Triumph, What Are You Doing?

[delicate stream]

Well, I could also say "all Human scoundrels in AoW3 are the same!"
And units in AoW4 won't be the same with all the transformations and enchantments. They are just not inherently different, but even that is wrong if you count form traits.

[wooden pike]

it would be more like all human irregulars are the same

[icy cipher]

could even put it on a society trait or something related to idyllic farming that gives tagged pikemen throw chicken (and something more relevant - food bonus or something :D)

[broken crest]

Scoundrels aren't a subtype. Irregulars are.

[prisma blade]

It's saying that all musketeers are the same regardless of race

Gloweye's issue is that this is applied across all units rather than just musketeers

[broken crest]

They're definitely more boring than other class units, but even then there's variation IIRC.

[prisma blade]

Note that "the same" does not take into account the baseline changes applied to all units of the race i.e. dwarves getting extra defense etc

What cultural enchantment effects have we seen? Are they all number boosts?

[wooden pike]

they all give the culture gimmick according to jordi

bolstering, cull the weak, that stuff

[prisma blade]

🤔 so that's more complex than any of the aow3 races. Equivalent to all kirko units getting swarm shield I suppose?

[unkempt willow]

there's multiple Cultural Enchantments, one of them gives Tome units the Culture gimmick

the rest are stuff like Barbarian's Warrior Mark and Industrious' Runes

[broken crest]

It's basically the same as just having that as part of the race trait. Like Orcs getting +5 HP.

[prisma blade]

Nah there's definitely a line between having a mechanic vs having numerical stat changes

The culture literally changes what you can do with the unit, not just how well it performs

[broken crest]

It still homogenizes gameplay.

[prisma blade]

As a relative measure when looking only at this one particular aspect of the game, sure

[tardy needle]

Triumph's direction of trying to make it more about role playing is very unfortunate, takes a lot of the fun out of the game.

[prisma blade]

Aow2 is still there for you to buy and play

If you want the same game again you can still play the same game again

[tardy needle]

Never said I wanted the same game.

[prisma blade]

i believe that is quite literally what you said in the op

[tardy needle]

Nah the OP is about limitation, feel, and unit exclusivity. Maybe give it a read.

[prisma blade]

Age of Wonders brand policy should be “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.”

When your baseline is a masterpiece like AoW2 what elements you remove from it for subsequent AoW games are likely to be more damaging than what elements you add in as new.

while i'm reading the op, gonna give a quick "lmao" to

This was the case in AoW3 and Planetfall which didn’t do very well.

[tardy needle]

When you start out with something great no matter what it is, it is far easier to ruin it than make it better. That's why you have to be careful when something isn't broken, not to try and fix it.

[prisma blade]

i agree what activision has done with the call of duty franchise rules

[glass oak]

What do we consider sub-types here, cause each unit has a Role. A Shock Unit will always do the same job (charge, cancel defense modes) but a Berserker, is different from a Dark Warrior, is different from a Tyrant Knight. All are Shock units though

[prisma blade]

i don't think that's what gloweye is referring to

[broken crest]

Yeah, that was a response to someone who gave a very wrong example.

Scoundrel was a specific class unit for the rogue, and existed one for every race.

But it was of type Irregular.

[prisma blade]

gloweye's chief concern, as i understand it, is that when looking at a particular unit chassis there are no differences between races other than what they apply at the role/race level, rather than having unique additions at the chassis level

[delicate stream]

Hey, I get it now, your point is that a Tyrant Knight would get the same cultural bonus that another shock cavalry unit from a different tome would get

[broken crest]

Yup. And I want more variety than that.

[prisma blade]

i would like to take a second to note that "variety" can also be created via an abundance of different unit options rather than variations between units when race and unit are mix and matched, as well as via other design avenues

so variety being reduced in one particular aspect or area is not the same as the entire game having less variety

[broken crest]

Hm, yeah. That's why I generally use uniqueness. Having a variety of unique things to pick from, each with their own strenghts and drawbacks, makes a game like AoW good.

[prisma blade]

it is important that there is both an abundance of choice and strong consequence of choice

unit variants are a great way of achieving both

i would love to have them, the more the better

but i don't think that's a disqualifying factor on the game

[broken crest]

Another concerning factor is IMO the question of weaknesses.

We've seen that one stoneskin transformation that had a weakness, but generally speaking most of the things seem to be mostly buffs.

[prisma blade]

this is a concern that i share

[broken crest]

Halfling 20% physical weakness and Frostling Fire Weakness were significant factors you had to account for.

[unkempt willow]

I just think it would be neat if we had Cultural variants of certain Tome units, or more Cultural bonuses in addition the Enchantment that lets you give your Culture gimmick to Tome units

and skins... though I suppose that one could be addressed by a mod in the future

[broken crest]

Forms are basically already skins.

[unkempt willow]

I mean like have a Barbarian Tyrant Knight look different from a Feudal one

[prisma blade]

i don't believe anyone disagrees with this

[unkempt willow]

taking cues from their Culture of origin's aesthetic

[delicate stream]

weaknesses and resistances seem to have entirely moved into transformations, instead of something a race starts with

[prisma blade]

idk maybe the op does he seems to have some interesting ideas about how aow should work

[delicate stream]

now you will be picking and counter-picking your factions strengths and weaknesses more during game, instead of those being determined by starting choices

which is definitely an interesting design choice

[prisma blade]

yeah the culture = race tomes = class/secret tech may not be as clean an equivalence as assumed, aspects that would typically be assigned to race may have been shifted into tomes as well (such as the aforementioned transformations)

[broken crest]

The current setup is quite risky, in that there's a decent chance there'll develop a "best" path through tomes. Or a standard opening you only change for your late-game goals.

[prisma blade]

ehhhh

with a large number of possible combinations it's likely that multiple valid paths will develop

[broken crest]

Techs comparable to Warlord's Training Regimen or Dread's Steam Powered are worth a full tome dip, probably.

[unkempt willow]

I trust that Triumph will be able to make just about any combo valid like in Planetfall

[prisma blade]

the tome system seems to be geared towards mid-game adaptability as opposed to pre-planned builds

[delicate stream]

something I gathered from the reveal stream is that they kept saying how you are defining your race's identity during a game

[prisma blade]

this means that depending on circumstances there may be multiple valid tome options

[delicate stream]

I think they deliberately want to make factions more even and grounded at the start of the game
that's why all the more "fantastical" options like undead and frostlings are locked to mid/late game in the form of tomes

[broken crest]

"more grounded" is the direct opposite of "you're an extraplanar wizard who goes around casually creating entire new species".

[prisma blade]

i don't know if "grounded" is the word i'd use

but yes it seems the idea is more simplistic starting factions to accommodate how much the tome system potentially adds

[delicate stream]

an extraplanar wizard creating new species has to start from somewhere

fine art can be crafted from boring clay or an empty canvas

this game seems to be more about making that "journey", playing through the process of how a race became undead
where she old games would let you start as them

[waxen moon]

There is a thread about this on the paradox forum as well now. https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/recap-from-discord-should-culture-impact-tome-units.1570453/#post-28786945

[dark cedar]

What if your High Battle/Support Mages unlocked Fire * on top of* their spirit damage? 🤔

[broken crest]

Both is good. Drac Shaman did that, right?

