Thread 2094459

Archon Prophecy next month? Anyone excited? Giant Kings ruled

>>2094459 (OP)
More story content, so I might actually play it for longer than have a match.

I still haven't played Giants. I heard the balance was fucked. Is it fixed?

>>2094498
The only real balance problems were with the Giant Kings themselves, who could casually hit a 200 damage area attack without even min-maxing. Also the rock-throw was stupid good. They toned that down a fair ways and they now comfortably go toe-to-toe with Dragon Lords as the joint strongest rulers. DL have ridiculous early-game clearing and some potent mid-late game builds while GK have a slower start but hit the biggest late-game numbers for any ruler very easily. Otherwise nothing else was particularly busted for once and the tomes they added/overhauled are doing a lot to make some sidelined builds/playstyles actually fun - such as underground empires.

I'm looking forward to the necromancy buffs and new culture in the next update/expansion though, they seem interesting at least.

massive patch notes https://steamcommunity.com/app/1669000/discussions/2/571510418608161579/

they fucking did it

>>2094984
A ton of good changes and I like how the new magic classes work but where the fuck is the dedicated summoner class
We got 3 kinds of demons, all the astral shit, and a bunch of other random magic origin stuff but no class that actually focuses on any of them

Might pirate it again, game even now is still shallow as fuck.

>>2094984
This is actually super cool. Love to see them lean more into the roleplaying aspect of the game instead of just lol everything's random all the time.

A lot of the new stuff is pretty cool but the new society trait looks like complete ass.

>Play beta
Play my Ice Elementalist Wizard Lizard King again
>Toll of Seasons Winter happens
>Win against crisis army
>Anticipate Uber Ice gaming
>Fey Fissures are bugged so I can't enter them

>>2095212
I haven't played in a little bit so correct me if im wrong but i thought either mage or ritualist rulers had buffs for them in the tree.

>>2095420
It might be broken as hell depending how it works in game.
>Turn 20 or whatever playing a heavy gold focused build
>Doomp all your gold into buying a bunch of buildings that give 100 knowledge each.

We finally >>2094984
have flaws again! Now we can min-max the fantasy expy without compromises

>>2096085
it's just one point though

i'm mroe excited about roleplaying my dwarves with wizard hats without needing to do it manually in game

i'm just glad i'm not autistic enough to need to make a full hero lineup for my entire pantheon

>>2095953
this is about the recent changes, summons are all over the place

but they also suck so i don't care, they'd need to improve them for me to care

>>2096261
>i'm just glad i'm not autistic enough to need to make a full hero lineup for my entire pantheon
Ahaha, yeah. Who would even do something like that? Certainly not me hahaha.

Unless they add a hard limit to the number of heroes and tomes this game will always be garbage. The way now heroes just spawn uncontrollably forever is horrible.

As usual, they tried to balance the systems around the 6 retards that play MP trying to turn it into the next DOTA and completely killed the game.

>>2096625
The fact that so many single player games still base their balance around MP concerns when they are a tiny, tiny fraction of the playerbase is truly irritating. The same thing happens in Total War:Warhammer, which is the entire reason ranged foot lords are so utterly useless, because they were "too good" in MP so they got nerfed to oblivion and now they are worthless compared to melee or casters.

>>2096625
Not sure why you're so convinced that not limiting the amount of heroes and tomes is a multiplayer thing (nevermind the completely retarded DOTA comparison) when it only affects singleplayer. Multiplayer games don't last 200 turns for this to become an actual issue, and endlessly spamming heroes is something that's only viable for the AI to begin with. The AI gets basically unlimited heroes (and free items to equip them with) because they'd be dead in the water after just a few fights if they didn't.

>>2096601
okay, i guess i might do it too, but i'm not compelled to do so immediately, i'll do it over time as i replay those rulers

anyway, i like the tome path feature too, if only to remind myself what my idea was for that ruler's tomes, so now it's time for a "you may only choose dual tomes" run

>>2096625
>>2096669
balancing for multiplayer is always the correct choice because it results in what can be referred to as some sort of balance

it's the same thing as why balancing for the top 1% of players is also always the correct choice

Elementalist and ritualist feel way weaker now. They have basically nothing going for them.

Spellblade is way stronger for pure magic nuking than elementalist. Makes me wonder how it'll be nerfed itself.

I'm pretty sure a level 10 ritualist hero will be on par with a tier 3 support unit at best. Maybe even less than on par. The healing they put out is pathetic.

>>2096959
we found the mp sweat

so wait, zeal's condemned double damage to the 2 or 4 points it does was changed to +10% to all damage done to a condemned unit? and people complain that's weaker?

>>2097069
cope, i literally haven't even tried mp in 4, last time in this series was one match in 3 when 3 was new

How do you deal with Umbral Dwellings in the early game? I build up a decent force and start to enter the Gloom, but the combination of the malady and the frequent spawning of invading forces means that all my stacks are below half health by the time I reach the dwelling. Then I have to leave and re-heal and there's another invading force and the cycle repeats. Are you just supposed to not attack the dwelling until you get void stones and craft immunity items?

>>2096959
>Balancing for multiplayer is always the correct choice
No it isn't, especially in games where the singleplayer experience and multiplayer experience is a completely different entity.

>>2097356
early game it’s easier to hold them at the portals rather than push through them
build up a defensive perimeter until you can actually support an invasion force

>>2094459 (OP)
While I appreciate not having to spam spells at every unit individually like in the old games, I wish unit enchantments weren't all-or-nothing. I don't need the tier 1 chaff I'm sending with my dragon king to serve as ablative HP and flanking prevention to pay upkeep for weapon enchantments, and I'm fighting at two fronts, and while searing weapons are nice against undead, they are actually a debuff for the forces fighting the fire resistant demons my other enemy uses.

I must admit, my enthusiasm for this DLC is hampered by the fact that the new culture seems to be strongly non-cavalry oriented. How many of their units can even wind up as cavalry if you take appropriate traits?

I want an expansion that somehow justifies Michiel van den Bos flexing his UT99 muscles again

>>2097645
I think literally just the supports

>>2097358
the only games like that are the games where they deliberately balance sp and mp separately

>>2094459 (OP)
real ones remember when they were called hymens

>>2097709
not the same thing

whats the best mystic subclass?

>>2098965
Probably Potential but IMO they're all good.

>>2098965
i like summoning

>>2098965
Potential is straight up OP in the late game, all spells are useful so there's no wasted research

>>2094459 (OP)
is the single player story campaigns worth palying?

>>2099494
I'd say so. It's really barebones compared to the campaigns of the older games and not particularly well-written IMO, but if you're interested in the game the story maps are at least worth a playthrough. They provide a decent challenge if nothing else.

I definitely wouldn't buy the game just for the story campaign though.

>>2099494
Not really, no. They completely phoned it in and the big, story rich campaigns of the previous three entries are nowhere to be found in 4.

Good gof! Now I have to go through all my custom factions and add city names, tome paths and heroes tot hem. This will take weeks!

>>2099522
>>2099620
>barebones compared to the campaigns of the older games
>big, story rich campaigns of the previous three entries
90% of the "story" in previous games was a short narration before and after each mission and the occasional pop-up.
I don't know what alternate fucking dimension you people come from but please share whatever versions of the games you have that lives up to your hype

>>2099921
They probably just mean narrative choices and branching paths. That doesn't exist in this one. I think the story is fine. You can play your own characters in it which is neat, but it does limit the story narratively, because each mission has to be written in a way that a new completely different character can be the main character in it, so there isn't a lot of connectivity between missions outside of the overarching plot.

>>2099470
>all spells are useful
Monstrous Rebirth.

>>2100058
The whole point of Potential is that you can turn your spells into money, and while you normally have to cast the spells to charge it up there's a spell that allows you to build charge passively.

>>2099494
Like other anon said, this game I would not buy for the story campaign.
It's there and it's more basic than the previous games
I didn't mind playing it since it's still an escalating list of challenges and seeing old characters from previous games has still been fun
>thought Grexolis was a nightmare i barely edged out with a victory
>Arcalot proved to be an even bigger ball buster of a map
>concern they're going to outdo that as well with what story maps may come with this DLC

Unfortunately, the very first AoW still has the best thematically-designed campaign.

i think the story maps + sppecialty scenarios you can place on any map are more than enough narrative content personally. i don't really play with them on usually because i like making my own custom maps with custom scenarios and factions, but the option is there

>>2100138
That's definitely true, though I think 3's campaign is quite good as well. The only issue is that most maps pretty much force you to rush or get rolled.

>>2100138
I'm so sad I didn't discover the series until I was in university. When I was a kid I played the shit out of Disciples 2 over and over again, so I would have loved this. I think I only played them when everyone was talking about 3 being announced.

>>2100138
Yeah, it does. It still baffles me that companies never manage to iterate and improve on things that were an absolute success in their previous efforts.

>>2100167
I personally feel some of 3's maps are too open, making chokepoints difficult to establish. The caverns and depths also suffer from this. AoW 1's underground could be downright claustrophobic at times. Having open maps feeds into the need to rush, or get overwhelmed.
Units always dealing a minimum of 1 damage (unless completely immune to the damage type) also makes some of the more fragile troops difficult to use, especially when fighting ranged enemies.

>>2100570
They've said the reason they didn't focus as much on the campaign in 4 was that their data shows that most people didn't play or complete the campaign in 3, with the majority of players preferring skirmish maps instead.

>>2100632
I've missed in my previous post (>>2100627) my biggest annoyance I have with campaign progression in 3:
Campaign research progress resets. In AoW1, you keep it throughout the campaign. In 2 you keep it throughout the campaign, until you switch spheres. In SM, you keep it throughout the campaign. In 3 (admittedly, I haven't played Golden Realms or Eternal Lords, despite having them) you reset whenever you change hero class, which is extremely often. Having to re-research every little thing every single mission is annoying, especially since the older games did things differently.

>>2100632
So instead of working on and improving the campaign in the sequel so it's worth spending time on, they abandon it entirely? Truly brilliant.

>>2100740
Except they didn't abandon it entirely. The game still has a campaign. I also don't think the problem was that the campaign wasn't good enough or wasn't worth spending time on, but that people just didn't want or care about a campaign in general.

>>2100773
I don't think you can reasonably call the disconnected scenarios that have no relation to each other whatsoever and no carryover in AoW4 a "campaign".

>>2101348
>that have no relation to each other whatsoever
They tell a pretty straight-forward story. Just because you (potentially) play a different character in every mission doesn't mean they're completely unrelated.

>>2101390
It's not really a campaign if there is no carryover, it's just a series of stand alone missions.

You can finally turn off the denouncement and "you have spells available" messages as well as anything else if you want

>new dev stream
>right at the start
>"in the past we've added a lot of varied races but our telemetry shows that everyone only plays humans and elves so we decided to just add prettier humans this time because that's what you all want"
wew

>>2102645
It went
>humans 1st
>elves 2nd
>lizardmen 3rd
Based on their 2yr announcement I think, wonder what's in 4th
>picked and play almost only goblins, dwarves, and halflings
So I guess I shouldn't expect anymore shortstacks for awhile
Ancients look cool though, I could make a mummy themed faction with them if I got the craving for it

>>2102811
My own top 5 right now, looking at my oversized library of custom rulers, is Elves, Goats, Wolves, Halflings and Frogs in that order.

>>2100118
If you research Monstrous Rebirth, you HAVE to turn off automatically casting spells when autoresolving.
If you always turn it off, it's no big deal. If you accidentally pick it up and you normally let autoresolve use spells, you are forced to turn it off or it just deletes your entire army over time.

>>2103016
Potential-ing your spells into dosh disables the spell from being cast.

>>2103069
oh well fuck me then
this is what i get for never playing magic heavy builds

>>2103080
Mystic Potential is fucking nutso and will make you LOVE casting combat spells
Double up with society traits that encourage casting during combat, get enough Astral affinity to cast on the first turn, you will feel like god

>>2102645
Wow, that's so shocking. Wait, no, it's the same for every fantasy and sci-fi game ever made. Truly stunning stuff.

>>2104964
>>2102645
i mean, maybe if they didn't just put in 20 different lazy varieties of animals that don't wear boots i'd play them more

>>2102818
i play humans, elves, dwarves, ogres, and orcs

a whole fucking lot of industrial orcs for some reason actually, i don't even know why

>>2104964
Made worse by the fact races are meaningless outside appearance. It's not like you'll get anything different when playing halflings or orcs, may as well play the race the unit aesthetics are designed for anyway, and have (slightly) less clipping issues.

>>2105085
I do like having the animal race options, even if I mostly just use Lizards and Toads, maybe birds or monkeys once in a while.

I play rats for everything because they're cute and I like the little squeaking noises they make while moving around.

>>2105167
That's fine, I just wish the choice of form had some effect. Sure, you may go with the default traits, but you can pick the same traits for any form, so it doesn't really matter. If every form had one unique trait nobody else got, or even if they got one general trait fixed to the form and still let you pick others, it would be more interesting. For all the customizations you get, the game is incredibly flavorless. How limited the cultures themselves are is another can of worms...

>>2105786
The AI always gets whatever default traits they get so the only lack of flavor is in what you create.

>>2105786
I completely agree. Mods like https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3525561889 somewhat alleviate the issue, but it's still a major problem with how the game is designed.

I know this isn't a general AoW thread (we had one in the past which impressively lasted a year until reaching bump limit), however I require assistance, and don't want to make an entire thread about me being a strategylet.

I'm trying to beat the final Elven Court Torchbearer mission (Burn the Shadows), and I'm constantly running into a problem. If I try to expand quickly, I end up stretched too thin, with underdeveloped towns, and get spammed by big-ass armies, mostly composed of shitloads of lower-tier troops, who ultimately grind me down. If I try grabbing only a couple nearby towns and turtling, I eventually get rekt by the same big-ass armies, except this time with higher level troops.

>>2105786
Personally I don't agree at all. The point is to make your own personal faction the specific way you want. There's no reason all rats need to be sneaky, all goblins need to be stinky, all humans need to be jacks of all trades, etc., and there really isn't anything meaningful that a locked trait would add that you couldn't do by just giving them that trait yourself in character creation.
I feel like the complaint boils down to "why isn't the game thinking for me?"

>>2105786
>For all the customizations you get, the game is incredibly flavorless.
that's what happens when you go full customization zero fluff

you actually need both

>>2105878
kids these days... how is this not an aow4 general? if you look at the op you can see that the topic is aow4 in general, it doesn't need the word general to be a general, it just means it's not trying to exclusively talk about some subaspect of the game, it's talking about aow4 in general

also the solution to your problem is to get good, if you think your economy is holding you back then build your faction to have a stronger potential economy

>>2106403
Yeah custom factions is always such a monkey paw for me. It's cool, but I really love distinct isometric factions in games like this. I feel like a good test is whether or not the factions and characters in your game generate fan art. They just have to be interesting enough to have people thinking about them outside of the game.

