Age of Wonders 3 noobie tips?

[Man_Over_Game]

I just got Age of Wonders 3 (Free on Steam for a short while!), and I'm hoping some of you guys have some advice for new players.

Now, I'm very familiar with the Heroes of Might and Magic series (played pretty much all of them but the first one), so AoW isn't necessarily different (although it IS a bit intimidating; the amount of information to learn between races, unit abilities, spells, etc, is all pretty intense).

I guess I just need to know what good habits I should be making, like common mistakes I should avoid when fighting, what upgrades are best to focus on for newer settlements, stuff like that.

Anyone got anything for me?

[Knaight]

So, first things first.
1) Cities are power. Building "tall" where you have just a few cities really isn't a thing; throw down as many as you can defend. They basically all provide bonuses, and the closest you get to building tall is upgrading a few cities really heavily while the rest are basically just resource production with min imal enhancement.

2) Fights should emphasize unit survival first and foremost. Try to pick fights where you won't lose units, then fight defensively. Try and protect unit HP as much as possible too. There are exceptions here (losing 1 tier 1 unit for a gold mine that gives +30 a turn is definitely worth it, throwing away a scout because you have battle magic that will blow the hell out of an opposing army is almost always worth it)

3) The evolve ability is your best friend. If you're playing Archdruid in particular you'll see a lot of it, where a tiny snake or spider has, buried in its stats, the "evolve" tag. This routinely jumps a unit from tier 1 to tier 3, and you can often get them early. Used to be the reed snake jumped from tier 1 to tier 4, which was downright ridiculous when you whipped that out at turn 15 or so.

4) Think about what units are going into which fights. Goblin swarm darters are pretty decent archers in general; they get moved up to spectacular in siege offense because they basically do not care about walls. Naga and healers are generally solid, but they're particularly strong in situations where you're up against the attrition of multiple small fights in a row because they either regenerate and have a self heal that can push beyond starting battle HP or can heal others beyond starting battle HP.

5) Leader abilities are also critical. Competitive multiplayer tends to favor minmax ranged power over everything, but there are other good options. Army buffs are great, vision buffs are great, unit conversion is great (Convert, Befriend Animal, that sort of thing), and having meaningful defenses is also broadly helpful. Items also feed into this; flying mounts especially are incredibly useful.

6) The Tome of Wonders is really helpful, so give it a look when you're confused.

What expansions do you have? They change the game pretty significantly, and there are expansion specific tips. Also what specific race-class are you playing; I can provide specific tips there as well. Especially for Archdruid and

[warty goblin]

When it comes to leader creation, I find it's always worth dumping two of your three orbs into getting the second tier skills, then rounding out with the third in whatever seems cool or useful. That gets you access to another T4 unit, which are usually summons. This can be particularly handy for leaders like the Warlord, who can otherwise only get their good units from relatively upgraded (read: expensive) cities.

When it comes to the morality system, you should basically pick whatever you're going for at the beginning of the game, and stick to it. Even more so if you take some alignment specific skills. Occasionally it may seem like you're going to have to violate your alignment, but this can usually be avoided. I once managed to, via being just the most sickeningly perfect person ever, to seduce a city full of hateful undead into joining me. Then I cast a spell on them that made them not care about my habit of having birthday parties for cute puppies and not dining on the flesh of the innocent. I ended up with hordes of what I can only imagine were very cheerful undead.

In terms of class, some are easier than others. Sorcerer is seriously easy, because you don't have a huge amount of buildings to manage; you just basically summon as much stuff as you can. Warlord is harder, because you need to build your dudes from buildings, which may not be particularly conveniently located to the front line.


Really the heart of the game is in the combat though, so it pays to understand this pretty thoroughly. In particular a unit turning to counter-attack takes one AP, and the follow-up attack takes a second. Because the defender only gets to spend an AP after the attacker, a single attack from a flanking position eats up one of the defender's AP (for turning) and does not actually let them hit back (because they'd need a second attack to be able to counter). In field battles this can be an invaluable way to shut down high tier units for minimal losses. Less effective in sieges, since it's harder to flank in the first place.

