What do you expect from AoW IV?

[BeltarTheLion]

In AoW 1 every resource is important, if I have a Fire Node in the middle of the map I am forced to defend it or lose my mana income.

Just now I play AoW 3 map which is disigned with central citiy with a bunch of important structures around. If I lose it I lose the scenario.

Important area can be important for various reasons not for just being a big city. Your problem that you demand everything to be like it was in AoW 1. You don't like 2 separate researches in Planetfall? OK and can you tell why it's bad? Not in abstract TBS game but specifically in Planetfall where it works perfectly and you have some options to control each branch separately and get mutually exclusive upgrades for your cities.

What's more you insist that in AoW 1 T4 city is unique and important point because it naturally limits the production of T4 units. Yes you're right. That's how AoW 1 worked back in 1999. But Planetfall limits T4 units spam because of seriously limited access for necessary resource. And capturing territories with this resource becomes important. Different games - different mechanics. But the problem with AoW 1 on strategic level that access for T3 or T4 units it's the only thing the players should care about. Especially because low level units are practically useless and one T3 unit can slain an army of T1s they just have no tactical option to deal with stronger units (AoW1 combat mechanic is a shit compared to even AoW2).

it's merely a waiting game before they all reach the same level

Man did you really play AoW 3 or Planetfall?? There're lot of options to control how fast city grows and it defines how fast you develop. In AoW 1 you have nothing to control. Literally nothing. Only 2 options: build available unit or upgrade the setllement and build higher tier.

In AoW 3 or Planetfall you can speed up city's grow for getting some important resource faster. Which means that you have additional strategical choice compared to AoW 1 and 2 (OK in AoW 2 you could build altars but that's very minor).

Once again, Planetfall has improved this compared to AoW III by letting you make specialized cities.

Specialized cities suggest that the cities are different and this reached by territory control options so the cities located near some important objects have some unique advantages. Like building units faster or providing better units or even unique units. In fact AoW 3 has more options for city specializations because some secret buildings give unique units. But this option mostly used in mods than in vanilla game.

From AoW I: Race relations & alignments (they were much more important), more units (it had 12 per race)

I played AoW 1 at least for 1.5 year before AoW2 was released. Every race has T1 infantry, T1 archer, RAM, 1 more or less unique T1 unit, T2 Chivalry (except Halflings), T2 Cleric, Catapult and Ballista standart for all races except Lizardmen. And then 3 T3 units and 1 T4 unit. So only 9 racial units. And T1 + T2 were near useless. F. e. Planetfall has only 2 T1 units per race 6 T2 and T3 and 1 T4. I don't count summoned units like Valkiria. The same 9 units but Planetfall races have much more differences than races in AoW 1. In fact even in AoW3 races are better than in AoW 1 and 2 and have some unique features. Why count how many units had each game when In AoW 1 and 2 you just run for T3 (OK in PvP you can be attacked early so build T2 chivalry) and in AoW3 you can use some T1 units even in later game.

• From Both: The Flanking mechanic (I think it's extremely unfun and makes combat boring).

Sure thing AoW 1 fights were veeeeery fun. Flanking mechanic may be useless in HoMM but in AoW where unit's movement can be restricted and the amount of hits depends from th moving distance it fits perfectly. And don't forget that AoW3 units are very fragile compared to AoW2 so saving them often requires forcing enemy units to turn. And flanking utilizes the advantage of multichannel attacks.

And about class system the ONLY problem with it that class units sometimes compete with racial units. And this is really serious problem for me.

And think about that AoW 1\2 had only elemental magic and a lot of AoW3 spells will not fit in it. Because they're not elemental. But they're well suited for classes. You just don't understand the limitations of AoW 1 and 2 magic system which can only have combat spells, unit summons and unit enchantments everything else will be out of it's logic.

