Oh, also apparently an aux cable was loose for like the first 8 minutes of footage so that tiny electrical crackle you hear isn't just a figment of your imagination or spiders in your walls this time
Thank you for this nuanced strategic overview. I've found other guides either too simple or too stat-focused, but your explanation actually gave me insight I felt I was missing. Cheers!
A friendly tip for video's like this where you look at abilities and talent trees; Let your mouse pointer rest on the thing you are talking about. Take your hand off the mouse while talking. Otherwise, good insight. Love it.
Nah, frantic mouse movements are effectively my version of gesticulation. I tried to work on it, but it makes content creation impossible and also doesn't hurt anyone.
@@FullMoonAbove I'm not unsympathetic to the requirements of the average neurotypical, but as a neurodivergent content creator who has kinda taken a step back from human reality partially due to abuse *by* neurotypicals, I really can't make myself excited to put effort in on something I think people can just be empathetic about. I get too excited recording videos to want to control myself, and this has been an issue for two years, but I think largely people are willing to vibe with it and let me have fun. If it really bothers you, I think my videos work *perfectly* fine listened to as almost a podcast while playing the game. Visual aesthetics are really only one part of what makes content useful (hopefully). tl;dr - I really have tried to work on it but am 100% too autistic, if it drives you insane just listen to me in a tab (that's how I'd recommend most people who value their sanity interact with my content anyways- if you watch 100% of any of my videos you honestly had better explain yourself because they are my SECRET JOUIRNALSSSS *hissing sounds intensify*())))
I am listening to your video as Im hoovering my appartment, so i dont mind. Great video! Do you have any videos on how to not have a bad economy in the game?@@wepg
@@wepg This isn't a neurotypical/divergent thing. I have adhd. This is quite annoying since it's like a laser pointer and I have to have you on another tab. Have you tried moving an unplugged mouse or having the mouse on a different monitor?
"I kinda want to play a drinking game where I drink every time I say "I don't want to waste X's time," it sounds like it would be almost as much fun as the Shyamalan Avatar drinking game where you drink any time anyone mispronounces a name." "Walker go to sleep."
I don't even play multiplayer but I just got back into this game after the new DLC, and your videos have been very insightful. It's interesting to listen to especially with regards to AI autoresolve. I really hope Triumph improves the shadow dragon final skill.
@@wepg then we'd still have a skill that does nothing, we'd just get it earlier, and we'd delay a good skill by another 8 level. that's still pretty bad c:
@Dakkalazy Level 8 Undead Dragon is very, very overtuned for Level 8. I suspect that in most real games, the fact that the zombies don't get enchantments would almost certainly make it "balanced" on turn 50, but in a skirmish it appears unbeatable.
Yeah, Materium Dragon Lords aren't as *busted* as Chaos Dragons but the survivability you get on a Defender class Dragon Lord is so high you will explode in a psychic fireball of madness irl (probably)
15:00 I kinda consider that like "better resurgence" since you get heroes with it that die back if you win the battle. So if you win you get your hero back guaranteed; if you take a bit longer to win you get them back during the battle so they might still be able to contribute something. And since I already have the option to put grave caller on an item, infinite better resurgence is not bad.
Yeah, but hero resurgence is just not a good ability. Casual players will play with hero resurgence always on during autos and sweaty players will tell you that if you *win* the big manual PvP battle, casualties are typically unimportant. Eternal One is not sweet.
Hey, one of the brave souls here that actually clicked on the low quality thumbnail, having no clue on what changes. Played the Game this weekend, as it was free on Steam and must say i like it. (Not the first video of yours i'm watching X)) Don't now it will keep me entertained enough for the hefty price tho (talking about all the dlc's)...
Not sure if Defensive Master is the be all end all for Defender builds, because Pushing Attack, Stunning Bash and Rallying Cry already end in defence mode. The first 2 also only have a 1 round cooldown.
Yeah, I kinda went back and forth on how to recommend building defenders precisely for that reason. Ultimately, though, I think that a.) basic taunt doesn't give defense mode and you basically always want it and b.) you really will get items and stuff you'll want to use in lieu of a meaningful number of the activated abilities anyways, as there are some really, really awesome things you can graft onto your hero via the item forge these days. You are 100% right though that it was one of those things that kept me up until 4 am last night. But really only a *small* thing.
personally loving ranger. starting with crow bow and then building to gun. think its dps together with the champion command abilities, and its ability to reset cool downs on kill, is a pretty fun combo. wllowys u to play with your banners more like one big unit. lot of bouncing back n forth between units on turns but been pretty fun.
@@daniebelle22 100% I see how Rangers can be fun, but I think there's a way to make them fun for manuals vs AI (which I think should be the "balance" focus there) while also making them mechanically function in autos/PvP (which is where mechanical balance rather than fun balance should come from). It's delicate, but I think most people will find ways to have fun in manuals anyways, so I tend to focus more on "what is good" and Rangers don't work very well outside of manuals vs AI mechanically at the moment.
You *can* have an oops all vibes Ritualist later on into the creeping phase, but if you only have 4-5 units in a fight, you want to make sure 1 of them isn't *locked* into pure vibes or your other units will end up taking more damage. Remember that damage removes models, thus reducing damage output, so a Ritualist can definitely "heal" by pew pewing things.
i meeeaann... in CIV6 your army generates value for you too ;) capturing cities and especially pillaging (which can let u surpass the lategame 1-tech-per-turn restriction) is a vital strategy for lategame (and early/mid game, but thats quite more rare since u will fall behind)
Yeah, I've conquered a lot of cities in Civ and built at least a few pieces of infrastructure in AoW4, but one of them is definitely more Khorne-coded and it's not Sid Meier's.
