Concern about cultural units being same-y

[ekulio]

Hello!

First of all, this game looks flipping amazing. I have watched the intro video and read all the dev diaries a thousand times. I loved AOW3 and Planetfall and you can take my money!

One concern I had though was glancing through the previews of the different cultural units (we see some in the video and the rest in a gif on the announcement page) most of them look pretty much the same. For example, the industrial culture gets a crossbow, but all the other cultures have a regular archer with a bow. All of them have a sword-and-shield person and most have a two-handed spear.

Towards the end of 3s development, triumph did an amazing job tweaking racial units where they could to make them more distinct. Planetfall introduced a huge improvement in 3 by making every faction have totally different unit lineups. There was very limited 1-to-1 equivalency between faction rosters. I loved that.

Are the spear, archer, and shield units going to be distinct enough?

THank you for your amazing work and the hundreds of hours of fun it's given me!

 

[Shidan]

Well, we do know the cultures have some different combat mechanics with their units. Barbarians get a damage boost on their first attacks, Industrious get more resilient each time they get hit, High culture units get this "Awakened" effect that we're not really sure what is yet, Dark culture gets bonuses to inflicting and exploiting status conditions.

We also see some of the units despite filling similar roles having different mechanics. The spear unit for Barbarians seems to be a skirmisher instead, using throwing spears that debuff enemies they hit. Arcane culture lacks a bow unit entirely, clearly using magic as their attack instead. So it's possible they could be quite diverse even if filling similar roles. We haven't seen anything but Barbarians in gameplay yet after all.

 

[Entherian]

Well, we do know the cultures have some different combat mechanics with their units. Barbarians get a damage boost on their first attacks, Industrious get more resilient each time they get hit, High culture units get this "Awakened" effect that we're not really sure what is yet, Dark culture gets bonuses to inflicting and exploiting status conditions.

We also see some of the units despite filling similar roles having different mechanics. The spear unit for Barbarians seems to be a skirmisher instead, using throwing spears that debuff enemies they hit. Arcane culture lacks a bow unit entirely, clearly using magic as their attack instead. So it's possible they could be quite diverse even if filling similar roles. We haven't seen anything but Barbarians in gameplay yet after all.

Wait, where did we learn this? This stuff sounds cool and I missed it!

 

[FerrokenFibrous]

High culture units get this "Awakened" effect that we're not really sure what is yet

From Dev Diary #2: "Order is associated with Spirit Damage, a type of holy energy that is particularly effective against the undead. High Culture’s defining feature is that their units can become “Awakened”, allowing them to channel Spirit Damage through their physical attacks!"

Wait, where did we learn this? This stuff sounds cool and I missed it!

Tooltips from the gameplay reveal demo last-last week.

 

[Entherian]

Tooltips from the gameplay reveal demo last-last week.

God, people are so quick with their screenshots, I'd never catch this stuff on my own. Thanks!

 

[matthett]

It's also worth noting that cultures seem to have their own research choices, with one shown in the reveal video. Not sure how many would there be, but it is something.

 

[Silvertongued]

Admittedly I'm concerned about it, too.

Age of Wonders 3 really suffered (at least in my estimation) due to how same-y all the factions were. Sure, they could look a little different, or have slightly tweaked mechanics, but it was not nearly as fun as Planetfall's asymmetrical factions, or even the quirky bits of asymmetry from AoW2. AoW1 was a bit samey, as well, admittedly - but at least they had some wild imbalances that made late game stuff incredibly amusing.

Customization is great but... What if I just want a Karagh? ;-;

 

[The5lacker]

I imagine things are going to diverge more heavily the higher into the tech trees you go, and as mentioned it seems like Culture isn't just a starting condition, but its own component of your tech tree alongside tomes. Everybody needs a basic archer, but as the game develops you wind up fielding very different armies.

 

[akinata]

Customization is great but... What if I just want a Karagh? ;-;

i bet the "karagh" or any similar unique monster will be a tome unit.

 

[Entherian]

It's also worth noting that cultures seem to have their own research choices, with one shown in the reveal video. Not sure how many would there be, but it is something.

If this means that Industrious cultures eventually get to research muskets/rifles without needing to pick a specific Tome, thus freeing a Tome slot for other options in play, that'd be really interesting.

