This game truly is disappointing. Easily the worst of the AoW series.

This game truly is amazing. Easily the best of the AoW series.

>>2154626
Super early game skellies aren't great, but once you have a basic souls economy rolling they become pretty spammable. The only limits are huw much mana you've got for upkeep and how many souls you want to save up for lategame shenanigans. But the best thing about skelies is how you can replenish them on the go without needing to waste time and mana on summoning spells. Once you get some good enchants on them (like Mighty Meek) they become quite good troops. And most likely the skellies you raise are not going to be of your own race because you're raising enemy corpses, so if you're going for a full skelly spam build that means you can pretty much ignore transformations until you get Wightborn.

>>2154626
This game truly is mid as fuck. Not great, not bad either, nothing special.

the ONE (1) thing this game does better than its predecessor is damage reduction based on the number of models, I'll give it that

>>2154626
didn't like at all
the fact they tried to implement that stupid faggot gay ass gender thingie and make it functional over THE KARMA SYSTEM, which is not working at all, is proof of their hate towards what the previous titles and the game itself
they also destroyed the concept of race and relationships, instead of making one race, lets say elves, and only making them to have a path of accession or transformation into an unique higher race for them, they did it for everyone. making transformation pretty much just another bland spell... SOULLESS

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A better question is why does this triangle head bitch make me wanna give her a dongle?

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>>2156660
Because your human feebleness cries out for the superior elven cunny.

>have an entire faction of cool crystal elementals
>can only get them if your map happens to have Zardoz on it
wtf Triumph

>>2154626
Skill issue

>>2154626
this game is the epitome of mid

>>2164686
hnnnng

>be me
>play aow1
>play aow2
>don’t play aow3
>dont play aow4
Feels good man.

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>>2168284

>>2177216
2/SM had many sexy ladies, 1 had some too, just low poly.

People here psyched for Thrones of Blood?

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Anybody got good Mods?

>>2193580
why isn't "single gender race" a vanilla option anyway?

>>2154630
which do you prefer?

>>2154630
Is it worse than AoW 3 spam high tier units the game?

>>2198267
yes, because now it's aow4 spam high tier-1 units the game

>>2193964
There is a mod that sort of allows it, "Culture Unit Makeover" but it is a bit janky.

>>2154630
That's quite an achievement, considering how abysmal 3 was

>>2168302
>be me
>play aow1
>play aow2
>try aow3 and it's shit
>but get players to try out aow2
>don't play aow4 at all, because i have still the same regulars to play aow2 with
feels even better, man

>>2183438
Yes!

>be me
>play aow1, gotyay
>play aow2, it's mid
>play aow3, it's real bad
>play aow4, build a bear races make me want to kms

Game is updated on gog-games dot to btw

>>2198267
AoW3 had good early game balance but terrible late game, where the only way to win was to summon spam units.>>2198267

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I am miffed that some mods are only on the paradox plaza, because of Steam bullshit and some mods are only on the Steam Workshop because of people being lazy.
How do I manage with shit like that?

>>2249808
Albert Einstein would download from both places.

Is this the general for AoW4? Why do you monkeys always fuck up the OP?

>>2156524
I'd say the system in AoW4 is more SOVL because it enables you to do a lot of RP stuff. Its only gay and stupid when you are dealing with min/maxers who take whatever tomes and transformations are the most powerful or busted.

What's a good first culture type to learn the game with?

>>2256167
Feudal Monarchy is the default for a reason

>>2255205
Nah, this is a leftover thread that was posted when the general was still active and which somehow never dropped off the catalog.

>>2255205
People just make a thread when they want to bitch or there's new content coming
The real general if anything, I'd say is on /civ4x/ on /vg/. I noticed the AoW4 posting there increased a fair bit once the actually active thread on /vst/ died
The free weekend was probably also a reason

Any general tips for a shitter? It feels like I never have enough of anything when playing these games.

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>>2257676
In general, two things you do in this game are acquire resources to get bigger/better units to acquire more resources.

So at the start of the game you want your starting army with your faction leader to go fight those little independent armies sitting on top of resource points. This gives you lebensraum, your leader experience, and your city an injection of whatever resource that point represented. You want to reinforce your starting army with units recruited from your city or summoned, a lot of tier 1 tomes start you off with a summon able unit. Ideally, you take fight after fight with either few losses, or enough healing in between so that there's no downtime, you're constantly beating up independents and collecting more stuff.

You'll get to recruit a second hero like 10 turns in. Make sure to give them an army too and go kill more independents.

Pay attention to the what province improvements are 'boosters' for city buildings, which cut the construction time and cost in half. The game wants you to have a 'balance' of provinces, but you can change these later. Being able to construct buildings quickly is another part of the snowball.

You start the game with only 1 city, but a city cap of 3. You should try to settle your next 2 cities as soon as you can, your second hero can help with that. More cities = more resources to feed your army.

>>2156660
>>2164686
>>2170445
>>2179698
Imagine spanking the title image woman's ass until it's light red and then fucking her silly

>>2258079
What are some of he better culture to learn the game with? Is the samurai one any decent or do I just stick with feudal?

>>2258217
I would say feudal and barbarian are the most newbie friendly cultures. Oathsworn aren't exactly complicated but they require you to play in certain ways to maximize their bonus' which can be quite limiting when you are exploring the game.

>>2258105
No one? Only I appreciate spanking a villainess? Hm.

>>2258217
Feudal Monarch is straight forward. Barbarians and their scouts can build outposts. Mystic - Summoning with a focus on animals is funny, your summoned animals from the spell count as magic origins.