>>2106406
Brother, learn to read before geting upset

>>2106437
just learn what the word means

>>2106406
It's an AoW FOUR thread, not a generic AoW thread, where people randomly discuss all the titles in the series.
Hence me specifically mentioning this in my opening phrase.

>>2105878
It's an AoW thread. Yes the top says 4, who cares. Makes more sense to ask your question here than start a new thread.
Last thread which stayed for ages we had some mentions of 3, and several people reminisce about 1, a screenshot here and there. 4 is still the anchor that keeps the thread going right now, but we didn't spontaneously combust if someone mentioned something about a previous game
I can't personally help you. While I've started playing through the entire series after putting down 4, I'm still wrapping up AoW1

>>2106504
you really don't need to worry about that, asking here is appropriate

>>2106538
I was wondering about some of the more specific details, like do the other leaders (not Leonus or Saridas) get perma-banned if hit with Merlin's special weapon (the one which cuts off their throne city link)? Should I build housing early to expand towns, before going for the more expensive buildings, or should I just leave them with their natural growth? How much money would be considered an appropriate payout for a neutral town to become a vassal?

>>2105932
I see it as kind of an autism test.
Orcs that are culturally industrial, magical or even theocratic? perfectly ok!
But once they are anything other than big, brutish and dumb suddenly they are just some other thing wearing an orc skinsuit.

>>2107122
>anything other than big, brutish and dumb
I should rephrase that to "anything other than a specific stat-line"

This game is like cocaine, I just can't stop playing.
AoW3 has been sitting in my backlog for a long time and now that I'm playing it, I can't let go.

>>2107231
It's a very good game, it just needs a few tweaks.
I've got the Exalted Martyr patch (fixes a bug that was never resolved in official patches), Show Cave Entrances (they're kinda hard to see on the surface), stronger Boars and Wargs, Lesser Elementals, and MCU Summons.

>>2107231
Yeah the ranking of AoW games goes AoW 1 > AoW 3 > AoW 2 >>>>>>>>> AoW4.

>>2107653
What about PF

>>2107231
There's a lot I don't like about AoW3 but it's almost all relatively minor mechanical things. The biggest thing would be the faction balance, but then that's always been pretty fucked in AoW games and "serious" multiplayer matches have always relied on mods to unfuck the games. In terms of atmosphere and campaign(s) it's simply a good game. It's funny to me because for the longest time a large faction of the AoW fanbase aggressively literally everything about AoW3, but since PF and AoW4 came out those people are finally giving it a chance because there's a new new thing to be mad about.

>>2107653
>new bad
yawn

also shadow magic had a lot of its own charm

>>2107664
what about it

>>2107767
>>2107898
I'm pretty sure everyone tells their reasons why they don't like certain things about the game. It's just that your tiny brains translates it to "new bad", because I never actually see anyone who criticizes new games saying they don't like them because they are new. Your kind always says the same exact words like you're coming off an assembly line always ending with the " because there's a new new thing to be mad about".
You people are weird.

>>2107767
>AoW fanbase mad about AoW3
Nah, those were just contrarian tards.
AoW3 was IIRC well received, especially since a lot of people had lost hope of another AoW title being released (AoW:SM had been launched in 2003, over a decade prior). There were indeed grumblings that stuff had been held back (halflings weren't available in the original game, neither were frostlings), but overall the reception was strongly positive. And the expansion where they added special abilities for sites of power (I think it was Eternal Lords, the one which also added necromancy) was also well-regarded.

>>2108135
The only AoW3 criticism I remember was that the late game is just you and the AI spamming high level summons at each other, which I think still stands.

>>2108138
Unless I'm mistaken, that's also present in 2/SM, due to the computer calculating unit efficiency primarily on a cost/HP basis. Hence big stick high tier units getting prioritized in construction.

>>2108144
It's a big problem with the genre in general. They went to great lengths to fix it in Planetfall which created its own collection of issues.

>>2107767
>The biggest thing would be the faction balance
That's always been a problem ever since Heroes 3 (Diplo, Necro). And, in fairness, I don't see it as a fundamentally bad thing, since it harkens back to MoM's races being crazy imbalanced. Yes, the Druid is somewhat underpowered. Yes, the Theocrat's Divine Justicars ability is wack. Yes, the Dreadnought is only truly useful when employing lots of war machines, which are costly to build and move slowly. But it helps provide a challenge without messing with difficulty level (which often just piles advantages on the computer).
We circle back to the old conundrum that what might be fun for singleplayer is frustrating in multi.

>>2108146
I think they did the best they could with Planetfall. Admittedly, I've played very little of it, but they actually tried, rather than just sweeping it under the rug and pretending the issue doesn't exist.

>>2108149
>I think they did the best they could with Planetfall.
Yeah it's great, the problem I ended up having is that I could never read what I was going up against. Because of the unit mods, units could do whatever you wanted, so it always felt a bit unfair when you went into a battle expecting one thing and the units are way stronger than you were expecting.

It's a shame there's no map generator for aow1

>>2108138
>late game is just you and the AI spamming high level summons
and the morons' solution was to shit on high level units instead of just giving us a wider variety of them

>>2108047
>I never actually see anyone who criticizes new games saying they don't like them because they are new.
and you never will, but that's the point, one day decades in the future you'll look back and see that the trend is undeniable

Several of the Planetfall races should be classes instead.

>>2108260
Yeah, you can't fully understand the cycle until you've lived through it enough times. New thing always draws heavy criticism, then becomes a beloved classic a few years down the road. There are exceptions, but something has to be undeniable shit in a box to break the pattern, and even then you'll still have a lot of "Second look at?" posting eventually.

It shouldn't be possible to found or grow cities. The game turns are days. Matches are depicting battles, not the growth and fall of civilizations.

>>2108197
I think they did a good job of it in 4.
I like low and mid tier units remaining relevant into the late game and late game armies not just being full stacks of t5s everywhere

I've only found out yesterday that you can make towns start out with a wall in AoW3. And I've owned the game since circa 2016.
If you build a fort, then unpack a settler inside it, the resulting village will inherit the wall.
Sort of how like colonizing a planet with an outpost on it gave you a marine barracks in MoO2.

>>2108974
Yeah and if you upgrade the fort first, the city will start with stone walls giving it +1 domain range

>>2108383
brainlet take, no offense
the solution shouldn't be to gimp the player and castrate """mythic""" units (or your ability to build an army of them), but to let you go wild with even more high tier options, as long as your economy permits it
I mean if they've already decided that the tier system is "bad", then they should just rip the whole thing out and redesign it, not slap on a bandaid and call it a day
I mean of course every warlord in III would spam manticore riders because that's the only t4 option they had
now we're stuck spamming phantasm warriors and pretending things are somehow better
this game could've been so, so much better and it makes me seethe perpetually

>>2109035
the game's fine, high tier units are still stronger than lower tier ones, and making high tier units upkeep cost imperium solves the fundamental problem

>>2109101
the fact that green mana exists IS a problem in itself
but paradrones aren't ready to hear that
>the game's fine
>half assed campaign
>half assed empire mode
>politically correct races
>(((narrative))) event slop
>ai is utter garbage
>ZERO emergent gameplay
if you say so

>>2109113
only thing that's actually missing is a map editor

>>2109035
Except the problem isn't about spamming one t4 unit because it's the only one you had, it's about spamming t4 units in general.
Again, I like that low tier units don't just become obsolete once higher tier units become available and it also makes high tier units still feel special, because when everyone is high tier no one is.

>>2109216
The issue would be solved if you simply gave high tier units caps, so they are rare and powerful, rather than becoming the mainstay of every single army.

>>2109408
The problem with a unit cap is that it's just as much "you can't have more than X number of units" as it is "you should have no less than X number of units". See, for example, the hero system.
Imperium upkeep serves the same purpose of limiting the amount of mythics you can field while being much more flexible since you can have more or less depending on how much you value your imperium, and imperium income itself is also flexible.

>>2109018
That can be useful if there are lots of dwellings in the vicinity, to give the village a big boost early on, but the gold expenditure is considerable.

>>2109592
Not really, the fort has the same price as wood walls, upgrading a fort is 120 gold, so only 20 gold more than the price of stone walls
also in order to make walls in cities you need required buildings

in the end you only spend 20 gold and you save a few turns of production, so I say it's well worth it

>>2109113
Full assed DLC when?

>>2109596
Ah, well-said about the building pre-reqs. You're right, sounds like the best action is to have a builder go ahead of the settler and construct forts, upgrade them, then deploy the settler.
Of course, you need an army to protect the operation, you wouldn't want somebody grabbing your stone fort.

One thing I miss from AoW1, though, is watchtowers having walls. They were great as local strongpoints.

>>2109408
that's what imperium does

Man, some of the battles in AoW3 are hilariously easy when fighting them manually. If only I wasn't a lazy brainlet, and picked auto just because it's quicker...

>>2110224
when you make a mod for it, i guess?

>>2106554
Update: I've tested hitting one of the other faction leaders with Merlin's Rod, and they become peaceful after you gank them and they return. Unfortunately, they retain the reputation loss from your previous actions against them.

>>2109101
"aiming for a higher force concentration in a single stack/army/tile is a fundamental problem"
excuse me can anyone elaborate on this?
if I can recruit better combat units, and lower tier ones aren't needed because garrisoning things is less important than saving on upkeep, and weak stacks don't slow the enemy down enough, what is their exact use case in late game? is this a faulty design, or am I being a bad boy ignoring the big game designer mom as she wags her finger at me for wanting more cannons and ironclads?
these are the questions devs should've asked themselves before opening the paradox playbook and introducing arbitrary caps and resources, and deciding that fifty gorillion "races" should be the game's spearhead feature

but let's be real, the series is in its civ5/red giant phase
it's going mainstream, popularity is balooning, daring design choices are being made, and the old fanbase is being thrown to the wind
we are yet to see where the hype train that keeps the current game going will take the franchise, but if civ is anything to go by this series will shine bright and plummet in less than a decade

>>2110805
>excuse me can anyone elaborate on this?
why would others elaborate on a thought you came up with, please elaborate on it yourself
>is this a faulty design, or am I being a bad boy ignoring the big game designer mom as she wags her finger at me for wanting more cannons and ironclads?
you're conflating two entirely separate things, the developer wants to make a game that has variance and counterplay, the player wants to play the game as strongly as possible, those two goals have very little to do with each other
>t's going mainstream, popularity is balooning, daring design choices are being made, and the old fanbase is being thrown to the wind
are you twelve years old or something

>>2110805
No, tier 4/5 units completely replacing all other units and the game becoming about who can spam more tier 4/5 units is a fundamental problem.

I understand why a aow1 and 2 fan would hate on aow3 if it was the new game that came out today. The classes make the evil races like goblins be theocrats and recruit angels, who are goblins with wings.

It's all worse in aow 4, because races are just skins. There's no unique racial units.

should i give aow4 a try
or just reinstall civ5 again?

>>2094459 (OP)
buy an ad

>>2110923
it's not, at least aow3 still had racial units, in aow4 the fluff is so non-existent that even if you hate shit like goblin angels you can't even be mad about it anymore since the goblins don't feel like goblins at all and the angels don't feel like angels at all

>>2110845
Most T5s in AoW4 were considered trash units until relatively recently since they were extremely expensive and most buffs didn't work on them. T4s also mostly were shit for a long time.

I would say the real shift began when they started adding new racial T4 units that were actually worth a damn, which inevitably led to the older, far shittier racial T4s getting buffed to near parity, which has been actually a great thing for expanding the list of playable units in the late game.

In any case, T4/T5 units cost Imperium, so you're already limited in how much you can spam them. The real late game shift is that eventually T3 units become the bottom floor of what is usable in anything but shitty defensive garrisons. Which is, again, normal for the AoW series. T1-T2 units have never been particularly good or viable late game.

Really AoW4 has the strongest T1 units in the entire series, they've buffed them repeatedly and overhauled the experience system to make them stronger and stronger, just because people will cry forever about having to replace their fucking T1 units eventually.

look, you can say whatever you want, but the game is infinitely better than it was at launch where late game armies were just the highest number of golden golems both sides could spam

also some t2 units are viable even late game if you build around them, like magelocks and some of the t2 polearms

T1 units really suck in this game.

>>2111079
I mean, yeah, it's almost like they've taken steps to fix the problem. I think the current state of unit balance is fine for the most part. I'm not the one complaining about it.

>>2110842
>>2110845
the absolute state of parashills
>>2111079
that's the thing, people are never happy because they don't know what they want but god help you if you criticize the Company™

>>2111301
>he wants the game to just be gold golems and a few heroes again
retard

>>2111311
no one is saying that anon
you can stop shitting and cumming any time you like

>>2111334
you're saying it by blindly disagreeing with the direct opposite

>>2111301
I'm happy and I told you what I want. I think you're just salty that people aren't agreeing with you.

>>2111301
The game is pretty good now though? It's better than it was at launch for sure. So I'm happy with it. Maybe you're unhappy and are just projecting that on others?

>>2111361
>>2111351
one glance at this thread and all I saw is the exact same kind of bitching you'd see in stellaris discussions and paradrones defending whatever caused the shitshow
it is only an observation, no more no less

>>2111370
So you're not projecting your unhappiness with the game onto this general, instead you're projecting your unhappiness with other generals onto this general?

>>2111370
Like the entire first third of the thread isn't bitching and most of the current bitching is coming from one guy unhappy that he can't spam t5 units and calling anyone who disagrees with him a drone and a shill.

>>2111374
>a fish can't see water
anon there's one guy directly above this comment trying to strawman me, this is not exactly a healthy conversation you people have here
not that i'm adding anything worthy to the trashpile but eh

>>2111385
Anon, you're dismissing people who don't agree with you as drones and shills. You don't get to complain about not having a "healthy conversation", you're literally part of the problem.

>>2111421
what do you mean "part"? he's the origin and the destination all in one, a shitposter who shat himself

>>2111435
I'm just not trying to argue against his claim that someone else is doing whatever.

Derp, deleted the session instead of a save after spending way too many hours slogging through Crimson Caldera. I was about 5 turns or so from victory, too (or at least from beating the last Godir, I don't know if there's another objective after that). Stupid interface design.

>>2111510
>or at least from beating the last Godir, I don't know if there's another objective after that
There isn't.
What are you deleting saves for, anyway?

