Age of Wonders 3 SG 3

[Japper007]

Yeah I looked over the Archdruid units for Dwarves and it's not very interesting. Their Hunters seem just inferior compared to Dwarf X-bows. I'd say we focus on Dwarven racials, like Firstborn+Xbows or something. We can supplement that with summoned beasties and Horned Gods, which are one of my favourite Tier 4's. We could even skip the Druid Building line altogether and just focus on Barracks and Temples for mana generation.

[MJW (ya that one)]

I would go with air adept, destruction master. Hunters and shamans are great units.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Any updates?

We need to take air adept because it has too much synergy for our gimmick. I also thought we needed to take something for undead because they are so common but it was a glitch that they fixed. Destruction master is still good but we don't have to pick it.

Charm is important for pokemoning. Healing is great too.

[RFS-81]

Any updates?

We need to take air adept because it has too much synergy for our gimmick. I also thought we needed to take something for undead because they are so common but it was a glitch that they fixed. Destruction master is still good but we don't have to pick it.  

Charm is important for pokemoning. Healing is great too.

Hang on, I need to get up to speed again on what all the things do. Totally agreed on Air: Seeker Enchantment is great for us. Domain of Winter can make our starting city very happy. That could depend on game settings, though: Unless we play with subterranean territory, dwarfs have an arctic starting bias. (I totally misremembered that DoW was a water spell...) Zephyr birds would make good scouts.

Then, we want to be master in some type of magic to get the research bonus from nodes. Destruction spells work well against everything, including undead, so that's good. Fire would be an alternative to kill undead. What was that glitch?

Dwarf hunters don't seem too impressive compared with crossbows. The hunters can potentially deal more damage, but we're not going to get off all three shots every time. Xbows do the same damage as two hunter shots, every time. Fortunately, buildings and druid skills that boost archers help both units, so we don't need to firmly specialize. I agree that we should use shamans, to control animals.

EDIT: Is Expander any good, or only if you play in Empire Building mode? We could pick that and Master of Air.

I favor the highest level because victory is inevitable otherwise...

Does this take into account that I'm going to sometimes stupidly get one of our heroes killed, and other times unnecessarily delay attacking independents? I'm just not good at estimating if I can win without casualties.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Any updates?

We need to take air adept because it has too much synergy for our gimmick. I also thought we needed to take something for undead because they are so common but it was a glitch that they fixed. Destruction master is still good but we don't have to pick it.  

Charm is important for pokemoning. Healing is great too.

Hang on, I need to get up to speed again on what all the things do. Totally agreed on Air: Seeker Enchantment is great for us. Domain of Winter can make our starting city very happy. That could depend on game settings, though: Unless we play with subterranean territory, dwarfs have an arctic starting bias. (I totally misremembered that DoW was a water spell...) Zephyr birds would make good scouts.

Then, we want to be master in some type of magic to get the research bonus from nodes. Destruction spells work well against everything, including undead, so that's good. Fire would be an alternative to kill undead. What was that glitch?

Dwarf hunters don't seem too impressive compared with crossbows. The hunters can potentially deal more damage, but we're not going to get off all three shots every time. Xbows do the same damage as two hunter shots, every time. Fortunately, buildings and druid skills that boost archers help both units, so we don't need to firmly specialize. I agree that we should use shamans, to control animals.

EDIT: Is Expander any good, or only if you play in Empire Building mode? We could pick that and Master of Air.

I favor the highest level because victory is inevitable otherwise...

Does this take into account that I'm going to sometimes stupidly get one of our heroes killed, and other times unnecessarily delay attacking independents? I'm just not good at estimating if I can win without casualties.

Undead used to spawn in excessive amounts. So much so that you had to pick a sphere that beat undead. Not anymore. So it's nice to have but not required.

The problem with expander is that taking three adept spheres is bad because it leads to a flooded spell book. So we would have to take air master which is a total waste to us.

So I wanted to pick air adept + element master that helps with undead. That leaves destruction, creation and fire. I don't think fire is better than destruction and creation for us. I've played creation many times because it's very useful in MP were you have to auto-battle with the AI so it's out. So I picked Air Adept+ Destruction Master.

It's very easy to bait the AI into attacking you and getting the first strike which makes hunters always do the same damage. It's pure payoff after that. Add the hunters speical abilities and it's a no brainer. In the very early game your options are limited but that doesn't matter because you have to unlock the hunters anyway.