>>2258217
Any of the base game cultures should work just fine, honestly. Personally I learned the game with Mystics. The DLC cultures all have some quirks which make them not ideal for learning.
The more important thing IMO would be to pick one affinity and go all in on that. The base game tomes for each individual affinity are generally designed to synergize with each other and make a well rounded build, and having a lot of one affinity means you'll be able to reach the good nodes on the empire tree faster and gives you a good chance of succeeding affinity checks.

Does CreamAPI still work for AoW4? I'm seeing conflicting information online.

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>>2262880
Answering my own question, yes it does.

>>2262880
>>2265182
The fuck you using Steam for, the game is on GoG.

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>>2156660
because it reminds you of a superior character

Is there anything worth crafting in the Item Forge? By the time I have a forge built and enough disenchant currency all my heroes are pretty much decked out anyway. Seems marginal.

>>2272472
Dragon claws and eldritch orbs are pretty rare, so the item forge is your best way to upgrade your dragon or ES. Also applies if you want a specific kind of normal weapon like a greatsword or a magelock. Sometimes you also just get shit rolls for loot and you have like ten bows and zero ranged heroes. With the item forge being moved down to requiring only the tower base, you could also potentially give your ruler a tier IV weapon super early on in the game, though it requires you to have found some high level shit to disenchant. Otherwise, you can craft trinkets with useful effects without having to rely on finding them, like umbral malady immunity on umbral abyss maps, or siege master for your main siege armies.

>>2154715
It's missing the Planetfall empire mode to be an amazing game.

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>>2258747
nah i get it man

>>2280182
i don't even know what that is becuase planetfall was so offputting in aesthetics that i skipped it, but i think what the possibly-related thing the game is missing is actual campaigns like what aow1 had

>>2258105
Which title image?

>>2197981
2

>>2154715
Fuck off avoxel.
>>2154724
>Might Meek
Dogshit in 4, go get your ass mangled online. Zero clue how bad shit is.

>>2156524
OG Triumph development team left after the Paradox acquisition while Planetfall was half done, which is why that game feels off.
4 is almost exclusively new devices or shitter interns now in higher positions despite having a severe lack of knowledge of the Creator Engine, which is why features and functions from previous games are straight up depreciated, because they don't even know how to do it.

Topping it all off, they are quoted saying that they do not focus on the strategic aspect of the game, instead ai.ing for casual approachability, aka barby dressup.

>>2299306
Oh, I see. I wonder where are the guys that made AoW1, 2 and SM.

>>2302726
Split off into different directions, one of the developers went off to make BG3 apparently, cast to the wind pretty much.

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superior engineering
how does one avoid this crap?

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happy new year fags

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>AoW1 orcs have kewl red dragons
>AoW2 orcs have Jabba the Hutt
Wtf were they thinking.

>>2312542
Watchers are great. Love those guys. Them and Astral Serpents. Astral affinity is the best.

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Is there something lewd in AoW4?

>>2313782
It contains depictions of blood

>>2313082
Yeah, it was a weird change.

>>2313782
It has bare shoulders.

>>2313082
Well, the red dragons are draconian-supreme tier critters, so the orcs needed something different.
Why it had to be jabba the hut, no idea, but they're surprisingly strong when they insta-gobble enemy units.

>>2314954
>draconian
Well, that's gay. Their infantry can't even fly despite having wings. While all lizardmen in AoW1 could swim. Why did they replace a cool race with a strictly inferior one?

Am I bad, or is Feudal (specifically Aristocracy)'s early game bad?

>>2315027
My guess is that they thought that dragonmen were more awesome than lizardmen, and in-universe then said that Nimue killed all the lizards because she's a fickle bitch.
But now thanks to AoW 4, you can have multidimensional lizards back.

>>2315064
just summon or rally troops for your heroes, you don't need to recruit them

>>2283805
The most arousing act on the planet, right there.

Is there a way to make my games slower paced? I feel like my gripe with strategy games is that the optimal way to play is just rushing to the endgame asap but that's boring and I want a comfy map painting experience with elves and giants and shit.

>>2317496
>comfy map painting experience with elves and giants and shit.
Play AoW1 instead. The custom fan-made maps could be extremely comfy.

AoW 1 finally clicked after trying several times to get into the series only to get filtered.
I had to stop playing because I kept ending up going to bed at 5 AM when I had to work shifts starting at 9 AM the same morning but it was great.
I kinda hate myself for cheesing AI with walls though, in 2 turns I turn every city into something I'll never lose.
Played half the campaign with the default Cult of Storms protag until I learned they're not a real character in the story and that creating your own character is more fun, re-rolled with some broken Death/ Air crap and my dude can solo most stuff after mission 3.
Music is great, atmosphere is great, writing is pretty neat and from what I've seen AoW2 seems to be better in every way sans plot.

>>2193580
I play with Late Tier Culture Units and thats it. Culture mods in general can be quite high quality, especially Von Schnitzel's

>>2317671
aow2/sm is worse than aow1 because you can found cities, if you play it with that turned off it's a similar game but it still has worse resource spread across the map

>>2317496
You could turn down the research and income rates I guess, but really unless you're playing online or on very hard you can play super slowly and suboptimally and still win games just fine, especially if you disable score victory. Low tier units are also in a really good place right now in general.
It's easy to look at the in-game player rankings and feel like you're being outpaced by the AI and that you can't keep up, but in reality those rankings are completely arbitrary and meaningless.

