Age of Wonders III

[warty goblin]

Yesterday the second DLC expandathing dropped, and holy cow it's good. I admit AoW III wasn't the best thing ever at release, but after a couple major patches, and the DLC, it's finally that rarest of gems: A turn based fantasy game that's better than the original Age of Wonders. We should talk about it, using this thread.

Also, Tigrens are awesome, particularly if you like to flank things. Because with the Tigrans, all the things will be flanked. If you can't run around behind it, teleport behind it, attack, and then snap into Guard. Haven't tried Frostings much yet, but snowballs seem to feature prominently. Haven't even touched necromancers at all, though I've fought some random stacks full of necro units. Very fun to fight at least. Particularly when flanked by kitty-kats...

[Knaight]

Even at release it had a lot going for it, though there were some glaring flaws (such as the extent to which early units became obsolete, the extent to which class units were completely identical regardless of race, etc). The core system is solid, as are a number of the more core-mechanic design decisions. Also, the existence of goblin swarm darters covers over a multitude of flaws.

[Astrella]

Ugh, a friend of mine got it and I want it badly too, but I can't run it. :s Guess I'll reinstall Shadow Magic instead...

[Cespenar]

My pet peeve with III, as opposed to, say, Shadow Magic, was that the units were all too similar to each other throughout the races. First tier is always melee, ranged, skirmisher. Second tier is always pikemen, cavalry, support caster, etc. with the races making minimal changes at best. I don't have the exact stats on hand, but I recall Shadow Magic having much more variance than that.

They probably did it out of "balance", but meh. Hope the new races have more interesting units than the others.

[warty goblin]

My pet peeve with III, as opposed to, say, Shadow Magic, was that the units were all too similar to each other throughout the races. First tier is always melee, ranged, skirmisher. Second tier is always pikemen, cavalry, support caster, etc. with the races making minimal changes at best. I don't have the exact stats on hand, but I recall Shadow Magic having much more variance than that.

They probably did it out of "balance", but meh. Hope the new races have more interesting units than the others.

I felt like that at release too, but they've really stepped up the emphasis on racial diversity with the last couple patches. Dwarves have gotten tougher, orcs do even more damage, halflings are intensely annoying to fight, etc. The per-race happiness and racial command deal help a lot here too, since your elves get more elfy as you do nice things for them. It basically turns AoWIII into a very excellent fantasy tribal warfare simulator - since a really good way to earn a race's approval is to migrate cities to that race, which naturally annoys the snot out of the migrated.

(It's also worth noting that there wasn't a huge amount of racial diversity in the originals either, at least in terms of low level units. You had your melee unit, your ranged unit, and one pretty unusual racial unit. Which is about how AoW III rolls too.)

[Domochevsky]

Hm, I got the game recently and played two missions of the elven campaign yesterday. Overall quite good, but I find myself thoroughly uninterested in the actual combat aspect of this game. I'm in for the macro, so to speak.
So far I have preciously little understanding of the difference between units, though. They all seem quite similar, beyond the basic difference of "ranged, melee, weird stuff, flying".

However, auto-resolving combat with Horned Gods and a party full of heroes seems to be doing reasonably well so far. (At least for the second mission.) :P

"You are VERY likely to lose this battle!"
"...flawless victory, no one died!"

A'ight!

[Morty]

People really overstate the variety of the old games. There were some oddball races, but for the most part, they had similar lineups on the first and second tier.

AoW III has really improved a lot since its release. I also got the expansion as soon as it came out and I'm loving both it and the patch so far. I'm playing a Frostling Arch-Druid on a random map and a Goblin Rogue in a Play By Email game. Which is in itself nice, since the regular multiplayer client won't let me play. Both goblins and rogues have made great strides from where they were on release, incidentally. And Goblin Butchers are back, which is a cause for joy and celebration.

[warty goblin]

Know what's hilarious? Halfing Necromancers. Cute, chubby, unspeakably evil.

[Morty]

A Halfling Necromancer is on my to-do list after I've either won with the Frostling Arch-Druid or got bored of playing him. But I figure I'll try and actually summon a Horned God this time. I've always stopped on Gargantuan Animals before.

Also, the alignment-related specializations provide some interesting dynamics. My Arch-Druid is a Grey Guard Master, which means that right now I can't declare war on another leader because it'll push me over into Slightly Evil and cost me the specialization bonuses. I'll have to do some good deeds first.

[warty goblin]

Know what's really hilarious? Fighting a giant stack of undead with a halfling necromancer. Cute, chubby, unspeakably useless.

Also, word of warning. The AI doesn't like it when you seize three seals of power in a couple turns.

[Morty]

More useless than a goblin rogue when fighting undead? I guess assassins get undead-slaying now, at least.

Also, if anyone feels like playing some PBEM, I'm up for it. It's slow, but surprisingly convenient. Everyone does their turns when they can, so you don't have to schedule a couple of hours.

[warty goblin]

More useless than a goblin rogue when fighting undead? I guess assassins get undead-slaying now, at least.

Also, if anyone feels like playing some PBEM, I'm up for it. It's slow, but surprisingly convenient. Everyone does their turns when they can, so you don't have to schedule a couple of hours.

Probably about as bad, yeah, although I'm more likely to have specced a rogue hero for melee combat. Regardless, the halfling necromancer is now very dead, but the Tigran empire lives on

[Morty]

I guess a necromancer, regardless of starting race, would do well to get their hands on some Goblin Plague Doctors. Cutting blight resistance by 60% is useful. I believe their Weaken ability has a longer range post-patch, as well.

[warty goblin]

I guess a necromancer, regardless of starting race, would do well to get their hands on some Goblin Plague Doctors. Cutting blight resistance by 60% is useful. I believe their Weaken ability has a longer range post-patch, as well.

