#Tier 4 too strong. Doom stacks syndrom.

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

royal swan
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haha

gaunt mason
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damn... what if units become obsolete as the game progresses.......

vapid prairie
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i dunno about you, but that fire giant in that modified build used for the vid seemed a little underpowered

native fractal
vapid prairie
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yep

empty spire
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Gotta admit it was definitely on my mind when they started that battle.

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But Jordi confirmed T4 doom stacks will never be a problem.

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Because T5 units are a thing that exists.

wild cloak
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okay so

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what's to prevent the problem of T5 doomstacks

gaunt mason
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a lone prayer in this cruel world

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high tier spam theoretically isn't an issue if the higher tiers of units are, like, interesting and diverse

unique gust
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Isn't top unit doomstacks just part of the strategy though. Like you want to stop your opponent from snowballing that hard and If you don't you've already lost

gaunt mason
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if it's hard to get to, yes

wild cloak
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It works fine in like, SupCom, because T3 isn't a unit in SupCom, it's a, y'know, tier.

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A whole spread of Stuff.

vapid prairie
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T4 unit spam was mostly curbed in Planetfall by giving them an even more prohibitively high cosmite cost than T3 units (especially when modded) and adding cosmite upkeep on top of that

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I wonder what they will do to mitigate T4 and T5+ doomstacking in this game and keep lower tier units relevant

wild cloak
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Yeah it's clearly a problem they're aware of

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Just gonna be interesting seeing what the solution is this time.

scenic saffron
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I agree this is a problem. There are a few solutions that pop up in my mind.

  1. (and the best one imo) Make T4/high tier units situational and niche or have unique battle roles that isn't pure damage and hp, kind of like the altar from priests in AoW3.
  2. Set a global cap on T4s. Pretty self explanatory, but it's a bit hackneyed and inelegant.
  3. Make them prohibitively expensive à la PF or, to an extent, Gladius. This is one of the worse solutions because you almost never see them being played unless the game goes on super long.
  4. Don't have high tier units ;d
  5. Don't have huge stat differences between tiers.
sturdy haven
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I would argue that having most of the units be relevant through the entire game allows the player to make more meaningful choices in the late-game when deciding what to build, instead of being forced to use a small selection of T4-T5 units relevant to their build.

wild cloak
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Yeah I don't think anybody here disagrees with that

gaunt mason
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correct but it is not necessarily the only valid path

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you can make a good game where units become obsolete even if i think this would be generally the better design

wild cloak
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Yeah

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So long as obseleting some units doesn't leave the roster thin enough to be samey and dull, it's kinda fine?

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Again, SupCom is my comparison here. Once you hit T3, T2 and T1 stuff is largely irrelevant, but T3 is whole array of stuff that you can play a reasonably varied game with anyway.

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It's just that AoW unit rosters tend to be pretty small

scenic saffron
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there's really no reason for any unit to become obsolete imo

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why would you want that, even theoretically?

crisp skiff
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Doom stack syndrom
Never was a case in PF and in AOW3.
I really hope T4 and T5 units are actually worth of being called doomstacks, because in PF only like 1 or 2 T4 are worth talking about.
And there is absolutely no problem with "doomstacks". Its a unit you build in super late game and nothing is wrong about it being super strong. Are you actually excepting to stay relevant on turn 40 with just T1 and T2 units?

scenic saffron
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one of the main criticisms of AoW3 has always been that the best strategy is beelining towards T4 units, lol

crisp skiff
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I dont remember having to rely on t4 in AWO3 at all or even building them, always ended my games with t3. I mean sure, you'll face stacks of flying holy boxes if you purposely stall the game

scenic saffron
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play against another player who knows what they are doing would be my advice

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or maybe even a higher difficulty setting against the AI

gaunt mason
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t4 spam was one of the leading problems with aow3 lol

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so heavily complained about

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they went waaaaaay out fo their way to prevent that from happening again in pf

scenic saffron
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yes ;d

crisp skiff
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Too bad im old and dont remember how it was back there 7 years ago when i was playing aow 3

gaunt mason
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in mp especially, god those games were annoying. that was half settlerspam's fault though tbf

crisp skiff
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but in PF T4 are laughable

scenic saffron
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that's kind of on purpose

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they might've slightly overcorrected there ;d

gaunt mason
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they did indeed change unit design and included additional limiting measures (cosmite upkeep) to stop pf t4se from having the same issue

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instead: pf is all about the t3 spam now

crisp skiff
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Cosmite has nothing to do with it

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instead of t4 you can get 2 t3

gaunt mason
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uh huh...

crisp skiff
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and those 2t3 will have more impact on the battle than one t4

gaunt mason
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damn it's like they used cost as a limiting factor

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i don't think that's true for many t4s

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i'd definitely rather have a reaver or a harbringer than pretty much any t3

crisp skiff
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ok, assembly and kirko t4 are good as support, but assembly were already strongest race in the game to begin with

gaunt mason
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that's not really relevant to the scope of this discussion but ok

crisp skiff
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its relevant cuz I hope we wont see same T5 as we did with T4 in PF

gaunt mason
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point being PF t4s were designed as support units so you only need 1 or 2 of them to make a big impact and got diminishing returns on spamming them. vs aow3's t4 design of "mobile and hits hard and tanky"

crisp skiff
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giant already seemed really week

gaunt mason
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much better than the eternal aow3 manticores vs eldritch horrors wars

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so sick of seeing those units even today, just every single time i agreed to play with dread's community that's all every single game was

sturdy haven
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Cosmite mods being cheaper to use on T1 units kinda kept them more relevant than T1 of AoW 3.

gaunt mason
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t1 of aow3 were a joke. you used the ones you started with and building more was just throwing gold in the dumpster

sturdy haven
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Since IV part lacks unit mods, I wonder how are they going to keep T1 relevant.

gaunt mason
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i got a goblin engineer rush strat i was pretty happy with but like you had to do so much work to get t1 units worthwhile

sturdy haven
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I suppose a lot of enchants could simply affect only your basic troops.

crisp skiff
gaunt mason
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oh wow shadow stalkers lmao

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much better

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at least necro players had like diversity of units

crisp skiff
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no! you cant play with units you want while i build my t2!

wild cloak
sturdy haven
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Sense of progression can be implemented by applying "upgrades" to units players already have access to.

wild cloak
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It can be, but entirely new units lets you make more radical changes for a bigger sense of change.

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It's not a formula that works for a series like AoW, which tends to have a fairly small unit roster, but it's not inherently invalid.

pure shoal
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my guess is that t5 doomstacks are basically a soft victory condition

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if a player reaches a point where they can mass-produce fantasy Metal Gears, they've basically won

scenic saffron
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that's what we want to avoid ;d

pure shoal
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so the idea would be to stop them or beat them to it

scenic saffron
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that incentivizes turtling and 0 conflict until that point

pure shoal
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so does diplomatic victory

scenic saffron
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you don't want i-win-buttons in battles ;d

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you can deactivate diplomatic victories

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and diplomatic victories hinge on the fact that all players want to play like that ;d

pure shoal
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I guess part of the issue is that peace is OP in real life 😛

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perhaps t5 units simply all need some sort of weakness built into them

scenic saffron
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perhaps they need not exist

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at this point, it's probably way too late to make sweeping changes for release

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so we just have to wait and see how the game actually plays and then complain to high heaven so the game gets the AoW3 treatment ;d

empty spire
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Pretty sure this thread was opened as a meme.

scenic saffron
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sometimes even memes have a point ;d

vapid prairie
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T5+ units could be made prohibitively expensive and/or impractical to acquire in huge numbers like it was for Planetfall's T4s maybe

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maybe make them actually require Imperium to produce/summon and even have a bit of an Imperium upkeep?

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like you need to keep the political clout and support to justify maintaining such huge, expensive and awe-inspiring weapons of terror

gaunt mason
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does it remain a victory condition? or does the game maybe continue to play out only there's just one unit being used (the highest tier unit available to each player)?

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how do you solve that problem, because that is not an uncommon scenario

sudden gulch
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Planetfall triple nerfed T4s (7/9 Buildable ones were Support units instead of attacksers, 40 Cosmite meant you could have a fully modded T2/T3 or a STOCK T4 / Their Base HP averaged 72 (so only 20% increase over a T3 isntead of 60% like in AOW3)

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I think making them into support type units and HP nerf were great ideas and felt nice

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it did feel a little weird that NPC Dwelling T4s actually did work offensively (Apex, Eater of Dead, Network Controller)

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But yeah I had fun with Planetfall MP, while AOW3 MP was often miserable

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For 2v2 Autobattle live games they teach you how to get your tier 4 research by Turn 35 minimum

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the only reason not to stick to the plan is if you get enough freebies from dungeon/sunken city to take over a dwelling T4 and rush build it early

crisp skiff
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Really hope devs wont listen to opinions in this forum and move with their own vision of T4 and T5. Literally nothing is known about them except for weak giant, but screams full of "BALANCE OR REMOVE LATEGAME UNITS" can already be heard.
T4 are dead in PF, everyone just builds T3 turn 17~20, and only 2 races of them all build T4, assembly 2 and kirko 1. That's it.
In AOW3 its your own fault, playing duels on mid or large and then crying why everyone is building T4! Maybe you should have done smth to prevent this instead of stalling the game for 30+ turns? Small map? If you love your t1-2-3 units so much maybe you should build them and attack?
No, T5 is pinnacle of race army power and it and should be respected. Its your own fault for letting your enemy get stacks of such units.

gaunt mason
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you'd need a pretty small map in aow3 to get away from t4 spam. settler spam is a nightmare of economic growth

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but generally agreed. it's important to see what the game actually is before drawing too many balance conclusions.

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it's still worth discussing previous games' interactions with this issue and where aow4 might land though. idk.

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perhaps amid the constant ebb and flow of "we should talk about this" and "we should not talk about this" interesting and useful conversations can be had when balance is maintained

vapid prairie
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hopefully 4 can find a good enough medium between 3's relentless T4 spam and Planetfall's near-nonexistent use of T4s

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I find combined arms of T1-3s with a few T4+ here and there more fascinating, fun and immersive than matches devolving into only building the strongest unit

gaunt mason
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it's true. t4 is not the true villain. the true villain is mono-army compositions

sudden gulch
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non-scaling settler cost

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if they're going to be that epic give them difficlty to build that nothing else has

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production from multiple cities to make, or requiring the unit queue AND the building queue at same time etc

vapid prairie
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Planetfall did mitigate the settler/colonizer spam somewhat by giving them a ramp-up cost

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+100 energy/gold for each new one you built

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though you can still play super wide and snowball hard on maps with lots of independent settlements

gaunt mason
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pf basically made building any settlers past #4 a purely for fun decision, and #4 itself is pretty borderline even in the best circumstance

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i think this was the better decision on the whole though i definitely do not find that solution to be perfect

vapid prairie
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my speculation for how Triumph might balance T4+ units: maybe most of them come from Tomes and Dwellings, but most transformations and enchantments do not apply or have a less effect on them? Apparently only the leader who is designated "keeper" of a particular race can transform that race, so maybe Dwelling units cannot even be transformed at all?

