Happiness in Darkness -An Argatha Ktonian Dead AAR

Nerfix · #1 October 2nd, 2006, 11:49 AM

The half dragons were my fav race in AoW 2.

Shadow Demons were cool in Shadow Magic.

Manuk · #2 October 2nd, 2006, 12:39 PM

i dont like the draconians. I miss lizardmen in AOW

Thilock_Dominus · #3 October 2nd, 2006, 12:56 PM

Quote:

Manuk said:
i dont like the draconians. I miss lizardmen in AOW

BLASPHAMY!!!

Boron · #4 October 2nd, 2006, 01:31 PM

Quote:

Thilock_Dominus said:

Quote:

Manuk said:
i dont like the draconians. I miss lizardmen in AOW

BLASPHAMY!!!

I second that.

The draconians were my favourite Aow nation. In Aow 2 SM i also liked the shadow demons and the nomads though

.
Hm the tigrans were also cute

Blofeld · #5 October 2nd, 2006, 01:49 PM

Quote:

Manuk said:
i dont like the draconians. I miss lizardmen in AOW

True, very true. It's a pity they took away lizardmen and Azracs and put generic fantasy races instead. Turtle catapult was cute

AOW1 had so well balanced and interestingly described units for various races, while in AOW2... mounted halfling sheriff surrounded by poison cloud.
Pleaseee...

AOW1 races with AOW2 battle mechanics - that would be nice.

Manuk · #6 October 2nd, 2006, 02:12 PM

AOW has an issue that Dominions resolves good.
Balance
Despite of having much less units AOW has poor balance between units and in between races too. There's never better to have many weak units than few powerful, as weak units cost too much upkeep. Ussually you end up using only melee lvl3 units like yetis or warlords. Maybe Anti-air units like druids or spiders to help.
Draconians are maybe the most useful race. They are neutral, so they relate good with others and they generate research by population wich is the best bonus. And they have a lvl 2 units with true seeing, regenerating hydras as grunts and top of that their end unit is the red dragon. Result: overpowered.
Halflings are only good to generate money with their bonus or leprechauns (if you invest quite a bit).

even then the game is cool. I would like to play MP online to have tactical battles. I played in PBEM before I learned of Dominions, When I�m tired of Dominions I play AOW just to rest my mind.

Nerfix · #7 October 2nd, 2006, 02:27 PM

I got really disapointed in the early versions of AOW 2, it just felt...really bad. AOW 2 was the game I abandoned in favour of Dominions. I read a strategy guide to Dominions I in a finnish game mag and I was sold: everything sounded a bit similiar to AOW, except tne times more detailed and numerous.

Well, the two aren't quite the same thing, but I was just...awe-struck when I started playing Dominions.

It felt so magical.

Blofeld · #8 October 2nd, 2006, 02:57 PM

Cities had maximum development levels in AOW1, so it was rather difficult to build sufficient numbers of highest tier units. While playing with good-neutral races, I ended up migrating low level cities to elves or halfling to churn out their decent low-level archers or pony scouts there while training human cavalrymen and knights in level 3 cities.
In the AOW1 demo mission it was essential to capture the orc lvl 4 capital before they got to training red dragons there, otherwise you were toasted.
Races were pretty well thought-out, with i.e. halflings having lvl-1 pony scouts, but lacking regular full fledged cavalry, etc. As far as raw combat might was concerned, orcs were much better than halflings, which was logical IMHO
In AOW2 any city could grow to the upper limits, so the above was no longer true. Additionaly, unit balance was plain wrong. Beside draconians, archons come to mind. All their units had vertigo inducing holy strike and their chariots were uber.
Site exploration and unit descriptions were gone, too

The series sported some dominionesque ideas, e.g. dominion-like "sphere of influence" projected from towers. The above coupled with land-withering global spell was very Ermor-like

Nerfix · #9 October 2nd, 2006, 03:27 PM

Yeah, haha, I also back then thought that "Wow, this Dominion thing sounds a lot like the Wizard Domain but much cooler!".

NTJedi · #10 October 2nd, 2006, 05:11 PM

Quote:

Blofeld said:
Site exploration and unit descriptions were gone, too

Lots of people miss the site exploration. In the original AOW it was mysterious, scary and fun not knowing what to expect from exploring a site. Unfortunately Triumph decided to remove this great feature without even checking with the fans.

At least with AOW:SM we were able to convince Triumph to change that stupid "auto_surrender" feature into being only a game option. At least 95% of the AOW:SM community does not use the auto_surrender.
As of right now Triumph is working on a game for the XBox called Overlords. The game appears to be like DungeonKeeper from the screenshots we've seen, but that's just a guess. It will be available for the PC as well, yet not sure how features will be lost since it has to be compatible with the XBox too.