Thread 2120428

Since I don't want to continue infesting the AoW4 thread, and we already have an AoW1 one, I've decided to create a separate thread for the 4 people (including myself) who have managed to reach the AoW3 part of their backlog.

I've finally finished the Elven Court campaign (3 years after starting it, then dropping it at the last mission), and I have a dilemma.
Should I play the Commonwealth campaign next, or should I switch to Golden Realms? From what I've read, Edward's campaign somewhat mirrors Sundren's.

One thing I've noticed, the game is surprisingly stable even when running a large number of mods (currently have 10 enabled).

The Commonwealth campaign is somewhat similar to the Elven Court, but the two storylines don't meet up until very late into the campaign. If you just want the general story it doesn't add much new outside of a different perspective on the same problems, and Edward's story going forward (i.e. AoW4) is less relevant than Sundren's, but if you enjoy the game the campaign is still worth playing.

>>2120433
As far as I can tell, the main difference in terms of story is that there's no mission with time limits in the Commonwealth campaign (like Underground Eruption in the Elven Court one).

I must say, Dreadnought versus Rogue is a tougher match-up that at first glance. Shadow stalkers are no joke when most of the available damage sources are physical.

>>2120428 (OP)
Game's fine, but certain design choices make it feel like less of AoW game. But I guess series was moving in that direction since game 2.

>>2120753
You mean the city management? It's really just an evolutionary version of what they had already begun implementing in 2.

My only real gripe with 3 is the lack of 'proper' missing. Outside of full immunity to a damage type, every attack deals at least 1 damage, meaning you can grind down a unit, given enough time (and range). This somewhat overweights healing and recovery spells/abilities in terms of usefulness. It's also part of the reason why, with a few exceptions, tier 1/2 units drop off quickly as the game progresses.

>>2120770
Wait, no, I lied a bit. Another gripe is that tech fully resets between campaign missions. Requiring you to start over from scratch, despite having already researched (nearly) everything two missions ago.
I understand the balancing reasons, but it's still annoying, especially when the higher-level techs take a humongous amount of time to obtain. In the final Elven Court mission, I didn't use a single Shadow Stalker. I never managed to reach the tech before winning.

I remember some people being displeased that you could no longer use unit buffs outside of combat. So there's no longer a way to create a supercombatant like in AoW2/SM.

I've been playing the game a lot recently. Definitely feels worse than AoW4 in every way, which is expected since AoW4 is meant as an improvement, but the game IS somehow prettier than AoW4 at times and yet performs much better. I especially like how the cities dynamically spread and interact with the terrain they're on, instead of just being big circles.

beautiful goblin favela

>>2122274
Goblin ghetto

>>2122115
>feels worse than AoW4 in every way
I find the lack of random caps and unnecessary bloat resources very liberating myself

>>2120770
There needed to be more racial units, AoW1 was about races to me. Sure class units are fine, but we still needed more racial units.
And I guess the whole aesthetic of the game just feels different, but that part might have been just inevitable. AoW1 just captures Tolkien feel better.

>>2122307
>unnecessary bloat
Curious what that is. I'm not to familiar with these types of games so I like to know.

>>2122435
I can see how coming from the previous titles the units would feel more homogenous. Especially when some of them were previously faction-specific (ex. the musketeer, or the cannon). On the cosmetic side, this can be mitigated with the graphics mod for class units, which brings them closer to their race.
On the functional side, I've seen a youtuber use a mod which adds a bunch of new units. However, and this is a common gripe of mine with these mods, it goes overboard with the number of racial units, and some of them don't fit the racial theme, or have no lore justification.

>>2122517
arbitrary shit that performs the function of currency
in 4 it's "emperium" and "cum essence" that exist only to railroad and limit you

>>2122618
Yeah I wish gold and mana didn't exist I should be allowed to just press a button and instantly get as many units as I want. Needing to pay currency for things is artifical difficulty.

Man, the second mission with the Commonwealth has a really shitty beginning. You don't have a starting city or a settler, so you have to capture one. Meaning you waste 5 turns looking at a counter decrease. And you get fuckall in terms of troops too, so you can't split up and clear sites.
Early game development is my least favorite part of AoW3's missions.

>>2122625
you must be fun at parties

>>2122660
The kind of pretentious retard who would use the "fun at parties" argument has never been invited to a party in his life.

>>2122618
I'm not sure I follow. Empire development as a resource more or less works as it's title implies. Gold and mana are used for the actual city and army building while the imperium for the means to claim the lands and hone the play style. I'm assuming the other one you are talking about is where some Cultures have their own special points and while fun I can see how much that creates problems in navigating play styles, like peaceful Reavers would be just gimping yourself horridly as you have no war spoils to spend with no upsides.

I'll let you have the floor with anything else and leave it be. Not the best for this thread to just turn into AoW4 general ll.

>>2120428 (OP)
am i a shitter or is incite revolt the biggest bullshit ability ever

Frostling Necro in this game is one of the best necromancer experiences I've had in any game.

>>2123272
It is quite good at fucking up cities, yes, since low happiness causes production penalties.

>>2123279
Necro is better with dracs or tigrans, since their racial elemental resistances synergize with undead ones.

>>2123279
oh yea? I bet you like to settle next to these huh

>>2123330
Either that or Halflings for morale shenanigans and lucky eagles with lifesteal.

>>2123378
Halflings are surprisingly good with the weirder classes. Dreadnought is another interesting one to use with them, since halflings get a unique version of the golem.

Coming back to the campaign, does anybody know if there's a Heart of the Blight I can grab anywhere on the Haunted Nirvenkiln map? Having blighted terrain everywhere causes a ton of bad morale among every troop not a goblin.