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so maybe T1-T3 units benefit a lot more from transformation and enchantments and that is what makes them able to stay relevant in the late game against T4+

frozen kelp
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High tier units are so valuable because every units take one slot of 6 slots. High tier units should be extremely expensive. Otherwise, t4 spam would return.

scenic saffron
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PF fixed the T4 spam by making them both expensive and slow to get to.

vapid prairie
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and making their direct combat capabilities nowhere near as potent or important as they often were in 3

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you can put three damage mods on an assembly reaver and its triple action reset will still be vastly more valuable than its attacks in either form

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a sonokarn is one of the more combat-oriented T4s, and it is clunky to use without a tactician or sono-fin hero for support

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which is surprisingly similar to how juggernauts and cannon are reliant on engineers and dreadnought heroes to function efficiently

soft chasm
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"That reminds me of another concern I have about the viability of earlier-tier units in the late game. Even with unit enchantment spells, those units quickly ran out of usefulness as Tier IV and V units started making their way onto the map.

That’s not a surprise, considering that the same issue was present in Age of Wonders 3, but Age of Wonders: Planetfall had done a bit to mitigate that, which seems to have taken a small step backward here. "

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if this is true ,its terrible, low tier unit should be usefull late game

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there should be a balance

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maeby make like you can produce several units at the same time depending the tier, like there are 6 slots for unit productions so you can produce 6 tier one unit or 3 tier 2 units , or 2 tier 3 units and etc, the bigger the tier the less you can produce so if you need a quick army it would be better to use low tiers

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you could have 1 city produce low tier for you inmediate needs and another city doing the long task of producing a high tier one

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the idea is the highter the tier a unit is the more recruitment slots it require

gray dagger
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Should T4 and T5 units be outcompeted by T1?

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Reybag, as a programer that is an inelegant solution and what AOW4 seems to have done does exactly what you want but in more streamlined way.

T1 units have a recruitment cost of lets say 20
T4-5 units also have recruit costs, but they are high and take longer to produce, of lets say 100

So if a city has 100 unit production you can build 5 T1s or T4-5 per turn.

empty spire
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I think people are mis-characterizing the problem. They say "T5 spam", but IMO the actual problem is "massing the same unit".

That could be resolve by having more different high Tier units available and worth building.

gray dagger
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Those numbers are a fabrication but that's the idea.

empty spire
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And yeah, the production overflow already helps a lot with this problem, IMO.

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There's no longer a huge difference between 1-turning a unit, and almost-but-not-quite 1-turning a unit.

gray dagger
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Yeah spamming the same unit having doom stacks of the same unit is a far bigger concern.

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I thought PF did well with it having T4s often being not the be all and end all. Giving non-stacking buffs or squad buffs that again don't stack so having 1 was optimal.

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Imo, the key is having a need for different unit types, make it so idk, Knights get ass wooped if you don't have some supports to debuff enemies or buff/heal/dispell your own units.

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So you just have to mix them or certain strats will wreck your mono stacks.

empty spire
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Yeah, but to mix them, you need mixing candidates.

Lets assume you have Tyrant Knights. A T2 pike might be more effective against them than a T2 infantry, but it's still getting wrecked.

However, if the opponent has access to a T4 pike, then that will murder your Tyrant Knights, and force you to diversify.

So if you also have access to T4 Shock Infantry, those are pretty great against pikes, so now you have to mix those in. Then in these situations, they're better than your Tyrant Knights.

But hey, the opponent also has multiple types of T4, and they're building T4 battle mages!

So now you need to have both infantry and tyrant knights, both T4, in the same army to cover each other's weaknesses.

IMO, the problem isn't that lower tier units aren't viable, it's that armies become samey because a T4 has high enough stats to ignore the normal unit counters that play around at lower tiers. So having the choice of more diverse higher tier units will resolve that better than lessening the power difference between unit tiers.

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As a different game comparison, I think Alpha Centauri did it well, and I think AoW could adapt the unit system from that game a bit, though it's probably far too late in development to do so.

You were able to design your own units. So you could for example just create your own T4 Infantry if you need a powerful Infantry unit. You could just duplicate your T1 infantry with T4 stats to hold up against new and more powerful threats.

sturdy haven
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Age of Wonders PF mostly resolved the issue by making T4 cost cosmite to upkeep.

vapid prairie
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I quite like being able to keep using T1 Troopers and Raiders in PF, Yari Ashigaru in Shogun 2, or Rhino Tanks in Red Alert 2. I am very much in the "lower tier units should be viable in the late game" camp.

sturdy haven
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I suppose AoW 4 could do so by making T5 and T4 a bit more expensive and adding an Imperium upkeep to them.

empty spire
vapid prairie
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I think if a T2 Pikeman cannot kill a Tyrant Knight, Berserker or other higher-tier shock unit 1v1, it should at least be able to bring them to near-death before going down, assuming neither side has healing or a big enough enchantment disparity.

empty spire
sturdy haven
empty spire
vapid prairie
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Rhino Tanks are a basic War Factory unit that didn't require Radar or Battle Lab to unlock, that sounds pretty low-tier to me, but I digress.

empty spire
sturdy haven
empty spire
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But if we're thinking in solutions, then it's one worth consideration.

sturdy haven
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Plus, it would still make T1-T3 units irrelevant.

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I think a better solution is for most units to have a place at later stages of the game.

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And for that, unit upkeep and cost can be changed.

empty spire
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I think that should mostly be a price or production time consideration in the late game. Or infrastructure.

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Not straight up combat potential.

vapid prairie
sturdy haven
empty spire
sturdy haven
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Planetfall T4 are powerful, for example, but they mostly cost a lot to produce and upkeep, and serve as supports for your army.

empty spire
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It was like, [cost difference] * 1.5 to upgrade.

vapid prairie
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though at the same time I dig the idea of, say, Terran Marines remaining valid as they are (for the most part) in the late game even with Ultralisks, Carriers and etc. rampaging about.

empty spire
empty spire
sturdy haven
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I would not personally say that it is not a satisfying solution - T4 in PF are pretty powerful in combat by themselves and feel satisfying to use, it's just that you don't build too many of them, since it is an ineffective way to spend your money.

empty spire
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That's a limitation on how many fun toys you're allowed, though. I'd like it to be possible to play with only fun toys.

sturdy haven
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Ah, I would disagree.

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T1 units are "fun to play with" too.

mystic wadi
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I would prefer to transition from a low tier combined arms army in the early game to a high tier combined arms army in the late game. With the playstyle and composition determined by both culture and tomes in both the early and late game.

vapid prairie
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I quite like the way OpenRA Combined Arms handled late vs early-tier units. I cannot just win by spamming Apocalypses because their firing rate and move speed are both horribly slow and they would just get overwhelmed by mixed forces supported by artillery, I have to support them with earlier-tier arty and heavy tanks while they soak up damage, while I bring aircraft around to try and snipe the enemy's own arty.
Granted, rifle infantry still get outdated fast, but I like that units like early game tanks, grenadiers and rocket troops remain usable towards the end to support big, heavy twin-barreled monstrosities.

sturdy haven
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This reminds me of how starting units are always useful through the entire game in Stacraft 2, but you can switch to other compositions, if you want.

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But, in terms of turn-based 4x, I think the closest analogue to AoW 4 is Planetfall.

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And I personally think that Planetfall solved the issue quite well.

gloomy quarry
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I have a friend that loved AoW3, but he just felt bad that the game forced you into only tiers4-3 and never having at least ter 2, because you ended with very low unit variety and he liked at least to have archers as an elf player.
Regardless of the archer comment, I feel he has a point. In AoWSM I purposefully brough some lower tier units, against AI because I could overpowerthem. I tried to grab a variety of tier 3 and 4 units from recruitment locations, summons and other means not available to one's faction/mage.

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Of course the problem lies in the power of tier 4 units, and the opportunity cost when fighting battles being so high, when a stack can have a so limited number of units. Even just 1 of them being a low tier vs another stack that is only best units available will make a difference.

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I wouldn't mind it as much if we had more high tier units to replace the lower tiers we no longer should use late game

empty spire
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Yeah, the lower stack size definitely excerbates the problems with high tier unit spam.

sturdy haven
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SupCom handles obsoleting older units by having a lot of unit variety in new tiers, but frankly, I don't think that this approach would work in AoW series - AoW games usually have relatively small rosters of units.

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Adding enough units to make T4-T5 units diverse does not seem like a possible approach, given how many units it would require to be added.

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Making already existing units more relevant by using unit cost as a limiting factor in order to diversify viable player choices seems like a solution which is both, easier to implement, and more healthy for the game balance.

vapid prairie
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balancing by cost works in short-medium PVP matches but not so much in PVE where higher difficulty bots cheat resources out the wazoo

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and having inevitably huge economies in the late game will allow champions to draft legions of T4-T5 units anyway, and wizards would do the same but with high-tier summons

sudden gulch
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In aow2 / Aow3 its so bad that I don't even build t1/T2 if I can help it and tech past then straight to T3 if at All possible

lofty pebble
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What about ensuring that every T4/5 unit should has a counter-unit or weakness? The sub-vs-carrier relationship springs immediately to mind. If it doesn’t just come out naturally - and it prolly won’t based on prior games - I wouldn’t be opposed to T1-3 getting an express buff against certain types of T4-5 units.

sudden gulch
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Making starting army last and only building scout/settler while research / building line is being done during that time feels correct

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Which is such a bad thing

lofty pebble
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Or make it an empire skill that triggers on offense or defense. Regimented Defense give T1-3 morale and damage on defense//Monster Hunter gives it to them on attack.

mystic wadi
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split unit and building queue reduces the opportunity cost of recruiting T1-2 units during the early game.

karmic coyote
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eh T3/T4 were even more dominant in SM than later games as I recall (city garrisons and a handful of others aside). large stacks don't necessarily mean more diverse armies in practice

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disagree that PF's approach is unsatisfying. making the T4s mostly support-oriented was a good idea

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balancing powerful units only by cost almost never works in strategy games, generally either the game ends before they're worth building or you can get enough economic infrastructure that the cost doesn't matter that much

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cost can be a part of it of course

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anyway the explorminate article is concerning but it's one guy's impressions so I'll wait and see

vapid prairie
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I like that I could keep using Troopers or Raiders with high-tier mods viably in late game of Planetfall

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I hope they keep tuning the balance in 4 so that max-enchanted Crossbows and Halberdiers are viable in late-game

crisp skiff
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low tier units should never be useful in late game

