My problem with Materium Affinity

[Ferrus Animus]

The Item Forge was added with the golem update, along with the Empires and Ashes DLC, which also added 4 of the currently 8 DLC-materium tomes.
So of the 17 current materium tomes 13 have been designed before the current item forge implementation and at least concurrently with the first version.

So there was little item forging to interact with during the design.

Materium tomes currently mainly cover two themes:
- Elementalism
- Artificing (Alchemy/Transmutation/Golems/etc...)

 

[$ilent_$trider]

I wonder how broken would it be to have a Materium T3 tome that gives us an extra point for crafting if combined with a Giant King…

 

[seperamos]

The Item Forge was added with the golem update, along with the Empires and Ashes DLC, which also added 4 of the currently 8 DLC-materium tomes.
So of the 17 current materium tomes 13 have been designed before the current item forge implementation and at least concurrently with the first version.

So there was little item forging to interact with during the design.

Materium tomes currently mainly cover two themes:
- Elementalism
- Artificing (Alchemy/Transmutation/Golems/etc...)

Ooooooh, I could definitely see Item Forge improvement tomes or SPIs under artificing! But if materium improves items, how would the other affinities and their factions compete against materium's enhanced rulers and heroes?

With enchantments? With more minor/major transformations? Tougher t4/t5 units focus? Terrain bonuses? Building improvements or resource extraction? Each affinity must have a reasonable number of paths and means to victory. I think 3 obvious paths per affinity, with official tome support, can cover most of the fantasy archetypes we as players want to use and build with regardless of culture picks.

The third path i want to see emphasized with materium is Gunpowder/wealth focus, with t1 to t4 tomes supporting units, enchantments, and minor transformations competing against magic focus paths that have mages, mounted mages, and mage summons and spells.

 

[EvilEyeSigma]

What, is that verified lore?

"The Musketeer leered at the horde before lifting the long iron tube to his shoulder. He loosed a blast into the enemy berserkers. Ducking behind the cover of a tree, he prepared a second shot. With each shot, he downed another man with such range and accuracy that by the time we engaged the enemy, most were wounded. We kept them away from him, which wasn't to difficult, because Musketeers can run quite fast. Within a few moments, we were the last ones standing on the battlefield. Now for every battle I hope we have musketeers in my company"

Gun units have been a thing since AoW1, and only in 4 the concept of Mageclok as been introduced, it is a fairly logical assumption that they were Gunpodwer.

By the way, the Ironcland of 4 is not a replacement of the Juggernaut.

It is literally the Ironclad former aquatic unit from 3, i wonder if anyone ever noticed that

 

[Blanch Warren]

Gun units have been a thing since AoW1, and only in 4 the concept of Magelock as been introduced, it is a fairly logical assumption that they were Gunpowder.

Your method isn't illegitimate, but that's a bit of a stretch. You could suppose it as an in-universe replacement for gunpowder after the fall, but dev-side it was likely introduced as Magelock to reject the idea that the universe has much gunpowder tech. (Or, at least after the fall of the empire)

I can agree that AOW 3 looks like an gunpowder tech, but without a lore update the only thing you've "uncovered" is that the devs didn't oppose gunderpowder tech in AOW3, and that they've backtracked to magic to keep the universe low-IRL tech in favor of magitech.

They could just as well backtrack and say AOW 3 era was a combination of traditional and magical fuels (which I'm pretty there was, just not whether that applies much to guns or gunships).

 

[ReckonerIL]

I thought the whole point was that they and the Commonwealth were the "science" faction that didn't like magic, even if they had shit like mana batteries.

In many fantasy worlds (I would even say most), magic isn't purely mystical phenomenon and can be scientifically researched, learned and developed. As I see it, AoW4 very well falls into that category, so being science focused and using magic isn't contradictory in any way in that sense. The difference is that while some use magic through different mystical powers, like divine/spiritual entities or some rituals/rites/traditions, factions like Commonwealth use magic through scientific methods, deducing laws by which magic works and using them to create different mechanisms that use magic, kind of like electricity IRL.

 

[pgt1027]

In many fantasy worlds (I would even say most), magic isn't purely mystical phenomenon and can be scientifically researched, learned and developed. As I see it, AoW4 very well falls into that category, so being science focused and using magic isn't contradictory in any way in that sense. The difference is that while some use magic through different mystical powers, like divine/spiritual entities or some rituals/rites/traditions, factions like Commonwealth use magic through scientific methods, deducing laws by which magic works and using them to create different mechanisms that use magic, kind of like electricity IRL.

Okay, if that's the case, then what's the problem? Dreadnought ARE just magical smiths. Why are people arguing?

 

[STARSDragoon]

​	Bombardier	The Dwarves invented the bombardier shortly after discovering the explosive mix of sulfur, charcoal and saltpeter. The device was made to hold a large quantity of boom-powder in a great metal caldron, which hurls a heavy rounded piece of ore over long distances. Roughly as accurate as a catapult, but with greater range, the bombardier has led to the obsolescence of catapults among the Dwarves.

I think this dwarf unit is clearer on gunpowder.

But i think lorewise aow3 guns had manapowder in their mix.

Think commonwealth bad ending Was athla got strip mined for mana crystals until none were left.

 

[seperamos]

On second thought, artificer might also include tomes 1 through 4 that specialize in gunpowder and gunpowder constructs. It would also be a great idea for enhancement of feudal and other melee heavy cultures.

 

[ataraciuk]

As someone wanting more asymmetry/differentiation, I'm super on board on giving more unique dynamics to each affinity.

A concept I had in mind was that constructs/golems could be built in the item forge, thus giving materium another way to recruit units. this would make stuff that improves forge speed or costs reduction more value, stuff like that could come on materium tomes via SPIs or buildings (like there are SPIs that give casting points, why not have an spi that somehow speeds up the forge a bit or provides some binding cost reduction or even somo minimal binding points per turn?). If that's too much maybe they could be built using production (the buildings queue), given materium tomes having that many quarries and interaction with it (but not sure if that would actually be a big nerf, maybe keep them on the unit queue but find ways on how high prod could help build them faster?).

Well I'd also love to see different unit types interact with the economy/logicis in different ways than just what resistances or things they have as a unit for combat.

Another example would be making animls/plants have food as upkeep instead of gold (making nature-based builds more different economically and focusing on food having other uses), but gold/mana are global and food is local so it can be tricky (a system where they are tied to a city that's the one that pays the upkeep and they can be reassigned?).

Anyway, back to the topic of materium, I guess everything that's earth magic also falls there? Maybe not having a specific damage channel or some statuses could help the concpet about it? fire is shared with chaos, physical is kind of universal. Not sure what it could be, gilded is too strong to be used more widely.

 

[Blanch Warren]

Tome of Artificer is a good Tome, but I would suggest that it's IRON GOLEM mostly be built as a defensive support unit.

Gunpowder (or something equivalent) might be too strong for a T1 Tome.
But I don't know why can't fit under a T2 tome, unless it's just to keep Reavers unique.

Magelock is T2.

 

[Wildwiredweasel]

I feel like elementals are order and aetherial, weirdly enough. Just like chaos and order are demons and angels, and death vs life is undead vs lifeforms.

Which is to say, there's actually multiple fantasy themes occurring for each one- it isn't just a matter of mono-identity, but opposing identity.

Materium has iron golems, severing golems, golems in general. Aetherial has astral summons which aren't elemental. But the basic access to the first layer, earth elementals, benefits from magic origin boosting effects, which comes mostly from astral. On the other hand, there's really no astral version of constructs that benefit at all from anything that comes from materium.

I think that's where part of the perceived identity crisis for materium comes from. What materium DOES get, still doesn't fully belong to it, but what aetherial gets, is undoubtedly its own. I'm not saying this needs to be 'fixed' per se, but it feels like the issue is present on a core thematic level.

 

[ataraciuk]

I feel like elementals are order and aetherial, weirdly enough. Just like chaos and order are demons and angels, and death vs life is undead vs lifeforms.

Which is to say, there's actually multiple fantasy themes occurring for each one- it isn't just a matter of mono-identity, but opposing identity.

Materium has iron golems, severing golems, golems in general. Aetherial has astral summons which aren't elemental. But the basic access to the first layer, earth elementals, benefits from magic origin boosting effects, which comes mostly from astral. On the other hand, there's really no astral version of constructs that benefit at all from anything that comes from materium.

I think that's where part of the perceived identity crisis for materium comes from. What materium DOES get, still doesn't fully belong to it, but what aetherial gets, is undoubtedly its own. I'm not saying this needs to be 'fixed' per se, but it feels like the issue is present on a core thematic level.

That's a good point.

