why is cryo considered such a bad tome?
It has the elemental arrow/weapon, a really early enemy army spell, and 2 units and a single target spell to set up wet or frozen which the tome leans into...
Apparently because you have no real way too freeze enemies. The creature costs a lot of mana early one and the chance for frozen is low/slow is kind of bad.
List must not be considering synergies. When you've got your frostling transformation, the arctic land transformation and cryo book ice mages, suddenly you're hitting ~70% freezes on everything, which is great CC, plus a bunch of damage amp.
Necromancy is the one that should go in D tier because there's no good way to actually get souls to use it.
This entire list is full of "I don't use it so it's bad."
Why put Astral Mirror in B tier when it has some of the most OP stuff in the game? Why put Enchantment in B tier when it's at least A tier for Seeker Arrows alone? Why put Terramancy in D tier when it has Earth Shatter as well as the best siege ritual in the game?
What to do with Barbarian culture? Playing the basic gnarled frostlings in story scenario 5 and my enemies.. they destroy me. Don't have the sustain in combat.
their scouts can make outposts to get them started quickly but I don't think there's much unique about them? I got flattened on that scenario a couple of times and then just decided to live in a cave and rush the magic victory, seeing as there're only 2 or 3 entrances to the underground
Hmm, maybe thats what I am supposed to be doing with the scouts getting cities every 5 turns to hit my cap and then using all the cities to produce more units. Granted tome of ice is pretty garbage to start with.
It's gotten better I have two stacks running around now and trying to deal with the gold infestations. About to pop spawnkin which will make my units even better. Hurting for cash in early game to build up third city though. What tier 2 tome should I go for if I have ice/horde currently?
>What tier 2 tome should I go for if I have ice/horde currently?
Beacon is great for horde builds because of the Mighty Meek spell. I also like Revelry since Skalds are arguably the best support unit in the game. Glades is a very strong option, but maybe not as good for horde builds.
Mighty meek does make a lot of sense, not sure if I would pick that as my first choice of tier 2 tome since I would just want the beacon combat summon + mighty meek. Revelry seems a dead end other than the skald.
Especially since I am a cold speeced enchantment build, so the poison is doubly useless. Fertility could be useful.. but also cold enchantment so its province specialities not useful.
1 year ago
Anonymous
T2 is the weakest tier for tomes in general IMO, and the few that are actually good like Glades don't offer much of interest to a horde build.
Best things I have seen so far: Artificing to give me a fatass golem that can help the manlets, the hero summon to spread more troops, +crit chance + siege bonuses. Tome of scrying might also be worth it to make ranged units a little better but its skill pretty weak. Summon cuckold could be useful since it provides marked + chance to stun.
It's gotten better I have two stacks running around now and trying to deal with the gold infestations. About to pop spawnkin which will make my units even better. Hurting for cash in early game to build up third city though. What tier 2 tome should I go for if I have ice/horde currently?
Barbarians are actually really strong if you make good use of the ritual of alacrity. Being able to heal and move further helps clearing mobs early which give you more experience and resources to start snow balling.
So wait, some Wizards from game 2 are back? And from 3?
And frogmen are in but not lizardmen from 1? And no draconians and proper frostlings?
And Karissa the Orc Simp lady and Artica the frozen nipples lady are back?
And Meandor is back but Arachna attacked him?
And wtf is with Sundren?
WTF ARE THEY DOING WITH AOW LORE
>So wait, some Wizards from game 2 are back? And from 3?
Yes. >And frogmen are in but not lizardmen from 1?
Yes, but Lizardman are coming in the first DLC. >And no draconians and proper frostlings?
Draconians are also coming in the same DLC as Lizarmen and Frostlings are already in the game. >And Karissa the Orc Simp lady and Artica the frozen nipples lady are back?
Yes. >And Meandor is back but Arachna attacked him?
Arachna didn't attack him, she just wanted to keep him confined. >And wtf is with Sundren?
She's doing sneaky Rogue shit for the greater good. >WTF ARE THEY DOING WITH AOW LORE
It's a direct sequel to AoW3 and all of the lore checks out. In the canon ending of the Eternal Lords expansion in AoW3, Werlac reopened the Shadow gates. This allowed Meandor and all the other mages from AoW2 to come back to Athla and reclaim their power. It also made travel between worlds possible, which leads to the situation in AoW4. The Archons are still missing, but the plot of AoW4 seems to be leading up to their return.
>lizardmen and draconians
Don't confuse those, they are not the same, if you played AoW1. >Frostlings already
But as a proper race or just some skin stuff? Problem with nuAoW games is that they replaced most of racial units and flavor with classes.
>Don't confuse those, they are not the same, if you played AoW1.
I didn't confuse them, why do you assume that? Lizardmen are already in promo screenshots for the Dragon Dawn DLC and Draconians are a transformation option like Frostlings. They're two different things. >But as a proper race or just some skin stuff? Problem with nuAoW games is that they replaced most of racial units and flavor with classes.
Race being replaced with culture is a different issue entirely, but you asked for Frostlings and they're in the game.
lizardmen and maybe draconians too are coming in the first DLC, we've seen pictures of liggers but nothing about draconians yet, it's possible they may become a race transformation like the frostlings
all the wizard kings are back because of what happened in 3
I want a Pirates! transformation/cutlure. We already got chaos, shit like birds that prevent flanking on certain units. Peg legs for increased morale. You know.
The only cutures that are more or less confirmed for the DLCs are a dreadnought/magitech cultures and a nature-focused culture.
Pirates would be cool but only as part of an aquatic-themed DLC, because right now aquatic provinces aren't interesting enough to justify a pirate culture.
Maybe in an Aquatic DLC >deep one race >naga race >illithid race >pure chaos pirate culture >1-2 more water-focused society traits >aquatic tome support >floating and/or underwater cities >ancient aquatic wonders >more water resource nodes
Maybe the surface water tiles could be the ocean's surface and then there would be corresponding water tiles in the underground layer acting as the sea floor (with bedrock surrounding it so cavers don't dig too deep and drown themselves)
You are right about that. I am not sure what the best course of action is for making the naval aspect interesting though.
They could start with culture specific boats and reasons to fight in the water
>nothing about draconians yet, it's possible they may become a race transformation like the frostlings
It is. Screenshot from paradox page for AoW4 expansion pass. I don't know why this screenshot isn't on Steam.
>1 major transformation for each affinity except for Materium
Idk what gets me more, that I didn't notice before Materium never had a major transformation, or that it's being saved for DLC
>Before i became a Goddir i was like you >i am not be worshipped >Alignment +20
100% agree with this since you are NOT A God and there already is God/Allah in the setting
On story mission 5.. You seem to be right at the edge of the giga-homie who will frick your shit up. Am I supposed to just turtle and let my allies expand to protect my flanks? When I try and expand I am constantly getting pulled back by his armies at my capital.
expand towards your allies, yaka and lithyl in particular, because they'll take your land otherwise.
the angel seems not to send his shrine at you unless you get too far towards the edge of the map, he seems more content letting his vassals send awakener stacks against you.
you kind of have to turtle and build up your three stacks before invading the angel. I would use the adept settlers trait just for the imperium discount.
blight/ice damage, and lithyl's ritual are your friends; trade with your allies for mana, I had negative mana income for a lot of the map. the vine prison spell is your bestest friend.
work towards one of the province-destroying spells so you can nuke the angel's affinity province. He'll definitely start a magic victory before your allies (probably nimue)
In my game I went for the cryomancy and root tomes for the poison and frost damage + entangling roots and then went for full aggression. Roots really frick with the combat AI and you can take strong stacks with just tier 1’s. I went for chosen destroyers because I didn’t realise it restricted you to one city but I razed like 2 of his cities and 2 of his vassals pretty quickly and just overpowered him from there. I ended up killing him 1 turn before my dwarf ally got the magic victory
>Dev livestream confirmed for Wednesday at 2:15 PM CET
Excuse the Re*dit link
https://www.reddit.com/r/AOW4/comments/13v1rza/dev_stream_this_wednesday_at_215pm_cet/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Curious as to what they're going to talk about and update, obviously this isn't related to an expansion or anything so it will probably be changes to the base game.
I remember in one of the livestreams the devs mentioned they interacted with fans on one of the other major forums, I forget if it was Something Awful or the other one, so I'm sure if anyone had any good ideas it would probably be best to communicate with them there if you don't want to use Discord
If I read them correctly, Chaos/demon tomes seem to give you no penalties for moving in desolate terrain if you take their transformations, but that's all the synergy there is. Practically nothing compared to ice/snow gimmicks
I'm happy cramming an ice gimmick into any empire I make, because at least there's some reward and an alternative to default grasslands. It even works underground if you have your towns blizzard'd terrain. Arctic adaptation? You can build farms in the cold there.
But there's nothing else to do as far as terraforming with a purpose. Arctic and Underground adaptation are the only environment specific species traits worth a damn right now
I have no fricking idea what I'm doing in this game strategy-wise.
I'm playing the 5th story mission and the enemy is building shit for the magic win before I've even founded my 3rd city.
And, frankly, I don't know how the tactical combat should work either. I had fun with it in AoW3 (even when I did dumb stuff like pump everything into defense for my hero), but now I just auto-resolve all combat (which seems to work. Even risky combats just means you might lose 1 unit).
I suppose it doesn't help that my preferred playstyle in most games is a slowly-expanding turtle of an empire that's peaceful until war comes and then everything is geared towards pumping out units. That doesn't seem ideal here.
As an aside: how does tactical combat work? I played through the 4th story mission (Meandor's curse) with a 3-stack army that repeatedly was surrounded by full stacks and took one multiple battles with barely a unit lost/scratched. Yet these were all 'risky' battles. How is the strength of an army calculated? Does it not factor enchantments into the mix (because lord knows I just run every enchantment).
Completely irrelevant: How has everyone found the different paths of hero development to be? Buffing the entire army with support seems more over-all useful than pumping fighting and swinging for 30-ish damage (though I never found a good weapon in that run. Was using the starter weapon till the end).
>Also hit story mission 5 >4th was a complete slog, doing everything not to pick a fight with daddy Meandor, let the spider elf b***h and friendly elf lady up north fight eachother while having to cull the extra dead elf down south who seems to exist solely to steal land from me >just wanted to do the story content, but gotta get into a knife fight with this neighbor and take all their cities since their throne city's in the very back
It wasn't bad after that, since I snowballed having 7 towns, but then >meet angel orcs on turn 5, wasn't even looking for them >they visit to give me a celestial zugging on turn 10
I'm gonna have to make a new species just for this map aren't I...
As for building heroes, I just try to give em passive support skills to buff the army, since Heroes can only do so many actions in a single turn anyways. Once I get Endurance Training, I may have em learn extra actions
I formed an alliance with the other two on the map, and that was a good thing since I avoided fighting a war on 3 fronts while having to move around the map to do the damn quest.
So all three of us are at war with Meandor and they... don't do anything except move armies around their domains.
>As for building heroes, I just try to give em passive support skills to buff the army, since Heroes can only do so many actions in a single turn anyways.
Try building a shock hero. >demon step behind u >crit charge flank attack for instant kill >flameburst weapon so everyone around takes damage >killing momentum so I get to bonk someone else >defensive master so end turn in defense mode anyway >third unit nearby frozen in fear because a retaliation or opportunity attack would instakill him >layered defensive skills, enchantments, racial transformations, and buffs make me nigh-impossible to kill unless the AI focus fires with half his army
I think the only hero type I haven't been able to make work is archers. I don't know if it's because I haven't seen any good bow items or if its because battle mages are that much better. They might be viable if you stack weapon enchantments
>Materium aspected, it seems.
Makes sense considering that was the only affinity without a major transformation, but at the same time I feel Chaos or maybe Nature would make more sense thematically.
>How has everyone found the different paths of hero development to be? Buffing the entire army with support seems more over-all useful than pumping fighting and swinging for 30-ish damage (though I never found a good weapon in that run. Was using the starter weapon till the end).
Support is the most powerful in a straight-forward way, and is pretty much mandatory if you're doing something like a T1 horde build.
Melee is really strong but not overwhelmingly so.
Archery is less strong but easier to use because of the range.
Magic can be either the weakest option or the strongest depending on how you set it up. With some specific combos you can do some disgustingly OP shit with it. As a mage you should be relying on your basic attack as little as possible because otherwise you're just a sparkly archer.
I just realized I never played the planetfall DLC, even though I bought them.
Should I try them out? I liked the game enough but got tired of it after 92 hours. Also I only enjoyed playing as the Vanguard. Are the 3 DLC plus mods enough to alter the experience and make it fresh?
I actually liked the story campaigns (especially the assembly), but some of their maps were slogs.
The DLC campaigns are better and allow you to learn their setting properly.
Planetfall doesn't have many great mods, most of the non-cosmetic ones feel a bit too cheaty to me. I like the one that lets you use summoned units as regular recruits though (Buildable Tac Op Units).
Not sure if it's just me but there seems to be not so many builds in this game, the few of them top of my head: morale killer, crit stacking, archer buffer, battle mage buffer. Some of these overlap anyway with the enchantments you choose.
Melee seems inferior to range in all occasions, might be because size and design of battle maps. does not matter if you have 3x6 melee units if i can just stand in chokepoint and shoot with my archers from behind. Even high mobility units suffer because with size of maps you can't really properly flank enemies. It only 'work' because AI likes to run its archers in front of their melee line.
Speaking of AI it reminds me a bit of total war AI, priority is to attack player, never clears its nodes/infestations, if two AIs are at war it seems they never manage to take another ones city. Inept with proper use of is heros and most units (it's always preferable to wait for AI to come to you and set up properly).
Hero customization is great, skill wise, support skills are too good to pass up. Melee/archer hero seems inferior to magic one with skill selections too. But than again i never use all repertoire of my magic spell in battles anyway, it seems battles end after i cast max 3 spells.
There's not a ton of variety currently. Luckily most of the systems feel solid enough that they should be able to just throw new stuff in and have it all work without having to mess with too much
different builds don't even change the way you play if you auto your battles. It feels like every game goes the same way no matter your culture or perks. There's no nuance to city building and diplomacy is boring. I was expecting it to be like other paradox games I've played or the 4xs but it's very samey aside from the admittedly great hero customization
>different builds don't even change the way you play if you auto your battles
Well, yeah, just like total war, your army composition doesn't matter at all if you don't play the battles yourself.
If you don't like the turn based tactics aspect of AoW4, you're better off playing some other 4x like that one fantasy civ mod.
Yeah
I played and had fun but eventually the combat being civ combat made me stop playing it.
To me, AoW (and total war I suppose) are excuses to have a meaning around the cool tactical battles. The campaign just needs enough depth to not be too boring while I search for the next cool fight.
>you're better off playing some other 4x
that's probably the problem tbh - my experience and expectation was that this game would be more focused on the world side rather than the combat. It's definitely better than other combat, but in the way that can make me bothered to retry the lost auto battles rather than be excited to play a whole game around it.
I lose interest whenever I'm not building chaos. I've been using chosen destroyers to try and build tall, but I'm not great at these games; any tips for building tall otherwise?
Calling the game totally shit is just moronic hyperbole, but I've got mixed feelings about it right now.
On the one hand I do actually like the game and after playing it for 150 hours I feel I've got my money's worth of fun out of it at least, so I certainly don't regret buying it. At the same time though, I'm done with it. The customization is a cool gimmick, but it doesn't actually result in a greater variety of playstyles. Tthe bad enemy AI, boring victory conditions, and severely undercooked Pantheon features really hurt the long-term replayability. Compared to AoW3 and PF where I got like 500+ hours on both, AoW4 just feels more bland in comparison and especially after 150 hours it's grown stale and repetitive.
Of course, that's comparing vanilla AoW4 against AoW3 and PF with all patches, DLC and mods. So I still have hope that AoW4 eventually ends up being just as good as the others after all the DLC is out. But for the moment I'm fine with ignoring the game, at least until the first DLC comes out.
did they frick something up with patches? haven't played for a few weeks and back then you'd a crash per day or something but now it's completely unplayable. constant crashes. been playing diablo 4 so nothing has changed on my end.
Shame we have to wait for the 20th to also get the balance patch out, would like to play with those re-balances now before the DLC radically changes parts of the game so I have time to appreciate both, but it's nice that DD is coming out sooner than I expected by a few months.
They say that dragon leaders will be a whole new type, I'd love to see one or two more leader types by the time the game ends support, just because I think Champion - Wizard King - Dragon Lord is kind of a weird trifecta and if Leader type can be something that radically different there's lots of potential.
I do hope we get more than just 2 new tomes, but the dragons getting the Dragon Hoard mechanic sounds kind of fun, just a nice way to mix things up, even if only slightly.
The dragons look different enough to seem bretty fun. I really like what I see.
The devs did a stream where they show things in detail:
Shame we have to wait for the 20th to also get the balance patch out, would like to play with those re-balances now before the DLC radically changes parts of the game so I have time to appreciate both, but it's nice that DD is coming out sooner than I expected by a few months.
They say that dragon leaders will be a whole new type, I'd love to see one or two more leader types by the time the game ends support, just because I think Champion - Wizard King - Dragon Lord is kind of a weird trifecta and if Leader type can be something that radically different there's lots of potential.
I do hope we get more than just 2 new tomes, but the dragons getting the Dragon Hoard mechanic sounds kind of fun, just a nice way to mix things up, even if only slightly.
I'm most disappointed there there is no new culture.
I'm kind of surprised we didn't. Cultures already have some that are cross affinity, you think that since this DLC is bringing the first official multi affinity tome we'd see one new culture that is a hybrid affinity, but I guess that would be a lot of work bringing in the new culture units on top of the dragon stuff.
None of the other DLC descriptions on the expansion pass mention a new leader type, but who knows.
I could see Eldritch Realms bringing a Cthulhu ruler, or Primal Fury bringing in a personified force of nature type ruler, something that's more of a "raw force of the universe" archetype than being a person that overcame challenges to Godir.
Yeah, that tracks. Really I think the expansion that is most in the air is the last one, since it's a full priced expansion that doesn't offer new cultures or tomes, just creatures, locations and races, apparently. Really dubious value there until it gets expanded on.
More cultures would be nice to see in any case. With the current design of the game races are barely content, like 80% just cosmetic add-ons, while cultures are at least vaguely comparable to what races were in AoW3. Really I think both races and cultures deserve to be fleshed out more in addition to new ones being added.
New expansion was announced and comes out in 11 days. Naturally, anyone still playing Paradox games at this point is positively thrilled about the opportunity to buy cut content and support their favourite developer.
I chose Feudal primarily for Lord of War and Stand Together, so I can keep the momentum and strike a few early cities to make up for my lack of expansion. A little bit of effort and you snowball out of control.
I have no idea why I am so fixated on beating this last story mission. I hate my race cultural and find it boring currently with nothing broken happening.
>fixated on beating this last story mission
Just turtle towards the center of the map early on, while building up a strong force (ideally at least 3 offensive armies and 1 defensive) focusing on blight and/or frost damage (best damage types vs angels), then steamroll the angelic gay. After that, it's easy. If you're lucky one or more of the other enemies will get wrecked by your allies (Meandor has a tendency to get his shit pushed in by the dwarf dude on your team) but it's really not necessary because apart from the angel gay they're just not a threat.
Alternatively, simply turtle like a motherfricker and go for a magic victory. As long as you don't move too close to the edges of the map, enemy aggression tends to stay low.
I made an undergrounder empire, as apparently the final mission has some trouble linking the underground to the surface. I spawned in a large enough cavern to spam out 2 more cities, and was fortunate enough for the terrain generator to not place a single entrance or exit out of my starting area (there were some behind an excavated wall that I just didn't touch until my military was stronger). I then rushed a magic victory whilst the AI hopelessly tried to pathfind into my area. Never even went to the surface, and not a single enemy unit made it into my territory. Due to being underground all game, I never triggered the enemy AI to go aggro mode, so all my allies survived as well.
I wish water was more interesting. It's an absolute non-obstacle that everyone can ignore in the first few turns, and is a weakness rather than a fortifiable or economic benefit. Given that it's so accessible, I think they definitely missed an opportunity not including a water empire that builds it's structures over water tiles etc.
Every AoW game has this same issue, but at least AoW3 and PF (eventually) gave you better reasons to actually interact with water tiles. In AoW4 it has some mediocre pickups, but it's mostly just something you have to cross in order to get to the enemy on some maps. There's not really any good reason to interacct with water provinces themselves. And sure Experienced Seafarers makes water tiles significantly more profitable, but then you're taking an opportunity cost just to give youreself an excuse to interact with something that isn't really worth interacting with in the first place, instead of adding a bonus to things you already want to do anyway.
I only have played some of AoW3 and still interested in playing it. This is my first AoW game, should I keep playing the last one 3 since I enjoy it or is 4 in some ways much better than 3 and how so? It just looks different I guess is it objectively better but also worse in some ways?
I wouldn't say 4 is strictly better. It definitely has more potential but at this point it's not looking sure (at least to me) if all that potential will ever be realized. It's still a good game don't get me wrong, but 3 just feels a lot more complete especially with the DLC. I'd definitely play through 3 for the story at least, since it's way better than 4's story and also gives you a better idea of wtf is going on in 4.
