How the frick do I git gud and stop becoming cat food? Unironically filtered so far by the first fricking mission. Best music I’ve heard in a strategy game at least.
Tome of Beasts -> Tome of Hordes -> Glades -> Amplication Tome. Build your armies as 1x hero, 1x Wildspeaker and 4x Glades. Once your Glades have splash damage you can auto battle most NPC doom stacks. Get teleporters and place them offensively.
This works for virtually every culture. If you want to meta game the optimal build is awakening+angelize as a wizard king to get 3x turns with the above. It'll probably get nerfed soon though, but yea if you're playing brutal basically turtle hard until you have doomstacks.
Remember: Swashbucklers are better than Crossbowmen and Infantry, and in the long run, you are better off having just them instead of anything else as human.
When facing cats, building Ballista (normally an excellent idea) is a death wish, since they have bazillion of fire damage dealt by everything and their cat, so tough luck.
Catapults are trash and a trap option.
Research should focus first and foremost on extra hammers as your top priority, then movement. Everything else is less important.
So naturally, build engineering structures. Cannons are a strict upgrade of Ballista, and well worth the hassle.
When in doubt, build housing.
And generally speaking, you want to get Pioneers as often and as many as feasible without tanking your economy. Build and/or straighten out the roads, then settle as close and as many as possible.
This is enough to get you through first few missions of the campaign, the rest you will learn on the go.
what a weird screenshot of AoW1
>t. Sseth dick-slurper that played neither
Tome of Beasts -> Tome of Hordes -> Glades -> Amplication Tome. Build your armies as 1x hero, 1x Wildspeaker and 4x Glades. Once your Glades have splash damage you can auto battle most NPC doom stacks. Get teleporters and place them offensively.
This works for virtually every culture. If you want to meta game the optimal build is awakening+angelize as a wizard king to get 3x turns with the above. It'll probably get nerfed soon though, but yea if you're playing brutal basically turtle hard until you have doomstacks.
>Zoom zoom zoom! Zoom zoom, zoom zoom zoom zooom, zoom. Zoom zoom zoom
I swear, if you homosexuals even bothered to read the posts you are replying to, you wouldn't be the laughstock generation.
[...]
[...] >Sseth makes a video about how cool and awesome AoW1 is >Population of Black person homosexuals that never played, but still praise it doubles!
Die in a fire knobhead
I AoW1 was always the superior installment because it mixed MoM and Warlords. Moving towards pure MoM in AoW2 killed the series
Oh, and heroes are a diverse bunch, but rule of the thumb is: you want as many as you can afford, and as many dwarves, cats and goblins as you can handle as your heroes. Halflings are half decent and archons has some decent combinations. Everything else is meh. You want your heroes to be "might", rather than "magic", but that doesn't mean they shouldn't pick a spellcasting rank if their class can only access it. Ideally, your main army stack should consist of just 4-6 heroes that are at least lvl 10 and just powering through whatever, with damage and defense picked over memey abilities (unless it's stuff like climb walls)
Oh, and heroes are a diverse bunch, but rule of the thumb is: you want as many as you can afford, and as many dwarves, cats and goblins as you can handle as your heroes. Halflings are half decent and archons has some decent combinations. Everything else is meh. You want your heroes to be "might", rather than "magic", but that doesn't mean they shouldn't pick a spellcasting rank if their class can only access it. Ideally, your main army stack should consist of just 4-6 heroes that are at least lvl 10 and just powering through whatever, with damage and defense picked over memey abilities (unless it's stuff like climb walls)
Yeah, I forgot to mention the most obvious one and the most common rookie mistake:
Never send a single stack on the prowl. You want to have AT LEAST two full stacks of half-decent units when your plan is to do as much as fart in enemy direction. If you aren't doing a siege from two sides at once with preferably 3 stacks in total, forcing defenders to spread around to face you, you are doing the whole gameplay loop wrong. I know that AoW3 taught a frickload of people to just haul a single stack, but it doesn't work at all in 1 and especially 2
Nah it's pretty normal for AoW threads to have a handful that feel the need to post about how they feel that the first is either the best or only good game in the series. That's been around for a long time.
bro I literally just posted a screenshot of my game that's the last mission
I was too young to really play it seriously back in the day though, I mostly just dicked around in the editor since making my own maps was fun. The soundtrack is really nostalgic to me and I'm really disappointed with the AoW4 soundtrack, even 3 had some good tracks in it while 4 has nothing.
The music in 4 is several leagues worse than anything that came before it, I can't think of a single track that stuck with me. I still have tracks like life song, content workforce, clouds and feuds, love & death and march of the halflings in my playlist. Most of this shit was so good they remade it in 3 and that game had bangers of it's own as well.
Tell me shit like this doesn't hype you the frick up https://youtu.be/04Q7dTKQaPs?si=WCM_ha2NoQVf8_S3
We need more tracks like that. Give me one memorable track from 4, I'm willing to give whispers of the gods a pass since that's just another callback to clouds and feuds.
8 months ago
Anonymous
This is quite true, the soundtrack for the AoW series was one of the standout things about it, and AoW 4 really doesn't have any memorable tracks by comparison.
8 months ago
Anonymous
Yeah the mod to add the 1-3 OSTs in was an instant download
>>Game is forgotten for decades
starts being popular on /vst/ by December 2022
no shit, its almost like a new game in the series was announced and released dumbass
9 months ago
Anonymous
How is life without reading comprehension? I reckon it must be pretty tough
9 months ago
Anonymous
what's it like being utterly moronic? Instead of making a reasonable assumption as to why something is talked about again you have to cry about muh internet celebrities
9 months ago
Anonymous
Nta, but you really have some serious problems with reading comprehension. Let me walk you through this >Original anon points out how AoW1 was utterly forgotten and ignored >(You) go on a tangent about AoW4 coming out
Remind us - how did release of AoW3 affected people reminiscent on AoW1? Or how did a game that wasn't even announced yet affected AoW1 perception, two months before being presented at all to the public?
So yeah, it is a shitty D-tier e-celeb bullshit
9 months ago
Anonymous
>Nta
and yet you are just as moronic complaining several months after the fact when again, a new game in the series was released and restored interest in all the games
frick off
9 months ago
Anonymous
>Not that anon >Just so happens to have the exact same views and posting style
Every time.
9 months ago
Anonymous
>Original anon points out how AoW1 was utterly forgotten and ignored
Then original anon(you) was wrong. AoW1 has always been talked about on Ganker. I learnt about it from Ganker threads like a decade ago. The whole reason we got an AoW 3 is because it wasn't forgotten and ignored.
9 months ago
Anonymous
>a new game in the franchise being announced would cause people to think about the older games in the same franchise more frequently? >IMPOSSIBLE!
You absolute moron.
5 months ago
SCHIZO SLAYER
New game in series comes out can bring attention to the previous ones in the series and vice versa you Black person homosexual. Holy shit you are moronic
>For who?
For you. Do you just want to talk to the same 10 people in these threads for the rest of your life?
8 months ago
Anonymous
>Would you rather talk in-depth game mechanics with people who spend years cracking them and finding new ways to use or abuse them >Or do you want to have clueless zoomers flood from every direction, because some homosexual on youtube told them to check out the game your playing?
Mhh, yes, tough choices here
8 months ago
Anonymous
Or you know a new fricking entry came out and sold more than all the previous ones
8 months ago
Anonymous
Too bad you don't get to choose either, we are just going to shit on you for being a dumb homosexual
8 months ago
Anonymous
This is what happened to dwarf fortress, steam release killed the general on /vg/.
8 months ago
Anonymous
More like it brought in more people that quickly realized the game is just garbage that only got popular because of memes and left it to die again.
8 months ago
Anonymous
No, it brought in zoomers chasing another FOTM that drove all the oldgays away and quickly lost interest, moved on and left the general completely dead.
I bought that game on steam and refunded it within 2 hrs, frick DF
why would you buy it if you didn't like it in the first place? That shit is free man.
8 months ago
Anonymous
>muh "zoomers" ruined everything
then why was your general dead for years before the steam announcement?
8 months ago
Anonymous
I bought that game on steam and refunded it within 2 hrs, frick DF
Are you fricking kidding me? That has nothing to do with Sseth. People praising AoW1 and holding it up as the best has been happening virtually as long as Ganker has existed.
>Ganker playing any AoW prior to 3
Cool story bro. Unless you dropped an R in the board. But even then, /vr/ always sneaked discussion on 2 into supposedly threads about 1, simply to circumnavigate the "1st Janurary 2000" rule.
Honestly, I have no idea why they even made 4. 3 sold like shit and Triumph pretty much went bankrupt due to that, so I guess someone in PDX board has shit for brains, deciding to make sequel to a failed game bought from an outside studio (along with the studio)
Considering 3 sold like shit, it's hardly an achievement. I never understood why PDX picked this franchise, given how bad 3 sold. But then again, it made it cheaper to take over Triumph
Considering SM required baseline until later re-release, your point is invalid
Also >1
Thanks, but if I wanted to play broken game, I would just boot MoM
They're enchanted with air magic to fly and since they have a lot of movement points they let me bomb literally every building on the map without the AI being able to do anything about it.
It's the last map of the campaign on the undead side.
It's a straight up hold over strategy from the OG Master of Magic... and the further you go from the absolute bullshittery, that you could create/utilize in MoM, the shittier your game will be, especially if you do it in the name of the most moronic sacred cow that was ever created -> (multiplayer) balance. These games (and genres) are built on pure unfiltered (nerd) power fantasy, so anything that restraints that at all, will end up cheapening the result, hence we now have AoW4: Late to the ESG Party Edition (With A Dose Of Swedish israelitery DLC)
5 months ago
Anonymous
This is an issue I have with pretty much every 4X; if it's Fantasy I'd rather be playing MoM, if it's space I'd rather be playing MoO.
[...]
[...] >Sseth makes a video about how cool and awesome AoW1 is >Population of Black person homosexuals that never played, but still praise it doubles!
Shut the frick up you homosexual, no one gives a frick about your Gankertubers, I played this game as a kid with my closest friends, we backstabbed each other a lot
It can go longer now on the big maps since they just released an update that fixes the glacial post 100 turn turn times. For real its as big of an improvement as when CA fixed Mortal Empires turn times a few years ago in TW: WH2
>shit just takes longer in 4 for no reason. >Make giant fricking maps >everything moves like three inches a turn in good terrain
also >resource guardians scale up with turn count so if you don't get to that mine quickly enough it'll be guarded by a full stack of T4/T5 units for no fricking reason >Siege a settlement, wait 5-10 turns before you're even allowed to attack
Teleporters are the only thing that makes army movement even slightly acceptable and even that takes way too fricking long to set up. It's good that they nerfed research speed but it doesn't solve everything else in the game also taking a billion turns to do
>bro just make your own race and invent your own backstory xDDD
Faction creation is fun though. Must suck to have no imagination.
https://i.imgur.com/Sey37Mz.jpg
will it ever be good?
Even though I personally like AoW4, it's probably not strictly "good" yet, but the recent DLC and patch was a big step in the right direction. Another couple releases like that and I think we'll be golden. I'm glad I bought the perma-DLC pass at launch.
Ah, the classic civ problem of "it's not as good as the last one because the last one has years of DLC up on this one"?
Though civ6 killed that by being genuinely bad with our without DLC but I digress.
It's fun when factions have flavor. When your faction is "generic fantasy race model + unrelated bonuses" it becomes boring.
AoW3 took a step in the wrong direction by removing racial alignment and letting people have mixed orc/elf/halfling armies with 0 penalty and making undead not evil by default (but undead archons are somehow still evil).
AoW4 then went full moron and made the entire game completely soulless. It's basically throwing out all the series backstory and lore to make a fantasy stellaris clone, idk. Oh well, it was the way the series is headed, can't have inherently evil orcs now without a myriad articles calling your game problematic, I guess.
I feel the same, even Planetfall had heavy loredumps on units.
I also do not know what went first.
Some wokie decided that races are all the same, even in fantasy.
Or someone read that shit in D&D and decided it will be a perfect pretext to skip race setting creation.
This. Even the art/UI reminds me more of stellaris than of AoW now. It's a shame, I like some of the mecanics they added, but the graphics make the game feel soulless.
>bro just make your own race and invent your own backstory xDDD
The best part of the game by far, you WANT brown gay immigrants and fat women to make your races and lore for games??!?!?!?!!!!!?
It's fine, it might be good once it releases out of Paradox Access in seven years.
The problem is that Dominions exists and does everything this does but better.
The previous installments had decent campaigns, but 4's single player is a joke.
Kind of. There is a meta plot that spans a whole five missions, but you can (and are expected to, using the same faction for each would be nonsensical) make a different ruler and race for each mission so there's nothing tying them together form the player's perspective.
I enjoyed experimenting with the custom army builder and choosing magic ingame and having a freakshow race build over the course of it....
But as with all 4X games the AI is just awful and it stops being fun stomping them after a couple of matches. I don't have any friends that play strategy nor would I know how I'd keep a group of people to playing these 20 hour games so I'm gonna call my lack of friends a design flaw on the game's behalf 0/10
Just tactical, did good in 3, so-so in PF, but 4 is just kicking my ass.
Do I just spam warbreeds like an butthole or? I feel like every OG strategy like attrition, defensive, bullrush, just punishes me.
I’d say you probably just need to be familiar with the various buffs and debuffs more. It took me a while to figure out the combat but I can give you tips. If you’re having trouble with the ai doing the steadfast thing and not dying, mystic culture has a leave 3 unit with an aoe purge that will remove it from all enemies in the blast radius. If you’re having trouble against golems theyre weak to spirit and electricity damage. In terms of hero skills you generally want one escape either blink or demon step and you can get more with items. Trade freidndly npcs for items it’ll buff your leader and heroes. Sell unwanted items too for gold. Combo materium and astral I think they’re pretty easy to combine and super strong, materium is omega strong once you research enough and combining lava burst and amplification is insane
It needs a more normal campaign. With the whole realms and wizard kings crazy going on in this it's absolutely bizarre there isn't an overarching story tailor-made for this.
I've always been a fan of the AoW franchise, even AoW4 is still fun despite its flaws, but the more I learn about the devs the more I'm convinced they're a bunch of morons who don't get the appeal of their own games. If you listen to something like they have some really odd ideas about their own games.
>the primary inspiration for AoW4 was Stellaris, they wanted AoW4 to be a "story generator" like Stellaris or Crusader Kings >the lore and factions in Planetfall were boring and they were very expensive to develop, so they didn't want to do that again >Planetfall was too complex for most players, so they wanted to make AoW4 a lot more simple early on, so they can ramp up the complexity later on >they didn't want your chosen race to have a permanent impact on the game (which is why they call it "form" instead of "race") >they don't want AoW4 to be what they call a "turn-based RTS" where everything is about combat >they wanted to add a Civ-like technology tree, but they believe that technological progress doesn't belong in fantasy because the world needs to be stuck in the medieval era, so they came up with the transformation system instead >"In Civ you research, you go forward. Fantasy games can't do that. [...] You've got these stone cities and you've got a bunch of guys wearing armor and using swords, and when you go forward 5000 years: Same guys, same armor, same swords. It's very important to how the genre works." (t. Tom Bird, lead game designer) >when the first AoW was being made there was a "total need" to have multiplayer, as a result all AoW games are designed to be full multiplayer games before they add anything else >AoW4 specifically is meant to be played as a co-op empire building game, not a PvP game because it puts too much pressure on the players
So, in summation, they completely misunderstood why people enjoy the series to begin with and created this soulless and lackluster monstrosity. I still can't believe this game doesn't even have a campaign mode, when the campaign and the lore were what drew everyone into AoW to begin with.
Not just that, but they outright failed at some of the goals they set for themselves.
>they want a story game, but didn't include interesting, meaningful story events >they want a game with less of a focus on combat and more on empire building, but the empire building is as weak as it's ever been (arguably weaker in some aspects) and you spend 90% of the game in copmbat unless you just autoresolve anything >Planetfall was too boring, but they made a game with far less variety in playstyles than PF had >they want it to be a multiplayer-first game, but their netcode is shit
Paradox games succeed despite serious flaws because Paradox has a monopoly on their genre. Other devs see this and mistakenly think Paradox games succeed because of design choices that actually drag Paradox games down. It's like how breakable weapons have been in games forever even though players hate that mechanic because a lot of successful games happened to include it and were good enough otherwise that it didn't hurt their sales, so it just became received wisdom that it's a good design choice.
>>AoW4 specifically is meant to be played as a co-op empire building game, not a PvP game because it puts too much pressure on the players
wtf are you talking about. The multiplayer barely even works
>we could have had an Anbennar-esque thing where magical civilisations have to cope with the proliferation of gunpowder, then an industrial revolution with the rediscovery of Dreadnought tech
REMEMBER WHAT THEY TOOK FROM YOU
>Planetfall was too complex for most players, so they wanted to make AoW4 a lot more simple early on, so they can ramp up the complexity later on
Ah, there's the issue. They touched the divine and then exposed themselves as absolute drooling imbecile morons.
>item forge is confirmed to be released with the new DLC >not as part of the actual DLC, but as a free update released at the same time
Neat. It's a minor thing but I missed that feature from the older games.
I've realised that I only really like the story driven missions in these sorts of games. Even though the campaign in this was shit, I couldn't put it down. Now that I'm up to just free missions with no goal, I get bored as soon as another faction challenges me and I can't be bothered finishing the map. Same thing with Planetfall and AoW3. Although Planetfall's empire mode certainly gave me more reasons to finish maps. AoW 4 desperately needs a proper campaign DLC.Sadly I think they only plan on 1 mission per big DLC. But I hope they change their mind and add in a whole narrative campaign for each of them.
The small dragon dlc had one campaign map im betting the Empires and Ashes big DLC that’s next and next years big Eldritch one will have at least 2 each but who knows
>The small dragon dlc had one campaign map
No it didn't. It had one scenario you can use for custom maps, which is not the same as a story-based campaign map.
>The small dragon dlc had one campaign map
Nah, that wasn't a campaign map. It was just a scenario. You can set those up yourself when you customise your map. Things like ice queen, demon lord, etc.
Whoops my bad forgot it didn't fit the narrative stories
>The small dragon dlc had one campaign map
Nah, that wasn't a campaign map. It was just a scenario. You can set those up yourself when you customise your map. Things like ice queen, demon lord, etc.
After they add empire mode,anomalies,world events,muh guns'n'tanks,more armors and more performance optimization.
Why aren't there any special event with allied AI?
Depending on your choice you could increase their disposition on you or lower it,There are countless events with vasals but none with your allies
I still enjoy Planetfall more. Such a shame they went for standardised unit types again instead of weird faction shit like Shadow Magic. Shield guys or pike guys or archer guys all work the same no matter what race or tech they're from.
