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Fintilgin posted:I've been trying Shadow Magic and this series for the first time too. Been splitting my time between it and Eador. Not bad, I'm quite looking forward to seeing what happens with III. Apparently the random map generator can trap you though. My latest game got off to a decent start and then I discovered I was completely caged in by mountains into a corner. Open a portal into the nether realms if your men come out sane on the otherside of those mountains youll be in good shape. 
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Feb 18, 2013 18:52
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Isn't that how the Shadow Demons/Shadow Realm worked? Oh yes, they're gone, aren't they?
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Feb 18, 2013 19:11
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Bloodly posted:Isn't that how the Shadow Demons/Shadow Realm worked? Oh yes, they're gone, aren't they? Fraid so  On the bright side, I mentioned to my boss about people wanting dire penguins and a few days ago someone concepted them. Assuming nothing goes horribly wrong, then they're back in the game.
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Feb 19, 2013 00:45
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Is there any intent to make the 'world map' gameplay of AOWIII a little bit more Civ-like? Like it would be nice to be able to build farms/enhance your terrain a bit more. Also, I've been digging through the manual, and I'm not clear on what the effect of terrain is on your cities in Shadow Magic. Or city positioning for that matter. Does it matter at all? There's a minor bit about preferred terrain, but it's not real clear to me what that entails. Does only the ring of terrain directly adjacent to your city matter? For example, I found some sort of death ring that turned the terrain my hero walked on into black wasted land. Was I hurting my AI at all by racing him around in his land blackening his terrain in big gashes or is it pretty much cosmetic?
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Feb 19, 2013 00:53
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I can't believe this is really happening! AoW is one of my favorite series. I still play Shadow Magic all the time.Fintilgin posted:Also, I've been digging through the manual, and I'm not clear on what the effect of terrain is on your cities in Shadow Magic. Or city positioning for that matter. Does it matter at all? There's a minor bit about preferred terrain, but it's not real clear to me what that entails. Does only the ring of terrain directly adjacent to your city matter? For example, I found some sort of death ring that turned the terrain my hero walked on into black wasted land. Was I hurting my AI at all by racing him around in his land blackening his terrain in big gashes or is it pretty much cosmetic? Yeah, only certain races can get maximum farming out of certain terrains. Undead on wasteland, nomads on desert (I think). I don't remember the specifics, but it might be on that big fan website. Fitzy Fitz fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Feb 19, 2013 |
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Feb 19, 2013 00:54
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Gerblyn posted:On the bright side, I mentioned to my boss about people wanting dire penguins and a few days ago someone concepted them. Assuming nothing goes horribly wrong, then they're back in the game. You are a wonderful person. The mission in SM that had all the warning signs leading up to the Dire Penguin Vault was amazing. Who doesn't love those adorable abominations of hell?
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Feb 19, 2013 00:55
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Gerblyn posted:On the bright side, I mentioned to my boss about people wanting dire penguins and a few days ago someone concepted them. Assuming nothing goes horribly wrong, then they're back in the game. This is the best news, game will be awesome with such a cool team behind it!
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Feb 19, 2013 02:59
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Gerblyn posted:Fraid so  Yaaay!And i figured the Shadow demons and Syrons would be gone, must admit im really looking forward to finding out who is actually in as playable, and whos going to be on the side stuff. Beats speculating about it thats for sure. 
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Feb 19, 2013 03:29
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Fintilgin posted:Is there any intent to make the 'world map' gameplay of AOWIII a little bit more Civ-like? Like it would be nice to be able to build farms/enhance your terrain a bit more. There is some more of that kind of gameplay yes. The current system involves connecting fortresses to cities so they can grab resources from a wider radius, and using terraforming to tweak tile income. We're still pre-alpha though, so a lot might still be changed. quote:Yeah, only certain races can get maximum farming out of certain terrains. Undead on wasteland, nomads on desert (I think). I don't remember the specifics, but it might be on that big fan website. From what I remember, it affects gold income, and only in the tiles directly surrounding the city.
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Feb 19, 2013 09:13
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Shadowmorn posted:And i figured the Shadow demons and Syrons would be gone, must admit im really looking forward to finding out who is actually in as playable, and whos going to be on the side stuff. I think one of the more unique features of Age of Wonders is that it has a ton of races, much more than the standard Human, Elf, Dwarf, Orc spread that most fantasy games have. I'm really hoping that 3 doesn't reduce the number of races significantly, even if they can all be flavored as a theocrat or whatever. I can't imagine anyone else ushering in an ice age besides the Frostlings. I never played Shadow Magic's campaign, what happened to the shadow demons (and Syrons, I guess)?
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Feb 19, 2013 16:56
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Shadow demons are undone, Syrons get their world back. I might be mis-remembering. And no, im not going to spoiler tag it, because that final level needs to be played to be appreciated, its balls off the walls crazy hard. 
