The "Mono Stacking" Problem

[GloatingSwine]

Why not? It makes you search out multiple unit classes, rather than tunnel visioning on only 1.


So tell me, can I stack Searing Blades with Artisan Enchantments? Am I still allowed to cast Force of Nature? What about Disrupting Blades?
What about Lightning Focus and Siege Magic? Or Supreme Magic? Do you see how your system of only limiting damage has problems?

If limiting enchantments makes everyone stack 3x damage, then you simply rebalance the enchantments afterwards.
I'd still rather fight against 3x damage enchantments than 6x damage + 2x defensive enchantments as we do right now.
Every change has to start somewhere and in this case it has to start with limits. This has to be the first step forwards.

Any overhaul to the enchantments would need the numbers on them changing to reflect their value in the new system. Like for most of those the answer would be "no but the numbers would be fiddled around to make them competitive with each other under that understanding". (I'd probably let Force of Nature go specifically because it's in a tier 5 tome and should be bringing that much juice to the table)

The thing with a 3 enchantment system is that you probably aren't going to have a lot of variety in the enchantments themselves, whereas a more targeted set of mutual exclusivity still leaves room for the marginal/situational stuff like aspect of the root because it isn't competing for one of a limited number of slots.

 

[Codyksp]

Any overhaul to the enchantments would need the numbers on them changing to reflect their value in the new system. Like for most of those the answer would be "no but the numbers would be fiddled around to make them competitive with each other under that understanding". (I'd probably let Force of Nature go specifically because it's in a tier 5 tome and should be bringing that much juice to the table)

The thing with a 3 enchantment system is that you probably aren't going to have a lot of variety in the enchantments themselves, whereas a more targeted set of mutual exclusivity still leaves room for the marginal/situational stuff like aspect of the root because it isn't competing for one of a limited number of slots.

Well, that just brings me back to the system of 1 enchantment per type.

• Melee Group
• Ranged Group
• Magic Group
• Support Group
• Defensive Group
• Utility Group

Now you're not allowed to stack 3x defense or 3x damage, which is more restrictive than my first proposal.
Whereas in the system of 3 you maintain freedom of choice and can mix and match as you personally want.

What is my Shield unit going to have? 1x Melee, 1x Defensive and 1x utility? That's still 3 you know.
Your proposal of making things mutually exclusive is actually more restrictive when you look at it deeply.

Restricting only damage, but not the other types would be inconsistent and makes no sense either.

 

[Jolly Joker]

Clearly, that is a vastly superior suggestion to limit them to 1 per enchantment type. The interesting thing is that this would kill the reason that made every tome more expensive than its predecessor, because going for, say, Pyromancy as tome 10, ehen you alread got cryomancy would make sense only tactically - say you had an opponent with a fire vulnerability. You could cheaply and fastly switch, especially with a research plus which would make the game more interesting in addition to the fact that a "good" unit would look vastly different from now.

Note that , you could have a group "hard counters" which would incorporate enchantments giving one unit class an advantage over another.

 

[seperamos]

Yeah. Uhm. No. You are absolutely insane if you think 11 is a normal amount to have on one unit.

You get 1 per tome at best, if you choose the tomes that offer enchantments for you.
So when you hit T5 tomes, you could at best have 9 enchantments for one unit type.
Realistically you are more likely to have 6 of them in most builds. Sometimes 7 with T5.

First of all, this is extremely boring gameplay (where you choose enchantment only tomes).
This is precisely the type of thing we are trying to stop from happening because it ruins the game.
I want you to take tomes that offer 0 enchantments, but have good units or spells in them.

Second. This game wasn't built to (on average) have players go beyond T5 tomes.
The whole game is balanced around T5 being the cap of your power and ending it.
Any gameplay beyond this stage of the game is not a part of the baseline design.

This has nothing to do with "going for more affinities than one". You pick 9 tomes during a match.

And I'm telling you, as somebody who plays the game and enjoys strategy and complexity, the game you're trying to turn this into is too rigid and narrow from what it was originally intended to be. Balance by limitation is LIMITING creativity and strategy. It's boring, predictable, and lacks flexibility.