There's some pretty big mods that add a ton of units to each race, and stacks next to each other can already fight together, castle sieges can end up being huge. I can't say anything about the quality of some of the big unit mods though, I've never tried them.
I don't think any updates will fix aow4 as it's flawed fundamentally
This, i picked it as my first culture because i wanted to recreate that Uruk Hai feel with orcs+industrious
But it was very slow, full of low damage units that only could turtle
What part of them is boring? Sure their cultural units are more defensive than most, but it's not like you can't use tome units if you don't like that and it's not like their defensive theme comes at the cost of speed or anything. Meanwhile they've easily got the best economy in the game so they can support whatever strategy you like. Materium tree unlocks are pretty good across the board, and the Materium tomes are solid as well. Hell, Materium even has the best T5 unit bar none with the Golden Golem (which also happens to be the only good polearm unit in the game) on top of Industrious arguably having the best cultural T3 in the game already (epsecially if you take a mount trait). The only mid part about Industrious is their starting support and archer aren't great, but the only purpose of T1 and T2 units is to replace them as soon as possible anyway.
Materium is OP in terms of spells, sieges, defensive structures, skills for melee heroes, but I think the Anons saying it was boring must not have blasted people with lava burst or that tier 5 earthquake spell. Combining industrious bolstering and adaptive armor is insane as is the prospect trait for the scout which will make you mint money and items from turn 1 unbless it's an island map
>bar none with the Golden Golem (which also happens to be the only good polearm unit in the game)
Too bad that golden golem looks like complete ass
And yes, i do choose my units according to their aesthetic look instead of stats.
One of the best features of Planetfall for me for eg was ability to make T1 and T2 units (best looking units) viable even in late game
>on top of Industrious arguably having the best cultural T3 in the game already
From what time?
Best cultural t3 always was high's on spiders.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>Best cultural t3 always was high's on spiders.
At launch it was the best, yes. Especially in singleplayer. But ranged units aren't nearly as dominant as they used to be and in PvP they're borderline nonviable now. It's simply too easy to counter most battlemage and archer units. The only thing that keeps them from being complete shit is that the AI is too dumb to counter them.
So-so, nothing major has been done successfully because you're stuck using a frickawful editor, if you channeled your autism you could probably figure out shit.
>everyone thinks empires and ashes will have materium/order totally-not-AoW3-dreadnought culture >they actually went materium/chaos
Gigabased, I was hoping for a culture like this
I always end up neutral because I was a good boy who dindu nuffin until an AI forward settled me in a spot that ruins one or more of my cities so I torched them.
Yeah that shit is obnoxious. It's not as bad as it used to be where they'd deliberately forward settle you every fricking time just because they could, but it still happens a lot. Oh well, another reason to expand quickly and aggressively. Sounds like the new culture should fit into that playstyle quite well.
>Hight tech >always in war with something or someone that disagrees with them >uses intimidation and massive military force >not there to make friends but to conqure and rule
Looks like the Mid-West Brotherhood of steel is here
I hate how every monster camp levels with time.It's the only thing that keeps me from starting new sessions.It's like trying to play a fricking roguelike
>Here's the new Ancient Wonder
I think the new DLC looks great (mechanically and artistically) and I appreciate the little things they're doing along with each patch, such as the spell book UI and getting rid of the square backgrounds for skills in the unit menu. But it's a little sad to see so little new Wonders and events. I don't hate them as much as everyone else in this thread does but it's something that needs constant expansion and updating to always keep it fresh.
Here's hoping we see also see them go back and add some new stuff to already released DLCs whenever they get new ideas
There’s been one DLC and two named patches I think Wyvern and Watcher which redid the magic victory, made the underground viable, improved turn times for ai esp late game, and apparently made the ai a bit better. I’d wait until the next DLC to play again though as it’s also coming with a big patch that won’t require the DLC that adds item forge and finally makes war coordination possible with free cities and Allies
Is tier 1 tome stacking still decent or was that nerfed too hard? I want to make an elementalist character and shit out elementals like in 3 where I had a sorcerer character that could stack summon rank ups and cast the chaos magic adept spell for a random lesser elemental which instantly evolved
There are some good T1 tomes but in general you don't want to delay getting higher-tier ones any more than you have to. Getting an extra T1 tome used to be not that big a deal because they were relatively fast to research, but with the scaling research cost every "unnecessary" tome you take delays everything else you do too much.
The good news is that elemental spam is a very strong early game strategy, since T1 elementals can evolve and become viable midgame units. I think ice elementals are generally considered the best ones, but they're all good. You just don't want to spam more than 1 or 2 types of elementals so you don't slow down your overall research. Research is easily the most important resource in the game and the ability to get T4 units before your enemies do is a massive advantage, so anything that delays you from getting there is suboptimal (especially if you play PvP).
What’s cool was in the latest stream they said the new tomes in Empire and Ashes aren’t optimal to take with each other unlike Dragon Dawn. So I think shits going to be way more diverse with builds
>kill 3 enemies >everyone shits and pisses themselves >suddenly become tankier than bolstered bulwark bastions because enemy keeps fumbling >kill a few more >battle won
What an exquisite meme, I love it
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1669000/view/3732980645405010824
news
I just realized that every single new tome is a materium/x hybrid. I hope they're gonna do something to address the fact that empire development heavily favors materium, shadow, and astral a lot (hopefully by making the other branches stronger)
AoW4 does have the Nymph and Skald, but only the former has any kind of seduction ability, the other just hypes up your own troops (and is brazenly over powered).
New upcoming DLC reaver culture has an overseer that can dominate ensnared units…and you can keep them after battle for a cost…think in the discord they said nymphs will be able to do that too
yeah, they have said they have updated all mind-control effects to let you spend mana/the new warspoil resource to keep any 'captured' units if they are alive and you win a battle. It seems fun, and gives certain units/affinity armies actual niches. Looking forward to something like an Order slaver empire, spamming their mind-control units to mass enslave enemy forces. Meta? Almost certainly not. Fun? Hopefully. The game needs more fun stuff like that.
Maybe they'll add rogue stuff/shadow magic in later as shadow/chaos crosspath tomes please Triumph I'm begging you I miss my keeper partisan rogue meme build that ran around vassalizing the whole map
Currently, no. But I remember reading something about the update that comes with the next DLC including the ability to set AI behaviour for your created empires. Don't know if that includes tome selection but I guess it might.
>Is it that much better than AoE4?
yes the book system is gay. For example, if you want to have some custom leader in aow4 that only casts ice and necromancy spells, you are fricked because they are only in Tier 2 books or some shit and all those spells fall off in the late game, but in aow3, you have necromancer and ice spells that go all the way from Tier 1 to Tier 4
What are you talking about? Ice tomes go up to T3 with the Tome of the Cold Dark and include one of the best spells in the game (Flash Freeze) which stays relevant for the whole game as well as Marching Winter which is one of the best terraforming spells, while Necromancy spells go all the way to T5 with the Tome of the Eternal Lord.
Dunno, Age of Wonders 1 was my childhood favorite, but I guess because it had a cool campaign, art, music and also focus on racial units.
Feels like series moved away from that over time. Does AoW4 even have a proper campaign?
>Does AoW4 even have a proper campaign?
It does, but it's only 5 maps and they're in part procedurally generated, so it doesn't amount to much. It also ends on a shitty cliffhanger.
AoW1 remaster with AI generated hero portraits would be rad. The only thing I'd miss is the city building, demesne and diplomacy quests systems from 3 and (unironically) shrines from 2.
Just imagine an actual
An actual proper remaster. Kind of Like AoE2.
Mechanics stay the same, but more portraits, city/hero names and graphical settings are included. Adding more sounds would also be an idea, but it's hard to do that without ruining the SOUL. You could even allow random map generation and changing factions on scenarios. Shit would be cash.
>AoW 3 somehow feels better in terms of building and cities even though it shouldn't be.
4 feels like it should be so good. But something went really wrong.
4 was either rushed, or designed by idiots. It's full of ideas that sound good or at least ok on the surface but the execution is awful. >You can fully customize your race but it doesn't matter at all because race is meaningless >your real "races" are cultures and there's only six of them, all of which are extremely basic in what they give you and half of them suck >everything about the tome system, especially at launch. Bonus points for turning your carefully customized race of Cat people into a chimeric horror of 25 different overlapping spell buffs and their clashing visual effects. >AI completely broken and useless, allies do nothing, town building is more complex with all the tile placement but also tedious and unrewarding, the siege system is mostly just a turn wasting simulator etc etc
They are very slowly making progress in salvaging the game but with how badly they missed the mark on release I expect it will be a long time before the game is considered "good" if ever.
>Bonus points for turning your carefully customized race of Cat people into a chimeric horror of 25 different overlapping spell buffs and their clashing visual effects.
kek
that was my favorite part, i enjoyed doing that so much
>tomes
would be a good system if there were, at least, 50% more than there are
as is, diversity seriously dwindles later on so you don't really have any better choice than your biggest affinity later on, where you have two options both of which you will take
This, devs are so far up their own incompetent asses that they cannot bring this game up the graphical standards and stability 3 was at, and I'm assuming that was what, 12 fricking years ago?
Fricking have a nice day jordie you moronic newhomosexual, you, avoxel, and all the other dipshits stand on the shoulders of devs far greater than any of you. They left when the paraisraelite sunk its claws in, you're the corporate b***hmade filler.
True. it was one of the AoW I hated the most. Then it became actually pretty fun thanks to mods. Still, if 1 and 2 had the modding power of 3 I'd play that instead.
Is it good yet? I'm hoping it will go the AoW3 route and get pretty good over the years, but modding seems pretty dead in this one, especially after launch
The DLC is out. I'm trying to get it via creamAPI, but I can't find a source for the actual DLC files. I know it's already cracked, but the only sources I found were for the complete game, which I don't need as I have bought it.
> having fun in any of these games > suddenly need to fight a 18x18 units fight > instantly loses desire to play
Why sieges are so fricking depressive?
>Play AoW3. >Enjoy building a city with heroes exploring more than actually playing the game >Enjoy playing interesting battles until tier IV units frick everything up and easily kill everyone.
What are mods that fix this and enhance the building experience?:
>Enjoy building a city with heroes exploring more than actually playing the game
Had this problem since AoW2, got worse with 3 and 4 with how beautiful the maps look. Realized what i want is a game that doesn't exist and forcing this kind of gameplay on these games always results in frustration. I doubt there are mods that can scratch that itch.
Theres a mod that enhance heroes... ill try to find later.
>Enjoy building a city with heroes exploring more than actually playing the game
Had this problem since AoW2, got worse with 3 and 4 with how beautiful the maps look. Realized what i want is a game that doesn't exist and forcing this kind of gameplay on these games always results in frustration. I doubt there are mods that can scratch that itch.
Yeah its like warcraft3, it was really fun doing the campaigns while having hero units that progressed through it.
Wc3 arcades might have good heroes maps? We have some on sc2 too. Its f2p now so you guys might take a look there.
It's been a while what was the general opinion regarding the balance between the 3 ruler types? I haven't touched champions before and the new culture does seem to incentivize it so that you can start with a pistol/sword or heavy magelock. Also kinda surprised the magelock disables mounts but 50% armor pierce does sound pretty good. On an unrelated note I can never figure out what mounts would look good for the lizard people
I mostly use Champions. Frick wizards and frick dragons. And you're right about the lizards, they would only look good riding bigger lizards or dinosaurs.
I think the balance between ruler types is reasonably balanced, but for minmaxing Wizard is almost always best, especially since summon-based builds are so meta. Champions are great if you're going for a more diplomatic approach and/or a build that doesn't rely on summons as much. Dragons are really strong in combat, but it's not really worth trading the bonuses of the other two types for just one superunit that doesn't even benefit from transformations. They're balanced well enough that the difference isn't important in singleplayer, but if you're doing PvP Wizard is going to be best for like 90% of builds.
I can't stop playing as goblins. The big plus from the story missions for me is that it lets me play through the story as goblins. Just needs more of them with more intertwining choices and consequences.
Haven't gotten to play much of the new DLC but the new culture does at least shake things up a bit more than dragon lords. Much more emphasis on aggression and fighting free cities over diplomacy with also a very clear identity in the tactical battles. I think the dragon lord's stronger early game makes it my personal preference of ruler for this culture, WK is as per usual strong and the new forge mechanic can get you a gun if you really want it, Champion I'm still not sure about. The extra free city allegiance helps I guess if you want to intimidate them into vassalage but I'm also not sure if that's a good idea since they're also your early game war spoils funders.
Witch King Champion slowly summoning all of the nazgul as heroes was pretty fun. For all the shit "le you can play as le Sauron" gets, it's actually true. More so with the extra traits that make orcs weak, small and good at swarming. Races play a much greater role now. You can create the Scourge, Mordor, Angmar and Vampire Counts for the most part now. We need more AoW3 aesthetics tho.
It's a bit like Mugen but with a 4x game. Shame you can't customize unit and city looks.
>You can create the Scourge, Mordor, Angmar and Vampire Counts for the most part now
Still no Isengard/Uruk Hais for me since Industrious culture looks goofy
Just do dark culture with custom barbarian black orcs, a literal wizard king with materium-shadow affinities avoiding undead. If you want more industry thing go for the newest tomes. I wish we had more corruption or terraformation like on BftME1 and 2 where you could taint the lands or turn trees into resources.
If I buy AoW4 on sale in Steam, can I obtain the DLCs somewhere else and use them with the Steam version like with Stellaris?
I wanna use Workshop mods, but that shit is paywalled.
IMO it's great, it just needs more content so it stays great in the long run. Currently it doesn't take very long to figure out which builds work and which don't, and after that singleplayer just isn't as much fun unless you're really into roleplaying your empires, but there's not really much room for roleplaying within the game so even that's limited. And of course, in multiplayer a meta has quickly developed where everyone just picks the best stuff and only a small handful of builds are actually competitively viable. And since most builds don't have any significant impact on the general flow of the game, it feels like there's less replayability than the amount of options would suggest (though arguably this has always been a weak point of the AoW games). It's a good game, it just needs more content and more variety to keep from getting stale.
I don't hate it as much as everyone else in this thread so I'll give you a second opinion.
The tactical battles are pretty fun, good amount of unit variety that's only going to grow with more expansions and since it's my first AoW game I enjoyed learning how to make the absolute most out of every unit role in combat encounters. Each of the 6 research archetypes you can go down each have their own gimmicks which can entertain you for a few playthroughs. I will agree that there is sort of an issue of roleplaying where it was gassed up to let you do all these cool story related things but at the end of the day it's just your army with whatever race you chose doing whatever set of buffs/debuffs you picked from each tome.
Yeah the emergent story telling shit they tried to include ended up being so basic. Luckily the game is good enough that you end up with your own emergent story telling that you create rather than the written events which I just skip now.
I mean it's the Materium expansion. Dunno what you expected. Primal fury will be Nature and Eldritch Realms will be Astral/Shadow. Order/Chaos will probably get shafted or just be slipped in here and there. Primal fury for example will probably have some chaos.
>Order/Chaos will probably get shafted
They could be in the 2nd season
If i recall triumph said aow4 sold very well and because of that they will support it far longer than they anticipated
Maybe we will get empire mode with anomalies and even world events or even events between you and other ai lords ?
>They could be in the 2nd season
Frick, I hope so. I was just expecting the 4 DLCs and then on to the next game. I really like the game, but there's so much potential for more if it gets a few years of solid support and content.
Eh, the only thing I really wish AoW would take from Conquest of Eo is the way units level up. Yeah CoE does some things better than AoW but they're not really things you'd want to copy, like how it has better map design and better narrative elements, but that's because it only has one map to play and one story to tell.
There is a lot more that AoW could take from Conquest of Eo
For starters CoE map and tactical battles look so much better, you can actually distinguish units at a glance and see everything clearly, AoW4 is a blurry mess
your need for glasses aside, I assume it would be much easier to mentally distinguish only a couple dozen units of CoE compared to the 100 or so AoW4 has before racial variants and transformations
Compare the screenshots ive taken from steam pages (i assume that both of them were taken at max graphical settings)
AoW is unreadable, i marked the blurry stuff that is hard to distinguish.
Meanwhile in CoE everything is clearly visible and readable
Another one, i dont know if its fault of graphic stylization or lack of fidelity or what but even AoW devs themselves inadvertently acknowledge that this is a problem because they stick huge symbols over units heads to help players distinguish what kind of unit they are actually looking at
7 months ago
Anonymous
you are right anon
battlefiedls are just full of all sorts of visual noise, readibility is quite low
Another one, i dont know if its fault of graphic stylization or lack of fidelity or what but even AoW devs themselves inadvertently acknowledge that this is a problem because they stick huge symbols over units heads to help players distinguish what kind of unit they are actually looking at
Just because you put question marks on something doesn't mean it's unreadable.
Another one, i dont know if its fault of graphic stylization or lack of fidelity or what but even AoW devs themselves inadvertently acknowledge that this is a problem because they stick huge symbols over units heads to help players distinguish what kind of unit they are actually looking at
anon, please get glasses, you apparently really need them
I'm not sure what the question marks are even supposed to indicate. If it's about the stacks of units, those are all significantly easier to read than in the CoE picture because of the banners. Even if you don't know what units it is at a glance (which would be useless anyway since you'll only see the first unit in a stack, same as CoE), you know instantly that there's a stack, who that stack belongs to, and how many units are in that stack, simply because they all carry a banner with that information. CoE has none of that information available and you're left to guess what any of those generic brown units are meant to be since only two of them carry a banner at all and not only are those banners significantly less visible, they also carry no information other than its color (which I assume indicates ownership).
Another one, i dont know if its fault of graphic stylization or lack of fidelity or what but even AoW devs themselves inadvertently acknowledge that this is a problem because they stick huge symbols over units heads to help players distinguish what kind of unit they are actually looking at
Again, not sure what your problem here is. Both pictures clearly show multiple units, the movement range of the selected unit, and what they're targeting. In both cases you'd require some knowledge of the game to identify the specific units, but again AoW shows more information in a way that's less ambiguous than CoE. At a glance you can tell which type each unit is even if you didn't know the units, and what your chance to hit each unit is.
It's okay if you like CoE better than AoW for whatever reason, but this is a complete bullshit argument that only shows you have a strong bias against AoW.
7 months ago
Anonymous
What you are saying is exactly my point, AoW devs need to rely on an ugly crutch that is HUGE icons over units, banners, and whatnot. Because their game is just not readable.
What happened to the minimalist UI?
7 months ago
Anonymous
My point how much information is delivered but how it is delivered, because the graphic itself is unreadable they need huge icons that stick out because everything else is blurry.
