So, after annexing NPC faction, you can't just straight up build units?

[gholin]

One thing I loved about Age of Wonders 3 is if you got an NPC faction city, you could start building their units (Giants, Pixies, etc). I just annexed my first Paragon city in the campaign, and I still can't build their units without buying them with influence from the diplomacy menu.

Is there another way to do this so I can just build Paragon units with energy? (Does invading and taking over do this for you? I've never done that yet).

I also noticed after taking an assembly town, I could build some assembly units, but I couldn't actually build any advanced assembly buildings to get any other units from the assembly. Do you only get access to what the former owner had at one point, or something?

How does all this work? Thanks!

 

[TheDeadlyShoe]

when you own another player races city you get access to their military tree. you have to research advanced units there to build them. afaik, anyway, i havent tried it.

 

[HousePet]

It keeps working as it did before you Annexed the Dwelling. You have to buy the units with Influence.
I strongly suspect the reason for this is how broken it was to get a Giant Dwelling and just start pumping out Giants in AoW:3.

As for getting units from other Playable Factions, look in your Military Research screen. You can now research most Assembly tech.

 

[Ethorin]

specifically, there's a bar at the start of your racial tree, click it and you can swap to any other racial tree you have a settlement from.

EDIT: this won't swap weapon group lines or secret tech tree, you only have your starting set for that, also if it's a racial doctrine that's in Society and you can't get it.

 

[BloodyBattleBrain]

The replies here are missing what the OP was asking about!

Is there another way to do this so I can just build Paragon units with energy? (Does invading and taking over do this for you? I've never done that yet).

No! You need to use influence regardless.

Assimilating another race works differently.

 

[HousePet]

The replies here are missing what the OP was asking about!

Now be fair. They asked multiple questions in a slightly messy fashion (about NPC and then straight into Playable Factions), and one of the questions was "How does all this work?".

 

[BloodyBattleBrain]

Touché!


I retract my whine.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

The main value of annexing dwellings is that you get a pre-built level 5 sector. Other players also can no longer interact with the NPC if they have no unowned dwellings. I'm not sure that's worth it. The real reason to annex dwellings by requesting ownership seems to be if you want to get the diplomatic victory, as you need two of them for that.

 

[Ethorin]

Other players also can no longer interact with the NPC if they have no unowned dwellings.

when there's three people with Psi Damage Channel and you have the only Psi-Fish Dwelling it's TOTES worth it

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

The main value of annexing dwellings is that you get a pre-built level 5 sector. Other players also can no longer interact with the NPC if they have no unowned dwellings. I'm not sure that's worth it. The real reason to annex dwellings by requesting ownership seems to be if you want to get the diplomatic victory, as you need two of them for that.

That is very worth it indeed. That means they don't get any nasty mods, nor nasty units.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

That is very worth it indeed. That means they don't get any nasty mods, nor nasty units.

That's assuming you have all of the dwellings and those players haven't already bought the mods. It can be good, but it feels pretty situational. Possible that my mind will change once I get more experience with the late game.

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

That's assuming you have all of the dwellings and those players haven't already bought the mods. It can be good, but it feels pretty situational. Possible that my mind will change once I get more experience with the late game.

No, the mods can be bought simultaneously by multiple players. If they have the mods and you don't, they have the upper hand as a result.

Also consider you use influence rather than gold, which is a resource which just piles up late game while gold is used up by all your existing armies. You get free units that cost you no gold to recruit. An army of modded bees is quite a nuisance, you combine influence and cosmite, late game resources that are abundant to get a load of nasty units instantly without having to wait for them to be recruited and without having to spend any gold, which is scarce once you have a big army.

 

[gholin]

specifically, there's a bar at the start of your racial tree, click it and you can swap to any other racial tree you have a settlement from.

EDIT: this won't swap weapon group lines or secret tech tree, you only have your starting set for that, also if it's a racial doctrine that's in Society and you can't get it.

I never noticed that bar, holy cow. Thank you! I was feeling like something was off. I like "collecting" races in my alliance.

