Thanks for the answers. From what I can tell, your population cap increases in units of 6, and it naturally grows over time without your control. So I may end up with 12 population points, but only need 10 to run my city. In which case the remaining 2 unused points are purely a drain on my loyalty, correct?
No, your cap only grows when you build specific buildings (like Dormitory for Space Marines). The growth of your population is constant but slows down as it gets closer to your current cap. It is a GOOD thing to have a cap that is much higher than your current population as that means the growth rate will stay fast. The only things that improve population growth speed that i am aware of is having available housing and getting the bonus special resource that increases pop growth by 20%.
Game is fun.
Can safely say that thus far, not liking Nekrons.
Orcs are interesting in that their infantry, at the start at least, is fragile.
Tankbustas especially so…
But the boys certainly hit hard.
And fighting generates influence and ore. Great idea.
I’m not getting how having multiple unit creating buildings work. I could swear in a previous campaign, having two infantry producing buildings let me build two units at once. But I’m not seeing that right now. I have two infantry buildings (and sufficient population) and two infantry units in the queue. One of the units has the little “turns to completion number” and the other doesn’t — it looks just like a unit in the queue, but waiting for the previous unit to finish before being built.
Is this a new bug they just introduced in the new patch, or am I misunderstanding how this works.
Two unit creating building doubles your production of the first unit. So, it will get built twice as fast, and would be comparable to building two at once.
It’s a great change for 4x games.
Plus having different unit producers means you can produce tanks, heroes, infantry, aircraft simultaneously.
Honestly I think I’ll miss that when I resume playing AoW 3.
I like this feature too, because it is combined with the ability to build multiple copies of the same production facility to make those units quicker. So once I have a vehicle Factory I have a choice between building its second vehicle Factory and prices many vehicles or a Barracks to start making Infantry
I like the concept of quests, but not a fan of how they were implemented. At least for Space Marines, the rewards are minor and in return you get a pile of enemies dumped on your doorstep. Would have preferred a more even risk/reward tradeoff.
Devastator marines are interesting. They can be tricky to position for proper range & LOS without getting squished, but boy are they worth it against vehicles, buildings, and heroes.
When in enemy territory, I find leading with heroes to be essential. They are so ridiculously tanky - much more so than, well, tanks. Haven’t really figured out what the best hero shop items are yet, but the +2 armor and +50% damage items seem pretty good.
Are Assault Marines and Thunderfire cannons worth building? I never researched them as they looked similar to Tactical and Devastator marines respectively.
Thunderfire Cannons fix your vehicles, so absolutely yes for them. Assault marines seem more niche, but they do mess up normal infantry pretty well.
Thanks to your post upthread @Mark_L I started building Thunderfire Cannons. Big help :-). I was completely ignoring them until I saw your post.
Also I found out thematically why Thunderfire Cannons repair vehicles. Gladius just mentioned that they are infantry guns, but looking at the official Games Workshop webpage on Thunderfire Cannons they’re actually manned by a Techmarine. And in fact, if you zoom in in Gladius, sure enough there’s a Techmarine alongside the Thunderfire Cannon.
Another thing I found helpful, which probably most people already figured out, but it took me a while. The Apothecaries heal a bunch of things other than straight infantry. Most notably they can heal heroes. They also heal Scout Bikers.
Speaking of Scout Bikers, I haven’t decided if they are worthwhile. Early game their shotguns do some serious damage. They provide a lot of mobility and their Scout special ability is pretty handy. But past early game, mine seem to spend most of their time sitting in outposts trying to rebuild themselves after getting chewed up in a single turn engagement. Land Speeders are much higher in the tech tree, but they seem to have some much better staying power, with some 40+ HP at high levels of experience.
Here’s the change I would make for bikes: make their mines stop movement and end turn for the unit that hits them… As it stands, I think you’re right and speeders retire them.
agreed re the quests and the unbelievable tannkiness of the space marine heroes. My most recent game was the first time I used planes to transport troops (doh); this does make it a lot quicker to get from enemy base n to enemy base n+1. coupled with orbital insertion of terminators the end game seemed like less of a slog.
Well I learnt you can’t take down established cities with just assault marines, devastators and some predators. I snuck my entire army up around the back of the main Guard city, undetected in forest until the last tile. But by this time they had LRs Hydras and tanky commissars spawning that whittled me down.
By the time i am assaulting a city i hope to have one or two Apothecaries standing right behind my line of Devastators. If they can’t focus fire a Devastator to death in one round then they are going to lose. Switch your fire on occasion to eliminate any enemy units that might be able to tip that balance then go back to hammering the capital. 3-4 Devastators with Apothecary backup and some screening troops can drop city’s very quickly.
Yeah, Apothecaries are amazing.
I was surprised to read people using them as anything other than healers.
Healing in turn based games is a hugely powerful skill
Ah OK tried again with healers in the back rank and that made a huge difference. But after all that realised it’s not even their main city! Now Necrons are really pushing up too - really loving the back and forth over the map.
Hmm, what’s the best way to assault an enemy city?
Devastators from range, Assault marines to surround the citadel and drop a bunch of melta bombs on it.