 

[BeltarTheLion]

Some examples why the statement that "A game should have X" is wrong and pointless:

1) Free city defenders. This mechanic doesn't exist in AoW 1/2. Partially exist in AoW 3 in form of vassal cities with their own units. And exists in Planetfall. Why? In AoW 1-3 the settlements are single points on the map and the player can just build some units and keep them in the settlemant. In Planetfall the cities consist of core city and several dependent territories so an army sending to every province is just not an optons for the player. And making on military infrastructure building in the core city which gives some garrison for dependent territories is not bad option. The question I have to this mechanic why the garrison includes units which require cosmit. How it can be that I never have enough cosmit but the city's militia can have even T4 unit (in capital) which require cosmit not just to build them but for upkeeping them.

2) Flying units in the air in combat. AoW 3 is ithe only AoW game where flying units sit on the ground. And it was done because airborne in units in AoW 2 were just imbalanced. They were extra mobile on strategic map and they were real pain in combat because only long range attackers and spells could shoot them down. And they practically ignored city walls as concept. What's more they can use the limitation for retaliate strike and a bunch of flyers can just swarm any ground unit take retalliates and then make the free damage. 8 Manticores will defeat 8 Knights despite Knights being stronge in combat. You may like how AoW 3 solved that problem or not like but it made combats better.

And in Planetfall we have flying units back in the air but there'e one big difference. In cosmic-fantasy setting practically every unit has long range attack and the flyers have no invulnerability. BUT there's other problem Planetfall battles with long range attacks require taking covers something that flyers can't do. And that's makes them very fragile.

More complex example. How to make AoW 1 really good game. The main problem of AoW 1 is undeveloped combat mechanic. Low level unit die too fast (T2 Chivalry can kill T1 unit with a single hit). T4 flyers with long range attacks eliminate the whole armies. Single unit with physical immunity can eliminate the whole army too. => Combat mechanic must be redisined completelly, may be as in AoW3 with some variations like keeping flyers in the air. Other problem of AoW 1 - it's primitive economics model. But this is bad for long PvE games where the player can develop it's empire for 100 turns and having very few choices makes the game boring. In PvP games this can be not very big problem because the player don't spend too much time for making strategic decisions. Simplicity is not bad itself otherwise the games like "Battle For Wesnoth" wouldn't thrive for 20 years.

 

[Codyksp]

It took me a while to properly reply to all of this. But mainly you are letting yourself be limited by the vanilla experience of AoW 1.
You need to imagine AoW 1 with the current technological leaps available (basically Planetfall). I have also modded many of your issues.

Just now I play AoW 3 map which is disigned with central citiy with a bunch of important structures around. If I lose it I lose the scenario.

I don't see how this is better than making every structure important. In your example this 1 city is very important because of the structures around it, but in AoW 1 there is value to every structure no matter where it is located on the map. All structures provide income, unit production or vision (often times all 3). For example, in my mod a Shipyard now produces income like a Builder's Guild. Suddenly it's an important structure worth fighting over.

What's more you insist that in AoW 1 T4 city is unique and important point because it naturally limits the production of T4 units. Yes you're right. That's how AoW 1 worked back in 1999. But Planetfall limits T4 units spam because of seriously limited access for necessary resource. And capturing territories with this resource becomes important.

It's not just about limiting T4 unit production, it's also about making them completely unavailable until you capture and upgrade a 4-hex city. In the scenarios I have designed these cities are often placed between 2 players and guarded very heavily, they aren't simply defended by a couple of T1 units like in vanilla. While I agree that Cosmite helps solve the T4 spam issues of AoW III, I still don't think every city should be able to produce them fairly easily.

But the problem with AoW 1 on strategic level that access for T3 or T4 units it's the only thing the players should care about. Especially because low level units are practically useless and one T3 unit can slain an army of T1s they just have no tactical option to deal with stronger units (AoW1 combat mechanic is a shit compared to even AoW2).

This is precisely one of the things that I have changed in my mod and if I can do it in a 1999 game, then so can Triumph in a potential AoW IV. I have buffed Swordsmen for example by granting them higher DEF and Parry. They are also different for each race. i.e. Azracs have more ATK and MV but less DEF, Orcs have higher DMG but cost more gold. I have been able to use T1 units to kill T3 units very easily, especially when you use enchants to buff them. I also modded some T2 units to have First Strike or Poison Strike, etc. They can cause debuffs that allow them to win the fight against a T3 unit, assuming it's not a 1v1 (of course they lose 1v1).