What difficulty do you guys plan on? I'm dipping my toes into Brutal, and I admit I'm getting filtered. Just got my throne city to T2, meanwhile nearby infestations and resource nodes are already sending out T4 and T5 units.

>>2320117
Brutal but no handicaps

>>2315027
Draconians ARE NOT lizardmen in the first place.
BRING BACK LIZARDMEN

>>2320964
They are back though
It just took all this fucking time until the 4th game to do so
It's not much of an accomplishment since it's trying to fulfill every fantasy trope you wanna do
But it was still cool that lizardmen ended up being 3rd most played race for the 2yr anniversary mark, so clear faves that the devs catered and listened to

So is it just me or do battlesaints kinda suck ass?

>>2322781
I like them as melee units. I've never liked melee heroes much because I feel like it's too easy to get focused down if you overextend even slightly, but the built in self heal helps a lot. Getting the self heal+ strengthened with only two points invested is also really good, the other melee classes take a lot of skill point invest to get anything really meaningful, I feel.
I'm not as fond of them as a support unit. I feel like it takes too long to generate fervor for the support side of the tree.

>>2323467
So just build them as a self sustain tank?

>>2323510
I don't really like using heroes to tank since they're already high priority targets and they're expensive to replace unless you can get resurgence on them, but you could probably pull it off pretty well if you can kit them out well. Mainly I just use them as a more survivable warrior.

Does this game have anti-player bias?

>>2324274
What does that mean?

>>2324285
AI that focuses unduly hard on the player, to the extent that it might make suboptimal decisions just to do so.

>>2324274
Sometimes it feels like infestations prefer to attack you over AI players that are closer, but it could just feel that way because you don't receive an alert or have any reason to notice when infestations attack AI players, which they definitely do.
I know AI players also like to build outposts right on the edge of your domain to try to box you in, but I've never really paid attention to whether they do it to others too.

>>2324274
yes, female dwarves can have beards

>>2322781
only reason i use one is because an ascended hero has that ascension trait that triggers regen on the entire battle with every support ability and battlesaint has a lot of instant cast support abilities

i don't think there's any reason to use a battlesaint as it is, a pure class devoted to whatever it is you're doing is going to do it better

Why is Astral the only affinity to not get any T5 units from tomes? Are they just buff enough to not need it?

>>2326512
Not only that, imo their selection of T4s is pretty weak. Mirror mimics in particular are downright pathetic, the game even considers 2 of them with backup to be bronze ancient wonder material.
I do think that's exactly it though. Astral gets a lot of good stuff in their tomes and they have arguably the best empire tree with unarguably the best capstone, so the lack of strong high tier units isn't really a significant problem.

What's the main drawback of playing a dragon?
Recommend a dragon build for first time plays pls

lay it out for me guys, why is this game such shit?

>>2326900
It's not

>>2326610
They don't really offer much outside of their strength in combat. They're really fucking strong in combat though.
>>2326900
I don't think it's shit. I like it quite a lot, actually.

>>2326533
>>2326512
especially since nothing forces you to play pure astral

>>2326610
spellblade for breath+physical attack spam or warrior for killing momentum, either way go full chaos for your dragon upgrades since it has the most critical hit increases, start with tail swipe and then get other shit, your goal is to do a lot of damage

load up your race with damage bonuses since the dragon will inherit them

you can go either reclaimer and equipment hoarder for big economy bonuses, or you can replace one of those two with vision of ruin

if you make it until late game your strongest spell will be call forth avatar of chaos, in the tier 5 chaos tome, all it does is summon your leader into a battle, but that means that in the late game you can win a battle which is theoretically something like two tier 1 units on your side and 18 tier 3+ units on the other

>>2327579
>>2326610
oh, and barbarian will produce more damage from your dragon while industrial will supercharge your economy bonuses, so probably pick one of those for your faction

>>2321071
Took them long enough, it has been decades at this point.

>>2326900
because it's just dumbed down planetfall with no empire mode
play SM if you want an aow game that's actually fun

>>2154626
anyone else experiencing weird visual glitches with text and overall temp increase in their pcs when playing this pos?

>>2330285
No, but I also clamp my game's framerate
Never let any game render at "unlimited fps" if you value your hardware.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHWAVZVRxWA
>Paradox 2025 highlights.
>AoW4 mentioned 7 minutes in as a "newly established franchise" with growing player numbers.
>They hope to continue support for a long time, typically 10 or more years.

How do we feel about 10 more years of Paradox DLC?

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>>2330285
I used to get visual glitches in the title boxes of certain windows in the strategic map, but that seems to have been fixed. I do get really bad flickering in the launcher though. Temps seem normal for running a videogame.
>>2330466
I like the game and all, but 10 years of DLC seems pretty excessive. I think the way Triumph handles the DLC, with free updates being released alongside them, is pretty good, but potential newcomers just see a giant wall of DLC that costs 5x as much as the game itself and get put off by it.

>>2330589
>10 years of DLC seems pretty excessive
Stellaris is in its 10th year now and apparently people still play that.

>>2330912
they mostly just complain about the dlcs being lazy

Am I the only one who hates heroes? I really wish there were something like the opposite of Cult of Personality so I could get away with using less heroes.

>>2330912
The trifecta of Stellaris, EU4, and HOI4 convinced me that nu-Paradox's DLC policy is a fundamental mistake, and their games are best rolled back to whatever the last patch before the first DLC was.

>>2332516
You can just not hire any if you hate them that much. Not like you need them against the AI anyway.

