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Age of Wonders III |OT| Follow The Leader

Nohar

Member
The game runs much more smoothier on my PC now that the patch is in place. I'm enjoying once again the campaign and the game.
 

Nohar

Member
An expansion, free patches and DLC were confirmed a long time ago. Notably, the Necromancer will be included later.
 

owlbeak

Member
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).
Oh nice! Thanks :D Look forward to using them because I've gotten my ass handed to me by them so many times.

The best summon for the Druid is the Horned God, that thing is great, but with the beta patch it takes a lot longer to get to them, which is good. My first random map pre-patch I kept getting attacked by the AI with entire armies of those things sieging my cities. It was unstoppable.

tensuke said:
I have an Edward card if you still need one!
Sent you a PM! :)
 

CloudWolf

Member
Hah, won my first game as an Orc rogue. Made a few mistakes, but in the end everything worked out. My biggest mistake was completely ignoring the class-specific unit research, so when my enemy (a Goblin rogue) suddenly started spamming Shadow Stalkers I lost city after city. Luckily I had made an alliance with the Dwarves early in the game who helped me out a bit. As soon as I got Shadow Stalkers too, I crushed that Goblin scum. Revenge feels good.
 

Jag

Member
Dev post about the future of AOW3:

Hi, we’re really happy and thankful for the sales since launch and the overall response we’ve gotten. We had some careful expectations based on the reported retail sales from over a decade a go and I can say that we definitely beat our expectations for this launch period!

We hope the game will continue to do well as the AoW3 has been such an enormous project to make. We had to start from scratch, but at the same time match Shadow Magic in terms of features and content. Shadow Magic was the result of a iterative 6 year + development cycle starting with AoW1. (and World of Wonders before that) Also updating the huge amount of content to today’s standard was a mammoth job.

Anyway, the initial sales have given us a lot of faith and as mentioned in the patch notes, we’ll continue to develop Age of Wonders III with expansions and free updates.

In terms of content we hope to bring some old favorites back as well doing new stuff.
We’re reading your suggestions carefully! :)
 

Durante

Member
The best summon for the Druid is the Horned God, that thing is great, but with the beta patch it takes a lot longer to get to them, which is good.
At the end of the 2nd Elven campaign map I had 3 armies with one hero and 5 Horned Gods each. Was pretty neat.

Actually, does anyone else get the impression that summoned units are overpowered compared to "normal" ones? Not in combat abilities, but in terms of convenience and upkeep:
  • You can very easily replace losses, even far from your cities.
  • I always seem to have more mana than money, even when summoning all the time and keeping up plenty of global spells.
 

owlbeak

Member
At the end of the 2nd Elven campaign map I had 3 armies with one hero and 5 Horned Gods each. Was pretty neat.

Actually, does anyone else get the impression that summoned units are overpowered compared to "normal" ones? Not in combat abilities, but in terms of convenience and upkeep:
  • You can very easily replace losses, even far from your cities.
  • I always seem to have more mana than money, even when summoning all the time and keeping up plenty of global spells.
Yes, definitely. Seems that mana cost for most global spells is relatively cheap compared to the amount of mana you can generate from cities and various nodes. Couple that with the fact that most global spells take multiple turns to cast, you get the mana spent back by the time you cast the spell anyway, so it's not really like you're spending any mana. It's probably something they'll need to balance out with patches. The economy aspect of the game seems a bit...off at the moment. However, combat spells seem very balanced with the cost:mana limit ratio and with the cooldown on casting.
 

Jag

Member
Similar since it's also a 4X but it plays more like Civ. If you liked Warlock this is really more of the same, but I'm enjoying it.
 
Well, it looks like - since the new patch - goblin poison darters' ranged attacks are broken. Their dart attack has no projection trait (arcing shot, straight shot, etc) so it is never given range or obstructed shot damage penalties; it's as if all of them have the Seeker Shot spell permanently applied. Assuming I'm not missing something, of course.

What you choose to do with this information is up to you.
 
