Age of Wonders 4

[Dr1f7]

shadow magic looks great

new game looks shit. modern devs have no taste

 

[Blutwurstritter]

It's bad and literally unplayable in both single and multiplayer/PvP due to horrendous balance issues.

Single player is not perfect, but certainly not unplayable. None of the AoW games are particularly well-balanced, not that it matters much for the single player experience. I am rather impressed how "unbroken" the game is, given the ruler options and the tome system. This could have turned easily into a much bigger mess.

The part about multiplayer seems to be true, the forum is full of complaints about it. Apparently it runs horribly and is unstable. Anyone interested in MP should probably avoid it, or make sure to check the forum first. There are also already a couple of balance mods from the mp community, but I haven't checked them out. It seems that basic properties for balance can be modded fairly easily.

 

[Lacrymas]

Unless they heavily overhauled and improved the AI, singleplayer is still unplayable.

 

[anvi]

Is it the same engine as aow3?

 

[adddeed]

It is yes. I think AoW Planetfall is the best looking of the 3D titles.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

I am afraid we will never get an improved version of AoW III, at least not by Triumph. A dev basically stated that the games are not made explicitly to appeal to fans of the predecessors, but are supposed to be their own thing.

"It is quite literally what we've done with AoW, 2, SM, 3 and Planetfall. Each title was it's own unique game that diverted from it's predecessor and allowed both to exist within in the same space."

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/aow-4-vs-aow-iii.1706930/post-29918828

 

[Axioms]

My god those posts by that one infamous Triumph guy are wild. Somebody lock him away in prison so his bad ideas don't spread.

 

[Dr1f7]

"It is quite literally what we've done with AoW, 2, SM, 3 and Planetfall. Each title was it's own unique game that diverted from it's predecessor and allowed both to exist within in the same space."

translation: "we want more money so we're taking our established fans for granted and changing a bunch of shit also u want archons that'll be $20 + tip lol"

 

[cvv]

Oh yea, AoW, 2, SM, 3 and Planetfall are completely unique, totally unrelated, they're literally ranging from an RTS to a shooter, a survival game, a football manager and a hentai fapping assistant.

What a load of bull, jesus.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

a hentai fapping assistant.

Wait what? Assistant?

 

[Fedora Master]

What fans?

 

[Blutwurstritter]

Oh yea, AoW, 2, SM, 3 and Planetfall are completely unique, totally unrelated, they're literally ranging from an RTS to a shooter, a survival game, a football manager and a hentai fapping assistant.

What a load of bull, jesus.

I didn't want to copy the whole thread, so the quote that I gave sounds more unreasonable than it is within the context of the discussion.

There is a interesting answer to a question about the goals and audience AoW4 is aiming for. Also a tidbit about AoWIII requiring a private investor to be released. But anyone interested can read it on their own,
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/aow-4-vs-aow-iii.1706930/post-29920668


The next dlc also comes with a free patch, and it seems that the hero skills got a large rework. There are now proper skill trees and hero classes, and tomes do no longer include hero skills. The governor stuff also got reworked and heroes can unlock larger economical boni by earning renown, which is obtained by full filling conditions. The skill tree stuff is shown in the dlc dev steam at ~35:30.

https://www.youtube.com/live/cWjtLmVqxs0?si=4H4VOmBywwjjl7MQ&t=2127

 

[Lacrymas]

Even ignoring the massive balance issues, this game is just bland and has no identity. Everything is just too free, so there's never creativity involved in making a faction, the best things are simply the best always.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

What fans?

Exclusive aficionados, to be precise.

 

[Raghar]

What fans?

People who pay money for theirs game, charming people: fanboys who have money.

 

[Fedora Master]

The people who enjoyed the older AoW games surely can't be fans of this one, so the only people left are Reddit zoomers who don't know any better.

 

[anvi]

Original and Shadow Magic is fun. I have a huge list of feedback/rants for the devs but not sure I care enough to send it.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I didn't want to copy the whole thread, so the quote that I gave sounds more unreasonable than it is within the context of the discussion.

There is a interesting answer to a question about the goals and audience AoW4 is aiming for. Also a tidbit about AoWIII requiring a private investor to be released. But anyone interested can read it on their own,
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/aow-4-vs-aow-iii.1706930/post-29920668


The next dlc also comes with a free patch, and it seems that the hero skills got a large rework. There are now proper skill trees and hero classes, and tomes do no longer include hero skills. The governor stuff also got reworked and heroes can unlock larger economical boni by earning renown, which is obtained by full filling conditions. The skill tree stuff is shown in the dlc dev steam at ~35:30.

https://www.youtube.com/live/cWjtLmVqxs0?si=4H4VOmBywwjjl7MQ&t=2127

So they even adopted the "completely replacing a mechanic with another one at random intervals long after game's release" from paradox now, huh? Not very subtle.