@@SkyForceOne2 Eh, I *hope* I made it clear from my admission that part of my procrastinating was jamming a bunch of Humankind that I love both 3.5x and 4x games. They just are *really* different in how you generally approach your economy and empire building, and Civ rewards pretty wildly different play styles from AoW4.
i play a ranger and think with the skirmisher weapon, snapshot and immobilizing shots i have so much utility. being able to completely shut down a single melee unit and a second every other turn has a lot of value, at least for me. love it more than i thought i would. i was able to completely nullify 2 bone dragons in 2 fights on brutal difficulty in the early game. they did not get a single point of damage out on my units. in another fight i kept the enemy charge warrior hero out of the fight while wittling it and a second unit by myself, buying so much space for my other units.
Yeah, the issue is precisely that- Rangers *look* like they function if you do manual fights vs the AI, but that's the worst case scenario for testing something to see how well it really functions. Basically *everything* functions when you are fighting against the AI, so it's impossible to assess balance. Autoresolves and MP are much, much better for checking to see how well something really beats, and in autos Rangers drastically underperform all other hero types until they get to like level 9 at a minimum, at which point the economic value of recruiting a hero (making your army stronger to clear things faster) has already been lost. I promise Rangers suck, I really don't think I could convince myself to lie to you for content even if I wanted to.
@wepg thanks for the reply, yeah i am sure you know what you are talking about. i was just surprised how good the ranger felt compared to my 2 ritualists. but i am just a casual pvai player and havent played any other heroes till now. will take a look at warrior and defender next. very informative video btw.
Hi!! Thank you for the video!! I've seen you use a mod, special map or some similar. Is there anyway to do that?. It would be very helpful to study builds or make guides. Thank you so much!!
Do you mean the skirmish mod? I generally play on vanilla like 99% on the channel (we might do a video introducing the evolved mod at some point). If you mean "how did you have all level 20 heroes immediately for recording," it's debug mode! Debug mode is excellent for testing out stuff, showing off things in recording and a great experimentation tool.
@@wepg Hey! Thanks for the info. One more question. I've tried Skirmish mod but when you say "debug mode", are you referring to star the game in debug mode or is something you can use in skirmish mod? Thank you so much for a great info!
I've noticed that its a lot harder to increase hero's base stats now from leveling up, but I suspect that the item forge is meant to fill that void now, yes?
@@cinderheart2720 Yeah, though there are still a ton of skills that have +random HP/def/res on them. Very important skills to be on the look for after your core power skills imo.
Hello, nice video! note on eternal one: it is pretty bad in term of gameplay/impact, for sure. BUT it is pretty good in term of fantasy. It embrace the Liche fantasy, and its perfect for a solo run, as, your hero is the unkillable liche, whether it is good or not in term of metagaming, it is good in term of flavour.
@@TheIlluvatar619 I think there are ways to make a Lich in game that would be both thematically cool as well as powerful, but the biggest problem there with just saying "flavor" is that it is the skill associated with Shadow capstone. You only get one, it should be flashy and cool, and instead it royally sucks in like 99% of battles.
@@wepg you might be right. maybe adding to it "summon a zombie close to you every turn" (like the staff) would be better. or even, you get a phylactery, a unique item with special property. yea mb, was a too quick comment
@@TheIlluvatar619 Yeah 100%, I think Gravecalling just being slapped onto Eternal One wouldn't even be impossibly powerful. The base skill mostly is flavortext from a game balance standpoint, and it would give me more zombies which is really all I want out of my Shadow affinity max skill anyways (either that or a skill that allows you to do *true* necromancy on a corpse that has been destroyed or consumed, but that might be mechanically impossible in game).
Interesting take, although I do like to have the flexibility of choosing how to develop a hero, I understand not all options might be viable. Just like with bases I prefer an overall balanced approach for first base, second one, I can specialize if needed, that
Yeah, you can go flexible, and in fact on your later heroes you can and should feel free to get creative as you'll start at a higher level. For lower levels, though, especially on your ruler, you need to do your absolute *best* to help make your ruler into an autoresolve machine to speed up your economic growth.
@@stneron189 Yeah, Death Knight and Spellblade were not out or even in beta when I made this. Death Knight seems pretty good, does have a few issues with scaling survivability due to no way to secure defense mode but killing momentum, second wind and critical temp HP is a lot of potential durability if you can use equipment to flesh out HP/def/res and even gets dark ritual if you want it. Very solid option. Spellblade seems like it offers a reasonable chunk of the mage kit without necessarily scaring it off. Spellblades are a little light when it comes to survivability and the shorter range on their evocation + the nerf to hero survivability generally on 1.3 means I'd recommend Spellblades on Dragons and heroes but probably not on Champions/WK, you'll just die in autos too much. -10 HP and -1/-1 doesn't really change the power of heroes in the late game and if you can get scaling the extra skill points off of signature skills it can be pretty ridiculous, but it certainly seems to have hurt the weaker factions and cultures more than the good ones and ultimately made game balance worse as a result. Just be careful what we all wish for.
@wepg I have tried spellblade alot. Feels amazing, roleplay wise, toolkit wise. If you pick up damaging spells as you said, get a weapon that can attack 3 times, stack that juicy prepared spell passive and use you big big aoe spell (if you also rendered their resistances even better) it will annihilate everyone. Top that with opening strike or finishing one and have your self buffed frontline mage and if not mistaken his magic can crit
@stneron189 Are you on autoresolve mostly/only? Anything *can* work if you do enough manual fights vs the AI so that tends to be a really poor way to test for game balance or power, but spellblades do still get the nuking power of evocations, they just struggle a bit in terms of survivability in autos (and, as a result, I must assume in PvP).
@@wepg I do not like autoresolve. I forgot that you mentioned it in video and lots of plyers use, but i hate it. Even when playing AOW III i used to manual all fight. It was fun to experience your leader become immortal demigodlike killing machine. (especially warlord).
@stneron189 Yeah, I love autoresolve as it is the biggest difficulty spike in the game to switch to autoresolve only. It also tends to test game balance a lot better and, therefore, informs pseudo educational videos like this a lot better than oops all manuals. Manual fights vs other players are dope, but I find that the game's balance falls apart once you get good enough at manual combats as you can massively reduce your casualties and risk in fights in ways that make the game both too easy as well as very imbalanced. If you enjoy manual fights go wild, but I tend enjoy games when they are challenging and rewarding, not when they are pure power fantasies. It's just a vibe.
@@Asher535 I have not yet! You are probably like the sixth person who has recommended it to me though, so I really do feel like I need to do a little homework here and see if Eileen will let me get it for Christmas or something if it looks dope.
Genuinely best in class, just prep to give it a bit of space to let it hit for you, and expect it to eat your whole life. Highlights include incredible mechanically driven vibes, autoresolve all the time with player scripted armies, and an offensive amount of depth. Dominions is basically where all the people who would be pvp players for age of wonders found their home.
@Asher535 Yeah I gotta look around at it and see if the wife says I'm allowed to justify it. She's the main breadwinner around here pretty obviously, so I *try* to at least keep production/Walker upkeep costs minimized. But I *promise* I'll look into it, I'm too intrigued not to.
ruclips.net/video/b-ffMsCk0UY/видео.html Basically it obliterates your autoresolve by causing your hero to do very silly, hilarious things. Right *now*.
Yeah, sorry about that, called it out in the pinned comment but it was my aux cable causing weird stuff because our giant ORANGE cat tried to eat the cable and it was loose.
@@okonkwojones yeah 100%, but great news- I really like Shinshin's new content. He is doing excellent work in MP now and it's really showing, so if you are anxious for updated stuff check his out!
@@wepgyeah, his stuff v good and 100% was what made me realize why some tomes suddenly felt like The Specials started playing ‘Ghost Town’ -but I don’t really have any ideas on what Triumph can implement without actual dev time, as a stopgap. But then I remember our long suffering Feudal friends.
with all the new dlcs and updates, I just hope that the game wont suffer from "PDX Interactive Disease", namely taking out mechanics, mildly revamping them, and selling them back to you so you end up with 30+ DLCs for a total of 300€+... but so far, the update content seems to be well removed from the DLC content (mechanics and scalign wise), so it's atleast not as bad as it could be.
Yeah, honestly so far my biggest gripe with Triumph is that Alchemy is almost a prereq for competitive (Corruption is sometimes still banned) but effectively everything else in DLCs isn't pure Pay-to-Win. That's excellent design space in my book.
@@usetheschwartz7986 ruclips.net/video/b-ffMsCk0UY/видео.html Do not play them right now, their autoresolves will brutalize you. If you want to play with them at the moment, you kinda need to reset off of Command immediately or your game falls apart.
Ok finished watching that 2nd bug video, so autoresolve is bugged, but I play total war games where on legendary we pretty much have to lead every battle instead of auto resolve, so in multiplayer or manually led battles is wk or champion better?
@@BluEclipse94 Multiplayer is *defined* by autoresolve vs AI, and if you are attempting to compare relative power levels in Age of Wonders 4 assuming that you will do manuals vs the map makes the game balance fall apart.
@@wepg Thanks for the reply, much appreciated. I have last question really sorry to bother it's unrelated to this but I tried playing primal sylvan wolf culture and animist struggles to get stacks to summon primal wolf, is there any better way to get stacks?
@BluEclipse94 the best way to play Primals is, in my opinion, to lean into their real strengths, the Ancestral Warden. In my experience they are one of the best T3 cultural units in the game and truly define the functionality of Primals for autoresolves or higher difficulty. If you *really* want to make Animists function, you can carry them into battle as the only injured units you can sometimes get the AI to do summoning, but largely animists not being great is true in both autos as well as PvP manual fights. With a few exceptions, if something doesn't function in autos it isn't really "competitive" both during the creeping phase as well as the big late game PvP fights.
@@Chonus My understanding is that it is gone, but Triumph might keep adding more hero classes maybe? An artificer hero class who adds a golem assistant could be a lot of fun!
@NightWhisper8462 so Triumph did something weird this patch where they actually released an *older* patch with the DLC while they continued to work on the open beta, which iirc is supposed to merge with the older "base" patch today at some point. Keep an eye out for it.
Hey. The video takes a 1 hour to watch, so I will watch it step by step, especially cause the Tiger update is a little confusing because of all the stuff that was added. Besides that, if you have Empire & Ashes dlc, try: -race with arctic adaptation -reaver culture -society traits: reclaimers and merciless slavers - champion as leader equipped with sword & pistol - tome of cryomancy. During gameplay raid and raze every city you encounter, craft tier IV equipment, and go into every tome of shadow that does not require souls (there are four, one for every tier beside tier V). For second tomes go into the ones added with empire & ashes. Or second idea: -go high culture. Also arctic adaptation -pick wonder architects and scions of evil society traits. - champion as leader, equipped with sword & shield - tome of cryomancy for start and go into tomes of shadow that does not require souls to use. -as second tomes, go into order tomes, but only those that unlock stuff like zealots of inquisitors. When time comes go into tier V of order tome. -once you unlock the required tome, spam Inquisitors and awakeners/sun priests. I created two factions like this. Eflkin with dark greyish skin as race. If you want try it out. In my experience both of them are op since turn 15-25, depending on how you play.
Do you play manuals vs the map? Largely my content is geared more towards people who are on autoresolve-only or MP, which condenses the meta pretty significantly as your economy *needs* to allow for losses in combat.
@wepg I'm only playing offline, and for the idea with high culture I can't really say that the stuff you pointed out really apply for them. But for Reavers idea, if there are free cities on the map somewhat near you, then you can get both money and forge essence pretty quickly. On top of that, having merciless slavers as society trait can really boost up your cities population. It could maybe work really well with both merciless slavers and chosen destroyers, but I never tested it. In theory, this would make a true warmonger race. I'm usually playing on auto resolve since manual battles take too long. So yeah, for bigger economy, Imo Reavers would be good. But yeah, you would need to test it yourself. Btw. That's only a idea/recommendation. In my experience both of them are quite op, so I thought, what if someone else would try it and see it for himself if its actually good.
I love them for data collection. For compiling data, though, they are pretty complicated as it requires the human doing so understand the context of the data itself, and people are *usually* bad at that.
@@e-rankluck2594 the abilities the ranger gets don’t interact with the abilities of the magelock so it doesn’t really matter if it goes boom honestly, I think it needs to be split into different classes because it’s trying to do too much and failing and doing most of it
The problem with all ranger type classes is, that unlike a mage where you can replace pure power with utility, magic being a much more imaginative source of utility than wilderness skills for example, if you even slightly tune the ranged dmg too high, you end up with BS. Removing killing momentum from ranged weapons is an example of when you stepped over the line with ranged dmg.
My thumbnailing is designed to emulate as much as possible the experience of the Avatar in the Lost Library of Wan Shi Tong- *extremely* unhelpful in one dimension, and precisely useful in another. If someone out there is an artist and sends me an email offering to redo thumbnails, I promise I'm not trying to be rude when I don't reply, but if you think I'm trying to *optimize content views* on this channel you have absolutely no idea. I'm just trying to mask off "what happens when an autistic boy who refused to learn how to tie shoelaces until he was 8 because it seemed like a waste of time because flip flops are the superior footwear and now he has a channel."
@@petrpetrov9137 100% you can get there. Warriors chunk *super* hard in autos, you just need a little bit of durability to keep them moving and grooving.
I absolutely hate the new restrictive class system, arbitrary weapon restrictions and unbalanced ambitions level system. How did this get past Beta without people howling? Where was the video letting the community know there was a huge problem upcoming and we needed to act?
Nah, I *love* the new system. And I complain basically constantly for an hour in this video so if you don't know that I'm being honest I really don't know if I can help you.
Oh, also apparently an aux cable was loose for like the first 8 minutes of footage so that tiny electrical crackle you hear isn't just a figment of your imagination
or spiders in your walls
this time
"Walker you could just rerecord that section"
"Do... do you think I write scripts?"
Thanks for the heads up; I really thought it was the spiders
@roboticbears me too at first
Thank you for this nuanced strategic overview. I've found other guides either too simple or too stat-focused, but your explanation actually gave me insight I felt I was missing. Cheers!
A friendly tip for video's like this where you look at abilities and talent trees;
Let your mouse pointer rest on the thing you are talking about. Take your hand off the mouse while talking.
Otherwise, good insight. Love it.
Nah, frantic mouse movements are effectively my version of gesticulation. I tried to work on it, but it makes content creation impossible and also doesn't hurt anyone.
@@wepg I will second Mithrals statement and add that it does hurt people :)
@@FullMoonAbove I'm not unsympathetic to the requirements of the average neurotypical, but as a neurodivergent content creator who has kinda taken a step back from human reality partially due to abuse *by* neurotypicals, I really can't make myself excited to put effort in on something I think people can just be empathetic about. I get too excited recording videos to want to control myself, and this has been an issue for two years, but I think largely people are willing to vibe with it and let me have fun. If it really bothers you, I think my videos work *perfectly* fine listened to as almost a podcast while playing the game. Visual aesthetics are really only one part of what makes content useful (hopefully).
tl;dr - I really have tried to work on it but am 100% too autistic, if it drives you insane just listen to me in a tab (that's how I'd recommend most people who value their sanity interact with my content anyways- if you watch 100% of any of my videos you honestly had better explain yourself because they are my SECRET JOUIRNALSSSS *hissing sounds intensify*())))
I am listening to your video as Im hoovering my appartment, so i dont mind. Great video! Do you have any videos on how to not have a bad economy in the game?@@wepg
@@wepg This isn't a neurotypical/divergent thing. I have adhd. This is quite annoying since it's like a laser pointer and I have to have you on another tab. Have you tried moving an unplugged mouse or having the mouse on a different monitor?
