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[TharpDaddy]

Bought the game yesterday and played the campaign for an hour but it didn't grip me. Today i jumped into a random map game and made a Goblin Druid named Berthash the Corrupt. I'm having a blast now. It reminds me of fire emblem a bit, i hate when i make a stupid decision and get one of my veteran units killed. Definitely worth the $40.

 

[Deified Data]

Bought the game yesterday and played the campaign for an hour but it didn't grip me. Today i jumped into a random map game and made a Goblin Druid named Berthash the Corrupt. I'm having a blast now. It reminds me of fire emblem a bit, i hate when i make a stupid decision and get one of my veteran units killed. Definitely worth the $40.

That seems like the way to go. I feel like starting a random map is a lot more accessible than the tutorial campaign.

 

[Durante]

I did start with the campaign but was totally engrossed with it nevertheless. It probably helped that I recognized the depth (promise?) behind all the features though since I played far too much AoW:SM.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

is anyone else getting a ton of crashes to desktop in mission 4 of the Elf campaign?

 

[Newt]

is anyone else getting a ton of crashes to desktop in mission 4 of the Elf campaign?

Nope. I'm playing on low though (Intel 4000).

 

[MurkyZebra2417]

Finished my first Random Map yesterday. The average turns are completly off though? It said something like 60-75 turns on average and the game was acutally 180 turns... Or I am doing something wrong?

Anyways, I have much fun with this. Will play some more Random Maps before jumping into the campaign/Scenarios

 

[Fitz]

I just had quite possible the cheesiest victory ever. On the first Elven Court campaign mission I was exploring with ravens whilst pushing my armies forward south along the mountain path, I had recently won a close defensive siege against the enemy leader when one of my raven packs found his capital. This caused an event which spawned a trebuchet and ram on my "army" of ravens! I was planning to reload and thus save the event troops for when my army had reached that point, but the only defenders in the city were the enemy leader and a single cannon, so I charged my two siege engines and single flock of ravens and handily won the mission just like that.

Cheese aside though, I love siege battles, especially when defending against superior odds. It's amazingly satisfying to win a battle with only 1 casualty when the game is predicting "Probable Defeat".

 

[TharpDaddy]

My random map fell apart so fast. First i used my leader (he was pretty strong) to attack a dungeon. It said it was evenly matched, but i figured i could do work with my leader's AoE spells and turn the chances in my favor. Instead, they bum rushed him and took my leader out in the 2nd turn, and the units i was fighting were shock units and stunned 50% of my people which left my leader exposed to attack. Then my army got obliterated. Right after that, a Giant army attacked my strongest hero and army, and they were immune to blight which means my goblins and spider queens were worthless. My hero, who i put so much work into building up, got wiped out. I didn't even take 20 hp off the Giant because he was resistant to my physical attacks, and the only non-blight unit was a human cavalry. There's no coming back from losing my 2 strongest armies. Time to restart!

 

[Durante]

I just spent basically the day playing this game. So good.

Did anyone else notice this?

Cheese aside though, I love siege battles, especially when defending against superior odds. It's amazingly satisfying to win a battle with only 1 casualty when the game is predicting "Probable Defeat".

Yeah, it's a great feeling.

One strategy I found which I consider somewhat overpowered is the use of twisting roots combined with cheap level 1 archers in city defense. If you have stone walls and 6 cheap archers in a city, and cast twisting roots at the start of the battle, the army will crawl towards your walls so slowly that you can pick off much stronger units. With this method I've won against 2 enemy armies containing tier 2 and 3 units with just 6 archers and a wall.

 

[LurkerPrime]

I've finally realised the value of endless production and rally points. It makes me feel like I'm actually starting to understand the strategy behind this game.

Though I wonder how my strategies will work once the new patch hits and, presumably, slows the game down a bit.

Did anyone else notice this?

Speaking of the Witcher 2, has anyone else noticed the reference to that game in AoW3? Alright, I'll tell ya:

Spoiler

One of the hero traits - a hero-slayer trait - is called Assassins of Kings.

Pretty nifty.

is anyone else getting a ton of crashes to desktop in mission 4 of the Elf campaign?

The only serious problems I've had was a freeze when I changed graphics settings mid-game.

 

[owlbeak]

Man this game is good. Plays just like AoW, and Wizard's Throne & Shadow Magic for the most part. I looooove it. Got it last night, sat down to play a couple hours at 5pm, looked at the clock and it was 2am. Whoops! I was in a heated push and pull battle with another hero. He declared war on me right out of the gate and we began fighting over one city with it constantly changing hands. I can not find his throne city for the life of me, though! I've killed him multiple times but can't find the city to finish him off! Luckily I'm in alliances with the other two players, so I am not having to worry about them yet. I will kill this asshole, even if it means losing. I've probably lost 100+ units to him, and I've probably killed more than 100 of his as well.

