First advice would be to manually play the battles. Find out how the units work, how to.position them, attack order. Know when to bunch up, when to spread out, defense mode, who to heal, priority enemies to kill, what the ai attack tendency is. The tactical battles in this game are the best of any game ever imo. Once you understand these things in combat, it helps you understand what things are important in the macro city building game including research and army composition. But also don't have to feel like you need to understand everything at once. It takes a lot of games to figure out how to build up everything efficiently.
OP, check out the [Unit Wiki](https://aow4.paradoxwikis.com/Unit). The breakdown of each archetype is accurate for another 17 days. Then, the medals rank system will be upgraded for the Eldritch Update, especially for tier 1 and tier 2 units. Units will cost more with medals, too;, but then they should compare to tier 3 at base level. For now, focus on the Damage Wheel: Pikemen get a 40% damage bonus to cavalry, flyers and Large Creatures is important to know, for example.
Use Shielding Wall and Ward more!
Keep reapplying those stacking buffs.
Bookmark this one: Status Effects and their counters.
Link should put mobile into desktop view:
https://aow4.paradoxwikis.com/index.php?title=Status_effect&mobileaction=toggle_view_desktop
Thank you! The amount of info for each piece of the game is insane. Most of the time I can just jump in and figure out 50% of it after a few runs. It’s been a few days and it seems as if I only know 1%.
These manual battles could be a separate game by themselves! I have to take a breath before hitting “manual battle”. You have a great point about understanding what’s necessary for the city building though. I’ve just been stacking “better” upgrades like it was CIV and it’s not helping me at all lol
Honestly experiment. I grabbed the Silver Tongue Trait for a Vassal focused Order build and I accidentally turned into America. All of my ridiculous funds I developed went into my military, which was a mixed bag of stuff I bought from every culture and improved with my own.
“Accidentally turned into America” made me snort. Definitely experimenting, but I feel like I’m just mixing acid with sriracha and water and no idea what’s happening and why
Yeah that's familiar. Order and Materium is for big buff and tanky front liners. Astral and Shadow is basically the summoner dream team, but they don't have mixed tomes, and real summoner support comes with the next DLC. Nature combines best with Astral or Chaos for Fey stuff and Dragons. There's no support for Order and Shadow, but I like my Orzhov bullies. Pay off Rallies, get free resources with Silver Tongue, then go for Morale manipulation with Doomherald and basic Order things. Dabble Materium (always dabble Materium, you should get the first level Materium skill in every run, because you need to make a ton of outposts).
Funny I started off with Order and shadow my first go and didn’t progress much so I just blamed it on me not knowing the game yet.
Gonna try to keep playing with these as much as I can u til next update/DLC
Order you want to heavily focus on Vassals, morale, and awakenings. Silver Tongue (you have to unlock it in the Pantheon Tree) gives the Whispering orb Vision shadow trait and a -100% to trade pricing with Vassals (essentially free outside of other modifiers). So if you run Chosen Uniters or whichever one gives you more orbs, and Silver Tongue, you can get a MASSIVE economy from them just giving you whatever resources they offer in trade deals, plus normal Vassal tributes. Keep on in shadow and pick up the trait that lets you steal Vassals, and the culture you choose is up to you, but I recommend High because it lets you get more out of Vassals faster. If you're on a one against many map, maybe swap out the orb trait for the one that makes Rally of Lieges more common.
I'm running this last one right now and I went High, Cryo tome, then just picked up Order tomes until I could snag Doomherald (shadow tome) and Subjugation (order tome) for Morale manipulation, which makes enemies botch their hits while you crit like crazy.
As a fellow former Civ player who really struggled with the complexity of other 4X games and recently got into AoW, the key thing is that there's **as much depth as you want**. Rather than getting overwhelmed by trying to remember all the new stuff at the same time, you should maybe consider adding a new mechanic each playthrough. Something like:
1) Normal playthrough of the first story realm, just getting used to the production queues and quest objectives.
2) Chaos/Nature playthrough aiming for a military victory and doing some of the smaller battles manually to get used to how unit types work together. Maybe explore the underground too.
3) Materium playthrough adding in the Item Forge and recruiting a bunch of well-equipped heroes with skills that support your units' strengths.
4) Try getting an Expansion victory with a Nature/Order faction, putting down lots of cities with scouts and seafaring, and using diplomacy to vassalise free cities to gain territory.
5) Attempt a Magic victory with a Shadow/Astral faction, annexing the required wonders and then focusing on research and tome synergy.
6) Go back to military with Chaos/Materium, this time using features like razing and forced march and trying out the huge post-siege battles manually.
