Thread 723583264

>no one talks about this on /v/
proof that it's a good game

It's an okay game. HOWEVER the fact that the only custom scenario maps are in the (extremely short) campaign is an atrocity. I understand shifting the focus to random map generation slop because of more MP focus, but come the fuck on, even AoW 3 had stuff like Dragon Throne.

>>723583264 (OP)
Diplomacy is shit, world interactions are also shit.
You can't sink provinces/raise mountains? What the hell?
Also not a fan of the classes thing. I don't want my ruler to be a warrior, I want him to buff his units by simply existing.

>>723583264 (OP)
i havent boughted it yet, but i enjoyed Planetfall a lot, underrated game in the series in my opinion

>B-BUT IS NOT F-FANTASY, MUH ELVES! MUH DRAGONS!

it drastically improved the combat and you can customize normal units with equipment, not just heroes, its pretty cool

>>723583758
>I want him to buff his units by simply existing.
Pick monarchy, +10% more damage to everyone for free, as long as your ruler fights with them. I actually kinda like the class thing in the latest update because it lets me make an edgy civilization that only has warlocks, and every warlock has 2 free zombies in the battle.

>>723583264 (OP)
preaty good , we like it in /vst/

>>723583908
Given how useful suicide units are against the AI, I always love having a necromancer about.

I have mixed feelings about race being purely cosmetic. Sure, you can play mole men without having to worry about them being less effective for your strategy, but it just heel a little hollow

It is a good game but age of wonder 3 was better.

>>723583264 (OP)
Love it. Waiting for cheaper DLC and more rules for games.
>set respawning infestations on non occupied regions
>realm of undeath world trait, non kingdom units respawn when they die in combat as undead
>survive the building end times
Ill make Warcraft 3s sequel myself.

>>723584171
When I played the game I just made a bunch of custom factions and gave each race some fitting passives
It's pretty fun as a sandbox/RP enabler if you're autistic about some fantasy setting or just have some creativity

>>723584171
Maybe Im just use to mods, but didnt they change this so they have base stats a while ago? At any rate there is at least a mod that does that and I wouldnt play without it.

>>723584218
I do like the elite units being more impactful and the unit mods are great, but the production limiter really screws the early game if you're not summoning.

>>723584218
I certainly didn't auto-resolve as much in AoW3. I had fun in the tactical battles then.

>start playing the game
>make a custom faction
>nature based
>just pick nature books
>do the same with an arcane based race
>just arcane books
I guess you'll have to pick other element tomes when you get a grasp of the game and know some builds right?

>>723583264 (OP)
its fun for a couple of hours. Then you realize every game feels and plays out the same

I wish the sales for it weren't so abysmal. Even on sale they want you to pay full game prices for each of the season passes.

>>723584481
Yeah, Astral and Shadow are two of the most valuable affinities so you'll most likely want to mix some in. Plus there's like 1-2 mediocre Astral tomes, whereas Nature and Chaos can be super situational.

>>723584452
I think units were a lot squishier in AoW3 (and losing models didn't reduce damage), so even if your army is way stronger one of your archer units can just get sniped. It needed a human hand to not take too many loses.

>>723584812
Almost every unit having 3 melee attacks caused a hell of a lot of damage if you couldn't one shot or flank a unit, since they could use all their actions retaliating. Combined with the AI being an asshole, chances are it would suicide charge all its units into the most vulnerable target, tactics be damned.

I never played any of the age of wonder games despite liking civilization
give me a quick rundown on the series /v/

>>723584484
A problem with all contemporary 4X titles.

>>723583758
>I don't want my ruler to be a warrior, I want him to buff his units by simply existing.
so pick the appropriate class
ritualist or battlesaint focusing on the cleric/buffing side
pick up the non-class specific skills that also buff your units on the top left corner of the skills screen

>>723585253
Also retaliations eating up your actions for the next turn means whoever they target will be sitting ducks if you don't win the battle on your next turn

If it was a good game /v/ would be pissing its collective pants about it being "overrated"

>>723585964
that only happens when a critical mass likes it, making insecure faggots who also like it worried that they're being plebs for holding a mainstream opinion.

>>723583935
it's hilarious how much better a board /vst/ is than /v/

>>723584484
This is correct. The game is very shallow and has no depth to it. Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle. Utterly boring to play as a result past the first few hours.

>>723583264 (OP)
The only good AoW game is 1.

>>723584484
I think that's a problem with the diplomacy being shit.
It's hard to get involved in the story of your current campaign when diplomacy boils down to 'I hate/love you' and 'I know we're allied and you're allied with this guy who's across the map from us, but I just started a war for no reason :3c '
There's nothing there.