I have also given almost every unit in the game a new ability at silver and gold medals (experienced/veteran). For example, the Elf Swordsman gets Forest Concealment (I renamed the ability) at silver and Magic Strike + First Strike at gold. A Frostling Wolf Rider now has Vision II, Forest Concealment and Snow Concealment default, he gets Fearless at silver and Cold Strike at gold.

Now imagine that I am modding these units with the limited abilities and unit XP levels available in AoW 1. If I had the same tools available as in Planetfall, I could easily make them much more interesting. That doesn't mean Planetfall did it better by making more interesting units in a smaller roster, it means they were lazy and couldn't be bothered to think of a more expansive unit roster. There is also no reason to remove fully closed walls, even if they added the "free" armies.

Man did you really play AoW 3 or Planetfall?? There're lot of options to control how fast city grows and it defines how fast you develop. In AoW 1 you have nothing to control. Literally nothing. Only 2 options: build available unit or upgrade the setllement and build higher tier.

In AoW 3 or Planetfall you can speed up city's grow for getting some important resource faster. Which means that you have additional strategical choice compared to AoW 1 and 2 (OK in AoW 2 you could build altars but that's very minor).

I disagree with almost everything you said here. Lots of options? Yes, let me produce a Storehouse/Food Exploitation for more population... That's literally always the optimal thing to do because you need a larger city for better production and more domain/sectors. There is no reason to ever attempt to build other structures in a small city, this isn't "choice", it's just the illusion of choice. After you build structures for population you will always go for military, there's no reason to focus on research structures until later in the game. AoW III is extremely static and predictable, Planetfall is a bit better.

So yes, the newer games do grant you a choice, but it's not exactly a choice when you're forced to always take the best path. This is why I prefer cities to be for military and gold only like in AoW 1 and nodes for mana. You could maybe add a 3rd resource for research with new structures like AoW III, except they would be capturable as things were in AoW 1, no crap with domains/sectors. I see no reason for the convoluted system of Planetfall.

Specialized cities suggest that the cities are different and this reached by territory control options so the cities located near some important objects have some unique advantages. Like building units faster or providing better units or even unique units.

And how is this better than just having them as normal capturable structures like in AoW 1? Why can't I just have a structure that produces unique units, that my enemies can take away from me without needing to take my city? In AoW III you literally just camp your cities, the rest doesn't matter in any way. In Planetfall you can lose a sector, which is a bit better, but I still prefer each structure to be unique and not linked to anything else.

I played AoW 1 at least for 1.5 year before AoW2 was released. Every race has T1 infantry, T1 archer, RAM, 1 more or less unique T1 unit, T2 Chivalry (except Halflings), T2 Cleric, Catapult and Ballista standart for all races except Lizardmen. And then 3 T3 units and 1 T4 unit. So only 9 racial units. And T1 + T2 were near useless. F. e. Planetfall has only 2 T1 units per race 6 T2 and T3 and 1 T4. I don't count summoned units like Valkiria. The same 9 units but Planetfall races have much more differences than races in AoW 1. In fact even in AoW3 races are better than in AoW 1 and 2 and have some unique features. Why count how many units had each game when In AoW 1 and 2 you just run for T3 (OK in PvP you can be attacked early so build T2 chivalry) and in AoW3 you can use some T1 units even in later game.

All of this is completely invalid since I have modded almost everything you spoke of. If a new game was made then these things could also be very easily changed, so I see no reason to discuss this at any great length. I will say that I have replaced the Battering Ram for a few races and the Humans now have the Musketeer in T2 instead of the Ballista. Fire Musket also does Physical + Fire damage now. These are all things I can easily change. I even created a Fire Pistol ability by removing Shoot Black Javelin and changing it's GFX, SFX and stats. As I said, imagine what a new game could do.

