>>2437898
i don't know bro. on paper it's my wet autismo dream but when it comes to actual gameplay sometimes game becomes too tendious.

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>>2437898
>did you enjoy season 3 DLC junk?
You can argue all day about whether the price was justified (I think it's really expensive compared to the price of the base game), but in terms of content it was pretty good.
>did you enjoy gay vampires and blood tomes?
Vampires are pretty based, because as a ruler they have more impact on your playstyle than any other ruler type.
>did you enjoy mobile home Nomads and Fractured TF?
It's okay. I don't love the Nomad roster, but being allowed to move your cities allows for some interesting strategies and their ability to basically scale infinitely off of resource nodes makes their lategame insanely strong.
>did you enjoy raiding the closets of all the wizard kings from AoW2 to see what porn they have stashed away?
It's a fun feature. The last DLC felt a bit empty without any new ruler or culture, but the new tomes are nice and the wizard secrets include some really neat stuff.
>did you enjoy the free Empire tree rework?
It's an obvious improvement over the original version. More actual decisions to make, less "if you have affinity X you need to focus on strategy Y" bullshit, and better balance overall.
>did you enjoy the Reaver touchup and new Federate Reavers where diplomacy is an option but there's still fuckoff gun units?
This part I'm a bit "meh" about. It's good to have the Federate option, but the Imperial option still feels lacklustre and Reavers as a whole didn't actually get significantly better IMO. I like them thematically, but in terms of power level they're still low tier.
>post your goddamn rulers and factions you fucks
Okay.

>>2437898
I played AoW1 as a kid, teen. It was awesome.

>>2437898
>played it last time 2+y ago
>figured few dlc came out so might aswell try it again
>pirate it again
Game is fun, but most of 'story scenarios' are still shit because it kinda force you to end game as fast as possible, maybe reaching 1 or 2 highest tier tomes.
Maybe it just me but I usualy just try new stuff, like races/cultures/rulers and then jist forget about the game. Its the same shit with all paradox games and more broadly, with all strat games with similar model.

>>2437898
Vampires are cool though and synergise very well with my underground goblincels

>>2437999
Game needs a campaign, like older AoW games.

>>2437898
>vampires
Very good. I made a ton of them. I enjoy mixing up vampires and primal cultures a lot.
>nomads
Have you ever given a warclaw dragon 5 stacks of looted power?
>secrets of the archmages
Definitely the weakest of the bunch but still pretty good. I love the tomes of abjuration and burning passion, a lot of my characters ended up sticking them in their tome path.
>empire tree rework
Mostly good. I dislike that all of the vassalage perks are still stuck in order and shadow though.
>reaver rework
They feel a lot better to play. I still hate harriers however and imperial reavers not having any bonuses to subdued units like federate levies feels strange. I end up circumventing harriers with magical means like cryomancy and using subdued units as early game meat shields before pretending the mechanic doesn’t exist.

>>2438005
It would help, certainly, maybe do smaller campaigns that revolves around new cultures that ties in to main one.
Phanteon is a neat mechanic but it still feels luckluster and it makes playing custom maps most fun way to expirience the game.

What do you think about 3 and Planetfall - are these games worth playing after 4 was released?
Also, what's your opinion about 4?
I've never played AoW games and I was wondering....

>>2438063
>3 and Planetfall
3 is pretty good. Out of the game you listed is easily has the best singleplayer campaigns, though that's not much of an achievement considering the campaigns of PF and 4 are pretty weak. It has more customization options than 1 or 2, but not nearly as much of a focus on customization as 4. Battles kinda feel like an alpha version of 4 in hindsight, being mechanically similar but less refined. For example if you kill half of the models in a unit in AoW4, the unit only does half as much damage (not counting certain buffs which partially bypass this), but in AoW3 a unit can be almost entirely eliminated and still do full damage.
Planetfall is the midway point between 3 and 4 not just chronologically, but also mechanically. It has a very similar customization options to 3 and the combat feels like an upgraded version of 3, but the maps and the strategic gameplay feel much closer to 4. It got a lot of hate for abandoning the fantasy setting of the older games, but as long as you don't mind that it's a good game. The campaign of PF is one of the more challenging in the franchise IMO, but most maps are pretty boring in terms of actual gameplay and I found the story to be bland as fuck.
IMO all of the AoW games are worth trying if you're a fan of the genre. None of them are perfect, but they all have their strong points.

