Been Wondering 4 Ages (Age of Wonders 4 Thread)

[Artanis]

Materium has kind of grown on me. There's an awesome spell where you can pull a unit in like the guy from Mortal Combat. That said, it is a little heavy on golems and earth elementals. It would be cool to have some "siege" unit that you could use for non siege battles. Like an onager or cannon for regular combats.

Zephyr Archers with the +range enchantment come kinda close, but yet, lugging around a bolt thrower would be pretty cool.

[Sloanzilla]

How has anyone beaten Story #5?

I found some suggestions online saying to go underground and just push for a magic win, but the angel guy just has enough of a lead that he gets the magic win first.
I made a very solid nature army and was pushing forward, but he still placed his third Order wonder in well before I had the strength to get to him.

[warty goblin]

Wrapped my Mystic desert cat game with a magic win. I never was able to retake my fourth city from the monsters, but the absolute hordes of monsters I mulched up got my leader up to level 15. A level 15 hero is terrifying. I went magic, and had a wisp familiar and could summon a t3 elemental and a t3 animal, then reset my cooldowns and do it again. Also all my magic attacks were auto-crits.

And by endgame my entire race was ethereal and also coated in magical gold. That made me realize I was essentially a mythical being. Like, the ethereal gold that was the body of an ancient ascended mystical race is a totally legit quest item or plot point in an rpg or novel.

[Sloanzilla]

What about this upgrade for shadow?
1. An additional mechanic where you can create skeletons on your front line and/or
2. More mechanics similar to the bone golem, where you can use your skeletons as a base to make other units.

This game kind of reminds me of the whole Awaken Online series.

[Zevox]

I'm not going to pretend I know whether Shadow magic needs a buff just based off one play through, but if it did, I would think that increasing the amount of souls they get would be the way to go. Its the scarcity of those that feels like their big limiter, at least to me.

[warty goblin]

There's already a Shadow hero power that lets you summon 3 undead in tactical combat. They're only T1, but that's still huge, since it's another half a stack of completely free canon fodder the enemy has to contend with.

I'm not going to pretend I know whether Shadow magic needs a buff just based off one play through, but if it did, I would think that increasing the amount of souls they get would be the way to go. Its the scarcity of those that feels like their big limiter, at least to me.

It looks like they're substantially rebalancing the soul economy in the first major patch towards requiring fewer souls and more mana. Seems a fair trade.

[Zevox]

It looks like they're substantially rebalancing the soul economy in the first major patch towards requiring fewer souls and more mana. Seems a fair trade.

Ah, so Shadow magic will require a mix of souls and mana, rather than just souls? Yeah, that sounds like a good way to work it. I know I frequently had a huge excess of mana in that play through, and that despite learning some Astral magic to spend it on.

[Sloanzilla]

In terms of game balance, sure, but I just think having ways to use my bone resources to construct other stuff would be fun!

I'm about to win my first Shadow game. I can't see a situation where one would win by conquest where one couldn't previously win through another method, but I'm insisting on conquest.

Is there any point to that expensive Beacon city development that gives you 20 construction points, but has no other purpose? Not the unity one, the one that just lets you build it at the end.

[Sloanzilla]

yeah, I agree shadow has a lot of summoning options.

I'm talking about "replenishing your troops on the front line" options. That used be what was so good about necromancer in the previous game. You just kept moving forward.

[Zevox]

Played through a game on the first story map today, using Leonel with a heavy focus on Materium magic. Had intended for them to minor in chaos magic, but that map is too small for that to have ever really become a thing. I wound up finishing it on something like turn 32, actually, only feel like I saw the low-level Materium stuff, so I'll need to bust that faction out again at some point. Materium sure does give you a crap load of production though, holy cow. Especially with prospecting (probably helped that there were mountains all over the place in that map).

Started on story map 2 with Order Orcs (with minor nature leanings due to their culture)... which may have been a slight mistake, since it seems like that map is low on free cities, and it seems like a lot of Order benefits focus around giving you benefits with those. But oh well, I should be fine, I only set the difficulty to normal.

Question for everybody: how do you like to set up your heroes? Is there any reason for them to ever not be mounted? Any weapons/skill trees seem sub-par/overpowered compared to the rest? I've dabbled in most of them at this point, and was actually surprised to find that the sword-and-shield setup doesn't seem inferior to the rest, since triple-attacking means quite a bit of damage, and they are pretty tanky, so the retaliation strikes aren't such a problem. And crossbowmen surprised me with how much damage they can put out when flanking despite only getting one shot. Which means most things actually seem pretty good to me, although I probably like mages the best on the whole. Still having a hard time justifying using a staff on a magic hero over the orbs though, particularly since it disables mounts (and it's a little weird to me that it's the only weapon that does so, I was actually expecting sword-and-shield would too).

