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Carnalfex posted:There is certainly room in the world for more than one MoM clone after decades of there being a drought. I still have the physical box from my elemental preorder sitting on my shelf. Not because it was good, but because every time I am thinking of jumping aboard the preorder or early access hype train it is there to remind me where that road ends. Sadness and bees. I tried to play Elemental again the other day, but it just feels terrible compared to AoW3 (what is this square grid?)
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Nov 9, 2014 06:44
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Lobsterpillar posted:I tried to play Elemental again the other day, but it just feels terrible compared to AoW3 (what is this square grid?) Hexes would not have saved it, just about every aspect of the game is fairly bad. The idea of manually building your cities on the world map with each new building is kind of unique, but in practice is just means all cities end up being narrow snaking things in order to reach and encompass as many resources as possible so that any attack on them counts as an attack on the city itself. I honestly can't think of anything the game did well. It ran like poop, it looked terrible, the spells and techs and items were just random crap with no purpose or thought, there was very little in terms of content for any aspect of gameplay, they actually removed multiplayer entirely during the beta and never brought it back...it was about as big a failure as a game can be. I got both of the expansion / sequel / desperate rebrandings of it for free as a thank you for early adopting and I still feel let down. AoW3 blew it out of the water even with the very first release and Triumph has worked tirelessly to improve and add to their game ever since. edit: Back on topic to AoW3, I saw someone bring up an interesting idea elsewhere: expanding the "wall buff" series of spells half the classes have into class defense structures, similar to the racial defense structures added with golden realms. The current spell could be kept as a quick panic button to help defend a city under threat (quick/cheap to cast, enough upkeep to discourage using it for long) while the building version could require a certain level of the class structure in the city before it is built. The building would trade speed and immediate cost in getting that defensive option online relative to the spell, but be more viable over time once built since it wouldn't require upkeep. The current research that gives the spell could simply give both the spell and the building unlock I suppose. Adding a wall spell to the classes that don't have it would be relatively simple, since each tends to have an elemental theme. Spirit for theocrat, physical for warlord, perhaps cold for rogue, etc. City defense upgrades were pretty popular with golden realms, would expanding that option be something everyone would like to see? To be fair, they are in the game already, they just are only available to half the classes, may not show up at all based on tech RNG, and just aren't that useful for cost the way they work right now. It would also mean race + class pairings would have an additional thing to think about since both races and classes would have a different city defense option that could be paired together. Carnalfex fucked around with this message at 10:04 on Nov 9, 2014 |
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Nov 9, 2014 09:33
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Eh, I dunno. You may not see the wall effects too often in play, but most of them are stupid good. I once assaulted an AI town protected by Thorn Walls/Shamans with mostly Eldritch Horrors and got my rear end kicked. Enchanted Walls is just as good, and the real nastiness of Dragon Oil is the fire weakness debuff it puts on your entire army. The Burning... Making those effects permanent and unable to disjunct would be...probably overpowered as hell, honestly. At the same time, rebalancing and making them weaker and omnipresent would also be kinda lame. It's one of those things. They don't get used often, but that's partially because no sane person will launch an attack on a town protected by one. Just throwing the spell up is usually enough to buy you time or force them to go around.
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Nov 9, 2014 14:45
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Regarding Elemental, don't forget even Stardock admitted it sucked and you shouldn't play it. That's why they gave everyone who bought Elemental before Fallen Enchantress was announced (that they could - basically, anyone who ordered from them) a free copy of FE by way of apology. While FE is still no MoM, it's exponentially better than was Elemental.
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Nov 9, 2014 14:49
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Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes is actually a decent 4x now. I do think AoW 3 (and Endless Legend, for that matter) do a far better job of being fantasy 4x games though. AoW has the hero, exploration and combat while EL's got the empire management.
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Nov 9, 2014 15:24
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Game's still not wanting to work for me. I sent an email to support, so we'll see where that goes. One odd thing, the game actually launched and ran when I started it from the debug executable, but since that method locks me into the guest mode it's not really a solution. I'm curious about what differs in the debug file that is allowing it to run properly.
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Nov 9, 2014 15:31
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Mokinokaro posted:Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes is actually a decent 4x now. I do think AoW 3 (and Endless Legend, for that matter) do a far better job of being fantasy 4x games though. AoW has the hero, exploration and combat while EL's got the empire management. I'd rather play AoW3, EL, or Warlock 2 than FE, by a huge, huge margin. Game was a desperate attempt to polish a turd, the other three are fun games.