There is no sharpness in AoW4 graphic
In the AoW screenshots, I can immediately see where the units are and how many of them there are in each location. In the CoE screenshot, I have to pixel hunt for generic brown blobs against a brown-green background, and even if I see a unit I can't see any info about it at a glance. You can't complain about readability and then move the goalposts by saying that you don't want to see any information at all.
I mean, look at these two images, both taken from the background of your screenshots. In both cases, I don't know what I'm looking at, other than a guarded cave entrance in AoW's case and zome kind of zombie dude in CoE's case. But in the AoW screenshot, I can immediately see that it's a stack of 3 units which belong to the independent/monster faction. In the CoE screenshot, the actual army might be sharper, but I can't tell a single thing about it.
Is the AoW screenshot less crisp? Yes, obviously. I'm not denying that. It's an unfair comparison because you zoomed all the way in, in a way you'd pretty much never actually play the game. But more importantly, DESPITE being a blurry screenshot, it's still far more readable than the CoE example.
7 months ago
Anonymous
And if you compare that to something in the foreground, CoE's one advantage disappears entirely. Now the two figures are equally visible, but CoE is still just a generic brown mess against a brown-green background while AoW has clear shape and contrast in addition to still providing more readable information about the stack's content.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>In the AoW screenshots, I can immediately see where the units are and how many of them there are in each location
Get your eyes checked, in the screen i can easily tell that in CoE i can see some kind of a monster, ihe is standing in plains and he is clearly visible
Meanwhile in AoW4 part of image i cant see shit, its a group of marauders with 3 enemies but i cant see the model itself
And if you compare that to something in the foreground, CoE's one advantage disappears entirely. Now the two figures are equally visible, but CoE is still just a generic brown mess against a brown-green background while AoW has clear shape and contrast in addition to still providing more readable information about the stack's content.
Same story here
3 units of a faction and some kind of a dragon, but again i can bearly distinguish the dragon here. Meanwhile in CoE part of image i can see an Ent, i can see details on his model
7 months ago
Anonymous
You're disingenuous as frick and you know it.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>hurr durr CoE visible and aow4 is blurry mess >b-but aow4 devs draw banners with info! I-it's unfair!
You need not only glasses but appointment with psychiatrist as well.
Another one, i dont know if its fault of graphic stylization or lack of fidelity or what but even AoW devs themselves inadvertently acknowledge that this is a problem because they stick huge symbols over units heads to help players distinguish what kind of unit they are actually looking at
you're correct, CoE has clearer, more readable visual design
autists can't understand a difference of degrees, so if they can read both they will say they're both equally readable
7 months ago
Anonymous
How about you name an actual example of this, if you can? Or are you just trying to disguise you aimless griping about art style as an objective issue with readability?
Those screenshots show the exact opposite of what you claim. Despite being obviously cherrypicked (the AoW screenshots are more zoomed in than the CoE ones and thus show less of what's going on), the AoW screenshots still deliver more actual information in both comparisons.
7 months ago
Anonymous
My point how much information is delivered but how it is delivered, because the graphic itself is unreadable they need huge icons that stick out because everything else is blurry.
There is no sharpness in AoW4 graphic
>Compare the screenshots ive taken from steam pages
Why you didn't bring your own screenshot? My guess is that you didn't even play them both and come there for shitposting.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>Why not your own screenshots
Because it was faster to get screens from the net instead of booting up two games, but here you go homosexual.
My own screenshots now, with notes
https://files.catbox.moe/e55foh.png
>hurr durr CoE visible and aow4 is blurry mess >b-but aow4 devs draw banners with info! I-it's unfair!
You need not only glasses but appointment with psychiatrist as well.
Maybe its you who needs glasses, if sticking up giant icons over units is "good visual design for you" and is such a great way to convey information than maybe devs should skip the middleman and present everything in excel spreadsheets, it would be much easier to read then too!
7 months ago
Anonymous
You moronic as frick.
Tell me which type of mount here.
Also buy glasses already if you can't see BLUE mana node on DARK GREY lanscape.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>Tell me which type of mount here.
Very clearly some type of knight on a horse
Meanwhile right side? What the frick is that, a tiger? a horse? >if you can't see BLUE mana node on DARK GREY lanscape.
You can see it when its close , but when its in the distance? 0 visibility, 0 clarity
Literally nothing wrong with AoW 4 graphics, you must be blind or playing on a potato…well no probably just a moronic autistic shill for some other game
7 months ago
Anonymous
>shill for some other game
Not him, but you make it sound like you're in some kind of gang. A gang based on a video game, and you're calling out the other gang.
Funny as frick.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>go into thread about game A just to shit on it and advertise game B >get called out >"lol why are you acting like you're in a gang"
moron.
7 months ago
Anonymous
CoE was only bought up because
1) It came out in the same year as AoW and was created by a smaller studio
2) The genre is very similar and game plays from the same perspective
3) It looks much better
7 months ago
Anonymous
I enjoy AoW 4 didn’t play the other games in the series though but that dude is looking at pngs from the store page I play on the highest settings and I think it looks great especially the world map (I have a 4k monitor.) Not really a gang calling out a moron who is a moron
>Literally nothing wrong with AoW 4 graphics
looks like a fricking mobile game, that's what's wrong
Trolling or are you playing on a potato? Can’t b***h if your rig is shit the game looks great and is crisp but I have a high end pc and monitor. Poor gay
7 months ago
Anonymous
>Literally nothing wrong with AoW 4 graphics
looks like a fricking mobile game, that's what's wrong
7 months ago
Anonymous
>looks like a fricking mobile game
This post is the quickest current way to tell that someone has no idea what they are talking about.
your need for glasses aside, I assume it would be much easier to mentally distinguish only a couple dozen units of CoE compared to the 100 or so AoW4 has before racial variants and transformations
I think conquest of eo has a much better potential than this game but that one isn't getting any dlcs and so on.
Conquest of Elysium has the advantage of each unit being their own character. Funnily enough age of wonders could do something similar but there are really no mechanics for it, it's all "every unit of this race or type". You can't have one battalion be your champions or crippled or permanently diseased like in COE.
I really enjoy playing the story realms in this one, but they leave me deeply unsatisfied when I finish them. I wish there was more of them and more continuity between them. Let me play my own guys, I like that, but make it closer to previous campaign.
>Edward Portsmith:The Commonweath has fallen! >Edward Portsmith:Billions must die
i laughed
AI Eddy is even funnier he loaths my pure good reaver and he is the first to delcare war on me...guess manlet rage is real huh?
After playing around with the new content a little bit I'm starting to think I just don't actually enjoy reavers that much. >you're super reliant on plunder but it's actually really fricking hard to get unless you're razing settlements left and right and if you're doing that you're already winning >cannons also require plunder for some fricking reason >starting with a nearby enemy instead of an ally and no whispering stone is all well and good in theory but diplomacy generally works much much faster for expansion than attempting to steamroll everything with a faction that doesn't actually have that good of an early game >Magelocks are the thing holding the entire culture together, they are quite badass but the not being able to shoot if you have to take even a single step is really hard to work out when you don't have a numbers advantage. The support unit is also very good >Dragoons also seem kinda underwhelming, the long cooldown on the pistol attack means they don't actually work very well as skirmishers
Granted, I'm running probably suboptimal builds because I'm also fricking around with birds and the new tomes at the same time. I haven't tried the new higher level tomes yet but alchemy seems really underwhelming, and tome of golem crafting is nice for Bronze Golems but otherwise I dunno.
It's all about building momentum, you have a 200g siege project that gives you 2 magitek canons so you will roll over any free city in your immediate surrounding. You do want the fabled hunter society trait for the extra gunner and extra ressources early tho.
Didnt play much with alchemy tome but it seems okayish for Dark Culture since it triggers cull the weak
imo the best way to play reaver is NOT to play them as warmongers....pick chosen uniters or silver tongued and proceed with diplomacy as normal but use "war spoils" as extra cash and nothing else
indeed using war spoils as currency for buying items/treaties works fantastic and you having extra "gold" aka war spoils when you go to war is great >cannons also require plunder for some fricking reason
again i use that thing when i don't have gold >Dragoons also seem kinda underwhelming
they are strange to say the least imo they are meant to play as harrasers/defenders lure the enemy close to you since they can move after they shoot they can slip away to give our magelocks a better shoot at them
>imo the best way to play reaver is NOT to play them as warmongers....pick chosen uniters or silver tongued and proceed with diplomacy as normal but use "war spoils" as extra cash and nothing else
I've been thinking about going this route and yeah, I'm gonna try it. I don't mind going balls to the walls aggressive if I'm playing chaos barbarians or something, but after a bunch of restarts to get a feel for the early game I don't feel like it suits Reavers that well, especially if you're going Materium heavy like I am.
>Cant build barricades/obstacles >Mercenaries fall off past early-mid game so pike and shoot is suboptimal
We were so close to greatness, maybe mods will bring wonders of 17th century warfare to AoW4
>Research all ranged buffs >Tome of Scrying completely removes ranged penalties >Mid to late you have a constant army flow of Magelocks no matter what
Commit to the firing line or face the wall.
Also surpised how many people don't know that you can continue to research whatever tome tier you want without getting fricked by the research scaling they sharted out in the watcher update.
>without getting fricked by the research scaling
Without mods? How?
6 months ago
Anonymous
Stick to the same tome tiers, there are solid T1-T2 tomes that can be essential to minmax builds that can demolish T4 spamBlack folk.
6 months ago
Anonymous
Wait i thought it scalles with every tome researched, is it actually affected by tome tier?
Is the meta to research all T1 and T2 you want then got to T3, research all you want then T4 etc?
6 months ago
Anonymous
Didn't spike when was doing it, though they just patched again yesterday, so who knows now.
6 months ago
Anonymous
it should scale with every tome picked up, dunno what wizardry that other anon is on
6 months ago
Anonymous
He's probably thinking of how it worked before the patch that changed research speed when T1 spam was meta.
Here is my reaver build >tome of zeal
For some extra damage for all your units thanks to zeal and condem >tome of enchanment
Range for magelocks,sundering attack for your mercs and enchanting tools for buildings >tome of scrying
For guided projectiles and mental mark(AOE marks that lowet res) and watchers...those cute little buggers synergize extremly good with reavers,a watcher has a special attack inflicts mark on targets perfect for magelocks and the reaves culture enchantment gives watchers the ability to do extra damage to marked targets....did i mention that mental marks inflict marked and lowers resistance AOE?
Now your watchers do even more damage and those enemies that remain your magelock can finish them off
Magelocks are such a disappointment. 3 action points to fire is extremely limiting and ranged units still don't have a melee attack so no orc dreadnought line infantry
>finally having fun with AoW4 >constant crashes due to outdated mods but don't want to give up on them so as to not break my modded factions
how does one overcome this suffering
Tried a dragon ruler for the first time. Holy shit this is fun. I wish I could script events without the moronic mod maker that runs worse than the actual game.
Yeah the dragons are fun. The 2nd DLC story realm is about Champions and Wizards arguing with each other so I played a dragon and roleplayed as being an intermediary between lesser beings.
>daddy Meandor's approval
but of course
But it's kinda funny how he is fine/friendly with my human PC and him now being pretty much the big good guy in aow 4
How the fallen have risen...?
even in aow2 you had to intimidate her to work with you
6 months ago
Anonymous
Yeah like I said she's not actually good herself, but she does join up with the good guys.
6 months ago
Anonymous
what's funny is that Nimue ingame is 100% always with good alignment and her personiality actually does ensure she will always ally with an good PC but in the campaign she is evil
6 months ago
Anonymous
Lorewise, Nimue is extremely unreliable and sides with whoever she thinks will win. In AoW1 she was ruler of the lizardmen, but when the humans invaded she switched sides and drowned the lizards.
why do these morons hate fun so much?
oh you can't terraform you have to go out of your way and take some random gay tomes
oh you figured out one moderately powerful combination too bad we're going to nerf it into the ground
oh look we added a new expansion with a cool new unnecessary bullshit resource for you to collect and spend just like in 345 other games made by our illustrious publisher
oh you liked that cool unit designer we had in the previous game too bad we're fricking nuking it out of existence despite claiming that our primary goal it to expand customization options
is this what happens when they focus on hiring ~~*content creators*~~ instead of actual developers? do we only get virtual slop with raid shadow legends tier graphics?
>oh you liked that cool unit designer we had in the previous game too bad we're fricking nuking it out of existence despite claiming that our primary goal it to expand customization options
This hurts me the most, i loved decking out T1 units with high tier mods and make them go toe to toe with high tier enemies
Transformations just dont scratch the same itch and half of them look like ass
>oh you liked that cool unit designer we had in the previous game too bad we're fricking nuking it out of existence despite claiming that our primary goal it to expand customization options
This hurts me the most, i loved decking out T1 units with high tier mods and make them go toe to toe with high tier enemies
Transformations just dont scratch the same itch and half of them look like ass
I kind of hated mods. They were fun to play with, but it made fighting enemies a pain because you could never tell what a unit did just by looking at it.You could be up against 3 of the same unit and they all operate completely differently. I think visual transformations was their way of addressing that.
honestly reading this thread makes me think i'm better off sticking with aow3. I just wanted aow4 to be like aow but with more 4x features like better city building, diplo, and resource management. The class system was fun and races felt different and unique rather than just pointless skins. I wish there was a game like aow3 that leaned more on the 4x side
dlcs arent going to change the fact that races dont matter and have no identity, your opponents just feeling like someone hit the random button and said frick it. The stellaris issue.
You're correct about AOW4, it's a worthless game if you care more about playing something with OC established factions rather than customizable dress-up.
The thing is, AoW2 SM is better than AoW3.
>your opponents just feeling like someone hit the random button and said frick it
Sort of. I think most of the premade lords are generally pretty interesting and have really good themes. It's just that depending on the path they take, they'll all end up like demons, angels, undead, blue people, rock people or tree people. I find the system is fine for the player faction because I can roleplay my faction easy enough and use the non-visual transformation mod where I need to, but I can't stop the AI from doing stuff that doesn't fit their faction.
They do, they've already improved it a bunch based on feedback.
7 months ago
Anonymous
The race changes in the newest patch are really nice, I'll give them that. And I like how the new tomes, especially the crossover ones break up what used to be straight arrow research paths, but I don't like that they seem allergic to adding any new T5 tomes, so the six endgame books are still forever the same.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Yeah my hope is that in 3 years the game is wild from modded in tomes and races.
I for one hated AoW 3 Orcs just shitting on everything that's not absolute cheese like Undead Haflings. But yeah this "race building" both a blessing and a curse for reasons mentioned a hundred times already.
If you are ok with old games, start with 1 then play them in order. If you aren't, start with 3. If you prefer sci-fi, start with Planetfall. Or you could just start with AoW 4 and work your way back. It's a less curated experience than the previous games which had proper campaigns, but it's good and will give you the general idea. The series does a pretty good job of making each game different in some way to the last, so they are all worth playing.
What's bad about it? I can't put my finger on why. I bought it when it came out, played for about 40 minutes and got bored. I remembered I had it last week and played for about an hour but I feel zero drive to start it again. I've put about 100 hours into AoW3 and I'm honestly thinking of going back...
Lithyl is/was a wizard king
Champs and wizards are legit immortal when they are killed they return to the astral sea
So unless lithyl turned into a lost wizard she should be alive
I think the writers might have forgotten about that because Sundren is also aware of this but seems pretty certain that Lithyl is dead.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Pretty sure sundren just lied again she is a rogue and meandors niece after all
Wait so the game is fun now?
Yeah,and with each update they are adding in good stuff such as new events and item crafting and so on
A second season pass is all but confirmed
7 months ago
Anonymous
Possible yeah. They could bring her back in the 4th DLC as the human face for whatever the big threat they are hyping up is. Like Sundren banished her somewhere and they reach out to her and she makes a deal with them.
I been playing it this last week. It's fine now. I'm just getting boomer, so it's hard for me to figure out what's what, what are the best synergies to go for. Stuff like that.
The newest DLC added bunch of good stuff that I felt missing before.
It's just marketing, if it were actually honest competition there would be indie titles and considering how much they streched "strategy" genre by adding C:S2 which at it's current state is not even considerd simulation nor strategic, there should be at least few indies that can be placed inside this imagenary "sim/strategy" genre that they are talking here.
i'm having fun with it, the empires and ashes DLC, and the dragon DLC re-sparked my interest and after taking a time to sit down with the game i can say that its pretty kino.
HOW DO I DISJUNCT A SPELL IN AOW3? HOW
Its at 200 integrity, i disjunct, goes down to 100, when i can disjunct again its at 200 once again...
Can i cheat engine this shit or something at least?
and now you know why that shit was removed in 4
you'd be better off looking for a mod to do something about it since the ai can just put it back up the moment you disjunct it
I just hope they bring back building and make it better. Cities, watchtowers and forts were so much fun to build when you could control the hex in which they were built.
Also watchtowers were watchtowers, cities were cities and forts were forts and not a weird useless mix. And roads were actually useful. everything is so fricking bland when it comes to building even when it shouldn't be.
Pretty much the one thing that stops me from playing AoW3. It's so shit.
Play with human beings that don't have magically 3000000 cast points pet turn like cheating ai
Ok, i leveled cloak and dagger until i had 80 casting points. Ai still stupid, but now i can deal with them ONLY because the quest lets me raze all cities easily (the pirate b***h quest)
>aow3 you can dispell global buffs
not if you play against ai lol >in aow4 its lol lmao I have wall of text of buffs
if you actually played the game instead of being a whiny homosexual you would know that there are ways to disable unit enchants
I've just gone through and installed like 20 mods. We'll see how it goes. One of them makes units you get from your tomes have the same aesthetic as your culture which fixes a big problem of mine with the hidgepodge army aesthetics as the game goes on.
Modded AoW3 cuirassiers where amazing. >Run at a homie >Shoot him from behind >he turns around >use swift move >still charge the guy from behind
11/10 unit always fun to use. A shame tier 4 units are utter bullshit.
>play chivalrous intentions mod >pick elf dreadnought >one of the new units is a sword and pistol foot unit >the pistol is a free action with a cooldown >dreadnoughts give 1 action cost pistols to all cavalry >elves have phasing unicorn mounts
If there was any kind of tough enemy they'd make at least 2 full 360 degree rotations per round
Wow its the samegay from before, maybe go back to your mobile games moron? This game looks great on high settings but probably a malaysian or some other poor gay who can't run anything from 2015 and beyond so has to relate things to shitty mobile games
Haven't played CoE, but I heard it have the best necromancy system.
Planetfall was boring for me, just go snipers+ artilery and AI cant do anything
4 is still changing, while 3 is already finished, so depends what you prefer
>but I heard it have the best necromancy system
I mean you press a button to summon undead in an area that people have died in. Even total war warhammer does that.
>I mean you press a button to summon undead in an area that people have died in. Even total war warhammer does that.