Players SHOULD be able to pick tome paths that buff their t1 units with transformations or enchantments. Obviously, you need more enchants on t1s to buff them to a level where they can take on t4s/t5s. How are 3 enchants on a t1 unit going to increase their survivability past early game??

This system you propose forces players to take on t4/t5 units and monostack them again, since they will be far stronger with 3 enchants than t1s and t3s. Forget even thinking about dual tome paths, those wouldn't be efficient in this system.

 

[Codyksp]

This mod can be used as inspiration for the cultural units: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3023411279.

And I'm telling you, as somebody who plays the game and enjoys strategy and complexity, the game you're trying to turn this into is too rigid and narrow from what it was originally intended to be. Balance by limitation is LIMITING creativity and strategy. It's boring, predictable, and lacks flexibility.

Players SHOULD be able to pick tome paths that buff their t1 units with transformations or enchantments. Obviously, you need more enchants on t1s to buff them to a level where they can take on t4s/t5s. How are 3 enchants on a t1 unit going to increase their survivability past early game??

This system you propose forces players to take on t4/t5 units and monostack them again, since they will be far stronger with 3 enchants than t1s and t3s. Forget even thinking about dual tome paths, those wouldn't be efficient in this system.

The GAME forces you to take higher tier units. This won't change. It's designed to have higher tiers be better.
Your idea of having T1 or T2 units relevant against T4 and T5 wont ever exist in the game as it is now.
It won't ever exist in my world either. It would require a full rework of tomes and enchantments. It's out of scope.

You want something entirely different. I want a restriction on what already exists to improve gameplay.
In essence, you want Age of Wonders 5 and I want Age of Wonders 4 with a new update. It's not the same.

My proposal has 0 mono stacking. It makes you avoid mono stacking precisely because of the limits imposed.

 

[seperamos]

This mod can be used as inspiration for the cultural units

The GAME forces you to take higher tier units. This won't change. It's designed to have higher tiers be better.
Your idea of having T1 or T2 units relevant against T4 and T5 wont ever exist in the game as it is now.
It won't ever exist in my world either. It would require a full rework of tomes and enchantments. It's out of scope.

You want something entirely different. I want a restriction on what already exists to improve gameplay.
In essence, you want Age of Wonders 5 and I want Age of Wonders 4 with a new update. It's not the same.

My proposal has 0 mono stacking. It makes you avoid mono stacking precisely because of the limits imposed.

I'm not playing your terrible version of the game, dude. Have fun promoting your warped version of "balance".

 

[Jolly Joker]

And I'm telling you, as somebody who plays the game and enjoys strategy and complexity, the game you're trying to turn this into is too rigid and narrow from what it was originally intended to be. Balance by limitation is LIMITING creativity and strategy. It's boring, predictable, and lacks flexibility.

Players SHOULD be able to pick tome paths that buff their t1 units with transformations or enchantments. Obviously, you need more enchants on t1s to buff them to a level where they can take on t4s/t5s. How are 3 enchants on a t1 unit going to increase their survivability past early game??

This system you propose forces players to take on t4/t5 units and monostack them again, since they will be far stronger with 3 enchants than t1s and t3s. Forget even thinking about dual tome paths, those wouldn't be efficient in this system.

But a T4 of the same class than the T1 will get the same enchantments and still be better than the T1. So that works only against a handicapped AI that isn't able to stack enchantments, but follows a ramdom (or affinity-based) way through the tomes.
That's just exploiting a weakness.

A crapton of features has been sstreamlined to help the AI. Take, for example, the new rule about who's taking part in a battle. Only 3 stacks max on both sides AND the 3 strongest stacks in range, aotomatically picked. This used to be the stack on the target hex and every stack adjacent to that, and it wasn't just that the attacker would get an advantage because they had always the option to have 4 stacks in a battle, since the defender can, if moved correctly, be limited to three, the AI also tended to blunder its movement, offering options for a favorable attack on it, beating it piecemeal.

Not possible anymore, making the logistics part "dumbed down", less tactical and whatnot - but in the end it balances the game, the AI profiting a lot. The AI and every game profits from limitations because it forces you to pick.
An easy example would be from HoMM V, where you can pick one ability for each of the three levels of a skill a hero can have. The abilities are also arranged in up to 3 tiers, and the actual situation is that you simply cannot pick anything you would want or everything which would be great. You must PICK.