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Nov 9, 2014 16:58
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Best of luck! Hopefully that can get sorted out quickly. As for elemental, they definitely improved with each iteration. Still, slowly going from hot garbage to tepid garbage isn't really something to brag about. It took about a year for each new version making the sort of changes/additions that the Triumph team does in what, a fourth of that time? I do hope Triumph can keep their steam going and continue polishing and adding to their work. I will happily buy just about anything Gerblyn and friends put out. The devs let it slip that this is possibly the last expansion due to funds and their idea to increase the game's player base basically seems to consist of asking the autistic basement dwellers on their official forums to tell their friends about the game. I would be sad to see the company choke out on their first self published title. I wonder if Beagle would be willing to show it off to his viewers, the game has a decent amount in common with XCOM and that is his bread and butter. Maybe goons can help save the day. Someone talked about a games banner ad as well, I'd pay for that if someone could whip up an amusing animation.
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Nov 9, 2014 17:03
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It's super frustrating not bring able to play, because this looks like exactly my kind of game. That's really the only reason I didn't just get a refund on Steam. I'm gonna keep tinkering with it, because drat it I want to build a mighty Orcish Theocracy and smite nonbelievers. Hopefully they'll get back to me sometime tomorrow. In the meantime, I guess I'll keep dying in in the first level of Binding of Isaac...
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Nov 9, 2014 17:22
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Annath posted:It's super frustrating not bring able to play, because this looks like exactly my kind of game. That's really the only reason I didn't just get a refund on Steam. That's seriously frustrating. Wish I could give some advice but you're the first person I've heard of with that problem. I think I actually own Fallen Enchantress somewhere on my Steam List but every time I try to play I get bored after five minutes. It's just so terribly bland. Warlock 2 is my list to play eventually whenever I finally get around to it.
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Nov 9, 2014 17:57
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Annath posted:It's super frustrating not bring able to play, because this looks like exactly my kind of game. That's really the only reason I didn't just get a refund on Steam. Did you run Debug mode through the Launcher? Because you absolutely can play signed in in Debug mode. You can also sign in via the command line by making a shortcut like: "D:\Games\Age of Wonders III\AoW3_Debug.exe" -profile KoozebanianFazoob As long as you've logged in once anyway.
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Nov 9, 2014 18:01
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I've always played this game under guest mode fwiw. I have no interest in multiplayer.
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Nov 9, 2014 18:02
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Gwyrgyn Blood posted:Did you run Debug mode through the Launcher? Because you absolutely can play signed in in Debug mode. I had no idea this was possible. I launched debug mode just idly clicking on the executable in the game folder. I'll try this out as soon as I get home from work today.
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Nov 9, 2014 18:05
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Add me, WYA, I want to play today all day please
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Nov 9, 2014 18:47
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Started a game with the express intent of improving my expansion play early game. Before I'd usually split up my starting forces and creep for a while, being nice to neutral towns if I could and eventually get a settler or 2 out. Playing with emperor ai though I just wasn't getting an economy up and running fast enough. This game instead I was hyper aggressive against neutral towns, sending all my starting forces to attack asap. My build order was builder's hall > settler > store house > tier ones while regrowing > settler. The first town I hit was halfling with 68 production on turn 6.  this was taken on turn 11 after absorbing and pumping out some adventurers and a builder The ai seem pissy at me but that just gives an excuse to snatch their outposts too. had 6 towns by turn 20, this is with towns set to few and dwellings average. haven't gotten much further yet so maybe poisoning the diplomatic well will bite me in the rear end but with my economic base already humming along I kinda doubt it.
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Nov 9, 2014 20:18
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I'm liking the newish AI surrender option. I've so far massed huge armies against two theocrat leaders forcing them to surrender. The second one surrendered and gave me a full stack of shrine of smitings and a bonus hero. Also, wild hunt isn't as impressive as Age of Magic or anything but its still pretty useful, especially on an islands map and against theocrat heroes. Floating lets you fly over walls with melee units, too. If only it did something else, too (like adding bonus elemental damage or buffs or a movement buff)
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Nov 9, 2014 20:45
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I don't really know much about this game, but it looks good. Is it good single player/offline?
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Nov 9, 2014 21:10
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It has three very good campaign chapters so far, and they branch so they all have re-playability. Compstomping experience also fun. \/that's what I meant by compstomping!\/ Splicer fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Nov 9, 2014 |
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Nov 9, 2014 21:33
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Campaigns are good, but civ-style random maps are great.Lobsterpillar posted:Also, wild hunt isn't as impressive as Age of Magic or anything but its still pretty useful, especially on an islands map and against theocrat heroes. Floating lets you fly over walls with melee units, too. If only it did something else, too (like adding bonus elemental damage or buffs or a movement buff) The trick to Wild Hunt is that it's not an upkeep spell, so it can't be disjuncted. This is somewhat dampened by the Warlord Tier 7 spell, whose main effect also can't be disjuncted.
