Players at turn 150+, how did you get there and what are you doing?

[Roderick]

That is half rant and half curiosity. My recent game is at turn 80, an ai has started the magic victory. I am dragging behind because research isn't my focus and I took an extra tier II tome. One half of my army is fighting one ai to the left of the map, the other half sits on the seed of the other one to the right half of the map in order to stop magic victory.
One of the former ally turned coats and threatens to attack my emptied homeland, the remaining allied ai has overwhelming foces gathered next to the seed... and did its best starring at it and plundering a farm while doing nothing else helpfull (already did send in THAT savefile for analysis), althought their army is stronger than the one of the enemy.
My army consists mostly of tier III berserkers, tier II furrys and summoned nymphs. It's enough to decimate what the enemies have, so I am sure I will get this game, just a question how much damage the traitor will do.

And then I am here, in this forum, and read about... people at turn 200+ complain how similar each game is because they have every tome at every game, just not enough resources to sustain their wish-army of tier V units?
What did you do all the time? Did you pour and fertilize the ai so that they could grow strong and healthy? Have you no planning in picking your tomes accordingly to the units you have at hand at the start of the game?
Did you sit there for ten turns counting the sheeps of that pasture and did then wonder why every good spot around you already has an outpost from someone else?
What about this "cultures and traits hardly matter"? My sneaky berserks hit hard from the flanks and are my main damage source at that point of the game. I would have taken different tomes (enchantments/transformations) and traits if I would play high or industrious culture.

I can understand those critics at the game if you always play past turn 150 and only have those tier V summons in every game... but I can't understand how you even got there?

[darkholyPL]

I'm pretty sure those kind of comments come from players who disable all other types of victory (so only military victory remeins) and play of large maps (max palyers) + far starting distance and slow game pace.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by darkholyPL:

I'm pretty sure those kind of comments come from players who disable all other types of victory (so only military victory remeins) and play of large maps (max palyers) + far starting distance and slow game pace.

That sounds right.

Originally posted by Roderick:

Players at turn 150+, how did you get there and what are you doing?
That is half rant and half curiosity. My recent game is at turn 80, an ai has started the magic victory. I am dragging behind because research isn't my focus and I took an extra tier II tome. One half of my army is fighting one ai to the left of the map, the other half sits on the seed of the other one to the right half of the map in order to stop magic victory.
One of the former ally turned coats and threatens to attack my emptied homeland, the remaining allied ai has overwhelming foces gathered next to the seed... and did its best starring at it and plundering a farm while doing nothing else helpfull (already did send in THAT savefile for analysis), althought their army is stronger than the one of the enemy.
My army consists mostly of tier III berserkers, tier II furrys and summoned nymphs. It's enough to decimate what the enemies have, so I am sure I will get this game, just a question how much damage the traitor will do.

And then I am here, in this forum, and read about... people at turn 200+ complain how similar each game is because they have every tome at every game, just not enough resources to sustain their wish-army of tier V units?
What did you do all the time? Did you pour and fertilize the ai so that they could grow strong and healthy? Have you no planning in picking your tomes accordingly to the units you have at hand at the start of the game?
Did you sit there for ten turns counting the sheeps of that pasture and did then wonder why every good spot around you already has an outpost from someone else?
What about this "cultures and traits hardly matter"? My sneaky berserks hit hard from the flanks and are my main damage source at that point of the game. I would have taken different tomes (enchantments/transformations) and traits if I would play high or industrious culture.

I can understand those critics at the game if you always play past turn 150 and only have those tier V summons in every game... but I can't understand how you even got there?

I too am rather convinced it has something to do with how one has setup their game. There currently so many factors which influence whether a game is going good or not, it is easy to hit the bad stuff by accident.

Now I really wish I could easily share scenarios... hm... that might work... need to check that... otherwise... if the idea does not work... it is always so much work >.< to write everything down, which includes the factions involved... ;_;

I was thinking of sharing my favourite scenario and hoping people who had bad experiences so far would give it a try and see if it helps them. But then usually the people who do nothing but complaining are not really looking for a solution but rather for mindless confirmation of their ***.

[BigJ]

Ai seems to struggle with infestations, so regen infestations tends to slow them down significantly, but never up to turn 150, so either the players turned off magic victory, or they declare war to destroy whatever and then just get a peace.

[Roderick]

Originally posted by darkholyPL:

I'm pretty sure those kind of comments come from players who disable all other types of victory (so only military victory remeins) and play of large maps (max palyers) + far starting distance and slow game pace.

Originally posted by アンジェル:

I too am rather convinced it has something to do with how one has setup their game. There currently so many factors which influence whether a game is going good or not, it is easy to hit the bad stuff by accident.

Now I really wish I could easily share scenarios... hm... that might work... need to check that... otherwise... if the idea does not work... it is always so much work >.< to write everything down, which includes the factions involved... ;_;

I was thinking of sharing my favourite scenario and hoping people who had bad experiences so far would give it a try and see if it helps them. But then usually the people who do nothing but complaining are not really looking for a solution but rather for mindless confirmation of their ***.

Looks like I should do the same... 9 players, far distance and going for military victory only. Finally a reason to go for choosen destroyers. Then also I can at least start whining about that city limit of 30 (which I never hit before). :D

To stay curious: What would be your fav scenario?