[Morty]

Scouting is very important. Different classes have different quality of scouts, but you should always send some units to explore, pick up treasure and scope out neutral dwellings. Once you find those dwellings, destroy them as quickly as you can, otherwise they'll spawn units to harass you. Especially haunted boneyards. Just... trust me on this one.

Mind control abilities are powerful when used right and can lead you to gain units with each fight, rather than losing them. Some ways to get them early are arch-druid leaders and heroes with befriend animal or rogue leaders, heroes and bard units with charm.

Healing, as Knaight mentioned, is very useful in letting you carry on from fight to fight without stopping. Different races and classes have different access to healing, but you should try to get some through your heroes, if nothing else.

[Cespenar]

Also, this might not be what you asked for, but if you like the vanilla game, really consider getting the expansions, because they spice it up so incredibly much. I myself actually left the vanilla game after several hours, then later picked up the expansions and played it directly into completion.

[warty goblin]

Also, this might not be what you asked for, but if you like the vanilla game, really consider getting the expansions, because they spice it up so incredibly much. I myself actually left the vanilla game after several hours, then later picked up the expansions and played it directly into completion.

IIRC they rolled most of the major gameplay system changes into the base game. The expansions are still totally worth it though, because they add lots of good stuff. The second one in particular I'd consider absolutely vital, although that may be just because I love the blitzkrieg style of the tigrens

[KillianHawkeye]

A couple of pretty basic tips just from memory:

1) Watch out for battlefield-wide area effects (stuff like undead creatures come back to life after one turn, or fires that randomly strike down at units). These can generally be seen before you actually engage in the battle, and they almost always benefit the enemy troops and not your own. Mana node battles in particular always have something like this.

2) Plan out abilities for leaders who are actually going to be leading an army as opposed to ones that take the second place and just act as powerful units. Abilities that affect your entire army are generally only usable by the leader in the #1 spot (they say this in their descriptions).

3) A minor tactical tip, but if you have a unit that can shoot up to three times (one for each action point), it's mathematically better to move and take two shots if you can get into close range rather than take three shots (at half damage) at long range. When you have a ranged attack selected, you can see which hexes are considered long range by the circles being dash-lined rather than solid. The movement advice also applies if there is obstructing terrain in the way, because that also nerfs your damage output.

[warty goblin]

One important note about victory conditions: both the Seal victory and the glowy unifier tower victory will torpedo your alliances as soon as you really go for them. They also cause lots of fairly powerful AI stacks to spawn near the Seal, or whatever city your build your happy magic tower in, so you're going to have to fight there. Because of this however the AI doesn't tend to rush a victory condition, so you can take your time getting set up and ready for the impending murderfest.

[Cespenar]

IIRC they rolled most of the major gameplay system changes into the base game. The expansions are still totally worth it though, because they add lots of good stuff. The second one in particular I'd consider absolutely vital, although that may be just because I love the blitzkrieg style of the tigrens

It was also mostly because I found the unit trees of the original races pretty bland, compared to their earlier titles. The expansion races do a lot to rectify that.

[Man_Over_Game]

I only have the base game, no expansions.

I'm a bit confused on a few things:

Is there a way to tell the ACTUAL range that an enemy can shoot from, including movement? I try to move my units to stay out of what I can tell what the range is of the enemy, but that doesn't seem to account for what happens if they move first.

Is there a way to highlight all possibly attacked spaces, akin to how Fire Emblem does it?

The starting campaign is for a Rogue, but beyond having lots of scouting options, I don't really understand what's so roguish about the class or my units. What am I supposed to do with a Rogue?

[Aotrs Commander]

The starting campaign is for a Rogue, but beyond having lots of scouting options, I don't really understand what's so roguish about the class or my units. What am I supposed to do with a Rogue?

I will say that the campaign seems to delight in giving you mostly the paffest classes as your main...

Word of warning, by the by, because it fracked me off something rotten: the final mission in both the elf and human campaign is, as far as I can tell, the exact same mission, with the onyl difference being your starting leader. I was, frankly, not prepared to play the same mission all over twice in, like, a week or something, that and a little into the one of the expansion halfing campaign and decide I didn't like it was enough for me to put it down.