Sure thing AoW 1 fights were veeeeery fun. Flanking mechanic may be useless in HoMM but in AoW where unit's movement can be restricted and the amount of hits depends from th moving distance it fits perfectly. And don't forget that AoW3 units are very fragile compared to AoW2 so saving them often requires forcing enemy units to turn. And flanking utilizes the advantage of multichannel attacks.

The only thing Flanking does is make every follow the exact same combat pattern. "Go behind unit, attack unit, unit turns around, attack with another unit from behind again, wow such gameplay value". How does flanking utilize multichannel attacks? These 2 things are completely unrelated.

The only extra combat functions I would like to have in AoW 1 are attacks with 2 (or more) damage types that do 50%/50% or 30%/70% damage to make the protection and immunity abilities better. Basically I would want to do what AoW III did and also add the weakness system. But I hate the 100% hit chance in AoW III and think Planetfall did it better (and similar to AoW 1).

And think about that AoW 1\2 had only elemental magic and a lot of AoW3 spells will not fit in it. Because they're not elemental. But they're well suited for classes. You just don't understand the limitations of AoW 1 and 2 magic system which can only have combat spells, unit summons and unit enchantments everything else will be out of it's logic.

That's not entirely true, AoW 1 had Air/Earth/Water/Fire/Life/Death and Cosmos. Yes you won't be able to gain new units to produce, but that was a stupid mechanic anyway (they still required a structure in AoW III). And I never said they had to copy AoW 1 completely, they could add new magic spheres to make it more expansive like AoW III. The class system is still bad in my eyes. What Planetfall did was a combination of both systems and I think it works pretty well. I would simply make the units that you can get in Planetfall available as a summoned unit, where's the problem in that? There's no reason we can't have passive upgrades from magic just because AoW 1 didn't have them. You have to open your mind a bit more and think about combining the best of all 3 games into a new one.

 

[Codyksp]

Some examples why the statement that "A game should have X" is wrong and pointless:

1) Free city defenders. This mechanic doesn't exist in AoW 1/2. Partially exist in AoW 3 in form of vassal cities with their own units. And exists in Planetfall. Why? In AoW 1-3 the settlements are single points on the map and the player can just build some units and keep them in the settlemant. In Planetfall the cities consist of core city and several dependent territories so an army sending to every province is just not an optons for the player. And making on military infrastructure building in the core city which gives some garrison for dependent territories is not bad option. The question I have to this mechanic why the garrison includes units which require cosmit. How it can be that I never have enough cosmit but the city's militia can have even T4 unit (in capital) which require cosmit not just to build them but for upkeeping them.

2) Flying units in the air in combat. AoW 3 is ithe only AoW game where flying units sit on the ground. And it was done because airborne in units in AoW 2 were just imbalanced. They were extra mobile on strategic map and they were real pain in combat because only long range attackers and spells could shoot them down. And they practically ignored city walls as concept. What's more they can use the limitation for retaliate strike and a bunch of flyers can just swarm any ground unit take retalliates and then make the free damage. 8 Manticores will defeat 8 Knights despite Knights being stronge in combat. You may like how AoW 3 solved that problem or not like but it made combats better.

And in Planetfall we have flying units back in the air but there'e one big difference. In cosmic-fantasy setting practically every unit has long range attack and the flyers have no invulnerability. BUT there's other problem Planetfall battles with long range attacks require taking covers something that flyers can't do. And that's makes them very fragile.

More complex example. How to make AoW 1 really good game. The main problem of AoW 1 is undeveloped combat mechanic. Low level unit die too fast (T2 Chivalry can kill T1 unit with a single hit). T4 flyers with long range attacks eliminate the whole armies. Single unit with physical immunity can eliminate the whole army too. => Combat mechanic must be redisined completelly, may be as in AoW3 with some variations like keeping flyers in the air. Other problem of AoW 1 - it's primitive economics model. But this is bad for long PvE games where the player can develop it's empire for 100 turns and having very few choices makes the game boring. In PvP games this can be not very big problem because the player don't spend too much time for making strategic decisions. Simplicity is not bad itself otherwise the games like "Battle For Wesnoth" wouldn't thrive for 20 years.

