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JoonasTo
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted April 01, 2014 07:53 PM |
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Edited by JoonasTo at 19:55, 01 Apr 2014.
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First day impressions, disappointment.
Will not buy this untill much later.
Races are like WC2 
Heroes are back to Age of Wonders style, that is good, no random garbage like in AoW2.
Some old remixes in music but I don't find myself enjoying it as much as I did in AoW in general.
The Civilization in Fantasy world makes the game play really too slowly.
Very few spells and even copies in different schools.
The "dwellings" are nice. They are basically races that you can't pick at the start of the game.
No frostlings or halflings 
Flanking also changes the power between tiers a LOT. Higher tier units are pretty much useless if you can't mass wield them.
Elven Longbowmen OP.
Rogue sucks.
Convert rules.
Like how you can pick any race to go with any terrain. No limiting spellschools that way. (ie. frostlings + full air mastery and winter domain in earlier games)
Late game mana is endless, I got to ~250 casting points and I still can't spam enough eldritch horrors and global spells to get rid of my 20k stash.
The combat difficulty advisor is compelete crap, it's probably from some alpha version with completely different unit stats.
Combat damage spells suck. First tier units do more damage.
The UI is counterintuitive, you use right mouse click to affirm an action and left to cancel it, WHY?
AI is so passive it would be right at home at a british pensioner tea party.
That end turn button, oh how I love it so. The best part about the game by far. 
Biggest complaint is lack of diversity.
We have like one or two actually unique race units, elven longbownman(totally OP) and dwarven crossbowman(total crap) being those. (summons are actually pretty unique, thank god for that)
There is practically no difference in the rest of the units and it's a shame. (We can argue knights and black knights here but they are copies of each other so negated.)
Class units are all the same regardless of race, your elven guys will have 1 more res and orcish one more damage, big deal, no one cares.
As it stands there is no reason at all to migrate towns or try to get new racial towns since units will be the same regardless.
In older AoWs new races meant new units, now you have no way of making the units of different classes, which are the only way to diversify(besides of dwellings). No more Warlord/Musketeer armies. GONE.
This makes long games way, WAY less fun.Can't have an assassin nuke squad running around the same game as you're fielding a warbreed main force. You can have elven warbreeds, orcish warbreeds, dwarvish warbreeds, human warbreeds, gobling warbreeds instead, yay...
Not an issue on small maps but medium and large, you will get bored because of that.
Major design failure.
Oh yeah, sim turns are really fast and work great untill the very late game +50 turns or so because it wants to lock the user out for duration of animations. Turn the movement animations off and everything works amazingly.
Then again, with that AI, I don't see anything that could take up any power though. 
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JoonasTo
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted April 01, 2014 08:12 PM |
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THE ****!
Campaign heroes are not remembered between maps?
Seriously? ARE THEY RETARTED?
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RMZ1989
Supreme Hero
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posted April 01, 2014 09:37 PM |
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JoonasTo said:
THE ****!
Campaign heroes are not remembered between maps?
Seriously? ARE THEY RETARTED?
Great April Fools joke, isn't it?
____________
Give a man a mask, and he'll
become his true self.
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xerox
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 02, 2014 12:07 AM |
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I've never played Age of Wonders before but I bought this one and so far, im impressed! I think the biggest pro about is the atmosphere. It's amazing. I love the music. I love the environments. I love how the battlefield map always reflect the adventure map terrain. It is a very immersive game. How your city grows as your domain expands. It has that immersion and atmosphere that in my opinion, HoMM and especially H6 didn't succeed in preserving after it went HD. There are a lot of aspects of the game I would like to see implemented in HoMM. I'm also reaaaaaly happy I can play a steampunk faction. <3 <3 <3
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Over himself, over his own
body and
mind, the individual is
sovereign.
- John Stuart Mill
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RMZ1989
Supreme Hero
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posted April 02, 2014 02:02 AM |
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Edited by RMZ1989 at 02:02, 02 Apr 2014.
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xerox said:
I've never played Age of Wonders before but I bought this one and so far, im impressed! I think the biggest pro about is the atmosphere. It's amazing. I love the music. I love the environments. I love how the battlefield map always reflect the adventure map terrain. It is a very immersive game. How your city grows as your domain expands. It has that immersion and atmosphere that in my opinion, HoMM and especially H6 didn't succeed in preserving after it went HD. There are a lot of aspects of the game I would like to see implemented in HoMM. I'm also reaaaaaly happy I can play a steampunk faction. <3 <3 <3
Glad that you like it, but as JoonasTo said the game has some design flaws, and in those fields AoW 1 and AoW 2 were better. Music is amazing but only second to AoW 1, AoW 1 has the best music out of ANY games I've ever played. And some music in AoW 3 is actually from AoW 1 just remastered.