I've played a high elf rogue and a human arch druid so far, prefer the druid over the rogue due to variety of spells. Played all morning and afternoon today. No crashes, no bugs that I've noticed yet. Though it seems anti aliasing doesn't work at all, even with it on everything is jaggy. Anyone know how to fix that, or is it a known bug?

 

[Durante]

Oh, I missed that post! There's also a spell called "The Wild Hunt", but that's not necessarily a Witcher reference.

Man this game is good. Plays just like AoW, and Wizard's Throne & Shadow Magic for the most part. I looooove it. Got it last night, sat down to play a couple hours at 5pm, looked at the clock and it was 2am. Whoops! I was in a heated push and pull battle with another hero. He declared war on me right out of the gate and we began fighting over one city with it constantly changing hands. I can not find his throne city for the life of me, though! I've killed him multiple times but can't find the city to finish him off! Luckily I'm in alliances with the other two players, so I am not having to worry about them yet. I will kill this asshole, even if it means losing. I've probably lost 100+ units to him, and I've probably killed more than 100 of his as well.

I've played a high elf rogue and a human arch druid so far, prefer the druid over the rogue due to variety of spells. Played all morning and afternoon today. No crashes, no bugs that I've noticed yet. Though it seems anti aliasing doesn't work at all, even with it on everything is jaggy. Anyone know how to fix that, or is it a known bug?

Strange, for me AA is working.

 

[Deified Data]

Enjoying hotseat co-op with the wife.

Game's really starting to click with me. Think I dreamed about it last night.

 

[elyetis]

Strange, for me AA is working.

For me AA work 'ingame' but I think it doesn't do anything before ( hero on the menu screen and character creation have jaggy too ).

 

[Durante]

For me AA work 'ingame' but I think it doesn't do anything before ( hero on the menu screen and character creation have jaggy too ).

Ah yes, I remember that. It's fixed in the beta patch.

 

[TharpDaddy]

Enjoying hotseat co-op with the wife.

Game's really starting to click with me. Think I dreamed about it last night.

How's does the co-op work in the game? Since battles can take a while, if another player gets into a battle do you have to sit there until they finish?

 

[Newt]

How's does the co-op work in the game? Since battles can take a while, if another player gets into a battle do you have to sit there until they finish?

Yes -_-. My only problem with multiplayer.

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

Yes -_-. My only problem with multiplayer.

yeah, I can't imagine playing this with like 4 players online. 1v1 could work but even then it could be shady.

 

[Newt]

yeah, I can't imagine playing this with like 4 players online. 1v1 could work but even then it could be shady.

It's annoying for sure, but it's not game breaking. It was like that in AoW2 as well. Civ V has it, but you can turn it off in the options.

 

[Deified Data]

Wish this game had a bigger playerbase on GAF...

 

[LurkerPrime]

Elven Court Level 6 is very stressful. So much to keep track of, argh!

It's time to put all my training to use.

 

[publicpwnerer]

Is anyone else experiencing performance problems?

I'm currently playing it on a i5-3570k & 680 2GB SLI system, and my first GPU is just constantly at 100% GPU usage....and my framerates are just sitting at around 50 fps. In some battles, my performance is almost a slideshow.

 

[TharpDaddy]

Is anyone else experiencing performance problems?

I'm currently playing it on a i5-3570k & 680 2GB SLI system, and my first GPU is just constantly at 100% GPU usage....and my framerates are just sitting at around 50 fps. In some battles, my performance is almost a slideshow.

i5-3570k and Nvidia 760, don't seem to have any performance issues on my end. I've not looked at the exact FPS, but it seems to be running smoothly constantly, no slowdowns that i can perceive. Are you using the beta patch?

 

[ChaosDent]

I started my first game with the patch yesterday. The performance hiccups are gone (AMD Phenom 2, GTX 760). I'm running at 1680x1050 so it was OK even with the unit selected bug.

I feel like the production and research changes will have a good effect on the game flow. Research was slowed down pretty significantly, making the class T4 unit a lot harder to reach early.

Unfortunately, I was placed in a map that had me in the left half of an underground zone that was divided by undiggable walls with no exits to the surface.

 

[LurkerPrime]

Heads up, AoW3GAF! The recently-discovered SSL Heartbleed bug seems to be affecting ageofwonders.com. Unless I'm misunderstanding something, this means that the Age of Wonders accounts could potentially be compromised. If it is compromised, then the best course of action is to avoid using the service until it is fixed; this means don't log in or log out, because in either case the data could be intercepted.

Hope they fix it soon.