>Last story mission >going against good angel boys >if I close in I can clap their cheeks >but they have an army running around with 5 awakeners >start getting vietnam flashbacks as they explode all over my army
I just can't fricking deal with it. They sit back with all their ranged units and just play keep away and I dont have anything OP from starting position to boom with. If I could close on them, it's a wrap but their awakeners/skirmishers just pick me apart if I get anywhere close.
About to throw in a towel and play a scenario of my own with a faction of my choice how the game is meant to be played.
The snow was fine, I could adapt to that. But without any speciality things I always felt like I was falling behind. The enemy has 6+ stacks that I can't go toe-toe with in 3v3, so I have nothing to try and bounce off of. If I could kill heros in combat I could get a big research boost but I feel locked in with no ways to grow and the ai allies aren't doing enough by turn 50.
I hope the dragon expansion adds more tomes outside of the materium draconic ones. Like some for more stealthy guerilla plays + some extra ice magic boosts for Shadow-type affinities or some tomes for various biome types that currently aren't that supported, like desert, underground, desolate and swamp biomes.
I'm at the last map as well. >Keep getting harassed by the angel gay and his free city allies. >Can't properly expand because he contests my outposts. >Try to expand inland but somehow my allies aren't getting constantly harassed and get all the good spots first. >Finally manage to get my shit together but still can't face their armies toe to toe yet. >"Black personhomosexual has casted the final spell to win the game!" >Try to contest the closest order. >15 6-stack armies of golden flying homosexuals rush out from the teleporter and destroy my army.
What the frick am I even supposed to do?
>*freeze frame* >*record scratch*
Yep, that's me, you're probably wondering how I got into this situation, well it all started when I embarked onto this shithole called Grexolis...
I'm on fricking normal.
Getting forward settled by my fricking allies, who sit with their thumbs in their asses as those gays keep raiding my shit and preventing me from expanding.
why'd you have so many unspent resources?
After all my armies got murdered I just let the timer run out to see what happens. About 10 turns of passing.
tips for the last story mission:
something that can help is adept settlers, just for the imperiuim reduction.
start with tome of roots. angels are weak to blight, and vine prison is op. it makes enemies waste their turns killing vines.
lithyl's rite of summoning can help build an army and replace losses. note that you'll have to trade with your allies for mana, otherwise you'll have none.
also trade with your allies for items, either sell them your items or buy theirs.
at the start of the mission, scout towards yaka and lithyl, and plant outposts next to magic materials, or where a decent chokepoint is. otherwise they'll settle in your lands and box you in.
make cities early, don't seek out optimal spacing. two of my cities were scrunched up together, and pressed up against my capital just to box off lithyl.
saying this again in case you missed it: use vine prison prodigiously.
(continued)
tome of cryomancy can be your second tome, because angels are also weak to ice. after that, tomes are your preference for your playstyle. keep in mind to work towards a province destroying spell, because you'll have to snipe the angel's attempt at a magic victory. I did this by bunching my armies around to siege his city, then sending a couple units from lithyl's rite towards his affinity province. he sent most of his army to the city to stop the siege, and ignored the runners.
if you can destroy his affinity province, then nimue will probably have enough time to catch up and win a magic victory for you.
for reference, I was playing a wizard king dark culture. my tomes were roots, cryo, then I went heavy into astral from tier III on.
desu, going into dark affinity can help, because of the magic unit upkeep reduction, and that skill that refunds casting points per unit death (vines count for this)
>lithyl's rite of summoning can help build an army and replace losses
I can confirm this. You can have some trouble juggling mana upkeep, since a lot can spawn under your control from bigger battles, but this was the best starting rite after three tries for me. Pretty much drowned orc angels in Astral Keepers matched with shitstacks of barbarian units, along with free T1-T2 spawns from Lure of the Horde or whatever that imperium trait was called. Fights were bloody and units were often replaced, but I somehow managed to outspam the Onmar. ANYTHING that reduces unit upkeep for these helps a lot
City placement will absolutely get ugly. Unlike real oceans, you can't do shit with astral seas, most of mine ran out of space at about pop-20. If you don't end up with an underground start, absolutely try to expand toward your allies directions, they WILL take the free real estate. Once I actually beat back the celestial zuggers first waves, I started grabbing their vassal cities to migrate my unwashed masses into and things snowballed from there on
>trouble juggling mana upkeep
to add on to trading with allies for mana: Nimue will be your primary sugar mommy regarding mana. ygaard will as well, but some turns he just doesn't have much to spare. yaka and lithyl almost never have mana to trade, and you shouldn't trade for their mana unless you're desperate
>>pick underground trait >>dick around in your caves for 70 turns
ally wins a magic victory for you
once engaged the enemy
I wish I had the patience to do majority underground runs. Unless you run Massive Underground worlds you end up with very cramped cities struggling to find space for everything. Plus you miss out on a lot of surface wonders and extras that help in the long-term.
I tried to run a map with underground set to massive with the idea just to stay underneath and war/vassalize on the surface
All six AI opponents also started underground, and they really didn't have underground routes connecting eachother. I had like no room for building additional cities for my capital.
I didn't have the 'all empires start underground' setting hit, but something else I entered may have forced that. My previous map I didn't think twice about underground stuff at the start or the settings, but neighbors being neighbors pushed me to expand down instead of out and there was an amazing amount of room there for 2-3 cities of mine.
>tfw trying to win via defeating Arctica >she can just continuously shit out waves upon waves of units to the point that even a fully decked out triple threat of units with multiple tier-IVs and even a few tier-Vs kneels to the sheer tide of cannon fodder she just chucks your way
I feel like I might've underestimated boss characters but at least you can stunlock them by using Burden of Guilt twice over
My final quest map had me at a very convenient spawn. I was surrounded by my allies as they grow their cities twice as fast as I could grow mine. Only one narrow path led to a hostile angel city. Instead of dicking around underground, I practically dicked around the surface while the one angel city just kept sending fodder war parties and my Heroes grew to insane levels. I had lock in the win because my allies, enemies, nor I were seemingly trying to win.
20th June is the date for what they call the Wyvern Patch, being released together with the Dragon Dawn DLC. Something like 15 pages worth of patch notes.
awesome cheers lad, will give it another try then. Do you know if they've said anything about improving the mid early to late mid game? It felt like I was just walking around the map with the same t2/3 units killing the same NPC neutrals for 30 turns sometimes
I don't think they have, but hopefully. Having played this game for a bit now, I'm starting to feel like pacing is low-key one of the biggest problems with the game.
It takes roughly a billion turns to walk anywhere with your 1-2 stacks of T1-T2 goons, and about half that to get a city properly built up, but you'll have almost accidentally become a Wizard God just a smidge away from Magic Victory by the time you finally managed to walk somewhere.
Movement is too slow relative to map size, NPC Resource Campers are needlessly strong (slowing down the boring early phase we're you're just trying to clear your starting areas) but Research/Imperium accumulates lightning fast even if you aren't particularly trying. I mean frick, half the time I don't even unlock my T3 Cultural units before they've been obsoleted by tome tech. There's also the conceptually cool rally system that deposits a bunch of shitters in your capitol, the one place you almost definitely don't need them to be.
I just put it on ultra, and well... does the game just looks like that and i'm moronic? I'm using an old as frick 750ti, so honestly i'm impressed the newer nvidia drivers allowed me to run on ultra lol.
there this weird bug thing...
anon go to the setting and change from borderless to windowed and back to borderless
if that doesn't help pick the return to default setting
There is none. If you find it vaguely interesting just play previous game. They pandered to aow3 fans (not many of them), then they paradoxed it by removing campaign and story.
Saying planetfall was better than aow3 is sad, more than anything. But indeed, no camp, no story, and we cant even create items anymore.
there this weird bug thing...
anon go to the setting and change from borderless to windowed and back to borderless
if that doesn't help pick the return to default setting
It's not the most graphically advanced game out there, but it does look a lot blurrier than it does on my screen.
Not sure what would be causing that though. If messing with the graphics settings doesn't work, maybe try the Nvidia control panel.
Deactivating bloom made it better, but didnt change much. Might as well be my gpu.
Can I delete the premade people from my pantheon without them disappearing from the game? I'd still like for them to show up as AIs or be available to play as if for whatever reason I feel like it.
I'm going to say no, just in case. what's your problem with them being there? just want your own creations? if you switch their button to ruler, they won't offer themselves as heroes in your games. also even if they're on hero, they can still show up as ai rulers
The pantheon does feel a lot less personal if there's a plethora of premades in there, and I thought the whole reason why there's a "your pantheon" is for it to be very personal.
yes, they are unlocked in both your pantheon and the leader select so you can delete them from pantheon without any issue
if you want them back for whatever reason you will have to redo the mission they came from though
Need more variety in the kinds of Artifacts you can get.
Devs can't seriously think it's fun finding three spider hatchling eggs in a row while finding no weapons for your heroes.
They're not bad and can give you some incredibly strong units, but you basically have to commit to the full Order tome shebang if you want to get the most use out of them, like with Necromancy Shadow tomes.
Playing with more than 4 players in the map feels like a giant slog as armies take half the entire game to traverse the map, if you need to kill someone on the other side of the map shit gets extremely tedious.
Yeah on big maps it always ends in a magic victory unless I really go out of my way to drag out a different victory type. It's arguably the least interesting victory type, but sitting on your ass for a couple of turns is a lot more convenient than trekking all the way across the map to wreck someone.
I'm not even sure what would be a good way to fix this. Sure you could for example increase movement speed so you can get around quicker, but I don't think this would make the gam emore enjoyable since it'd make keeping up with enemy stacks zooming around a pain in the ass.
For one, Forced March shouldn't be so bad that using it is the equivalent to giving your enemy a free win. And second, just letting you pick vassals as spawn points for your units would fix the issue of your throne city being the obvious best recruiter you have but being too far from literally everything for it to really matter, if you don't want to make vassals free teleporters then you could just make spawning your units there use the Rally of the Lieges points you have.
Yeah the logistics of army movement if you're trying to play a production chad instead of purely a summon caddy are just all kinds of fricked up.
It's not even just the initial horrific logistics involved in building up several stacks of good units and marching them to the ass-end of nowhere, your AI opponent, unless they're already on the verge of death is going to have 4 billion quickly replenishing army stacks of their own, so you need to have a way to pull in reinforcements and replace losses, like I guess it's possible to set up a whole teleporter network from your throne to some city you've captured and built up near the enemy, but like you could win the game twice in the time it takes just to set that shit up.
Pretty much it's a thousand times faster to kill an enemy with summon spam than with any significant number of production troops, and it's still 5x faster than that to win a magic victory.
Btw, speaking of everything in the game spawning in your throne province, my personal pet peeve, heroes. WTF can I only recuit heroes at my throne province? It's like they were just too lazy to set flags to spawn anything in any other location except through summons.
It makes sense. I never thought of plopping outposts willy-nilly without the intention of making them into cities, but I supposed that works.
Still not nearly as efficient as summoning. It's already annoying that stacks are tiny and you have to bring a shitload of stacks clicking one by one, but also making half of your production recruited have to waste at least one turn teleporting to the edge of your territory is pretty gay.
If you have enough manpower to set up a forward outpost and defend it from the enemy's assault enough that you can build a teleporter there then you have enough manpower to just capture an opponent's city and build a teleporter there instead.
New patch notes are up, I think the changes are mostly for the best and I appreciate the updated roadmap and all, but man, did they really need to kneecap the Houndmaster like that? Halfed the HP on the crossbow guy and his dogs, geez.
Or doing this to my boy: >War Shaman “Invigorate” - Changed from a Single Action to a Full Action.
I already thought the War Shaman kinda sucked, he existed to use invigorate once at the start of the battle and then he was basically useless, now he's even worse.
I always roll my eyes whenever I see dev dickrider posts regarding roadmaps because it's people praising the devs for words and not actions regarding stuff that wasn't in the game at launch. That being said, Triumph seems to be putting in the work and I'm hopeful. My biggest priority is better ally AI so that bigger wars can really be "your team vs the world" and not "you vs the people who you didn't subjugate yet" and it does seem like some story realms are supposed to be about allying against a larger threat, which as of right now can be a little hit or miss strategy wise. And of course more events/wonders/combat maps, there could never be too many of those.
Does seem a little harsh, I sort of get it for Houndmaster since he's mounted now but did anyone think War Shamans were busted? Hopefully if they encounter any balance issues related to this patch they revert changes slightly faster than adding it to the milestone updates. Also I'm a little worried about how little combat summons survive, guess you can't summon them on the first turn anymore or else they'd expire by the time real fighting happens. We'll see how this goes.
> My biggest priority is better ally AI so that bigger wars can really be "your team vs the world" and not "you vs the people who you didn't subjugate yet"
I'm still reading through the mountains of text today, but they directly mention War Coordination is a goal to be in the big free update that'll come with Empires & Ashes
Yeah, but that's still not that particularly amazing, especially in a world where evolving low-tier units are now unkillable. Regular ass T1 units have 60HP and he's a T2. I dunno, I never rated the Houndmaster very highly even before they nerfed him, he was just two shitty T1 units taped together for the price of a T2, hardly a world beater.
Yeah, but that's still not that particularly amazing, especially in a world where evolving low-tier units are now unkillable. Regular ass T1 units have 60HP and he's a T2. I dunno, I never rated the Houndmaster very highly even before they nerfed him, he was just two shitty T1 units taped together for the price of a T2, hardly a world beater.
based on quality (as in item tier) they give a set amount of gold. The highest quality give 9 gold, the lowest 1 gold. Keep in mind that Dragon Lords cost 50 (extra?) gold upkeep (and eventually start costing mana after you pick their aspect). Otherwise I don't think there's a cap, maybe 100 if there would be one, but its gonna take a while to get there.
>tfw there's so many buffs for specifically tier-1 units yet tier-2s are where most of the interesting low-tier unit shit is, especially for mage characters
they really need to redo the traits for races.
redesign the thing, make it more impactful.
they just added a new race, lizards, and...
they just feel like a skin, that's it really. some % chance to poison... zzz... whatever
Agreed. Race traits and cultures need some touches to make them more unique
Also why the FRICK can't you start with a racial transformation? Why can't I start off with my frostling race?
>why the FRICK can't you start with a racial transformation? Why can't I start off with my frostling race?
I personally feel its more rewarding if you work towards it in the game. but there is a mod that lets you add those at the beginning
There's also the fact that your race doesn't retain their transformations after ascending, so you don't get to see your cool Dark angelic giga homie heroes in other games, you just see them as their base form.
What is in the DLC is fine, it's just not a lot >You can play as a Dragon Lord instead of a Wizard or Fighter >Lizardman race skin >Two new tomes for dragon stuff
That's basically the entire DLC
Did they take out some support leader abilities?
I could've sworn there were more unit upgrades. Enough that at level 12 I was starting to branch out of there, now at level 5 I feel like I've got everything..
Do I just not understand it or does mana channelers's +1 rank to magic origin units not work? Tried summoning the new fledgling wyverns and even tried regular old summoning a wild animal but they keep starting out as recruits despite having the magic origins tag
Wait so if I understand this correctly it only works for units that naturally have the magic origins tag like magma spirits and astral keepers and doesn't work for creatures like animals and wyverns that get the tag when summoned? That makes sense I guess
>Dragon Ruler gives you bonus gold every turn for each item you have >Artifact Hoarder gives you bonus mana every turn for each item you have >Industrious Culture lets your scouts prospect for free items >??? >PROFIT
>favorite tome
Summoning's Arcane Bond has carried me lategame with mind controlling high tier magic origin units. The wisp also does a surprising amount of damage and is an extra, free body to sacrifice
I think T2 units are just generally in a tough spot. If you're using a T1-focused build they're borderline useless, and if not they're a stepping-stone at best. T3 tends to stay useful a lot longer than T2, even after you have T4 units available.
>start a new match >have a comfy corner of the map to myself >actually scratch that, an *ndergrounder spawned right next to me but *nderground >immediately comes out from his cave to settle right next to my capital
I'm going to camp units on every single passage I see from the beginning of every game
That was me, just the other way around. Cave exit had a magic material and wonder near by, too.Lot of coast and water, though, just barely enough land to get the basic structures build up. Perfect case for a seafaring guild.
>Have fun custom game idea >Spend time customizing everything, world, godirs, game rules >Tries to load world >crashes >Have to remake everything again >Tries to load world again >crashes
What the frick Paradox? I guess I have wait for 3 more hotfixes before this shit gets fixed.
>Have fun custom game idea >Spend time customizing everything, world, godirs, game rules >Tries to load world >crashes >Have to remake everything again >Tries to load world again >crashes
What the frick Paradox? I guess I have wait for 3 more hotfixes before this shit gets fixed.
Try reinstalling, I guess. It's been smooth sailing for me since release.
I really hope they go the Total Warhammer style of bettering the game over time with updates instead of the Paradox style of just adding in locked content and literally nothing else.
Not the way I wanted the game to end but sure that works and I sometimes forget how funny it is having a tiny dragon lord. Dragon is a decent enough crutch early on and the rapid evolution enhancement from the new tome is pretty useful. That said I'm trash at the game so I don't know the best way to even hit level 16 before reaching an endgame scenario. Felt like my lord was always on the hunt for the neutral mobs and clearing wonders but I was still only level 14 by the time the game ended.
Autism question, I created a race of Blue Elves, but in events related to them, a generic white skinned elf appear, is this a bug ? Or it's a generic "elfkin" that appears in the event? This triggers me.
>make blue arcane dorfs in the snow, they build friggin Ulduar after turning metal >make lucky blue barbarian gobbos and stick em in a shit desert, they make it a green paradise >make blue dark evil molemen and stick em underground, make a Wizard King named Saul to lead them and they become paragons of good
There's so much small shit I still want in this game, but simply doing 'make X colored doods' is so entertaining by itself
>Do a dragon game >Only realize on the last turn that dragons don't take really enchantments >They're not animals and they're mythic units so that's basically nothing
Well... I won but I played that entire game wrong.
The Wyvern and Slithers got buffs, but the units I was working towards got nothing.
This game looked interesting and I was thinking of living picking it up. How is it? Any good for an "orcish barbarians overrunning and enslaving the civilized societies like Mongols" playstyle? I liked Civ 5 and Endless Legends as far as 4x goes.
You can play as orc barbarians overrunning your enemies, but there's no enslaving mechanic. You either conquer cities, raze them to the ground, or vassalize them. A real Mongol playstyle would be hard to do as well since the game doesn't really work that way, but at least Barbarians can get mounted archers so that's something.
do the dragon lordheroes even hold up late game? 1v1 I feel like a normal hero with a dozen transformations and good gear would wreck one. It's thematically fun to play, but I thought the lacklustre passives were balanced out by combat strength
It depends. A Wizard King definitely has more ways to cheese encounters, but in terms of raw combat strength I'm pretty sure a well-built dragon would come out on top.
You can play as orc barbarians overrunning your enemies, but there's no enslaving mechanic. You either conquer cities, raze them to the ground, or vassalize them. A real Mongol playstyle would be hard to do as well since the game doesn't really work that way, but at least Barbarians can get mounted archers so that's something.
[...]
It depends. A Wizard King definitely has more ways to cheese encounters, but in terms of raw combat strength I'm pretty sure a well-built dragon would come out on top.
>You can play as orc barbarians overrunning your enemies, but there's no enslaving mechanic.
I'll just say there's technically enslaving stuff. Like there's a buff on the empire development tech tree called 'war slaves', but it just moves population from cities you're destroying to your own cities. Not a whole lot to distinguish between your "Normal" citizens and slave races after that though.
AoW3>AoW4>EL
I love literally everything about Amplitude's games except the gameplay, except Dungeon, which has GOAT gameplay. AoW3 is for now better than 4 because 4 is a game that scales well with content which is something it's lacking right now
EL>ao3>ao4
but that's only because I'm more into EL's empire building than I am ao3's combat. it's also unfair to compare ao4 since its expansions aren't done, and I never played EL or 3 at release so I don't know how they were then.
do the dragon lordheroes even hold up late game? 1v1 I feel like a normal hero with a dozen transformations and good gear would wreck one. It's thematically fun to play, but I thought the lacklustre passives were balanced out by combat strength
>Aow3 or Planetfall
Planetfall is better by a mile
But Aow4 suffers the same as Planetfall in the initial release it has next to no content but after the patches and dlc it's damn fun
>start a new game >max map size >max enemy numbers >max difficulty >letsfrickinggo.jpg >don't want to go for an easy victory so I'm just fighting everyone straight up >some chucklefrick starts casting the victory spell >he's on the other side of the map >it takes me more than the 15 turns it takes to cast to get there and stop it
Hoisted by my own petard!
>Demons and Halflings are natural enemies! >Like Orcs and Halflings! >Or Ratkin and Halflings! >Or Halflings and other Hlaflings! >Damn Halflings! >They ruined the Shire!
Why the FRICK does this piece of shit game force me to play with the controller as long as I have one plugged in? It works fine if I unplug the controller, but not having an option to switch to m+kb from within the game itself is completely backwards.
I'm a little pissed I just spent another 30+ turns after taking his capital playing where's waldo with this butthole floating in the center of the map when his throne is in the far west. Loaded an earlier save to check and yeah he was just there floating on that same spot stuck like another dragon lord that got stuck underground do. On the brightside him not going back to defend made capturing the throne city a cakewalk because of how jacked the ashen war dragon lords but at the same time playing where's waldo with the enemy ruler is just pain
Have your play-throughs felt significantly different?
