Age of Wonders 4

[Skorpion]

Pretty sure Paradox wants to release "new bigger army stacks!!!!" in some future dlc.
Unfortunately they consistently gut games and release them in pieces as dlc content in every game they publish so why would AoW4 be any different from their business model?

The thing is the 6 squad size limit was introduced in AoW3, which was almost 10 years ago, for unknown reasons, so by now it's ingrained in Triump's design philosophy for their modern AoWs.

Good point. I admit Im a bit bitter because I loved the franchise but detest paradox's way of selling games in pieces. So I want to be hopeful for this game but I also know not to get hype because of that.

 

[Lacrymas]

I haven't seen much to get hyped about tbh. The only thing it has going for it is that it's a new entry in the AoW franchise.

 

[Raghar]

I really don't understand why they make certain changes to the series, like removal of map size selection

Because they created a map generator that needs certain size to generate interesting maps that wouldn't be oversaturated by resources.

or going from 8 units per squad to 6.

They thought when they would go from 24 units per side to 18 units per side, combat would become more tactical.

Why can't they just take what people liked

Because they don't know what smart people liked. They hear only normal population and whiners.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I really don't understand why they make certain changes to the series, like removal of map size selection or going from 8 units per squad to 6. Why can't they just take what people liked and add more things without removing/changing shit for no reason.

The decreased squad size probably makes sense from their point of view (easier to code, less resource use, no need to balance as much etc.), but yeah. I've always thought that it's hands down the biggest problems with post-SM entries and it's in direct conflict with how they design their games otherwise.

The map thing, though, sounds really pants on head retarded and a typical scenario of fighting problems that were created by themselves where there weren't any and the fighting is done by limp-wristed preschooler that was blindfolded for good measure.

The changes in vanilla AoW3 were hit and miss, but then they actually improved on them with patches and expansions and added new layers that made sense and were done without messing previous stuff up. Now they just seem to be completely in love with the idea of mixing shit up constantly and taking mechanics away at random while introducing some half-assed shite in their place at best and completely nothing at worst.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Wow, I hadn't seen gameplay videos of this yet and what the fuck happened with the map? Why does everything look so fucking garish and overbright? They've managed the incredible feat of having everything look very barebones and simplistic and yet cluttered and visually polluted at the same time. Impressive.

I liked AoW 3 well enough (with the expansions), was but never played Planetfall. Did it also look like this?

 

[Absinthe]

Smaller stack sizes made combat less tactical if anything. A bigger stack size makes it easier to insert utility role units into your stack and makes it more expensive to do a full T4 stack or whatever. The stack size problem is going to prove an issue, no doubt, considering AoW 4 is apparently trying to enable swarm playstyles, and while I have nothing against swarm, maneuvering multiple stacks in multiplayer is going to get ridiculous. I guess you can address that by creating some way to select multiple stacks and have them move or attack together as a form of simultaneous movement though, but something tells me that's not going to happen.

Also, if you want to improve tactical combat, you should probably contemplate improving the tactical map and how units interact with it, but that doesn't seem to be happening either.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I liked AoW 3 well enough (with the expansions), was but never played Planetfall. Did it also look like this?

I think strategic map looks much better here than it did in PF, where RMG rolls often produced utterly repulsive results (particularly with desert/ruin tilesets). Tactical combat visuals seem to be more or less on par, with two caveats: PF had horrible animations and 4 seems to have added a lot of qol stuff for clarity.

A bigger stack size makes it easier to insert units for utility roles into your stack

And it looks like this problem can only get worse here with some of the changes they're introducing, like archers needing to hit roll and apparently having no way of defending themselves in melee.

I guess you can address that by creating some way to select multiple stacks and have them move or attack together as a form of simultaneous movement though, but something tells me that's not going to happen.

There's sort of strategic map ZOC now when you initiate a fight and you can pick and choose your stacks from it to participate. A nice change, but seems purely qol. It's not gonna do much for swarm playstyle unless they introduce some mechanic that allows to bring more guize to combat than your non-swarming opponent.