What? You need to gather materials to summon specific types of undead, and there is a ton of them, also depending on materials used they get specific traits like causing bleed, leeching health etc
Conquest of IO, AoW 4, AoW 3 or Planetfall?
CoE is fun but its not really a true 4x game, map is not randomly generated and you only have one "city" (tower that can fly around)
But there are quests and stories to uncover, very fun experience
If you like sci-fi id say try out Planetfall too, the mod mechanic alone makes it worth trying out since its pretty unique and you can make some interesting combos (like t1 infantry that has long range and stuns/shocks enemies)
AoW4 seems kind of under baked as of now, wait for big mods or the Cthulu dlc next year i guess
Never played AoW3 so i cant recommend it
I see the quints and I must answer the call.
Forgemod is THE most complex mall to this date which embodies the extensive work of several modders. it adds new resources, more features, more races and overall MORE. And then the game plays that he should have been from day one. The modder said he would be taking a break until Christmas because of the constant updates.
6 months ago
Anonymous
For some reason i couldnt find it anywhere. Steam page for that mod is gone, all i could find was rips of Forge Master mod on sites ripping mods from steam
>CoE is fun but its not really a true 4x game, map is not randomly generated and you only have one "city" (tower that can fly around)
The only CoE that comes to mind is Conquest of Elysium, but you're describing another game?
Capturing units that stun, freeze or immobilize seems to be the go-to if want to focus on a man-catcher based build with the new culture. I was sort of forced into this position because there weren't any free cities around me I could trade spoils with After I blew up my neighbor nor could my upkeep maintain continuous cannon production.
Marking for maglocks should be a free action, cannons should not be 100% accurate but should also do more damage than they currently do. Dragoon's melee should mark.
Anyone have a fun Nature build that actually makes Nature at the forefront? I feel like Nature is always a supplement affinity, like you need a book for healing, or you want nymphs, or you don't want your city building to suck but you also don't want to go Materium this game.
animals/cavalry focus. tome of vigor works with itself well enough. gaia's chosen is a great transformation just for the shock resistance personally.
grabbing the forest terraform spell then that tier IV one that trades a forest for an animal army is an alright way to drown enemies in units.
tome of evolution can obviously help any animals you have that can use it.
Nature Reavers. Use the slavery mechanic to capture wild animals and make them fight for you. It's fun and thematic.
Out of the Nature tomes you'll want to start with either Beasts or Evolution, for midgame switch into whatever else you might want (also to pick up some affinity points for the empire tree, because pure Nature branch isn't that good), then lategame go full Nature with Vigor -> Nature's Wrath -> Paradise -> Goddess of Nature. Not only does this give some strong buffs for your animals, it'll also buff plants which includes your racial units thanks to Gaia's Chosen giving them the plant type.
Note that Dragons do not count as animals, so don't bother with those.
Thankfully the next DLC is the nature one, because it feels really badly necessary at this point. I like nature thematically but it's pretty meh to play most of the time. Doubly so since there's no actual nature themed culture in the base game.
tome of horde + tome of evolution, stack hero support skills, most relevantly battle seeker training and shepherd for super buff slithers, spiders, and piggies
I dunno if it's still OP, but chaos+nature was unreal at launch. Just getting insane growth, buffs to low tier units and spawning low tier units every time you get a new pop was nuts.
>it was the best game in history. Was that not true?
no
its not bad, just mediocre with some debatable design choices, still can be fun and enjoyable(this can vary based on your autism)
tbh I think my biggest gripe is still that the systems are about affinity instead of magic spheres. >tfw no death damage even though spirit damage is in >tfw no water sphere. ice is there but can't even summon tide spirits >in the same vein, wind magic is confined to a single tome
maybe it's just my nostalgia talking
>Late game is composed entirely of GIANT HUEG Tier IV units that take 90% of the screen space
Which moron had this idea? Why most of T IV units have the height of skyscraper anyway?
Yes it does, every silver or gold location i visit, and monster spawners too have at least 1 or 2 of those gigantic T IV fricks that cover 90% of the map
You might be playing the game wrong if you have armies that are full of tier 4 monsters. I don't think I've ever had an army like that by the time I win. It's usually of stuff that synergises well.
Yes it does, every silver or gold location i visit, and monster spawners too have at least 1 or 2 of those gigantic T IV fricks that cover 90% of the map
>1 or 2
So you're just being dramatic then. You've reduced it from "composed entirely" to "1 or 2".
>So you're just being dramatic then
Alright you got me, but my main issue with it still stands, why are TIV units as high as skyscrapers? It looks like ass visually
Transmuters and tyrant knights aren't. You're an idiot exaggerating everything. Lost Wizards are big, Dragons are big, Golden Golems are big, and the tier v monster that has engorge. The only one that might not seem to fit is Lost Wizards but damn what a stupid compliant
>Decide to have some fun with Reavers, recruit shitton of their ranged units >Pick tome of wind for +1 range enchantment >Level them up to get another one +1 range >Finally range 7 shots, i can pick off enemies at a distance, loved doing this in Planetfall >5% hitchance, what? >Check stats, -75% hit chance because of range
Frick you too game
would be nice if the was a cap on penalties. there's already a bunch of abilities and crap that screw with range, a penalty just for trying to shoot slightly further is a bit excessive
What do you mean? I took tome of winds for +1 range on ranged attacks, then leveled up my troops to max lvl for another +1 range of ranged attacks
They cant hit shit now at max range
How do i "not own the game"?
You made me load up my save and double check to prove you wrong you were right and i was wrong, i misremembered it because i was checking tome of winds beforehand, it was a tome of enchantment after all
You double Black person
Why did they have to make AoW4 so heavy on requirements
I mean, I played both AoW3 and Planetfall at release with just my cheap work laptop at the time, but AoW4 somehow shits itself on the Dell i5 I bought this year
I've got a 4090 and only have had maybe 10 crashes since launch and I have close to 700 hours logged. The only time it seemed to be a problem was before one of the updates, I think watcher. I have no idea why you need to lie about performance, Im not saying its perfect but its pretty good especially since they sped up ai turn times
Actually had a game recently where one of the AI barbarian rulers killed everyone on the map except for myself, and they probably would have killed me if I didn't rush for an alliance with them. Seems like the AI is actually improving somewhat.
>make an orc character >max height and max body size >pick the most normal-looking face >give him a human skin tone >have him lead a faction of humans
Finally a game that lets me play as myself.
Can you morons stop inserting your 40kiddie shit everywhere? >Its just like le krieg! >Its just like le speehs muhren! >Its just like le empire!
No its not, shut the frick up
That's cool and all but considering the fact that the races in AoW4 has been Paradoxed, there's not much to post about
Can you morons stop inserting your 40kiddie shit everywhere? >Its just like le krieg! >Its just like le speehs muhren! >Its just like le empire!
No its not, shut the frick up
Can you morons stop inserting your 40kiddie shit everywhere? >Its just like le krieg! >Its just like le speehs muhren! >Its just like le empire!
No its not, shut the frick up
I don't know of any cheat, but it's probably possible to just give yourself infinite points with Cheat Engine.
It used to be possible to create a tiny 2-player map and finish the game in 3 turns by quickly contacting your enemy, immediately declaring war, and then surrendering to them right away. This made your enemy win the game but sunce you're their vassal you also win and get the points. Don't know if they fixed that yet since it was kind of moronic, but it was a good way to grind unlocks.
they fixed it, now when there's only two players in a map they're automatically at war.
you still do the same thing to grind pantheon though, just make the AI easy, give yourself a bonus handicap, and rush their throne
I think I might be stupid bros.
Tried building an animal/evolve build with wyverns and shit but I've only just now unlocked young dragons at turn 60 and there's nothing to fight except the AI empires who stomp me with tactics and shit that i can't really comprehend beyond "flanking everyting all the time"
how the frick am i meant to evolve these idiots
I may be wrong but dragons aren't animals. you'll also start tanking your imperium income if you evolve too many. anyway to help evovle, you could take tome of revelry for the +exp spell, and of course trying to beat neutral fights without outnumbering them too bad helps get exp to units you want to level.
I can also give some general tips if you want.
Dragons are a trap option. They're strong, but they're also overpriced (especially adult dragons) and they can't benefit from most buffs because they're their own unique unit type that doesn't count as animals. Some of the animal buffs are quite strong so it sucks that dragons can't use them.
When I make an animal build I only rely on animals in the early and midgame. Spiders and Slithers are both good early game units that evolve into good midgame units so they're very nice. Lategame nature is more about plants, including racial units that count as plants thanks to nature transformation. Luckily a lot of the tomes that are good for animals are also good for plants so it transitions quite nicely.
The quick resolve can't handle young dragons and gets them killed far more often than they should. But one or two dragons in a stack are nice when you can synergize with their elemental breath attacks and for flanking around obstacles.
I made a fun build with frost tomes, dragons and alchemy, got lucky with a wizard's tower wonder, too, and then every siege I just go wizard's bombardment, dragon attack, fumigation and harass defenders. Then drop an ice sleet on top of the city at breach. Half the defenders are dead and the rest near dead from all the front loaded damage.
I haven't really kept up with how well AoW4 sold, but according to Steam it did really well this year. Not top-tier like BG3, AC6, etc. but still unexpectedly good for a relatively niche game.
I bought AoW4 in the winter sale and I'm enjoying it a lot so far.
A few people in the thread have talked about how mods elevate AoW3 above 4. I already own the 3 basegame, but it seems like most of the mods require the DLC. IS it worth it to pick that up for the mods and DLC additions?
alright i tried AoW3 and I can't understand anything that's happening
whenever I try to leave my city it gets captured by two zombies or a tiny party of halfling troops
i can't produce units fast enough to have a stack standing on the city with my ruler running around killing half his army whenever i clear a node
and heroes keep showing up, i had like four of them before i lost
can i get a link to some good guides?
you can google it, but here's some tips off the top of my head.
exploration is the name of the game, finding whatever offending monster spawner is making things that come steal your city is a way to stop them. you'll still want to leave a few defenders at your city, because some monster spawner halfway across the map is going to send guys to capture your city even if you clear the area.
getting better at battles so you aren't losing half your army, or recognizing when you aren't ready for the fight to begin with is another way to stay safe.
if I recall right, you get five heroes. if you had like four of them then you should have been able to defend your territory. a common trap is trying to have every city build every single building.
you need income to field your armies, including mana income so you can cast spells, and knowledge for research. cities with production nodes should obviously be used to make your armies, as well as any cities near where you're about to fight.
i get specializing cities, but having to pick between buildings that let me build better units and units themselves was a big problem for me because i'm fricking moronic
one other question i had was how many cities you're really supposed to have since resource nodes and/or dungeons seemed pretty common but my starting city only had like, a gold and mana nods and my city got stolen and i died as soon as a captured a random bandit camp
i guess starting as a necromancer was a bad idea though
necromancers are somewhat hard for beginners, their cities grow real slow and unless you're aggressive to utilize their kills=city growth mechanic it's tough.
unlike 4, 3 has a "no such thing as too many cities" thing. each city is another thing to defend, but they should give you more than enough gold, mana, and research to make up for it.
like you said, nodes are common, and are usually clumped in clusters that make it obvious where you could found new cities. planting cities where there's immediate benefit nodes, like gold and mana, is a little more useful than a production one.
generally, it's more useful to tech up as quick as possible so you aren't relying on low tier units.
as a necro, you have an empire buff that gives certain types of units lifesteal, do try to get it as soon as possible.
I'm doing an underground Industrious run now, and it got me thinking on what's the best time to attack with shield and polearm units and when's the best time to defend instead? The devs clearly intended for shield units to give other units boosted defense with their one hex range so it must have some good value in some situations, but often times the best defense is just outright murdering your opponents so I want to always be attacking
Clogging up choke points/preventing the enemies from entering forests seems to be the main reason to block instead of attacking. The difference in damage taken is fairly noticeable.
Or you put a shield unit behind your polearms and after you moved them all in position you guard with the shield and thus reduce damage from retaliations. Brass and iron golems are a really good combination for a relatively low cost and early access.
What's this game actually like? I played a lot of AoW when I was a kid and loved it, a bit of AoW 2 and didn't like it as much, and really didn't like AoW 3. The customisation options seem nice but feels like it might just be a half-hearted YouTuber bait gimmick for marketing than an actual interesting mechanic.
In terms of gameplay it's a lot like an improved AoW3, except with city building mechanics more like Planetfall. If you didn't enjoy 3 I don't think you'll like 4 either.
The high level of customization is a bit hit and miss IMO. On the one hand it's cool that you can do pretty much whatever you want, but since there are relatively few transformations it does mean that no matter what your original idea was it tends to fall into one of only a handful of basic archetypes in the long run. The game really needed to have like twice as much content for the customization to really shine.
Yeah, once they make it more like PF and Endless Legend, namely introduce unit mods. Idk wtf were they thinking by first giving players this amazing stuff in PF multiplying the variety of gameplay by infinity, and then completely avoiding it in AoW4.
Bone Horror, Nymph and Shadow are in the game though their design has changed and they're not race-specific anymore. Some of the others can be approximated with minor changes (e.g. there's no Mole Rider or Beetle Rider, but you can pick other mounts), or at least have different units with the same function (e.g Devastator Sphere instead of Goblin Bomber).
I'm surprised you didn't even mention the Incarnate, since that's one of the early AoW units that really has no direct modern equivalent.
no, between PF and this it's evident that they don't know what was good about AW3 and what was bad.
It's already good. You are just playing the wrong installment
How the frick do I git gud and stop becoming cat food? Unironically filtered so far by the first fricking mission. Best music I’ve heard in a strategy game at least.
Tome of Beasts -> Tome of Hordes -> Glades -> Amplication Tome. Build your armies as 1x hero, 1x Wildspeaker and 4x Glades. Once your Glades have splash damage you can auto battle most NPC doom stacks. Get teleporters and place them offensively.
This works for virtually every culture. If you want to meta game the optimal build is awakening+angelize as a wizard king to get 3x turns with the above. It'll probably get nerfed soon though, but yea if you're playing brutal basically turtle hard until you have doomstacks.
I’d say wrong cats but 4 is no slouch either so thank you anon, question was aimed first at The Wizard’s Throne.
Use cheap units to tie up expensive enemy units, every time an enemy retaliates they use up an action you see.
Remember: Swashbucklers are better than Crossbowmen and Infantry, and in the long run, you are better off having just them instead of anything else as human.
When facing cats, building Ballista (normally an excellent idea) is a death wish, since they have bazillion of fire damage dealt by everything and their cat, so tough luck.
Catapults are trash and a trap option.
Research should focus first and foremost on extra hammers as your top priority, then movement. Everything else is less important.
So naturally, build engineering structures. Cannons are a strict upgrade of Ballista, and well worth the hassle.
When in doubt, build housing.
And generally speaking, you want to get Pioneers as often and as many as feasible without tanking your economy. Build and/or straighten out the roads, then settle as close and as many as possible.
This is enough to get you through first few missions of the campaign, the rest you will learn on the go.
>t. Sseth dick-slurper that played neither
>Zoom zoom zoom! Zoom zoom, zoom zoom zoom zooom, zoom. Zoom zoom zoom
I swear, if you homosexuals even bothered to read the posts you are replying to, you wouldn't be the laughstock generation.
Die in a fire knobhead
I AoW1 was always the superior installment because it mixed MoM and Warlords. Moving towards pure MoM in AoW2 killed the series
Oh, and heroes are a diverse bunch, but rule of the thumb is: you want as many as you can afford, and as many dwarves, cats and goblins as you can handle as your heroes. Halflings are half decent and archons has some decent combinations. Everything else is meh. You want your heroes to be "might", rather than "magic", but that doesn't mean they shouldn't pick a spellcasting rank if their class can only access it. Ideally, your main army stack should consist of just 4-6 heroes that are at least lvl 10 and just powering through whatever, with damage and defense picked over memey abilities (unless it's stuff like climb walls)
Yeah, I forgot to mention the most obvious one and the most common rookie mistake:
Never send a single stack on the prowl. You want to have AT LEAST two full stacks of half-decent units when your plan is to do as much as fart in enemy direction. If you aren't doing a siege from two sides at once with preferably 3 stacks in total, forcing defenders to spread around to face you, you are doing the whole gameplay loop wrong. I know that AoW3 taught a frickload of people to just haul a single stack, but it doesn't work at all in 1 and especially 2
unit accuracy and spell accuracy
what a weird screenshot of AoW1
>Sseth makes a video about how cool and awesome AoW1 is
>Population of Black person homosexuals that never played, but still praise it doubles!
Nah it's pretty normal for AoW threads to have a handful that feel the need to post about how they feel that the first is either the best or only good game in the series. That's been around for a long time.
bro I literally just posted a screenshot of my game that's the last mission
I was too young to really play it seriously back in the day though, I mostly just dicked around in the editor since making my own maps was fun. The soundtrack is really nostalgic to me and I'm really disappointed with the AoW4 soundtrack, even 3 had some good tracks in it while 4 has nothing.
I never played the old ones but I love the sound design and music in this one
Same guy so no surprise there, name's mick djin dick or some shit, pretty good.
The music in 4 is several leagues worse than anything that came before it, I can't think of a single track that stuck with me. I still have tracks like life song, content workforce, clouds and feuds, love & death and march of the halflings in my playlist. Most of this shit was so good they remade it in 3 and that game had bangers of it's own as well.
Tell me shit like this doesn't hype you the frick up https://youtu.be/04Q7dTKQaPs?si=WCM_ha2NoQVf8_S3
We need more tracks like that. Give me one memorable track from 4, I'm willing to give whispers of the gods a pass since that's just another callback to clouds and feuds.
This is quite true, the soundtrack for the AoW series was one of the standout things about it, and AoW 4 really doesn't have any memorable tracks by comparison.
Yeah the mod to add the 1-3 OSTs in was an instant download
>people can only like something if some other homosexual on the internet says its good
frick off
>Game is forgotten for decades
>Suddenly starts being popular on /vst/ by December 2022
Gee, what a fricking coincidence...
>Being flooded by newbies is good, because it's good, ok?
For who?
>>Game is forgotten for decades
starts being popular on /vst/ by December 2022
no shit, its almost like a new game in the series was announced and released dumbass
How is life without reading comprehension? I reckon it must be pretty tough
what's it like being utterly moronic? Instead of making a reasonable assumption as to why something is talked about again you have to cry about muh internet celebrities
Nta, but you really have some serious problems with reading comprehension. Let me walk you through this
>Original anon points out how AoW1 was utterly forgotten and ignored
>(You) go on a tangent about AoW4 coming out
Remind us - how did release of AoW3 affected people reminiscent on AoW1? Or how did a game that wasn't even announced yet affected AoW1 perception, two months before being presented at all to the public?
