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You mean using secondary hero casting skill to cast strategic level spells? That is a cool idea. Master of magic did that with a hero caster skill, adding that hero's skill to whatever you where casting outside of combat to push it along faster. That doesn't help make having two caster heroes more useful IN combat, mind you, but it is certainly interesting!
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Aug 31, 2014 01:33
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Hey madmac or anyone, can you explain anything helpful for getting into multiplayer? How long do games take and do I have to sit right through them? I've been trying to really focus on my early game in tough SP games. I've even been trying to let go of T2 cavalry and embrace Auto Combat. I still can't imagine a turn timer though, or playing someone who knows what they're doing in combat. And of course if there's any general MP strategy stuff you could mention that'd be much appreciated.
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Aug 31, 2014 04:57
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The summer tourney had basically all settings on default and was a series of 1v1 games on medium maps. Those games tended to last a couple hours in my experience. I played without turn timers though. I wouldn't worry too much about auto combat since the devs revealed that they are including a game option to control spectating other player battles, so auto combat won't be quite as necessary for MP. This alone will shake up multiplayer quite a bit since being forced to autocalc fights heavily favors certain units. You don't have to sit through a game in one go, you can absolutely save it and come back to it later. The players I went up against in the tourney were all very friendly and happy to talk shop, so don't worry too much about joining public games. That being said I think most people make private games just for their friends. I know I do. Every time I host one I see a long list of private games and only a handful of public. Still, you can join steam groups to easily find more opponents. As for specific MP strategies, I have a feeling a lot of that is going to be shaken up by the expansion and changes in the patch. Word on the official forums is that due to feedback they are already beta testing some further balance changes, such as making racial priests a bit more difficult to acquire. Changes like that will have a pretty big impact on strategy. One tip that will probably still be relevant though: in early turns when you are exploring and get the option to let guards flee, you probably want to let them run. You will have lots of chances to get experience but getting extra resources and being able to take multiple nodes in one turn lets you jump start your economy. If you have a good amount of healing or the ability to steal units as a rogue or theocrat you might come out ahead by picking a fight, but even those classes don't start with those abilities. The other thing that isn't likely to change is how essential scouting and intelligence gathering is (and denying it from your opponent). There are almost no units that can catch a flying scout, especially early. You can use this to not only keep tabs on your enemy but force them to commit troops to defending multiple areas or risk having them stolen. Try to end your scout's turn over water or in mountains to make it hard to attack them, and get an anti-scout group of your own scouts (2-3 is probably enough) to try to hunt down enemy scouts. Finally, be on the lookout for inns and neutral faction quests. Both of these can be opportunities to quickly get some high quality units which can make a huge difference.
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Aug 31, 2014 06:27
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How is everyone saying Archdruid heroes suck when Dreadnought heroes exist? At least Archdruids get decent spells plus healing and healing aura. Dreadnought heroes are pretty terrible, except maybe when you're playing a Dreadnought leader.
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Aug 31, 2014 06:41
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Ojetor posted:How is everyone saying Archdruid heroes suck when Dreadnought heroes exist? At least Archdruids get decent spells plus healing and healing aura. Dreadnought heroes are pretty terrible, except maybe when you're playing a Dreadnought leader. Dreadnought heroes get a musket, which I quite like, and firebomb and some useful resistances and army buffs
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Aug 31, 2014 07:17
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They can also do stuff with your siege engines which is pretty helpful.
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Aug 31, 2014 08:48
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a!n posted:They can also do stuff with your siege engines which is pretty helpful. Repair machine certainly is, but quick reload is completely useless unless you have dreadnought units.
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Aug 31, 2014 09:33
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In theory you could have another hero with a musket 
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Aug 31, 2014 09:43
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I just took my first visit of the official forums. Is it me or do their balance discussions basically go like this: 'This thing synergizes with this other thing which other races/classes don't get therefore it's IMBA and OP.'
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Aug 31, 2014 11:35
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Starcraft players. 
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Aug 31, 2014 11:53
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a!n posted:I just took my first visit of the official forums. Is it me or do their balance discussions basically go like this: It's really awful, yeah. I had to stop looking at balance discussions after a while because most of the suggestions and arguments were terrifyingly bad. quote:How is everyone saying Archdruid heroes suck when Dreadnought heroes exist? At least Archdruids get decent spells plus healing and healing aura. Dreadnought heroes are pretty terrible, except maybe when you're playing a Dreadnought leader. I used to think this, but Dreadnaught heroes are actually really good. They make fantastic tanks and good army leaders. Toss a trebuchet or something into their stack and they're even better. They're the worst spellcasting heroes for a Non-Dred leader by a huge margin, though.
