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shelper posted:Well yeah, but they were *there*, and they were fun. Right, but some of them weren't interesting. At all. Three of the Age of Wonders 1 races were just 'humans' with different cultures. And considering Elves/Dark Elves have made up and are back together, and Archons appear to part of the Theocrat's arsenal, there aren't too many interesting races missing. Undead, Frostlings, Halflings are and I'd like to see them back at some point. But I can live without the cat people, human variants and Shadow Demons.
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Feb 15, 2014 21:11
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I wonder if Goblin Warbreeds are just sort of regular Orc/Human/Elf/Draconian sized. this would make my day and ensure I play nothing but Goblin Warlords. I am already so torn about which classes and races I want to try out first. Archdruid, Sorcerer, Warlord and Dreadnaught look like so much fun. Ditto Orcs/Goblins/Draconians. Though the lack of real Lizardfolk/Frostlings is a blow. 
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Mar 27, 2014 21:21
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Plus Frostlings fill a niche that's weirdly absent. Frost damage and resistant is near non-existent unless you have the water sphere, and everything in the world (except elves!) is stupidly resistant to Blight damage. Really the resistances and elemental balance in general feels off right now. And it especially hurts things like Goblin Rogues. Other than that, loving the game. Will love it more when Frostlings, Lizardmen (with turtle cavalry) and Necromancer class is added 
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Mar 31, 2014 20:25
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WYA posted:Are their racial teir fours, and is the teir 3 the only one for a race? There is no racial Tier 4 unit. All normal tier four units are built/summoned via your class (Rogues do not get a natural tier four at all). All Tier 3s beyond the regular racial one come from the classes. There are still a ton of other tier 3/4 units you can get in various ways. They're just not guaranteed.
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Apr 1, 2014 07:20
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Does anyone ever actually build tier 1 units? I can usually skate by with unit rewards/summons/inn units until my cities can produce tier 3 stuff. Maybe i should play something besides Archdruid. But I'll miss my wolves/boars/spiders/huge fuckoff snakes. I've still not researched Horned God. You can get a ton of tier 4s out of Summon Huge animal as it is. Including the ridiculous Shock Snake.
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Apr 2, 2014 23:12
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madmac posted:So, Shadow Stalkers: Also Summon Gargantuan animal is cheaper than summon Horned God and get get you a ton of amazing and diverse tier 3/4 units. Especially Shock Serpents.
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Apr 3, 2014 12:22
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Xae posted:Resurgence + Spy Drone = I really wish Warbreed Goblins were like the size of a regular person instead of looking nigh identical to human ones. That would have been hilarious. They even have the same skin tone  Draconians and Orcs managed to at least get the red/green skin!
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Apr 4, 2014 06:05
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I do wish stuff besides Unicorn Sires was more common in the lower level treasure sites. I must have gotten twenty of those guys by now. In comparison, I've only found one Hellhound and one Blight Boar. I haven't even seen a Spider/Wyvern/Felhorse etc. yet. Don't get me wrong, phase is pretty sweet. But having my Dreadnaught Goblin prancing around on a Unicorn is a bit weird with all the machines/wargs/beetles surrounding him.
