How's the base game, without DLCs?

[Anna the Zombie]

The game looks like a lot of fun, but I'm a little wary due to the morbillion DLCs on offer. Is the base game experience still fun without any DLCs?

[Blanch Warren]

We answered this question yesterday, at this point I am going to have to request you use your search or page function

It's fine, it just depends whether you want a dragon, reavers faction, primitives, etc

[darkholyPL]

Was fun enought for me to put 126h in so far, with no dlc's.

[TirAsleen]

you will be quite busy with the game without them and its just 4 DLCs so far, more are announced.

[Gorgoneus]

Poore. Just as all modern 4x games as a service. AoW3 was complet game without DLC, it was just an ew faction+story mission DLCs. But here each DLC contains core mechanic upgrades.

[Arcadia]

No point to it.

[Pierre117]

It's still a good game with lots of content, dlcs just gives you more content. If you started playing with all the dlcs you'd just get information overload

[.Master Jiren, The Strongest]

i'd say that Dragon and Eldritch Lord are so cool i'd have to reccomend getting the DLCs for those at least. but ill also say that, if you've played the base game, and aren't having that much fun, buying the DLCs wont change that.

[MT]

Boring,,, very very boring.

[Isseus]

It was half a game at launch and it's still half a game that requires the DLC. It's a Paradox game where they split it into a hundred parts to milk fools into paying over 150€ for a 40€ game.

Most of the game development time isn't spent on the game but making every possible combination of every possible unit/race mix while they are just skins, nothing more. All races are just skins with identical stats and no matter how many they add, they'll always be just that.

[MT]

Originally posted by Isseus:

It was half a game at launch and it's still half a game that requires the DLC. It's a Paradox game where they split it into a hundred parts to milk fools into paying over 150€ for a 40€ game.

Most of the game development time isn't spent on the game but making every possible combination of every possible unit/race mix while they are just skins, nothing more. All races are just skins with identical stats and no matter how many they add, they'll always be just that.

Perfectly summed up!
I was wondering why AoW3 was immersive and AoW4 is empty.

[Midas]

Originally posted by Isseus:

It was half a game at launch and it's still half a game that requires the DLC. It's a Paradox game where they split it into a hundred parts to milk fools into paying over 150€ for a 40€ game.

Most of the game development time isn't spent on the game but making every possible combination of every possible unit/race mix while they are just skins, nothing more. All races are just skins with identical stats and no matter how many they add, they'll always be just that.

Complete BS. It had all the same scope of content at launch that AoW3 and PF did. Anyone acting like AoW4 was any less complete than AoW3 is either lying to themselves, or has a very bad memory.

[MT]

Originally posted by Midas:

Originally posted by Isseus:

It was half a game at launch and it's still half a game that requires the DLC. It's a Paradox game where they split it into a hundred parts to milk fools into paying over 150€ for a 40€ game.

Most of the game development time isn't spent on the game but making every possible combination of every possible unit/race mix while they are just skins, nothing more. All races are just skins with identical stats and no matter how many they add, they'll always be just that.

Complete BS. It had all the same scope of content at launch that AoW3 and PF did. Anyone acting like AoW4 was any less complete than AoW3 is either lying to themselves, or has a very bad memory.

So AoW4 have same, "scope" Lack, of content at launch that AoW3 did... Great point! At least AoW3 had a Campaign.

[TirAsleen]

Originally posted by MASTERTITS:

Perfectly summed up!
I was wondering why AoW3 was immersive and AoW4 is empty.

What exactly was Immersive in AoW3?

The bad campaign? It was a disgrace to the Classic. Don't make me laugh and play AoW1 to see a great -meaning enjoyable - campaign with replay value.

You certainly can't mean with "immersive", compared to AoW1 and AoW2, the botched magic, race and alignment system of AoW3?

And whats is empty in AoW4?

It might be, if we are talking about classic D&D fantasy immersion, quite chaotic.

But its really packed to the brim with content and mechanics and more is coming.

Originally posted by Midas:

Complete BS. It had all the same scope of content at launch that AoW3 and PF did. Anyone acting like AoW4 was any less complete than AoW3 is either lying to themselves, or has a very bad memory.

True. The only complete AoW, was AoW1.

The devs had roughly about 5-10 years to complete it, the first MS-Dos version "World of Wonders" was scrapped in 1997 and turned into Age of Wonders for windows.

it only got a small patch in 2000 and thats it.

Every other sequel of the same franchise got a lot of updates to reach its final, complete form.

Age of Wonders 2: The Wizard's Throne did not look any better than vanilla AoW3, PF and AoW4.

