Brainstrom on Age of Wonders "4"

[Sandman25DCSSS]

Planetfall spells are tricky to use properly and it is very good. Even higher tier spells don't do much if used at wrong time. Consider mass insanity. It will give you like 20-60% chance to apply berserk, not a big deal. But see what happens if you use it properly. First you use hero ability to reduce psi resistance by 2 on all units, it always works. Then you shoot with some psi units (malictors are optimal) which have ability or mod to reduce psi resistance again at the units which have the highest potential (but don't kill them!). Finally you cast the insanity spell and try to kill dangerous units which resisted the spell. It results in massacre next opponent turn.

 

[atord/Nordos]

To be fair, most non-damage spells seems pretty decent all in all, but the damage ones can only 'tip the scales' in a larger battle.
Say, I am defending a city with a small garrison. I can't be spamming Nukes because it would be too costly. I can only try to run away while casting the early damage spells to slowly kill units and hope I am fast enough to not get caught.

AoW 3 was different. There were spells that, singlehandly, turned the tides of such a battle. Is it bad to have them? Maybe. Would I still like them? Yes.
Its just weird that there is an achievment to kill 5 units with a single tactical operation .... and no solid tactical operation to actually do that

 

[Ericridge]

OH my god i hate mass insanity. Its so freaking dangerous. The one time I was hit by it.. Half of my army was T3s being supported by a bunch of t1s. Half of my laser tanks went crazy and vaporized whatever they shot at on my side. Sometimes killing each other or laser tanks that resisted. Almost all t1 troopers went crazy. It cost me like 90% of my army. I won just barely but it was very costly victory. All ai lost was just cannon fodder. :knife: :tearsofblood: I had only two laser tanks left with so little hp left on them and managed to run away.


As for that achievement, it can be done if you're willing. Wait for the apporiate battle type that will cause the enemy to cluster up.. usually kirko very often and then charge in with ur grenades, or use gunships, or whatever.... assault bikes.. and finish them off with a missile strike from orbit or costs 2 op or use a mass driver cannon for 7 op and viola ur done and got that achievement.

Planetfall is just more effort required game. While AOW3 is snap your fingers and become a living god.


Another way to think about mass nuke spells like 20 damage to all units + blinding. You gotta think like this.

Enemy brings 18 units, you bring 18 units. assuming 60 hp x 18 is 1080 hp.
Enemy get hit by that aoe spell.. that's 360 hp loss. Enemy now have 720 hp to your 1080 hp. And on top of that they are also blinded.

Enemy has less hp to work with and strike back at reduced efficiency while you strike out at your enemies at maximum efficiency. If enemy didn't bring sustain, that aoe basically won you the fight if you don't make any massive tactical blunders. A fight could break out and enemy can be reduced to 500 and less easily while at same time, thanks to the blind.. your troops lose only 100-300 hp. Its a huge gain that is only realized through proper application of force over turns in a battle.

On the flipside, say, the enemies brought purification fields with them.. so they cleanse the blind + restore 15 hp. Enemy restores for 270 hp, putting them back at 990 hp.

Which means your gain is that the enemy was forced to use their once per battle cooldowns to heal and restore themselves from a nasty nasty aoe spell. This is extremely advantageous towards you if your troops also have sustain because that means you still have sustain that can be used while the enemy now must fight without their sustain.

Nuke spells even when doing modest damage is immensely powerful and advantageous for a very good reason.. They just must be used properly. While cheap operation spells can be spammed, they are designed to be cheap and spammable for a good reason, they is their very intended purpose! Nuke spells is rare and must be used correctly Used wrongly, its just a waste of points.

Even mass driver cannon shot can be a game winning operation if it kills someone super dangerous and important in a battle. This could be a properly kitted T3, a leader or hero, or some super scary T4 that will massacre your whole army but you'll win with very high certainty if it is removed from battle. The great thing about mass driver shot is that it is scalable from big battles to tiny battles. Just be used correctly to win a battle. Only if you think you can win all other battles in the same turn without its presence.

 

[Snorro Soliman]

I am not sure what you disagree with. I said that powerful spells make the game too easy for human player if human player uses them, and too frustrating for human player if the spells are used against human player.
Have you lost your best units just because they happened to be in city domain when enemy used 2 unhappiness spells? That's annoying. Have you captured a city protected by 2 stacks of tier 2-3 units without even crossing the wall by casting Chaos Rift? That's too easy.