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only as supports if they have good skills

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imagine playing 40+ turns and still build t1-t2 while there are t3-t4-t5 units.
No sense of progression, no results from playing the game. You fear NPC dwellings in early game as well as you fear in late game because all your army is t1-t2 clowns

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t1-t2 - small map/fast game
t2-t3-just a bit t4- mid game
t4-t5 - late game

karmic coyote
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yeah I don't agree. mixed armies are good and more fun to play with

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Planetfall pulled it off fairly well, T1s and 2s stay useful for awhile

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and no one is saying "all" your army should be t1-t2

crisp skiff
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t1 and t2 are never useful in PF

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only specialists and like 1-2 per 3 stacks, 16 t3 + 2 t2

crisp skiff
karmic coyote
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yeah that's a huge qualifier right there

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I do understand the hyper-optimized meta on larger maps is mostly high-tier, but that is partly settings dependent and even that took years to develop to that point

crisp skiff
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you can start getting t3 at like turn 20

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even faster with influence

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at least now we will have 2 queues to build units and structures

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so everyone will have they favorite t1-t2 to play with

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but this also means turns 20+ only t3 +

karmic coyote
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yeah and on a small map you'll sacrifice other infrastructure to tech that fast

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but I realize the mainstream PF MP community prefers larger maps (even duel is modded small+)

soft chasm
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T4 and T5 could cost lots of mana so the more high tier units you have the less mana for spells, that could be a balance

vapid prairie
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Wizard Kings would have a lot more high-tier units than Champions then

sturdy haven
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T5 of Materium cost only gold to upkeep.

vapid prairie
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yep

gloomy quarry
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I see no way around making more high tier units to fill the roster, even if they are not built in traditional means

soft chasm
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so units caps? maeby soft caps that you can pass but theres a increase in upkeep penalty

gray dagger
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Unit caps sound gross imo

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Upkeep is already the limiting factor on how many units you can have

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T1 Spam doesn't work that well though because of the number of armies you can take into battle in AOW4 it's more limited than PF and AOW3

gloomy quarry
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to field more, lower tier units and win the numbers game. that and heroes to tip the scales

soft chasm
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i think units caps its logical

gray dagger
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Cities don't have other limiters though

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And you end up with the kind of stupid stuff that happens in starcraft games with their 200 unit cap

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Weird resource hoarding

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And gameplay

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But just my opinion

dim sparrow
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besides is a soft cap, so you can go above it with penalties

vapid prairie
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Unit caps are even more anti-fun than city caps

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I despised them in Dawn of War 1 and in Civ 4 mods with national units, I would despise them here

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let me spam Golden Golems but have the game punish me through more natural ways, like an opposing player beating me by holding a strategic advantage with more plentiful stacks of T1-3 units

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and just going around taking my less defended cities with their numerical advantage or forcing me to spread my Golem force thin

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and beating me in tactical with a combined arms force

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game should encourage combined arms, but not artificially through unit caps

vapid prairie
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Now that I think about it though, Gloweye's idea if diversifying high-tier units could work too. I would find obsoletion of T1 Crossbow units more forgivable if I can get a T3-T4 "Ballista-man" from a later Materium Tome.

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anything (besides terrible unit caps) to encourage combined arms over boring Manticore spam, the latter of which should be made strategically and tactically beatable by a varied force that has more units of varying tiers through their versatility and ability to better cover ground and fight a war of attrition

empty spire
empty spire
vapid prairie
#

indeed

#

Kings of War had some actual ballista Ogres too

MGKWH304_x700.webp
#

or it could be like this guy https://battlerealms.fandom.com/wiki/Ballistaman?so=search

Battle Realms Wiki
Ballistaman

The Ballistaman is a unit of the Wolf Clan. The Wolves have always preferred the active, outdoor life, and have little interest in devising machines to help them avoid effort; thus, they are not particularly talented engineers. However, they picked up a few tricks in the slave mines, and have recently invented their own version of the footman's ...

stoic ferry
#

If T1's and T3's stop mattering... I really hope cultures have very differentiated economies

#

since your Culture only brings units up to T3

vapid prairie
#

I still think Cultures should have had a few more T3s and a T4

#

and lower tiers in general should be either stronger and more useful or can upgrade/evolve to a higher tier form

soft chasm
vapid prairie
#

Cost, and not just cost to summon/produce and upkeep, but also cost-efficiency

#

like a T4 or T5 unit should trade poorly with lower-tier counters unsupported

#

a Tyrant Knight should sustain high damage when trying to 1v1 even a T1 Pikeman, even if they destroy said Pikeman unit.

#

or a Golden Golem should take a lot more time to kill a shielded unit such as an Anvil Guard than it would to kill the enemy big monsters its stick is best suited for

#

and of course, the strategic consideration

#

if you spam only a few kinds of T4 or T5 without properly supporting them with other types of units, even if you have a late game economy, someone who decides to build only a few of those units and mix in a larger number of lower-tier units should generally be able to cover more ground or beat the high-tier spam in a war of attrition. IMO, only time a T4 or T5 army should be able to come close to the numbers of a lower-tier army is if the player cranking out high-tier doomstacks has a big enough economy and territory lead.

#

In Shogun 2, a well-prepared unit of yari ashigaru (basic spear infantry) in their infamous braced/yari wall formation was very tough and scary to face in melee from the front, you could not just throw your best unit samurai unit (mounted or otherwise) at them and expect to win with minimal damage, they were better dealt with by flanking or shooting.

#

If Triumph decides to keep going with high-tier galore for late game, then I think Cultures should at least get T4 and some extra T3 units, to keep interesting unit variety in the late game.

#

Luckily mods can help with this, though I think it would be cool to see more high-tier variety added to the unmodded game in the future as well.

#

ultimately, I suppose time will tell if Triumph will address this and if the obsoletion of lower-tier and Culture units will be as severe as Rob from Explorminate made it seem to be.

sudden gulch
#

I actually like the cultures having no T4-T5 of their own so you at least don't pre-plan tech rusihing your endgame from T1

vapid prairie
#

tbh with the return of semi-randomized research I think tech-rushing a Cultural T4 would often be slower and less reliable than it may have been in Planetfall

#

though I think they will also have to work in some prerequisites beyond "build the production structure that unlocks your higher-tier cultural units"

#

maybe Cultural T4s do not show up as a research option until you have unlocked any T3 Tomes?

#

so they show up at roughly the same time that T4 units from Tomes start showing up, which I presume is in T3 Tomes (most Tome units seem to often be a tier higher than their respective Tomes)

wild cloak
#

Yeah, fundamentally speaking there's nothing inherently wrong with low-tier units being a temporary stage of the game that you inevitably transition out of, the problem is that the T4 roster we've actually had has been so much thinner than the T1-2 roster, so as a map progresses into the lategame the variety of the game shrinks. There are multiple solutions to this; Planetfall had one solution by putting the big cosmite cost/upkeep on T4's and designing them to usually have some support abilities, so you were encouraged to use them as the centrepiece of a wider array of Stuff rather than monostacking them, but other solutions exist like, yes, making a wide array of T3 and T4 and T5 units, which the tome system might already have done.

stoic ferry
#

I mean

#

Tyrant Knight's are from a T3 tome

#

so if every T3+ tome has a T4 minimum

#

and you need two T3 Tomes to get a T4 Tome, and 2 T4 Tomes to get a T5 Tome

#

that's fine

#

five*

#

that said

#

Tome of the Crucible is T4

#

and has no unit IIRC

#

and Astral might not have a T5 unit at all

#

so like, there's some awkward potential for a faction to wind up with one or no T4 at all

#

which might get very awkward if T4-5's really do invalidate the lower tiers again

#

needing to pick your tomes to ensure you actually have functional units late game sounds... really limiting

wild cloak
#

We'll have to see, but there's reason to be both concerned and hopeful, I think

#

But lets put some numbers on this

#

In Planetfall you generally only had access to 1 or 2 T4 units in the course of a match, from your race and whichever NPC dwelling you'd focused on buttering up the most. You'd have 3 or 4 T3 units, two from your race, one from your secret tech, another from your favourite NPC faction... Theoretically you could gather up colonies of multiple races and butter up every NPC faction to access a wider roster, but doing that wasn't really practical, and in fact even getting both your racial and secret tech T3's was a big ask, so your functional T3 roster was like, 2-3 units.

vapid prairie
#

I think Jordi confirmed Astral has no T5, at least back when he last checked for it

stoic ferry
#

but on the other hand, in Planetfall your entire roster stayed very relevant

#

so you were never actually down to just your T3's T4's

wild cloak
#

No you absolutely were past a certain point

stoic ferry
#

...I mean no though

#

at least not in SP

wild cloak
#

SP is SP

stoic ferry
#

in SP in 3 you were eventually down to just your T4

wild cloak
#

Pretty much anything can be viable there

stoic ferry
#

so like

#

and

#

as far as MP

#

I don't play it, but I do sometimes watch like Ninjew or Winslaya

wild cloak
#

But the MP meta did end up finding that as the game progresses you did end up phasing out T2 stuff in favour of armies of T3's with occasional T4's

stoic ferry
#

ok but what's "end up"

wild cloak
#

It wasn't too bad though, because the game was generally decided pretty soon after that point

stoic ferry
#

like, are we talking 3's "you rush them immediately"

#

or are we talking "by this point the climactic battles are happening and the games all but over"

#

and apparently it's the second one

#

and like

wild cloak
#

Ehh

stoic ferry
#

I think that's fine

wild cloak
#

Six of one, half a dozen of the other, honestly

#

And yeah, it worked

stoic ferry
#

climactic battles being settled by the biggest guns makes sense

#

but like

wild cloak
#

But the T1 and T2 stage of the game was like... I'm most familiar with Amazons, whose T1 infantry was the Huntress, the Lancer was their T2 skirmisher, Biomancers for T2 support, the Arborian Sentinel for a researchable T2, Harriers for a researchable flyer, plus your secret tech T2, and getting the first tier of dwelling items was easy enough that you could have maybe two options there, there was always a few oddballs you'd pick up in the course of clearing that we can maybe call another unit type... That's a playspace of 8 or 9 unit types, that's much more varied and healthy.

If you had similar unit variety at T3/T4/T5, would you honestly even care whether early game units stopped being viable to build? Was the doom stacking problem that games trended towards building nothing but T4's, or was it that 'building nothing but T4's' functionally meant the Warlord just cranked out monostacks of Manticore Riders and the occasional dragon, to go up against the necromancer's monostacks of Dread Reapers?

stoic ferry
#

for 4 right now there's another problem other than just "are we going to reliably have multiple T4-5's" and it's "Is our Culture pick going to do much?"