And just to quickly reply this as well....

1) If you replace sectors with cities like in the previous games, then this becomes no issue.
2) Flying units can easily be balanced, AoW III did it in the wrong way.
3) Physical Immunity is useless vs Enchant Weapon, the AI is just dumb. PvP is the way.

 

[BeltarTheLion]

I don't see how this is better than making every structure important. In your example this 1 city is very important because of the structures around it, but in AoW 1 there is value to every structure no matter where it is located on the map.

In AoW 1 there's only 1 reason for city to be important. In AoW 3 they can be different.

In the scenarios I have designed these cities are often placed between 2 players and guarded very heavily,

Rather standart design of choke-point but in 1 vs 1 the match will be over before any player can capture well-defended city and develop it T4.

T4 spam issues of AoW III

I don't see any problem with spamming T4 in AoW 3 just because the longest really finished game I had was 164 or 168 turns. It was premium edition "Dragon's Throne" scenario. If somebody playes XL-map for 600 turns on normal speed and have T4 units everywhere I don't see why there shouldn't be hundreds of T4. The problem not in spamming of T4 but playing the game for 400 turns since it was obviously won. And if you have limited cities with T4 unit available you will spam T3 units. I usually don't spam T4 because I set slower speed on big maps and don't bother with dragon dwellings because they require too much investment for building 1 dragon per 5 turns. Giants dwelling better but I don't see them as extremally important.

I have been able to use T1 units to kill T3 units very easily, especially when you use enchants to buff them.

In AoW 1/2 AI practically never uses unit enchantments and they are easy way to dominate.

That doesn't mean Planetfall did it better by making more interesting units in a smaller roster, it means they were lazy and couldn't be bothered to think of a more expansive unit roster.

May be you haven't noticed but Planetfall is a game with practically every unit shooting which makes all this sword-bow-pike system unusable. The roster size means not much because I never bothered to do racial T1 unit in AoW1. I never bothered much about T2. But if you play Amazons in Planetfall you can't just replace T2 unis with T3 because Tyranodone has only 5 range and Bombardone is artillary and needs cover so Dendroid with 7 range is still usable. And with your technologies you can create strong airfleet (you have doctrine for that and module). From other side if you play Dwares in Planetfall you research Baron then you spam Barons. They're every universal why close combat aircraft is useless and T3 tank has only ram attack and 1 turns reload gun with range of 5 which makes this tank useless. Then you add "Katyushas" and dominate everything. T4 unit with 5 attack? Useless!

All of this is completely invalid since I have modded almost everything you spoke of

OK AoW SM has uPatch which makes AoW 3 envy. And AoW3 itself has tonnes of mods which improve the game drastically. I think its even possible to recreate in AoW 3 unit enchantment-mechanic because it has spells like Mark of Heretic and permanent augmentations via from secret structures and some city enchantments.

But you can't fix AoW 1 combat with any mod.

but it's not exactly a choice when you're forced to always take the best path

That's how it was in AoW 1. You think you will not lose in the next couple of turns then upgrade the city and don't bother with low level units.

The only thing Flanking does is make every follow the exact same combat pattern. "Go behind unit, attack unit, unit turns around, attack with another unit from behind again, wow such gameplay value". How does flanking utilize multichannel attacks? These 2 things are completely unrelated.

If you have no flanking you just attack. Unit by unit. The key point of flanking and turning enemy unit that you often have to sacrifice something for making this. F. e. you can run other unit from enemy control zone so this unit will take some damage but will force the enemy unit to turn so you could attack it from behind or save your other unit.

Flanking attack in AoW 3 gives +2 Dam to every damage channel. And f. e. there's such a spell as Star Blades which gives 3 new damage channel. Just 1 Dam per channel but if you use it in flanking this can be a looooot of damage.

That's not entirely true, AoW 1 had Air/Earth/Water/Fire/Life/Death and Cosmos.