AI is not a real threat below EMP because it doesn't know how to deal with stack-splitting. At EMP it can make death-balls that can kill you. We can play with manual-battle resurgence on. For creeps, at "very likely victory" your in the clear and "probably victory" it's a cause for big concern and don't bother for worse.

[RFS-81]

AI is not a real threat below EMP because it doesn't know how to deal with stack-splitting. At EMP it can make death-balls that can kill you. We can play with manual-battle resurgence on. For creeps, at "very likely victory" your in the clear and "probably victory" it's a cause for big concern and don't bother for worse.

I've got the impression that the estimation vastly undervalues stunning, and overvalues physical immunity (at least when you have some form of elemental damage). I've won without losing a unit in a battle that was supposed to be a "very likely defeat". And vice versa.


Bobchillingworth, what's the deal with the Draconian Theocrat? Is it about the fire-spitting evangelists and buffed Elders? Kind of unfair that they're the only race where the evangelists have a ranged attack, but is it that big a deal? I also didn't spot the synergy with Keeper of the Peace/Shadowborn yet.


Oh, by the way, it seems I wasn't running the latest version of AoW3. I should make a habit of launching GOG Galaxy once in a while even when I don't want to install anything At least I noticed it before we started.

[Bobchillingworth]

Ooh, happy to talk about it! So, the sum of it is that the race + class combination has excellent synergy in almost every area.


First, as you noted, Draconians are one of only two races that gets a ranged attack on the Evangelist unit. This transforms it from being a mediocre T3 melee unit that is almost completely useless in city sieges into a beefy ranged attacker which still has all of the buffing capabilities of any Evangelist, making it arguably the best support unit in the game. Because the Evangelist's healing ability is on a fairly short cool-down rather than once-per-battle, you can create armies of nothing but Evangelists and constantly switch off between units on attacking and healing duty, easily winning most city battle through attrition. The Draconian Evangelist's ranged attack is fire-based, directly countering most Dreadnought units, which Theocrats otherwise struggle against. The Human Evangelists also have ranged damage, but it's spirit-based, which many units are immune to.


Second, Draconians can fairly easily stack an incredible number of bonuses on their Exalted. Draconian Exalted naturally get the Charge ability, and get a massive fire damage boost at maxed Racial governance. Stack on additional melee attack bonuses from the Slaughtering Pits and either Peacekeepr or Shadowborn specialties, and you can build highly mobile armies which are almost guaranteed to win auto-resolve battles. Exalted come back from combat unless every unit in their army is defeated, and they'll heal quickly thanks to Draconian racial bonuses, allowing you to throw them into combat constantly.


Third, one of the early Draconian racial governance bonuses doubles production from Magma Forges, which makes it fairly easy to found at least a couple cities that can 1-turn Evangelists and Exalted.


Finally, Draconian Crusaders do not suffer penalties when climbing city walls, so you can still mount an effective offensive in the early/mid game before you've got your Exalted and/or Evangelist pumps operational.

[Bobchillingworth]

Also, let me know if you all would be interested in starting an AoW 3 PBEM, completely separate from this game. I've never actually played AoW 3 MP before, and I'm curious how well SP prepares you for it. I'll create a separate thread if at least a couple people express interest, so as not to further hijack this one.

[RFS-81]

Thanks for explaining!

Also, let me know if you all would be interested in starting an AoW 3 PBEM, completely separate from this game.  I've never actually played AoW 3 MP before, and I'm curious how well SP prepares you for it.  I'll create a separate thread if at least a couple people express interest, so as not to further hijack this one.

I don't think I'm good enough to make for an interesting game, but I'd love to dedlurk somebody. If we can get a subforum for it, even if it isn't civ.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Oh I forgot about playing a better leader. How about Draconian Theocrat Keeper Master+Creation adept on EMP with no resurgence? Creation adept is a good crutch for losing units and getting good points.

Necro would have to get banned to prevent the game from becoming all necros. Also AoW gives you far less data than the civ series and snowballs much faster too so someone running away with the game is a big threat unless a public diplo thread is allowed. Don't have any preference after that.


Edit: Won't play with necro allowed and strongly prefer public diplo thread

Edit 2: Fire adept, rather than Creation adept, is likely better for us-- lean toward creation now...