[wooden pike]

what so it goes backwards, culture being changed by tome for some reason and its not an enchantment?

if I'm choosing fire I want fire, not spirit

[dark cedar]

I think alot of Drac stuff worked this way. I remember it because it was an interesting way of having a very defined damage aspect (fire) interacting with another damage aspect (sorceror etc) so the model exists, and could work for things such as High + pyromancer. Like, extending this idea, if Pyromancer is a tier 3 Battle Mage, and your culture has a tier 3 Battle Mage, you have some significant overlap there. But, there is logic to say your cultural t3, who already knows magic, would be able to adapt and learn the pyro stuff. So your culture with t3 Battle Mage could just pick up the Pyromancer abilities as opposed to the unit.

But, something like Barbarian which afaik has no Battle Mages, would benefit more from the actual unit.

In the case of the culture with t3 Battle Mage, it would be cool AF if you could retrofit your existing Battle Mage units with the new functionality.

That would be a huge mechanical difference in how the 2 cultures approach the idea of playing with fire.

Maybe too complicated, but it would certainly be unique.

[magic plinth]

Does anyone actually disagree that culture specific variants would be neat? The issue is that on release it's probably better to see what people think of the base and then make those inclusions incrementally?

Like almost none of what is being discussed here was a base feature of any game in the series. It was always added in a free update once the game had settled a bit.

[delicate ingot]

No disagreement

[dark cedar]

Well the argument there is that if this kind of thing is known to be good, why not include it from the beginning?

And a tsngential argument is that the base here is, arguably (based on what is publicly available) lesser than before.

Also, no real disagreement :p but my contract with the Internet forbids me agreeing. I must also insult you occasionally, you son of a 🍅

[umbral ridge]

AoW3 is the only real precedent here isn't it? The others all had discrete races/factions. fwiw OP makes it pretty clear culture variants are not sufficient in his mind for unit variety and I think others feel the same at least from what I remember of the initial response to AoW3

[dark cedar]

PF as well... so that's 2 out of 4 games.

[umbral ridge]

for me PF had a lot of variety in its racial unit roster. I know OP was complaining about it but I can't really take it seriously and am assuming he just didn't play the game.

[prisma blade]

Aow3 was a pretty different game at initial release

Many of the variants weren't present, for one

Also the op seems pretty alone in his opinion of variants, literally everyone else is just talking about how they want variants

[strange ginkgo]

Some variants existed at launch, and basically got the feedback "This, more of this!"

[prisma blade]

What?

I am not certain how to parse this in a way that I can assign specific meaning to

[strange ginkgo]

edited

[prisma blade]

Ah, ok, thank you

Yeah as I've previously noted historically variants are post launch additions

[strange ginkgo]

That really depends how you see certain AoW 1/2 units

[tardy needle]

All variants of a base unit need to have their own totally distinct look and their own exclusive name. At that point the compromise may be sufficient.

[glass oak]

That's not how the game works. You create the variants yourself when you cast enchantments or transformations.

Each unit has its own name and those don't change. It's also not like Planetfall where you could rename each Unit Template you created.

[prisma blade]

casually demanding the number of graphical assets in the game be quintupled

[boreal fable]

Oft, that's a hell of a lot of work

[tardy needle]

Does Triumph anticipate that there will frequently be multiple players on any given map that have the same culture?

[boreal fable]

It's a trap

[glass sonnet]

Yeah, I think a lot of us decided he’s a troll a while ago

[green marsh]

AoW2 is not a paragon of faction diversity

[boreal fable]

This whole Culture doesn't do enough to influence the game seems misguided. The game has changed, and the thing that will influence you the most is the tomes.
Instead of locking in most of your playstyle at the start, you do it during the game with tomes. Culture doesn't seem like it's designed to, nor should it influence the game so much.

To answer OP yeah you're going to get same culture clashes, but they're going to have different racial traits, they're going to have different transforms and enchantments, they might spec heavily into tome units or summons. It seems like you're afraid of bland mirror matchups with no differences but there just are going to be so many.

[green marsh]

There are some cool distinctive units, sure. Also a ton of basic types copy-pasted across the factions with very minor variations (also note that even racial resistances mattered a lot less in 2 because of the silly way damage types were calculated)

like saying Planetfall's faction diversity is worse than 2's is straight-up absurd

[boreal fable]

Someone made a great post earlier barahir, there are like 20ish really unique units in AOW2, more in SM but they are mostly, An archer guy with some tweeks, a Swordsman with some tweeks.

[glass sonnet]

Yeah but they look different, and that seems to be OPs primary concern

[boreal fable]

Transforms and Enchantments change appearances

[glass sonnet]

OP doesn’t seem interested in that

[boreal fable]

Not caring about core features is delusional imo.

[glass sonnet]

Which is why the conversation was changed from his original post, because it was going no where

[boreal fable]

It's still going nowhere, it's like mirror thread of that customization one

[green marsh]

if you want to say you like the distinct unit names and sprites aesthetically fine, but that's a very different statement than "AoW2 had NO duplicates and 3/PF ruined it"

[umbral ridge]

i dont think it really makes sense to reduce aow2 units to swordguy and then talk about the benefits of a culture variant system that is about as substantial.

[wooden pike]

aow4 has more customisation than any game before it, so all units will at least look different

[green marsh]

the cultures have unique mechanics and units though

[boreal fable]

But they litterally are, Orc Swordmans and Human Swordsman

[glass sonnet]

The difference is that in 4 that is the base of the faction, that you then get to custom design with tomes, in 2 that is the extent of faction uniqueness

[green marsh]

the industrious crossbow that gets a huge damage spike if it doesn't move is going to be very different from the barbarian skirmisher unit or more traditional archers

[boreal fable]

This post sums up this AOW2 uniques idea really well.

#1077746251753328720 message

[glass sonnet]

This thread won’t ever go anywhere because it’s just people saying that they want race inherent traits and others saying that goes against the game design. (Oversimplified of course)

You can’t reach a compromise because these are mutually exclusive points

[boreal fable]

So diverse, they have like 2 stat differences.

[north basin]

TBF I think most threads of this ilk won't go anywhere until the game is out and we get a full view of the puzzle we're trying to dissect, but there's interesting ideas sprinkled throughout

[boreal fable]

Almost like how...

There are racial traits...

[green marsh]

also keep in mind..."Poison Protection" is much less useful in this game than it looks on paper

[boreal fable]

That will influence units... 🤔

[prisma blade]

actually i think about 90% of recent conversation has been people saying "we want variants in" and other people saying "same, but also maybe it'll be fine if they're not" and the other 10% is whether or not the op is full of it

[green marsh]

if you get hit by a physical/poison attack poison prot will help you with the status effect but do nothing to mitigate the damage

unless you also have physical prot. it's very silly

[umbral ridge]

why are you posting images at me to make the same point i made, its basically the same difference

[strange ginkgo]

"Some tweaks" is a bit vague, because in these games, those tweaks can matter a lot or barely.