(Still, I got, like 80 hours out of it, though it was definitely a... mixed experience.)

[Morty]

The starting campaign is for a Rogue, but beyond having lots of scouting options, I don't really understand what's so roguish about the class or my units. What am I supposed to do with a Rogue?

As class gives you a number of unique units, spells and upgrades, some of which you'll start with and some you have to research. As a rogue you have access to mobile skirmishers and mind control, but you'll have to rely on racial units for your frontline. Their spells and upgrades let them boost their own economy while messing with the enemy's.

[Anteros]

If I'm remembering right, the Rogue' s best strength is access to global vision. This is meaningless though because it slows the game to an unplayable crawl.

[KillianHawkeye]

Class also determines what kinds of character abilities they can get, I'm pretty sure.

As far as seeing where enemy units can attack after moving, I don't think there's any way. The combats seem to be more about killing the enemy in the most optimal way and either tanking or healing the incoming damage rather than evading it.

[Man_Over_Game]

As class gives you a number of unique units, spells and upgrades, some of which you'll start with and some you have to research. As a rogue you have access to mobile skirmishers and mind control, but you'll have to rely on racial units for your frontline. Their spells and upgrades let them boost their own economy while messing with the enemy's.

No kidding. Seems like I can just easymode through some of the campaign just by screwing with my enemy's cities, spawning hostile Independents to wreck their stuff. Seems like a rude way of playing, but I kinda like it.

Not a huge fan of the irregulars, though. When I can summon crows and other spies, it's hard to understand why I'd need a bunch of mediocre combat units that are capable of getting into places.

[Anteros]

My tip for newbies is that flying is completely overpowered. If you can get a flying mount and an army full of flying units you can basically ignore terrain. Of course flying mounts aren't exactly guaranteed loot. I've had games where I've cleared dozens of mythical dungeons and not gotten one. Make sure you take advantage of it if you get one. One of the sorcerer's main strengths is the ability to summon eggs to get them.

[Morty]

Not a huge fan of the irregulars, though. When I can summon crows and other spies, it's hard to understand why I'd need a bunch of mediocre combat units that are capable of getting into places.

The purpose of scoundrels is to be versatile, mobile and cheap units. They're not terrific, but they can easily flank, blow up walls and machines and with the right upgrade they'll evolve into lesser shadow stalkers. That being said, the rogue's class units definitely require more finesse than other classes'.

[Man_Over_Game]

I know I've only just started, but how the heck do you afford more troops, settlers, and higher tier units? Seems like upgrading a settlement takes forever, costs a lot of money you don't have at the start, and development just seems to halt to a crawl.

[Aeson]

I know I've only just started, but how the heck do you afford more troops, settlers, and higher tier units? Seems like upgrading a settlement takes forever, costs a lot of money you don't have at the start, and development just seems to halt to a crawl.
Focus on developing one or two main training centers and have the rest of your cities mostly Produce Merchandise.

[Anteros]

I actually prefer to focus on one or two main cities and just vassalise the others for their income without the headache of defending them. The AI seems to leave them alone mostly too. I'm not claiming it's optimal, just that it works. I can't be bothered to manage 20 cities per game.

[warty goblin]

AoW 3 has a relatively slow to ramp up sort of economy. I always start by going for Builder's Halls and whatever the first population upgrade building is, so that later I can build things in a reasonable timeframe and the cities actually grow. It's also vital to scout around a lot early on, because the infusions of stuff that careless people apparently drop all over the map are really handy.

Note that unlike a game like Civ, there's relatively few buildings you can put in a city that increase resource acquisition, and even fewer (any?) that give out nice juicy percentage increases. The best part of your income will come from locations on the map; also make sure to kill/drive off any defenders ASAP. Even if it's in your territory, so long as a bunch of grubby neutrals are camped out there, you don't get any income.

[Man_Over_Game]

Thanks, you guys. Your info is really helping!


AoW 3 has a relatively slow to ramp up sort of economy. I always start by going for Builder's Halls and whatever the first population upgrade building is, so that later I can build things in a reasonable timeframe and the cities actually grow. It's also vital to scout around a lot early on, because the infusions of stuff that careless people apparently drop all over the map are really handy.

