Age of Wonders 3 SG

[MJW (ya that one)]

Dang, is the PBEM mode going to be an expansion exclusive?


I'll purchase it on sale someday. I suppose I'll likely be interested in a PBEM at that point.

Don't know. I would guess it isn't because they wanted it at release but couldn't because they couldn't get the file size small enough. Edit: And the free-changes in Golden Realms are much bigger than an obscure online mode.

I don't care because you are forced to by expansions anyway because everyone who is active buys it.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Well I found a way to break the game but it doesn't matter because by the time you get all the stuff the game is over. The problem is that physical protection stacks and that has potential. It did on release but it was not noticeable because only hero upgrades to give it. This was not intended, every unit was given a decent physical attack so everything could damage everything else. So do:

1. Get 20% hero upgrade, 60% ghostly elixir and armor that gives 20%. 100% physical protection.
2. There's a mount that gives an immunity to an element and a ring that gives 100% holy protection.
3. With the remaining slots you can easily get 100% for everything else.

Your leader cannot die anymore. If the domination victory is disabled you cannot lose the game.

Also I'm getting a bit bored by SP. If you play on large maps the AI doesn't build enough settlers and you can snowball ahead. If you play on cramped/small maps the AI bonuses do have enough time to pay off to overcome the garrisons they have to keep and the fact that they don't prioritize other players over independents causing them to waste half their army. Also, unlike civ, cities you take don't get damaged so it's over when you kill just one AI because you can use their cities. In fact with "instant migration" you can do it on the very next turn and there's no happy or city maintenance system in this game. I like that because having double the cities of everyone else, from killing someone, should be an overwhelming advantage and win you the game right there without diplomacy. So I would make the AI hostile to large empires rather than allowing small empires to keep up with large or make a system that makes it artificially hard to get large.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Well PBEM will be free. It uses their servers and I actually agree with that as to prevent cheating and someone with one city from running the game by refusing to move. Besides you can just manually send the save anyway (finish your turn, turn screen off and end your turn, then save using hotkeys and send. This dance is needed to prevent AI hijacking your team while the other person is playing). You need a ton a trust anyway because access to the map before the game starts, and RNG manipulation that cannot even be seen, would be a huge advantage. Besides when the servers shutdown no-one will be playing the game at that time...

I'm up for a PBEM game with or without the DLC being banned. I have to point out that you don't control your units in player vs player combat for obvious reasons so I don't think people here would like it. It would probably be better to play standard MP with a slower turn-pace so there's time to mirco properly and attack independents. And save the game after a time if needed. If you want full control over your units the only way to do it is to play "normal" online and set the manual combat of independents to on for now but you can ask Triumph for "masochistic" PBEM mode (where you send everytime you need an input from a different person) on their forums or steam if you wish. I don't think it would happen though because it would be 1v1 at best and it would look very strange to have a mode that is 1v1 only.

Bold="the point" for TLDR

[MJW (ya that one)]

Well the EXP is out now. Yay.

I'm up for a PBEM game but won't push it as you cannot fight tactical battles with other players in PBEM as there's no special option to allow for them. (It would be totally unplayable expect in 1v1 and as I said before it would look strange to allow it for 1v1 only.)

There's enough new free content to justify other SG but I won't push that ether as the same basic strat works; out-expand and crush the ai. We had a much easier time as our map was bigger due to Bob decreasing the mountains and underground being a bonus feature and not playing on the highest difficulty. But our greater experience, if people are still interested in this game, and the player having more options so be more than enough to overcome those issues and not using "cheese" easily.

If I were making AoW4 I would ether add something painful like a city-maintenance system or make the game revolve around the fact that their can be only one winner and the exponential growth of everyone putting you on a clock Shogun 2 style (there's a reason why the highest power someone can have in that game is "terrifying"). Doing something in between doesn't work as having more cities is extremely powerful by nature and the game needs to take action to deal with it by ether making getting as many cities as possible an explicit and huge goal of a game (like in Chess were you win over 90% of the time because you win material not checkmating your opponent's king) or take steps to stop it from being the best strat.