[green marsh]

compared to what? some form traits, maybe. culture units of the same general type, no

[umbral ridge]

these are minor modifiers on basic unit types so its silly to hold up one as superior

[prisma blade]

variants tend to offer substantial changes in unit behavior, if not necessarily unit role

[boreal fable]

Most of OP's point is that SM's way was superior.

[glass sonnet]

I agree that variants would be nice, but considering that they’d have to make something like 300 unique variants if there’s even 1 unit per tome that’s not happening by release

[green marsh]

Yeah some of the variants people propose sound cool but it's adding a ton of design overhead for a game that will already be quite complex

[wooden pike]

most units weve seen are not racial ones though

I dont think a barbarian gargoyle is what is asked for

[delicate stream]

Cultures seem rather different from each other and we get 6 of them, how is that not similar in variety than previous games on release?
And yes, two industrial factions will be rather similar at the start of the game, but that's gonna change fast as you pick tomes.
An Orc Sorcerer and an Orc Warlord in AoW3 also did have the same racial starting units.

[boreal fable]

I like the idea of varients too, but I've made mods focusing exclusively on racial unit variants and it's mother F ton of work. AOW4's system offer's so much variance on base units. It's just beyond superior. It's just a better way of adding variance to the game.

[green marsh]

we just saw the industrious lineup and it seems quite distinct from the barbarian one

[wooden pike]

mystic from screenshot looks like it has 4 casters

[glass sonnet]

I think it only has 3, one of those is an archer I’m pretty sure

[wooden pike]

different from the others at least 😄

[glass sonnet]

But yeah, at launch cultures will be plenty distinct especially when combined with tomes

[green marsh]

like the Barbarian basic shield unit has a stun I think?

[delicate stream]

there is no archer in the mystic roster

[delicate stream]

yes, it had a shield bash ability

[glass sonnet]

I’m positive they don’t have 4 mages, that’d overstack the class way too hard

One of those mages is not like the other

[boreal fable]

One might be a scout?

[delicate stream]

the scout might not be a mage

it might be melee

[glass sonnet]

Far right might be a floating scout

[delicate stream]

yeah, it's that weird floaty guy I think

supposed to be some kind of djinn maybe?

[glass sonnet]

I know it was 8 years ago, but excellent work on the racial class unit reskin for 3, I don’t think I’ve ever turned it off

[wooden pike]

ah thanks!

[glass sonnet]

Honestly mystic has the strangest unit roster of all the cultures, the others were pretty easy to figure out

Far right might be a scout, or a floating shock, or honestly any number of things

[green marsh]

as for what could be added later, I think 1-2 unique units per form might be neat

[delicate stream]

Dark also looks interesting. No shield unit, instead a two-handed sword unit (shock or fighter type maybe?) And it seems no support, only a battlemage.

[green marsh]

like a form unit available across all cultures

(if it were up to me I'd try for one stereotypical "tropey fantasy" unit and one more offbeat)

[unkempt willow]

I think the sword unit for Dark is Shock

[glass sonnet]

I think it’s probably not a shock, I think they said something about not wanting any race to have a tier 1 shock

Maybe an irregular or a modified sword unit

[delicate stream]

so it might be a "fighter" unit, the ice summon in the reveal stream had that type

[glass sonnet]

I think that’s most likely

[broken crest]

It existed in the first AoW3 version. Mounted Longbowmen were a thing back then.

But that it got added later only proves it was a good idea. It doesn't mean starting out with it already started is a bad idea.

[green marsh]

most variants were added later in PF too

and this is already a super complex game in the base

[rough glen]

Amazon purifies were in the base game, while yes they can be added, saying that isn't really an agument against the idea

[broken crest]

If complexity is the problem, toss some of the lower-level transformations to free up design space for more interesting things. Like uniqueness on a per unit basis.

[umbral ridge]

What the not OP culture variant request here is, is that the tome units that are built in cities, the units that retain the race tags, have some kind of culture related tweak, and probably also retain culture traits. Weapon, a skill etc. I don't know how many of those are in the game but im not sure it would be quite that much.

[boreal fable]

They get culture-specific enchantments.

[umbral ridge]

currently it requires a unit enchantment afaik

[glass sonnet]

They already get culture related skills/traits , you just have to apply it via a transformation

Enchantment*

[prisma blade]

this is what is refered to as a variant yes

[glass sonnet]

So you want to do away with the enchantments and just make it city/culture based? I suppose that’s doable

[prisma blade]

You telling me this ain't a problem solved by a day of brainstorming and a minute per variant in the mod editor?

Please elaborate

[prisma blade]

I think the request is for variants on top of enchantments

[umbral ridge]

i dont care personally I was just trying to clarify the scope of what was being asked

[prisma blade]

So you know. More content for my insatiable need to consume media.

[boreal fable]

You're making me see red NINJEW, people often comment on my mods saying "Hey, can you make this cool unit type for each race? scratch that, 2 of them per race, a T2 and T3 with all unique abilities and appearances, ty" And get mad at ME when I say you've just ask me to do idk, half a year of solid modding for you, for free. >.<

[glass sonnet]

If the request is to make the traits/skills city innate rather than enchantment based that’s probably possible, but actual unit variants (if they happen) would not happen until after release

[prisma blade]

Lmao

[glass sonnet]

I think it’s important the game sticks the launch first as the primary concern

[wooden pike]

Juzza will do it, give him a day

[boreal fable]

I'm unsubbing from this thread >.<

[glass sonnet]

Nah let glow eye do it

[prisma blade]

Ok but legit the work that goes into variants is a little bit of a mystery to me. I know it's uh far from nontrivial but some more comprehensive description of what specifically it entails may be helpful

Also yeah I was just repeating what gloweye said earlier lol

Anyways if this thread's bad for you then leave buddy, you don't have to acquiesce to our demands

[glass sonnet]

Unit modeling, unique stats/skills stuff like that

[boreal fable]

I could actually see it being an enchantment "Unlock industrious potential" granting a special thing to each tome unit with a form. idk, still a lot of work

[glass sonnet]

Animation rigging if you’re unlucky

[boreal fable]

If it's variant's like the Manticore where they just get little special thing each depending on the race then it wouldn't be that hard

[wooden pike]

I dont think unique models are whats asked for by most people here

[boreal fable]

If you're asking for visuals/animations/models you're asking for way more work

[delicate stream]

you can not get the other culture's research and enchantments, so I guess it's a balancing decision

[prisma blade]

Sure but quite a bit of that can be asset reuse from other models (especially the replace gun with bow stuff). The mystery for me is the design workload breakdown

[wooden pike]

well you cant just give them the culture gimmick because thats already an enchantment , you ave to think of unique things for all

[prisma blade]

When I was talking with gloweye earlier it seemed like a lot of the workload is in the balance work. Which don't get me wrong is plenty substantial enough for me but I'm curious if theres more I'm missing