Sorry, I will try to clarify below. I do mean to disagree respectfully, no ill intentions.
I disagree on epic/powerfull spells making the game
1. Easy as a negative...it's not that easy I think
I expect end game spells like chaos rift to be OP. Think about what it represents: the Sorceror tears the veil of the world from(potentially) hundreds of miles away, otherworldly beings bound to his will overwhelm the cities mortal defenders. The skies turn blood red,electrity crackles and the rift looms over the besieged city. This should be momentous and powerfull. The player casting this spell has chosen this particular endgame play, relying on the overwhelming power of the spell to achieve victory. If it feels 'easy' it could mean that his chosen strategy works against the AI, or he outplayes his human opponent.
If he just wants to feel powerfull (and sets the AI to 'halfling high tea cuddle mode) so he can steamroll the map in an easy win, thats fine too.
2. Dissapointing. I disagree with this as a statement of fact. Players are not dissapointed as a rule by weak or powerfull spells. It depends on the player. It would be a poor reason to make design decisions on either way. Like we established, my preference would be for high level spells to be epic in scale and effect. I think that fits AoW and believe it would enhance the game. But is is not a given that epic spells would enhance the game for all players.

 

[Sandman25DCSSS]

Sorry, I will try to clarify below. I do mean to disagree respectfully, no ill intentions.
I disagree on epic/powerfull spells making the game
1. Easy as a negative...it's not that easy I think
I expect end game spells like chaos rift to be OP. Think about what it represents: the Sorceror tears the veil of the world from(potentially) hundreds of miles away, otherworldly beings bound to his will overwhelm the cities mortal defenders. The skies turn blood red,electrity crackles and the rift looms over the besieged city. This should be momentous and powerfull. The player casting this spell has chosen this particular endgame play, relying on the overwhelming power of the spell to achieve victory. If it feels 'easy' it could mean that his chosen strategy works against the AI, or he outplayes his human opponent.
If he just wants to feel powerfull (and sets the AI to 'halfling high tea cuddle mode) so he can steamroll the map in an easy win, thats fine too.
2. Dissapointing. I disagree with this as a statement of fact. Players are not dissapointed as a rule by weak or powerfull spells. It depends on the player. It would be a poor reason to make design decisions on either way. Like we established, my preference would be for high level spells to be epic in scale and effect. I think that fits AoW and believe it would enhance the game. But is is not a given that epic spells would enhance the game for all players.

Sorry, it didn't help.
1. I wrote that I didn't attack with any units and 2 stacks of tier 2-3 units died to a single spell behind a wall and you are saying it is not that easy. What is easy by your definitions then? My real units were skipping all 4 or 5 turns, I attacked with temporary summons only.
2. I captured a large city without losing a single unit. On next turn about 10 units deserted because 2 AIs used their best unhappiness spell (it was a team game). Are you saying I should not be disappointed? Again when will you allow me to be disappointed, when I instantly lose game to a spell?

 

[Snorro Soliman]

Sorry, it didn't help.
1. I wrote that I didn't attack with any units and 2 stacks of tier 2-3 units died to a single spell behind a wall and you are saying it is not that easy. What is easy by your definitions then? My real units were skipping all 4 or 5 turns, I attacked with temporary summons only.
2. I captured a large city without losing a single unit. On next turn about 10 units deserted because 2 AIs used their best unhappiness spell (it was a team game). Are you saying I should not be disappointed? Again when will you allow me to be disappointed, when I instantly lose game to a spell?

Too bad it didn't help. To be fair, your reply seems to be looking for an argument I haven't made.
I would ask that you reply to the actual point I made: that the subjective disappointment you or I experience translate to what 'players' think and that things being easy aren't necessarily bad.
You ask me to 'allow you to be dissapointed'. I never claimed to have this power, nor that your dissapointment was somehow invalid. Be as dissapointed as you wish. I merely pose that what is disappointing to you might not be experienced that way by other players. The last sentence in the post I disagree with seems to make the argument that powerfull spells make the game too easy/dissapointing to human players:

Recently I lost unique transport because my hero was killed with spell from full HP (resurrecting the hero didn't bring the transport back) so no, I don't want more powerful spells back, I want spells nerfed even more. Powerful spells make the game too easy/disappointing for human players.

