Age of Wonders 4

[Fedora Master]

NWN1 is generally considered good, except for the OC. It also did wonders for the online and modding communities. So there's that.

 

[Mortmal]

Eador a codex hit, because codexers always pretend to vouch for the small indie and overrating them , its a good game but its far less entertaining or complex than AOW4. The "all is samey" , "all play the same" you feel in AOW4 is ton worse in those ancient games if you had the courage to reinstall and launch them .It's just an improved HOMM clone and if you played hundreds of hours of them they have nothing more to offer.
NW1 was considered an abomination at release with its diablo action gameplay and its only after some user modules , just improving the story telling , nothing else, that people consider it good despite the gameplay still being an abomination for someone who really wants a rpg. Bunch of hypocrits here praising things that never existed .

 

[Lacrymas]

AoW4 is very far from complex, lol.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

AoW is also very far from being a HoMM clone. Sigh, it really is a bit disappointing to see these hot takes from codex users.

 

[adddeed]

AoW is superior to HoMM so even ifs a clone (it isnt) it's the better game.

 

[Mortmal]

AoW4 is very far from complex, lol.

None of the previous games are more complex.

 

[BING XI LAO]

AoW4 is very far from complex, lol.

None of the previous games are more complex.

autospawning boats bwahahaha THE ABSOLUTE STATE OF GOYIM

 

[Absinthe]

It's nostalgy i tell you, have a look at this weird forum thread, 70 pages of people being butthurt about age of wonder 3 and it's terrible gameplay too .
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/age-of-wonders-3.80326/page-70

It's the cycle of (neckbeard) life.
I remember people being baffled at what stinking pieces of shit Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 were, and now that enough years are gone a lot of people remember them fondly because they became part of their childhood memories. Even here in on the Codex.
Same with the recent thread about the Dark Alliance games.

I also remember when I played the Age of Wonders in the past and the ongoing sentiment was "Well, at least they are trying to add more things, but Jesus Christ, how comes no one can actually do better than Master of Magic in this genre?"
Eador was also generally dismissed as a half-botched attempt, but now it's apparently a beloved classic.
Spellforce: COnquest of Eo was criticized for feeling a half game (and it was indeed sold at half the price and with a single map because they ran out of money).
And so on.

That's a damn fucking stupid revisionist take which only exists in your mind so you can stroke your own ego about how much smarter you are than the unenlightened Codexian plebes like a faggot.

• NWN1 and 2 are shit, but they are shit games with good modding scenes. When people say that NWN 1 and 2 are worth getting now, they are talking about mods, custom campaigns, and the occasional online server, never the game's own content.
• Dark Alliance is a joke. The closest you get to remembering it fondly is that you needed a co-op game on the PS2/X-Box, in which case you are remembering playing co-op fondly, not the game.
• MoM has always been in a league of its own and "how come no one can actually do better than MoM in this genre?" is in fact a question that still gets asked to this day, but that does not mean people considered Age of Wonders 1 trash.
• Eador: Genesis was an instant classic you goddamn faggot. Maybe your poor memory is mixing up the Codex's high opinion of Eador: Genesis with the Codex's poor opinion of the shitty 3D remake Eador: Masters of the Broken World, which was indeed a half-botched attempt that no one plays.

Don't know shit about Conquest of Eo.

It's true that this new game has some massive blind spots. Above all, races/cultures hardly having a distinct feeling past the couple of starting perks (which can eventually be obtained by other means like mutations in some cases, anyway). The mutation system is another one.

That's exactly the kind of shit people don't like about AoW 3: reducing racial uniqueness.

But you know people are starting to stomp their feet and throw a tantrum "just because"when the complaint becomes "the UI is complete shit", which is not just false in general (there's room for improvement on a couple of QOL details but overall I'd say it's actually GENUINELY good), it's also especially hilarious when you can stop living in your rose-tinted memories, launch right now your copy of Shadow Magic on GOG you didn't even click on once in the last few years (because you didn't, be honest, no matter how much you cry about loving it more now) and realize what a fucking mess *that* UI was in terms of readability and practicality to reach functions comfortably.

I'm not even talking about what I remember, because I actually tried this the other day for a direct comparison.

AoW: SM is fine. The complaints about AoW 4's UI relate more to it being ugly I think.

 

[Fedora Master]

So I hear AoW3 is good now with all the patches and DLC?

AoW: SM is fine. The complaints about AoW 4's UI relate more to it being ugly I think.

As I said, everything seems to take one click too many. Consider deleting units: Click the army, click the unit, click the lil X at the top right of the unit screen.

 

[Absinthe]

Fair enough.

AoW 3 is better with patches and DLC, but you'll probably also want the PBEM Balance Patch (which is a mod) and the AI is still a sack of shit.