Love it! Im going to watch this while getting my next aow4 video ready
Bring Popcorn or an insanity filter
That's why im subscribed, top tier content
vibes
@wepg I don't know, maybe it's vibes. Don't make video any less satisfying for me
Bot, you are not even participating in the topic of the video. You are just glazing
@@absolutelyfookinnobody2843 nah, blackleon has been around long enough that he knows that glazing doesn't work on me, vibes do.
Walker, thank you for your video. I almost didn't want to start a new game until you put something out about it. Looking forward to more.
Glad I could help! It's a good patch.
"I kinda want to play a drinking game where I drink every time I say "I don't want to waste X's time," it sounds like it would be almost as much fun as the Shyamalan Avatar drinking game where you drink any time anyone mispronounces a name."
"Walker go to sleep."
Gotta love when a video is named "Basics" and it's over an hour long.
You will love this next one then- ruclips.net/video/d_j8dY4QW8Q/видео.html
Always enjoy your insight man. I’m pretty stoked about the dragon ruler changes.
I’m not a stream watcher so I appreciate the YT love.
Glad to hear it!
I don't even play multiplayer but I just got back into this game after the new DLC, and your videos have been very insightful. It's interesting to listen to especially with regards to AI autoresolve. I really hope Triumph improves the shadow dragon final skill.
To be entirely honest, read the Shadow skill at level 8 Dragon closely.
Then read level 16.
Then ask yourself if it would be cool to switch them.
@@wepg then we'd still have a skill that does nothing, we'd just get it earlier, and we'd delay a good skill by another 8 level. that's still pretty bad c:
@Dakkalazy Level 8 Undead Dragon is very, very overtuned for Level 8. I suspect that in most real games, the fact that the zombies don't get enchantments would almost certainly make it "balanced" on turn 50, but in a skirmish it appears unbeatable.
As someone who was always playing SP with a materium dragon lord, this is an absolute win
Yeah, Materium Dragon Lords aren't as *busted* as Chaos Dragons but the survivability you get on a Defender class Dragon Lord is so high you will explode in a psychic fireball of madness irl (probably)
Really good video thanks !
I WAS BRAVE ENOUGH!
15:00 I kinda consider that like "better resurgence" since you get heroes with it that die back if you win the battle.
So if you win you get your hero back guaranteed; if you take a bit longer to win you get them back during the battle so they might still be able to contribute something. And since I already have the option to put grave caller on an item, infinite better resurgence is not bad.
Yeah, but hero resurgence is just not a good ability. Casual players will play with hero resurgence always on during autos and sweaty players will tell you that if you *win* the big manual PvP battle, casualties are typically unimportant. Eternal One is not sweet.
Hey, one of the brave souls here that actually clicked on the low quality thumbnail, having no clue on what changes.
Played the Game this weekend, as it was free on Steam and must say i like it. (Not the first video of yours i'm watching X))
Don't now it will keep me entertained enough for the hefty price tho (talking about all the dlc's)...
Not sure if Defensive Master is the be all end all for Defender builds, because Pushing Attack, Stunning Bash and Rallying Cry already end in defence mode. The first 2 also only have a 1 round cooldown.
Yeah, I kinda went back and forth on how to recommend building defenders precisely for that reason. Ultimately, though, I think that a.) basic taunt doesn't give defense mode and you basically always want it and b.) you really will get items and stuff you'll want to use in lieu of a meaningful number of the activated abilities anyways, as there are some really, really awesome things you can graft onto your hero via the item forge these days.
You are 100% right though that it was one of those things that kept me up until 4 am last night. But really only a *small* thing.
personally loving ranger. starting with crow bow and then building to gun. think its dps together with the champion command abilities, and its ability to reset cool downs on kill, is a pretty fun combo. wllowys u to play with your banners more like one big unit. lot of bouncing back n forth between units on turns but been pretty fun.
@@daniebelle22 100% I see how Rangers can be fun, but I think there's a way to make them fun for manuals vs AI (which I think should be the "balance" focus there) while also making them mechanically function in autos/PvP (which is where mechanical balance rather than fun balance should come from). It's delicate, but I think most people will find ways to have fun in manuals anyways, so I tend to focus more on "what is good" and Rangers don't work very well outside of manuals vs AI mechanically at the moment.
Ohh.... I've been having my ritualists vibe all battle every battle. I thought that was their point, and their direct attack was just a bit of fun.
You *can* have an oops all vibes Ritualist later on into the creeping phase, but if you only have 4-5 units in a fight, you want to make sure 1 of them isn't *locked* into pure vibes or your other units will end up taking more damage. Remember that damage removes models, thus reducing damage output, so a Ritualist can definitely "heal" by pew pewing things.
i meeeaann... in CIV6 your army generates value for you too ;) capturing cities and especially pillaging (which can let u surpass the lategame 1-tech-per-turn restriction) is a vital strategy for lategame (and early/mid game, but thats quite more rare since u will fall behind)
Yeah, I've conquered a lot of cities in Civ and built at least a few pieces of infrastructure in AoW4, but one of them is definitely more Khorne-coded and it's not Sid Meier's.
