This kind of video are so good that I remain convinced that their place are on your main channel and not here. 40 minutes in depth review is the more valuable kind of content you create, in my arrogant opinion
I love filthy, but I must admit I'm getting a bit confused by his channels. It looks like there are two, but I think there's three? I'm not sure which is the main and which channel is dedicateded to what :p Although, saying that it only takes a few seconds for me to click on each channel to see what new vids are up, so cant complain.
I think the biggest thing they could do for the AI wouldn’t even take much effort: make it more aggressive when it comes to going after your territory and engaging you on your turf. And this game has one of the same big issues that Civ6 has: when you’re friends with the AI, they just give you their stuff for cheap and buy things from you for a lot. But that’s only when you have a maximized alliance, so it’s actually better than Civ6 in that respect. It goes from “too much” to “too cheap” too quickly. Also an easy fix.
@@onesteek4you Making the AI more aggressive is most likely the hardest thing to do. There's tons of variables and behaviours that feed into this. If you don't know what is causing the aggressiveness to mess up then you're just band-aiding the situation. Like is the AI getting distracting and clearing nodes when they are moving, do they see too much threat from certain stacks or areas, are they over valuing the Siege Duration etc.
@@Akazury Well, they could do things like have the AI make more armies and when you start pillaging, they come after you. Prioritize non-Scouts to chase on the World Map. I do see some degree of prioritization in combat, like trying to pin ranged units, going for the easy kills, and things like that. Maybe prioritize dealing the most damage over killing the weakest targets (this would help some with the vines; so like if it can do 2 attacks for 20 damage against an 80HP target, do that instead of wasting a whole turn doing 20 damage to a 5HP vine). But hell, I’ve had to attack vines before just to be able to move. Or something like “if unit has Web attack, spread out instead of clumping”. “If unit has straight line lightning wand, don’t line up”. I don’t really know because I’m not a programmer, these just feel like simple if/then prompts that could be added. Oh and “if enemy city is within 12 hexes, pump out armies and wreck their shit.” Even Civ6 has that programmed in.
This video is pure gold. Agree with everything. Also it's obvious that author loves the game but can't get fun from it anymore cause of valid problems he described. 100% mustview for the devs
Yeah this was my feeling as well, some interesting systems but so much to balance and so bad of AI, not to mention bugs and exploits. Instead of fixing core issues, I'm alarmed that they are seemingly more committed to putting out new content, and even had players pay upfront for that experience (season pass?). I feel the trajectory of this game will be that it gets a lot of new content but the AI will not improve. Would love to be wrong.
A major patch seems to have been released yesterday, how do you feel about the game now? I'm interested in buying the game but I feel it's convenient to wait a bit longer so they fix the problems, add content and maybe sell it all together
I think it's a pretty fun game for a while but there's nothing interesting enough about it to keep coming back to it. I kinda think it's worth buying because it's really fun for a few games. After that you have basically experienced almost all the types of challenges the game can give you. I'd probably rate it like, 6.5/10. IDK what the patch would do exactly since I've moved to other things, sorry. @@alessandro7630
I hope Triumph see this vid as your points are spot on. I know that they are balancing in-combat summons and trying to rebalance the affinity tree. My biggest criticism with AI is allies doing nothing, they start wars but just camp their armies on their cities for the entire game. It would be nice to direct them to fight a city or *do* something.
Harsh. But fair. Personally, I love to just make worlds and 'RP' within them. But the AI makes that borderline impossible. And it's just as hard finding people to do something similar in MP. The dragon DLC looks awesome, and some of the problems do seem to be actively worked on, but I can only assume the AI will not be one of those.
It absolutely HAS to be changed to that there is only one hero allowed per army stack. And yes, tech goes so fast, I rarely build research buildings after early game. We all complained to them about the Planetfall AI, and they never fixed it.
i agree with this pretty much. i'm at ~130 hours and everything you said about the AI is why i stopped playing. i really REALLY enjoy this game. but the AI is just too stupid for singleplayer/co op to feel like a worth use of my game time. hopefully desyncs/AI fixes are at the top of the list. i was very disappointed when the devs teased the "wyvern" update in a dev diary and made *ZERO* mentions of AI improvements. hopefully they aren't so disconnected from their community that they don't notice the AI being by far the biggest issue. most 4x gamers do *not* play multiplayer. which you can clearly garner by community posts and steam global achievement percentages. the AI, needs to be aggressive and needs to have the tools to punish the player. if it lacks that, the game will have no staying power. also your section on summoning is so funny coming from an AoW3 player. cause in aow3 production units were by far the better strategy because you could only summon, and hold, 1 unit at a time in aow3. in aow4 you can keep all your summon's "ready" to go. and have like 5-10 summons on deck whenever you need them. tier 2 units have a base upkeep of 12 gold, not 20. so it's exactly 2.5 tier 2 units for the price of 1 hero over the cap.
You do not need to pillage a spell jammer to disable it, just occupying it is enough (this can often easily be achieved by summoning a cheep unit just outside the enemy border)
Players know this and leave guards. Which means you have to beat an army without your spells, while they have spells to regain your ability to cast spells to beat their army.
@@FilthyRobotGames Yes in MP games spell jammers are obviously a very powerful defensive tool. The developers clearly wanted the defender to have an advantage as there are many many tools that can give a defender an advantage with spell jammers being the strongest. I do think that they are a bit too strong and would like to see them changed to still allow the attacker to cast spells, but at twice the normal cost. I wonder if that is something that could be done with a mod...
@@Solus749 Oh, if it wasn't clear, I do think that the developers should change how spell jammers work, I was only wondering if it could be modded if they don't or take too long time to do it. Also, this is mostly a MP problem and the majority of players play this kind of games in SP only. That is not an excuse for not having MP being playable of course, but it is a reason for developers to focus mostly on SP problems early on.
Your points are all really valid. As a casual, I personally really appreciate the dumb AI for now. I like that I, as a not very good startegy game player, caj focus on roleplay and customization and then still be confident in my play through, deciding when im ready to win. But I can 100% see how this would create fatigue and apathy over time. I could be playing a completely defensive build, and still win by just taking everyone's capitols while their units are off doing who knows what. I can be playing an intensely melee and combat focused build, and still beat everyone to a magic victory. I can tell that if i ever am good at the game, like having a deeper understanding, that anyone would eventually get tired of every win being viable for your faction all the time without contest. That being said, I hope they leave the dumber AI for the lower difficulties, Very Easy/Easy, and really tweak the Normal and higher AI, that way it is still very accessible to new players, but has somewhere for the more experienced players to play later on.
While I agree on most of your points, and agree that there is a lot that can be done to improve the game in terms of AI and balance, I think you simply are expecting too much too fast of the developers. AoW4 is a very complex game with a lot of innovative features. Expecting the game not to have broken ways it can be exploited or to have good AI that can challenge a human without cheating is simply unrealistic. The more complex a game is, the harder it is to balance and the harder it is to program an AI that can play it well. As far as I know there is no 4X game with an that can challenge a good human player without cheating (a lot). And most 4X games are less complex than AoW4. Triumph Studious have a good track record of listening to their players and support and fix their games. Just don't expect it to happen overnight, such things take time. In addition, the game have very good mod support, so I expect that there will (eventually) be mods that address almost any problem with game balance. If you want the game to be more balanced you could always make a balance mod yourself.... Personally I really enjoy playing the game myself, so much that I can't stop playing and are using way too much of my time (324 h so far) on the game. I have only played singleplayer so far. I have found that the game can be reasonably challenging if you play on brutal difficulty, normal distance between players and are giving yourself the minor handicap (your units do 15% less damage and the enemy do 15% more damage) in the advanced settings. I also stay away form using the really cheesy exploits (such as hero farming). In my current game I had to do some very rushed defense of my cities because unlike what some people say, the AI will attack and take your cities if it gets a chance to do so. It also like to raid and pillage your stuff. Also disable magic victory, or alternatively don't allow yourself to win that way while still allowing the AI to do it. One thing I really like about this game compared to other 4x (including earlier versions of AoW) it that the game never bugs down with micromanagement. In other 4X games there is often a point where I am so strong that the AI's have no chance of stopping me, but turns take way too long berceuse of micromanagement, so I end up never finishing that game.