And it is true, the atmosphere in AoW games is amazing, never had that feeling in any of HoMM games except maybe in HoMM 2.
____________
Give a man a mask, and he'll
become his true self.
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JoonasTo
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted April 02, 2014 02:16 AM |
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The campaign heroes just reset when they switch roles, depending on who is the leader in the map.
Playing the campaigns on hard and LOL, they really suck at designing the AI. Seriously. I just watched it spawn 4 full stacks of firstborn and juggernauts in one turn. In one city. Just....
I don't think even H6 scripted campaigns were this bad...
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Hermes
Famous Hero
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posted April 02, 2014 02:56 AM |
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Playing Elven campaign at the moment. Story and setting, both very enjoyable. What a lovely map! Agree with Xerox, something that recent heroes lacked... Having lots of fun so far, even though Rogue as a class does not impress me. Now, some issues..
Camera control during tactical combat is so awkward. Very hard to turn it to the anglenl you want.
I am also not a fan of the building mechanic. Its bland and overused, I wish it would just all go away and let me play in a more simplistic way a-la Heroes. 
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Aron
Known Hero
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posted April 02, 2014 04:20 AM |
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JoonasTo said:
The campaign heroes just reset when they switch roles, depending on who is the leader in the map.
Playing the campaigns on hard and LOL, they really suck at designing the AI. Seriously. I just watched it spawn 4 full stacks of firstborn and juggernauts in one turn. In one city. Just....
I don't think even H6 scripted campaigns were this bad...
Ah god, sucky , cheating AI. Not that AoW 2 was much less so but you'd think they would improve after like 10 years. Mauybe I'll stay back a bit then, see if someone patches it a bit.
There are few great games in which the AI doesn't cheat, one of them is AoE 1-2 (maybe even 3 but I'm not sure).
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B0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted April 02, 2014 08:56 AM |
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This game's center of gravity is around multiplayer.
JoonasTo said:
Races are like WC2
A bit of an exaggeration, because WC2 had literally no differences aside from 2 spellcasters and +1 range/damage on archer/axethrower. But overall hard to disagree with.
Quote:
Some old remixes in music but I don't find myself enjoying it as much as I did in AoW in general.
I agree with this, and I've never played AoW I. I still prefer AoW I music. You can't accuse me of nostalgia.
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The Civilization in Fantasy world makes the game play really too slowly.
What does this even mean ? Movement is fast-paced like Heroes, none of this "1-2 squares per 50 years" crap.
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Very few spells and even copies in different schools.
Yes, there are at least 3-4 copies .
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No frostlings or halflings
Squirrels report frostlings and Necromancer class are likely to appear in first expansions/updates.
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Flanking also changes the power between tiers a LOT. Higher tier units are pretty much useless if you can't mass wield them.
That was one of the main reasons for flanking, yes. No, they're not useless. One t3 unit plus two t2 units has a definite advantage over three t2 units. Add some lower tier units to the mix to protect them from being flanked. Since WW2, tanks are usually supported by infantry to prevent them from being flanked too easily.
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Rogue sucks.
I'm trying to like the Rogue class, but it's hard. It's the least coherent and well-thought of all classes. I think it lacks a t4 unit because they had trouble coming up with an idea. It has some next to useless spells like "the unit retreats from combat" (you can only use this if you're the attacker).
The combat difficulty advisor is compelete crap, it's probably from some alpha version with completely different unit stats.
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Combat damage spells suck. First tier units do more damage.
What did you expect ? Spells are supposed to add an advantage, not do the actual fighting. Actually, at this moment direct damage spells are bordering on overpowered. In many circumstances it's hard to justify using something other than a direct damage spell.
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The UI is counterintuitive, you use right mouse click to affirm an action and left to cancel it, WHY?
There's a thread about this, it's a common complaint. WHY ? Because warcraft, I guess.
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Biggest complaint is lack of diversity.
(...)
Class units are all the same regardless of race, your elven guys will have 1 more res and orcish one more damage, big deal, no one cares.
As it stands there is no reason at all to migrate towns or try to get new racial towns since units will be the same regardless.
I very much agree with this, and many other people do. Fortunately, Triumph Studios will probably do something with this. They're gamers themselves, there's no big publisher over them. They're responding to people on forums etc. I even had a developer reply to my thread about running the game in wine on Linux (which is not officially supported).