I've done full good angels, forest hippies, no racial units, diplomacy (which was a pain as everyone's always trying to drag you into a way they won't actually participate in AND will back out of), no diplomacy (which was much more peaceful and maintained good relations with everyone). But everything felt like I was just replaying the same game over and over. Even playing the same faction in Alpha Centauri felt less same-y.
>Even playing the same faction in Alpha Centauri felt less same-y.
I thought about it and I think that's because you weren't limited to 3 cities (plus vassals and imperium spending I guess)
Your empire in SMAC could be of varied shapes and densities. You could terraform the world. Even if things were similar from game to game, it played out differently because you weren't as constrained.
Turning a white province green just doesn't give much of a feeling of change as flooding or submerging the world.
I dont know how long games last in AC but i think what hurts with some of the samey feeling is how quick campaigns are. You're usually wrapping things up by turn 70-100. Take a game like Civ 6 where unless you're doing a minmax or cheese strat you will usually go at least 250/300+ turns. It gives the games a lot more time to move down different paths.
Game not even done yet hell i feel we are playing just the
Look at the patch road: >better AI >better performance optimizations >faction identity >more empire buildimg >expanding pantheon options >Guns and Tanks
As much as i love this game as of right now it's very obvious a beta game with us as QA
>See an army pop up from underground >Body block the entrance when they move >They're stuck in my domain and constantly generate grievances. >Caps at 20 grievances, can't sell them, can only forgive. >Now aligned good in my evil dragon playthrough
Autistic question but does anyone have any thoughts about the "canon" ruler to play as for each story map? Besides playing as Alfred in Story 1, the others aren't obvious. Maybe Dafal Dea in Story 2 (narrative mentions zealous Godir, and the race is water adapted), and maybe Arachna/Nekron in Story 5 (since the Shadrai are missing a shadow affinity wizard.
this is the kind of heavy handed stupidity id expect from a free to play game. who or what spurred them to making these changes?
they clearly didnt consider how the signature skill summons take 3 action points and the summoned units have no ap on their first turn, or how weak the wildspeaker is as a support unit.
>before the patch >lol this game is balanced by morons I can kill infinite enemy units by just spamming summons and resetting >after the patch >NOOO DON'T TAKE AWAY MY BRAINLESS STRATEGIES I MIGHT ACTUALLY HAVE TO PLAY THE GAME THIS IS SO UNFAIR
I suppose this makes sense. Now there's development room for summoner buffs that also increase their duration. 3 turns is usually how long a battle lasts before it's "over" as well.
What mods do you run? I just have one to make race transformations optional right now but I'm thinking of grabbing the one that increases movement speed since getting anywhere on the map takes forever.
>option to make bigger maps and/or add more players to the map >alternative version of transformations that don't apply the visual effect >additional color options for character creation >additional flag emblems for character creation
I like cultural and scientific victories in Civ. I tried AoW4 and it seems way too combat focused. Since we wait for DLCs, how are the older ones concerning alternative win cons?
>I tried AoW4 and it seems way too combat focused.
The magic victory is basically a science victory. All you have to do is turtle underground, beeline research, and plop some improvements down
Funnily enough magic is I think the easiest victory in AoW4 depending on your neighbors. 15 Turns sounds like a lot but due to map size and the AI's allergy to building their own damn teleporters the only thing you'll have to worry about are border touching close hostile neighbors and the NPC army spawns which even the average mid-game army can kill with auto-resolve.
>AI declares rivalry with me >Never declares war
Ok, sure, enjoy spending your money for nothing.
What the frick are you supposed to do with a declaration of rivalry? Besides ignore that AI for the rest of the game.
nothing other than the game "forcing" you to be careful around them else they start war
With the deamon prince quest this thing can be bad news really quick since thay homosexual has already a fully blown high level and enchanted army and can frick you up
>"forcing" you to be careful around them else they start war
Must be a playstyle issue. I always ended up with more grievances against them than vice-versa. But, like I said, I just ignored them.
Probably doesn't help that they tend to be on the other side of the map.
it makes it really easy for them to start a just war against you if you do anything slightly negative to them. I actually really like rivalries myself since they allow me to generate a lot of imperium by declaring a war on the inevitable forward expanding neighbors.
playing dragon lord as anything other than industrious feels wrong to me, on account of the culture's ability to accumulate items far beyond any other's. Also seems a given to take artifact hoarders. Ways to get or think around this?
war to hero hunt for items instead. with the bonuses ai get, they'll always buy fully geared heroes to replace the ones you kill.
taking the mana hoard is fine thematically but not really necessary to dragon lords, in my opinion. I think it's a good trait though, and will probably use it on a lot of my factions.
also my opinion, but I think dragon lords would work best as mystic culture. this is just my experience but I have a hard early game as mystic
>but I think dragon lords would work best as mystic culture. this is just my experience but I have a hard early game as mystic
What makes you say this?
I played with the old economy and it didn't scratch my necromancer needs.
You don't summon hordes of the undead. You don't have a variety of undead. The undead don't have interesting abilities with corpses,
Frankly, going nature and summoning animals was closer to playing what a necromancer should be doing.
And I hate the flavour of using souls for undead creation. It's moronic in DnD and it's moronic here.
I think military ranking is determine by the combined power of all your armies, but when only 3 armies can participate in a battle, then why measure it that way? If the enemy sends hordes of shit armies to break impotently against your 3 armies, then doesn't that mean you're militarily much stronger even if he has a lot of excess units eating up upkeep (which I honestly don't think the AI pays, but I guess the AI could use help) ?
What are you favorite traits? I just started recently and made an Orc Barbarian society with Strong, Overwhelm Tactics, Ritual Cannibals, Prolific Swarmers and Tome of the Horde for starting out. It all feels good but I'm not sure if Ritual Cannibals should be swapped for Adept Settlers since the food and mana gain is pretty minimal overall.
You don't take Cannibals for the food, you take it for the ability to heal in combat by having a little snack. Especially useful on cultures that either don't get a healer or whose healer is crap. The food gain in cities is just a bonus.
Damn demonic coward that demon "Prince" spend 20 turn running away from like a pussy!
I like to image he heard E1M1 all the time
Anyone else found it funny that "Carrisa the red" is one of the few AI Lords that gives you an option to become her overlord the second she faces trouble?
Like she is the first to start a war and also the first bend knee?
Iron Golems are meant to be buildable in the tech tree normally. Copper Golems are there for you to grind out into free Iron Golems without needing to develop them.
The iron golems in the tech tree are designed to be buildable in cities, however copper golems can circumvent this due to their evolution trait that allows them to turn into iron golems upon hitting veteran rank
Can i suicide an army of heroes against a neutral stack to have them all appear in my crypt? Or is the only way trough events or killing enemy heroes?
Obviously being Dark, to increase the economy bonus.
You can kill Neutral/Bandits heroes too and ancient wonders bandit heroes as well
Someone at the paradox forum asked how to capture enemy heroes no one gave them an answer...
Simple allow the enemy hero to retreat after their morale is very low DO NOT kill them allow to them to retreat you can exterminate the fleeing soldiers if you want
[...]
I'll point out that if you capture an enemy Throne City you auto loot all the dead heroes they had in their crypt, and that seems to be a really fast way to fill up your crypts. I had a game a few weeks back where I was playing an Order/Shadow (Dark) culture build and went from being in mana debt to basically making +400 mana a turn because one of the other Godir I seized the capital of had like 20 heroes in his crypt due to a hell war he had with a city state before I overran him.
Thank you for the answer, i'll try a game with a Dark Dragon that recruits a frickton of heroes, strips them naked for his hoard, and sends them to their deaths.
You can kill Neutral/Bandits heroes too and ancient wonders bandit heroes as well
Someone at the paradox forum asked how to capture enemy heroes no one gave them an answer...
Simple allow the enemy hero to retreat after their morale is very low DO NOT kill them allow to them to retreat you can exterminate the fleeing soldiers if you want
I'll point out that if you capture an enemy Throne City you auto loot all the dead heroes they had in their crypt, and that seems to be a really fast way to fill up your crypts. I had a game a few weeks back where I was playing an Order/Shadow (Dark) culture build and went from being in mana debt to basically making +400 mana a turn because one of the other Godir I seized the capital of had like 20 heroes in his crypt due to a hell war he had with a city state before I overran him.
Go for the tutorial
My advice is go for Dark(culture) and order(affinity) and pick both good order society traits
Dark: so you don't have to worry about negative stability but you DO benefit from possitive stabilty so you are free to expand to your hearts content and all their units are usefull
Order: is safe and sound and you really can't go wrong with it and it's the easiest to get into it
Traits: because you want vassals to keep themselves safe and you don't have to worry about them and Good alignment is in general much better than evil because it gives you "good" events that benefit you
Can i go Astral Aspect with my dragon, then choose another kind of Transformation? (say Shadow?)
Or can i just evolve from my first chosen aspect? (so Astral Aspect can only become Astral Transformation?)
Also do Dragon Lords benefit from starting Mind/Body traits? What about race traits/enchantments?
You can choose a starting affinity for a dragon, and pivot at either of 2 affinity transformations the dragon gets at levels 4 and 12. Dragons don't benefit from any mind/body traits, or racial transformations you cast on your people. Some enchantments can affect the dragon lords, but they have to be ones that affect certain categories (such as elemental, undead, etc) and then the dragon gains that type.
So i can start Astral, choose Nature Aspect and finish with Shadow Transformation? Neat!
I hope the final transformation are not garbage aesthetically, or at least if i can disable the added looks if they look lkke shit.
As someone who liked 1 and 2, and Plantefall, is AoW4 worth getting into? I'm kinda leary about the Stellaris-esque race modding since it seems it removes a lot of flavor from the game.
I just got this game and have been playing for a couple days already, and I noticed that you can just research any tome you want. It has me wondering how the AI goes through researching tomes and magic. Does it select randomly?
I used to think they tried to stick to their starting affinities but then in my last game the nature dragon in the ashen war map went pure shadow so now I don't have a fricking clue.
True, there should at the very least be an option to set the personality of people in your pantheon.
But then again the entire pantheon is such an undercooked feature that they could remove it from the game entirely and we'd lose literally nothing of value.
That seems to be true to an extent but from what I've seen they tend to start going really hard into whatever personality they roll at game start as their primary Affinity. Example: I had a champion who I gave feudal culture and the book of evolution as his starting tome, expecting him to try and create a realm of dragons and half dragons. He rolled "Pure Sage" as his personality though. I'm now at ~60 turns into this game and the dude has 16 astral affinity compared to his Nature affinity of 5 (and chaos affinity of 1) so I think the main factor is just down to their diplomatic personality which sucks cause currently I have no fricking clue how to manipulate that to get the type of players I want in a game.
>White Wolves mounts from Body trait are Tier 3 items
It's not worth paying 250g for each hero to get a Tier 3 item in my hoard, but i WILL one day spam heroes and enjoy my Dragon Hoard gains
It's weird how much the game punishes you for being evil. Maybe I'm just biased since I like to play conquering hordes though. I guess it's interesting to change up the inherent morally bankrupt way you see things when playing a gsg/4x game
Evil is done right in my opinion: you are free to do all the nasty shit you want, disregard diplomacy and just go full Heroes of Might and Magic.
The downside should be that if you start shit, you better be ready to get hit. Negative events + the world hating you are good consequences.
Maybe more Evil specific events wpuld be cool, but who doesn't like more events after all.
The events and stuff to do on the map like exploring wonders and mob fights are great. That's my biggest gripe with games like civ 5 or EU4, there's so little to do between wars.
Evil is a way more comfortable way to play IMO. >don't have to worry about diplomacy, you can still use it but if people don't want to play ball you can just frick them >can kill everything for XP, don't have to pussy out if someone surrenders to you >don't have to worry about muh casus belli or grievances, just do what you want to do and kill anyone who gets in the way
Good feels too much of a balancing act to me. You still want to play a conqueror because that's what the game is about, but you constantly have to tip-toe around the things the game calls "evil."
The only thing I don't like about playing evil is that not doing evil shit for a few turns automatically makes you more good.
They should stop putting all those rape-able and lootable civilians near their goddamn spell jammers then!
Just, like, don't cast spells?????????
Fricking wizards don't know right from wrong. Just because the enemy has spell jammers and teleporters doesn't mean you get to rape the engineers, salt the earth and piss on their corpses...
To be fair, raping and pillaging and scalping the innocent isn't exactly very moral.
[...]
Just, like, don't cast spells?????????
Fricking wizards don't know right from wrong. Just because the enemy has spell jammers and teleporters doesn't mean you get to rape the engineers, salt the earth and piss on their corpses...
There should be a spell-jammer/teleporter neutral option.
Seal improvement or something.
Champs are funny enough the weakest of the lords right now
they get a very slight economy bonus and a tiny when i say tiny i mean tiny bonus bonus with free cities but nothing else
Wizards and Dragon beat them in Magic and Power respectively
>Worth it?
Eh. I've got it because I got the season pass, but I'm kind of on the fence about the actual value of Dragon Dawn.
If you really like dragons and love the idea of playing one (or Lizardmen), then sure it's worth it. But mechanically it doesn't really add anything new to the game and apart from allowing you toi be slightly more aggressive from the start, nothing in the DLC changes the way you play the game in any significant way. Sure it adds a few new things but they don't really have a gameplay impact, they're just minor sidegrades to the same old shit.
In Stellaris terms, it feels more like a Species Pack for Dragons + Lizzers than a DLC Expansion that actually adds new features.
It's there....the dlc is very very anemic and doesn't really add anything fantastic like say revelation did in planetfall,this dlc added a new dragon lord,lizards(skin),2 new tomes and a new body trait and nothing else.
this dlc is nothing special and very much skippable actually i was hoping for anomiles(cyoa mini adventures like in PF) but nope.
>Worth it?
Eh. I've got it because I got the season pass, but I'm kind of on the fence about the actual value of Dragon Dawn.
If you really like dragons and love the idea of playing one (or Lizardmen), then sure it's worth it. But mechanically it doesn't really add anything new to the game and apart from allowing you toi be slightly more aggressive from the start, nothing in the DLC changes the way you play the game in any significant way. Sure it adds a few new things but they don't really have a gameplay impact, they're just minor sidegrades to the same old shit.
In Stellaris terms, it feels more like a Species Pack for Dragons + Lizzers than a DLC Expansion that actually adds new features.
It's there....the dlc is very very anemic and doesn't really add anything fantastic like say revelation did in planetfall,this dlc added a new dragon lord,lizards(skin),2 new tomes and a new body trait and nothing else.
this dlc is nothing special and very much skippable actually i was hoping for anomiles(cyoa mini adventures like in PF) but nope.
YOU GET TO HOARD TREASURES AS A DRAGON YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID
Ye if you love dragons then you should get it. If you don't particularly care about being a dragon it's very skippable.
Then only reason I'm not mad about it is that we already knew we'd get two small DLCs and two big ones, and Dragon
Dawn is one of the small ones. But if the next DLC doesn't deliver you better believe I'm going to shit up these threads as well as the official forum with my incessant belligerent whining.
It's got like, -some- content. It's not like actual horse armor where you just get a skin and it does nothing except look slightly different. I'd say 50% off would be quite acceptable.
1 year ago
Anonymous
It's a ruler passive, a set of ruler skins, form skins, 1 form trait, and 2 tomes.
Mods have done much more... barring the ruler skins I guess. I'm not sure on that one.
1 year ago
Anonymous
Mods add far far more content and they are free,this dlc is for all intents and purposes horse armor
Yeah but you can't really compare prices to free mods. Some games have mods that have more content than the game they're based on, that doesn't mean all games are free.
If that's what you want, just pirate instead.
1 year ago
Anonymous
The types of mods you're talking about usually take years to develop. We're not there yet. We're comparing modder's...2 months worth of work to Triumph's 2+ months (they had access before modders).
1 year ago
Anonymous
Mods add far far more content and they are free,this dlc is for all intents and purposes horse armor
1 year ago
Anonymous
How are the mods at the moment, any good stuff in terms of new content?
1 year ago
Anonymous
there are exampe: many new tomes,cosmetics that should have been ingame btw( like culture specific summons zealots,specral warrior etc that look like your culture!),countless traits mods
[...]
Yeah but you can't really compare prices to free mods. Some games have mods that have more content than the game they're based on, that doesn't mean all games are free.
If that's what you want, just pirate instead.
But i can compare it anon,when a random modder can easily add over 10+ traits with no problem you're telling me that triumph couldn't add more than 1?
Come on this is just pure laziness
Look at this https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2986124099&searchtext=
Theme of the dlc is dragons.
Dragon lords aren’t really much to write home about.
The give some affinity boosts, but racial buffs don’t apply to them. They’re also limited in what gear they can use.
Biggest selling point are the tomes, which reveal the true theme of the DLC, snowballing with XP. Mainly through the evolve mechanic.
(The evolve mechanic is the same as how feudal peasants turn into footman when they reach a high enough rank.)
With the dragon tomes you get a unit enchantment for any unit which has evolve, they gain +20% XP and evolve units revive for half health at the end of battle if you win the battle.
You can go from tier 1 to tier 3 to tier 5 dragons. (Which is huge, think of all the draft your saving by snowballing like that)
You get access to fire and ice dragons by default.
You also get new gold or obsidian dragons which are available if you’re alignment is good or evil respectively.
Gold is very powerful because it’s dragon breath doubles as an AOE heal and clears debuffs.
Ice is also powerful because it’s breath has a chance to stun.
Overall the tomes are very powerful, perhaps even OP. They’re primarily what makes the DLC worth it imo.
Dragon lords are affinity farmers.
Campaign is ok I guess.
It's basically the absolute bare minimum amount of content they could have provided while still technically lining up with the description provided in the season pass. You get a race, a lord type, and two tomes, none of which go above and beyond by any reasonable metric. Unless you're a dragon fanatic or already bought the season pass, I'd suggest waiting for a steep discount.
Build an outpost. Found another city. Do this 2x to reach your 'max' of 3 cities. Walk around the world beating up monster groups. Enchant your units with everything. Don't do diplomacy because the AI is always starting wars it won't finish and dragging you into it. Build some provinnce improvements in locations you can defense them easily (a spot where the borders of your 3 cities meet), win a magic victory.
Build an outpost. Found another city. Do this 2x to reach your 'max' of 3 cities. Walk around the world beating up monster groups. Enchant your units with everything. Don't do diplomacy because the AI is always starting wars it won't finish and dragging you into it. Build some provinnce improvements in locations you can defense them easily (a spot where the borders of your 3 cities meet), win a magic victory.
magic victories are gay. Pick the Orc Barbarian faction, play the tutorial, kill rape and burn everything until nothing is left but you and your ethnostate of orcs and half orc conquered peoples.
Just don't get Destined Destroyers or whatever it's called, if you're on higher difficulties with lots of players you'll constantly ping pong between enemies that chain Magic victories making you run all over the map and you'll eventually win through score.
Had the same thing happen to me while I was in the middle of kicking in the teeth of one of their allies, probably because the battles we had left both of our armies weakened. But still getting an offer to become someone's vassal every few turns was funny
I am 5 turns away from score victory and the economy is pulling me down into the gutter.
How the frick do I deal with this?
I can't build more cities because I picked the meme Chosen Destroyers civic and I don't have enough time to destroy any more cities because I was in a protracted war with Darman Voss and all his allies with him trying to get a magic victory.
I'd imagine so.
Like I think your military score is based on your total military might, so if you have a deathstack of, say, 9000 strength, your enemy with 20 stacks of units with 1000 strength each will have a higher military score, even though you'd cut through him like a scythe through grass. I think this because I had 3 stacks that were unbeatable in practice, but the lowest military score.
I really wish they'd give exact point values for score. Telling us it's based on military, economy, research, expansion and diplomacy is not exactly useful when we don't know how much say an alliance or gold/magic generated pays out for points.Looking at the charts on game end is barely any help either
How long should you minmax XP gains early? I'm clearing stacks with my dragon using the "no less than half" rule but that's really only leaving me with my ruler and maybe 1 or 2 other units getting XP, feels like it's not worth it.
To maximize XP per unit, you want to make sure you have half as many units as the enemy. If you have more or less then there's going to be some wasted XP. People are using it to get dragon commanders that level up every 1-2 turns
Very much, I feel like it's only worth it on the dragon, rushing to get the ability that eats a Tier 1-3 unit for an instant kill is really sweet with a health + defense buff. But I don't like the idea of having the starting units sit on the sidelines and you're obviously very limited on the early game camps you can take.
I prefer full stacks because I find the best way to get xp is to just keep your army rolling.
More troops means more health which means you can trudge along farther.
>More troops means more health which means you can trudge along farther.
That's the problem I have now. I started a new realm, a lot of marauders are just 2-3 tier 1s so I can easily clear every one with just my dragon alone, but I will need a turn or two to heal back up after each fight. I could probably end up in a better place if I cast a heal spell each round but I don't want to eat up all my early mana. It's turn 12 and I have a level 8 dragon, but because I have spent all my time fighting and subsequently healing I haven't had time to explore and I haven't even established an outpost yet. I'll probably just take the closest vassal city to catch up.
Everyone seems happier in Rapefurt and Rapeholm. My capital seem like the most degenerate of them.