Also tried reading that linked rant. Planetfall's aim was to ”expand their audience by providing a game developed for hardcore strategy gamer"?? Literally what the fuck is he on about.

AoW3 was a fluke and these people have no clue. The entire secret behind 4's success was dropping series' identity and shoving cuckadox and nuciv in its place. Yaaaay, good for you, but you can feck off now.

 

[Galdred]

Even ignoring the massive balance issues, this game is just bland and has no identity. Everything is just too free, so there's never creativity involved in making a faction, the best things are simply the best always.

But is it that worse than custom factions in Master of Orion 2?
I found the dragon ruler early game pretty cool, and different enough from the other archetypes, but what I disliked was to have to ferry units by groups of 3 stacks of 6 for the end game...
That made battles really tedious in the second half of the game, when stacks were already much lower to begin with (because victory was already almost secured).

Total War suffers from this issue too, but it felt much worse in AoW4.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

The people who enjoyed the older AoW games surely can't be fans of this one, so the only people left are Reddit zoomers who don't know any better.

Most of the old AoW games (AoW, AOW2, Shadow Magic) had flaws IN SPADES as well.
Glacial pacing with combat, for instance. Not to mention some extremely ugly art when it came to specific units.

While it's correct to point the problems of the last iterations in the series (3 and 4), some of you being nostalgic farts just for the sake of it are not helping making this a productive conversation.

shadow magic looks great

Yeah, too bad the scenery was just a portion of the art.

 

[Dvd22]

The next dlc also comes with a free patch, and it seems that the hero skills got a large rework. There are now proper skill trees and hero classes, and tomes do no longer include hero skills. The governor stuff also got reworked and heroes can unlock larger economical boni by earning renown, which is obtained by full filling conditions. The skill tree stuff is shown in the dlc dev steam at ~35:30.

Wow, so now every hero of the same class will have the same pool of skills? At least before the heroes of different players had different skills from the tomes, making them more thematic. The only difference that remains if true is the mayor buffs. And many of the hero skills contained in the tomes were minor enchantments buffs in skill form that the heroes were unable to get otherwise, like lightning blades.

Making the heroes more generic and samey and decoupling them from the rest of the faction seems like a terrible idea. Even if they slap a more bigger common skill tree to compensate. They are leaning towards what the game is most criticized for, being generic and lacking cohesion.

 

[Fedora Master]

Most of the old AoW games (AoW, AOW2, Shadow Magic) had flaws IN SPADES as well.

And instead of iterating and fixing they just made a different game entirely

 

[Blutwurstritter]

The next dlc also comes with a free patch, and it seems that the hero skills got a large rework. There are now proper skill trees and hero classes, and tomes do no longer include hero skills. The governor stuff also got reworked and heroes can unlock larger economical boni by earning renown, which is obtained by full filling conditions. The skill tree stuff is shown in the dlc dev steam at ~35:30.

Wow, so now every hero of the same class will have the same pool of skills? At least before the heroes of different players had different skills from the tomes, making them more thematic. The only difference that remains if true is the mayor buffs. And many of the hero skills contained in the tomes were minor enchantments buffs in skill form that the heroes were unable to get otherwise, like lightning blades.

Making the heroes more generic and samey and decoupling them from the rest of the faction seems like a terrible idea. Even if they slap a more bigger common skill tree to compensate. They are leaning towards what the game is most criticized for, being generic and lacking cohesion.

Tomes seem still to matter somewhat by means of affinity points. Your empires affinity points apparently unlock affinity skill slots, which presumably contain skills that were formerly part of the tomes. It is shown shortly in the video around the 1:29:00 mark. But the information available right now is pretty sparse, I'd wait for the release with a proper change log to make up my mind about it.

https://www.youtube.com/live/cWjtLmVqxs0?si=3_L8Uy7AzZsziLaT&t=5334

 

[Dr1f7]

Most of the old AoW games (AoW, AOW2, Shadow Magic) had flaws IN SPADES as well.

And instead of iterating and fixing they just made a different game entirely

only flaw with shadow magic is that the ai is really dumb
i'd pay full new game price + tip for shadow magic ai patch

 

[Axioms]

There's a reason Triumph never took off. You should get the game you have to a 9/10 before running off to make an essentially entirely different game. Shadow Magic with some improved UI, better combat pacing, cleaning up the trashier art assets, performance optimizations and a half decent AI would easily by a 9/10 game.

And look, AoW4 isn't total trash. The Tome system is a great idea. Integrating it in a slightly different way into Shadow Magic would be a 10/10 game. Either finding Tomes randomly as loot to mix things up while having the old advancement system or having some sort of Tome points system but the Tomes have tighter requirements based on the Tomes you already have and your race/wizard or w/e.

Instead they went full CK3 cultures/Stellaris freeform trash.