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It was different in AoW2 and SM, for AoW2 cosmos gave you almost everything (except I think the mastery spells). In SM cosmos was a mix it as you like up to 6 selections, multiple picks of a single sphere gave you a random selection of spells up to that tier, you never got everything via cosmos even if you maxed out on a sphere, you needed to take a pure specialization for that. Edit: The max amount of sphere picks you could take in SM was 4 for a single sphere. In AoW2 cosmos was just a plain selection like any other sphere with no customization.
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Mar 30, 2014 17:59
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^^ Yeah I had a vague idea of that list in my head but couldn't remember how it was structured, forgot you didn't actually get everything even as a specialist in SM (Sure it was the case in AoW2). Anyways, about AoW3, I finally got around to ordering it today and serious credit goes to Gerblyn, it's his great preview videos that really sold it for me.
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Mar 30, 2014 18:58
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Splicer posted:Either works fine as a base mechanic, but trying to balance a game such that the game works fine with either toggled? Now that would be a nightmare With base mechanic I think you can go as far as saying: 'completely different games', I'd consider the AoW games as incompatible as you can get, unless you want to restrict casting spells on the battlefield enormously. Who even cares about first strike and archery units becoming super powerful, it's aoe or battlefield-wide spells that would become the _one and only_ thing. I very much prefer the "last guy fights like a hero" idea, it goes well with epic fantasy too.
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Mar 31, 2014 14:58
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So many beards to choose from! (23 and 1 shaved) Kinda funny looking how some of them float around the face if you select a small head shape.
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Mar 31, 2014 17:53
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Doink9731 posted:I lost my Throne city to independents. The embarrassment! Happened to me too during my first game  , those independent marauders are dicks. Finished my first evening mucking around on a random map, so far it feels pretty much as a solid and touched up AoW. I miss casting anywhere within my domain (I really loved that wizard-king feel) but otherwise I have no real complains, the leader/hero class system is neat and the way domain claims your outlying buildings is great. Slight performance issues on the world map, but I am running on an old duo core, battles and everything else is smooth, loading times are minimal. Can't wait to get some more game time in.
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Mar 31, 2014 23:59
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Is it me or does Mana income seem a little out of scale? The random map generator seems particularly generous with mana nodes, together with random mana as loot and the income buildings I quickly end up with thousands in the bank, despite constant spell-casting and global enchants. Granted I haven't really tried much with a sorcerer which seems to rely a lot more on units with mana upkeep, but it kinda feels like the system was balanced around having a lot more mana upkeep (unit enchantments out of combat maybe?) that now just ends building up in the bank.
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Apr 1, 2014 21:16
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Gerblyn posted:The randomized nature of the skillbook makes that a hard thing to achieve. If a game has a tech tree then it's easy to fill it with filler crap (research this for +5% shields on all units!) but with our skillbook, we can't have too many things like that. An unlucky player would get an endless parade of +5 hitpoints, and +6% production in cities, while a lucky player would get fireballs and earthquake. So when we add new things, they have to be genuinely useful, which means they need to be relatively powerful, which makes them hard to balance and things. Though I like the somewhat randomized nature of the research-book, have you guys considered simply allowing the player to flip a page, basically doubling the amount of research options a player could potentially have? You could put allow the player access to the majority of tier 1 spells at the start and set requirements for the higher tiers, say for example research 3 tier 1 spells before tier 2 spells show up. This way you keep a decent breadth of choice for the player and eliminate issues like a player missing out on critical spells like "Mark Heretics", while some choice costs increases slow down the time it takes to get to the higher tiers.
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Apr 4, 2014 10:07
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Conot posted:Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something on a basic level then, how does the fort having its own +10 labor from a magma forge achieve anything? I get that gold, mana and research get thrown into the global pool, but the fort can't produce any units on its own. This was just answered on the previous page , if a fort can't use it it's ignored, while basic income it claims like mana or gold is put straight into your account. Production and pop growth (and I assume happiness?) aren't tapped by a fort.