[glass sonnet]

Oh most certainly, but it’s not as easy as it was made to sound if any form of model trickery is involved

[wooden pike]

that make sense, dont change the unit too much

[prisma blade]

Yeah, though that's typically borrowing from what other units already have

[glass sonnet]

Balance would also be a big issue

[prisma blade]

Halfling monster hunter gets the jester ranged attack, theoretically select shield units could get warrior shield bash etc

[glass sonnet]

It’s possible, and I’m all for it, but I think ensuring the game launches well should be more important

[wooden pike]

I dont think I'd like the replacement style of aow3 for this game

i'm choosing tomes speicfically for what they add to my roster

if that changes too much id be annoyed

[prisma blade]

It's largely what pf did too, amazon purifiers being the obvious example. But also stuff like dvar echo walkers becoming 1ap attacks instead of repeating - dvar don't really have melee units like that (ramjet?) But they do have a single ap attack focus so the change makes sense

[glass sonnet]

I don’t disagree with gloweye, I just have different priorities for what I think is important right now

[prisma blade]

It helps a lot that variants are typically a strict or very close to strict upgrade over the base version

Aow3 had some outliers there with apprentices having weird stuff with what channel attack they had but in pf having a variant was always a big upside and selling point of a combo

[glass sonnet]

Yeah the variants are nice, especially Kir’ko since they got the most (I think)

[prisma blade]

Nah amazons definitely

[delicate stream]

you mostly only had one really unique variant per race/secret tech combo, here we are talking 54 tomes

[prisma blade]

It's like secretly a defining feature that if the unit can have a variant amazon gets one

[glass sonnet]

That’s why I say it shouldn’t be the main concern, getting the game out and running well is

[prisma blade]

You only had 3 units per ST and 1-2 of them would be mechanical or otherwise ineligible so uh, yeah?

[glass sonnet]

And why I don’t understand why this conversation always gets so heated

[prisma blade]

My position remains "I'd love variants, please give me variants, but the idea that they will make or break the game is very silly"

[delicate stream]

I just mean that each secret tech had something cool for your race, but making each tome unit cool for each culture is more work

[prisma blade]

True. Aow3 may be a better comparison in that regard

Of course dreadnought and sorcerer had very few units eligible for variants

Warlord got a ton though

AD had a number of very notable ones

So did necro

[glass sonnet]

I play 3 so modded I genuinely don’t remember what’s vanilla anymore

[prisma blade]

Mmmm theo too. Lots of variant crusaders and fanatics and evangelists.

Rogue had some substantial variety, bit more spread out though

But like bards with longbows, scoundrels with slingshots, assassins with pounce

...wait

Did tigran assassins get pounce

[wooden pike]

tigrans got either pounce or bleeding stuff

[prisma blade]

They got improved wall climbing like draconian and also the better move speed

[delicate stream]

I will not mind so much that my Tyrant knight does not have a special cultural variant on release, when I can make him an undead cannibal with steel skin that rides a spider, and has flaming attacks.
Not saying that we couldn't also have variants, but the other stuff is something we couldn't do on that level in previous games.

[glass sonnet]

That’s a pretty common stance, so I’m not sure why this discussion always ends up turning into a war zone

[umbral ridge]

the entire topic is muddled because its been switched from OP's "AoW3 is bad" to "we should do this like in AoW3"

[delicate stream]

this is now the "will customization lead to saminess" thread version 2.0

[delicate ingot]

Let's just admit it

We're going to get this topic repeatedly at least until release

[glass sonnet]

Unfortunately, probably

[rough glen]

Forgive me if I am wrong, but isn't wanting culture type to have more of an impact on tome units the opposite of "will customization lead to saminess?"

[umbral ridge]

it would still probably be worthwhile to do a new thread on tome unit culture variation with a concise OP, so we don't have two slightly different saminess conversations going

[glass sonnet]

This is one of the largest threads and it’s only like 4 days old

[rough glen]

that is very fair

[delicate stream]

that was the main topic in that thread too, though

it all boils down to this one thing, because no one can really argue against it, but people disagree on it's importance

[glass sonnet]

I feel like it could be a good thread, but it feels like it constantly devolves into bad faith arguments in all the threads on this subject so far

[magic plinth]

I sort of agree, but I also think that waiting a bit has merit. Let's say the industrial cultural trait winds up getting an overhaul. Either it's OP or UP or something. Then all those special units they made need additional reworking around that. Waiting a little while after release and initial rush of feedback to add them makes a lot of sense to me.

Especially since those changes are always added in free updates.

Not saying they have them planned. I have no idea. But adding after release does make sense I think.

[hybrid sleet]

So with previous games it was pretty cut and dry. This race + this class/tech gets this variant. What would it be this time? I think the race equivalent would be culture, but how would you determine what variants you get?

[magic plinth]

Also, adding variants to each unit isn't mechanically hard. I did this for my half finished AoW3 mod. The issue is that it's difficult to find a good balance of interesting variants for all those combinations.

[hybrid sleet]

Would it be something like, enough affinity unlocks this within that unit?

[magic plinth]

It does take a lot of dev time.

[umbral ridge]

culture seems like an obvious choice i guess, a high ranged tome unit gets a bow, the industrious one gets a crossbow (i haven't seen a ranged tome unit just an example)

[magic plinth]

And even more balancing it. I just think more and more that it should be added...but in the first big free update going along with whatever DLC comes.

[hybrid sleet]

Culture and what, though?

[magic plinth]

Tomes. The racial units NEVER had variants. It was secret tech/class units that had variants based on race.

So the base culture roster wouldn't get variants. But tome units would then get variants based on the culture.

[hybrid sleet]

Good point. Hadn't considered that prat.

[azure fossil]

Sorry to interrupt the conversation if it's moved on. Yes, I have had a case where I was expecting an interesting combination based on the general unit, that didn't work out because there was a variant unit instead that had very different characteristics. Namely, in Planetfall, I expected to get a long range, cheap unit in the Purifier, only to find out Shakarn Purifiers were melee only.

[delicate stream]

I agree, they likely do not want to mess with that stuff before release, when they don't know yet in what way all the possible enchantments and transformations and unit combinations will interact

[merry dagger]

ummmm... if the Purifier is cheap, the Deadeye is the same cost, and longer ranged

[broken crest]

And that's really all I'm asking for.

Definitely not visuals, far too much work for things that might need change when more balance information comes in.

[broken crest]

Rather the opposite, IMO. So Bolstering gets modified heavily. Well, now you have like 10 tome units with a slightly different, but still industrial-themed mechanic. Perhaps one of those is very popular, and that needs to be brought to the entire culture. Without it being a risk in that people will hate it.
And you only need to do one special thing for that tome unit whose gimmick gets spread out.

[merry dagger]

I mean

[broken crest]

I'm not saying that we need something for every specific combination. But a number of high profile ones would definitely be good.

[merry dagger]

in Planetfall they managed just fine with racial variants of secret techs without making a particular combo so much better than all other variants for it to be the only option

[broken crest]

Which isn't anything anybody asked for?