Got me thinking, if astral is the one focused on magic on its 'purest' form (vs life-magic, angelic/faith magic, cold/death magic, demonic/fire magic), maybe materium could focus on being anti-magic? Or magic resistance more in general. Tome of enchantment already has spell tempered shields, purging arrows, there is of course severing tome.

Just some silly ideas: Maybe tome of warding could belong to materium, although that would give it 3 T1s, and something else would be needed for pure astral. Maybe tome of winds could be re-shaped as astral tome (there is an association of wind and storms maybe?) to compensate.

Also, nerd me is thinking of how grounding a circuit makes it safer against electrical issues, and 'ground' mostly belonging to materium and electricity to astral, there has to be something flavorful to do with materium as a counter regarding that.

 

[ReckonerIL]

Okay, if that's the case, then what's the problem? Dreadnought ARE just magical smiths.

It seems like you don't quite get it, you watch at AoW universe through your eyes as a man living in real world, when you need to try get perspective of someone living in that fantasy world. "Magic" there is part of physical laws of the universe, if someone in that world sees construct he doesn't think "wow, that's magic", like you when you see robots created by Boston Dynamics don't think "wow, that's magic". So dreadnought aren't magical smith, same as engineers of Boston Dynamics aren't. The only "magical" part about them is that their knowledge about how universe works is much deeper than of "regular" smith.

Affinities in AoW4 isn't just different types of magic, they are fundamental parts of AoW's cosmology. Anything existing in that universe falls in domain of one (or several) of affinities, doesn't matter "magical" or not. Materium and Astral isn't about earth magic and lightning magic, it's about material and immaterial. It's why elementals, even though available for all affinities, generally associated with Materium Affinity, because everything material consist of basic elements, and elementals are personified manifestations of those elements, while Ethereal is associated with Astral, because ethereals are beings from beyond material plane.

After rereading OP, I think you just don't vibe with the affinity and don't see appeal of it, because by it's concept it's the least "magical" affinity compared to any other. I to be honest love it most and don't see any "identity crisis" at all. You can flatten mountains, call earthshakes, turn things into gold, create material goods out of mana, elevate magma from depth of the earth, animate tools, manipulate winds, create amazing constructs and else. Yes, there could be more stuff about item forging, but original game wasn't designed with it in mind. And I don't see why the whole affinity should be shoehorned into this narrow theme of item forging, when it already covers it, but also several others themes.

 

[STARSDragoon]

It seems like you don't quite get it, you watch at AoW universe through your eyes as a man living in real world, when you need to try get perspective of someone living in that fantasy world. "Magic" there is part of physical laws of the universe, if someone in that world sees construct he doesn't think "wow, that's magic", like you when you see robots created by Boston Dynamics don't think "wow, that's magic". So dreadnought aren't magical smith, same as engineers of Boston Dynamics aren't. The only "magical" part about them is that their knowledge about how universe works is much deeper than of "regular" smith.

Affinities in AoW4 isn't just different types of magic, they are fundamental parts of AoW's cosmology. Anything existing in that universe falls in domain of one (or several) of affinities, doesn't matter "magical" or not. Materium and Astral isn't about earth magic and lightning magic, it's about material and immaterial. It's why elementals, even though available for all affinities, generally associated with Materium Affinity, because everything material consist of basic elements, and elementals are personified manifestations of those elements, while Ethereal is associated with Astral, because ethereals are beings from beyond material plane.

After rereading OP, I think you just don't vibe with the affinity and don't see appeal of it, because by it's concept it's the least "magical" affinity compared to any other. I to be honest love it most and don't see any "identity crisis" at all. You can flatten mountains, call earthshakes, turn things into gold, create material goods out of mana, elevate magma from depth of the earth, animate tools, manipulate winds, create amazing constructs and else. Yes, there could be more stuff about item forging, but original game wasn't designed with it in mind. And I don't see why the whole affinity should be shoehorned into this narrow theme of item forging, when it already covers it, but also several others themes.

Constructs in aow4 are allways filled with magic. Even the reavers cannon cant work without magic. Look at the magic runes on it. And stuff like iron golems is clearly animated by magic.

 

[ReckonerIL]

Constructs in aow4 are allways filled with magic. Even the reavers cannon cant work without magic. Look at the magic runes on it. And stuff like iron golems is clearly animated by magic.

Read my previous post and read better the post you quoted.

 

[Blanch Warren]

maybe materium could focus on being anti-magic?

how about no, though it does do that with Tome of Enchantment, Shield Golems and Tome of Severance.

