I can't say that the Dread Reapers aren't missed, but the amount of content here is unbelievable. It'll probably be at least a week before I fully explored the trees of the included races / classes, much less figured out a which are my favorite & what build to use. I now completely understand why some of the races are coming in later installments.
I only wish i had a hot seat partner for this game.
An army with a level 17 Sorceror hero, 2 Elite Reed Serpents, 2 Elite Shock Serpents and an Elite Horned God so far has been able to handle...everygoddamnthing.
An army with a level 17 Sorceror hero, 2 Elite Reed Serpents, 2 Elite Shock Serpents and an Elite Horned God so far has been able to handle...everygoddamnthing.
So far my favorite was my Warlord, a Theocrat, 2 Red Dragons and 2 Gold Dragons.
EDIT - I just did the ultimate cheese, though. I had an enemy bunkered up with like 30 units in a town, so I went in with two heroes, Fire Halo'd both and dropped 2 Hellfires on the whole group. I had to pick off three survivors, but that wasn't that tough.
Just started playing this and was still in my Civ V thinking mode and moved my hero stack off capital city for one turn. Independent army immediately moved onto it and claimed it as I had assumed city could defend itself /facepalm.
The in-game help says that terrain can affect a whole host of factors, but it only gives details on movement costs. I've noticed that if I cut down trees, my cities will build dwellings there -- does that mean that it's promoting growth, or is that just a visual effect?
The in-game help says that terrain can affect a whole host of factors, but it only gives details on movement costs. I've noticed that if I cut down trees, my cities will build dwellings there -- does that mean that it's promoting growth, or is that just a visual effect?
There's a constriction factor on the first ring of your city. Every tile that's blocked removes a percentage of the +growth, but I didn't check to see if it's proportional.
My absolute favorite combat so far was my Level 12 Warlord walking into a four-stack city alone and walking out victorious. Just because I could, really.
The Tireless ability(exclusive to Warlords) gives you unlimited Retaliation/Opportunity attacks, and Steadfast Ward makes you immortal, as long as you have enough casting points to keep it up every 3 turns. You can also use the Rampage ability to make sure that you can kill things on your turn and still cast!
Note that you do not want to do this against any city that has priests with dispel or steal enchantment, and you want a Unicorn for Phase or a Flying mount so that you don't have to worry about the walls.
I only wish i had a hot seat partner for this game.
What kind of multiplayer does AoW3 have? Anything like email based hot seat?
There's Hot Seat, but no PbEM. Aside from that, there's both LAN and Internet based multiplayer (I think it's all P2P).
To be honest, I don't think the game will play very well in online mode, both due to turn downtime and the game's hilariously cheesy elements. I'm not sure what the most broken stuff in it right now is, but rest assured that the game isn't really balanced for a competitive environment.
I only wish i had a hot seat partner for this game.
What kind of multiplayer does AoW3 have? Anything like email based hot seat?
There's Hot Seat, but no PbEM. Aside from that, there's both LAN and Internet based multiplayer (I think it's all P2P).
To be honest, I don't think the game will play very well in online mode, both due to turn downtime and the game's hilariously cheesy elements. I'm not sure what the most broken stuff in it right now is, but rest assured that the game isn't really balanced for a competitive environment.
More interested in co-op comp stomps anyhow. See how many AIs me and a buddy can take.
The big problem with multiplayer right now is that nobody can do anything while you resolve a combat, and that can take a while. It's pretty surprising that they don't have a PBEM option.
I think you can do ghetto-style PbEM with the current game, where you just copy the save file for a Hotseat game and everyone just passes around the save file.
Does the Archdruid class feel a bit underpowered to anyone else? It takes a pretty long time for you to research your Summon branch, and while the Hunters are terrific little T1 archers, the 'Summon Animal' powers are a mixed bag at best: the birds are just a waste of time / mana, for example, and the Reed / Shock serpents are good, but hardly make up for having 25%~ chance to totally flub and blow 120~ mana on a vulture.
Their ability to siege a walled city feels a bit dubious too; you just don't get that many wall crushers and no class-specific artillery.
How have other people been using the Archdruid? I feel like I'm missing something.
Does the Archdruid class feel a bit underpowered to anyone else? It takes a pretty long time for you to research your Summon branch, and while the Hunters are terrific little T1 archers, the 'Summon Animal' powers are a mixed bag at best: the birds are just a waste of time / mana, for example, and the Reed / Shock serpents are good, but hardly make up for having 25%~ chance to totally flub and blow 120~ mana on a vulture.
Their ability to siege a walled city feels a bit dubious too; you just don't get that many wall crushers and no class-specific artillery.