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Nov 9, 2014 21:48
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James The 1st posted:I don't really know much about this game, but it looks good. Is it good single player/offline? Yes very, but if you don't enjoy tactical combat, stay away. Check out Endless Legend if you want something more empire builder focused, fantasy civ style. Comedy option is Warlock 2, which is janky and goofy, but very fun. AoW3 has beautiful music, nice graphics, and an absolute mountain of gameplay options to explore though, so if you do enjoy tactical combat, its good fun.
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Nov 9, 2014 23:06
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Regarding Elemental and Stardock, it came out here a year or two ago that the man behind that studio is apparently a massive shitler, so rejoice in that you now have a better option in the same genre.
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Nov 9, 2014 23:11
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Got in a rare multiplayer game this weekend, that was fun. I should do that more often. On the other hand, no long weekend write-up. Thinking of doing Theocrat next, but we'll see.
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Nov 10, 2014 01:51
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Well I say all that, but I got bored, so lets talk about Theocrats after all. Theocrat: People Are Power Now compared to Rogues, Theocrats aren't nearly as complicated, but like Rogues they are a somewhat off-beat class. Theocrats are a production based class with no economic bonuses or empire upgrades worth mentioning. They can convert mana to gold at a rather steep price, and boost city happiness a little, but that's about it. They rely intensely on magic, but focused almost entirely on buffs, heals, and debuffs. In other words, Theocrats have a fairly lovely economy and troop pipeline. They can't rely on out-producing their foes, and late game they also lack easily massed high-end troops. Instead, the Theocrat strategy is the giant snowball of death. Keep fighting and fighting and winning and growing with the same army until it becomes an unstoppable force. A well-constructed Theocrat army (eventually) has the ability to instantly heal or revive almost any unit, and their powerful enchantments can give them the edge even against far stronger opponents. Add in the ability to enlist enemies into the grand crusade, and coming out of battles with more men then they started with is the hallmark of Theocrat play. Well, Theocrat strategy is pretty simple overall. Use your Cherubs to flood the map (You have slow armies, so good intel is crucial) and play aggressively. Theocrat can do a lot of damage with well timed-pushes, you are strongest early in the game backed with your powerful Tier 2 units so don't sit on your duff for too long. Now, a special note about Devout units. Devout is an important keyword that triggers various effects for Theocrats, most notably in combination with spamming Mark of the Heretic and Denounce City you can give all of your devout units +3 damage against infidels. This is an important edge throughout the entire game and you should be using all-devout army as much as possible. Grab Order of Templar Knights and Order of Sacred Support ASAP for the ability to make all of your produced Infantry, Cavalry and Support units Devout. These upgrades are not backwards compatible, you need to have them researched before you start pumping out troops as much as possible. Archers and Pikes can't be made devout, and as such you will be pretty much going without Archers when playing Theo. Instead, mass supports. With the +1 medal from Sacred Supports and the Heal ability (on cooldown)from Order of Healing, your supports will be the most important members of your army for at least 2/3rds of the game. Because of your wealth of healing you can easily afford to turtle and trade ranged attacks in most fights, though sieges get a little tricky, so... Consider getting at least a couple of trebs relatively early. I've forgotten to do this more then once only to watch my early momentum fade away while my enemies hide behind walls. Supports are, needless to say, not awesome at taking walls. Crusaders can help, but you'll need a critical mass of them. Moving on to Class Units... Cherubs As summon scouts go, Cherubs are second only to crows. They are good, fast, scouts with the added bonus of being able to dish out decent damage, especially with flank attacks and in combination with Mark of the Heretic. They are very squishy but don't be afraid to use Cherubs to help creep or take out small garrisons if needed. Banding Cherubs together in small groups can make them switch from pure scouting to decently dangerous harassment very quickly. The only catch with Cherubs is that it can be hard to pull the mana together to keep out a steady stream of them when you also need to be building infrastructure to start spamming supports. Martyrs I don't really use Martyrs, I'm not qualified to talk about them too much. They did get some interesting buffs in the last patch and the ability to slap effectively +50 HPs unto a critical hero or infantry unit is nothing to sneeze at, especially because you can keep the Martyr well in the back and use them with a support as a method of remote healing. Someday I'll come up with a good build order that incorporates Martyrs, someday... If you do use Martyrs, Goblins or Halflings are usually the safest bet as they have decent ranged attacks when they're not being used purely as cheap HP batteries. Exalted Martyrs is still as far I can tell an entirely useless tech that isn't available until after you've already unlocked the ability to produce Exalted. Unless you just happen to have a pile of gold martyrs sitting around I can't imagine ever researching this. Crusaders The best unit Theocrats have. Seriously the best. Crusaders are