Well, it looks like - since the new patch - goblin poison darters' ranged attacks are broken. Their dart attack has no projection trait (arcing shot, straight shot, etc) so it is never given range or obstructed shot damage penalties; it's as if all of them have the Seeker Shot spell permanently applied. Assuming I'm not missing something, of course.

What you choose to do with this information is up to you.

According to a prerelease post on the forum, that's how its supposed to work (assuming it's still limited to short range).

Elven Longbows are supposed to ignore the range penalty (but not obstruction).
 

Newt

Member
Well, it looks like - since the new patch - goblin poison darters' ranged attacks are broken. Their dart attack has no projection trait (arcing shot, straight shot, etc) so it is never given range or obstructed shot damage penalties; it's as if all of them have the Seeker Shot spell permanently applied. Assuming I'm not missing something, of course.

What you choose to do with this information is up to you.
Meh, so many units are immune to blight, it's not really a big deal.
 

NIN90

Member
Hoo boy game kinda runs like ass. 30 FPS on a 660 Ti and i5-3450.
Only setting that really affects the framerate is SSAO (goes up to 50 when turned off) but I don't wanna miss that.
Anything else I can do? Any gains reported with the latest Nvidia drivers?
 
Migrate every town I conquer to Draconian...still have good karma. Glad to see the game approves of my twisted morality. Draconian purity!
 

Zafir

Member
Hoo boy game kinda runs like ass. 30 FPS on a 660 Ti and i5-3450.
Only setting that really affects the framerate is SSAO (goes up to 50 when turned off) but I don't wanna miss that.
Anything else I can do? Any gains reported with the latest Nvidia drivers?
SSAO is broken, I've resorted to turning it off. Didn't even look that different with it off to me, bar the increase in 40FPS.
 

Nohar

Member
Hoo boy game kinda runs like ass. 30 FPS on a 660 Ti and i5-3450.
Only setting that really affects the framerate is SSAO (goes up to 50 when turned off) but I don't wanna miss that.
Anything else I can do? Any gains reported with the latest Nvidia drivers?

Just turn the SSAO off. This thing is just too detrimental to your FPS to keep it, and I barely noticed the graphical difference when I turned it off.
 

Mrbob

Member
Woo I see they fixed the AI spamming disjunction. Ran into this issue on a map. AI kept spamming it infinitely. So annoying. Now I can hop back into the game.
 
I am on the second campaign with Sundren and the Dragon guy. I don't know how to win this. I have to trespass in the two independent empires and they get pissed and declare war. Its all over shortly after that. I still haven't quite figured out the macro strategy in this game just yet. It is a fun challenge.
 

Newt

Member
I am on the second campaign with Sundren and the Dragon guy. I don't know how to win this. I have to trespass in the two independent empires and they get pissed and declare war. Its all over shortly after that. I still haven't quite figured out the macro strategy in this game just yet. It is a fun challenge.
Don't hesitate to declare war. Try to get your main infantry, (flyers) as soon as you can.
 
Playing a random map, me vs. 2 AI. I probably should have kept that alliance going - peace treaty, open borders - but when I saw their leader just sitting pretty in their throne city I couldn't help myself, I was compelled. Whatever, I'll be a better leader for these people anyways.
 

Corsick

Member
I've had my eye on this game for a while, just purchased it and will see how it goes. This thread has been helpful already for me in understanding what to expect.
 
For anyone wondering, you can probably jump into either the Elven Court or Commonwealth campaign as a fresh new player. I know there was a lot of speculation before that the Elven Campaign was essentially a tutorial, but they both seem to tutorialise the game in a similar manner. So choose whichever interests you more! My only advice is to use more than one save slot so you can roll back a turn or two if you trap yourself in an unwinnable situation; I think this will help make the campaign much easier to approach. (Edit: Also, I recommend saving before you battle with heroes that are required for victory - there will be times when silly mistakes are made and you lose them, and thus the game.)