Cosmos is nothing special. Dispel magic or Enchanted weapon this something so common that exist in 90% of other similar games. But let's take War's Berserk spell. With which magic sphere it can be associated? Or Looting of corpses? The classes were the only way to break the Summon elemental creature, do elemental damage restriction of AoW 1\2.

Unlike HoMM AoW is a seria where things practically always done for reasons. Classes are not only for unit sets they're for many other things. And territorial control in AoW 3 was integrated not just to be. It allows a lot of other game mechanics. And it tied with serious rewards for clearing sites on strategy map.

AoW 3 has it's own problems but not because of classes as the idea.

Plantfall has even more problems but they are not because of it's setting. In terms of setting it's excellent game.

 

[BeltarTheLion]

PvP is the way.

I played PvP in C&C Generals ZH for years. I tried to play AoW SM but AoW with all it's combats requires too much time, And if you play autocombat then why play AoW at all. So I don't see AoW as PvP game.

If you replace sectors with cities like in the previous games, then this becomes no issue.

I don't know English analogue but there's Russian proverb: "If a granny had a dick she would be grandpa".

 

[Rodmar18]

If ifs and ands were pots and pans there'd be no work for tinkers' hands.
If wishes were horses, we'd all be eating steak.
With "ifs", a flea could carry an elephant.

In French, it's more like:

With ifs, we could put Paris/Eiffel Tower into a bottle.
With ifs, we could put a whale inside a matchbox.


A few features I'd like to be added or corrected in AoW4.

A more complex critical hit system

Add chance for special effects on basic attacks by building on the idea of multi-channel attacks and promoting their primary channel.
Currently, primary channel gets an occasional bonus, and special effects are the result of potent abilities that units may have natively, or gain on levelling up.
Any elemental attack, any cutting/piercing/bludgeoning attack could have a small chance to trigger the usual, corresponding effects, like a kind of critical hit, independently from the usual critical effect itself.
Such effects would be Scorched, Frostbitten, Shocked, Bleeding, Armor Piercing (Ignore Armour, rather), Crippled.
When every attack gets a very small chance of inflicting a effect, that would allow to increase the rarity of such inflict abilities on units, and/or to decrease their odds when ranged attack suffer from distance and obstacle penalties (to take into account their loss in strength). Those abilities are pretty strong in AoW3, when an attack that deals 1 damage because of penalties still has the normal chance to apply an effect.
This idea would also allow to better differentiate e.g. a magic missile dealing 5 Fire + 5 Spirit from a holy fire dealing 5 Spirit + 5 Fire. One would scorch on critical, while the other would daze.


Damage over time and experience

Keep track of the owner of a damage-over-time attack. Currently I believe that no XP is granted when an enemy unit dies from dot. Either all the attackers who tagged the enemy unit would be granted a fractional XP, or the last to tag would be rewarded full XP.


Develop the forts and watchtower

Currently, (100 gold & 1 turn) are needed to build a wooden fort (2 hex radius domain), and another (120 gold & 2 turns) to upgrade to a stone fort (+1 hex radius), that is 20 gold costlier than building a stone wall around a town for the same domain radius effect.

The mod Fortress Addendum:
(60 gold & 1 turn) to build a bandit-like camp (1 hex radius domain),
(60 gold & 1 turn) to upgrade to wooden fort (+1 hex radius),
(120 gold & 2 turns) to upgrade to stone fort (+1 hex radius),
(120 gold & 2 turns) to upgrade to stone fortress (+1 hex radius) and grants a city a free upgrade that adds +1 hex radius domain, on top of the stone wall effect.

That is, building fort at choke points costs more and takes more time, and given more gold and time, they can be even better resource claimers, and worth building a city on top of them.