>>2111557
nta, but isn't there a limit for how many sessions you can have in your saves? and if you reach it, the only way forward is to delete old ones manually?

>>2111576
If there is I haven't reached it or otherwise seen it. He said he was trying to delete a save and not a session though.

>>2109113
I hate the "races are purely cosmetic" shit.

I even suggested on Steam discussions page that they just have different trait pools for each race. So, for instance, you have the option to customize your orcs, but its between a pool of appropriately orc-y traits with maybe one or two orc-unique traits in the mix, and the people on there acted like I had slapped their fucking mothers.

>>2111608
Eh, more options for everybody is normally better than limiting some stuff to specific skins.
It's a multiverse now, anyway.

>>2111612
Limitations allow for more interesting abilities and traits.

The best example of this is games with classes vs games with "classless systems." At first, the classless system sounds like you'll be allowed to build your dream character while the class system is just a limitation, but in practice the class system lets you really lean into lean into your class's theme, typically with really cool powers in the mix, balanced out by inherent weaknesses to your class, while "classless systems" are just the same boring, generic bullshit over and over again because the devs have to account for you potentially having any combination of abilities.

>>2111616
Yeah, that all sounds cool on paper but your suggestion was just to have different trait pools for different races, and so it wouldn't unlock anything new or magical that couldn't be done with the current system by just selecting those traits yourself.
I also find the tangent about class vs classless systems funny because this classless game has far better build variety than the previous entry with its class system.

>>2111608
>>2111616
How about you simply use some self-control? The AI uses preset traits, so the only one using off-race traits is the player.

>>2111653
You say that but the devs are literally adding more hero classes made from breaking up some existing classes (mage and ritualist) because said classes were too generic do-all units. And at game launch any hero could have any skill at all and everyone considered it to be pathetically bland, samey, and a nightmare to balance, which made them reintroduced classes in the first place. It turns out adding some limitations to work around/with added more mechanical depth and encouraged more than spamming one build/unit, who knew?

The cosmetic races is also something I dislike but I will give points to the devs for making it so that only player-made races (or specific story characters) get funky minmaxed traits. I do somewhat wish they did something similar for 'forms' and the AI picking cultures - so for example Orcs would be more likely to pick Dark or Barbarian culture, but occasionally might appear as Mystic or High. But at that point most people would probably not even notice so it wouldn't be worth the effort.

>>2111904
I thought about the hero system after I posted. The problem with the old hero system compared to the new one was that there just weren't many options, so you pretty much always leveled up every hero the exact same way. I think the old hero system in its entirety had less level up options than a single class from the new system. Really it's about how the system is designed as opposed to class based or classless inherently being better than the other. Either one can be designed well or poorly.

>>2111557
>What are you deleting saves for, anyway?
Corrupted (?) quicksave kept crashing the game when I tried to load it, I thought it'll be safer to just delete it and go back to earlier autosave instead of just overwriting it. Well, it's not a problem anymore.

I was a single turn away from the cat demon's throne, just beyond his border, he decided to counterattack (luckily for me, just beyond his border, so no spelljammer), I quicksaved in the combat screen, as I had no time to fight it manually at that point and autoresolve didn't work out too well (it won, but with too great loses to continue to the city), and when I got back to it later, the save didn't work.

>>2111612
And yet the game is very limiting when it comes to cultures. Apparently, no barbarian in the entire multiverse has figured out they can grab a long pointy stick to poke cavalry and other shock units before they hit them, and dark cultures are deathly allergic to shields.

They should've split the cultures into appearance (so you could have asian feudals, or 1001 nights industrialists, or whatever) and a set of traits, and then either give everyone access to full roster of unit types (scout, skirmisher, shield, pike, shock, ranged, battlemage and support), so they have more flexibility, like in AoW3, or better yet, allow for unit customization (like in Endless Legend or Fallen Enchantress). It's not like the system isn't already halfway there, you can make a hero work as a shock unit by giving them a lance or twohander, shield unit by giving them... well, shield, or pikeman with a pike. The enchantments you get from the tomes could unlock upgrades to units, and it would be objectively better system, in the vein of >>2097600.

>>2111757
Not always. There's plenty of preset factions that use different traits (usually enviromental adaptation or mounts, but not always).

>>2111979
>There's plenty of preset factions that use different traits
Yeah but those are presets which have certain traits for flavor reasons, which is essentially what you were asking for in the first place. Artica using a race with Frost Adaptation isn't breaking anyone's immersion and you're being a disingenuous whiner if you pretend otherwise. The AI sticks with appropriate traits regardles of whether you use presets of randoms and doesn't just start mix and matching random shit like you're complaining about, so if you don't like racial traits being used inappropriately, stop making custom races with inappropriate traits. It's literally that easy.

Seriously, this is such a sad nonsense complaint that you fags have been parrottting since launch that I find it hard to believe you ever bothered playing the game.

>>2111979
>which is essentially what you were asking for in the first place
NTA, FYI, though I generally agree with him.
>The AI sticks with appropriate traits regardles of whether you use presets of randoms and doesn't just start mix and matching random shit like you're complaining about
Is that true, actually? Godir are pre-set, but I think free cities and units in infestations/ancient wonders may use at least some randomized racial traits, because I remember fighting monkeys with Herbivore, which is neither the default option nor in any preset AFAIK.

>>2112021
Fuck, how did I respond to myself instead? Obviously, >>2111990

>>2112021
I'm not 100% sure about Free Cities, I'd have to check that to be certain, but randomly generated Godir should ever only use default racial traits. IIRC that's something they explicitly added to the release patch since people complained about it during the beta.

>>2111979
>allow for unit customization
we had that in planetfall and a handful of people wailed so hard that unit abilities weren't immediately readable...so we ended up with enchantments that have toggleable visuals so that they aren't immediately readable

Still grinding on that Burn the Shadow final mission. I overextended like crazy, and now I don't know where to reinforce. I did take out two of the lesser lords (managed to bonk one with the rod, becoming friendly towards me, but I exterminated the other one). However in my rush to capture cities I didn't stop to clear out sites and dungeons, and I didn't exactly build much in the way of city improvements (used the gold for diplomacy with neutrals). So most of my very many cities are underdeveloped and undefended.

bless these naked cats

>>2113197
achievable natty?

I feel like they announced this DLC too early, the hype has basically bled out of my body already, especially with being able to preview the beta patch. Still, next week huh?

>>2113807
That's one of the problems with these season passes. Since Steam made the rules for them a lot stricter, they're basically forced to reveal all content for the season at once. And since for AoW4 a "season" is roughly one year, that's a long time to wait.

>>2113807
you shouldn't hype anyway, just play the game you enjoy

look up Age of Wonders X

So AoW4 has tons of options, but how come the devs don't give us any options to make cultural units all a single sex so you can have all male orcs or all female? I noticed that there are some mods that make cultures all female units, but mods to make every unit male are nowhere to be found. Seems like people are too scared of dealing with the culture war tyrants.

I'm getting back to this game and since 2023 and I remember modding the barbarian culture to all male units, but it's been so long, I'll have to get look at a tutorial to remember how I did it. I remember it wasn't very difficult, so there should have been mods like this, where they're all male, uploaded by now.

>>2114561
uploaded the wrong image.
Here's the one where you can see all the units.

>>2114561
>but how come the devs don't give us any options to make cultural units all a single sex
My assumption is that it was because they'd have to make a male and female version of every unit's outfit.

>>2114592
With how many other things are customizable, I'd at least hope this is something they get around to in a future free update

>>2114561
The devs actually talked about this on the last livestream (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTp1hixXyQA). Basically it's like >>2114592 says, it would be too much work to design a male and a female version of every unit.

>>2114754
bro with the hero appearance editor i could design an alternate sex version of every humanoid unit in the game within an hour

Just picked the game up and it seems like race doesn't matter at all outside of very specific set ups. I got it specifically because I was interested in the aspect of having a bunch of different unique races.

>>2115111
You can just use the default racial traits if you want them to be "unique". The AI uses preset traits as well, even randomly generated AI enemies, so only player-made factions will be different from the defaults.

>>2114856
Heroes also have gender locked outfits.
An example off the top of my head is the mystic soother outfit is only available to female heroes, so for a male soother you would either need to give him a different outfit or edit the mesh of the outfit to fit a male.

>>2115146
yeah, i think i could manage picking out an outfit in an hour

>>2115111
>>2115134
i mostly keep to defaults or at least close to them too, it gives at least some identity to races

>>2115134
Good to know.

For roleplay reasons, how can a pure good faction declare war on another pure good faction just to destroy them and finish a game before the ai gets too strong and ends up with stacks of tier IV units?
My pure good leader just got done viciously genociding goblins to the last goblin a few turns ago, and now I'm left with one more faction but we're at peace.

You DO roleplay your factions right? or am I the only nerd here?

>>2115588
just be yourself, retard

My only gripes with AoW4 are:
>Races are just reskins and can have zero differences between each other
>Cultures get the same units (except Oathbound and Feudal due to sub-cultures, hoping we get more of this with other cultures)
>Half the roster of a player is culture units and the other being tome units
>No race specific stuff because again, races are literal reskins and don't have any specific characteristics
>Mounts relegated to either a trait for your race form or a skin whereas the previous games had races who had more than one mounted unit type (like Halflings having ponies and giant eagles)

Still it's not a bad game. It's good, but if they at least added more options to mod your races, their cultures and give us multiple mounts and not relegated to a race form, then I'm fine here with it all.

>>2115612
that's one gripe, you just don't like that there are no racial units

>>2115614
Overall they could've done more with it.
Maybe even add unique units that a race gets depending on form AND culture.
Closest thing to a type of racial unit.

>>2115616
they're too all-in on maximum customizability, to the point they sacrifice things that wouldn't have hurt customizability in the first place, like unit descriptions, i don't know why they think it's a good idea either

>>2115622
>like unit descriptions
Man I hate the fact that unit descriptions are not in this game.
It literally added lore and flavor to everything.

>>2115646
Can't have unit descriptions when there's no real setting.

>>2115684
It has a well-definied setting though. There are the story maps obviously which deal with current events, but in typical AoW fashion the backstory isn't laid out for the player and they're hiding a lot of lore in the skirmish maps. Except instead of it being the map descriptions like in AoW1 it's in the "premium" challenges and the scenarios you can add, like how the Ashen War scenario deals with part of the setting's creation myth.

non-random maps is another thing that's sorely missing from the game

>>2115588
Do you not have allied victory? In any case, a difference of ideology would be the most logical answer I think, for instance over your genocide of the goblins.
>You DO roleplay your factions right?
Yep. "I'm a wizard and I do as I please."

>>2115612
>>2115614
>>2115616
>>2115684
>unitsunitsunits
clearly the only real solution is this
when you have dynamic factions and races, it is only fair that you have dynamic units too

>>2115765
>artillery
ew
>artillery with armor
lol

>>2115735
Seriously they should make a lore encyclopedia.
Then again I didn't finish AoW3 and thus dunno how this multiversal setting came to be after that game that simply had one big world.
>>2115765
That would've been better. A unit editor that would allow for creating new units.
Would even make perfect sense for a mount rework.

>>2115612
>Half the roster of a player is culture units and the other being tome units
Yeah? What else would it be? The last game was the same way where half your roster was race units and the other half was class units, we just have culture instead of race and tomes instead of class now.
>Cultures get the same units (except Oath found and Feudal due to sub-cultures
Mystic also has a subculture specific t3. Technically Primal does too if you count your spirit animal. I assume this is going to be the norm going forward.

>>2115765
The game you're looking for is Fallen Enchantress.

>>2115771
>The last game was the same way where half your roster was race units and the other half was class units, we just have culture instead of race and tomes instead of class now.
And I hated it. It made the races less distinct.
If each race had the same number of units like in AoWII + class units then it wouldn't have been so bad.
In AoWIV's case, they should at least add in more culture units if they rework the other cultures. Like give primal cultures werecreatures that look different depending on the spirit they worship. Or some High Spiritseer which would be a Spiritualist on steroids (with a unique spell that has different effects depending on the worshiped spirit).
Not to mention more distinct buildings, more distinct stuff in general.

>>2115766
>artillery without nerve gas

>>2115776
the game I am looking for does not exist, only fragments scattered across a few decent titles
>>2115766
the point--->
(you)

>>2115777
It's just the natural evolution of the series. Old AoW games were race centric. AoW 3 was class centric. Planetfall was an attempt at making another race centric game. AoW 4 is instead tome-centric. Ultimately they like to change things up a lot between titles instead of making the same game over and over again, it is what it is.

>>2115588
that’s what military alliances are for

>>2115817
>you don't find my point interesting or useful means, that you didn't understand it
just like when someone telling you your joke is stupid that means they didn't get it, right?

Found out the hard way that, in AoW3, lairs can spawn any tier of unit. I had completely forgotten to clear out a graveyard, and it spawned a Bone Dragon. Thankfully, I had already fulfilled the wincons, and the city it captured wasn't vital.

>>2115759
>>2115847
I do have allied victory on but the problem is this guy keeps denying my alliance proposals no matter how many gifts I give him. I think he's trying to tell me to prove my military strength by wiping out the human race and risk having his entire royal linage exterminated for some reason.

If I do that, I'll deny his surrender and say to him when him and his royal family is tied on the chopping block, "Don't get us wrong, we do like you, but we'd prefer to focus our attention on smarter allies".

Maybe in the future we'll have 4x games or future age of wonders games where we can actually shit talk with the AI like this.

>>2116071
woops
*lineage

>>2116071
In AoW4, diplomacy screen tells you exactly what the other side likes/dislikes based on the AI personality. I'm not sure if the personalities are in 3, just hidden, but from the screenshot, I think it's not a matter of relations, but how powerful your respective armies are. Build up more forces, then try it again.

So if I'm understand correctly, annexing a province that another ruler has a distant claim causes a rep hit but does not create a grievance but making an outpost there does?

>>2116594
Annexing from an already established town? nothing actually happens unless you quickly buy a lot of territory near them in which case they can get a grievance. Not sure what the magic number is on that.
As for the outpost yes, also taking wonders they have distant claim on will generate grievances

>>2116598
As a side question, if both of us have a claim on a Wonder, then neither of us can take it without giving the other a grievance?

>>2116599
Correct

it's been over 2 years, is unit modding back yet?

>>2116317
This is what he truly wanted. It's over.

AoW3 makes my video card go turbojet mode. Especially when zooming out to strategic view, or whenever I switch to Underground.
Any ways to avoid or reduce this?

>>2116874
i just play it on my 500 euro laptop that has half a gig of vram

>>2116683
It's not gonna happen bro. The sooner you accept it, the sooner you can move on. Better wait for Planetfall 2.

