Age of Wonders 4

Age of Wonders 4

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Ragatokk Oct 4, 2023 @ 4:01am
The map generator
I set the map to a land map and to be endless fields, then over half the map becomes mountains.

https://imgur.com/a/NBizPnT
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Showing 16-30 of 32 comments
SaD-82 Oct 6, 2023 @ 12:34am 
Originally posted by Picklefather Nurgle:
The wiki literally states it has a third layer.

For the campaign.
So, your knowledge of that game only comes from a wiki?
Nice.
sandman25dcsss Oct 6, 2023 @ 12:38am 
Aow3 has a mod with up to 8 underground levels as far as I recall.
Also random map generator in aow4 has almost nothing common with aow3 and pf, it was redesigned. This is why they can't remove underground layer and give sliders for different terrain in aow4 - instead of generating map first and then putting starting positions, they put the positions first and then generate map around them.
Last edited by sandman25dcsss; Oct 6, 2023 @ 12:42am
Originally posted by sandman25dcsss:
Aow3 has a mod with up to 8 underground levels as far as I recall.

There was also the Shadow Realm, which I liked from game 2. Ideally I'd like a mix of all three. Surface, Underground, Depths, Shadow Realm, Shadow Realm Depths. Would be a bit unwieldy and definitely a longer campaign, but it would be pretty neat getting to what should be the center of a world and then finding Shadow Demons colonizing the core.
Originally posted by SaD-82:
Originally posted by Picklefather Nurgle:
The wiki literally states it has a third layer.

For the campaign.
So, your knowledge of that game only comes from a wiki?
Nice.

Actually, because I like being petty: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2971099871

Game 1 had them too.
sandman25dcsss Oct 6, 2023 @ 12:43am 
Originally posted by Picklefather Nurgle:
Originally posted by sandman25dcsss:
Aow3 has a mod with up to 8 underground levels as far as I recall.

There was also the Shadow Realm, which I liked from game 2. Ideally I'd like a mix of all three. Surface, Underground, Depths, Shadow Realm, Shadow Realm Depths. Would be a bit unwieldy and definitely a longer campaign, but it would be pretty neat getting to what should be the center of a world and then finding Shadow Demons colonizing the core.
I don't like extra layers, I want a single layer, but sadly it is impossible in aow4.
Originally posted by sandman25dcsss:
I don't like extra layers, I want a single layer, but sadly it is impossible in aow4.

That's understandable. The underground could make the game almost unmanageable whenever they dragged on too long or were too large. I liked it because it was thematic and felt like a big struggle where I was either assaulting the surface mole-man style (before there even were Mole Men) or conquering the subterranean kingdoms.

People used to be able to customize whether they wanted one or the other layer (surface and underground) to spawn at all. Used to be everyone could be happy, but for some reason they decided to seriously neuter the map generation and parameters. I think in their attempt to make a map generator that was very hands-off, they succeeded, but ended up sacrificing that control. It was also probably compounded by the fact that they mostly used the Planetfall version of the map generator for this game, and that game wasn't made with that functionality in mind at all.
Last edited by Picklefather Nurgle; Oct 6, 2023 @ 12:50am
sandman25dcsss Oct 6, 2023 @ 12:51am 
Why do you think they used planetfall version? Planetfall map generator is almost perfect, for instance, I create maps without water/volcano/teleporters there.
Originally posted by sandman25dcsss:
Why do you think they used planetfall version? Planetfall map generator is almost perfect, for instance, I create maps without water/volcano/teleporters there.

The map generator was perfect for its specific implementation in Planetfall. They tweaked it heavily to try and make it fit the fantasy theme again, to middling success, at least to me. They seem to have had to rebuild the underground function from scratch, and the generator seems to be bugging out for a few people here in the forums.

Sometimes too much water, others too many mountains, others had water and mountains despite selecting a map where one could generate as per the modifiers. Something broke in the transition to 4, even if its mostly stable. The planetfall maps were also much larger, and its smaller size seems to have also affected it in less-than-intended ways, like having weird shapes that were too uniform across multiple maps and other things like that.
Last edited by Picklefather Nurgle; Oct 6, 2023 @ 12:57am
Originally posted by Pyro Penguin:
yeah the random map generation is pretty awful, i really wish they would bring back the map editor, but they seem pretty commited to random maps which is a shame

The map editor would definitely be welcome. The one for 3 had been picked apart so well that even I took a shot at making one. Was terrible, but fun.
Terrkas Oct 6, 2023 @ 5:45am 
Originally posted by Picklefather Nurgle:
Originally posted by SaD-82:

For the campaign.
So, your knowledge of that game only comes from a wiki?
Nice.

Actually, because I like being petty: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2971099871

Game 1 had them too.

That part you linked says only 1 had depht layer. Which is mostly true. 2/sm/3 didnt use it. Outside of 1 map in 3 if i remember correctly, there was no depht in the vanilla game. Only sm had shadow realm as a third layer.


