I'm Here to Answer Questions After 50+ Hours with AoW4

[Adenum]

Apparantly it was incorrect. Dev diary 8 states that you can indefinitely increase the amount, but it costs more imperium each time. Also you can vassalize cities that only provide income.

I was kind of hoping that you've had a hard cap at 5 cities but suppose not. I suppose the T5 spam is a real prospect, assuming that the game lasts long enough. But then again even the 5 cities can get HUGE. Like outer ring road with maybe a train network kind of huge, jesus. Although you also probably gonna need judge Dred patrolling it for it to work.

Also there seems to be a big benefit to frost and forest tomes with arctic adaptation since those allow for terraforming so more control over what you can build and specialize your city in.

 

[Wushuki]

I was kind of hoping that you've had a hard cap at 5 cities but suppose not. I suppose the T5 spam is a real prospect, assuming that the game lasts long enough. But then again even the 5 cities can get HUGE. Like outer ring road with maybe a train network kind of huge, jesus. Although you also probably gonna need judge Dred patrolling it for it to work.

Also there seems to be a big benefit to frost and forest tomes with arctic adaptation since those allow for terraforming so more control over what you can build and specialize your city in.

I am not a huge fan of this either. Having too many cities and accompanying micromanagement also increases end game turn times. Sure, you can just automate them, but it isn't fun to first get more micromanagement than is enjoyable and then hear: "Don't worry, the game will just play itself and you can watch!" The game should be designed from the ground up to prevent automation from being needed.

Hopefully vassalization is a viable alternative.

 

[GloatingSwine]

I was kind of hoping that you've had a hard cap at 5 cities but suppose not. I suppose the T5 spam is a real prospect, assuming that the game lasts long enough. But then again even the 5 cities can get HUGE. Like outer ring road with maybe a train network kind of huge, jesus. Although you also probably gonna need judge Dred patrolling it for it to work.

Also there seems to be a big benefit to frost and forest tomes with arctic adaptation since those allow for terraforming so more control over what you can build and specialize your city in.

From today's dev diary it looks like a full size city can have 15 provinces attached. That looks like it's a similar amount of map coverage as a city with 6 sectors attached in Planetfall.

 

[Adenum]

I am not a huge fan of this either. Having too many cities and accompanying micromanagement also increases end game turn times. Sure, you can just automate them, but it isn't fun to first get more micromanagement than is enjoyable and then hear: "Don't worry, the game will just play itself and you can watch!" The game should be designed from the ground up to prevent automation from being needed.

Hopefully vassalization is a viable alternative.

From what I've seen it seems like basically a separate player so it should be pretty beneficial because you'll get different tomes from your own, at least the base units via rally of lieges. Probably. It kinda speedruns the Stellaris dilemma of wast expansion and automating economy while avoiding hyper bloat of single empires.

But then again I'm not sure how seceding your own cities will work so maybe you won't be getting a ton of different tomes if the resulting vasal inherits your tomes. And I kinda doubt that you will get enchants + racial transformations that way since those are like empire enchants, but maybe they can work as unit traits or something? Kinda hype overall.

 

[Ferrus Animus]

From today's dev diary it looks like a full size city can have 15 provinces attached. That looks like it's a similar amount of map coverage as a city with 6 sectors attached in Planetfall.

Where do you read that?
The last city hall improvement gets a boost at 15 population and the shown one is in a city with 15 population, but I see no indication that should be the limit.
The limit might be a kind of soft cap of increasing food cost and penalty to stability, and the other limit is the distance provinces can be attached (Which is why the megacity modifier increases that distance).

 

[Adenum]

From today's dev diary it looks like a full size city can have 15 provinces attached. That looks like it's a similar amount of map coverage as a city with 6 sectors attached in Planetfall.

Finally, I can play my Stardew Valley... I mean SimCity. I mean Mega City One simulator.

 

[Adenum]

Where do you read that?
The last city hall improvement gets a boost at 15 population and the shown one is in a city with 15 population, but I see no indication that should be the limit.
The limit might be a kind of soft cap of increasing food cost and penalty to stability, and the other limit is the distance provinces can be attached (Which is why the megacity modifier increases that distance).