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo RSA Animate - Smile or die
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JoonasTo
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted April 02, 2014 12:13 PM |
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Edited by JoonasTo at 12:35, 02 Apr 2014.
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What I mean with Civilization in a fantasy world is the way that empire building works out.
They simplified the game in other areas, no permanent unit buffs, alignment really doesn't mean anything, no height and range in combat, ships are useless, etc. The end result is more time spent on building cities than waging wars and exploration. Thus Civilization.
My point with high tier units being useless in their own is that when you get your t3,t2, you can usually have two t2s for one t3 and the t2s will beat the t3. This is even more prevalent with t2, especially cavalry. Two t1 archers(that are not dwarven crossbowmen) will always beat a t2 cavalry. Hell, longbowmen can almost beat the cavalry on their own!
You should be able to kill tier 0 unit with a mage fist, there's no reason not to be able to do this. Magic is VERY strong in AoW, just look at the summons or globals, combat magic in this just seems generally very underpowered.
Remember the old cosmic spray that everyone feared? The one that could freeze, shock or immolate? Yeah, the current one just does meager damage. Or blind that fails 50% of the time on FIRST TIER UNITS!
The combat magic as it is now needs to gain more value, roughly double the effectiveness for all spells.
Then there are the unit buffs, why did they have to be combat exclusive? I like my hasted eagles! Liquid form (nigh) immortal heroes, enchant weapon tier 1 swordsmen taking out physical immunes, etc.
Now that strategic side is completely gone. Instead we seem to get less spells to beef up units in combat. This means losing a turn from your hero to cast +1 damage and shocking? REALLY? Who ever thought this was a good idea? When T1 units do 30 damage you give me a +1(+3 cum.) damage enchantment? I still have that ridiculously underpowered 20 damage magefist that works way better. (Sphere of protection rocks though, dragons? FEAR NOT MYLADY! OUR BRAVE KOBOLD SHALL TAKE THEM ON!)
PS. I forgot to mention Swarm Darters with longbowmen and crossbowmen earlier, they definitely deserve a spot, this was the kind of diversity we wanted!
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B0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted April 02, 2014 12:58 PM |
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JoonasTo said:
Then there are the unit buffs, why did they have to be combat exclusive? I like my hasted eagles! Liquid form (nigh) immortal heroes, enchant weapon tier 1 swordsmen taking out physical immunes, etc.
All the complaints about lack of unit enchantments on adventure map I've seen boil down to "It's inconvenient". This one is not an exception.
They've removed them from adventure map because they were a no-brainer. Stacking enchantments on units was by far the most effective method to use casting points. It was negatively affecting strategy, because summoning units or casting city enchantments seemed bad in comparison. Most people agree that this time around there are more viable choices.
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Now that strategic side is completely gone. Instead we seem to get less spells to beef up units in combat. This means losing a turn from your hero to cast +1 damage and shocking? REALLY? Who ever thought this was a good idea?
Most AoW III players.
I believe the +1 damage comes before other modifiers. For example, you get the base damage, add 10. The minimum damage range is 80% of that, maximum is 120%. So if you have a unit that deals 10 damage in melee, +1 damage is more like +10%.
A common complaint about T4 units in previous Age of Wonders games was that they utterly dominated. Now they are still the most powerful, but can be taken down by lesser units.
____________
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JoonasTo
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted April 02, 2014 02:20 PM |
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So the fix to your car's broken tyre is to trash the car? That is not how you fix problems!
The main issue was with too powerful low level enchantments. Enchant weapon gave +1 damage that one cared about but the trick was that it also gave magic weapon which was the most useful enchantment in the game. For 10 mana and +1 upkeep. It was the cheapest and best enchantment in the game. Take away the magic weapon and voila! Problem solved!
Liquid form was really good too but so what? It also cost fortunes to upkeep and it was countered by enchant weapon. It was also a late tier spell.
There was also this one spell, magically effective at drowning, imprisoning and totally slaughtering overbuffed units. It was called dispel, you might have heard of it.
The +1 attack was good back when the enchantments were continuous. It was a decent bonus for the mana upkeep it required.
For a temporary boost in battle it just isn't viable. Assuming you get roughly 2 hits per turn in combat that's +2 damage a turn. You need five turns to break even with a simple damage spell on mana cost. How many units survive for five turns engaged in combat? Not to mention lost turn for your hero. Assuming the average life of a unit is around 3 combat turns against equal opponents that comes to around +6 damage for the spell. HOW IS THAT EVEN REMOTELY USEFUL?? T1 units have 40 hitpoints for christ's sake!!