This. Right here. Do I believe they can make the AI better? Yes. They have explicitly said they aim to and have pinned a forum thread asking for save files to get into the nitty gritty of what the AI is doing. Will they be able to make it the equivalent of playing against a human who comprehends the complexity that this game already is and will be even more so in the future? No. It will come down to them ironing out the multiplayer issues and letting people go at each other. When that happens, this game will be all the difficulty anyone could ask for.
@@Smithers322 Yes, they will not make AI play like human (no big 4x ever does it). But they can fix it so it will at least not make stupid mistakes (like blinking inside enemy army or strategic passiveness). With all that and with economical cheats AI could deliver needed challenge.
I wanted to thank you for this video. I've been looking for a game like this for a long time and your video has convinced me this may be that game, i'm off to get it from Steam. Thumbs up. EDIT..........I should have watched the complete review before I commented. The A.I. being really bad is a big disappointment for me. I'm an old guy (54) and I do not have friends who play computer games like me, so I will have no one to play against once I learn the game. Being stuck playing a sub pare computer A.I. doesn't sound very exciting. Bummer.
Great analysis. I began to drift myself from the game because of the brain dead AI. Too bad, because as you talk about at the beginning of the video, there are a number of excellent mechanics that make the game enjoyable when first playing it.
I love listening to your brilliant mind. There is more challenge in this world for you than just games. I have 140 hours in the game, in single player. I'm delighted by the balance rifts because I keep finding completely broken strategies. I keep it fresh by playing for perfect games, where I surrender if I lose a battle or get hurt by a cheese. Perhaps when I get to your level of understanding I'll get frustrated by the problems, but I'm still learning the nuance. Right now, I'm starting to try to master the province improvements since I am sure there are more ways to break the game with those. If I get to 200 hours, it will be a massive success and a great value for the money spent.
Yah, I have no intention to steal anyone's joy with these reviews. If you're enjoying the game as is, more power to you mate! But for me, the cracks show through in this game in the worst way and it robs me of the ability to enjoy the game.
I'm more optimistic about dlcs and future updates. I have played around 2k hours in the aow series. Triumph is one of the better game devs imo. They seem straight forward and fairly reactive while the game is alive. When Paradox bought them I thought it was over: 20 dlcs of factions and junk. But it seems like they're still doing the 3 major dlc thing, which I like because it gives me a reason to come back to the game. Mods will also make a big difference because many systems are so modular. I don't think they will be able to fix the AI though. After getting bored with the dragon dlc next week, maybe check out aow:planetfall?
I remember the ai from AoW3. That ai doesn`t give a shit and could stand still for the entire fight until a draw is called. Far from that this ai from aow4 will throw at you every single time. I mean, is still an ai. Sooner or later it will be boring playing against it but 2 games? Is too dumb. I`ll add that heroes items needs a serious rework, they are boring and tedious.
From what we've seen oof the upcoming patch, at least the developers are not afraid to make drastic (and less drastic) changes to the balance. Now we just have to hope they can get the AI to a playable state.
still not gonna solve the tomb and race state stats balance issues vs age of wonders 3 where you had fully developed classes. There are improvements in 4 over 3 such as the temporary health vs 3's heal stalling ( if certain class for most part ). Doesn't stop the experience in 4 to be a negative one though. Taking the enemy hero as your own in 4 isn't exactly helping either. Long story short they made the create your faction+tombs to complicated mechanicly to make it nearly impossible to balance. Troopbalance is off and unlocking powerful new traits through a roguelike between games isn't exactly helping new players.
I can definitely understand losing interest in single player because of imbalances/lack of difficult AI. Personally, I would like to see balancing for multiplayer be multiplayer exclusive. I think that could allow for much tighter balance where it matters (e.g. multiplayer) but still leaves single-player with OP things that people can use if they so choose.
Thanks for the review on this i agree on all the points hope your do a patch/note review also when that comes around would love too hear your thoughts about it cheers
Late game you get so much research, i've had games where after i was done with my t5 tome i picked a t1 tome for a buff spell and i researched the whole tome on the same turn and got to choose a new tome.
As someone who is a lot more casual about this game and has played Age of Wonders 3 and Age of Wonders:Plantefall a lot of things you outlined are unnoticable to me or are an improvement over previous games in the series, as sad as that, may, sound. Doomsday Victory in Planetfall, which is similar to Magic Victory, was 10 turns, not neutral armies would spawn and if you were ahead of the AI it would also sit and do nothing in my expirience, so the way Age of Wonders 4 handles it is an improvement. I believe the reason that AI is struggling largely revolves around it relying on autoresolve to clear neutral stacks resulting in them sending waves after waves of units to clear wonders and nodes, which are also scaled up by the world difficulty. Improving AI's competence in auto combat won't solve this issue as neural stacks would get the same AI. My fear of improving AI competence is that it may resolve in very slow and tedious manual battles while making auto combat better, this would result in massive loss of insentive to engage with tactical combat in this game. I do agree that diplomacy AI could use a lot of work. I don't play MP so can't say anything here. But I agree that balance should be better. Blobby army movement was even worse in previous games, so I view current one more favourably. I don't think I ever saw a 4X game that has comeback mechanics. While I agree with some point in this review I wouldn't say that this game was a disaster especially considering other releases in this year.
You make some good points, I just think most of those points only really apply to the people looking to min-max in the game. There are some absolutely broken combos, but you kinda have to be aiming for those as opposed to just stumbling across them. And there are definitely standout traits, tomes, etc. But you don’t always have to play with those. You don’t always have to play the most optimal combos. And are you playing on Brutal difficulty? Using map options to spice things up? Anyway, my point is: this game for me is less about being a meaningful challenge (which it’s still a challenge for me but as I said, I’m still playing around with it as opposed to going for all the optimizations I see content creators doing) and more about just having fun with it. I plan to try out all the different traits and race abilities and play styles eventually. Hell, I’m still on Easy mode (feel free to laugh) and feel like I’m getting a challenge. By the time I’m good enough (without using the maximized options) to progress to Brutal, I’ll have hundreds of hours in the game. That’s a worthwhile investment. Hell, I think the game has already earned it’s pricetag. And it’s much more robust than like…Civ6. I love the random quests and how no two games are alike…at *all*. I’ve only been doing Story Realms and it’s different every time except for the main story. It’s crazy how much randomization they have while still making it feel organic. So I can forgive the AI for being dumb (but not half as dumb as the Civ6 AI). What I would love to see more than anything (and also dread) is an AI that’s more aggressive about coming after my territory. I’ve heard it gets a little better on higher difficulty but not much. Right now I see no point in investing anything in my defenses. An AI that uses the world map spells to mess with you and decides to go after your space would change this game entirely, though. Even if the tactical combat stayed “dumb”, this would ramp up the difficulty considerably. Kinda like in Civ6 if they just would have the AI build planes. One small change that would change the meta entirely. But for now…I’m loving it. I recommend this game to anyone who loves fantasy and loves more than just a board game level of engagement. This game has *story*. It has *lore*. That alone sets it apart from most 4x games.
You may be their ideal audience. A "casual" (not meant as a put down here) player who enjoys moving the pieces around but isn't much fussed about how if you pay attention to how the game works you break it immediately. Awesome, I have no wish to steal anyone's joy.
@@FilthyRobotGames Yeah, maybe. I see the broken combos. I see the ideal setups. I’m just choosing to play what I want to play without worrying about winning in the fastest or most optimal way. What’s the absolute weakest possible combo of things while still being playable? Why not try that? Sure, I could go Tome of the Horde, Spider Mounts, and Dark Culture and run roughshod over everything with no challenge at all. And I probably will at some point. But for now, I’m playing for flavor, not optimization (except as it pertains to what I’m doing). Like I’m doing Wood Elves right now. Ranged, Barbarian, a mixture of animals…and it’s fun. I did Undead in the scenario before this and went all-in on Dark and that was fun. It’s not just about moving the pieces around and there isn’t just one single method of winning that you can apply regardless of culture/trait/tome combos, unlike Civ6 (as an example). You have to adapt the way you play to what you’re playing. That’s what makes it fun. Is it breakable? Absolutely. But how about playing the “broken” combos and avoiding the things that make them broken? You can take Tome of the Horde and *not* use Spawnkin. You can take Spider mounts and *not* hyperfocus on mounted units. Just mix it up and have fun with it.