Top 3 are my old founding cities, bottom are cities I've conquered.
If you mean on the world map, just zoom out. The AI only does this for units that are actually on-screen at the time. If you zoom out to the paper map there are never any units on screen, so it goes by almost instantly.
Making Barbarian Chaos Tome of the Horde faction. Already have Prolific Swarmers, should I get Ritual Cannibals or Adept Settlers for the second trait?
Considering that one of the strongest builds in the game (outside of abusing certain magic synergies) is entirely focused on archer spam, I wouldn't be surprised if the game was made by elves.
i don't understand, why are armies limited to 6 units if all the battles late game involve 18 units? it adds nothing but tedium having to move 3 armies at once
even the original age of wonders had 6 units max, i doubt they will ever change it
i hate it, if it were up to me reinforcements in battle shouldn't exist
Frick that I'm getting a mod to lower the imperium cost. Not to trivialize it but to at least make it reasonable. I want to be Genghis Khan dammit I'm not here to build tall and have a million vassals that don't even help in the war.
>Try to play Goody two shoes. >Race ends up looking like complete ghouls anyways after two minor transformations.
Lmao, Evil it is then.
What’s this ‘negative event’ chance thing?
Is it manageable or just bullshit mode?
also highly recommend getting AOW 1 and 2 plus the expansion for 2 for like 5 dollars on GOG
they aged like ass but theyre wonderful to experience atleast once
you can download and install dx12 on windows 7, you just need to be 64bits
google it friend, go to Ganker and ask in the /sqt/ if you need further help but i can tell you 100% windows 7 can do dx12
I have 64bit of course. I thought DX12 was impossible to use?
But I also use an unupdated version of Windows 7. I cracked it over 10 years ago with Dazloader and installed SP1 and have never ran windows update even once, and I keep it totally disconnected from M$ servers.
But maybe I'll look into it, thanks.
> I thought DX12 was impossible to use
it absolutely is possible anon, tho my google is all in german so i can't help you
like i said look it up and if you are stuck ask in Ganker in the /sqt/ thread
you don't need to update windows
goodluck anon
12 months ago
Anonymous
that's fair then. Cheers, champ.
12 months ago
Anonymous
not him but never figured how to do it and didn't even found any info that its possible other than WoW actually do it but works only for WoW
yes, the AI cheating is not even funny >be sieging enemy capital >3 armies spawn on top of me
there is a mod in the workshop that disables AI cheats, get it alongside the one that makes the AI aggressive cuz the AI currently refuses to siege anything
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2975040668&searchtext=ai+cheat
I remember playing on hard difficulty once, and fighting one AI opponent where I was like no shit wiping out three stacks of their units every couple of turns, for 20+ turns and still there was no end to the tide of reinforcements marching in on me. It's not like they owned half the map or anything either, and they weren't even summoned units. Just magic replacement units continually marching at me, forever.
So yeah, AI is passive and braindead but it still cheats like a Mofo.
Is there a calculator out there that shows you the difference in stats between, say, a horned got and a 'fully' enchanted eagle rider?
'fully' not meaning every enchantment in the game, but a reasonable amount of end-game enchanting from a build (so racial transformation, some unit enchantments, etc.)
How come the male elves sound like sissies. The feminine sigh weirds me out the most.
Is there a mod out there that lets you customize the gender of your entire race? I thought I saw one before but I forgot where I saw it. I want to make all the elves female because they all might as well be.
The underground feels like a pain in the ass, just more map to explore and ways for enemies to hide away when getting around the map is already somewhat slow
yes
i really would like a button to disable it as currently it does nothing but make it hard to reach the last AI mole frick who is hiding there for a victory
i finished a 170 turns playthrough yesterday and had a blast
i wish the AI would build tier 5 units, i dont care if it cheats just dont spam low tier units
Watchers are pretty overpowered. Give them some battle mage upgrades like siege magic and the astral line, reduce their upkeep by up to 60% with culture, darkness tree and hero, then waltz right over everything while taking barely any damage. And all you need is mana.
I'm guessing people have gone full dragon-mode by now.
How would you compare it to other classes of hero? EX: full warrior, full archer, full mage, and full support.
IMO Dragon is the strongest type right now. Mage can theoretically be stronger I think, but only by using borderline exploits. Not sure if a Warrior can hold up against a Dragon, maybe with the right equipment but I kinda doubt it.
Also, Dragons still get access to all the other trait categories so for example if you want to put support skills on a Dragon, there's nothing stopping you.
Probably one of the strongest as a combat unit at least and starts off strong from the get-go. Natural flying, immunity to non-heavy charge bonuses offset being large and then access to flanking immunity, high resistances to their own element, two AoE attacks that can potentially CC with 60-70% chance on a 1 turn cooldown, pool of 160 HP, terrifying gorging and even an AoE buff for approaching turns will guarantee that the dragon will make a noticeable/significant impact in any battle they go in.
I guess they can be outpaced in single-target damage if your other heroes get lucky with the gear but dragons are consistently strong and you still have like 4-6 skill points to play around with depending on if you skip things like ancient governor.
god the fricking story mode is so god fricking aweful, the 3rd mission >hordes of enemies >some of them get taken out if you finish some objectives like making a love potion >that fricking demon cat keeps spawning armies fricking constantly AS I AM INVADING HIM WITH NO WAY TO GET RID OF HIM
fricking moronic
>~~*Godir*~~ subverting, conquering, and pillaging worlds at their leisure >Uses armies they have no affiliation with aka rootless thralls >AC's are trying to defend their worlds from them
TGD.
Materium dragon ruling over industrious mole people accumulating riches and a massive hoard for gold and mana gain. Even better with respawning infestations.
Industrious culture is kinda crazy with a dragon ruler, because all those free items you get from prospecting with scouts will go straight through your hoard and start generating gold. Even better if you take the culture trait that gives you mana from your hoard as well.
>balancing around multiplayer, ever. like jesus christ >instead of just limiting pre-casting to one spell like in 3 rather than as much as possible like in planetfall >kneecap research speed on top of adding per-tome cost so anyone who doesn't go dark affinity gets shafted >allow annexation between surface and underground instead of just making underground more desirable to be in >summons are only able to be made near cities or or your ruler, no mention of heroes
I think the above is a symptom of city cap being so small. of course players want to summon an army when the fight is halfway across the world from their cities. also they made outposts have to build teleporters as an improvement so you have to choose between that or annexing a wonder >speaking of heroes, introduce a percentage gold cost when you go over cap, despite hero presence being required for pretty much anything that not leveling them early is a liability
do these chucklefricks even play their own game?
I was confused for a second, I didn't notice we had a beta patch go up.
Lets see... >Slower research in general, slows down further with each tome researched.
They definitely needed to slow research down, but we'll see how this works in practice. Honestly the last game I played I had enough research late game that there was zero difference between T1 and T4 tomes in practice, everything becomes instant eventually. >Magic Victory now requires control of randomly spawned golden wonders
OK so magic victory has basically been removed from the game unless you get really lucky with map generation, wonderful. >You can claim surface provinces with underground cities
Yeah that's fricking stupid, wienerroaches spawning underground near you was already cancer, now it's worse. Just spawn more useful shit underground it's not that hard >spell casting limitation
frick off and die >summong changes
I was going to write a long diatribe here but you can still summon near your leader anywhere on the map so production is still completely useless. Weird change that doesn't actually improve the game at all. >Hero cap
Fuuuuuuck you. You know what the real problem is with hero cap? It needs to be cities+1 instead of =cities. That's it, hard cap heroes at that point and make the AI actually respect and hero limit and we're golden. It's fricking moronic that in a game where you can't accomplish anything without three armies, you have to hit the soft city cap to get three heroes. The entire supposed feeling of recruiting a low-level hero and building them up over the course of game doesn't exist because you don't get a single hero besides your leader for the first third of the game and by the time you can actually recruit one you're just buying disposable level 7 randos that you have no attachment to. >limbo
Again, "fixing" a problem by making new problems.
Now let me look at the actual patch notes and b***h some more
It's not quite a hard cap, but the gold penalty is now severe enough it might as well be. They also added a crutch for chosen destroyers by giving them a building chain to unlock more heroes.
Still stupid though, so much that's wrong with the early game flow is because of how hard it is to get a 2nd hero out, since literally everything (sieging cities, building cities, etc etc) requires a fricking hero and your leader can only be in one place at a time. Increase the starting hero cap by one, and then make it so people can't just mass heroes, why is this hard?
>Magic Victory now requires control of randomly spawned golden wonders >OK so magic victory has basically been removed from the game unless you get really lucky with map generation, wonderful.
It sounds like it's basically a Dominions-style throne victory, which is pretty based.
Yeah but AoW4 already has a victory condition based around map control. This is basically replacing magic(technology) victory with a harder version of expansion victory.
are you serious
THE MULTIPLAYER DOESN'T EVEN WORK, HOW THE FRICK DID THEY GET ENOUGH VOICE TO PRESSURE THE DEVS?
IM SO TIRED OF THIS MEME, WHY CAN'T THEY STICK TO THE GENRES THEY RUINED LIKE RTS
I just looked at 3's achievements and only about 9% of players have even started an online match. now I'm sure 3 is on other platforms, but that's still some small ass potatoes to be balancing around.
planetfall only has a win online match achievement, but it's still only 3%; so I'm really baffled why they're wanting to balance anything regarding multiplayer.
ALSO CASTING MULTIPLE SPELLS AND BEING INSANELY OP IS THE FRICKING POINT OF THIS GAME
WHAT IS THIS moronATION? LET US HAVE FUN LIKE IN THE OLDER GAMES WHERE WE CAN OBLITERATE ARMIES WITH ONE WATER SPELL
AI patch note selections: >nerfed AI unit cost/upkeep cheats
OK, fair enough. Proves the AI was cheating even on normal difficulty though >Changed Unit Production logic. The AI will no longer always produce units but tries to keep up with the strongest human player.
Literally the AI was scripted previously to never stop building units, that explains a lot of stupidity >City defense logic changes. AI no longer obsessively guards walled cities even when no threat exists, except for the throne
Good change, again explains why the AI was so fricking stupid >AI will no longer disband armies in cities that are under siege/threat
LMAO >Removed rule that the AI can only summon units when there is a combat nearby
HOLY SHIT. Remember, this same AI was scripted to never stop building units no matter what, while simultaneously never summoning unless the player was in spitting distance. They have also increased the AI's prioritization of summons in general. >Increased the mission distance range to generate more things for the AI to do at a longer range
What I'm getting from these notes put together is that the AI was literally designed to sit around and jerk off while building a never-ending flood of trash units
Economic focus changes. The AI should no longer replace gold, mana and resource improvements, providing a stronger economy
lol >Changed rule regarding clearing Ancient Wonders. The AI will now clear them when they are in annex range to Cities or Outposts
GOOD >Changed empire development rule, ruleset now includes taking into account free cities that could be integrated instead of only new cities
If this makes the AI stop spamming outposts I'm all for it
>added imperium cost for releasing vassals
what the frick. do they want players to never play on big maps or something?
also >removed the imperium income from the faith spell you cast on vassal cities
Ah shit, there's more balance changes. Frick frick frick >Slow disables retaliation attacks >Fortune/Misfortune now only stack up to 5
WHAT? When was this even ever considered a useful status effect? >Feudal Defender shield now gives +1 resist also
OK... >Nerfed Bannerman
Frick off >Knight now has giant slayer
Good change
High >Seeker Arrows no longer increase accuracy
dumb >Awakened is now +3 damage instead of +4 >Defender+5 HP >Daylight Spear+1 resist
Awakaner gets blinding radiance, Battle Mages get radiant light instead of seeking missiles for both
OK so basically they gutted High Culture while throwing in some token buffs to the shittiest units that won't change anything
Industrious: >Steel Shaper now grants defense as a free action, with cooldown
Don't care, it's a support unit, it's damage is garbo anyway, this is a nerf >Bastion now gets defensive master, and can use inspired defense as a free action with cooldown
OK?? I don't understand what they're trying to do with Industrious, it was already tanky, that's not the problem. The problem is that it's total DPS is a negative number
Mystic >Arcanist resist down to 1 >Soother gets starblades
OK????? >Sustained city spells that grant economic bonuses no longer work on vassals
Vassal nerfs, as I live and breath. Why though? >Quick Reflexes: Reduced evasion from 30% to 25%
Oh dog, that'll show em >Defensive Tactics now gives 10% evasion on top of +1 defense and resistance
uh huh
Water Adaptation has been renamed to Swamp adaptation.
Swamp Adaptation now also gives River Walk.
Uh...ok, sure. >Underground Adaptation now grants +1 annex range on cities in the underground of this race.
I see >Wizard King: Overchannel starts on a 1 turn cooldown. >Wizard King: Now only gains +5 casting points every other level instead of every level
Wizard King was busted, but why not buff the champion instead? >Dragon Aura's no longer buff your Dragon Lord
Fuuuuuck you.
>Dragon aura no longer buffs your dragon lord
Seems like a weird change considering they had to modify some auras to fit the mold. I know dragon lords were strong but I didn't think they would make any nerfs/changes this soon from the DLC's release
Played a few hours with the beta patch just to check it out. The one spell per turn limit is insufferable as expected.
AI doesn't seem more aggressive or anything, but I think it IS clearing wonders and using rally of lieges more. I walked into Artica turn 60 and she already had like 4 golden golems and a pack of T3 faries, literally nothing I could do to scratch those frickers at that point. So that alone is going to make the AI harder to deal with.
did they patch your allies not attacking anything
yet? At this point i gave up, i was waiting for some patches but i think i'll just go back to aow3...
No, not yet. Honestly after playing around with the beta patch for a while I can't really see any meaningful difference in how the AI behaves at all.
Aside from stupid nerfed shit like the one spell per turn limit, the only real noticeable difference in the beta patch is that research really is way the frick slower now.
just realized something, with the one cast per turn underground is even more shit because you can't create forests as needed (or farmlands if you don't have the trait), and with the research nerf it's even less appealing
Actually i like the MP"changes" but not in the ways you guys think....before you seethe at me....
MP homosexuals are actually very very LOUD about the optimization and if you look at the changelogs most optimizations are under the multiplayer....
Played a few hours with the beta patch just to check it out. The one spell per turn limit is insufferable as expected.
AI doesn't seem more aggressive or anything, but I think it IS clearing wonders and using rally of lieges more. I walked into Artica turn 60 and she already had like 4 golden golems and a pack of T3 faries, literally nothing I could do to scratch those frickers at that point. So that alone is going to make the AI harder to deal with.
Also, the slower research is definitely noticeable. It's not a bad thing necessarily, I think that alone is going to make production units more valuable for at least a longer period than usual.
This tier list is completely moronic.
Also, there are already 2 different AoW4 threads up, go post in one of those.
why is cryo considered such a bad tome?
It has the elemental arrow/weapon, a really early enemy army spell, and 2 units and a single target spell to set up wet or frozen which the tome leans into...
Apparently because you have no real way too freeze enemies. The creature costs a lot of mana early one and the chance for frozen is low/slow is kind of bad.
List must not be considering synergies. When you've got your frostling transformation, the arctic land transformation and cryo book ice mages, suddenly you're hitting ~70% freezes on everything, which is great CC, plus a bunch of damage amp.
Necromancy is the one that should go in D tier because there's no good way to actually get souls to use it.
I like to frick with morale. Doomherald feels like a B tier tome not, a D tier.
This entire list is full of "I don't use it so it's bad."
Why put Astral Mirror in B tier when it has some of the most OP stuff in the game? Why put Enchantment in B tier when it's at least A tier for Seeker Arrows alone? Why put Terramancy in D tier when it has Earth Shatter as well as the best siege ritual in the game?
So far the tome of the Crucible. You can literally wipe out half of the opposing army with nukes before they even get to you.
What to do with Barbarian culture? Playing the basic gnarled frostlings in story scenario 5 and my enemies.. they destroy me. Don't have the sustain in combat.
their scouts can make outposts to get them started quickly but I don't think there's much unique about them? I got flattened on that scenario a couple of times and then just decided to live in a cave and rush the magic victory, seeing as there're only 2 or 3 entrances to the underground
Hmm, maybe thats what I am supposed to be doing with the scouts getting cities every 5 turns to hit my cap and then using all the cities to produce more units. Granted tome of ice is pretty garbage to start with.
It's gotten better I have two stacks running around now and trying to deal with the gold infestations. About to pop spawnkin which will make my units even better. Hurting for cash in early game to build up third city though. What tier 2 tome should I go for if I have ice/horde currently?
>What tier 2 tome should I go for if I have ice/horde currently?
Beacon is great for horde builds because of the Mighty Meek spell. I also like Revelry since Skalds are arguably the best support unit in the game. Glades is a very strong option, but maybe not as good for horde builds.
Mighty meek does make a lot of sense, not sure if I would pick that as my first choice of tier 2 tome since I would just want the beacon combat summon + mighty meek. Revelry seems a dead end other than the skald.
T2 is the weakest tier for tomes in general IMO, and the few that are actually good like Glades don't offer much of interest to a horde build.
Especially since I am a cold speeced enchantment build, so the poison is doubly useless. Fertility could be useful.. but also cold enchantment so its province specialities not useful.
Best things I have seen so far: Artificing to give me a fatass golem that can help the manlets, the hero summon to spread more troops, +crit chance + siege bonuses. Tome of scrying might also be worth it to make ranged units a little better but its skill pretty weak. Summon cuckold could be useful since it provides marked + chance to stun.
Barbarians are actually really strong if you make good use of the ritual of alacrity. Being able to heal and move further helps clearing mobs early which give you more experience and resources to start snow balling.
why is warding that low?
the spectre warrior and the warding transformation are great
So wait, some Wizards from game 2 are back? And from 3?
And frogmen are in but not lizardmen from 1? And no draconians and proper frostlings?
And Karissa the Orc Simp lady and Artica the frozen nipples lady are back?
And Meandor is back but Arachna attacked him?
And wtf is with Sundren?
WTF ARE THEY DOING WITH AOW LORE
>So wait, some Wizards from game 2 are back? And from 3?
Yes.
>And frogmen are in but not lizardmen from 1?
Yes, but Lizardman are coming in the first DLC.
>And no draconians and proper frostlings?
Draconians are also coming in the same DLC as Lizarmen and Frostlings are already in the game.
>And Karissa the Orc Simp lady and Artica the frozen nipples lady are back?
Yes.
>And Meandor is back but Arachna attacked him?
Arachna didn't attack him, she just wanted to keep him confined.
>And wtf is with Sundren?
She's doing sneaky Rogue shit for the greater good.
>WTF ARE THEY DOING WITH AOW LORE
It's a direct sequel to AoW3 and all of the lore checks out. In the canon ending of the Eternal Lords expansion in AoW3, Werlac reopened the Shadow gates. This allowed Meandor and all the other mages from AoW2 to come back to Athla and reclaim their power. It also made travel between worlds possible, which leads to the situation in AoW4. The Archons are still missing, but the plot of AoW4 seems to be leading up to their return.
>lizardmen and draconians
Don't confuse those, they are not the same, if you played AoW1.
>Frostlings already
But as a proper race or just some skin stuff? Problem with nuAoW games is that they replaced most of racial units and flavor with classes.
>Don't confuse those, they are not the same, if you played AoW1.
I didn't confuse them, why do you assume that? Lizardmen are already in promo screenshots for the Dragon Dawn DLC and Draconians are a transformation option like Frostlings. They're two different things.
>But as a proper race or just some skin stuff? Problem with nuAoW games is that they replaced most of racial units and flavor with classes.
Race being replaced with culture is a different issue entirely, but you asked for Frostlings and they're in the game.
lizardmen and maybe draconians too are coming in the first DLC, we've seen pictures of liggers but nothing about draconians yet, it's possible they may become a race transformation like the frostlings
all the wizard kings are back because of what happened in 3
I want a Pirates! transformation/cutlure. We already got chaos, shit like birds that prevent flanking on certain units. Peg legs for increased morale. You know.
The only cutures that are more or less confirmed for the DLCs are a dreadnought/magitech cultures and a nature-focused culture.
Pirates would be cool but only as part of an aquatic-themed DLC, because right now aquatic provinces aren't interesting enough to justify a pirate culture.
You are right about that. I am not sure what the best course of action is for making the naval aspect interesting though.
Maybe in an Aquatic DLC
>deep one race
>naga race
>illithid race
>pure chaos pirate culture
>1-2 more water-focused society traits
>aquatic tome support
>floating and/or underwater cities
>ancient aquatic wonders
>more water resource nodes
Maybe the surface water tiles could be the ocean's surface and then there would be corresponding water tiles in the underground layer acting as the sea floor (with bedrock surrounding it so cavers don't dig too deep and drown themselves)
They could start with culture specific boats and reasons to fight in the water
>nothing about draconians yet, it's possible they may become a race transformation like the frostlings
It is. Screenshot from paradox page for AoW4 expansion pass. I don't know why this screenshot isn't on Steam.
Huh. It's a major transformation too unlike frostling
>1 major transformation for each affinity except for Materium
Idk what gets me more, that I didn't notice before Materium never had a major transformation, or that it's being saved for DLC
VENERATE THE IMMORTAL EMPEROR
I like how everyone ends up playing a generic holy king/emperor sooner or later. Can't escape the tried and true archetypes, I guess.
