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Ah, the fog of war. In that case, yeah, I might just swing by the elves and go kick that orc bastard's rear end. This game makes me swear a lot.
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Jul 15, 2014 11:39
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Sometimes it does that, yeah. This is really the worst mission for it, I think, at least in this campaign. Both sides' Mission 2 is kind of a slog. On a hilarious glitchy note, if you give a hero a spider mount and a musket, they hold it over their head and shoot sideways when firing it.
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Jul 15, 2014 12:37
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Antti posted:My second go at the second Elven campaign mission is going a lot better, although interestingly I think it's starting to get sloggy again. Let me explain: Don't neglect level 1/2 units. Goblin swarm darters completely ignore line of sight penalties, so you can march them right up to the city walls and slaughter things on the walls pretty easily. Eventually they'll leave the walls, but you still get an advantage.
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Jul 16, 2014 01:36
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Lobsterpillar posted:Don't neglect level 1/2 units. Goblin swarm darters completely ignore line of sight penalties, so you can march them right up to the city walls and slaughter things on the walls pretty easily. Eventually they'll leave the walls, but you still get an advantage. Draconian firebombers also ignore line of sight, since they're technically not shooting anything, and neither goblins nor orcs are fans of fire.
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Jul 16, 2014 01:39
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Does anyone have any tips for playing Theocrat? Just can't seem to make them work until I get all the big spells like Holy War etc.
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Jul 16, 2014 11:53
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Crusaders make pretty great line troops and evangelists let you steal any unit in the game. They combo well with orc priests as well, since orc priests can curse, making evangelists more likely to work. Your theo hero can also get charm, and heal. Theo armies have the most healing of any in the game so you can go from camp to camp really quickly once you get those healing upgrades, charming units as you go and building up power very quickly. The very early game before you get healing and charm online is kind of weak though.
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Jul 16, 2014 12:13
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So Orcs are generally the best choice for Theo? I guess all the resistance buffs kinda shore up one of the racial weaknesses. Is there a preferred sphere of magic?
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Jul 16, 2014 12:22
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I don't think thinking in terms of "so x race and y class are the best combination" is the best way to go about things. My first game I went with elf dreadnoughts because that sounded like the most hilariously ineffective thing I could be, but actually elves with robots are amazing. The elvish longbowmen must be one of the best units in the game to have available, and you can use golems to very effectively block for them. Makes for a very nice combination.
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Jul 16, 2014 13:02
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Astns posted:So Orcs are generally the best choice for Theo? Orc Theocrat is pretty great, though Humans and Dwarves are also good. Theocrats buff Priests and Cav units, so that's something to look at, race-wise. For spells, Creation Master gives you even more healing and some good buffs. Air Adept lets you put seeker on Shrines, which is kinda good. I'd say the other spheres are match-up dependent. Water, for example, has a really good spell for taking down machines. You'll want to get the Cherub spell and start spamming them ASAP, same as any other class with a cheap summon scout.
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Jul 16, 2014 13:10
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I am really bad at this game. Part 4 of the Elven Campaign on normal and I'm just completely locked up. Isabella is just spewing out endless Shadows and Succubi and I don't have the tools to kill them fast enough. Meanwhile she's ALSO putting out two city enchants per turn, so I'm just drowning under brigands while dispelling Incite Revolt and the shadow thieves are taking my econ to poo poo. Edit: I should note, I beat both sides on easy, rebel path. Decided to up the difficulty and this is harder than I expected. I suppose the answer is to just move even faster towards crushing her stuff, but it feels wrong to just ignore all the cool other stuff on the map. I'm not even sure I can move fast enough to stop getting bogged down by Millis. Redeye Flight fucked around with this message at 13:20 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 13:16
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Redeye Flight posted:I am really bad at this game. Part 4 of the Elven Campaign on normal and I'm just completely locked up. Isabella is just spewing out endless Shadows and Succubi and I don't have the tools to kill them fast enough. Meanwhile she's ALSO putting out two city enchants per turn, so I'm just drowning under brigands while dispelling Incite Revolt and the shadow thieves are taking my econ to poo poo. You may have to restart, honestly. You basically can't beat Isabella without rushing her down hard, because she starts with a zillion closely-packed Iron-Gripped Cities and what you're experiencing is how Rogues late game works. That said, a few things might help. For one, she can't City Enchant you to death without map vision. Either she has scouts hanging around or map vision from buildings or cities she does control. Secondly, against Rogues you always want to transition to a Priest heavy build to guard against Shadow Stalker spam. They're nigh-invincible against physical damage but they have 10 resist and 60 HP, Human Priests and Elf Storm Sisters wreck their poo poo. Third, if you restart, get the Giant Dwelling and start pumping out Fire Giants ASAP. Just the two fire giants and your heroes should be enough to give you a huge lead as you go plowing straight through her cities with them.