They tried their hardest to make combat magic useless and they succeeded in it.
Streamlining sounds cool for the main public and we can see it working, just from this thread we have Xerox and Hermes here, but it just means pissing in the cereals of us veterans.
Tier 4 units not dominating? *krhm* juggernaut *krhm*
PS. If casting enchatments on units, after your initial force, was more useful for you than animate ruins, you were doing something very wrong.
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RMZ1989
Supreme Hero
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posted April 02, 2014 02:38 PM |
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Edited by RMZ1989 at 14:50, 02 Apr 2014.
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I am impressed and disappointed at the same time. On one hand I really like current combat system(even though flanking might be a bit too strong and I would nerf it) and a lot of other stuff in the game, but on the other hand as others have said, game lacks diversity.
I really think that devs will listen and that this game will become a lot better in the future. I don't mind that units are basically the same between the same leader(even though they could make them a bit different, have different bonuses and special abilities), but having like 7 units per race where 6 of them are again almost the same between races is pretty bad.
I want my army to be diverse, Goblin Bombers, Mighty Kharaghs, Doom Bats, Hydras, Treants, Mole Riders, Orc Warlords and many more.
All those units that were really powerful but were completely different, had different role, mobility, utility etc.
EDIT: Oh and btw, I am really pleased to hear about Frostlings and Necromancer class, but on the other hand I would like even more if I could play as Undead... I probably will as Necromancer, but I want to play pure Undead faction like in games before this one, and not as Goblin or Dwarf Undead.
____________
Give a man a mask, and he'll
become his true self.
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B0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted April 02, 2014 06:21 PM |
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Edited by B0rsuk at 18:22, 02 Apr 2014.
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JoonasTo said:
So the fix to your car's broken tyre is to trash the car? That is not how you fix problems!
Some "options" in games are so powerful they make other "options" not worth considering. Think BFG9000 or Quad Damage/Invulnerability pickups. In more competitive setting, in duels, clan matches it's very common to disable these. They are so powerful the game starts revolving around them. The game degenerates into "who can get Quad Damage the most".
It is possible to improve something by removing an unnecessary part, yes.
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The main issue was with too powerful low level enchantments. Enchant weapon gave +1 damage that one cared about but the trick was that it also gave magic weapon which was the most useful enchantment in the game. For 10 mana and +1 upkeep. It was the cheapest and best enchantment in the game. Take away the magic weapon and voila! Problem solved!
I think not. The metagame would simply change to another enchantment. There are other cheap, good enchantments like Dark Gift, Haste (now requires a mastery),Seeker. Others were more expensive, but still worth it.
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There was also this one spell, magically effective at drowning, imprisoning and totally slaughtering overbuffed units. It was called dispel, you might have heard of it.
No. What does it do ?
Maybe they just didn't want their game to revolve around enchantments. It's not like you lack options on adventure map now - you can summon, cast instant spells, enchant cities, cast global spells. People keep saying there are more viable options now.
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Tier 4 units not dominating? *krhm* juggernaut *krhm*
So you've played many multiplayer games already ?
Triumph Studios stated back in 2004 or 2005 that they have no intention of making a simple remake. They wanted to change some fundamentals. You are not even trying to see positive aspects of the situation or make constructive points. The different foundation allows for things not possible in AoW2:SM. I think you're living in the past. If you want AoW2:SM, you know where to find it.
____________
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo RSA Animate - Smile or die
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JoonasTo
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted April 02, 2014 07:26 PM |
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I never liked AoW:SM that much, AoW is my game. ^^
SM had too little importance on heroes, this one brings some of that back, a clear improvement in my mind.
Dark gift is nowhere near as good as enchant weapon and you know it. But that is beside the point and the fact is that you could have simply nerfed them a bit and all would have been fine. Make haste tier 3 spell, for example. These are no brainers if you spend even a second thinking about them. Instead of doing that they decided to ditch it completely.
The issue was that some enchantments were too good for their price. No one would have had an issue with enchant weapon if it had been a tier 3 or 4 spell.
If they are expensive and worth their price it means they are designed well!
Besides, you could always cast one dispel and get rid of all the enchantments the unit had.
And it's not like AoW3 doesn't have it's issues with cheap spells, domain of - spells are a nobrainer because they bring way too much benefit for their cost. The upkeep for the spell is less than the improved mana production in a developed city!