Edit: And I guess this would also cover the game's start-up authentication. Makes me wish the GOG version was DRM-free. ;-;

 

[TharpDaddy]

Heads up, AoW3GAF! The recently-discovered SSL Heartbleed bug seems to be affecting ageofwonders.com. Unless I'm misunderstanding something, this means that the Age of Wonders accounts could potentially be compromised. If it is compromised, then the best course of action is to avoid using the service until it is fixed; this means don't log in or log out, because in either case the data could be intercepted.

Hope they fix it soon.

Edit: And I guess this would also cover the game's start-up authentication. Makes me wish the GOG version was DRM-free. ;-;

I thought you only had to log in on the launcher if you wanted to do multiplayer stuff, does it also impact single player?

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

I thought you only had to log in on the launcher if you wanted to do multiplayer stuff, does it also impact single player?

I've heard conflicting reports about that. I don't think it impacts single player, from what I've seen anyway. But I remember hearing that the next patch is going fix whatever problems exist as a result of the log in system.

Which... seriously, is really stupid that it exists in the first place.

 

[LurkerPrime]

I thought you only had to log in on the launcher if you wanted to do multiplayer stuff, does it also impact single player?

Actually I'm not sure at all, but the version without the new patch has a bug where Guest accounts cannot save graphics settings.

The account might give you access to the preorder scenarios, but, again I'm not certain. I've never bothered to log in as a Guest.

 

[owlbeak]

First win!

How fortuitous! I had set up a pretty decent empire across the random islands on the map it generated. I had already exterminated a particularly pesky dwarf hero and was trying to locate an Elf rogue hero that I had had a tepid peace treaty with (even though she kept moving through my territory). I accidentally found the fourth hero and quickly made an alliance with him, seeing as how he only owned a few small cities. I was sending a few ships across the sea to scout an island/exterminate him, when the Elf rogue hero happened to be in a ship sailing right past my ships, I declared war and engaged her at sea, killed her and followed where she came from as a general location to her throne city. Found it, layed siege to it and won!

Edit: played this with the beta patch, liked it a lot more than my first game without the patch. Research is much slower, so there's not a ton of tier 4 units running around the map by turn 40. Seemed much more balanced, though I would like it if they made it so unit tier production was limited by city size.

 

[owlbeak]

Also, would anybody be willing to trade me an AoW3 Edward card? I need it for my level 2 badge!

I don't have many cards to trade, I can only offer an ArmA III and Crusader Kings card. I also have a 75% off Costume Quest I can trade.

 

[TharpDaddy]

First win!



How fortuitous! I had set up a pretty decent empire across the random islands on the map it generated. I had already exterminated a particularly pesky dwarf hero and was trying to locate an Elf rogue hero that I had had a tepid peace treaty with (even though she kept moving through my territory). I accidentally found the fourth hero and quickly made an alliance with him, seeing as how he only owned a few small cities. I was sending a few ships across the sea to scout an island/exterminate him, when the Elf rogue hero happened to be in a ship sailing right past my ships, I declared war and engaged her at sea, killed her and followed where she came from as a general location to her throne city. Found it, layed siege to it and won!

Edit: played this with the beta patch, liked it a lot more than my first game without the patch. Research is much slower, so there's not a ton of tier 4 units running around the map by turn 40. Seemed much more balanced, though I would like it if they made it so unit tier production was limited by city size.

Congrats! I've reached the point in my playthrough where i'm all but unstoppable. My armies are full of high ranked powerful units. If they somehow even threaten my units i have a insanely strong sorcerer hero unit and dreadnought that can wreck them from afar. My Eldrich Horrors (sp?) can almost solo entire armires. I'll have to bump up the difficulty next time, i'm on the 2nd to easiest difficulty that it defaults to.

I don't have that card, sorry.

 

[Newt]

Man, mission 3 of the Elven campaign is tough. That shrine of smiting spam can be challenged by more shrine of smiting spam.

 

[owlbeak]

Congrats! I've reached the point in my playthrough where i'm all but unstoppable. My armies are full of high ranked powerful units. If they somehow even threaten my units i have a insanely strong sorcerer hero unit and dreadnought that can wreck them from afar. My Eldrich Horrors (sp?) can almost solo entire armires. I'll have to bump up the difficulty next time, i'm on the 2nd to easiest difficulty that it defaults to.

I don't have that card, sorry.

Which classes can get Eldrich Horrors? I played an Arch Druid who could create some things, but not the Horrors. I might not have had the research for them?

 

[TharpDaddy]

Which classes can get Eldrich Horrors? I played an Arch Druid who could create some things, but not the Horrors. I might not have had the research for them?

Sorcerers can eventually got the research to summon eldrich horrors. It takes 3 turns before i can cast it, but they are so powerful. My first playthrough was on druid, and their summons seemed weaker. My sorcerer can summon mount eggs, water units, and eldrich horrors (also some weaker units like wisps and monsters).

 

[Jag]

Yeah Eldritch horrors can be game changers. The Eggs are a fantastic idea. I love being able to hatch some unique mounts!

