Did planetfall do the "magic victory" better?

[snuggleform]

I will start off by saying AoW4 is superior to planetfall overall, in my opinion. But one area which Planetfall did better I think was the "magic victory." In Planetfall when you started your final planetbusting spell (in aow4 called the Age of -insertAffinityHere- spell), everyone not allied with you immediately declared war on you and marched their troops against you.

Now, this wasn't always perfectly executed, sometimes the AI was too far to get to you in time, sometimes it tripped over its balls, but often times it did work in the sense that you would experience massives stacks of troops coming at you from all angles. And for me it genuinely fun to set up defensive domain "spells" and getting enough troops in the right spots to protect the "beacons."

But here in AoW4, man magic victory is super underwhelming. Every 3 turns, 2 full stacks of units warps in close to one of your beacons. They are not hard to auto resolve assuming you have 3 full stacks of tier 2 or 3 units. The rest of the world gets grievances against you but they don't really seem to get that you're about to win, they don't throw the sink at you to stop you, in fact I don't see that the outside world throws anything at you.

Is it unreasonable to ask for a better magic victory experience? At least do better than the predecessor?

[suejak]

It's pretty universally acknowledged that AOW4 AI is bad. For now, play MP if you want competent opponents. I haven't played singleplayer AOW4 in weeks.

Fortunately, this is the best MP AOW I've ever played, and I've been playing them since the start. (If you like PBEM - simultaneous turn mode is broken.)

Hopefully they work on AI in future patches...

[Toddasaurus Rex]

Specifically with the map "wrapping around" as it were like a planet did wonders as well, it made naval units on continental or island worlds absolutely amazing for running intercepts or catching invading forces trying to run at your beacons.

[Avedon]

I don't remember that about Planetfall to be honest. I remember the ai, at least the vast majority of time, barely doing a thing when you set off the doomsday countdown. Other than spam you with alliance requests. I always thought it was really underwhelming and had been hoping the sequel was going to do better.

I figured even the mention of spawned stacks meant there was going to be a much larger emphasis on a frantic defense as the entire world goes against you.

Instead of course, I've had an ai opponent attack me during a magic victory one single time.

[Reality]

Bad I'm both games.

[ColdWonder]

Origineel geplaatst door snuggleform:

I will start off by saying AoW4 is superior to planetfall overall, in my opinion. But one area which Planetfall did better I think was the "magic victory." In Planetfall when you started your final planetbusting spell (in aow4 called the Age of -insertAffinityHere- spell), everyone not allied with you immediately declared war on you and marched their troops against you.

Now, this wasn't always perfectly executed, sometimes the AI was too far to get to you in time, sometimes it tripped over its balls, but often times it did work in the sense that you would experience massives stacks of troops coming at you from all angles. And for me it genuinely fun to set up defensive domain "spells" and getting enough troops in the right spots to protect the "beacons."

But here in AoW4, man magic victory is super underwhelming. Every 3 turns, 2 full stacks of units warps in close to one of your beacons. They are not hard to auto resolve assuming you have 3 full stacks of tier 2 or 3 units. The rest of the world gets grievances against you but they don't really seem to get that you're about to win, they don't throw the sink at you to stop you, in fact I don't see that the outside world throws anything at you.

Is it unreasonable to ask for a better magic victory experience? At least do better than the predecessor?

I just did the magic victory late game. The spawned in stacks were about 1.3k strength everytime led by a Balor always next to the heart. I had two armies enchanted to the max and all legendary to kill it, but it was not safe to auto-resolve without losing expensive units.

The a.is did declare war but didnt attempt to stop me which was disappointing but at the same time I think defending against those spawns whilst getting mobbed by the a.i might be too much.

[snuggleform]

Origineel geplaatst door suejak:

It's pretty universally acknowledged that AOW4 AI is bad. For now, play MP if you want competent opponents. I haven't played singleplayer AOW4 in weeks.

Fortunately, this is the best MP AOW I've ever played, and I've been playing them since the start. (If you like PBEM - simultaneous turn mode is broken.)

Hopefully they work on AI in future patches...