 

[The5lacker]

i bet the "karagh" or any similar unique monster will be a tome unit.

Or a Dwelling unit if such things come around again, which I would fully support. Let me find some weirdos to make friends with!

 

[Vibromaster]

I would add to the conversation with the fact that we know unit have special abilities.

the skirmisher barbarians can reduce enemies defence for exemple.

I imagine that there’s inherent combos unique to each culture and mixing tomes will add to that.

Lennart said an average of 8 extra units thanks to the tomes.

Of course I’m expecting some commonality between the different type of units of different cultures. Like all support classes can heal but some poison the enemy, some buff or debuff, etc…

it might help making the game easier to read as the option pile up quickly.

 

[FerrokenFibrous]

God, people are so quick with their screenshots, I'd never catch this stuff on my own. Thanks!

Replaying parts of the vid at 0.25 speed helps. Either way, you're welcome.

 

[Silvertongued]

i bet the "karagh" or any similar unique monster will be a tome unit.

Or a Dwelling unit if such things come around again, which I would fully support. Let me find some weirdos to make friends with!

You guys break my heart not knowing what the Karagh is.

It wouldn't make much sense as a tome unit (AFAIK) since those seem to be ostensibly summons and equipment/enchantment to improve your units, along with elemental/magic-based things.

It wouldn't make sense for dwellings, either, as Karaghs were a uniquely Goblin-derived unit. They're also mindless beasts.

Let me explain:
Way back when, the goblins were sort of... crap. They were weak, they were vulnerable to pretty much everything, and outside of underground they just couldn't contend with the other races. The other races had undead that could ignore their injuries, giants that could heave boulders, heavy armour and brute strength to overwhelm their foes, could cross water or freeze rivers or any number of other things. Goblins had... poison that was mostly derived from them living in cesspits and long sticks. So they had to get creative if they wanted to keep pace. They had to find bigger things. Stronger things. Things that weren't very smart - things they could maybe control. Giant insects, trolls, wyverns and wolves. But deep, deep underground, in the places where light has never reached, there was something even more dangerous and the Goblins were the only ones stupid (or crazy) enough to try to handle it.

Enter the Karagh. It is a grotesque gaunt-yet-fat mindless beast that roams the lightless caverns of the underground. When it catches a whiff of blood, the sound of voices, or any other sign that prey might be nearby -- does it hide and lay an ambush? Does it crawl across the ceiling? Does it have some special unique ability to cleverly wound its prey? No. It screams. It screams and howls and races through the underground paths faster than dragons can fly. All you get is the ungodly screams of some unthinkable horror in the dark echoing off the walls until it bursts from the darkness and savagely clubs or devours everything within arm's reach, killing in a blind frenzy.

It's not magic. It's not some special creation or have some sort of awesome clever ability. It's just a thing of horrors that only the Goblins could manage to capture. And when they need to, they point it towards their enemies and let it out - and hope that it doesn't think to turn around. It was the single coolest thing that Triumph came up with and, at least for me, it epitomized what made the Age of Wonders Goblins unique: the ability to use many, many other species to fight their battles for them. The Karagh filled out that roster by being a huge scary beatstick that was the undisputed ruler of the underground.

It's frustrating to me, then, that Triumph moved away from that into making the Goblins more generic so that they had similar stats to, say, an Orc or a Draconian - when really it should just be goblins using every tool in the box to get a leg up despite having a statistical disadvantage. They're the scrappy underdog of scrappy underdogs (lore-wise) and I really found that appealing.

Unfortunately with the desire to increase customization the strong theming of the Goblins was lost and in AoW3 they were practically interchangeable with other races until DLC gave them a few tweaks - but even then they never brought back the Karagh.

 

[Entherian]

You guys break my heart not knowing what the Karagh is. It wouldn't make much sense as a tome unit (AFAIK) since those seem to be ostensibly summons and equipment/enchantment to improve your units, along with elemental/magic-based things. It wouldn't make sense for dwellings, either, as Karaghs were a uniquely Goblin-derived unit. (snip)

The tomes don't just add magic and summons, they also unlock new unit types for you to produce, like the Tome of Faith giving you the ability to research the Chaplain unit. It's theoretically possible, then, for the Karagh, or something like it, to become available for production through research from a Tome. And since the events of the new game will be taking place a long time, if not centuries, after AoW 3 and the fall of the empires of that age, according to Dev Diary #3, it doesn't seem that outlandish to me that the methods the goblins used to control and command the Karagh might have been (re)discovered and replicated by new factions, goblin and non-goblin alike. Imagine the new molemen finding a forgotten record of the Karagh and deciding, "yeah, that sounds sick, let's start using those things ourselves!"