>Human
>male
>fighter
simple as
>male
sorry I made a single male for my pantheon and every other leader I make is female for the harem
>Before i became a Goddir i was like you
>i am not be worshipped
>Alignment +20
100% agree with this since you are NOT A God and there already is God/Allah in the setting
On story mission 5.. You seem to be right at the edge of the giga-homie who will frick your shit up. Am I supposed to just turtle and let my allies expand to protect my flanks? When I try and expand I am constantly getting pulled back by his armies at my capital.
expand towards your allies, yaka and lithyl in particular, because they'll take your land otherwise.
the angel seems not to send his shrine at you unless you get too far towards the edge of the map, he seems more content letting his vassals send awakener stacks against you.
you kind of have to turtle and build up your three stacks before invading the angel. I would use the adept settlers trait just for the imperium discount.
blight/ice damage, and lithyl's ritual are your friends; trade with your allies for mana, I had negative mana income for a lot of the map. the vine prison spell is your bestest friend.
work towards one of the province-destroying spells so you can nuke the angel's affinity province. He'll definitely start a magic victory before your allies (probably nimue)
In my game I went for the cryomancy and root tomes for the poison and frost damage + entangling roots and then went for full aggression. Roots really frick with the combat AI and you can take strong stacks with just tier 1’s. I went for chosen destroyers because I didn’t realise it restricted you to one city but I razed like 2 of his cities and 2 of his vassals pretty quickly and just overpowered him from there. I ended up killing him 1 turn before my dwarf ally got the magic victory
>Dev livestream confirmed for Wednesday at 2:15 PM CET
Excuse the Re*dit link
https://www.reddit.com/r/AOW4/comments/13v1rza/dev_stream_this_wednesday_at_215pm_cet/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
Curious as to what they're going to talk about and update, obviously this isn't related to an expansion or anything so it will probably be changes to the base game.
I remember in one of the livestreams the devs mentioned they interacted with fans on one of the other major forums, I forget if it was Something Awful or the other one, so I'm sure if anyone had any good ideas it would probably be best to communicate with them there if you don't want to use Discord
Is there any tome or faction that uses desert or makes deserts? Does desolate terrain count??
Right now I was experimenting with turning an arctic world into a green lush forest. Curious if I can turn a world to glass and sand as well.
No and no. Desert adaptation sucks shit because of this. Same with swamp terrain and and water adaptation which is also shit.
At least with arctic adaptation you can make your own snow terrain.
If I read them correctly, Chaos/demon tomes seem to give you no penalties for moving in desolate terrain if you take their transformations, but that's all the synergy there is. Practically nothing compared to ice/snow gimmicks
I'm happy cramming an ice gimmick into any empire I make, because at least there's some reward and an alternative to default grasslands. It even works underground if you have your towns blizzard'd terrain. Arctic adaptation? You can build farms in the cold there.
But there's nothing else to do as far as terraforming with a purpose. Arctic and Underground adaptation are the only environment specific species traits worth a damn right now
I have no fricking idea what I'm doing in this game strategy-wise.
I'm playing the 5th story mission and the enemy is building shit for the magic win before I've even founded my 3rd city.
And, frankly, I don't know how the tactical combat should work either. I had fun with it in AoW3 (even when I did dumb stuff like pump everything into defense for my hero), but now I just auto-resolve all combat (which seems to work. Even risky combats just means you might lose 1 unit).
I suppose it doesn't help that my preferred playstyle in most games is a slowly-expanding turtle of an empire that's peaceful until war comes and then everything is geared towards pumping out units. That doesn't seem ideal here.
As an aside: how does tactical combat work? I played through the 4th story mission (Meandor's curse) with a 3-stack army that repeatedly was surrounded by full stacks and took one multiple battles with barely a unit lost/scratched. Yet these were all 'risky' battles. How is the strength of an army calculated? Does it not factor enchantments into the mix (because lord knows I just run every enchantment).
Completely irrelevant: How has everyone found the different paths of hero development to be? Buffing the entire army with support seems more over-all useful than pumping fighting and swinging for 30-ish damage (though I never found a good weapon in that run. Was using the starter weapon till the end).
>Also hit story mission 5
>4th was a complete slog, doing everything not to pick a fight with daddy Meandor, let the spider elf b***h and friendly elf lady up north fight eachother while having to cull the extra dead elf down south who seems to exist solely to steal land from me
>just wanted to do the story content, but gotta get into a knife fight with this neighbor and take all their cities since their throne city's in the very back
It wasn't bad after that, since I snowballed having 7 towns, but then
>meet angel orcs on turn 5, wasn't even looking for them
>they visit to give me a celestial zugging on turn 10
I'm gonna have to make a new species just for this map aren't I...
As for building heroes, I just try to give em passive support skills to buff the army, since Heroes can only do so many actions in a single turn anyways. Once I get Endurance Training, I may have em learn extra actions
I formed an alliance with the other two on the map, and that was a good thing since I avoided fighting a war on 3 fronts while having to move around the map to do the damn quest.
So all three of us are at war with Meandor and they... don't do anything except move armies around their domains.
>As for building heroes, I just try to give em passive support skills to buff the army, since Heroes can only do so many actions in a single turn anyways.
Try building a shock hero.
>demon step behind u
>crit charge flank attack for instant kill
>flameburst weapon so everyone around takes damage
>killing momentum so I get to bonk someone else
>defensive master so end turn in defense mode anyway
>third unit nearby frozen in fear because a retaliation or opportunity attack would instakill him
>layered defensive skills, enchantments, racial transformations, and buffs make me nigh-impossible to kill unless the AI focus fires with half his army
I think the only hero type I haven't been able to make work is archers. I don't know if it's because I haven't seen any good bow items or if its because battle mages are that much better. They might be viable if you stack weapon enchantments
Hmm, I've never made an archer ruler, but I had Sundren shooting shit from pretty much across the map in one save. She was pretty powerful by the end.
Materium aspected, it seems.
>Materium aspected, it seems.
Makes sense considering that was the only affinity without a major transformation, but at the same time I feel Chaos or maybe Nature would make more sense thematically.
>How has everyone found the different paths of hero development to be? Buffing the entire army with support seems more over-all useful than pumping fighting and swinging for 30-ish damage (though I never found a good weapon in that run. Was using the starter weapon till the end).
Support is the most powerful in a straight-forward way, and is pretty much mandatory if you're doing something like a T1 horde build.
Melee is really strong but not overwhelmingly so.
Archery is less strong but easier to use because of the range.
Magic can be either the weakest option or the strongest depending on how you set it up. With some specific combos you can do some disgustingly OP shit with it. As a mage you should be relying on your basic attack as little as possible because otherwise you're just a sparkly archer.
Stand alone race generator confirmed. Now nothing will stand in the way of eternal build autism.
I feel like there's far less customization in this game even compared to pre-DLC Planetfall.
I just realized I never played the planetfall DLC, even though I bought them.
Should I try them out? I liked the game enough but got tired of it after 92 hours. Also I only enjoyed playing as the Vanguard. Are the 3 DLC plus mods enough to alter the experience and make it fresh?
they are but not the campaign dlc
the empire mode and the anomalies are the best part of the DLC
Gonna re-install it then. Seems interesting enough.
I actually liked the story campaigns (especially the assembly), but some of their maps were slogs.
The DLC campaigns are better and allow you to learn their setting properly.
any must have mods? Or should I play vanilla?
Planetfall doesn't have many great mods, most of the non-cosmetic ones feel a bit too cheaty to me. I like the one that lets you use summoned units as regular recruits though (Buildable Tac Op Units).
Playing Shadow Magic instead
>most of the battle mage upgrades only affect their basic attack
I mad
Not sure if it's just me but there seems to be not so many builds in this game, the few of them top of my head: morale killer, crit stacking, archer buffer, battle mage buffer. Some of these overlap anyway with the enchantments you choose.
Melee seems inferior to range in all occasions, might be because size and design of battle maps. does not matter if you have 3x6 melee units if i can just stand in chokepoint and shoot with my archers from behind. Even high mobility units suffer because with size of maps you can't really properly flank enemies. It only 'work' because AI likes to run its archers in front of their melee line.
Speaking of AI it reminds me a bit of total war AI, priority is to attack player, never clears its nodes/infestations, if two AIs are at war it seems they never manage to take another ones city. Inept with proper use of is heros and most units (it's always preferable to wait for AI to come to you and set up properly).
Hero customization is great, skill wise, support skills are too good to pass up. Melee/archer hero seems inferior to magic one with skill selections too. But than again i never use all repertoire of my magic spell in battles anyway, it seems battles end after i cast max 3 spells.
There's not a ton of variety currently. Luckily most of the systems feel solid enough that they should be able to just throw new stuff in and have it all work without having to mess with too much
Status effects are also viable.
Currently trying to make Bersekers work.
different builds don't even change the way you play if you auto your battles. It feels like every game goes the same way no matter your culture or perks. There's no nuance to city building and diplomacy is boring. I was expecting it to be like other paradox games I've played or the 4xs but it's very samey aside from the admittedly great hero customization
>different builds don't even change the way you play if you auto your battles
Well, yeah, just like total war, your army composition doesn't matter at all if you don't play the battles yourself.
If you don't like the turn based tactics aspect of AoW4, you're better off playing some other 4x like that one fantasy civ mod.
Civ combat is so fricking boring idk how anyone can enjoy it
Fall from heaven, for civ 4?
Yeah
I played and had fun but eventually the combat being civ combat made me stop playing it.
To me, AoW (and total war I suppose) are excuses to have a meaning around the cool tactical battles. The campaign just needs enough depth to not be too boring while I search for the next cool fight.
I mostly play this because I like making guys, but I think the game will benefit greatly from being able to mod in new quests.
>you're better off playing some other 4x
that's probably the problem tbh - my experience and expectation was that this game would be more focused on the world side rather than the combat. It's definitely better than other combat, but in the way that can make me bothered to retry the lost auto battles rather than be excited to play a whole game around it.
>Melee seems inferior to range in all occasions
just like IRL
There is a reason why we stopped using swords
because real life sucks?
sucks a lot less than swords
shut up
swords are beautiful
no
I lose interest whenever I'm not building chaos. I've been using chosen destroyers to try and build tall, but I'm not great at these games; any tips for building tall otherwise?
Yeah yeah this game is totaly shit, i will never recover the money and time i spend playing this garbage. I hate /vst so much
Calling the game totally shit is just moronic hyperbole, but I've got mixed feelings about it right now.
On the one hand I do actually like the game and after playing it for 150 hours I feel I've got my money's worth of fun out of it at least, so I certainly don't regret buying it. At the same time though, I'm done with it. The customization is a cool gimmick, but it doesn't actually result in a greater variety of playstyles. Tthe bad enemy AI, boring victory conditions, and severely undercooked Pantheon features really hurt the long-term replayability. Compared to AoW3 and PF where I got like 500+ hours on both, AoW4 just feels more bland in comparison and especially after 150 hours it's grown stale and repetitive.
Of course, that's comparing vanilla AoW4 against AoW3 and PF with all patches, DLC and mods. So I still have hope that AoW4 eventually ends up being just as good as the others after all the DLC is out. But for the moment I'm fine with ignoring the game, at least until the first DLC comes out.
did they frick something up with patches? haven't played for a few weeks and back then you'd a crash per day or something but now it's completely unplayable. constant crashes. been playing diablo 4 so nothing has changed on my end.
Do you have proof?
Playing right now.
>3frps screen shot
You really expect me to believe you?
AoW realized what kind of slopgobbler you are and deemed you unworthy.
Bigger maps, more AIs and simultaneous turns make game more unstable.
jewtuber showing the new dragon dlc
Shame we have to wait for the 20th to also get the balance patch out, would like to play with those re-balances now before the DLC radically changes parts of the game so I have time to appreciate both, but it's nice that DD is coming out sooner than I expected by a few months.
They say that dragon leaders will be a whole new type, I'd love to see one or two more leader types by the time the game ends support, just because I think Champion - Wizard King - Dragon Lord is kind of a weird trifecta and if Leader type can be something that radically different there's lots of potential.
I do hope we get more than just 2 new tomes, but the dragons getting the Dragon Hoard mechanic sounds kind of fun, just a nice way to mix things up, even if only slightly.
None of the other DLC descriptions on the expansion pass mention a new leader type, but who knows.
The dragons look different enough to seem bretty fun. I really like what I see.
The devs did a stream where they show things in detail:
I'm most disappointed there there is no new culture.
I'm kind of surprised we didn't. Cultures already have some that are cross affinity, you think that since this DLC is bringing the first official multi affinity tome we'd see one new culture that is a hybrid affinity, but I guess that would be a lot of work bringing in the new culture units on top of the dragon stuff.
I could see Eldritch Realms bringing a Cthulhu ruler, or Primal Fury bringing in a personified force of nature type ruler, something that's more of a "raw force of the universe" archetype than being a person that overcame challenges to Godir.
The only DLCs that have a new culture announced are Empires & Ashes (probably Dreadnaught-themed) and Primal Fury (probably Druid-themed).
Yeah, that tracks. Really I think the expansion that is most in the air is the last one, since it's a full priced expansion that doesn't offer new cultures or tomes, just creatures, locations and races, apparently. Really dubious value there until it gets expanded on.
More cultures would be nice to see in any case. With the current design of the game races are barely content, like 80% just cosmetic add-ons, while cultures are at least vaguely comparable to what races were in AoW3. Really I think both races and cultures deserve to be fleshed out more in addition to new ones being added.
...so what happened to this game? It was hyped to heaven before release, now I see no mention of it anywhere.
You're not looking very hard then.
New expansion was just announced.
New expansion was announced and comes out in 11 days. Naturally, anyone still playing Paradox games at this point is positively thrilled about the opportunity to buy cut content and support their favourite developer.
I put 100 hours in it, I have enough for now. This is normal.
>Ruthless Raiders
>Chosen Destroyers
>Feudal
Party Time
isn't one of the benefits of being feudal having governor bonuses for multiple cities? what are you getting here over another culture?
I chose Feudal primarily for Lord of War and Stand Together, so I can keep the momentum and strike a few early cities to make up for my lack of expansion. A little bit of effort and you snowball out of control.
I have no idea why I am so fixated on beating this last story mission. I hate my race cultural and find it boring currently with nothing broken happening.
Wait till the game is out of beta akawait for the dlc
>fixated on beating this last story mission
Just turtle towards the center of the map early on, while building up a strong force (ideally at least 3 offensive armies and 1 defensive) focusing on blight and/or frost damage (best damage types vs angels), then steamroll the angelic gay. After that, it's easy. If you're lucky one or more of the other enemies will get wrecked by your allies (Meandor has a tendency to get his shit pushed in by the dwarf dude on your team) but it's really not necessary because apart from the angel gay they're just not a threat.
Alternatively, simply turtle like a motherfricker and go for a magic victory. As long as you don't move too close to the edges of the map, enemy aggression tends to stay low.
I made an undergrounder empire, as apparently the final mission has some trouble linking the underground to the surface. I spawned in a large enough cavern to spam out 2 more cities, and was fortunate enough for the terrain generator to not place a single entrance or exit out of my starting area (there were some behind an excavated wall that I just didn't touch until my military was stronger). I then rushed a magic victory whilst the AI hopelessly tried to pathfind into my area. Never even went to the surface, and not a single enemy unit made it into my territory. Due to being underground all game, I never triggered the enemy AI to go aggro mode, so all my allies survived as well.
Spiders are fun.
Already gone back to Planetfall
I wish water was more interesting. It's an absolute non-obstacle that everyone can ignore in the first few turns, and is a weakness rather than a fortifiable or economic benefit. Given that it's so accessible, I think they definitely missed an opportunity not including a water empire that builds it's structures over water tiles etc.
Every AoW game has this same issue, but at least AoW3 and PF (eventually) gave you better reasons to actually interact with water tiles. In AoW4 it has some mediocre pickups, but it's mostly just something you have to cross in order to get to the enemy on some maps. There's not really any good reason to interacct with water provinces themselves. And sure Experienced Seafarers makes water tiles significantly more profitable, but then you're taking an opportunity cost just to give youreself an excuse to interact with something that isn't really worth interacting with in the first place, instead of adding a bonus to things you already want to do anyway.
They really need to add water wonders and to make navies actually threatening.
I only have played some of AoW3 and still interested in playing it. This is my first AoW game, should I keep playing the last one 3 since I enjoy it or is 4 in some ways much better than 3 and how so? It just looks different I guess is it objectively better but also worse in some ways?
I wouldn't say 4 is strictly better. It definitely has more potential but at this point it's not looking sure (at least to me) if all that potential will ever be realized. It's still a good game don't get me wrong, but 3 just feels a lot more complete especially with the DLC. I'd definitely play through 3 for the story at least, since it's way better than 4's story and also gives you a better idea of wtf is going on in 4.
>Last story mission
>going against good angel boys
>if I close in I can clap their cheeks
>but they have an army running around with 5 awakeners
>start getting vietnam flashbacks as they explode all over my army
Yeah, that angel faction is just bullshit. But everything after is just a drag.
I just can't fricking deal with it. They sit back with all their ranged units and just play keep away and I dont have anything OP from starting position to boom with. If I could close on them, it's a wrap but their awakeners/skirmishers just pick me apart if I get anywhere close.
About to throw in a towel and play a scenario of my own with a faction of my choice how the game is meant to be played.
Sounds sensible. The map I got there was also horrendous, but I think the map settings suck dick anyway.
The snow was fine, I could adapt to that. But without any speciality things I always felt like I was falling behind. The enemy has 6+ stacks that I can't go toe-toe with in 3v3, so I have nothing to try and bounce off of. If I could kill heros in combat I could get a big research boost but I feel locked in with no ways to grow and the ai allies aren't doing enough by turn 50.
It's less the snow and more the holes, I got a real dogshit start where I had no space and only a single low level wonder close to me.
I hope the dragon expansion adds more tomes outside of the materium draconic ones. Like some for more stealthy guerilla plays + some extra ice magic boosts for Shadow-type affinities or some tomes for various biome types that currently aren't that supported, like desert, underground, desolate and swamp biomes.
>paradox game
>it has positive reviews on launch
what did i miss? when did paradox start shipping finished products?
The game is made by Triumph Studios, not Paradox themselves.
Triumph actually releases properly finished products, unlike their parent Paradox.
It's decently polished and much better than the previous game.
Games developed by paradox and games published by paradox are leagues different from one another.
I'm at the last map as well.
>Keep getting harassed by the angel gay and his free city allies.
>Can't properly expand because he contests my outposts.
>Try to expand inland but somehow my allies aren't getting constantly harassed and get all the good spots first.
>Finally manage to get my shit together but still can't face their armies toe to toe yet.
>"Black personhomosexual has casted the final spell to win the game!"
>Try to contest the closest order.
>15 6-stack armies of golden flying homosexuals rush out from the teleporter and destroy my army.
What the frick am I even supposed to do?
>*freeze frame*
>*record scratch*
Yep, that's me, you're probably wondering how I got into this situation, well it all started when I embarked onto this shithole called Grexolis...
Druid homies get the rope
Necromancer chads just can't stop winning.
I already played a Necromancer in the last map.
why'd you have so many unspent resources?
How am I supposed to deal with this bullshit on turn fricking 11?
Just lower the difficulty, lol.
I'm on fricking normal.
Getting forward settled by my fricking allies, who sit with their thumbs in their asses as those gays keep raiding my shit and preventing me from expanding.
After all my armies got murdered I just let the timer run out to see what happens. About 10 turns of passing.
tips for the last story mission:
something that can help is adept settlers, just for the imperiuim reduction.
start with tome of roots. angels are weak to blight, and vine prison is op. it makes enemies waste their turns killing vines.
lithyl's rite of summoning can help build an army and replace losses. note that you'll have to trade with your allies for mana, otherwise you'll have none.
also trade with your allies for items, either sell them your items or buy theirs.
at the start of the mission, scout towards yaka and lithyl, and plant outposts next to magic materials, or where a decent chokepoint is. otherwise they'll settle in your lands and box you in.
make cities early, don't seek out optimal spacing. two of my cities were scrunched up together, and pressed up against my capital just to box off lithyl.
saying this again in case you missed it: use vine prison prodigiously.
(continued)
tome of cryomancy can be your second tome, because angels are also weak to ice. after that, tomes are your preference for your playstyle. keep in mind to work towards a province destroying spell, because you'll have to snipe the angel's attempt at a magic victory. I did this by bunching my armies around to siege his city, then sending a couple units from lithyl's rite towards his affinity province. he sent most of his army to the city to stop the siege, and ignored the runners.
if you can destroy his affinity province, then nimue will probably have enough time to catch up and win a magic victory for you.
for reference, I was playing a wizard king dark culture. my tomes were roots, cryo, then I went heavy into astral from tier III on.
desu, going into dark affinity can help, because of the magic unit upkeep reduction, and that skill that refunds casting points per unit death (vines count for this)
>lithyl's rite of summoning can help build an army and replace losses
I can confirm this. You can have some trouble juggling mana upkeep, since a lot can spawn under your control from bigger battles, but this was the best starting rite after three tries for me. Pretty much drowned orc angels in Astral Keepers matched with shitstacks of barbarian units, along with free T1-T2 spawns from Lure of the Horde or whatever that imperium trait was called. Fights were bloody and units were often replaced, but I somehow managed to outspam the Onmar. ANYTHING that reduces unit upkeep for these helps a lot
City placement will absolutely get ugly. Unlike real oceans, you can't do shit with astral seas, most of mine ran out of space at about pop-20. If you don't end up with an underground start, absolutely try to expand toward your allies directions, they WILL take the free real estate. Once I actually beat back the celestial zuggers first waves, I started grabbing their vassal cities to migrate my unwashed masses into and things snowballed from there on
>trouble juggling mana upkeep
to add on to trading with allies for mana: Nimue will be your primary sugar mommy regarding mana. ygaard will as well, but some turns he just doesn't have much to spare. yaka and lithyl almost never have mana to trade, and you shouldn't trade for their mana unless you're desperate
Jesus fricking christ why are the maps in this game so fricking big and army movement is so fricking slow
>DLC only has 2 new tomes, and no new culture
Just a little disappointed. I knew it'd be a smal one though. At least the dragons look fun.