>>2438072
>your opinion about 4
It's either the best game in the franchise or the worst game in the franchise, depending on what kind of things you value in a 4X game. The biggest thing in 4 is that it trades flavor and atmosphere for player freedom and customization. You get to design your own faction in WAY more detail than 3 and PF offer, but this also means that everything ends up feeling kind of bland, because there are no defined differences between, for example, elves and dwarves. There's only YOUR interpretation or elves and dwarves. So if you want cannibal barbarian elves and sneaky magical dwarves, you have that option, which is good for player agency but dilutes the classic fantasy feeling of the older games. Thankfully AI leaders do mostly stick to the "classic" race templates, but even then you run into the fact that you're expected to pile on a dozen or so enchantments and transformations onto your race, which again is good for finetuning what your race is like but makes for a very cluttered and messy result in terms of aesthetics.
Gameplay-wise it's a really solid entry to the franchise. Combat is better than ever and the strategic gameplay is pretty varied, especially if you have the DLC. If I have one gripe it's that there's a lack of really big impactful endgame strategic spells, but that's kind of been an ongoing issue with the franchise.
4's campaign partially suffers from the same issues as PF, but the overall map design and flow of the missions is noticeably better. The story is a bit schizophrenic, kind of hopping from one event to another without any real guiding thread, and it's also divided over a bunch of DLCs so if you have just the base game there aren't many story maps to play.

Is this thing like AoW3 where a dreadnought plays completely different from sorc for example, or is it just spreadsheets fighting like stellaris and what you roll up has very little influence on actual gameplay?

>>2438168
I'd say it's halfway between those two.

Which culture you pick still defines how you approach the game, kinda like choosing dreanought or archdruid or whatever in 3, so it's not just a generic empire with a bunch of modifiers like Stellaris. But after the early game the focus starts shifting towards the magic tomes you picked and away from your culture. Since you can pick tomes more or less freely, it becomes a bit more more of a bland mix unless you make an effort to stick to a specific theme.
It's still up to how you make your choices, but it's not like the older games where your choice of race/culture largely defined how you play the game. Instead, it's the tomes you pick during the course of the game that end up having the biggest impact. A Barbarian faction will never play exactly the same as a Mystic faction, for example, but if you played a game with both and picked the exact same tomes every time, their strengths and weaknesses would end up being very similar in the lategame.

>>2438258
You think adding more culture spells to research once you unlock tier III and tier V tomes respectively would increase the flavor of your culture pick?

>>2438396
Yeah, even having just one or two thematic cultural spells per tier (which unlock once you've unlocked any other tome at that tier) would go a long way. That, plus adding more cultural units. Each culture should at least get a native T4 option imo. I'm okay with T5 units all being big capstone mythics that are only obtainable via tomes, but right now Feudal is the only culture in the game with a T4 which feels kinda lame to me. And while I'm at it, give heroes a couple of skills to unlock based on their culture as well. Right now, culture feels entirely irrelevant to how you use your heroes. This would also create an incentive to recruit heroes from a different faction, which right now is completely pointless.

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I am going to be trying Grexolis for the first time soon. What am I in for? I was going to play it on normal. I am not particularly great at the game and I hear grexolis is basically a sweat shop. Like you have to play really specifically to beat it? I play a lot for RP too so I already don't like being super meta.

>>2438410
kind of not true about the hero thing. Some heroes from the astral culture has that dissonance thing they can inflict.

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>>2437898
I really liked the vampire DLC. Vampires are cool and I like the tomes it added. Tome of Mayhem, Doomherald, and Torment is one of my favorite combos. I also enjoy when I can terraform the environment in a way that makes it better for me and worse for everyone else and vampires get that built in. Rapier and whip is a cool weapon type too.
I like the idea of Nomads but they're kind of a pain in the ass to play and Scavengers are probably the worst culture in the game right now. The rabbits however I like a lot.
The shrouded isles are a neat concept, but I haven't played too much with them so far. The spells are a cool idea, but they're also kind of a mixed bag. I was skeptical on the grimoire weapon concept at first, but I actually like it a lot.
The empire tree rework was pretty good for the most part. I still feel like I don't want anything in the materium branch though. The addition of a node in the astral tree that gives sundered resistance on all damage and debuff spells is probably my new favorite node as someone that likes astral affinity and battlemage heavy army comps.
The reaver rework however I'm not happy about. Cannons being buffed is nice, and the addition of the war spoils structure helps make war spoils not feel completely useless (at least for a while), but the harrier is still a useless dogshit unit that brings down the culture's entire early game, harriers are still too tied to the subdue mechanic for no good reason which also brings down the subdue mechanic, and dragoons got fucking nerfed. I'm still disappointed in the new subculture as well. I dislike the order affinity/vassalmancer playstyle in general and I also think order has way too many goddamn culture/subculture options already, meanwhile astral and shadow only have representation in their own culture and the all affinities cultures. I also think "the good boys (order)/the bad boys (chaos)" is the least interesting possible way to handle subcultures.
This is me current laddie.