[The_Snark]

Question for everybody: how do you like to set up your heroes? Is there any reason for them to ever not be mounted? Any weapons/skill trees seem sub-par/overpowered compared to the rest? I've dabbled in most of them at this point, and was actually surprised to find that the sword-and-shield setup doesn't seem inferior to the rest, since triple-attacking means quite a bit of damage, and they are pretty tanky, so the retaliation strikes aren't such a problem. And crossbowmen surprised me with how much damage they can put out when flanking despite only getting one shot. Which means most things actually seem pretty good to me, although I probably like mages the best on the whole. Still having a hard time justifying using a staff on a magic hero over the orbs though, particularly since it disables mounts (and it's a little weird to me that it's the only weapon that does so, I was actually expecting sword-and-shield would too).

Most of the big two-handed weapons disable mounts, I believe: staffs, greatswords, polearms, and so on. Many of these are quite good - I'm fond of the weapons that turn your hero into an ersatz shock unit - but if you're not using one of them then no, there's no reason not to use a mount. Basic mounts don't give you a lot, I've found that the extra movement often goes to waste because I generally want my heroes to stick close to the rest of my (non-mounted) army, but free movement is free movement.

Staffs tend to be better than orbs at inflicting status effects, while orbs are better for pure damage... under optimal conditions, anyway; like you noticed with crossbows, only having one shot means you have more freedom to reposition without losing damage. I prefer them over orbs, myself, they feel a little more flexible and if all I wanted was damage I'd probably use a bow instead.

As for how I like to build my heroes... If I'm using armies that are heavy on ranged units, I like to have at least one tanky melee hero to help hold the line; if I'm using melee-heavy armies then I tend to go with... well, support heroes or melee heroes with shock weapons, honestly. You might think I would opt for ranged heroes to provide supporting fire, but whenever I try that it doesn't feel as impactful as I'd like; ranged heroes don't do that much more damage than ranged units, whereas melee heroes are noticeably beefier than most melee units. That said, I like to build all my heroes in the course of a game differently, so I often end up with one melee, one magic/ranged, and one dedicated support.

[Sloanzilla]

When possible, I go with a ranged hero with killing momentum, then get every single summon monster option made available to me.

The no mount if you have a big staff thing is annoying. I can carry a staff and ride a horse in real life.

[Eldan]

I like strong troops, so I've been skilling heavily into Support and Battle Magic.

[Cespenar]

I've tried almost all types of items on heroes, and they all seem to work to some extent. The support tree seems a bit sneakily OP if you do the math and sum the bonuses, but eh.

As you would expect, though, the x3 attack melee builds win out on personal dps eventually, when buffs and traits pile on.

[Zevox]

Most of the big two-handed weapons disable mounts, I believe: staffs, greatswords, polearms, and so on. Many of these are quite good - I'm fond of the weapons that turn your hero into an ersatz shock unit - but if you're not using one of them then no, there's no reason not to use a mount. Basic mounts don't give you a lot, I've found that the extra movement often goes to waste because I generally want my heroes to stick close to the rest of my (non-mounted) army, but free movement is free movement.

I don't think that's entirely true - I know I had a shock unit who was mounted in my Necromancer game. But I did notice in my current one that a hero I just recruited who started with a greatsword has his mount disabled, so I guess there are some non-staff weapons that do that.

By the way, are there spears that heroes can wield? I think spearman is the one unit type I haven't seen heroes be able to become, which seems an odd omission if it's really not an option. Well, besides skirmisher, but I'm not sure what you'd give them to make them that, those all seem to be unique units.

Staffs tend to be better than orbs at inflicting status effects, while orbs are better for pure damage... under optimal conditions, anyway; like you noticed with crossbows, only having one shot means you have more freedom to reposition without losing damage. I prefer them over orbs, myself, they feel a little more flexible and if all I wanted was damage I'd probably use a bow instead.

Eh, unless the status effect is something huge, like stun or freeze, I'd much rather have damage potential + mobility, personally. Though honestly after a certain point my magic heroes are hardly using their actual weapon, between summoning and AoE abilities.

[Grim Portent]

Picked this up the other day, a bit surprised I've never played the older games in the series, it's right up my alley.

Finished three games so far, the basic map and the first and second campaign missions. First game I was chaotic barbarian humans, wound up going really heavy on fiend summoning towards the end. Second I was Shadow/Order elves with a preference for the cold. Played really cautiously in the first campaign mission, when I could probably have just rushed through it, but I did get to try out the terraforming spells a bit to turn half the map into ice and snow. Third I played Life/Chaos human barbarians, went Animal-kin and Super-Growth, called the race Jotunbrud and drowned the map in a tide of big beefy guys and animals. Chose to ignore all the side quests in mission 2 and just exterminated the toadmen when they were called to fight me.

