Been Wondering 4 Ages (Age of Wonders 4 Thread)

[Sloanzilla]

Is there any way to clear the rubble from a destroyed city? The computer built a city kind of close to my main city. I sacked it. Now it's city rubble tag or whatever is keeping me from using that property for something else.

There's a steep learning curve here. I kind of like it though- has that "I have no idea what I'm doing" new game smell.

[Artanis]

Maybe one of the terraforming spells? Earth Shatter will make the 'uninhabitable bedrock' portions of the Underground usable.

[warty goblin]

Got my Nature + Chaos barbarian game going. Pleasantly different than my orc game, with lots of summoned animals and animalistic barbarians. The casualty rate is frankly alarming but they're barbarians so dying heroically and on fire in combat with demon piglets is, I assume, what they want.

Also Nature lets you expand scary fast. I got some nice fertile plains with rivers, and the various farm buffs mean I'm annexing stuff left right and center.

[GloatingSwine]

If you want to cut down on casualties and you're going Nature then don't overlook the Vine Prison spell.

It summons 5 vines randomly over a 3 hex radius area, and the AI hates them. It will drop everything it's doing to murder these vines as soon as you summon them. (I expect that will get fiddled with in a patch, but even so they count as pinning for ranged units so they shut them down or force them to move, and they take a reaction attack when they try to).

[Cespenar]

Played it an okay amount, and it seems really polished and overall pretty good. The autobattler feels well balanced too, which is a sneaky but important point in the long run.

The one thing that I'm not liking is the lack of a proper story campaign and also how you can't pass heroes from one map to the next. That had always given a nice D&D/Birthright-ish continuity feeling to your feats in the earlier AoWs IMO.

[warty goblin]

My increasingly feral barbarians are now at war with impolite toads. God I love this.

[Sloanzilla]

Finished my first game. I won, but have no idea what was really going on. There's a really complicated diplomacy mechanic that I sort of just ignored. The magic system is a lot of fun. The city expansion stuff got a little confusing. I could build a farm, but then I needed to tear down a farm to build an abbey. Also, you can't just take cities without spending imperium, so make sure you have some before you take a city.

[warty goblin]

Finished my first game. I won, but have no idea what was really going on. There's a really complicated diplomacy mechanic that I sort of just ignored. The magic system is a lot of fun. The city expansion stuff got a little confusing. I could build a farm, but then I needed to tear down a farm to build an abbey. Also, you can't just take cities without spending imperium, so make sure you have some before you take a city.

Also make sure to pay attention to the city cap. It's a soft cap, so you can have 4/3 cities, but the economy penalties get harsh. My first game I think I went to 5/3 or briefly 6/3, and had to release a couple as vassels because they were quite quickly bankrupting me. Which is fine, because vassels give you quests and stuff so are fun to have around.

[Sloanzilla]

Also, I agree that the Vine Prison spell is a pretty big game changer - at least at this time.

[Eldan]

Alright, after screwing around a bit last weekend to learn the basic rules, I upgraded from order dwarves to something less boring, hunter goblins with a fertility cult. Chaos/nature magic is a lot of fun, especially when combining vines and tons and tons and tons of skirmishers with mobility bonuses and poison arrows.

[Sloanzilla]

Agree- the new vassal system is very well done

Is there any way to switch from melee to missile in combat? I noticed, for example, that if you have a two handed weapon, you can't use a horse. But I was hoping for some way to switch weapons at least.

Love the game.

[warty goblin]

Agree- the new vassal system is very well done

Is there any way to switch from melee to missile in combat? I noticed, for example, that if you have a two handed weapon, you can't use a horse. But I was hoping for some way to switch weapons at least.

Love the game.

I believe you just get a main weapon or weapon+shield, so no switching out between a bow and a warhammer. There's a fair number of utility items that grant a ranged attack though.


Finally crushed the toads this morning. They had been giving me some real issues with mega-buffed Awakened units, which just massacred my warriors and other T1s. Fortunately I then got berserkers, who, yes, struggle with anger management, but are just crazy good shock infantry. Turns out being a poorly adjusted rage beast with a giant axe has some upsides re: the bifurcation of intransigent amphibians. The final battle was a big six stack slugfest, but good morale on my part, and early toad casualties let me sweep the field with minimal losses.

Next up, I've got a so far notational war with some elves to mop up, and a second alliance to make.