 

[Absinthe]

Honestly I'm leery of AoW 4. It feels like they're doubling down on the kind of bland shit that made AoW 3 less fun on launch. No one liked "race as a collection of stat modifiers" and now they're turning it into "race as a totally meaningless skin", and they seem to be doing some kind of Planetfall districts shit too. It doesn't seem like it has a singleplayer campaign either. Pretty sure most of us wanted more of a return to AoW's roots with some innovations on top, and this shit isn't looking like it.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

They're clearly doubling down on the p-dox course so the old AoW ain't coming back.

I think sp campaign was confirmed, but it's 100% gonna be the same crap as PF - rmg with some presets. The best you can probably hope for is improving the narrative so that the player has slightest idea of what's going on and avoiding quests/writing like saving sexbots abused by evil men or visiting the grave of your pet or whatever.

 

[Lacrymas]

There is a singleplayer campaign, but it's like in PF - RMG with story moments. As for AoW4, yeah, like I said, I haven't seen a reason to be hyped up about it. I'll acquire it by some means when it comes out to test it and see if it's playable first of all. You never know with modern releases. And second of all, whether it plays as bland as it looks. It might need a bunch more time in the oven like AoW3.

 

[cvv]

I think sp campaign was confirmed, but it's 100% gonna be the same crap as PF - rmg with some presets.

IIRC they implemented RMG into campaign maps as a result of fan feedback. Somehow there are people out there who replay campaigns so they care about replayability at the expense of handcraftiness.

 

[Lacrymas]

RMG is the opposite of replayability in the context of a campaign because it makes all maps virtually identical. And the ones which aren't the same (Syndicate 2, Assembly 2) are unplayable and require refinement in order to be playable, which can't be done with RMG.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

IIRC they implemented RMG into campaign maps as a result of fan feedback. Somehow there are people out there who replay campaigns so they care about replayability at the expense of handcraftiness.

Sounds like an excuse/cope tbh. I have serious trouble believing someone took a look at both AoW3 dlc campaigns and the ones from PF and thought that the latter is an improvement in any way.

I'm not really butthurt much about campaigns, anyway. But taking away custom senarios and completely cutting off community from making them is peak decline.

 

[Absinthe]

RMG campaigns are only an improvement from the perspective of a developer looking to cut corners, and there is an easy excuse to do it because in AoW 3 the campaign was pretty unpopular. Unfortunately, they didn't realize the problem was that the initial campaign was lackluster, the AI's cheats made a lot of campaign scenarios boil down to needing to rush the enemy before he got super stacks up, and that AoW 3 had extraordinarily bad writing for the AoW series. This kind of unenjoyable experience has a way of discouraging people from playing the campaign, and poor writing that is out to treat the setting as a joke definitely convinces people to not give a fuck about your campaign story.

 

[Suicidal]

A lot of the things they've shown for AoW4 made me wary/disappointed but I'm still looking forward to it, because it's still more AoW and it still plays like AoW. But I am a bit sad that Triump seems to be obsessed with constantly changing shit instead of just sticking with things that worked. AoW:SM will probably forever remain the AoW game that was closest to perfection, but each game in the series has something that I wish they'd iterate on, instead of remove.

For me, the ideal AoW game would probably look like this:

Long story campaign with persistent progress from AoW1.
Large number of different races with significant differences between racial units from AoW2/SM.
Varied and powerful magic with stuff like combat spells, overland spells, persistent unit buffs from AoW1 and 2/SM.
Combat from AoW3 (3 basically perfected the series' combat. PF combat is slightly worse and also too different due to game being range-focused, AoW4 combat seems very similar to AoW3 with some ideas from PF. IMO, just stick with AoW3 combat)
City building from AoW3 (the way cities can absorb pretty much every map structure into themselves for various bonuses and special building options).
Race + class system from AoW3. Who said you can't have both different racial units AND class units? If the tome system from AoW4 just ends up being a more flexible class system, use that instead.
Unit upgrades from Planetfall.
QoL features like being able to re-fight shit in single player from the modern entries.