>>2332583
There are certain things only heroes can do though, like governing cities, exploring ancient wonders, and laying siege to cities.

>>2332757
Well you can always just take your ruler, unless you also want to have a wizardless playthrough

>>2332974
Obviously but that's the problem, since ONLY your ruler can do those things now. It doesn't matter how many armies you have roaming the map, you can only lay siege to one city at a time and ancient wonders can only be cleared if your ruler is personally there to do it. Summoned units, as well, can only be summoned around cities or heroes, which means you can't reinforce a heroless army out in the field with a summon unless your ruler happens to be nearby.

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Are vampires any decent or is their DLC still a skip?

AoW1 was famous for having broken things like leaders with First-Strike + Cold/Lightning Strike or Incarnates that destroy multi stack armies on their own.
Do the later AoWs have anything as OP as that?

>>2334969
lol no
everything after 1 was "balanced for multiplayer"

>>2334969
>>2334970
aow2/sm still had some shit like that, like for example the earlygame succubus rush

>>2334580
They're kind of a mixed bag but they're decent overall. The tomes are pretty good, too.

>>2335548
Guess I'll pick it up, nothing's coming out game wise that I want anyway.

rabbits

>>2334580
If you like undead, this and Archon prophecies is a must have. Otherwise, nah. Season 2 and 3 have been less hype than the Season 1 dlcs. Desert niggas and Spellforce city isn't as cool as Dragons and tanks

>>2339658
I like the rabbits, but at the same time I'm getting a bit tired of them just adding more and more animal people. I get that they're limited in their design space by needing humanoid bodies for the animations and shit to work, but I'd rather see more stuff like the Ogres and Syrons than yet another furry race.

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>>2339658
>they're actually adding rabbits
Nice. I've wanted rabbits since the very beginning but I never thought they'd actually do it, especially after they said they didn't want to do any more furries in Archon Prophecy.
>>2339784
The problem is always that furries are simply really easy to design as fantasy races, both in appearance and personality. AoW4 also has a unique situation in that the other most common type of fantasy race, the "human, but", is either largely covered by transformations or already represented in the game. The oni style ogres are cool, but things like that are generally a lot harder to come up with than "animal person".

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>No culture rework
Kinda expected it but I'd really like the remaining cultures that haven't been reworked to get something. Mechanically high/barbarian are good but kinda bland.

>>2339936
The cultures most in need of a rework right now (at least balance-wise) are Reavers and Primal IMO. I'd argue Primal is currently the worst culture in the game. They those are both DLC cultures, so I'm not sure if they're even on the list at the moment. You're right that Barbarian and High could still use a rework in terms of flavor and mechanical depth (and so could Industrious for that matter), but at least they're not as overtly lame as pre-rework Feudal and Dark.

>>2339955
I actually forget Industrious exists half the time.
Primal and Reaver are in dire need of reworks for sure but like you said as DLC cultures I don't know they'll ever be touched.

>>2339955
>>2339959
Reaver could use a rework, but I don't know that Primal needs a rework as much as it just needs buffs.

>>2339658
>bunnies
>jackalope horns even
Probably the one furry race I'd make more than one faction of. Every other fucking furry other than molemen I hate. Tiger men get a pass since they were previously in the lore at least
If I can't make convincing Mimiga I'll just settle to make Big Chunguses

>>2340556
>Every other fucking furry other than molemen I hate.
That's funny because the molemen are easily my least favorite. I like the frogs and goats myself. Undead goats in particular go hard.

>>2340339
Looking at the Beta patch notes, Primal did actually get some pretty substantial buffs it seems
>Quest reward buffs you whole army instead of just your Avatar
>Everybody gets a free terrain shifting spell at start of game now
>Primal Communion works on Mythic Units (all cultures get this)
>Only need three stacks to trigger Primal Fury instead of 5
>Shield guy gets a straight Heal 30 ability not tied to Primal Fury
>disengaging shot can go over obstacles, lol
>Charger gets a move buff and gains two stacks per attack
>Animist is finally unfucked, summon doesn't require Fury and starts with a one turn cooldown, heal now consumes fury instead of granting it but has a shorter cooldown

Is it enough? I don't know, but it's a good start.

>>2340905
Sounds good. It's not going to put Primal on my list of favorite cultures, but it should at least make their downsides more manageable.

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>>2340905
Earthshape should've always been a thing for primal. Those primal temples are too rng.

Blowgun unit still sucks. It needs a status effect on attack like marked, weaken or sundered defense so it could be a good combo unit with the rest of the army.

Protector heal for some reason doesn't have a cooldown or limited, so guess I'd have to playtest it to see what the catch is. Animist is okay, once per battle for the summon is a bit disappointing since it also still vanishes after 3 turns.

>>2340905
Though that said, it's overshadowed by the huge defense/resist overhaul in this patch, which basically qualifies all attacks as either physical or magic and then directs them to the appropriate defense stat to check against.

On paper this is probably a nerf to mixed damage channels like Primal Fury since you're not going to bypass defense with the elemental damage. But it impacts so many other things across the game that it's hard to gauge how it will shake out.

>>2340943
Yeah Blowguns have always been ass after like the first 15 turns because their damage sucks too hard for them to scale and they offer no unique utility.
> Animist is okay, once per battle for the summon is a bit disappointing since it also still vanishes after 3 turns.
Yeah it's kinda lame but it's still a powerful ability that you no longer have to cheese to get any utility out of. One summon for every priest on the field is nice, especially in early game battles.