@@wepg yeah but i think your "3.5X" designation was a biiit harsh on CIV :P
@@SkyForceOne2 Eh, I *hope* I made it clear from my admission that part of my procrastinating was jamming a bunch of Humankind that I love both 3.5x and 4x games. They just are *really* different in how you generally approach your economy and empire building, and Civ rewards pretty wildly different play styles from AoW4.
i play a ranger and think with the skirmisher weapon, snapshot and immobilizing shots i have so much utility. being able to completely shut down a single melee unit and a second every other turn has a lot of value, at least for me. love it more than i thought i would. i was able to completely nullify 2 bone dragons in 2 fights on brutal difficulty in the early game. they did not get a single point of damage out on my units. in another fight i kept the enemy charge warrior hero out of the fight while wittling it and a second unit by myself, buying so much space for my other units.
Yeah, the issue is precisely that- Rangers *look* like they function if you do manual fights vs the AI, but that's the worst case scenario for testing something to see how well it really functions. Basically *everything* functions when you are fighting against the AI, so it's impossible to assess balance. Autoresolves and MP are much, much better for checking to see how well something really beats, and in autos Rangers drastically underperform all other hero types until they get to like level 9 at a minimum, at which point the economic value of recruiting a hero (making your army stronger to clear things faster) has already been lost. I promise Rangers suck, I really don't think I could convince myself to lie to you for content even if I wanted to.
@wepg thanks for the reply, yeah i am sure you know what you are talking about. i was just surprised how good the ranger felt compared to my 2 ritualists. but i am just a casual pvai player and havent played any other heroes till now. will take a look at warrior and defender next. very informative video btw.
Hi!! Thank you for the video!! I've seen you use a mod, special map or some similar. Is there anyway to do that?. It would be very helpful to study builds or make guides. Thank you so much!!
Do you mean the skirmish mod? I generally play on vanilla like 99% on the channel (we might do a video introducing the evolved mod at some point). If you mean "how did you have all level 20 heroes immediately for recording," it's debug mode! Debug mode is excellent for testing out stuff, showing off things in recording and a great experimentation tool.
@@wepg Yes, I know skirmish mod but I didn't know nothing about debug mode. I'll try it. Thank you so much!!!
@@biterjuice Absolutely! Debug mode is a *wonderful* tool for content creation, enjoy!
@@wepg Hey! Thanks for the info. One more question. I've tried Skirmish mod but when you say "debug mode", are you referring to star the game in debug mode or is something you can use in skirmish mod? Thank you so much for a great info!
I've noticed that its a lot harder to increase hero's base stats now from leveling up, but I suspect that the item forge is meant to fill that void now, yes?
@@cinderheart2720 Yeah, though there are still a ton of skills that have +random HP/def/res on them. Very important skills to be on the look for after your core power skills imo.
Hello, nice video!
note on eternal one: it is pretty bad in term of gameplay/impact, for sure.
BUT it is pretty good in term of fantasy.
It embrace the Liche fantasy, and its perfect for a solo run, as, your hero is the unkillable liche, whether it is good or not in term of metagaming, it is good in term of flavour.
@@TheIlluvatar619 I think there are ways to make a Lich in game that would be both thematically cool as well as powerful, but the biggest problem there with just saying "flavor" is that it is the skill associated with Shadow capstone. You only get one, it should be flashy and cool, and instead it royally sucks in like 99% of battles.
@@wepg you might be right. maybe adding to it "summon a zombie close to you every turn" (like the staff) would be better. or even, you get a phylactery, a unique item with special property. yea mb, was a too quick comment
@@TheIlluvatar619 Yeah 100%, I think Gravecalling just being slapped onto Eternal One wouldn't even be impossibly powerful. The base skill mostly is flavortext from a game balance standpoint, and it would give me more zombies which is really all I want out of my Shadow affinity max skill anyways (either that or a skill that allows you to do *true* necromancy on a corpse that has been destroyed or consumed, but that might be mechanically impossible in game).
Interesting take, although I do like to have the flexibility of choosing how to develop a hero, I understand not all options might be viable.
Just like with bases I prefer an overall balanced approach for first base, second one, I can specialize if needed, that
Yeah, you can go flexible, and in fact on your later heroes you can and should feel free to get creative as you'll start at a higher level. For lower levels, though, especially on your ruler, you need to do your absolute *best* to help make your ruler into an autoresolve machine to speed up your economic growth.
What about mixed classes? Or they were not introduced in the moment of video making?
@@stneron189 Yeah, Death Knight and Spellblade were not out or even in beta when I made this. Death Knight seems pretty good, does have a few issues with scaling survivability due to no way to secure defense mode but killing momentum, second wind and critical temp HP is a lot of potential durability if you can use equipment to flesh out HP/def/res and even gets dark ritual if you want it. Very solid option.
Spellblade seems like it offers a reasonable chunk of the mage kit without necessarily scaring it off. Spellblades are a little light when it comes to survivability and the shorter range on their evocation + the nerf to hero survivability generally on 1.3 means I'd recommend Spellblades on Dragons and heroes but probably not on Champions/WK, you'll just die in autos too much.
-10 HP and -1/-1 doesn't really change the power of heroes in the late game and if you can get scaling the extra skill points off of signature skills it can be pretty ridiculous, but it certainly seems to have hurt the weaker factions and cultures more than the good ones and ultimately made game balance worse as a result. Just be careful what we all wish for.