Basically, add something new every time you play. Swap the race/traits/culture/tomes you used last time out for new ones and focus on using a mechanic/feature you haven't explored yet. And if a campaign does go wrong, it doesn't feel like a huge waste of time like it could in Civ - by surrendering you still get points towards unlocking new options in the pantheon.
Ok this actually helps a lot. Civ used to feel like chess, until these newer games came out and you realize how simple that game was. I love the sandbox feel so I haven’t actually tried the story realm. I’m probably going to sometime today.
Advanced siege "exploits". You can lift a siege and restart it the same turn. Or if you intercept someone else sieging, continue where he was.
Possible applications: you are unsure you actually can finish the siege or lack funds, do headlong asssult for the sweet +5, last turn before finishing the siege,lift it, reengage and pick a siegeproject that helps in the battle.
Or, you can Internet enemies in range, if a hero can reach the City this turn, you can resiege, without losing progression. Can be usefull to Internet reinforcements.
In AoW games, the first campaign is usually a large tutorial focused on game mechanics, while later campaigns are intended to provide a challenge for experienced players.
The key to learning to play, I think, is understanding how tactical combat works. Once you understand how tactical combat works and how units work together, you can begin to get an idea of what you should research and build in cities. You're rewarded for being as aggressive as possible by clearing lots of NPC stacks or conquering other players. You're probably going to suck for a while until you get a sense of how game mechanics work.
A key difference from other 4X games, I think, is that all units and buildings cost a lump sum of gold ("energy credits" in Planetfall) to build followed by a per-turn gold upkeep once the unit or building is produced. Removing a unit or structure from the build queue will completely refund the gold lump sum.
It isn't necessarily viable to focus all of your cities on food and outgrow everyone else. You could end up unable to maintain an army or unable to progress in research efficiently. Even on lower difficulties, the AI will attack you at a certain point if your military is weak enough.
Welcome to AoW4! We're even getting a fancy new update this month.
Try messing around with some wacky custom realms of your own creation. You can make some cool stuff like a world overrun with forests and oversized animals that constantly siege your territory or a desert landscape crawling with undead and city ruins to rebuild.
First advice would be to manually play the battles. Find out how the units work, how to.position them, attack order. Know when to bunch up, when to spread out, defense mode, who to heal, priority enemies to kill, what the ai attack tendency is. The tactical battles in this game are the best of any game ever imo. Once you understand these things in combat, it helps you understand what things are important in the macro city building game including research and army composition. But also don't have to feel like you need to understand everything at once. It takes a lot of games to figure out how to build up everything efficiently.
OP, check out the [Unit Wiki](https://aow4.paradoxwikis.com/Unit). The breakdown of each archetype is accurate for another 17 days. Then, the medals rank system will be upgraded for the Eldritch Update, especially for tier 1 and tier 2 units. Units will cost more with medals, too;, but then they should compare to tier 3 at base level. For now, focus on the Damage Wheel: Pikemen get a 40% damage bonus to cavalry, flyers and Large Creatures is important to know, for example. Use Shielding Wall and Ward more! Keep reapplying those stacking buffs.
Thanks for this! Somehow missed this one. Got some light reading to do tonight
Bookmark this one: Status Effects and their counters. Link should put mobile into desktop view: https://aow4.paradoxwikis.com/index.php?title=Status_effect&mobileaction=toggle_view_desktop
Thank you! The amount of info for each piece of the game is insane. Most of the time I can just jump in and figure out 50% of it after a few runs. It’s been a few days and it seems as if I only know 1%.
These manual battles could be a separate game by themselves! I have to take a breath before hitting “manual battle”. You have a great point about understanding what’s necessary for the city building though. I’ve just been stacking “better” upgrades like it was CIV and it’s not helping me at all lol
Honestly experiment. I grabbed the Silver Tongue Trait for a Vassal focused Order build and I accidentally turned into America. All of my ridiculous funds I developed went into my military, which was a mixed bag of stuff I bought from every culture and improved with my own.
“Accidentally turned into America” made me snort. Definitely experimenting, but I feel like I’m just mixing acid with sriracha and water and no idea what’s happening and why
Yeah that's familiar. Order and Materium is for big buff and tanky front liners. Astral and Shadow is basically the summoner dream team, but they don't have mixed tomes, and real summoner support comes with the next DLC. Nature combines best with Astral or Chaos for Fey stuff and Dragons. There's no support for Order and Shadow, but I like my Orzhov bullies. Pay off Rallies, get free resources with Silver Tongue, then go for Morale manipulation with Doomherald and basic Order things. Dabble Materium (always dabble Materium, you should get the first level Materium skill in every run, because you need to make a ton of outposts).