[merry dagger]

I mean

[broken crest]

I want uniqueness. Not power level.

[merry dagger]

yeah

that's the point

they've proven they CAN do uniqueness without ruining balance

right now

post Dev Diary 6

[broken crest]

Perhaps something you could heavily build around, but not one that leads to an objectively best way to play.

[merry dagger]

it feels like they decided to put that effort to balancing a much expanded event system

but also

[broken crest]

Nobody knows balance. Even a closed beta wouldn't have given a true feel of the balance.

[merry dagger]

they've talked about how it "didn't fit what they were doing"

[broken crest]

No they haven't?

Other people have said that, not the devs.

[merry dagger]

Jordi has outright said so

for fixed traits yes

[broken crest]

Jordi hasn't said that unique stats on tome/culture units "didn't fit what they were doing".

[merry dagger]

but that's also what they've said for tome/culture special variants

[broken crest]

Where?

[merry dagger]

in one of the three/four different threads that have brought it up on the forums

I'm not digging for it right now

[broken crest]

Because [citation fffing needed]. Jordi has talked in this thread and not called it "not fitting what they were doing".

Ah, so it's a wild assumption from you. Got it.

[merry dagger]

and scrolling up to see what Jordi said in this thread

it could also be rephrased as "focus on customization means no baseline variants"

aka "it doesn't fit what we're doing"

but personally

I'm currently of the opinion they just put the effort elsewhere

and I'm a bit sad about that

[broken crest]

No, he didn't say that. I read this entire thread.

[merry dagger]

but oh well

[merry dagger]

yeah he did

[broken crest]

Yeah, that's not now the game works NOW.

He didn't say it "didn't fit what they were doing".

Also, I'm 60% sure he was talking about the transformations, and those being generated from the set of enacted transformations on a base form, rather than the logical entity of "a Tyrant Knight unit".

[magic plinth]

Seeing a lot of hostility from you Glow

I know this thread is a hot button issue but please try to be respectful. Right or wrong he's not being rude. You can correct someone politely.

[broken crest]

Yeah, I'm sorry. I should stay more polite.

[prisma blade]

jordi's gonna post The Truth soon but while we wait there's this: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/recap-from-discord-should-culture-impact-tome-units.1570453/#post-28787391

[magic plinth]

It's okay. Just trying to keep things on track. Even if this thread is messy I don't want to close it. Seems useful as a feedback metric.

[frigid surge]

i think you meant this post? correct me if im wrong
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/are-races-pure-cosmetic.1565793/post-28787087

[umbral ridge]

thats an older and messier thread, newer one is a little more specific

[glass oak]

I said that in response to the Op wanting all unit variants to be named differently and with unique visuals.

The main concerns with unique Tome variants (besides being like 6x18 options at least) are things like you got with PF's variety. Unit Roles exist for a reason, we wouldn't suddenly switch a Tyrant Knight from Shock to Shield.

The other concern is Unit Complexity. Players should be ae to see a Tyrant Knight and know what its going to be doing/capable off without opening the unit panel. Having many different things that are going to be different makes that harder.

[broken crest]

Information is still scarce, so it's hard to formulate arguments about the entire game.
Best we can do is mind what we see, and assume that the info we do get is representative.

[magic plinth]

There was a remark higher up that someone got disappointed when they found Shakarn melee purifiers on that note.

Probably something to add later, but I do think that variants should largely stay within their role at least XD

[merry dagger]

I mean

that person was also just wrong

[prisma blade]

tbf deadeyes did exist already

[merry dagger]

yeah

for what they were describing Dead Eye are just better for that

[prisma blade]

meanwhile as assembly i rarely build hackers because it's tech cost when electrocutioners are already right there

that's a unit that could've been made melee

[azure fossil]

I was perhaps wrong, but I was still disappointed haha

[merry dagger]

Assembly Hackers are sometimes really neat

Reassembled Daemons

[azure fossil]

I'm trying to piece back together why, but I wanted ranged purifiers on my shakarn

[prisma blade]

they're... fine

[azure fossil]

I don't recall using Deadeyes a whole lot, so perhaps I didn't like them?

[prisma blade]

their ability is probably the worst out of the added hacker abilities but yeah i don't dislike the one i start with

but why build them

[merry dagger]

mmmm

if you are at war with the Autonom

[prisma blade]

deadeyes are pretty damn good

[merry dagger]

Deadeyes are great

Sonic and Laser mods together on a single shot for 8 range Impaired

at 12 strength

just turn off those mods

[umbral ridge]

I do think its a good idea if units largely stck to their roles but also I liked the oathbound unit with the fire swords

[azure fossil]

I don't think I've played an in-depth Shakarn game at all, come to think of it. My one Shakarn game focused on secret tech.

[prisma blade]

they were like 18 damage base and had tons of great offensive mod access

[merry dagger]

Oathbound Purifiers were great

9phys 9 heat on Deadeyes

and Overwatch

[prisma blade]

oathbound purifiers were weird

i played a game against orange once where he went big on them to see how it plays out

[azure fossil]

The second shakarn game should have been Promethean, but I stopped short as I mentioned.

[prisma blade]

they certainly have a niche

[merry dagger]

Battlesuit burninate scythes

with bombs

[prisma blade]

i believe his conclusion was that focusing on them works but you need a mix between them and wardens, you can't all in them

[merry dagger]

honestly I just really like melee Purifiers variants

because it feels like you can actually use the Pyrx Absorbtion Panels in a relevant way

[prisma blade]

wait

i was thinking of lightbringers

oathbound purifiers are the ones that die quickly

[magic plinth]

I loved Shakarn Promethean too.

[merry dagger]

I think my favorite part of Shakarn Promethean... is Purification Field

[magic plinth]

But it was also perfectly thematic. Ignite the atmosphere then retreat underwater to wait it out.

[prisma blade]

i spent quite a bit of time playing shakarn promethean when i was testing rush builds for amik's tourney

[merry dagger]

Purification field might be the best defense mod in the game, at least for the cost

[prisma blade]

....the purifier was the one thing about that combo that annoyed me

[azure fossil]

That's my favourite part of Promethean period I think 🤔

[merry dagger]

yesh

[magic plinth]

Shakarn became my favorite race. I loved the doctrine stuff of the syndicate but weirdly didn't click with a lot of their units.

[prisma blade]

unfortunately i could not get an infiltrator rush up in time

had to abandon that plan

[magic plinth]

Shakarn were stealthy too but I liked their unit design a lot more.

