Age of Wonders 4

[anvi]

AOW3 was ass at release too and needed DLCs to become ok. Even that never gave me as much fun as the original did.

 

[vota DC]

Aow3 with patches and without dlc was less bland and more fun already but It required much time and some fans were bored already, still was saved unlike blanderlord

 

[anvi]

If it's worse than AoW3 they should just quit. Work in retail.

 

[Raghar]

If it's worse than AoW3 they should just quit. Work in retail.

Why, there is always someone who would buy it. And then the vicious cycle woudl continue. They would believe theirs bad ideas were liked by public, and they would degrade AoW5 even further... Until it becomes a cell phone game.

 

[vota DC]

Patches introduced warcry for Orcs and gave butcher as T2 goblin polearm. Before every race had the same melee units (except unicorn phasing and orc cavalry having polearm), the only difference were ranged units, support units (goblin didn't work on machines at release),and the racial t3. Also zero differences in all classes units.

 

[HeroMarine]

I began playing AoW3 after all DLCs had been released and the game patched, so it was a great game for me from the start.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Cosmic events aren't in, either. I think from the extensive list of missing features and mechanics in PF, the two significant things brought back are underground layer and heroes having proper inventories. Otherwise, 4 takes even more stuff away. That price looks like a really poor deal right now.

 

[Raghar]

Morons are streaming AoW4 on Twitch.
https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive

Actually, TWO famous developers are streaming AoW4 on Twitch and showing theirs fresh new and original version of Diplomacy.
Theirs take on diplomacy is amazing and totally original never seen before. I'm not sure if it's because of the animation of two rulers drawn on each side of the screen facing each other, THEIRS CLOAKS ARE WAVING, or the number of choices on the screen is limited to most simple one.
It's amazing to see a player can get +50 relations for 150 gold, or +300 relations for 100 gold + 10 upkeep and the relations rises up in unspecified time. That's really well thought and complicated mechanism.

And it's not all. They can not only pay upkeep for rise relations, they can also pay upkeep to decrease relations. Possiblities are nearly endless. I only wonder what would happen when player would choose both.

In diplomacy, player sees enemy traits without need to spy for them or use complicated spell. Thus he can see if the enemy has a never surrender trait, thus player wouldn't have to waste money to bribe enemy to surrender. That's nifty.

Player can claim provinces up to 3 away from his territory. And BIG LARGE MOUNTAIN province counts as one province, thus player can use a mountain to speed up his claims.

Player can start proper diplomacy by creating a bond. Aka hugy hugy hugy actions.

 

[Raghar]

Also if you are thinking you are watching CK3 you are not alone, I had to check to be sure it's REALLY AoW4. Alas, they didn't make a mistake in naming theirs stream.

 

[Lacrymas]

Post links.

 

[Raghar]

Things are even worse, dire penguins are on ships. They build ships.
Negotiation: They are diplomats they wanna more treaties.
Treaty one: bond.
Treaty two: Open borders.
Treaty three: Give me your money.

 

[anvi]

Which game let you trade your map with other players? Original Civilization? I always wished I could do stuff like that in AoW.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Things are even worse, dire penguins are on ships. They build ships.

Wait, wat, they cut out swimming units, too?

 

[Raghar]

Things are even worse, dire penguins are on ships. They build ships.

Wait, wat, they cut out swimming units, too?

They are only month before release date. Of course they can't have all animation done, look these units are swimming just fine when you look at theirs portrait, they just don't show as a correct model on tactical map.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I fast forwarded through that last stream and, since it has been officially confirmed that this is still rmg-only, want to mention the maps again. Like I said, the overall fidelity and texture work seems nicely improved, but other than that it just looks almost 100% like PF rmg. What I mostly mean by this is that it just tends to generate swaths of flat, featureless terrain with almost nothing on it and it looks plain (pun intended) horrible. AoW3 rmg had its quirks, but it never did ridiculous shit like that and 8-9/10 seeds gave you an enjoyable experience, so what the hell has happened here?

The maps just look like something taken out of an extremely vanilla 4X not focused on combat/army building/rpg elements with plain terrain dotted with completely random resources and neutrals standing on them. This does not fit AoW game at all, the maps should instill a sense of adventure and conquest, not to mention they should look at least somewhat interesting/exciting. And they dunked on it even more, taking structure unlocks away on top of decline that was already there in PF (way less climate/terraforming and so on).

 

[dsndo]

Yeah the maps look like a Clash of Clans style mobile game. Landmarks interspersed at random intervals with no regard for the surrounding terrain, the terrain itself has no natural cohesion. Looks like a catan game where tiles are randomly assembled together. The map that's supposed to be cleaved in half by some cataclysm just has flat and bland black desolation tiles running down the middle, the lava map has lava oceans adjacent to lush green meadows. It's jarring.

 

[dsndo]

Tomes

 

[Lacrymas]

Yeah the maps look like a Clash of Clans style mobile game. Landmarks interspersed at random intervals with no regard for the surrounding terrain, the terrain itself has no natural cohesion. Looks like a catan game where tiles are randomly assembled together. The map that's supposed to be cleaved in half by some cataclysm just has flat and bland black desolation tiles running down the middle, the lava map has lava oceans adjacent to lush green meadows. It's jarring.

Exactly like in PF. This RMG is the worst I've ever seen.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

These are examples of what I'm talking about from the latest stream.

Spoiler

Wtf is this shit? This is not acceptable.

In AoW3 the biome placement was sometimes quite jarring and particularly on island maps your starting position sometimes urged you to restart after a couple of turns, but it was really like 1 time out of 10 and other then that it was perfectly fine. In PF I re-rolled constantly, because the game would drop me in the middle of flat desert/arid sectors that looked like crap and there was fuck all interesting to do, but at least you had one landmark, npc faction and usually some useful drops to get. Here it looks like there's nothing bar those ore/farm nodes that suggest what type of SECTOR!!! you should choose (because why have your own, at least slightly unique growth mechanic, it's FOOD now) and that's literally it. At least the city development looks much better than PF, but it's not gonna save the game when maps look and play like that.

 

[KateMicucci]

I was a fan of AOW 1 and 2, but then I found Dominions, which was so superior as a fantasy wargame that AOW4 would really have to step it up to make me take interest.

 

[Skorpion]

Spellforce: Conquest of Eo looks 10 times better on the overland map than this blandness.
Pretty sure they are a much smaller dev team as well but not sure how many people paradox is throwing at aow4.
My mild excitement about this game (aow3 was decent after the dlcs and patches etc) is pretty much gone at this point

 

[Lacrymas]

Conquest of Eo has a handcrafted map, so the comparison isn't entirely fair. But yeah, the RMG in this and in PF is disgusting. Literally the worst I've ever seen.

 

[Suicidal]

Mods will fix it

Spoiler

 

[Lacrymas]

Mods will fix it

Spoiler

If the modding situation is the same as with PF, mods won't fix it, let me tell you.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Conquest of Eo has a handcrafted map, so the comparison isn't entirely fair.

And the reason stopping them from introducing a simple editor and making a few campaign maps with it plus releasing it to teh ppl, which would instantly incline the game a couple-fold with minimum effort is :itisamystery: