With the recent announcement of ‘Master of magic’ remake, I immediately reinstalled AoW3 and playing every time I get the chance, since. I remember it as a great revival of the series and my memory was correct. I’m still having a great time with harder difficulties on a huge map, where I craft my own stories as I play.
With the conclusion of the Planetfall, I believe it’s quite certain to expect a new AoW game for 2 reasons.
So, for these reasons, I believe Triumph has already started pre-production after the hiring of (sorry I forgot the name) a developer from Amplitude and I have some feedback I hope Triumph would at hear to… so enough distractions, here are my feedback over the AoW3 and Planetfall.
The third installment was around hexes and it is now the current way of doing things. As for Planetfall, it introduced regions but it isn’t like Endless Legend. More like a bigger filled with filler, smaller hexes. I always found the world at Planetfall boring and I never figured it out why (maybe because I didn’t play that much) but since I reinstalled the AoW3, I finally understood why. Because it doesn't feel organic. It feels too arbitrary as a level design.
In the classic AoW series we get to see the organic rivers, beach, then plains. High mountains covered with forests, snow happening, and each of them has buildings or delves randomly generated. This felt good. I hope you will keep it for the fourth game.
Every magic mana should be separated. The game uses only one single mana and it’s not that important with mana nodes you control. The design is already there with a variety of creatures and spells. The only thing left is balancing and reworking on the resources.
The generic mana should stay as it is BUT Air, Earth, Fire, etc… all would offer their own resource and this unique resource should be spent wisely. Every special mana node or a certain type of building should give a single that special mana resource.
Ex.
If you control 2 air mana nodes you will still get +20 to your mana but the player should also be getting +2 air mana. And maybe the player would spend this on a great magical creature or a powerful spell or build a building. This resource shouldn’t accumulate but play as a “hard cap” to do Über-powerful things
I believe it’s time for more complicated city management. Rather than having one race for each city. Multiple races could migrate to a city. Having multiple races in a city should give many more options but control would be much harder as the unrest should raise via, terrain features or else.
It shouldn’t be only forced though via action. If a (let's say) dwarfs are unhappy in a human majority city. After certain turns, the dwarfs should migrate to another player, opponents, natural, and lastly create their own city/delve.
With this the game level is going to be more dynamic and create more new stories, even though the player explores every tile; the population should be changing.
Army recruitment should cost population (in question) also.
In the first games, party management was a thing. The player was spending a small time, composing their party because of the morale penalties via mixing a lot of races. If an empire tolerance is high enough the more powerful parties the player can create (because of the strength of every race, meeting a single party) therefore it should be more rewarding to be able to create greater parties. Also, the size should be increased by 2 or more and the reasoning is coming next.
AoW3 make new graphical changes to the units and now we see the whole regiment fights the same power as a regiment cut in half. This needs to be fixed in the next game. Reminding you that this is the first time I use “fix” word. Because it really messes up the perception of the players.
The simple and most logical fixing would be the design of the Warhammer 40K Gladius. Unit damage was based on the number of units left.
For the singular unit(a great demon or whatever mid-tier-boss-level unit) fix, the HP should host levels of thresholds. With every threshold passes, the singular unit should receive a penalty for something.
That's how the regiments and singular units should be more balanced but most importantly make sense and maybe the hero units shouldn't be affected by these changes to make them slightly more unique.
looking at it now, realizing AoW campaign spells should be more impactful to the world. From blasting volcanos to overflowing rivers damaging units or cities. There really should be more terrain affecting spells. Creating impassable storms, crashing waves changing tiles into the water, earthquakes affecting both underground and top, maybe even creating new “stairs”
Really powerful spells should be in the game I think. Just like Master of Magic.
With the conclusion of the Planetfall, I believe it’s quite certain to expect a new AoW game for 2 reasons.
- In the foreseeable future, there are no major titles for high-fantasy turn-based 4X game. Aside from Master of the magic of course but because of the investment limitations, I don’t believe it’s going to be presentable enough for a wide audience, even though it can be quite an entertaining game for the niece audience. Amplitude, Stardock, Mohawk, etc… all making historical or else but not high-fantast setting.
- Paradox factor. Paradox has invested quite a large sum over the past 3 years and they are nowhere near what they are hoping to be. Many investments are turned out unsuccessfully. As the CEO has spoken; they expect more profits and I believe they are going to push more DLC and new games for 2021-2023 than their last 3 years.
So, for these reasons, I believe Triumph has already started pre-production after the hiring of (sorry I forgot the name) a developer from Amplitude and I have some feedback I hope Triumph would at hear to… so enough distractions, here are my feedback over the AoW3 and Planetfall.
- The Tile Question
The third installment was around hexes and it is now the current way of doing things. As for Planetfall, it introduced regions but it isn’t like Endless Legend. More like a bigger filled with filler, smaller hexes. I always found the world at Planetfall boring and I never figured it out why (maybe because I didn’t play that much) but since I reinstalled the AoW3, I finally understood why. Because it doesn't feel organic. It feels too arbitrary as a level design.
In the classic AoW series we get to see the organic rivers, beach, then plains. High mountains covered with forests, snow happening, and each of them has buildings or delves randomly generated. This felt good. I hope you will keep it for the fourth game.
- Resource Management
Every magic mana should be separated. The game uses only one single mana and it’s not that important with mana nodes you control. The design is already there with a variety of creatures and spells. The only thing left is balancing and reworking on the resources.
The generic mana should stay as it is BUT Air, Earth, Fire, etc… all would offer their own resource and this unique resource should be spent wisely. Every special mana node or a certain type of building should give a single that special mana resource.
Ex.
If you control 2 air mana nodes you will still get +20 to your mana but the player should also be getting +2 air mana. And maybe the player would spend this on a great magical creature or a powerful spell or build a building. This resource shouldn’t accumulate but play as a “hard cap” to do Über-powerful things
- Population
I believe it’s time for more complicated city management. Rather than having one race for each city. Multiple races could migrate to a city. Having multiple races in a city should give many more options but control would be much harder as the unrest should raise via, terrain features or else.
It shouldn’t be only forced though via action. If a (let's say) dwarfs are unhappy in a human majority city. After certain turns, the dwarfs should migrate to another player, opponents, natural, and lastly create their own city/delve.
With this the game level is going to be more dynamic and create more new stories, even though the player explores every tile; the population should be changing.
Army recruitment should cost population (in question) also.
- Party management
In the first games, party management was a thing. The player was spending a small time, composing their party because of the morale penalties via mixing a lot of races. If an empire tolerance is high enough the more powerful parties the player can create (because of the strength of every race, meeting a single party) therefore it should be more rewarding to be able to create greater parties. Also, the size should be increased by 2 or more and the reasoning is coming next.
- Staying true to senses
AoW3 make new graphical changes to the units and now we see the whole regiment fights the same power as a regiment cut in half. This needs to be fixed in the next game. Reminding you that this is the first time I use “fix” word. Because it really messes up the perception of the players.
The simple and most logical fixing would be the design of the Warhammer 40K Gladius. Unit damage was based on the number of units left.
For the singular unit(a great demon or whatever mid-tier-boss-level unit) fix, the HP should host levels of thresholds. With every threshold passes, the singular unit should receive a penalty for something.
That's how the regiments and singular units should be more balanced but most importantly make sense and maybe the hero units shouldn't be affected by these changes to make them slightly more unique.
- more powerful spells are needed
looking at it now, realizing AoW campaign spells should be more impactful to the world. From blasting volcanos to overflowing rivers damaging units or cities. There really should be more terrain affecting spells. Creating impassable storms, crashing waves changing tiles into the water, earthquakes affecting both underground and top, maybe even creating new “stairs”
Really powerful spells should be in the game I think. Just like Master of Magic.
- 5
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