Note that unlike a game like Civ, there's relatively few buildings you can put in a city that increase resource acquisition, and even fewer (any?) that give out nice juicy percentage increases. The best part of your income will come from locations on the map; also make sure to kill/drive off any defenders ASAP. Even if it's in your territory, so long as a bunch of grubby neutrals are camped out there, you don't get any income.

So does the Builder's Halls improve the production of buildings/units, or does population (via something like the Store Room)?

Playing a Good aligned character, it seems like I should be inclined to let enemies flee. Is this a viable strategy early on?

Lastly, I honestly have no idea how to produce Tier 2+ units. Have I just not played enough, or is there something major I'm missing?

[Morty]

So does the Builder's Halls improve the production of buildings/units, or does population (via something like the Store Room)?

The speed at which units and buildings are produced is affected by production, which is the hammer icon. This comes from the Builder's Hall > Siege Workshop > Master's Guild line and various map locations. I think the formula is simply Production / Unit's or building's total cost in gold and mana = number of turns required, rounded up. Storehouse gives you population, which speeds up the city's growth.


Playing a Good aligned character, it seems like I should be inclined to let enemies flee. Is this a viable strategy early on?

Yes. Your units get less experience, but you don't risk losing them as much.


Lastly, I honestly have no idea how to produce Tier 2+ units. Have I just not played enough, or is there something major I'm missing?

You build racial Tier 2+ units from War Hall and the unique racial building that comes after it, and class units after you've researched them.

[Aeson]

The speed at which units and buildings are produced is affected by production, which is the hammer icon. This comes from the Builder's Hall > Siege Workshop > Master's Guild line and various map locations.
Cities also have some amount of base production dependent on the city's size class - I believe it's 20 for an outpost, 25 for a village, 30 for a town, 35 for a city, and 40 for a metropolis - so there's some slight population dependency to production.

[warty goblin]

Thanks, you guys. Your info is really helping!
Lastly, I honestly have no idea how to produce Tier 2+ units. Have I just not played enough, or is there something major I'm missing?

IIRC the War Hall lets you build the generic T2 units for a race, like cavalry. The Temple lets you build priests. Every race has a unique building for their T3 unit. Special class units also require special units, regardless of tier, though how exactly this works varies a bit by class, though I think the T4 unit for each class requires a special building. If you get a T4 unit from your skills (i.e. the fire elemental from taking two fire orbs during character creation) they don't require a building.

Some map sites let you build units as well, if you clear the site and it's in the borders of one of your cities. Then you can build a special building in that city, and recruit whatever that unit is. These are often pretty powerful, and also fun. You can get Yetis!

There's also buildings you can build like the Archer's Guild, which let newly trained units in a class (i.e. archers) start with their first level of veterancy. You can tell because they'll have a little medal in the corner of the portrait when you build them. Can be handy later in the game, particularly if you're elves and spamming archers. Elven archers remain firehoses of death pretty late in the game if you work at it a bit.

[Knaight]

Economically there's also the matter of how beating the snot out of sites is often a pretty major component. This often means not taking units, magic items, etc.

[Sloanzilla]

yay, my favorite game.

My thoughts: Sorcerer is pretty much an "I win" button. You can stunlock almost anyone into oblivion.
Warlord is probably second due to superior units and large radius for towns.

Beyond that, I think the classes are fairly balanced. I actually really like rogue due to Shadow Stalkers.

The thing someone posted about valuing a bunch of cities (rapid expansion) over building up a few is true, which sucks, since my playing style tends to be to try to complete everything and conquer every node within my radius. I know this isn't optimal, but just prefer it for some reason.

Get the expansions- the special buildings you can get due to resource nodes are a lot of fun.

Generally: T2 Units= Units from a war hall and priests
T3 Units= Units from each race's top building
T4 Units= Units you summon or units from a class's top building

Warlords, for example, build manticore riders once they build the Warlord's top building. So in the end game you have each of your cities cranking out T2 manticore riders. Druids only let you build T3 Shamen, but you can summon a T4 unit.