You do realize AOW: Planetfall's AI is the predecessor to AOW4, right? It's the same engine under the hood. The issue I'm raising has nothing to do with the AI.

"I just did the magic victory late game. The spawned in stacks were about 1.3k strength everytime led by a Balor always next to the heart. I had two armies enchanted to the max and all legendary to kill it, but it was not safe to auto-resolve without losing expensive units."

I use 3 stacks, since that's the max you can bring to battle. Maybe that's why you're struggling with auto resolve if you're bringing a full 50% less than what you could be to fight them.

[Star Paladin]

Exactly Avedon. In PF, just like this game, the AI is too afraid to get killed attacking you, even though they are 100% sure to die if they don't. All non allied AI should go to war against you, and rush you with everything they've got. This "teleport a group of magical creatures to stop you" is just proof the devs themselves know how impotent the AI is.

[snuggleform]

But what I'm getting at is those stacks that are warped in, are no improvement at all to PF because they're simply too wimply. I have 3 loaded stacks, not particulary overenchanted but well enough and I just wipe them out once every 3 turns boom done it's anti climactic.

As I said, in planetfall it wasn't always perfect, but most of the time the enemy WOULD try to send everything at you especially on smaller maps and I had to put a great deal of effort planning out the defenses. I'll admit you could discourage the AI from attacking if your stacks got too scary but you actually had to put effort into it. Here in AOW4 you don't have to put any effort the outside world doesnt try, and the neutral stacks warping in just aren't a threat if you did some pretty minimal due diligence.

[Star Paladin]

I played PF for years, and for me, the AI never once attacked my city in an end of game countdown. Which is why I eventually stopped playing it (or just played with Military victory on only).

[Avedon]

Origineel geplaatst door snuggleform:

But what I'm getting at is those stacks that are warped in, are no improvement at all to PF because they're simply too wimply. I have 3 loaded stacks, not particulary overenchanted but well enough and I just wipe them out once every 3 turns boom done it's anti climactic.

As I said, in planetfall it wasn't always perfect, but most of the time the enemy WOULD try to send everything at you especially on smaller maps and I had to put a great deal of effort planning out the defenses. I'll admit you could discourage the AI from attacking if your stacks got too scary but you actually had to put effort into it. Here in AOW4 you don't have to put any effort the outside world doesnt try, and the neutral stacks warping in just aren't a threat if you did some pretty minimal due diligence.

Yeah with all the touch ups to both mechanics and ai Planetfall got, I'm hoping that AoW4 will get better. Bit disappointed the Wyvern update didn't mention any changes on that front so far. It's so odd when the ai decides to attack as well.

The one time I remember the ai rushing one of my beacons in AoW4 it was a full 6-7 stack of fairly decent troops from one ai underground near the city they attacked.

Yet there was another ai that was just as strong, was in no other wars, and literally bordered the other side of that same city and I never saw a single stack of them even come into my vision range.

[Star Paladin]

Speaking of stack of 6-7 Ave, that's because the AI is mostly copied/pasted from PF, where 6-7 might be able to participate in a battle. It also seemed to have Scooby Doo and Shaggy as generals in it's armies (Lookout Scoob, it's a G g g g g group of enemy armies!!!).

[Midas]

It's a lot worse in AoW4, but not because of the specific mechanics, just because it's automatic and you don't have to do anything to get it. In planetfall there were a lot of different paths to research, and only someone who dives deep into their secret tech is going to be able to threaten winning that way ahead of anyone else. You had to actually GO FOR a doomsday victory in order to pull it off in time, otherwise you were better off going for other methods. This made it a consequence of build and playstyle, whereas in AoW4 it's a foregone conclusion.

The AI is another matter entirely, both AoW4 and PF have bad AI for countering the magic/doomsday victory, but even if that were corrected, it feels lazier in AoW4 since you're just going to meet the conditions automatically by going through the research tiers, instead of actually needing to dedicate research to that victory specifically.

[Lestrateguerre]

Aow4 in its current state is not superior to Planetfall.

It is more simplified/noob friendly in its mechanic, depend on the type of gamer you are but it can be a good thing or a bad one.