[merry dagger]

I did like, 11 turn 20 rushes as Dvar Promethean, just cus it's so easy to not die with that combo

lol

[prisma blade]

but yeah if you're doing autobattle games like live mp then prui field solves all your problems

[merry dagger]

we are super sidetracked now

[magic plinth]

Actually I mostly just hated indentured

[prisma blade]

great if you need to clear aggressively

[magic plinth]

Are we? Reread OP and ask if this isn't better... 😂

[merry dagger]

still off topic

even if the topic is how much we enjoyed burning the world as Promethean

[glass oak]

Alright can we just move the Planetfall talk to the PF channels haha

[merry dagger]

lel

[prisma blade]

it is true pf should be discussed in a pf channel

yeah lmao

[magic plinth]

True. Let's all hop over

[azure fossil]

Eh, we're talking about Purifiers and how good or bad it was that they varied so drastically from race to race

I think that's very much the topic

[merry dagger]

well we were

[prisma blade]

ehhh

ehhhhhhhhh

[glass oak]

I know how we got here but the PF specific convo has a dedicated space 😅

[prisma blade]

we aren't really talking about that anymore

[azure fossil]

There's also the fact that Purifiers changed as the game was patched. My first proper game had ranged Kir'ko Purifiers, and those don't exist anymore I don't think. There's so many melee purifiers I'm not sure which one is the standard anymore.

[magic plinth]

Yeah. split the topic. Variant related things from pf stay here because relevant. Non-variant stuff goes to general?

[magic plinth]

That was the case with variants in all games. was an ongoing thing.

I do think it seems fair that maybe variants shouldn't change roles if they are added though

[icy cipher]

best variant I think were the malictors, mostly same but 1 ability sometimes swapped for something themed (bow purifiers too)

[merry dagger]

there's only two melee purifiers, Oathbound and Shakarn, the Kir'ko guys do Choking

[azure fossil]

Oh, right. Only the Psynumbra initiates then ?

[delicate stream]

I think in AoW4 you might pick a tome explicitly to fill a gap in your roster, for example an industrious player might want to pick Tome of Subjugation to get a shock cavalry unit
Changing the tome unit roles too much based on culture would be counterintuitive to that

[merry dagger]

sure

but you don't need to go as extreme as the Purifiers wound up going

Hackers are neat variation

Star Guides have cool differentation

[delicate ingot]

Tome of Subjugation probably too high to just dip into

it's Tier 4

[merry dagger]

none of those shift from being shooty supports for Hackers or supporty supports from Star Guides

[delicate ingot]

But you're probably not otherwise off

[merry dagger]

but HOW they do those things does get adjusted

[azure fossil]

I know I held off Voidtech Dvar because I didn't like the idea of their Echo Walker either. But that's Planetfall, where the tech tree is built in such a way that I was playing either to Secret Tech or to Faction, but rarely both at the same time.

[prisma blade]

splashing one or the other is very effective

half and half is maybe not the best idea

[delicate stream]

ahh well, maybe should have used some other example then

[delicate ingot]

Yeah your general point was fine

I'm just nitpicky, my bad

[azure fossil]

The Echo Walkers are in the "splash" range, you're right. And those T2 units were the ones that varied most.

But similarly I would have liked the standard Echo Walker, with a repeating attack, along with the Dvar units. I feel like the most contrarian person in the world saying that, sorry.

If the Dvar Echo Walker is already too much variation for me, I don't think I can be satisfied. 😅

[merry dagger]

I mean... Dvar Echo Walker is just better 95% of the time... so yeah you're a bit weird

[azure fossil]

Right, but I wanted a high damage unit that doesn't move as much. I wanted something that was unlike the (early) Dvar. Fill a gap as Caliban said.

[merry dagger]

Melee is gonna be moving a lot

because it needs to close to melee

and like... Trenchers can just sit in their Trenches

[azure fossil]

Repeating melee moves less, because that's how it does the most damage. But early Dvar has a lot of units whose damage suffer so that they can move more while maintaining that lowered damage.

[prisma blade]

what repeating melee actually does is: less damage

[azure fossil]

Probably!

[prisma blade]

they don't often have the luxary of standing in place

[merry dagger]

and, even if they are standing in place... they get staggered a LOT

[prisma blade]

when they do it's rare that the extra damage was going to result in fewer actions to kill

plus, dvar echos tended to essentially 1shot stuff

[azure fossil]

So trenchers can sit in their trench, but Vanguard Marines and Syndicate Indentured seemed a lot better whenever a trench was present.

[prisma blade]

dvar pinball game

[merry dagger]

also, this is still probably off topic lol

sorrys

back to topic...

gonna be realy

[prisma blade]

dvar trenchers can run into very aggressive positions, dropped trench, and fired same turn for ridiculous alphastrike damage

oh oops

this isn't pf channel

haha sorry

[azure fossil]

But I need you guys to teach me Dvar, I suck at them :'(

[merry dagger]

it feels really weird to go from Planetfall's very distinct races, to what looks like a lot of template stacking that's even mostly stats instead of more interesting stuff

[azure fossil]

Wasn't there a repeating Purifier ? From the Vanguard maybe ? That would have probably been an actual example.

[magic plinth]

This stuff goes into planetfall discussion. And the repeating purifier was amazon iirc

[merry dagger]

both

Vanguard had a Trooper alike and Amazon had a Huntress alike

[magic plinth]

Ahh kk thx. Now everyone go to the planetfall section with this! 😂

[prisma blade]

this is the racial variants thread we talk about racial variants here no don't read the op that's not important

[azure fossil]

Right, so if somebody (not I) wanted a more mobile trooper type for their Vanguard like the Assembly Purifier, Promethean wasn't the option it might seem to be. Only Psynumbra was.
Although we got right back to the fact that the Purifier took variation to such an extreme that it became amorphous, and that might not in fact have been good ?

[prisma blade]

^stated with irony but also my unironic opinion

vangaurd had assault bikes

also yes the base purifier is not highly regarded

[azure fossil]

Could you use the PUG heal on bikes ? I thought that was biological only

[prisma blade]

many of the cases you are bringing up i believe were there because the base version was mechanically redundant

???

[azure fossil]

Were bikes a good unit? did I miss out again?

[prisma blade]

yes

bikes are great and i don't know why i need to keep explaining that to people

ask me in pf chat if you want to know more

[azure fossil]

let me do that

[hybrid sleet]

Where is planetfall chat?

[azure fossil]

I recall complaining about that very thing when Planetfall came out. Let me fetch my posts, I think there may yet be more depth to my idiocy.

[azure fossil]

You need the Planetfall role.

Head to #role-selection

[azure fossil]

Couldn't find it. Somebody else did I'm sure.
This resonated though, from my very tepid response to Stellaris' announcement:
"There might be divergent paths, but ultimately random becomes generic - everything looks like something else, yet not enough that you form any attachment to them."

If I can't recognise the Tyrant Knight because every individual is different, how am I ever going to cherish the memory of the Tyrant Knight? Every individual needs to be quite similar so I can identify what Tyrant Knight means. But they also need to be different from everything that isn't a Tyrant Knight, otherwise they'll blur with other units. I still think that way seven years later.

[magic plinth]

Could you elaborate a bit on what you mean?

Within the context of unit variations and cultures and stuff

Do you want more variation or less? lol

[prisma blade]

they are arguing for less

[azure fossil]

I think the Purifier in Planetfall ended up being too much, and I'm expounding on why.