[Malaficus Shaikan]

I find it heavly depends on map set up.
During story maps the ai never goes for magic victory.
And during map generator unless i add in the pretender kings the ai just sit there.
Some builds allow me to curbstomb my way throught the enemy(high awaken spam for example) where others i just dont have the resources for a prolonged war.
Add to this you cannot just declare war without being punished for it.
The game heavly encourage's you to be peacefull.
And it is very easy to research everything before turn 150 if your a mystic build.

One of the problems with age of wonders 4 is that the game quickly becomes a grind at later turns.
Taking down 3 stacks every single turn is just boring.
And unlike previous age of wonders games we dont have nuke the entire battlefield and laugh spells.
I know people claim they are in the game but i have never seen one.

It is something i noticed reading the forums.
It seem like people are playing two entire different games.
One has spells that destroy's armies and easly curbstomp there way to victory.
The other has a boring grindfesh killing the same weak armies over and over again.
Both win but one is enjoying the slaughter and the other finds it time being wasted by many boring fights.

[BigJ]

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

I find it heavly depends on map set up.
During story maps the ai never goes for magic victory.
And during map generator unless i add in the pretender kings the ai just sit there.
Some builds allow me to curbstomb my way throught the enemy(high awaken spam for example) where others i just dont have the resources for a prolonged war.
Add to this you cannot just declare war without being punished for it.
The game heavly encourage's you to be peacefull.
And it is very easy to research everything before turn 150 if your a mystic build.

One of the problems with age of wonders 4 is that the game quickly becomes a grind at later turns.
Taking down 3 stacks every single turn is just boring.
And unlike previous age of wonders games we dont have nuke the entire battlefield and laugh spells.
I know people claim they are in the game but i have never seen one.

It is something i noticed reading the forums.
It seem like people are playing two entire different games.
One has spells that destroy's armies and easly curbstomp there way to victory.
The other has a boring grindfesh killing the same weak armies over and over again.
Both win but one is enjoying the slaughter and the other finds it time being wasted by many boring fights.

Grexolis on brutal would like to have a word.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Originally posted by BigJ:

Grexolis on brutal would like to have a word.

You mean the boring grindfest?

[darkholyPL]

Originally posted by Roderick:

To stay curious: What would be your fav scenario?

Not sure if this was directed at me of not, but I'll give my 2 € cents:
I don't have one. I like to play a different map setting everytime I play a new game. I don't like playing the same thing back to back, so I always try new options and try to get myself out of my own comfort zone. If I'm choosing the settings, and I see one and think 'man I'll probably not like this' then I'll choose it, just to see how it goes. Sometimes it ends up being really fun.

The only exception to this is 'Wonderous Past' which I pretty much always have set. The reason for that is the Ancient Wonders are pretty much the only content on the map, aside of infestatnions, right now. There just isn't any other than that. There are no other objectives, everything else that's there is just clearing resource guards.
And that is the one thing I think AoW4 needs desperately: more map objectives.

[BigJ]

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

Originally posted by BigJ:

Grexolis on brutal would like to have a word.

You mean the boring grindfest?

The boring grindfest that lasts so long the ai may start a mstuc victory, yep.

[snuggleform]

Simple answer is if you play the story realms, there is no turn limit and I myself had games lasting over turn 150 simply I didn't really know what I was doing when I was first playing so the game dragged on and the Ai didn't end the game either. I don't know what all the fuss is about.

[Roderick]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

Simple answer is if you play the story realms, there is no turn limit and I myself had games lasting over turn 150 simply I didn't really know what I was doing when I was first playing so the game dragged on and the Ai didn't end the game either. I don't know what all the fuss is about.

The fuss is basicly about people who don't play the game the first time comlaining how every game is the same, cultures and traits don't matter and you'll have every tome in every game eventually, while playing far beyond what is the normal "end" to the game (Score Victory at turn 150) while I hardly get past 120. Don't even know how I should play that.

Originally posted by darkholyPL:

The only exception to this is 'Wonderous Past' which I pretty much always have set. The reason for that is the Ancient Wonders are pretty much the only content on the map, aside of infestatnions, right now. There just isn't any other than that. There are no other objectives, everything else that's there is just clearing resource guards.

Well, that is definitly something to keep in mind when creating new maps. ^^ And those are sources for imperium.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Originally posted by BigJ:

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

You mean the boring grindfest?

The boring grindfest that lasts so long the ai may start a mstuc victory, yep.

They never build more then 1 seed in my games.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

Simple answer is if you play the story realms, there is no turn limit and I myself had games lasting over turn 150 simply I didn't really know what I was doing when I was first playing so the game dragged on and the Ai didn't end the game either. I don't know what all the fuss is about.

This.
I think 90% of the game lasting forever complains comes from the story realm.

[CrUsHeR]

Not sure if ignorant or trolling


> you can use a mod for increased starting distances, leading to extremely large maps if no underground players are present - sadly the basic shape never adapts to the size

> you can disable magic and expansion victory - which shouldn't even be a thing in a strategy game about empire building

> you can disable score victory, or at least increase the timer to 200

> you can reduce the "game speed"


Especially the (at least) doubled starting distances are mandatory, so the game isn't about who researched "Summon Irregulars" faster. If you manually scout the areas around your capital, you likely won't even meet another player before turn 50 or so.

[BigJ]

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

Originally posted by BigJ:

The boring grindfest that lasts so long the ai may start a mstuc victory, yep.

They never build more then 1 seed in my games.

Odd they reliably have build the heart in my runs.