The current game on any larger map soon turns to enchant city/disjunct city and it's ridiculously stupid. I'll take the dispelling enemy army just before attack(or while it's water walking or flying over a lake, lel, gg) instead.
Another thing about the spells now is that we have much more city spells, very few global spells. I don't like this. The domain of the city is very small so what use is buffing summoned units in that city except one day before enemy attack? They're too limited. Summoner's domain and whatnot should be domain spells working in your whole domain, not just one small city.
Also, why on earth can't two heroes cast spells on the same turn? This just baffles me. I don't get what's the point here. Afraid that because spells no longer have range they could be used to whittle down enemy forces before engagement happens? With the current spellpower that wouldn't matter, just doesn't make sense to me. Why have heroes with spellcasting if they can't use it.
Also speaking of summoning, there needs to be more effective way of doing it. Summoning low level creatures is fine. Summoning eldritch horrors is not. Sorceress doesn't have anything hard hitting(because combat spells are utter crap) except the horror and summoning one takes 3-2 turns on average while dreadnought can churn out juggernauts from all his cities. You can make two wisps a turn and that is okay. But waiting three turns to make one eldritch horror, while being completely blocked from casting any other spells, mind you, just does not work. There needs to be a building that can summon units in cities, not just from the hero casting points.
The thing with juggernauts is that they hard counter a little too many units at once. You can't swarm them with low levels, ranged doesn't work, anything below firstborns just tickles them. On larger maps you can amass a decent army of them and be unstoppable against some picks.
But this is initial release of an Age of Wonders game, they're not exactly known for being balanced. Elephant rush, anyone? How about first strike + lightning strike hero?
If you don't see anything positive in my posts you're reading them wrong.
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B0rsuk
Promising
Famous Hero
DooM prophet
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posted April 02, 2014 07:47 PM |
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You know, it is likely you'd receive a developer (or betatester) response to one of your questions if you posted on official forums. For example it has been said that "1 spell per turn" limit has been added in beta because sniping opposing heroes and important units with DD spells gave too much first turn advantage. So they've removed it, and there was much rejoicing. I asked a few times why the limit was added for ALL spells rather than direct damage only, but no response so far.
As for enchantments, it wasn't just the question of price and balance. They wanted to get away from doom stacks. This is the reason why stack size has been lowered from 8 to 6.
You're conveniently forgetting that Eldritch Horror and Horned God can be summoned where it's needed, even at a backwater village in the middle of nowhere. AoW is much less choke-point based than HOMM, so that actually matters. And your cities don't have to sit idle in the meantime - they can produce t3 units. You get that by default as opposed to Dreadnought or Warlord who needs to get a mastery to earn a summonable t3 unit (and only one kind).
Juggernauts are vulnerable to strong melee units. They have no retaliations. They don't heal and are fairly slow. They're good at sieges and city defense, but not so hot in the field.
____________
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RMZ1989
Supreme Hero
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posted April 03, 2014 12:25 AM |
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Edited by RMZ1989 at 00:30, 03 Apr 2014.
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I just finished my 1v1 against King(I think) AI that was Human Rogue, me being Draconian Theocrat, on medium map. What a game! Even though I'm unhappy with unit diversity, I'm still enjoying the game quite a lot!
About Juggernauts, I've never saw them in battle, I guess they are alike Steam Tanks from AoW:SM?
Shrines of Smiting are freaking amazing, they are absolutely sick.
Completely agreeing with one spell per turn in combat... in this game I had a hero with Hornet Swarm that in first turn left 4 of their units on very low HP, and if you have multiple heroes with such spells(which isn't unheard of), enemy will start with half his army...
Can't wait for the new patches and game updates!
Also, I agree with JoonasTo about enchantment case. Enchantments seem rather weak, especially because now a lot of units have dispel magic/steal enchantment and I am getting it with heroes quite a lot too. They could use a buff, maybe not to the AoW:SM level, but except for mass enchanting there is not point in casting a single enchantment with a hero in battle when you can cast a lot better stuff.
Before Enchantments were really good, now there is more options, but enchanting isn't one of them.
____________
Give a man a mask, and he'll
become his true self.
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JoonasTo
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
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posted April 03, 2014 01:58 AM |
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The whole spell limit just makes all hero spell casting useless pick. They should have made you only able to cast spells inside your own domain or when your main is combat. This would have made heroes usefull spellcasters for leading your armies. They're currently kind of pointless to spec in spells.
