#32 speed doesn't belong in AoW4

124 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

nocturne flicker
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I gotta say, i've tried my best to avoid being a balance whiner, but i do think something needs to be done about movespeeds in the game.

While adding the shop that lets you get a mount trait for your civilization eventually was a big deal to lower this problem, any unit moving at 32 speed, the later the game goes, feels like a detriment.

In the early game the massive benefit of having a mount trait is still felt instantly, and units that can't have mounts end up falling by the wayside. I don't normally play like this, I am not a 'meta' player, but i do feel its very unfun to deal with 32 speed units at all points of the game. Especially Mythic units having this limited speed for me should never be a thing.

In general i think the baseline movespeed should be buffed, and the difference between base, fast and very fast should be reduced. If anything buff speed gains in the game to be something other than just speed since they will lose 'power', but i doubt that will even be needed.

Other than that i think there should be a lategame upgrade to improve the base speed of foot units, maybe one that makes the fastest unit in the army dictate the base speed, without giving its other traits to all units, so an army that doesnt have all access to flying will still not do well going up a mountain, but at least moving in roads they won't be slowed down either.

In a way i already prefer water maps since embarked units in the late game get the 48 speed from the imperium tree, making movement a lot smoother in general

sudden grotto
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But there IS an endgame upgrade which buffs speed on roads! There are also teleporters. Isn't that enough for you?

nocturne flicker
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when i start disbanding mythic units cause they can't keep up with my armies somethings wrong

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having upgrades to movespeed does not change how much of a difference going from 32 to 40 is in the game

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32 on roads is still very much slow compared to 40 on roads

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and lets not even talk about 48

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in the early game having 32 speed vs having 48 from a mount trait or 40 from atlethics is a massive difference both in competitiveness versus other factions and in general just game feel

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i think at minimun base line movespeed should be 36

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at very very minimun

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would change the game a lot

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and mythical units have no place having anything less than 40 considering they come in late

sudden grotto
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You have your point, although I can't say I'm fully convinced.

Still, even considering this weak point as a given and proven fact, I'm not sure rebalancing all the speeds is the best path to take. Neither do I think that a Tome should fix that - the upgrade should be available to everyone regardless of the tome path chosen.

What I think the best is a global Imperium upgrade, which, say, makes the global map speed of all Mythic units 40, not touching their combat speed or speed of other units. This way the most of the lategame issue you mention would be fixed without touching the core gameplay balance for most of the game.

What do you say, are we thinking along the same lines or is my counterproposal completely off?

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I feel like the difference between fast and slow units early game should matter. You are either taking an expensive form trait for that or limit your army composition - that's the cost of the opportunity

nocturne flicker
nocturne flicker
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if baseline was faster and the difference between each tier of speed was less it would help in a lot of situations already

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and late game i'd still want a upgrade for foot units so they feel less disbandable

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especially support tier 2 units which i really like using but apart from already being the most common unit type that gets skipped and phased out, they often are the slowest units in the army

last jay
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Road building movement can mitigate a lot of movement issues. And teleporters can also mitigate the problem.

nocturne flicker
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teleporters are gonna help, its also not gonna fix how slow 32 speed is

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the gap between 32 and 40 and to not even talk about 48 is too massive

timber wadi
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I agree. Previous age of wonders games partially addressed this with ample Hasty berries which when visited increased a stacks movement points for three turns and refreshed there movement points. I hope they introduce Visit strictures again that enhance and refresh movement points. Another idea is a stable visit structure and city building that makes all units move as though they were mounted for a number of turns.

eager thicket
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There are visit structures. And there is one that restores movement and buffs it for a few turns.

lethal gazelle
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Would be neat to have more buffs to map speed specifically. I'm fine with them being slower in combat.

Maybe having mounted units could speed up slower units when they're in the same stack? Would encourage army mixing. Or have some enchantment for it but I wouldn't want this to be locked into any tome because it's too good universally to have.

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Or have something wacky like a new civilian "caravan" unit that speeds up slow units but probably hard to do something like it

nocturne flicker
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also sometimes you don't wanna play them in ideal places to get that visit

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cause they might be a problem for adjacency bonuses

nocturne flicker
nocturne flicker
nocturne flicker
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could just really be the lategame upgrade name though that i want for movespeed

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and in yea i just want a buff to world map movespeed, combat is fine as is

gentle folio
tame cobalt
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Problem is that in strategic map units dont have any other relevant characterstic but speed, that why those with more speed are just straight better. In tactic map, speed its still very useful but other units can have other skills that are relevant. in strategic map theres only speed

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one option could be making mounted units get speed debuff in tought terrains like forest or swamps, its not the same going in a horse in an open terrain than in a place full of trees

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of course not all very fast units are mounted ones

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well forest and other terrains could set a limit speed for everyone

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which would only affect fast units, not normal ones cause they are already in the limited speed range

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in this case very fast units still have speed benefits but not in all the terrains

gentle folio
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I like that idea more

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You could also take an idea from the mount and blade games, where even if you have all unmounted units, if you have a ton of horses in your inventory then it increases your army speed since they are using the horses to help travel but then dismounting for actual combat.