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Apr 5, 2014 00:33
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Dandywalken posted:Yeah, there arent a very wide choice of mounts it seems. Yeah, you can get Wargs and Boars really easily from any great farm. And a random irregular tier one for clearing a bandit camp. Getting some of the more esoteric stuff is a lot harder though. I've found a Griffin in a Legendary? ruin (tier 2 monster which isn't available any other way as far as I know. Despite the fact you can summon undead birds as a Druid). Ditto a Troll once. And I've seen people get sweet mounts only through the tier 1 Sorcerer spell that gives you an egg. I think randomizing unit rewards, so that you can get Trolls/baby spiders/baby serpents/Kobolds as rare rewards for low level dungeons would be cool. Monsters that evolve in general are really awesome and I think are a perfect thing to get for exploring stuff. You need to put effort in to protecting and leveling them to get a unique tier 3, which can be a fun little metagame. Summon Animal has this a bit since you can get a Warg/Boar/Hunter Spider. With the spider being by far the rarest, and having the worst stats off the bat, but the ability to turn into a sweet spider queen. Also Wargs and Boars should also evolve. Dire Warg/Dire Boar, make it happen Triumph
Zore fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Apr 5, 2014 |
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Apr 5, 2014 00:41
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CommissarMega posted:Does anyone know what magics go well with Dreadnaughts? I'm thinking a Draconian with Expander and 2 Fire, then proceed to burn everything- good idea? Well, they already get a bunch of fire damage from Flame Tanks, Engineers and Juggernauts. Though having Hellhounds to summon early on is pretty sweet and gives you a decent mana sink for some kick rear end tier 2s you can replenish in the field. Personally I'd go with Air 2, Water 2 and maybe Fire 1. That way you still get Hellhounds and fireball, but later you can start summoning tier 3 Elementals to round out your damage if you're facing stuff with high fire resist/immunity. Plus you can get Zephyr birds for amazing scouting or motherfucking Krakens for total sea domination. Tons of stuff has fire resist, very few things have lightning resist and basically nothing except Bleak Wolves, Ice Giants and Ice Dragons really resists ice. And those are rare as hell. Fire is probably the second worst attack type after blight for the sheer amount of things that resist it like every Draconian, Succubus, Hellhounds, Fire Dragons, Fire Giants etc. Zore fucked around with this message at 18:31 on Apr 5, 2014 |
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Apr 5, 2014 18:28
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I still think they went a bit overboard with Blight resistances and immunities. 2 races have innate Blight resistance to varying degrees, all machines are immune (2 different classes tier 4's!), Spiders have huge resistances as do a bunch of Druid summons, all undead. And to balance it out high elves are slightly more vulnerable to it. I don't think you can even get a spell like fire does to decrease resistance.
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Apr 5, 2014 18:37
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d3c0y2 posted:On the topic of lore, is it revealed why the Archon's have become undead. I was surprisingly sad when I found undead Archon's holed up in a ruin. The unit lore has it. Basically the Archons ascended to another plane of existence. Then all the ones who died in the wars from AoW2 clawed their way out of the ground as undead monstrosities. They're a bit bitter.
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Apr 5, 2014 19:36
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madmac posted:I dunno, I've been murdering a lot of Tier 3 units with Tier 1/2. Flanking, counters, veterans, magic, and hero bonuses count for a lot. In the long run you should really probably be getting your own Tier 3 units, but in my experience you can totally fight them off long enough to tech up and I get a lot more use out of diverse armies with range and support units then I would just massing the strongest unit. Swarm Darters, Elven Longbowmen, Orc Impalers, High Elf Initiates, and Draconian Flamers are the tier 1 units that'll fit pretty comfortably into an endgame army. Especially if they're upgraded. Most of the tier 2 Cavalry and support can too, though Storm Sisters, Unicorn riders, Orc Black horses and Human Priests are real standouts. Elves have absolutely ridiculous racial units. They get an irregular that promotes into the best tier 2 racial support, Longbowmen (and Hunters!) that do full damage at max range without the nasty blight damage Swarm Darters are saddled with, Cavalry that can teleport to flank/get inside walls, a Support who gets a chance to stun on every attack at max rank and a flying tier 3. Also they do Shock damage which is rarely resisted. The only real losers in their lineup are their infantry who are merely 'ok' instead of arguably the best in their tier. They also have good synergy with Dreadnought, Arch Druid, Theocrat and Warlord. I wouldn't call them better than anyone else by miles or anything, but they get a lot of neat tricks that no one else does. And they don't have the glaring holes in their lineup that Orcs, Goblins or Dwarves have. Nor the reliance on a highly resisted element (and commonly given by classes) for ranged damage the Goblins, Dwarves and Draconians get saddled with.
