Age of Wonders 3

[KoolNoodles]

Also just found out you can't cast unit enchantments outside of battle, making them.....pointless. Why waste a caster's turn(there's only one now anyways) on enchant weapon etc. when you have fireballs to hurl.

 

[pakoito]

Also just found out you can't cast unit enchantments outside of battle, making them.....pointless. Why waste a caster's turn(there's only one now anyways) on enchant weapon etc. when you have fireballs to hurl.

>Every game ever.

 

[Malakal]

Depends on the quality of enchantments right? But thats a pity I very much liked how you could enchant units permanently.

 

[sser]

Some of the enchantments are far too powerful to always be on. One was like -80% physical damage taken.

I did see a guy cast a huge, world-map demoralization spell on an enemy city. The guy didn't realize what he had done (because he's a dumbass), but troops were deserting from the enemy in pretty big number. And not just any troops, like Tier IV, you're-gonna-need-those type troops. I was impressed. The game definitely seems to have some huge, OP spells/units which any fantasy game totally should.

 

[Space Satan]

AoW2 had such pre-battle enchantments that required only upkeep. Some were insane, like phantom form with -50% phys. damage or magic protections. In the end everyone put such enchs on each unit and roflstomped n+1 AI armies without losing a unit.

 

[SCO]

Also just found out you can't cast unit enchantments outside of battle, making them.....pointless. Why waste a caster's turn(there's only one now anyways) on enchant weapon etc. when you have fireballs to hurl.

wtf, nope, not getting this

 

[octavius]

AoW2 had such pre-battle enchantments that required only upkeep. Some were insane, like phantom form with -50% phys. damage or magic protections. In the end everyone put such enchs on each unit and roflstomped n+1 AI armies without losing a unit.

Which is why I used the Wizards&Heroes mod (or rather my own custom mod based on it) that significantly increased the cost of buffing spells. It was a bit sad to not have Enchant and Dark Gift on those lovely Blade Dancers, but OTOH it felt wrong when the AI was not able (or willing) to buff even its own heroes.

Nice to hear that the AI seems to have been improved for AoW3. If that's really the case it's really good news. AI is always the weak point in strategy games that are otherwise excellent.
I'm currently playing HoMM 2 and the strategic AI is not too bad (much improved from HoMM 1), but it's sad to see the AI cast Steelskin on a stack of Titans facing 1 Peasant...

 

[Suicidal]

I was watching some guy's preview LP and there was 1 thing that I found funny for some reason:

He captured a neutral town of giants (apparently there are neutral towns of races other than the playable ones which you can capture and use which is pretty cool) and one of the buildings allowed him to build ogres in that town. Instead of the usual 'ogre den' or something similar that building was called "burrow of degenerate children". Don't know why but it seemed kinda funny to me - I'd imagine if the political correctness people saw this they'd probably scream that it's inappropriate or something.

 

[J_C]

Also just found out you can't cast unit enchantments outside of battle, making them.....pointless. Why waste a caster's turn(there's only one now anyways) on enchant weapon etc. when you have fireballs to hurl.

Where did you read that? I can assure you that is not the case. At least it is a bit more complex. You constantly research skills and spells in the game. There are several types of spells. Some are cast on the world map, giving bonuses to your units or your kingdom or a city, and there are spells which are only usable in combat.

 

[KoolNoodles]

Also just found out you can't cast unit enchantments outside of battle, making them.....pointless. Why waste a caster's turn(there's only one now anyways) on enchant weapon etc. when you have fireballs to hurl.

Where did you read that? I can assure you that is not the case. At least it is a bit more complex. You constantly research skills and spells in the game. There are several types of spells. Some are cast on the world map, giving bonuses to your units or your kingdom or a city, and there are spells which are only usable in combat.

This whole thread. Please, correct me if I've read wrongly. I'd love to be wrong here. I understand that global/city buffs are still in-game. That's fine and good. What I'm talking about are individual unit enchantments. In AoW2 and AoW2 SM, one could give X number of troops "Enchant Weapon"(or any number of buffs) at any time on the campaign map, and as long as one had the mana, it would be in effect permanently without having to cast anything after.

http://ageofwonders.com/forums/topic/is-this-a-good-change/

 

[ricolikesrice]

casting enchantments during battle would only be pointless if the enchantments arent good enough to warrant "wasting" a turn casting it - *IF* thats the case in AOW3 then the enchantments should be made better so they become worth casting.

personally especially after Warlock (mind you i dont want to trashtalk that game - i enjoyed it very much despite all flaws) i really like the idea that you cannot buff the crap out of your units. its fun for a while to see just how ridicolous your units stats can become with all the perks, buffs and (in case of heroes) magic gear but it gets old very quick destroying the enemy with your uberunits of doom - especially if its heroes soloing entire enemy armies because the AI itself doesnt know how to stack buffs/perks/etc. themselves.

i d much rather have the primary purpose of enchantment/buffs strenghtening weaker units so they become more viable in combat rather that overpowering overpowered units even more (which is unfortunately how its done in most games).

In Warlocks case Fire Weapon Enchant ( +50% Damage Fire ) for example is a lot more usefull on a unit with high damage which makes the spell a waste of time/mana on anything but your highest damaging units. This ( plus the AI not knowing how to properly buff their units) leads to uberunits of doom whereas 90% of the other units you could train are useless except for the early game.