Now, obviously you can hard-code the AI to only have builds optimizing enchantment stacking. With the increased income of the AI on higher diff levels - not to mention handicaps - you'd always face a superior opponent. But there wouldn't be that many different AI rulers - they would all be optimized for enchantment stacking.

Obviously that wouldn't be something you wanted either.

So what is needed are REASONABLE limitations. After all, you can have just one major transformation either. Limiting the amount of enchantments in general is unfun. Limiting the amount of "alike" enchantments makes a lot of sense, considering how stupid it is, to shoot a burning arrow that does frost and spirit damage, shocks electrically, inflicts the target with a poison and corrodes their armor.

 

[Codyksp]

So what is needed are REASONABLE limitations. After all, you can have just one major transformation either. Limiting the amount of enchantments in general is unfun. Limiting the amount of "alike" enchantments makes a lot of sense, considering how stupid it is, to shoot a burning arrow that does frost and spirit damage, shocks electrically, inflicts the target with a poison and corrodes their armor.

I will still maintain that having 6 groups (at least the ones I defined) is actually more limiting than just 3.

Because you'll realistically only achieve 3 out of those 6 groups on any given unit class at any given time.
Whereas if you just have 3 open choices, you have more freedom to combine as you want within that space.

 

[Jolly Joker]

I would group things differently because "enchantment group" for me is independent from unit class. For example "Support" group doesn't mean it's only for Supports.
I'd see stuff like
Defensive
Damage increase
Inflicting
Class vs. Class (This might give Shield units added defense/damage reductions against Ranged or added attack against Polearm and so on)
Logistics/Movement
Ability

Just improvised.

 

[Kitschy]

This mod can be used as inspiration for the cultural units

The GAME forces you to take higher tier units. This won't change. It's designed to have higher tiers be better.
Your idea of having T1 or T2 units relevant against T4 and T5 wont ever exist in the game as it is now.
It won't ever exist in my world either. It would require a full rework of tomes and enchantments. It's out of scope.

You want something entirely different. I want a restriction on what already exists to improve gameplay.
In essence, you want Age of Wonders 5 and I want Age of Wonders 4 with a new update. It's not the same.

My proposal has 0 mono stacking. It makes you avoid mono stacking precisely because of the limits imposed.

Nah dude, rank rework already did a step in the right direction so the only thing that is left is pull by the breeches EHP of low tiers to T3 equivalent. This can be done in multiple of ways, I am proponent of bringing BST and Hero of the Meek back in some form. (like we had btw after the tier rework and before hero rework pushed it back a notch)
So it is most definitely not AoW5 equivalent of change, it is a lot more easy to do than the whole enchantment cap change. How effortless of change that would be is incomparable actually.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Whatever way it happened, restricting enchant stacking would automatically be another step to making <T4 units hang on better because they won't be facing juiced up T4s that can instagib them due to stacked out damage.

 

[Goblin-Cookie]

You do realize that in all 4 images your armies are a random assortment of units with 0 synergies, random tiers and no singular focus.
Those armies are literally what an AI would build, just lower in tier. You wouldn't need to send 3 waves if you made stronger armies.
I've had no trouble beating a "Brutal" game mode (so not just the AI itself) with 3 strong armies and some teleporters to move around.
I would usually aim to build up 6 armies so that I could send 3 to go murder someone and keep 3 near home to clear incoming threats.

There is absolutely nothing random about my armies. That I have so many types units is because I am resourceful and adaptable in using what is available to best effect, not because I am selecting things randomly. 'Random tiers' isn't a criticism, because as I said tiers are irrelevant and the some of the most efficient (as in usefulness against cost) units in the game are tier 1, in particular the zealot, the sunderer, the entwined thrall and the barbarian warrior.

If you play the game well and your armies don't die all the time, then you will end up with a mixture of units that aren't what you might have chosen, had you actually had perfect freedom to optimise your army according to a plan, which you don't have in a normal game. I divide units in terms of roles and try to balance the roles out, so I generally don't really care what kind of a shooter it is, as long as its a shooter.