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Apr 6, 2014 18:40
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Taear posted:But, for the most part, you might as well just have a tier 3 unit. There's no reason for me to have boar riders when I can have a firstborn, there's no reason to have a swarm darter when I can just have 5 beetle riders. There are still reasons to keep around some of the lower tier dudes. Range is one of the biggest ones, being able to do damage without taking any back is fantastic and no tier 3 unit I can think of even has range except for the Flame Tank. Plus some of them get abilities that can change a lot about the battlefield. Orc Preists can curse stuff, Apprentices can heal magical units, Storm Sisters can stun things with their basic attack, Unicorn Riders can get guaranteed flanks, etc. While you should phase out stuff like Goblin Marauders really quickly, most units do have some good tactical applications.
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Apr 6, 2014 19:06
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I think I'm going to turn off underground or something. I've genned five or six maps just now, variously as high elves, draconians and goblins, and the only race that started on the surface was the goblins. Moving around down below is such a pain in the rear end without cave-walking. Incidently, has anyone seen Archon dwellings? I think I might be getting horrifically unlucky, but even when playing on a large map with Dwellings set to high I routinely run into 2-3 Dragon dwellings, 0-1 Fairy, 1-2 Giant and no Archon dwellings. Admittedly I haven't been exploring the whole map on any of them, but its felt pretty consistent. I just wanna play with zombies.
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Apr 7, 2014 00:50
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madmac posted:Incidentally, has anyone put together a full list of random Druid/Sorcerer summons? I think I have a pretty good handle on Druid just from playing it, but I'm curious. Just from what I've seen: Baby Spiders can turn into the tier 3 Mother Spiders if they max rank (this is great, especially since they're already the best Wild Animal Summon). Eldritch Animal is always Zephyr Bird, Dire Penguin, Bleak Warg (frost version of hellhound) or Blight Boar. Bleak Warg and Blight Boar are actually pretty solid, and the other two are decent for exploring the map. Summoning a Hellhound is an Adept Fire spell and is slightly cheaper than Eldritch Animal. There are a few things I wish were added to the pool. Adding the baby forms of the serpents to the Eldritch Animal pool would be nice (I like evolving things). Ditto the Griffon. As would adding Felhorses to Summon Wild Animal and maybe the other two varieties of baby spider. The druid summoning spells are like gambling crack to me though. I love rolling the die on them, it makes it hard to play other classes. Zore fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Apr 7, 2014 |
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Apr 7, 2014 15:38
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THS posted:What does Air + Air mastery or Creation + Creation mastery do for you as opposed to just taking the first one? You get higher level spells for one. Like Earth Mastery gets you the ability to cast Earthquake in battle which does 40 damage to all non-flying units and 60 to the walls. All the Elemental spheres let you summon tier 3 elementals if you get the appropriate mastery etc.
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Apr 8, 2014 04:23
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Drone_Fragger posted:Just a bug that probably needs fixing, if you pick one of the predefined leaders, it's then possible for the same leader to turn up in game leading an opposing nation. So you can then end up at war with the evil clone of yourself. It's not gamebreaking by any means but it just feels super wierd, especially when theres like 40 different stock leaders it could of rerolled from. This can actually happen with your unique heroes too if you save them, though its much more rare. I will never forget when I had my goblin Archdruid run into his clone. Jiyup the Toxx.
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Apr 8, 2014 13:40
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Drone_Fragger posted:I mean at game start you are the ruler Tomric Orcsbane and then you bump into a scout... belonging to the other Tomric Orcsbane who is actually the same as you except that his crest is a slightly lighter shade of blue. Yes, my guy (Jiyup the Toxx) ran into a city that belonged to another Jiyup the Toxx who's primary color was red instead of orange. Also he immediately declared war.
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Apr 8, 2014 13:58
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There's a lot of cool stuff that could stand to be gotten from lower tiered dungeons and such. Like Griffons, Trolls, Shock Serpent babies and other oddball tier 2/3's. Or literally any mount that isn't a Unicorn Sire or a Hellhound. Having all the cool mounts and units locked in dungeons that require a bunch of tier 3's/4's or strongish heroes to attempt is a little annoying. Has anyone even managed to see a Phoenix in game yet?