...there was an Age of Wonders 2 and 3?

>>723587036
Do you fucking live under a rock?

>>723586818
chill your tits mr AI

>>723583264 (OP)
Is this series actually worth getting into? It always seemed like a cheapo version of Civilization or something.

>>723586848
theres nothing AoW1 does better than Shadow Magic

>>723587147
No I just ignore most modern videogames because 99.99% of them are shit.

>>723587259
The campaign is better.

>>723587202
Every game is the same. There is no real variance in strategy or build paths, it's just surface level paint over the exact same game every time you play. Fine if you can stomach such drivel, but don't pretend this game is anything but what it is. Only the most tasteless, brain dead autists could enjoy playing this game over and over, since it is so repetitive and dull. Just about any other game in this genre is a better game to play, including this series own predecessors.

I prefer the fixed factions from HOMM. There is a certain level of faction pride that is missing with all these randomly generated ones.
Also no city screens with associated city theme is fucking lame too. You just pick little card icons instead of seeing it get actually built.
Diplomacy is shit. Allies do absolutely nothing. No spy / diplomat units.

>>723587259
The campaign in AoW1 is significantly superior to the campaign in Shadow Magic. I still have no idea why they never replicated that in the sequels, having multiple paths you could go down leading to the climactic battle in the Valley Of Wonders is still unmatched.

>>723587656
I don't know wtf you are talking about. My archer rats play differently form my diplo samurais.

>>723584452
Also the music, AoW3 had AMAZING music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCmalLBFzEs
Clearing a battle with minimal losses while this play was simply glorious.

>>723587223
They're not all that similar. This is a fantasy faction creator and the turn based combat happens on a separate map.

>>723583264 (OP)
So good you can't actually tell me what's good about it.

any tips for a beginner?
I'm playing on super ez mode and I want to get into harder modes
maybe you got some must have tips?

>>723590343
Just have a unit you want to build around.

Is there a game with campaign similar to AoW1? Still the best

>>723590839
Campaigns are poorly written short novels for people who don't actually enjoy the gameplay.

>>723591246
You didn't play AoW1, did you? Choices you made in the campaign affected which mission you play with which races etc.

>>723591324
That's cool, was the story better than a basic fantasy novel? And no, I didn't play it. This is true for 99.9% of video games.

>>723591962
It's a head above a standard fantasy novel but it's still classic fantasy so if you have revulsion to it, you won't really enjoy the story itself that much. Plus gameplay-wise AoW1 is the most breakable out of all the AoW games, you can solo late-game missions with your hero if you know which abilities to pick. That's actually one of the things I enjoy about AoW4 as well, you can make your own OCdonutsteel dude to play the campaign with.

>>723590482
can I build around any unit or just some specific good ones?

>>723590343
Have you played HoMM series? The gist of the early-game is the same: the one who kills the neutral armies faster and gets the most out of all the resource piles gets the advantage. Basically just learn how the AI handles different units in autoresolve. For example, dark culture's warriors are extremely squishy shock units and will die on you because AI will send them all in like a retard. It means you'll bleed troops in fights with neutral armies really quickly. If you opt to pick some meaty summon from your first tome (phantom warriors are the classic choice because of phys resist), it will serve as your frontline and you'll quickly notice that autoresolves go in your favor. Then just build your army and tome collection from there.

>>723583264 (OP)
The race building is nice, but it lacks the campaign depth of something like Stellaris or CK2/3. I like it though worth the money, but they need to do what Stell does with DLC adding political systems/events.

>>723583264 (OP)
I like it.
I'm actually playing it right now.

>>723592409
>start with arcane book)
>see phantom warriors
>think they're worse than my base warriors and not worth the investiment
>realize late game that I have lots of skills that enhance summoned units
man I still have a lot to learn

>>723592163
You can literally make any unit good. Pick a unit you like the play style of and just build around that.
>like the afflictor unit
>so pick that tome to get that unit as quick as possible, start making them so you can start levelling them quickly
>pick tomes that increase the effectiveness of ranged units and poisons
>pick racial traits that do stuff like extend range, let them move out of combat without triggering an opportunity attack so they can get out of melee easily and generally play in a fashion that lets you exploit that you are mainly ranged like having shield units whos only purpose is to hold enemies and nothing else so you dont need to invest in any tomes or spells on them
>by the end of the game you delete anything that has mere weakness to poison, and everything else just gets smacked with a lot of debuffs
You can make anything work, its part of why the game is so good.

>>723593742
that sounds rad as fuck
I was thinking about making an animal army somehow
I'll look into animal perks

>>723593586
It's always good to have a few summons in your book since you can use them to quickly reinforce armies far away from home.

