and it was a miracle if you managed to level them without feeding them kills.

I'm talking about evolving units, not leveling up. And some of AoW3 units even have two evolutions, allowing you to summon a t1 unit with a starting spell and turn it into t4. And, as with most things, there are multiple upgrades in the game that allow faster lvl ups for units, either some type or in general. I think AoW2/SM only had the +xp wizard spec and that was it?

 

[Raghar]

Frankly after I played Planetfall where levels didn't matter that much, I found that AoW3 leveling system at least forced you to care about your units. Replacing highly trained unit by a green one, typically lowers fighting capability quite a bit.

Of course, EADOR genesis, where L12 unit is still only quite a bit stronger than freshly hired, but still not the drastic monster that can take on unit that is tier higher... Yea that was leveling up that was done right, even when it wasn't necessary for winning.

 

[BING XI LAO]

Something good about Eador unit-levelling is that the medals increased unit upkeep. Which adressed the excellent point made by Johannes that too much XP progression promotes conservative play.

 

[Norfleet]

Its strange that the AI rarely moves its leader to safety in AoWIII, even when you are clearly starting to amass troops on the doorsteps of the town he's currently residing in.

Well, he needs ammunition, not a ride.

 

[Space Satan]

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Fuggg, that potato pricing

 

[Lacrymas]

This popped up in my recommendations -

I haven't watched it.

 

[chuft]

I might actually preorder this, even though I generally avoid new and buggy games like the plague, just because Triumph has never made a bad game, and I feel guilty I got their previous games at good discounts. I am very patient and have a game backlog so I normally let new releases stew for a year or more to avoid turds like Master of Orion III and Sword of the Stars 2. But Triumph now has to justify their existence not only to customers, but to Paradox, which makes me nervous.

 

[anvi]

AoW 3 is shit.

 

[Axioms]

https://explorminate.co/age-of-wonders-4-reveals-upcoming-expansions-and-premium-content/

Absolute Mammonic shit right here. Actually Mammon would be ashamed of the greed and shadiness going on.

 

[Skorpion]

One thing Im looking forward to is the OST for this, every game has had just amazing music that I still listen to quite often.
Party Elite's video did raise my interest despite sounding like Ben Shapiro was trying to sell me on a game.
AoW3 was such a let down for me and the dlc/expanion content looks like the very worst of Paradox's already horrifically bad monetary model.
That said... still hopeful this game is good as these types of games are my 2nd fav genre after rpgs. So fingers crossed!

 

[anvi]

Only the original has a soundtrack, the rest just keep copying it.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

dlc/expanion content looks like the very worst of Paradox's already horrifically bad monetary model.

Doesn't look too different from Planetfall, which had like 3 dlcs?

 

[Suicidal]

dlc/expanion content looks like the very worst of Paradox's already horrifically bad monetary model.

Doesn't look too different from Planetfall, which had like 3 dlcs?

Yeah PF had 3 DLCs and the complete version cost like $80 IIRC, but I got it for half price on a sale a few months after release.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

The obvious catch being that final AoW3 dlc had way more (never mind better) content than all PF dlc put together.

 

[Demo.Graph]

You guys discuss pricing as if someone in their right mind would pay for modern AoWs and even bother with them for, like, two years after an official release date.

 

[Lord of Riva]

The problem with heroes is two-fold - gameplay and philosophy of design. First of all, they are outright better units than anything else, especially at the start, so you are already starting with a massive advantage against neutrals and they just keep getting better if the leveling up process isn't well thought-out. Which leads to the intellectual question of what the point of neutrals in this context is. To me, neutrals should curtail your military progress in exchange for an economic one, i.e. they give you stuff when you kill them or are guarding a strategic resource generator. However, when heroes exist it's very easy to not take any casualties against neutrals and to level up on top of that, making your military even stronger. Why do neutrals exist in this case? To fill up your time with pointless battles? This is bad game design from the get-go, imo, without even taking into consideration how the AI interacts with this system.