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Aug 31, 2014 12:55
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edit: NVM
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Aug 31, 2014 13:08
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Thyrork posted:Starcraft players. That post immediately reminded me of my WoW days and class balance "discussions" on the Blizzard forums.
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Aug 31, 2014 13:35
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Ojetor posted:How is everyone saying Archdruid heroes suck when Dreadnought heroes exist? They get some solid army buffs. Pest control squad is pretty amazing, giving slayer to what, six unit types? It gives the army a big edge against druids. Wizard slayers is amazing if you are against a sorc. Actually it is good regardless as it still gives the +1 resist even if you never fight a summoned creature. Their army buffs are more situational, but generally more powerful, than other class passives. Dreads also get some good combat abilities of their own. I think they are the only hero that can get passive physical resistance as a skill. Sure, repair machine is only useful if you use machines, but it is only one skill and is actually a very good skill even if you only have a treb or two. Because their strengths tend to lie in combat, passives, and always available skills rather than spells, they don't suffer from being unable to cast when another hero is in the fight. The limitless "balance" threads on the official forums are kind of imploding with slapfights over whose lore is more correct (what) and how units should be balanced around it. The devs have done an awesome job of making the game thematically cool *and* giving us solid play mechanics. There is always room for improvement in any project, sure. Triumph has shown they are willing and able to do that, though. As much as I'm eagerly anticipating playing Golden Realms I'll be glad it will give people something else to talk about. Carnalfex fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Aug 31, 2014 16:36
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Whoa, so uh, there's going to be a rank after Gold that gives +10 hp and is repeatable. That's going to be pretty amazing for those T1 units that normally get Gold early in the game and waste xp every time you use them after that. Especially because the lower the tier, the less xp they need to rank up. Might throw the power curve a little bit more towards lower tier units. Can't wait for this expansion.
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Sep 5, 2014 19:59
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The Royal Scrub posted:Whoa, so uh, there's going to be a rank after Gold that gives +10 hp and is repeatable. That's going to be pretty amazing for those T1 units that normally get Gold early in the game and waste xp every time you use them after that. Especially because the lower the tier, the less xp they need to rank up. Might throw the power curve a little bit more towards lower tier units. Can't wait for this expansion. I've played some games where the very first Manticore Rider I produced killed maybe hundreds of units. I wish I could have seen it running around with 350 HP.
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Sep 5, 2014 20:09
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Ojetor posted:I've played some games where the very first Manticore Rider I produced killed maybe hundreds of units. I wish I could have seen it running around with 350 HP. Time to make an unstoppable army of Dire Penguins.
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Sep 5, 2014 20:13
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Not only that, some of the empire quest rewards can give you powerful units relatively early or give units a special buff. I think being the first person to manually build a top tier unit gets permanent resurgence on that unit from the quest reward. That plus repeatable champion medals could lead to some hilarious units. Probably far more "heroic" than any heroes you could build in that time frame if you are lucky. New dev journal talking about AI improvements and diplomacy! http://ageofwonders.com/development-journal-diplomacy-improvements/ I especially like that trespassing is a bigger deal now, and the AI was changed accordingly. Very cool. Carnalfex fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 20:56
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quote:The limitless "balance" threads on the official forums are kind of imploding with slapfights over whose lore is more correct (what) and how units should be balanced around it. TBQH most of the problems with the official forums and endless balance talk is like one guy who's just that determined to be a special snowflake and keep pushing his mostly awful, joyless suggestions to make everything exactly the same as everything else until the end of time. No sane person posts a bajillion balance threads two weeks before a giant balancing/content patch. Anyway, AI improvements look pretty great. AI surrender and respecting borders were both badly needed improvements to have anything resembling functional diplomacy. It was actually worse in AoWSM where you didn't have borders, any random unit could go around flagging your stuff, and multiplayer diplomacy was a clusterfuck of adhoc "all intruders killed on sight, no exceptions." rulings. madmac fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Sep 6, 2014 |
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Sep 6, 2014 00:37
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Ability to attack trespassing units without going to war? That alone would be enough to sell me on the expansion.
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Sep 6, 2014 02:49
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Something I miss from prior games is the biographies of each of the individual heroes. Unless I'm stupidly missing them?
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Sep 6, 2014 02:57
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Skippy McPants posted:Ability to attack trespassing units without going to war? That alone would be enough to sell me on the expansion. I think it's a free change that comes out at the same time as the expansion. You shouldn't let that stop you, though.