 

[Raghar]

Well. Lets look at it from a positive point of view. Planetfall was great learning experience. It shown why unit experience should matter, and why there should be large difference between green and elite units. When I lost experienced unit in AoW3, it created problems, and I had to add secondary army. When I lost elite unit in Planetfall, I just get new one and send it to meat grinder. AoW4 proves that adding some summons or unit enchantments doesn't change the whole problem.

Basically it proves why units need detailed simulation. Unit Das Reich that has few symbols, players would throw it away at random. But when commander of das Reich improved his skill from poor to actually good, players would DEFINITELLY don't want to lose the division, because losing two more with at least partially skilled leaders and trained soldiers, and they would lose the war.

So it's no longer suicidal baiting with Das Reich, but it's use how a normal soldiers would want this unit to be used, in proper place and where soldiers would have decent chance of survival.

 

[Great Deceiver]

ITT: people unironically trying to argue with a REEEEEEEra user. lol. lmao

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

ITT: people unironically trying to argue with a REEEEEEEra user. lol. lmao

Jesus Christ, you definitely are a a bit of a retarded.
Do you realized I was an user here (and in plenty of other forums) YEARS before even having an Era account?
Since before you, in fact.

Not to mention it's likely you never read enough of era (or even neogaf before) to realize what's exactly my standing with most of the users there.

 

[vota DC]

From what I understood AI gets free stuff and movement cost is super high: regular infantry has 32 movement (like slow cavalry in Aow1) rather than 26....but moves slower than rams in Aow1. That means you won't move with your army fast enough to explore ruins to get the resources to grow bigger than Independents.

 

[Fedora Master]

ITT: people unironically trying to argue with a REEEEEEEra user. lol. lmao

Jesus Christ, you definitely are a a bit of a retarded.
Do you realized I was an user here (and in plenty of other forums) YEARS before even having an Era account?
Since before you, in fact.

Not to mention it's likely you never read enough of era (or even neogaf before) to realize what's exactly my standing with most of the users there.

lol you regged on Reeeeset at all

 

[Reality]

So this game

- Can be more hostile to melee than Planetfall ever was

Specifically about turn 40~ when the AI techs up enough for range AOE to be the norm, despite the "can't shoot in melee" weakness many units also have tools to escape melee and still attack same turn , such as Zephyr archer with slippery or Battle Mages with a free action teleport (which the AI won't always research but the player probbably will) . This is compounded by

- Diplomacy being built around a casus belli system

The AI is super weighted to give human players grievances to help out ... It forward settles more than any other 4X I've ever seen , and even after an alliance will tend to continue doing so.

The AI hates to declare war first and will try hard to get human to do so, forcing sn extreme economic penalty if this 'mini game' is not done correctly.

- Alliances

The AI seems pretty easy to get friendly at the start of most games, but for some reason once you have 1 person fully allied, you'll take about -400 relation penalty with all other players (for threat level suspicion). It's basically impossible to recover relationship normally from here even if you had multiple ai ready to be allied the turn before

Which brings me to some dumb cheese, you can send gifts an infinite number of times in a single turn (if you have gold for it) so you can farm anyone up to 400 relation to reach prequisute for alliance if desired, even once you have the first easy ally and everyone is in hate mode. Planetfall style 0 war ally all victory are still possible because once again the alliance victory doesnt care if the teammates are at war so long as a single player has the status.

- scaling neutral camps are okay for the player but actually harm the AI because it doesn't cope with them well on the hardest difficulty and expands less (it plays best on second hardest on my experience) however it seems at war with the idea of splitting Armies to get a new hero doing stuff in different direction than old ones, because soon enough you'll have lost wizard and bone dragons on basic overworld neutrals rather than only in the landmarks

- spelljammers and doomsday victory

In this game the ai is aggressive about this both on normal difficulty and on hard, typically getting started as early as turn 70 and would be winning around 110. Going to their territory and munching the city shouldn't be a problem ... But this game has one building to rule then all - the spelljammer, which gives defenders an outrageous advantage and typically have the nasty bonus effect (the special sanctuary spelljammer) of defending all other expansions from being razed until it is razed first. If you play on default settings (7) player the first 4 people you conquer shouldn't have teched up to these, but ALL of the ones after will have it... It's especially annoying because if the sprawling size of a lategane city and will sometimes be at the far end of their 6 sector from center province sprawl - if you don't watch out for it you may not realize it is built until after your already at siege . Needless to say, using it yourself makes doomsday trivially easy for the player - and I'm some ways the game seems designed to encourage this

- AI comeback mechanic

There is a lot of confusion about this but from what I'm starting to piece together it is simple - the AI Never used Rally of Lieges unless it is under siege .... In player hands this is used a little earlygame, never midgame, and again lategame when non-build able units like phoenix/bone dragon are on offer

For the AI it means an instant full stack (or 25 tiers of unit later) will be added when sieging it's city , inevitably spilling over the 3 army limit and causing 2 or even 3 pre fights (which the no end of turn Regen during enemy territory rule and AI strategic map casting on your army dont help)

In most cases this doesn't actually prevent a human from winning ... But it takes more time and ticks the other AIs progress toward making even more stally defenses / doomsday

-whack a mole

Unlike previous games if the AI detects an even more serious disadvantage in player power it will Willingly abandon it's capitol and go hiding in the woods , leader stack only .... Underground entrances tend to exacerbate this. This is most annoying because the outposts any ai will make everywhere can be promoted to new city or new capital with a short delay.