There is a spell in the Tome of Horde that deals 3 fire damage for each tier 1 unit. There can be 18 units in three armies. Let's say you took 17 spider Scouts into battle and one hero who gives plus 20% damage from spells and during the battle you put a special tower that gives another 20% damage from spells. 17*3=51 damage without buffs 51/100*40=20 this is 40% of 51 51+20=71 total damage 71 damage to a single target and 50% (35) of the damage to everyone nearby. As a wizard king, I have a spell that allows you to cast a tactical spell twice. This is one shot to your hero.
Everything you dislike about the AI is the same in every 4x game. AI that can play this style of strategy game competently, without cheating, has not been created yet. We're probably a long ways off from that. The single player experiences in this game are the same as the single player experiences in any 4x game, either super cheating AI (artificial difficulty) or super easy AI (power fantasy). If you do not like either of those playstyles, single player 4x might not be for you.
Strategic AI yes, but tactical AI in turn-based grid games is often quite fine. To take Filthy's example, I don't remember HoMM AI ever walk a ranged unit in melee when it can just do a ranged attack.
@@playingcasually Thing is, the AI did not walk a ranged unit into melee, it walked a hero unit, which is all types. Now maybe they could make it so the AI notices how many points you've put into each archetype and play accordingly, but then it would never play a hero unit as an all rounder, thus creating another issue. I suppose with this change you could make auto resolve hero builds meant to play into archetype recognition, and make hero builds solely meant for manual combat. With current AI technology, I do not see a way around this.
The tactical fights in HoMM are so simple compared to AoW4 that it is no wonder that the AI could do reasonable well (you could often still win against stronger armies, so it was not like it would do nearly as well as a Human) The tactical AI in AoW4 is decent in most cases. In my experiences it is only using heroes that it is really bad at, especially if those heroes have teleport abilities.
@@Kris_Lighthawk It would be decent if it actually attacked you in a war and didn't just split their armies and raze your provinces until you go chase them away like cockroaches. Or run around the map and do nothing. I think I've seen one strategic spell cast by the AI. I have a game where my allies crown city is open and undefended and the AI's 6 stacks are just razing provinces and get picked off.
@@rotrotmcgee1107 I have had the AI sieging my cities more than once and one AI even managed to take one of my cities, although I was able to take it back before it could convert it. I have also seen AI take cities from other AI quite a few times, but yes, in general the AI is not very good at capturing cities.
Excellent analysis and feedback, very well thought out and to the point. I love the game and would love to see it become S-tier like you. Hopefully, the Devs are listening to you and other UA-camrs. After all, it's business and money in the bank to do so.
Newb - I guess you played other simple games like Civ as well? :P Try EU4 or for a 'fantasy' setting then try out Dominions. This game is a husk of a strategy game.
@@nealm6764 It's the way of the world these days mate. Dumb things down, allow everyone to be anything thus negating any real difference in playstyle all in the name of trying to make it popular for the masses. Look at Vikky 3 compared to 2, or CK3 compared to 2... oversized icons (pretty pictures) and wasted screen realestate showing no real information to keep it 'simple'.
@@smackhead Wow, it is so true. Especially the demand to have no limits and be Anything and Everything... And of course forced equality of everything until nothing is special, just slightly different. Imagine a wizard being attuned and adept at both chaos and order? Death and life magic" WTF? But it is the new GRR Martin fantasy. Nothing has to make sense in Fantasy because "Hurr durr there are dragons and stuff!!!!"
Overall I like the review, but I'm kind of stuck on the very first sentence. How in any way is the world map and base management of this game similar to Total War Warhammer? I don't understand that comparison at all
Sir, thats a quality review, that i havent encounter in a long long time. I hope you will be able to live from reviewing games, because you are gifted.
You should look at the other reviews it's impossible to make everyone happy all the time so far this is the only review I've come across that is so much bs I think he's the only 1 crying over the game I haven't picked it up yet but due to this review I'm gonna get it today
With regard to spell-jammers, I found them to be a pain in my early game, as you describe. However, with a bit more experience I found them easy to deal with, at least as a PvE player. You could use the chaos perk to one-turn pillage, which is really powerful, but even that's not necessary. Just immediately before engaging a fight - move a single unit to stand on top of the spell jammer. Even something simple, like a scout. Or you could summon a tier 1 unit on top of it. Having a unit standing on an improvement temporarily disables the improvement, so with the spell jammer disabled, you can cast spells to your heart's content.
I agree with almost everything you said. The terrible AI quality and the increasing pace of tech development are major problems. If I'm able to win "Brutal" difficulty basically not losing any units then it says something about the AI. I play only SP, so some of the issues are not that painful for me (like support heroes - I often prioritize the support skills for all or almost all heroes). They are making some balance changes, they nerfed the summons, made some changes to the affinity tree, but the new DLC brings lots of features that look OP and will unbalance the game again.
As a single player guy. I agree with everything you said about it. The AI is so bad. The tech is way too fast in the mid to late game. I played my 2nd campain and based it largely around this tier 3 tome, but I didn't even get to use it before I had something much better. Going from tier 3 to tier 5 happens before you've managed to finish your tier 3 army. Sad, cause I love a lot about this game. So much potential that's kinda ruined by the balance issues and the AI.
7 minutes for the positives and 30 for the negatives, oof. I do agree on all of it though, as someone who is currently completely addicted. I wish the devs will take this exact video and turn it into a to-do list
AoW series had problems with AI from the start, and AoW2, for example, was massively less complex than this one. Making an AI that can effectively interact with so many systems is probably impossible with the "classic" approach to coding AI. And I am not sure that using machine learning would be feasible.
For now i am having a lot of fun with this game, i dont know if it will be the same in the enxt 50 hours, but since you mention than they are going to buff some broken units i think is important to clarify that summons as a whole are getting nerf in combat
Unless im playing animals+horde, i have tons of trouble with the AI on normal. Maybe im just bad at the game? But the AI has massively more armies than me most of the time, and i struggle to win fights without serious losses when there are large armies involved
there are some good points here. some of them have already been fixed or improved. and some of them never will, they are the nature of the age of wonders series. for example, unbalanced heroes. if you think its bad in AOW4 you should play AOW1 where you could flood the map literally instantly killing entire armies. or summon a mountain range around an army, trapping them.
Not 100% sure but I belive you can block the spell jammer just by sending 1 unit on it and destroy it the same turn using a province destruction spell.
Sure, but players know this so they leave units on it. Which means you have to beat their guarding army without spells to regain usage of your spells.... to beat their army.
I appreciate Filthy's hard-nosed take on this game in its current state. Seems to me that most other people are simply too dazzled by the shine of a new game in this genre that they can't see the forest for the trees. This game is an absolute mess... I'm not sure that the devs will ever be able to balance this game when there are no limits in the creation system. In AoW 3, you had three decisions to make; race, class, and specialization. Each of them have their own micro- and macrocosm that is distinctly defined and never changes. As such, it makes balancing any given unit, spell, or racial bonus as easy as adjusting a few numbers or unit abilities, whereas in 4 that will never be the case because when you change one aspect of a society or tome it will affect every other system in any number of ways that the devs will likely not see until properly tested - which this game clearly was not - most assuredly by the players. It's going to be a balancing nightmare and the devs only have themselves to blame for going with a completely free-form system.
Thank you! Long time player of the series and this is just an absolute mess of a game with little to no re-playability. Once you know, you know, and you can't enjoy the game anymore.
Ugh, most of the series' historical problems in a rushed, half-baked set of newer features. Some good ambition here, but ... So many of these criticisms apply to Ao2SM and Ao3. We've seen things like the community patches for both of those. It's unfortunate that the same mistakes get carried forward.
They didn’t learn or listen from planetfall at all. Can’t justify buying this yet but I bet they’ll have expansion begging for more of your money before they fix any of this and drop aow5 with all the same problems. I’m so glad I got planetfall of sale for 19 bucks it was such a fucking letdown.