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Also, thank goodness for xp rework. Evolve builds are very feast or famine if you don't get your battles, especially on High world threat and brutal Ai midgame empires. There's value in holding up your pets in the garrison till they evolve. Also, Aow3 exalted ranks are back! Lets fucking go!

Chaos reworks to push Magma Spirit and Balor down a tome tier are necessary. No reason a t3 unit should be at a t4 tome.

Defense and Resistance rework is fine. The latter is no longer the king stat in endgame.

I had a hankering for Ash sabertooth primal Chaos/Materium Fire playthrough again, so this beta is a kino time to play it.

>all units now have the same map speed
Ech. I get the their reasoning for this since it does make slower units more attractive, but it also sounds like dumbing down the game and removing mechanical flavor for questionable balance reasons.

>>2340943
>Protector heal for some reason doesn't have a cooldown or limited, so guess I'd have to playtest it
Just tried it, you can use it every turn, so yeah it's overpowered and likely not making it to live without a cooldown

>>2340896
I can elaborate more
I forgot about frogs since I didn't count them, scalie or whatever? Same with lizards. I did make a fun frog civ once and would again. Everquest opened the idea up to me as a kid. Lizardmen cruise by with a free pass since they were one of my favorites in AoW1 and thus pre-established.
The molemen in 4 just looked goofy to me, silly enough I made a challenge run based on that stupid ass Adult Swim show Saul of the Molemen I was also exposed to as a kid. Creating the most alien society of molemen I could come up with, amoral deep Dark dwellers, I created a wizard king named Saul to act as a moral man and educate them to greatness
I think I ended up making them wightborn and gave them something like Faetouched so they ended up looking really fucking spooky with glowing eyes in those skull faces

Now I'm thinking to myself a single line I will eventually make a faction around, Frogloks with Magelocks

>>2340896
According to the stats Triumph released a few years back, molemen are everyone's least favorite. They were specifically called out as being the least popular racial form.

>>2334970
That's depressing. I read a post by the AoW dev that they purposely made the game I'm balanced cuz its more fun and halflings/goblins are just supposed to suck.

>>2346703
That'd be funny if it was true, because Halflings are generally considered to be one of the strongest races in AoW1.

>>2347887
Dwarf leaders and heroes start with 1 extra damage, Cave Crawling and Mountaineering skills which together cost 20 skill points (2 whole levels) while Halflings get nothing extra over them. They have mostly the same race relations too. So why pick Halfling?

>>2340905
Giant king primal is gonna go hard I think with the terrain bonuses being so easy now.

why oh why did they have to remove unit templates
who in their right mind thought that you should be forced to have every single enchantment even on your tier 1 chaff?

Thoughts on the new content?
Nomads sound interesting, but I do wonder how well having to pack up and move every so often will work for them, since between free cities and other empires it already feels like you don't have a lot of elbow room sometimes. Also I feel like actually depleting resources in a game where resources don't normally deplete is likely to make them public enemy number one in every game.
The Astral Barrens sounds like a special layer of hell designed specifically for mystic culture enjoyers.

>I do wonder how well having to pack up and move every so often will work for them, since between free cities and other empires it already feels like you don't have a lot of elbow room sometimes.
like seemingly every other faction trait, this again depends on your map gen settings

>>2352746
I mean, obviously. But I'm assuming they won't be played exclusively with mapgen settings that are specifically designed to favor them. If nothing else, the AI certainly won't have that luxury.

>>2352741
So nomads are fantasy quiarians where everyone will shoot on sight if they get near their planets
>deplete resources
>move to someone who still has them
>steal/deplete their resources too
>"why does everyone hate us?"
Yeah they would be one of the new culture that would be more benefital to kill on sight before they damage your own economy

>>2352741
>but I do wonder how well having to pack up and move every so often will work for them, since between free cities and other empires it already feels like you don't have a lot of elbow room sometimes. Also I feel like actually depleting resources in a game where resources don't normally deplete is likely to make them public enemy number one in every game.
is there a game where this isn't a dumb gimmick. You are wasting turns on moving around instead of expanding your cities. Endless Legend tried this same nomad faction gimmick and it sucked and so did Ogres in TWW3

Anyone else having a problem with multiplayer being a buggy mess that desyncs every 5 minutes?

>>2353931
Putting aside the question of how well it'll work in practice, I think it's a neat idea at least. Supposedly they're designed to work with less and smaller cities so there'll be less pressure to expand in the traditional way.

Play Age of Wonders 1. Real Tolkien vidya experience.

>>2349017
Every day we fall farther from Master of Magic's light.

>>2357382
Nah.

What do we think of the new patch and content?

>>2358661
nomad rabbits? sounds noice

tell me what the new patch is like once you've guys played some of it i'm hesitant to buy the dlc rn

I haven't had a chance to watch the live streams for the new content, what's the opening for nomads? I hear you can't play them like you would a more traditional culture

>>2358920
After 10 turns of owning a resource node (you can pay imp to speed it up), you "overharvest" it, destroying the node and gaining its per turn resource income in that city permanently. The province isn't otherwise affected and still provides resources from whatever province improvement you put there. You can also rebuild destroyed resource nodes for 500 mana.
Honestly it seems like the only thing preventing you from planting your ass down in one spot and playing them like any other culture (aside from the -1 base city cap and slower growth rate) is the fact that it's presumably more lucrative in the long run to go around the map sucking up resource nodes. I haven't gotten very far in my game as them though so my experience is limited.
Also I don't know whether it's because of the defense overhaul, their units being shit, or the fact that I chose to play on the realm of undeath, but I feel like I've been having a lot of trouble in early fights when I don't normally.