>>2116874
Go into the settings panel for your GPU and manually put a limit on the framerate. I don't know if this is the case for AoW3 specifically, but it's relatively common for games, especially older games, to have uncapped FPS. Since the game itself barely stresses the average modern PC it just decides to try and render a gorillion frames per second which can make your GPU fuck itself up.

If you've got an Nvidia card you can open NVIDIA Control Panel and go to Manage 3D Settings -> Program Settings -> select AoW3 or add it if it's not already in the list -> go down to Max Frame Rate -> set it to whatever your monitor uses (probably 60, 120, or 144). I assume AMD has something similar but I wouldn't know tyhe specifics.

>>2095420
>>2095957
It be a weird build but in theory you could do an upwards of 6 building finishes at turn 20. The only way to do more would be drops and that can't be predicted for. That said it would be by no means viable in MP. Yay you have 600 Knowledge boost at turn 20, where's your army repelling the hoard?

>>2099522
The first Eldritch mission is the only one that feels like a story crafted campaign, the rest are like the other three just without branching paths.

>>2116913
nta but I've come to the same conclusion
thank god for galactic empire mode

So what time of day is the patch dropping tomorrow? I'm unfamiliar with past updates as this is the first I actually will have time for the game the day of launch.

>>2117076
I'm not sure but I think the previous patches all dropped in the Euro time afternoon.

>>2117077
I'm not savy with when that would be. So something like between 13:00 to 16:00 their time?

>>2113807
>>2114033
funny enough it's why I ignore any news or even threads until it's closing onto a date. I know I'll over hype myself and be disappointed.

>>2115217
by that logic what's stopping you? The mod tools are pretty easy to unlock or change stuff it's basic "true/false" shit, the hardest part would be putting in the toggle switch in the creation processes.

>>2117088
I -think- last time it released at 16:00 CEST, but I could very well be misremembering that.

>>2117112
>>2117088
Actually, if the patch notes are any indication it's going to be earlier. Picture related.

>>2117112
still gives me an idea of what to expect, thanks

>>2117120
>>2117121
Just found out there's an exact timer on the official Discord channel.

>>2117092
I'm not fully understanding how everything works (I have never modded in my life until this game) but the anon might be able to get the female outfits to wrap on the guys depending on what programing of them is. The Warbreed in the files wraps around the model so you can put the outfit on regular body, male -or- female and short of the foot it wraps around and looks correct. You can even layer other meshs with surprisingly little clipping. I'm going to play round with some of the others in the core game packs because some of DLC isn't like that, Constrictor and Geomancer are more full skins than mesh that layer.

>>2117128
fantastic
Thank you for digging anon

>>2117139
oh looks like he did mod them already in >>2114564 and it does work like wrap around for at least some of them.

>>2114856
every unit? In one hour?

>>2115134
>The AI uses preset traits as well
The AI will however tweak them if you change the maps enough, such as Underground start or Lava lakes will lead to them having traits for said terrains, like I had evil Angel orcs that only had Strong and Ferocious, but changed the last one to underground adaptation, so it will slightly tweak them to awkward outcomes like having underground races that can't move well.

>>2117147
yes, the hard work is already done

>>2116918
>Go into the settings panel for your GPU and manually put a limit on the framerate.
Coming back to this, I tried both Radeon Chill and Framerate Target Control, neither did anything. GPU load was 100%, but the system didn't detect a usable framerate to limit. I wonder if it's because I'm running the game windowed. Or maybe it's because the various GFX elements (animations etc.) don't register as frames?

>>2117128
>Can play games all day today
>Have very little free time tomorrow and the next day

>>2117218
Retard.

>>2117347
my dude, the game already has all the resources you need, you'd just have to jam them together in 5 minutes and spend the rest of your hour to check that you didn't create any overly blatant clipping or something, and in case you did you'd need to patch over them with some of the other resources that also already exist

what exactly do you think would take dedicated time? going in there and editing textures yourself because the arcanist tattoos didn't transfer well to the male version? fucking please

>>2116807
I just finished a game in AoW4 yesterday, and the last enemy refused to accept MY vassalage, on the reasoning it would result in military victory. May be similar thing in 3.

>>2117432
If so that is strange because your issue from AOW4 was from a patch where they disabled that to avoid people cheesing Pantheon points.

>make small 1v1 map
>find opponent by turn 3
>offer vassalage
>game ends
>get Victory
>get 1 to 2 Pantheon points
>repeat

I got 100% within a half hour. They patched it out in the Golem update.

update in like an hour apparently

>>2117811
Update now

>>2117811
>>2117840
Not for some of us. Me and a few friends have the Season 2 pass and doesn't show Archon Prophecy as owned, it's up to buy mind you, but we are both just sitting here waiting to see if it acknowledges we bought the pass. It's both Steam and GoG like this right now.

>>2117840
>>2117853
it finally kick on and downloaded

>check new cheevos while gettin ready
so uh how do you commit double the pure evil?

>already cracked
I hope you retards didn't actually pay for this

>>2117933
>Cracked
What? Doesn't literally every Paradox game have a GOG release?

So whats the strategy the new culture supposed to be promoting? Affinity stacking and magic victory?

>>2117958
They start of pretty mid but are probably the strongest lategame faction due to how their bonuses can scale infinitely in theory. So on a big map they're definitely suited for a military victory. They're great for a magic victory because if you upgrade their special building all the way it counts as a golden wonder, removing the need to find them on the map and conquer+bind them. On the other hand magic materials are more valuable for them so you still need to find those, though of course you can also get them from vassals.

>>2117924
The description for Cliffs of Sordünn is wrong. It should just be
>Complete "Archon Prophecy: Cliffs of Sordünn"

>>2117933
>>2117952
They don't use any DRM. At best he's shitposting to see what replies drum up, at worse the guy is really disconnected from everything.

>>2117958
>>2117961
I fear they might be like Reavers where they have very specific traits that you have to play one of two ways or you are just self handicapping. That said at least it's not Dark bad where you have to go one path and even swaying any way outside of it is going to get you kicked in hard with MP games.

>>2117961
Makes sense, might actually go for a magic victory for a change of pace now that it's easier to manufacture. Also trying to figure out the battlesaint. Initial thoughts are going down the right and middle side to build it as a frontline anvil like a defender. Granted it probably has weaker defense than a defender and no infinite retaliate but fervor healing should help keep it up and I'm also probably underestimating the 5 damage to all adjacent enemies when getting hit skill node

>>2117933
i pirate almost everything, including this, but i bought it and its dlcs later because it deserves to be bought

only other game i recently did that for was elden ring and its dlc

LET'S

FUCKING

GO

What's the overall consensus on season 2 DLC?

I have been bouncing off of this game, i never know what to create and play. Should I try to create some scenarios in my head and then make custom factions and populate?

>>2118080
Just do a random world if you can't decide.

Okay playing a bit more(~40 turns in) and a few thoughts on the new patch
>Being able to design your heroes is cool but silly with cult of personality, really helps the snowball having the dude you need guaranteed to show up
>Battlesaint is rad, at least on dragon lord. Having a consistent no action cost healing method really helps the big guy from taking a spill early
>Not sure yet how I feel about the architects, got really screwed in terms of finding magic materials so wonderstone was super delayed and it seems only its support units get mounts with a mount trait. That said affinity incarnate is dumb, it affects every single part of the damage. So my battlesaint with lesser spirit shield, Inner radiance, and radiant retribution whos cultivating 2 order affinity thanks to the T1 support is doing 20 damage to the poor schmuck who hits him in melee(14 from the 3 sources + 6 from order affinity incarnate) and 8 spirit damage to everyone else around him
>New race traits are cool, might do a chariot run with feudal next since it turns them all into single model units

What ways to get more retaliations are there? I've got an idea to combine the spellblade skill that pushes the attacker away on retalitation attacks with a polearm for first strike, forge it with the +1 retaliation trait and use supergrowth for another +1 retaliation, to (hopefully) ignore first 3 non-flanking, non-polearm melee attackers every turn.

>>2118089
>might do a chariot run with feudal next since it turns them all into single model units
I got eagle mounts trait from the troll merchant last game while playing as aristocratic feudal. Had to supply flying mounts (wyvern and thunderbirds) for my heroes separately, but my t3 shield units had flying mounts, my support had flying mounts, my knights (obviously) got flying mounts, and while I had no ranged units with optional cavalry, who cares if you can charge the towers and defenders on battlements turn 1 during siege? Also, super mobile.

>do Rings of Emnora with Slaver Reavers
>conquer/kill everyone I see
>You fail the start quest given and eventually the Oracle lady leaves because you are unstable
>Finish off everyone else
>get ban hammered by the Archons
>Outro story is them deciding they needed to get provocative with the universe again because you were that much a pain in the ass

HA! I'm guessing following the story on the good/correct path your Godir makes a case for why they need to come save the world from Umies Tentacles.

>>2118189
>Made evil underground mummy architects for the mission
>Realise there is no underground
>Restart
>Remake my first faction of good high goblins as having ascended to be architects
>Highmen still declare war on you and then force all the Crusader Hosts to declare on you and send armies which were right next to my cities because they were neutral to me because I was very good
>Restart
I'm going back to evil now. I think I'll just take my evil forge giant. He seems to fit theme. He wants to raid the area for relics to make more powerful weapons.

Honestly I really like that aspect of the story missions. They are replayable if you have a bit of imagination because it's fun think of what angle your faction would be approaching the map's story. I struggle finishing the generic maps with no story.

>>2118074
the parts of it i like are good
the parts of it i dont like are bad

I've never touched the samurai culture, how fun are they or are they shit?

>>2118189
Hey if the Archons are being lazy, is it that bad an idea to just ship them a psychopath in a box to burn down their front lawn?
They'll at least check the return address and want to know why the fuck they got sent an epic prank to kick their ass

>>2118222
I wanted to send one of my pantheon guys with their transformations and ascendant trait, but they were nearly all underground gooncave guys since I was enjoying the Dungeon tome too much. so they'd be short in a few advantages. Instead I kept trying to make an architect culture
>preset order, shadow, and materium, so don't feel like copying them too much for my first go
>dev livestream kept dipping into astral
>tend to be too passive to take full advantage of chaos, so try a nature architect, figure blight damage will help against celestial
>make some poison ass frog men

Things I liked so far
>undead being reasonable. Not full on "uwu misunderstood" shit, they're pissed they're awake but still wanna be useful
>references to AoW1 with lizardmen and that evil lake
>Highmen ARE back, their original name and everything

>>2118222
>Highmen still declare war on you
Yeah the Highmen were the Human supremacy guys from AoW1, they're not going to be nice to Goblins. Funny enough though, if you play as Humans they do make a mention of that being a good thing but still declare war on you.

Honestly the most annoying thing to me on that map wasn't even the enemies, it was Dafal Dei spamming outposts right on my fucking border. I think playing evil so you can just curbstomp him is going to be a lot less frustrating.

>>2118323
They're all right. I'd say upper mid tier overall. I think Harmony is the best subculture and Strife the worst, but none of them are bad since they've got a pretty decent roster.

>>2118329
>undead being reasonable
Yeah I liked those guys, but they forward settled the hell out of me, so instead of allying I just told them to fuck off after I helped them because I need their land.

>>2118355
Yeah I'm looking forward to going evil because those 2 guys are so close to you. If you're evil, you'll be able to build up that whole island on your own before moving on to the highmen.

>>2118222
>>2118329
I had Underground adaption and Subterranean society with my Slaver Reavers and I just played it anyway, I didn't give a fuck, there is something satisfying about playing stupid and still winning, more so on this story map.

>poison ass frog men
>evil forge giant

both of those sound fun for what the next map entails I might try your ideas, thanks anons


>>2118355
>I think playing evil so you can just curbstomp him is going to be a lot less frustrating
I will say it lead to a quick 3nd city going to war with him asp , felt more like dealing with a free city than a ruler

>>2118364
That's exactly what happens, I was a bit slow due to my handicaps but turn 55 I had most of the Island and the game steam rolled from there

Man the new DLC feels...anemic to say the least.
It adds next to nothing to the game save for tones(what a joke), one new event(save the captured angel), no new quests, no new anything really...like no new shops or dwelling,only a single fucking realm trait.
The new story maps are alright and the 2nd map DOES have different endings there is that if your into it
All in all a real disappointment almost as bad as dragon dawn.
Season 3 is comfired guess bloodsuckers will be joining the fray....but boy this season sucked give us at least empire mode or something

>Medium, 9 Ruler map using the new DLC preset modified to include all the events from prior DLC
>Finished my factions prophecy trait thing
>Have an alliance with 4 other rulers
>Killed the asshole who hijacked another ruler from the WW events
>Dealt with the toll of seasons
>Got two gold wonders bound for magic victory
>Yet there's still this one random guy who's in the middle of all the charts I've never met
Well damn, I'm more impressed than anything that I've almost won without meeting this dude

>>2118419
>It adds next to nothing to the game save for tones
I don't know what you're smoking my brother, but maybe you want to lay off for a while.
>4 new tomes, more than any previous DLC
>a new culture
>a new hero class
>2 new races
>a bunch of new units
>a new biome
>new wonders
>new story maps

>>2118479
Have you checked underground? He could just be hiding in the basement.

>>2118486
NVM found them on the surface. Literally just spawned exactly opposite of me it seems. Kind of a weird one too, technically we've never formally met, my first interaction with them is one of my allies pulling me into a war with them and them snitching where her throne city is

>>2118419
>>2118486
I think that's always the issue with adding stuff to 4X games is everyone wants certain things tweaked to where they lean in the gameplay. Anyone like me that's into the mechanics play of what's already there is having a field day with all the changes and tweaks, anyone that's wanting more of the roleplaying or out right new features is left wanting. As a flip example many see Eldritch Realms as the best add-on where I found it bloated, it was mostly junk and fluff with how it effected gameplay meta. That doesn't mean I'm right and the masses are wrong, it just means in a 4X you are not making everyone happy, it's just not possible.

>>2118492
I would love to have an option that control how it spaced other rulers in AI. I don't want it all the time but there is nothing more frustrating than choosing a huge map with only 2 other rulers to test very late game metas and you trip over both of their capitals by turn 20. I had one map generation where an opposing ruler was closer than my nearest free city.