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Jul 16, 2014 13:27
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Astns posted:Does anyone have any tips for playing Theocrat? Evangelists are super bulky for a support unit. Don't be afraid to clobber some heads. Theocrats excel at attrition, since they get the most healing, the Exalted, and can bolster their ranks with enemy units.
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Jul 16, 2014 13:38
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I am definitely going to sing the praises of autoresolve, it allowed me to wrap up the second map of the Elven Court campaign with only some slog instead of a total slog. The human empire seemed really tacked on and they were a pure pushover once I'd ridden the world of the gobbo-orcen menace. I'm starting to wonder if the best strategy in the campaign isn't to just go straight for the throat early in the game when your heroes are relatively strong and you aren't drowning in powerful enemy units. Go kill their leader, grab their throne, win game.
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Jul 16, 2014 13:46
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Antti posted:I am definitely going to sing the praises of autoresolve, it allowed me to wrap up the second map of the Elven Court campaign with only some slog instead of a total slog. The human empire seemed really tacked on and they were a pure pushover once I'd ridden the world of the gobbo-orcen menace. The human empire there is to chain that part of the campaign into the rest of the plot, honestly. And that does seem like the best strategy throughout the campaign, which I have a real hard time adjusting to. I like exploring, doing quests, and getting built up gradually.
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Jul 16, 2014 13:50
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Me too! Blitzkrieging is not in my nature at all. I do wish both routes were at least equally viable.
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Jul 16, 2014 14:16
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Honestly, most of the campaign maps allow you to turtle quite a bit if you want to, it's just harder to do without already knowing the layout and event triggers. Blitzing and then consolidating is a decent strategy, just less so on the Elven Court side because Isabella will drive you batty trying to defend yourself from globals and a later mission has a surprise time-limit.
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Jul 16, 2014 14:45
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Antti posted:I am definitely going to sing the praises of autoresolve, it allowed me to wrap up the second map of the Elven Court campaign with only some slog instead of a total slog. The human empire seemed really tacked on and they were a pure pushover once I'd ridden the world of the gobbo-orcen menace. That worked very well for me. I was continuously attacking, only pausing for reinforcements when I got to heavily-defended capitals. By the third or fourth mission Sundren alone should be capable of taking on practically infinite tier one or two enemies. Nomlick is a good choice for your other expansion army leader; convert+resurgence on all troops means he has a constantly expanding army that never dies.