 

[Mauer]

Am I the only who thinks NPC units are underwhelming? Sure, they're nice to have to supplement your armies with other roles in the early game when you only have three or four unit types, but the NPC units seem to get most of their worth in synergy with each other, otherwise they're like weaker versions of regular units (Paragon soldiers vs. Vanguard soldiers or Spacer Helicopters vs. Dvar Ramjets), so you need specialized armies full of them, and since you can't build them at will I find it better to use my own units.

 

[gholin]

I don't really agree they are underwhelming.

Paragon units are pretty strong if you can overdrive them. Having a single prophet lead them really ups their damage and powers. You can't really have them on their own very much or they are very weak. Overdrived though, they can wreck enemies and the prophet and mech walker are very powerful. In the campaign, I have those walkers overdriving themselves and stunning everything they hit, cutting through mechanized units and cyborgs like butter. They are in every one of my stacks. The prophet can do insane AoE with their Wrath of God like power and summon more Paragon to the battlefield while overdriving all paragon forces with their other ability. The Imperial Guard and Soldiers are a little weak but overdriven, the guard can do AOE shock damage, and the Soldiers can arc their shots.

I've had a lot of time in the first few vanguard missions to get comfy with the Paragon, so I've seen what their units can do when used together.

The few psyfish I have fought were brutal mind controllers, and really hard to hit.

Facing an army of Spacers led by their prophet truck, my elite forces took a lot of damage. Spacer infantry can hop into battle fast and go berserk, ripping through your troops like they have no HP. I lost my strongest hero pretty quick to a blitz attack by three of their tier one infantry. Killed in one turn. I no longer think they are weak after seeing that. Even though I won, they really gave me a tough fight. Tougher than the Syndicate were giving me with multiple stacks.

 

[Promethian]

Am I the only who thinks NPC units are underwhelming? Sure, they're nice to have to supplement your armies with other roles in the early game when you only have three or four unit types, but the NPC units seem to get most of their worth in synergy with each other, otherwise they're like weaker versions of regular units (Paragon soldiers vs. Vanguard soldiers or Spacer Helicopters vs. Dvar Ramjets), so you need specialized armies full of them, and since you can't build them at will I find it better to use my own units.

You say weaker versions of regular units when I have gotten the exact opposite impression. They all have trade offs and end up getting big boosts when used with their synergy. Your two examples demonstrate this.

Paragon vs Vanguard the Vanguard has 5 more health. However the Paragon is immune to psi status effects and negative morale and is a cyborg so it can benefit from a wider array of mods, including getting networked with the Autonom (I have done it once before). The Paragon also has the option to become over charged.

The Hellcopter vs Ramjet is also a bad comparison. Hellcopter is 5 less health. However it gets a repeating range attack vs a single melee attack. Ramjets are a bit easier to use but the Hellcopter has higher damage potential.

Bees are badasses. Soldier bees have armor melting ranged attacks with good damage. Plus they can get mods that heal nearby units and give a morale buff. Later Growth units do nasty status effects and can spawn mini melee disruptors.

Every Psi-fish above the chrysalis has a range 7 hard crowd control built in. This can go from simply disabling attacks (they can run away) to full disable to making them walk towards you while doing nothing else. Top tier Psi-fish have an attack that is effectively an insta kill though they run around for a couple turns doing nothing else in a panic before the insta kill registers. Oh this also spawns you a free unit. Add that every Psi-fish is etheral so immune to most status effects and has high damage resists and they are very powerful.

I can go on. NPC faction units are all very good. You need to learn to evaluate things better because with the exception of the Paragon all of them are at least equal to their main faction counterparts and many are flat out superior.

 

[gholin]

I completely agree. As I mentioned above. I've only found them super powerful when used correctly, or when the ai uses them correctly against me.

I kinda wish the Spacers were a full blown faction. I'd love to play as them and have their roster further padded out. Such a fun NPC faction to fight and to use the units of.

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

I completely agree. As I mentioned above. I've only found them super powerful when used correctly, or when the ai uses them correctly against me.

I kinda wish the Spacers were a full blown faction. I'd love to play as them and have their roster further padded out. Such a fun NPC faction to fight and to use the units of.

I got the impression that the Spacers are really the weakest NPC faction. The truck is quite a rubbish unit since it only has a single shot which often misses, I find their only semi-decent units are the acid thrower and the hellcopter.