Also, a couple combat recommendations:
1. Learn how the grid works in terms of units of 6 supporting each other. You can place your armies in a way that limits the enemy a bit.
2. Flank every chance you can within the combat map.
3. The computer will sort of obsessively try to dispel magic any area combat spell you cast. This gets annoying, and there's a really stupid critical success/failure mechanic that I hate.

[Sloanzilla]

Oh yeah, and a buffed up Earth Elemental is almost unkillable.

[Knaight]

My thoughts: Sorcerer is pretty much an "I win" button. You can stunlock almost anyone into oblivion.
Warlord is probably second due to superior units and large radius for towns.

Sorcerer has a solid endgame, but basically every class has some really nice tricks. Stunlocking is also solid but counterable, with the major ways of doing it (supports with School of Enchantment, especially apprentices) having weaknesses exploitable by other classes. Theocrats can just throw downright stupid amounts of magic resistance around, Archdruids can either overwhelm with numbers by virtue of being able to drop a lot of small animals quickly or, late game, just outrange with the Horned God (especially in siege attack, where the Sorcerer siege defense gets really impressive), Rogue has some brutal economic global spells to tilt the balance and a fair number of fast moving units that tend to counter ranged units, etc. Dreadnaught is probably the worst matchup here, and that's more a specific matchup thing than a broad class balance. Even there, if you know you're going up against a Sorcerer you can counter some of your weaknesses (starting with the prevalence of a literal lightning weakness), and they are surprisingly well positioned to counter some of the Sorcerer's shenanigans mid game in particular. Starting with how the Sorcerer has a lot of relatively fragile tier I-III units with the primary defense of being resistant to physical, and the Dreadnaught has the flame tank. Or the frost tank, in one case.

[warty goblin]

I've never really tested it, but it also seems to me that sorcerer probably gets weaker on larger maps, since basically all their class units (apprentices accepted) need to be summoned. Even though they can get oodles of casting points, that's still a serious throttle on production compared to a solid industrial base.

On the other hand, with a big map it's usually pretty easy to put together a 3-4 race empire, which gives a great range of T3 units, which probably goes a long way towards covering the gap. And if you get lucky and pick up a dragon or giant dwelling...

[Anteros]

I've never really tested it, but it also seems to me that sorcerer probably gets weaker on larger maps, since basically all their class units (apprentices accepted) need to be summoned. Even though they can get oodles of casting points, that's still a serious throttle on production compared to a solid industrial base.

On the other hand, with a big map it's usually pretty easy to put together a 3-4 race empire, which gives a great range of T3 units, which probably goes a long way towards covering the gap. And if you get lucky and pick up a dragon or giant dwelling...

That's my main problem with the larger maps. It often just comes down to who gets a good dwelling first. Sometimes I get tired of it and turn them off, but it sucks to do that because commanding an army of dragons is pretty cool.

I would say Sorcerer is even stronger on larger maps than small ones though. The ability to summon an army anywhere gets more valuable the farther the map forces you to stray from home.

If I had to make a class tier list it would look something like Sorcerer>Druid>Warlord>Dreadnaught>>>Theocrat>>>>>>Rogue. Rogue and Theocrat are my favorite to actually play though. I haven't tried Necromancer enough to rank it. It feels really weak when I play against it, but that may be because I tend to play Theocrat.

[Morty]

The Necromancer is widely considered to be overpowered, and a balance mod for single player and PBEM puts a lot of effort into weakening it. Being able to convert enemy troops with ghoul curse and easily bring back your own units can let you pick up a lot of momentum.

[Knaight]

On the other hand, with a big map it's usually pretty easy to put together a 3-4 race empire, which gives a great range of T3 units, which probably goes a long way towards covering the gap. And if you get lucky and pick up a dragon or giant dwelling...

The dwellings in general tend to be pretty solid. Faeries wreck low resistance units like nothing else (some apprentices come close), naga are just generally fantastic and also have a tier 4 unit available, and even the archons have the archon giant, though they're definitely on the flimsy end as far as dwellings go.

[Sloanzilla]

I really think rogue deserves more credit. You can see everywhere and 6 shadowstalkers can beat 6 of any other unit.