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Apr 9, 2014 05:04
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madmac posted:Exalted are hella cool, but they are one of the weaker Tier 3 units in terms of raw combat strength. They pay for resurgence and willpower by being noticeably weaker then Gryphon Riders and Draconian Flyers. In theory you can just doom-snowball with them and never take casualties but they definitely don't trade that effectively with some units. Very good in sieges, though. Being disposable also opens up a lot of tactical options. Soaking attacks of opportunity and flanking are super useful when you're trying to take down some of the more dangerous Tier 4's.
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Apr 9, 2014 20:28
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Finally finished my first game all the way through! Sorcerer on a Medium map, 85 turns. I ended up stalling for a bit so I could use Chaos Storm in the final battle. Ended up taking absolutely no casualties. Man Sorcerers get all the good stuff.
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Apr 10, 2014 07:11
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Also, everyone should go Dwelling Hunting. Especially if you're a Druid or Sorcerer who's summoning most of their units. Giant and Dragons are absolutely ridiculously bonkers good. And if you get a Dwelling early enough you can be pumping them out way before you can get other Tier 4's with the research changes. Similarly, with the Fairies, Just do the quick building chain to get the fairies and ignore the Nymphs/Unicorn. Nightshade Fairies are one of the best Tier 3 units in the game, can be produced quickly even from a Dwelling and are just amazing in general. The only real exception to this is Archons. Yes, the Wraith King/Titan are decent but you have to build so many buildings to unlock them. And since they don't heal naturally you need to stick the crappy Archon caster in the stack with them. Oh and you need a Hero with an item/ability or you'll have constant morale penalties if you're good. Late game my Sorcerer's armies were almost all Nightshade Fairies, Stone/Fire Giants, Golden/Fire Dragons and a bunch of summons that has stuck around for a while (a ton of Griffons, Wyverns, and a few Horrors).
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Apr 10, 2014 18:33
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Gwyrgyn Blood posted:Generally agree, but don't be afraid to lose a few units on a battle if it's for something very valuable, like say taking a gold mine or city right at the start of the game. And it's okay to make T1/T2 units if you need a little extra muscle, but don't go too nuts. More units = able to split up and take more goodies early on, but obviously you need to find the right balance. This also depends on what classes you're playing. As a Sorcerer/Druid especially you should never be producing units early on except for a few Hunters/Apprentices and focus on building up your cities until they give you the sweet +10 casting points/turn. As a side effect of this, you'll be able to pump out tier 3 racial units like crazy to supplement your summons in the late game. Rogues, however, have loving amazing Tier 2 units and don't really benefit from Casting points/turn that much. Every Assassin/Shadow Stalker you make is going to be amazing all game and only requires a Rogue's Palace to invest in. Plus they're cheap and Rogues get bonuses for exploring. Bards and Succubi are also incredible force multipliers since they allow you to get a ridiculous number of Tier 3s, and Tier 4s. Ogres/Trolls/Krakens/Yetis/Giants/Queen Spiders/Phantom Warriors have really low resistance and are just generally solid units and are fairly common. If you get a little lucky you can even snag stuff like Firstborns/Warbreeds/etc. if they deign to spawn for you. Also, for Dreadnaught/Rogue/Theocrat/Warlord you'll probably want to get one of the Elemental masteries. Summoning an elemental is fairly cheap, and they're solid Tier 3 units you can use to pad out armies or patch losses. Its not like they're competing with other summons anyways. Fire is actually an amazing school for this reason, as Adept also lets you summon Hellhounds and gives you a manadump and reasonable tier 2s virtually all game. Especially because half the time you start with that spell.
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Apr 11, 2014 21:53
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Also, make it a priority to grab Dwellings (unless they're Archon which take waaaay too much investment). Giants and Dragons are amazing and you can pump them out really quickly. And doing so also doesn't deprive you of much money since Dwellings generate poo poo for mechanidise anyways. Also Nightshade Fairies are insane. A tier 3 that's immune to elemental damage, has a high damage 3 elemental attack, flies, has good defenses and good health. Its also cheap and produces quickly! Get these dudes.