I disagree as stated before with that sentiment. Some players like easy games and steamrolling their opponents, others like facing OP AI or unfair spells(Hello Dark Souls or other 'hard' games). It really depends on the player.
The example you give (losing armies to happines penalties after fighting a cool battle with no losses) would frustrate me as well. You are 100% right to be dissapointed. But that does not mean there is something wrong with the spells the AI's used, or some inherent flaw in the presence of such spells in the game. I just can't see how your (seeming) conclusion that such spells make games too easy/dissapointing for players in general can be reached.

Consider this: we team up in a multiplayer match, one of our opponents takes a key city with no losses. Fearing defeat, we devise a a plan: We cannot beat his OP plz nerf army stack in battle, so we use our unhappiness spells to make his powerfull army desert en masse the next turn. How is that inherently flawed? Should we not have the ability to counter his army in this asymmetrical way?

 

[Sandman25DCSSS]

Consider this: we team up in a multiplayer match, one of our opponents takes a key city with no losses. Fearing defeat, we devise a a plan: We cannot beat his OP plz nerf army stack in battle, so we use our unhappiness spells to make his powerfull army desert en masse the next turn. How is that inherently flawed? Should we not have the ability to counter his army in this asymmetrical way?

Losing units (or even whole match) to RNG when you can do nothing about it is inherently flawed, at least in strategy game. I am happy devs realized it and removed this mechanic when working on planetfall. There is still one operation in planetfall which can lead to losing units (Shakarn can decrease happiness by 300), but it can be countered by using units of starting faction only, by making AI passive, by disabling DLC.

 

[Snorro Soliman]

Losing units (or even whole match) to RNG when you can do nothing about it is inherently flawed, at least in strategy game. I am happy devs realized it and removed this mechanic when working on planetfall. There is still one operation in planetfall which can lead to losing units (Shakarn can decrease happiness by 300), but it can be countered by using units of starting faction only, by making AI passive, by disabling DLC.

To be fair, including morale boosting heroes, items or even running the 'no deserters' warlord spell could have achieved a counter to the situation you describe.
I also don't think losing because ot the inherent randomness of RNG mechanics is really a fair point in the AoW series. Nearly everything is done by random number generation (hitting anyl attack, getting critical hits, resisting spells, determining which debuff is applied by abilities that inflict more of them, etc). Any one of those could potentially lose you a battle or even the entire match. This is I believe why 'dodge stacking' was nerfed in AoW: PF to make sure 70% dodge tier 1 scouts couldn't dominate games all the time.

Woops, post before complete.

The rest: I agree that stuff that takes all control away or is inherently not-counterable, such as nigh unhittable tier I drones, should be examined and fixed. But RNG is not inherently bad; it is at the core of the mechanics of all Age of Wonders series and by its nature leads to extreme situations where 10/10 units desert because they all 'rolled a 1' on the unhappiness check. But isn't that precisely the point of such mechanics in the first place? Would all of them rolling 10's and not deserting be better, worse, or equally flawed from a game-design perspective (or: not 'easy or frustrating for human players)?

 

[Sandman25DCSSS]

To be fair, including morale boosting heroes, items or even running the 'no deserters' warlord spell could have achieved a counter to the situation you describe.
I also don't think losing because ot the inherent randomness of RNG mechanics is really a fair point in the AoW series. Nearly everything is done by random number generation (hitting anyl attack, getting critical hits, resisting spells, determining which debuff is applied by abilities that inflict more of them, etc). Any one of those could potentially lose you a battle or even the entire match. This is I believe why 'dodge stacking' was nerfed in AoW: PF to make sure 70% dodge tier 1 scouts couldn't dominate games all the time.

Woops, post before complete.

The rest: I agree that stuff that takes all control away or is inherently not-counterable, such as nigh unhittable tier I drones, should be examined and fixed. But RNG is not inherently bad; it is at the core of the mechanics of all Age of Wonders series and by its nature leads to extreme situations where 10/10 units desert because they all 'rolled a 1' on the unhappiness check. But isn't that precisely the point of such mechanics in the first place? Would all of them rolling 10's and not deserting be better, worse, or equally flawed from a game-design perspective (or: not 'easy or frustrating for human players)?

It is impossible to counter -500 happiness from warlord spell, especially if the city terrain adds another -200. Just warlord can ignore negative morale on own units.
I am not sure why we are still arguing. Of course I wouldn't like to remove RNG from games, but it should not be insane. If you remember halflings in aow3, they had a chance to ignore attack completely. Of course it was unbalanced and was removed as well, now you are guaranteed to deal at least 50% damage if your accuracy is 75% or higher.