So I'm arguing for less variation than in Planetfall I guess, which doesn't mean I might not appreciate some amount under that.

I realise it looks very silly with the way I say Tyrant Knight Tyrant Knight Tyrant Knight, but it furthers the point: Is the Tyrant Knight going to be memorable and meaningful or is it just going to be a weird word? It's got a good start! Let me edit the message though.

[magic plinth]

Thanks

Was just trying to understand what you meant

[unkempt willow]

Jordi did not say they didn't want to give a T1 Shock unit to any faction, he said they didn't want to give a T3 unit to Barbarian Culture at the start

[delicate ingot]

because it's the only Shock unit in their starting roster, yeah

[strange ginkgo]

Maybe it helps to list all the Purifier variants to create a little basis for how much/little we can see variants being different:
Base purifier: base range 5 plasma blast that can apply burning, range 7 AoE plasma bomb that can apply burning, thermal resistant plating and thermal status effect immunity
Amazon: Excahnges Plasma blast for repeating range 5 plasma bow attack. ignores cover and applies burning, also gets visual acuity (+1 range when in cover) that applies to both attacks
Assembly: no variant changes
Dvar: Can Entrench
Kir'ko: Plasma Blast applies choking instead of burning
Oathbound: Single swipe 3-hex melee attack instead of blast, defense mode is upgraded to Evasion defense mode
Syndicate: Is indentured and has cerebral control collars
Shakarn: Repeating melee attack instead of plasma blast
Vanguard: Repeating range 7 ranged attack

[waxen moon]

So we create our variants ourselves with enchantments and transformations, but we can't name our variants and those names don't change, no matter how we enchant them? So a barbarian, frostling, barbed thorned elven [UNIT NAME] will be named the same as an barbarien, fiery, devilblooded mole [UNIT NAME] where [UNIT NAME] is a tome unit? When we are out to create our own factions in detail, shouldn't we be able to name them or at least shouldn't the names reflect how we modified the units?

[broken crest]

Sounds like your interpretation is accurate, yeah.

They'd also have the same name as a feudal, blighted, angelblooded rat [UNIT NAME].

[boreal fable]

I wouldn't see the harm in naming units but there isn't as big a need for it as there was in PF, since you made mod loadouts differentiating units in your recruitment list mattered. In AOW4 it seems like enchants and transforms are just applied to units if they can be.

[wooden pike]

a prefix could work I guess

[waxen moon]

or a prefix and suffix depending on culture and enchantments. It would just be a name table for units depending on some relations. Nothing too hard to add to such a game and it would help the recognition of units.

[glass oak]

First of all the reminder to turn the ping/notification off when replying to a hours old comment. This as per the 'do not ping Devs if they're not actively participating in the conversation.'

Pre/suffixes aren't really needed when it comes to Race Transformations as your whole Race is under the influence of their effects. There could be an argument made for Unit Enchantments, however you quickly run into two issues. How to handle all the stacking unit enchantments? It's fine when you only have 1 enchantment, but when your Beserkers have Frost Blades, Searing Blades and Meteor Strikes things become a lot more complex.

The second problem comes from localisation. In Planetfall all potential names were prewritten combinations, so the localised text wouldn't run into grammatical issues. That isn't really possible with Pre or Suffixes as the way the word or name is written can change drastically based on the given pre/suffix depending on the language. Getting that solid is a lot of additional engine work.

[wooden pike]

we mean prefix like planetfall does

[broken crest]

So like, "Frost-Bladed, Meteor-Striking Tyrant Knights"?

Those could get silly long real quick I think.

With PF there was a maximum number of mods.

[unkempt willow]

and they only gave you preset/random names based on one of them

[magic plinth]

I actually didn't like the naming of units, even though I understood the necessity because of the modding system.

[waxen moon]

Didn't want to annoy you. For me you were actively participating since it is an all time zone discussion zone and it has been mere hours. But, ok, won't happen again.

[warm cargo]

Most disliked Feedback imagine

[fiery scaffold]

While I don't agree with all of OPs opinions, I do think that limitations+exclusive mechanics make for more flavourful factions, and if you decide to eschew a little of the balance in favor of a more fun experience, you can get pretty good results.

[sharp echo]

I agree with OP regarding exclusivity of races due to inherent traits.
It makes for better gameplay knowing the race you chose has cool strengths and flaws to play around.
Otherwise we just reskinning a game mechanic where there is no point to "choosing a race". I think just means less work for developers because they don't have to think about balancing to making anything more unique than others. Thus less resources in changing models and testing.

[broken crest]

The idea is to factor out the gameplay impact into culture.

How well that works is something we're gonna find out.

I personally don't like it either.

[strange ginkgo]

some people will enjoy the ability to play rats/elves/dwarves every game and with every concept and idea.
Other wont.

[prisma blade]

i guarantee you this is not """less work"""

anyways it's just saying you can put the elf model on any unit, the gameplay impact is 0. the real question is the interaction between culture, society, and tomes

if you model swap all of the amazon units in pf into orc models the gameplay is the same

[magic plinth]

Lol strongly agreed

It's a metric crapload of work, actually...

Can disagree with the design direction but it's far from lazy

Race in terms of gameplay mechanics is now culture + society + traits.

And tomes are class

[sharp echo]

Meant more in terms of creating unit models specifically for each race.
Then assigning individual specialized stats and abilities then balancing them to all other races that play against it.

Instead they can say everyone gets a polearm unit and an archer unit.
An example being they grab the base model of an elf and add a bow, grab the base model of an orc add a bow, or an undead base model and add a bow, etc.
The alternative being Elves get archers, Orcs get a ranged kobold, and Undead get Hell Hounds that breath fire, etc.

All for the "ranged tier 1 unit". If you get what I trying to say.

[hybrid sleet]

There does look to be an overabundance of bows in the roster at this point.

[unkempt willow]

slings and throwing weapons need more appreciation

[broken crest]

Yeah, agreed. Spear throwers is a perfectly valid ranged option for, say, barbarian culture.

[unkempt willow]

Would have been neat if the High ranged unit was a shielded slinger

to go further with their vaguely Greco-Roman aesthetic

and maybe a repeating crossbow/chu ko nu for the Dark culture totally not projecting Druchii onto them

[broken crest]

Greco-Roman is kinda overdone IMO.

Darters is also a ranged option that really should be somewhere. Perhaps for Dark?

[unkempt willow]

oh yeah I forgot about dart guys

[unkempt willow]

maybe, though I think not so much for the Peltast/Slingers

[broken crest]

True, I don't see those much, but greco-roman in general is something I've just grown to despise.

I loathed the Archon rebrand with it in AoW2 and SM.

It made them "boring romans" instead of "mystically ascended humans with superpowers"

[unkempt willow]

fair

[broken crest]

AoW 1 Highmen Paladin was amazing because of Healing. Their general aesthetic was also more unique, IMO.

[dark cedar]

Something like PF distinction

[dark cedar]

For all we know this is already in?

[broken crest]

Didn't we see the barb lineup at one point? Could have sworn.

I could be wrong, though.