Probably, I'm terrible about using Support units. Unless those support units can also turn into panthers, 'cause that's a totally different kettle of fish.

So I got to play a couple really big sieges this morning. I always under-appreciate how much better the Age of Wonders series does battles for fortifications than basically every other TBS ever, and AoW 3's implementation has gotten just fantastic. The unit diversity is huge now, and how can a person say no to a frost giant smashing a wall to rubble, and charging up the rubble to the walltop?

[Knaight]

I've found support units pretty critical, particularly the ones that are t3 or above. As for the sieges, I'd agree that AoW does a very good job with them (starting with how fortifications actually matter), but the battle AI has some pretty obvious holes in it, particularly when you've got flying units.

[warty goblin]

Tried the Frostlings this morning. Despite the enormous appeal of mammoth riders, I don't find them that interesting to play. They seem sort of gimmicky, with a lot of abilities that trigger off of other abilities, instead of the vigorous warfare of maneuver suggested by the Tigrans. I nearly always prefer maneuvering to ability-ing.

[Morty]

It seems that halflings and necromancers aren't a good match in general. The ghouls' lack of morale means that without researching special upgrades and such, their Lucky ability doesn't trigger often. And the penalty to defence makes them even more fragile.

[Domochevsky]

...and then I couldn't complete the last mission of the elven campaign, because one of the two guys I was supposed to captchure (complete sideways shift there, incidentally. Very annoying, since I have only fought the first battle in the game before auto-resolving every other battle) disappeared from the map without being considered dead.

Turns out that this is a known bug, that apparently still hasn't been fixed. Good stuff. I own every city on the map and have defeated every enemy. Cannot win.

[nhbdy]

Just picked up the expansion and started a game with the pre-made tigren necromancer. I have to say, necro has some really nasty tricks to pull, the plague of undeath in particular can help you steal all of the land between you and an enemy while completely negating your slow growth. I'd also like to point out just how nutty despair can get, because each stack makes the target much more vulnerable to status effects, which can get you all kinds of shenanigans...

Also of note, I cannot wait to try my grey guard dreadnought... seems perfect for shutting down all of those silly mage-types.

[Morty]

Having decided a halfling necromancer isn't a good combination, I decided to go for a tigran one. Unfortunately, I get the impression the necromancer's early game is always going to be slow, due to lack of regeneration and relative fragility of units. Especially since I had the misfortune of having the nearby production resources guarded by draconians. Who burn my poor ghouls to a crisp.

[nhbdy]

I would agree that the early game must be played carefully, but if one is good at damage control, the healing ability of your hero(s) can be more than what you need, and should you get the opportunity, the in battle healing and reanimation of cadavers can save you a lot of heartache. The Tigerans in particular are rather good at avoiding damage as their mobility is outstanding, and their melee unit takes what appears to be a significantly less amount of damage on retaliation, which encourages you to hit first, and hit hard with them.

That said I'm pretty sure every necro will hate draconians until the later game when you can actually have a little fire mitigation.

[Morty]

I guess I just had the back luck of running into Draconians. I'll start another random map and see how it goes.

[warty goblin]

The more I play of this, the more it grows on me. It's got just the right balance between strategic and tactical layers, and manages the rare feat of not having one render the other some degree of irrelevant. And with the latest patch/Eternal Lords, there's just heaps of stuff in the game now.

Also Tigran Cheetahs are the best things ever. That is all.

[Cespenar]

Wow, you guys are really selling the expansion hard. I'm probably gonna get it at this rate.

So, does it have any extra campaigns in it, or is everyone playing skirmish?

[Morty]

It does have a new campaign, but I haven't played it yet. I tend to play skirmishes in those games, anyway.

And I really need to be more careful about clearing spawn points. I always get my cities taken by wandering bandits, and now also beasts and undead.

[warty goblin]

And I really need to be more careful about clearing spawn points. I always get my cities taken by wandering bandits, and now also beasts and undead.

Heh, in my current game I'm in terror of that. Due to a scouting binge and Keeper of the Peace, I'm over-extended like crazy at the moment. Got vassals and little cities all over the map, which has cost me so much money I haven't been able to develop a decent army yet. But if my hideously overworked armies can hold things together long enough to develop all my cities a bit, I'll be in great shape. And then I can get around to cleansing that Necromancer with fire.

[Knaight]

It does have a new campaign, but I haven't played it yet. I tend to play skirmishes in those games, anyway.

And I really need to be more careful about clearing spawn points. I always get my cities taken by wandering bandits, and now also beasts and undead.

The undead can be tricky (a bone dragon suddenly appearing out of nowhere never bodes well), but I've found that having two priests or a priest and an archer in a city actually works fairly well as a defense force against most any bandits. It's also enough to discourage isolated raids with scouting groups, which can get a lot done (though it's significantly less than it used to be, when the Wisp was actually a pretty powerful unit due to its abilities).

[Grif]

I really should get back to finishing the campaign on this thing one day. (I'm up to that mission where you need to capture the two leaders, and I don't feel like doing the busywork for the mission.)

[Morty]

The undead can be tricky (a bone dragon suddenly appearing out of nowhere never bodes well), but I've found that having two priests or a priest and an archer in a city actually works fairly well as a defense force against most any bandits. It's also enough to discourage isolated raids with scouting groups, which can get a lot done (though it's significantly less than it used to be, when the Wisp was actually a pretty powerful unit due to its abilities).

The problem in my PBEM game is that I'm playing a goblin rogue. So my possible defence against bone dragons is... limited.

[Knaight]

The problem in my PBEM game is that I'm playing a goblin rogue. So my possible defence against bone dragons is... limited.

Bone dragons are generally a problem, and monster dens in particular warrant purging with fire. With that said, do you have elemental path summoning spells?