>>2118542
>ER was bloated
ER was the best because it was full of content, it added in so much stuff that it became a must addon same with E&A and GK, these DLC added much needed content be it a new gameplay aka Seals(EA),new layer and dwelling and cosmic happenings(ER)or new important landmarks that give you bonuses and shops(GK)
And what did AP add? Nothing really except of a recolored biome and culture something the other dlc do
>muh tomes
There is countless mods that do the same
Really really disappointed with it consider how much it costs and how little it adds...hopefully the gothic/vampire dlc will be not as disappointing as thid

Finally finished a game with the architects and they seem just kinda okay. Didn't exactly consider any of their culture units as major standouts except for the T1 support for the constant buff/heal/cleanse of my rulers/heroes. Honestly not very good at the city building part to judge if their unique stuff is that useful but hey at least my cities never grew unhappy for a change of pace. I also might have been super unlucky with wonderstone(Got boxed in early and my scouts died early on too) since I only managed to build a T4 and T1 by the end of the game 120 turns in. As welcome as the T4 buffs are the escalating cost of the monuments(450 for the 2nd monument in a different province, 675 for the 3rd, and 1k+ for the 4th) is damn steep and add to that you can't pay to speed up the construction for the monuments. Really feels like while they can build for magic victory it's more of a nudge than a full on reliance on it and realistically you'll still need to find at least 1 gold wonder if you want to do it by the time 5th tier books/age of affinity become available.

>>2118706
Yeah, I'm only still in the beginning stages so far but Architects are not really singing to me. The hammer guy especially fucking sucks and the overall unit lineup doesn't really feel like it has a winning game plan. Couple that with having to claw your way up to having any actual faction bonuses at all makes for a rough early game. It almost makes me feel like I've been too harsh on Primal.

>>2118681
>ER was the best because it was full of content
It was more or less just taking the map settings and compacting them. Umbra is very close to creating a void pockets map with all desolate lands with volcanic eruptions and having underground start with the only new wrinkle being you can't settle a city. Flavor wise it was a lot but in actual content it was no different than your complaints about the tomes, it would take little modding to replicate the same effects.

That's the thing here, all of the DLC rides on that, it's just how aware you are of it and it usually just boils down to flavors and little else. Example, their was a seals mod before they made it official. You look at it as an addition but dismiss the new tomes that need a lot more work put into them than said seals.

Again, I don't think any of this is good or bad, it's just flavor preferences and little else.

>>2118864
true enough but still...25 dollars/euros for so little is crazy no?

>>2118871
imo S2 is over priced in general. However I saw that when coming where it was 3 add-ons and not 4, in some ways it's more honest in what it's doing than S1 was but again, everyone has their tastes and that always effects outcomes, some people might enjoy the story missions were actually fine tune more, or even that it has story missions, the last two had those absent. Other people will see no value in that and might want more things to plug into random AI maps, and others found the content in GK and WW very lacking because they don't play many AI matches and most of their stuff is with friends (I'd be in that group) as I said at the start, you will not make everyone happy with a 4X, there is just too many things people get out of them.

What's the best culture for maximum unga bunga? Oathsworn? Feudal?

>>2118942
Aggro/rush tactics? Barbarian

Roll playing a smash through everything given class? Strife Oathsworn or Reavers

Society traits that reflect this are all the Chaos ones baring Merciless Slavers. You could go for a side of Fabled Hunters to keep the bunga going.

>>2118951
I'll try oath for something different I guess.

What are we thinking build wise for Materium Architects? Lots of innate status resistance debuffs but I'm not sure how to maximize that with physical damage bonuses from the Monuments. Tome of shades for easy blind applications?

>>2118397
It feels appropriately thematic to give frogs the poisonous trait
Then I start with tome of roots and try to score extra poison stacks in brawls
>>2118942
Alternatively, Primal culture
They're so unga bunga they don't have metallurgy and all their stuff is sticks and rocks and bones
>>2119106
I'll have to think about materium once I finish this nature architect run
There should be a decent amount of debuffs right? Bleeding, alchemy tome debuffs, gilded, transmuters lower straight up defense of what they hit too, right? I forget

>>2118397
>both of those sound fun for what the next map entails I might try your ideas, thanks anons
I forgot how bad my forge giant is. He uses the evil Weeb culture, but goddamn it's slow progress. The frog and I just keep wiping out each other's armies. It's almost turn 100 and I still haven't left the first island. With my good goblins I was there in like 20 turns. He looks cool though.

Also does anyone have any good ideas for nature factions that aren't just wood elves? My wood elf faction felt OP on release, but I haven't played nature since then and I think the tribal expansion. Feels hard to make a faction themed around lots of animals and forests that aren't just elves.

>>2119193
>Also does anyone have any good ideas for nature factions that aren't just wood elves?
How about spider spamming dark elves? Or goblins, or whatever race you like.

>>2119193
>nature factions
Note sure exactly what you are asking for but Big earth giant with wolf or crow primal bird people following the tomb of beasts?

>>2119232
>>2119243
Both cool. Yeah I was thinking Nature/Shadow forest goblins would be cool. Could go warhammer spider goblins with tribal culture or Tolkein Dol Guldur goblins with Dark culture. I was thinking evil mushroom druids focusing on blight damage and necromancy might be cool would be a cool.

I think I waited too long.

>>2119193
>any good ideas for nature factions that aren't just wood elves
Easy, just vaguely trying to remember what I did previously
>Barbarian gobbos who fought over a desert, became nature terraformers to grow it into a gaia paradise, only after violently murdering everyone in sight, became plants
>halfling primalists pushed into a swamp, pray to giant crocodile, became poisonous naga bogling monsters
>dwarf industrialists who built underground, more nature than materium, to terraform domain for endless mushroom forests to harvest and turn into weapons of war, some reason I gave them both the minor and major draconic transformations so they ended up looking like kobolds
>now figuring out how best to run nature frog architects, no major TF yet
Nature's animal gimmick still feels lacking, but the stacking blight damage, decay, and the tier 5 tome giving a faction wide buff to whichever of the three manor TFs you pick plus animals gives it some flexibility if you dip into other affinities
>>2119266
>evil mushroom druids focusing on blight damage and necromancy might be cool would be a cool.
Like this. This could be fun, might have synergy with stacking decay enchantments from both tome of cycles and necromancy

When I'm going to vassalize another ruler, should I take as many of their cities and vassals for my own before I go for the ruler, or do I get a benefit to vassalizing someone who has a lot of their own cities?

how quickly should i found outposts/cities?

>>2119404
Yeah, ever since they buffed plants Nature is really good now as long as your endgame is either Plants, Dragons, or Nagas (especially Naga's with lightning damage) Animals...just kinda exist as throwaway summons and nothing else.

I think I might also give Nature architects a shot, I'm trying to make my Ancient hybrid Order/Shadow Architect (Tomb Kings, basically) build work and it just fucking sucks for the first story map, being a weak build that starts super weak and gradually becomes decent is not a good play when everything is bursting with spirit energy and on my ass and there's like two magic materials in the first zone.

>>2119288
>I think I waited too long.
That's what the archons are saying to the dumpster fire happening around them. And does Maliel say anything unique to a Giant king when first encountered?

>>2119419
If I understand your question the answer is you just get what ever city you claim to vassalize, not his whole kingdom. If it's the Rulers main city you claim the others just become free cities that you can choose to stay at war with or make peace with after defeating the ruler.


>>2119457
depends on your build and if you are doing MP or what difficulty the AI is but -generally- you want city two between turn 10 and 20 and city three before turn 35. Your first city needs to focus on Production due to all the special structures the capital city gets, most make city two about draft and city three is money/mana. Again, these are not hard rules just tips but by turn 30 you should be feeling a sense of relief on needing resources and army building should be coming together with your Ruler unit and two heroes.

>>2119419
>>2119477
wait I confused myself. What type of vassalize we were talking about?
If you mean the diplomatic one that makes you Overlord it works as an Alliance that they can't break unless you allow it, so the more damage you do to them the weaker you are making your future ally. However most won't bend the knee unless they take a certain amount of damage, some will cave if you claim their main city others just need their armies weaken to the point they are bottoming out in military rankings and some will refuse out right. IIRC all Warlords won't submit no matter how close to defeat they are, while most Sages will cave pretty fast.

>>2118074
Chink and Giant are the lamest dlc released so far but are not bad on their own besides being overpriced. Archon is awesome if you want more Spirit and Undead content.

I bought the game and its DLC. What' a good way to learn the systems?

>>2119487
Play the tutorial and base game campaign. The first couple missions are relatively easy as long as you keep your alliances

>>2119483
Yeah I meant becoming Overlord, I don't really know the vassal income formula vs the power of an AI alliance, if it was worth having more direct vassals and then I was Overlord of of an empire with only 1 city remaining, or if it was more beneficial to let the vassal empire have more cities under it's own control that then flow up into my empire

>>2119487
>>2119490
The tutorial and story missions are not that great at helping you get a footing on how to play imo but that's due to how 4X's go having so much content in them. They are easy/fun missions but getting to where you understand mechanics it gets messy, more so when the story missions have choices and outcomes you normally will never see in MPs or vs AI. imo do as anon says and play the story missions with whatever you want and get a feel for what you like and don't like thematically then google up some guides on how to optimize from there.

>>2119504
Depends how big you are. They more or less work like hobo Free Cities even giving you their magical materials,but you can't control how they deal with other rulers/free cities (however they can never go to war without you) so it's more of it is a question of is the juice worth the squeeze. If I'm 4+cities in I'd sooner just make them submit with what they have than risk over loading myself with the macro of a new city or two.That said I usually just kill them and make their kingdom a free city, more so if I have silver tongue as a means to control my boost to my cities incomes of production, draft, etc.

>>2119487
>>2119521
Another idea is make a basic AI map, medium size with 4 opponents counting you that has no modifiers turn on, it's a crash course style but if you have tips on it'll help you through stuff and you'll learn a lot by just dealing with the game world

>>2119471
>Maliel say anything unique
NTA, but i played as pure good and order human reaver he was extermily happy to meet at fellow "archon soon to be" nevertheless he still went to war to "test" my resolve but was extermily happy and satisfyed after i defeated him
I imagine he would be glad to meet a giant only if he was pure good and order like the titans?

Faith and Steel, motherfuckers.

Damn this mission was a pain though. It's easier than the first one but it takes such a longass time to do it the "right" way. If I ever play it again I think I'll just wreck the two enemy factions the old-fashioned way without bothering with the Endailon sidequest..

>>2119559
He does a "oh you are {-insert race-} how... unfortunate" to many of them regardless of alignment. Eldritch he has a big freak out. I have no idea about Giants and the prettier races as most the ones I play on that map so far are uglies and monsters.

It's clear they want being good on those two story missions to be something earned. Evil is just way to easy and fun. More so if you are like me and you want to see how much a game accounts for you going off script.

>>2119559
He does a "oh you are {-insert race-} how... unfortunate" to many of them regardless of alignment. Eldritch he has a big freak out. I have no idea about Giants and the prettier races as most the ones I play on that map so far are uglies and monsters.

>>2119581
It's clear they want being good on those two story missions to be something earned. Evil is just way to easy and fun. More so if you are like me and you want to see how much a game accounts for you going off script.

How is feudal since its rework?

I wish their were more feminine Eldritch Sovereign bodies. There's only the very feminine humanoid dress and the androgynous mermaid. I still want a nightmare beyond comprehension instead of a giant lady with a weird face. I just also want that nightmare to have 12 sets of breasts.

>>2119662
Feudal is very strong now, especially Monarchy. Personally I think Houses is just not worth the aggravation involved, but it's a cool idea.

>>2119664
The fact that they made it a mono gender with less outfit options than either of the Male or Female sets of the Champion/Wizard King was such a ball crusher.

>>2119686
Was it never not strong? I feel like it has always been a solid pick more so Monarchy.

>>2119689
>Was it never not strong?
Pre-rework Feudal was long considered the weakest culture in the game, only rivaling Dark really.

>Human
>Feudal (Monarchy)
>Mortal Champion (Warrior) (Male)
>Tome of Faith
Its gamer time baby

On a different note, still not really loving Architects so far.

The support units are pretty good. The Archer is great. The hammer guy fucking sucks and the Spear Guy is a solid concept for a unit dragged down by being T2 (the worst tier) and unmountable, so you're just left with a guy who is kinda tanky but not realistically very useful since you can't use him early game, he doesn't hold up late game, and there's nothing you can really do to make him better.

>still can't customize starter racial units
what the fuck is their problem
does letting us play as all female girlbosses of color not align with the agenda?

>>2119714
They have another season to consider. I wager a lot of this stuff might get baked into those updates. Consider people wanted AI Tom Paths, A City list maker, and a hero roster with biographies since launch and they just now added them now. My guess is you'll get you wish late this year or sometime next year with the next three DLCs. Whatever the hell those are going to be. I feel like they are running out of road here for meaningful content.

>>2119737
>I feel like they are running out of road here for meaningful content.
Yeah, next season pass is likely the last one, it's already an extension of their original plans.
>Vampires
>?
>?

Hopefully they finally do something with Water/ice magic and finish reworking the OG cultures. I can't think of any popular/frequently requested thing they're missing otherwise.

>>2119737
>I feel like they are running out of road here for meaningful content
because there's only so many fantasy tropes they can add
but yeah, hoping for some good qol and reworks next season

>>2119698
>Human
>Reaver
>Mortal Champion (Ranger) (Male)
>Tome of Zeal
It is time.

>>2119756
>. I can't think of any popular/frequently requested thing they're missing otherwise.
Empire mode

>>2119767
we have empire mode at home

>>2119759
>>2119756
>Dark rework
>More eldritch options
And I can die happy. Realistically we're probably only getting a Dark rework, It sucks but I think they're done with eldritch support.
>wishlist
>Bat form (similar to against the storm)
>Shadow/Gothic culture
>Eidilon ruler (since they seem to be heavily hinting that)
>more times (specifically more chaos/order hybrid for Boros roleplay, and Nature/shadow for Golgari)
>WATER CULTURE

>>2119193
Don't know if that counts, but I was playing nature/order feudal halflings in the last game, picking the more "tame" side of the nature tomes (Roots, Fertility, Paradise and Fey Mists) to make my domain a nice place to live in.

>>2119521
The first story mission (against Yaka) is pretty good for learning, you only have one opponent, and an ally to help you. The second one is more difficult, plenty of factions, but you can befrienden half of them through quests. And then there's the Crimson Caldera...

>>2119756
>Hopefully they finally do something with Water/ice magic
That would be nice. I've also realized I'd like more sand to play with, you have frostlings for snow, you can blow up terrain for desolate, you can make grasslands and forests, but nothing for deserts if you don't pick desert adaptation/snake primal.

>>2119737
race wise outside of more furries you have making an actual machine race and/or Ruler type, as well as a more elemental themed one. Culture wise they have hit near bed rock unless they are going to start pulling very specif irl cultures. I feel this last run would almost have to to have one DLC be fully map additions driven.