In unrelated news, I've beaten the Elven Court campaign. Overall I liked it a lot, though there were some balance problems and bugs along the way. Sundren's voice actress is great and I like how they framed the storytelling in the campaign. The story and world of Age of Wonders is ...intriguing, to say the least. I'm interested to see where the Commonwealth campaign (or any future story-based campaign) goes.

In the Commonwealth campaign so far (Level 1), Laryssa Mirabilis is awesome because she has an awesome name.
 
I bought this last night, played maybe an hour of the Elven campaing. Seems pretty cool- definitely gonna give it some more time. Never played an AOW game before.
 

Vic_Bast

Member
I cracked and just bought it! Only played for an hour, but having no buyer's remorse. Seems pretty cool, and I can tell I'm gonna like it.

I want to try this game too, but I suck at games like Total War or Starcraft series.
Is this game friendly with RTS beginners? Don't wanna buy then regret it.
 
I want to try this game too, but I suck at games like Total War or Starcraft series.
Is this game friendly with RTS beginners? Don't wanna buy then regret it.

It's turn-based. I suck at and never play RTS games. It's nothing like Starcraft, more like Heroes of Might and Magic with more depth to the combat.

Again though, I've only played an hour.
 
Having trouble figuring out how knowledge income works in this game - my cities have a set income displayed but for some reason that income doesn't always get added to my collected knowledge total. Say I'll have 102 knowledge one turn and the same amount in the next turn. Am I missing something here? Does knowledge not work like other resources?
 

ChaosDent

Member
You don't accumulate knowledge, it is always spent on your current research project. The knowledge indicator at the top of the screen is expressed as +102, meaning that's how much your empire generates in total each turn.

The knowledge cost of a research project divided by this number indicates how many turns it will take to complete. I haven't tried to figure out if it rolls over unspent points to the next research project. I would guess that, like casting points, it probably does.
 
You don't accumulate knowledge, it is always spent on your current research project. The knowledge indicator at the top of the screen is expressed as +102, meaning that's how much your empire generates in total each turn.

The knowledge cost of a research project divided by this number indicates how many turns it will take to complete. I haven't tried to figure out if it rolls over unspent points to the next research project. I would guess that, like casting points, it probably does.

Holy shit this explains so much, thank you.
 

Nohar

Member
Currently doing the third elven court mission. I like the beginning of this scenario.

I hope that we will hear more news from Triumph about the game. I'd love to know if they are preparing a new patch.
 

Jag

Member
Charm and seduce are awesome. I get some good heroes that way. I love charming a charmer, then using their charm to charm others. It's very charming.
 

Pooya

Member
I've played for a good while now

what I like

the game is really gorgeous, I was expecting it to feel like a budget game but it seemingly has tons of assets and monsters and everything, I'm quite impressed by the detail and presentation, art direction is great. Though it doesn't have much voice acting, but who cares about that in a game like this.

Music is quite good

I haven't played any of the previous games, so I have no idea how this compares but I've played numerous 4x games, this is a pretty simple game, I'd say it's about same as campaign map of Total War games as far as complexity goes, it's simple to manage but it doesn't mean it's easy and brain dead.

The campaign maps are pretty interesting, I actually like to explore, make holes in undergrounds and find dungeons and loot like an RPG, exploration is usually pretty weak in 4x games imo, not here.

what I don't like

The positions of your armies on the map has next to no bearing on their position on battle map, the maps themselves are all wide plains. ie you can't bring an enemy army inside a choke point if you're in a disadvantage as far as numbers go. City walls are useless. I don't see a point in building walls now during the campaign, I'm yet to finish all the missions yet but it seems pointless all the time when enemy can just walk through them. Similarly siege weapons. Redundant, waste of resources.

There are plenty skills and abilities to use during battles, but if you have better units you're gonna win or vice versa, tactics seemingly don't matter much other than enemy unit control abilities, now you can turn a battle around with those but other things don't have nearly as much pull during a fight.

Maybe I just suck at the game, not really fond of how the battles play out.
 