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Feb 19, 2013 17:28
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Apparently Notch helped fund this. I now like that nerd a little bit more http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/02/13/age-of-wonders-iii-funded-by-minecraft-creator.aspx
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Mar 6, 2013 05:59
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We've released new gameplay footage! http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-03-26-new-age-of-wonders-3-gameplay-video-shows-empire-building-and-leader-classes I'll be around for a little bit tonight, otherwise I can try and answer any questions people have tomorrow.
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Mar 26, 2013 23:31
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DrManiac posted:Holy poo poo this is great news! I bought shadow magic on gog last year and I ended up liking it way more than heroes of might and magic. I'm a big fan of Heroes of Might and Magic 3, could you briefly describe what's better in AoW?
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Mar 26, 2013 23:43
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When's the absolute earliest I can put your game in my brainmeats?  Are you guys sticking with the armies can stack model or are you making each stack fill a square? Orv fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Mar 26, 2013 |
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Mar 26, 2013 23:50
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Mr.48 posted:I'm a big fan of Heroes of Might and Magic 3, could you briefly describe what's better in AoW? It's a different style of fantasy strategy. AoW plays more like a Civ game in the way cities and unit management works. The battles are done on larger battlefields with more terrain effects. There's spell research that's roughly analogous to tech, and so on. Basically, it's just more of a traditional 4X game. Whether that makes it better or not is just a matter of taste.
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Mar 26, 2013 23:50
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I love the far-out zoom on the world map.  EDIT: Might be nice to have some faint watercolor colors or something for different terrains?
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Mar 27, 2013 00:04
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Mr.48 posted:I'm a big fan of Heroes of Might and Magic 3, could you briefly describe what's better in AoW? What, relative to HoMM 3? I don't really feel comfortable saying why our game is better than a classic like that, but I can outline the main differences: - Heroes are actual units in the army, instead of off field commanders. It's quite possible to field armies without them, though they're still very useful to have around. - Units can't be stacked up, so you can't have 500 knights in a single slot in an army - Terrain and positioning matter more. Different units move at different speeds through different terrain types, and different races prefer different areas. So elves move faster in forests and get a morale bonus in them, while Orcs get bonuses in barren landscapes. - City building is more involved, with a civilization type resource system. A city surrounded by plains might grow faster, while one surrounded by forests gets more production (don't quote me on this, the design is still a little bit up in the air here) - You can choose both a race and a class, the former affects units and cities, while the latter affects research and special units. Orv posted:When's the absolute earliest I can put your game in my brainmeats? We'd like to release some time before Christmas, but there's no real fixed date yet. It could get pushed back to next year. Armies work pretty much the same as in the other AoW games, so only 1 unit per army slot.
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Mar 27, 2013 00:04
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Is your main guy like he was in AoW II/SM? As in he doesn't gain levels, or is he more akin to a normal hero in AoW 1?
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Mar 27, 2013 00:05
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:It's a different style of fantasy strategy. AoW plays more like a Civ game in the way cities and unit management works. The battles are done on larger battlefields with more terrain effects. There's spell research that's roughly analogous to tech, and so on. Basically, it's just more of a traditional 4X game. Whether that makes it better or not is just a matter of taste. That's pretty much the reason why I didn't really enjoy HoMM3. The game felt funky and the combat system felt funky. If this is more like Civ meets Master of Magic sign me up.
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Mar 27, 2013 00:06
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Gerblyn posted:We've released new gameplay footage! This is looking really, really good. Looks like you've already got the core gameplay down which is excellent. I'm really digging the strategic layer to flanking units, causing it to waste a retaliation. Will there be certain units that are much stronger on the defence when attacked from the front? I'm thinking shield walls and spearmen that are able to keep a defended front while faster units flank.
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Mar 27, 2013 00:07
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Buckwheat Sings posted:That's pretty much the reason why I didn't really enjoy HoMM3. The game felt funky and the combat system felt funky. If this is more like Civ meets Master of Magic sign me up. It's more like straight MoM than a middle ground. At least the previous games were. MoM was already awfully Civ-like, though. If you want to play something that is most definitely Civilization meets Master of Magic, play the Civilization IV mod Fall From Heaven 2. It's fantastic.
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Mar 27, 2013 00:12
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Buckwheat Sings posted:That's pretty much the reason why I didn't really enjoy HoMM3. The game felt funky and the combat system felt funky. If this is more like Civ meets Master of Magic sign me up. The more they push the CIV/MOM style the happier I'll be. I like that feeling of starting with a tiny hamlet which you build up extensively while you expand and build new cities across the map. I haven't played a lot of AOWII, but it seemed to miss a lot of that feeling, and seemed to throw you 'into the action' much faster, with you able to field your higher tier units pretty quickly and city/empire building much less of a essential part of gameplay.
