Biome Adaptations Need More Tomes

[GrandMajora]

Compared to Age of Wonders 3, I think it's safe to say that taking the any of the biome adaptation traits is a complete and utter waste of a racial trait.

The only reason why Arctic Adaptation is viable, is because there is a mid-game tome which allows you to spread arctic terrain within your borders.

But when it comes to Swamp and Desert, there is no way to artificially create them. You're forced to scour the map, looking a patch of desert / swamp that nobody else wants to colonize.

Underground Adaptation is only marginally better, because finding underground habitats is incredibly easy. But seeing as there is barely any resources worth fighting for outside of Gold and Quarry mines, being able to build Farms underground doesn't seem all that valuable.

[Climhazzard]

The frost spire and the school of cryomancy are two of the best special province improvements in the game. They're the only reasons to use arctic adaptation. If you can get two school of cryomancy placed in the starting arctic terrain, that'd be pretty great for builds that use a lot of mana. Mystic might be a good culture for this, since it'll give adjacency bonuses to the mystic abbey. Another good way to use it might be feudal, because it would supplement their low mana income. Otherwise it's probably not worth losing a mind trait.

I have one build with arctic adaptation, for thematic reasons. But it doesn't feel like a proper winter build until you get marching winter.

Swamp and desert are useless outside of maps that favor those terrains. There are at least a couple of desert maps in the default maps though.

Underground however is much more viable than it used to be. Particularly for industrious who can often excavate and prospect on the same turn, allowing them massive early economic boosts.

And a barbarian faction with devious watchers, adept settlers, and enough materium affinity for military engineering also feels pretty good underground. Because they can use it to spread all over the place while other factions remain oblivious. I challenge myself to see how far I can develop while keeping other factions unaware of my presence. My spider goblins are one such faction.

As for the title, I completely agree. We need more tomes, whether it's biome adaptation or otherwise.

[Ragatokk]

The frost tome itself makes the arctic trait useless. They need a rework, like +2 defense +2 resistance when fighting in arctic terrain.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by Ragatokk:

The frost tome itself makes the arctic trait useless. They need a rework, like +2 defense +2 resistance when fighting in arctic terrain.

Wait, how does Frost tome make Arctic Trait useless? The arctic trait gives you an edge in arctic terrain, which the frost tome is designed to spread.

[Johnny 5]

Yep agreed, and the lack of terrain spreading options is a major oversight. It entirely makes no sense that you can spread some terrain types and not others. maybe they are coming in updates/dlcs?

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by Johnny 5:

Yep agreed, and the lack of terrain spreading options is a major oversight. It entirely makes no sense that you can spread some terrain types and not others.

The only way to spread SWAMP in Age of Wonders 3 was with the Drench Terrain spell, who's AoE wasn't big enough to be worth the trouble.

But you could spread Tropical, Temperate, Blighted and Arctic as far as your empire's borders expanded.

With AoW 4, you can only spread Arctic, while you have to find the others through exploration.

[Climhazzard]

Originally posted by GrandMajora:

Originally posted by Ragatokk:

The frost tome itself makes the arctic trait useless. They need a rework, like +2 defense +2 resistance when fighting in arctic terrain.

Wait, how does Frost tome make Arctic Trait useless? The arctic trait gives you an edge in arctic terrain, which the frost tome is designed to spread.

Probably because the Frostling transformation does the same thing.

[The Big Brzezinski]

Does the transformation give you normal farms on snow terrain?

[Climhazzard]

Originally posted by The Big Brzezinski:

Does the transformation give you normal farms on snow terrain?

The overlap between the two is just arctic walk. But honestly the frostling transformation is probably the weakest in the game since it only gives you resistance to other frost users. I suppose it can protect your guys from friendly fire if you want to use area of effect frost spells. But there aren't very many, just frost evocation, snow spirits freezing phase, and shadow dragon lords breath attack.

[Terrkas]

Originally posted by The Big Brzezinski:

Does the transformation give you normal farms on snow terrain?

No, but you can build farms before the province is covered in snow and keep the farms. Also spi dont care about terrain, so if you got some of those, you dont even care about the terraintype.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by Climhazzard:

Probably because the Frostling transformation does the same thing.

Frostling Transformation doesn't let you build farms on arctic terrain.

The biome adaptations let you build farms on Arctic, Desert, Swamp and Underground terrain, while the various transformations in the game just make it easier for you to move troops through them.

[Codyksp]

The adaptation traits need more spells to support them and/or should be buffed.
At least underground unlocks Excavation and has a pretty large area of influence.

Being able to build farms really doesn't matter... They're the worst building anyway.
Swamp and Desert can't be created and Arctic is much worse than the transformation.

Personally I would remove all of them and rework them into transformations / domain spells.

[Ragatokk]

Originally posted by The Big Brzezinski:

Does the transformation give you normal farms on snow terrain?

Your farm don't go away after it becomes snow.