>pick underground trait
>dick around in your caves for 70 turns
>dwarf ally wins a magic victory for you
>never once engaged the enemy
A true mastermind.
>>pick underground trait
>>dick around in your caves for 70 turns
ally wins a magic victory for you
once engaged the enemy
I wish I had the patience to do majority underground runs. Unless you run Massive Underground worlds you end up with very cramped cities struggling to find space for everything. Plus you miss out on a lot of surface wonders and extras that help in the long-term.
FRICK THAT GOLDEN FLYING Black person.
GET CHEESED.
SUCK MY NUTS.
OW THE EDGE.
LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO.
I WENT FULL SASUKE.
Give me the ultimate comfy underground map settings
Are there any? Underground seems woefully underdeveloped compared to the surface. Kinda strange, as the caves were fine in 3.
Last I heard digging up provinces doesn't uncover everything they intended to. They will probably patch that in the coming release.
I tried to run a map with underground set to massive with the idea just to stay underneath and war/vassalize on the surface
All six AI opponents also started underground, and they really didn't have underground routes connecting eachother. I had like no room for building additional cities for my capital.
I didn't have the 'all empires start underground' setting hit, but something else I entered may have forced that. My previous map I didn't think twice about underground stuff at the start or the settings, but neighbors being neighbors pushed me to expand down instead of out and there was an amazing amount of room there for 2-3 cities of mine.
>tfw trying to win via defeating Arctica
>she can just continuously shit out waves upon waves of units to the point that even a fully decked out triple threat of units with multiple tier-IVs and even a few tier-Vs kneels to the sheer tide of cannon fodder she just chucks your way
I feel like I might've underestimated boss characters but at least you can stunlock them by using Burden of Guilt twice over
My final quest map had me at a very convenient spawn. I was surrounded by my allies as they grow their cities twice as fast as I could grow mine. Only one narrow path led to a hostile angel city. Instead of dicking around underground, I practically dicked around the surface while the one angel city just kept sending fodder war parties and my Heroes grew to insane levels. I had lock in the win because my allies, enemies, nor I were seemingly trying to win.
Haven't touched the game since release, have there been any big patches yet? Any good mods?
20th June is the date for what they call the Wyvern Patch, being released together with the Dragon Dawn DLC. Something like 15 pages worth of patch notes.
awesome cheers lad, will give it another try then. Do you know if they've said anything about improving the mid early to late mid game? It felt like I was just walking around the map with the same t2/3 units killing the same NPC neutrals for 30 turns sometimes
I don't think they have, but hopefully. Having played this game for a bit now, I'm starting to feel like pacing is low-key one of the biggest problems with the game.
It takes roughly a billion turns to walk anywhere with your 1-2 stacks of T1-T2 goons, and about half that to get a city properly built up, but you'll have almost accidentally become a Wizard God just a smidge away from Magic Victory by the time you finally managed to walk somewhere.
Movement is too slow relative to map size, NPC Resource Campers are needlessly strong (slowing down the boring early phase we're you're just trying to clear your starting areas) but Research/Imperium accumulates lightning fast even if you aren't particularly trying. I mean frick, half the time I don't even unlock my T3 Cultural units before they've been obsoleted by tome tech. There's also the conceptually cool rally system that deposits a bunch of shitters in your capitol, the one place you almost definitely don't need them to be.
The "everything spawns in your throne city" mechanic is one of the most astounding features of the game.
Why my units texture looks like a blurry mess even on ultra and msaa 4x? What else do i need for them to look normal at least?
Can you show a screenshot of the problem?
That would help huh? Sorry.
I just put it on ultra, and well... does the game just looks like that and i'm moronic? I'm using an old as frick 750ti, so honestly i'm impressed the newer nvidia drivers allowed me to run on ultra lol.
It's not the most graphically advanced game out there, but it does look a lot blurrier than it does on my screen.
Not sure what would be causing that though. If messing with the graphics settings doesn't work, maybe try the Nvidia control panel.
there this weird bug thing...
anon go to the setting and change from borderless to windowed and back to borderless
if that doesn't help pick the return to default setting
>almost finished the map
>game crashes on battle end
>patch notes for 78130 says its fixed
>check my game version
I got tricked by paradox into giving them hundreds of dollars again
>hundreds of dollars
How many copies of the game did you buy?
I'm budgeting for the future
already planning on buying aow5 I take it?
same
What is the appeal of this game?
Making your own special snowflake fantasy mans and mashing them against the enemy's fantasy mans until they break.
There is none. If you find it vaguely interesting just play previous game. They pandered to aow3 fans (not many of them), then they paradoxed it by removing campaign and story.
Saying planetfall was better than aow3 is sad, more than anything. But indeed, no camp, no story, and we cant even create items anymore.
Deactivating bloom made it better, but didnt change much. Might as well be my gpu.
Materium/Nature Industrialists is probably not a competitive build, but it was fun.
Can I delete the premade people from my pantheon without them disappearing from the game? I'd still like for them to show up as AIs or be available to play as if for whatever reason I feel like it.
I'm going to say no, just in case. what's your problem with them being there? just want your own creations? if you switch their button to ruler, they won't offer themselves as heroes in your games. also even if they're on hero, they can still show up as ai rulers
The pantheon does feel a lot less personal if there's a plethora of premades in there, and I thought the whole reason why there's a "your pantheon" is for it to be very personal.
yes, they are unlocked in both your pantheon and the leader select so you can delete them from pantheon without any issue
if you want them back for whatever reason you will have to redo the mission they came from though
Pretty much. The only reason to keep them there is for hero spawns.
Need more variety in the kinds of Artifacts you can get.
Devs can't seriously think it's fun finding three spider hatchling eggs in a row while finding no weapons for your heroes.
Yeah, there really needs to be an expansion on artifacts and elemental tomes. Especially for things like swamplands and the like
Are comdemn/faithful builds any good?
They're not bad and can give you some incredibly strong units, but you basically have to commit to the full Order tome shebang if you want to get the most use out of them, like with Necromancy Shadow tomes.
Yeah it's kind lame that there are few tomes you can combine with it since you need to go all in.
>rolled last name slag for my female godir
Whoa rude
Playing with more than 4 players in the map feels like a giant slog as armies take half the entire game to traverse the map, if you need to kill someone on the other side of the map shit gets extremely tedious.
Yeah on big maps it always ends in a magic victory unless I really go out of my way to drag out a different victory type. It's arguably the least interesting victory type, but sitting on your ass for a couple of turns is a lot more convenient than trekking all the way across the map to wreck someone.
I'm not even sure what would be a good way to fix this. Sure you could for example increase movement speed so you can get around quicker, but I don't think this would make the gam emore enjoyable since it'd make keeping up with enemy stacks zooming around a pain in the ass.
For one, Forced March shouldn't be so bad that using it is the equivalent to giving your enemy a free win. And second, just letting you pick vassals as spawn points for your units would fix the issue of your throne city being the obvious best recruiter you have but being too far from literally everything for it to really matter, if you don't want to make vassals free teleporters then you could just make spawning your units there use the Rally of the Lieges points you have.
Yeah the logistics of army movement if you're trying to play a production chad instead of purely a summon caddy are just all kinds of fricked up.
It's not even just the initial horrific logistics involved in building up several stacks of good units and marching them to the ass-end of nowhere, your AI opponent, unless they're already on the verge of death is going to have 4 billion quickly replenishing army stacks of their own, so you need to have a way to pull in reinforcements and replace losses, like I guess it's possible to set up a whole teleporter network from your throne to some city you've captured and built up near the enemy, but like you could win the game twice in the time it takes just to set that shit up.
Pretty much it's a thousand times faster to kill an enemy with summon spam than with any significant number of production troops, and it's still 5x faster than that to win a magic victory.
they need to give better roads in the lategame
I think teleporters are meant to fill that role, but yeah it wouldn't be a bad idea to have some option to upgrade your roads.
Btw, speaking of everything in the game spawning in your throne province, my personal pet peeve, heroes. WTF can I only recuit heroes at my throne province? It's like they were just too lazy to set flags to spawn anything in any other location except through summons.
Yeah, it's fricking horrendous.
I think the intent was to get you to use teleporters in outposts to get across the map quickly.
It makes sense. I never thought of plopping outposts willy-nilly without the intention of making them into cities, but I supposed that works.
Still not nearly as efficient as summoning. It's already annoying that stacks are tiny and you have to bring a shitload of stacks clicking one by one, but also making half of your production recruited have to waste at least one turn teleporting to the edge of your territory is pretty gay.
If you plop an outpost on a gold mine, will it pay upkeep for itself?
yes
If you have enough manpower to set up a forward outpost and defend it from the enemy's assault enough that you can build a teleporter there then you have enough manpower to just capture an opponent's city and build a teleporter there instead.
I always set up an outpost before attacking cities. It costs you nothing and you go back and heal if you lose too much health fighting random shit.
New patch notes are up, I think the changes are mostly for the best and I appreciate the updated roadmap and all, but man, did they really need to kneecap the Houndmaster like that? Halfed the HP on the crossbow guy and his dogs, geez.
Or doing this to my boy:
>War Shaman “Invigorate” - Changed from a Single Action to a Full Action.
I already thought the War Shaman kinda sucked, he existed to use invigorate once at the start of the battle and then he was basically useless, now he's even worse.
I always roll my eyes whenever I see dev dickrider posts regarding roadmaps because it's people praising the devs for words and not actions regarding stuff that wasn't in the game at launch. That being said, Triumph seems to be putting in the work and I'm hopeful. My biggest priority is better ally AI so that bigger wars can really be "your team vs the world" and not "you vs the people who you didn't subjugate yet" and it does seem like some story realms are supposed to be about allying against a larger threat, which as of right now can be a little hit or miss strategy wise. And of course more events/wonders/combat maps, there could never be too many of those.
Does seem a little harsh, I sort of get it for Houndmaster since he's mounted now but did anyone think War Shamans were busted? Hopefully if they encounter any balance issues related to this patch they revert changes slightly faster than adding it to the milestone updates. Also I'm a little worried about how little combat summons survive, guess you can't summon them on the first turn anymore or else they'd expire by the time real fighting happens. We'll see how this goes.
> My biggest priority is better ally AI so that bigger wars can really be "your team vs the world" and not "you vs the people who you didn't subjugate yet"
I'm still reading through the mountains of text today, but they directly mention War Coordination is a goal to be in the big free update that'll come with Empires & Ashes
The Houndsmaster is basically a 40HP unit that gains 25HP per combat even if it did lose all those 25HP in the last combat.
Yeah, but that's still not that particularly amazing, especially in a world where evolving low-tier units are now unkillable. Regular ass T1 units have 60HP and he's a T2. I dunno, I never rated the Houndmaster very highly even before they nerfed him, he was just two shitty T1 units taped together for the price of a T2, hardly a world beater.
Virgin t2 Houndmaster vs Chad t1 Zealot
Does the Dragon Hoard trait have a cap?
Does it need different kinds of items in the treasury or even 7 of the sane are good for the income bonus?
based on quality (as in item tier) they give a set amount of gold. The highest quality give 9 gold, the lowest 1 gold. Keep in mind that Dragon Lords cost 50 (extra?) gold upkeep (and eventually start costing mana after you pick their aspect). Otherwise I don't think there's a cap, maybe 100 if there would be one, but its gonna take a while to get there.
lol, I wonder if this is caused by a mod or the update. I'm sleeping soon, no way I'm figuring this out now.
>research and empire building in "watcher" update
are they thinking of bring back the tech tree from planetfall? not sure what to think of that
>tfw there's so many buffs for specifically tier-1 units yet tier-2s are where most of the interesting low-tier unit shit is, especially for mage characters
they really need to redo the traits for races.
redesign the thing, make it more impactful.
they just added a new race, lizards, and...
they just feel like a skin, that's it really. some % chance to poison... zzz... whatever
Agreed. Race traits and cultures need some touches to make them more unique
Also why the FRICK can't you start with a racial transformation? Why can't I start off with my frostling race?
>why the FRICK can't you start with a racial transformation? Why can't I start off with my frostling race?
I personally feel its more rewarding if you work towards it in the game. but there is a mod that lets you add those at the beginning
There's also the fact that your race doesn't retain their transformations after ascending, so you don't get to see your cool Dark angelic giga homie heroes in other games, you just see them as their base form.
Haven’t played in over a month. The dlc any good or is it just shovelled out garbage?
Just the cut content that didn't make it in time for launch and some slight overall rebalancing, nothing of substance yet.
What is in the DLC is fine, it's just not a lot
>You can play as a Dragon Lord instead of a Wizard or Fighter
>Lizardman race skin
>Two new tomes for dragon stuff
That's basically the entire DLC
Cut content from launch good if you are a scalie fan. Next DLC will be much more meaty and apparently will add gunpowder cultures
Did they take out some support leader abilities?
I could've sworn there were more unit upgrades. Enough that at level 12 I was starting to branch out of there, now at level 5 I feel like I've got everything..
Do I just not understand it or does mana channelers's +1 rank to magic origin units not work? Tried summoning the new fledgling wyverns and even tried regular old summoning a wild animal but they keep starting out as recruits despite having the magic origins tag
a quick look at the encyclopedia shows that dragons and most animals don't actually have the magical origins tag
Wait so if I understand this correctly it only works for units that naturally have the magic origins tag like magma spirits and astral keepers and doesn't work for creatures like animals and wyverns that get the tag when summoned? That makes sense I guess
>Dragon Ruler gives you bonus gold every turn for each item you have
>Artifact Hoarder gives you bonus mana every turn for each item you have
>Industrious Culture lets your scouts prospect for free items
>???
>PROFIT
>favorite tome
Summoning's Arcane Bond has carried me lategame with mind controlling high tier magic origin units. The wisp also does a surprising amount of damage and is an extra, free body to sacrifice
I think T2 units are just generally in a tough spot. If you're using a T1-focused build they're borderline useless, and if not they're a stepping-stone at best. T3 tends to stay useful a lot longer than T2, even after you have T4 units available.
>. T3 tends
i'd argue that T3 units are in some cases a lot better than t4 units
Inquisitors and dark knights can easily destroy most t4 units
>start a new match
>have a comfy corner of the map to myself
>actually scratch that, an *ndergrounder spawned right next to me but *nderground
>immediately comes out from his cave to settle right next to my capital
I'm going to camp units on every single passage I see from the beginning of every game
That was me, just the other way around. Cave exit had a magic material and wonder near by, too.Lot of coast and water, though, just barely enough land to get the basic structures build up. Perfect case for a seafaring guild.
How would you rate dragons VS moderately enchanted racial units?
Not a unit with every enchantment from every book, but your typical endgame units.
Tiny fukken dragon.
I made my dragon the smallest size but with max size wings.
>Have fun custom game idea
>Spend time customizing everything, world, godirs, game rules
>Tries to load world
>crashes
>Have to remake everything again
>Tries to load world again
>crashes
What the frick Paradox? I guess I have wait for 3 more hotfixes before this shit gets fixed.
I had two bluescreens today, around first 10 turns so there's not much going on. Not sure what is happening. Haven't had that in a while in any games.
Try reinstalling, I guess. It's been smooth sailing for me since release.
The dragons are kinda lame
I was hoping they'd be OP but they seem kinda trash
The units or leaders?
2023 Roadmap
The underground map is a barren wasteland, so it'll be nice.if they spruce it up a bit.
I really hope they go the Total Warhammer style of bettering the game over time with updates instead of the Paradox style of just adding in locked content and literally nothing else.
Not the way I wanted the game to end but sure that works and I sometimes forget how funny it is having a tiny dragon lord. Dragon is a decent enough crutch early on and the rapid evolution enhancement from the new tome is pretty useful. That said I'm trash at the game so I don't know the best way to even hit level 16 before reaching an endgame scenario. Felt like my lord was always on the hunt for the neutral mobs and clearing wonders but I was still only level 14 by the time the game ended.
You can disable certain victory conditions if you want the game to go on for longer.
Autism question, I created a race of Blue Elves, but in events related to them, a generic white skinned elf appear, is this a bug ? Or it's a generic "elfkin" that appears in the event? This triggers me.
Did you make just your leader blue or the entire race? If it's the latter, that sounds like a bug.
Both are blue, so usually they should appear blue in events as well? Good to know, hopefully in my second game it should work.
Happened to me when I made my own frostling dudes. Both my leader and my race are blue skinned but heroes can show up with any skin color
transformations? I think one of the early astral ones makes your guys pale skinned with dark hair
>make blue arcane dorfs in the snow, they build friggin Ulduar after turning metal
>make lucky blue barbarian gobbos and stick em in a shit desert, they make it a green paradise
>make blue dark evil molemen and stick em underground, make a Wizard King named Saul to lead them and they become paragons of good
There's so much small shit I still want in this game, but simply doing 'make X colored doods' is so entertaining by itself
>Do a dragon game
>Only realize on the last turn that dragons don't take really enchantments
>They're not animals and they're mythic units so that's basically nothing
Well... I won but I played that entire game wrong.
The Wyvern and Slithers got buffs, but the units I was working towards got nothing.
>dig up random dirt
>spawn three 1k+ enemy stacks
Thanks, I guess...
This game looked interesting and I was thinking of living picking it up. How is it? Any good for an "orcish barbarians overrunning and enslaving the civilized societies like Mongols" playstyle? I liked Civ 5 and Endless Legends as far as 4x goes.
You can play as orc barbarians overrunning your enemies, but there's no enslaving mechanic. You either conquer cities, raze them to the ground, or vassalize them. A real Mongol playstyle would be hard to do as well since the game doesn't really work that way, but at least Barbarians can get mounted archers so that's something.
It depends. A Wizard King definitely has more ways to cheese encounters, but in terms of raw combat strength I'm pretty sure a well-built dragon would come out on top.
>You can play as orc barbarians overrunning your enemies, but there's no enslaving mechanic.
I'll just say there's technically enslaving stuff. Like there's a buff on the empire development tech tree called 'war slaves', but it just moves population from cities you're destroying to your own cities. Not a whole lot to distinguish between your "Normal" citizens and slave races after that though.
How would y'all rate AoW4, AoW3, and Endless Legend in a tier list?
Personally: EL = aow3 > aow4
I would be playing Shadow Magic instead of any of those garbage games
AoW3>AoW4>EL
I love literally everything about Amplitude's games except the gameplay, except Dungeon, which has GOAT gameplay. AoW3 is for now better than 4 because 4 is a game that scales well with content which is something it's lacking right now
EL>ao3>ao4
but that's only because I'm more into EL's empire building than I am ao3's combat. it's also unfair to compare ao4 since its expansions aren't done, and I never played EL or 3 at release so I don't know how they were then.
EL's city building and research + AOW4's everything else would be amazing.
EL > 4 >>>>>>> shit >>>>>>>> 3
do the dragon lordheroes even hold up late game? 1v1 I feel like a normal hero with a dozen transformations and good gear would wreck one. It's thematically fun to play, but I thought the lacklustre passives were balanced out by combat strength
>Fighting Powers
Dragon
>Magic
Wizard King
>Hard mode
Champion
----------------
Champion for life
Champion has the best economy and diplomacy.
So besides a lack of content, how does the gameplay and systems compare to AoW3 and Planetfall? Which is the most worth playing?
>Aow3 or Planetfall
Planetfall is better by a mile
But Aow4 suffers the same as Planetfall in the initial release it has next to no content but after the patches and dlc it's damn fun
>Which is the most worth playing?
If you want a story campaign, AoW3. If you don't care about story in a 4X, Planetfall.
I'm glad I can make totally not Deathwing.
>tome of evolution race transformation removes all helmets
thanks i hate it
>start a new game
>max map size
>max enemy numbers
>max difficulty
>letsfrickinggo.jpg
>don't want to go for an easy victory so I'm just fighting everyone straight up
>some chucklefrick starts casting the victory spell
>he's on the other side of the map
>it takes me more than the 15 turns it takes to cast to get there and stop it
Hoisted by my own petard!
Should have established a teleporter outpost in his front yard.
I'm so fricking poor
Rapetown will never survive this one...
>Demons and Halflings are natural enemies!
>Like Orcs and Halflings!
>Or Ratkin and Halflings!
>Or Halflings and other Hlaflings!
>Damn Halflings!
>They ruined the Shire!
any good overhaul mods yet?
Why the FRICK does this piece of shit game force me to play with the controller as long as I have one plugged in? It works fine if I unplug the controller, but not having an option to switch to m+kb from within the game itself is completely backwards.