I'm really liking this game, though much like other similar games I tend to drag things out rather than going for the finish when I should. I always want to try and get something big and cool for a dramatic final showdown, rather than just getting it done.

[The_Snark]

I don't think that's entirely true - I know I had a shock unit who was mounted in my Necromancer game. But I did notice in my current one that a hero I just recruited who started with a greatsword has his mount disabled, so I guess there are some non-staff weapons that do that.

I know there's at least one lance weapon that works like a shock weapon but is mount-compatible; it's slightly lower in damage than its equivalents. I have not seen any higher-tier weapons that work that way, but there's a lot of higher-tier equipment I have yet to see, so it could easily exist.

By the way, are there spears that heroes can wield? I think spearman is the one unit type I haven't seen heroes be able to become, which seems an odd omission if it's really not an option. Well, besides skirmisher, but I'm not sure what you'd give them to make them that, those all seem to be unique units.

There's a couple of polearms, which do in fact tend to make the hero work more like a spear unit - first strike, extra retaliation attacks, stuff like that. I don't think they're available as starting items, though, so you have to get lucky and find one in the course of play. Finding good items is very RNG-dependent in this game.

[Grim Portent]

So far the weapons I've seen are;

Incompatible with mounts

• Two handed axe/hammer/sword
• Crossbow
• Staff

Compatible with mounts

• One hand and shield
• Orb
• Bow
• Lance

Not seen polearms other than the lance yet, but it's still early days for me.

Mounted feels better in general to me than unmounted, especially if you get a tier III mount, but the unmounted weapons don't feel underpowered or anything. Staves in particular feel like a good competitor with orbs, and I haven't been dissapointed by the heroes I had with crossbows by any means. Two handed feels like it's worse than lance though, because they're basically the same and there's no real disadvantage to being mounted.

[Zevox]

I'm really liking this game, though much like other similar games I tend to drag things out rather than going for the finish when I should. I always want to try and get something big and cool for a dramatic final showdown, rather than just getting it done.

Yeah, I have the same tendency. Who wants to end the game without getting to the cool late-game stuff, you know?

I know there's at least one lance weapon that works like a shock weapon but is mount-compatible; it's slightly lower in damage than its equivalents. I have not seen any higher-tier weapons that work that way, but there's a lot of higher-tier equipment I have yet to see, so it could easily exist.

Loading up that file, the weapon in question was a tier 2 lance called Giant's Bane. Heavy charge, 27 base damage, bonus damage to large targets.

There's a couple of polearms, which do in fact tend to make the hero work more like a spear unit - first strike, extra retaliation attacks, stuff like that. I don't think they're available as starting items, though, so you have to get lucky and find one in the course of play. Finding good items is very RNG-dependent in this game.

Ah, nice. Guess I just haven't gotten them yet. Though they may perhaps be available as a starter weapon for certain setups? I know I noticed that my options for those changed a bit between my last two games. When I set up the Materium lion-people I made my starting hero a crossbowman, but there was no crossbow option as a starting weapon for my Order Orcs.

So far the weapons I've seen are;

Incompatible with mounts

• Crossbow

Crossbow is definitely compatible with mounts, both of the crossbow heroes I've had so far were mounted. Looking at one of them from the Necromancer game now, it's even a heavy crossbow, so I'm not sure what kind of crossbow wouldn't be mount-compatible.

[The_Snark]

Ah, nice. Guess I just haven't gotten them yet. Though they may perhaps be available as a starter weapon for certain setups? I know I noticed that my options for those changed a bit between my last two games. When I set up the Materium lion-people I made my starting hero a crossbowman, but there was no crossbow option as a starting weapon for my Order Orcs.

Yeah, your choice of starter weapons is influenced by your culture if you're a champion (wizard-kings choose from a set list regardless of culture). Some Industrial societies get crossbows instead of bows; dark and high cultures get lances instead of greatswords/greataxes; arcane cultures don't have a ranged physical option at all. The elemental affinity of your staff/orb choices also changes based on culture - high gets spirit, dark gets frost, arcane gets lightning, and so on. And then there's a few differences that appear to be purely cosmetic, like barbarians getting axes and greataxes instead of swords and greatswords.

None of the cultures in the game so far have pikes or spears as a starting option, although I can't be sure that it's not available some other way - I know the pantheon system offers the ability to unlock new starting equipment setups, if nothing else.

[Grim Portent]

Crossbow is definitely compatible with mounts, both of the crossbow heroes I've had so far were mounted. Looking at one of them from the Necromancer game now, it's even a heavy crossbow, so I'm not sure what kind of crossbow wouldn't be mount-compatible.

I must just be misremembering then. I've not made a martial ranged leader yet, and the heroes blur together so an archer or a crossbowman kind of blend together to me. So far I just kind of use the heroes as mooks+ rather than trying to do much special with them, whereas I feel attached to my leaders because I have ideas for them going in.