The way of doing this would basically just have a trinket that gives the entire army a higher minimum speed

nocturne flicker
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@tame cobalt @gentle folio i like both those ideas too actually, it is kinda silly that cav just speeds through forest unbothered in this game

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in general cav would still prolly do very well in clearing but it would need to be smarter about movement

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flying cav would still be meta though

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so while i like those ideas too i also think the base speed in general needs to go up as well

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the only reason i don't wanna nerf 48 speed down is cause of late game movement

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but there could be a case that they could limit maximum flying speed to 40 in the early game

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maybe you need yet another empire upgrade for getting 48 speed limit

eager thicket
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I suppose I'm just stuck on how it's a problem. They're dismounted. Dismounted units don't move as quickly as mounted units. This has been a truth not only in every 4x I've ever played that I can recall, but also in actual warfare. Infantry heavy units can, and often do, get out-maneuvered. What's the point of mounted units if they aren't faster than dismounted units?

nocturne flicker
# eager thicket I suppose I'm just stuck on how it's a problem. They're dismounted. Dismounted u...

actual warfare has armies marching together not ahead of each other, you don't disband infantry in actual warfare and only use cav because it's faster, they also don't have heroes leveling up that go around killing everyone randomly for xp. This is a gameplay problem that i'm talking about though, not a realism problem. Not just cause of how extremely important movespeed is in this game in general, but also cause of how awkward and clunky slower units feel in comparison to anything with 40 and 48 speed

eager thicket
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Military formations tend to move at the speed of the slowest unit within said formation, yes. And this is always a consideration. I don't see what that has to do with the fact that foot infantry should be slower than mounted units, though.

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And, yes. I know it's being posed as a gameplay problem. Which is why I addressed both in my post. Infantry is always slower than cavalry, in real life and in games. I don't see the issue. This is how it's always been in every medium.

nocturne flicker
# eager thicket And, yes. I know it's being posed as a gameplay problem. Which is why I addresse...

Well i understand if you don't see the problem, but i literally said what the problem was in the first post, the game is much easier and more efficient to play with mount traits that increase your movespeed and disbanding or never recruiting low movespeed units become the right way to play, limiting unit diversity unless you're purposefully nerfing yourself.

Also not arguing that all units need to move at the same speed, but that there should be less of a difference between the minimun and the maximum. I'd argued 36 speed should be the minimun, also i don't like that some late game units like the troll king and the horned god move at 32 speed in the world map, since late game the most awkward and time consuming thing is moving around.

The way the game works right now movespeed is by far the most important stat and i just want that changed.

yes roads and teleports help but the difference between 32 and 48 is still too massive imo.

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so that's why the proposition of a late game mechanic to improve movement, maybe a empire upgrade, maybe a caravan system, maybe just nerfing how efficient cav and flying cav is early on

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in combat cav will always be faster, outmaneuver or whatever but for the world map I want something to be done, they should still be able to do that, even though the game doesn't really work like that unless you're trying to raid early game (which afaik is not a thing that works at all, maybe in mp)

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but i just want less of a difference between minimun and maximum speed

jagged rampart
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I agree, but in the opposite direction. I think the game moves way too fast with 48 speed. The difference between starting with 48 movement on everyone and 32 is just so severe.

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But the core issue I agree with. If a trait affects movement, it becomes pretty much impossible to balance having it vs not having it

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And it makes experimenting with different units types (say, constructs + racial units) actively bad

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It's most important in the early game, so I don't think an imperium upgrade for foot units is really the way to go, either. Planetfall did something where units could have separate map speeds vs combat speeds so you wouldn't get slowed down bringing 24 movement units into your armies.

nocturne flicker
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i do want it reduced early game if possible though

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if it was limited to 40 at least, would be a game changer early on

nocturne flicker
proven temple
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And here I thought 32 is such a high lower limit, being used to 28 in the previous title.

