Custom Classes - Was it worth it?

[CrUsHeR]

So the big deal about AOW4 is that there are no preset classes.
You can mix everything, like a Faithful Feudal Frog Zealot, leading Demonic Hordes of Frost Nymphs, restoring the Mushroom Forests in his Underground Cave.


But how much reasonable freedom do you have, really?
Was playing around with the faction creator, and then i thought -

Greedy Industrious Goblins! With Fire!

Well in reality this is complete garbage. Now i have Sneaky Anvil Guards, which deal like 8 instead of 6 damage on flanking attacks, but can't tank as good as Dwarves due to lacking the Tough +2 defense boost.

Some turns later i got a Skald from an event, now my main stack is carried by fire elementals, the caster lord, and doesn't have a single Industrious unit.

So ultimately i'm running a downgraded version of Barbarian or Mystic culture, just with funny dwarven cosplay outfits.



Now if you're looking at the "meta" side of things, it gets even worse. There are a lot of tomes you would simply skip for any given build;

Example if you want to play a Necromancer, you would simply skip the Tome of Souls and don't bother with necromancy until ~tier 3. At most you would gimp yourself and still take the tome, but only to start harvesting souls for the actually useful stuff later on.

Or you play Astral Mystic, there is no reason to take the Tome of Warding if you can take e.g. the Tome of Roots in addition to the Tome of Evocation. That extra nature affinity would in fact fix the problem of Mystic being so poor on the economy side.



Also there's the immersion/RPG side. Yes you can play stylish themed classes which "feel right". Not just the linear monoclasses like e.g. High + Order, but some hybrids look and play pretty good. Example Barbarian Orcs with "Storm Earth and Fire" magic support.

But so much identity got lost entirely. Anyone remember when a race had its own culture? Like Tigrans being egyptian cats?




So right now i'm wondering - was it really worth dumping the entire class system?

I suppose most players would just roll with mono affinity builds anyways, like starting with High or Feudal and taking all the Order tomes, just because it seems the most logical choice. And the game even suggests taking these.

While the streamer fanboys probably just take whatever is being sold as the most "meta" tome, like starting with Tome of the Horde just for Spawnkin, and so on.

[Estellese]

110% worth it.

Why would I be upset that I have ti select the tough trait if I want boring, generic dwarves? It isn't like I can't play them, I can, I just have ti choose that trait.

Why would I be upset that culture isn't locked to one race and one race only? If I want high elves, I click on it. If I want boring, stereotypical industrious dwarves, I click on it. But now, if I want something else, I can actually do something else. I'm not forced to do that one thing and only that one thing.


So yes, it is worth it. And I am looking forward to mods and DLC that add even more options to customize.

[Thats How We do action in Uganda]

It was worth it, i love circuis simulators, everyone is glowing with different colors, my inquisitors are fighting togheter with demons, and order units do necromancery, elves beat orcs in melee, and goblins are best arcane magicians, this clown design is truly masterpiece.

[Darkfireslide]

Looking at your reasoning, a lot of people made the same argument about D&D and how many bad options there are for character creation. Yet people still love the system. These bonuses are meant to be mixed and matched and to add different effects. There is so much that works in this game and a wealth of variety in the resulting tactics you use as a result of your decisions. And what's even better is that the Tome system doesn't lock you into bad traits, unlike say AOW3's class system, where a Goblin Warlord is a painful way to play due to them having -5HP on all their units in a game where units have around 30-60HP each

Keep experimenting. Try different things out and just have fun with the units and abilities you find. Every run I'm finding something new that I love and tactics and synergies I never considered.