I think the game would be much better if that effect was reversed - Fire Weapon Enchant should/could have the unit doing a FIXED ammount of damage, no matter who is buffed with it. So it would be pointless or even counterproductive to cast on your Demon Lord of Armyslaying because he already has better damage - but it would be really damn nice a buff on one of your weaker units.

of course thats just an example - the whole game would probably have to be adjusted around that.

...

my hope for AOW3 is that endgame battles still involve (lots of!) "regular units" and not just a bunch of pimped out lords and uberunits like in MoM, Warlock, Legendary heroes and AOW2:SM. to me it always felt pretty idiotic that "epic" battle are not fought between 100s of soldiers on each site but a general, a dragon and a fairy versus a magician, one demon and an elemental.

if thats not the case i hope its moddable enough to make it happen.

 

[Space Satan]

AoW had some nice skills on leveling up but still bottom tier units could not compare with high-tier even when they swarme them. Should they fix it - game would be good in my eyes.

 

[J_C]

I understand that global/city buffs are still in-game. That's fine and good. What I'm talking about are individual unit enchantments.

Ah I get it. I was talking about global-city buffs, unfortunately I didn't see individual unit enchantments so far either, although I'm only a few hours into the game.

 

[Martius]

AoW had some nice skills on leveling up but still bottom tier units could not compare with high-tier even when they swarme them. Should they fix it - game would be good in my eyes.

From what I can remember it was a problem because weaker units had low chance of hitting better one? It looks like in 3 it wont be problem, they will just hit for low amount of damage. Although I am not sure if that will work better.

 

[Emily]

I actually think that removing global casting on spells like enchant weapons is the way to go.
If you think about it, AI cannot use it effectively, and it is simply too hard to balance it. I remember in AOWSM i always had all my enchants on heroes and they couldnt be hit, which was horrible mechanic, so i just limited myself on 2 per unit...

 

[cvv]

my hope for AOW3 is that endgame battles still involve (lots of!) "regular units" and not just a bunch of pimped out lords and uberunits like in MoM, Warlock, Legendary heroes and AOW2:SM. to me it always felt pretty idiotic that "epic" battle are not fought between 100s of soldiers on each site but a general, a dragon and a fairy versus a magician, one demon and an elemental.

The meeting of the hosts of the West and of the North is named
the Great Battle, and the War of Wrath. There was marshalled the whole
power of the Throne of Morgoth, and it had become great beyond count,
so that Anfauglith could not contain it; and all the North was aflame with
war.
But it availed him not...the uncounted legions of the Orcs perished like straw in a
great fire, or were swept like shrivelled leaves before a burning wind.

- Tolkien, Silmarillion

See, that's what happens when you field regular units against pimped out demigods.

 

[J_C]

Man this game is unoptimized. I have a decent rig, nothing fancy, but should run this game without a problem. But in my last 12v9 battle in a city, the framerate constantly dropped to 8 (!!!) by the end of the battle. The more units have fallen, and the more corpses on the ground have been, the smaller the framerate was. And there is that strange thing that on the world map, when you have no units selected, the framerate is OK, but if you select a unit, and move the mouse, thus moving the path marker, the framerate misteriusly drops almost by half.

 

[Space Satan]

What's your video card and ram?

 

[Elim]

Is this game "next gen shit" or is it something for people that like to think while playing? From videos it looks pretty old-school. Am i wrong?

 

[Martius]

Is this game "next gen shit" or is it something for people that like to think while playing? From videos it looks pretty old-school. Am i wrong?

So far its what you would expect from Age of Wonders sequel. I am just worried that we could hear about bunch of dlc later since there are six races to choose (previous game had 12 without expansion and 3 more with).

 

[J_C]

What's your video card and ram?

8 GB RAM, ATI HD6870, AMD Phenom II X4 955 CPU

 

[Renegen]

Sad, literally the 1 thing that can sour the game at this point is shitty performance.

 

[octavius]

my hope for AOW3 is that endgame battles still involve (lots of!) "regular units" and not just a bunch of pimped out lords and uberunits like in MoM, Warlock, Legendary heroes and AOW2:SM. to me it always felt pretty idiotic that "epic" battle are not fought between 100s of soldiers on each site but a general, a dragon and a fairy versus a magician, one demon and an elemental.

The meeting of the hosts of the West and of the North is named
the Great Battle, and the War of Wrath. There was marshalled the whole
power of the Throne of Morgoth, and it had become great beyond count,
so that Anfauglith could not contain it; and all the North was aflame with
war.
But it availed him not...the uncounted legions of the Orcs perished like straw in a
great fire, or were swept like shrivelled leaves before a burning wind.

- Tolkien, Silmarillion

See, that's what happens when you field regular units against pimped out demigods.

OTOH, Hurin - mightiest of all Human heroes - eventually was defeated by mere orcs when he ran out of counter-attacks.

 

[Disgruntled]

Its March 31st here and steam wont let me play

(oh and i did end up buying for $33 without any problems)

 

[Martius]

Its March 31st here and steam wont let me play

(oh and i did end up buying for $33 without any problems)

So I am not only one. I am surprised that some shop sell that before official release.
33 bucks for key or box version? I bought box for bit less.