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Apr 4, 2014 11:09
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^^ Unless you're playing Dreadnought, spamming "mana fuel cells" and building tons of musketeers, then mana dries up quickly up until the midgame- after that it's a feast again though. I really think the random map generator likes mana nodes too much, even with resource buildings set to "few" there's plenty of spots with an easy 2 nodes right next to eachother. Dropbear posted:Yeah, I read that too, but I didn't mean exactly that - I like founding cities in good spots, I just don't like the optimum strategy being "cram as many cities as you possibly can in the area you have". Anyone know if city building has some kind of limits like in Civ 5, or is more cities always better than less? You can spam cities as much as you want and theoretically more cities is always better, whether you want to invest the turns and gold to city spam however is probably questionable. This isn't a game that takes 300+ turns, most mediums maps I've played so far ended around turn 100-130 and it's probably just quicker to start building armies at a certain point. I've never felt the need to build more than 6-7 cities even on empire build mode, after that it's just easier to take cities from the other players. Mind you, that's just personal experience from a few days, maybe next week somebody will come out with the perfect city-spam plan that's safe enough not to die and prove it optimal (at which point I'm fairly sure Triumph will patch things to balance out a bit more). Autsj fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Apr 4, 2014 |
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Apr 4, 2014 17:28
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Demiurge4 posted:I think a lot of it could be fixed by bringing back global unit buff spells. I think it's an odd choice to make buffs combat only, as it eats an entire turn from a hero unit and relegates my main hero to be basically a backline supporter at all times. It would be nice if I could pre-cast flame aura on my cavalry for a hefty upkeep cost. This will give classes that aren't dependent on mana for unit production to actually spend it and will make lower tier units viable for a lot longer. I think a potential problem with global buffs will be the indirect buff to tier 3-4 units and Heroes, buffing lots of lower tier units gets prohibitive but primarily Heroes and higher tier units is manageable. I like the occasional game breaking overpowered stuff too, but just a few cookie cutter setups that always win is crappy, buffed heroes soloing the map is something we've already done in AoW1 and 2.
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Apr 4, 2014 17:47
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Schach posted:I feel like information I want is often not within easy grasp. When building units there doesn't seem to be any way to see their tier before you produce one? Also is there a way to see more information about your and others' leaders, mainly spell specializations? You can click (right click I think) on a unit icon in the build screen to see their infocard. To see a leader's specialization you need to find them on the campaign map, then click (it's left normally) his/her potrait, the spheres are noted in the upper left of their infocard.
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Apr 5, 2014 00:10
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^^ I think it's mostly the case of return of investment, though I could be wrong. Turn 44 sounds thoroughly mid-game to me for a medium map, which seems a bit too soon for a city-boom to start paying off. Slightly higher expenses on settlers, slightly slower growth and a reduction on a city's base gold income are the first things to come to mind. Ratt posted:This was a good week to get a flu. Over 30 hours already, definitely the best 4x I've played in a while. That is pretty impressive, I'm curious if this has impacted the rest of your development. How many of your cities can actually churn out units effectively and around what tier? How's your research doing? Race might matter too, I imagine High Elf city spam becomes a real research monster. For suggestions: try setting stuff to less, fewer resources, fewer independents, try an emperor building start. Also I personally find the recommended amount of players per map size to be far too sparse, for medium maps I'd recommend trying 1 or 2 extra players which will gobble up more of the map quicker. Autsj fucked around with this message at 12:00 on Apr 6, 2014 |
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Apr 6, 2014 11:55
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Thyrork posted:On the selection screen, sometimes my custom lords are out having a cuppa. I noticed this, seems like the AI picks leaders to deploy on the map before the player can- so if they pick some of your custom leaders they won't show up as selectable for you. Autsj fucked around with this message at 15:44 on Apr 7, 2014 |
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Apr 7, 2014 13:44
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Going back to the menu screen and trying again fixes it.
