Is order the weakest affinity?

[Rhalius]

It's just an observation made, I feel like tome wise, each affinity has a pretty equal amount of useful things, the healing tome from order might even be the best starting tome to have with that army heal spell on campaign map.

But looking at the tech tree, order seems weakest because it relies a lot on vassals and rally of the lieges. Which isn't very useful on maps without free cities. Sure you can conquer cities and make them vassals, but that's a later benefit while every other affinity has a lot of instant benefits that are always useful on every map you play.

All others give more in the way of resource benefits or discounts that will always be useful, it's a clear edge over order.

And it makes the two order culture traits focused on vassals pretty useless on maps without free cities too, while no other affinity culture traits seem to have that either. All other culture traits seem to be about equally useful on every map.

I have already offered some suggestions for it on the official forums, but I was just curious to hear the thoughts of other players on this, see if maybe others noticed too that order seems to lag behind the other affinities a bit on the tech tree and usefulness of culture traits.

Devoted to good and imperialist are very solid culture traits by the way, and again, the tomes offer plenty of great things. But the affinity just relies a bit too much on the presence of vassals.

[CrUsHeR]

It is an alternative with its own perks, mainly revolving around vassals.

+10 gold from vassals (imagine having like 10 vassals through Adept Settlers early on)

Rally of the Lieges units get +2 ranks (lol? see above)

etc ( https://aow4.paradoxwikis.com/Empire_development#Order_empire_skills )

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Rhalius:

Is order the weakest affinity?
It's just an observation made, I feel like tome wise, each affinity has a pretty equal amount of useful things, the healing tome from order might even be the best starting tome to have with that army heal spell on campaign map.

But looking at the tech tree, order seems weakest because it relies a lot on vassals and rally of the lieges. Which isn't very useful on maps without free cities. Sure you can conquer cities and make them vassals, but that's a later benefit while every other affinity has a lot of instant benefits that are always useful on every map you play.

All others give more in the way of resource benefits or discounts that will always be useful, it's a clear edge over order.

And it makes the two order culture traits focused on vassals pretty useless on maps without free cities too, while no other affinity culture traits seem to have that either. All other culture traits seem to be about equally useful on every map.

I have already offered some suggestions for it on the official forums, but I was just curious to hear the thoughts of other players on this, see if maybe others noticed too that order seems to lag behind the other affinities a bit on the tech tree and usefulness of culture traits.

Devoted to good and imperialist are very solid culture traits by the way, and again, the tomes offer plenty of great things. But the affinity just relies a bit too much on the presence of vassals.

That title of your post made me instantly laugh. No offense, as what you have observed is the absolute opposite of my own personal experiences.

While the aspect you are focusing on you are absolutely right and point on, I consider Order very strong as I see it more as sort of a "buff-festival" on the battlefield. Economicwise you are also correct that vassals play a strong role, but that is only when not giving enough credit to how happiness as a modifier and multiplier works great in combination with better event outcomes and a champion as leader.

I hate playing against Order as they are probably the hardest to kill and to keep dead.

Considering your highlighted aspect of vassals, I would suggest to keep order well mixed, ideally with nature.

Personally when going Order I would go with High Culture, Devotee of Good and whatever you fancy while trying to snag at least one point of nature soon enough. Aggressive players can do well even with Chaos points. But yeah, vassals and lieges - there is definitely merit in what you wrote that they seemingly rely on them much. But they have so much more which makes them very strong, aside from the affinity tree.

[Professor H. Farnsworth]

That depends a lot what you mean.

Is Order Culture the weakest - no. It is extremely strong actually, their awakened units are exceptionally annoying to fight against.
Is Order Tomes the weakest - also, no. They got some very good units in there on top of some very good buildings unlocked (so much Stability you'll drown in it).
Is Order Empire Development the weakest - yes, I would say so.

[Rhalius]

I meant the tech tree yes, nothing wrong with their tomes. The tech tree is just too reliant on vassals.

It's why I am in favour of your own basic units always being part of rally of the lieges, so you can quickly recruit some and always get those benefits even without vassals.
Or maybe it could be an order affinity thing to make them available at rally of the lieges.

High culture is fine too, but the order affinity can be used with any culture, so I am not focusing on just any particular culture here. High culture is obviously made for it in mind, but it can work well enough with any culture.

[CrUsHeR]

The biggest problem right now, if you migrate a city to your own faction, then release it as vassal, it reverts to the original faction. This really needs to be fixed ASAP.

Otherwise it would be pretty good. Note that Order isn't a "good ethic" or something, it works perfectly fine with anything except Chosen Destroyers.