We have a civ 6 situation. They can make it good by fixing, or just farm dlcs. Civ 6 picked second route, and it's why game is irrelevant nowadays, but I'm sure financial success. Is there a way to do both, is the question i think
They would have to do both, because they have no less than FOUR DLCs scheduled for the first year pass of the game, Two of them are 20 eur big dlcs, the other two are 10 eur small dlcs. Typical paradox dlc spam ahead, sir. It's gonna end up like EU4 and Stellaris and so on; the game will eventually cost multiple hundreds of dollars/euros, with most of the truly fun content ( and necessary fixes to the game flow and balance in the form of new systems exclusive to those DLCs ) locked behind said DLCs.
There is a way of doing both. In total war warhammer the dlcs will come with reworks and patches that come in to help the experience. WH2 ended up being a great game by the end of it's life.
agree with pretty much all the points. Have seen dev PR messaging to imply furthering the support for the fantasy of the game, but have heard nothing at all about any support for the multiplayer scene. Hoping that it works out, but not holding my breath.
Then you havent paid a lick of attention to anything theyve said. In the very stream that they did highlighting the upcoming Wyvern patch theyve said 14 pages worth of patch notes (at that time) were going to be released along with the Dragon Dawn DLC, and not only that, the damn beta branch has a whole number of fixes, and if you actually want to "see it work out" you would get on the branch and give feedback. They've literally been begging people to send them fully detailed feedback (save games, crash logs, etc), yet I have a feeling you havent even attempted to. Simply whining and complaining on a forum can only give so much info without logs accompanying them so they can be recreated on their end. This all used to be common knowledge in gaming (and tech in general) but now people are just braindead.
So ... AoW 4 is the same kind of gilded turd as the rest of the series: Unbalanced tedium with shit AI? But play-by-email, I guess. Thank you for the thorough critique!
very strange to see experienced player like you to be so astonished by one more not playable game because of stupid AI and not implemented properly balance and multiplayer, it happened previously like with 1000+ games, unfortunately; that is why games with much less mechanics and variety but more properly implemented are so much better
i guess youre lucky you got the whole youtube influencer thing so you can say the problems this game has freely with minimal backlash from the games fan boys. I made roughly the same analysis on just the terrible overworld AI and its passiveness on my steam review and got railed by a lot of people for it. which if those people played and paid any attention to the ai they would see clear as day its not good nor fun to play against. But at least someone is saying it. And i guess maybe if the devs wont listen to the stuff the average gamer has to say hopefully content like yours saying the same thing will get to the devs. I love the game but its just got so many glaring issues i have no desire to play again unless theyre at least mostly addressed. great video.
Thanks! I get plenty of backlash too, I'm just pretty used to it. People as a whole are very reluctant to be critical of games they enjoy. I too hope that the devs continue to shore up the weak points of the game as I really like the systems in the game, it's just unplayable in its current state. I've just recorded and am in the process of reviewing the recent patch notes and the dev roadmap, fingers crossed they're on the right track!
Man just said 'A.I sucks and Players are to smart' Then proceeded to complain about mechanics that were always in AoW. Then bitched about how OP heroes are while how horrible and unfair it is when one dies??? Lmfao. Oh geez
You list those like there are contradictions there, there aren't. Heroes at their current price point are too strong relative to units. Additionally, because heroes are too cheap and too strong, it's too swingy when one is lost. This is mostly relevant in multiplayer, where the winner of a battle gets massively stronger from snowball mechanics like acquiring tech and items from the defeated heroes. This snowballing results in a lack of comeback mechanics in PvP. One fight decides the game, as the winner comes out massively ahead on the hero front and the loser has no way back into the game. Just because something has "always been this way" doesn't mean that it's good or balanced. A weak feature can exist in previous titles yet still be negative in the current title. "It's always been this way" is a shit argument. I don't want a continuation of garbage, I want a quality, working system. "AI sucks" is a huge problem with this game. Most players play singleplayer and the AI of this game on the hardest difficulty doesn't offer any challenge at all. No one enjoys replaying strategy games where the opposition offers no resistance. This may be fine for a few games, but it quickly gets tedious. This is a deathblow to players wishing to engage with the many interesting systems of the game - there's nowhere to do that. SP AI is too weak to offer resistance and the MP suffers from too many imbalances. "Lmfao. Oh geez" isn't the own you think it is when all of the points I made passed right over your head. Instead, it just serves to highlight your own failures in understanding.
@@FilthyRobotGames most Turn Base Strategy games with complex combat mechanics have shitty A.I that not to say you can't make the A.I better, just that it is incredibly difficult. Sword of the stars is another good example of a turn base game who A.I when dealing with combat or choices leading up to combat are incredibly bad. When a game has to many layers the A.I requires more and more development to become competent. Also if heroes are such a big negative when they die then not using heroes would be the most viable option as killing the enemy hero stack will lead them to effective game over while lose your stacks would have minimum issues. Lastly the only thing I care about in these games are bugs and exploits, not solid game mechanics like the enemy resurrecting your hero that you didn't properly take care of. Finally oh geez wasn't an own it just a verbal expression of dissappointment.
Totally agree, after 140 hours I uninstall this piece of crap. Focusing on DLC and more options ( for payment for sure ), and just ignore the totally unbalanced game. On one of my playthrough just AI make a loop of infinite casting of soul overflow and death mark :D cast death mark on all my units, then cast like 20+ times soul overflow in one turn . On my turn I clean the death mark .. 2nd turn cast death mark again on all my units and then keep casting soul overflow like 2 hours :D It makes skeletons to get like 4000 HP :D So the game was like stuck totally , I realize that also AI vs AI keeps doing this so you can wait for end of turn maybe whole year. So very good design of the game and testing ( I give them 13.5 / 10 points for testing :D ) because if your designer design game like this that even dump AI can stuck the game with infinite casting and your testing team didn't report it .... just stop doing games :D
I am shocked. This is first analysis of yours that I almost completely disagree. I played around 12 full games so far and the only downside that I at least partially agree with you - is AI challenge. Your analysis of the balance is completely wrong and biased. Sorry to say. Take it as a feedback, no more, no less. This is one sided and very narrow opinion. Not a review. First time I was disappointed by your work.
Stop crying. i think u may be the only person who is not having fun with the game and channels that are way more popular than this are having tons of fun
ua-cam.com/play/PLQFX9B_9L4-lkxj7171pbp8zDZ-efvkJk.html (for the short multiplayer game) and ua-cam.com/play/PLQFX9B_9L4-n1rm475aTJ1uV_0RsHzsiD.html (for the max difficulty SP game with useless AI).
This kind of video are so good that I remain convinced that their place are on your main channel and not here. 40 minutes in depth review is the more valuable kind of content you create, in my arrogant opinion
I love filthy, but I must admit I'm getting a bit confused by his channels. It looks like there are two, but I think there's three? I'm not sure which is the main and which channel is dedicateded to what :p
Although, saying that it only takes a few seconds for me to click on each channel to see what new vids are up, so cant complain.
100% agree!
Improving the AI should be the developers #1 priority by far
That and game breaking exploits
FYI: There's a post in steam discussions by a dev asking for feedback regarding AI.
I think the biggest thing they could do for the AI wouldn’t even take much effort: make it more aggressive when it comes to going after your territory and engaging you on your turf. And this game has one of the same big issues that Civ6 has: when you’re friends with the AI, they just give you their stuff for cheap and buy things from you for a lot. But that’s only when you have a maximized alliance, so it’s actually better than Civ6 in that respect. It goes from “too much” to “too cheap” too quickly. Also an easy fix.
Tell them to come watch this video if they really care.
@@onesteek4you Making the AI more aggressive is most likely the hardest thing to do. There's tons of variables and behaviours that feed into this. If you don't know what is causing the aggressiveness to mess up then you're just band-aiding the situation. Like is the AI getting distracting and clearing nodes when they are moving, do they see too much threat from certain stacks or areas, are they over valuing the Siege Duration etc.
@@Akazury Well, they could do things like have the AI make more armies and when you start pillaging, they come after you. Prioritize non-Scouts to chase on the World Map. I do see some degree of prioritization in combat, like trying to pin ranged units, going for the easy kills, and things like that. Maybe prioritize dealing the most damage over killing the weakest targets (this would help some with the vines; so like if it can do 2 attacks for 20 damage against an 80HP target, do that instead of wasting a whole turn doing 20 damage to a 5HP vine). But hell, I’ve had to attack vines before just to be able to move. Or something like “if unit has Web attack, spread out instead of clumping”. “If unit has straight line lightning wand, don’t line up”. I don’t really know because I’m not a programmer, these just feel like simple if/then prompts that could be added. Oh and “if enemy city is within 12 hexes, pump out armies and wreck their shit.” Even Civ6 has that programmed in.