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Apr 11, 2014 21:58
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Snow Job posted:Hm, this Dreadnought hero won't use the longbow I gave him in combat. Are common ranged weapons restricted to their respective classes? No, are you sure its arrived yet? It shows up greyed out in the inventory when in transit.
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Apr 12, 2014 03:33
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UberJumper posted:I just finished the first common wealth mission and found a single loot item (of course a unicorn). It does. You get a certain amount of XP for every attack (I think 2 for attacking a tier 1) with bonuses if you kill them and a multiplier based on its tier. Every tier of units also requires more XP to level. Tier 1s take 10 to get to Trooper, Tier 2s 20 etc. Of course higher tiered units also get some ridiculous bonuses for ranking up while lower tiered ones really don't.
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Apr 12, 2014 21:28
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Also, remember you can mod settings if you want the start to go quicker. I recommend choosing starting units: battle instead of standard in the advanced options when you set up a new game. That'll give you a full stack of your race's stuff, including at least 2 tier 3s, and another full stack mix of stuff from your class (though only units you can produce so Archmages are stuck with a stack of Apprentices) and sometimes your race. That'll let you explore and kill most independents relatively easily as long as you assign a hero to each stack and let you play around with some of the more advanced units. Just don't tackle Mythical stuff, or Legendary until you get a hang of the combat.
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Apr 13, 2014 03:20
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Taear posted:They're actually quite squishy, your best bet is to try and get them with stuff that has First Strike! Or fire resistance of course. You can actually ally with people your ally is at war with. Unfortunately, even if you ally with everyone else you still don't win the game if they're fighting each other. I ended up having to break two alliances and kill them off before the victory screen triggered.
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Apr 13, 2014 04:03
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madmac posted:You've got the right idea. Incidently, this leads to a lot of interesting synergies. Elves arguably synergize well with everything. For instance, Warlord Elves patches up their infantry weakness with amazing meatshields like the Warbreed and Phalanx. And they upgrade the Mounted Archers to Longbows which makes them amazing. On top of that, Warlords get a spell that instantly makes everything max rank. Elvish Irregulars (which the Warlord also has a spell to pump out by the poo poo-ton) turn into their support unit at max rank. Their Support unit is arguably the best support in the game. Orcs, interestingly, syngergize really well with Rogues. Their units are beefier, and Rogue units are almost all melee anyways and appreciate the boost to attack power. They also manage to get halfway decent range units in the Scoundrel and Bard early on as crossbows aren't affected by the Orc ranged penalty as far as I can tell. Oh and since Rogue units can steal units without mind control immunity with Bards and Succubi that show up really early on in NPC camps (Mother spiders, Ogres, Trolls, Yetis, Bleak Wargs, Unicorns, Giants, Node Serpents, etc and even poo poo like Warbreeds) you can dedicate your cities to pumping out your amazing tier 2 units pretty early on and coasting on stolen tier 3s which lets you build up a sizable attack force without spending gold.
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Apr 13, 2014 05:33
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Xae posted:Wait, there is a Cave Layer? Its an option that defaults to off in the setup for the create your own maps. You need to go into advance settings to toggle it on. If you're playing the campaigns or scenarios it should be there though.
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Apr 13, 2014 05:48
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I usually set city founding to off, cities to few and dwellings to high (as that actaully seems to guarentee ine of each type). It makes for some fun games because no one really runs away with production like you can by making GBS threads cities out everywhere. And even the AI can't death stack early if they're locked to fiveish cities.
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Apr 13, 2014 19:00
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madmac posted:I do think the game has pacing and economic issues that need to be sorted out, (I like upping building requirements slightly for Tier 4s and adding something to speed up the endgame.) but I have to say I think Tier 4 units are a little overrated. They're easy enough to kill with lower-tier units if you know what you're doing and each class only gets one, so preparing isn't exactly a stab in the dark. Dwellings already have fairly low production though? And no real way to increase it if you aren't a Dreadnaught. Gold Dragons, the best Dragons, take 6 turns to pump out normally. You can dump 250 gold on top of the 600 they cost to get that down to one turn, but that also starts tanking the production (by tanking the happiness) and they'll soon require more turns and gold. Honestly, the problem is almost entirely fixed if you turn city founding off. Though I have no idea how they can balance it with infinite city sprawl beyond making new cities drain your economy for X turns. Or adding in diminishing returns or some such.