[Eldan]

Finished the first story mission, and I guess my first full game, as orcish angels powered by dark magic. Very weird civ, I just made shock troops and then got every tome that looked like it had useful racisl or unit enchantments. Flying runic dark knights absolutely tear through everything on the charge, and thanks to my commander, they were warded and regenerating, too.

[NRSASD]

This thread inspired me to play Planetfall again, thanks! Playing Empire mode, had an objective to kill a player within 20 turns. Had to pull off some absolute chicanery to make it happen, but on turn 19 I took their capital after a risky march through the mountains and an 8v12 battle. I was Vanguard fighting Dvar and man that battle was bloody. 3 of my 8 survived.

[warty goblin]

Wrapped up my human barbarian game with an accidental area control victory like two turns before my planned diplomatic victory. I liked that neither of these caused the AI to get all aggressive, which made it feel much more like a joint win.

If the last game was sword, this time I'm going sorcery. Mystic elves with a wizard king leader, and absolute gobs of magic focused stuff. I also scooped up a hero who gives a big bonus to Materium, which is extremely handy for giving me an actual physical economy. This plays really differently from the human barbarians, which pretty much just ran up to stuff and snacked it in the face until dead. This is lots of buffing, and all the combat casting, to the point where auto-resolve often givese pretty bad results because it just isn't unleashing the torrent of mana that I am. I've got a huge tactical casting point pool, and I can drop two spells every turn from the first turn. It's great.


I also cranked up the world weirdness. Provinces mutate randomly, I've got enhanced creep stack sizes, and constantly reoccurring lairs. Basically everything wants to kill me all the time. Keeps me on my toes, particularly the mega powerful dragon lair next to one of my cities, and about which I can do nothing.

[Eldan]

Get a bit of dark magic, if you want to do a lot of combat casting. There's an ability on the tree there that gives you +5 combat casting every time something dies. It's especially brutal against nature enemies, who spawn vines like crazy, each vine defeated gives you five points.

[Sloanzilla]

The only thing I dislike about dark magic is that there's an additional souls requirement for certain spells, so now you have to keep track of three casting resources.

The barbarian/chaos/fire direction has been the best for me so far. Just do a lot of damage, burn stuff, move on.

[Artanis]

I've been having success with Materium and Life. I love the 'immovable object' gameplay that Life can bring, and Materium has Lava Burst and Golem Assistant

[The_Snark]

The only thing I dislike about dark magic is that there's an additional souls requirement for certain spells, so now you have to keep track of three casting resources.

Only the necromancy tomes involve souls; if you avoid those, you can dabble in dark magic without having to worry about the third resource. I think this is a pretty good deal for a magic-focused empire, since the Shadow affinity tree has some great buffs for them - there's the one Eldan mentioned, there's one that reduces the upkeep of all summoned units... I think the necromancy stuff kind of wants you to go all-in on it if you go for any of it, they build on one another nicely but if you only have one or two then it'll be a struggle to use it.

[GloatingSwine]

I've been having success with Materium and Life. I love the 'immovable object' gameplay that Life can bring, and Materium has Lava Burst and Golem Assistant

Yeah, Golem Assistant is great.

Anything that puts new units on the battlefield that can soak damage that doesn't stick between battles is massively useful. Doesn't matter how good the things are, they just have to be a thing the enemy can swing at.

[Eldan]

Man, how does one ever clear gold level wonders? I've encountered three now, and they all ate up my armies like candy.

[warty goblin]

I think you pretty much need to bring some high tier dudes of your own. They are pretty much supposed to be mid to late game challenges, so rolling in with a bunch of T3 and a couple T4 units isn't unreasonable.

Now the Gold tier infestation next door can eat me. Literally, as the spawn is guarded by a dragon mega-stack that could chew up both my armies at once. But it's going to be a real bother, because fending off its creeps takes a dedicated stack, and I'm going to need that stack for the inevitable war with jerks next door.

[Cespenar]

Yeah, Golem Assistant is great.

Anything that puts new units on the battlefield that can soak damage that doesn't stick between battles is massively useful. Doesn't matter how good the things are, they just have to be a thing the enemy can swing at.

Definitely. I took a lot of mileage from the t2 Houndmaster and Unleash the Hounds(?) siege project similarly as well.

@Infestations: Infestations aren't as dangerous as they allude to be. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in my experience they only pillage one of your improvements and sit on it. They don't really take over your cities. So that's barely like a 5% hindrance on a big city.

[warty goblin]

@Infestations: Infestations aren't as dangerous as they allude to be. Correct me if I'm wrong, but in my experience they only pillage one of your improvements and sit on it. They don't really take over your cities. So that's barely like a 5% hindrance on a big city.