#

Like, practically speaking

#

I'm assuming you'll get at least 3 T4-5's

#

unless you choose to go for Tomes that don't have any on purpose

#

but Culture still caps at T3

#

so as Industrious, maybe I go hard down the Materium path and my Bastion's are superceded by Golems, but if I don't go hard down the Materium path, if I go hard down say, Chaos, are my Bastions going to stay useful tanks throughout the game?

#

I'm somewhat hopeful that yeah, they will

#

because like, the Anvil Guard survived that Dragon for a bit

#

and the Barb Shield Bro handled that Fire Giant for a while

#

so defensive stuff seems like it might stay useful

#

but are the Mystic Spellbreakers going to?

#

how about Barb Berserkers?

#

an Infnatry Shock Unit is already something that seems prone to getting ignored even for lower tier shock that does stuff like fly or just move way faster(Gargoyle out of T1 Tome of Rock anyone?)

#

and if Culture units easily get superceded by tome units

#

we wind up back in AoW3 land of "why am I even making this choice"

#

which is why I mentioned hoping that Culture's have major impacts on your late game economy

#

because even if the roster gets obsoleted

#

if the economy is different they'll hopefully still feel different to play throughout

gloomy quarry
# empty spire Just as gross 🤮.

There has to be a mechanic to limit city spam. Warlock master of the arcane suffered from city spam due to lax requirements in settling cities

stoic ferry
#

Sectors

#

and Sectors with a lot more emphasis on having really big cities

#

because all of the cool buildings we've seen have adjacency bonii

#

so you actually get huge benefits from having cities that are genuinely massive

#

unlike in PF where the MP guys were like "more than 2 annexes? cringe!"

#

with the split queue and overflow for both

#

megacities are probably entirely worth doing

empty spire
#

But yeah, sectors/provinces has my vote.

#

Make cities scale better with map area.

stoic ferry
#

oh yeah, there's ALSO the cap

#

though we know so little about how that works exactly so eh

#

and also, personaly pref is always "make it better to do the fun thing" rather than "punish the people who find the other thing fun"

#

I mean, I dunno anyone who LIKES infinite city spam

#

but I think there's always someone who likes anything

empty spire
stoic ferry
#

neat

#

I now know someone who enjoys ICS

#

hurray!

vapid prairie
#

I like building huge empires, that is the main appeal of 4X games for me

wild cloak
#

It's arguably more common among games like Total War and so on - the urge to paint the map your colour.

stoic ferry
#

I mean

#

Total War doesn't have ICS

#

because it doesn't have city founding

#

all the cities are already on the map

wild cloak
#

it can feel like it when you're managing like a hundred settlements lol

stoic ferry
#

and the development of them has gotten very simplified over time

vapid prairie
#

Tall build just feels so antithetical to the empire/conqueror fantasy in my eyes

stoic ferry
#

I like fiddling with stuff

#

but... ICS creates too much fiddling

#

and makes it really hard to see the impact of the fiddling

empty spire
#

I just want to grow Tall and Wide at the same time.

stoic ferry
#

so I like having really big cities

#

like

#

my favorite part of Humankind was how tall you could go

scenic saffron
#

just don't make the differences in stats between tiers huge

#

utilize more horizontal advancement

#

emphasize combat roles as opposed to stats

#

slow down progression between tiers

#

make turtling and rushing tiers unviable

#

incentivize early aggression between players

#

make unit variety more of a pyramid rather than a rhombus type situation

#

I've been replaying a bit of Planetfall recently and the fact there are so few early-game units bothers me

#

since you actually do use them for a long time, it limits your army composition for quite a while

#

Amazons are the worst example because huntresses and biomancers are so freakishly overpowered compared to other races' starting units

#

and the Amazons' higher tier units are borderline garbage

gray dagger
#

not gonna happen

gray dagger
scenic saffron
#

oh, I'm talking purely theoretically

#

we know from that explorminate video that the damage is already done

wild cloak
#

Bombardons are fantastic

scenic saffron
#

sure

#

the only one ;d

wild cloak
#

Arborian Queens are pretty good, although they're a T4 so they don't turn up much

#

And Tyrannodons are alright. Not great, but you can do things with them for sure

#

But I mean, once you factor in your secret tech and dwelling units, the early game roster really isn't that thin. AoW3 generally gives you like, 8 T1-2 units, across your race/class? 9? Much more slanted towards the T1 units that get obsoleted all the faster. That's about the same as Planetfall, honestly.

#

The series generally just prefers to keep to a smaller roster that allows it to differentiate units from one another more. Huntresses, Trenchers, and Scavengers are all 'T1 infantry', but they're certainly not as interchangeable as T1 tanks in SupCom or whatever.

gaunt mason
#

The bigger problems tyrannodons have more than anything else is high tech cost

#

Their roar will absolutely win you some battles in hilarious fashion

#

Calling bombardons "the only good one" is pretty silly when most races have similar issues with getting their second t3 and t4 out

#

Also "huntresses and biomancers are so freakishly overpowered" is a pretty silly statement as well

stoic ferry
#

I mean

#

I get it for the Biomancers

gaunt mason
#

Especially since the lancer is the true early amazon king

stoic ferry
#

Scan and Sleep and Heal

#

is a lot of abilities and none of them are bad lol

gaunt mason
#

Biomancers are p good but """freakishly overpowered""" is a bit much

stoic ferry
#

but anyway, serious question

#

from what we've seen are you worried about the game devolving into "there is only T5"?

gaunt mason
#

God I hope not, another aow3 situation where the only game is end game would suck

#

It does seem like once you reach endgame there aren't any mechanisms in place to prevent t5 spam, but the hard to answer question is how easy is it to get to that point

stoic ferry
#

I mean... assuming T5's are only in T5 tomes from what we've seen there'll probably be long enough for other stuff to do stuff during that time

#

what I'm most worried about right now

#

is that T5's themselves will be unbalanced

#

because they come from Tomes

#

which you take as the game goes on

#

which means, if T5's are centralizing, and there's a T5 that is centralizing among T5's

#

every game is just going to be that T5 and maybe the hard counter and nothing else

gaunt mason
#

That's only a problem if you k ow for sure the game will last long enough for t5s to come out

stoic ferry
#

mmmmmm

gaunt mason
#

In which case I kinda already consider the game in a fail state as then the game has left the possibility of rush meta

stoic ferry
#

T5 tomes have affinity requirements though

#

so even if it's possible for a 1v1 or 2v2 to end quickly

gaunt mason
#

Imo ideally t5s are never built and thus the question never really matters

stoic ferry
#

as the player number goes up, the ultimate duration of the game goes up as well

#

and

#

for MP that's one thing

#

but SP is pretty likely to have lots of people playing 100+ turn games

gaunt mason
#

🤷‍♂️ this is the extent of my personal investment into the question. Aow3's flaw was less t4 design and more that settlerspam allowed you to hit t4s quickly and consistently. T4 design certainly caused problems but only because this prerequisite problem already existed.

stoic ferry
#

mmmmm

#

have you looked at the tome tooltips from PartyElite's video?

#

even without settler spam, there looks to be a lot of research available

dim sparrow
#

So the same explorminate guy is answering questions on the forum and he wrote this now
''Doomstacks are way too expensive in AoW4. Sure, you can have one or two, but they get really expensive to maintain, especially on smaller or middle-sized maps. Most particularly because a lot of the best units cost mana and mana can be in short supply if you're using enchantments and conjuring units. I simply didn't see them as being as bad as AoW3 to any degree. And trust me, those doomstacks ruined AoW3 for me, too.''

vapid crag
sudden gulch
#

I was under the impression that you only have free choice for the starting t1

vapid crag
stoic ferry
#

the way it works from what we've been told

#

is that up to T3 the only requirement is that you have 2 tomes of the lower tier, so you need two T1 tomes to get to T2 and two T2 tomes to get to T3

#

for T4 and 5 tomes there's some affinity requirements

sturdy haven
#

Sounds reasonable.

#

Though, I would disagree with the notion that T4 in AoW 3 were purely a "settler spam" problem.

#

I would say that it is a combination of a large array of factors - including it, of course, but not being limited to it.

#

Planetfall moved away from that by:

  • Moving T4 into a more supporting role, thus making having more than a certain amount of them not as useful.
  • Making them expensive to upkeep and build, so that building a lot of them would be very hard even on larger maps.
  • Making T1-T3 units more useful in comparison to AoW 3 via the unit mod system.
  • Having a smaller difference between stats of T4 and lower tiers than AoW 3.
sudden gulch
#

T4 should if only had a 20% stat increase over T3 instead of 60%

#

AoW 1/2 some T4 actually have less raw HP or damage than some T3 like the bone horror / mammoth

#

AoW 3 every single t4 can outtank dwarf firstborn while out punching orc warbrerd and all but 2 of them get 6 hex movement

sturdy haven
#

From that we have heard from Rob and seen ourselves, I would say that AoW 4 is trying the following solutions to this issue:

  • Making high tier units much very expensive to upkeep.
  • Allowing unit enchantments to be easily applied to all your units, thus making lower tiers more relevant.
  • Implementing racial transformations, which grant significant boosts to lower tiers.
  • Having explicit mechanics which benefit from low-tier units (Tome of The Horde).
#

Ultimately, we will see how it turns out in the final release of the game - worst case scenario, should high tier units be too powerful, competitive balance mod will nerf them.

vapid prairie
#

game isn't released yet and already I have plans to make a "narrow the gap" unit adjustment mod myself

#

though I would like to experience the vanilla game for myself first, ofc

#

and see if the issue will turn out to be as big as Rob makes it out to be

sturdy haven
#

Well, Rob mentioned that issue is not as bad is it is in AoW 3.
Quote:

#

Doomstacks are way too expensive in AoW4. Sure, you can have one or two, but they get really expensive to maintain, especially on smaller or middle-sized maps. Most particularly because a lot of the best units cost mana and mana can be in short supply if you're using enchantments and conjuring units. I simply didn't see them as being as bad as AoW3 to any degree. And trust me, those doomstacks ruined AoW3 for me, too.

sudden gulch
#

we're going to start asking people for turncounts

#

"first T4, first full stack of T4" etc

vapid prairie
#

He also said culture units become obsolete, which makes it sound like even the culture t3s get replaced by tome units of equal or higher tier

dim sparrow
#

Yeah but i also don't like his ''solution''

My recommendation is to make a few culture-specific units that are Tier 4/Mythic. Units that REALLY lean into the cultural strengths and can help with that feeling I described above.
It sounds like a band aid that just doubles on the idea of rushing t4 more than anything

soft chasm
#

Problem is that culture only mather at the begining and eventually you end using all tomes units who of course dont look at all as your culture, so despite chosing to play as barbarians at the end you will not be using any barbarian looking unit

#

solution could be to make tomes units have some change on look according to the cultures

wild cloak
#

Depends, there's more to culture than your units

sturdy haven
#

There are some changes already - unit enchantments granted by Culture, which affect Tome units.

