I thought Triumph had stated that this wasn’t going to be Age of Wonders 4. Is everyone just speculating what AOW4 would look like for fun, or am I mistaken?
@ kevinC, Sikbok has been gorging himself on the tears and frustrations of the online fans.
Such a troll.
He’s been very deliberately dropping half hints of suspicions of other hints that people have read what they want to read into it.
There’s one guy on steam who is absolutely convinced it is Aow4, several others seem certain it’s an expansion pack.
I think it’s neither, but that a fair few mechanics will transition over. I think it’ll be a new IP, something like TWarhammer, but less silly.
I thought I remembered a tweet a long while back saying it wasn’t AOW4, but it was a TBS game that fans of AOW would enjoy. But maybe it was a fever dream. :)
They said AOW fans would enjoy it. I don’t remember them saying it’s nott AOW though.
Yeah, 18v18 or 18v24 battles in the endgame get t-e-d-i-o-u-s. I’d rather have a larger stack size (8?), no supporting stacks in combat, and with multi-stage sieges – like, you don’t pull in additional stacks into city defense, but if you have the center hex defended as well as adjacent hexes, the adjacent hex defenders fight first with some variation on the city’s defenses, maybe weaker walls or some such but still with auto-ranged attacks to get some attrition in there.
I am definitely down to not have to keep a few stacks together in the late game when they move. But I do like the adjacency rule, too, so I’m a little conflicted.
One of the best things about AOW MP is the ability to actually join in someone else’s battle, even if it takes some work to get them in there.
I don’t mind changes as long as they don’t lose that.
I find this interesting (thanks @BloodyBattleBrain for making me look at Steam forums).
Here is what I think is worth asking. Is there actually a reason they can’t deny it? I doubt it. So why not deny it? Because I agree with the majority - it’s Age of Wonders 4. I could be wrong, but since I really hope I am not, I’m going with AoW4 built with a 64-bit engine and looking as sexy as it plays.
I remember that too, thought it was posted here somewhere.
Outside of NDA/confidentiality, maybe it’s just safer saying ‘no comment’ if they want it to be a surprise? Most places do that.
I mean once you deny that it’s AoW4 people are no longer going to be expecting that. People like yourself will not be as surprised when they release a new sci-fi game instead. ;)
All we know for sure is that it’s a turn based strategy game that will appeal to AoW fans. And they said something about merging multiple prototypes and tech together for it, which seems to hint at a new system.
That said, you’d think it was kind of smart to capitalize on the good name they built with AoW3! Whichever way it goes I’m pretty keen to see what they’ve got.
There was this from the other AoW3 thread:
That thread also talks about the feeling that they said it wasn’t AoW4, but no-one found any evidence there either. This is also pretty recent:
They’ve been working on it for two years:
Looking forward to seeing you there and showing you all that we’ve been working on for the last two years!
It’s definitely worth asking.
In my opinion if they announce something then it needs to come out about a year later, basing this off the announcement for AoW3 which was in early 2013 iirc.
Beta started end of 2013.
Game released April 2014.
Assuming this holds true, announcing the game now in May leaves them a year, which for an Aow4 is just too soon imho.
AoW3 still has legs in it, and would be better served, imho, by a standalone expansion that is 64bit.
An Aow4 wiould need a new engine, new assets etc to merit the name.
A standalone would not. The could almost literally just make it 64bit based, incorporate the best mods, add in a Shadow Magic campaign, a new class, switch the races up a bit, a few new features and have it be an almost gold edition of AoW3, for less work than a brand new sequel.
I think AoW3 is a fantastic game. But many of the things @BloodyBattleBrain mentioned are serious downsides - the first big battle is very decisive, and the late game becomes tedious. I’d love it if that curve could be smoothed out, so you have a series of battles each of which grants small advantages until it’s over, while the lategame is sped up (perhaps through surrender mechanics).
What I’d want:
better AI
64-bit zippiness.
way to shorten the endgame, which is tedious
A little bit of Elemental’s feeling of loot added to the game.
Tweaks to adjacent hex would be nice, maybe the adjacent units don’t pop up until a certain turn so the battles don’t get too big?
I don’t think they can do an expansion. They said they reached the memory limits the game can handle with both expansions, and you can’t make people turn one expansion off to run a different one - that wouldn’t fly. You talk about it being a 64-bit expansion, but that won’t work unless the game it’s expanding is 64-bit. Or do you mean a stand alone expansion that’s 64-bit? Because for the three years they have been silent I hope they haven’t been just remaking AoW3 into a 64-bit engine to re-sell it with a new expansion, I’d much rather have an AoW4 at that point.
But as to your time line I think you are correct. I’d go so far as to say that, like titles such as Skyrim and Civ V, we get an announcement in May and it’s ship date is Sep-Nov of this year.
Ahem
:P.
I think what Age of Wonders 3 really needs is a Hats expansion that lets you add distinct and different hats to every unit in the game.
Age of Wonders 4 should have a Battle Royale mode.
I see your “ahem” and raise you a “that would be a terrible option”. I feel like an expansion would be a strictly worse thing than an all new Age of Wonders 4. I wouldn’t complain mind you, but AoW3’s sun has shone and if you put out “Age of Wonders 3 - new stand alone expansion!” people will think, “hey cool, I’ll grab that some day, I suppose” but if you put out Age of Wonders 4 “now a 64-bit application!” and of course, not to mention all new mechanics, visuals and art, and systems, and maybe even more races and classes and who knows? Now you are talking.
EDIT - I also have serious doubts they sat silently working on a new project for what, over three years now and it was just an expansion.