Balancing wise you only got it half right there. While your position is clear and makes sense you seem to misuderstand the dynamic that evolves around the hero system.

It's true that military might increases through these systems but that is also not something to be viewed in isolation. Not only can you more easily progress encounters down the line by making the neutrals stronger but it happens for your enemies as well. So while there is a strength increase, it's a relative and dynamic process and therefore another strategic layer to consider:

Keeping your hero high level and alive becomes important, or you could have more than one hero which share the experience. Seeing the hero as something that is outside of the normal units is a mistake, it's part of the normal tactical and strategic layer. It's not that an army gets stronger because of the hero, the army is normal because of it's hero and the game is (or at least should be) balanced around it, an army without a hero is simply less effective than normal and will most likely lack features that are necessary to keep up with other armies.

Something to consider, especially in AoW since you can battle with more than one army in any given fight.

 

[Reality]

The dlc kinda sounds like them realizing their all people are generic thing was a bad idea and bringing exclusivetity back in a limited fashion. Waiting two years for a theme and putting up with play-doh people in the meantime is a big turn off.

I also hate the numbers inflation: 9 planetfall defense Is 62% damage reduction and you are 1 enchant away from being there on starting army. Sure attack and HP are also inflated but nowhere near enough to keep up. I've seen 60% percent boost as highest so far (combining charge bonus with wolf pack adjacency) but that doesn't even break even.

 

[chuft]

The battles aren't pointless. They cost you time (when you could be marching toward an enemy) and they let you level up your army (which is fun) and let you get loot and/or magic items.

AOW games are not WW2 games where you grind out small advances on this or that area of front trying to either attrite the enemy, cut his supply line and encircle him, or lever him out of position due to threat of either of the preceding two. They use an ancients/medieval/Napoleonic model of a big army marching around and gathering its strength/pillaging the countryside until the climactic battle with the enemy big army. One side typically gets wiped out at this big battle at which point their cities get rolled up like a carpet and they've lost the war.

I've played wargames which have nothing but the climactic battle between two giant stacks and they're boring as hell. AOW games feature a lot of stuff leading up to that big battle. Exploration/pacifying the countryside/looting/getting your troops some experience is what makes the games fun (and why I feel sorry for people who use a "rush" strategy all the time - they skip Moria and go right to Pelennor Fields - what's the rush?).

 

[Johannes]

I feel guilty I got their previous games at good discounts.

lol fag

 

[Lacrymas]

Seeing the hero as something that is outside of the normal units is a mistake, it's part of the normal tactical and strategic layer. It's not that an army gets stronger because of the hero, the army is normal because of it's hero and the game is (or at least should be) balanced around it, an army without a hero is simply less effective than normal and will most likely lack features that are necessary to keep up with other armies.

That would only be the case if every neutral stack has a hero as well. In the original MoM, it's normal to not have a hero in an army, especially at the start, but the neutrals aren't well balanced at all and are literally random, so there's that. When compared to neutrals in basically every such game I can think of, an army is always stronger because of the hero, I almost never feel on equal footing with the neutrals.

 

[Lord of Riva]

Seeing the hero as something that is outside of the normal units is a mistake, it's part of the normal tactical and strategic layer. It's not that an army gets stronger because of the hero, the army is normal because of it's hero and the game is (or at least should be) balanced around it, an army without a hero is simply less effective than normal and will most likely lack features that are necessary to keep up with other armies.

That would only be the case if every neutral stack has a hero as well. In the original MoM, it's normal to not have a hero in an army, especially at the start, but the neutrals aren't well balanced at all and are literally random, so there's that. When compared to neutrals in basically every such game I can think of, an army is always stronger because of the hero, I almost never feel on equal footing with the neutrals.

Yes, the focus is not on the neutral armies, they are there to boost the hero (and hinder them somewhat with occasional chip damage if you are stupid) so the focus is PVP not PVE.