 

[STARSDragoon]

Read my previous post and read better the post you quoted.

So you think using magic glyphs to power machines doesnt involve magic?

 

[Wildwiredweasel]

That's a good point.

Got me thinking, if astral is the one focused on magic on its 'purest' form (vs life-magic, angelic/faith magic, cold/death magic, demonic/fire magic), maybe materium could focus on being anti-magic? Or magic resistance more in general. Tome of enchantment already has spell tempered shields, purging arrows, there is of course severing tome.

Just some silly ideas: Maybe tome of warding could belong to materium, although that would give it 3 T1s, and something else would be needed for pure astral. Maybe tome of winds could be re-shaped as astral tome (there is an association of wind and storms maybe?) to compensate.

Also, nerd me is thinking of how grounding a circuit makes it safer against electrical issues, and 'ground' mostly belonging to materium and electricity to astral, there has to be something flavorful to do with materium as a counter regarding that.

I feel like making it anti-magic in particular isn't correct, although I do understand where you're coming from on that.

To be precise: I think anti-magic is a valid subset of materium, but if I really had to pin down what I thought was the core aspect of magic representation in materium, it wouldn't be anti-magic, non-magic technology, or even golems. It would be what anti-magic is a subset of, which is manifestation methodology. If astral is about the master wizard and the races that are naturally (or mutagenically) magical, materium is about giving the frontline soldiers disposable wands that can hold a single charge each. Astral focuses on mastery and understanding- materium focuses on replication and application. The ability to make an area where magic can't be cast should also imply that it may be able to create areas where magic could be boosted. Echo fields, for example, where the bond between magic and the material world is strengthened rather than reduced. (If materium has the means to sever, why not the means to strengthen? Why not the ability to weaken selectively, such as making damage spells lesser but healing spells greater within the context of a single battle, or the context of three rounds of battle?)

If astral is Philosophy, then Materium is Engineering. That's how I think it should be approached, anyway. And to be fair, I feel like that observation is supported by the in-game materium tomes. Tome of enchanting, tome of golems, tome of alchemy, tome of devastation... everything with materium is an aspect of constructing- or in the case of shadows, deconstructing.

EDIT- and yet, I still feel like your original point stands. Materium doesn't really feel like it has a magical identity. It would be like tying astral to all applications of magic and saying that was astral's identity. I don't have an answer, so instead, I'll offer a question. If astral is tied to the astral sea, where spirits reside, what is materium tied to, and what resides there?

 

[STARSDragoon]

I feel like making it anti-magic in particular isn't correct, although I do understand where you're coming from on that.

To be precise: I think anti-magic is a valid subset of materium, but if I really had to pin down what I thought was the core aspect of magic representation in materium, it wouldn't be anti-magic, non-magic technology, or even golems. It would be what anti-magic is a subset of, which is manifestation methodology. If astral is about the master wizard and the races that are naturally (or mutagenically) magical, materium is about giving the frontline soldiers disposable wands that can hold a single charge each. Astral focuses on mastery and understanding- materium focuses on replication and application. The ability to make an area where magic can't be cast should also imply that it may be able to create areas where magic could be boosted. Echo fields, for example, where the bond between magic and the material world is strengthened rather than reduced. (If materium has the means to sever, why not the means to strengthen? Why not the ability to weaken selectively, such as making damage spells lesser but healing spells greater within the context of a single battle, or the context of three rounds of battle?)

If astral is Philosophy, then Materium is Engineering. That's how I think it should be approached, anyway. And to be fair, I feel like that observation is supported by the in-game materium tomes. Tome of enchanting, tome of golems, tome of alchemy, tome of devastation... everything with materium is an aspect of constructing- or in the case of shadows, deconstructing.

EDIT- and yet, I still feel like your original point stands. Materium doesn't really feel like it has a magical identity. It would be like tying astral to all applications of magic and saying that was astral's identity. I don't have an answer, so instead, I'll offer a question. If astral is tied to the astral sea, where spirits reside, what is materium tied to, and what resides there?

I like that thought, but boosting magic is astral territory. Though an astral materium tome could focus on something like that. Combining the understanding of astral with a plan/construct to make it easier to use

In the aow cosmos the source of magic is the astral sea. Where it pierces into the material worlds we find mana crystals.

Cutting the connection to the astral sea (by for example using the seals, which led to aow3) will prevent mana from entering. Controlling the seals, according to the victory screen, gives you full control over the magic on the realm and allows you to eject all other godir.