This video is pure gold. Agree with everything. Also it's obvious that author loves the game but can't get fun from it anymore cause of valid problems he described. 100% mustview for the devs
Yeah this was my feeling as well, some interesting systems but so much to balance and so bad of AI, not to mention bugs and exploits. Instead of fixing core issues, I'm alarmed that they are seemingly more committed to putting out new content, and even had players pay upfront for that experience (season pass?). I feel the trajectory of this game will be that it gets a lot of new content but the AI will not improve. Would love to be wrong.
A major patch seems to have been released yesterday, how do you feel about the game now? I'm interested in buying the game but I feel it's convenient to wait a bit longer so they fix the problems, add content and maybe sell it all together
I think it's a pretty fun game for a while but there's nothing interesting enough about it to keep coming back to it. I kinda think it's worth buying because it's really fun for a few games. After that you have basically experienced almost all the types of challenges the game can give you. I'd probably rate it like, 6.5/10. IDK what the patch would do exactly since I've moved to other things, sorry. @@alessandro7630
I hope Triumph see this vid as your points are spot on.
I know that they are balancing in-combat summons and trying to rebalance the affinity tree.
My biggest criticism with AI is allies doing nothing, they start wars but just camp their armies on their cities for the entire game. It would be nice to direct them to fight a city or *do* something.
Harsh. But fair.
Personally, I love to just make worlds and 'RP' within them. But the AI makes that borderline impossible. And it's just as hard finding people to do something similar in MP.
The dragon DLC looks awesome, and some of the problems do seem to be actively worked on, but I can only assume the AI will not be one of those.
maybe the AI isn't skynet but it's definitely better than vanilla AI in Civ5
Great in depth review as always Filthy. Hopefully a No-quitters like mod community arises round it and we can see some epic MP clashes.
Spot on.
This game was really fun to learn, to explore the systems and master them.
But having learned it I can't bring myself to play anymore.
It absolutely HAS to be changed to that there is only one hero allowed per army stack. And yes, tech goes so fast, I rarely build research buildings after early game. We all complained to them about the Planetfall AI, and they never fixed it.
i agree with this pretty much. i'm at ~130 hours and everything you said about the AI is why i stopped playing. i really REALLY enjoy this game. but the AI is just too stupid for singleplayer/co op to feel like a worth use of my game time. hopefully desyncs/AI fixes are at the top of the list. i was very disappointed when the devs teased the "wyvern" update in a dev diary and made *ZERO* mentions of AI improvements. hopefully they aren't so disconnected from their community that they don't notice the AI being by far the biggest issue.
most 4x gamers do *not* play multiplayer. which you can clearly garner by community posts and steam global achievement percentages. the AI, needs to be aggressive and needs to have the tools to punish the player. if it lacks that, the game will have no staying power.
also your section on summoning is so funny coming from an AoW3 player. cause in aow3 production units were by far the better strategy because you could only summon, and hold, 1 unit at a time in aow3. in aow4 you can keep all your summon's "ready" to go. and have like 5-10 summons on deck whenever you need them.
tier 2 units have a base upkeep of 12 gold, not 20. so it's exactly 2.5 tier 2 units for the price of 1 hero over the cap.
You do not need to pillage a spell jammer to disable it, just occupying it is enough (this can often easily be achieved by summoning a cheep unit just outside the enemy border)
Players know this and leave guards. Which means you have to beat an army without your spells, while they have spells to regain your ability to cast spells to beat their army.
@@FilthyRobotGames Yes in MP games spell jammers are obviously a very powerful defensive tool. The developers clearly wanted the defender to have an advantage as there are many many tools that can give a defender an advantage with spell jammers being the strongest.
I do think that they are a bit too strong and would like to see them changed to still allow the attacker to cast spells, but at twice the normal cost. I wonder if that is something that could be done with a mod...
@@Kris_Lighthawk why would you need a mod to make a game playable? Isn't that showing a flaw in the original work that needs to be adressed.
@@Solus749 Oh, if it wasn't clear, I do think that the developers should change how spell jammers work, I was only wondering if it could be modded if they don't or take too long time to do it. Also, this is mostly a MP problem and the majority of players play this kind of games in SP only. That is not an excuse for not having MP being playable of course, but it is a reason for developers to focus mostly on SP problems early on.
Your points are all really valid. As a casual, I personally really appreciate the dumb AI for now. I like that I, as a not very good startegy game player, caj focus on roleplay and customization and then still be confident in my play through, deciding when im ready to win. But I can 100% see how this would create fatigue and apathy over time.
I could be playing a completely defensive build, and still win by just taking everyone's capitols while their units are off doing who knows what. I can be playing an intensely melee and combat focused build, and still beat everyone to a magic victory. I can tell that if i ever am good at the game, like having a deeper understanding, that anyone would eventually get tired of every win being viable for your faction all the time without contest.
That being said, I hope they leave the dumber AI for the lower difficulties, Very Easy/Easy, and really tweak the Normal and higher AI, that way it is still very accessible to new players, but has somewhere for the more experienced players to play later on.
While I agree on most of your points, and agree that there is a lot that can be done to improve the game in terms of AI and balance, I think you simply are expecting too much too fast of the developers. AoW4 is a very complex game with a lot of innovative features. Expecting the game not to have broken ways it can be exploited or to have good AI that can challenge a human without cheating is simply unrealistic. The more complex a game is, the harder it is to balance and the harder it is to program an AI that can play it well. As far as I know there is no 4X game with an that can challenge a good human player without cheating (a lot). And most 4X games are less complex than AoW4.
Triumph Studious have a good track record of listening to their players and support and fix their games. Just don't expect it to happen overnight, such things take time.
In addition, the game have very good mod support, so I expect that there will (eventually) be mods that address almost any problem with game balance. If you want the game to be more balanced you could always make a balance mod yourself....
Personally I really enjoy playing the game myself, so much that I can't stop playing and are using way too much of my time (324 h so far) on the game. I have only played singleplayer so far. I have found that the game can be reasonably challenging if you play on brutal difficulty, normal distance between players and are giving yourself the minor handicap (your units do 15% less damage and the enemy do 15% more damage) in the advanced settings. I also stay away form using the really cheesy exploits (such as hero farming). In my current game I had to do some very rushed defense of my cities because unlike what some people say, the AI will attack and take your cities if it gets a chance to do so. It also like to raid and pillage your stuff.
Also disable magic victory, or alternatively don't allow yourself to win that way while still allowing the AI to do it.
One thing I really like about this game compared to other 4x (including earlier versions of AoW) it that the game never bugs down with micromanagement. In other 4X games there is often a point where I am so strong that the AI's have no chance of stopping me, but turns take way too long berceuse of micromanagement, so I end up never finishing that game.
This. Right here. Do I believe they can make the AI better? Yes. They have explicitly said they aim to and have pinned a forum thread asking for save files to get into the nitty gritty of what the AI is doing. Will they be able to make it the equivalent of playing against a human who comprehends the complexity that this game already is and will be even more so in the future? No. It will come down to them ironing out the multiplayer issues and letting people go at each other. When that happens, this game will be all the difficulty anyone could ask for.
@@Smithers322 Yes, they will not make AI play like human (no big 4x ever does it). But they can fix it so it will at least not make stupid mistakes (like blinking inside enemy army or strategic passiveness). With all that and with economical cheats AI could deliver needed challenge.
I wanted to thank you for this video. I've been looking for a game like this for a long time and your video has convinced me this may be that game, i'm off to get it from Steam. Thumbs up.
EDIT..........I should have watched the complete review before I commented. The A.I. being really bad is a big disappointment for me. I'm an old guy (54) and I do not have friends who play computer games like me, so I will have no one to play against once I learn the game. Being stuck playing a sub pare computer A.I. doesn't sound very exciting. Bummer.
Great analysis. I began to drift myself from the game because of the brain dead AI. Too bad, because as you talk about at the beginning of the video, there are a number of excellent mechanics that make the game enjoyable when first playing it.