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Jul 16, 2014 15:26
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ninjewtsu posted:I don't think thinking in terms of "so x race and y class are the best combination" is the best way to go about things. My first game I went with elf dreadnoughts because that sounded like the most hilariously ineffective thing I could be, but actually elves with robots are amazing. The elvish longbowmen must be one of the best units in the game to have available, and you can use golems to very effectively block for them. Makes for a very nice combination. One of the coolest things about this game is how well the race and class system works, you can throw together any combination and it'll be viable and interesting in it's own way, even more so with the latest patch throwing in tons more race bonuses to class units. Actually, now I'm curious as to how evenly spread out those perks are... ArchDruid Elves: Longbow Hunters, gently caress yeah. Draconians: Shamans with firebolts, awesome. Humans: Hunters with throw net, intriguing. Goblins: Hunters with +4 blight damage, also very interesting. Warlord Elves: Longbow Mounted Archers. I love these things so much. Dwarves: Berserkers with projectile Resistance. That's...really good, especially with the +1 Def/Res Dwarves get. Goblins: Monster Slayers get +4 Blight Damage. I think Monster Slayers are one of the coolest units, but lacking just a bit of ranged oomph, so that's pretty neat. (Also worth trying because GOBLIN WARLORD) Orcs: Warbreeds have tireless. Niiiice. Theocrat Draconians: Evangelists get fire bolts. Considering their main drawback is not having a ranged attack, that really changes them tactically. Goblins: Martyrs get +4 Blight Damage. Like all the new goblin perks, this takes a unit that was pretty non-threatening at range and makes them actually dangerous. It's a lot of extra damage and dual channel damage is just really useful in general. Orcs: Crusaders get Tireless. Orc Crusaders were already the best crusaders with the +5 HP/+1 Melee, tireless on top makes them pretty baller. Rogue Elves: Longbow Bards, transforming them from a support/charm unit that's useless in combat to Elf Archers+++ Humans: Scoundrels get Throw Net. Scoundrels are kinda bad at killing things that aren't robots or giant guns, so this ups their utility a lot, especially with sprint. Goblins: Bards and Scoundrels get the +4 Blight damage on ranged attacks. Goblin Rogue is even more all-in on Blight Damage, but this makes their early game even nastier then before... Dwarves: Assassins get projectile resistance. Assassins are squishy death machines, so making them tanky is quite interesting indeed. Orcs: Assassins gain tireless. Orcs are already good Rogues due to melee focus, but this one is kinda eh. Assassins aren't tough enough to make a lot of retaliation attacks. Although if you throw moving target on them... Dreadnaught Humans: Engineers with nets. I've tried this one, and I like it a lot, probably because blunderbuss is kinda useless and nets are a much better way to get mans off my precious squishy engineers. Dwarves: Engineers get projectile resistence. Dwarf Dred is a great combo to start with, and making Engineers harder to snipe is always a plus. Sorcerer Draconians: Apprentinces can chuck fire bombs. Eh. (Actually, I take that back. AOE stun grenades is no joke.) So overall the new perks are spread pretty evenly. Sorcerer doesn't get anything but they only have one class unit that's already stupid good, so whatever. More perks for Theocrats and Dreadnaughts down the road would be nice to have, though. madmac fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 15:48
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poo poo yeah. Restart worked, I chainstomped Isabella. Feels so good. I do regret not seeing more of the map, though. I'll have to go back through on Easy, take my time a little more so I can poke around in that huge western area I didn't touch.
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Jul 16, 2014 17:51
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I've had pretty good success with rushing like crazy until I've got the AI contained to a relatively small area, then wandering around exploring the map while the AI cowers in terror. If you station some strong armies nearby, the AI seems to just sit in its cities waiting for the attack instead of trying to break out. That lets your heroes wander around and collect treasure and experience, which makes rushing the next map easier.
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Jul 17, 2014 00:54
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Redeye Flight posted:I am really bad at this game. Part 4 of the Elven Campaign on normal and I'm just completely locked up. Isabella is just spewing out endless Shadows and Succubi and I don't have the tools to kill them fast enough. Meanwhile she's ALSO putting out two city enchants per turn, so I'm just drowning under brigands while dispelling Incite Revolt and the shadow thieves are taking my econ to poo poo. I had something similar, eventually bet it by finding the teleporter to her throne city and sending a hero stack through. The teleport is on an island in the SE. You only need to take out the leader and the throne city, you don't have to take the horde of other cities that spit out shadow stalkers. Don't forget to rescue the dreadnought on the way past the teleport (he's in the dungeon)
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Jul 17, 2014 01:01
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I cheesed Sapphire Archipelago something fierce. This is before I activated any of the elven cities. Isabelle was a pushover.