@wepg I have tried spellblade alot. Feels amazing, roleplay wise, toolkit wise. If you pick up damaging spells as you said, get a weapon that can attack 3 times, stack that juicy prepared spell passive and use you big big aoe spell (if you also rendered their resistances even better) it will annihilate everyone. Top that with opening strike or finishing one and have your self buffed frontline mage and if not mistaken his magic can crit
@stneron189 Are you on autoresolve mostly/only? Anything *can* work if you do enough manual fights vs the AI so that tends to be a really poor way to test for game balance or power, but spellblades do still get the nuking power of evocations, they just struggle a bit in terms of survivability in autos (and, as a result, I must assume in PvP).
@@wepg I do not like autoresolve. I forgot that you mentioned it in video and lots of plyers use, but i hate it. Even when playing AOW III i used to manual all fight. It was fun to experience your leader become immortal demigodlike killing machine. (especially warlord).
@stneron189 Yeah, I love autoresolve as it is the biggest difficulty spike in the game to switch to autoresolve only. It also tends to test game balance a lot better and, therefore, informs pseudo educational videos like this a lot better than oops all manuals. Manual fights vs other players are dope, but I find that the game's balance falls apart once you get good enough at manual combats as you can massively reduce your casualties and risk in fights in ways that make the game both too easy as well as very imbalanced.
If you enjoy manual fights go wild, but I tend enjoy games when they are challenging and rewarding, not when they are pure power fantasies. It's just a vibe.
You ever messed any with Dominions 6? Interested as to why it's not your vibe if you have.
@@Asher535 I have not yet! You are probably like the sixth person who has recommended it to me though, so I really do feel like I need to do a little homework here and see if Eileen will let me get it for Christmas or something if it looks dope.
Genuinely best in class, just prep to give it a bit of space to let it hit for you, and expect it to eat your whole life. Highlights include incredible mechanically driven vibes, autoresolve all the time with player scripted armies, and an offensive amount of depth. Dominions is basically where all the people who would be pvp players for age of wonders found their home.
@Asher535 Yeah I gotta look around at it and see if the wife says I'm allowed to justify it. She's the main breadwinner around here pretty obviously, so I *try* to at least keep production/Walker upkeep costs minimized. But I *promise* I'll look into it, I'm too intrigued not to.
@@wepg would be super interested in seeing how you get along with it, fingers crossed man!
How come your Champion doesnt have the command ability? I have a tendency to invest in decisive command pretty early
ruclips.net/video/b-ffMsCk0UY/видео.html
Basically it obliterates your autoresolve by causing your hero to do very silly, hilarious things. Right *now*.
Great video, however your mic has some background static. Just a heads up.
Yeah, sorry about that, called it out in the pinned comment but it was my aux cable causing weird stuff because our giant ORANGE cat tried to eat the cable and it was loose.
Tomes that used to have hero skills instead of SPIs need a second pass, because I’m really feeling the loss of some of those abilities.
@@okonkwojones yeah 100%, but great news- I really like Shinshin's new content. He is doing excellent work in MP now and it's really showing, so if you are anxious for updated stuff check his out!
@@wepgyeah, his stuff v good and 100% was what made me realize why some tomes suddenly felt like The Specials started playing ‘Ghost Town’ -but I don’t really have any ideas on what Triumph can implement without actual dev time, as a stopgap.
But then I remember our long suffering Feudal friends.
Return of the King
with all the new dlcs and updates, I just hope that the game wont suffer from "PDX Interactive Disease", namely taking out mechanics, mildly revamping them, and selling them back to you so you end up with 30+ DLCs for a total of 300€+... but so far, the update content seems to be well removed from the DLC content (mechanics and scalign wise), so it's atleast not as bad as it could be.
Yeah, honestly so far my biggest gripe with Triumph is that Alchemy is almost a prereq for competitive (Corruption is sometimes still banned) but effectively everything else in DLCs isn't pure Pay-to-Win. That's excellent design space in my book.
Walker, if I’m not mistaken you skipped Champion completely. How do they stack up vs WKs now, assuming Dragons are the best?
@@usetheschwartz7986 ruclips.net/video/b-ffMsCk0UY/видео.html
Do not play them right now, their autoresolves will brutalize you. If you want to play with them at the moment, you kinda need to reset off of Command immediately or your game falls apart.
Ok finished watching that 2nd bug video, so autoresolve is bugged, but I play total war games where on legendary we pretty much have to lead every battle instead of auto resolve, so in multiplayer or manually led battles is wk or champion better?
@@BluEclipse94 Multiplayer is *defined* by autoresolve vs AI, and if you are attempting to compare relative power levels in Age of Wonders 4 assuming that you will do manuals vs the map makes the game balance fall apart.
@@wepg Thanks for the reply, much appreciated.
I have last question really sorry to bother it's unrelated to this but I tried playing primal sylvan wolf culture and animist struggles to get stacks to summon primal wolf, is there any better way to get stacks?
@BluEclipse94 the best way to play Primals is, in my opinion, to lean into their real strengths, the Ancestral Warden. In my experience they are one of the best T3 cultural units in the game and truly define the functionality of Primals for autoresolves or higher difficulty.