>>2123857
Halflings have always been good. They were tied for the top spot in AoW1 IMO, the other contender being orcs. Not sure where they'd place in AoW2 since I never really got into that, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're still strong there. They've got some really good options in 3 and are at least high tier for multiple class builds. Their default traits are pretty meh in AoW4 but race only means as much as you want it to mean in 4 anyway so whatever.

>>2122603
Well, it's just how AoW1 stuck to me - it was about races, not classes.
I can say that AoW3 has great music, however, both remixes of older games and new tracks.

Man, this Haunted Nirvenkiln map is teeming with hostile neutrals (including some pretty nasty ones, like a Bone Dragon).
Though I should probably ignore them for now, and blob all my strongest armies together to take out Werlac. Since the victory condition isn't to defeat all enemies, I should be able to leisurely explore the map, after I get rid of him.

>>2124680
>Well, it's just how AoW1 stuck to me - it was about races, not classes.
That's certainly true, though on the other hand AoW1's major flaw was that despite being all about the races, the races were all very similar. With a few exceptions, the first 8 units every race got were basically 7 copies with some stat adjustments and only 1 actually unique one. The racial rosters don't start getting interesting until you get to the high-tier units which were much more unique. I'd argue that AoW3 (especially fully patched and with the DLC) has better racial variety than AoW1 despite being more class-focused, and then you still get your class units and features on top of that.

It took me far too long to realize that Seeker Enchantment is extremely powerful when cast on a ranged unit with three or more damage types (ex. Fairy Fire, Bane Fire, Rime Fire etc). It adds +1 to each separate type, so the effect is amplified when more of them are present.

Should I try to avoid any unit deaths at all costs (reloading a difficult battle multiple times), or are losses (as long as they're not a high-xp unit) acceptable? I can't seem to win a battle without one of my archers dying.

>>2127824
Are you playing manual battles or autoresolve. Archers tend to be kinda shit in autoresolve because the AI can't keep them safe/

Either way taking some losses isn't a bad thing, as long as you can keep on rolling and don't have to stop to heal and/or reinforce. Try to have some strategic summons available ASAP so you can reinforce stacks on the go and don't have to go back to the nearest city to get new fodder every time you take some losses.

>>2128071
I avoid autoresolve, since the computer can lose units to weak-ass enemies.
Even entering battle and switching to AI control is better than autoresolve.

>>2123279
I think its fun too.

>>2128071
Got reminded once again of how autoresolve is completely shit. I was about to wipe out Werlac's last city (decided to take him out, then explore the rest of the map in peace), and I felt really lazy, so I clicked the infamous button.
I lost most of my two stacks, except for my two heroes, two trebuchets, a butcher, and an apprentice. Since it was the last big field battle, I didn't reload (not least because I was planning to switch to summons as my main force anyway), but losing all those troops still stung.

>>2120428 (OP)
Do one better, stop infesting this board and neck yourself.

>>2130870
I once lost a full army to a wandering pack of necro + ghosts because the autoresolve shit the bed. I was pissed. It's why I won't play it online with the community, they're fixated on autoresolve because PBEM and it fucking ruins the game.

>>2131098
Oh, yea, autoresolve + physical protection = bad time.

>>2130889
speak for yourself chris

>>2130889
it's not our fault III is an objectively better game than IV

>>2132628
I personally wouldn't say one title is strictly better than another (with the notable exception of AoW2 and SM).
Unlike something like HoM&M, where nobody plays 1 or 2, except for historical completion purposes (nobody plays 6 or 7 either, but for different reasons).
The mechanics are similar, yet different enough in places where it counts, that you can like individual titles equally.

This mission was way harder than its EC equivalent, goddam. The only mission in both campaigns I actually thought I might lose. Starting with only one city is rough, and your allies are basically useless once they blow their initial load. Still, mechanical might won in the end.

>>2134084
I prefer the Torchbearer path. In the final mission, if you rush one of the sides early on (preferably Leonus, since the dragon and giant dens are in his half of the map, so capturing him will allow you to develop them unimpeded), you can turn that 1v6 into 1 BIG NIGGER vs 3 poorfags.

Seems like you can cheese the Machinations mission by avoiding several specific triggers. As long as you don't capture the fortress, or contact the elven city (where you're supposed to go after the betrayal), or move too close to Durgal/Gorsmog's borders, they won't make any moves.
In fact, I think that, as long as you don't contact Svengir, he won't make any moves either (not seeing the "Unknown Leader is moving" prompt during AI turn), but I'm not super-certain of that one.

>>2120428 (OP)
Replaying this after EoW 4 and I miss sorely the UI and the way the Encyclopedia felt. EoW 4 was such an aesthetics downgrade in almost every way...

what's the big difference between aow and spellforce?
i just got conquest of eo and it seems pretty similar to aow

>>2136365
That's because Conquest of Eo was specifically intended as a fantasy TBS.
Unlike every other title in the Spellforce series, which is an RTS/ARPG hybrid.

>>2136365
CoE is like a more linear, roleplaying-focused budget version of AoW. The rest of the Spellforce franchise are more like Warcraft 3, in that they're RTS games with RPG-like hero units. Though the focus is more on the RPG part for Spellforce and the RTS parts are mostly pretty lame.

Is it just me or was mission 2 in the Golden Realms campaign unreasonable? Like was that Karl guy supposed to have five billion gluttons stuffed up his asshole?

>>2137254
Expansion missions are quite a lot harder. Probably to counterbalance the fewer maps.