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Jul 19, 2014 14:31
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I'm still doing the campaign but I gotta say I'm addicted to theocrats. I think that's my class. I like stealing people.
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Jul 19, 2014 15:07
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MinionOfCthulhu posted:I'm still doing the campaign but I gotta say I'm addicted to theocrats. I think that's my class. I like stealing people. Everyone wants in on that amazing healthcare plan. I've said it before but I love the classes in this game, they all play so differently. That reminds me, everyone is expecting the Necromancer next, but didn't the preview from earlier suggest more then one new class is in the works? Also, after Frostlings I still want Lizardmen and Tigrans next.
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Jul 19, 2014 15:51
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madmac posted:Everyone wants in on that amazing healthcare plan. I'm all for new classes, but i think i'd like further specialisation of existing ones even more. "Unlike the rest of my academically trained brothers and sisters, i saw the power of mana fuel cells and took it to golemancy. They said a golem frame couldn't handle advanced weaponry? They were dead wrong."  "Just wait until they see what i've replaced the horses with." Aside, Rift has so many glorious magical technology things.  As for more races, i want to see one of the shadow realm races return. Syrons, Shadow Demons, something else or in-between, its all good.
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Jul 19, 2014 21:28
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Trip report from the summer tournament! Fun times had by all, learned a lot. The amount the RNG can screw you is *brutal* sometimes. If you start with a bunch of cavalry, expect it all to die in the first few autocalc fights (tourney rules were autocalc against all ai battles). If you get a free tier 3 in your starting army, congrats, you have won the game. If it is a firstborn or shock trooper you have double won. Keep it alive and it will farm autocalc fights for you. Scouting is crucial, if you are a class that gets cheap flying scouts keep them up and keep them over water or in mountains to avoid them getting ganked. Being able to force your enemy to commit 2-3 units to every city for every 1 scout you deploy starts to bleed them fast, much moreso if you can snipe weak units or especially burn a city down. Something else I learned? Apparently the autocalc takes positioning into account, so if you deploy a decoy scout or two alone on the flanks when you autocalc a fight the baddies will turn and beeline for them. The AI is very bloodthirsty and will aggressively target lone units, I've seen it in tactical battle I just didn't realize it carried into the autocalc. This means that if you use dread drones or sorc wisps for this purpose, those units gets stunned or exploded on while your main force takes no damage and gets exp from flank attacks. I really enjoy simultaneous turns, but man it doesn't work well for pvp. The tourney had a lot of arbitrary rules to try to mitigate this that the judges were SUPER SERIOUS about, and honestly they should have just made it classic turns with time limits. I do wish simultaneous turns worked better, similar to civ where factions at war take turns in order and anyone not at war is simultaneous. Until that is improved the pvp game is a painful metagame of who can click first and who has a better ping while you carefully try to leapfrog your squads one at a time to keep them together or else your opponent will only have to face a fraction of your forces at once. This in turn makes the turns drag on much longer since it has to wait to register and complete every movement command, 1-2 hexes at a time, inching across the ground. Lastly, I need to learn to let neutrals go when they beg for mercy. Being able to keep your starting units alive and quickly grab income helps tremendously in the early game. Edit: I know everyone expects Necro to be the new class but I don't think I've ever actually seen a dev SAY that was the case. Maybe we'll find out in a week or two with the dev journals. Carnalfex fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Jul 19, 2014 |
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Jul 19, 2014 23:26
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Can someone tell me if the expansion is free or not? Given how bland the game felt when I played it, I was thinking this was an actual update expansion, but now I'm thinking it's a buyable one.