incredible Tier 2 infantry with a good statline, Willpower, Holy Champion, and Defender. Crusaders are basically immovable objects on the battlefield, as long as you keep them in defense mode nothing will harm them too much. Their base damage might not be incredible but with Mark of the Heretic, Mighty Meek, and all the other amazing buffs Theocrats can throw around it's not a problem. Crusaders are so good you can use them the entire game, and for me the Theocrat offense doesn't begin until you're able to build at least a few of them. Use them to screen your powerful supports, or move them aggressively toward enemy ranged units while holding defense. Evangelists A very handy Tier 3 support you will probably not build huge numbers of, but very good all the same. Convert is an incredibly good unit stealing ability that works at range, and Touch of Faith can and should be spammed to boost resist and morale for key units. They can also heal and pack a decent melee punch, the only real weakness of Evangelists is working them into your formation. They're too vulnerable to put on the frontline, which means they won't be directly attacking in most situations. Exalted Some people bitch about Exalted being weak, but they're crazy. Exalted are hard-hitting Flyers with resurgence, allowing you to carelessly kamikaze them over and over again and just have them literally come back stronger each time as they continue gaining medals. They have low HPs for a Tier 3 but it honestly doesn't matter because keeping them alive isn't even a thing you try to do. They get inflict Daze at vet, allowing them to sometimes disable targets from attacking or retaliating entirely, allowing your Exalted to just beat the poo poo out of them risk-free. Following the same trend, Stunning Touch at gold makes them even better at disabling them swarming a key target. It's especially useful against machines which are otherwise a real PITA for Theocrat to deal with. You can even create free-roaming stacks of Exalted to maximize their strategic mobility, aggressively creeping and taking out smaller targets with no risk of attrition. If you want late game muscle, build Shocktroopers or Firstborn (Or Crusaders) instead. If you need a way to deal with walls and enemy ranged units, Exalted are your best friends for life. They also do dual-channel damage which is not a big deal at first but in combination with Theocrat endgame spells, well...things get a bit silly. Prayer for the Hurt, btw goes some an "eh" spell to a crucial one to have up once you start spamming Exalted. It makes a big difference in helping them bounce back quickly. Shrine of Smiting Holy Laser in at box is a beautiful thing, it really is. You can't mass them at all but you don't really need to, with full stacks of devout units powering them up and Seeker cast on them whenever possible sniping Tier 4 units behind walls becomes a reality. Also don't overlook their one-shot AoE ability. It leaves devout units untouched so you can freely spam it in large engagements as long as you don't group your shrines together. The Shrine itself is not devout, so you should never have more then one of them per stack anyways. They also don't heal, so consider bringing some Master Builders along to do field repairs as needed, or a Dread hero if you're lucky enough to get one. Whew, ok this is getting long. Lets do spells while I can still type. Combat Spells Blessing of Health A really useful Battlefield spell. What, worried that your Exalted and Tier 2 units are getting too squishy to keep up? +10 HP for everyone! A core Theocrat spell along with a few others. Divine Protection Probably you have better things to do with your turn then buff one unit, but still +6 resist is a lot. Especially nice on Storm Troopers. Instant Wrath Damage Reflection is always a fun game. Works especially well with Crusaders, or any unit you want to protect from ranged attacks. Mighty Meek +3 damage/tier difference. This spell is custom-made for Crusaders but it's handy to have in general since you won't generally be spamming high-tier units as a Theocrat. Need a powerful hero or Tier 4 to die immediately? It's not a problem, trust me. Power of the Word Mass immobilization. Kinda situational, but cheap to throw out just to annoy people. Theocrat spells generally have very low CP costs, which is fantastic for the long grindy battles of attrition they tend to get into. Purifying Burst Cleanses all buffs and debuffs on both sides of the aisle. Now this one is a double-edged sword, especially as no one uses more buffs then you do, but it's a fantastic get out of jail free card in desperate situations for the guaranteed dispel. Rebirth Just, y'know, in case you get into a fight and realize you're short on resurgence somehow. Slayers Doubt -800 morale, seriously. This falls into low-level nothing better to do territory, but against a really happy Halfling, maybe... Smite Now that's the stuff. My favorite nuke. Even on failure, 15 damage for 12 mana is a respectable spell, and on success it gets ridiculous fast. Easy to cast over and over. Holy War +10 Spirit Damage for everyone. Ahahahahaha. This is an incredible buff on it's own merits, but combo it for Armageddon and well, you have Armageddon and Holy War, you've already won the game. Global Spells While the Theocrat has amazing combat spells, the Globals are much more of a mixed bag. Beacon of Faith Technically this is balanced with the Druid Growth spell, which provides double the pop bonus for double the upkeep. Still, +100 pop/turn is not terribly exciting. I always forget to even cast this thing but it is good for captured outposts and what not. Mark of the Heretic/Denounce City Two sides of the same coin, and you want Mark of the Heretic at least ASAP. The heretic debuff can't be removed and lasts five turns, there's no reason to hold back with spreading it around on any enemy stacks you come across. Hallowed Domain I mean, well if you really need to defend a particular