I love listening to your brilliant mind. There is more challenge in this world for you than just games. I have 140 hours in the game, in single player. I'm delighted by the balance rifts because I keep finding completely broken strategies. I keep it fresh by playing for perfect games, where I surrender if I lose a battle or get hurt by a cheese. Perhaps when I get to your level of understanding I'll get frustrated by the problems, but I'm still learning the nuance. Right now, I'm starting to try to master the province improvements since I am sure there are more ways to break the game with those. If I get to 200 hours, it will be a massive success and a great value for the money spent.
Yah, I have no intention to steal anyone's joy with these reviews. If you're enjoying the game as is, more power to you mate! But for me, the cracks show through in this game in the worst way and it robs me of the ability to enjoy the game.
I'm more optimistic about dlcs and future updates.
I have played around 2k hours in the aow series.
Triumph is one of the better game devs imo.
They seem straight forward and fairly reactive while the game is alive.
When Paradox bought them I thought it was over: 20 dlcs of factions and junk.
But it seems like they're still doing the 3 major dlc thing, which I like because it gives me a reason to come back to the game.
Mods will also make a big difference because many systems are so modular.
I don't think they will be able to fix the AI though.
After getting bored with the dragon dlc next week, maybe check out aow:planetfall?
I remember the ai from AoW3. That ai doesn`t give a shit and could stand still for the entire fight until a draw is called. Far from that this ai from aow4 will throw at you every single time.
I mean, is still an ai. Sooner or later it will be boring playing against it but 2 games? Is too dumb.
I`ll add that heroes items needs a serious rework, they are boring and tedious.
From what we've seen oof the upcoming patch, at least the developers are not afraid to make drastic (and less drastic) changes to the balance. Now we just have to hope they can get the AI to a playable state.
still not gonna solve the tomb and race state stats balance issues vs age of wonders 3 where you had fully developed classes. There are improvements in 4 over 3 such as the temporary health vs 3's heal stalling ( if certain class for most part ). Doesn't stop the experience in 4 to be a negative one though. Taking the enemy hero as your own in 4 isn't exactly helping either.
Long story short they made the create your faction+tombs to complicated mechanicly to make it nearly impossible to balance. Troopbalance is off and unlocking powerful new traits through a roguelike between games isn't exactly helping new players.
I can definitely understand losing interest in single player because of imbalances/lack of difficult AI. Personally, I would like to see balancing for multiplayer be multiplayer exclusive. I think that could allow for much tighter balance where it matters (e.g. multiplayer) but still leaves single-player with OP things that people can use if they so choose.
Thanks for the review on this i agree on all the points hope your do a patch/note review also when that comes around would love too hear your thoughts about it cheers
Late game you get so much research, i've had games where after i was done with my t5 tome i picked a t1 tome for a buff spell and i researched the whole tome on the same turn and got to choose a new tome.
As someone who is a lot more casual about this game and has played Age of Wonders 3 and Age of Wonders:Plantefall a lot of things you outlined are unnoticable to me or are an improvement over previous games in the series, as sad as that, may, sound.
Doomsday Victory in Planetfall, which is similar to Magic Victory, was 10 turns, not neutral armies would spawn and if you were ahead of the AI it would also sit and do nothing in my expirience, so the way Age of Wonders 4 handles it is an improvement.
I believe the reason that AI is struggling largely revolves around it relying on autoresolve to clear neutral stacks resulting in them sending waves after waves of units to clear wonders and nodes, which are also scaled up by the world difficulty. Improving AI's competence in auto combat won't solve this issue as neural stacks would get the same AI. My fear of improving AI competence is that it may resolve in very slow and tedious manual battles while making auto combat better, this would result in massive loss of insentive to engage with tactical combat in this game. I do agree that diplomacy AI could use a lot of work.
I don't play MP so can't say anything here. But I agree that balance should be better.
Blobby army movement was even worse in previous games, so I view current one more favourably.
I don't think I ever saw a 4X game that has comeback mechanics.
While I agree with some point in this review I wouldn't say that this game was a disaster especially considering other releases in this year.
This made me wonder... is there actually a 4X or grand strategy game with a good AI?
There are none. But there is a lot of 4X where AI can at least do something while not blatantly cheating.
Civ4
One of those classic Filthy Videos which I love. Really miss Filthy.
You make some good points, I just think most of those points only really apply to the people looking to min-max in the game. There are some absolutely broken combos, but you kinda have to be aiming for those as opposed to just stumbling across them. And there are definitely standout traits, tomes, etc. But you don’t always have to play with those. You don’t always have to play the most optimal combos. And are you playing on Brutal difficulty? Using map options to spice things up? Anyway, my point is: this game for me is less about being a meaningful challenge (which it’s still a challenge for me but as I said, I’m still playing around with it as opposed to going for all the optimizations I see content creators doing) and more about just having fun with it. I plan to try out all the different traits and race abilities and play styles eventually. Hell, I’m still on Easy mode (feel free to laugh) and feel like I’m getting a challenge. By the time I’m good enough (without using the maximized options) to progress to Brutal, I’ll have hundreds of hours in the game. That’s a worthwhile investment. Hell, I think the game has already earned it’s pricetag. And it’s much more robust than like…Civ6. I love the random quests and how no two games are alike…at *all*. I’ve only been doing Story Realms and it’s different every time except for the main story. It’s crazy how much randomization they have while still making it feel organic. So I can forgive the AI for being dumb (but not half as dumb as the Civ6 AI).
What I would love to see more than anything (and also dread) is an AI that’s more aggressive about coming after my territory. I’ve heard it gets a little better on higher difficulty but not much. Right now I see no point in investing anything in my defenses. An AI that uses the world map spells to mess with you and decides to go after your space would change this game entirely, though. Even if the tactical combat stayed “dumb”, this would ramp up the difficulty considerably. Kinda like in Civ6 if they just would have the AI build planes. One small change that would change the meta entirely.
But for now…I’m loving it. I recommend this game to anyone who loves fantasy and loves more than just a board game level of engagement. This game has *story*. It has *lore*. That alone sets it apart from most 4x games.
You may be their ideal audience. A "casual" (not meant as a put down here) player who enjoys moving the pieces around but isn't much fussed about how if you pay attention to how the game works you break it immediately. Awesome, I have no wish to steal anyone's joy.
@@FilthyRobotGames Yeah, maybe. I see the broken combos. I see the ideal setups. I’m just choosing to play what I want to play without worrying about winning in the fastest or most optimal way. What’s the absolute weakest possible combo of things while still being playable? Why not try that? Sure, I could go Tome of the Horde, Spider Mounts, and Dark Culture and run roughshod over everything with no challenge at all. And I probably will at some point. But for now, I’m playing for flavor, not optimization (except as it pertains to what I’m doing). Like I’m doing Wood Elves right now. Ranged, Barbarian, a mixture of animals…and it’s fun. I did Undead in the scenario before this and went all-in on Dark and that was fun. It’s not just about moving the pieces around and there isn’t just one single method of winning that you can apply regardless of culture/trait/tome combos, unlike Civ6 (as an example). You have to adapt the way you play to what you’re playing. That’s what makes it fun. Is it breakable? Absolutely. But how about playing the “broken” combos and avoiding the things that make them broken? You can take Tome of the Horde and *not* use Spawnkin. You can take Spider mounts and *not* hyperfocus on mounted units. Just mix it up and have fun with it.
There is a spell in the Tome of Horde that deals 3 fire damage for each tier 1 unit. There can be 18 units in three armies. Let's say you took 17 spider Scouts into battle and one hero who gives plus 20% damage from spells and during the battle you put a special tower that gives another 20% damage from spells.
17*3=51 damage without buffs
51/100*40=20 this is 40% of 51
51+20=71 total damage
71 damage to a single target and 50% (35) of the damage to everyone nearby. As a wizard king, I have a spell that allows you to cast a tactical spell twice. This is one shot to your hero.
Everything you dislike about the AI is the same in every 4x game. AI that can play this style of strategy game competently, without cheating, has not been created yet. We're probably a long ways off from that. The single player experiences in this game are the same as the single player experiences in any 4x game, either super cheating AI (artificial difficulty) or super easy AI (power fantasy). If you do not like either of those playstyles, single player 4x might not be for you.