So yeah, it is a shitty D-tier e-celeb bullshit
>Nta
and yet you are just as moronic complaining several months after the fact when again, a new game in the series was released and restored interest in all the games
frick off
>Not that anon
>Just so happens to have the exact same views and posting style
Every time.
>Original anon points out how AoW1 was utterly forgotten and ignored
Then original anon(you) was wrong. AoW1 has always been talked about on Ganker. I learnt about it from Ganker threads like a decade ago. The whole reason we got an AoW 3 is because it wasn't forgotten and ignored.
>a new game in the franchise being announced would cause people to think about the older games in the same franchise more frequently?
>IMPOSSIBLE!
You absolute moron.
New game in series comes out can bring attention to the previous ones in the series and vice versa you Black person homosexual. Holy shit you are moronic
>For who?
For you. Do you just want to talk to the same 10 people in these threads for the rest of your life?
>Would you rather talk in-depth game mechanics with people who spend years cracking them and finding new ways to use or abuse them
>Or do you want to have clueless zoomers flood from every direction, because some homosexual on youtube told them to check out the game your playing?
Mhh, yes, tough choices here
Or you know a new fricking entry came out and sold more than all the previous ones
Too bad you don't get to choose either, we are just going to shit on you for being a dumb homosexual
This is what happened to dwarf fortress, steam release killed the general on /vg/.
More like it brought in more people that quickly realized the game is just garbage that only got popular because of memes and left it to die again.
No, it brought in zoomers chasing another FOTM that drove all the oldgays away and quickly lost interest, moved on and left the general completely dead.
why would you buy it if you didn't like it in the first place? That shit is free man.
>muh "zoomers" ruined everything
then why was your general dead for years before the steam announcement?
I bought that game on steam and refunded it within 2 hrs, frick DF
Who is this suspiciously chaotic named man and why is his name popping up in various threads about various games on occasion?
Funny youtube man makes video on game and then people that like the game get mad because now more people know about the game. Usual secret club stuff.
Frick off e-celeb homosexual
>how cool and awesome AoW1 is
it is cool and awesome so what is the problem?
Are you fricking kidding me? That has nothing to do with Sseth. People praising AoW1 and holding it up as the best has been happening virtually as long as Ganker has existed.
>Ganker playing any AoW prior to 3
Cool story bro. Unless you dropped an R in the board. But even then, /vr/ always sneaked discussion on 2 into supposedly threads about 1, simply to circumnavigate the "1st Janurary 2000" rule.
Considering I learnt about the series on Ganker like 8 years ago, yeah.
You don't understand the Ganker of 2005 and 2006 because you weren't there.
Just because you are child doesn't mean everyone else on the internet is.
It's my childhood favorite game...
sorry anon, the internet exists so your childhood was a lie
literally only came into this thread to leave this style of post
behead all remakegays, kill all gays playing downgrade sequels
Honestly, I have no idea why they even made 4. 3 sold like shit and Triumph pretty much went bankrupt due to that, so I guess someone in PDX board has shit for brains, deciding to make sequel to a failed game bought from an outside studio (along with the studio)
what? age of wonders 3 sold more than 1 and 2 and age of wonders 4 will probably outsell 3
Pretty sure AoW4 has already outsold 3. PDX is really good at marketing.
Considering 3 sold like shit, it's hardly an achievement. I never understood why PDX picked this franchise, given how bad 3 sold. But then again, it made it cheaper to take over Triumph
its not there yet I dont think, it sold 250,000 when it released but AoW3 sold 500,000 lifetime. But theres no info about how much its sold currently
Worse than 1 and Shadow Magic.
Considering SM required baseline until later re-release, your point is invalid
Also
>1
Thanks, but if I wanted to play broken game, I would just boot MoM
wrong game buddy
the only thing I find is that the tactical maps are a little big and waste a lot of my time.
I love how this game looks so much.
You tend to cover distance fast enough that it doesn't matter unless you're hauling around siege equipment like a meta gay
Said the guy who posted the wrong game.
2 > SM > 1
And in MP, SM > anything else
What are the ships doing in land? Also, what map?
They're enchanted with air magic to fly and since they have a lot of movement points they let me bomb literally every building on the map without the AI being able to do anything about it.
It's the last map of the campaign on the undead side.
I've been playing this game for years and just now realize you can make ships fly? wtf.
there was little reason to ever use ships, so its okay not to know
It's a straight up hold over strategy from the OG Master of Magic... and the further you go from the absolute bullshittery, that you could create/utilize in MoM, the shittier your game will be, especially if you do it in the name of the most moronic sacred cow that was ever created -> (multiplayer) balance. These games (and genres) are built on pure unfiltered (nerd) power fantasy, so anything that restraints that at all, will end up cheapening the result, hence we now have AoW4: Late to the ESG Party Edition (With A Dose Of Swedish israelitery DLC)
This is an issue I have with pretty much every 4X; if it's Fantasy I'd rather be playing MoM, if it's space I'd rather be playing MoO.
Knights knights knights knights!
Shut the frick up you homosexual, no one gives a frick about your Gankertubers, I played this game as a kid with my closest friends, we backstabbed each other a lot
>The only correct answer in the entire thread
>Generates endless seething of contrarian homosexuals
This game and Nox have some very charming starting screens, combination of music, animations, colors is just right.
I like it now, have 500+hrs into it and am looking forward to the next DLC big time
>Turn 157
>Military Victory
Eugh...
It can go longer now on the big maps since they just released an update that fixes the glacial post 100 turn turn times. For real its as big of an improvement as when CA fixed Mortal Empires turn times a few years ago in TW: WH2
It's just the time investment for even a 6 man ffa, in 3 and PF I can nail it at about turn 50, shit just takes longer in 4 for no reason.
>shit just takes longer in 4 for no reason.
>Make giant fricking maps
>everything moves like three inches a turn in good terrain
also
>resource guardians scale up with turn count so if you don't get to that mine quickly enough it'll be guarded by a full stack of T4/T5 units for no fricking reason
>Siege a settlement, wait 5-10 turns before you're even allowed to attack
Teleporters are the only thing that makes army movement even slightly acceptable and even that takes way too fricking long to set up. It's good that they nerfed research speed but it doesn't solve everything else in the game also taking a billion turns to do
That new better roads general skill they added a few patches ago helps
>have 500+hrs into it
You seriously need to find a different hobby. That's way too much for any game no matter how good it is.
lol 500 hrs is nothing in a strategy game or really any hobby. Maybe try sticking to something like a diet and lifting you fat frick
I have 1000 hours in EU4 and that's not even that much, I know people who have way more.
>inb4 my condolences
>judging people on Ganker
kys
For me? It's planetfall
It's already good, but it will get better.
I saw the Stellaris-like race generation, vomited and uninstalled.
>le wacky molepeople xDD
>bro just make your own race and invent your own backstory xDDD
>bro just make your own race and invent your own backstory xDDD
Faction creation is fun though. Must suck to have no imagination.
Even though I personally like AoW4, it's probably not strictly "good" yet, but the recent DLC and patch was a big step in the right direction. Another couple releases like that and I think we'll be golden. I'm glad I bought the perma-DLC pass at launch.
Ah, the classic civ problem of "it's not as good as the last one because the last one has years of DLC up on this one"?
Though civ6 killed that by being genuinely bad with our without DLC but I digress.
It's fun when factions have flavor. When your faction is "generic fantasy race model + unrelated bonuses" it becomes boring.
AoW3 took a step in the wrong direction by removing racial alignment and letting people have mixed orc/elf/halfling armies with 0 penalty and making undead not evil by default (but undead archons are somehow still evil).
AoW4 then went full moron and made the entire game completely soulless. It's basically throwing out all the series backstory and lore to make a fantasy stellaris clone, idk. Oh well, it was the way the series is headed, can't have inherently evil orcs now without a myriad articles calling your game problematic, I guess.
I feel the same, even Planetfall had heavy loredumps on units.
I also do not know what went first.
Some wokie decided that races are all the same, even in fantasy.
Or someone read that shit in D&D and decided it will be a perfect pretext to skip race setting creation.
Neither. Paradox decided to implement the Stellaris method to save time and money.
This. Even the art/UI reminds me more of stellaris than of AoW now. It's a shame, I like some of the mecanics they added, but the graphics make the game feel soulless.
>even Planetfall had heavy loredumps on units.
ah yes, short descriptions of what thing can do in combat, such wonderful lore
>bro just make your own race and invent your own backstory xDDD
The best part of the game by far, you WANT brown gay immigrants and fat women to make your races and lore for games??!?!?!?!!!!!?
Paradox owns the company that makes this and this game is far more in the mold of their games than it is previous AoW games.
yes it shit
plus all these transformations that turn your race into visual horror
I miss one man dragon doomstacks
It's fine, it might be good once it releases out of Paradox Access in seven years.
The problem is that Dominions exists and does everything this does but better.
The previous installments had decent campaigns, but 4's single player is a joke.
Is there still an overarching plotline?
Yes, but there are only 5 story missions so far
Kind of. There is a meta plot that spans a whole five missions, but you can (and are expected to, using the same faction for each would be nonsensical) make a different ruler and race for each mission so there's nothing tying them together form the player's perspective.
I enjoyed experimenting with the custom army builder and choosing magic ingame and having a freakshow race build over the course of it....
But as with all 4X games the AI is just awful and it stops being fun stomping them after a couple of matches. I don't have any friends that play strategy nor would I know how I'd keep a group of people to playing these 20 hour games so I'm gonna call my lack of friends a design flaw on the game's behalf 0/10
I'm awful, how does one stomp the AI?
What are you having trouble with? Battle or campaign specifically?
Just tactical, did good in 3, so-so in PF, but 4 is just kicking my ass.
Do I just spam warbreeds like an butthole or? I feel like every OG strategy like attrition, defensive, bullrush, just punishes me.
I’d say you probably just need to be familiar with the various buffs and debuffs more. It took me a while to figure out the combat but I can give you tips. If you’re having trouble with the ai doing the steadfast thing and not dying, mystic culture has a leave 3 unit with an aoe purge that will remove it from all enemies in the blast radius. If you’re having trouble against golems theyre weak to spirit and electricity damage. In terms of hero skills you generally want one escape either blink or demon step and you can get more with items. Trade freidndly npcs for items it’ll buff your leader and heroes. Sell unwanted items too for gold. Combo materium and astral I think they’re pretty easy to combine and super strong, materium is omega strong once you research enough and combining lava burst and amplification is insane
It needs a more normal campaign. With the whole realms and wizard kings crazy going on in this it's absolutely bizarre there isn't an overarching story tailor-made for this.
Where the frick is the gunpowder DLC
Wasnt there supposed to be some announcement today?
Empires & Ashes is scheduled for Q4, so next month at the earliest.
I've always been a fan of the AoW franchise, even AoW4 is still fun despite its flaws, but the more I learn about the devs the more I'm convinced they're a bunch of morons who don't get the appeal of their own games. If you listen to something like they have some really odd ideas about their own games.
>the primary inspiration for AoW4 was Stellaris, they wanted AoW4 to be a "story generator" like Stellaris or Crusader Kings
>the lore and factions in Planetfall were boring and they were very expensive to develop, so they didn't want to do that again
>Planetfall was too complex for most players, so they wanted to make AoW4 a lot more simple early on, so they can ramp up the complexity later on
>they didn't want your chosen race to have a permanent impact on the game (which is why they call it "form" instead of "race")
>they don't want AoW4 to be what they call a "turn-based RTS" where everything is about combat
>they wanted to add a Civ-like technology tree, but they believe that technological progress doesn't belong in fantasy because the world needs to be stuck in the medieval era, so they came up with the transformation system instead
>"In Civ you research, you go forward. Fantasy games can't do that. [...] You've got these stone cities and you've got a bunch of guys wearing armor and using swords, and when you go forward 5000 years: Same guys, same armor, same swords. It's very important to how the genre works." (t. Tom Bird, lead game designer)
>when the first AoW was being made there was a "total need" to have multiplayer, as a result all AoW games are designed to be full multiplayer games before they add anything else
>AoW4 specifically is meant to be played as a co-op empire building game, not a PvP game because it puts too much pressure on the players
So, in summation, they completely misunderstood why people enjoy the series to begin with and created this soulless and lackluster monstrosity. I still can't believe this game doesn't even have a campaign mode, when the campaign and the lore were what drew everyone into AoW to begin with.
Not just that, but they outright failed at some of the goals they set for themselves.
>they want a story game, but didn't include interesting, meaningful story events
>they want a game with less of a focus on combat and more on empire building, but the empire building is as weak as it's ever been (arguably weaker in some aspects) and you spend 90% of the game in copmbat unless you just autoresolve anything
>Planetfall was too boring, but they made a game with far less variety in playstyles than PF had
>they want it to be a multiplayer-first game, but their netcode is shit
Paradox games succeed despite serious flaws because Paradox has a monopoly on their genre. Other devs see this and mistakenly think Paradox games succeed because of design choices that actually drag Paradox games down. It's like how breakable weapons have been in games forever even though players hate that mechanic because a lot of successful games happened to include it and were good enough otherwise that it didn't hurt their sales, so it just became received wisdom that it's a good design choice.
You know Paradox didn't develop this right? I'm not sure what the point you're trying to make is in relation to AoW 4 not achieving goals.
PDX is the publisher and the game's barebones state and modularity stinks of their DLC model.
They clearly adopted a lot of Paradox's practices after Paradox became their publisher.
Holy frick these people sound like drooling idiots
those are some very stupid statements, i guess AoW3 was just a fluke after all
>>AoW4 specifically is meant to be played as a co-op empire building game, not a PvP game because it puts too much pressure on the players
wtf are you talking about. The multiplayer barely even works
>we could have had an Anbennar-esque thing where magical civilisations have to cope with the proliferation of gunpowder, then an industrial revolution with the rediscovery of Dreadnought tech
REMEMBER WHAT THEY TOOK FROM YOU
holy shit
Seems like they want a fantasy grand strategy game
>Planetfall was too complex for most players, so they wanted to make AoW4 a lot more simple early on, so they can ramp up the complexity later on
Ah, there's the issue. They touched the divine and then exposed themselves as absolute drooling imbecile morons.
I think it'll be rad as frick after a few DLCs, its a good base but needs more complexity and unit variety
>item forge is confirmed to be released with the new DLC
>not as part of the actual DLC, but as a free update released at the same time
Neat. It's a minor thing but I missed that feature from the older games.
I've realised that I only really like the story driven missions in these sorts of games. Even though the campaign in this was shit, I couldn't put it down. Now that I'm up to just free missions with no goal, I get bored as soon as another faction challenges me and I can't be bothered finishing the map. Same thing with Planetfall and AoW3. Although Planetfall's empire mode certainly gave me more reasons to finish maps. AoW 4 desperately needs a proper campaign DLC.Sadly I think they only plan on 1 mission per big DLC. But I hope they change their mind and add in a whole narrative campaign for each of them.
Not going to happen. They pretty much want this game to be the fantasy counterpart to Stellaris where everything is just a big sandbox.
The small dragon dlc had one campaign map im betting the Empires and Ashes big DLC that’s next and next years big Eldritch one will have at least 2 each but who knows
>The small dragon dlc had one campaign map
No it didn't. It had one scenario you can use for custom maps, which is not the same as a story-based campaign map.
Whoops my bad forgot it didn't fit the narrative stories
>The small dragon dlc had one campaign map
Nah, that wasn't a campaign map. It was just a scenario. You can set those up yourself when you customise your map. Things like ice queen, demon lord, etc.
After they add empire mode,anomalies,world events,muh guns'n'tanks,more armors and more performance optimization.
Why aren't there any special event with allied AI?
Depending on your choice you could increase their disposition on you or lower it,There are countless events with vasals but none with your allies
I still enjoy Planetfall more. Such a shame they went for standardised unit types again instead of weird faction shit like Shadow Magic. Shield guys or pike guys or archer guys all work the same no matter what race or tech they're from.
I've been playing 3. It's fun but I wish there were more units and armies were bigger.
There's some pretty big mods that add a ton of units to each race, and stacks next to each other can already fight together, castle sieges can end up being huge. I can't say anything about the quality of some of the big unit mods though, I've never tried them.
I don't think any updates will fix aow4 as it's flawed fundamentally
Yeah.
Any ETA on goldem update or empire and ashes?
It's been crickets from the devs ever since the last patch came out.
https://www.paradoxinteractive.com/games/age-of-wonders-4/add-ons/age-of-wonders-4-empires-and-ashes
2 new story missions, 4 new tomes, bird forms, tons of shit GOTY level after this one I bet
If nothing else it might finally offer a material culture/path that doesn't feel completely shit to play
What are you talking about? Industrious is already the best culture in the game.
NTA,but idustious is so fricking boring it's painful to play
This, i picked it as my first culture because i wanted to recreate that Uruk Hai feel with orcs+industrious
But it was very slow, full of low damage units that only could turtle
What part of them is boring? Sure their cultural units are more defensive than most, but it's not like you can't use tome units if you don't like that and it's not like their defensive theme comes at the cost of speed or anything. Meanwhile they've easily got the best economy in the game so they can support whatever strategy you like. Materium tree unlocks are pretty good across the board, and the Materium tomes are solid as well. Hell, Materium even has the best T5 unit bar none with the Golden Golem (which also happens to be the only good polearm unit in the game) on top of Industrious arguably having the best cultural T3 in the game already (epsecially if you take a mount trait). The only mid part about Industrious is their starting support and archer aren't great, but the only purpose of T1 and T2 units is to replace them as soon as possible anyway.
Materium is OP in terms of spells, sieges, defensive structures, skills for melee heroes, but I think the Anons saying it was boring must not have blasted people with lava burst or that tier 5 earthquake spell. Combining industrious bolstering and adaptive armor is insane as is the prospect trait for the scout which will make you mint money and items from turn 1 unbless it's an island map
>bar none with the Golden Golem (which also happens to be the only good polearm unit in the game)
Too bad that golden golem looks like complete ass
And yes, i do choose my units according to their aesthetic look instead of stats.
One of the best features of Planetfall for me for eg was ability to make T1 and T2 units (best looking units) viable even in late game
>on top of Industrious arguably having the best cultural T3 in the game already
From what time?
Best cultural t3 always was high's on spiders.
>Best cultural t3 always was high's on spiders.
At launch it was the best, yes. Especially in singleplayer. But ranged units aren't nearly as dominant as they used to be and in PvP they're borderline nonviable now. It's simply too easy to counter most battlemage and archer units. The only thing that keeps them from being complete shit is that the AI is too dumb to counter them.
Finally, i was waiting for this announcement, the DLC units dont even look that bad as i hoped
(looking at you magitech Master of Magic DLC)
Reaver culture looks fricking shmick
>bird people
>they wear closed helmets that wouldn't even fit their beaks
Every time with this shit.