Boost is supposedly a discount. As in if you get X things that are described in the boost that you get 30% discount on gold and production e.g. get 1 farm and you can build a workshop at a discount etc.

Although naming it a boost seems kinda odd, tbh.

 

[Ferrus Animus]

We're talking about maximum provinces, which is equal to city population.
I'm not sure what boost has to do with that. Only reason I meantioned it is because that's the only source of "15 population" that I considered might be ralted....

 

[Adenum]

We're talking about maximum provinces, which is equal to city population.
I'm not sure what boost has to do with that. Only reason I meantioned it is because that's the only source of "15 population" that I considered might be ralted....

Age of Wonders 4 uses a new province and expansion system. Provinces also follow the natural features of the world. They are smaller than sectors and unlike Planetfall you will gain a new province every time you gain a new population. Cities can easily get up to 15 population and 15 provinces, making your cities grow more organically in byte-sized chunks. This allows you to “steer” their expansion towards high value resources or to cut-off bottlenecks with your territory.

 

[Balance44]

For those that do want to micromanage and control their Empire in every detail, you need not worry. You can invest your Imperium into extra City Cap indefinitely, but it will cost you more Imperium each time. (c)

That was an answer to my question / concern about city cap from recent DD. And that sounds good ) In deed you can turn to vassals resource mining cities but manage unit producing one. As I understand you can send your troops as a reinforcement to vassal’s garrison if there is a threat.

The only thing I’d like to change about vassals is to mark their territories on the mini map by their sovereign color

 

[Triumph Jordi]

Shall we not derail this Q&A thread with a discussion on City Management and building? EIther discuss it in the Dev Diary Thread or create a new one, if you wouldn't mind.

 

[DevildogFF]

Really awesome info here Quick question, How do vassals behave during war? We've been told they send out "Raiding Parties" But to what extent does this have an effect on a war? Do these raiding parties act as normal armies and attack your enemies?

Yeah, I saw them do some work, but they weren't aggressive enough. I'd like to see this change before release...

 

[DevildogFF]

Ah, seems like my questions got lost. Here is a repost of them with a couple of new ones added:

1. Does unit / building production overflow? If you are queuing two T1 units which cost 50 Draft to produce, and have 90 Draft, will 40 of it will overflow to the second unit? If the player has 150 Draft and queues 3 T1 units which cost 50 Draft, will all three of them be built at once?
2. We have already seen that Imperium can be spent on attracting new population, founding cities, unlocking new Empire Skills and diplomacy. Are there any other ways to spend it? Once you unlock majority of Empire Skills which your build needs, do you still have meaningful ways to spend it?
3. It was mentioned, that culture units start to feel mostly useless past certain point. Does the same apply to low-tier Tome units and summons?
4. Are there any units in the game which require Imperium as upkeep?

#1: Yes
#2: No, but I'm hoping to see it used in other ways, especially for late-tier units.
#3: Yes, it applies to them, as well, unfortunately.
#4: Great question! As I just said, I *really* want to see Imperium used to purchase and maintain late-tier units.

 

[DevildogFF]

one question i have myself: do the realm traits also influence the underground to some degree (to which when yes) or is the underground completely untouched from the realm traits you select?

No, they didn't appear to. However, there were realm traits specific to the underground, if I remember correctly. There are A LOT of realm traits...

 

[DevildogFF]

@DevildogFF My questions got missed again, I think this is my last attempt or otherwise I'm spamming this thread at this point, haha:

1. How differentiated does elemental damage feel after Tier 1?
(In the Tier 1 tomes, poison, lightning and fire procs are all DOT effects that deal the same 8 damage per turn.)

2. Does fire feel like the superior DOT, or does it balance out later?
(Fire looks a bit special in that it has the additional effect of dealing extra damage against burning foes.)

3. Does split damage suffer more damage reduction than single source damage?
(Due to the fact that it is potentially countered by both defense and resistance.)

