Are the turn based battles better in this game?

[TheNMan]

I've tried AoW 3 and Planetfall but in each one I've always been annoyed by two specific things that've kept me from enjoying the turn based combat. So I wanted to know if these issues have persisted before I buy this game.

The first thing is the way the AI dog piles on your heroes and kills them in a single turn or two and then hyper-focuses on the next unit. It made it impossible to use melee heroes and forced you to be overly cautious with your best units. Not saying the AI shouldn't target your best units, but it became really excessive.

The second thing is that I didn't like how in AoW 3 you'd be faced with giant armies of the highest tier units not even that far into the game and how your lower tier units are essentially completely useless against them. Yes the higher tiers should be stronger but if you can build whole armies of them the lower tiers should at least be able to scratch them.

So, can anyone tell me if these two things are present in this game? I'd appreciate it, thanks.

[Star Paladin]

Yes. Lots of strategy if you ask me (I played 3 and planetfall for years). 18 unit max army makes deciding what to include in your armies interesting too.

Ai is kind'a dumb sometimes, and shocks me other times. It's won't spam high tier units unless you play on Brutal, then it's spam city.

[Arthur two sheds Jackson]

they still love to focus heroes and squishy high value unit so yeah better not go full leeroy jenkins with them

[Star Paladin]

There is a mod called "Difficulty Explained" which shows you exactly what bonuses the AI gets based on the difficulty setting.

[TheNMan]

Originally posted by Star Paladin:

Yes. Lots of strategy if you ask me (I played 3 and planetfall for years). 18 unit max army makes deciding what to include in your armies interesting too.

Ai is kind'a dumb sometimes, and shocks me other times. It's won't spam high tier units unless you play on Brutal, then it's spam city.

The unit limit sounds promising at least, and it's good they don't get massive armies of high tiers.

Originally posted by Arthur two sheds Jackson:

they still love to focus heroes and squishy high value unit so yeah better not go full leeroy jenkins with them

Ah, shame, guess heroes are destined to be backline fighters in this series. If you ever move them up even slightly they get annihilated.

Originally posted by Star Paladin:

There is a mod called "Difficulty Explained" which shows you exactly what bonuses the AI gets based on the difficulty setting.

Sounds useful, thanks.

[~ Fabulous ~]

hero are better than 3 and planetfall, not at aow2 level of powerful but they are powerful enough to justify a full hero stack party, yes hero is the most powerful unit in this game

[DraegonSpawn]

If you go the Industrious culture, you can absolutely make a front line hero super viable. They get bonus defenses when hit, combine that with a life leeching source, and they drain tank their way to victory.
I have a heroe solo their way through a full stack of enemies.

Powers from the support route boost your whole armies durability too. And let that hero self heal and cleanse on occasion.

The new Dragon lords even more so.

[TheNMan]

From what I gathered turn based battles do seem to have been improved and the games strategic enough that you can structure your civilization to make front lines heroes viable. That's good, and being able to replace them with already level heroes instead of waiting for a new one to show up and leveling them up definitely sounds like an improvement.

[Star Paladin]

Keep in mind, your main hero will only be "gone" 3 turns, and other heroes can sometimes be ransomed back.

[GreyHuntr]

One thing that helps a bit is that units no longer turn to face their attacker. So if one unit flanks you, you don't get flanked by every unit around you like in 3.

[darkholyPL]

To answer you questions:

1. It is very much possible to make melee heroes and they are not only viable but can be extremely strong. In fact, you can make a sword and board type tank hero, and use them in the frontlines just fine. With the right build and items you can very easily ingnore 70+% of incomming damage, due to defences.
If I lose a hero in my games it's either because: a) I lost the whole battle anyway, or b) I didn't pay attention enough and got them killed.

2. I don't really see doomstacks of tier V or IV in this game. Those units cost imperium in upkeep so it's not like you can just spamm those willy-nilly. You wont run into situations like in AoW3 for example where the enemy would run around with stacks of 6 manticore riders all the time.
Also with the enchant and transformation system, even lower tier units can be usefull whole game.

[Nuggs]

from the two campaigns i played i personally thought the battle AI is pretty good in comparison to planetfall or aow3. The bad portion of the ai that makes the game currently unplayable to me is the world map ai. its just bad. But on the games new road map the devs posted they said there will be a big AI update in the next major update. so im actually pretty hyped to see what they do to it.

I probably wont play the game until then. but if you can look past the poor world map ai currently and just want decent combat ai its worth the buy.

[Midas]

Issue 1: This is a you issue, unfortunately. While, yes, the AI will generally pick on whatever they can focus down, there are a lot of ways to mitigate this, even with a melee hero. They have to be properly supported and defended, like any important asset.

Incidentally, though, if you have an issue doing this, AoW4 at least lets you play a dragon now as your hero. they're pretty durable in melee even if the enemy DOES want to focus them down.

Issue 2: This, fortunately, has improved a lot. In AoW3 end-tier spam was atrocious and basically made late game combat irrelevant. This was improved with Planetfall's additional taxes and better balancing to late-tier units, and the gap was made even smaller in AoW4 due to most of the buffs not affecting mythic units (a special unit role typically used by all the biggest end-game stuff), and the high-tier units just generally not being as much of a massive improvement over earlier units.

[aclyte]

Combat balance here is much better than in AoW3 and on the same tier as Planetfall (maybe a bit worse).
High level Heroes with shield and artifacts can be very tanky. Still, planetfall defence system (higher the armor less every other point effective) makes T5 and Top level heroes not so unstoppable - many T1 can swarm T5 and kill it without big problems (not the case in AoW3).