More unique ultimate spells

[Melee Sniper]

At the moment, they are all nearly identical (20% less cost for spells of the used affinity) with a little added bonus for the affinity used. There is no real distinction between the ultimate spells of the different affinities. Hope they can go crazy with the ultimate spells like in AOW3.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Originally posted by Melee Sniper:

Hope they can go crazy with the ultimate spells like in AOW3.

Given how they have been nerfing nuke spells since age of wonders 3 i doubt it.
I remind you they nerfed the wizard king because it found a way around the limited damage spells do.

I person want to see a return of area of effect strategy map spells.
Some of my fonded memories i divine storming the enemy.
Instead of doing into a tedious grind.
Or taking a fire immune unit and walk inside an enemy city before mana bombing it.
Or earthquaking that large army out of existiance.
Or something as simple as reshaping the land and raising mountains to deny my enemy access to my lands.

I would love to see a return to the age of wonders spells we used to have.
But i dont think the dev share our love for powerful spells.
Given how much healing armies get the fun stuff like casting hail of storm and freezing half the enemy army upon mass damaging them.
Or chain lighting and stunning them.
For that matter fireball in shadow magic was a 9 hex spell.
It hit hard and a large area.
In age of wonders 3 it was single target.

I dont know why the dev's seem to hate area of effect spells.
Or sieges.
Or artiliery.
The more i think about it the more i am starting to understand why the newer age of wonders feel so tedious.
Fights are too repetative.
It is the same battle over and over again.
No eldrich storm that summons lighting and units.
No vinned walls destroying walls or map wide vines that slow movement to a crawl for not flying/floating units.
No double gravity pulling flying units to the ground.

Just the same: Do damage, heal, Repeat until won.
At least reaper still have there suffer or die ability.
In a nerfed form as it doesnt effect anything about tier 3 where the ability would shine.

Dammit now i am nostalgic for shadow magic and age of wonders 3.

[Zak]

The old AOW games were great.

[Melee Sniper]

Haven't played AOW 1 and 2, but if spells in AOW 3 are already nerfed versions of older spells, then I can only imagine how powerful the older spells are. It seems they are veering away from powerful spells, I guess they have a different gameplay in mind now.

[Macitar]

Originally posted by Melee Sniper:

Haven't played AOW 1 and 2, but if spells in AOW 3 are already nerfed versions of older spells, then I can only imagine how powerful the older spells are. It seems they are veering away from powerful spells, I guess they have a different gameplay in mind now.

Perhaps the item forge should have disposables, like scrolls or magic lamps or some such thing, that allow super spells but you have to craft them like a magic item and they are destroyed after use? Some limit to their use per turn to stop you banking stacks of them to annihilate with?

I think that would be a fair trade. For still having super magic. Kinda like making nukes in civ

[TirAsleen]

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

Dammit now i am nostalgic for shadow magic and age of wonders 3.

Disintegrate and Hellfire should return, but also damnation and poisondomain. Wetlands too, together with the save and load glitch, when it did change swamp into water. Call it stupid nostalgica.

Dark Gift, Fury, Fire Halo, Static Shield back - too many enchantments that just give crit or flat % dmg in the game.

For water the ultimate spell was static shield just to point it out, because also of a stupid glitch that made it better than it should be.

Death and Fire mixed really well in SM not so much in AoW4, unfortunately. Astral or Materium is always more efficient as supplement. if you go Shadow or Chaos, merely because of the imperium trees.

3 Fire and 3 Death Sphere Archons where so cool :) It turned the lowly T2 Paladin into a Boss unit. Holy Strike, Fire Strike(Fire halo), Magic strike(EW), Death Strike(Dark Gift) + charge and weaken on his target, so Paladins did hit really hard around turn10 :D

Magic made even low Tier units really powerful in SM.

Originally posted by Melee Sniper:

Haven't played AOW 1 and 2, but if spells in AOW 3 are already nerfed versions of older spells, then I can only imagine how powerful the older spells are. It seems they are veering away from powerful spells, I guess they have a different gameplay in mind now.

Yeah, the slow gameplay.

[Pantagruel]

One of the problems with making everything available to everyone is that there isn't really room to have broken overpowered spells that get countered by other broken overpowered spells in other domains, and as a result all the factions play kind of the same. Even AoW 1/2 don't have broken spells on the scale of Master of Magic (granddaddy of the genre) (which, admittedly, had quite severe balance problems).

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Originally posted by TirAsleen:

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

Dammit now i am nostalgic for shadow magic and age of wonders 3.

Disintegrate and Hellfire should return, but also damnation and poisondomain. Wetlands too, together with the save and load glitch, when it did change swamp into water. Call it stupid nostalgica.

Dark Gift, Fury, Fire Halo, Static Shield back - too many enchantments that just give crit or flat % dmg in the game.

For water the ultimate spell was static shield just to point it out, because also of a stupid glitch that made it better than it should be.

Death and Fire mixed really well in SM not so much in AoW4, unfortunately. Astral or Materium is always more efficient as supplement. if you go Shadow or Chaos, merely because of the imperium trees.

3 Fire and 3 Death Sphere Archons where so cool :) It turned the lowly T2 Paladin into a Boss unit. Holy Strike, Fire Strike(Fire halo), Magic strike(EW), Death Strike(Dark Gift) + charge and weaken on his target, so Paladins did hit really hard around turn10 :D

Magic made even low Tier units really powerful in SM.

Did an other playthrough recently.
The difference is like night and day.
Units are fragile, Spells are few but powerful.
Every choice feels impactful.
Leaving gaurds behind in a city to avoid it being ninja captured, Using elfreets(remember those. Floating firesword wielding fire immune baddasses?) to cross the sea and capture remote mana nodes.

It really drives home the feeling that shadow magic is a full meal where aow4 is just dressings.
It looks good but it doesnt fill.

Originally posted by Pantagruel:

One of the problems with making everything available to everyone is that there isn't really room to have broken overpowered spells that get countered by other broken overpowered spells in other domains, and as a result all the factions play kind of the same. Even AoW 1/2 don't have broken spells on the scale of Master of Magic (granddaddy of the genre) (which, admittedly, had quite severe balance problems).

I tryed masters of magic but i coudnt get into it.
A pity it sounds wonderfull.

[Pantagruel]

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

I tryed masters of magic but i coudnt get into it.
A pity it sounds wonderfull.

Oh, it's a distinctly flawed game. It was just willing to be bold.