Planetfall combat mechanic has a lot more depht to it, true flying; overwatch,stagger mechanic, the possibility to surround enemy units and start the combat on multiple front where in aow 4 the forces always deploy in the same way, the possibility to have a lot of defensive/significant operation in your domain where as in aow4 we have thing like "Cycle of season" wich plain suck in comparaison to even ancien spell in the serie like "poison domain".

In planetfall you can equip your heroes with items you bought from the shop and give them a specific combat role. You can have a heroe with a jet pack and a plasma sword , or one with a sniper rifle, or one piloting a bipede , bike etc etc. You can have two tank in your armies who are differently moded and thus will operate differently. Aow 4 is a lot more streamlined.

AOW4 is a good entry for those who're not familiar with the genra, experienced player could find it lacking in the depht department, i personnaly do and hope dlc will give aow4 a much needed extra layer of depht/skin.

Also i would like to point out that some choice of units are quite discutable like eagle rider, putting an already existing inquisitor on the back of an already existing eagle is in my mind lame/lazy ( and don't gate me started when it's an angel riding the damn thing... look silly) , there is a lot of discrepancy in the chara design choice of the game, you can have unit like the orcs/goblin/elf , lost wizard, frost spider who have really great chara design and yet you can also have the goofy balor and his uninspired cousin/reskin the living fog who both look out of place and not as menacing as an herald of oblivion or lost wizard; you have astral keeper/serpent with ugly design; aow 4 mage bane is a visual downgrade to aow3 eldritch horror same thing with the phase beast wich is a bad misfortune reskin, and caustic worm being reskinned magma worm; all of this scream cut corner for me.

Vanguard had 11 units + secret tech who added usually 3 to 4; so 15 units to use and mod at your convenience.
Aow 4 you have base 6 units + tome ones. Even with tome one being more numerous you can't compete with planetfall units and their ability to be hand tailored; in aow 4 your bowman can't be equiped with jetpack/ long range missile launcher/ area of effect/ stun projectile etc etc; all your bowman will operate in the exact same way because they are the same units with no difference whatsoever in how they operate on the battlefield.

Finally the state of the game at release: game is a chore to play in multiplayer cause you get desync every 3 turn. Then the recent announce to had mount to units who didn't have it only because some people requested more mounted units tell me that they don't really know where they are going and don't have enough trust in the game design decision they intended in the first place.

Would i recommand it to new comer ? Sure. To seasoned ones ? Not currently . Game is in his infancy, it have solid foundation, i have faith it will get better and better but only time will tell.

[The Doctor]

Origineel geplaatst door Lestrateguerre:

Aow4 in its current state is not superior to Planetfall.

It is more simplified/noob friendly in its mechanic, depend on the type of gamer you are but it can be a good thing or a bad one.

Planetfall combat mechanic has a lot more depht to it, true flying; overwatch,stagger mechanic, the possibility to surround enemy units and start the combat on multiple front where in aow 4 the forces always deploy in the same way, the possibility to have a lot of defensive/significant operation in your domain where as in aow4 we have thing like "Cycle of season" wich plain suck in comparaison to even ancien spell in the serie like "poison domain".

In planetfall you can equip your heroes with items you bought from the shop and give them a specific combat role. You can have a heroe with a jet pack and a plasma sword , or one with a sniper rifle, or one piloting a bipede , bike etc etc. You can have two tank in your armies who are differently moded and thus will operate differently. Aow 4 is a lot more streamlined.

AOW4 is a good entry for those who're not familiar with the genra, experienced player could find it lacking in the depht department, i personnaly do and hope dlc will give aow4 a much needed extra layer of depht/skin.

Also i would like to point out that some choice of units are quite discutable like eagle rider, putting an already existing inquisitor on the back of an already existing eagle is in my mind lame/lazy ( and don't gate me started when it's an angel riding the damn thing... look silly) , there is a lot of discrepancy in the chara design choice of the game, you can have unit like the orcs/goblin/elf , lost wizard, frost spider who have really great chara design and yet you can also have the goofy balor and his uninspired cousin/reskin the living fog who both look out of place and not as menacing as an herald of oblivion or lost wizard; you have astral keeper/serpent with ugly design; aow 4 mage bane is a visual downgrade to aow3 eldritch horror same thing with the phase beast wich is a bad misfortune reskin, and caustic worm being reskinned magma worm; all of this scream cut corner for me.