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So I finally finished a dreadnought campaign, which was a ton of fun, but something weird came up in the diplomacy during this game (which I should note was played with the beta patch). She's my ally, as is Lena, they were at peace before but have now started a war and both of them started hating my guts. Now our alignments have drifted apart but the big whopper seems to be those three "Declared war on their ally" penalties (Lena's info contains the same penalties for the same turns). Thing is I only declared war twice this entire game: once on an independent town (which is marked at turn 32) and once several turns from here to kill Quoshka and end the game. I looked at the aftergame log and nothing at all worth mentioning even happened on the turns that are noted in her info. Neither Lena nor Quoshka had any other alliances going on during the game either. Some kind of bug in the diplo system? Anybody else seen something similar?
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Apr 7, 2014 20:38
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Gerblyn posted:This makes perfect sense, if you understand something which is never really explained in the diplomacy interfaces. The system isn't just telling you about what the AI player thinks of you, but about the relationship between the two of you. So "Declared war on their Ally" could mean the player declared war on one of the AI's allies, but it could also mean the AI declared war on one of the player's allies. It's like how you get a relationship penalty when the AI trespasses in your terrain, the system is actually saying "Your relationship is suffering because they've pissed you off". I see, apparently they must've had an on/off war going on that I never noticed. That brings up another weird thing I've seen the AI do that might make a modifier like that messier. Several games now I've met an AI who'd declare war on me right after making contact, only to backpedal the same turn (on sim. turns) or the turn after (on classic) for a peace offer- generally the AI seems to do this if it's already at war with somebody else. I'm guessing the AI evaluates whether it's strong enough for war first, executes on that, and then evaluates that it shouldn't fight 2 wars at the same time. I've often seen the AI trying to sue for peace when it has multiple wars going on, which makes sense, but its apparent tendency to start a war before considering if it already has one going on might screw over the diplomacy a bit.
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Apr 7, 2014 22:16
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Map settings have quite an impact on how sloggy things get too, I think. Playing empire-building on a medium map with default opponents means everybody has a ton of space to expand and the endgame will take quite a while. Adding more players and playing on a small map like Corbeau suggested really focuses the game down a notch and with the new tech changes gives a much stronger sense of progression through different phases. Similarly a medium map on default settings with a few extra opponents can turn into a real knife fight. Ofcourse knowing how to win and proper scouting with that in mind helps a lot too, as someone else said: the game revolves around the King (the throne city) and the Queen (the Leader) and taking those off the board ends it for that player. Just conquering cities one by one can take ages but scouting those two out and focusing your attacks really cuts down on the time and can reduce the amount of slog or tier 4 slugfests some players complain about by a lot. Autsj fucked around with this message at 12:58 on Apr 9, 2014 |
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Apr 9, 2014 12:55
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Thyrork posted:Agreed, and if a cold themed undead was introduced, we could see these units make a return too! Great Undead Mammoths, preserved in cold. Giants of bone and ice. I think frostlings are kinda cool in that they're a fantasy staple (halflings!) but with a somewhat unique twist on them. Still they're not exactly a faction I care too much about. Frosty undead however, oh hell yes: Frosty undead dreadnoughts please. Gerblyn posted:We're working on fixing the end game balance now, after research we want to look at Tier 4s and mana income. Hey Gerblyn, if you guys are going to look at mana income take a look at mana node frequency for random maps, I swear I end up with more mana nodes than anything else if I set resource structures to few. Also, terraforming: I've been using a for fun a lot and it's actually a huge mana drain (not limited by casting points) for a relatively small benefit. Would be a shame if terraforming became completely prohibitive with a tighter mana-economy since it is cool to pretty up your empire.
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Apr 9, 2014 14:09
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Kanfy posted:I feel like 80% of the things I post in this thread are complaints despite enjoying the game a great deal I suspect having a dev hang around the thread who takes feedback directly to the office leads to some of us pointing out problems with the game more fervently in the hopes of helping out. Of course, goons always complain anyways. I've also been loving my time with the game.