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Apr 14, 2014 04:53
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DrManiac posted:I would love this if only to make the warlord's ultimate spell even more powerful. Evolve is really great on Baby Krackens, Baby Spiders, Baby Serpents and High Elf initiates though.
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Apr 15, 2014 01:35
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KirbyKhan posted:The only unit I have ever had evolved was an Elf Initiate from my starting party. Must have been turn 40ish by that point, completed by Indy stomping. I replaced that Storm Sister with a Manticore Rider soon after. I never have tier 4 units by turn 40ish. And besides, I love having parties of Ogres/Trolls/Spiders/Serpents/Warbreeds etc. that I've converted more than cookie cutter armies. And they're all good tier 3/4 units as it is, which makes them fit perfectly even into endgame parties. Turn off city founding and the game goes a lot smoother. I've had games on Large map, turn 120, where the King/Emperor AIs only had three or four tier fours at most and we were mostly fighting wars of Tier 1/2s and 3s.
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Apr 15, 2014 01:48
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Carnalfex posted:Is there a battle limit setting somewhere I overlooked? Most games of this type force an attacker to retreat after a set time if they can't win. Modern games, certainly, but even Master of Magic ended battles after a limit (I think it was 50 turns? that was REALLY long). There isn't a setting, but if there are a certain number of consecutive turns without any unit taking damage (I think 30?) then the battle ends. It can't drag out into an indefinite stalemate unless you had some bizarre Theocrat v Theocrat grudge match where they kept poking each other and then retreating to heal.
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Apr 22, 2014 23:58
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Elves get way more than their share of great tier 1-2 units. Initiates, Longbowmen, Unicorn Cav, and Storm Sisters are either the best, or only barely edged out by something else. Everyone else gets about one real standout on average; Human Preist, Orc Black Knight, Draconian Charger, Goblin Swarm Darter, Dwarf Forge Preist with the rest being sort of middling crap. Usually with no interesting abilities. I think they really should consider adding some more interesting abilities to the other racial classes though and not nerf the elves. Giving Warg Riders nets, Draconian Riders a 1/battle breath attack, Dwarf Boar Riders a weak crossbow sidearm etc. would be cool and open up neat play like Unicorn Riders Phase does. Basically I want everyone to have as much cool poo poo as Elves get. Also Orc Priests should shoot cold instead of Blight.
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Apr 23, 2014 01:34
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I think we could fit a mad scientist archetype in the vein of Dr. Moreau in as well. Give them low tier machines that are basically cyborg/lobotomized people and high tier abominations againt nature from experimentation like armored elephants with guns, or more stuff like the Warbreed. It does overlap with the Warlord and Dreadnaught a little bit, but I think adding another class that uses machine units would be cool. Or maybe a class designed around a Political leader, called a Consul or something. Give them inspirational boosters, Herald units to buff/debuff, things that can convert people, one of their special units is an angry mob that can destroy buildings/machines A spell called 'Medal of honor' that promotes a gold medal tier 1-2 unit to tier 3 with a stat boost etc.
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Apr 25, 2014 15:13
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I think it might help if spells leveled with heroes to some extent. Having, say, Bless affect an area based on the level of the hero casting it. So level 1-3 it affects one unit, level 4-6 it goes in a one tile radius etc with a scaling mana cost per unit targeted. That might help some of the more 'eh' buffs gain utility as the game goes on. +2/+2 is pretty significant if it applies to your whole force. Obviously this would only be for the more minor buffs. I think most of the other spells are actually pretty well balanced right now.
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Apr 27, 2014 03:14
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I just always offer open borders with my peace treaties. It makes the AI more likely to accept and means I only get the notifications if its independants or someone genuinely invading.
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Apr 27, 2014 05:58
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