How have other people been using the Archdruid? I feel like I'm missing something.
I've been playing a Goblin Archdruid, but I'm not that far into the game. Honestly I've been mostly riding my Big Beetle cavalry to victory instead of relying on my druidic powers.
You can get an army full of the tier 5 summon monsters by turn 20 as archdruid if you just rush research (which is what you should be doing) and just totally overpower the computer. Summoning good units is SO much better than making them at a town, leaving me to wonder if sorcerer and archdruid are just the best classes because of such. The theocrat ultimate guy is kind of mediocre, but he does rank up well. Horned Gods are extraordinarily resilient and they are basically immune to low level dorks.
Horned Gods with their splash lightning attack is awesome. I was using a gang of them + resurgence (I think that's the one - resets cooldown) to obliterate epic level dungeons in one turn. AoE damage seems fairly hard to come by and the Horned God one also has a decent chance to stunlock the enemy!
Stupid question: how do I build new towns? I build some kind of builder unit, but it only has options for roads, some kind of defensive structure and a watchtower.
Stupid question: how do I build new towns? I build some kind of builder unit, but it only has options for roads, some kind of defensive structure and a watchtower.
Stupid question: how do I build new towns? I build some kind of builder unit, but it only has options for roads, some kind of defensive structure and a watchtower.
The UI for settlers is actually horrible, it took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on.
When your settler has movement left, click on the big light blue button directly underneath him in the army tab at the top. A 'settle city' option should automatically select, but then you have to actually bring your cursor back onto the map and left-click where you want the city. The same thing goes with making outposts off builders.
More questions: How to defend my territory? I'm not fundamentally getting how I'm suppose to secure my borders: the enemy can just go wherever they want since the maps don't have chokepoints or terrain that blocks movement. My cities don't seem to have any innate defenses apart from whatever army I park in them (do I have to have an army for each of my cities just to defend them?) and builders can't seem to build any towers that attack the enemy or the like. I get how Fallen Enchantress, Civ and Warlock work in terms of keeping you zones under control and restricting access through special buildings and placing your cities in a specific way, but this game is perplexing me.
More questions: How to defend my territory? I'm not fundamentally getting how I'm suppose to secure my borders: the enemy can just go wherever they want since the maps don't have chokepoints or terrain that blocks movement. My cities don't seem to have any innate defenses apart from whatever army I park in them (do I have to have an army for each of my cities just to defend them?) and builders can't seem to build any towers that attack the enemy or the like. I get how Fallen Enchantress, Civ and Warlock work in terms of keeping you zones under control and restricting access through special buildings and placing your cities in a specific way, but this game is perplexing me.
You need to garrison each city, with troops. Alternately: Diplomacy. Isn't that how you protect any city in a 4X game?
More questions: How to defend my territory? I'm not fundamentally getting how I'm suppose to secure my borders: the enemy can just go wherever they want since the maps don't have chokepoints or terrain that blocks movement. My cities don't seem to have any innate defenses apart from whatever army I park in them (do I have to have an army for each of my cities just to defend them?) and builders can't seem to build any towers that attack the enemy or the like. I get how Fallen Enchantress, Civ and Warlock work in terms of keeping you zones under control and restricting access through special buildings and placing your cities in a specific way, but this game is perplexing me.
You need to garrison each city, with troops. Alternately: Diplomacy. Isn't that how you protect any city in a 4X game?
Nah. The games I mentioned have more options in that regard. AoW3 is gonna take some getting used to.
More questions: How to defend my territory? I'm not fundamentally getting how I'm suppose to secure my borders: the enemy can just go wherever they want since the maps don't have chokepoints or terrain that blocks movement. My cities don't seem to have any innate defenses apart from whatever army I park in them (do I have to have an army for each of my cities just to defend them?) and builders can't seem to build any towers that attack the enemy or the like. I get how Fallen Enchantress, Civ and Warlock work in terms of keeping you zones under control and restricting access through special buildings and placing your cities in a specific way, but this game is perplexing me.
You need to garrison each city, with troops. Alternately: Diplomacy. Isn't that how you protect any city in a 4X game?
Nah. The games I mentioned have more options in that regard. AoW3 is gonna take some getting used to.
I haven't played enough AoW3, but one of my tricks from previous games of this sort is to put one unit in each city and then rely on magic to give them the necessary edge to survive basic invasions. In older games I would rely a lot on unit summoning spells to defend poorly-defended regions.
Another trick is to have one full stack for each region and make sure all cities are connected by roads. When an enemy force makes an incursion, you quickly roll your regional stack into the threatened city to man the walls.