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Apr 9, 2014 18:24
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Taear posted:I was going to ask if anyone had ever allied with an AI player, because I've never got them beyond peace. It's funny that the AI is ALWAYS good aligned as well. Playing on Lord and King difficulty, yes all the time. I've found if you offer them peace the first turn you meet them and are at polite relations, they will generally accept. When they don't, a bribe of 50-100 mana usually seals the deal. Same with open borders, after making peace 5-10 turns later and if your relations are good they'll often accept, a similar bribe helps. Again same with creating an alliance. Alignment seems to matter a lot though, when your alignment starts to differ, peace treaties become shaky and alliances/open borders are more often rejected (unless you up the bribes, maybe). Whether or not an AI is at war with another party is a big influence too and it becomes a lot more receptive when it is. Good alignment is way easier in this regard, I've never seen the AI go evil* so far either and once you start piling on the treaties both of you just get more sweetness and love points. *I think in the interest of unit preservation the AI lets guards run and prefers to bribe towns, makes sense to keep its forces up but it does prevent them from differing in alignments, hope something gets changed about that. Autsj fucked around with this message at 12:47 on Apr 10, 2014 |
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Apr 10, 2014 12:41
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Wolpertinger posted:First strike seems not that good for survivability because of health not scaling with damage - it seems kinda 'OK' in that it will only benefit you if your first strike kills them before they can attack, otherwise it's just a back and forth like before. It's not like, say, Eador, where first strike is amazingly powerful by itself because it seriously weakens the attack about to hit you. I like first strike less for survivability but the guarantee that a low tier/low health guy that's going to die will still at least get his piece of the damage in. It's why I've been messing with pikemen as my early-mid game chaff unit, they're not much later on but they won't just fold without doing damage when something big swings at them. Zore posted:Finally finished my first game all the way through! I've just finished a map with the Warlord, done most apart from the Sorcerer and the Theocrat (though I did play around with the Sorc a bunch) and I've noticed I tend to say that about whichever class I just played. Seems like every class gets a ton of good stuff that's hard to imagine going without until you get going with another classes' good stuff, it's pretty sweet. Overall the game feels like it's balanced rather high, with a lot of options or combinations available to do a ton, which is also why I'm a little hesitant to speculate on balance, meta or rankings of stuff. Standout moment in that last Warlord game was 3 veteran thoroughbred Boar riders with some buffs thrown in crushing a level 8 hero and a firstborn.
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Apr 10, 2014 16:35
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alansmithee posted:I'm just wondering, what is the typical early build order? Specifically, how quickly do people try to get new settlements up? Every game I've tried it seems when I meet one of the AI, I'm barely getting my 3rd city and they've gotten 5th or even more. For instance I tried a game as dwarf dreadnought, and thought I was doing ok. I met one of the AI players and he declared war. I was just starting to produce steam tanks in 2 cities and was building the upgrades for them in 2 more. I get near what I think is his main city, and see he has a tier 4 unit (I think? was a manticore rider). I figure I can probably deal with one of them, but as I sent around a scout I see another city with more troop buildup, and he had 2 stacks of that each had 3-4 of the manticores. I pretty much just gave up right then. That was around turn 30 or so, so I'm just wondering am I expanding too slowly? It depends on the map size and the amount of AIs you've put in the game, but generally that sounds too slow. I like a builder's hall followed by a settler as well. Clear out nearby mines while scouting then go grab any independent cities nearby or get another settler out if I see a nice spot. Around turn 30 I'd want 4-6 cities to feel like I'm doing alright, which is usually when I slow down and plan to stomp on AIs. Turn 30 is really fast for Manticores though, was this before the new patch or on emperor difficulty? Because I've barely seen any tier 4s before turn 70+ since on.
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Apr 11, 2014 01:43
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Unlucky7 posted:Is the game worth getting at this point? I mean, normally I would be interested in taking the plunge, but I just moved and money is a bit tight. If you don't mind losing a couple of days or weeks of your life. It was already worth getting at the start, the core gameplay is thoroughly absorbing. There's a few of bugs, but nothing game-breaking and there seem to be some issues in the late game economy but nothing some tweaking shouldn't be able to fix. Edit: VV Why the hell does that thing never drop for me, where did your find it? Autsj fucked around with this message at 10:41 on Apr 11, 2014 |
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Apr 11, 2014 10:31
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Yeah Aow has always been a HoMM-like, with some more flesh on the city bones and a bit more tactical focus on the battles over HoMM's chessy style with some "tech" research mixed in. HoMM has kinda faded from memory though I guess and the game visually is reminiscent of civ so that might warp people's expectations sometimes. I think there were some goon streams going around, if they archived any of it you could take a look to get a clear picture of the gameplay.