I also did select at least the first army in the swarm to be expendable, so the reason the units aren't optimal is perhaps because they were intended to be sacrificed. I also had set aside three army-stacks, not two for my swarm, but the third army was not needed and some its stronger units were redeployed to the second army when the first army did enough damage in its sacrificial attack.

Given the nature of the game, human players are naturally biased to fight with three-stack armies and it is difficult to unlearn that bias. Micro-focus on creating what is ultimately a doomstack is thus a path that human beings will tend to follow because it is a continuation of the three-stack mono-focus that the early game imposes on us simply by resource limitation and the small scale of our empire.

It is not however definitely optimal, since the AI tried something similar to your tactics, combining exemplars, shrines of smiting and heroes to create something which, when combined with defensive magical order-buffs was a truly scary doomstack, but I still defeated it with swarm tactics. What is important here is that there literally wasn't anything that could have defeated 'that thing', aside from another even scarier doomstack OR a swarm and your advice seems to be to build the 'even scarier doomstack' rather than employ a swarm.

When we get to multiplayer, it is clearly quite socially optimal to play with 3-stack duels, since that means that you have a clear winner in minimal time. This is shown by how you casually dismissed the possibility that the wyvern player *might* have a second army to strike after all the damage they did with their pure wyvern army shows, but for a regular player of the game that is exactly how we would employ a pure wyvern army; we would first send the fast wyvern army to 'cripple' the enemy army by eliminating its supporting units and then second a second, more balanced army to finish them off.

You, the multiplayer are literally trying to squeeze all the units in the game into three-stacks, because in multiplayer everything is decided by three-stack duels and the result is a warped strategic view by which 'tiers matter' rather than the actual overall strategic reality of the game where 'efficiency matters'. Your comments have also revealed that multiplayer games are clearly considered over when one player's main stack defeats the other player's main stack, yet that is not mechnically how the game works at all.

You are not playing the game optimally in any objective sense, you are playing the game optimally according to the conventions of multiplayer. Yet the main motive to put up with all the downsides (internet connection, time constraints, social nonense) is to prove yourself the 'best AoW player', but you aren't even playing the same game but rather one optimised to the very constraints of multiplayer itself.

The fact that you can play and win with doomstacks, does not make that the 'optimal' way of playing the game.

First of all, pick a class. Pick Ranged/Battle Mage/Shock or Skirmisher as your "damage dealers". They will be your primary focus.
In the case of Shock and Skirmisher you quite literally want to mono stack them. Shield/Polearm/Support will not help them.
The only exception being if you're able to get these units mounted or are using Athletics so they can keep up for the most part.
Why? Because map movement dictates how fast you can farm for resources/XP and how fast you can reposition your armies.

Now. If you chose Ranged or Battle Mage, there is a benefit to combining them with Shield/Poleam/Support units as well.
Not random low tier trash. Units of either the same tier or one tier lower at most. Bring 1 per army maximum, no more.
You have your Shield and Support units purely for their auras and additional effects (if available), that's their only role.
Polearms are used as a frontline replacement for Shield units or to counter a potential Shock based composition.

The more enchantments you can stack for your chosen "damage dealer", the stronger you become. That's how the game works.
I'll give you 3 example builds that revolve around a specific core unit and aim to empower it as much as you possibly can.
You also always aim to pick Form/Society Traits, a Ruler and Tomes that cover your weaknesses while empowering your units.

View attachment 1284670

For this build you focus everything on your mounted unit roster. Archer is a no-go, everything else can be played with.
You pick up purely melee based enchantments, focusing as much as possible on buffing your (Aspirant) Knights.
There is Staves of Grace if you bring some Champion/Legend rank Bannermen, as they are still decent late game.
Liege Guard also benefits from the chosen build, you generally want 1 per Hero, and they're mounted. So this is good.

View attachment 1284673

In this build you are focused entirely around Spell Shield/Soother/Spellbreaker until you unlock Geomancers.
Everything you unlock focuses on buffing Battle Mage/Support and Shield units. Forget Iron Golem, it's shit.
You stick to your 40 movement racial units and try to keep Spellshields alive. Otherwise go full mono Geomancer.
If you want more frontline, you can use your Ruler and Heroes to fill the gap. A Ritualist replaces your Support.
You do not drag around T2 units unless they are Champion/Legend. And you don't bring garbage non-racials.
It would be great if Rock Giants and Golden Golems were good as a late game frontline, but they are sadly bad.