There's even a perk giving you +1 allegiance level after vassalization, promoting non-consensual vassalization.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Rhalius:

I meant the tech tree yes, nothing wrong with their tomes. The tech tree is just too reliant on vassals.

It's why I am in favour of your own basic units always being part of rally of the lieges, so you can quickly recruit some and always get those benefits even without vassals.
Or maybe it could be an order affinity thing to make them available at rally of the lieges.

High culture is fine too, but the order affinity can be used with any culture, so I am not focusing on just any particular culture here. High culture is obviously made for it in mind, but it can work well enough with any culture.

If it is just the tech tree, then yes. Though one can argue about the limitation. A game without vassals and rally of the lieges does affect everyone. From my personal point of view this way it feels way much more balanced than having that e.g. in Shadow Affinity or General Affinity, as this encourages people to have at least one or two points in order. Otherwise there is not much sense in taking the order tree to begin with, and I am not sure what alternative perks would shout "order" but also is not covered by the other tree branches.

[Rhalius]

The other branches just tend to have benefits that are always useful.

Discounts for stuff you always use, extra income not reliant on vassals but something you'll always get with no strings attached.

I think I'd rather see the vassal stuff spread out more maybe, like each branch offering something there and it not being so much a focus of order.
Especially nature might stand to get something more situational since nature is the strongest branch by far since more food means more provinces, thus more income of anything else too. It also has a great boost to mana income in there.

I think all branches kind of need an equal amount of stuff that comes with no strings attached, along with each having a few more situational things.

[~ Fabulous ~]

For me its nature, food? spirit wolf, slightly faster healing? I rather take more buff for cheap troops from my vassal, and the last order perk Knightly Orders which give buff to all unit type and Rite of the Banners where you can instant Rally of the Lieges where the cost of recruitment will be 0? ho boy , now compare that with nature, new acquired population require less food? in late game? wtf, yes rangers is a good perk but that and druidic care are all that is good about nature. But this is coming from me, a dude who have tons of vassal, so take it with a jug of salt.

[CrUsHeR]

Nature seems pretty great at first, but you mainly need 2 of its perks - city founding and bonus healing.

Chaos and Shadow about 1:1, with some Astral as 2nd, seems so much stronger in the military department that nothing really compares.



Example the first Chaos perk - get a unit from clearing Infestations.
So you clear a Great Bird Nest, get a Thunderbird or a Phoenix, then you've already won your first war.

Second Chaos perk - T1 units cost -30% upkeep. Great, summon irregulars. Combine with the Shadow perk for -20% magical origin upkeep, summon lesser elementals with total -50% upkeep without needing a hero. You can even summon these while already laying siege to a city.

Third Chaos perk - get 3 gold per tier of killed units.

And so on.

[lalala]

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

It is an alternative with its own perks, mainly revolving around vassals.

+10 gold from vassals (imagine having like 10 vassals through Adept Settlers early on)

Rally of the Lieges units get +2 ranks (lol? see above)

etc ( https://aow4.paradoxwikis.com/Empire_development#Order_empire_skills )

When do you have 10 vassals... To the end of the game maybe or some special lucky start. thats 100 gold. Wow... But the raly is strong. I have ~5 turns/rally where I can just create multiple stacks. And with some spells on the vassals the they are faithful and cost 50% to recruit and have +2 ranks. That one is really strong.

[CrUsHeR]

Originally posted by lalala:

Originally posted by CrUsHeR:

It is an alternative with its own perks, mainly revolving around vassals.

+10 gold from vassals (imagine having like 10 vassals through Adept Settlers early on)

Rally of the Lieges units get +2 ranks (lol? see above)

etc ( https://aow4.paradoxwikis.com/Empire_development#Order_empire_skills )

When do you have 10 vassals... To the end of the game maybe or some special lucky start. thats 100 gold. Wow... But the raly is strong. I have ~5 turns/rally where I can just create multiple stacks. And with some spells on the vassals the they are faithful and cost 50% to recruit and have +2 ranks. That one is really strong.

These 100 gold are on top of the like 300+ gold you already get from your 10 vassals, so it is a synergy. Also kicks in very early if you are still broke, founded 2 vassals, then you could go instantly from e.g. +30g / turn to +50

How to get vassals? Take adept settlers, get the first materium and nature perks, plop down cities for 25g and 50 imperium. With this perk you already get 10g / turn back right after releasing them.


Also, instead of buying dozens of ROL units you cannot afford, you can actually do a brutal spam of the most expensive units on a vassal city where you don't want your enemy to get through. They already start with 1 stack of T3 units, then you send them all the Horned Gods, Entwined, Fairies, Bone Dragons, whatever you have unlocked. Good luck for the AI to get through there