More questions: How to defend my territory? I'm not fundamentally getting how I'm suppose to secure my borders: the enemy can just go wherever they want since the maps don't have chokepoints or terrain that blocks movement. My cities don't seem to have any innate defenses apart from whatever army I park in them (do I have to have an army for each of my cities just to defend them?) and builders can't seem to build any towers that attack the enemy or the like. I get how Fallen Enchantress, Civ and Warlock work in terms of keeping you zones under control and restricting access through special buildings and placing your cities in a specific way, but this game is perplexing me.
You need to garrison each city, with troops. Alternately: Diplomacy. Isn't that how you protect any city in a 4X game?
Nah. The games I mentioned have more options in that regard. AoW3 is gonna take some getting used to.
I haven't played enough AoW3, but one of my tricks from previous games of this sort is to put one unit in each city and then rely on magic to give them the necessary edge to survive basic invasions. In older games I would rely a lot on unit summoning spells to defend poorly-defended regions.
Another trick is to have one full stack for each region and make sure all cities are connected by roads. When an enemy force makes an incursion, you quickly roll your regional stack into the threatened city to man the walls.
Sounds like a plan. Which there was a spell that gives permanent vision of an area.
You can get an army full of the tier 5 summon monsters by turn 20 as archdruid if you just rush research (which is what you should be doing) and just totally overpower the computer. Summoning good units is SO much better than making them at a town, leaving me to wonder if sorcerer and archdruid are just the best classes because of such. The theocrat ultimate guy is kind of mediocre, but he does rank up well. Horned Gods are extraordinarily resilient and they are basically immune to low level dorks.
And as far as city sieges, there's an Archdruid combat spell called Vengeful Vines that damage all structures each turn. Soon, no walls!
Archdruids are really good, if you can get a High Elf City, the High Elf Hunters have the racial Elven Longbow ability, which means no penalties for range. Absolutely deadly for how cheap they are. The Shamans also have Entangling Touch, making them almost as good as Storm Sisters(although Blight resistance is more common than lightning resistance, so their ranged attack isn't quite as good.)
When attacking cities, one cast of Vengeful Vines will obliterate the walls while you stand at range(it does take a few turns to finish blowing up the walls), and then you can move in and fight as you please, without any need for siege or flyers.
And really, the Horned God is an amazing unit. The lightning AoE splash attack is incredibly potent for everything. EVERYTHING.
More questions: How to defend my territory? I'm not fundamentally getting how I'm suppose to secure my borders: the enemy can just go wherever they want since the maps don't have chokepoints or terrain that blocks movement. My cities don't seem to have any innate defenses apart from whatever army I park in them (do I have to have an army for each of my cities just to defend them?) and builders can't seem to build any towers that attack the enemy or the like. I get how Fallen Enchantress, Civ and Warlock work in terms of keeping you zones under control and restricting access through special buildings and placing your cities in a specific way, but this game is perplexing me.
You need to garrison each city, with troops. Alternately: Diplomacy. Isn't that how you protect any city in a 4X game?
Nah. The games I mentioned have more options in that regard. AoW3 is gonna take some getting used to.
I haven't played enough AoW3, but one of my tricks from previous games of this sort is to put one unit in each city and then rely on magic to give them the necessary edge to survive basic invasions. In older games I would rely a lot on unit summoning spells to defend poorly-defended regions.
Another trick is to have one full stack for each region and make sure all cities are connected by roads. When an enemy force makes an incursion, you quickly roll your regional stack into the threatened city to man the walls.
Sounds like a plan. Which there was a spell that gives permanent vision of an area.
You can build watchtowers now with builder units, can set those up to cover any dark spots you may have between or outside the range of your cities. I leave some ranged units in every town and either have a couple swordsmen to block the doors or have a centrally located fast moving flyer/cavalry squad that can get to the threatened city in time to bolster defense. I've been drowning in mana in this game, so having large amounts of summoned units used for garrison might be a good solution too. It'll protect against independents and AI scouting or half-assed attacks, but you'll naturally have to move some big guns in if they get serious and come in force.
So. After x restarts and whatnot, I finally settled on a High Elf Druid. The start was a bit rocky, and then I discovered Trebuchetes. Oh boy did I ever.
Pew pew pew and suddenly I have a handful of broken siege weapons with max veterancy.
I just hit the end tier for Archdruid and closed out my 2nd victory.
Oh my God, the Vengeful Vines are so beautfiul!
And the Global Enchantment is fucking epic! Green ghost horses go charging across the screen!
