Any Age of Wonders 3 Experts?

[Nefaro]

Heya,

Also followed Boggit here from the Steam forum. This has been my favourite game for the past couple of years, so I should have some good tips for you.

I'm concerned about the economic and battle success arguments. Usually by turn 90 I have 4 or 5 cities and am churning out mainly t1, t2 and some t3 units. I play on Lord difficulty and win the vast majority of my battles.

This is definitely the issue. 4 or 5 cities? Wow... that is way, way too few.

One issue with learning this game is that you can sometimes think you're doing well, when you're really not. Like I suggested on the steam forums: Save the game, surrender and check the graphs you see, particularly those for Domain and Military scores. You'll note that you're probably WAY behind the AI.

Or alternately, use cheats to see what's happening.  :) Pressing ctrl-alt-c and typing "barentz" lets you see the entire map. You can then compare your city count to that of the AI and see how well you're actually doing.

I checked a few of my large/extra large maps that lasted a long time. In one, I had 20 cities by turn 90. In another, 30 cities. And even with those 30 cities, the stronger AI players had considerably bigger armies than I did. (Slightly smaller empires, but those games were on Emperor level AI and those get rather large income/production bonuses, so the player needs more cities to compete. But on lower difficulty levels this is not the case.)

By turn 90, tier one units are pretty much obsolete except as city garrisons. There are exceptions, of course. (Dreadnoughts always need engineers, to name one. And Elven Hunters may be tier 1, but they are great units.) Tier 2 units stay very useful, though, particularly if you can get them some nice upgrades. (The DLCs add options for this.) Tier 3 units will be the main muscle for most classes, with tier 4 units sprinkled in as support/heavy hitters. This goes for the player and the AI.

Again, to take that game where I had 30 cities by turn 90: in it, I was producing a stack of upgraded tier 2-3 warlord units every 2 turns, and a stack of tier 4 manticore riders every 5 turns. I could have produced more, but I was running into upkeep troubles, and besides I'd rather produce elite units from my best cities if I get the chance.

If you're winning your battles against the neutrals and the AI with so few cities until turn 90, you're probably quite good at tactical battles. If so, all you need to do is learn to expand faster. Build more cities, build more armies, build higher tier units.

Some important tips for this game are:

Explore as much as you can.
In the early game, you should be exploring in 2-3 directions every turn. Otherwise, you won't figure out which way you need to expand. Also, exploring lets you meet neutral cities that might join you (in return for payment or a quest) and you can find unguarded heaps of gold and mana that will help keep your early game economy afloat.

Fight battles every turn.
In the early game, you should be fighting at least 1 battle every turn with your leader, 1st hero and your main stack. Preferably a more than 1 battle. Maybe just to clear a mine or mana node, or to explore a ruin. If there's nothing in reach, you should at least be moving towards something else you want to fight.

By the mid-game (turn 20, say) you should have 2 or 3 stacks running around in different directions, preferably let by heroes, and all fighting at least one battle every other turn. Not only does this mean you get more stuff and clear more territory to claim, but your troops and heroes will be getting XP and become much stronger.

Try to find some healers
The only problem with fighting so much is that if you take too much damage, you might need time to heal. Therefore, its' easier to play a class/race with access to healing early on, until you get good enough at tactical battles not to take much damage. Human Priests are particularly good at this. So is the Theocrat class. If you don't have healers of your own, try to hire a Theocrat or Archdruid hero, and give them healing abilities on levelup. (Bestow Iron Heart, Nourishing Meal.)

You'll probably take casualties, but can also replenish them by clearing dungeons, farms and springs of life. Many heroes also get abilities that let you charm/convert enemy units, which can help. And finally, many classes can just summon extra units to the front lines. All this helps to keep your armies moving.

Claim all the territory you can.
One of the first things I do in a new game is get a Builder. This nifty unit then follows my main army, building roads and plunking down forts on the mines and trading posts I clear. Settlers are expensive and take time to build. 1 builder can build as many forts as you like. This really helps the economy.

Later on, you should be building settlers regularly and turn those forts into cities. By turn 20 you should have at least 4-5 cities. You don't need to build settlers for all of those, though, as you can also get neutral cities to join you.

Boost your economy with Free Stuff
As you've noticed, it takes a lot of time to build up a city and produce units at the same time. Gold is scarce, construction is slow early on.

The solution is treasure sites. All those battles you're fighting give you rewards. You can sell those rewards for extra gold. Or you can use the free units you get from dungeons or springs of life to reinforce your army. Research sites are very good to clear: early on, you can get 5 or 6 turns of research from a Vault of Knowledge. This really boosts your growth.

Pay attention to Happiness
The happiness mechanic, which is easy to overlook, is actually very, very important. A Cheerful city will produce 50% more of everything. That's gold, mana, research, growth and production. Meanwhile, at the lowest happiness level, everything gets halved and the city rebels. So, boost happiness with spells, buildings and terrain. The Terraform spell in particular lets you change terrain to your favoured type without wasting casting points.

Never waste a turn.
This is the most important principle to bear in mind. In a game of Civ, a single turn is unimportant and a game lasts hundreds of turns. You might move a scout, or skip 10 turns to finish a building.

Not so in AoW. Each turn is a substantial chunk of the game. Most games aren't supposed to last much more than 50 turns on small maps, 70 on medium, 100 on large. If you skip a turn without doing anything, you're falling behind. Each turn should be filled with as many activities as you can fit in.

On the downside, this is more challenging. You're always in a race. On the plus side, I've yet to be bored with a game of AoW3. There's always something to explore, something to fight or something to discover.

Anyway, I hope that helps. The playing style of AoW takes some getting used to, but it's a great game, and the sheer variety of units means the battles never get old.

That's some great advice, Iguana.  O0

[FarAway Sooner]

I'd concur with the other posts here showing a little love.  The PbEM functionality is also great for playing with a buddy, although there are some predictable limits!