Vanguard had 11 units + secret tech who added usually 3 to 4; so 15 units to use and mod at your convenience.
Aow 4 you have base 6 units + tome ones. Even with tome one being more numerous you can't compete with planetfall units and their ability to be hand tailored; in aow 4 your bowman can't be equiped with jetpack/ long range missile launcher/ area of effect/ stun projectile etc etc; all your bowman will operate in the exact same way because they are the same units with no difference whatsoever in how they operate on the battlefield.

Finally the state of the game at release: game is a chore to play in multiplayer cause you get desync every 3 turn. Then the recent announce to had mount to units who didn't have it only because some people requested more mounted units tell me that they don't really know where they are going and don't have enough trust in the game design decision they intended in the first place.

Would i recommand it to new comer ? Sure. To seasoned ones ? Not currently . Game is in his infancy, it have solid foundation, i have faith it will get better and better but only time will tell.

Whether we judge Planetfall to be superior to AoW4 is a matter of opinion only. I love Planetfall and have no intentions of rubbishing it here so I'll confine my remarks to the following.

Multiple fronts: yes, Planettfall had multiple fronts as did AoW3 but after playing AoW4 for a while, I prefer this new system. The AI always went after the weakest stack in Planetfall which was both predictable and abusable. Would I care if they reintroduced multiple fronts in AoW4? Not at all but I don't miss them.

You can get a pretty wide range of abilities for your heroes which do much of that - after all Planetfall attempted to bring as many unit abilities from AoW3 to Planetfall. Rocket packs and snipers are sci-fi tropes but you have similar teleport abilities in AoW4 and the Houndsman unit has a special 'sniper-like' ability.

You can get a very wide variety of units to build throughout the game. I'm not sure how well you thought that particular criticism through. In addition to all the variety of units you get from tomes, you can hire some leaders who have the ability to produce special units in their own city and you have the Rally of the Vassals. I'm not feeling any pinch with regards to variety of units in my games.

What Planetfall did indisputably better was unit customisation. You could tailor very specific units with cosmite enhancements to perform one role very well indeed. However, AoW3 didn't have anything like this and so I didn't expect it in AoW4, especially as we have unit enchantments. Will we see something similar with AoW4 in the future? I don't know but I'd welcome expanding the use of the numerous magical materials that we can find on the map.

I don't play MP myself and will happily concede that Planetfall is superior in this regard if that's your experience. However, I think you're talking out of your posterior by claiming that the change of direction over mounted units is a sign that they don't know what they're doing or a display of lack of trust in the game design.

Listening to community feedback is a good thing in most cases and certainly not an indication of no direction. They might read my suggestion above about greater use of magical materials to enhance units and do something with it, that's not a bad thing at all (unless you don't want this enhancement, of course)

So, to sum up, I consider AoW4 to be a considerable improvement over AoW3 and also over Planetfall in some respects as well but not all. While many things are different, it's not simplified at all.

[Midas]

Origineel geplaatst door Lestrateguerre:

In planetfall you can equip your heroes with items you bought from the shop and give them a specific combat role. You can have a heroe with a jet pack and a plasma sword , or one with a sniper rifle, or one piloting a bipede , bike etc etc. You can have two tank in your armies who are differently moded and thus will operate differently. Aow 4 is a lot more streamlined.

I do like that they adopted the hero equipment from planetfall to give aow4 heroes more of a role/class, but currently there aren't enough options. Fortunately, we can expect to get a lot more options, rebalancing, and adjusting of mechanics people aren't happy with, and by t he end of all the DLC, hopefully heroes in AoW4 are closer to the level of depth of heroes in planetfall.

Remember that at the start, planetfall wasn't amazing either. The vehicles were the go-to choice for everyone, and melee was just awful. It took them until almost the last DLC before they added all the hero abilities to make strong melee-focused heroes, while adding a bunch of new options as well.