View attachment 1284679

This one is a bit more out of the box. It's a super strict build that stretches affinities for maximum gains.
You are giga focused on research, unlocking Stormbringers as soon as you can possibly manage.

Enchantments/Transformations focus on helping your Stormbringers with only Tome of Faith as outlier.
Your early game consists purely of Protectors and Animists until you're able to summon Mistlings.
These units and your Heroes do the early lifting (with some enchantment support) until Stormborne.
You pretty much just stack as many Mistlings as you can to farm the map with 40 movement units.
And then you mix in Stormbringers, which also have 40 movement, for the final army composition.

If you are playing in a different way, it's not wrong. But it is undeniably suboptimal. Therefore it feels bad to play by comparison.
The moment something is suboptimal and doesn't feel good people will generally avoid playing it, this is just human nature.
Swarming tactics will never work against a human player and wouldn't work if the AI was even a little bit competent at playing.

I'm not sure I would go for Feudal Aristocracy ever rather than Feudal Monarchy, so that detail of your first build intrigued me.

I find your advice is a little patronising since you are mostly telling me what I already know and are already how I play the game, aside from the particular nonsense of having skirmisher stacks without support (skirmishers ideally go in threes, with a single shield unit and two healers). You are also focusing on a late-game army build, assuming we aren't going to be fighting any overwhelming hordes before you have access to the high-level units you crave to have, since all your advice seems to ignore everything below tier-3, but it is a ton of money to even get the ability to recruit such units.

'Garbage' non-racials do poorly in the late-game, but they are big advantage in the early-game since you do not yet have access to the higher-level tome units, because those things often don't come from tomes. This is more of a problem for me, since I play whenever possible on slow-research settings whenever I can (not story mode, unfortunately), since I find that 4X games always benefit from slowing down research.

In the game I refer to, (which went on for 250 turns), I got into a fight with Nekron, early in the game long before any of the events I was describing and at that point, I basically didn't have much of an army to speak of. The way I survived was by pretending to raze my own border settlement (not sure that matters to the AI), drawing Nekron into endless sieges and then assassinating the heroes that led those sieges (often with spirit wolves) just to buy time for me. By assassination, I mean fighting losing battles with low-level units and making sure to kill all the heroes before I lost the battle.

I don't have the luxury of long-term thinking to build the ultimate doomstack at that point, especially since I am playing on slow-research. I won that war ultimately not because of high-level stuff, but by summoning large numbers of entwined thralls and relying heavily on summoning spirit wolves in battle to support them.

 

[GloatingSwine]

You, the multiplayer are literally trying to squeeze all the units in the game into three-stacks, because in multiplayer everything is decided by three-stack duels and the result is a warped strategic view by which 'tiers matter' rather than the actual overall strategic reality of the game where 'efficiency matters'. Your comments have also revealed that multiplayer games are clearly considered over when one player's main stack defeats the other player's main stack, yet that is not mechnically how the game works at all.

The thing is that those three stack armies can take on much more than their cost in smaller armies and probably be at close to full strength at the end of it. Efficiency favours the doomstack, not the horde of chaff.

Also, if you get your ruler wounded you can't cast spells any more for 2 turns at which point you're double screwed for all of the rest of the fights for those two turns but your ruler is also almost certainly your strongest piece so if you don't use them you're more likely to lose and less likely to have a positive impact.

The reason the MP players do what they do is because it's the strongest thing to do. It doesn't become not the strongest thing any more against the AI (because defensive mobility is so good trying to threaten across multiple fronts doesn't work well).

 

[Codyksp]

You, the multiplayer are literally trying to squeeze all the units in the game into three-stacks, because in multiplayer everything is decided by three-stack duels and the result is a warped strategic view by which 'tiers matter' rather than the actual overall strategic reality of the game where 'efficiency matters'. Your comments have also revealed that multiplayer games are clearly considered over when one player's main stack defeats the other player's main stack, yet that is not mechnically how the game works at all.