More questions: How to defend my territory? I'm not fundamentally getting how I'm suppose to secure my borders: the enemy can just go wherever they want since the maps don't have chokepoints or terrain that blocks movement. My cities don't seem to have any innate defenses apart from whatever army I park in them (do I have to have an army for each of my cities just to defend them?) and builders can't seem to build any towers that attack the enemy or the like. I get how Fallen Enchantress, Civ and Warlock work in terms of keeping you zones under control and restricting access through special buildings and placing your cities in a specific way, but this game is perplexing me.
Leave about 3-4 cheap ranged units in a city, with walls. That will stop just about any inexpensive harassment units from taking your city.
If an opponent shows-up with a full siege & ready to party, you just need to maneuver your main army in to counter-attack it.
Archdruids are really good, if you can get a High Elf City, the High Elf Hunters have the racial Elven Longbow ability, which means no penalties for range. Absolutely deadly for how cheap they are. The Shamans also have Entangling Touch, making them almost as good as Storm Sisters(although Blight resistance is more common than lightning resistance, so their ranged attack isn't quite as good.)
When attacking cities, one cast of Vengeful Vines will obliterate the walls while you stand at range(it does take a few turns to finish blowing up the walls), and then you can move in and fight as you please, without any need for siege or flyers.
And really, the Horned God is an amazing unit. The lightning AoE splash attack is incredibly potent for everything. EVERYTHING.
Speaking of no penalties for range, are the Goblin Swarm Darters supposed to work like that? They also get no penalty for line of sight, so you don't even have to care about walls or other obstacles. The fact that they do blight damage is a bit of a negative but they are still crazy good at sieges considering that they're Tier 1 and ultra-cheap.
Yup, the Swarm Darters are supposed to work like that. They use homing mosquitoes, according to the lore.
So then follow up question: why play anything but Goblins?
Blight Resistance is really common, for one thing.
And Goblins make a good zerg with their cheaper units, but you're limited by city production per turn. The real cheese is probably the Trebuchet right now.
Yup, the Swarm Darters are supposed to work like that. They use homing mosquitoes, according to the lore.
So then follow up question: why play anything but Goblins?
Their good cavalry doesn't arrive until they develop their Tier 3 infrastructure for the Big Beetle, which hurts their ability charge & tie-up opposing support / caster / artillery units. Darters are great against conventional forces, but fall-off in damage potential as opponents get Blight resistance (which is extremely common) and have T1 hit points, making them extremely vulnerable to nukes.
I'd say Goblins are good for anyone who enjoys long-range combat with squishy units. You'd pick a different race if you wanted, say, a heavy duty front line that can absorb a lot of punishment / eat charges (humans & dwarves) or a charge-oriented high offense army (orcs & draconians).
Yup, the Swarm Darters are supposed to work like that. They use homing mosquitoes, according to the lore.
So then follow up question: why play anything but Goblins?
Their good cavalry doesn't arrive until they develop their Tier 3 infrastructure for the Big Beetle, which hurts their ability charge & tie-up opposing support / caster / artillery units. Darters are great against conventional forces, but fall-off in damage potential as opponents get Blight resistance (which is extremely common) and have T1 hit points, making them extremely vulnerable to nukes.
I'd say Goblins are good for anyone who enjoys long-range combat with squishy units. You'd pick a different race if you wanted, say, a heavy duty front line that can absorb a lot of punishment / eat charges (humans & dwarves) or a charge-oriented high offense army (orcs & draconians).
I think though by the time anyone gets around to units that effectively handle Darters you should have access to several different races and your class stuff to plug the gaps. In the meantime you get a T1 unit requiring no infrastructure that actually has an impact on the game in the small window where you only have the one set of racial units and few if any class ones.
Posts
I only wish i had a hot seat partner for this game.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
So far my favorite was my Warlord, a Theocrat, 2 Red Dragons and 2 Gold Dragons.
EDIT - I just did the ultimate cheese, though. I had an enemy bunkered up with like 30 units in a town, so I went in with two heroes, Fire Halo'd both and dropped 2 Hellfires on the whole group. I had to pick off three survivors, but that wasn't that tough.
There's a constriction factor on the first ring of your city. Every tile that's blocked removes a percentage of the +growth, but I didn't check to see if it's proportional.
The Tireless ability(exclusive to Warlords) gives you unlimited Retaliation/Opportunity attacks, and Steadfast Ward makes you immortal, as long as you have enough casting points to keep it up every 3 turns. You can also use the Rampage ability to make sure that you can kill things on your turn and still cast!
