They’re all pretty much the same thing, and I don’t think anyone is playing them for the narratives. I can’t imagine the fortitude required to drudge through the whole series one after the other, so I’d do one then see how you feel after that. :)
I am also contemplating a refund!
I 100% support the AoW3 recommendation, with the caveat that the game can be quite brutal sometimes.
Play random maps, with settlers off and seals on :).
I’ve read a couple, not missing out on much :(.
This is what I did in school, flipping pages instead of scrolling text. I didn’t get no achievement :O
I guess I am going to install Age of Wonders 3, and flip through the documentation as well (there is one, right?!)
I refunded this.
I found myself struggling just a bit too much with the 3rd person camera, the controller based controls, and the combat just didn’t make up for these deficiencies.
I was looking forward to this but the reviews and user accounts are appalling. All they had to do was make the same game over again (for the nth time, too) with some new monsters and treasures and skill trees and everyone would have been happy, and it probably would have cost them much less money, too…
Well, perhaps not the “same” game, but for me personally, they should have kept the overland interactivity, and not slaved me to keyboard controls.
I just can’t bear to spend most of my time watching my character move around with her not great animations, an be unable to climb up or down ledges or go through trees. :(
Updating the combat was a good idea I think.
You know, earlier there was comparisons to the Witcher, but I think this feels more like Skyrim than the Witcher.
ohh??
I bet this is the end of the franchise.
On a higher difficulty level it might be borderline impossible. However there are a lot of indirect ways of getting an army, like consumables (spider eggs etc). Plus as you progress some basic units become infinite. You still have to pay but you should not be afraid of running out of troops. If you’re fiscally irresponsible you can corner yourself into an unwinnable situation, I guess.
The early game is all about finding ways to go without losing troops. I remember reading stories from people on the forums way back when where people were doing impossible runs without losing a single unit.
As a more normal person, I was able to win almost all of the first ~100 battles without losing a single unit. There were times when I had to replay fights to make it happen, but it’s possible even for mere mortals, and there are a ton of strategies for picking the right fights and the right spells to make it happen.
Even if you don’t lose any troops, you’re certainly going to want to back track to pick up newer troops that are stronger and swap out troops, so that aspect of traveling the map never goes away - but if I remember correctly map traversal gets easier as you unlock shortcuts.
I’m just going to pretend KB2 never happened, and not sully my fond memories.
This “not losing troops” really limits your choices though, and also sometimes it’s very dependent on RNG, especially when you fight heroes who can always cast something bad. Armored Princess and later games give you incentives to do those perfect fights, but honestly I don’t really like this. Feels like it pushes you to use the same boring units for the whole game, play very defensively, heal, summon.
I only worry about no loss until I’ve gathered up all the bonus leadership. After that, it’s a question of tradeoffs - maybe I want to replace a unit anyway so sacrificing it is OK. Perhaps opening up an area by removing a stack is worth the tradeoff. But losses do slow you down, so going no loss or minimal loss seems like a good idea.
Just buy spiders and snakes. Spiders and snakes. Royal Cobras? Those guys were the bomb.
Oh I loved my time with AP and Crossworlds, but the tedium of refreshing stacks and changing them out eventually crushed every playthrough I attempted.
The frustrating thing is that the core game is fantastic – it really wouldn’t take much to update the design to eliminate the annoying legacy bits, and at that point it’s a matter of putting together interesting content and progression.
Instead, we get whatever this is.
Asset Flip Bounty
Hitting about 10+ hours in - ya, its not great, its not Kings Bounty, but there is some fun to be had. Restarted with Cathryn the Mage and reached the second “area” I guess. Some of the building customization is interesting, but the first person quest stuff seems so silly. Why do I need do a fetch quest to upgrade my kennels to make the new tier of dog?
Worth a look when it hits Steam Summer Sale and gets some patches, but not full price.
Yup. When I do impossible runs, you cannot lose troops in your main stack or lose very little troops. That’s the nature of games on high difficulties though.
On normal, losing troops is definitely not the end of the world. You can speedrun the normal made by using sacrificial troops.
Thanks for taking the hit!
Harsh, but fair.
-Tom
Still playing as well. It’s has some charm, but it’s not King’s Bounty at all.
The overworld part is probably closer to Gothic 1 then anything else.
Will you be reviewing this game?