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Mar 27, 2013 00:13
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Fintilgin posted:The more they push the CIV/MOM style the happier I'll be. I like that feeling of starting with a tiny hamlet which you build up extensively while you expand and build new cities across the map. I haven't played a lot of AOWII, but it seemed to miss a lot of that feeling, and seemed to throw you 'into the action' much faster, with you able to field your higher tier units pretty quickly and city/empire building much less of a essential part of gameplay. If you play MP there's a map option for random generation where you only start off with your initial city and have to pioneer out the rest of your empire. The AI isn't competent at it though. Edit: This is in Shadow Magic only.
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Mar 27, 2013 00:15
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That footage looks simply wonderful. I am still super giddy about this.
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Mar 27, 2013 00:16
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Taerkar posted:Is your main guy like he was in AoW II/SM? As in he doesn't gain levels, or is he more akin to a normal hero in AoW 1? More like AoW 1, in most respects he's just like all your other heroes. Demiurge4 posted:This is looking really, really good. Looks like you've already got the core gameplay down which is excellent. I'm really digging the strategic layer to flanking units, causing it to waste a retaliation. Will there be certain units that are much stronger on the defence when attacked from the front? I'm thinking shield walls and spearmen that are able to keep a defended front while faster units flank. The main defensive ability is still first strike, so pikemen hit you first when you attack them. I'm not sure about directional defensive bonuses, I think we have some units with them, but I'm not sure of how well they fit, since a unit will always turn to face you after you attack it. Fintilgin posted:The more they push the CIV/MOM style the happier I'll be. I like that feeling of starting with a tiny hamlet which you build up extensively while you expand and build new cities across the map. I haven't played a lot of AOWII, but it seemed to miss a lot of that feeling, and seemed to throw you 'into the action' much faster, with you able to field your higher tier units pretty quickly and city/empire building much less of a essential part of gameplay. Yeah, AoW 2 cities were pretty much just there to produce troops, we've been working hard to make them more interesting in 3.
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Mar 27, 2013 00:18
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GrandpaPants posted:I think one of the more unique features of Age of Wonders is that it has a ton of races, much more than the standard Human, Elf, Dwarf, Orc spread that most fantasy games have. I'm really hoping that 3 doesn't reduce the number of races significantly I was saying this earlier in the thread, a lot of the appeal of the games was the amount of races and it'd be a real shame to lose that dimension by cutting down on them.
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Mar 27, 2013 00:21
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Mr.48 posted:I'm a big fan of Heroes of Might and Magic 3, could you briefly describe what's better in AoW?
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Mar 27, 2013 00:22
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Gerblyn posted:We've released new gameplay footage! I noticed that units were visually dying in a unit-formation as the formation was taking damage (The formation started off as 6 swordsmen, but were later reduced to 3 as they took damage). Does the formation's own damage-output decrease to reflect the losses it suffered, or is it just a decrease in overall formation HP?
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Mar 27, 2013 00:24
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Mr.48 posted:I noticed that units were visually dying in a unit-formation as the formation was taking damage (The formation started off as 6 swordsmen, but were later reduced to 3 as they took damage). Does the formation's own damage-output decrease to reflect the losses it suffered, or is it just a decrease in overall formation HP? Just HP loss at the moment, we're worried that reducing unit effectiveness with HP levels will draw out battles and encourage annoying micro. It also creates odd imbalances, since formations with fewer figures become more powerful. This could change, it feels intuitively odd at the moment that a unit with a single archer is as much a threat as a group of 8.
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Mar 27, 2013 00:31
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Gerblyn posted:Just HP loss at the moment, we're worried that reducing unit effectiveness with HP levels will draw out battles and encourage annoying micro. It also creates odd imbalances, since formations with fewer figures become more powerful. This could change, it feels intuitively odd at the moment that a unit with a single archer is as much a threat as a group of 8. I hope you guys figure it out, because like you say, its very unnatural for a formation to lose units but still do the same damage and would bug me a lot.
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Mar 27, 2013 00:34
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Really looking forward to this after seeing that gameplay footage. Tactical battles look amazing and the strategic level still retains the classic Age of Wonders characteristics. Going to have to re-install the games and go through them again.