#

I'd say balance which keeps Culture and low tier units as a relevant and viable option through the game is a better solution.

vapid prairie
#

Yes I want my halberd and crossbow tercios with a lot of enchantments to go along with my gold golems

empty spire
#

I think if there's enough variety in T4 options, people won't care as much about full T4/T5 armies.

sturdy haven
#

Maybe, but I don't think that we can really expect to have that many T4.

#

Having lower tiers as viable options not only enhances amount of viable player choices - it also just feels thematically appropriate to have something relatively basic as a mainstay of your army, supported with a lower count of elite units, rather than having a whole force of elite units.

empty spire
#

Well... why not have that many T4?
Not specificaly to AoW4, because there's not that much time anymore, but in general?

sturdy haven
#

It depends on how it is handled, I'd say, but in general - it is easier to balance already existing stuff rather than add new.

sudden gulch
#

When you have a t5 pike I except earlier pikes to phase out sure but he should encourage lower tier healer / archer support

empty spire
#

Yeah, just like Orc Shock Troopers in 3 basically obsoleting the T1 infantry.

#

But healers and archers can also be T3/T4 in there.

#

Don't want some flying cavalry one-shotting it. But if they're higher tier and survive a charge, they're right next to your T4 pikes shoving something pointy up the flying cavalry's backsides.

sturdy haven
#

By the way, have we seen the maximum amount of stacks which can take part in a battle in AoW 4?

empty spire
#

There is a maximum, I don't recall how high, though. Might be the same 7 stacks, but just drawing from a wider radius.

sturdy haven
#

We know that at least three stacks can take part in a battle.

#

The third enemy stacks seems unwilling to participate here - either due to a stack limit, or due to being the source of the infestation.

empty spire
#

I'd say the second.

dim sparrow
#

Yeah, they are the guardians

sudden gulch
#

So 18 v 18?

empty spire
#

Or 24 vs 18. Or 36 vs 6.

#

That was the max battle size in 3 and PF.

elder wigeon
#

I thought in one of the preview videos, they were saying up to 64 units in a battle? Or was that only a siege?

sudden gulch
#

64 isn't a multiple of 6 though

elder wigeon
#

Maybe it was 60?

sudden gulch
#

The battle result screen seems to have room for either 3 or 4 banners per side

#

It doesn't seem to show original positions around center hex like in previous game though

#

It would need to scroll if it allowed 5 stack or more dogpileimg a stationary guy

dim sparrow
elder wigeon
#

The explorminate guy who answering questions on forums says its 18 v 18

digital oracle
gray dagger
#

No, because the production overflows, can recruit 6 T4 units per turn if you had enough production or idk whatever the T1 equivalent is 20 or whatever

#

You're not limited to 1 unit per city per turn, it's been this way since PF at least.

digital oracle
#

Wait really I didn't play PF

#

So theoretically I can get about 4 t1 in one turn?

gray dagger
#

Yeah, if you have enough unit production

digital oracle
#

Gaw dam then there aint no point for this post. Also that is a good feature I like that

gray dagger
#

That's why I don't like that slots idea, the same concept is already achieved, just more dynamically.

digital oracle
#

I am about to doom stack T1s

stoic ferry
#

I have literally made 8 heavily modded Troopers in a turn

#

Overflow is great 😄

sturdy haven
#

Oh, we have new information from Rob regarding this topic.
Quote:


The problem seems, based on my limited 50 hours, to be better than AoW3, but not quite as "fixed" as Planetfall. Hopefully that makes sense. I think they need to address this by having spells that ONLY enchant tier 1-3 units. Or something to that effect.

City buildings DO provide new units. Up until Tier 3.

As for Tier 4 and 5/Mythic units, I think they should cost something extra, like Imperium, to maintain and purchase. Considering how important Imperium is, I'd suggest needing it in decent quantities to first acquire higher-tier units and then require it to keep them up and running. Would really help limit them..."```
stoic ferry
#

honestly, with the event that we saw with the Tyrant Knight in the story realm, it looks like they might have toyed with that at some point

rare kiln
#

Perhaps it would be a good idea if every racial/cultural unit would have a higher tier version, it could evolve into. You can't build them right away (no veteran comes directly out of the school). So the units you build in your cities can be 'raised' to be more usable in mid/end game.

scenic saffron
#

I generally dislike evolving units because they make logistics less important

rare kiln
#

How so?

scenic saffron
# rare kiln How so?

It's not enough to train higher tier units, you also have to get them to the front lines

#

But when units who are already in the army evolve, you don't have to worry about transport

gaunt mason
#

that is a unique advantage of unit evolution yes, offset by the need to lug around lower tier units and babysitting them until they hit max rank. you exchange production cost (travel time being a component of this) for more time and manual effort needed to get your higher tier units.

#

the idea that it makes logistics less important, rather than being an additional factor to consider in logistics, is a little silly.

#

and aow3 conversion abuse would be the bigger culprit of that anyway

scenic saffron
#

I'm assuming the evolving units are somehow useful

#

You aren't lugging dead weight around

#

I'm not against all evolving units, but they shouldn't be baseline and common

karmic coyote
#

evolving units tend to be really popular with mods but I don't find babysitting every single unit that much fun. for smaller scale tactics RPGs it's fine but not for a 4X

#

it's best used in small doses

stoic ferry
#

I mean

#

what those mods tend to actually do, is make the game even more snowbally

gaunt mason
#

i think the most prominent pf source of evolve is psi fish, which are a little bit different in that the t2 units aren't bad, though i wouldn't call the spawn good either. hunter is good but if you start there that's more expensive, and if you start with spawn (or heaven forbid crysalis) then you've got a lot of evolution steps to go through slowly

#

but like if your evolve unit is "i started with a hopperhound when playing as amazon" then idk if i'd really call that useful

#

...though i think maybe amazon gets the t2 hopperhound if you roll that for your starting unit? still not a great unit to be carrying around anyway. basically evolve = having a worse unit now so you can have a better unit later

#

you know i hadn't quite registered that this is in response to a suggestion that all units be made evolving

#

i do agree that that would make logistics less important. i am not a fan of that solution

#

there's also issues where there may not be a 1:1 match in unit role the next tier up, and it'd be frustrating to have a t2 swordsman evolve into a t3 pike unit - i may have really needed the sword and shield over pikes

karmic coyote
#

yeah and I just think needing to baby every unit like that is annoying with large-scale 4X armies

vapid prairie
#

if easy logistics is an issue, perhaps a mechanic to upgrade units at a city? like the operation to give a mech to max-rank paladin aspirants in PF, except the unit has to be in your domain

karmic coyote
#

I don't mind archdruid pokemon but I wouldn't want it to go any further than that, or for every class to be like that

sturdy haven
#

Personally, I think that Rob's suggestion with making T4-T5 cost Imperium and / or making a couple of unit enchantments only affect T1-T3 sounds very reasonable.

karmic coyote
#

carefully distributing your kill XP in Fire Emblem or whatever is fine, but that's a smaller-scale game

gaunt mason
#

so i do agree with you there

silk jay
#

Is the concern that T4s like Tyrant Knights make T3s like Berserkers obsolete then? I fully expect interactions like that to happen, but you shouldn't have every role in T4+ if you're ending the game in a reasonable amount of time, should you?

#

Unless Manticore Riders are back, in which case I suppose that's all you need

vapid prairie
#

Manticore mono-stacks are boring, I would very much like if they either increased the T4 variety or made lower tier and cultural units continue to remain relevant and useful.

stoic ferry
#

and we've seen T4's in T3 Tomes

vapid prairie
#

I love fielding stacks of heavily decked-out Raiders or Trenchers in Planetfall with some T3s to tank or support, or wielding the CHAD Yari Ashigaru wall in Shogun 2 with matchlocks and cav.

stoic ferry
#

so you can probably assume you get 2-3 T4-5's baseline

#

accounting for stuff like Tome of the Crucible with no units

#

but if every T3+ tome you pick has a T4-5 you are talking 2 for T3 Tomes, 2 for T4 tomes and then 1 for your T5 tome for five such units

#

which is basically your entire AoW3 Racial Roster or your Aow4 Cultural Roster

vapid prairie
#

Tome of the Crucible has no T4 unit in it and Astral affinity has no T5, at least in the last build that Jordi decided to check from a few weeks back.

silk jay
#

I'm trying to think of a case, where maybe you have some roles as T4s but others as T2s. For instance if you go for Chaos or Order affinity, I'm sure it's pretty easy to skip over the Ranged/Battlemage roles. So you'd unlock a T4 unit in your T3 tome, and then you might just skip building anything but Warbreeds or Tyrant Knights if you can. Both because it completes your army best at that point and because T2s will become obsolete soon-ish.

My speculation is that the problem only happens after: The AI as we've seen stays in one affinity lane and doesn't branch out much. We don't know how much leeway the game allows you if you want to unlock the Magic victory ASAP. However, if there is any allowance (and probably even if there isn't) then the optimal way would be to pick whichever tome gives you a T3+ unit that can fulfil the roles you're missing. Maybe the issue is that the AI is playing in a way that's both boring and bad?

rare kiln
# scenic saffron But when units who are already in the army evolve, you don't have to worry about...

But that is an advantage not a disadvantage. Logistics are a pain in... having less is better not worse. And as other people already said, you don't even have to "babysit" those units. Not many people would carry lots of such units from baby to hero just for the heck of it. You will have to produce and "move" many or most of them anyhow. It is a bonus for your active troops, you would have some special units, something to identify with, especially what so many people think they will miss such units in AoW4. But I already see, we play games differently.

stoic ferry
scenic saffron
#

if we stop worrying about transport and the economy, we aren't playing a 4X game anymore

rare kiln
#

Ah... I see the problem here. I only play with other people not against them. I don't care about pvp 🙂

scenic saffron
#

but some kind of Total War horde faction style game

rare kiln
scenic saffron
#

it's not a different issue because evolving units allow you forego the necessary resource costs for higher tier units

#

you don't have to build any other structures and you don't have to pay for them to become a different unit

gaunt mason
#

what makes evolve units work is the aforementioned fact that they're typically "not good" before evolving, creating a window of weakness in the player using them before they get their evolution and now the player is ahead. if all units could evolve, the only reason to build new units would be if you make a mistake and lose units. that's fine for doing whatever you want but not if balance is something you care about

#

this also means that every tier must be populated by units that have a 1:1 correlation with units at a higher and lower tier

scenic saffron
#

being as good as other units would just make you fill all your armies with evolving units first of all

#

and second of all, they still remove the need for logistics, which is a big no-no in 4X games

gaunt mason
#

flying units more or less accomplish the same, i don't think that's something to be worried about outside of an extreme "all units can evolve" scenario

#

in a state where evolving units have strengths and weaknesses relative to non-evolving units, where a strength is being able to obtain high tier units without paying travel time, they're fine

scenic saffron
#

I'm fine with a sprinkling of evolving units here and there

gaunt mason
#

they're also inherently limited as there is a finite amount of xp available in the shortest path between you and your opponent

karmic coyote
#

I don't think ti would be right for AoW without heavy modificaiton but I like Old World's approach to transport and logistics a lot

#

Instead of moving each unit a fixed amount per turn, you have a global pool of orders you distribute among your units as you choose

stoic ferry
#

ugh

karmic coyote
#

You have to make a lot of tradeoffs on which units you'll move each turn, but also can move units much further

stoic ferry
#

can we not play almost chess

#

pls

karmic coyote
#

Old World's system is like, the opposite of chess

#

you can spend half your orders on one unit if you want to

stoic ferry
#

by your description it's literally chess with an allotment of tiles to spread instead of move one piece

#

hence "almost chess"

#

also

vapid crag
#

OW system is pretty cool. It could work for an AoW or sinilar game, but, like OW, the game would need to be designed around it.