>>2358661
Nomads are the new best race for a making a perfect dragon ruler I guess. Momentum is a more consistent damage gain than vicious strike from barbarian. I still need to actually make one though. Or maybe I could finally try a giant warrior or something that behaves similarly to a dragon.

The fractured map attribute is kind of hilarious. It's like regenerating infestations except it gets triggered by strategic spell casting and causes other problems as well. I bet if you use both that and regenerating infestations on high world threat you could just call it an apocalypse survival mode.

>>2357612
*Yah

>>2357612
>>2357382
when i was 12 and played aow1 for the first time, "wow just like that hobbit book i read" was the main impression i got

>>2154626
Is this game any good? Tried it ages ago and never got around to picking it up again.

>>2359217
it's okay

the main reason it's worse than its predecessors is random maps are now forced, you can't play on the infinitely better human-made maps anymore

>>2359221
Fair. How's 3? Always wanted to play that some more but muh backlog doesn't let up.

>>2359229
3 is now old enough to play on my two cheap laptops so it's in that niche for me

i think it's the worst one but it's not necessarily bad

>>2359229
3 is peak, but it's a competitive 1v1 game and will eventually get stale fighting against bots.

4 is fantasy Civ made for diplomacy heavy free-for-alls and roleplaying your custom factions. Arguably does Civ better than Civ7 too. Is much better now than when it was new.

Have they buffed or improved beast summoning themed factions? I remember trying it out back when they first released the tomes with the evolution stuff but finding it pretty whelming unless you went full dragons or exploited the old spider AoE.

>>2359698
nah, mystic summoners are worse than ever to the point where there's no point in playing them anymore so summoning is more of an anyone can do it equally sort of thing now

i guess it's still good for quickly getting up house armies with aristocracy

>play Conquerors nomads
>struggle to get my city online but park it outside enemy city
>hold enemy forces in their city while I raid every province then posses every one
>build every building possible in a single turn and make 4 new stacks
I can't believe Triumph managed to make tall playstyle fun, and also make the moving city gimmick fun
But I'm having trouble understanding momentum. When the Dustweaver for Nomads casts Weave Momentum it says that it grants Empowering Momentum, but when I hover over the unit I cast it on, it says that they have a Momentum stack without needing to move 3 hexes, so why does the unit receive momentum without moving?

>>2359786
That sucks, cause it can lead to some cool themed armies. Hopefully they're just using the current version of summons as bandaids and will look at it again in the future.

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game is saved

>>2359967
Weave Momentum gives Momentum without you having to move, that's the point. It saying it gives Empowering Momentum is a bug/oversight since there would be no point in it giving the innate faction buff that all your units already have.

Do Nomads only work if you go full warmonger? I was thinking of doing some nomadic underground faction where you're like a wandering dwarven mining operation just hollowing out the planet.

>>2360108
Conquerers maybe, but Scavengers are fine not being warmongering assholes.

>>2360035
they could have done more, like prevented my snakefaced race's heroes genning other types of lizard heads

>>2360125
You can at least go in and edit them quick.

>>2360064
>It saying it gives Empowering Momentum is a bug/oversight
I thought that was the case, I was going crazy wondering what kind of crazy strat the devs intended for giving units a buff they already had

>>2360108
The thought of that makes me wants the second cavern layer in 4. Let me fight endless wars in underworld depths over minerals with goblins and molemen

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>>2154626
I just want to know how you beat Arcalot on Hard

>>2360603
You have to arc a lot.

>>2360139
true, it's worse when my elves who are supposed to all have black hair just randomly force red and blonde hair into the mix in regular troops for no reason, and you can't change it for troops

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Its probably not every bodies thing but the Dwarf mining settlement is a fun faction to play when you just want to wind down and play. I went with chariot mounts cause they're kinda minecart ish. And im going to limit myself to only outposts on the surface, no settling even just to raze resources.

>>2360759
Usually when its troop related thats down to faction transformations. Its annoying how some of them change hair color. It should only make sense for the major stuff.

>>2360429
That would be cool. A "Dug too deep" type of thing. I guess it could be a underground version of the umbral layer.

>>2360912
>A "Dug too deep" type of thing
They do that with infestations that spawn out of excavations already, kind of

>>2360759
I'm pretty sure the hair thing was part of a bug with coloring that popped up after the vampire dlc. That should be fixed now.

I don't know how to feel about nomad scavengers. It's fun going around sucking up resources and the game does seem like it encourages you to play with fewer cities with the way ancient wonder essences work (the resources they give scale with the amount of normal essences that city has), but with so few cities knowledge income is a serious problem. Also if you set up on someone's borders you can give them so many grievances that it's basically impossible to declare war on them without it being completely unjustified and nuking your imp income, even with the free grievances you would get from an ally inviting you to declare war on them. Magic victory seems like the most obvious path outside of military victory (expansion and score are going to be basically impossible I think), but again your knowledge income means you're going to have trouble getting your tier 5 tome for the magic victory spell. I feel like you really need to bring your A game when it comes to clearing wonders early so you can get those stacking bonuses online asap.
Also I'm not impressed with their looted power mechanic. Since it requires you to kill someone to get a stack, you essentially only get the power boost from it after it would have been helpful to have. Actually grabbing the loot stack is also an issue since you have to move onto their body to get it and if you just killed them you probably don't have any AP left.