Newt

Member
I've played for a good while now

what I like

the game is really gorgeous, I was expecting it to feel like a budget game but it seemingly has tons of assets and monsters and everything, I'm quite impressed by the detail and presentation, art direction is great. Though it doesn't have much voice acting, but who cares about that in a game like this.

Music is quite good

I haven't played any of the previous games, so I have no idea how this compares but I've played numerous 4x games, this is a pretty simple game, I'd say it's about same as campaign map of Total War games as far as complexity goes, it's simple to manage but it doesn't mean it's easy and brain dead.

The campaign maps are pretty interesting, I actually like to explore, make holes in undergrounds and find dungeons and loot like an RPG, exploration is usually pretty weak in 4x games imo, not here.

what I don't like

The positions of your armies on the map has next to no bearing on their position on battle map, the maps themselves are all wide plains. ie you can't bring an enemy army inside a choke point if you're in a disadvantage as far as numbers go. City walls are useless. I don't see a point in building walls now during the campaign, I'm yet to finish all the missions yet but it seems pointless all the time when enemy can just walk through them. Similarly siege weapons. Redundant, waste of resources.

There are plenty skills and abilities to use during battles, but if you have better units you're gonna win or vice versa, tactics seemingly don't matter much other than enemy unit control abilities, now you can turn a battle around with those but other things don't have nearly as much pull during a fight.

Maybe I just suck at the game, not really fond of how the battles play out.
Walls are a big deal. Maybe you're just not utilizing your ranged units properly. As for tactics...I've won a lot of battles that are listen as "very likely defeat". It's all about protecting your high damage units. Siege weapons such as Trebuchets are actually broken and need nerfs. Put like two of them on stone walls, and you can like take out half of an army in 4 turns. Though yeah, most of the battle areas are mostly flat ground.
 
Finished my first full scenario at 214 turns - used a Draconian Theocrat, enemies were a Draconian Archdruid (the guy from the campaign) and a High Elf Sorcerer. Knight difficulty with a large-sized map. Spent the first few hours just dominating half the map and getting my research in line. Courted the Draconian Archdruid for an alliance but broke it when I felt I didn't need him anymore - exploited our open borders policy to situate myself right on top of him and his throne city when our alliance broke. I thought I was going to get all of his territory but I guess all I got was his throne city, because I started squabbling for his land with the Elf the second he died. I had peace with the elf too but he broke it and declared war shortly after the Archdruid died. Everything after that was a mess of Eldritch Abominations and spell spamming on his part. When I had dominated more than 75% of the map he started playing hide and go seek, but my Cherubs found him before long. Assaulted his final city with 4 armies full of Dragons and Shrines of Smiting, it was very climactic.

Was quite a match. Now that I feel like I have the fundamentals down I think I'll try the campaign.
 

Durante

Member
City walls are useless. I don't see a point in building walls now during the campaign, I'm yet to finish all the missions yet but it seems pointless all the time when enemy can just walk through them. Similarly siege weapons. Redundant, waste of resources.

There are plenty skills and abilities to use during battles, but if you have better units you're gonna win or vice versa, tactics seemingly don't matter much other than enemy unit control abilities, now you can turn a battle around with those but other things don't have nearly as much pull during a fight.
I really couldn't disagree more. To quote myself from earlier in the thread:
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.

So really, the exact opposite of your experience. The combination of skills and terrain/walls allowed me to win battles with a massively inferior army.
 

Nohar

Member
So... Elven Court, mission 4...

Too. much. water.

I really would appreciate a way to teleport my armies at this point. The map is huge, and having to embark and land units quite often is a little tedious after a while.

Also: goddam succubuses.

On a side note: I could breed an army of unicorns... That's the only item/mount that keeps dropping from tresor sites.
 

Jag

Member
I agree that walls are very useful and add another whole layer of strategic management to combat as attacker and defender.

I also hate moving units on huge maps, especially where they have move penalties. More options to teleport units would be helpful, especially in the endgame. This is a very typical issue with most 4X games though.
 
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