You couldn't shoe horn orders into AoW4 in a parch, for example.

AoW5, or a spinoff maybe

stoic ferry
#

sounds like exactly the sort of thing that wrecks my immersion in a turn based game

vapid crag
stoic ferry
#

no

#

also

#

very very very extremely off topic

karmic coyote
#

yeah maybe I didn't explain it well but it's nothing like chess. if anything traditional 4X movement is closer

vapid crag
#

The movement aspect of orders is very clever. Orders as a concept is very well executed. Think of it as movement, initiative and cosmite/imperium all at once, as a limiter/amplifier of what you can do in the game.

It very cleverly balances your "attention" and forces you to choose between a or b.

If you go on a large offensive, you need those orders to, well, order your troops, but you only have so many orders, and you also need them to play the diplomatic game and the expand and exploit part of the game

#

And not off topic, because orders is so tightly woven into the game, in a future AoW with a similar system, it would be a very elegant way to balance higher and lower tier units, larger and smaller armies, going high or wide in your empire

karmic coyote
#

yeah it would just be hard to make work with AoW's stacks, you'd have to heavily modify it from OW's implementation

stoic ferry
#

and you continue to convince me it'd be a disaster for my ability to enjoy a turn based game lol

vapid crag
#

Also, OW pioneered tool tip in tool tip.

There are so many smart ideas and great execution in OW, that I think everyone who says they are a fan of 4x games should play it, and pick it apart, and hopefully thr innovations can raise the standard of the genre

scenic saffron
#

OW orders are great and clever

#

tooltip in tooltip is from Tyranny ;d

karmic coyote
#

I think there are several games that did it separately within a span of 3-5 years

vapid crag
vapid crag
karmic coyote
#

I think several people have done it since the mid-late 10s without much direct influence

scenic saffron
#

iirc Tyranny was the first

#

it's a bit jarring in an RPG, but it works great in 4Xs

vapid crag
#

Well, I hope it becomes industry standard.
Also, iirc, OW doesn't have city sprawl, and it's victory conditions are actually varied and fun.

#

Anyway, getting slightly more ontopic, earlier in the thread someone mentioned max battle size

stoic ferry
#

like sure, that's a me thing

karmic coyote
#

I mean that's just the abstraction inherent to turn-based games

stoic ferry
#

sure

karmic coyote
#

in civ your warriors move one hex in like...50 years in early game?

stoic ferry
#

but good turn based games keep it an abstraction and don't draw attention to the abstraction

#

Civ technically has dates yes

#

technically there's achievements for doing things before X date

#

in practice, you don't need to notice or pay attention to that stuff

#

when the basic systems demand that you interact with the fakeness of the turn

#

it really wrecks the game for me

karmic coyote
#

I think it does feel realistic and natural in a lot of ways. Like if you go to a large war you'll have to sacrifice your economy and character development because you won't have the orders to spend on infrastructure development

sudden gulch
#

As much as I like beautiful mechanical things I do want to also play with my sister so a little "keep it simple, stupid" would be appreciated

karmic coyote
#

also each unit's movement per turn is soft-capped (though more generous than most 4Xs at base), so it's not a complete free for all. you can bypass that cap for a price, but if that's still too much there are settings to limit it further

stoic ferry
#

see that's just simulating an incredibly brittle and frankly poorly run nation

#

it'd make some sense in like, a character focused RPG type game where yeah, you control literally one dude

#

but nations do things like "tell the minister to handle that other thing"

#

even absolute monarchies, the monarch isn't directly doing absolutely everything

#

if you are going to simulate limited attention of the monarch

#

you'd better ALSO be simming the stuff that monarchs can hand off to trusted parties

#

and what other parties might be doing where the monarch isn't paying attention

vapid crag
stoic ferry
#

otherwise you just drag my focus into "this is fake af"

#

sure going to war is costly

#

it's not "I don't have people to handle these things anymore" costly

#

unless you are actively losing in a major way

vapid crag
#

Anyway, it is a weird argument imho to call it out for being fake in a genre built on abstractions, when I can tell you from.experience it is one of the most intuitive systems I've ever used

#

I also thought you were conplaing about off topic

#

And I offered an out above! 😛

#

Max battle size, confirmed at?

stoic ferry
#

18v18

vapid crag
#

Because imho that does have a very direct link to the value of t4 and 5 units

karmic coyote
#

Ah no more 4v3? that's fair I suppose

vapid crag
stoic ferry
#

it really doesn't have a direct link to the value of T4 and 5 units

vapid crag
#

Seems like an obvious tilt in favour of higher tier units 🤔

#

Well if I only need ..indeed can only really use 3 stacks in an area

karmic coyote
#

I mean SM had 8-unit stacks and the tier imbalance was even worse there than 3

vapid crag
#

Why would I put anything but higher tier units in them?

stoic ferry
#

Total War has max battle sizes of 40v40 PER FACTION INVOLVED on the field at the same time with literally infinite possible reinforcements

#

Doomstacking is STILL a major thing in that game

vapid crag
stoic ferry
#

it's ALWAYS about unit design ultimately

#

having big stacks doesn't change that

vapid crag
#

And what do wr know about higher tier units in aow4

#

Are they specialist like PF

karmic coyote
#

the stat differentials seem small-ish

#

compared to 3 anyway

stoic ferry
#

we've seen Tyrant Knight, Golden Golem, Bone Dragon, and Fire Giant

vapid crag
#

Or generalist, and good at everything, like aow3

stoic ferry
#

NONE of them are support

vapid crag
stoic ferry
#

if you have access to them

#

it's either tome or Rally of Lieges

vapid crag
#

So the question is how useful is a TK? It's a shock unit right?

stoic ferry
#

Tyrant Knight and GG are Tome definately

karmic coyote
#

we've also seen a kharagh which may or may not be recruitable

gaunt mason
#

perhaps there should be a new thread for discussing logistics in 4x games

stoic ferry
#

it;s a Shock unit, with 48 move

karmic coyote
#

doesn't 4 change the baseline number of retaliations to 1?

vapid crag
#

Well I'm.going to.ignore rally units because your access will be unreliable, and out of your control to a degree, whereas you can plan your tomes

karmic coyote
#

I wonder how that would affect tier balance

stoic ferry
#

and a fairly hefty charge attack

#

it mostly does

gaunt mason
#

i will say that reading what OW's system is makes me reel away in disgust, but i haven't played the game and don't intend to (most 4xs are horribly boring)

stoic ferry
#

the Industrious melee has 2

vapid crag
#

2 probably, as there is a trait, iirc, to get an extra

stoic ferry
#

nope

#

baseline is 1

#

Industrious Cultural Melee has a trait that gives them two

vapid crag
#

And I don't see them having more than 3 retaliation in the end

vapid crag
stoic ferry
#

Dwarf Dev Stream

#

and Diary

karmic coyote
#

on paper seems like less retals benefits lower tiers a little more? but I could be wrong

#

cause low tiers can attack a higher without mortally endangering themselves

sturdy haven
#

There is also a matter of unit enchantments.

#

I hope their cost varies depending on units they are affecting.

stoic ferry
#

it doesn't

sturdy haven
#

I mean, in the final release.

#

As it stands, some work better with lower tiers and some with higher, but the upkeep is the same.

#

In PF it was more expensive to mod higher tiers.

stoic ferry
#

I think in some ways it's the shift from Sci-Fi back to Fantasy

#

in Sci-Fi yeah your infantry fight beside the tanks, combined arms should be the way to go

#

but let's be real here, what's some dudes with hammer and shield supposed to do to a Dragon?

#

though

#

interestingly

sturdy haven
#

In fantasy works armies are also usually portrayed as combined arms.

stoic ferry
#

I don't think we saw any Dragon Fear rolls in the Bone Dragon fight

#

so that absurd power seems to be gone

#

which is excellent for anyone hoping to make low tiers work in high tier fights

karmic coyote
#

and I mean he did win the fight

sturdy haven
#

A large amount of ordinary troops supported by more elite forces. Orc armies supported by trolls in LoTR, for example.

stoic ferry
#

and apparently he'd lost that fight before

karmic coyote
#

anyway it's just one man's opinion on this so far

gaunt mason
karmic coyote
#

he's a genre veteran so I'm not going to discount it, but we'll have to wiat and see how the tier balance shakes out after more have played it

#

I mean in The Hobbit the dragon is killed by a random dude, with intel from a hobbit and a bird

stoic ferry
#

and also an ancient artifact

sturdy haven
#

That's true - plus, stuff might change before release. I doubt that rushing high tiers will be as useful as it was in AoW III, though I am slightly worried about mid-late game.

stoic ferry
#

so yeah

gaunt mason
#

presumably an army of dwarves could have done some damage, if smaug just landed in the middle of them to engage in fisticuffs

stoic ferry
#

I mean

karmic coyote
#

the tome progression seems like a soft limit on how quickly you can beeline high tier units

stoic ferry
#

Smaug literally did that to claim Erebor in the first place

gaunt mason
#

he didn't smoke them out while flying?