 

[LurkerPrime]

Hum, I spoke with an Triumph Studios support fellow and apparently the AoW3 launcher's account log-in does not go through ageofwonders.com; this means that heartbleed would only be an issue if a user logged into the main site. However, as of today, ageofwonders.com is secure according to filippo so I guess everything is just peachy now.

In other news, Age of Wonders 3's first patch - v1.09 has been officially released! Available on Steam and GOG right now.

Man, mission 3 of the Elven campaign is tough. That shrine of smiting spam can be challenged by more shrine of smiting spam.

That mission was brutal. I'm surprised that I managed to beat it - there were several very close calls.

 

[Durante]

The one thing I really miss here are global unit enchantments. It was one of my favourite things to do in this type of game ever since MoM. Now obviously it could get a bit out of hand balance-wise, but there has to be a better way to balance it than dropping it completely.

 

[Red Arremer]

I really need to get this game, does it live up to the predecessors?

It's a shame they abandoned the specific characters for random classes, though. I absolutely loved the characters in AoW 2.
Artica was my favorite character!

 

[Durante]

I really need to get this game, does it live up to the predecessors?

Amazingly, it does.

 

[Red Arremer]

Amazingly, it does.

I'm glad it does! Will have to find some spare change then.

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

Hum, I spoke with an Triumph Studios support fellow and apparently the AoW3 launcher's account log-in does not go through ageofwonders.com; this means that heartbleed would only be an issue if a user logged into the main site. However, as of today, ageofwonders.com is secure according to filippo so I guess everything is just peachy now.

In other news, Age of Wonders 3's first patch - v1.09 has been officially released! Available on Steam and GOG right now.



That mission was brutal. I'm surprised that I managed to beat it - there were several very close calls.

I've been hearing a lot about people struggling with Mission 3. Guess I got lucky - I got through it without much of a problem. Mission 4 is pretty tough, though. It's hard to get any sort of foothold starting out.

But yeah, this has basically become the game I play on the side. It's really fun, and oddly, it's both really relaxing and extremely stressful. I dunno. I think it's great.

 

[Alebelly]

got this the other day, haven't played much, but I like what I have

been watching a bit of this in my spare time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTKwI3N-kuU&list=PLhAjLeSwzp3hLPeLqY2p-R7Ubbauwhxpe&index=2

This guy also says that races and characters from previous games will most likely me reintroduced down the road

 

[LurkerPrime]

It's a shame they abandoned the specific characters for random classes, though. I absolutely loved the characters in AoW 2.

There are still pre-made leaders - these leaders are the main focus for AoW3's two campaigns. There's around twenty or so of them and they're handled similarly to the old games, I think. Each leader has three initial magical/administrative traits (adept/master of a type of magic or expander/explorer) as well as an in-match avatar that will develop over the course of the match, levelling up and finding new items whilst leading their nation.

The classes are there to make the different leaders stand out a bit more from one another.

The big change from the old games in regards to the leaders is that you can now customize the race, appearance and gender of the custom leader - this means setting their portrait and in-game appearance as well as the flag they are united by. It's a pretty nifty system.

This guy also says that races and characters from previous games will most likely me reintroduced down the road

Triumph's twitter account has specifically mentioned the Undead race and Necromancer class as "high priority" additions to the game. Frostlings and Tigrans seem very likely as well, there are some mentions of them in-game (unit stories) and they would be well-suited to some spells and landscapes. I'm very curious about what other classes could be included.

 

[Deified Data]

Are some races better as certain classes than others? Like their racial units synergize better with said class's spells?

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

Are some races better as certain classes than others? Like their racial units synergize better with said class's spells?

There are race units that are immune to fire. So you can spam the spell that does fire damage to all units.

 

[Deified Data]

What are the odds of an expansion introducing new races and archetypes to this game? Would love to play as giants or undead.

 

[tensuke]

Also, would anybody be willing to trade me an AoW3 Edward card? I need it for my level 2 badge!

I have an Edward card if you still need one!

 

[platypotamus]

Enjoying hotseat co-op with the wife.

Game's really starting to click with me. Think I dreamed about it last night.

I used to play hotseat co-op AoW with a friend way back in the day. I wonder if my wife would hotseat with me...

 

[Newt]

I really need to get this game, does it live up to the predecessors?

It's a shame they abandoned the specific characters for random classes, though. I absolutely loved the characters in AoW 2.
Artica was my favorite character!

They didn't abandon specific characters, but your favorites from AoW2 (Julia, Artica, Meandor etc...) are all gone.

 

[Red Arremer]

They didn't abandon specific characters, but your favorites from AoW2 (Julia, Artica, Meandor etc...) are all gone.

I didn't like Meandor anyway. Shame about all those cool characters being dropped though. Maybe some DLC/expansion will get them back in in some campaign.