2 also had no mapgenerator i think. Sm had one, but no depht. 3 had one, no depths.

Since 3 used it for one Mission, it was possible i think to mod in more layers.
Last edited by Terrkas; Oct 6, 2023 @ 5:51am
Originally posted by Terrkas:

That part you linked says only 1 had depht layer. Which is mostly true. 2/sm/3 didnt use it. Outside of 1 map in 3 if i remember correctly, there was no depht in the vanilla game. Only sm had shadow realm as a third layer.


2 also had no mapgenerator i think. Sm had one, but no depht. 3 had one, no depths.

Since 3 used it for one Mission, it was possible i think to mod in more layers.

True, the thing with three that I'm remembering is how the Map Gen mods that existed opened up the functionality of adding depths to some maps. And it wasn't more layers that were modded in, it was just the 3 that were "technically" possible with the game's engine.

They'd already existed in the game files and were rarely used, but near the end of my time with 3 I had it modded so heavily that I legit didn't even remember what was vanilla and what was a mod until I'd done a reinstall for the sake of clarity. What I said still stands, since only in 2 and Shadow Magic were the depths layers not used at all, but I was getting cranky AF with how that other guy was responding. As if an example of something, even if used rarely, isn't proof of its existence. Game 1 had one with a Dwarf mission, and there were even a bunch of old maps on the Heavensgate or whatever forums where people made all sorts of neat subterranean maps, which also blurred and ran together in my mind along with that mission.
SaD-82 Oct 6, 2023 @ 2:12pm 
Originally posted by Picklefather Nurgle:
but I was getting cranky AF with how that other guy was responding

You mean pointing out that you were wrong in stating that previous titles would have had a second underground layer in their random generated maps?
Well, that's a you-problem. If you get p*ssed because you are proven wrong, you should work on yourself.
Originally posted by SaD-82:

You mean pointing out that you were wrong in stating that previous titles would have had a second underground layer in their random generated maps?
Well, that's a you-problem. If you get p*ssed because you are proven wrong, you should work on yourself.

This situation is one in which I was attempting to prove the existence of something. I was correct on the existence of that thing, but incorrect in the exact context in which that thing existed. Rather than saying "that's not true, those existed but not in the way you're thinking about" like a normal person, without resorting to condescension and unpleasantness, you instead brought in a bunch of snark and unnecessary hostility, couching your response in it, which then bogged down the conversation. I'm not the one that needs to do soul-searching, my guy.
Last edited by Picklefather Nurgle; Oct 6, 2023 @ 2:29pm
SaD-82 Oct 6, 2023 @ 2:39pm 
Originally posted by Picklefather Nurgle:
Rather than saying "that's not true, those existed but not in the way you're thinking about"

Let's see:


Originally posted by SaD-82:
Originally posted by Picklefather Nurgle:
but I rather enjoyed the whole "underground, deep underground, mega deep underground" thing from the previous games.

Only in AoW 1 there were some maps (not all) that gave another layer to the underground.
You could argue that AoW 2 had the shadow realm as another "layer", but to say that previous games had several underground layers is misleading. At best.

Hmmm. Sounds like I did exactly that.
What happened then? You doubled down on your false statement by making it even more wrong. Which ended up in:


Originally posted by SaD-82:
Originally posted by Picklefather Nurgle:
and the possibility to spawn them in random generation.
And this you hadn't.
AoW 1 had no random map generator.
AoW 2 had no several underground layers in random map generator.
AoW 3 didn't have this feature, as well.
And one single mission in a campaign that many people didn't even touch isn't a trademark for a game.

As I said: Your statement is misleading. At best. And in terms of randomized maps in previous games: It's even totally wrong.


And then you started deteriorating.
That's the beauty of a forum - those words will stay. Forever. And no matter what you try - you can't deny them.
Like I said in one of those earlier posts: Be an adult and accept your failure. Because what you were doing and are doing hints at some things that don't make a good impression to others.
Originally posted by SaD-82:
And then you started deteriorating.
That's the beauty of a forum - those words will stay. Forever. And no matter what you try - you can't deny them.
Like I said in one of those earlier posts: Be an adult and accept your failure. Because what you were doing and are doing hints at some things that don't make a good impression to others.

Your average person would look at a statement like "Alligators and crocodiles are all over the world" and apply the proper context of those animals not in fact being everywhere, but rather in a multitude of different regions across the globe.

What you did was the equivalent of going "there are no crocodiles in Scandinavia, stop spreading misinformation" and then continuing with that point regardless of me showing you instances of crocodiles and alligators existing in numerous different environments but not, in fact, in Scandinavia. It was needless, rude, snide nitpicking that served no purpose other than letting you take take your day out on someone. I'm gonna go ahead and stop replying to you, because you're clearly just bored and looking for trouble.
Last edited by Picklefather Nurgle; Oct 6, 2023 @ 2:48pm
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Date Posted: Oct 4, 2023 @ 4:01am
Posts: 32