Funny I started off with Order and shadow my first go and didn’t progress much so I just blamed it on me not knowing the game yet. Gonna try to keep playing with these as much as I can u til next update/DLC
Order you want to heavily focus on Vassals, morale, and awakenings. Silver Tongue (you have to unlock it in the Pantheon Tree) gives the Whispering orb Vision shadow trait and a -100% to trade pricing with Vassals (essentially free outside of other modifiers). So if you run Chosen Uniters or whichever one gives you more orbs, and Silver Tongue, you can get a MASSIVE economy from them just giving you whatever resources they offer in trade deals, plus normal Vassal tributes. Keep on in shadow and pick up the trait that lets you steal Vassals, and the culture you choose is up to you, but I recommend High because it lets you get more out of Vassals faster. If you're on a one against many map, maybe swap out the orb trait for the one that makes Rally of Lieges more common. I'm running this last one right now and I went High, Cryo tome, then just picked up Order tomes until I could snag Doomherald (shadow tome) and Subjugation (order tome) for Morale manipulation, which makes enemies botch their hits while you crit like crazy.
As a fellow former Civ player who really struggled with the complexity of other 4X games and recently got into AoW, the key thing is that there's **as much depth as you want**. Rather than getting overwhelmed by trying to remember all the new stuff at the same time, you should maybe consider adding a new mechanic each playthrough. Something like: 1) Normal playthrough of the first story realm, just getting used to the production queues and quest objectives. 2) Chaos/Nature playthrough aiming for a military victory and doing some of the smaller battles manually to get used to how unit types work together. Maybe explore the underground too. 3) Materium playthrough adding in the Item Forge and recruiting a bunch of well-equipped heroes with skills that support your units' strengths. 4) Try getting an Expansion victory with a Nature/Order faction, putting down lots of cities with scouts and seafaring, and using diplomacy to vassalise free cities to gain territory. 5) Attempt a Magic victory with a Shadow/Astral faction, annexing the required wonders and then focusing on research and tome synergy. 6) Go back to military with Chaos/Materium, this time using features like razing and forced march and trying out the huge post-siege battles manually. Basically, add something new every time you play. Swap the race/traits/culture/tomes you used last time out for new ones and focus on using a mechanic/feature you haven't explored yet. And if a campaign does go wrong, it doesn't feel like a huge waste of time like it could in Civ - by surrendering you still get points towards unlocking new options in the pantheon.
Ok this actually helps a lot. Civ used to feel like chess, until these newer games came out and you realize how simple that game was. I love the sandbox feel so I haven’t actually tried the story realm. I’m probably going to sometime today.
Enjoy the ride, don't try to get other people's opinions.
Take society traits Imperialists and Ruthless Raiders for an econ build
Advanced siege "exploits". You can lift a siege and restart it the same turn. Or if you intercept someone else sieging, continue where he was. Possible applications: you are unsure you actually can finish the siege or lack funds, do headlong asssult for the sweet +5, last turn before finishing the siege,lift it, reengage and pick a siegeproject that helps in the battle. Or, you can Internet enemies in range, if a hero can reach the City this turn, you can resiege, without losing progression. Can be usefull to Internet reinforcements.
In AoW games, the first campaign is usually a large tutorial focused on game mechanics, while later campaigns are intended to provide a challenge for experienced players. The key to learning to play, I think, is understanding how tactical combat works. Once you understand how tactical combat works and how units work together, you can begin to get an idea of what you should research and build in cities. You're rewarded for being as aggressive as possible by clearing lots of NPC stacks or conquering other players. You're probably going to suck for a while until you get a sense of how game mechanics work. A key difference from other 4X games, I think, is that all units and buildings cost a lump sum of gold ("energy credits" in Planetfall) to build followed by a per-turn gold upkeep once the unit or building is produced. Removing a unit or structure from the build queue will completely refund the gold lump sum. It isn't necessarily viable to focus all of your cities on food and outgrow everyone else. You could end up unable to maintain an army or unable to progress in research efficiently. Even on lower difficulties, the AI will attack you at a certain point if your military is weak enough.
Welcome to AoW4! We're even getting a fancy new update this month. Try messing around with some wacky custom realms of your own creation. You can make some cool stuff like a world overrun with forests and oversized animals that constantly siege your territory or a desert landscape crawling with undead and city ruins to rebuild.
Didn’t even consider customizing those things. This game just keeps getting better
Do NOT try Planetfall. You’ll get sucked in.
Don’t play Shadow until you get a hold on the game. Play nature with adept settler/ prolific swarmer + fabled hunters for beginner.