>>2360912
nah elves just get different hair color for no reason without any transformation

>>2361029
>you essentially only get the power boost from it after it would have been helpful to have
90% of newer mechanics are like this, look at fucking fervor for example

combat is completely dependant on alpha striking but they keep giving us that stacking shit as if three turns from now the battle won't already be long lost

>>2361372
not everything is going to be as strong at every stage of the game, from what I've tested Fervor is insanely fucking strong late game

>>2361372
I haven't played a lot of battlesaint, but in my brief time with it I didnt find fervor to be that bad. You can choose when to use it, it doesn't require full stacks to work, and it's primarily a heal, so it usually becomes useful later on in a battle. With the upgrade that gives a stack of fervor every time you take damage, you can potentially get it to max stacks in one turn. Also, unlike looted power, it can be used while the thing you're fighting is still alive. Loot does give you a heal if you pick it up directly, so theoretically it would be useful for that at least, but I found a lot of times by the time someone who needed healing was actually in a position where they could pick up a loot stack the battle was already over.
Actually generating the stack is also just part one of the problem with looted power. You still need to use at least 1 AP to actually pick it up, and can typically only do it on the turn after you kill. They tried to mitigate the loss of AP with the damage bonus on first strike ability, but only your dunerider and strider get that and even then you're still losing damage.

So how's the DLC fellers

>>2361577
i like playing scavengers because claiming essences pleases my autism

>>2361577
I think they did a nice job implementing the nomad culture. However it does feel like their cultural units in the early game feel very week on attack. Although the mobility they have has its benefits.

>>2360603
I did it after about 100h of trial & error

>>2361577
I like it overall. Nomad play style is pretty fun, though conquerors seem significantly stronger than scavengers. Haven't played too much with the new tomes, but the scorpion from the tier 3 tome is pretty good, and the siege project that makes razing/migrating take 1 less turn from the same tome is also really nice. Also rabbits.

>>2361577
I haven't played previous AOW but it kind of feels like Barbarian, Primal and Nomad all try to occupy the same design-space based on roster alone and that Barbarian is just better for the most part. But the tomes are cool and it's interesting how much Conqueror incentivizes parking your base next to your enemy's territory. I wish that with Primal they added an option to be a Legendary Beast animal as ruler for a less magic focused Super Combatant start distinct from Dragon.

>>2362128
nta but you should give 1 and shadow magic a go sometime

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I completely missed when the Architect culture came out. Which flavor should i go with them if i want to lean mostly into the culture units.

>>2362283
the real answer is you don't as their T3 is a support, but you have thematic paths with the AP tomes, specifically Tome of the Archon and Tome of the Revenant

>>2362283
Culture units are mostly an early game thing, so focus on Chaos for that early aggression synergy.

>>2362371
Do you get mileage out of Chaos? I find Order to be better 99% of the time just because you get the extra steadfast on your heroes along with better events, more damage, better SPIs, healing

>>2362299
>Tome of the Archon
I guess ill try that one. I just did a shadow/undead theme run. Sucks the T3 is a support though.

>>2362299
>>2362454
Desu their t3 being a support doesn't seem that bad to me. T3 supports are fairly rare, most builds won't have built in access to one and generally if you want to have a support in your armies your only real option is your culture's t2 support. I think their combat ability is underrated since they can move their full movement range and not lose any damage, and they share access to a bunch of really good unit enchantments with battlemages. The architect's t3 support also has a little turret summon. Honestly I'd much rather have a support as my cultural t3 than a melee unit, since tomes are all loaded with melee units you'll probably be using instead.

>>2362621
Architects don't technically have a bad unit lineup, it's just janky and slow to get started. Your low tier units don't really start to slide into their intended roles until you have some affinity built up and by then you've probably mostly moved on from using them.

Like for example the main gimmick of their T1 melee unit is that it has a shitload of health later on but early game it's just kinda ass with no real upside.

I really need to try out the Nomads, I've been slacking on AoW's recently, I've only barely played around with Vampires so far.

>>2362621
It's different if you want to center your whole build around your culture units which isn't even that great of an idea to begin with

>>2362299
>>2362621
The Architect T3 Support unit is good though. Not only is it a T3 Support which is rare to begin with, the angry cube he summons counts as a Battlemage. Since Supports and Battlemages benefit from a lot of the same enchantments it's not hard to plan a build around just this unit and the cube will contribute a significant chunk of "free" damage, so you just need to add something that makes for a decent frontline. You could even go for a full summon build, in which case the cube summon also benefits from stuff like Cosmic Overdrive due to having Magic Origin, synergizing well with an expendable frontline of summons.

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>>2154626
now that the premium has gone down to 50% off,
getting really antsy to try this
watching mukluk play his giants looked pretty cool though I'm more partial to the Archons, which would be another fucking 20€ ob sale

are these DLCs actually even worth it outside of the cosmetics or just wait for better discounts?

>>2363100
one of the unfortunate realities is that an incredible Society Trait is locked behind the first expansion pass. You don't have to play with it but Swift Marchers has absolutely bonkers synergy with some builds

>>2363106
yeah thanks, expected as much
would never dream to just get a Triumph base game anyway

hope the 1st pass has at least the most useful magic books covered?

