Age of Wonders 4

skylan

skylan

Trakanon Raider
85
97
Seems to be getting good reviews and the negatives are performance based so I'm intrigued.

I played the shit out of one of these, might have been 3, and really enjoyed it. I'm a little confused about a few things though. This is launched without a campaign? So you are just playing sandbox mode? Another review said it's multiplayer focused? I'm fine with sandbox, but not looking to play with other people.
 
cyrusreij

cyrusreij

Trakanon Raider
1,713
576
Sandbox only. They did away with the traditional campaign. I would assume that is because most won't play one. Instead they have specific story realms, which are just individual maps with specific objectives and stories. Game has multi-player but the AI is perfectly competent, so you shouldn't feel the need to play online at all.
 
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OneofOne

OneofOne

Silver Baronet of the Realm
6,623
8,088
They do have a series of games that unlock as you complete the previous ones. I've been working on those. Beginner Scenario -> Story Realm 1 -> Story Realm 2, etc

I haven't had any performance issues yet, but these maps have been on the smaller side (and my computer is fairly new). Enjoying it so far. Unlike AoW3, I find myself auto'ing combat WAY more, as that tends to have predictable results (though sometimes it comes out pretty bad and I'll manual the fight, but honestly I get a ton of auto's where I lose no troops in 18v18 fights, and that feels surprising).
 
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Burns

Burns

Golden Baronet of the Realm
6,126
12,345
I am also working through the story maps. I played the first map around 4 or 5 times because I thought hard would be fine, but nope, AI raped me over and over (cheatin bastards!). They had 4 full stacks, with a few tier 3s and 4s, and were very aggressive, when I was barley able to get 1 stack of tier 1s and 2s. Normal is a bit too easy though and I have steamrolled the 2 wins I have had since giving up on hard.

I liked the old campaigns of the other AoW games, so I am a bit disappointed in this hybrid map system in lieu of the old style with hero carry over from map to map. Other than that, it's pretty good.
 
Burns

Burns

Golden Baronet of the Realm
6,126
12,345
Game optimization(?): I tried to play a map (4th campaign) as underground dwarves and that led to me spending a lot of time with my screen on the subterranean; which, in turn, about lit my CPU on fire. Shit was beepin at me because it must have been close to thermal shutdown at 85C+.

Also, the underground is rarely connected, so you have to go up to the surface to move from city to city (if you want to try to make all your cities below ground).
 
OneofOne

OneofOne

Silver Baronet of the Realm
6,623
8,088
I'm still on 3rd because I'm conservative as fuck and seeing just how many of the magic books you can learn (looks like all, but only 1x T5 book). Note to self: do not integrate new races either by rallies or heroes. You have to cast a new race transformation for every race you have. And there are a lot of minor transformations.
 
Burns

Burns

Golden Baronet of the Realm
6,126
12,345
OneofOne said:
I'm still on 3rd because I'm conservative as fuck and seeing just how many of the magic books you can learn (looks like all, but only 1x T5 book). Note to self: do not integrate new races either by rallies or heroes. You have to cast a new race transformation for every race you have. And there are a lot of minor transformations.
Click to expand...
Yea, it is a bit of a handicap to capture cities as a good leader instead of the ebil convert them to your own. There is a building in the order tree that offsets it a little bit, but it may be best to just start your own cities and get tributes from vassals.

Alternatively, the other races can have a different major transformation already on them (or in the future, if the AI using them is still alive), which can produce heroes/units that are better suited to a different role. On the third map (the lava one (?) I think it was) I played undead where I had raised undead demon heroes for melee.
 
V

velk

Trakanon Raider
2,540
1,127
I think they missed a decimal point on the seduce chances, I am pretty sure it is 0.6% chance, not 60% - at least when you use it, if the AI uses it, it has a base chance of 160% ;p

I am so bad at this game 8(.

Also, fuck that thunderbird whirlwind ability, that is the most aggravating RNG bullshit.
 
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OneofOne

OneofOne

Silver Baronet of the Realm
6,623
8,088
I'm finding I miss the micro a bit in battles from AoW3, where I could fight - both offensively and defensively - with lower power stacks than the NPCs and pull shit off by the skin of my teeth, with proper unit placement and spell usage. In AoW4 it feels easy to snowball the enchantments/minor racial transforms on your units to the point even your shitty T1 guys are buffed to hell and back. I auto battles, where power is 60/40 or 55/45 in my favor, and typically win with 0-1 losses. Mind you this is on Normal mode, so I'll probably have to move up.
 
Burns

Burns

Golden Baronet of the Realm
6,126
12,345
New DLC:
2023-10-12 14.22.05 store.steampowered.com c69fc7c3d1d2.png


I haven't played this since release but a quick scan of the workshop makes it look like there is a decent modding scene too.
 
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