#

huh

stoic ferry
#

I mean

#

you try smoking out an underground Kingdom with proper ventilation

sturdy haven
#

Poor dwarfs forgot to bring archers against a single flying unit.

gaunt mason
stoic ferry
#

he didn't even know where all of it was lol

gaunt mason
#

a very dwarf fortress solution (to a problem that doesn't exist in df)

stoic ferry
#

also like, the place is absurdly huge

#

so even if he did manage it

#

they'd literally just make more

gaunt mason
#

i bet if be billowed fire in the front gate he could just check out where all the smoke comes out

stoic ferry
#

and it'd take him literally decades

#

and there's also a scene in the book where Bilbo's being told about the event

#

and it's pretty explicit about Smaug going in and wrecking everyone's face

#

because Dragon

gaunt mason
#

so the next question would be: does that make for a fun game

#

especially if you are the dwarves in this scenario

stoic ferry
#

I mean no

#

that's why we don't want Dragons to be that

gaunt mason
stoic ferry
#

but I think it's where the Devs heads go when they go to Fantasy, and some of that is probably just me being a bit salty that we are going from PF to what's looking a lot more like "anything T2 or below had better be absolutely incredible if you are going to keep it around"

gaunt mason
#

if it's like aow3 the solution is to set up rush maps

stoic ferry
#

but I don't like rushes most of the time

gaunt mason
#

but yeah i dislike the t3+ dominance aow games seem to ultimately devolve into

stoic ferry
#

it has the opposite problem

gaunt mason
#

...the opposite problem?

stoic ferry
#

where your roster is tiny because you don't get to develop it

#

so you don't get to use a bunch of fun tools

#

because there's no time for them to come into play

#

it's boring when everything is the highest end(especially when that's literally one unit)

#

but it's also boring when everything is the 1-3 units you can get out as fast as possible

gaunt mason
#

how much rushing have you actually done

stoic ferry
#

enough to have my opinion on it

gaunt mason
#

it's usually more like "select 1-3 units out of a varied list to focus on"

sturdy haven
#

Honestly, "rush" is a pretty vague term in this case.

stoic ferry
#

my favorite thing

sturdy haven
#

Are we talking about 15-20 turn victories in PF?

stoic ferry
#

is when I get to use literally the entire roster for a bunch of time

sturdy haven
#

I think people are able to get 2-3 full stacks at that time.

karmic coyote
#

the other big dragon in the Tolkien mythos fought a group of dwarves and was wounded enough he had to retreat from the battle

#

(granted he was flightless)

gaunt mason
#

in pf i'd usually say a rush is an attack pre-turn 23 but in the actual mp community's duels i have to revise that to pre-turn 30

sturdy haven
#

If memory serves me right, most PF games last from 20 to 40 turns.

#

Duels, I mean.

gaunt mason
#

such was the old way

#

the new way sucks

#

but it is what it is, and what it is is longer

karmic coyote
#

yeah what I've heard about the "fully-developed" meta sounds really dumb

gaunt mason
#

i'd think it was fairly clever if rushing was still present as a valid counterplay

#

alas

sturdy haven
#

Didn't recent games end mostly, in, like 30 turns?

#

At least in the records in YT.

gaunt mason
#

you'd have to ask @sage perch but when i played in their 2022 world championship turn 30 was like, when pvp started

digital oracle
#

We gotta stop trying to make it easier for new players this is a skill based game

sturdy haven
#

@gaunt mason.
I've watched a bunch of her games recently (1-2 months old) and have seen only a single game which lasted more than 44 turns.

gaunt mason
#

🤷‍♂️ the inspector rush i hit her with was literally the fastest rush i could devise under their map settings and that hit ~turn 22 iirc

sturdy haven
#

Right now it depends on the map generation, I think.

#

A recent game ended on like, turn 18.

#

Depends on how close players spawn.

gaunt mason
#

there is a difference where when i played they were doing random map type. now they roll in advance before the match begins so you know if you're on continents or land or what have you

#

continents was such a huge rush killer

karmic coyote
#

the map is still big enough to make it difficult to stop a good turtle though right?

sturdy haven
#

Depends on a spawn location, I think.

gaunt mason
#

it's less of a "turtle" and more "really hard boom" as i understand it

sudden gulch
#

Weak defenders makes booms easy

gaunt mason
#

you do Advanced Scout Wars skirmishes but a true dedicated rush has to hit before the master plan is complete and they can buy out a bunch of npc superbuffed units

sturdy haven
#

From that I've seen from recent games, current balance seems like a decently healthy mix. Too much of a "rush" meta can be an issue as much as a "slow" meta can be - healthy game length should vary depending how well players execute their builds / scout that their opponent is doing / defend, with both options being viable.

#

But, I think we are kinda straying from topic at hand.

#

What are your thoughts about Imperium upkeep for T4-T5?

crisp skiff
#

i dont get

#

i end small+ maps on turn 20, my record is turn 14 with 3 stacks

sudden gulch
#

Slower empire upgrades / doctrined is no where near as slower unit mods

crisp skiff
#

and there is video of it

sudden gulch
#

Imperium upkeep is far too weak if it's replacement for cosmite upkeep

sturdy haven
#

Imperium upkeep + really high base upkeep?

#

Imperium can also be spent on buying new pops for cities, so it might be a bit more impactful than it seems at first.

gaunt mason
crisp skiff
#

live, but it wouldnt change in pbem

gaunt mason
#

🤔 i'd expect pbem to be faster

#

you got a video on the turn 14 rush?

crisp skiff
#

y lemme find

sturdy haven
gaunt mason
#

last i had talked to amik she told me that no one except me was even interested in rushing lmao, that was like 6 months ago at this point thjough

crisp skiff
gaunt mason
#

thanks for the timestamp. shame more of the map isn't explored for me to look at but i'll check the rest of the video out after work

crisp skiff
vapid crag
#

This discussion about Smaug...wouldn't a better comparison be if the Smaug equivalent in AoW4 was a tier 10 unit (or a hero, if that first dlc gives is dragon heroes) or the only one of its kind (thinking like a late game single Dragon invasion, stupidly strong unit that really upsets the game equilibrium)

And not something like the Bone Dragon from the stream!

empty spire
#

Smaug is like, T7 or up in power level. The only reason he died was a lucky crit with the Black Bolt of Prophesized Destiny.

sage perch
#

Who uttered my name?

sage perch
# sturdy haven Duels, I mean.

Yeah, unless a counterplay in in session, or both players play defensively, deplete their military in equal combat, or 1 player fortifies himself and plays on Doomsday (currently banned)

sage perch
sage perch
# gaunt mason 🤷‍♂️ the inspector rush i hit her with was literally the fastest rush i could d...

Let me quench your worries with this video containing a pristine exhibition of a rush strategy, made by him, who must not be named https://youtu.be/CpaFL5cjaTo?list=PLFIlZtFOO3KUxnRo4NGGodVe4Y46CmzMC

YouTube
Age of Wonders Multiplayer Records
Age of Wonders Planetfall: 1v1 small+: Amikdara vs Ambalabada

Mods:
Competitive Mod - Auto vs AI

Link to the discord server of the multiplayer community: https://discord.gg/D9qQS9WN4a
We are always looking for more players.
If you want to post your own game record, send video to [email protected]

▶ Play video
#

Yeah, obviously he already shared it -.- nvm

#

(just read the rest of convo)

#

So about the topic of top tier unit spam viability, in AoW 1, you got 1 upgrade per size of the city (1,2,3,4, just like unit tiers), and cities couldn't be grown. This meant, that max. size city have been needed to even reach T4 unit. A condition, entirely map dependent, and generally very rare, and you had to spend considerable amount of time and resources to build that city to its full potential, and even if you did, there was no hurry production mechanic, so you could only produce 1 T4 unit per 3 turns. Was it spammable? Yes, but you couldn't base your entire army off it, so it was healthy.

#

Then, AoW 2 introduced city growth mechanic, a city building mechanic, and a hurry production mechanic. This resulted in a economical boom, usable to "focus" production and spam your best units for a price in your best cities. However, using hurry production mechanic was killing your population, so you could only do it so much... About T4 spam, this was rather rarely used, as in AoW 2, you were required to build the entire chain of mana structures, production structures, and military structures, (together impossible 9 structures, for which you had to pay with gold), so while conditions for T4 spam were better than ever, the cost was still so high to swamp the game with T4 units, and in most competitive games, unless really really big, T3 units were used most often.

#

AoW 3 is where things start to actually get out of hand. The game introduces class mechanic, which unlocks your special units purely by devoting research to them, and building laughable 3 buildings in your city. In addition, hurry production mechanic gets crazy buffed, so it does no longer kill your population, but instead causes a negligible 100 city happiness penalty (decreasing your income *if used too often) for the short duration of 5 turns (meaning you can only suffer 500 happiness penalty, before diminishing returns this way). In addition to this penalty, you pay small fee of 50 gold for each turn, the rush fastens your production. As a result, economy is stronger than ever and top tier units are more accessible, than they ever were, resulting in a meta, where T4s are absolutely dominant in late game, and T3s are pushing midgame, while T1 a T2 units are completely obsolete, basically not even in the game, except for your starting army early clearing. AoW 3 effectively only has 2 tiers of units. low - 3 and high - 4.

sudden gulch
#

For AoW 2 I would add that low tier units can die from full health even from early research spells like stoning/ cosmic spray

sage perch
#

Now, Planetfall addresses effectively addresses the issue by several means. First being adding a production overflow, which forever changes the way how production mechanic operates. It is now possible under proper circumstances to produce multiple units per turn - cheap lower tier units benefitting the most. Secondly and most importantly, There is a new capping resource added into the game, which can be hailed as AoW's very best mechanic - cosmite. In Planetfall, you have a rare resource you need to use smartly for chosen units in order to get the most value of it, as you won't be able to mod all of your units, unless under very exotic conditions. Class system is dismantled and instead, T4 units are returned to races (except Psynumbra heh). Yes, they can be purposefully rushed, but in doing so, you will miss lot of important tech. Is it viable? Yes, of course it is a viable strategy, and you can totally play your T3 elites with just basic mods for the win.. I'd say it's even meta for any game bigger than a small+ duel. But here's the thing. Once you unlock your T4 (much more research expensive than in AoW 3), you will get a unit with passive cosmite upkeep, which effectively caps the amount of these top tier units you can sustain, so gone are the days, where you can brainlessly spam your ultimate unit. At least until very late game of a huge Free for all or something... In addition, your elite production will cause your cosmite to run out before your energy, and you will want to supplement your armies with cheap T2 supporters, so you can get more value into the game. This rule holds until you can actually sustain your fully elite production, which is very late and requires a skill, I only rarely see people posses (as opposed to AoW 3, where every noob can spam T3/4s effortlessly). In addition to all of this, your T4s are no longer fu*king Dragons & Behemoths, Sea Lords etc... but a complex utility units, which are by no means so overwhelming.

gaunt mason
#

we had an extended conversation about how you didn't think rushing was a viable form of play in DMs lmao

image.png image.png
gaunt mason
#

because i'm not copying and pasting those images in a 5th time, this mistake is sticking

sage perch
#

Well, it was in 2022, and the video of my duel clearly proves me wrong

gaunt mason
#

😐

#

😐 😐 😐

#

ok i am done here

sage perch
#

He killed me in 14 turns.. I can no longer defend that position

#

And you could beat me too, if I didn't have a counter

#

But it's hard to pull off and requires conditions to be met, right?