>>2119662
It's really good. I wouldn't say it's DA BEST since that's probably still Barbs or Mystic, but it's a good 3rd place IMO.

Not sure I agree with the other Anon that Monarchy is the best subculture though. Yeah making sure to match up nobles with the right units from the rightcities is a bit of a pain but you can make it easier by using summons, and it is more flexible in terms of being less reliant on just your ruler for bonuses. I also think the Aristocrat Liege Guard is a better unit than the Monarchy Longbow, but that's not a huge deal since most Feudal builds will probably rely on their Knights more anyway.

>>2119760
This except with Discipline instead of Zeal.

>>2119848
Machine race would be awkward because either you'd make them constructs which would kinda be like a free transformation, or you don't in case what's the point of being machines? I'd rather see an actual machine/construct transformation.

I would like more elemental and fey themed stuff though.

>>2119471
Yeah, but it's just the word that changes. He's like oh, you're a giant king, how unfortunate. Same as when I was a goblin.

>>2119848
Nah they can also make Fishpeople. Guranteed that's going to be one of the DLC, Water-themed stuff. Right now we just have the snake tail transformation

>>2119737
>I feel like they are running out of road here for meaningful content.
they need to do a dlc that makes the ocean interesting

>>2119848
>outside of more furries
I think they've given up on those. In one of their streams they mentioned that no one plays them, so they wanted to make more human looking races for archons. I wonder if they'll even bother with more. The forms always feel like the least interesting part of the DLCs. The game has humans, dwarves, orcs, goblins, elves, Lizardmen and goatmen. I don't really need anything else. Anything else I could want would need differ from the skeleton structure they use. Big things like ogres and trolls or centaurs. Actually centaurs will probably just be a racial transformation in one of the DLCs. Like a Steppe DLC. Pretty easy one. Steppe culture and tomes about cavalry and raiding with chaos and nature focus.

>>2119905
I'm not sure they're going to. They seem to have a pretty limited budget and team for the DLCs and they need to follow certain content patterns. Making the ocean interesting would be a bigger DLC that messes with the mechanics that probably wouldn't be worth the cost.

Me deserve vampire culture

>finish first story realm
>second realm says it's taking place on the ruined giant kingdom
Good excuse to dust off a Giant King maybe, or make a new one
Any neat interactions in the Myrridia map based on your ruler or culture type?

>>2119963
I feel like you can make a pretty decent vampire nation as is by just going feudal with shadow tomes. Could still be better though, some blood and vampire tomes. I dunno if they should bother with a culture though. Both dark and feudal fit vampires well.

>>2119993
Not much. There's a "hidden" giant king you can discover and ally with if you want, he might have some different interaction if you're a giant yourself. But the main thing about the map is whether you do the endailon sidequests or not, since doing them all unlocks a different ending.

Did they make infestations give better unit drops on average? On regenerating infestations Ive gotten like 2 phoenixes back to back by turn 20 and a solid amt of 3* units like a spirit wolf and wyvern. 30 turns later got another one and even that 5* moth that just wont fucking die.

Just give me a pirate culture, vampire culture + one more and like 2 more major transformations and Im set they can end the game

I don't think I'll ever understand why people are so extremely hung up on Vampires.

If you want undead bloodsuckers that's exactly what Wightborn already does, and if you don't like the Wightborn visuals you can just turn them off. If you want flying there are multiple ways to get that. If you want shapeshifting you're SOL since the devs said on the last stream that the engine doesn't properly support it.

>>2120031
Pirate is too close to the tech raider one that's already in there. Cannons and guns and shit. Won't happen.

I wonder what else they're working on at the moment? From what I can tell it's a smaller separate team working on the DLCs. Although the studio might just be smaller than I thought.

>>2119868
We now have two attempts at having undead race/ruler that are not actually undead that also require a level 3 tome to actually be undead but the populaces still needs farms

In most cases I'd be on your side be these Devs just don't even try to be consistent and it seem the player base accepts that.

>>2119881
Oof, the communities are not a fan of sea stuff so they have an uphill fight, but they are limited on what's left to explore, however they claim since everyone just plays humans and elves and are light on any transformations that isn't undead or angels I can't see them pour into that unless they are just bullshiting all the time to make what they want.

>>2120027
are you using the new terrain choice and or what's your difficulty? They said they have scaled rewards now to difficulty so the easier you set it the better it gives.

>>2120031
>Just give me a pirate culture
That's Reavers straight up.

>>2120035
Majority of the community play the game for it's role playing aspects and I think the devs want to lean into that because those communities are more forgiving to what you make so long as it scratches whatever itch you got. That's not to say this game hasn't got a lot of depth, but when you look at S1 DLCs the highest praise was the worse designed/balanced one but it brought the most flavor and most of S2 is single player vs AI content which is getting well received. So people wanting Vampires are just people wanting to roll play whatever they have in their head on the screen. I want to stress I'm fine with this and it is fun stuff, just trying to help explain why people want that content, to you and me, it's about mechanics, to them it's about visuals and story.

God the first mission of this DLC is really reminding me how much I hate fighting against order factions. The buffs are just insane. Their tier 1 units can beat my tier 5 ones. I might just have to fall back to my astral spell spam clutch that I beat the final vanilla mission with.

This game would be so much more popular if it didn't have mobile game interface and graphics

>>2120075
This means nothing

Do different sources of ignore status resistance stack or does it just use whatever they highest source from gear/traits is?

>>2107653
Nah, it's AoW: 2 (SM) > AoW 1 >>> AoW4 >>>>>>>>>>>>>> AoW 3 (dude goblin angles LMAO)

>>2120075
true
it dropped from 40k to ~7k since release for a good reason

>>2120064
I'm just aggravated that the Highman guy is literally just camping the first teleporter (that you can only send one army per turn through) with like 12 full stacks, I don't see any way to salvage my current save.

Guess I'm gonna have to restart and try to sneak through somehow because this is just retarded.

>>2120121
It's sad because it can EASILY replace Civ as THE 4X if it just had more budget/better interface devs

>>2120122
>that you can only send one army per turn through
I thought that at first. It's just a regular teleporter. Just move your nerds around it rather than clicking on the teleport dropdown box and they'll go through. Although if he's camping it with a bunch of dudes, you are most likely too late. The guys on the next island are even stronger.

Nothing more satisfying than blocking off a assholes city.

>>2120075
why do you want this to be more popular? have you seen what happens to those titles?

>>2120123
Why do you want this? Do you not understand how Civ became so garbage?


You want games to be well liked enough to get add-ons and sequels but do not root for these titles to become massive hits, at best you get one title more of goodness before the series goes to shit (Metal Gear Solid) at worse it's just going to crash and burn near instantly from it's success (Dragon Age). Fucksakes look at Warhammer and D&D, you want that kind of success? I'm happy it has these fluxes if only because it means the normies aren't staying and poising the well keeping the devs focused on what the core actually want.

>all the talk of vampire race/form
You know when the devs first mentioned the word vampire for s3, my mind immediately went to a vampire ruler class rather than racial form
Design it like your ascended champion or wizard king with most clothing options, or optional giant bat fucker form, maybe manage an extra blood resource, turn your heroes/governors into lesser vampires for buffs and flavor like you're growing your goth gang, and just be an all around spooky ability guy
Wightborn is portrayed broad enough it includes most undead gimmicks, so a separate TF spell doesn't make sense since wightborn included lifesteal
I can still see a vampirism tome to supplement any bloodsucker fantasies, but for me, only a new leader type makes sense to fully utilize that vision

>really just want a drider TF spell already. Caves are fun now, but want even MORE

If nothing else I still want a new ruler type that uses the champion/wk customization system

>>2120158
I already thought of Vampire class in AoW3. I'd copy Fall from Heaven design, in AoW4 too.
https://fallfromheaven.fandom.com/wiki/Calabim
Higher tier units would be Vampires, lower tier walking blood bags. That way vampirism could be applied to any Form as well

>>2120158
>my mind immediately went to a vampire ruler class rather than racial form
Yeah this would be way better. Making vampires a racial form or a culture would ruin the idea of them IMO. They're supposed to be ancient and powerful monsters, there shouldn't be just an entire race of vampires chilling out somewhere.

How I would add vampires to AoW4:
>vampire ruler type
>vampire rulers function more or less like champions, except significantly stronger in combat and they have innate skill like Floating and Lifesteal
>as a downside your cities have lower growth when governed by a vampire, and non-vampire units have a morale penalty when lead by a vampire (maybe additional penalties are needed for balance but that's not my job)
>recruited heroes can be turned into vampires as well, this causes them to get stronger due to innate vampire skills but they become worse leaders due to the morale penalty and losing access to their champion skills
>add some vampire-themed tomes to round things out, like blood magic, shadow magic, etc.

This would basically lead to two different playstyles. Either you keep your heroes in their basic champion form, or you turn them into vampires for an immediate boost in combat power but your cities and armies will be worse as a result.

>>2120110
It should all stack just like status resistance itself does, just keep in mind that you can't exceed the status effect's base chance of applying.

>>2120157
but that's exactly what's happening to the series now
haven't you noticed how many youtubers were shilling 4 before release? there's no way that many people boarded a hype train for a relatively obscure game, just like there's no way normies aren't the majority of "the core" now and the game is starting to reflect that
planetfall and 4 may very well be trumph's last hurrah, like generals and tiberium wars were to cnc
and if you want another parallel, all four games happened following an acquisition by a larger studio, EA and paradox

Thoughts so far on the battlesaint and revised hero classes?

>>2120257
Battlesaint feels OK. Support-tank no matter which way you build it. It won't solo fights but its fun.

>>2120257
It's a solid support class. It doesn't do much in terms of damage but it's a good healer who can take some hits as well. I don't like it as a ruler pick though. Early on I'd rather get something that can deal better damage and end fights. Later on support becomes more valuable so Battlesaint heroes are great.

>>2120158
>>2120163
I'm not too keen on vampires, but if it leads to more gameplay around the bleeding status and they bring back Death bringers. I'm fine with it.

What is really needed is a Nature expansion because it's the only affinity and tome path and builds that is mostly unchanged since 2023

>>2120215
then by that logic the last thing you want is a popularity boost

>>2120295
Nature has been solid over all, I'd worry any tweaking could cause issues like what we have seen with Chaos over the years.

what we need are aquatic races, cities, special districts, and features

>>2120350
ships*
we don't even have proper fleets, and even if we did not one of these games had well made naval combat, not even the spinoff game

>>2120295
>t's the only affinity and tome path and builds that is mostly unchanged since 2023
u wot m8

Ever since they changed the Nature capstone to affect Dragons and Nagas as well, they've had the best selection of transformations that still work within the theme. Most builds that focus on a single affinity only have one obvious tome path while Nature has three, plus there's multiple other strong Nature options added with DLC like Fey Mist and Prosperity.
The only thing that's weak about Nature is its affinity tree, which isn't entirely terrible but a lot of it is too focused on long-term growth to be worth aiming for outside of very large games.

>>2120350
Nah fuck that.

>>2120355 This.
Before they start adding horseshit like aquatic races, they first need to make aquatic gameplay worth a shit. If not it'll just make the game worse for everyone involved.

>>2120350
You ever wonder if the devs come to these places to force feed these ideas no one wants?

Fun discoveries, Intrigue Happenings will use the custom heroes you make for rulers. Last night I had a game where the hero that took over the Godir's place was the one I made for that build. Another today was a rumors of rebellion one where the prisoner I needed to free was another hero I made for a different leader.
It's mostly just flavor thing but I still enjoy the idea you can have some more control how those events play out.

>>2120403
No, since A: I'm not a schizo who thinks every post I don't agree with is part of some kind of conspiracy and B: the developers themselves have said no to aquatic races and cities in the past.

>>2120419
So why even bring it all up then?

>>2120422
Because he wanted to voice an opinion on content he wants in the game and perhaps start a discussion on it? And he quite possibly didn't even know the devs had said no to aquatic cities before?
Do you have the autism?

>>2120429
>And he quite possibly didn't even know the devs had said no to aquatic cities before?
no i was aware of that
i want it anyway

>>2120419
>>2120429
>he takes the post seriously and calls people crazy for thinking that way

The lady doth protest too much, methinks

I haven't found the answer anywhere: do the special units a free city grants to the Rally of the Lieges (like masters of materium, etc.) change if you migrate the city into your race? I know you get them if you vassalize or absorb the city as it is, but I can't test it myself right now.

lay it out for me bros, is this playable without unit templates?
should I buy? should I pirate?
how stable is multiplayer?

>>2120122
Oh also I've just realised that if you attack an army through the teleporter, it's a 1v1. So you can just hit their stacks one at a time.

>>2094459 (OP)
What's best if i wanna play the true neutral human warrior faction?

>>2120635
Feudal order/nature

>>2120051
No this is a normal terrain, Im also playing on Normal because I suck at this game

We got angels. We need demons as a race. No, Oni don't count.

>>2120635
>>2119698

>Chaplains are now a T3 unit
>part of the Tome of the Beacon
I guess Im never seeing them again

>>2120303
>then by that logic the last thing you want is a popularity boost
don't want a shit ton of normies and plebeians getting into anything en mass, it always degrades the quality of the playerbase often the game itself, the devs would be incentivized to implement things not based on how it might best improve the game, but rather on mass appeal.

Fromsoft is one relevant to me as someone who's been playing their games since the PS2 as a child, since DS3 the playerbase is either blind fanboys who think from can do no wrong and any criticism is taken as someone just being bad, tourists who haven't even played DS1 or 2 and then act like nu-souls is the best thing ever, or try hard sweats who swear by the horrible, awful PvP. Like fuck, look at mainstream AAA, CoD kids of today don't even know how good it was back in day.
Sure others can think of examples relevant to them

Gatekeeping is good.

I actually just can't beat the first mission of this DLC. I clearly just suck ass at this game more than I thought. It feels so bullshit that all their units just route, instantly heal and then come back through the portal the next turn. You need to win a 3v3 flawlessly every turn to fight them. You can't ally the 2 guys next to you either because they don't do anything to help, and just take all the land. So you have to waste time killing them or accept the loss of land.

hey guys total nuub here, I think this might be the rts that actually brings me into the genre is there any primers? how to into basically?

>>2120763
Just make sure you go into the options and set it to real time, otherwise you might accidentally play a TBS.

>>2120763
For starters, it's not an RTS. Aside from that, just do the tutorial. It's got a ton of options but the basics aren't that complex.

Man I like the class rework on the whole, but Elementalist feels kinda lame to me. Not because it's too weak but because like 80% of your build is locked in when you pick your element at level 2. I wish their tree was a bit more horizontal so you had more things to choose between picking your element and reaching the end of the tree.