IDS HABBEDING
how are the mods for this game?
So-so, nothing major has been done successfully because you're stuck using a frickawful editor, if you channeled your autism you could probably figure out shit.
>everyone thinks empires and ashes will have materium/order totally-not-AoW3-dreadnought culture
>they actually went materium/chaos
Gigabased, I was hoping for a culture like this
i'm still playing as full good and oder
I always end up neutral because I was a good boy who dindu nuffin until an AI forward settled me in a spot that ruins one or more of my cities so I torched them.
the opposite for me the AI rules love to fight each other but they are desperate to be my ally,i have to constantly refuse their proposals
They always want to be my friend but then they set an outpost up near my clay, a dire violation of the NAP
Yeah that shit is obnoxious. It's not as bad as it used to be where they'd deliberately forward settle you every fricking time just because they could, but it still happens a lot. Oh well, another reason to expand quickly and aggressively. Sounds like the new culture should fit into that playstyle quite well.
Kinda funny that bandits get to have the best technology of all factions, even the industrial one.
>Hight tech
>always in war with something or someone that disagrees with them
>uses intimidation and massive military force
>not there to make friends but to conqure and rule
Looks like the Mid-West Brotherhood of steel is here
test
I hate how every monster camp levels with time.It's the only thing that keeps me from starting new sessions.It's like trying to play a fricking roguelike
New preview stream today showed some cool stuff off:
https://www.youtube.com/live/-1bjqSq_Wwk?si=UzOeDLpx19AA80mB
>Here's the new Ancient Wonder
I think the new DLC looks great (mechanically and artistically) and I appreciate the little things they're doing along with each patch, such as the spell book UI and getting rid of the square backgrounds for skills in the unit menu. But it's a little sad to see so little new Wonders and events. I don't hate them as much as everyone else in this thread does but it's something that needs constant expansion and updating to always keep it fresh.
Here's hoping we see also see them go back and add some new stuff to already released DLCs whenever they get new ideas
have there been any updates to this game? I played for quite a bit on release, then got bored due to the lack of story and very repetitive mid-game.
There’s been one DLC and two named patches I think Wyvern and Watcher which redid the magic victory, made the underground viable, improved turn times for ai esp late game, and apparently made the ai a bit better. I’d wait until the next DLC to play again though as it’s also coming with a big patch that won’t require the DLC that adds item forge and finally makes war coordination possible with free cities and Allies
Is tier 1 tome stacking still decent or was that nerfed too hard? I want to make an elementalist character and shit out elementals like in 3 where I had a sorcerer character that could stack summon rank ups and cast the chaos magic adept spell for a random lesser elemental which instantly evolved
There are some good T1 tomes but in general you don't want to delay getting higher-tier ones any more than you have to. Getting an extra T1 tome used to be not that big a deal because they were relatively fast to research, but with the scaling research cost every "unnecessary" tome you take delays everything else you do too much.
The good news is that elemental spam is a very strong early game strategy, since T1 elementals can evolve and become viable midgame units. I think ice elementals are generally considered the best ones, but they're all good. You just don't want to spam more than 1 or 2 types of elementals so you don't slow down your overall research. Research is easily the most important resource in the game and the ability to get T4 units before your enemies do is a massive advantage, so anything that delays you from getting there is suboptimal (especially if you play PvP).
What’s cool was in the latest stream they said the new tomes in Empire and Ashes aren’t optimal to take with each other unlike Dragon Dawn. So I think shits going to be way more diverse with builds
>kill 3 enemies
>everyone shits and pisses themselves
>suddenly become tankier than bolstered bulwark bastions because enemy keeps fumbling
>kill a few more
>battle won
What an exquisite meme, I love it
Yeah morale memebuilds are great.
>Triumph Studios was ahead for the time
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1669000/view/3732980645405010824
news
I just realized that every single new tome is a materium/x hybrid. I hope they're gonna do something to address the fact that empire development heavily favors materium, shadow, and astral a lot (hopefully by making the other branches stronger)
>no succubus unit
Easiest way to tell game is shit even planetfall had the male/female frickdoll android unit
AoW4 does have the Nymph and Skald, but only the former has any kind of seduction ability, the other just hypes up your own troops (and is brazenly over powered).
New upcoming DLC reaver culture has an overseer that can dominate ensnared units…and you can keep them after battle for a cost…think in the discord they said nymphs will be able to do that too
yeah, they have said they have updated all mind-control effects to let you spend mana/the new warspoil resource to keep any 'captured' units if they are alive and you win a battle. It seems fun, and gives certain units/affinity armies actual niches. Looking forward to something like an Order slaver empire, spamming their mind-control units to mass enslave enemy forces. Meta? Almost certainly not. Fun? Hopefully. The game needs more fun stuff like that.
could be planned for Chaos DLC
the shadowrealm dlc sounds more like you know shadow? than chaos
but they could announce a season 2?
The way the game is structured plus the devs taking inspiration from Stellaris and being published by Paradox points to a long DLC cycle
damn shame planetfall didn't have a long DLC cycle i really loved that game
Maybe they'll add rogue stuff/shadow magic in later as shadow/chaos crosspath tomes please Triumph I'm begging you I miss my keeper partisan rogue meme build that ran around vassalizing the whole map
This is the only Paradox third party game that I know is quite worthy at this point, so, yeah...
Is there a way to force an AI empire to focus on certain books?
I want to fight against an enemy empire that uses only ice and necromancy spells.
Currently, no. But I remember reading something about the update that comes with the next DLC including the ability to set AI behaviour for your created empires. Don't know if that includes tome selection but I guess it might.
Fug. Guess I'll have to wait, then.
Is it that much better than AoE4? I remember playing it on release and finding it way too easy.
>Is it that much better than AoE4?
yes the book system is gay. For example, if you want to have some custom leader in aow4 that only casts ice and necromancy spells, you are fricked because they are only in Tier 2 books or some shit and all those spells fall off in the late game, but in aow3, you have necromancer and ice spells that go all the way from Tier 1 to Tier 4
What are you talking about? Ice tomes go up to T3 with the Tome of the Cold Dark and include one of the best spells in the game (Flash Freeze) which stays relevant for the whole game as well as Marching Winter which is one of the best terraforming spells, while Necromancy spells go all the way to T5 with the Tome of the Eternal Lord.
>ice magic can't go past tier 3
Thanks for proving my point
you might want to take your meds anon, there is even less "ice magic" in 3 than 4
https://age-of-wonders-3.fandom.com/wiki/Water
>doesn't mention the Arctic terrain shit in wind magic
Ummmmm maybe it's you who doesn't actually play the games???
please tell the class how you got 2 elemental masteries with only 3 points
Play aow3
Dunno, Age of Wonders 1 was my childhood favorite, but I guess because it had a cool campaign, art, music and also focus on racial units.
Feels like series moved away from that over time. Does AoW4 even have a proper campaign?
>Does AoW4 even have a proper campaign?
It does, but it's only 5 maps and they're in part procedurally generated, so it doesn't amount to much. It also ends on a shitty cliffhanger.
AoW1 remaster with AI generated hero portraits would be rad. The only thing I'd miss is the city building, demesne and diplomacy quests systems from 3 and (unironically) shrines from 2.
Just imagine an actual
>Just imagine an actual
An actual what?
I think Yaka got to him, anons...
An actual proper remaster. Kind of Like AoE2.
Mechanics stay the same, but more portraits, city/hero names and graphical settings are included. Adding more sounds would also be an idea, but it's hard to do that without ruining the SOUL. You could even allow random map generation and changing factions on scenarios. Shit would be cash.
>but it's hard to do that without ruining the SOUL
Indeed. There is something rather Tolkienesque (in a good way) about AoW1.
it's not the "classic" that 1 and 2 were but it's a solid game
i like it
>AoW 3 somehow feels better in terms of building and cities even though it shouldn't be.
4 feels like it should be so good. But something went really wrong.
4 was either rushed, or designed by idiots. It's full of ideas that sound good or at least ok on the surface but the execution is awful.
>You can fully customize your race but it doesn't matter at all because race is meaningless
>your real "races" are cultures and there's only six of them, all of which are extremely basic in what they give you and half of them suck
>everything about the tome system, especially at launch. Bonus points for turning your carefully customized race of Cat people into a chimeric horror of 25 different overlapping spell buffs and their clashing visual effects.
>AI completely broken and useless, allies do nothing, town building is more complex with all the tile placement but also tedious and unrewarding, the siege system is mostly just a turn wasting simulator etc etc
They are very slowly making progress in salvaging the game but with how badly they missed the mark on release I expect it will be a long time before the game is considered "good" if ever.
>Bonus points for turning your carefully customized race of Cat people into a chimeric horror of 25 different overlapping spell buffs and their clashing visual effects.
kek
that was my favorite part, i enjoyed doing that so much
It feels deep as a puddle despite all the things added. I'm hoping mods will eventually fix it but there aren't really that many coming out.
>tomes
would be a good system if there were, at least, 50% more than there are
as is, diversity seriously dwindles later on so you don't really have any better choice than your biggest affinity later on, where you have two options both of which you will take
silly anon, that's what DLCs are for!
it was over the moment they hooked up with parashit
This, devs are so far up their own incompetent asses that they cannot bring this game up the graphical standards and stability 3 was at, and I'm assuming that was what, 12 fricking years ago?
Fricking have a nice day jordie you moronic newhomosexual, you, avoxel, and all the other dipshits stand on the shoulders of devs far greater than any of you. They left when the paraisraelite sunk its claws in, you're the corporate b***hmade filler.
bro...aow 3 was far far FAR worse on launch than aow 4 or did you forget that?
it took aow 3 over 2 years+ to be "good"
True. it was one of the AoW I hated the most. Then it became actually pretty fun thanks to mods. Still, if 1 and 2 had the modding power of 3 I'd play that instead.
DLC soon.
Is it good yet? I'm hoping it will go the AoW3 route and get pretty good over the years, but modding seems pretty dead in this one, especially after launch
I like it from the very beginning, unlike AoW which I considered trash from beginning to end.
The DLC is out. I'm trying to get it via creamAPI, but I can't find a source for the actual DLC files. I know it's already cracked, but the only sources I found were for the complete game, which I don't need as I have bought it.
Sucks to be you pirategay.
> having fun in any of these games
> suddenly need to fight a 18x18 units fight
> instantly loses desire to play
Why sieges are so fricking depressive?
>AOW4:homie DID I JUST CATCH YOU HAVING FUN!?
>Play AoW3.
>Enjoy building a city with heroes exploring more than actually playing the game
>Enjoy playing interesting battles until tier IV units frick everything up and easily kill everyone.
What are mods that fix this and enhance the building experience?:
>Enjoy building a city with heroes exploring more than actually playing the game
Had this problem since AoW2, got worse with 3 and 4 with how beautiful the maps look. Realized what i want is a game that doesn't exist and forcing this kind of gameplay on these games always results in frustration. I doubt there are mods that can scratch that itch.
homm3
Theres a mod that enhance heroes... ill try to find later.
Yeah its like warcraft3, it was really fun doing the campaigns while having hero units that progressed through it.
Wc3 arcades might have good heroes maps? We have some on sc2 too. Its f2p now so you guys might take a look there.
For me those large battles were the most fun, you can get some fun combinations like 6 ranged/6 shield units for some pike and bow tactics.
The real problem and eyesore in this game are the huge icons/banners over units. They almost completely obscure everything
>mfw I see a stinkin thaggoraki
It's been a while what was the general opinion regarding the balance between the 3 ruler types? I haven't touched champions before and the new culture does seem to incentivize it so that you can start with a pistol/sword or heavy magelock. Also kinda surprised the magelock disables mounts but 50% armor pierce does sound pretty good. On an unrelated note I can never figure out what mounts would look good for the lizard people
Good to see that Edward is still based.
I mostly use Champions. Frick wizards and frick dragons. And you're right about the lizards, they would only look good riding bigger lizards or dinosaurs.
I think the balance between ruler types is reasonably balanced, but for minmaxing Wizard is almost always best, especially since summon-based builds are so meta. Champions are great if you're going for a more diplomatic approach and/or a build that doesn't rely on summons as much. Dragons are really strong in combat, but it's not really worth trading the bonuses of the other two types for just one superunit that doesn't even benefit from transformations. They're balanced well enough that the difference isn't important in singleplayer, but if you're doing PvP Wizard is going to be best for like 90% of builds.
Wizard is probably the best but I mostly play champions anyway
I can't stop playing as goblins. The big plus from the story missions for me is that it lets me play through the story as goblins. Just needs more of them with more intertwining choices and consequences.
Haven't gotten to play much of the new DLC but the new culture does at least shake things up a bit more than dragon lords. Much more emphasis on aggression and fighting free cities over diplomacy with also a very clear identity in the tactical battles. I think the dragon lord's stronger early game makes it my personal preference of ruler for this culture, WK is as per usual strong and the new forge mechanic can get you a gun if you really want it, Champion I'm still not sure about. The extra free city allegiance helps I guess if you want to intimidate them into vassalage but I'm also not sure if that's a good idea since they're also your early game war spoils funders.
just got through my first game and I gotta say I love those magelocks they're so fricking busted when used right I love it
Witch King Champion slowly summoning all of the nazgul as heroes was pretty fun. For all the shit "le you can play as le Sauron" gets, it's actually true. More so with the extra traits that make orcs weak, small and good at swarming. Races play a much greater role now. You can create the Scourge, Mordor, Angmar and Vampire Counts for the most part now. We need more AoW3 aesthetics tho.
It's a bit like Mugen but with a 4x game. Shame you can't customize unit and city looks.
>You can create the Scourge, Mordor, Angmar and Vampire Counts for the most part now
Still no Isengard/Uruk Hais for me since Industrious culture looks goofy
Just do dark culture with custom barbarian black orcs, a literal wizard king with materium-shadow affinities avoiding undead. If you want more industry thing go for the newest tomes. I wish we had more corruption or terraformation like on BftME1 and 2 where you could taint the lands or turn trees into resources.
sorry im late, aow1 is better
if i wanted infrastructure building beyond the builder guild id play MoM
If I buy AoW4 on sale in Steam, can I obtain the DLCs somewhere else and use them with the Steam version like with Stellaris?
I wanna use Workshop mods, but that shit is paywalled.
I did with AoW3. Bought the base game on steam and used the workshop mods with the gog version.
>There's new buildings you can build that change t he colour of your wizard tower
Finally. The wizard tower always being purple was annoying.
shillpill me on AoW 4 I've been wanting a new 4x game for a while now.
come back in two years and i will shill it for you.
Is it that bad?
IMO it's great, it just needs more content so it stays great in the long run. Currently it doesn't take very long to figure out which builds work and which don't, and after that singleplayer just isn't as much fun unless you're really into roleplaying your empires, but there's not really much room for roleplaying within the game so even that's limited. And of course, in multiplayer a meta has quickly developed where everyone just picks the best stuff and only a small handful of builds are actually competitively viable. And since most builds don't have any significant impact on the general flow of the game, it feels like there's less replayability than the amount of options would suggest (though arguably this has always been a weak point of the AoW games). It's a good game, it just needs more content and more variety to keep from getting stale.
I don't hate it as much as everyone else in this thread so I'll give you a second opinion.
The tactical battles are pretty fun, good amount of unit variety that's only going to grow with more expansions and since it's my first AoW game I enjoyed learning how to make the absolute most out of every unit role in combat encounters. Each of the 6 research archetypes you can go down each have their own gimmicks which can entertain you for a few playthroughs. I will agree that there is sort of an issue of roleplaying where it was gassed up to let you do all these cool story related things but at the end of the day it's just your army with whatever race you chose doing whatever set of buffs/debuffs you picked from each tome.
Yeah the emergent story telling shit they tried to include ended up being so basic. Luckily the game is good enough that you end up with your own emergent story telling that you create rather than the written events which I just skip now.
this new story mission is kicking my ass. goddam phoenix invasions from all sides
sure would be nice if shadow/astral/mystic got even half the love materium has gotten
I mean it's the Materium expansion. Dunno what you expected. Primal fury will be Nature and Eldritch Realms will be Astral/Shadow. Order/Chaos will probably get shafted or just be slipped in here and there. Primal fury for example will probably have some chaos.
>Order/Chaos will probably get shafted
They could be in the 2nd season
If i recall triumph said aow4 sold very well and because of that they will support it far longer than they anticipated
Maybe we will get empire mode with anomalies and even world events or even events between you and other ai lords ?
>They could be in the 2nd season
Frick, I hope so. I was just expecting the 4 DLCs and then on to the next game. I really like the game, but there's so much potential for more if it gets a few years of solid support and content.
I think conquest of eo has a much better potential than this game but that one isn't getting any dlcs and so on.
Eh, the only thing I really wish AoW would take from Conquest of Eo is the way units level up. Yeah CoE does some things better than AoW but they're not really things you'd want to copy, like how it has better map design and better narrative elements, but that's because it only has one map to play and one story to tell.
There is a lot more that AoW could take from Conquest of Eo
For starters CoE map and tactical battles look so much better, you can actually distinguish units at a glance and see everything clearly, AoW4 is a blurry mess
So you need glasses.
I have no problems with identify units or landscape.
Maybe it's low specs, but yeah, AoW1-3 units were more distinctive
Compare the screenshots ive taken from steam pages (i assume that both of them were taken at max graphical settings)
AoW is unreadable, i marked the blurry stuff that is hard to distinguish.
Meanwhile in CoE everything is clearly visible and readable
Another one, i dont know if its fault of graphic stylization or lack of fidelity or what but even AoW devs themselves inadvertently acknowledge that this is a problem because they stick huge symbols over units heads to help players distinguish what kind of unit they are actually looking at
you are right anon
battlefiedls are just full of all sorts of visual noise, readibility is quite low
Just because you put question marks on something doesn't mean it's unreadable.
anon, please get glasses, you apparently really need them
I'm not sure what the question marks are even supposed to indicate. If it's about the stacks of units, those are all significantly easier to read than in the CoE picture because of the banners. Even if you don't know what units it is at a glance (which would be useless anyway since you'll only see the first unit in a stack, same as CoE), you know instantly that there's a stack, who that stack belongs to, and how many units are in that stack, simply because they all carry a banner with that information. CoE has none of that information available and you're left to guess what any of those generic brown units are meant to be since only two of them carry a banner at all and not only are those banners significantly less visible, they also carry no information other than its color (which I assume indicates ownership).
Again, not sure what your problem here is. Both pictures clearly show multiple units, the movement range of the selected unit, and what they're targeting. In both cases you'd require some knowledge of the game to identify the specific units, but again AoW shows more information in a way that's less ambiguous than CoE. At a glance you can tell which type each unit is even if you didn't know the units, and what your chance to hit each unit is.