 

[Ferrus Animus]

Karaghs were fun, admittedly I preferred the AoW 1 version that just had huge black iron swords and nobody knows how they got them.

 

[Promethian]

If we look at Planetfall its obvious they had units filling various roles just like in this game. However even units with similar roles and even basic attacks were very different. Vanguard Troopers and Syndicate Indentured were the standard, 7 range repeating unit. However they had different damage channels which provided very different mod options. Different utility abilities (grenade vs power shot). Different racial synergies too. A fully modded and supported Trooper was dramatically different from a similarly supported Indentured even thought they were the same "base" unit.

You can go down the line for most units in Planetfall. How similar were Scavengers and Frenzied? How about Enforcers, Lightbringers and Lancers? Or the 3 snipers? Laser Tanks vs Dvar Tanks?

Perhaps assuming the devs will continue with and improve upon their well done design decisions in previous games is prudent.

 

[akinata]

You guys break my heart not knowing what the Karagh is.

t4 goblin unit in AOW1

so far we only saw t1 and t2 cultural units. so i assume that t3 & t4 and t5 (yes t5 confirmed) will be tomes related.
but who knows, maybe we'll get special cultural units too

 

[NuMetal]

Towards the end of 3s development, triumph did an amazing job tweaking racial units where they could to make them more distinct.

...

Are the spear, archer, and shield units going to be distinct enough?

This is what we know so far:
1. Race is just a form now and purely cosmetic. For example if everything else is the same elven archers will have the exact same stats as orc archers.
2. Spear, archer and shield units will still be distinct enough, the distinction just won't be coming from race anymore but from culture traits, society traits and tomes.

There is already a long ongoing discussion about this in this thread: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/are-races-pure-cosmetic.1565793/?prdxDevPosts=1
I'd suggest only reading the dev responses

 

[Goemoe]

This is what we know so far:
1. Race is just a form now and purely cosmetic. For example if everything else is the same elven archers will have the exact same stats as orc archers.
2. Spear, archer and shield units will still be distinct enough, the distinction just won't be coming from race anymore but from culture traits, society traits and tomes.

There is already a long ongoing discussion about this in this thread: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/are-races-pure-cosmetic.1565793/?prdxDevPosts=1
I'd suggest only reading the dev responses

I think the distinction will be hugely lacking in this system. Though the race is more than the form, you have to look up every tiny detail to know what kind of orc is invading your territory. And yes, if all traits and culture fit, it could be an elf in orcish disguise, but wait... if everything is interchangeable, who knows any longer what an elf is like? You have to define it clearly for yourself, the game will not offer much canon any longer.

You see an orc with shield and sword and all you can say for sure is: it is a defender. The days, where you see firstborn dwarfs, goblin beetles or human knights, knowing exactly what they are and what they stand for, seem to be gone in AoW4. You don't even know what transformations are in, when the head has a green glow, because it can have several transformations and only the last one will make the glow green.

I fear the iconic feeling of the units will be gone with AoW4, at least for the races. I don't care too much about tier 1 units, as they did not have much impact in the later game. Some tier 2 units of AoW3 have been used for a long time. You were watchful, if a stormsister had her golden medal. This feeling will be gone.

And we don't seem to get all those nice racial tier 3 units at all now. And who cares if a tyrant knight is riding a horse or a boar, if it has no impact at all and we have to look up what culture and bunch of traits (and transformations?) modify its race to the way it is? So I wouldn't say the units will be same-y. You simply don't know what they are, before you look each one up.

Actually we have to look up every "racial" unit every time we encounter it, because we can't be sure of anything. I know how to behave by seeing nearly every unit in AoW3 after hundreds or thousands of hours of play. This feeling will be impossible in AoW4. Maybe this will not bother me, because AoW4 is just a different game, but maybe it will be a huge let down in the end. I will only know, after playing it for quite some time. But it will definitely feel very different from the former AoWs.