>>2120586
>is this playable without unit templates?
This isn't Planetfall. There are no unit templates.

>should I buy? should I pirate?
If you're on the fence, just pirate it. You can always buy it later if you like it enough.

>how stable is multiplayer?
Mixed results. Some people get lots of desync errors and other don't. Seems like you can avoid a lot of the desyncs by making sure everyone's game is set to the same language though. For some unexplainable reason some mecahnical interactions are tied to the localization files, so if you have two people using a different language the game will sometimes read two different words for the same thing, think they're actually different things, and consequently shit itself to death.

>>2120686
Beacon is better than it used to be since Mighty Meek affects level 2 units as well. Plus it synergises really well with builds using Tome of the Horde and/or Tome of Necromancy since those love spamming low-level units.

>>2119737
>>2119848
I mean you could do something like Dominions and have a statue/monument god

>>2120766
>>2120802
kek
oh my my Bad I remember it not being one I don't know why my mind decided otherwise atm

>>2120810
Be fun but I'm curious if the devs could handled that, you either need them to have a serious boost to combat and global spells and/or magic energy to make up for having no hero at the start or have some sort of avatar hero but that defeats the point of a statue/monument ruler if you do that.
Actually that's going to be the hardest thing going forward is making a new ruler that is actually distinct from the others. The idea you offer is the only one that wouldn't feel like a falvor of what we already have in Champion, Wizard King, Dragon, Eldritch, and Giant anything else you do will feel like one of those 5. Then again, I think most just play this for roleplay AI shit so they might take any reskin so long as it fits the themes they want.

>>2120586
fuck off with planetfall already

The society ruin quests traits are awful, you are spending at least 40+ turns to unlock them and they not only benefit all rulers in some way, it's so late game that it's worthless. The Astral wants you to collect Magic materials and to bind gold wonders while the Chaos one wants you to go to war and clear off nearly half the map of rulers, in both cases you are 3/4ths finish with the game to get their unlocks (which were both shit) the Shadow one at least has better control with clearing it and I got in by turn 33 but the rewards were nothing worth the effort. Oh and the starting bonus are insulting such as +10 mana, or +20 draft, whoopie fucking do, unless the map is extra bad that befit isn't helping me.

Are the other two trait quest sets this bad? If so I can't see anyone wanting to play these even in the roll play sense, I sooner play a Reaver class with Silver Tongue than these quests, at least I don't feel as gimp at the start.

Wait what? Is there a full list somewhere or some kind of indicator as to what counts as a "mental" status effect? There definitely isn't any mention of it in the Tome of Wonders.

Hot Take: Cult of Personality shouldn't exist. Heroes should just get a skill point in general when their renown level increases.

Why is there no pure chaos culture?

Aesthetic dlc.
AI tactical changes are nice, it does less stupid shit.
Chariots are kinda op, but it's not like I play multiplayer anyway.

>>2120257
Battlesaint is god-tier support caster class, not impressed with the tank tree, warrior/guardian is better.
Warlock is very good with giving out free resurgence right away.
Elementalist feels worse than it was before the wizard split.

>>2121005
I have only done the builder one of Material. It wasn't as awful as it's request was basically a level 4 city with 16 population and the usually stability you can get with that. The most note worthy thin is it gives you a lvl V Earth Titan at the start of every battle then on which at that mid to late game does make things easier.

>>2121168
I was assuming they were saving it for DLC, but we are soon to be S3 and nothing and until this very last DLC they were never keen on players going for Chaos for whatever reason.

>>2121168
technically there is one with the new faction because you pick your affinity.

>>2121168
A pure chaos culture wouldn't make sense thematically, because chaos is basically anti-culture. So any "chaos culture" has to be mixed with something else to not implode into anarchy.

>>2121169
>AI tactical changes are nice, it does less stupid shit.
Yeah I noticed this as well. However there's one thing it still consistently fucks up with and that's mind control. They spend too much time beating up the mind controlled unit instead of purging the mind control or killing the controller, which means that there's a high chance of unnecessary losses autoresolving these fights.

>>2121206
AI also has still has a bad habit of just popping cooldowns if it will result in a kill, even if the thing it's attacking is still extremely low value. Like a Righteous Judge firing it's unicorn laser at some random decaying zombie instead of waiting an extra turn then firing at my ES ruler who is at half health.

>Vision of Promise rewards you with a powerful throne city
>Get excited because I think that means there's finally a way to play tall that isn't Chosen Destroyers
>Do the nature version
>REWARD: +1 city cap
+20% income on the new capital too which is nice but it's definitely not what I hoped for. I guess the other paths have different rewards judging by >>2121202 . Does anyone know what the Order version gives?

>>2121225
I haven't tried them myself but from what I read all versions of Vision of Promise give a new city and +1 city cap as a reward, they just have a different quest in order to get it.

>>2121225
>there's finally a way to play tall that isn't Chosen Destroyers
Chosen Destroyers and Vision of Promise aren't mutually exclusive, by the way.

Any mods/cheats to get all Panteon rewards?
Grinding for unlocks is retarded in singleplayer.

>>2121005
I can't make heads or tails what they were thinking
>waste all that time getting two full sets of magic materials
>getting the Gold wonder bound
>everyone gets cheaper spells!
>but you can cast as much as you want in a turn, assuming you have the mana/points

I need that at the start, not 50 turns in and you giving discounts to everyone just fucks me over with fights forcing me to make them end asp which makes me blow more mana just to keep pace. What the fuck does the Chaos one do? Make everyone explode 5 hexs when they die?

>>2121225
>>2121232
For some reason the Material one give you a massive boost the other two don't with the Earth Titan in every fight. Mat have the "hardest" of the three for a path, but every fight having a free level 5 unit thrown in greatly upsets the match balance in your favor. The other two get nothing but the city cap and resources but both of them are much more forward (claim one location/settle in ruins) while the Material one needs the city built but if you know going in advance that's how it's going to work you'd just take your time making more than say a second city. This might make Hermit Kingdom more useful.

>>2121295
I think you just need to use the mod tool and pull up the Patheon Pak file and change the false to true on the list of items.

Alternatively
>make a faction with Vigilante Knights
>start a small to medium 1 v 1 map with regenerating infestations
>pin the enemy ruler to his starting point
>just constantly do the infestation bounties that pop up every turn for about an hour or two
>enjoy the 400+ points

I don't think they have patch that one out yet as shared it with my irl friend two weeks ago and he said it work fine

>>2121005
I did the vision of destiny for order and it wasn't so bad, just needed to hit order 8 and rack up points by vassalize cities, destroy infestations and/or secure alliances with other rulers. Pretty much just getting an upgrade for doing something I already do. reward was 4 status resist + Inspiring killer on all my dudes and unlocked Light spirits, blessed souls, and astras for rally of lieges

I...was just planning to delay him for a turn so I could pop Recall Ruler.

lmao

>>2120403
The devs are Dutch, they surely have no idea about sea.

>>2121729
Speaking of sea, I got the stupidest free city sitting right next to my throne: Experienced Seafarers on a map with no water (except the underground channels, I guess), Hermit Kingdom (again, mere 4 provinces away from my throne), cats with Desert Adaptation on a map with barely any desert on it (and certainly none around their city). But they are also masters of the cleansing flame with built-in Scion of Flame and Annointed People, and can provide some useful diversity to my shadow/astral with their pyre templars, pyromancers and inquisitors in RotL. I honestly don't know what to do with them.

>>2119193
Hive-mind Plant/Elemental Toxic Swamp Primals, lead by a Eldritch Sovereign specialised in Blight. Go slightly into Order to grab condemnation and use Disease from Primal Summons and Fury to inflict as many debuffs and blight damage as possible. Wish Gaia’s chosen stacked with Elemental Transformation so you could be living bee-hives/tree elementals but both are good choices

should I play AoW3 before I play AoW4?
I got 3 for free on steam once and have access to 4 as well
been thinking about playing it for a while but haven't got around to it

>>2120031
There’s the outlaw culture mod. Its more bandits/adventurers than pirates though. And you very much want a crit/obfuscation/flanking build with them

>>2121758
The story of 3 isn't necessary to understand the sorry excuse for a "story" in 4, and the gameplay doesn't have much in common beyond both games being fantasy hex-based TBS.
Entirely up to you, in my case, playing 3 only makes me see so much wasted potential in 4.

>>2121758
Both games have different strengths, play whichever you want first
>3 has much more story, a more coherent campaign
>4 gives more freedom to create your own fantasy civ
Now, 4 has a story, taking some old faces from all the previous games, but so far it's mainly just there to justify why we have realmhopping planetary conflicts now after razing the progress made in the world 3 presented, with the old golden rule; 'wizards are dicks'

>>2121749
if that's sitting next to you I wager you are a Reaver then and the answer is obvious, get some quick spoils and make a new city of your own people.

>>2121806
>>4 gives more freedom to create your own fantasy civ
does it though?
you pick between six or whatever cultures, choose your (visual) race and whatever numerical bonuses you prefer, and then tailor your tech tree through tomes
in 3 your tech tree depends on your race, class, and specializations
you have less (or is it?) potential unit types available, but can make more out of units that you can acquire in a playthrough because multi-racial empires aren't suboptimal and there's no transformations that would make units of a single race automatically better than the other

>>2121849
I mean, yeah? You have a much larger selection of races that aren't locked into a specific archetype or unit selection and you have far better ability to customize your faction via mixing and matching tomes compared to 3's specializations. You also have the choice between several different ruler chassis and even among humanoids you can have a ruler that's a different race than your civ. You also have better ability to customize your culture's specialties via culture traits and the relatively recent addition of sub-cultures. The last patch also added some additional RP options in the form of custom hero and city name list for your civ to pull from.

how the fuck do you edit units
do you have to enchant EVERY shield/pike/archer?

>>2122087
>do you have to enchant EVERY shield/pike/archer?
Yes.

>>2121205
retard

>>2111616
yeah, limitations create asymmetry which is interesting
at this point there might as well not be any races at all if they are purely visual
could be featureless blocks

>>2111757
It's not really about self-control. For example, with the comparison to classes vs classless systems, I could simulate having a class in a classless system by just strictly upgrading along some kind of class theme, but all the upgrades are going to be bland, boring bullshit because its still inside of a classless system.

In a similar way, all the "racial traits" are just bland boring bullshit because every racial trait has to be balanced against every other racial trait because all racial traits can potentially be in combination with each other because the "races" are just cosmetic skins. They're essentially all just generic stat boosts. You might as well just pick the traits that minmax your build the best, because none of them are all that flavorful or interesting.

If you had some kind of genuine racial system beyond them just being skins, even if it was just limiting the pools of traits and having a few race-unique traits, you could make room for genuinely interesting mechanics.

>start Sordunn story map
>fighting the tentacle rape dimension again, so, figure I can try Order stuff with a type advantage
>small steps, not actively seeking out a wizard fistfight ASAP
>because immediately when my ally finds the enemy, this shit rolls over
>squishy units, figure my second army can take this
>get fucking dogpiled by lightning strikes from this tier 4 spell effect that I guess he started the map with
I did this damn fight at least six times, finally got an outcome where everyone somehow lived
Now I'm fucking pivoting to shit like Warding just anticipating continuous lightning rape since Merlin is Mystic Potential

>>2122142
well that's retarded

>>2122302
Get runesmiths if you're going heavy into enchants.

>>2122243
I think you're just autistic.

>>2122283
Just wait when he teleports in and makes silver umbra hives pop up on your provinces, or all the fun global effects after killing his ally giant.

>>2122304
it's not about upkeep, I'd just like to be able to field un-enchanted AND enchanted units separately
garrisons vs field armies and the likes

Yo is this a good alternative for the HoMM3 itch?
Looking for a new 4X Game that is worth playing with a Fantasy settings and itemization/artifacts

>>2122675
The AoW franchise does have some similarities to HoMM but they're pretty different games overall. It's worth playing IMO but you should try before you buy if you're not sure.

>>2122675
Roll play fluff and what not it'll get that itch scratch.

Gameplay not so much.

>>2122675
try aow1

>>2122826
did you know that roll play and role play are opposites

>>2122979
I think that be even worse for what anons after.
>>2122980
Did you mean roll play and gameplay? I wasn't clear on my context. It doesn't play like a HoMM but it has a lot of flavoring and options that draw people into the game. Both have fantasy setting and itemization/artifacts checked off the box of what he is after but HoMM has a much larger management system to it's world that AoW doesn't. AoW Happenings, intrigues, giant realms and the like make a very different single player experiences that people either love or hate.

If the guy is wanting more HoMM gameplay he should try Songs of Conquest, or Wartales. If he is wanting something that carries some elements but is a new thing any of the AoW would be a good try.

>>2122520
> all the fun global effects after killing his ally giant.
o god wut
I sieged his throne city and turned it into a vassal, but the actual revenant giant lived and made a new home elsewhere. >kept getting into wizard knife fights with Merlin and barely scraping by
>pivoted to the basic fire tome + the Scarlet Crusade tome
>starting to push out serious damage with spirit + fire damage, if my units live past the first melee
>all conquered lands are shitty and full of Gloom tentacle rape terrain
>pivot to nature tomes just to try and terraform it all into something not godawful
>multiple monuments in construction, starting to stack hilarious amounts of their bonuses
It was a pain just to keep all my assets from molestation as I finally got to the quest about endalion aspects, things finally feel a bit under control

Why in the world did they scrap Empire mode for AoW4? This is pretty fun.

>>2123562
No idea. The Pantheon system was supposed to be its replacement in terms of building a persistent stable of characters, but it doesn't even come close to what Empire Mode was for Planetfall. The devs did say that they didn't like the power creep that Empire Mode introduced where you'd just endlessly go on stacking bonuses, but that's no excuse to just scrap the whole concept.

>>2123564
>The devs did say that they didn't like the power creep that Empire Mode introduced where you'd just endlessly go on stacking bonuses
You'd think the answer to that would be to focus on endlessly escalating challenges, so that the bonuses become necessary to keep progressing rather than a straight boon.

>>2123564
>The devs did say
the devs are the ultimate proof that being a talented programmer or visual designer isn't mutually exclusive with being a fucking retard
the veiled apology video where they explain why the graphics look like a mobile game should've been the first hint

>>2123588
>apology video where they explain why the graphics look like a mobile game
What?

>>2123562
Looking at how it throttled DLC I wager it was that.

>>2123588
what >>2123602
said, I have not heard of this

>>2123562
They didn't. Planetfall got that mode in one of the final major updates in 2020 (Triceratops iirc) They even said back then they likely never add it to a new game until they were sure they were done with any changes made to it.