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Sep 6, 2014 05:25
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I can't wait to murder "friendly" heroes travelling through my zone of control. Especially in multiplayer games. Going to join random games and tell them I'm roleplaying a disgruntled tollbooth worker on the edge. Send diplomacy demands for outrageous sums if anything comes near my borders.
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Sep 7, 2014 02:21
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Carnalfex posted:I can't wait to murder "friendly" heroes travelling through my zone of control. Especially in multiplayer games. Going to join random games and tell them I'm roleplaying a disgruntled tollbooth worker on the edge. Send diplomacy demands for outrageous sums if anything comes near my borders. With the way the map generator occasionally creates tight mountain passes this would work frighteningly well, assuming you can back up your authority, of course. a!n fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Sep 7, 2014 |
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Sep 7, 2014 08:43
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So, how's this game right now? should i stick to shadow magic still or go for this one? How's the ai? i play singleplayer only.
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Sep 8, 2014 13:49
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Carnalfex posted:I can't wait to murder "friendly" heroes travelling through my zone of control. Especially in multiplayer games. Going to join random games and tell them I'm roleplaying a disgruntled tollbooth worker on the edge. Send diplomacy demands for outrageous sums if anything comes near my borders. The Papers Please sequel we were all waiting for.
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Sep 8, 2014 14:09
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Delerion posted:So, how's this game right now? should i stick to shadow magic still or go for this one? There's a huge update planned for 9/18 when the first DLC goes live. Not just extensive balance changes but new features, AI changes, ect. I think it's well worth getting now, but you might as well hold off for the update.
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Sep 8, 2014 15:09
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Couple of Triumph's resident cool guys are giving away ten copies of the expansion if you want to join the drawing. http://ageofwonders.com/forums/topic/golden-realms-steam-giveaway/
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Sep 8, 2014 17:04
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I'd get the game now. You'll probably like it and that way you get to look forward to the expansion. If it's not your thing for whatever reason and the expansion won't fix that, then don't buy it. That's my logic anyways. It's fun to get hype on the new features instead of just getting it all at once.
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Sep 9, 2014 00:19
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Get this game now if you like 4x games. AoW3 is one of the best modern 4x games I've ever played, and it will only get better with the expansion.
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Sep 9, 2014 14:24
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Speaking of updates, the beta version of the giant everything patch is live on steam. http://ageofwonders.com/announcing-patch-v1-4-now-in-public-beta-on-steam/ You know it's going to be a long rear end changelist when the patch notes contain hyperlinks to other articles explaining specific bullet points. Geez, just the AI changes is an amazing list. For that matter it's the first changelist I've seen that's so long it has built in achievements for finishing certain sections, heh. madmac fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Sep 11, 2014 |
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Sep 11, 2014 17:17
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quote:Independent city of Delft will now always be Friendly and is a very nice place to visit. Just in case you are considering where to go on your next vacation. I like these patch notes.
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Sep 11, 2014 18:01
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When a small dev team dedicates themselves to web publishing a full length novel, you have to add these little moments of humor to space out the dramatic reveals and smooth out the pacing.
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Sep 11, 2014 18:21
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quote:Non-Hero units can now continue levelling up beyond “Elite” and the level cap for Heroes has been razed. This one could go either way, did they destroy (razed) or increase (raised) the level caps for heroes? Edit: Alternatively, I could read the entire set of notes and learn that it has been raised, but only if you select the option while creating a new game. KPC_Mammon fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Sep 11, 2014 |
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Sep 11, 2014 18:39
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To be fair, writing patch notes is like my favorite process ever. I would quit my job to write patchnotes 4 lyfe
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Sep 11, 2014 19:38
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Seriously though, this is an amazing patch. I love pretty much all the changes and fixes. Did a bit of testing with Rogue and auto-calc, there's definitely a noticeable improvement in the tactical AI. Also the new evolution tech for Scoundrels is ridiculously sick. Tier 2 Shadow Stalkers is totally worth babying a couple of the little bastards.
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Sep 11, 2014 19:47
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I want to wrap myself in this patch like a burrito.
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Sep 11, 2014 21:14
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Carnalfex posted:I want to wrap myself in this patch like a burrito.
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Sep 11, 2014 21:21
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Oh dammit I thought they were making it so that you could still do things like have your own combat while someone else does manual combat
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Sep 11, 2014 22:05
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It's a throwback to page 1:quote:Added gameplay option to stop figures dying in units as units take damage. Also this is hilarious: quote:Defenders can no longer move onto flee hexes. Which was added to prevent an exploit.
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Sep 11, 2014 22:31
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