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Jul 20, 2014 12:46
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LotsBread posted:Can someone tell me if the expansion is free or not? Given how bland the game felt when I played it, I was thinking this was an actual update expansion, but now I'm thinking it's a buyable one. The expansion will not be free. That said, they've already put out a couple of amazing patches post release and some of the upcoming new mechanics/features may be patched into the main game, it hasn't been decided yet. As for expansion content in general, I went back and grabbed the original post from June to refresh my memory: quote:Hi guys, just a quick post that we’re making great progress on lots of new Age of Wonders goodies for you. The upcoming update should include Steam Workshop support and Cloud Saves. This should make it easier for you to exchange user made scenarios and manage save games across multiple computers. So, they have one new race almost completed and are working on others, New dwelling type, new monsters, new campaign, music, and apparently multiple new classes. Also Steam Workshop, Cloud Saves, Mac/Linux integration, and the other new features that have been announced since then (New Victory Condition, Bunch of new City Buildings and Racial Defense Buildings, New Disjunct Mechanics, ect) The level of support this game has gotten since release is mind-boggling and I can't wait for the new content to become available, myself. Edit: Btw, if you're like me and on the lookout for multiplayer videos, this is one of the best I've found. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4V7ur2ofnc madmac fucked around with this message at 20:59 on Jul 20, 2014 |
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Jul 20, 2014 13:47
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After completing the Elven campaign on normal, I decided to jump into the Commonwealth one on hard. Not having resurgence on all my heroes makes it a whole new ballgame! Mission 2 seemed straightforward at first; I wondered what all the fuss was about. Then I collected the plot item, and began facing down wave after wave after wave of Werlac's armies. The first time you face ten trebuchets all with static shield it's an interesting novelty; by the second and third it just made me want to gouge out my eyes. Also, Werlac cheating threw a huge wrench in my plans; directly after defeating him in battle and baninshing him , I pushed on with my heavily wounded army to his city, thinking I should strike before his nasty spells come back on line. Yet the very first turn of battle, my main hero is ganked by a fireball. And that's not even touching the full stacks full of big beetles and apprentices who have a 30% of stunning my plot-critical heroes. Yeesh. The third level has been a enjoyable cakewalk in comparison. Once the betrayal took place, instead of retreating to the elven city as the plot suggested I just rushed one army back to attack yellow and brown and used the free elven army to wipe out their north-western cities. Meanwhile, my warlord forged into the heart of gray's empire, with her original phalanx, monster hunter, and berserker augmented by an orc priest and dwarf forge priest--all elite thanks to that sweet Warlord tech that gives 50% more xp. The battle for the capital was quite the nail-biter; despite "likely defeat" my army charged against the stone wall defended by two heroes, some boar cavalry, pikes, axemen, a handful of crossbows, a pack of crows, and 5 prospectors with their annoying rocks. Every single unit contributed; my hero bust down the door while my berserker climbed the walls, the phalanx filled the gap when my hero ran low on hp, the dwarf and monster hunter took down one hero, and the orc priest not only contributed with ranged attacks, but used curse to allow an enemy crossbow to be berserked, saving the lives of at least two other units. By the end of the fight, not unit in my army had more than half hp, and my phalanx had only 5! Smiling Knight fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Jul 23, 2014 |
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Jul 23, 2014 03:04
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Smiling Knight posted:After completing the Elven campaign on normal, I decided to jump into the Commonwealth one on hard. Not having resurgence on all my heroes makes it a whole new ballgame! I found it didn't matter that much in the campaign, as most heroes are mission critical and if they die in tactical combat, you fail automatically. It does help with your leader having resurgence, though, because it makes them the most expendable of your heroes.
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Jul 23, 2014 08:07
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Been loving this game but honestly this new level against the pirates in the elven campaign has been consistently kicking my rear end. Welp time to give the human campaign a try.