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Apr 11, 2014 19:28
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Taear posted:I decided to join my ally by declaring war on the person he was fighting and now I have a -700 in the relations screen to him for "declaring war on my ally". But I didn't, you idiots were fighting! Yeah this seems to be a consistent bug, if you are allied and either you or your ally declares war on anyone your relationship takes a -400 "declared war on their ally" penalty. This seems to happen no matter the diplomatic status of any of the characters involved and will even happen if you ask your ally to join a war or join him in one.
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Apr 13, 2014 09:45
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Gerblyn posted:To be honest, I'm not sure if it's a bug. The modifier means "one of us is at war with/attacked the ally of the other". People think it's broken, because they assume the messages are always about them, but they actually apply to both sides of the diplomatic relationship equally. It isn't helped by the fact that the AI has a habit of declaring war on another AI, then peacing out a turn later. Yeah you explained how it worked and I've been paying attention to it with that in mind, it's definitely bugged because the penalty will apply no matter the diplomatic relations with the third party. You can test this out easily in the Commonwealth mission 2: You start allied with 2 dwarves who are at war with the elf, you are scripted to declare war on the elf in the first turn- both your dwarven allies now have the "declared war on an ally" penalty with you. Move forward and meet the goblin, the dwarves either don't know her or are neutral, declare war on the goblin and both dwarves will get another "declared war on an ally" penalty. If you can manage to bribe the dwarves to join your war against the goblin, they will get this penalty a third time. This is the same way it behaves on random maps, the only way to actually get a positive modifier for declaring war on someone's enemy is if you are not allied- it's possible to get a positive modifier for declaring war on someone's enemy if you are neutral, at peace or at war with them, but not when you are allied. I'm totally fine with diplomacy taking more time to fix, since the AI does understand war and peace, the biggest 2 elements for playability are there. But the allied state definitely has a bug concerning war declarations. EDIT: Seems I made a small mistake, I can't seem to get the dwarves in CW2 to declare war on the goblin (at least not during the early turns), the other penalties do occur though and similar situations on a random map do play out as I described. Autsj fucked around with this message at 12:02 on Apr 13, 2014 |
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Apr 13, 2014 11:36
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Kalenden posted:I'm wondering whether holding off on this game to play the others first is worthwhile. Worthwhile in that the others are pretty cool games, though interface and mechanics wise they're definitely a bit old-fashioned. I doubt you'll enjoy the new one any less not having played the old ones though.
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Apr 13, 2014 14:20
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Honestly that sounds ugly and inelegant, it's just adding another system on top of the balancing systems that already exist. Upkeep already means that every subsequent unit you build costs the previous' unit upkeep more, effectively. That it is apparantly not enough to deter higher tier spam suggest that the current economic system is simply too lenient (for some of the map settings people play on), not that it needs another system on top of it. Also comeback mechanics are pretty much always terrible, most 4x games suffer from a endgame slog when trying for a conquest type victory, comeback mechanics will just extend that. From what I can tell, the biggest issues lie in how fast a return of investment you can get on founding new cities and how fast your economy can boom as a result of that. Combined with a lot of people talking about the economy without underscoring mapsizes, amount of opponents and closeness of starting locations, all things that really matter in defining the balance of a game. Tier 4s will get spammed once it is economically (and logistically viable) but there's enough tools in the game as is to limit that viability via unit costs (and thus production speed), upkeep and raw city income/production/growth. Tweaking those elements, perhaps widening the costs/upkeep of different tiers and reducing raw city output/growth seems a much more sensible direction to take. On top of that, I think Gerblyn has already said several times that they're planning a speed slider to use as a scaler for people that want an overal slower development similar to how Civ does it.
