How randomized could set up be?

[danmanisa]

I've not played an AoW game before but from what I have seen of this so far, it looks fantastic.
In any such 4x game, I am a big fan of randomzation, both of my own faction's traits and abilities etc, but also the AI's and the world. Obviously, the world will be randomly generated and I am aware of the starting tome spells are randomly selected, yet I am wondering if there will be an option to completely randomise your faction creation, as well as wondering just how randomised the AI opponents will be. Will they likely be randomised or more refined in their creation?
I am also aware of (what seems like a wonderful feature) of your factions coming back to haunt you in future games, but I am curious as to what the other AI generated ones may be like.
Lastly, in many 4x games, the world is randomly generated in terms of layout, but the player often knows or has to set the world size, major geographical features (eg, continents vs archipelagos, or dominant climate type) and things like number of opponents. I always thought that was odd (thematically) given you seem to know nothing of the world immediately outside your immediate home city surrounds, yet somehow know the exact number of mystery adversaries as well as exactly how big the planet you find yourself on is. Any idea what world/AI randomisation features will be in the game?

Anyway, these are not game purchasing breakers for me and if worst comes to worst, I'd use a random number generator to create my games, but personally, the less I know about the AI and the world I spawn my abomination of a faction in, the better.

[Axios]

A.I faction randomisation is entirely up to you. You can either set the A.I. factions yourself, allow them limited randomisation (so elves always have elf traits, orcs have orc traits) or let it go wild with all the features.

Regarding the world; you set 'traits' for the world and the game generates it from there. So you could set a desert world. Or an Ice world inhabited by deamons, or a jungle filled with giant vicious animals. There's a bunch you can pick / mix&match.

[ArgoBletchley]

Originally posted by Axios:

Regarding the world; you set 'traits' for the world and the game generates it from there. So you could set a desert world. Or an Ice world inhabited by deamons, or a jungle filled with giant vicious animals. There's a bunch you can pick / mix&match.

The player can always leave "realm traits" empty, and the game will generate a world base on standard parameter.

For added fun, try add the "Forming Realm" trait, which will create a desolated world, but as you play, terrain and region not controlled by anyone has a chance to randomly change to a different one each round.

Also AI factions can be generated randomly, however Form traits are always fixed for AIs, check out this thread for default traits: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1669000/discussions/0/3783624583049738567/

[avenger711]

In prev games you can create a leader or full fraction as in AoW 4 and save. Selecting random player no matter for the human or AI means it will be taken out of existing library or you custom library. I'm not sure if in AoW 4 the game will generate random fractions itself.

Speaking of map size there was limitation in AoW PF for players number for smaller maps. And I don't see any reason to randomize map size because the temp of the game depends from map size and the player may be not very happy to get XL sized map for 4 players and didn't see anybody for 50 turns if he wants fast game. And etc.

So I doubt that map size and other vital for the temp of the game and performance parameters will have random option.

[danmanisa]

Originally posted by Axios:

A.I faction randomisation is entirely up to you. You can either set the A.I. factions yourself, allow them limited randomisation (so elves always have elf traits, orcs have orc traits) or let it go wild with all the features.

Regarding the world; you set 'traits' for the world and the game generates it from there. So you could set a desert world. Or an Ice world inhabited by deamons, or a jungle filled with giant vicious animals. There's a bunch you can pick / mix&match.

Love it. Already sounds great!

Originally posted by ArgoBletchley:

The player can always leave "realm traits" empty, and the game will generate a world base on standard parameter.

For added fun, try add the "Forming Realm" trait, which will create a desolated world, but as you play, terrain and region not controlled by anyone has a chance to randomly change to a different one each round.

Also AI factions can be generated randomly, however Form traits are always fixed for AIs, check out this thread for default traits: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1669000/discussions/0/3783624583049738567/

Fantastic - just getting better and better.

Originally posted by avenger711:

Speaking of map size there was limitation in AoW PF for players number for smaller maps. And I don't see any reason to randomize map size because the temp of the game depends from map size and the player may be not very happy to get XL sized map for 4 players and didn't see anybody for 50 turns if he wants fast game. And etc.

So I doubt that map size and other vital for the temp of the game and performance parameters will have random option.

Makes sense. And it's really a nit-picky non-issue, which makes sense to, performance and compatibility wise, not be a thing, and only marginally affects it thematically.


So, it seems like this game has a stellar amount of diversity and replay-ability (think The Simpsons "This is great! And all I've done is enter my name!) right from the start. So here's hoping that the actual game-play will be somewhere near as good, right?!