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Mar 27, 2013 00:34
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Gerblyn posted:I'll be around for a little bit tonight, otherwise I can try and answer any questions people have tomorrow. For multiplayer, are there going to be any better options for keeping the pace up in this game? The problem with earlier AoW game's multiplayer was that even though they had simultaneous turns, tactical combat still bogged thing down a lot. Mostly hoping for a more robust quick combat system, maybe that allows you to have a small degree of control like choosing to retreat if things start looking bad, telling heroes what kind of spells they should/shouldn't cast, stuff like that. Also, IIRC in AoW2 if another player was involved in Tactical combat, nobody else could be doing ANYTHING. AoW1 wasn't like this, so definitely hoping for more like AoW1 here. Gerblyn posted:Just HP loss at the moment, we're worried that reducing unit effectiveness with HP levels will draw out battles and encourage annoying micro. It also creates odd imbalances, since formations with fewer figures become more powerful. This could change, it feels intuitively odd at the moment that a unit with a single archer is as much a threat as a group of 8. Warlock and it's predecessors basically just made unit effectiveness based on % HP, not in discreet levels based on the number of figures.
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Mar 27, 2013 00:55
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Maybe the best compromise is just to have both. Obviously heroes will just be single units and shouldn't be affected much by HP loss, but maybe have most of the more powerful buildable units just be represented by a single unit and not lose effectiveness with HP loss, while a lot of the more generic units like archer squadrons be represented by groups of units that do get weaker with HP loss. MoM already kind of did this with the generic soldier unit, didn't they? Although I do get that may go against your planned aesthetic of trying to make the player feel like they're in command of larger armies.
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Mar 27, 2013 02:01
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:Maybe the best compromise is just to have both. Obviously heroes will just be single units and shouldn't be affected much by HP loss, but maybe have most of the more powerful buildable units just be represented by a single unit and not lose effectiveness with HP loss, while a lot of the more generic units like archer squadrons be represented by groups of units that do get weaker with HP loss. You could also attach this to a skill, so heroes could decrease the effect of effectiveness scaling by taking extra ranks in it. Or some units would just come with it naturally. Oh yeah, have they said anything about modding capability? Mods sure added a lot of life to Shadow Magic, so it'd be good to see full support for them in AoW3.
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Mar 27, 2013 02:14
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:Maybe the best compromise is just to have both. Obviously heroes will just be single units and shouldn't be affected much by HP loss, but maybe have most of the more powerful buildable units just be represented by a single unit and not lose effectiveness with HP loss, while a lot of the more generic units like archer squadrons be represented by groups of units that do get weaker with HP loss. MoM already kind of did this with the generic soldier unit, didn't they? As single units take damage they could always look more haggard, explaining why they're becoming less effective.
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Mar 27, 2013 02:17
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Gerblyn posted:Just HP loss at the moment, we're worried that reducing unit effectiveness with HP levels will draw out battles and encourage annoying micro. It also creates odd imbalances, since formations with fewer figures become more powerful. This could change, it feels intuitively odd at the moment that a unit with a single archer is as much a threat as a group of 8. (I'd love it if that kind of thing had a chance to spawn heroes. A Last Man Standing occasionally graduating to hero status would be boss). Meanwhile, a 6-stack of archers would lose 1/10th damage per lost guy, meaning the last guy is also on 50%. You still have the the mild benefit of having less damage-drop thresholds, but that's balanced out by the fact that you will actually hit the 50% minimum slightly sooner (only needing to lose 5/6ths of your HP rather than 7/8ths). This scales all the way down to two-man squads, who would flat-out lose half their effectiveness at half HP. ...and speaking of HP, you don't necessarily need to directly match Unit loss with HP loss either. Again, if we go with the assumption that the last guy is A Hardass, you could conceivably allow him to have more than his fair share of HP. That is, it takes less than 1/8th of an 8-man squads HP to lose a dude,leaving the last man standing with more than 1/8th of a squad's HP. This would make squads a bit weaker (since you lose damage dealing capacity faster) requiring a bit of a raw numbers buff though. Obviously it all wouldn't be quite this clear-cut since damage in AoW uses rather discrete numbers (1/10th of 5 to 7 damage gets messy) but there's probably some way to deal with it sensibly. Splicer fucked around with this message at 03:24 on Mar 27, 2013 |
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Mar 27, 2013 03:15
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Taerkar posted:As single units take damage they could always look more haggard, explaining why they're becoming less effective. Well, you could come up with reasons why they could deal less damage, but if it's a balance and pacing concern, I'm saying a mix might be the best idea.
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Mar 27, 2013 03:17
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Splicer posted:You could minimise the problem of drawing out fights (and the stack imbalance issue) if unit loss didn't match directly with reduced damage. If an 8 model grouping lost 1/14th of their damage instead of 1/8th then even when you got down to one guy you'd still on 50% effectiveness. Because that last guy just saw all his buddies murdered and He. Is. Pissed. All units benefit from the Inverse Ninja Law.
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Mar 27, 2013 03:23
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Taerkar posted:All units benefit from the Inverse Ninja Law. e: It would be neat if you could merge like-squads, so if you have two badly depleted squads of archers you can smoosh them into one squad of slightly depleted archers.
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Mar 27, 2013 03:24
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