So far I don't think I have found any weapons that have different mount options than the others of the same type, and tbh it would be weird for them to vary like that. A lance is a lance, so to speak, they share animations.

I do wonder why they made some weapons not work with mounts but didn't also make those weapons beefier in some sense. As far as I can tell the only reason to use two handed weapons is if you find a really good one that's better than any combination of lance/mount or one handed/shield/mount you have available. Well, also for style points. Sometimes the mounts don't work so well aesthetically with some characters after all.

None of the cultures in the game so far have pikes or spears as a starting option, although I can't be sure that it's not available some other way - I know the pantheon system offers the ability to unlock new starting equipment setups, if nothing else.

I unlocked the Tyrant Sword and Shield from pantheon, it's just the normal sword and shield but you get Intimidating Aura instead of a mount. Seems to be broadly the same with the other pantheon unlocks, they're slight tweaks of default packages, replacing a trait or adding something minor rather than wholly new options. Though in theory trading off a starting mount for a passive ability is a pretty good deal, mounts are easy to get after all.

[The_Snark]

I do wonder why they made some weapons not work with mounts but didn't also make those weapons beefier in some sense. As far as I can tell the only reason to use two handed weapons is if you find a really good one that's better than any combination of lance/mount or one handed/shield/mount you have available. Well, also for style points. Sometimes the mounts don't work so well aesthetically with some characters after all.

Two-handed weapons are slightly beefier than lances: a basic greatsword deals 23 base damage compared to a basic lance's 21, while the Godir Greataxe that wizard-kings get deals 21 but has a chance to inflict bleeding, the big two-handed mace that arcane cultures get access to deals 20 plus Sundered Resistance, and so on. You could argue that's not worth giving up the extra movement from having a mount, and maybe you'd be right, at least at this tier of equipment - extra movement on a shock unit is quite nice. Once you reach higher tiers, the special abilities tend to be more impactful, so it's harder to compare directly.

[Sloanzilla]

the other thing with mounts is that you can't fly across lava or astral if I'm not mistaken, so some of the barriers in the game can't be bypassed with flight quite as easily as in AOW 3.

[Grim Portent]

Found my first polearm. Also my first tier IV item.

Melenis' Glaive, grants first strike and killing with it creates a zombie for the rest of the fight. Base damage of 11 physical/11 frost. Guessing the first strike is a feature of the weapon class.

If I weren't doing a wolf cavalry swarm thing I might try it out, but as is I need my mounts and have no undead related stuff going on.

[Sloanzilla]

YES, that Glaive almost let me survive an encounter with the Story #5 boss.

Almost.

[Zevox]

Found my first polearm. Also my first tier IV item.

Melenis' Glaive, grants first strike and killing with it creates a zombie for the rest of the fight. Base damage of 11 physical/11 frost. Guessing the first strike is a feature of the weapon class.

If I weren't doing a wolf cavalry swarm thing I might try it out, but as is I need my mounts and have no undead related stuff going on.

Nice. Found my own first tier 4 weapon, which conveniently enough for the current discussion is a Greataxe that diables mounts - and possibly a story thing, given its name references a story character:

Yaka's Fury. Charge Strike, base damage 16 Phys/16 Fire. A 3-hex line is hit for 50% effectiveness, sets affected tiles on fire.

So basically, enemies in the three tiles directly behind your target relative to the tile you attack from take 50% damage from the attack, and all four tiles are set on fire. It's, uh, really good. I can probably credit it as the reason that two of my heroes survived a disastrous attempt at attacking my foe in story map two where their two armies wound up fighting five full enemy armies (meaning the heroes and a couple of their units walked away while none of the enemies did). I don't know what a tier 4 lance would look like, but this sets a high bar for one to meet.

[warty goblin]

Details on the DLC dropped today. Highlights include lizard people as an appearance option, a couple new tomes and the ability to play as a dragon lord as a leader. Awesome.

[Grim Portent]

Details on the DLC dropped today. Highlights include lizard people as an appearance option, a couple new tomes and the ability to play as a dragon lord as a leader. Awesome.

Customisable dragon lords is one of the best things that can be added to any game as far as I'm concerned.



I just got a Feudal culture hero who allows his assigned city to recruit trolls and ogres, thanks to a trait called Friend of Ogres. I wonder if there's any other similar traits. As is I can now recruit Ogre Butchers and Brewers, both tier II, River Trolls (tier III) and Swamp Trolls (tier IV), using draft like any other unit. City I've assigned the guy to is still young and has little by way of Draft production, so actually making an ogre/troll army is going to take a while, but it's the first example of Rally units being recruitable normally that I've seen.

[Eldan]

Very meh on more races, though, I never cared for more cosmetics in games.

[Sloanzilla]

Will there be a few more story worlds?