[Mortis247]

Absolutely worth it, I've already exceeded my AoW 3 playtime (over 6 years) in the 9 days AoW 4 has been out and still ain't bored

Industrial was my least favourite until I figured out the bolstering mechanic, you can actually play them really aggressively, ended up with my units doing 6 attacks every round (3 attacks then 3 counter attacks) let alone the boosted damage from eating bolstering stacks and of course with ferocious they were doing more damage on the counters than their main attacks

I did Materium and Nature; ended up with my Bastions being unkillable Iron Giants with self heals (Supergrowth, steel skin etc the works)

Some builds / books (classes) simply take more time to pay off which has always been the case; my Druchii (Dark Ice Archers) take far longer to pop off than my Mucous Raiders (Barbarian Spawnkin Horde) though they are arguably more powerful

Thats the beauty of this game I think, you can mono build you can pick and mix its all viable

Industrial Build for the Curious;
Human
Hearty (+10 hp)
Ferocious (+40% Counter damage)
Talented Collectors (Magic Material at Start + Production bonuses for having them)
Wonder Architects (Wonder at start + 20% production bonus for each in domain)
Tier 1 Enchantment + Roots
Tier 2 Artifice + Glades
Tier 3 Transmutation + Vigor
Tier 4 Golden Realm + Natures Wrath
Tier 5 Creator

Steelfury Chant and Bolstering Chant (culture spells) for up to +50% damage on your units

Supergrowth adds +1 retaliation and 10hp goes nicely with starting traits
Hero support skill for +15hp, Defence + defensive training for +2 defence for units

[Sea Base]

Considering it's trivially easy to slap together a build that is over powered compaired to the presets... yeah.
If you want to play a meme build, just lower the difficulty.

I seriously doubt all your analysis in Stellaris OP of the back of that post xD

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by Gundalf:

People use the term class in context of Age of Wonders 3, where you would pick a race and a class like Theocrat or Druid. There the classes would decide which spells, units and empire upgrades you could research, this is now done via tomes. Its just compared to tomes the classes where more "pure" in that druid for example would be purely what is now nature affinity tomes.

https://age-of-wonders-3.fandom.com/wiki/Classes

Yes, I'm aware. I was trying to explain that's not how the system works anymore, and the people who keep referring to it as if it were have either been misinformed, or giving newcomers the wrong impression about the game.

You can still play your leader as a Druid, Necromancer, Warlord, est. It's just that this time around, you're not forced to do so because of which culture you chose to go with.

[T0nedude]

Originally posted by jonoliveira12:

Too much freedom always becomes the same as too little.
I have been saying this, for a while. Too much choice creates disappointment, and choice itself becomes an illusion.

Too much choice never creates disappointment unless you're ending up unhappy because you don't have enough time to play through them all. Your false logic and asinine riddles mean nothing and add nothing.

[Mors Avis]

Totally worth it.

AoW3 was a great game, but I ultimately became tired of the heavy-handed class system, largely because it was poorly balanced and forced you down the same, tired, old hero development paths. The ability to reject/choose a new hero only exacerbated the problem.

Over the years, AoW3 just became an exercise in tedium, and with the release of Total War: Warhammer it became a waste of time. Why slog through endless turn-based battles (because the autoresolver in AoW3 is dubious, at best), when you can just play TW:W and have a much better experience? I certainly don't miss those 40+ unit, turn-based mega-battles in AoW3.

With AoW4, you get a more streamlined game, with balance based on what you decide to make of your choices. You have more "agency" as a player and aren't left to navigate the same old, limited system, game after game; you can change the system; your path/choices evolve and change from game to game, realm to realm, faction to faction. Even diplomacy (and alignment), which mattered very little in previous AoW titles, is significantly more important. I expect future DLC/patches to improve upon a lot of these features.

The idea that "too much freedom" is a bad thing can only be produced by someone who doesn't understand the system.

Sure, "too much freedom", for the sake of nothing, in a world without structure, is just entropy and chaos.

However, AoW4 has a well defined, elegant, and inter-woven system (truly, greater than the sum of its parts), and to apply the statement that "too much freedom becomes the same as too little" you would have to be incredibly myopic.

Ultimately, this is an argument from abstraction: i.e., emergent game play (experience) with the system vs. an "on paper" itemization of the system's rules.