>>2123783
DLC is a factor. If the game launched with it, every DLC and free update would fuck with it and cause issues. I'll be shocked if it doesn't show up at the tail end of this 3rd and final batch of DLC.

>>2122607
for a better game than AoW 4 where you can do this, try Master of Magic

>>2122675
Dominions 6 or Eador Genesis New Horizons (free)
Caster of Magic is good too

>>2120158
when they were talking about adding vampires I was thinking maybe they'd add and overhaul undead transformations
>wightborn gets undying or resurgence or something
>vampire transformation gives your lords and heroes lifesteal while everyone else gets an ability to give blood to your lords and heroes
>some kind of spooky ghost transformation that deals with morale shocks to tie two shadow affinity concepts together
something like that

>>2123602
>>2123783
I don't think it was an apology, but a partial narration of one of the early dev diaries that spoke about art and design and why they chose a color scheme different from the previous game
the video seems to be gone from their official youtube, maybe it was poorly received?

>>2123800
I see. Guess I shouldn't gone off assumptions then.

>>2125038
>Hey guys the devs said that their own game looked like mobile garbage but you just have to believe me because mysteriously there's no proof!
Sure, buddy.

what is it with this thread that attracts so many schizos?

>Conquered the enemy vassal
>Destroyed all of their units except for just their recently revived ruler who is hiding in their throne city
>Razed half their capital, including their spell jammer
>Currently at the bottom of every ranking metric
>Currently sieging their capital with three projects and 4 stacks
>Has the fucking audacity to ask for 912 gold in exchange for vassalage

>>2125156
Perhaps it's just anons trying to get traffic stir up? That's my hope anyway.

>>2125438
Was it one of the four Materium/merchant ruler AI scripts? They are very hard to get reasonable demands/deals out of them. Artisan is not too bad, and while Economic Warlord won't surrender they will do decent deals if in a tight spot, but holy shit Competitive Merchant and Solitary Isolationist will sooner let their grandma die than not make a 30% profit on the ordeal.

>need a bit of mana one round
>Competitive Merchant wanted an exchange of 107 gold for 19 mana
>Later I tried selling a tier4 item to him, only offered 29 gold
>maxed relations with him, and a +500 modifier a turn
>still wanted 80 gold for a Wizard bond

Now any time I see that behavior modifier, I just go to war with them asp and clean them off the board. I don't even think Sinister spy can get me this fluster with it's schizoid behavior waffling between rivalries and friendships with everyone.

I realy hate the desing of the troops

>>2125156
Any thread on this site with triple digit post count has schizos. I went into the DoW 4 thread and they were already complaining about women. You just have to imagine 4chan as a series of rooms and in some of the rooms, the walls are screaming.

>>2125799
>go to dow4 thread
>ctrl f
>no mention of 'woman' or 'women'
Ok schizo, I think it's time for your turn to get called a schizo.

>>2125824
Yeah sorry, they've been using the word "female".

>>2125829
just 5 results
2 of which were talking about Battlesector
2 mentioning female custodies and one of them suggesting a new sister of battle unit.
The last guy just a memer.
I don't get it, why are you crying about this? You want no-one to talk about females other than the companies or something?

>>2125833
You seem to want to argue with someone. Find someone else to be your partner.

>>2125839
I don't want to argue with anyone. Just feel like questioning someone's mentality.

>>2125839
Goal is just engagement. Look at at how few replies you get sharing stories about the game, meanwhile look at this back and forth you got picking apart a different threads shitposting. It's why you get awful replies like this. Also isn't it strange the anon cares what people think about other threads? Almost like he's managing them and their activity.

>>2125096
that's not what I said retard
there WAS a video that's basically dev diary #11 in video format
what a shitpile of a thread jfc

>>2126035
(You)

How does undead feel at this time with the new Revenant tome included? I figured they got enough new shit now I could try em again
I kind of just tried Wightborn once during launch, I know they buffed skellingtons to have every basic troop role so they're not holding pitchforks, but didn't think it was enough for me at the time
Also looking at the prophecy traits for a starting Shadow run, are any of them worth the investment?

>>2125643
Yep, she was a materium ruler though I don't remember her disposition. Either way, as a counter-offer, I reposed her city and gave her a free trip to whatever the Astral Sea equivalent of Jerusalem is.

>>2126035
I don’t remember the devs complaining about the art style in the streams before release, I just remember them being disappointed/saying they weren’t able to make water battles/boats good enough

I’ve enjoyed the new dlc and the game is in a much better state than the beginning and im looking forward to season 3

>>2126206
I also liked the new addition of weaknesses and hope that gets expanded. I don’t want things gated behind races, I like making my own choices

>>2126206
because they weren't, they were just elaborating on their decisions
the other anon is misremembering it
>I’ve enjoyed the new dlc
thank you for sharing your experience with us

Genuinely what is the point of making a mortal champion ruler?

>>2126430
>Genuinely what is the point of making a mortal champion ruler?
They look cool

>>2126430
how else would you cap off your standard humans adept settlers great builders tome of faith build

>>2126430
Theme.
Also I think Command is better than people give it credit for.

Considering Gremlins are demons, I would have thought that killing them rather than letting them escape would be the good alignment option.

>>2126065
imo all the prophecy traits are not worth the effort you have to put in. It's a fun little quest to try and experience but you are somewhat gimp at the start where the bonus is not that great and you reward varies from mediocre to just insulting. That said the Shadow Visions of Ruin trait is heavily undead primed so it relates to spicing up your undead game, just remember it's roleplay fun and ignore the weak meta of it.

>>2126211
imo that is going to be very hard because the weakness always have to have a pile of exclusions to what can't be picked for reason of either redundancies or finding ways to cancel them out.

>>2126430
Meta game. Most pvp matches are about speed and they give the best boost to that both in relations with free cities and city growth. Outside of that it's just whatever flavor you want. You could play Underground Order Reavers with Banner Lords and Silver Tongue lead by a Dragon Lord and still beat a 9 opponent free for all AI on Hardest Difficultly. It's when facing other humans that meta matters at all.

>>2126600
It's the joy of old content vs new. In vanilla there was no way to be "evil" in letting an army flee the scene. In ER they added that but this leads to oddities like you found where it's head scratching that letting 2 skeleton pikers go nets you 5+ evil but letting a 5 stack that has Gremlins, Nightmares and Hellhounds go nets you 5+ good.

>>2126600
>>2126605
>only shadow creatures are considered evil
This just in: no darkies on Athla

I feel like doing a ghostfire faction but i cant decide on any newer gimmick around it. Any ideas?

>>2126740
What even gives you ghostfire outside of Calamity tome?

>>2126760
Nothing, thats why im trying to think of another angle rather then just ash primal for the desolation bounses. (Im not very creative.)

>>2126770
Roleplay-wise, you can make a pretty chinese looking dragon, so you could say it's an elder calamity dragon and then just go up shadow and chaos tomes for ice and fire damage. I dunno if ice and fire modifiers buff ghostfire or not though. I've never looked closely into the stats.

mummies led by a fucking midget
or
what if the lich king was a gnome

>>2126601
I didn't go the ruin one, just the 'pick whatever you want' trait, but it's still giving me something to do. I can always swap it out after this map ends

>>2126740
Primal Ash kinda slots nicely with it, but the terrain parts don't matter too much compared to dropping fuckoff huge ghostfire comets with an overcharged wizardking
But you could shove it into anything that easily passes you the chaos/shadow points. Any gimmick that includes lots of fire or lots of frost
I had a side plan to eventually steer into ghostfire only after I get the Revenant tome, which is after I make everyone undead. So, that's still awhile aways. The plan I had for including Tome of Roots/Cycles for doubling up on decay debuffs first is already stacking up enchant expenses. Could be saving money if I went Runesmiths. That might be one of my most used society traits
other than the cave autist one

>>2126787
jesus fucking christ where was my image

>>2126740
Mechanically the point of ghostfire is to combine fire and ice damage without them countering eachother, so adding fire tomes (Pyromancy, Cleansing Fire, chaos tomes in general) and ice tomes (Cryomancy, Cold Dark) is a no-brainer.

>>2120119
While Its great to find another Shadow Magic Pilled AoW2 enjoyer, I can't agree and putting AoW3 under 4 because of ridiculus combinations of classes.
3 at least still retains culture and uniqueness of races, while 4 goes "ONE RACE, HUMANOID RACE" and lets you start with educated Orcs of Light or fast breeding Chaos Elf Raiders.
Not that it matters since with magic you twist them beyond recognition anyways.
No culture and no lore.

>>2120119
>aow4 goblin angels
oh dear, gorgeous
>aow3 goblin angels
you fucking donkey
is that what you're trying to say?

>>2126909
no, he's saying old good new bad

>>2107653
>>2120119
aow1 > aow2+sm = aow4 >>> aow3

>>2126909
>goblins in 4
cute little gremlins
>goblins in 3
fucking christ get it away from me

>>2127069
they're horrible in both

>>2126962
vice versa
>>2127069
why are you playing goblins anyway? anything other than human warlord/dreadnaught/theocrat is heresy

>>2126884
Okay so horny elfs but they need to get killed off for the population pyramid. I like it

>>2127069
I feel the exact opposite. 3's rat faced goblins were kinda cute, 4's goblins are just hideous even as goblins go. 3's goblins also lacked the gorilla body proportions that they for some fucking reason fell in love with for short races in 4.
On that note, why the fuck can't we select the halfling body shape for other races?

>>2127167
nta but I just like playing all the short races for different reasons

I don't understand why people rank AoW2/SM higher than 3, except maybe if they only played base AoW3 (without add-ons).
I can get the annoyance of not having unit buffs castable outside of combat (no more Static Shielded Liquid Form Rift Lords), but the combat map is so annoyingly small, high movement units can land a melee hit in the very first turn. And the general lack of map features (AoW3 combat maps have all sorts of obstacles, both permanent and destroyable, in addition to being larger), combined with that cramped size, invariably turns battles into 6-niggas-in-a-row slugfests. City management is just a more basic version of 3's, and individually flaggable resource sites is merely a sidegrade (neither better, nor worse mechanically).
The only two things I like better in 2/SM is research carrying over, and hero management being more streamlined (with those HoM&M-style choices on level up). Though heroes in 2/SM are less overall useful than in 3.

>>2127829
I think a lot of people are just weirdly autistic about what their fantasy races are "really" like, so the idea of holy goblins or elven engineers or nature-loving orcs triggers them to no end. You see shit like this in any fantasy fandom, not just AoW. Just look at Tolkien nerds arguing about what a "real" dragon is like, or D&D and Warhammer fags violently shitting themselves is over obscure lore changes in different editions.

>>2128067
I wish we could universally get over this hurdle. Shit like the Larian's cannibal tribal elves, goose-steeping Lizardman empire, and sleazy corporate business dwarves was cool as hell.

>>2128067
>>2128104
a bigger problem to me is that goblins really are ugly in aow4, you can't have cute ones

also i hate how half of the races don't wear boots because some artist is a furry retard who wants to show animal feet with high fidelity

>>2128236
There's like one goblin face that's not completely hideous but yeah you can't make hentai goblins if that's what you're after.

>>2128242
not hentai goblins, that would require tits and asses, i just mean cuter faces without the goober ones in the mix

>>2128242
tis a shame

What the hell is this starting position?

I just stuck as much stuff as I could on a map to see what I could experience
ended up snowballing out of control
>crystal dwelling relics finished first, research boom
>tentacle rape realm kept making the overworld terrain awful until umbral dwellings were culled
>one of the rulers got replaced by a mook during intrigue, now super dead
>regenerating infestations made the surface a living hell
>they don't respawn underground, so, much more peaceful with underground start
>everyone is pissed off at eachother for binding gold wonders
>Werlac exists
with the mistwalkers here, it just makes me think how I want more fae stuff ingame

>>2128432
You can get worse, I had medium map of 4 rulers where my starting city was two providence apart from a free city, a ruler, and a gold infestation. I pretended I could make it work but by turn 30 on hard I was just cooked as the ruler closed out any expansion even with the free city absorbed and I was pinned to where getting out of it would take longer than any of the other 3 AIs getting a magic victory.

>>2128469
Those are always such heaven or hell type games, Very large map with max rulers and everything on leads to some very wild 20+ hour games. Actually I'm now curious what nightmare a small map with the new no Underground and also no umbra with 9 rulers with City States turn on would look like?

>>2128236
>>2128242
>>2128244
for what it's worth it's really easy in the mod tool to unlock any/all the head types and hair types to work with any race helping you fine tune what you want them to look like.

>Finally beat the DLC missions
That first one is fucking insanely bad. The one aspect you don't want to let run away is Order and you have to fight 1 Order faction that's had its own continent to build up on for like 50 turns, which is a massive grind, only to go through the portal to fight another order faction that's been building up for however long it took you to beat the last one. I ended up having to go full chaos and just swarming as many summoned armies as possible along with my built up armies. Took almost 300 turns to beat. Order unit buffs are so annoying to deal with. They get to ignore damage, status effects, heal on everything, deal spirit reflection damage, have unbreakable morale and then all respawn back at their capital when you kill them so they can always out attrition you.

2nd mission was fun for the most part, but kind of boring if you want to do the side quests, because by that point it's not hard, you just have to go through a bunch of umbral portals. Definitely not their best work.

>>2129121
>the celestial mission
Okay what triggers having to fight on the third ring?I didn't end up having to, others did, and I don't know if its just due to alignment when you contact Anon or narrative choices you make while ascending
>nod and smile at the frogs
>help the undead squatting at the front door because their situation sounds pretty fucked up
>Highmen declare war on sight, they either play it off respectfully if you're human or insult you if you're not
>LONG ASS WAR on the second ring
>hovering between good and neutral alignment when meeting Anon
>immediate peace, rest is a cakewalk
That was my experience
Also the celestial respawning, I don't know how to feel about that
Having to fight six Vigils every three turns was a pain but it's also easy to force rout them with just damage. It's only REALLY fucked up if the opponent Angelizes, then nothing truly ever dies

>>2129358
Yeah shit, I was max evil. I guess you only have to fight the archons if you're evil. Guess I just hurt myself then.

is the game good yet?

>>2130173
It always was though

What are some tome mods people like?

I prefer tome jannies myself.

The AI seems to become really, really retarded when Mighty Meek is tossed into the mix— like it's operating under the assumption that T1 units can't hurt it.

>>2094459 (OP)
Too silly to be genuinely immersive.

>Only just now realized you can still proc reclaiming attacks and other buff-on-use abilities by just shooting the ground
I feel retarded.