city I guess this is a thing that could help, but it's easily one of the worst defensive enchantments. Paid Absolution The +10 gold is very useful and this is literally your only income boosting spell, but for 20 upkeep it's difficult to spread this around too much. Prayer for the Hurt Not terribly useful early when you've got stacks full of healing supports, but good late in the game when you start transitioning more to Exalted and Shrines. Wrath of God Is actually possibly the best global attack spell because it combos with Armageddon. Throw in Destruction Mastery and this spell can get a bit silly. The Great Purge This spell is actually pretty great, except that as a Tier 6 spell you will have left creeping behind a long time ago by the time you have it. It's still good if your opponent is making heavy use of Dwellings or has Class Monster/Giant units, but yeah kinda niche. Undead Slayer will be useful against Necro at least. Armageddon Credit where credit is due, this spell is aptly named. A Theocrat with an army and Armageddon active almost can't lose. I mean seriously, this spell+ Holy War is almost +20 damage on your entire army. It is easily one of the most powerful Ultimate Spells in the game, and totally flips things around for Theocrat vs Dread. And I'm out of time. I'll throw up another quick post on specializations and race choices later. Really fast, lets see. Theocrat has good endgame spells already, I suggest taking specs with useful gap filling abilities. Air Adept for Seeker is fantastic for Shrines. Creation Adept is really good for the extra heal and some other small buffs. Wild Adept gives you Wild Elementals and some good debuffs. Destruction Master is oddly useful for Storm Magic though probably not worth it for shorter games. Any of the Elemental Masteries will give you a powerful late game summon which is something you don't have. Theocrat's class spells are so focused that almost any sphere adds something useful, honestly. Races Orcs Orcs are almost the perfect Theocrat race. Curse combos very well with Convert and Smite, Orc Crusaders are incredible, and Theocrat just benefits a lot in general from the powerful Orc melee units and bonuses while pretty much negating the resist penalty through class units and buffs. Draconian Draconian is worth considering for the unique ranged Evangelist alone, but as always a little Draconian goes well with any class. Dwarf Dwarf Theo is also great. No special units, just great racial bonuses and the Forgepriest/Firstborn slot perfectly into Theo armies. Human Human Priests are pretty nice, and Knights aren't bad. Perfectly acceptable. Goblins Blight Damage Martyrs are interesting, and Goblins let you really go all-in on getting the Holy Snowball rolling with pumping out hordes of cheap class units. Halflings Physical Weakness really hurts with the melee focused Theocrat, but they do get a lot of perks. Slingshot Martyrs, +10 HP Exalted, and minor bard skills Evangelist. If nothing else spamming touch of faith for the +400 or whatever morale gets silly really fast with Lucky Halflings. Brew Brothers are kinda useless as ranged backup, though. Elves Meh. Elves contribute nothing to the class, pretty much. Even Halflings is probably a better choice. madmac fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Nov 10, 2014 |
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Nov 10, 2014 14:35
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madmac posted:Mighty Meek +3 damage/tier difference. This spell is custom-made for Crusaders but it's handy to have in general since you won't generally be spamming high-tier units as a Theocrat. Need a powerful hero or Tier 4 to die immediately? It's not a problem, trust me. Actually, it was custom made for Buttercup Fairies  
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Nov 10, 2014 15:27
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Aw yeah Theocrat best class. Couple of points I'd like to add, thoughmadmac posted:Evangelists A very handy Tier 3 support you will probably not build huge numbers of, but very good all the same. Convert is an incredibly good unit stealing ability that works at range, and Touch of Faith can and should be spammed to boost resist and morale for key units. They can also heal and pack a decent melee punch, the only real weakness of Evangelists is working them into your formation. They're too vulnerable to put on the frontline, which means they won't be directly attacking in most situations. I think evangelists are tougher than you give them credit for. They won't stand up to most T3 melee units, but they get a big HP pool and they hit pretty hard. In a herostack, they could be doing triple-channel damage. madmac posted:Armageddon Credit where credit is due, this spell is aptly named. A Theocrat with an army and Armageddon active almost can't lose. I mean seriously, this spell+ Holy War is almost +20 damage on your entire army. It is easily one of the most powerful Ultimate Spells in the game, and totally flips things around for Theocrat vs Dread. Also worth noting that it gives Convert a 85-95% success rate against most units.  madmac posted:Goblins Blight Damage Martyrs are interesting, and Goblins let you really go all-in on getting the Holy Snowball rolling with pumping out hordes of cheap class units. Blight Doctors get Weaken, which lowers resistance and can't be resisted. Mighty Meek swarm darters are also a terror, especially at sniping heroes in sieges. Untouchables are another guaranteed -1 resistance, but only work if you're creeping or ambushing. madmac posted:Elves Meh. Elves contribute nothing to the class, pretty much. Even Halflings is probably a better choice. Well, they do have Shock Sisters, which is a something. A source of shock damage rounds out your troops a lot better than a source of blight, spirit or physical would, and I'd take a debuff support unit over a healing/buff unit, since theocrats already poo poo buffs and healing. I still wouldn't rank them over devout pony riders and luck-boosting evangelists, mind. Zulily Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Nov 10, 2014 |