It's okay if you like CoE better than AoW for whatever reason, but this is a complete bullshit argument that only shows you have a strong bias against AoW.
What you are saying is exactly my point, AoW devs need to rely on an ugly crutch that is HUGE icons over units, banners, and whatnot. Because their game is just not readable.
What happened to the minimalist UI?
In the AoW screenshots, I can immediately see where the units are and how many of them there are in each location. In the CoE screenshot, I have to pixel hunt for generic brown blobs against a brown-green background, and even if I see a unit I can't see any info about it at a glance. You can't complain about readability and then move the goalposts by saying that you don't want to see any information at all.
I mean, look at these two images, both taken from the background of your screenshots. In both cases, I don't know what I'm looking at, other than a guarded cave entrance in AoW's case and zome kind of zombie dude in CoE's case. But in the AoW screenshot, I can immediately see that it's a stack of 3 units which belong to the independent/monster faction. In the CoE screenshot, the actual army might be sharper, but I can't tell a single thing about it.
Is the AoW screenshot less crisp? Yes, obviously. I'm not denying that. It's an unfair comparison because you zoomed all the way in, in a way you'd pretty much never actually play the game. But more importantly, DESPITE being a blurry screenshot, it's still far more readable than the CoE example.
And if you compare that to something in the foreground, CoE's one advantage disappears entirely. Now the two figures are equally visible, but CoE is still just a generic brown mess against a brown-green background while AoW has clear shape and contrast in addition to still providing more readable information about the stack's content.
>In the AoW screenshots, I can immediately see where the units are and how many of them there are in each location
Get your eyes checked, in the screen i can easily tell that in CoE i can see some kind of a monster, ihe is standing in plains and he is clearly visible
Meanwhile in AoW4 part of image i cant see shit, its a group of marauders with 3 enemies but i cant see the model itself
Same story here
3 units of a faction and some kind of a dragon, but again i can bearly distinguish the dragon here. Meanwhile in CoE part of image i can see an Ent, i can see details on his model
You're disingenuous as frick and you know it.
>hurr durr CoE visible and aow4 is blurry mess
>b-but aow4 devs draw banners with info! I-it's unfair!
You need not only glasses but appointment with psychiatrist as well.
you're correct, CoE has clearer, more readable visual design
autists can't understand a difference of degrees, so if they can read both they will say they're both equally readable
How about you name an actual example of this, if you can? Or are you just trying to disguise you aimless griping about art style as an objective issue with readability?
Those screenshots show the exact opposite of what you claim. Despite being obviously cherrypicked (the AoW screenshots are more zoomed in than the CoE ones and thus show less of what's going on), the AoW screenshots still deliver more actual information in both comparisons.
My point how much information is delivered but how it is delivered, because the graphic itself is unreadable they need huge icons that stick out because everything else is blurry.
There is no sharpness in AoW4 graphic
>Compare the screenshots ive taken from steam pages
Why you didn't bring your own screenshot? My guess is that you didn't even play them both and come there for shitposting.
>Why not your own screenshots
Because it was faster to get screens from the net instead of booting up two games, but here you go homosexual.
My own screenshots now, with notes
https://files.catbox.moe/e55foh.png
Maybe its you who needs glasses, if sticking up giant icons over units is "good visual design for you" and is such a great way to convey information than maybe devs should skip the middleman and present everything in excel spreadsheets, it would be much easier to read then too!
You moronic as frick.
Tell me which type of mount here.
Also buy glasses already if you can't see BLUE mana node on DARK GREY lanscape.
>Tell me which type of mount here.
Very clearly some type of knight on a horse
Meanwhile right side? What the frick is that, a tiger? a horse?
>if you can't see BLUE mana node on DARK GREY lanscape.
You can see it when its close , but when its in the distance? 0 visibility, 0 clarity
Get over it homosexual, the game is unreadable
>
Agreed. thought it was me running it on potato quality but it's clearly an issue, especially after seeing your screenshot. Even AoW3 looked better.
Literally nothing wrong with AoW 4 graphics, you must be blind or playing on a potato…well no probably just a moronic autistic shill for some other game
>shill for some other game
Not him, but you make it sound like you're in some kind of gang. A gang based on a video game, and you're calling out the other gang.
Funny as frick.
>go into thread about game A just to shit on it and advertise game B
>get called out
>"lol why are you acting like you're in a gang"
moron.
CoE was only bought up because
1) It came out in the same year as AoW and was created by a smaller studio
2) The genre is very similar and game plays from the same perspective
3) It looks much better
I enjoy AoW 4 didn’t play the other games in the series though but that dude is looking at pngs from the store page I play on the highest settings and I think it looks great especially the world map (I have a 4k monitor.) Not really a gang calling out a moron who is a moron
Trolling or are you playing on a potato? Can’t b***h if your rig is shit the game looks great and is crisp but I have a high end pc and monitor. Poor gay
>Literally nothing wrong with AoW 4 graphics
looks like a fricking mobile game, that's what's wrong
>looks like a fricking mobile game
This post is the quickest current way to tell that someone has no idea what they are talking about.
your need for glasses aside, I assume it would be much easier to mentally distinguish only a couple dozen units of CoE compared to the 100 or so AoW4 has before racial variants and transformations
Conquest of Elysium has the advantage of each unit being their own character. Funnily enough age of wonders could do something similar but there are really no mechanics for it, it's all "every unit of this race or type". You can't have one battalion be your champions or crippled or permanently diseased like in COE.
Conquest of Eo and Conquest of Elysium are two very different games.
Though, your post still more or less applies.
CoE have shittest balance that i even saw.
I really enjoy playing the story realms in this one, but they leave me deeply unsatisfied when I finish them. I wish there was more of them and more continuity between them. Let me play my own guys, I like that, but make it closer to previous campaign.
>Edward Portsmith:The Commonweath has fallen!
>Edward Portsmith:Billions must die
i laughed
AI Eddy is even funnier he loaths my pure good reaver and he is the first to delcare war on me...guess manlet rage is real huh?
After playing around with the new content a little bit I'm starting to think I just don't actually enjoy reavers that much.
>you're super reliant on plunder but it's actually really fricking hard to get unless you're razing settlements left and right and if you're doing that you're already winning
>cannons also require plunder for some fricking reason
>starting with a nearby enemy instead of an ally and no whispering stone is all well and good in theory but diplomacy generally works much much faster for expansion than attempting to steamroll everything with a faction that doesn't actually have that good of an early game
>Magelocks are the thing holding the entire culture together, they are quite badass but the not being able to shoot if you have to take even a single step is really hard to work out when you don't have a numbers advantage. The support unit is also very good
>Dragoons also seem kinda underwhelming, the long cooldown on the pistol attack means they don't actually work very well as skirmishers
Granted, I'm running probably suboptimal builds because I'm also fricking around with birds and the new tomes at the same time. I haven't tried the new higher level tomes yet but alchemy seems really underwhelming, and tome of golem crafting is nice for Bronze Golems but otherwise I dunno.
It's all about building momentum, you have a 200g siege project that gives you 2 magitek canons so you will roll over any free city in your immediate surrounding. You do want the fabled hunter society trait for the extra gunner and extra ressources early tho.
Didnt play much with alchemy tome but it seems okayish for Dark Culture since it triggers cull the weak
Skill issues.
Dragoons right now OP as frick.
imo the best way to play reaver is NOT to play them as warmongers....pick chosen uniters or silver tongued and proceed with diplomacy as normal but use "war spoils" as extra cash and nothing else
indeed using war spoils as currency for buying items/treaties works fantastic and you having extra "gold" aka war spoils when you go to war is great
>cannons also require plunder for some fricking reason
again i use that thing when i don't have gold
>Dragoons also seem kinda underwhelming
they are strange to say the least imo they are meant to play as harrasers/defenders lure the enemy close to you since they can move after they shoot they can slip away to give our magelocks a better shoot at them
>imo the best way to play reaver is NOT to play them as warmongers....pick chosen uniters or silver tongued and proceed with diplomacy as normal but use "war spoils" as extra cash and nothing else
I've been thinking about going this route and yeah, I'm gonna try it. I don't mind going balls to the walls aggressive if I'm playing chaos barbarians or something, but after a bunch of restarts to get a feel for the early game I don't feel like it suits Reavers that well, especially if you're going Materium heavy like I am.
>Pick Reaver
>Spam Magelocks
>Setup defensive positions in tactical combat
>Obliterate fricking everything
You're thinking too hard.
>Cant build barricades/obstacles
>Mercenaries fall off past early-mid game so pike and shoot is suboptimal
We were so close to greatness, maybe mods will bring wonders of 17th century warfare to AoW4
Just get one of the materium tomes with a frontline golem and you'll be set.
>Research all ranged buffs
>Tome of Scrying completely removes ranged penalties
>Mid to late you have a constant army flow of Magelocks no matter what
Commit to the firing line or face the wall.
Also surpised how many people don't know that you can continue to research whatever tome tier you want without getting fricked by the research scaling they sharted out in the watcher update.
>without getting fricked by the research scaling
Without mods? How?
Stick to the same tome tiers, there are solid T1-T2 tomes that can be essential to minmax builds that can demolish T4 spamBlack folk.
Wait i thought it scalles with every tome researched, is it actually affected by tome tier?
Is the meta to research all T1 and T2 you want then got to T3, research all you want then T4 etc?
Didn't spike when was doing it, though they just patched again yesterday, so who knows now.
it should scale with every tome picked up, dunno what wizardry that other anon is on
He's probably thinking of how it worked before the patch that changed research speed when T1 spam was meta.
Here is my reaver build
>tome of zeal
For some extra damage for all your units thanks to zeal and condem
>tome of enchanment
Range for magelocks,sundering attack for your mercs and enchanting tools for buildings
>tome of scrying
For guided projectiles and mental mark(AOE marks that lowet res) and watchers...those cute little buggers synergize extremly good with reavers,a watcher has a special attack inflicts mark on targets perfect for magelocks and the reaves culture enchantment gives watchers the ability to do extra damage to marked targets....did i mention that mental marks inflict marked and lowers resistance AOE?
Now your watchers do even more damage and those enemies that remain your magelock can finish them off
Magelocks are such a disappointment. 3 action points to fire is extremely limiting and ranged units still don't have a melee attack so no orc dreadnought line infantry
Yeah they're not great. I get that they wanted to set them apart from crossbows but not being allowed to move at all just sucks.
>finally having fun with AoW4
>constant crashes due to outdated mods but don't want to give up on them so as to not break my modded factions
how does one overcome this suffering
Tried a dragon ruler for the first time. Holy shit this is fun. I wish I could script events without the moronic mod maker that runs worse than the actual game.
Yeah the dragons are fun. The 2nd DLC story realm is about Champions and Wizards arguing with each other so I played a dragon and roleplayed as being an intermediary between lesser beings.
works better if you are champ too
Afred + You = the Good Guys
Clarissa the red and Nocticus = Evil-Bad
Edward = tiny hitler
you're supposed to diplomaster your way into everyone's good graces for daddy Meandor's approval
Too bad, I will create peace by killing and/or subjugating everyone else. Meandor can crawl back to his cuckshed and be emo about it.
>daddy Meandor's approval
but of course
But it's kinda funny how he is fine/friendly with my human PC and him now being pretty much the big good guy in aow 4
How the fallen have risen...?
didn't play 2?
i vaguely remeber him being there as a ghost helping merlin(you) and julia out i think
death mellowed him out a lot
and melenis is still a b***h
>Larissa
>bad
she's a bro and she's literally the best ally you can have.
she is an cannibal,evil and a coward
anytime she starts a war with me she is the first to surrender to me
Larissa has always been ambiguous in her alignment. Even in AoW2 she was on the side of the good guys without actually being "good" herself.
even in aow2 you had to intimidate her to work with you
Yeah like I said she's not actually good herself, but she does join up with the good guys.
what's funny is that Nimue ingame is 100% always with good alignment and her personiality actually does ensure she will always ally with an good PC but in the campaign she is evil
Lorewise, Nimue is extremely unreliable and sides with whoever she thinks will win. In AoW1 she was ruler of the lizardmen, but when the humans invaded she switched sides and drowned the lizards.
"Protective Sage" my ass
God, I need a mod that lets their aura affect them again
Same, they're pretty strong.
why do these morons hate fun so much?
oh you can't terraform you have to go out of your way and take some random gay tomes
oh you figured out one moderately powerful combination too bad we're going to nerf it into the ground
oh look we added a new expansion with a cool new unnecessary bullshit resource for you to collect and spend just like in 345 other games made by our illustrious publisher
oh you liked that cool unit designer we had in the previous game too bad we're fricking nuking it out of existence despite claiming that our primary goal it to expand customization options
is this what happens when they focus on hiring ~~*content creators*~~ instead of actual developers? do we only get virtual slop with raid shadow legends tier graphics?
>oh you liked that cool unit designer we had in the previous game too bad we're fricking nuking it out of existence despite claiming that our primary goal it to expand customization options
This hurts me the most, i loved decking out T1 units with high tier mods and make them go toe to toe with high tier enemies
Transformations just dont scratch the same itch and half of them look like ass
I kind of hated mods. They were fun to play with, but it made fighting enemies a pain because you could never tell what a unit did just by looking at it.You could be up against 3 of the same unit and they all operate completely differently. I think visual transformations was their way of addressing that.
honestly reading this thread makes me think i'm better off sticking with aow3. I just wanted aow4 to be like aow but with more 4x features like better city building, diplo, and resource management. The class system was fun and races felt different and unique rather than just pointless skins. I wish there was a game like aow3 that leaned more on the 4x side
mods make 3 better than 4. give 4 Time and a few DLCs. it's a good start. Wish I could do it myself.
dlcs arent going to change the fact that races dont matter and have no identity, your opponents just feeling like someone hit the random button and said frick it. The stellaris issue.
more like dlcs aren't going to stop you from crying over nothing
You're correct about AOW4, it's a worthless game if you care more about playing something with OC established factions rather than customizable dress-up.
The thing is, AoW2 SM is better than AoW3.
>your opponents just feeling like someone hit the random button and said frick it
Sort of. I think most of the premade lords are generally pretty interesting and have really good themes. It's just that depending on the path they take, they'll all end up like demons, angels, undead, blue people, rock people or tree people. I find the system is fine for the player faction because I can roleplay my faction easy enough and use the non-visual transformation mod where I need to, but I can't stop the AI from doing stuff that doesn't fit their faction.
This is an issue. But the Devs listen.
They do, they've already improved it a bunch based on feedback.
The race changes in the newest patch are really nice, I'll give them that. And I like how the new tomes, especially the crossover ones break up what used to be straight arrow research paths, but I don't like that they seem allergic to adding any new T5 tomes, so the six endgame books are still forever the same.
Yeah my hope is that in 3 years the game is wild from modded in tomes and races.
I for one hated AoW 3 Orcs just shitting on everything that's not absolute cheese like Undead Haflings. But yeah this "race building" both a blessing and a curse for reasons mentioned a hundred times already.
If I'm new to the series which Age of Wonders should I start with
If you are ok with old games, start with 1 then play them in order. If you aren't, start with 3. If you prefer sci-fi, start with Planetfall. Or you could just start with AoW 4 and work your way back. It's a less curated experience than the previous games which had proper campaigns, but it's good and will give you the general idea. The series does a pretty good job of making each game different in some way to the last, so they are all worth playing.
What's bad about it? I can't put my finger on why. I bought it when it came out, played for about 40 minutes and got bored. I remembered I had it last week and played for about an hour but I feel zero drive to start it again. I've put about 100 hours into AoW3 and I'm honestly thinking of going back...
AoW4 has e-girl Sundren if that changes your mind.
>She was Lithyl nightweaver all along.
Shame, Lithyl was a superior waifu in every way. hoping she comes back.
Lithyl is confirmed dead. Sundren kill her and tried to warn everyone of the coming threat, but no one cared who she was until she put on the mask.
Lithyl is/was a wizard king
Champs and wizards are legit immortal when they are killed they return to the astral sea
So unless lithyl turned into a lost wizard she should be alive
I think the writers might have forgotten about that because Sundren is also aware of this but seems pretty certain that Lithyl is dead.
Pretty sure sundren just lied again she is a rogue and meandors niece after all
Yeah,and with each update they are adding in good stuff such as new events and item crafting and so on
A second season pass is all but confirmed
Possible yeah. They could bring her back in the 4th DLC as the human face for whatever the big threat they are hyping up is. Like Sundren banished her somewhere and they reach out to her and she makes a deal with them.
>killing a godir
what a grand and intoxicating innocence
I been playing it this last week. It's fine now. I'm just getting boomer, so it's hard for me to figure out what's what, what are the best synergies to go for. Stuff like that.
The newest DLC added bunch of good stuff that I felt missing before.
AoWbros...
Its age of wondover
Pikmin 4 is the only decent game on that list. I guess AW1+2 are fun games too, but I feel remasters and remakes shouldn't be considered for awards.
>Advance Wars
>555- come on now.jpg
Honesty what a shit selection this year.
>Remakes
>Shit game
>Shit game
>Vtuber emblem
>Only decent choice
Awful selection. Even if you didn't want AoW4 on there, there was plenty of better shit.
It's just marketing, if it were actually honest competition there would be indie titles and considering how much they streched "strategy" genre by adding C:S2 which at it's current state is not even considerd simulation nor strategic, there should be at least few indies that can be placed inside this imagenary "sim/strategy" genre that they are talking here.
the fact that company of fricking heroes 3 is on there is an affront to my senses
>Cities skylines 2
Really?!!!
test
Wait so the game is fun now?
i'm having fun with it, the empires and ashes DLC, and the dragon DLC re-sparked my interest and after taking a time to sit down with the game i can say that its pretty kino.
HOW DO I DISJUNCT A SPELL IN AOW3? HOW
Its at 200 integrity, i disjunct, goes down to 100, when i can disjunct again its at 200 once again...
Can i cheat engine this shit or something at least?
and now you know why that shit was removed in 4
you'd be better off looking for a mod to do something about it since the ai can just put it back up the moment you disjunct it
I just hope they bring back building and make it better. Cities, watchtowers and forts were so much fun to build when you could control the hex in which they were built.
Also watchtowers were watchtowers, cities were cities and forts were forts and not a weird useless mix. And roads were actually useful. everything is so fricking bland when it comes to building even when it shouldn't be.
Ok, i leveled cloak and dagger until i had 80 casting points. Ai still stupid, but now i can deal with them ONLY because the quest lets me raze all cities easily (the pirate b***h quest)
doomstack rush until they have nothing, then vassalize to cuck them out of their own cities. gg ez goody two shoes win.
Pretty much the one thing that stops me from playing AoW3. It's so shit.
