Fall From Heaven 2 or AoW3?

[N-Word SizzurpHands]

I've been craving a fantasy 4X game lately and if I'm going to play one I'd like to play the "Best" one. I know it's subjective but the general consensus on the internet seems to say that AoW3, Endless Legend, Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes (tried a while back and didn't care for it), and Civ4: Fall From Heaven 2 are some of the best. I already have Civ4 installed with Fall From Heaven 2, but I just noticed that AoW3 is on a pretty good sale.

I guess this is more of a poll question than anything else. If you could only choose 1 fantasy 4X game to play or recommend, what would it be?

And I understand this is all opinion based, but I'd like to hear yours.

Thank you.

[Lars]

FFH2 and its many modmods are truly wonderful, but I'd still go with AoW3 if I were to choose just one fantasy TBS.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Depends on what you want.

AoW3 makes you feel like a fantasy warlord leading his warband to victory against his ruthless rivals. Civ IV makes you feel like an emperor commanding a nation. (And in the case of Fall from heaven, a fantasy nation.) Both can be a lot of fun.

Fall from Heaven is a great mod, but it is still a Civ game at its heart, with all the good and bad that entails. It means you get a vast scope, epic length games, great depth of research and a strong focus on empire building and settling. But with magic and much more focus on the experience system.

AoW3 is an entirely different style of game. Its main focus is the great tactical combat, which takes place on a separate combat map (tons of unique ones in the game) and typically involves 6-24 units a side. The battles are quick but surprisingly deep, with simple but very impactful systems for action points and outflanking, and each unit will have plenty of unique abilities or spells so no two battles will play out the same way. (Well, okay, the "squash 3 idiot mine guard" battles get pretty same-ish, but that's what auto-combat is for.)

Honestly, no civilisation game with its much more abstracted number-crunching combat is going to compare to AoW3 when it comes to war and combat.

AoW3 also has a much greater focus on heroes, levelling and exploration. There are dungeons to traverse, magic items to find, quests to perform. (Okay, the quests are pretty basic compared to Endless Legend, but still.) There's also a story based campaign. (Though the random or pre-designed scenarios are typically more fun.)

On the empire building side of things AoW3 is more streamlined and more limited than Civ IV. You will be fighting battles every turn, but won't be spending nearly as much thought on what to build in your cities. Diplomacy and expansion serves mostly to prepare you for your next war. Although there are multiple victory conditions (with the expansions) they will all involve fighting most or all other players on the map.

Since this is the AoW3 forum, you may not be surprised to hear that my vote goes to AoW3. I find its wars a lot more fun than CiV IVs, and to be quite honest I never found the Fall From Heaven mod that inspiring compared to the base game and its been years since I played it. I also think that AoW3 is the best game in its sub-genre (turn-based tactical fantasy combat.)

[N-Word SizzurpHands]

Originally posted by Iguana-on-a-stick:

Depends on what you want.

AoW3 makes you feel like a fantasy warlord leading his warband to victory against his ruthless rivals. Civ IV makes you feel like an emperor commanding a nation. (And in the case of Fall from heaven, a fantasy nation.) Both can be a lot of fun.

Fall from Heaven is a great mod, but it is still a Civ game at its heart, with all the good and bad that entails. It means you get a vast scope, epic length games, great depth of research and a strong focus on empire building and settling. But with magic and much more focus on the experience system.

AoW3 is an entirely different style of game. Its main focus is the great tactical combat, which takes place on a separate combat map (tons of unique ones in the game) and typically involves 6-24 units a side. The battles are quick but surprisingly deep, with simple but very impactful systems for action points and outflanking, and each unit will have plenty of unique abilities or spells so no two battles will play out the same way. (Well, okay, the "squash 3 idiot mine guard" battles get pretty same-ish, but that's what auto-combat is for.)

Honestly, no civilisation game with its much more abstracted number-crunching combat is going to compare to AoW3 when it comes to war and combat.

AoW3 also has a much greater focus on heroes, levelling and exploration. There are dungeons to traverse, magic items to find, quests to perform. (Okay, the quests are pretty basic compared to Endless Legend, but still.) There's also a story based campaign. (Though the random or pre-designed scenarios are typically more fun.)

On the empire building side of things AoW3 is more streamlined and more limited than Civ IV. You will be fighting battles every turn, but won't be spending nearly as much thought on what to build in your cities. Diplomacy and expansion serves mostly to prepare you for your next war. Although there are multiple victory conditions (with the expansions) they will all involve fighting most or all other players on the map.

Since this is the AoW3 forum, you may not be surprised to hear that my vote goes to AoW3. I find its wars a lot more fun than CiV IVs, and to be quite honest I never found the Fall From Heaven mod that inspiring compared to the base game and its been years since I played it. I also think that AoW3 is the best game in its sub-genre (turn-based tactical fantasy combat.)

Thank you for the replies, and thanks for going into detail on this one. Since AoW3 and all expansions are so cheap right now I think I'm gonna give it a shot based on your praise of it.

It will probably also be much easier to learn AoW3 since it was made by a team and probably has more comprehensive tutorials to get me going. Learning a Civ4 mod's rules probably isn't the most fun thing to do for the first few hours.

[The Cure]

AOW III is the best fantasy 4X.

[dpg05d]

There's also the bonus that AOW3 crashes a LOT less.

Both are two of my favorite games. FFH 2 (and all the add on mods like wild magic) is great. I played for hours, and literally beat it with each available leader/race. Here, I've beat it with each available race/specialty (as leaders can be created), and found the same amount of replayability. It is a different game than FFH2. It is also a game that is (hopefully) going to have a sequel. FFH2 seems dead in the water, and none of the fantasy mods to later civ games can compete.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Originally posted by Pwntergeist:

Thank you for the replies, and thanks for going into detail on this one. Since AoW3 and all expansions are so cheap right now I think I'm gonna give it a shot based on your praise of it.

It will probably also be much easier to learn AoW3 since it was made by a team and probably has more comprehensive tutorials to get me going. Learning a Civ4 mod's rules probably isn't the most fun thing to do for the first few hours.

You're very welcome. Always glad to introduce people to the game.

As for learning the game: it's not particularly hard, definitely the "easy to learn, difficult to master" type.

But players who are more used to civ-style games are sometimes caught off-guard by the pace. It's not a game that rewards sitting and waiting, or slowly turtling.

The campaigns are also a nasty surprise to some: the tutorial mission is helpful, the first campaign scenario is also a tutorial of sorts (they added the official tutorial in a later patch) but then from the second mission onwards the AI starts out with big advantages and you have to use your heroes aggressively to catch up.

I always recommend players start with the tutorial and then move on to a random map or two (or a pre-generated scenario for a slightly prettier map, the ones that come with the game are all very good and the difficult ones are pretty clearly marked)

Not only is this less frustrating, but a big part of the fun in the game for me is creating your leader and picking his race, class, skills, and appearance, and then using that character to explore the world. Can't do that in the campaign.

There is also an official tutorial here on steam written by the devs: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=424872219

It does a great job of explaining how the game is actually played.