 

[Snorro Soliman]

It is impossible to counter -500 happiness from warlord spell, especially if the city terrain adds another -200. Just warlord can ignore negative morale on own units.
I am not sure why we are still arguing. Of course I wouldn't like to remove RNG from games, but it should not be insane. If you remember halflings in aow3, they had a chance to ignore attack completely. Of course it was unbalanced and was removed as well, now you are guaranteed to deal at least 50% damage if your accuracy is 75% or higher.

Very well, lets leave it where it is. I agree with your example on ridiculous dodges/halfling luck. RNG use is not an excuse for bad mechanics. Thank you for the discussion!

 

[Fluksen]

If you remember halflings in aow3, they had a chance to ignore attack completely. Of course it was unbalanced and was removed as well, now you are guaranteed to deal at least 50% damage if your accuracy is 75% or higher.

Which is clearly why in MP pretty much nobody ever played halflings and some balance mods reduced their phys weakness from -20 to -10%... they were not unbalanced, certainly not too powerful at least, they were just changing the battle in unexpected ways. I liked them - I know a lot of people don't, but it just goes to show that people have different preferences - starts eyeing the pitchfork and loading the chicken

 

[Liberty_Valance]

I hope for streaming textures or some form of animated image support for UI and models. Its a little detail that can make a game feel more organic and interactive. It would really compliment the inbuilt particle system and polish the game as well as open up alot of cool avenues for modders

 

[Sandman25DCSSS]

Which is clearly why in MP pretty much nobody ever played halflings and some balance mods reduced their phys weakness from -20 to -10%... they were not unbalanced, certainly not too powerful at least, they were just changing the battle in unexpected ways. I liked them - I know a lot of people don't, but it just goes to show that people have different preferences - starts eyeing the pitchfork and loading the chicken

It was unbalanced. Necromancer could increase happiness and was not succeptible to enemy happiness debuffs. They tried to balance it with weakness to the most common damage, but it didn't work that well. It is kind of hard to fix crazy RNG by making it even more crazy. Choice between 0 damage and death from full HP is just that, crazy RNG.

 

[Ericridge]

To be fair, including morale boosting heroes, items or even running the 'no deserters' warlord spell could have achieved a counter to the situation you describe.
I also don't think losing because ot the inherent randomness of RNG mechanics is really a fair point in the AoW series. Nearly everything is done by random number generation (hitting anyl attack, getting critical hits, resisting spells, determining which debuff is applied by abilities that inflict more of them, etc). Any one of those could potentially lose you a battle or even the entire match. This is I believe why 'dodge stacking' was nerfed in AoW: PF to make sure 70% dodge tier 1 scouts couldn't dominate games all the time.

Woops, post before complete.

The rest: I agree that stuff that takes all control away or is inherently not-counterable, such as nigh unhittable tier I drones, should be examined and fixed. But RNG is not inherently bad; it is at the core of the mechanics of all Age of Wonders series and by its nature leads to extreme situations where 10/10 units desert because they all 'rolled a 1' on the unhappiness check. But isn't that precisely the point of such mechanics in the first place? Would all of them rolling 10's and not deserting be better, worse, or equally flawed from a game-design perspective (or: not 'easy or frustrating for human players)?

Oh yeah I remember now. The only counter to Dread Siege when it's cast on you by emperor ai who will have tons and tons of happiness which prevent you from being able to cast dread siege back. Is to leave the city with your army. Give up and surrender the city to the AI. Its dumb. Morale was one of the things that I wanted removed from AOW3 so very badly because it only benefits the Emperor ai. Its completely onesided interaction. Want to play morale games? Too bad, you only can reduce morale of the AI by capping a city and win three battles in a row or something bs like that. Dreadnought have nothing. They at least can ignore environmental morale damage.

One of my answers to dread siege was to immediately attack another city with the army that sissy warlord used dread siege on. Get those threatened units out of the city radius so I won't lose them. I take all 40 units out of it and capture next nearest city immediately. Then send in reserve forces to kill the capping manticore that took back the city because it was left empty thanks to dread siege and then i take bs morale loss penalty cuz i lose a city. Whatever I didn't lose it, i was forced out of it or lose entire army.


I'll say this again and again, Morale system for AOW3 was complete and utter flaming garbage. Ultra gimmicky gaming system it was in fact. Only beneficial to emperor ais. Every AI controlled warlord that tried the dread siege exploit ended up paying tithes and tributes to me instead.