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Nov 10, 2014 16:09
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Chiming in to second that gently caress yes Mighty Meek Swarm Darters are completely bonkers. +18 damage per tier difference on a T1 racial unit that ignores range and terrain penalties is monstrous. Even if they die the turn after you cast it on them, one round of attacks probably blew up something important and gets you a better damage/mana ratio than casting a conventional nuke. EDIT: on another note, what's the schtick for human racial T1s? They seem to be pretty generally mediocre, rather than having the defined strengths or outright gimmicks of of something like Orcs or Goblins. Civic Guard are particularly boring in being an irregular that doesn't have any interesting fringe benefits. I guess they'd be pretty cool on sea maps? Voyager I fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Nov 10, 2014 |
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Nov 10, 2014 21:59
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Lots of human units have unique things on level up, like net throwing or spirit damage or evolution. The mariner gimmick is pretty meaningless even on water maps just because transports never really have to worry about being attacked by naval units (they don't lose significant movement or sight range, so you can just avoid them). Cities can't be in the water, either, so you never need to worry about attacking or defending water stuff. Even with the golden realms addition of special city buildings the only extra thing you can get from the water is - wait for it - the ability to build more naval-only units.
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Nov 10, 2014 22:29
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victrix posted:I'd rather play AoW3, EL, or Warlock 2 than FE, by a huge, huge margin. Game was a desperate attempt to polish a turd, the other three are fun games. Pick up the right mods and it's hands down one of the most unique and flavorful/entertaining experiences out there in the modern RTS genre. Good lord did it take the actual game series a long time to get there though.
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Nov 10, 2014 22:51
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Archonex posted:Pick up the right mods and it's hands down one of the most unique and flavorful/entertaining experiences out there in the modern RTS genre. Please, go on. I do own the latest in the Elemental series and I'd take the time to fix it up. 
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Nov 10, 2014 23:00
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Thyrork posted:Please, go on. I do own the latest in the Elemental series and I'd take the time to fix it up. Pick up the Stormworld/Children of the Storm (Which ever is the most up to date one. I forget.) mod for one. Then grab the DLC packs that add new events and creatures. Then for kicks grab Black Market Bazaar to add like 500 more items on top of the insane mega mod that is the Storm mods. Then throw in whatever compatible mods you can get to work if you feel like it. You now have a ridiculously expansive and customizable game that can include up to like 35 races in a single game world, has a drat near uncountable number of items and races to it, with crazy events in a post apocalyptic fantasy world that wouldn't look out of place in Warhammer FB. I think I even accidentally hosed up and founded a cult of Slaanesh knockoff at one point. My neighbors founded a war god cult that worshipped skulls and blood too, which made things hilariously tense. Especially since they'd periodically force the entire world to go to war with each other. I tend to not be that crazy about strategy games any more. But i'll say that it's legitimately one of the most fun/funniest drat things i've played recently. I went on for like half an hour in a steam chat session way back about how one game I played had an AI empire of nazi gnomes slowly conquering the world and contesting my nation of undead via proxy wars in all the little warring nation states out east for resources. Just to recap the story: I couldn't figure out why everyone absolutely hated the little fuckers until they just zerg rushed the nation next to mine and set up an army there to prep for a war against me. Turns out they were as murderously expansionistic as I was. And I was pretty murderous in that game. Since hey, where the gently caress was I going to get more skeletons from? Cue a poo poo ton of proxy conflicts as we did our best Game of Thrones impersonation and burnt influence and men to try and deprive the other of smaller allied nations and resources. I ended up winning the cold war though. I forced them to back off by invading the realms of a bunch of living gods and killing them. At which point I harvested their flesh and bones to give to my heroes, empowering them into walking WMD's. I did this by having my national leader journey into their respective realms to literally order the aforementioned gods to die. Since hey, he was an obscenely powerful archmage of death, and that actually works in the game. The spell is actually called Power Word: Kill. Then I colonized the little hellholes the gods had made for themselves just because I could. Looking back, I basically ended up playing a bunch of hedonistic skeletons that walked around annihilating gods like they were on a safari hunt while prepping for a war against a bunch of murderous gnomes that were hellbent on conquering the world. With the modding community it has, that's actually a thing you can do in the game and it's positively amazing. Best part was that I even sold a goon on the game due to how crazy that round of play was. And that was despite the fact that they never even played it. 