Wrong on so many levels. We do not play "three stack duels" because of multiplayer. We play that because it's the optimal choice.
We don't end a game when one player loses their main stack. There have been plenty games with rebuilding and alliances.

People have tried to swarm in multiplayer. They have tried it over and over and over and over again. It does not work.
I will actually give you a great example of when 2 players entered a 2v1 alliance and tried to swarm down my stacks.

Wave 1, one of the players decides to challenge my approach.

Wave 2, fighting for the Throne of the Eldritch player 2v1.

Wave 3, eliminating the Eldritch player by taking his Throne and Ruler.

Wave 4, eliminating the Tyrant Knight player at his Throne.

Final player in the lobby, whom tried to muster an army of Stormbringers.

All this time I ran one main army of 18 units and had a side army of 6 doing other stuff.
When I lost a unit I replaced it via summoning, Teleporters and using the Inferno Puppies.

For clarity, my ally was not participating in anything. I allied him because he was being bullied.

I find your advice is a little patronising since you are mostly telling me what I already know and are already how I play the game, aside from the particular nonsense of having skirmisher stacks without support (skirmishers ideally go in threes, with a single shield unit and two healers).

That's just objectively not true and again an AI only thing. Bringing another Skirmisher is more valuable than a Shield or Support.
The only moment in the game where this does not apply is when you're running around with T1/T2 units and only 2 tomes.

You are also focusing on a late-game army build, assuming we aren't going to be fighting any overwhelming hordes before you have access to the high-level units you crave to have, since all your advice seems to ignore everything below tier-3, but it is a ton of money to even get the ability to recruit such units.

It does not. I clearly outlined the T1/T2/T3/T4 units that will be used. This it to give you an army during the full game.
You don't need a "ton of money" to recruit higher tier units. You just need better management of your economy.

Players in MP have 4 cities around turn 20-30 depending on their build, only sticking to 3 if the map is very small.
T1 units are recruited for maybe 5 turns, after which you swap over to T1 summoned units almost exclusively.
T2 units are skipped unless they are Shield/Support with 40 movement. T3 units (TH3) arrive around turn 20.
From this point forward people focus on their Champion/Legend T1 units and adding T3 units to those armies.
T4 units will begin showing up around turn 30-40, depending how focused your build is on unlocking them.

And yes, we have the economy to sustain these cities and unit productions. Because we play the map for resources.
Not only that, we pick Rulers, Cultures, Society Traits and Tomes that benefit our goals and give us a good economy.
Why do you think 95% of MP builds are Giant King + Fabled Hunters? Cultures being High/Industrious/Barbarian/Mystic.
To be clear, this is about Mystic Summoning only. And yes they can't take Fabled Hunters, but they're already OP enough.

'Garbage' non-racials do poorly in the late-game, but they are big advantage in the early-game since you do not yet have access to the higher-level tome units, because those things often don't come from tomes. This is more of a problem for me, since I play whenever possible on slow-research settings whenever I can (not story mode, unfortunately), since I find that 4X games always benefit from slowing down research.

They are absolutely useless if you are running any important Society/Form Traits and/or 40-48 movement units.
Because they both lose out on raw trait power as well as slow down your map progression and ability to reposition.
And if you play traits that are based around non-racial armies, then just go play Mystic Summoning + Eldritch.

The only times non-racial units are useful is when they have Floating/Flying, or 40/48 movement inherently.
The exception to this rule is if you are playing exclusively 32 movement units, which is already a losing play to begin with.
Notice how the weakest T5 units are Horned God, Severing Golem and Golden Golem, all slow 32 movement units.

You seem to highly underestimate how important movement is in a game like this.

In the game I refer to, (which went on for 250 turns), I got into a fight with Nekron, early in the game long before any of the events I was describing and at that point, I basically didn't have much of an army to speak of. The way I survived was by pretending to raze my own border settlement (not sure that matters to the AI), drawing Nekron into endless sieges and then assassinating the heroes that led those sieges (often with spirit wolves) just to buy time for me. By assassination, I mean fighting losing battles with low-level units and making sure to kill all the heroes before I lost the battle.

If you can't field 6 or 9 armies of T4/T5 units on turn 250, something is very wrong with your economy.
Heck, I'll even settle for T3/T4 units. But running around with T1/T2 swarms at that point is a joke.