I definitely just had some Infestation monsters lay siege to one of my cities. Maybe this is because I'm playing with pretty much maxed out infestation settings, but they are definitely a problem. Not a lose me the game problem, but because they're set to spawn in on any unoccupied territory, they pop up a lot, and the Gold level ones produce some fairly significant stacks. My main stack can beat them down no trouble, but it takes a main stack to do it, which means I'm not out clearing Wonders or resource sites, or dealing with the war with the jerks next door when that inevitably kicks off.

On the upside I'm absolutely reaping XP for my leader. Finally got a magic orb, so she's riding around zapping stuff from a bone wyvern like a magic boss.

[Eldan]

Just started my third proper game, and my mystic frog hero just got gifted a unicorn mount pretty much out of nothing by an event. It looks utterly ridiculous and I love it.

[Sloanzilla]

Again, FWIW, this game is a lot of fun. Couldn't get myself to go to bed last night because I was working my way through Story Board 3.

[Cespenar]

I definitely just had some Infestation monsters lay siege to one of my cities. Maybe this is because I'm playing with pretty much maxed out infestation settings, but they are definitely a problem. Not a lose me the game problem, but because they're set to spawn in on any unoccupied territory, they pop up a lot, and the Gold level ones produce some fairly significant stacks. My main stack can beat them down no trouble, but it takes a main stack to do it, which means I'm not out clearing Wonders or resource sites, or dealing with the war with the jerks next door when that inevitably kicks off.

On the upside I'm absolutely reaping XP for my leader. Finally got a magic orb, so she's riding around zapping stuff from a bone wyvern like a magic boss.

Interesting. Maybe they attack the nearest province, and if nothing else is nearest, they attack the city itself?

Because I had an unchecked infestation which produced some pretty powerful stacks as well, but all they did was pillage and sit on my improvements.

[warty goblin]

Interesting. Maybe they attack the nearest province, and if nothing else is nearest, they attack the city itself?

Because I had an unchecked infestation which produced some pretty powerful stacks as well, but all they did was pillage and sit on my improvements.

The city was two provinces from the spawn, with only a single occupied province between them. That was a wonder province, so the AI might have had special rules about sacking it, which left the city as the closest valid target.

Anyway, my usual strategy of being a goodie two shoes has netted me alliances or near alliances with all but two empires. Conveniently I'm already at war with everybody else, so I think this is going to be a pretty quick stomping.

By and large I think this is a substantial improvement over AoW 3, but I really miss the Seals victory condition. The magic victory thing is close, but because you build them in annexed provinces, you just plop th down in your most protected areas and kinda coast to a win. Sure the AI will declare war on you, but it's much easier to deal with that when holding territory in your core. And I've seen the AI build the first stage, but never the second or third, which is again disappointing because the AI was pretty competent at going for the Seals.

The other thing I wish the game did was give the races a bit more individual flavor. Something like race specific T1 or T2 units would pretty much do the trick here. As it is playing Mystic feels really different from Barbarian, but Elf feels interchangeable with Human.

[Artanis]

The city was two provinces from the spawn, with only a single occupied province between them. That was a wonder province, so the AI might have had special rules about sacking it, which left the city as the closest valid target.

Anyway, my usual strategy of being a goodie two shoes has netted me alliances or near alliances with all but two empires. Conveniently I'm already at war with everybody else, so I think this is going to be a pretty quick stomping.

By and large I think this is a substantial improvement over AoW 3, but I really miss the Seals victory condition. The magic victory thing is close, but because you build them in annexed provinces, you just plop th down in your most protected areas and kinda coast to a win. Sure the AI will declare war on you, but it's much easier to deal with that when holding territory in your core. And I've seen the AI build the first stage, but never the second or third, which is again disappointing because the AI was pretty competent at going for the Seals.

The other thing I wish the game did was give the races a bit more individual flavor. Something like race specific T1 or T2 units would pretty much do the trick here. As it is playing Mystic feels really different from Barbarian, but Elf feels interchangeable with Human.

I've personally seen the second stage, and I've heard on the forums about an AI actually winning a magic victory (due to an apparent bug, but still).

[Cespenar]

Yeah, I've seen the AI reaching the second stage as well.

Also, I've taken a city with a Seed on top of my own seed as well, and the ending counter moved to 2, funnily enough.

I haven't pursued that quirk though. Would be funny if it worked.