With that said, I like halflings rng luck dodge. At least I can actually try to stab them to death compared to magic fairy dust that is emperor ai dread siege. Being able to stab halflings while you cannot stab the dread siege is to me, the crucial difference.

 

[mbuh]

I'll say this again and again, Morale system for AOW3 was complete and utter flaming garbage. Ultra gimmicky gaming system it was in fact. Only beneficial to emperor ais. Every AI controlled warlord that tried the dread siege exploit ended up paying tithes and tributes to me instead.

While i do agree, there are ways to mitigate it, but yes it is still unfair, if i remember correctly, it's not really a problem in normal victory conditions, but when you enable unifier victory in empire building setting, especially with max beacons (6) and largest possible map (UG enabled) and emperor AIs, it gets way worse if the human player is not theocrat or necro, i mean any human player need to have both beacon and light it up by turn 55 (the latest) which cost 1200 gold and 1k mana IIRC, or they will easily get -800 or even -1000 empire happiness, which means all cities' income will be decreased very significantly but that is still not the worst, the worst is there is almost always if not always stacks that desert every turn (human player will literally have almost no units if they are too late to start beaconing), what's worse than that? if any rogue decided to cast Age of Deception which they almost always do by this turn, or at least by turn 60 is a common things. But once again, there are ways to mitigate this without any cheese, but production classes have it harder than summoners (except probably rogue which can even make emperor AI's empire happiness to go to massively negative). Most people i know are frustrated by this.


Despite that, planetfall does not do better in this case. I mean, in planetfall, almost all races if not all can cheese the morale penalty, that by having 0 energy and minus energy income, the consequence of negative morale effect in all the armies or stacks can be negated, thus no unit, not even one deserted, it's just unrealistic.


I admit both games handles morale in a weird way. Which bring us to the main point, what kind of game mechanic in regards of morale that you want for AoW4?

 

[Leon Feargus]

I was thinking that, since aow3 ended with the portals opening, it would be cool if the protagonists of aow4 would seek to explore and settle new dimensions. It would strike me as odd if the players wind up exploring and settling Athla all over again, unless we're not getting a sequel but a prequel.

Also, Trolls, I think they should get their own faction by now. :^)

 

[Ericridge]

While i do agree, there are ways to mitigate it, but yes it is still unfair, if i remember correctly, it's not really a problem in normal victory conditions, but when you enable unifier victory in empire building setting, especially with max beacons (6) and largest possible map (UG enabled) and emperor AIs, it gets way worse if the human player is not theocrat or necro, i mean any human player need to have both beacon and light it up by turn 55 (the latest) which cost 1200 gold and 1k mana IIRC, or they will easily get -800 or even -1000 empire happiness, which means all cities' income will be decreased very significantly but that is still not the worst, the worst is there is almost always if not always stacks that desert every turn (human player will literally have almost no units if they are too late to start beaconing), what's worse than that? if any rogue decided to cast Age of Deception which they almost always do by this turn, or at least by turn 60 is a common things. But once again, there are ways to mitigate this without any cheese, but production classes have it harder than summoners (except probably rogue which can even make emperor AI's empire happiness to go to massively negative). Most people i know are frustrated by this.


Despite that, planetfall does not do better in this case. I mean, in planetfall, almost all races if not all can cheese the morale penalty, that by having 0 energy and minus energy income, the consequence of negative morale effect in all the armies or stacks can be negated, thus no unit, not even one deserted, it's just unrealistic.


I admit both games handles morale in a weird way. Which bring us to the main point, what kind of game mechanic in regards of morale that you want for AoW4?

AoW3 was a deeply flawed game when morale gets involved. Other than that, its pretty good game. I do not put on rose colored glasses. I did play beacons several times but I ultimately kept the option off because I liked exploring the whole map + entire underground as well. Beacons don't allow for that. I play on enormous map sizes. I literally make the empire in my own image. I really like that line for aow3. xD

I once had an enormous map where there was 3 rogues spamming age of deception. Only saving grace was that I met one when it cast its first age of deception and then fought a hard war killing that damnable rogue while the AI warlord didn't care about the age of deception, why would it care? Its a fucking emperor ai which means morale game isn't even a thing for it. It wasn't pretty but emperor warlord got distracted by some other ai hitting it so it forgot about me. I killed all 3 rogues, but, man, the experience was miserable and i fucking hated every turn of it.