>>723593586
A summon in your starting tome allows you to save time and trigger more fights/gather more resources quicker
>main ruler army moves along the road
>a neutral army is 3 hexes away from the road
>summon a creature adjacent to the neutral army and fight
>hero army is pulled into the fight
>after you win pick up resources with the summon
>save move points and go further along the road

>>723594220
Funny that was literally my last run
>primal, wolf aspect race(youll basically not use any of the units from their roster, you just want the wolf aspect for being able to summon a tanky wolf in battles)
>take rapid evolution tome(makes units that evolve level up faster and have more health etc, most tier 1 units like spiders and warthogs evolve)
>spam slither hatchlings from the evolution tome (animal skirmish unit that when evolved turns into a rather strong unit)
>also take tome that gives wildspeaker(a support unit that summons a random animal in combat and has a nutty buff ability that can only be used on animals, since youre only using animals this is the only support unit you really need)
>use enchantments that do stuff like "when standing next to an animal you have +10% more crit chance" etc
>since animals are low maintenance trait you can just spam them, but youll want to save mana for later so dont just apply a bunch of enchantments yet as with the amount of disposable units you have you would just burn through mana. Expect them to die a lot but they are easily replaced and the rapid evolution tome means they can be levelled up quickly agian
>run these till you get the tome of supergrowth that lets you make units larger and tankier
>also lets you summon tier 4 animals based on where you cast the spell
>go to forest and spam the white wolf summon spell with all that mana you have accumulated
>now have an army of giant white wolves that all do an aoe weaken spell and slithers that do ranged attacks that poison and can hold their own in melee, with one wildspeaker per army to aoe buff any animal unit with a stupid strong ability

You dont need to use the wolf like I did, you can do this with any animal.

>>723583264 (OP)
I wish it was more "paradoxy" like eu4 or ck2 instead of being a civlike; in the sense of the traits of your race/culture/faith/leader being more impactful on how you play the game and "immersion" as a whole. Idk as it is it feels too "arcadey" for my liking.

>>723595235
>>723595379
>>723595604
Thanks lads I'm browsing through the tomes and see what I'd like to focus on

I miss the original Age of Wonders.

>>723594220
i recommend making a race with elephant riders then spam elephants with greater summon animal it's really funny

>>723583264 (OP)
To be honest my experience of it is Planetfall's a better game. I wish AoW4 was better since they keep expanding it but even the flavor is kind of lackluster with it

>>723586223
/vst/ actually seems functional and decent, unlike /vrpg/ which is an absolute reeking shithole. It's a bummer because RPGs are my favorite genre and all congregations of RPG gamists are fucking terrible

>>723601598
I couldn't make a sexy female leader in Planetfall. Discarded.

>>723594220
Evolution builds are pretty fun. One of the earliest one I remember was doing an all lizards run with the dragon lord ruler + the tomes that came with its DLC. So it starts with wyverns and other pseudo dragons and by the end I had dragon armies running around

>>723583264 (OP)
I keep wanting to buy this at 50% off but then i look at the DLC list and get pissed off

>>723583264 (OP)
I had a lot of issues with this game. One of my bigger ones is that there'll be a camp in the corner of my vision with 2 units then I move my army to it and suddenly it's a 5 unit stack and my 90% overwhelming victory is now 20% because it has a t4 and 2 t3's in the camp now for some reason.

>>723601818
But you can make an 8 foot tall barefoot amazon with a fat ass and a focus on biochemical damage though

>>723601958
Not my fetish. A good game has options.

>>723583264 (OP)
>Human
>Male
>Reaver
>Champion
>Materium
Yup, it's gaming time

>>723601858
Honestly their DLC policy is pretty good, since they always release balance and mechanics changes in free updates that release alongside the DLC, so you still get an update even if you don't buy the DLC. The DLCs themselves are really just content packs and to be desu none of them are super amazing or must have compared to the base game content. I personally think the base game is well worth it and you shouldn't bother with the DLC unless you really like the game and want the specific content the DLC offers.

>>723601858
the DLC is very easy to pirate

Last game I played was age of wonders 1. I had fun with that one.

>>723603221
Reavers seem really cool but I can never stomach playing them long enough to get past their atrociously shit early game.

>>723603728
I'm clenching my goddamn ass and waiting for the base game to hit a Humble choice monthly bundle since Paradox always bundles their games and they've done it with Planetfall too. IT'S GONNA HAPPEN I FUCKING KNOW IT

I am waiting for Civ 5 Vox Populi 5.0 to come out of alpha

>>723603787
defeating your enemies with the power of friendship and this gun I found