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Having units with different speeds in an army still affects battles. That's good enough imo

nocturne flicker
stray wadi
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im making a mod where 32 to 48 still stay but strategic movement sticks at 40. Kinda like it tbh

tidal furnace
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if, other than some rare situations like event bonuses, you couldn't get 48 outside of scouts + scout buff or the Astral T5 buff, or some combination of mount + boots + ring item set

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then it wouldn't seem that bad

nocturne flicker
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i'm down to even trying 32 speed for all units to see what it would feel like

stray wadi
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32 did cross my mind. Im thinking on either 40 everything and buff athletics or 32 everything and leave athletics alone

nocturne flicker
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might be worth testing both, i'm down

jagged rampart
stray wadi
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i actually forgot about the enchantment LUL

winter thorn
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In multi-player nobody is playing 32 speed armies early game as it's just straight game loosing component.
32 speed = 6 tiles on road
40 speed = 8 tiles on road
48 speed = 9 tiles on road

Map movement speed should be changed to 36-40-44

stray wadi
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thats too tiny imo

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better to standardize map movement and then keep vanilla combat the same.

36/40/44 is not only really small on map (thus making the benefit meh) but in combat, thats really a nothing burger

gentle folio
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My other thought would just be increasing the upkeep of more high mobility units. That was the main reason in real life history why only specific cultures really fielded primarily mounted armies, feeding that many horses is just incredibly expensive

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Although maybe reducing it for if you purchased it from a store, since then you are already paying a price and it would suck to be excited to buy a cool mount for your armies and then have to disband a ton of stuff because it increased the upkeep too much

hexed abyss
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What if they added movement points on legendary ranks? The champion rank bonus just seens so much better than legendary in most troops...

gentle folio
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Oooh, I like that idea

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More experienced troops could make and pack camps faster, so they could be justified to go faster, and that still means there's a cost to improving it, in the form of keeping the troops alive

stray wadi
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but then it doubles the punishment for getting behind.

tame cobalt
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and losing an unit become worse

rose viper
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Its also pretty standard for the last level to not have the most benefits so using their new abilties doesn't waste mp (and this would run into issues with the movespeed between units being more annoying because 1 warrior could be slower than another)

nocturne flicker
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I'm trying to argue for what i believe would be impactful but simpler less hard to calculate/judge changes in general

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tying the movespeed to legendary rank could be very interesting but also very disruptive, also micromanagement heavy, as armies shift in movespeed constantly, it's fixing a problem but creating another one

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imagine the constant reforming of armies to maximize movespeed

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putting same rank units and stuff together

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its a neat idea in general but i rather keep it simple

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@stray wadi i tested your mod and it was pretty much what i wanted

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i'd even like to test a version that goes down to 36, since that isn't really a speed ceiling in the game, just to see if it would feel much different from 32/40

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but to not create much disruption to movement later i'd still argue in favor or a empire upgrade of some kind that everyone has access to to increase the speed limit to 48 for very fast units late game

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might just be fine if it was all 40 though

shrewd olive
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for me its simple i mod every unit i want to play with 40 speed
AoW4 will never be a competitive game
32 speed is just boring to manage and as a player i just want to have fun with this game

the better exemple is giant, i will never try with 32 speed
it was so mutch fun to play a army with only giant in end game
I feel sorry for the players who are forced to play vanilla

stray wadi
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same

ionic pine
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Make 32 mp for all units on strategic map but keep speed difference on tactical map. Tactical speed advantage is more than enough.

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Ofc if you have both it is became not even a choice because more speed on strategic map have just absurd snow bowl effect for both economy, levelling and so giving even more advantage in later battles.

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Add to this how it is scale with map size and yeah...

stray wadi
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32mp strategic to small for me. I need some speed xd

nocturne flicker
nocturne flicker
ionic pine
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Yeah, have achievement in both games with my nickname

nocturne flicker
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i did those achievements and i still have no idea if i get it

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are you like a shoutcaster for 4x games

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or a coach?

ionic pine
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Just was active in very early development of the game. Helped to growth mp community a bit also early. And like to spectate interesting multiplayer games. 😛

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And, yeah, helped for some new players.

nocturne flicker
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thanks for helping them those games are awesome!

tidal furnace
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I think all 32 is fine

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it makes strategic positioning more important

stray wadi
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too slow for me

winter thorn
gentle folio
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I think retaining a difference that's smaller, and having more significant penalties for rough terrain like forests or hills for faster units would be my preference. TBH I don't play multiplayer so I'm fine with it the way it is, but that does seem like a pretty significant balance issue for multiplayer stuff

patent leaf
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I like the current speed. Although that may have a lot to do with my speedy units feeling even more speedy