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Apr 14, 2014 10:57
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Civ 5 is probably a bad example to look at when trying to think of solutions for ICS. The happiness mechanic never really stopped ICSing, it was alive and well up until BNW, the only things that really kept it in check was other AIs and city states clogging up space and simply because it was boring and tedious. BNW murdered ICS or any wide strategy in general simply by killing your research as you acquire more cities. Since then, 4 cities max and going tall is really the one and only correct way, which also kinda sucks.
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Apr 14, 2014 11:16
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Deltasquid posted:Then just make the increased costs for dwelling T4's be higher than that of class T4's? It comes down to economic viability, the system you suggested is basically an extra upkeep system. If the economy is tighter and/or price and upkeep ranges are wider, T4s become less desirable. Besides I already disagree with T4 always being the superior choice, I certainly don't build tier 4 in my backwater cities when a few archers can suffice. T4s are for the front so they don't clog too many resources moving all the way forward. But also comes down to map settings as well as playstyle, my last game with a dwarven warlord ended around turn 60- medium map, far starting locations, 4 ai players on King and no city founding. I won that game on Boar Riders and Autsj fucked around with this message at 11:57 on Apr 14, 2014 |
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Apr 14, 2014 11:53
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Taear posted:The problem is that leaving non-t3/4 units in your cities behind the lines, the enemy will roll up with one or two T3/4 units and just grab them. I've started putting T3s at least in every city I have as defenders, now. Again, if you and your enemy have enough resources that you can spam T3 or T4s into backwater cities then the problem lies in the overal leniency of the economy. As well as your scouting and your positioning of your main army/muster locations. If he is moving T4s into your backwater cities, you should be able to grab his Throne since that's a significant amount of power that isn't blocking you. Let alone that a 3 or 4 archers + spellspam (or class specific tier 2s like musketeers or assassins) eat a lone T3 or T4 for breakfast. I think part of the problem here might be that we're talking in a limbo, map settings matter. None of the things you guys describe happen in my games but I play on medium maps, with extra opponents and few rescource structures. If you crank the map and resources up and the opponents down, the amount of space/resources you can grab will severely influence the balance of a game. EDIT: I should say, different settings severely influence the balance of the game: obviously playing with extra opponents and fewer rescources means my games are slightly different from average already. Autsj fucked around with this message at 12:38 on Apr 14, 2014 |
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Apr 14, 2014 12:25
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Slashrat posted:Edit: The whole issue reminds me of the problem of supercapital proliferation in Eve Online, where the developers mistakenly thought that the power of a ship/unit could be balanced by its cost, because they didn't realize that at some point, cost ceases to be a factor for one or more party in the conflict. Eve is essentially made to go on for perpetuity, while a game in AoW is balanced around 100-120 turns. People taking more time apparantly suprised the devs enough that they've mentioned a speed slider to accommodate much longer games.
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Apr 14, 2014 12:50
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[Reply is not edit, dammit]Taear posted:I've manually fought with six orc archers against a manticore rider and a draconian cavalry and my entire army was killed because they hit the rider three times for one or two damage, and that's it. I generally feel the economy boom starts paying off around turn 30, which is also usually around the time I have an attack getting in an AIs face, so I'd call that pretty slow. Continents do slow the game down as it puts a barrier between some players though. As for the manticore example: honestly it doesn't sound like you played that particularly well, though I think manticores are one of the stronger tier 4s. Veterancy and casting points is probably what would cinch that. Autsj fucked around with this message at 13:08 on Apr 14, 2014 |
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Apr 14, 2014 13:03