Note that you do not want to do this against any city that has priests with dispel or steal enchantment, and you want a Unicorn for Phase or a Flying mount so that you don't have to worry about the walls.
There's Hot Seat, but no PbEM. Aside from that, there's both LAN and Internet based multiplayer (I think it's all P2P).
To be honest, I don't think the game will play very well in online mode, both due to turn downtime and the game's hilariously cheesy elements. I'm not sure what the most broken stuff in it right now is, but rest assured that the game isn't really balanced for a competitive environment.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
Haven't tried it, though.
Their ability to siege a walled city feels a bit dubious too; you just don't get that many wall crushers and no class-specific artillery.
How have other people been using the Archdruid? I feel like I'm missing something.
I've been playing a Goblin Archdruid, but I'm not that far into the game. Honestly I've been mostly riding my Big Beetle cavalry to victory instead of relying on my druidic powers.
The down side being if you fight anyone with anti-summoning abilitys or magic...
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
The UI for settlers is actually horrible, it took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on.
When your settler has movement left, click on the big light blue button directly underneath him in the army tab at the top. A 'settle city' option should automatically select, but then you have to actually bring your cursor back onto the map and left-click where you want the city. The same thing goes with making outposts off builders.
Hope this helps!
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
You need to garrison each city, with troops. Alternately: Diplomacy. Isn't that how you protect any city in a 4X game?
Nah. The games I mentioned have more options in that regard. AoW3 is gonna take some getting used to.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
I haven't played enough AoW3, but one of my tricks from previous games of this sort is to put one unit in each city and then rely on magic to give them the necessary edge to survive basic invasions. In older games I would rely a lot on unit summoning spells to defend poorly-defended regions.
Another trick is to have one full stack for each region and make sure all cities are connected by roads. When an enemy force makes an incursion, you quickly roll your regional stack into the threatened city to man the walls.
Sounds like a plan. Which there was a spell that gives permanent vision of an area.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
And as far as city sieges, there's an Archdruid combat spell called Vengeful Vines that damage all structures each turn. Soon, no walls!
When attacking cities, one cast of Vengeful Vines will obliterate the walls while you stand at range(it does take a few turns to finish blowing up the walls), and then you can move in and fight as you please, without any need for siege or flyers.
And really, the Horned God is an amazing unit. The lightning AoE splash attack is incredibly potent for everything. EVERYTHING.
You can build watchtowers now with builder units, can set those up to cover any dark spots you may have between or outside the range of your cities. I leave some ranged units in every town and either have a couple swordsmen to block the doors or have a centrally located fast moving flyer/cavalry squad that can get to the threatened city in time to bolster defense. I've been drowning in mana in this game, so having large amounts of summoned units used for garrison might be a good solution too. It'll protect against independents and AI scouting or half-assed attacks, but you'll naturally have to move some big guns in if they get serious and come in force.
Pew pew pew and suddenly I have a handful of broken siege weapons with max veterancy.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
Oh my God, the Vengeful Vines are so beautfiul!
And the Global Enchantment is fucking epic! Green ghost horses go charging across the screen!
Leave about 3-4 cheap ranged units in a city, with walls. That will stop just about any inexpensive harassment units from taking your city.
If an opponent shows-up with a full siege & ready to party, you just need to maneuver your main army in to counter-attack it.
Speaking of no penalties for range, are the Goblin Swarm Darters supposed to work like that? They also get no penalty for line of sight, so you don't even have to care about walls or other obstacles. The fact that they do blight damage is a bit of a negative but they are still crazy good at sieges considering that they're Tier 1 and ultra-cheap.
So then follow up question: why play anything but Goblins?
Blight Resistance is really common, for one thing.
And Goblins make a good zerg with their cheaper units, but you're limited by city production per turn. The real cheese is probably the Trebuchet right now.
Their good cavalry doesn't arrive until they develop their Tier 3 infrastructure for the Big Beetle, which hurts their ability charge & tie-up opposing support / caster / artillery units. Darters are great against conventional forces, but fall-off in damage potential as opponents get Blight resistance (which is extremely common) and have T1 hit points, making them extremely vulnerable to nukes.
I'd say Goblins are good for anyone who enjoys long-range combat with squishy units. You'd pick a different race if you wanted, say, a heavy duty front line that can absorb a lot of punishment / eat charges (humans & dwarves) or a charge-oriented high offense army (orcs & draconians).
I think though by the time anyone gets around to units that effectively handle Darters you should have access to several different races and your class stuff to plug the gaps. In the meantime you get a T1 unit requiring no infrastructure that actually has an impact on the game in the small window where you only have the one set of racial units and few if any class ones.