Archonex fucked around with this message at 04:32 on Nov 11, 2014 |
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Nov 10, 2014 23:18
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That sounds absolutely magical! 
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Nov 11, 2014 01:02
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Apparently http://childrenofstorm.wikidot.com/ is the most up to date thing of it. I'm giving it a shot because it seems unlikely it would hurt Fallen Enchantress much to mod it...
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Nov 11, 2014 01:28
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So am I missing something, or is the Civic Guardsman's schtick just being the yardstick by which every other racial irregular does something cooler? I mean, poo poo, at least Prospectors can dig. Messing around a bit with Orcs made me develop an appreciation for Spearmen, since it turns out that the Orc racial bonuses along with their shields bring them a lot closer to being on par with ordinary T1 infantry in a standup fight and Sprint is an absolutely amazing ability on a unit who primarily exists to set up flanking opportunities. An irregular that can soak up a charge without folding, then push their "No, flank you!" button and setup a dunk for your own cavalry or whatever really does just kick a whole lot of rear end considering how much you pay for them. I guess that's your compensation for Razorbows apparently being a practical joke at their own expense?
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Nov 11, 2014 04:19
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Thyrork posted:That sounds absolutely magical! Other neat stuff since Stormworld/Children of the Storm is hilarious and hard to explain: Outside my empire, the gnomes, and this one slowly decaying empire of what I think were lizardmen lurking in a swamp bordering the eastern kingdoms, the rest of the world was this rear end backwards nightmare of small fiefdoms and what were basically villages and cities comprised of a single race each. Any time anyone would get stronger all the neighbors would declare on them and beat the poo poo out of them to take whatever land they had left undefended during a push. So no one out there had much tech unless they were cutthroat as hell. This was helped by the fact that I had set the game to epic and cranked the world's danger up. Which makes the game world into a nightmarish place where you earn the right to progress from what's basically a tribe, to a city, to an empire. And you can't build large armies until you research the tech. So it was basically a world of badass warriors going out and getting munched on by a house sized spider to try and save their civilization. And some of them actually managed to pacify their chunk of the world.  I remember that at one point I actually annexed a race of ice giants simply because they were sitting on resources I thought would help with the gnome menace. And by annex I mean "Took their land, butchered them, and enslaved their corpses to my evil overlord's will.". Said ice giants are built as a race to basically be one unit hero's for their army, instead of having masses of troops clashing into each other. Which meant they were literally a race of badasses surviving on their own in a very unfriendly place. So there was this race of ice giants from the Children of the Storm mod up in the mountains fighting off all sorts of hellish monsters pouring in from outside their valley. And they prospered in their own land despite all the backstabbing and politicking. Until one day a legion of undead showed up. The undead were decked out in heavy metal armor, had enchanted swords, and knew how to organize themselves on a regimental scale. The giants still had primitive wooden spears and leather armor at best while their heroes were decked out in whatever metal gear they scavenged from nearby ruins. Suffice to say that the undead earned a lot of new recruits that day. TL;DR: You can basically play the game as a maniacal supervillain hellbent on imperialistic conquest if you know what you're doing. It's amazingly effective and dark as hell. Especially when you realize that your job is usually to carve out a chunk of the world for yourself early on without regard to being buddies with your neighbors. The base game has so few races placed that the backstabbing tendencies of the AI and player are played way down. CotS fixes that if you add in every race. The way the game is just as much about surviving in a hostile world really gives it a neat theme. Though again, it took them a heck of a long time to get to that point. It's fairly different from AoW too. Which means that while it's good now it might not be everyone's speed. Archonex fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Nov 11, 2014 |
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Nov 11, 2014 04:47
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If anyone is looking for somewhat decent custom maps/scenarios try this one: http://aow.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=36,5783,,60 I've looked for other good custom maps but have yet to find ones of the caliber that AoW1/2/SM have. There was one that was advertised as an extra extra large map but that was just because it had huge swathes of uninteresting terrain (masses of forest, for instance) between any feature of note. This one at least seems to not do that and has some scripting. I've only played a few turns into it.