[dark cedar]

Got to.say, not got much of a Greco-Roman vibe from.what we've seen of high

[unkempt willow]

yeah, hence the "vaguely"

[broken crest]

Yup, I'm happy about that.

[dark cedar]

Forms are quite alot of technical work as far as I know.

[wooden pike]

barbarian does have spear throwers yeah, youre right

[broken crest]

Oh, nice.

Happy I was wrong. You happen to know about slingers or darters?

[wooden pike]

I mean, they have spear throwers and a normal archer

mystic doesnt have any archers

[unkempt willow]

yeah all mystic ranged units appear to be bama/support types

[broken crest]

This could be more of a Orc Spearman thrower unit?

[broken crest]

As in, no bows or no subtype?

I'd like slingers, darters, and perhaps javiliners to have the archer Subtype and role, but not actually use bows.

[unkempt willow]

the spear thrower is classed as a Skirmisher I think

and definitely seem like melee/ranged hybrids

they throw spears when they can't reach the target, but can potentially hurt for a lot on a flank

[wooden pike]

the screens helpfully leave out any unit type info :V something I hope they will add, because that would be... nice to know when picking

[unkempt willow]

RIP those poor lesser fire elementals

[dark cedar]

That picture of the Barbarian unit, the hand looks...amusing.:)

[broken crest]

Yeah, agreed. I want faction info when making choices. Sure, it's all pretty, but all that screenspace going to pretty isn't giving us any concrete information.

[broken crest]

I don't think that's the hand. Her hand is further back - the javelin points to our right/her left, and there's some ornament or something in front of her hand, I think.

[dark cedar]

I think you're correct

[dark cedar]

I think they could use the same or similar models for each race, and make them diatinct/varied in game play terms.

[delicate stream]

Something I mentioned earlier: if we can choose mounts, I don't see a reason why there couldn't be a similar choice for the main ranged weapon of our culture.
If said ranged weapon comes with a significant game play advantage (e.g. poison darts), tie it to a form or society trait to balance things out.

[wooden pike]

I think the issue is having only one animator :V

[delicate stream]

It would require some animation work, yes. So far all units of the same type seem to share animations.

[azure fossil]

What are you thinking of? Having a choice between bows, blowdarts, crossbows, throwing axes, shortbows? For every culture?

[wooden pike]

crossbow is already in industrious isnt it

[azure fossil]

To me that kind of variation belongs with a culture variation. I'm fine with crossbows only belonging to industrious. What I might like is not having 4 cultures with essentially the same archer ( ).

[delicate stream]

The way I read the situation is that while some people might want to have e,g, feudal Halfling slingers, other people might want to use feudal culture to make Elves and they would want bows instead.

I can understand why Triumph went with bows, as they are the option that people associate with most fantasy races.

[broken crest]

The entire point of decoupling form from culture is that you could create the race you want, though.

That should then include things like slings vs bows, if appropriate to the culture.

[ebon storm]

I'd agree it's the weaker overall choice to not make them selectable, given the design goals they stated and have followed up on. I can't imagine caring personally, but it's an odd choice given the rest.

[delicate stream]

I just don't really see any of the current bow-using cultures using slings over bows per default.
Barbarians look like warcraft orcs, feudal is very central european medieval inspired and high/dark seem to be the high/dark elves options.
I guess that would mean we have to wait for more exotic cultures in DLC.

[prisma blade]

this is exactly how every aow game except pf works

everyone acting like there was so much differentiation between longbows/human archers/razor bows, to say nothing of the polearmed units

not to mention the basic infantry units that no one ever built

[azure fossil]

I was recently surprised that Dwarven Axemen and Halfling Nightwatch seemed quite decent

[prisma blade]

nightwatch are, like, fine if you take the RG upgrade

axemen are ok too, definitely the best t1 infantry around

in both cases you're still better off shifting into t2s asap though

[azure fossil]

Oh yeah, definitely did that.

But since dwarf cavalry is merely okay, and I only needed a few units, T1s seemed appropriate.

[prisma blade]

i mean if you're gonna make t1s the axemen are a good pick

[green marsh]

I had an argument with someone who thought PF was full of monostackings as a regression from 3's diverse unit synergies and I couldn't even get him to admit that 3's T1 infantry are rarely worth building

[azure fossil]

3 had a lot of diversity to me just because my army tends to be made up of whoever I could round up from the farm along with their dogs

But planetfall was a lot better at making the starting screen choices actually matter immediately

[green marsh]

orc greatswords are decent, though orcs have a lot of "stat stack" units

[sharp echo]

Oh also sorry forgot to mention I came from AOW1 never really played the other installments.

I am use to all the variance and different playstyles, but distinct stats and abilities each race had back then.

I dabbled in aow3 for a bit and it seemed like every unit was the same in AOW3 while planet fall was more up my alley.

[wraith ridge]

Personally, I believe that making separate variations of every unit granted by Tomes for every culture would simply be impractical.

It would either require the units to be too different to be realistically implemented on such a large scale (6x54) or too similar, and thus, implementable more easily with unit enchantments which grant culture traits to mythic units.

[prisma blade]

presumably it would be select units rather than every unit

musketeers in aow3 didn't have variants, for example

[wooden pike]

high elves have forest concealment(according to my database), but thats supr minor

[strange ginkgo]

Yeah, not all combinations had variants for all races, but racial governance often also impacted them, leading to the occassional difference even then

[azure fossil]

I mean, with Cultural gimmicks extending to Tome units, I think you're going to forget about the Halfling +1 ranged damage pretty quick

[broken crest]

It is pretty relevant to things like Halfling Scoundrels having Slingshot, because it means they have a 3-shot attack instead of a 1-shot attack.

[prisma blade]

i think cultural enchantments are essentially RG

broader bonuses you unlock vs variants which you have the moment you unlock the applicable unit

[broken crest]

Enchantments can be removed, but transformations cannot. Enchantments are probably empire-global, but we know that transformations are on a race-basis.

[smoky anchor]

I thought it looked like you applied unit enchantments on a per-stack basis.

[broken crest]

Nope. Full empire. All of them. It was already that way in 3, and they probably think it's about avoiding tedium in enchanting a lot of troops.

It might also have to do with doomstacks, and reducing their prevalence.

[smoky anchor]

Hm, interesting. It probably makes more sense for avoiding tedious micromanagement.

I’m tempted to say I’d prefer it be more like mods in Planetfall, where there’s room to kit out two copies of the same base unit in very different ways… but in practice, I’m not sure if anyone ever actually did that except because of cost restrictions.

[broken crest]

*do note that "all of them" means "all with a specific subtype", like "all skirmishers and spear units", for example.

[smoky anchor]

Oh yes, I didn’t mean to make it sound like all of our units will end up with all the same modifications.

[broken crest]

Yeah, my clarification was because I thought my statement could be interpreted that way. And with the game not out, people might not have it clear.

[prisma blade]

Why is this getting necro'd

[paper linden]

Because I got confused and posed at the wrong place.

Deleting.

My apologies ☹️