[~ Fabulous ~]

Dlc just add more ruler, culture and more story mission, that is all, game play wise, it is the same

[MT]

Originally posted by TirAsleen:

Originally posted by MASTERTITS:

Perfectly summed up!
I was wondering why AoW3 was immersive and AoW4 is empty.

What exactly was Immersive in AoW3?

The bad campaign? It was a disgrace to the Classic. Don't make me laugh and play AoW1 to see a great -meaning enjoyable - campaign with replay value.

You certainly can't mean with "immersive", compared to AoW1 and AoW2, the botched magic, race and alignment system of AoW3?

And whats is empty in AoW4?

It might be, if we are talking about classic D&D fantasy immersion, quite chaotic.

But its really packed to the brim with content and mechanics and more is coming.

First, lets realize that the immersion topic is off-topic to the (How's the base game, without DLCs?) discussion.
Now to give some answers:
I got into the series from AoW3 and had no frame of reference of AoW 1 or 2, so I do not know why bringing up 1 and 2 to my comment about 3 and 4 is even relevant.

For me, in the beginning of a AoW3 campaign where you could recruit units into your army from a Natural-Passive units hit the WC3 spot. And It worked for me, I would make my own narrative in the skirmish runs.
For example - The campaign needs to introduce the characters, set the environment that gives context to the characters, and show why user/player should care about the characters and the events that happen later in the story and especially the end. The campaign builds the arch from the context of the environment. AoW3 has an ok start, and enough to suspend the disbelieve to have the immersion work for me, where is AoW4 is a clustermess of randomness and has none for me.
For example - Units in AoW3 where designed faction specific where a goblin tier1 ranged unit looked like a goblin tier1 ranged unit, and not like a smaller greener elf/rat/toad/mole/ork/ets. Believe it or not, but character design is a huge part of IMMERSION. In AoW4 there is no design difference in a tier1 ranged unit between goblin, rat, elf, human, ets other than scale, and for industrial with helmets they are all the same.
I just cant get into it, especially when an Angelic-transformation-glowing-feudal-Hobbit-free-city is asking me to join them on a ritual hunt, it Yanks me from the experience, AoW4 is actively destroys any immersion the suspension of disbelieve is trying to hold together.

So your argument about the Classic disgrace is for some one who played the originals, and a straw-man for me.
Let me remind you that I was comparing AoW3 to AoW4, Quote - "Perfectly summed up!
I was wondering why AoW3 was immersive and AoW4 is empty."

For you to bring up 1 and 2 as a counter argument, about the comparison of the immersion between 3 and 4, is irrelevant. Besides, if I played 1 and 2 I would most likely agree with you 100%.
I, however, do own 1 and 2, and I should probably go and play them at some point.

Now for AoW4 I DO have frame of reference of AoW3 and in that reference, 4 is empty. AoW4 is like a rich strong young pretty person who is actually empty and dead inside.
In what ways? Well Campaign is a good one to start with. If AoW3 had a "It was a disgrace to the Classic." Then a disgrace is still better than NO-campaign at all. Campaign sets the environment and establishes the characters. Tutorial and Campaign is a reason why WC3 was and still is a golden standard in game narrative storytelling, and it is clear that the same caliber of developer is just not part of the current Triumph Studio.

Let me remind you that I was comparing Immersion of AoW3 to AoW4 Quote - "Perfectly summed up!
I was wondering why AoW3 was immersive and AoW4 is empty."

And I fail to see how "packed to the brim with content and mechanics and more is coming." is a reasonable counter argument to AoW4 not being immersive. It seems like you are answering a question that I never asked, or responding to a claim that I never made, for example:
if I said something like (AoW4 is lacking in content and it doesn't seem like it is getting better) or (Is AoW4 have enough enraging content and can the devs be trusted long term?) Then your response of "packed to the brim with content and mechanics and more is coming." would of been on point and reasonable.

A system where anything can be anything and anyone can be anyone with thousands of combinations in reality ends up being nothing at all, and empty.
"Packed to the brim" has NOTHING to do with immersion. Worst Sequel is a Worst Sequel in a Title or a Feature no matter how much brim packing there are.

I am talking about basic game design, story telling, an immersion that is birthed from good UX design.
You are right about the D&D chaos, because AoW4 does feel like a D&D fanboy vomited all over the map and every game is forcing me to suspend the disbelieve into unreasonable realms. At the end of the day that is not fun, and if anyone interested in knowing the relationship between fun and immersion, check out Zero-punctuation.