Strategic AI yes, but tactical AI in turn-based grid games is often quite fine.
To take Filthy's example, I don't remember HoMM AI ever walk a ranged unit in melee when it can just do a ranged attack.
@@playingcasually Thing is, the AI did not walk a ranged unit into melee, it walked a hero unit, which is all types. Now maybe they could make it so the AI notices how many points you've put into each archetype and play accordingly, but then it would never play a hero unit as an all rounder, thus creating another issue. I suppose with this change you could make auto resolve hero builds meant to play into archetype recognition, and make hero builds solely meant for manual combat. With current AI technology, I do not see a way around this.
The tactical fights in HoMM are so simple compared to AoW4 that it is no wonder that the AI could do reasonable well (you could often still win against stronger armies, so it was not like it would do nearly as well as a Human)
The tactical AI in AoW4 is decent in most cases. In my experiences it is only using heroes that it is really bad at, especially if those heroes have teleport abilities.
@@Kris_Lighthawk It would be decent if it actually attacked you in a war and didn't just split their armies and raze your provinces until you go chase them away like cockroaches. Or run around the map and do nothing. I think I've seen one strategic spell cast by the AI. I have a game where my allies crown city is open and undefended and the AI's 6 stacks are just razing provinces and get picked off.
@@rotrotmcgee1107 I have had the AI sieging my cities more than once and one AI even managed to take one of my cities, although I was able to take it back before it could convert it. I have also seen AI take cities from other AI quite a few times, but yes, in general the AI is not very good at capturing cities.
Agree with everything.
Actually made a short Steam post about it and I haven't seen a more chaotic, low quality thread - got 5 awards though 🤪
There is a whole group of toxic fan bois who attack and posts that are even the slightest bit critical of the game. Horrible.
Great summary! I hope the devs use it as a repair document.
Excellent analysis and feedback, very well thought out and to the point. I love the game and would love to see it become S-tier like you. Hopefully, the Devs are listening to you and other UA-camrs. After all, it's business and money in the bank to do so.
Newb - I guess you played other simple games like Civ as well? :P Try EU4 or for a 'fantasy' setting then try out Dominions. This game is a husk of a strategy game.
@@smackhead Why yes, I have, as a matter of fact, objection relevance ??
Well, it is already S tier: if s is for sh*t.
@@nealm6764 It's the way of the world these days mate. Dumb things down, allow everyone to be anything thus negating any real difference in playstyle all in the name of trying to make it popular for the masses.
Look at Vikky 3 compared to 2, or CK3 compared to 2... oversized icons (pretty pictures) and wasted screen realestate showing no real information to keep it 'simple'.
@@smackhead Wow, it is so true. Especially the demand to have no limits and be Anything and Everything... And of course forced equality of everything until nothing is special, just slightly different.
Imagine a wizard being attuned and adept at both chaos and order? Death and life magic" WTF?
But it is the new GRR Martin fantasy. Nothing has to make sense in Fantasy because "Hurr durr there are dragons and stuff!!!!"
Overall I like the review, but I'm kind of stuck on the very first sentence. How in any way is the world map and base management of this game similar to Total War Warhammer? I don't understand that comparison at all
I wish during multiplayer diffrent players could take turns during combat i simply dont have enough time to wait for every player combat
Sir, thats a quality review, that i havent encounter in a long long time. I hope you will be able to live from reviewing games, because you are gifted.
You should look at the other reviews it's impossible to make everyone happy all the time so far this is the only review I've come across that is so much bs I think he's the only 1 crying over the game I haven't picked it up yet but due to this review I'm gonna get it today
200 hours, I can respect a review after that
Good and useful observations. In spite of all that, I have had a good amount of fun in SP & MP (coop with friends still mastering the game).
With regard to spell-jammers, I found them to be a pain in my early game, as you describe. However, with a bit more experience I found them easy to deal with, at least as a PvE player. You could use the chaos perk to one-turn pillage, which is really powerful, but even that's not necessary. Just immediately before engaging a fight - move a single unit to stand on top of the spell jammer. Even something simple, like a scout. Or you could summon a tier 1 unit on top of it. Having a unit standing on an improvement temporarily disables the improvement, so with the spell jammer disabled, you can cast spells to your heart's content.
well you said it yourself, in PvE, you are not going to do crap about it in PvP
I agree with almost everything you said. The terrible AI quality and the increasing pace of tech development are major problems. If I'm able to win "Brutal" difficulty basically not losing any units then it says something about the AI. I play only SP, so some of the issues are not that painful for me (like support heroes - I often prioritize the support skills for all or almost all heroes).
They are making some balance changes, they nerfed the summons, made some changes to the affinity tree, but the new DLC brings lots of features that look OP and will unbalance the game again.
This review just hurt my feelings cuz I still lose to the ai sometimes.
The auto resolve is leaps and bounds better than pretty much any other 4x title, but yeah it's not perfect, still love it though.
As a single player guy. I agree with everything you said about it. The AI is so bad. The tech is way too fast in the mid to late game. I played my 2nd campain and based it largely around this tier 3 tome, but I didn't even get to use it before I had something much better. Going from tier 3 to tier 5 happens before you've managed to finish your tier 3 army. Sad, cause I love a lot about this game. So much potential that's kinda ruined by the balance issues and the AI.
7 minutes for the positives and 30 for the negatives, oof.
I do agree on all of it though, as someone who is currently completely addicted.
I wish the devs will take this exact video and turn it into a to-do list
Agree with pretty much everything. I really like this game's concepts but stopped playing after around 30 hrs.
Oops! Responded to the wrong post!
AoW series had problems with AI from the start, and AoW2, for example, was massively less complex than this one. Making an AI that can effectively interact with so many systems is probably impossible with the "classic" approach to coding AI. And I am not sure that using machine learning would be feasible.
For now i am having a lot of fun with this game, i dont know if it will be the same in the enxt 50 hours, but since you mention than they are going to buff some broken units i think is important to clarify that summons as a whole are getting nerf in combat
Unless im playing animals+horde, i have tons of trouble with the AI on normal. Maybe im just bad at the game? But the AI has massively more armies than me most of the time, and i struggle to win fights without serious losses when there are large armies involved
After the big patch comes out on the 20th, can you give it another try and let us know how much was fixed? Thanks. Great Review
there are some good points here. some of them have already been fixed or improved. and some of them never will, they are the nature of the age of wonders series. for example, unbalanced heroes. if you think its bad in AOW4 you should play AOW1 where you could flood the map literally instantly killing entire armies. or summon a mountain range around an army, trapping them.
Not 100% sure but I belive you can block the spell jammer just by sending 1 unit on it and destroy it the same turn using a province destruction spell.
Sure, but players know this so they leave units on it. Which means you have to beat their guarding army without spells to regain usage of your spells.... to beat their army.
I appreciate Filthy's hard-nosed take on this game in its current state. Seems to me that most other people are simply too dazzled by the shine of a new game in this genre that they can't see the forest for the trees. This game is an absolute mess...
I'm not sure that the devs will ever be able to balance this game when there are no limits in the creation system. In AoW 3, you had three decisions to make; race, class, and specialization. Each of them have their own micro- and macrocosm that is distinctly defined and never changes. As such, it makes balancing any given unit, spell, or racial bonus as easy as adjusting a few numbers or unit abilities, whereas in 4 that will never be the case because when you change one aspect of a society or tome it will affect every other system in any number of ways that the devs will likely not see until properly tested - which this game clearly was not - most assuredly by the players. It's going to be a balancing nightmare and the devs only have themselves to blame for going with a completely free-form system.
Pantheon seems worthless since items don't carry over on new stories. Kinda ruined the entire hero system for me tbh.
Have any of these things been addressed since this video?
I love this game
AoW series has always been broken as AF. Magic immunity for example
Thank you!
Long time player of the series and this is just an absolute mess of a game with little to no re-playability.
Once you know, you know, and you can't enjoy the game anymore.
My take too. Sadly. Because the systems are so fun.
Moronic AI killed it for me. If I can cheese the AI, what's the point?
TBH "cheesing the AI" has been mantra for Total Wars/PDX games for quite some time. This and "match 3" all bonus modifiers.
...Damaging World Spells still contend with Resistances.