>>2438498
I haven't tried Grexolis myself, but from what I understand your primary enemy has a massive head start on empire and techs and is extremely aggressive, and your AI teammates are useless.

>>2438498
It's been several DLCs since I played Grexolis, but IIRC by far the easiest way to beat is was to play an underground build, which allows you to turtle in relative safety until you've got an army that can kick the main faggot's ass. Ideally you'll want to have a build that focuses on Blight and/or Frost damage, and which is strong against Spirit damage (so no undead).

>>2438498
There's harder story maps in DLC but Grexolis is up there, as it's the one most fresh in peoples brains since it was the last vanilla campaign in base game
The idea is kind of simple though. The whole thing will be a team rage cage fight. Your main enemy will have an advanced start, but you get to pick bonuses to even the playing field a little at mission start, and add additional little map buffs whenever you KO an opponent

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>>2437898
Pantheon rework when
Isn't it funny that the way it works now is quite literally lore breaking? It establishes two factions, lets you make your own third and then you beat story realms and all leaders go to your Pantheon, despite being rivals fighting each other.

Those two story factions should be premade now, but still in your control so you can add guys to them
You could be able to make many separate Pantheons of Godir now, maybe defined by some overall traits and influence
That's high effort, but I'd steal nuxcom base design for it for a gimmick and a flavor. Let us build some stuff in Haven and show those leaders interacting with each other. Add some unique rooms for diplomacy between Pantheons or something like this.
Just throwing ideas, but this stuff has potential, but it's merely very light metaprogression system for some traits and cosmetics despite it's lore background. Feels wasteful

>>2438258
I just checked the wiki and the culture units are all a bland sad mess. Pass.

I think people who can write head canon love AoW4 and people who can't don't like AoW4. People will say "Oh, well everything is a shit samey slurry because you can alter so much." But I think that is the magic of this game. If you want Dwarven Mountain Druids, you can make that. If you want religious zealot dark elves, you can do that. If you want Rat Knights, you can do that. I'd rather this than basically be told "DWARVES ARE ALWAYS THIS" or "ELVES ALWAYS LIVE IN THE FOREST!" There just seems to be more freedom for me in AoW4. I can see however if you don't like head canon how it might seem that everything is like everything.

Did they remove the lance weapon option for architect rulers or did one of my outdated mods bork it somehow?

>>2438933
Lance is Warrior and Defender, death knight and maybe spell blade classes. oh and battle saint maybe.

>>2438935
Something's wrong with my game then, when I choose architect I can only pick hammer or sword and shield with those classes.

>>2438945
Hmm... that is strange then. I wasn't aware of any architect limitations on starting weapons. Seems odd. Can you use any other two handed weapons? I wonder if Architects just can't start with a two handed melee weapon. Seems weird.

>>2438945
>>2438946
Not everyone gets lances to start with. Afaik only feudal, dark, and high can start with a lance naturally.

>>2438967
hmnmm those factions are the ones I play the most which is why I never noticed. Interesting. Kind of makes sense I guess? Are there any other weapons that are locked to a faction like that?

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>>2438967
I found an old screenshot (from before the latest season), the lance used to be there but now the only melee options are a 2h hammer and a spear+shield, and I don't remember the latter being there when I last played.

>>2438976
For the most part it's effectively just cosmetic. Your rulers and heroes draw from their culture's personal weapon cosmetic set, with wizard kings and vampire lords pulling from their own unique cosmetic set instead. Industrious gets hammers and mystics get their bladed maces instead of one handed swords for instance.
For other weapons of note, pistol and sword is unique to Reaver as is the magelock. I assume blowguns are unique to primal, and I believe sword and net and sword and javelin are exclusive to certain cultures. The one handed spear+shield is unique to architect, too.
>>2438985
Lance of glory is from one of the DLC bonus equipment sets. I think the season 1 herald set. Any ruler of any culture or type can use the DLC equipment, but heroes custom made during faction creation cannot.

>>2438990
>sword and javelin
Just javelin, rather. Also there are some special weapons that can be unlocked through the pantheon rewards that follow the same rules as the dlc equipment, any ruler can start with them but heroes cannot.

>>2438990
>Lance of glory is from one of the DLC bonus equipment sets.
Oh, that explains it. Turns out that whoever uploaded the latest version of the game forgot to include like 2 DLCs but I found them in the comments.