Here's a turn 95 FFA with 5 human players that I won a while ago. I have 6 armies of T3-T5 units.
The T3 and T4 units are all Legend rank. I beat the attacker 18-1. You think he can swarm me down?
Look at my economy. I will replace that one unit and march on him with 36 units. He can't rebuild.
Any trash army of T1/T2 units he sends my way will be decimated 18-0 with absolutely no effort.

I was already preparing another 18 units just in case someone wanted to try and attack me while I move.
And yes, T3 Constrictors are from a mod. No, it does not have any impact on the validity of my claims here.

 

[Kitschy]

...
And yes, T3 Constrictors are from a mod.
...

you are making low tiers into T3s ;P

 

[Codyksp]

you are making low tiers into T3s ;P

Well. Making an absolutely useless tome into a playable one was the goal

A T2 Polearm, 30% to Constrict enchantment and an ignorable Tentacle isn't great.
Retaliating Growths is also incredibly pointless to cast on a single unit, even a Hero.
Compare it to the Oathsworn cultural spell that's a 1-hex radius with similar buffs.

Outside of thematics there's just no reason to pick up that tome over Evocation/Discipline/Necromancy.
Heck, I'd probably take Horde over it too depending on my T1 unit roster (Summon Irregulars + Spawnkin).

EDIT:
There's only 2 cultures in this game without a T2 Polearm/Shield that don't have a great T1 Shield unit.
Reaver, which for practical purposes has a T1.5 Polearm and Oathsworn who have a T1.5 Fighter.
Coincidentally, neither of these cultures ever goes for a Battle Mage build. Sealbearer is pretty bad.

The typical Battle Mage cultures are High, Industrious and Mystic Attunement at the moment.
Dark and Mystic Potential would be contenders if they weren't in such a horrible spot right now.

You'll always go Evocation as your T1 choice, usually supplemented by Necromancy or Discipline.
But in T2 your only options are Artificing and Souls. Having Tentacle as T2 is great for more choice.

I am aware that Scrying exists. But I am also aware of how horribly bad Watcher is as a unit.
On top of this, Guided Projectiles really isn't great. So you're only getting Mental Mark out of it.
Mayhem is very similar, where you are only getting Mark of Misfortune out of picking it up.

 

[Kitschy]

Well. Making an absolutely useless tome into a playable one was the goal

A T2 Polearm, 30% to Constrict enchantment and an ignorable Tentacle isn't great.
Retaliating Growths is also incredibly pointless to cast on a single unit, even a Hero.
Compare it to the Oathsworn cultural spell that's a 1-hex radius with similar buffs.

Outside of thematics there's just no reason to pick up that tome over Evocation/Discipline/Necromancy.
Heck, I'd probably take Horde over it too depending on my T1 unit roster (Summon Irregulars + Spawnkin).

Well, what matters is the end result even if it is coincidental. (or mb you are doing it subconsciously lol) Low tiers getting that T3 EHP base one unit at a time by any means. ^.^

 

[Codyksp]

Nah dude, rank rework already did a step in the right direction so the only thing that is left is pull by the breeches EHP of low tiers to T3 equivalent. This can be done in multiple of ways, I am proponent of bringing BST and Hero of the Meek back in some form. (like we had btw after the tier rework and before hero rework pushed it back a notch)
So it is most definitely not AoW5 equivalent of change, it is a lot more easy to do than the whole enchantment cap change. How effortless of change that would be is incomparable actually.

And I'm telling you, as somebody who plays the game and enjoys strategy and complexity, the game you're trying to turn this into is too rigid and narrow from what it was originally intended to be. Balance by limitation is LIMITING creativity and strategy. It's boring, predictable, and lacks flexibility.

Players SHOULD be able to pick tome paths that buff their t1 units with transformations or enchantments. Obviously, you need more enchants on t1s to buff them to a level where they can take on t4s/t5s. How are 3 enchants on a t1 unit going to increase their survivability past early game??

This system you propose forces players to take on t4/t5 units and monostack them again, since they will be far stronger with 3 enchants than t1s and t3s. Forget even thinking about dual tome paths, those wouldn't be efficient in this system.