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Corbeau posted:That does bring up a point though: sometimes the AI needs to take risks. Including against each other. Right now they just compile huge armies and sit on them because everyone else is doing the same. Occasionally they ought to make strategic gambles for the sake of continuing their expansion. Right now they invariably stagnate against each other. As a human player I can accept some temporary strategic vulnerability and just go kill the poo poo out of a technically far more powerful neighbor because they're trying to protect everything at once all the time (and that's not even with the human edge in tactical combat - I've used auto-resolve exclusively for my last few games as a test). Yeah I very much agree with this, especially since this would also increase the pressure an AI could inflict upon a player. As it is right now as a player you ave a little too much freedom to build up as you please without significant threat. Taear posted:And I'm usually attacking the AI by turn 100. I prefer to build up and explore I guess - that's why when I play Civ5, I am on Epic or Marathon. This is why I said people need to start posting their game settings/playstyles when talking balance issues, I should've specified turn-times as well, honestly. Turn 100 is generally when I am ending the game, so when you attack you're probably doing it on something close to what I would call a "mop-up" economy, when I can afford whatever I want to just end things. I wouldn't be suprised if the economy just pretty much breaks if you go beyond 150-200 turns. I suspect there's plenty of people around who play this game more as a civ-like than the homm-like it was actually designed and balanced around. It's pretty cool that people can have fun with such radically different playstyles, but it certainly causes misunderstandings when talking balance. Right now I don't think the game is balanced at all around a slower, more civ-like style, and those are certainly issues that could use adressing, but I'm hesitant to judge balance on that front right now should Triumph implement a speed slider to scale games to playstyles better. Autsj fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Apr 14, 2014 |
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Apr 14, 2014 14:12
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madmac posted:To be fair, this is basically true of casual play of every strategy game ever. I still remember how after getting a taste of competitive RTS play (I wasn't even good, mind) that I simply couldn't watch my little brother play RTS games without raging. I mean, of course the correct way to play is to slowly turtle and tech up to the best units on every map, every time. Why would you do anything else? And stop telling me to build more villagers, 20 is more then enough. This is somewhat true I suppose, but I'm not going to go anywhere near the "casuals" can of worms, I'm not a 'competitive' player in this game and people should play whichever way they have fun. I do think that the economy in longer games shows some issues, whichever way you get to that longer game economy (either playtyme or mapsettings) and it helps to have an idea on how someone arrives there. A scaling option for bigger maps or a slower preference can help a lot, there's a reason civ had a speed setting AND scales by map size. victrix posted:Balance is a kind of a nebulous term when you're talking about single player vs ai tbs anyway. Especially one with as many possible play variations as aow3 (campaign? scenario? random map? race/class? game length? map size? ai difficulty?), exacerbated by player playstyles (fast and aggressive? slow and buildy? exploity to the max? casual and relaxed?) And of course, this, couldn't agree more. Autsj fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Apr 14, 2014 |
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Apr 14, 2014 19:25
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Taear posted:Some of those (like the elf one) are racial abilities though, rather than the archers themselves. So an elf Horse Archer has it over a human horse archer, yet the human horse archer has Mariner. Which kinda doesn't matter because for effect an elven archer is still different (and significantly so) than say a human one, and these things can matter. In your Manticore example for example, I suspect dwarven crossbowmen would've performed quite a bit better for you, with their max movement range and a single high-damage shot they'd have benefited noticably more from surrounding and flanking the Manticore. Gwyrgyn Blood posted:And on the subject of stuff that's missing, where the heck did global attack spells go? Like Firestorm and the like. Their absence means there's no reason not to bunch up your armies all the time. :I Still there? Mostly under class now though I think, Lightning Storm for Sorceror, Sunburst for Druid and Wrath of God for the Theocrat off the top of my head. You're right that there doesn't seem to be an area of effect type anymore though. Autsj fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Apr 14, 2014 |
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Apr 14, 2014 20:29
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omg chael crash posted:Is there a guided tutorial? I can't seem to find anything in game but maybe I'm just dumb. Not really, the first mission of the Elven Court campaign is about as close as you're going to get.