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Updating an old half-assed Reaver faction I made once when Empire and Ashes DLC came out. I'm gonna retool this and think I'll use it for the fey story realm, partly because I just want to use Reavers again, partly because I figure Marked and Focused Aggression will pay dividends against all that fairy shit with clinging mist
My question though, what are your starting tome picks for Reavers, what combinations do you end up with? Right now I just stuck Tome of Rock there because I just really like the rock TF spell and Obsidian Weapons broadly applying bleeds to my doods, but I'm not committed to that

>>2438498
It's not as hard as everyone says, so long as you avoid the holy orc guy from beelining your cities and molesting you. Your AI allies are useless, so play hyper-defensively and outfit your border cities with garrison stacks. The Nimue buff for getting free units helps with this btw.

>>2439108
Hmm... I wonder if I am fucked then. I wondered around maybe too close to green orc jesus and he set his status to war with me and my allies. It is turn 10 I think. How fucked am I?

>>2439039
Last time I did it was before they nerfed the dragoons, but I focused on making the most out of ranged damage.

Decent pick-ups:
-Tome of Cold: Frost arrows for slowing, making it easier to kite your enemies
-Tome of Discipline: Focus Aim for the ability to point your magelock at something and guarantee a hit (note: doesn't work on dragoons anymore)
-Obsidian and Enchantment are both decent in general
-Scrying (T2) can get you the ability to ignore obstacles and some distance penalties, and Wind boosts range outright. Sands and/or shades offer decent flanking boosts if you can consistently set up distracted with your reavers.
-Prophecy offers an excellent T4 support and two great enchantments
-Cryomancy + Cold Dark + Geomancy and you can start opening with the Flash Freeze spell to freeze a province and drop a bunch of status resist penalties, then freeze all your enemies with your attacks during the fight, maybe even attempting to subdue them with your overseer.

Obviously you don't need to go for all of these at once, just pick what works for you.

>>2439111
Maybe. You're going to have to fight him eventually, so it kind of depends on your culture and starting bonus. If you got the free units stuff you can probably mash together three stacks and fight off his first prong, hopefully without tanking your economy. After that you can see if you have enough room to push somewhere- either take one of his cities or aid one of your allies, especially if you can knock out one of his allies.

you there, fantasy enjoyer
>Mortal Champion
>Wizard King
>Dragon Lord
>Eldritch Sovereign
>Giant King
>Elder Vampire
which archetype do you want to see next?

Can I become a dragonoid archmage in this AoW? Mind you my only AoW experience is 3 and really liked running a dragonoid mage. I've been exploring the wiki and it doesn't have any dragon race except for the lizardmen but it isn't the same.

>>2439307
I can become a dragon here? As in my hero becomes a four limbed fire breathing dragon? I guess I'm gonna buy 4 after all.

>>2439039
Tome of abjuration is very nice on reavers. 2 precognition procs on a good chunk of your unit roster and +2 armor for your breachers.
>>2439307
I think they're gonna make wizard king more interesting next. After that I'd probably say a fiend type ruler. Maybe a celestial ruler too but I made an order eldritch sovereign and I would be very sad if they just made a new ruler instead of giving me my celestial summon rituals (and other such rituals for other affinities)

>>2439379
>>2439380
You CAN make a dragon ruler, and dragons are very good. Draconians were relegated to a minor transformation like the frostlings were unfortunately, so you'd need to take the tome of evolution to turn your race into them.

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>>2439387
>fiend
>celestial
why not make a planetouched type ruler with 6 different subtypes, one for each affinity
>Order - Celestial/Aasimar
>Chaos - Fiend/Tiefling
>Nature - Feytouched
>Materium - Oread
>Astral - Genasi
>Shadow - Duskwalker

just steal the concept of planetouched from dnd or godlikes from pillars of eternity and make it fit aow4's six affinities
that could be fun

>>2439307
I can't think of anything else at this point and only make Wizard Kings and mostly Champions anyway. I made one Giant though.

I guess >>2439400 makes the most sense

>>2439400
That thought did cross my mind. The Endailon seem to be pretty active now and are actively choosing people to represent them so it wouldn't be a stretch to have an "Agent of the Endailon" ruler type. I think the only problems with that are that since it covers all 6 affinities it would have to paint some pretty broad strokes and it leaves vampire rulers as an odd one out that could've been rolled into this ruler type.

>>2437898
Kinda sad we are going full throttle into wargame focus.

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>>2439380
Yeah, 4 legs, wings, breath attack that can be any of the six base damage types. Note that they're dlc content, not base game.
>>2439307
Some kind of greater fey/fey lord seems like the next most likely thing to add.

>>2439389
I'm both the same guy but thanks. I recently just fired up AoW 3 about 4 months ago and I really enjoyed my time.
>>2439425
Now this is pod racing. This is what I want in a strategy game. A real dragon that I can play as. Already bought the game with the dragon dlc.

>>2439425
>Some kind of greater fey/fey lord seems like the next most likely thing to add.
That would be cool. I try to cope sometimes by building a themed Eldritch Lord but it's really not the same.