Atleast in aow3 you can dispell global buffs in aow4 its lol lmao I have wall of text of buffs
>aow3 you can dispell global buffs
not if you play against ai lol
>in aow4 its lol lmao I have wall of text of buffs
if you actually played the game instead of being a whiny homosexual you would know that there are ways to disable unit enchants
Play with human beings that don't have magically 3000000 cast points pet turn like cheating ai
I've just gone through and installed like 20 mods. We'll see how it goes. One of them makes units you get from your tomes have the same aesthetic as your culture which fixes a big problem of mine with the hidgepodge army aesthetics as the game goes on.
I suppose this was to be expected.
And then it crashed when I hit end turn. Thank you mods.
Just wait 3 years for more dlc and mods and the game will be good chud
I like the new faction's method of just snatching enemy units. Although I miss the old AoW3 muskets who only used 1 action point for their attack
Modded AoW3 cuirassiers where amazing.
>Run at a homie
>Shoot him from behind
>he turns around
>use swift move
>still charge the guy from behind
11/10 unit always fun to use. A shame tier 4 units are utter bullshit.
>play chivalrous intentions mod
>pick elf dreadnought
>one of the new units is a sword and pistol foot unit
>the pistol is a free action with a cooldown
>dreadnoughts give 1 action cost pistols to all cavalry
>elves have phasing unicorn mounts
If there was any kind of tough enemy they'd make at least 2 full 360 degree rotations per round
>that unit arstyle
>those banners
>that ui
Raid shadow legends??????
Thats quite the compliment for AoW4 as Triumph probably have a fraction of Raids money to work with
Wow its the samegay from before, maybe go back to your mobile games moron? This game looks great on high settings but probably a malaysian or some other poor gay who can't run anything from 2015 and beyond so has to relate things to shitty mobile games
Conquest of IO, AoW 4, AoW 3 or Planetfall?
Be like me and play all of them at release.
Haven't played CoE, but I heard it have the best necromancy system.
Planetfall was boring for me, just go snipers+ artilery and AI cant do anything
4 is still changing, while 3 is already finished, so depends what you prefer
>but I heard it have the best necromancy system
I mean you press a button to summon undead in an area that people have died in. Even total war warhammer does that.
>I mean you press a button to summon undead in an area that people have died in. Even total war warhammer does that.
What? You need to gather materials to summon specific types of undead, and there is a ton of them, also depending on materials used they get specific traits like causing bleed, leeching health etc
CoE is fun but its not really a true 4x game, map is not randomly generated and you only have one "city" (tower that can fly around)
But there are quests and stories to uncover, very fun experience
If you like sci-fi id say try out Planetfall too, the mod mechanic alone makes it worth trying out since its pretty unique and you can make some interesting combos (like t1 infantry that has long range and stuns/shocks enemies)
AoW4 seems kind of under baked as of now, wait for big mods or the Cthulu dlc next year i guess
Never played AoW3 so i cant recommend it
Forgemod is gonna complete it. They're even adding new civs.
>Forgemod is gonna complete it
Forgemod?
I see the quints and I must answer the call.
Forgemod is THE most complex mall to this date which embodies the extensive work of several modders. it adds new resources, more features, more races and overall MORE. And then the game plays that he should have been from day one. The modder said he would be taking a break until Christmas because of the constant updates.
For some reason i couldnt find it anywhere. Steam page for that mod is gone, all i could find was rips of Forge Master mod on sites ripping mods from steam
>CoE is fun but its not really a true 4x game, map is not randomly generated and you only have one "city" (tower that can fly around)
The only CoE that comes to mind is Conquest of Elysium, but you're describing another game?
Eo
Conquest of Eo, a "4X-lite" spinoff title from the SpellForce franchise.
I heard you collect materials, and from diffenert ones you craft different undead
indeed, you throw random junk into a pot and get an undead
sounds cool
Capturing units that stun, freeze or immobilize seems to be the go-to if want to focus on a man-catcher based build with the new culture. I was sort of forced into this position because there weren't any free cities around me I could trade spoils with After I blew up my neighbor nor could my upkeep maintain continuous cannon production.
Marking for maglocks should be a free action, cannons should not be 100% accurate but should also do more damage than they currently do. Dragoon's melee should mark.
Maglocks seems so underpowered for me as of now, it should be 1 action to fire and new action that costs 2 points to reload
Anyone have a fun Nature build that actually makes Nature at the forefront? I feel like Nature is always a supplement affinity, like you need a book for healing, or you want nymphs, or you don't want your city building to suck but you also don't want to go Materium this game.
animals/cavalry focus. tome of vigor works with itself well enough. gaia's chosen is a great transformation just for the shock resistance personally.
grabbing the forest terraform spell then that tier IV one that trades a forest for an animal army is an alright way to drown enemies in units.
tome of evolution can obviously help any animals you have that can use it.
Nature Reavers. Use the slavery mechanic to capture wild animals and make them fight for you. It's fun and thematic.
Out of the Nature tomes you'll want to start with either Beasts or Evolution, for midgame switch into whatever else you might want (also to pick up some affinity points for the empire tree, because pure Nature branch isn't that good), then lategame go full Nature with Vigor -> Nature's Wrath -> Paradise -> Goddess of Nature. Not only does this give some strong buffs for your animals, it'll also buff plants which includes your racial units thanks to Gaia's Chosen giving them the plant type.
Note that Dragons do not count as animals, so don't bother with those.
Thankfully the next DLC is the nature one, because it feels really badly necessary at this point. I like nature thematically but it's pretty meh to play most of the time. Doubly so since there's no actual nature themed culture in the base game.
tome of horde + tome of evolution, stack hero support skills, most relevantly battle seeker training and shepherd for super buff slithers, spiders, and piggies
I dunno if it's still OP, but chaos+nature was unreal at launch. Just getting insane growth, buffs to low tier units and spawning low tier units every time you get a new pop was nuts.
Feudal + poison and mount racial + Tome of evolution because for some reason the basic feudal peasant can evolve into a shieldbearer
Does it have campaign already or is it still just a skirmish game like civ?
It's always had a "campaign". It's just not very good.
It's not good? When it launched every youtube said it was the best game in history. Was that not true?
>it was the best game in history. Was that not true?
no
its not bad, just mediocre with some debatable design choices, still can be fun and enjoyable(this can vary based on your autism)
tbh I think my biggest gripe is still that the systems are about affinity instead of magic spheres.
>tfw no death damage even though spirit damage is in
>tfw no water sphere. ice is there but can't even summon tide spirits
>in the same vein, wind magic is confined to a single tome
maybe it's just my nostalgia talking
Be living in shitty times, what did you expect?
>Late game is composed entirely of GIANT HUEG Tier IV units that take 90% of the screen space
Which moron had this idea? Why most of T IV units have the height of skyscraper anyway?
why are you still playing 3?
That problem still exists in AoW4, somehow Planetfall didnt have it so i feel like we regressed
no it doesn't? anon if you are going to shit post at least know what you are talking about first
Yes it does, every silver or gold location i visit, and monster spawners too have at least 1 or 2 of those gigantic T IV fricks that cover 90% of the map
that's why planetfall was kino
You might be playing the game wrong if you have armies that are full of tier 4 monsters. I don't think I've ever had an army like that by the time I win. It's usually of stuff that synergises well.
>1 or 2
So you're just being dramatic then. You've reduced it from "composed entirely" to "1 or 2".
>So you're just being dramatic then
Alright you got me, but my main issue with it still stands, why are TIV units as high as skyscrapers? It looks like ass visually
That's a fair complaint. They are pretty big for the hexes.
Transmuters and tyrant knights aren't. You're an idiot exaggerating everything. Lost Wizards are big, Dragons are big, Golden Golems are big, and the tier v monster that has engorge. The only one that might not seem to fit is Lost Wizards but damn what a stupid compliant
Planetfall was the last good AoW game
You should probably save comments like this for when they have like 4 bad games in a row. Feels weird to say that when it was their last game.
>Decide to have some fun with Reavers, recruit shitton of their ranged units
>Pick tome of wind for +1 range enchantment
>Level them up to get another one +1 range
>Finally range 7 shots, i can pick off enemies at a distance, loved doing this in Planetfall
>5% hitchance, what?
>Check stats, -75% hit chance because of range
Frick you too game
Get the tome of scrying.
Scrying only lets you ignore accuracy penalties from obstacles and terrain, not from range as far as I know.
You need the accuracy race trait and support skill if you want to hit anything.
would be nice if the was a cap on penalties. there's already a bunch of abilities and crap that screw with range, a penalty just for trying to shoot slightly further is a bit excessive
Range enhancement is in tier 1 tome of enchantment. Clearly you don't own the game
What do you mean? I took tome of winds for +1 range on ranged attacks, then leveled up my troops to max lvl for another +1 range of ranged attacks
They cant hit shit now at max range
How do i "not own the game"?
tome of winds doesn't have anything that increases range
You made me load up my save and double check to prove you wrong
you were right and i was wrong, i misremembered it because i was checking tome of winds beforehand, it was a tome of enchantment after all
You double Black person
it would make more sense if it was in winds, but that's just how it is
moron is moronic get fricked dumbass
Why did they have to make AoW4 so heavy on requirements
I mean, I played both AoW3 and Planetfall at release with just my cheap work laptop at the time, but AoW4 somehow shits itself on the Dell i5 I bought this year
not heavy but the game has MASSIVE performance issues even people with an 4090 are still laging and crashing like hell
I've got a 4090 and only have had maybe 10 crashes since launch and I have close to 700 hours logged. The only time it seemed to be a problem was before one of the updates, I think watcher. I have no idea why you need to lie about performance, Im not saying its perfect but its pretty good especially since they sped up ai turn times
Probably due to visuals bloat, almost everything has highlighted outlines, bloom, etc
is Age.of.Wonders.4.v86447-GOG.zip clean? asking for a fiend
>pirating from GOG
have a nice day
no, you have a nice day white knight
after you steamigger
>No not much checking wholesome internet store!
Kys yourself rulecuck
Should be ok
Actually had a game recently where one of the AI barbarian rulers killed everyone on the map except for myself, and they probably would have killed me if I didn't rush for an alliance with them. Seems like the AI is actually improving somewhat.
first game crashes when I turn sound on
I love the first game but it really tends to shit itself on modern systems.
Don't even think about using Alt-Tab.
man I wish neutral dwellings were back. wonder recruitment and free cities just don't give me the same feeling as fairy circles and shit
I got AoW3
What are the mods that absolutely improve gameplay?
Chivalrous Intentions for more troops
Clothing mods
MAYBE more heroes mods
And that's it
uninstall wizard
What other anons said but also wasteland and shadow realms expansion
i need to colonize her with my big human wiener
Romance events when?
>make an orc character
>max height and max body size
>pick the most normal-looking face
>give him a human skin tone
>have him lead a faction of humans
Finally a game that lets me play as myself.
that's a thunder warrior
https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Thunder_Warriors
Warhammer 40k is for queers and reddit nerds.
That's cool and all but considering the fact that the races in AoW4 has been Paradoxed, there's not much to post about
>t. queers and reddit nerds
damn,calm yourself homosexuals
Ok ratkid.
Can you morons stop inserting your 40kiddie shit everywhere?
>Its just like le krieg!
>Its just like le speehs muhren!
>Its just like le empire!
No its not, shut the frick up
Pantheon.
How to cheat to unlock?
i dont have that much time to grind.
I don't know of any cheat, but it's probably possible to just give yourself infinite points with Cheat Engine.
It used to be possible to create a tiny 2-player map and finish the game in 3 turns by quickly contacting your enemy, immediately declaring war, and then surrendering to them right away. This made your enemy win the game but sunce you're their vassal you also win and get the points. Don't know if they fixed that yet since it was kind of moronic, but it was a good way to grind unlocks.
they fixed it, now when there's only two players in a map they're automatically at war.
you still do the same thing to grind pantheon though, just make the AI easy, give yourself a bonus handicap, and rush their throne
I think I might be stupid bros.
Tried building an animal/evolve build with wyverns and shit but I've only just now unlocked young dragons at turn 60 and there's nothing to fight except the AI empires who stomp me with tactics and shit that i can't really comprehend beyond "flanking everyting all the time"
how the frick am i meant to evolve these idiots
I may be wrong but dragons aren't animals. you'll also start tanking your imperium income if you evolve too many. anyway to help evovle, you could take tome of revelry for the +exp spell, and of course trying to beat neutral fights without outnumbering them too bad helps get exp to units you want to level.
I can also give some general tips if you want.
yeah i figured that out eventually
the problem i had with understanding it was that wyverns are both dragons and animals so i got confused
Dragons are a trap option. They're strong, but they're also overpriced (especially adult dragons) and they can't benefit from most buffs because they're their own unique unit type that doesn't count as animals. Some of the animal buffs are quite strong so it sucks that dragons can't use them.
When I make an animal build I only rely on animals in the early and midgame. Spiders and Slithers are both good early game units that evolve into good midgame units so they're very nice. Lategame nature is more about plants, including racial units that count as plants thanks to nature transformation. Luckily a lot of the tomes that are good for animals are also good for plants so it transitions quite nicely.
The quick resolve can't handle young dragons and gets them killed far more often than they should. But one or two dragons in a stack are nice when you can synergize with their elemental breath attacks and for flanking around obstacles.
I made a fun build with frost tomes, dragons and alchemy, got lucky with a wizard's tower wonder, too, and then every siege I just go wizard's bombardment, dragon attack, fumigation and harass defenders. Then drop an ice sleet on top of the city at breach. Half the defenders are dead and the rest near dead from all the front loaded damage.
I haven't really kept up with how well AoW4 sold, but according to Steam it did really well this year. Not top-tier like BG3, AC6, etc. but still unexpectedly good for a relatively niche game.
I bought AoW4 in the winter sale and I'm enjoying it a lot so far.
A few people in the thread have talked about how mods elevate AoW3 above 4. I already own the 3 basegame, but it seems like most of the mods require the DLC. IS it worth it to pick that up for the mods and DLC additions?
The DLC for 3 is pretty decent, so yeah I'd say it's worth getting if you like the base game.
alright i tried AoW3 and I can't understand anything that's happening
whenever I try to leave my city it gets captured by two zombies or a tiny party of halfling troops
i can't produce units fast enough to have a stack standing on the city with my ruler running around killing half his army whenever i clear a node
and heroes keep showing up, i had like four of them before i lost
can i get a link to some good guides?
you can google it, but here's some tips off the top of my head.
exploration is the name of the game, finding whatever offending monster spawner is making things that come steal your city is a way to stop them. you'll still want to leave a few defenders at your city, because some monster spawner halfway across the map is going to send guys to capture your city even if you clear the area.
getting better at battles so you aren't losing half your army, or recognizing when you aren't ready for the fight to begin with is another way to stay safe.
if I recall right, you get five heroes. if you had like four of them then you should have been able to defend your territory. a common trap is trying to have every city build every single building.
you need income to field your armies, including mana income so you can cast spells, and knowledge for research. cities with production nodes should obviously be used to make your armies, as well as any cities near where you're about to fight.
i get specializing cities, but having to pick between buildings that let me build better units and units themselves was a big problem for me because i'm fricking moronic
one other question i had was how many cities you're really supposed to have since resource nodes and/or dungeons seemed pretty common but my starting city only had like, a gold and mana nods and my city got stolen and i died as soon as a captured a random bandit camp
i guess starting as a necromancer was a bad idea though
necromancers are somewhat hard for beginners, their cities grow real slow and unless you're aggressive to utilize their kills=city growth mechanic it's tough.
unlike 4, 3 has a "no such thing as too many cities" thing. each city is another thing to defend, but they should give you more than enough gold, mana, and research to make up for it.
like you said, nodes are common, and are usually clumped in clusters that make it obvious where you could found new cities. planting cities where there's immediate benefit nodes, like gold and mana, is a little more useful than a production one.
generally, it's more useful to tech up as quick as possible so you aren't relying on low tier units.
as a necro, you have an empire buff that gives certain types of units lifesteal, do try to get it as soon as possible.
any ETA on the DLC or a patch?
around feb most likely
Why is Ganker/vst/ so full of nostalgia Black persondry?
Why are you a gigantic wiener gobbler?
Dumb zoomer
your the doctor should have killed your mother before she pushed you out and stitched her vegana so you'd get stuck in there.
average age anywhere outside Ganker and Ganker is +30 now
Zoomers not allowed.
So next dlc should be nature based, other than a water tome(lol) what do you think we'll get?
We're also getting some kind of fairy tome apparently.
And of course a new primal/druid/nature-based culture.
>a water tome
I wish
I'm doing an underground Industrious run now, and it got me thinking on what's the best time to attack with shield and polearm units and when's the best time to defend instead? The devs clearly intended for shield units to give other units boosted defense with their one hex range so it must have some good value in some situations, but often times the best defense is just outright murdering your opponents so I want to always be attacking
Clogging up choke points/preventing the enemies from entering forests seems to be the main reason to block instead of attacking. The difference in damage taken is fairly noticeable.
Or you put a shield unit behind your polearms and after you moved them all in position you guard with the shield and thus reduce damage from retaliations. Brass and iron golems are a really good combination for a relatively low cost and early access.
What's this game actually like? I played a lot of AoW when I was a kid and loved it, a bit of AoW 2 and didn't like it as much, and really didn't like AoW 3. The customisation options seem nice but feels like it might just be a half-hearted YouTuber bait gimmick for marketing than an actual interesting mechanic.
In terms of gameplay it's a lot like an improved AoW3, except with city building mechanics more like Planetfall. If you didn't enjoy 3 I don't think you'll like 4 either.
The high level of customization is a bit hit and miss IMO. On the one hand it's cool that you can do pretty much whatever you want, but since there are relatively few transformations it does mean that no matter what your original idea was it tends to fall into one of only a handful of basic archetypes in the long run. The game really needed to have like twice as much content for the customization to really shine.
Yeah, once they make it more like PF and Endless Legend, namely introduce unit mods. Idk wtf were they thinking by first giving players this amazing stuff in PF multiplying the variety of gameplay by infinity, and then completely avoiding it in AoW4.
>no handling slinger
>no goblin bomber
>no dwarf mole rider
>no orc warlord
>no elf nymph
>no dark elf shadow
>no archo titan
>no undead bone horrer
Where are all the iconic age of wonders race units?
Bone Horror, Nymph and Shadow are in the game though their design has changed and they're not race-specific anymore. Some of the others can be approximated with minor changes (e.g. there's no Mole Rider or Beetle Rider, but you can pick other mounts), or at least have different units with the same function (e.g Devastator Sphere instead of Goblin Bomber).
I'm surprised you didn't even mention the Incarnate, since that's one of the early AoW units that really has no direct modern equivalent.
I didn’t mention him because frick that butthole that’s why
right here
WHERE IS THE EXPANSION NEWS TRIUMPH