If you *really* want to make Animists function, you can carry them into battle as the only injured units you can sometimes get the AI to do summoning, but largely animists not being great is true in both autos as well as PvP manual fights. With a few exceptions, if something doesn't function in autos it isn't really "competitive" both during the creeping phase as well as the big late game PvP fights.
Where's the Golem Assistant now?
@@Chonus My understanding is that it is gone, but Triumph might keep adding more hero classes maybe? An artificer hero class who adds a golem assistant could be a lot of fun!
Prospector is still a selectable ambition for your ruler, it's odd that it isn't on your screen as it should be between Raider and Privateer.
@@NightWhisper8462 I think you are on an older patch, it should be unavailable.
@@wepg Just verified my files and I can still select it for my rulers
@NightWhisper8462 which beta branch?
@@wepg None, I generally just play the base game so maybe if you're on a beta then that could be the reason, maybe it's planned to be removed.
@NightWhisper8462 so Triumph did something weird this patch where they actually released an *older* patch with the DLC while they continued to work on the open beta, which iirc is supposed to merge with the older "base" patch today at some point. Keep an eye out for it.
Hey. The video takes a 1 hour to watch, so I will watch it step by step, especially cause the Tiger update is a little confusing because of all the stuff that was added.
Besides that, if you have Empire & Ashes dlc, try:
-race with arctic adaptation
-reaver culture
-society traits: reclaimers and merciless slavers
- champion as leader equipped with sword & pistol
- tome of cryomancy.
During gameplay raid and raze every city you encounter, craft tier IV equipment, and go into every tome of shadow that does not require souls (there are four, one for every tier beside tier V). For second tomes go into the ones added with empire & ashes.
Or second idea:
-go high culture. Also arctic adaptation
-pick wonder architects and scions of evil society traits.
- champion as leader, equipped with sword & shield
- tome of cryomancy for start and go into tomes of shadow that does not require souls to use.
-as second tomes, go into order tomes, but only those that unlock stuff like zealots of inquisitors. When time comes go into tier V of order tome.
-once you unlock the required tome, spam Inquisitors and awakeners/sun priests.
I created two factions like this. Eflkin with dark greyish skin as race. If you want try it out. In my experience both of them are op since turn 15-25, depending on how you play.
Do you play manuals vs the map? Largely my content is geared more towards people who are on autoresolve-only or MP, which condenses the meta pretty significantly as your economy *needs* to allow for losses in combat.
@wepg I'm only playing offline, and for the idea with high culture I can't really say that the stuff you pointed out really apply for them.
But for Reavers idea, if there are free cities on the map somewhat near you, then you can get both money and forge essence pretty quickly. On top of that, having merciless slavers as society trait can really boost up your cities population.
It could maybe work really well with both merciless slavers and chosen destroyers, but I never tested it. In theory, this would make a true warmonger race.
I'm usually playing on auto resolve since manual battles take too long.
So yeah, for bigger economy, Imo Reavers would be good. But yeah, you would need to test it yourself.
Btw. That's only a idea/recommendation. In my experience both of them are quite op, so I thought, what if someone else would try it and see it for himself if its actually good.
Putting Civ together with Humankind -_- Crime
@@enKageKagen Listen, I am gonna fix that soon, I promise.
… I like spreadsheets.
I love them for data collection. For compiling data, though, they are pretty complicated as it requires the human doing so understand the context of the data itself, and people are *usually* bad at that.
I see they copied the research notes from Dnd class system with the ranger of being a bad class 😂
@@knowonewillknow7080 Yeah man, though I do think that this one is pretty easily fixable with a few upgrades here and there.
Magelock go boom tho
@@e-rankluck2594 the abilities the ranger gets don’t interact with the abilities of the magelock so it doesn’t really matter if it goes boom honestly, I think it needs to be split into different classes because it’s trying to do too much and failing and doing most of it
The problem with all ranger type classes is, that unlike a mage where you can replace pure power with utility, magic being a much more imaginative source of utility than wilderness skills for example, if you even slightly tune the ranged dmg too high, you end up with BS. Removing killing momentum from ranged weapons is an example of when you stepped over the line with ranged dmg.
insanely low quality thumbnail is craZy
It's unironically why I found the video. I didn't even know they were doing a rework.
@@DenverZenn SAME lol
My thumbnailing is designed to emulate as much as possible the experience of the Avatar in the Lost Library of Wan Shi Tong- *extremely* unhelpful in one dimension, and precisely useful in another.
If someone out there is an artist and sends me an email offering to redo thumbnails, I promise I'm not trying to be rude when I don't reply, but if you think I'm trying to *optimize content views* on this channel you have absolutely no idea.
I'm just trying to mask off "what happens when an autistic boy who refused to learn how to tie shoelaces until he was 8 because it seemed like a waste of time because flip flops are the superior footwear and now he has a channel."
@@wepg Amazing show
The thumbnail is perfect, the lack of a shocked face brought me joy
i just want to be a barbarian warrior conan style
power
@@petrpetrov9137 100% you can get there. Warriors chunk *super* hard in autos, you just need a little bit of durability to keep them moving and grooving.
I absolutely hate the new restrictive class system, arbitrary weapon restrictions and unbalanced ambitions level system. How did this get past Beta without people howling? Where was the video letting the community know there was a huge problem upcoming and we needed to act?
Nah, I *love* the new system. And I complain basically constantly for an hour in this video so if you don't know that I'm being honest I really don't know if I can help you.