Ugh, most of the series' historical problems in a rushed, half-baked set of newer features. Some good ambition here, but ... So many of these criticisms apply to Ao2SM and Ao3. We've seen things like the community patches for both of those. It's unfortunate that the same mistakes get carried forward.
Do you feel like this is an improvement over AoW 3 or Planetfall? Or still too beta?
Didn't play those titles.
@@FilthyRobotGames If you pick those up on a steam sale, I'd be very curious what your take is. Appreciated your in-depth review. Have a great day!
They didn’t learn or listen from planetfall at all. Can’t justify buying this yet but I bet they’ll have expansion begging for more of your money before they fix any of this and drop aow5 with all the same problems. I’m so glad I got planetfall of sale for 19 bucks it was such a fucking letdown.
We have a civ 6 situation. They can make it good by fixing, or just farm dlcs. Civ 6 picked second route, and it's why game is irrelevant nowadays, but I'm sure financial success.
Is there a way to do both, is the question i think
They would have to do both, because they have no less than FOUR DLCs scheduled for the first year pass of the game, Two of them are 20 eur big dlcs, the other two are 10 eur small dlcs.
Typical paradox dlc spam ahead, sir. It's gonna end up like EU4 and Stellaris and so on; the game will eventually cost multiple hundreds of dollars/euros, with most of the truly fun content ( and necessary fixes to the game flow and balance in the form of new systems exclusive to those DLCs ) locked behind said DLCs.
@@istvanvincze7411 it's not really bad, if balance will work
There is a way of doing both. In total war warhammer the dlcs will come with reworks and patches that come in to help the experience. WH2 ended up being a great game by the end of it's life.
agree with pretty much all the points. Have seen dev PR messaging to imply furthering the support for the fantasy of the game, but have heard nothing at all about any support for the multiplayer scene. Hoping that it works out, but not holding my breath.
Then you havent paid a lick of attention to anything theyve said. In the very stream that they did highlighting the upcoming Wyvern patch theyve said 14 pages worth of patch notes (at that time) were going to be released along with the Dragon Dawn DLC, and not only that, the damn beta branch has a whole number of fixes, and if you actually want to "see it work out" you would get on the branch and give feedback. They've literally been begging people to send them fully detailed feedback (save games, crash logs, etc), yet I have a feeling you havent even attempted to. Simply whining and complaining on a forum can only give so much info without logs accompanying them so they can be recreated on their end.
This all used to be common knowledge in gaming (and tech in general) but now people are just braindead.
So ... AoW 4 is the same kind of gilded turd as the rest of the series: Unbalanced tedium with shit AI?
But play-by-email, I guess.
Thank you for the thorough critique!
For the moment - is AOW3 better?
Hi filthyr Why don’t you do a review of the new patch
excellent
damn dude.... you do the work.
it will be the same like AOW3 ..the modding community will fix it
long form content poggers!
Was this fixed?
very strange to see experienced player like you to be so astonished by one more not playable game because of stupid AI and not implemented properly balance and multiplayer, it happened previously like with 1000+ games, unfortunately; that is why games with much less mechanics and variety but more properly implemented are so much better
Best review ever filthy.
people knew the AI was shit in planetfall but they still bought AoW4 anyway... tells the money everything it needs to know
yeah....the fandumb!!!!!
Clearly the AI needs a lot of wrok. 100% agree. Many of your other points I think you are way to negative
i guess youre lucky you got the whole youtube influencer thing so you can say the problems this game has freely with minimal backlash from the games fan boys. I made roughly the same analysis on just the terrible overworld AI and its passiveness on my steam review and got railed by a lot of people for it. which if those people played and paid any attention to the ai they would see clear as day its not good nor fun to play against. But at least someone is saying it. And i guess maybe if the devs wont listen to the stuff the average gamer has to say hopefully content like yours saying the same thing will get to the devs. I love the game but its just got so many glaring issues i have no desire to play again unless theyre at least mostly addressed. great video.
Thanks! I get plenty of backlash too, I'm just pretty used to it. People as a whole are very reluctant to be critical of games they enjoy. I too hope that the devs continue to shore up the weak points of the game as I really like the systems in the game, it's just unplayable in its current state.
I've just recorded and am in the process of reviewing the recent patch notes and the dev roadmap, fingers crossed they're on the right track!
This game is essentially Patience/Solitaire with 4X visuals.
And let's be honest, that's a winning formula for the modern gaming audience.
Man just said 'A.I sucks and Players are to smart'
Then proceeded to complain about mechanics that were always in AoW.
Then bitched about how OP heroes are while how horrible and unfair it is when one dies???
Lmfao. Oh geez
You list those like there are contradictions there, there aren't.
Heroes at their current price point are too strong relative to units. Additionally, because heroes are too cheap and too strong, it's too swingy when one is lost. This is mostly relevant in multiplayer, where the winner of a battle gets massively stronger from snowball mechanics like acquiring tech and items from the defeated heroes. This snowballing results in a lack of comeback mechanics in PvP. One fight decides the game, as the winner comes out massively ahead on the hero front and the loser has no way back into the game.
Just because something has "always been this way" doesn't mean that it's good or balanced. A weak feature can exist in previous titles yet still be negative in the current title. "It's always been this way" is a shit argument. I don't want a continuation of garbage, I want a quality, working system.
"AI sucks" is a huge problem with this game. Most players play singleplayer and the AI of this game on the hardest difficulty doesn't offer any challenge at all. No one enjoys replaying strategy games where the opposition offers no resistance. This may be fine for a few games, but it quickly gets tedious. This is a deathblow to players wishing to engage with the many interesting systems of the game - there's nowhere to do that. SP AI is too weak to offer resistance and the MP suffers from too many imbalances.
"Lmfao. Oh geez" isn't the own you think it is when all of the points I made passed right over your head. Instead, it just serves to highlight your own failures in understanding.
@@FilthyRobotGames most Turn Base Strategy games with complex combat mechanics have shitty A.I that not to say you can't make the A.I better, just that it is incredibly difficult.
Sword of the stars is another good example of a turn base game who A.I when dealing with combat or choices leading up to combat are incredibly bad. When a game has to many layers the A.I requires more and more development to become competent.
Also if heroes are such a big negative when they die then not using heroes would be the most viable option as killing the enemy hero stack will lead them to effective game over while lose your stacks would have minimum issues.
Lastly the only thing I care about in these games are bugs and exploits, not solid game mechanics like the enemy resurrecting your hero that you didn't properly take care of.
Finally oh geez wasn't an own it just a verbal expression of dissappointment.
Totally agree, after 140 hours I uninstall this piece of crap. Focusing on DLC and more options ( for payment for sure ), and just ignore the totally unbalanced game.
On one of my playthrough just AI make a loop of infinite casting of soul overflow and death mark :D cast death mark on all my units, then cast like 20+ times soul overflow in one turn .
On my turn I clean the death mark .. 2nd turn cast death mark again on all my units and then keep casting soul overflow like 2 hours :D It makes skeletons to get like 4000 HP :D
So the game was like stuck totally , I realize that also AI vs AI keeps doing this so you can wait for end of turn maybe whole year.
So very good design of the game and testing ( I give them 13.5 / 10 points for testing :D ) because if your designer design game like this that even dump AI can stuck the game with infinite casting and your testing team didn't report it .... just stop doing games :D
I am shocked. This is first analysis of yours that I almost completely disagree. I played around 12 full games so far and the only downside that I at least partially agree with you - is AI challenge. Your analysis of the balance is completely wrong and biased. Sorry to say. Take it as a feedback, no more, no less. This is one sided and very narrow opinion. Not a review. First time I was disappointed by your work.
Are there specific points you disagree with?
Comment for the comment gods.
Stop crying. i think u may be the only person who is not having fun with the game and channels that are way more popular than this are having tons of fun
Why the controversial title? "Unplayable Disaster," does this content creator know what that means?
dont talk trash, proof it. show a game you playing and crushing the AI in 2 turns or a multiplayer game which ends turn 8
ua-cam.com/play/PLQFX9B_9L4-lkxj7171pbp8zDZ-efvkJk.html (for the short multiplayer game) and ua-cam.com/play/PLQFX9B_9L4-n1rm475aTJ1uV_0RsHzsiD.html (for the max difficulty SP game with useless AI).