I don't know how doomstacks are affected by the stack size as you can just as easily move 4x6 as 3x8 stacks as a group. I mean, instead of 8 longbowmen, I am now moving 12 around so, eh.
I'm talking late game large maps here. Sure, it's nice to summon the eldritch horrors to where your advance is without all the extra hassle of the logistics chain but that's still one unit every 3 turns while your opponent gets his t4s three at a time in two turns. In six turns you have 2 and he has 9. It's not a very fun game at that point.
That's why sorceress in particular could do with a summoning portal.
Juggernauts are basically steamtanks with double the hitpoints and damage potential. Yes, they are slow. You have roads and advanced logistics for that. Healing doesn't matter as they have 100 hitpoints and ridiculous armour to begin with. Even most t3s can't hurt them! As soon as you can force an engagement with 4 or more of them you will cripple the opposing army if he doesn't have firstborns or something like that.
Shrines of smiting are kind of like Juggernauts, just weaker. They're an obvious copy unit but juggernauts got area damage and shrines of smiting floating.
Perhaps if they'd kept the transport mechanism and made them transports so you can only have one per army they'd be balanced. Kind of like how airships used to be back in the day. Still ridiculously strong but you couldn't make that doomstack out of them.
I'm at that point in the campaigns where my heroes steamroll everything on their own. The only thing they can't kill are ships since not everyone has flying mount yet.
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Hermes
Famous Hero
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posted April 03, 2014 06:57 AM |
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So, finished 1st mission of Elven Court, no reap troubles. Draconians feel good, I like them actually.
I have then started a scenario as a human sorcerer, summoning all the monsters etc. Very fun. I am a noob at that game, so here few questions for pros, would you be so kind to answer them
1. Whats the point of the traits which you select when creating a hero? Say, adept of fire. Does it cost just unlock upgrade options for the hero on level ups?
2. So the army costs upkeep, do summoned creatures too?
3. I always end up with the excess mana despite casting, any idea why?
4. How do you start with developing your first city? I start with building population and happiness increasing building.
5. Any way to automate city building?
6. Any way to read tome of wonders without launching the game?
7. About army composition, end game - mass tier 4 seems to beat everything?
8. Global spells, such as sorceress omen, do they worth it?
9. When is the right time to expand?
10. Should I leave a garrison defending my cities at all times?
11. Do heroes become formidable fighters on their own at the ene game?
Thank you!!
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JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
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posted April 03, 2014 08:14 AM |
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I've got too much work at the moment, however, today I'll get to play some.
I've been playing the first campaign map, and my impression about casting, spells, and global Enchantments is completely different. Keep in mind that in the first campaign you play as an Elven Rogue (which seems to be considered as somewhat weak by the playing community). At the stage I'm in we are talking about Tier I and II creatures mostly, even though opponent has Tier IIIs as well.
Research-wise, Poison Mastery is adding +2 Poison damage for all units except shooters, which is a pretty nice global spell (in fact it's a Mass Unit Enchantment, actually). Then there is the hero skill that gives additional damage against devout units (and since your opponent is a Theocrat, that's quite a good "global" skill as well).
Also, the Rogue starts with a damage spell (Poison Darts or something like that), and when you have to fight against the rather robust Orcish units, the spell - a STARTER spell on a beginner level hero(!) - which costs only 10 Mana (of 30 I have to cast at that early stage), does good damage at a time, when nothing else can, without actually making yourself vulnerable; it serves well to weaken the strong Tier II Orc units to make them killable a turn later.
So for me, everything looks right at the moment.
I also agree with the Borsuc and the designers, that the unit enchantment spells have been put out of the game, since they were obvious no-brainers, same thing as with all-hero stacks, casting the crap out of everything. That kind of thing is just no fun. Using your mana (excess) to summon creatures, on the other hand, has become much more interesting, since it would seem that you have more Mana (research has its own resource now): basically, it would seem that this makes money and mana much more interchangeable, since you can keep a constant unit production flow going: if you are building a town up, you can use mana to produce summons, and if you use your Mana for global spells or need it in combat you can produce town (racial) units.
Combat mechanisms are much nearer to thos of HoMM now; you can basically use everything: in HoMM, a basically useless leftover or single unit stack can be used to block or retaliation-steal, while in AoW III you can use it mainly for the same thing, as flanking sacrifice, avoiding potentially deadly retaliation for your valuable units.
Bottom line is, I'm much more excited about the game than about any other game since TotE; however, I would also have to wait with any definite verdict for lack of meaningful playing time.
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