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Apr 15, 2014 12:23
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But strategy is hard, waiting a 100 turns for tier 4s and then complaining on forums is easy! I've had the chance to give all classes some tries, so far I've had the easiest time with Warlords and Dreadnoughts. Theocrat clicks the least for me, though in part that might be because every time I pick one "mark of the heretic" is hidden behind multiple higher tier spells and without it the Theocrat feels like its missing one of its centerpieces. For Warlord, drat Orc Beserkers are pretty nuts, with an arena and the warlord's Melee Command ability they hit on par with some tier3s for a really early tier 2 price and upkeep. It's a nice early pressure package while waiting on the Warlord's economic bonusses and later bruisers. Not quite sure what kind of specializations are best for the Warlord, I like expander to boost your towns for them as I'm often too busy building units, maybe Creation for heal? EDIT: Can't believe I talked about an Orc Warlord without mentioning the insanity that is Thoroughbred Mounts with Black Cavalry- cavalry is arguably already the most influential unit in the game: the ability to move 1 or 2 hexes more per turn is huge in deciding momentum. Black Cavalry might be the best cavalry in the game while Thoroughbred Mounts is a huge bonus. If you're lucky enough to get it somewhat early on you'll probably win just by default. For the Dreadnought I've been messing around with the Goblins, fast growth, cheap prices and Mana Fuel Cells make it really easy to get that magical early game 1/turn window for tier 2s. Warg riders with their mobility are great cavalry to back up your swarms of little Musketeer dudes, feels like a real early game powerhouse. Ofcourse, at least Air 1 is pretty much mandatory on a Dreadnought, Seeker is just that good for some of their units. Deltasquid posted:Any combination of musketeers and pikemen/halberdiers. Gotta get my Tercio on. I do this too, style is everything man  .
Autsj fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Apr 17, 2014 |
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Apr 17, 2014 15:37
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Carnalfex posted:Everything I read or see about this makes it sound absolutely excellent. Even so, I would love to see some more races/classes/etc. Are there plans for dlc/expansions? More than anything I want to play a necromancer class / undead race, but there are so many other cool options that could be represented. I know the game just came out and patches at the moment are focused on stability and balance, I am just curious if additional content is planned since the launch went so well. Six classes doesn't sound like much, but they're so stuffed to the brim with awesome goodies they're very replayable. Races are mostly starting flavour but there are a lot of fun combinations with classes to mess around or strategize with. And yeah, they've mentioned wanting to do an expansion a few times, seems likely we'll see more stuff in the future. On that topic: the more I think about it, the more I'd like to see a Necromancer Class more than an actual undead race. Full on Undead factions have been done a ton and rarely make that much sense, but how awesome would it be to be a Necromancer in charge of goblins or dwarves with class undead units: Dwarven wraiths or Goblin skeletons anyone? Still, an undead Dreadnought sounds sweet too.
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Apr 17, 2014 18:15
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Inverness posted:There seems to be a general consensus that T4 spam is bad and that something needs to be done to limit their use and keep lower tier units relevant during late game. T4 spam is bad, specifically, a sign one's early to mid game was terrible. The consensus is more that it's dominant, which is rather suspect. City founding definitely seems to have some issues, looking to Civ 5's happiness mechanic however seems like a bad idea, it was an ugly mechanic that was never really succesfull in limiting city-spam (space limitations and a science nerf were responsible for that). Slowing down the return of investment on city founding seems like a much better idea to me, it deals with the problem at its core without needing added-on penalties that can be circumvented (and will probably help slow down the coming of tier 4s a bit too). madmac posted:Eh, Tier 4 spamming isn't even a thing except on large maps or very late game if you've been playing passively. The devs have already said they'll be adding more building requirements for Tier 4 units and nerfing them slightly and also probably buffing Pikes a little. I reeeeally think people should just wait for the patch and see how balance shakes out before making added suggestions. Yeah, tier 4 spam being the talk of the town to me is really an indicator of how singleplayer focused this game is and how much space it gives a player to play however they want. Really the amount of power you can concentrate in a tier 2 package is incredible and even tier 1 is hardly a slouch. If this game was more MP oriented the T4 topic would be "they come too late to make an impact and aren't strong enough", while the major topic would almost certainly be "The Tier 2 Problem" and "How come all games are decided before turn 40?". Autsj fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Apr 17, 2014 |
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Apr 17, 2014 19:46
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| # ¿ May 4, 2024 18:03 |
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Now that I'm thinking about it, I remember Gerblyn saying that most of the ultimate Global Spells had extra features that hadn't been written in the description yet. Anybody gathered those yet? So far the only two I recall seeing mentioned were: Age of Darkness: -200 happiness for all other players. Age of Magic: Half mana costs for spellcasting for the caster.
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Apr 19, 2014 11:05
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