Both of these proposals have the same issue. You will end up making T1/T2 units the best choice for the entire game.
They'll be cheaper/faster to produce, have the same combat potential as T3/T4 and require little investment to obtain.

Oh? You had to pick a tome or two to buff them? Oh dear, that must've been horrible.
The game simply isn't designed for this, it's based on vertical scaling and always has been.

Whatever way it happened, restricting enchant stacking would automatically be another step to making <T4 units hang on better because they won't be facing juiced up T4s that can instagib them due to stacked out damage.

Yeah. Some people here don't understand that % based buffs scale better with higher tier units whom have higher base stats.
Limiting the amount of enchantments is generally speaking more beneficial to lower tier units than it is to higher tier ones.

 

[Kitschy]

Both of these proposals have the same issue. You will end up making T1/T2 units the best choice for the entire game.
They'll be cheaper/faster to produce, have the same combat potential as T3/T4 and require little investment to obtain.

Oh? You had to pick a tome or two to buff them? Oh dear, that must've been horrible.
The game simply isn't designed for this, it's based on vertical scaling and always has been.

Not if you buff only survivability that you need to actually invest in via skills, plus system as it is now isn't entirely vertical it is already a hybrid. Furthermore look at the design decision made throughout the game be it cultural roster or spells from high tier tomes that give you predominantly low tier units.
And talking about tome or two, we already had those skills from those tomes (well a skill and another one as a hero skill) and they worked after rank rework. It is extremely strange to say the game wasn't designed for this when you have all those elements in the game.

Also come on man, suggesting caps on one hand that will require a hefty rework when certain elements would need to be entirely reimagined and then on the other hand you are making an argument about game not being designed for things that we already had.

 

[Codyksp]

Not if you buff only survivability that you need to actually invest in via skills, plus system as it is now isn't entirely vertical it is already a hybrid. Furthermore look at the design decision made throughout the game be it cultural roster or spells from high tier tomes that give you predominantly low tier units.

You mean the stuff like Calamity's SPI? Those are for flavour purposes, not for actual good units.
The game is primarily saturated with thematic stuff for roleplay, this is a recurring thing in AoW 4.

None of these units are actually worth using outside of maybe the T4 ones in very specific scenarios.
But so far we've even found both of those (so Calamity and Prosperity's T4 units) underwhelming.

And talking about tome or two, we already had those skills from those tomes (well a skill and another one as a hero skill) and they worked after rank rework. It is extremely strange to say the game wasn't designed for this when you have all those elements in the game.

This was only for T1 units and primarily constrained to Tome of the Horde (with a side of Mighty Meek).
At the end of the day this did nothing impactful though, unless the unit was too powerful baseline.

A good example here is the Phantasm Warrior before it got changed. It was dominating battles.
And precisely that is the risk you run by re-introducing such benefits with simply a tome or skill investment.

Imagine Battle Seeker Training with Skeletons + Astral Wisps + Mystic Summoning. It'd be a nightmare.
Even units like Honor Blade would be problematic, as they are T1s but actually jk they're almost T2s.

The balance of such things is too delicate and not worth the effort unless you launch a new game imo.

Also come on man, suggesting caps on one hand that will require a hefty rework when certain elements would need to be entirely reimagined and then on the other hand you are making an argument about game not being designed for things that we already had.

Why are we derailing a discussion that's about a global problem into this obsession for T1/T2 units?
While it might be a legitimate concern, it isn't related to the issues of mono stacking a unit class.

Reintroducing such things doesn't solve any of the problems that the game is facing as a whole.
At best you make low tiers more powerful but still not optimal. At worst you create a low tier meta.
Remember trait rank stacking and Guild rushing? Yeah. Let's not go back to that gameplay, please.

My suggestions are to aimed at fixing mono stacking across all tiers, with a side benefit of buffing lower tier units.
I'm trying to improve the game from T1 throughout T5 and have outlined previously how this would be beneficial.
The goal is to expand viable strategies, enforce diverse unit compositions and reward clever gameplay choices.

That's why the discussion revolves around global changes rather than micro adjustments per unit tier or type.
The only concession I'll make is that I am targeting Mythic as a class (side-effect), but I see no other option.