I'm playing fine with mouse and keyboard and also have a controller plugged in. No problems here.
Put "-nocontroller" in the Steam launch options.
I'm a little pissed I just spent another 30+ turns after taking his capital playing where's waldo with this butthole floating in the center of the map when his throne is in the far west. Loaded an earlier save to check and yeah he was just there floating on that same spot stuck like another dragon lord that got stuck underground do. On the brightside him not going back to defend made capturing the throne city a cakewalk because of how jacked the ashen war dragon lords but at the same time playing where's waldo with the enemy ruler is just pain
Ah yes, totally in character.
Have your play-throughs felt significantly different?
I've done full good angels, forest hippies, no racial units, diplomacy (which was a pain as everyone's always trying to drag you into a way they won't actually participate in AND will back out of), no diplomacy (which was much more peaceful and maintained good relations with everyone). But everything felt like I was just replaying the same game over and over. Even playing the same faction in Alpha Centauri felt less same-y.
>Even playing the same faction in Alpha Centauri felt less same-y.
I thought about it and I think that's because you weren't limited to 3 cities (plus vassals and imperium spending I guess)
Your empire in SMAC could be of varied shapes and densities. You could terraform the world. Even if things were similar from game to game, it played out differently because you weren't as constrained.
Turning a white province green just doesn't give much of a feeling of change as flooding or submerging the world.
I dont know how long games last in AC but i think what hurts with some of the samey feeling is how quick campaigns are. You're usually wrapping things up by turn 70-100. Take a game like Civ 6 where unless you're doing a minmax or cheese strat you will usually go at least 250/300+ turns. It gives the games a lot more time to move down different paths.
Game not even done yet hell i feel we are playing just the
Look at the patch road:
>better AI
>better performance optimizations
>faction identity
>more empire buildimg
>expanding pantheon options
>Guns and Tanks
As much as i love this game as of right now it's very obvious a beta game with us as QA
>See an army pop up from underground
>Body block the entrance when they move
>They're stuck in my domain and constantly generate grievances.
>Caps at 20 grievances, can't sell them, can only forgive.
>Now aligned good in my evil dragon playthrough
kek. Does blocking the entrance also stop other armies from passing through?
Autistic question but does anyone have any thoughts about the "canon" ruler to play as for each story map? Besides playing as Alfred in Story 1, the others aren't obvious. Maybe Dafal Dea in Story 2 (narrative mentions zealous Godir, and the race is water adapted), and maybe Arachna/Nekron in Story 5 (since the Shadrai are missing a shadow affinity wizard.
this is the kind of heavy handed stupidity id expect from a free to play game. who or what spurred them to making these changes?
they clearly didnt consider how the signature skill summons take 3 action points and the summoned units have no ap on their first turn, or how weak the wildspeaker is as a support unit.
bekhause they're OP in MULTIPLAYER, what are you, a singleplayer peasant? you wanted to have fun? well, tough luck
>before the patch
>lol this game is balanced by morons I can kill infinite enemy units by just spamming summons and resetting
>after the patch
>NOOO DON'T TAKE AWAY MY BRAINLESS STRATEGIES I MIGHT ACTUALLY HAVE TO PLAY THE GAME THIS IS SO UNFAIR
Every time.
I suppose this makes sense. Now there's development room for summoner buffs that also increase their duration. 3 turns is usually how long a battle lasts before it's "over" as well.
It's not that hard to mod any "balance" changes with mods, right?
What mods do you run? I just have one to make race transformations optional right now but I'm thinking of grabbing the one that increases movement speed since getting anywhere on the map takes forever.
I don't use many mods at the moment.
>option to make bigger maps and/or add more players to the map
>alternative version of transformations that don't apply the visual effect
>additional color options for character creation
>additional flag emblems for character creation
Just the dress fix mod to decensor the game.
I fricking love being Deathwing bros.
I like cultural and scientific victories in Civ. I tried AoW4 and it seems way too combat focused. Since we wait for DLCs, how are the older ones concerning alternative win cons?
Science victories are very boring in Civ. I would like more victory conditions for this game though.
>I tried AoW4 and it seems way too combat focused.
The magic victory is basically a science victory. All you have to do is turtle underground, beeline research, and plop some improvements down
Funnily enough magic is I think the easiest victory in AoW4 depending on your neighbors. 15 Turns sounds like a lot but due to map size and the AI's allergy to building their own damn teleporters the only thing you'll have to worry about are border touching close hostile neighbors and the NPC army spawns which even the average mid-game army can kill with auto-resolve.
>have idea for a water serpent dragon
>remember water theme is non-existent
>AI declares rivalry with me
>Never declares war
Ok, sure, enjoy spending your money for nothing.
What the frick are you supposed to do with a declaration of rivalry? Besides ignore that AI for the rest of the game.
nothing other than the game "forcing" you to be careful around them else they start war
With the deamon prince quest this thing can be bad news really quick since thay homosexual has already a fully blown high level and enchanted army and can frick you up
>"forcing" you to be careful around them else they start war
Must be a playstyle issue. I always ended up with more grievances against them than vice-versa. But, like I said, I just ignored them.
Probably doesn't help that they tend to be on the other side of the map.
it makes it really easy for them to start a just war against you if you do anything slightly negative to them. I actually really like rivalries myself since they allow me to generate a lot of imperium by declaring a war on the inevitable forward expanding neighbors.
playing dragon lord as anything other than industrious feels wrong to me, on account of the culture's ability to accumulate items far beyond any other's. Also seems a given to take artifact hoarders. Ways to get or think around this?
war to hero hunt for items instead. with the bonuses ai get, they'll always buy fully geared heroes to replace the ones you kill.
taking the mana hoard is fine thematically but not really necessary to dragon lords, in my opinion. I think it's a good trait though, and will probably use it on a lot of my factions.
also my opinion, but I think dragon lords would work best as mystic culture. this is just my experience but I have a hard early game as mystic
>but I think dragon lords would work best as mystic culture. this is just my experience but I have a hard early game as mystic
What makes you say this?
I'm pretty bad at using mystic units, and having a dragon meat shield helped me with early battles.
has anyone tried a skelly build to see if the soul changes help or hurt?
I played with the old economy and it didn't scratch my necromancer needs.
You don't summon hordes of the undead. You don't have a variety of undead. The undead don't have interesting abilities with corpses,
Frankly, going nature and summoning animals was closer to playing what a necromancer should be doing.
And I hate the flavour of using souls for undead creation. It's moronic in DnD and it's moronic here.
I think military ranking is determine by the combined power of all your armies, but when only 3 armies can participate in a battle, then why measure it that way? If the enemy sends hordes of shit armies to break impotently against your 3 armies, then doesn't that mean you're militarily much stronger even if he has a lot of excess units eating up upkeep (which I honestly don't think the AI pays, but I guess the AI could use help) ?
What are you favorite traits? I just started recently and made an Orc Barbarian society with Strong, Overwhelm Tactics, Ritual Cannibals, Prolific Swarmers and Tome of the Horde for starting out. It all feels good but I'm not sure if Ritual Cannibals should be swapped for Adept Settlers since the food and mana gain is pretty minimal overall.
You don't take Cannibals for the food, you take it for the ability to heal in combat by having a little snack. Especially useful on cultures that either don't get a healer or whose healer is crap. The food gain in cities is just a bonus.
Damn demonic coward that demon "Prince" spend 20 turn running away from like a pussy!
I like to image he heard E1M1 all the time
Anyone else found it funny that "Carrisa the red" is one of the few AI Lords that gives you an option to become her overlord the second she faces trouble?
Like she is the first to start a war and also the first bend knee?
>running away from like a pussy!
Running awat from me like a pussy*
Vassals never seem to join me in war, it's kind of obnoxious. It seems better to just conquer them if you can spare the Imperium.
got the premium edition for 59 euros from G2A
now wait 2 years or so till the game is properly optimized and content rich
running fine so far on my 4070, have no clue what i'm doing so can't judge the content
same i have a nvidia geforce GTX1660(no idea if it's good or bad) but i can run the game smoothly in ultra
Give me gunpowder units already aaaaahhhh
i got the tech to summon an iron golem, but i cant find it anywhere in my spells
i can find copper golem
Iron Golems are meant to be buildable in the tech tree normally. Copper Golems are there for you to grind out into free Iron Golems without needing to develop them.
what do you mean? i'm confused
The iron golems in the tech tree are designed to be buildable in cities, however copper golems can circumvent this due to their evolution trait that allows them to turn into iron golems upon hitting veteran rank
oh i see, thank you
Can i suicide an army of heroes against a neutral stack to have them all appear in my crypt? Or is the only way trough events or killing enemy heroes?
Obviously being Dark, to increase the economy bonus.
You can kill Neutral/Bandits heroes too and ancient wonders bandit heroes as well
Someone at the paradox forum asked how to capture enemy heroes no one gave them an answer...
Simple allow the enemy hero to retreat after their morale is very low DO NOT kill them allow to them to retreat you can exterminate the fleeing soldiers if you want
Thank you for the answer, i'll try a game with a Dark Dragon that recruits a frickton of heroes, strips them naked for his hoard, and sends them to their deaths.
I'll point out that if you capture an enemy Throne City you auto loot all the dead heroes they had in their crypt, and that seems to be a really fast way to fill up your crypts. I had a game a few weeks back where I was playing an Order/Shadow (Dark) culture build and went from being in mana debt to basically making +400 mana a turn because one of the other Godir I seized the capital of had like 20 heroes in his crypt due to a hell war he had with a city state before I overran him.
>finishing the tutorial allows me to ascend my guy to be a god
dude, this game is so awesome wtf
I think you have to win the battle to recover the bodies (someone has to carry them back to the your throne, right?)
As a new player should I do the tutorial or story thing first? Or can I just jump into a dragon lord campaign and be fine? I am a dragonschizo
Go for the tutorial
My advice is go for Dark(culture) and order(affinity) and pick both good order society traits
Dark: so you don't have to worry about negative stability but you DO benefit from possitive stabilty so you are free to expand to your hearts content and all their units are usefull
Order: is safe and sound and you really can't go wrong with it and it's the easiest to get into it
Traits: because you want vassals to keep themselves safe and you don't have to worry about them and Good alignment is in general much better than evil because it gives you "good" events that benefit you
Thanks chief!
It's pretty moronic that you lose some physical damage over this
Can i go Astral Aspect with my dragon, then choose another kind of Transformation? (say Shadow?)
Or can i just evolve from my first chosen aspect? (so Astral Aspect can only become Astral Transformation?)
Also do Dragon Lords benefit from starting Mind/Body traits? What about race traits/enchantments?
You can choose a starting affinity for a dragon, and pivot at either of 2 affinity transformations the dragon gets at levels 4 and 12. Dragons don't benefit from any mind/body traits, or racial transformations you cast on your people. Some enchantments can affect the dragon lords, but they have to be ones that affect certain categories (such as elemental, undead, etc) and then the dragon gains that type.
So i can start Astral, choose Nature Aspect and finish with Shadow Transformation? Neat!
I hope the final transformation are not garbage aesthetically, or at least if i can disable the added looks if they look lkke shit.
I've tried Materium, Shadow and Chaos so far and they look pretty good. I don't think you can disable the visual changes though.
As someone who liked 1 and 2, and Plantefall, is AoW4 worth getting into? I'm kinda leary about the Stellaris-esque race modding since it seems it removes a lot of flavor from the game.
It hits different
yes
planetfall is my favorite and this game is great
I just got this game and have been playing for a couple days already, and I noticed that you can just research any tome you want. It has me wondering how the AI goes through researching tomes and magic. Does it select randomly?
im not sure how AI "personalities" work
I used to think they tried to stick to their starting affinities but then in my last game the nature dragon in the ashen war map went pure shadow so now I don't have a fricking clue.
I wish we could determine the personality of the guys we create.
True, there should at the very least be an option to set the personality of people in your pantheon.
But then again the entire pantheon is such an undercooked feature that they could remove it from the game entirely and we'd lose literally nothing of value.
That seems to be true to an extent but from what I've seen they tend to start going really hard into whatever personality they roll at game start as their primary Affinity. Example: I had a champion who I gave feudal culture and the book of evolution as his starting tome, expecting him to try and create a realm of dragons and half dragons. He rolled "Pure Sage" as his personality though. I'm now at ~60 turns into this game and the dude has 16 astral affinity compared to his Nature affinity of 5 (and chaos affinity of 1) so I think the main factor is just down to their diplomatic personality which sucks cause currently I have no fricking clue how to manipulate that to get the type of players I want in a game.
Anyone know where the hero/custom faction save files are located?
you cannot handle my hero/custom faction save files
DocumentsParadox InteractiveAge of Wonders 4StorageLordsLords
>White Wolves mounts from Body trait are Tier 3 items
It's not worth paying 250g for each hero to get a Tier 3 item in my hoard, but i WILL one day spam heroes and enjoy my Dragon Hoard gains
It's weird how much the game punishes you for being evil. Maybe I'm just biased since I like to play conquering hordes though. I guess it's interesting to change up the inherent morally bankrupt way you see things when playing a gsg/4x game
Evil is done right in my opinion: you are free to do all the nasty shit you want, disregard diplomacy and just go full Heroes of Might and Magic.
The downside should be that if you start shit, you better be ready to get hit. Negative events + the world hating you are good consequences.
Maybe more Evil specific events wpuld be cool, but who doesn't like more events after all.
The events and stuff to do on the map like exploring wonders and mob fights are great. That's my biggest gripe with games like civ 5 or EU4, there's so little to do between wars.
Evil is a way more comfortable way to play IMO.
>don't have to worry about diplomacy, you can still use it but if people don't want to play ball you can just frick them
>can kill everything for XP, don't have to pussy out if someone surrenders to you
>don't have to worry about muh casus belli or grievances, just do what you want to do and kill anyone who gets in the way
Good feels too much of a balancing act to me. You still want to play a conqueror because that's what the game is about, but you constantly have to tip-toe around the things the game calls "evil."
The only thing I don't like about playing evil is that not doing evil shit for a few turns automatically makes you more good.
The most annoying part of playing good is the game punishing you for razing provinces. Thank god someone made a mod for that.
To be fair, raping and pillaging and scalping the innocent isn't exactly very moral.
Well, I just want to destroy that fricking spell jammer, can't help if b***hes keep jumping on my dick while I do it.
Just, like, don't cast spells?????????
Fricking wizards don't know right from wrong. Just because the enemy has spell jammers and teleporters doesn't mean you get to rape the engineers, salt the earth and piss on their corpses...
You can disable province improvements by putting a unit on top of them. No need to pillage them if you really want to roleplay as pure good.
They should stop putting all those rape-able and lootable civilians near their goddamn spell jammers then!
>build a pyramid of skulls from the former inhabitants of a great metropolis like Timur or Kublai Khan
>"wtf why are you calling me evil"
There should be a spell-jammer/teleporter neutral option.
Seal improvement or something.
Good is called the "High" road and the easy road for a reason
and not the easy road*
fricking phone eating half of my text
what is the point of claims if the AI is just gonna ignore them then immediately declare friendship?
How do you feel about Champions vs Wizard Kings? Champions look a lot stronger on the surface.
Champs are funny enough the weakest of the lords right now
they get a very slight economy bonus and a tiny when i say tiny i mean tiny bonus bonus with free cities but nothing else
Wizards and Dragon beat them in Magic and Power respectively
I haven't gotten the dragon dlc yet, wanted to try the base game first. Worth it?
>Worth it?
Eh. I've got it because I got the season pass, but I'm kind of on the fence about the actual value of Dragon Dawn.
If you really like dragons and love the idea of playing one (or Lizardmen), then sure it's worth it. But mechanically it doesn't really add anything new to the game and apart from allowing you toi be slightly more aggressive from the start, nothing in the DLC changes the way you play the game in any significant way. Sure it adds a few new things but they don't really have a gameplay impact, they're just minor sidegrades to the same old shit.
In Stellaris terms, it feels more like a Species Pack for Dragons + Lizzers than a DLC Expansion that actually adds new features.
It's there....the dlc is very very anemic and doesn't really add anything fantastic like say revelation did in planetfall,this dlc added a new dragon lord,lizards(skin),2 new tomes and a new body trait and nothing else.
this dlc is nothing special and very much skippable actually i was hoping for anomiles(cyoa mini adventures like in PF) but nope.
YOU GET TO HOARD TREASURES AS A DRAGON YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID
horse armor dlc
Ye if you love dragons then you should get it. If you don't particularly care about being a dragon it's very skippable.
Then only reason I'm not mad about it is that we already knew we'd get two small DLCs and two big ones, and Dragon
Dawn is one of the small ones. But if the next DLC doesn't deliver you better believe I'm going to shit up these threads as well as the official forum with my incessant belligerent whining.
How big is your boner for dragons and lizardfolk?
I'd strongly suggest waiting for a sale where it's, like, a buck.
even a buck is too much for this skin dlc
It's got like, -some- content. It's not like actual horse armor where you just get a skin and it does nothing except look slightly different. I'd say 50% off would be quite acceptable.
It's a ruler passive, a set of ruler skins, form skins, 1 form trait, and 2 tomes.
Mods have done much more... barring the ruler skins I guess. I'm not sure on that one.
Yeah but you can't really compare prices to free mods. Some games have mods that have more content than the game they're based on, that doesn't mean all games are free.
If that's what you want, just pirate instead.
The types of mods you're talking about usually take years to develop. We're not there yet. We're comparing modder's...2 months worth of work to Triumph's 2+ months (they had access before modders).
Mods add far far more content and they are free,this dlc is for all intents and purposes horse armor
How are the mods at the moment, any good stuff in terms of new content?
there are exampe: many new tomes,cosmetics that should have been ingame btw( like culture specific summons zealots,specral warrior etc that look like your culture!),countless traits mods
But i can compare it anon,when a random modder can easily add over 10+ traits with no problem you're telling me that triumph couldn't add more than 1?
Come on this is just pure laziness
Look at this https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2986124099&searchtext=
Theme of the dlc is dragons.
Dragon lords aren’t really much to write home about.
The give some affinity boosts, but racial buffs don’t apply to them. They’re also limited in what gear they can use.
Biggest selling point are the tomes, which reveal the true theme of the DLC, snowballing with XP. Mainly through the evolve mechanic.
(The evolve mechanic is the same as how feudal peasants turn into footman when they reach a high enough rank.)
With the dragon tomes you get a unit enchantment for any unit which has evolve, they gain +20% XP and evolve units revive for half health at the end of battle if you win the battle.
You can go from tier 1 to tier 3 to tier 5 dragons. (Which is huge, think of all the draft your saving by snowballing like that)
You get access to fire and ice dragons by default.
You also get new gold or obsidian dragons which are available if you’re alignment is good or evil respectively.
Gold is very powerful because it’s dragon breath doubles as an AOE heal and clears debuffs.
Ice is also powerful because it’s breath has a chance to stun.
Overall the tomes are very powerful, perhaps even OP. They’re primarily what makes the DLC worth it imo.
Dragon lords are affinity farmers.
Campaign is ok I guess.
It's basically the absolute bare minimum amount of content they could have provided while still technically lining up with the description provided in the season pass. You get a race, a lord type, and two tomes, none of which go above and beyond by any reasonable metric. Unless you're a dragon fanatic or already bought the season pass, I'd suggest waiting for a steep discount.
i've no clue what im doing
help
what are you doing?
Build an outpost. Found another city. Do this 2x to reach your 'max' of 3 cities. Walk around the world beating up monster groups. Enchant your units with everything. Don't do diplomacy because the AI is always starting wars it won't finish and dragging you into it. Build some provinnce improvements in locations you can defense them easily (a spot where the borders of your 3 cities meet), win a magic victory.
Don't listen to this nerd
magic victories are gay. Pick the Orc Barbarian faction, play the tutorial, kill rape and burn everything until nothing is left but you and your ethnostate of orcs and half orc conquered peoples.
Just don't get Destined Destroyers or whatever it's called, if you're on higher difficulties with lots of players you'll constantly ping pong between enemies that chain Magic victories making you run all over the map and you'll eventually win through score.
Opposite happened to me.
It's because you're dead last in the rankings so the AI thinks you're already wrecked.
Had the same thing happen to me while I was in the middle of kicking in the teeth of one of their allies, probably because the battles we had left both of our armies weakened. But still getting an offer to become someone's vassal every few turns was funny
I am 5 turns away from score victory and the economy is pulling me down into the gutter.
How the frick do I deal with this?
I can't build more cities because I picked the meme Chosen Destroyers civic and I don't have enough time to destroy any more cities because I was in a protracted war with Darman Voss and all his allies with him trying to get a magic victory.
Can you sell some stuff to boost your gold reserves on the last turn?
Is it based solely on the gold you have at the moment?
I'd imagine so.
Like I think your military score is based on your total military might, so if you have a deathstack of, say, 9000 strength, your enemy with 20 stacks of units with 1000 strength each will have a higher military score, even though you'd cut through him like a scythe through grass. I think this because I had 3 stacks that were unbeatable in practice, but the lowest military score.
with all that mana why haven't you cast transmute on a city or 2?
Because I dun goofed.
well, now you know that its a thing
just fought a 3 armies vs 3 armies battle with an enemy spell jammer active
god that was brutal
I have no idea how this moronic game keeps score.