#

A wild card bet kind of

gaunt mason
#

😐

sudden gulch
#

I think the most impressive hold against a rush was the inspectir rush vs Shakarn tbh

sage perch
#

Shakarn can easily cross water with all of its units, so it's a best rush

#

But Assembly can be invisible

#

Dvar has extra production, but Trenchers are slow, so I don't see that very good.

#

But generally, rush is an opportunity

#

Now to get to my AoW 4 ultimate unit prediction, as long as I know cosmite and any like of a resource was removed from the game, and instead additional tier was implemented, so it will depend on accessibility of this 5th tier. If the previous tiers are scaled to make T5 a new T4 in terms of cost for obtaining, rather than being put above them as an extra layer of game (which they totally should be), and unless several mechanics regarding production have been altered, then it is guaranteed, there will be only 2 tiers of units in game again. low - T4, and high - T5. But we know nothing about how production intricacies work, or how expensive those units are, so it is too soon to conclude this issue. And if production Overflow mechanic is in the game, this also shuffles cards, because overflow is good for lower tier units (or was when they did not cost cosmite). I'd say I am personally concerned by the removal of cosmite, but I'm optimistic, that MP community will this time develop a mod, which will diversify the game, even if the vanilla product repeated mistakes of AoW 3 (which is because of this the worst game in the series in my opinion)

sturdy haven
#

AoW 3 did not have a separate resource which could have been used as a limiting factor for elite units.

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AoW 4 has Imperium.

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I hope Imperium upkeep can be added to units via modding,

sage perch
#

Isn't imperium very rare?

#

I saw something like that being x/5

sturdy haven
#

It looks like it will be a bit more common than Cosmite - players get +30 income of it at the start of the game.

sage perch
#

I see, the it was not it xD

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But what is imperium used for?

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And where is it shown?

sturdy haven
#

Unlocking Empire Skills, buying new city pops.

sage perch
#

(I don't watch much gameplay videos)

sturdy haven
sage perch
#

I thought it was grass lol

sturdy haven
#

Turn 47.

#

+55 Imperium.

sage perch
#

Yeah, that is promising

wild cloak
#

It also depends what the prices are.

sage perch
#

There is a saying in MP community, which goes: Price is never an issue, when talking about quality

crisp skiff
sturdy haven
#

I am quite hopeful personally - should both, production overflow be in the game and Imperium be moddable as a form of upkeep, T4-T5 should definitely not be as problematic as they were back in AoW III.

crisp skiff
#

you will get a unit with passive cosmite upkeep, which effectively caps the amount of these top tier units you can sustain, so gone are the days, where you can brainlessly spam your ultimate unit.
Literally never was the case. Not a single one

#

It's just basic cost of 40 + mods being pricier for a meh unit when you can get 2-3 t3 instead and save tons of science

sudden gulch
#

Is saying it will only be the 2nd spammiest game s good thing?

gaunt mason
crisp skiff
#

But my saying says. T4 should be spamable, there is literally 2 productions queues where you can get all your favorite t1-t2 right from the turn 1. So why on earth there should a cap on T4-T5

gaunt mason
#

The problem was aow3's resources were all obtainable via buildings + settler spam meta

sage perch
#

never was a case in PF

gaunt mason
#

Aow3 t4 spam is the elephant in the room here yeah

crisp skiff
#

your whole paragraph was about PF

sage perch
crisp skiff
#

And why shouldnt they?

sage perch
crisp skiff
#

Its not like you can t5 on turn 20

gaunt mason
#

Amba did you ever do much aow3 mp

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I forget if you were in that scene or not

crisp skiff
#

and you will build t1-t2 just to clear map faster, having to let your toys go is natural

crisp skiff
gaunt mason
#

Uh huh lmao

sage perch
crisp skiff
#

I understand the problem in AOW3

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but now there will be 2 queues to build, literally no reason not to build t1-t2

gaunt mason
sage perch
#

Do you know how dual queue works?

#

I thought 1 was for buildings, other units

crisp skiff
#

Yes, but they go in parallel

sage perch
gaunt mason
#

He's saying that the primary limiter on t1/2 unit production is that it competes with building production

sage perch
#

And it can win against a weaker player for sure

gaunt mason
#

I bet evolving cav rush is still viable

sage perch
#

Like Human cavalry?

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Never tried it

gaunt mason
#

That's building t2 units

sage perch
#

I think it will sooner die in auto combat 😄

gaunt mason
#

Yeah, I could get a stack of knights on turn 20 as human dread back in the day

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And so close to 2 stacks

soft chasm
#

l like the idea that T4 and T5 should cost imperium to maintain

gaunt mason
sage perch
#

and also, it will be low rank by the time you evolve it

gaunt mason
#

Certainly more than damn scoundrels

crisp skiff
gaunt mason
gaunt mason
sudden gulch
#

Doesn't matter in AoW 3 since 0 medal human knight has same stats as good medal cavalry

sturdy haven
# crisp skiff And why shouldnt they?

In order to achieve unit diversity - I would say that player being able to consider more viable options when choosing army composition is healthy, rather than being locked into a single strategy after a certain point in the game.

crisp skiff
gaunt mason
#

Wait didn't knights also have shield and cav didnt?

#

I can assure you the stack of cav I brought into my turn 20 battles definitely performed better than the stack of silver cav

sturdy haven
#

At least, regarding T4.

gaunt mason
#

I think amba's perspective is that of is the second scenario, they never see use due to expense vs econ size

crisp skiff
gaunt mason
#

T2 meta was even better

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But yeah t4/5 meta is ok if there's a variety of choice. Not ideal but the important thing is having units with varied and interesting roles and weaknesses

#

This is historically not the case with t4s

sage perch
#

Don't forget you have to research Advanced production development in society tree too, which is not cheap either in order for your elite units to be truly viable

gaunt mason
#

Note that this is all overlooking the SP rp perspective

#

I would disagree with that

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Better timing can beat that but it's tight

sage perch
sturdy haven
#

Single player roleplaying.

gaunt mason
#

The audience aow4 seems to be specifically targeting, for one

sage perch
#

Yeah, but what is their perspective?

gaunt mason
#

That having armies of small dudes peppered with big dudes is cool

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And while that is not a terribly intellectual or respectable position dare I say it is still the correct one

sage perch
#

seems consistent with MP competitive perspective actually

gaunt mason
#

It is literally the opposite of what amba is arguing

sage perch
#

Ambalabada is describing actual situation

gaunt mason
#

Amba is saying that t4 spam is not a problem

sage perch
#

Which is not perfect in PF either, but a lot better

gaunt mason
#

Which is directly at odds with the sp rp perspective where it is inherently unacceptable

#

Pf has a lot of improvements over 3 to tout yes

soft chasm
sage perch
#

MP perspective is about strategic complexity

gaunt mason
#

🤷‍♂️

crisp skiff
soft chasm
#

what

crisp skiff
#

?? Then ai will never build T3-t4-t5 much

soft chasm
#

i dont think you are understanting

sudden gulch
#

I think even casuals hate t4 spam going by the campaign is hard forum threads that pop up every other month

gaunt mason
#

Sp rp perspective is about making armies to play make believe in a fantasy [not intended as derisive]. It doesn't really care about what good play is or isn't as long as it doesn't get in the way of that

sage perch
#

A good game supports its fantasy setting with strategic viability.

gaunt mason
#

Perhaps "all" was a poor word to include

sage perch
#

You should be incentivized to actually use diverse armies, because it is effective, not just because you are playing your fantasy

crisp skiff
soft chasm
#

but thats not about difficult its about army composition, its what all this conversation has been about

sage perch
#

It won't build them even on hardest

#

So I think he was talking about MP after all. Or some general principle.

crisp skiff
#

No, easy AI will stick to t1-t2 army composition, letting you have this One Big Troll in army

#

What I see are people that dont know what they want. They dont want to play on easy because easy is easy and I'm stronk, but hard is hard and breaks my immersion I want a challenge

sturdy haven
#

A lot of folks wish for the optimal way to play the game to also be flavourfully meaningful.

#

Otherwise, we could be playing with squares and circles instead of proper models.

sudden gulch
#

Everything king and below are weaker than neutrals, then emperor is weaker than neutrals until turn 60osh when it builds t4 and only t4

soft chasm
#

i want that what ever dificult im playing, low tier and high tier units are included in the efficient way to play the game, Not going full T4 and T5

sudden gulch
#

Which is correct human gameplay if it was 25 turns earlier tbh

#

But definitely anti fun either way

crisp skiff
soft chasm
#

like warm? a middle ground?

crisp skiff
#

there is no way "efficient" can be applied to low tier units when you can afford t3+ spam, just why

soft chasm
#

and thats why we could have T4 and T5 units cost imperium to maintain

crisp skiff
crisp skiff
soft chasm
#

all the toys are cool, the new ones should complement the old ones

knotty stone
#

Yea spamming a single unit end game is not fun

sage perch
#

I never saw AI of any difficulty spamming high tier units

sage perch
#

Just like most of people

crisp skiff
sage perch
#

The majority argument is a counter to "it's been said", so it's legit use.

crisp skiff
#

No, i just dont want to repeat myself

sage perch
#

So it was just you, who was against 😄

crisp skiff
#

It will be same with PF, either can be afforded to spam or none will bother

sage perch
#

okay, it's your opinion

crisp skiff
sage perch
#

It's been said

#

by you xD

sudden gulch
#

You can check any 2nd half of a Blackarrowgaming playlist if you want to see AI using six stacks of t4

crisp skiff
#

Clearly someone not is paying attention to this thread

sage perch
sudden gulch
#

The water maps of Sundern campaign also infamous for 6 stacks of shadow stalkers

sage perch
#

xD

#

You are supposed to kill AI before it gets so far

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Had no idea AI can pull this off

#

I don't remember any such play from my AoW 3 campaign

#

just low tier crap

sudden gulch
#

I agree but many people play like that... Maybe because of playing game like civilization/ Stellaris

gaunt mason
#

ai cheats real bad in aow3, massive +econ on the higher levels

#

so it uses all those resources to spam t4s once it gets them

sage perch
#

Because that's hella controversial statement xD (I like it)

sage perch
sage perch
sudden gulch
#

Yeah in planetfall even lategame it's all t1-t2

sage perch
#

And in PF, T4 units if produced are also unmoded lol

sudden gulch
#

It does cheat influence income though

sage perch
#

No idea, why such downgrade then

gaunt mason
#

i believe the sentiment is that most 4xs promote a style of play that fares poorly in aow, and people will often attempt to transmit their skills from one to the other over learning a new game on its own terms because it looks like it should play similarly

sudden gulch
#

It usually had like three times as many dwelling units as normal units lol

gaunt mason
sage perch
gaunt mason
sage perch
#

It has more cosmite, than it spends, it just doesn't spend it

crisp skiff
crisp skiff
sage perch