Grexolis - Story Realm 5

[Kai-ron]

Ok.
(For reference, playing on Normal)

As someone who has made 5 attempts at the 5th map of the story realms, 2 tries were successful.
One with a military victory, and one with the magic victory.

I can confirm, that neither victory, was fun. At all.
Not so much challenging, as it was overwhelmingly irritating.

Devs, can you PLEASE re-tune this battle?

It's honestly a miserable slog, and maybe you meant that to be the point, but it's not fun, at all, and made me not want to play.

The military victory took 213 turns, and the magic victory took 61 turns.

NEITHER STRATEGY WAS FUN. This map made me sad, and I don't want to play AoW4 anymore =(

[Karion]

So far I did 2 tries but i gotta agree, from your allies and enemies to the map setup everything plays against you.
My second try was even worst than the first one since the astral void closed most of the land near me and my allies decided the little land around should be theirs.
I though we were away from the awful campaign maps from 3 with enemies starting with all the toys and you get nothing (your allies gets them too but don't worry they will lose them in the first turns).

[M0rgi]

I didnt really find it too difficult to beat but unbreakable alliances were frustrating to deal with especially when he plants outpost right next to your city.

[Shamandalie]

Here I was looking for tips to beat it and the best tip is probably "skip to Realm tier I", heartbreaking really! :D

[yuzhonglu]

Mana addicts/ cannibalism. Dark culture for the "get research from hero kills" and also their tier 3 cav. Spider mounts. Use wizard king for more mana generation, pick up the 15% chance of spawning astral creature blessing, mass conduits, spawn a few mimics from the blessing, snowball and win.

Early game just mass spider scouts.

[~ Fabulous ~]

Originally posted by yuzhonglu:

Mana addicts/ cannibalism. Dark culture for the "get research from hero kills" and also their tier 3 cav. Spider mounts. Use wizard king for more mana generation, pick up the 15% chance of spawning astral creature blessing, mass conduits, spawn a few mimics from the blessing, snowball and win.

Early game just mass spider scouts.

spider op can confirm, with hero cheese I win at 150 turn, with spiders? pff less than 50 turn lol, but I would suggest barbarian spiders instead of dark, because tier 2 furry raiding spiders is cheaper and substantially more cost effective. As for spell, all the spell you need is call of the wild, take wizard king and spam that bad boy your furry spiders will become an actual living tank with the destructive power too.

[Alien]

I am still having a lot of trouble i tried atleast 10 times and still failing :( i am being more defensive and around turn 80-90 i start to head out but he spamm hero in my city and ddestroy all my land so i get no money and loose troops cuz of moral and i i have to rresign becuz he start magic vic and i have no money no units etc :(

[Malware Mal]

While a magic victory isn't hard, AI usually wont try to stop you, hell sometimes your allies will even do it if you give them enough time, a military win can be a hassle. Most people seem to be finding success with some kind of dark, horde, spider builds.

Oddly enough I found the AI extra aggressive these past few attempts though. Which makes me wonder if they tweaked it when no one was looking. Like even the undead elf ai guy in the south was sending nine 6-stacks against me which was new. Might just be random. *Shrugs*

[Central]

i tried this mission a couple of times now, it is def hard, and not a lot of fun.

my most successful attempt was with an underground start, building 2 small cities and 1 bigger city for a magic victory.
i did build 1 city on the surface near the only entrance to my cave and i gave that city to my closest ally. they did most of the work defending the entrance.
i did heavily use summoned creatures to help defend my allies cities, prioritizing the one that was on the surface near my cave entrance.

My setup:
Keen-sighted, underground adaptation
mystic, mana addicts, runesmiths
tome of beasts

[mbinkle]

Many turns by opponents are taken up with armies of one or two characters moving back and forth on the map. This is what is taking so long. Are the next realms better. If not, I will quit the game now.

[Xepep]

Originally posted by mbinkle:

Many turns by opponents are taken up with armies of one or two characters moving back and forth on the map. This is what is taking so long. Are the next realms better. If not, I will quit the game now.

Grexolis is the last story realm.

[smexysticks]

Steadfast is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥!

[smexysticks]

Honestly, I've pretty tired of AOW 4's "Clump armies together, have several unfulfilling 3 army-on-3-army fights, rush to their throne city to besiege it, have their leader respawn in the city WAY TOO SOON AFTER THEIR DEFEAT and start rebuilding their army while you besiege it, only for them to flee their city at the last second BECAUSE THEY CAN DO THAT, and your army easily chases them down, but you have to leave your hero behind to keep besieging so you don't lose your progress." silliness

I strongly recommend the following:

-KILL TRADITION. No big area nuke spells to punish clumped armies means NO CLUMPED ARMIES! Armies go up to 18 units and either cannot reinforce each other, or units from ALL surrounding armies spawn in slowly to replace losses. Actually, maybe go for the no reinforcements rule, that sounds less messy.
-Give the defending army the option to decline to battle by "retreating", which doesn't work like in-battle retreating but instead gives them a forced march-like effect where they get extra movement on their upcoming turn in exchange for damage and exhaustion.
-Reverse how long sieges and leader respawning takes. Also you can't recruit or leave the city when its being sieged. Big battles has consequences.
-To make up for the ruler being in the astral void for an extended period of time, research is allowed to continue, possibly even sped up. The in-lore justification is "what else is the wizard king going to do while he's a ghost?" the mechanical justification is that you can either be merciful to the loser of a major battle or be NOT merciful. "YOU LOST YOU FAT WEAK UGLY LOSER, YOU DON'T DESERVE ANY RESEARCH PROGRESS WHILE YOU'RE _WORM FOOD_ but shh shh its okay sweetheart, don't cry, you'll respawn in just two little turns okay? it'll be like you were never gone" (Literally!)

Age of wonders 3 had a bunch of crippling kingdom-wide morale penalties for little mistakes and things you couldn't help. Like a city being conquered by a single flying or invisible scout or infestation unit when you couldn't afford to defend every city during a major offensive. So in 4, they tried to be nice to the defenders.

Well, quit it! You're sucking all the fun out of this game!