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Jul 23, 2014 08:18
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That level is easily doable within 1-2 hours if you do this:Antti posted:I cheesed Sapphire Archipelago something fierce. There's an orcish city in the middle western side of the map - westernmost city in the screenshot - that you can sail to before you meet any of the elven cities. The orcish city will after a few turns give you a simple quest that will have them join you once you complete it. The AI doesn't activate until you take the middle elven city that you are usually going to grab first thing, so instead of that, take the orcish city as described, and spam the nearby region full of cities and build up your infrastructure before you go and activate the elves and the AI. If you have a stack of succubi and a stack of shadow stalkers and some galleons you won't have any problems blitzing Isabelle. It's breaking the game but I only did it after the game broke me. 
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Jul 23, 2014 08:24
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Goddamn exploration warlords are strong. Played against one in multiplayer, he had stack of 5 elite monster hunters plus a hero roaming about far too early for me to deal with. As a sorcerer or archdruid, they cut your summons to bits. How does one counter this?
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Jul 23, 2014 10:56
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Lobsterpillar posted:I found it didn't matter that much in the campaign, as most heroes are mission critical and if they die in tactical combat, you fail automatically. It does help with your leader having resurgence, though, because it makes them the most expendable of your heroes. Actually, on medium all heroes had resurgence, so I could use any one as shock troops/tank as long as I won the battle.
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Jul 23, 2014 12:27
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Astns posted:Goddamn exploration warlords are strong. Interestingly enough, Sorcerer/Druid have long been considered the best classes in multiplayer and Warlord the weakest. (because he's a slow starter.) Early Monster Hunters are a really good counter-strat though. Relatively cheap, strong against basically every type of summoned creature, mobile, and even resistant to elemental damage. They lose out to most pure physical troops and don't have blight resist, though. As a Druid I'd just do mass Hunters and later Shamans. As a Sorcerer, it's more difficult...they basically beat all your early class units and summons, so you'd have to leverage racial units as best you can.
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Jul 23, 2014 16:09
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Is it normal to not use any of my racial units as a Sorcerer (except a few Apprentices as city guard)? Because Hellhounds are surprisingly robust and cheap enough that I'm not crying when they die. Also, mostly immune to Hellfire!
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Jul 23, 2014 16:13
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Sorcerer is definitely the one class where it's attractive to sink your gold into mana and research production and use summoned creatures as the bulwark of your army. That said, one of your advantages is being able to buy units with gold/mana simultaneously to effectively double up on troop production, so you should probably be using some racial units. Massing Tier 2 supports and/or apprentices seems to be the popular strat, and racial flying units are nice late game because they can keep up with your summons.
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Jul 23, 2014 16:42
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I've sunk 50 hours into this, and I don't think I can take any more. Technically it's an okay game, and I should be liking it. But the campaign is just badly designed. You pretty much have to restart every mission and choose an optimal path in order to have a chance. The elven "Make Haste" mission was particularly egregious. I feel like the only reason I'm playing this is because of OCD. Just don't feel like continuing with this. 
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Jul 28, 2014 22:32
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Switch out to RMG, bewarned the AI can be funky sometimes! Alternatively, put it down until later. 
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Jul 28, 2014 22:34
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pigdog posted:I've sunk 50 hours into this, and I don't think I can take any more. Technically it's an okay game, and I should be liking it. But the campaign is just badly designed. You pretty much have to restart every mission and choose an optimal path in order to have a chance. The elven "Make Haste" mission was particularly egregious. I feel like the only reason I'm playing this is because of OCD. Just don't feel like continuing with this. You could always put it down for a bit and see how the expansion grabs you, but honestly forget the campaign. The campaign isn't very good as anything but a tutorial. I beat it once with each side just to do it but there's no particular reason for anyone to play it all the way through unless you actually like it. The Age of Wonders series has always been about playing random maps by yourself (Or co-op!) or multiplayer with friends, that's where the real fun is. The campaigns are just a bonus, and frankly always tended to be balls hard compared to just dicking around with the AI on random maps. Take a break first though, whatever you do. There's nothing worse then burning out on a game for OCD reasons.
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Jul 28, 2014 22:53
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