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Nov 11, 2014 10:12
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Voyager I posted:So am I missing something, or is the Civic Guardsman's schtick just being the yardstick by which every other racial irregular does something cooler? I mean, poo poo, at least Prospectors can dig. Messing around a bit with Orcs made me develop an appreciation for Spearmen, since it turns out that the Orc racial bonuses along with their shields bring them a lot closer to being on par with ordinary T1 infantry in a standup fight and Sprint is an absolutely amazing ability on a unit who primarily exists to set up flanking opportunities. An irregular that can soak up a charge without folding, then push their "No, flank you!" button and setup a dunk for your own cavalry or whatever really does just kick a whole lot of rear end considering how much you pay for them. I guess that's your compensation for Razorbows apparently being a practical joke at their own expense? Civic Guard have a small stat bonus baked in, but yes Civic Guard and Razorbows are the worst units of their respective types. Orc Spearmen are pretty rad. Actually every Orc unit besides the Razorbow is fantastic. For Humans, Halberds are a pretty cool Tier 1 unit. They get Polearm and Overwhelm, which basically obsoletes Longswordsmen. Their archers are also neat in that they get +Spirit Damage at gold.
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Nov 11, 2014 14:15
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Interesting bug I just discovered. I was attacked by a stack of independents including a pair of Nightmares. Both of them managed to kill themselves via retaliation attacks against a unit with Instant Wrath running. After I won the battle both of them were alive on an adjacent hex on the campaign map as if they had instead retreated, each at a sliver of health. Apparently there's some kind of broken interaction between their Lifesteal and Instant Karma. It looks like it triggers the return damage and kills them before their lifesteal is applied, but the health they get from lifesteal is still recorded somewhere so they will miraculously be restored to life after the battle. Regarding Orc T1s, Greatswords are obviously a standout and probably their iconic unit, but it seems like you wouldn't actually get many chances to use them. In the early game you're probably hard expanding and living off the units you get from clearing neutral camps, they aren't suitable for garrison duty, and the classes you'd generally pick Orcs for should have better core melee units available by the time you start gearing up for a proper army. Being offensively oriented makes them especially prone to obsolescence since they won't even serve especially well as buffer units compared to something like Dwarven Axemen. They're still objectively good units for what they are, it just seems like they won't see many moments of opportunity outside of a bleedingly fast-paced game or maybe as roster gap fillers if you pick up an Orc settlement as someone who lacks for beefy frontliners.
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Nov 11, 2014 17:12
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Yeah, offensive melee units suffer when higher tier stuff starts hitting the field compared to ranged units or melee that can survive a couple hits. At that point you want units that can force flanks, trading blows in a fair fight is a losing situation. Having racial and class unit tiers work differently like that often makes one or the other obsolete, which is weird in a game where you have little unit variety open to the player already. Sure, once you get rolling you could have a chance to get dwellings or other racial cities, but once you get to that point in the game you've already shown you can handle yourself with the units you have available anyway. I'm not sure why they work that way, what the design goal there was. In practice it ends up meaning that production focused classes don't use many racials outside of the very early game before they have their class units researched, which is always a first priority for production classes, or as cheap guards if they feel the need for defense without using class units. Racial archers are often the exception, since efficient ranged units are always useful. If a player managed to snag a racial tier 3 building from an auto build pickup or captured neutral city relatively early in the game those can be a big bonus, but that is really rare, usually players see those units through inn purchasing or dwelling quests. On a slow game setting racials see more use since the "early game" low tech era lasts longer. I wish the current mod tools would let me play with changing how units are made available, that might really be interesting.
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Nov 11, 2014 17:54
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madmac posted:For Humans, Halberds are a pretty cool Tier 1 unit. They get Polearm and Overwhelm, which basically obsoletes Longswordsmen. Their archers are also neat in that they get +Spirit Damage at gold. Also halberdiers are one of the only non-class T1 units that wear cloaks. So they're pretty baller.
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Nov 11, 2014 17:57
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Archonex posted:Other neat stuff since Stormworld/Children of the Storm is hilarious and hard to explain: This makes me wish more and more that someone (Paradox) would do a grand strategy with the theme of "Survive in a fantasy world out to murder you in different ways, with different solutions that will alter how the rest of the survivors will view you." ... Or that i could pitch the idea to someone. 
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Nov 11, 2014 18:09
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