Thanks for your video and taking the time to answer the questions you already have.

#1: There are A LOT of elemental damage spells in every tier and some of them are DOT, and others are straight blasts, and others are pretty cataclysmic.

#2: Funny enough, I started thinking that poison was a bit OP, so they each have their strengths and from my time with it, I was able to make some viable spellbooks with varied tome choices. But yeah, fire is also pretty powerful.

#3: Yes.

 

[DevildogFF]

Hello,

thank you for this great and informative thread, it offers a lot of insight into the game. Now for the questions that intrigue me:

Is there a way to play without underground? I have seen the option to make underground smaller but I haven't seen the option to swithc it off completely.

If there is Underground in game, are some enemy player factions forced to start in there, so the players are evenly distributed between Surface and Underground OR are the only enemy players able to start underground the ones with Underground adaptation form trait?

How much can you customize your hero? Can you even adjust the race and body type?

Lets say I want to role play a Gondor Faction. I start with Denethor as a leader but then tigran woman named Yzarel the Cunning joins my ranks. Am I able to change this hero completely to transform her into Boromir, human man? xd

Thanks for the answers, they are much appriciated.

I'm pretty sure there is a realm trait that removes the underground.

Yes, it's about 2/3s on the surface and 1/3 in the underground from my experience. There's less room underground, so that seemed to make sense to me.

You can customize every aspect of them. Literally everything. Like their arm length and legs, to their race and body type.

Yes, you could do that. But only as a Wizard King. (I am pretty damn sure that's the name of the outside wizards).

 

[DevildogFF]

I'll try to repeat mine. BTW it is related to the city cap question. How does population work? Does it exist only to unlock the ability to annex provinces and then it is useless as a resource or does it have any other purpose in city building? Is city building on par with Planetfall’s? Thanks for your time. BTW: Great video and even greater points you made about the game! I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

You should check today's dev diary!

 

[DevildogFF]

I'm gonna... Not repeat mine, on the second thought.

Go ahead! I think I'm finally caught up.

Hell, I have no idea. I'm trying, but there has been WAY WAY WAY more questions than I had anticipated. lol

 

[Adenum]

Go ahead! I think I'm finally caught up.

Hell, I have no idea. I'm trying, but there has been WAY WAY WAY more questions than I had anticipated. lol

I'll try to condense the 21 initial questions then.

It's mostly enchants and race transformation related:
1. Can you have two races with different transformations?
2. Is there variety in enchant upkeep - does unit tier matter, does enchant tier matter, do transformations have different upkeep?
3. Are cultural enchant the same as tome enchants? I assume they are not free and incur additional upkeep?
4. Can you apply racial transformations to stuff from landmarks or summons?
5. Is there any limitation on total enchants or transformations?
6. Is there tech or spell trading? Can you procure tomes from other players or free cities?
7. Can you craft hero items like in aow3? Can you trade items?
8. Is there food trading for cities?
9. What do you get from integrating a different race or culture? Do they convert to your culture?

 

[Flockingbird]

Go ahead! I think I'm finally caught up.

Oooh, I’ll repeat mine!

Thanks for your video and for answering questions!

I’m trying to figure out if I will be able to play AOW4 given my physical limitations. Is it possible to map the movement keys to the arrow and ‘rotate’ keys? How much clicking do you have to do compared to CK3 (which I gather you’re familiar with)?

In your transcript, you said (italics added to distinguish your quote from mine):

Hell, there are even multiple different models for the cities that you and your AI allies and enemies will found. In fact, there are so many models that I lost track of how many varieties there are. It’s little details like this that really do a lot to draw you into this fantasy world. Honestly, it’s like they thought of everything…You can see each of the five cities in the screenshots here in this preview all have different city models. And there are many, many more…

I was under the impression that city models were based on culture, and so thought there were probably six models. Can you tell us more about them?

Thank you again! You’ve been very helpful!

Edited for clarity.

I am still trying to figure out whether I can manage the interface, and how painful it will be, so anything you can tell us about it will help me!

Thanks again!