Lost because the score system makes no sense.
I really wish they'd give exact point values for score. Telling us it's based on military, economy, research, expansion and diplomacy is not exactly useful when we don't know how much say an alliance or gold/magic generated pays out for points.Looking at the charts on game end is barely any help either
How long should you minmax XP gains early? I'm clearing stacks with my dragon using the "no less than half" rule but that's really only leaving me with my ruler and maybe 1 or 2 other units getting XP, feels like it's not worth it.
>no less than half" rule
What's that
To maximize XP per unit, you want to make sure you have half as many units as the enemy. If you have more or less then there's going to be some wasted XP. People are using it to get dragon commanders that level up every 1-2 turns
That sounds like a complete pain in the ass.
Very much, I feel like it's only worth it on the dragon, rushing to get the ability that eats a Tier 1-3 unit for an instant kill is really sweet with a health + defense buff. But I don't like the idea of having the starting units sit on the sidelines and you're obviously very limited on the early game camps you can take.
I prefer full stacks because I find the best way to get xp is to just keep your army rolling.
More troops means more health which means you can trudge along farther.
>More troops means more health which means you can trudge along farther.
That's the problem I have now. I started a new realm, a lot of marauders are just 2-3 tier 1s so I can easily clear every one with just my dragon alone, but I will need a turn or two to heal back up after each fight. I could probably end up in a better place if I cast a heal spell each round but I don't want to eat up all my early mana. It's turn 12 and I have a level 8 dragon, but because I have spent all my time fighting and subsequently healing I haven't had time to explore and I haven't even established an outpost yet. I'll probably just take the closest vassal city to catch up.
I imagine rapetown is a nicer place than your other cities if they chose to migrate there instead
Everyone seems happier in Rapefurt and Rapeholm. My capital seem like the most degenerate of them.
Top 3 are my old founding cities, bottom are cities I've conquered.
There any tome mods that are pretty good but not something completely unbalanced?
are there guns and cannons in the game?
No, but they've been confirmed for the next DLC.
do you think we will get a unit designer similar to planetfall?
I miss the aow2 dryad
>normal AI is too passive
>hard AI is too aggressive, suicidal
the AI moves their units one by one during their turn
how do i make that fast forward by default?
IIRC there's a setting in the options for that.
If you mean on the world map, just zoom out. The AI only does this for units that are actually on-screen at the time. If you zoom out to the paper map there are never any units on screen, so it goes by almost instantly.
god i love unicorns + sneaky
the flanking charges are godly
Making Barbarian Chaos Tome of the Horde faction. Already have Prolific Swarmers, should I get Ritual Cannibals or Adept Settlers for the second trait?
Cannibals for small maps, settlers for big maps.
>S tier, Nature, Glades, Trees and roots
>F tier, Rocks, cryomancy, terra
Fricking knife ear elf detected
Considering that one of the strongest builds in the game (outside of abusing certain magic synergies) is entirely focused on archer spam, I wouldn't be surprised if the game was made by elves.
>there's and update coming that updates the AI
This game feels like an early access title
Do Champion rulers get your races racial bonuses?
Yes, and they get the basic culture skill as well.
Frick, it's over.
Out of curiosity how close were you to the other victories?
i don't understand, why are armies limited to 6 units if all the battles late game involve 18 units? it adds nothing but tedium having to move 3 armies at once
Yeah, it's dumb and annoying
>But muh ruins can only have max 6 enemies
Then they should make battles bigger in them too
even the original age of wonders had 6 units max, i doubt they will ever change it
i hate it, if it were up to me reinforcements in battle shouldn't exist
2/SM had 9 or 10, didn't it? And then you could still have 7 armies present in a battle (counting both allies and enemies)
>original age of wonders had 6 units max
8 units
and max 56 units on battlefield
Raising the city cap is so fricking expensive does the game want my empire to be 70% vassals on a large map military victory?
i did not know you can take the city cap rite multiple times
lol
Past 5 cities...yes, yes it does
Frick that I'm getting a mod to lower the imperium cost. Not to trivialize it but to at least make it reasonable. I want to be Genghis Khan dammit I'm not here to build tall and have a million vassals that don't even help in the war.
>Genghis Khan
>Not having a shitton of vassals.
See his vassals actually worked for him in war though. Until they rebelled like Iraq and got deleted.
Small family company, please understand. War coordination update coming soon.
Would it be too strong to just be able to control vassals armies directly during war like Vicky 2?
>Try to play Goody two shoes.
>Race ends up looking like complete ghouls anyways after two minor transformations.
Lmao, Evil it is then.
What’s this ‘negative event’ chance thing?
Is it manageable or just bullshit mode?
I'd imagine it's manageable. Good events seem to be "give up some of your resources for shit you don't want or suffer a morale penalty"
That's why I use the mod to make race transformations optional. Spawnkin is great but I want to be hulking marauder Orcs not tiny goblins.
as of right now, AOW3 and planetfall are still better
i am disappointed but hopeful for future updates
also highly recommend getting AOW 1 and 2 plus the expansion for 2 for like 5 dollars on GOG
they aged like ass but theyre wonderful to experience atleast once
>directX 12 only
yeah
nah
frick off
your gpu can't do dx12?
I'm on windows 7
yes my 3070 could do DX12
No I will not downgrade OS to 10, 11 or 12
you can download and install dx12 on windows 7, you just need to be 64bits
google it friend, go to Ganker and ask in the /sqt/ if you need further help but i can tell you 100% windows 7 can do dx12
I have 64bit of course. I thought DX12 was impossible to use?
But I also use an unupdated version of Windows 7. I cracked it over 10 years ago with Dazloader and installed SP1 and have never ran windows update even once, and I keep it totally disconnected from M$ servers.
But maybe I'll look into it, thanks.
> I thought DX12 was impossible to use
it absolutely is possible anon, tho my google is all in german so i can't help you
like i said look it up and if you are stuck ask in Ganker in the /sqt/ thread
you don't need to update windows
goodluck anon
that's fair then. Cheers, champ.
not him but never figured how to do it and didn't even found any info that its possible other than WoW actually do it but works only for WoW
Do AI cheat levels?
They have impossibly high levels on heroes for how much battle they actually do.
Am I missing something?
yes, the AI cheating is not even funny
>be sieging enemy capital
>3 armies spawn on top of me
there is a mod in the workshop that disables AI cheats, get it alongside the one that makes the AI aggressive cuz the AI currently refuses to siege anything
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2975040668&searchtext=ai+cheat
the one i linked doesn't disable the cheats, it just shows their cheats
i wanted you to see the cheats the AI gets even on fricking relaxed
I remember playing on hard difficulty once, and fighting one AI opponent where I was like no shit wiping out three stacks of their units every couple of turns, for 20+ turns and still there was no end to the tide of reinforcements marching in on me. It's not like they owned half the map or anything either, and they weren't even summoned units. Just magic replacement units continually marching at me, forever.
So yeah, AI is passive and braindead but it still cheats like a Mofo.
Is there a calculator out there that shows you the difference in stats between, say, a horned got and a 'fully' enchanted eagle rider?
'fully' not meaning every enchantment in the game, but a reasonable amount of end-game enchanting from a build (so racial transformation, some unit enchantments, etc.)
>play age of wonders 1
>click next turn
>game crashes
maybe nostalgia is not that great
How come the male elves sound like sissies. The feminine sigh weirds me out the most.
Is there a mod out there that lets you customize the gender of your entire race? I thought I saw one before but I forgot where I saw it. I want to make all the elves female because they all might as well be.
Elves are for rape not for playing as.
I thought I could try elves after playing as demons, but I'm thinking of dropping this and play as goblins.
I mean, it's been boring so far since I'm playing not-evil
soul
Groll's maps are phenomenal. I think I spent around a month playing Marlene's laughter with city founding on.
The underground feels like a pain in the ass, just more map to explore and ways for enemies to hide away when getting around the map is already somewhat slow
yes
i really would like a button to disable it as currently it does nothing but make it hard to reach the last AI mole frick who is hiding there for a victory
Can I downloads mods off the steam workshop with a pirated version?
>Golems have morale
Huh.
Hey, soulless automatons have feelings too you know
Damn, that was tough.
Is that the story map? Meandor starts pretty juiced in that one.
Yeah, he attacked one of my poorly defended minor cities.
For
i hate how the AI spams shite units that clutter the world map
i wish i can disable that and make the AI focus on stronger stacks
>premium edition is $89.99
worth buying? this game looks neat and i need a 4x to play since civ 6 is boring
why not just pirate it?
no piracy because im a peabrain and forgot how to pirate steam mods
right maybe ill do that probably a lot cheaper
i got the premium edition for way less on g2a, i see no reason to buy the game for full price
>noone bought the dlc
it's a dlc for scalies...are you that surprised?
>finishing your playthroughs
you're supposed to play halfway through, get bored, and then restart with a different setup
i finished a 170 turns playthrough yesterday and had a blast
i wish the AI would build tier 5 units, i dont care if it cheats just dont spam low tier units
Watchers are pretty overpowered. Give them some battle mage upgrades like siege magic and the astral line, reduce their upkeep by up to 60% with culture, darkness tree and hero, then waltz right over everything while taking barely any damage. And all you need is mana.
i'm a wanted war criminal
I'm guessing people have gone full dragon-mode by now.
How would you compare it to other classes of hero? EX: full warrior, full archer, full mage, and full support.
IMO Dragon is the strongest type right now. Mage can theoretically be stronger I think, but only by using borderline exploits. Not sure if a Warrior can hold up against a Dragon, maybe with the right equipment but I kinda doubt it.
Also, Dragons still get access to all the other trait categories so for example if you want to put support skills on a Dragon, there's nothing stopping you.
Probably one of the strongest as a combat unit at least and starts off strong from the get-go. Natural flying, immunity to non-heavy charge bonuses offset being large and then access to flanking immunity, high resistances to their own element, two AoE attacks that can potentially CC with 60-70% chance on a 1 turn cooldown, pool of 160 HP, terrifying gorging and even an AoE buff for approaching turns will guarantee that the dragon will make a noticeable/significant impact in any battle they go in.
I guess they can be outpaced in single-target damage if your other heroes get lucky with the gear but dragons are consistently strong and you still have like 4-6 skill points to play around with depending on if you skip things like ancient governor.
god the fricking story mode is so god fricking aweful, the 3rd mission
>hordes of enemies
>some of them get taken out if you finish some objectives like making a love potion
>that fricking demon cat keeps spawning armies fricking constantly AS I AM INVADING HIM WITH NO WAY TO GET RID OF HIM
fricking moronic
lol good luck kid, that's an easy mission compared to the next two.
You ain't seen nothing yet, son.
Lmao if you have troubles with story world 3 good luck later when you will get ANGEL'ed.
>~~*Godir*~~ subverting, conquering, and pillaging worlds at their leisure
>Uses armies they have no affiliation with aka rootless thralls
>AC's are trying to defend their worlds from them
TGD.
Yeah the game hammers this into your head
Champion= Good
Wizard = Evil
Dragon = Neutral
Just got the Dragon DLC, what kind of Civ should I make? Just finished a Barbarian run so wanted to try something different.
i made a mystic dragon dlc and kept spamming mystic dragon breath
Materium dragon ruling over industrious mole people accumulating riches and a massive hoard for gold and mana gain. Even better with respawning infestations.
Industrious culture is kinda crazy with a dragon ruler, because all those free items you get from prospecting with scouts will go straight through your hoard and start generating gold. Even better if you take the culture trait that gives you mana from your hoard as well.
Prolific Swarmers is so good it feels hard to ever not pick it
Then throw adept settlers on top of it. Then feudal wolf riders with overwhelm tactics.
Before this world comes to an end, someone clear something up for me.
Can I redo story maps and get heroes I previously deleted back to my pantheon?
Yes. Or at least it should do.
frick multiplayer homosexualS
>balancing around multiplayer, ever. like jesus christ
>instead of just limiting pre-casting to one spell like in 3 rather than as much as possible like in planetfall
>kneecap research speed on top of adding per-tome cost so anyone who doesn't go dark affinity gets shafted
>allow annexation between surface and underground instead of just making underground more desirable to be in
>summons are only able to be made near cities or or your ruler, no mention of heroes
I think the above is a symptom of city cap being so small. of course players want to summon an army when the fight is halfway across the world from their cities. also they made outposts have to build teleporters as an improvement so you have to choose between that or annexing a wonder
>speaking of heroes, introduce a percentage gold cost when you go over cap, despite hero presence being required for pretty much anything that not leveling them early is a liability
do these chucklefricks even play their own game?
I was confused for a second, I didn't notice we had a beta patch go up.
Lets see...
>Slower research in general, slows down further with each tome researched.
They definitely needed to slow research down, but we'll see how this works in practice. Honestly the last game I played I had enough research late game that there was zero difference between T1 and T4 tomes in practice, everything becomes instant eventually.
>Magic Victory now requires control of randomly spawned golden wonders
OK so magic victory has basically been removed from the game unless you get really lucky with map generation, wonderful.
>You can claim surface provinces with underground cities
Yeah that's fricking stupid, wienerroaches spawning underground near you was already cancer, now it's worse. Just spawn more useful shit underground it's not that hard
>spell casting limitation
frick off and die
>summong changes
I was going to write a long diatribe here but you can still summon near your leader anywhere on the map so production is still completely useless. Weird change that doesn't actually improve the game at all.
>Hero cap
Fuuuuuuck you. You know what the real problem is with hero cap? It needs to be cities+1 instead of =cities. That's it, hard cap heroes at that point and make the AI actually respect and hero limit and we're golden. It's fricking moronic that in a game where you can't accomplish anything without three armies, you have to hit the soft city cap to get three heroes. The entire supposed feeling of recruiting a low-level hero and building them up over the course of game doesn't exist because you don't get a single hero besides your leader for the first third of the game and by the time you can actually recruit one you're just buying disposable level 7 randos that you have no attachment to.
>limbo
Again, "fixing" a problem by making new problems.
Now let me look at the actual patch notes and b***h some more
So they made the soft cap on heroes a hard cap?
That makes the worst civic (Chosen destroyers), utterly unusable.
It's not quite a hard cap, but the gold penalty is now severe enough it might as well be. They also added a crutch for chosen destroyers by giving them a building chain to unlock more heroes.
Still stupid though, so much that's wrong with the early game flow is because of how hard it is to get a 2nd hero out, since literally everything (sieging cities, building cities, etc etc) requires a fricking hero and your leader can only be in one place at a time. Increase the starting hero cap by one, and then make it so people can't just mass heroes, why is this hard?
>attack city state
>they have 3 heroes in the siege that each one shot my units
it's all so tiresome
>Magic Victory now requires control of randomly spawned golden wonders
>OK so magic victory has basically been removed from the game unless you get really lucky with map generation, wonderful.
It sounds like it's basically a Dominions-style throne victory, which is pretty based.
Yeah but AoW4 already has a victory condition based around map control. This is basically replacing magic(technology) victory with a harder version of expansion victory.
Heroes should be based on the tier of your capitol city, not total cities. Also +1 sounds like a good change as well.
are you serious
THE MULTIPLAYER DOESN'T EVEN WORK, HOW THE FRICK DID THEY GET ENOUGH VOICE TO PRESSURE THE DEVS?
IM SO TIRED OF THIS MEME, WHY CAN'T THEY STICK TO THE GENRES THEY RUINED LIKE RTS
I just looked at 3's achievements and only about 9% of players have even started an online match. now I'm sure 3 is on other platforms, but that's still some small ass potatoes to be balancing around.
planetfall only has a win online match achievement, but it's still only 3%; so I'm really baffled why they're wanting to balance anything regarding multiplayer.
ALSO CASTING MULTIPLE SPELLS AND BEING INSANELY OP IS THE FRICKING POINT OF THIS GAME
WHAT IS THIS moronATION? LET US HAVE FUN LIKE IN THE OLDER GAMES WHERE WE CAN OBLITERATE ARMIES WITH ONE WATER SPELL
So even AoW can't escape the paradox curse of "balanced for multiplayer"
>multiplayer
i was hoping that with the direction victoria 3 is taking that paradox will finally stop this balanced for multiplayer meme
but i was wrong
Oh frick.
AI patch note selections:
>nerfed AI unit cost/upkeep cheats
OK, fair enough. Proves the AI was cheating even on normal difficulty though
>Changed Unit Production logic. The AI will no longer always produce units but tries to keep up with the strongest human player.
Literally the AI was scripted previously to never stop building units, that explains a lot of stupidity
>City defense logic changes. AI no longer obsessively guards walled cities even when no threat exists, except for the throne
Good change, again explains why the AI was so fricking stupid
>AI will no longer disband armies in cities that are under siege/threat
LMAO
>Removed rule that the AI can only summon units when there is a combat nearby
HOLY SHIT. Remember, this same AI was scripted to never stop building units no matter what, while simultaneously never summoning unless the player was in spitting distance. They have also increased the AI's prioritization of summons in general.
>Increased the mission distance range to generate more things for the AI to do at a longer range
What I'm getting from these notes put together is that the AI was literally designed to sit around and jerk off while building a never-ending flood of trash units
Economic focus changes. The AI should no longer replace gold, mana and resource improvements, providing a stronger economy
lol
>Changed rule regarding clearing Ancient Wonders. The AI will now clear them when they are in annex range to Cities or Outposts
GOOD
>Changed empire development rule, ruleset now includes taking into account free cities that could be integrated instead of only new cities
If this makes the AI stop spamming outposts I'm all for it
>Literally the AI was scripted previously to never stop building units, that explains a lot of stupidity
i noticed this, kek
>added imperium cost for releasing vassals
what the frick. do they want players to never play on big maps or something?
also
>removed the imperium income from the faith spell you cast on vassal cities
Ah shit, there's more balance changes. Frick frick frick
>Slow disables retaliation attacks
>Fortune/Misfortune now only stack up to 5
WHAT? When was this even ever considered a useful status effect?
>Feudal Defender shield now gives +1 resist also
OK...
>Nerfed Bannerman
Frick off
>Knight now has giant slayer
Good change
High
>Seeker Arrows no longer increase accuracy
dumb
>Awakened is now +3 damage instead of +4
>Defender+5 HP
>Daylight Spear+1 resist
Awakaner gets blinding radiance, Battle Mages get radiant light instead of seeking missiles for both
OK so basically they gutted High Culture while throwing in some token buffs to the shittiest units that won't change anything
Industrious:
>Steel Shaper now grants defense as a free action, with cooldown
Don't care, it's a support unit, it's damage is garbo anyway, this is a nerf
>Bastion now gets defensive master, and can use inspired defense as a free action with cooldown
OK?? I don't understand what they're trying to do with Industrious, it was already tanky, that's not the problem. The problem is that it's total DPS is a negative number
Mystic
>Arcanist resist down to 1
>Soother gets starblades
OK?????
>Sustained city spells that grant economic bonuses no longer work on vassals
Vassal nerfs, as I live and breath. Why though?
>Quick Reflexes: Reduced evasion from 30% to 25%
Oh dog, that'll show em
>Defensive Tactics now gives 10% evasion on top of +1 defense and resistance
uh huh
Water Adaptation has been renamed to Swamp adaptation.
Swamp Adaptation now also gives River Walk.
Uh...ok, sure.
>Underground Adaptation now grants +1 annex range on cities in the underground of this race.
I see
>Wizard King: Overchannel starts on a 1 turn cooldown.
>Wizard King: Now only gains +5 casting points every other level instead of every level
Wizard King was busted, but why not buff the champion instead?
>Dragon Aura's no longer buff your Dragon Lord
Fuuuuuck you.
>Dragon aura no longer buffs your dragon lord
Seems like a weird change considering they had to modify some auras to fit the mold. I know dragon lords were strong but I didn't think they would make any nerfs/changes this soon from the DLC's release
I need to take notes and mod most of this shit out, goddamn.
did they patch your allies not attacking anything
yet? At this point i gave up, i was waiting for some patches but i think i'll just go back to aow3...
No, not yet. Honestly after playing around with the beta patch for a while I can't really see any meaningful difference in how the AI behaves at all.
Aside from stupid nerfed shit like the one spell per turn limit, the only real noticeable difference in the beta patch is that research really is way the frick slower now.
I've seen my allies/vassals pillage enemy stuff while I was sieging the city, they even attacked stray armies occasionally
just realized something, with the one cast per turn underground is even more shit because you can't create forests as needed (or farmlands if you don't have the trait), and with the research nerf it's even less appealing
I don't play multiplayer
No one plays AoW4 MP, even compared to earlier games in the series, which makes all this MP focused balance changes extra bizarre.
Actually i like the MP"changes" but not in the ways you guys think....before you seethe at me....
MP homosexuals are actually very very LOUD about the optimization and if you look at the changelogs most optimizations are under the multiplayer....
Played a few hours with the beta patch just to check it out. The one spell per turn limit is insufferable as expected.
AI doesn't seem more aggressive or anything, but I think it IS clearing wonders and using rally of lieges more. I walked into Artica turn 60 and she already had like 4 golden golems and a pack of T3 faries, literally nothing I could do to scratch those frickers at that point. So that alone is going to make the AI harder to deal with.
Also, the slower research is definitely noticeable. It's not a bad thing necessarily, I think that alone is going to make production units more valuable for at least a longer period than usual.