 

[Absinthe]

I'd like add "no DRM" to that list. The whole steam shit in AoW 3 (even for physical copies) unless you had the GOG version and then trying to force-funnel everyone through Triumph's online servers in order to access their own game (they relented on singleplayer after GOG told them off, but kept it for all multiplayer, even LAN modes) is incredibly asinine and blatantly DRM-walling access to parts of the game.

 

[Reality]

The 6 stack thing is okay for me

The main advantage is getting your 2nd army moving faster instead of waiting in own territory for the stack to finish especially considering the series has had no production overflow

It's also nice for consistency: in AoW 2/SM for some reason independents guarding treasure sites almost always appeared as 4 man stacks even though the player / main opponents used 8 stack .... AoW 3 and planetfall only used half stacks for basic stuff like gold mine / watchtower and was very good at giving 6 man to every medium and serious location -- important when you spend way more total playtime with them than the main cpus

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Just adjust defenders in the options, dude.

 

[Suicidal]

considering the series has had no production overflow

Isn't it a thing in PF? And in AoW3 too, I think.

 

[Reality]

PF yes, AoW 3 no*

* Aow 3 has no end of turn overflow but technically you can get mid turn overflow by clearing a treasure site .... Much easier with research than production and getting a bunch of low cost spells in a single turn that would need 1 full turn each otherwise is as easy as changing your current research before the battle with the sphinx temple or whatever

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Long story campaign with persistent progress from AoW1.
Large number of different races with significant differences between racial units from AoW2/SM.
Varied and powerful magic with stuff like combat spells, overland spells, persistent unit buffs from AoW1 and 2/SM.

Fabulously optimistic. This stuff ain't coming back.

Combat from AoW3 (3 basically perfected the series' combat. PF combat is slightly worse and also too different due to game being range-focused, AoW4 combat seems very similar to AoW3 with some ideas from PF. IMO, just stick with AoW3 combat)

Definitely agree. They didn't mess up PF's combat enough for it to be bad (and the contrast effect from combat in other 4X being offensively bad is still as strong as ever), but vast majority of the changes they made were more miss than hit (pun intended with rng making an unwelcome comeback). The two exceptions I'd definitely want to see ported to AoW4 are flying units actually flying and combat casting being separated from your leader.

 

[Suicidal]

Large number of different races with significant differences between racial units from AoW2/SM.

Fabulously optimistic. This stuff ain't coming back.

It's already kind of a thing with mods like Chivalrous Intentions. I was watching an AoW3 let's play the other day and the guy was using some mod that added 3 custom races. The problem with mods is that the modders are usually limited in what they can do based on what is already in the game and can only make new units and abilities similar to what already exists. They probably can't make something drastically different (for example, if the game doesn't have any possession mechanics already programmed in, they probably can't make a custom unit similar to the Incarnate from AoW1/2).

Triumph just needs to get off their asses and take the huge ass bestiary they've already created for the series and port them over to new entries. Or make something that works in a similar fashion since they're doing the whole culture thing now instead of races.

 

[Lacrymas]

Tbh, I prefer fewer but more varied factions. Go with 3 or 4 from the start, but they should be as different as possible from one another and have enough variety within each one so you don't feel like once you play a faction you've seen everything it has to offer. Factions in Gladius have like 20 units each without counting stationary defenses or buildings. Races in PF have like 8 (a scout, 2 that don't require research and 5 from research). They should also have different economic priorities and in some cases different resources. It makes no sense that the Assembly uses food like every other race in PF.

 

[Absinthe]

Age of Wonders 4 is going to be a "do not buy on launch" release, I reckon. Probably will end up having to wait for the first expansion to see if it's coming into its own.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

There was an AMA on reddit and I ain't reading all of that shit, but one of the first replies is someone from the dev team openly saying Stellaris was a huge inspiration. Who knew, right.

Also admitting that map editor doesn't even exist, so yeah, exactly same crap as PF and forget about having any actually well designed maps to have fun with.

Other than that saw confirmation about crafting not being in. Staple features dropped left and right yet again.

I now have 0 hope for this, tbh. Thanks for those promo events and being upfront, I guess.