>>2363114
You get the most useful ruler types and most of the books I think, they patch so often so I mostly stick with what's consistently good. And so far it's Dragon, Eldritch and Champion, all of which you get from the first pass. I'd pick WW over GK any day if it was just about getting the good stuff from the second DLCs, the latest 2 DLCs have added legit things but they aren't earth shattering aside from T4/T5 tomes. The Giant King is a good early combat ruler but to my understanding you're mostly after the economic effects of Frost or potentially Rock + Industrial, the easier access to item forging is nice but it's also not a dealbreaker. Spellblade Dragon is stronger early and Warrior Champion scales harder so it's not an issue.

Tome of Disruption has by far the strongest abilities vs anything that uses corpses or lots of unit enchantments and it's included in the first pack.

>>2363130
>Tome of Disruption
Tome of Severing*

>>2363100
Whether any given DLC is worth it really depends on whether you like or want the content on offer.
In general I think the base game content is the "best" overall, at least in terms of ruler chassis, tomes, and cultures. Not that the DLCs don't have some good stuff, but for instance if you had no interest playing with a dragon ruler, having your faction be lizard men, or using the two dragon themed tomes it came with, you wouldn't be getting much out of the dragon expansion other than seeing AI players using it in your games.
Honestly I would just get the base game first and see whether you like it instead of dropping a whole bunch of money on DLCs right away.

>>2363148
>other than seeing AI players using it in your games
Honestly that's a big reason for me to get it.
I'm too much of a Triumph games addict and already watched hours of youtub-plays to not get this.

Thanks for the tips guys.

>>2363106
>>2363114
They don't sell the passes once all the DLC for them have been released and they don't sell the day 1 DLC seperately so there's actually no way to get it outside of piracy.

>>2363229
Well, the first expansion DLC is included in the premium version but the Swift Marchers trait is actually from the second pass and there is no way to get that one anymore.

>>2363231
Oh it is? that's kind of fucked lol. It's pretty neat being able to play Industrious and get effectively 300+ production income from turn 1

>>2363234
Ok, turns out you can get it but in the most roundabout way possible.
You need to buy this bundle instead
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/61094/Age_of_Wonders_4_Collectors/
But if you're like me and already own everything except the Herald of Glory DLC (which is the swift marchers one) then the price is 0$
But Steam won't let you buy something for 0$
So you have to find some other random cheap game (I did buckshot roulette which is on sale right now for 2$) and add it to your cart then buy both it and the bundle together.

yes it's retarded

Better to cap out a monolith first or build a base one in each city.

>>2363231
>the Swift Marchers trait is actually from the second pass and there is no way to get that one anymore
well that sux severely!
I knew there was a good reason for my bad feeling when these woke snowniggerjews bought up Triumph.

Though I could care less about Steam, as I only buy on GOG to actually OWN.
This shit makes me seethe to no end!

And no, pirating is out of the question.
Not gona download the latest chyna UEFI trojan for some shitty Paradoxjoo gam.

I swear they changed how the AI looks at you. It used to be you usually found 2 or 3 AI that would be willing to be friendly with you but lately it feels like they are only interested in hating me. Even if im going a full good.

>>2363100
>mukluk
jesus christ, don't tell me that mental zombie is infesting aow4 now

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maximum goat ass

>>2363231
>>2363396
You can still get Herald of Glory, which is what Swift Marchers is part of, just not as part of the season pass. It's part of the Collecctor's Bundle right now. It's possible that it'll (eventually) be made available separately like they did for the Aric Rex stuff, but I don't think they've said anything about that.

>>2363396
>Not gona download the latest chyna UEFI trojan for some shitty Paradoxjoo gam.
skill issue

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Whats a good culture to go with for this? I was thinking oathsworn cause i remember them having some strong units to work with but im probably forgetting some.

>>2365084
Industrious innate Bolstered Defense seems hard to beat for a constant buff

>>2365084
Honestly I find it hard to imagine the bonus from this trait being worth never having transformations or enchantments. Yeah you'll get more raw HP and damage but you miss out on so many other effects in the long run.

That said, maybe a Barbarian rush build, so you can wreck your enemies before they outscale you.

>>2365092
Yeah i know its pretty shit but i wanted to try and make some fun out of it. I feel like a more fair way would be to decline transformations but why would it be a problem to have fire weapons or very passive buffs like zeal.

>>2365088
Maybe ill try that since its been a while since i played them.

Shield units seem much worse since the defense change, especially early on. Literally the only thing they have going for them is high defense and now a bunch of melee units target resist instead.

>>2365479
Tome of Enchantment is a decent early tome to make up for the lack in resistance on most shield units.

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That is one long provence. Also i think the cataclysm map effect would be more fun in games with friends just cause of the chaos you can cause with a bunch of casting.

>>2365580
it summons infestations so it's basically just regenrating infestations, and it also makes spells have some tepid extra effects and hands out grievances, it's boringly mild and there's also nothing you can do to influence it unless you're playing 1v1 or something

Nomad Conqueror + Chosen Destroyers is so kino lads.
>Kill starting city state to build momentum.
>No city caps so rush through resource harvesting.
>Move to next city, repeat.
>Fabricate grievance and wait 5 turns for it to go through so I can destroy other empires.
>Max out food, research and gold faster than a regular empire.

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>>2365583
>nothing you can do to influence it
If you clear one of the 3 story zones you get spells that let you reduce it and alter the land or outright blowing up those infestations. You can also get the ability to go fractured.

Also some of the backfire effects aren't "tepid" i got one that prevents any spellcasting for 2 turns, which sucks when you're playing a mystic caster character/build. And some of the combat ones can be pretty strong, like an extra 20 damage to every target that was hit by the spell. Overall i thought it was pretty fun and added a real chaotic feel to the map, will probably do it again sometime.