Single player is not perfect, but certainly not unplayable. None of the AoW games are particularly well-balanced, not that it matters much for the single player experience. I am rather impressed how "unbroken" the game is, given the ruler options and the tome system. This could have turned easily into a much bigger mess.It's bad and literally unplayable in both single and multiplayer/PvP due to horrendous balance issues.
translation: "we want more money so we're taking our established fans for granted and changing a bunch of shit also u want archons that'll be $20 + tip lol""It is quite literally what we've done with AoW, 2, SM, 3 and Planetfall. Each title was it's own unique game that diverted from it's predecessor and allowed both to exist within in the same space."
Wait what? Assistant?a hentai fapping assistant.
Oh yea, AoW, 2, SM, 3 and Planetfall are completely unique, totally unrelated, they're literally ranging from an RTS to a shooter, a survival game, a football manager and a hentai fapping assistant.
What a load of bull, jesus.
Exclusive aficionados, to be precise.What fans?
People who pay money for theirs game, charming people: fanboys who have money.What fans?
So they even adopted the "completely replacing a mechanic with another one at random intervals long after game's release" from paradox now, huh? Not very subtle.I didn't want to copy the whole thread, so the quote that I gave sounds more unreasonable than it is within the context of the discussion.
There is a interesting answer to a question about the goals and audience AoW4 is aiming for. Also a tidbit about AoWIII requiring a private investor to be released. But anyone interested can read it on their own,
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/aow-4-vs-aow-iii.1706930/post-29920668
The next dlc also comes with a free patch, and it seems that the hero skills got a large rework. There are now proper skill trees and hero classes, and tomes do no longer include hero skills. The governor stuff also got reworked and heroes can unlock larger economical boni by earning renown, which is obtained by full filling conditions. The skill tree stuff is shown in the dlc dev steam at ~35:30.
https://www.youtube.com/live/cWjtLmVqxs0?si=4H4VOmBywwjjl7MQ&t=2127
But is it that worse than custom factions in Master of Orion 2?Even ignoring the massive balance issues, this game is just bland and has no identity. Everything is just too free, so there's never creativity involved in making a faction, the best things are simply the best always.
Most of the old AoW games (AoW, AOW2, Shadow Magic) had flaws IN SPADES as well.The people who enjoyed the older AoW games surely can't be fans of this one, so the only people left are Reddit zoomers who don't know any better.
Yeah, too bad the scenery was just a portion of the art.shadow magic looks great