[warty goblin]

The dwellings in general tend to be pretty solid. Faeries wreck low resistance units like nothing else (some apprentices come close), naga are just generally fantastic and also have a tier 4 unit available, and even the archons have the archon giant, though they're definitely on the flimsy end as far as dwellings go.

Fairies are basically special forces. Capable in any terrain, and well equipped to mess up just about anybody, so long as they don't get stuck into a serious unsupported slugging match.

And while the archons aren't all that, they are just the worst to have as neighbors, what with their pathological hatred of all life. And probably all other undead, if you're rolling that way.

[Sloanzilla]

I think what I love about the sorcerer is you can actually play defensive, in a game where you are more or less encouraged not to play defensive. I *like* being a turtle.

I agree that there's really very little that can stop a fast moving necromancer. Necromancer forces you to play the way the game probably should be played- fast and on the offensive at all times.

[Sloanzilla]

Fairies are basically special forces. Capable in any terrain, and well equipped to mess up just about anybody, so long as they don't get stuck into a serious unsupported slugging match.

And while the archons aren't all that, they are just the worst to have as neighbors, what with their pathological hatred of all life. And probably all other undead, if you're rolling that way.

My favorite unit of six is actually one theorcrat with resurgence and 5 nightshade fairies

[GloatingSwine]

Fairies are basically special forces. Capable in any terrain, and well equipped to mess up just about anybody, so long as they don't get stuck into a serious unsupported slugging match.

Fairies also do 3 types of damage so even if the enemy resists one they still tend to dole out a shoeing.

[Knaight]

Fairies also do 3 types of damage so even if the enemy resists one they still tend to dole out a shoeing.

This is exactly why I like them so much against lower resistance units. Every point of resistance throws off damage per attack by 3 instead of 1*, and it's not exactly unlikely to get those 3 attack volleys off. Which means an extra 9 points of damage per point short. This adds up really fast. That said, if you end up taking potshots at high tier naga or something it also goes in the other direction and ends up a little bit on the sad side.

*On average, keeping in mind shifts in how ranges work, elemental weaknesses, etc.

[Anteros]

My favorite unit of six is actually one theorcrat with resurgence and 5 nightshade fairies

I love resurgence because it lets me just turn my brain off and not worry about casualties. I hate that there's no synergy from it with the Theocrat's own units though. It doesn't apply to the shrine of smiting, and Exalted already have it, so unless you're pumping out dwelling creatures there's just no point in getting the skill.

[Sloanzilla]

True, but it works well with the racial T3s.

Are there any add ons that say double the cost of dispel magic?
My fights with the computer are basically:
Me: Cast something
Computer: Dispel it
Me: Cast something
Computer: Dispel it

[Anteros]

True, but it works well with the racial T3s.

Are there any add ons that say double the cost of dispel magic?
My fights with the computer are basically:
Me: Cast something
Computer: Dispel it
Me: Cast something
Computer: Dispel it

That's true, but I find that by the time my hero is level 10 to unlock it, I'm not using the racial T3's much anymore.

[Sloanzilla]

Does anyone have any luck with computer diplomacy? Seems like no matter what I do, every single on of the computer players hates my guts and makes peace with every other computer. I play on Hard.

[Knaight]

Does anyone have any luck with computer diplomacy? Seems like no matter what I do, every single on of the computer players hates my guts and makes peace with every other computer. I play on Hard.

You can watch their alignments. Beyond that choke points are your friend - if you have 12 units in a 1-wide hallway, and they have 12 units in that 1-wide hallway it's basically blocked for both of you. THis tends to be especially critical in the underground.

[Sloanzilla]

Oh, I'm pretty good at the tactics of the game, including choke points. I just seem to wind up taking on every computer player at the same time due to them all declaring war on me.

[warty goblin]

It's inevitable, once they detect you trying to win the game. Don't go seal-capping until you've got some substantially large spare armies sitting around. Prior to that though, I usually do just fine.

[Sholos]

You can also just turn on teams if you really want an AI companion, but diplomacy is for minor factions and keeping peace until you can CRUSH.

[Anteros]

I always avoid alliances in this game because I find that sharing vision makes the pc turns take forever. They already take way too long on large maps. Especially late game.