Age of Wonders III MP Party

[Bison]

The tactical battles are alright but take a long time especially with larger armies and are not as epic as tactical battles in other games. Is there a penalty for autoresolving?

The biggest penalty I can see is your inability to influence which powers or spells are used during the battle.

[Gusington]

Yeah I can understand that. But I wonder if there's more all-around penalties like in the TW games where the player has less of a chance of winning as soon as he chooses to autoresolve.

[Bison]

It doesn't seem like it.  The other issue is there is no way to know why or how you lost once it's autoresolved.

[MetalDog]

It's obvious what the reason for losing an autoresolve is: you didn't bring enough to win.  Let's not make this any harder than it has to be.  I have no doubt that a swarm of Tier I's and II's can take down armies filled with their betters.  I also have no doubt that there is a number and composition at which higher level armies need not worry about creature swarms.  It's all going to come down to whether you prefer the tac battles or autoresolve.  Then adjust your play style accordingly.

[Gusington]

How dare you tell me to play how I want!

[Bison]

It's obvious what the reason for losing an autoresolve is: you didn't bring enough to win.  Let's not make this any harder than it has to be.  I have no doubt that a swarm of Tier I's and II's can take down armies filled with their betters.  I also have no doubt that there is a number and composition at which higher level armies need not worry about creature swarms.  It's all going to come down to whether you prefer the tac battles or autoresolve.  Then adjust your play style accordingly.

Well I've swarmed a Tier III and IV army with multiple armies of Tier I and II units, but I outnumbered them significantly.  It's ultimately I think a cost prohibitive strategy, because of the cost to replenish units and tie up your city productions.  I don't know, but I think Dom4 is my fantasy 4X of choice tbh.

[MetalDog]

The same principles apply, solo or mp, but, I will prefer mp.  The again, I usually do.  It's been a lot of fun to chit chat with, bob, W8, and Kushan while playing. 

[MetalDog]

I have 39 cities, two of which are underground.  The map is medium sized with seven total players.  I just had one of the AI's surrender.  That emptied his remaining cities, gave me possession of one and I can now use the defeated AI's Hero as one of my own Heroes.

[W8taminute]

Ah the age old debate on to auto resolve or manually fight tactical battles.  Whenever I play AoWIII single player I fight all my battles manually.  Love the combat system and fight it every chance I get.  Except for when it's 6 of my guys against 1 ai unit. 

In any of the Total War series I tend to resolve half of my battles automatically.  The biggest reason for that is due to the load time required to start the manual battle. 

[MetalDog]

169 Turns to defeat 6 A. I.'s  I liked that they would surrender if you were overwhelming them.  It wasn't going to take a bunch more turns, but, I wasn't looking forward to digging out the last opponent from her strongholds.  Still didn't get offered any more Heroes after I turned down the initial few.  That's ok though.  Between my Hero and the other two I accepted, we did alright.

This probably won't be a solo play for me.  At least not much.  I've got about 70 hours in all told and three different MP games going, so, it's going to be played for a while :)  Thanks, Gus!

[MetalDog]

Got 90 minutes in with W8 tonight.  There's four of us on the board, 2 human, 2 AI.  I declared war on an Orc Dreadnought.  Her territories are not in as tight alignment as they should be and that makes them vulnerable.  She is also at war with the other AI.  So, I take the first city and get a lot of my troops shot up, including one of my Heroes, pretty badly.  I retreat to the newly captured city to heal. 

Two turns go by and no heal, for the troops OR the Hero.  I look at the Unit description and see that I can't regenerate.  The reason is someone has placed an Armageddon spell on the board which does not allow me to regenerate.  Looking in the spell column, I notice it's W8 that has it cast!!  WTF?!?!?!  There's no reason to do me like that! 

So, I politely contact Mr. aminute and let him know the distress he is causing me.  He acts a bit...confused.  'I thought that only applied to people invading me', he says.  I tell him no, it affects the whole board.  I congratulate him on his Alliance with the other AI.  The one I am not currently at war with.  He says, 'Oh.  You see that, too, do yah?'  I answer in the affirmative and follow up with, 'So, when are you coming across my borders?'  'Soon,' says he.  And promptly declares war on the AI I am fighting.  Now it's a land grab.  And I am the odd man out.

[Bison]

Huh sounds like someone is coming in "second" again.

[MetalDog]

Sure is looking that way.

[W8taminute]

It's fascinating because unlike MD I tend not to pay too much attention to what's going on in the game world around me.  However once MD's borders touched mine I started to analyse the situation. 

Our internal security forces observed more than one incursion into our lands by small recon groups.  We let them pass through uninhibited and we also did not raise any issues diplomatically.  Instead our reaction was what MD describes.   :)

I'm still worried about what's going to happen because based on what units I saw in MD's recon forces I've got nothing to match.  Still I figure my tactics and what few tier 3 units I have should keep him busy.  I've got 10 cities atm to his 14+. 

[Bison]

Distract him with puns.