- what Army feel like

There are a lot of things I don't like

1 : combat summon - any hero can get these as signature skills , some units will have some as abilities (houndnaster and wildspeaker being available in starting research even) Combat summons benefit from active enchants at no cost since they won't be around end of turn to incur upkeep and they can be used suicidally since it's easy to force the ai to aggro them before your real units and you get them back at full health as soon as your next battle

2 : Area of effect and free action spam, it really cannot be overstated that the game will turn into an artillery mess at some point- there are AoE attacks with a longer range than cavalry full movement , and because base health depends more on unit tier than what the actual unit is... A high tier mage can just tank a hit and attack at 2/3. I think AoE basically being dreadnought exclusive and the vast majority of combat in Aow3 being single target was a good single thing as was ranged units (both archer and mage) being almost entirely tier 1 and 2 exclusive. There is nothing that convinced me that AoW 4 bored me than realizing I could make artillery wizards with more defense than a (t3) knight.

3: spider spider

The AI will never use this against you , but it is essentially the area of effect artillery spam but done on turn 10 instead of 40-60. Why does a formerly damage less pure status effect do area of effect damage? I didn't try it myself until my 5th game which predictably ended 20 turns faster than my previous best. This at least is actually on a developer quick fix list...

Above all the player economy is Too strong... It's easy to afford the dumb Arnie's needed to beat the ai's annoying stuff, to progress through research quickly enough to get AoE first and or doomsday first, to afford the upkeep for your stupid rainbow archers who shoot lightning/frost/poison/holy/fire archers at +2 Max range (this is not a joke). Honestly it feels like the developers OUT - instead of tightening the design in the many faulty areas they just provide a means for the human player to fudge their way through. You can cut as many corners as you want when you have money.

 

[Lacrymas]

Which brings me to some dumb cheese, you can send gifts an infinite number of times in a single turn (if you have gold for it) so you can farm anyone up to 400 relation to reach prequisute for alliance if desired, even once you have the first easy ally and everyone is in hate mode. Planetfall style 0 war ally all victory are still possible because once again the alliance victory doesnt care if the teammates are at war so long as a single player has the status.

The dumbest cheese is offering yourself as a vassal to the only other player on the map and winning the game with a military victory on turn 2 because that's how it works.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

Which brings me to some dumb cheese, you can send gifts an infinite number of times in a single turn (if you have gold for it) so you can farm anyone up to 400 relation to reach prequisute for alliance if desired, even once you have the first easy ally and everyone is in hate mode. Planetfall style 0 war ally all victory are still possible because once again the alliance victory doesnt care if the teammates are at war so long as a single player has the status.

The dumbest cheese is offering yourself as a vassal to the only other player on the map and winning the game with a military victory on turn 2 because that's how it works.

Parlez-vous français?

 

[Fedora Master]

Remember what they took from us.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I'm glad to hear they've learned nothing from the PF trainwreck. NPCs severely crippling, or just straight wiping out, AIs, particularly on higher difficulties and doomsday projects being a ridiculously easy "I win" buttons were staple problems there.

 

[Axioms]

https://www.reddit.com/r/AOW4/comme...s_observations_from_a_day_of/?sort=confidence

Lmao troll the AI with scouts in far away places and never get sieged. Glorious.

 

[catfood]

View attachment 36154

Remember what they took from us.

I prefer the OG look

 

[mediocrepoet]

Which brings me to some dumb cheese, you can send gifts an infinite number of times in a single turn (if you have gold for it) so you can farm anyone up to 400 relation to reach prequisute for alliance if desired, even once you have the first easy ally and everyone is in hate mode. Planetfall style 0 war ally all victory are still possible because once again the alliance victory doesnt care if the teammates are at war so long as a single player has the status.

The dumbest cheese is offering yourself as a vassal to the only other player on the map and winning the game with a military victory on turn 2 because that's how it works.

Who even thinks of that? That's amazing.

 

[Axioms]

There are people posting videos of T1 wins on the ahrdest difficulty through diplomacy cheese. Hilarious stuff.

 

[Fedora Master]

There are people posting videos of T1 wins on the ahrdest difficulty through diplomacy cheese. Hilarious stuff.

As I said, incompetent design. Im sure there are overflow issues hidden in the game too and other amateur mistakes.