In addition of loser PBEM players breaking AOW3 game for everyone else because they do dark arts to one goblin in the back of dungeon and gain 100 levels from it after grinding for hours. Just because a bunch of crazed freaks do that in pbem games, it doesn't mean.. that every single aow3 player do same thing yet, that's the message that triumph devs took from pbem players and broke the game. Even when it was completely unnecessary by demonstrating exactly what I did to an PBEM abuser what did i do? I started a game with one of the PBEM abusers and then played until he dropped his completely illegal army next to my throne city and then I just simply never took another turn and left the game hanging. He got mad but that's when he learned that his abuses don't work because he can't progress a turn at all lulz. Nonabusers can just easily drop the game so PBEM abusers have a choice, abuse and then have nonabusers abandon the game with them or if it was both players abusing then it is in fact, mutual abuse and no intervention is necessary.


I've been there, done it already. https://aow.triumph.net/forums/topic/first-megabattle/
Morale penalities on emperor ai only makes the AI disband a portion of their army and still have hundreds left over to fight u with. Sorry about dead pics, tinypic died. Was in golden realms when T3 Golems used to be good before they got nerfed to t2 for some strange reason. T3 Golems was the go to units for when AI spammed T4s. They're Melee, Tireless, and cannot be flanked when defending. Even manticores have hard time when they can fly because they can't flank golems easily. T3 Golems was really T4 units with T3 stats. XD But to summarize what pictures looked like, It was me fielding 200-500 Golems vs Dwarf Dreadnought's 900+ Juggernauts plus few random flame tanks and cannons that dwarf AI accidently built instead of juggernauts.


Emperor morale AI and T4 infinite spam abuses and nerfs brought on by so called "elite pvp players who think they are so good at the game" and PBEM Exploit abusers and devs listening to PBEM abusers is what in fact, ultimately drove me away from AOW3 in the end. And the shrinking map sizes to boot.




I've been enjoying my time in planetfall although I dont' have much time to game today compared to the years I when I played aow3. "elite pvp players have much less influence in planetfall" and the game is much better for it.

I like the morale in Planetfall its alot less cheesy and gimmicky. If a unit desert its because I spent time in very scary domains like abyss rifts and such. And if you want units to desert because of emptied treasury then you have to delete the siphon energy operation from Planetfall because AI have free influence and can spam that operation with no consequence whatsoever and it is very immersion breaking.

And if you desire the morale in planetfall then I must demand that AI play by same rules as Human players do otherwise there is no point in it in having morale at all. It will just become another stat I ignore.

Plus Units in Planetfall desert me for legitimate reasons such as me Oppressing the Syndicate people, spending too much time near abyss rifts.... actual real reasons o.o I love those reasons, very good reasons to desert me. Now hold still as I shoot the rebels. Syndicate units desert me because I oppress the syndicate? That's no problem. I completely understand that. Something something slavery something.


Units deserting because they didn't get money for 1 turn? Even when they got their pay for last 200 turns? Its dumb. Units deserting because AI is spamming Energy siphon every turn?

Wow Gee, I didn't know I was playing an Spy vs Spy Simulator instead of Empire building game.

Ended up typing an essay about what i hated about aow3. Didn't know I Still felt very strongly about lame things that happened in it just because a bunch of skillless players couldn't play aow3 skillfully in pvp realm so they turn to exploits even when a vast majority of players don't exploit. What a bunch of scrubs they are.

 

[Sarmatian]

I started to play AOW3, I didn't play the first two games. I started playing it as a strategy game, but ended up enjoying adventure/exploration aspect more. I'd really like if the RPG part becomes the focus of a hypothethical game 3, but I would expect to be in the minority there.

 

[Sandman25DCSSS]

I started to play AOW3, I didn't play the first two games. I started playing it as a strategy game, but ended up enjoying adventure/exploration aspect more. I'd really like if the RPG part becomes the focus of a hypothethical game 3, but I would expect to be in the minority there.

If you want turn-based RPG, there are quite a lot of them already. Turning TBS into RPG is not a good idea IMHO.

 

[akinata]

If you want turn-based RPG, there are quite a lot of them already. Turning TBS into RPG is not a good idea IMHO.

the rpg aspect of any age of wonder games always was strong. it was always about one leader who level up, clear dungeons and loot items while managing his empire and his army.
and each empires had its own alignement.