More polished unit assets

As far as this keep being reasonable, develop graphical assets. Unit models in AoW3 are cheap in the sense where the player can see obvious reuses, as compared to 2D models in AoW2

• machines and civilians don't have any crew!
• class units use only a few skeletons. Even with the racial reskin mod, there is no much variation. They all bear the same weapons. Unarmored troops can wear armor pieces, and armored troop can not specially display any armour parts.
• racial (and class) units lack of diversity. It's the same reuse of skeletons. I miss the giant Draconian crusher from AoW2 and instead got another bipedal orc-like infantry. Diversity here is not a matter of number, you could have visual diversity fo same stats with the current sets of units.
• weapons are exaggeratedly large. We could still see even from afar if they were slender and smaller. Currently, it's quite the contrary when you zoom in at max. It's all the more sad that models are otherwise fine with alot of details.

Flying units on tactical map

Flying units should stay in the air on the tactical map, as opposed to combat fliers (that would only hop over obstacles). They could be perhaps engaged by polearms however, on top of any ranged attack. Obstruction would be slightly balanced so that they would be easier to hit (more chance to get LoS), but they could benefit from a bonus in defense when they are in guard mode (because they wouldn't hover on their spot, they would manoeuver).


Garrisons

Garrisons would be a nice addition. I have a certain mod in mind, but as often with mods, it adds too much things to my taste. Garrisons could be like combat summons, and only one T1 units per round. By the time the enemy is at the gates, 3-4 would have spawned to help. They would require for example the tower defense building (the bell tower for humans). Of course, the AI would know that the town has a garrison. City morale would have an effect (perhaps no garrison for unhappy cities?)

 

[Codyksp]

In AoW 1 there's only 1 reason for city to be important. In AoW 3 they can be different.

Not really.. The city in AoW III is always important for production/income, it doesn't matter much which structures are in the domain. Yes, one city can be more important than another city but that's not different from having different static city sizes.

Rather standart design of choke-point but in 1 vs 1 the match will be over before any player can capture well-defended city and develop it T4.

I design the maps for the amount of players they have. I have 4 player maps that are medium difficulty, 5 player maps that are high difficulty and also 4 player maps that are low difficulty. I have even designed a map without T4, focused purely on building lower tier units and having many small cities on the map. It's impossible to do something like this in AoW III or Planetfall because cities will always grow.

In AoW 1/2 AI practically never uses unit enchantments and they are easy way to dominate.

Actually, the AI will always spam enchants on their units. They have so much extra mana income on Emperor that they keep spamming spells until it runs out. Their leader is always fully enchanted and they love to spam summoned units and enchant any nearby units in the early game. Also some of the AI behaviour has been modded and they are a lot more annoying than before. I have never lost to them, but they aren't a free 10 turn win either.

May be you haven't noticed but Planetfall is a game with practically every unit shooting which makes all this sword-bow-pike system unusable. The roster size means not much because I never bothered to do racial T1 unit in AoW1. I never bothered much about T2. But if you play Amazons in Planetfall you can't just replace T2 unis with T3 because Tyranodone has only 5 range and Bombardone is artillary and needs cover so Dendroid with 7 range is still usable. And with your technologies you can create strong airfleet (you have doctrine for that and module). From other side if you play Dwares in Planetfall you research Baron then you spam Barons. They're every universal why close combat aircraft is useless and T3 tank has only ram attack and 1 turns reload gun with range of 5 which makes this tank useless. Then you add "Katyushas" and dominate everything. T4 unit with 5 attack? Useless!

I have noticed, and I really dislike this. Some units should be pure melee and flying units don't all need ranged attacks either. I have modded all the T1/T2 units to make them stronger, especially if you can get them experience. This was just a balance issue, not a game design issue.

For example in my mod a Human Swordsman has 4 ATK, 3 DMG, 3 DEF, 2 RES, 5 HP, 26 MV and Parry for 10 gold with 2 upkeep. If he gets to experienced he gains Fearless and if he gets to veteran he gains Extra Strike. The Human Lancer (Medium Cavalry) has 5 ATK, 3 DMG, 3 DEF, 3 RES, 8 HP, 36 MV, First Strike and Vision II for 23 gold with 4 upkeep. Experienced gives him Fearless and veteran gives him Parry. Will the Lancer beat 2 Swordsmen in combat? Maybe, maybe not. But his worth is in +10 MV and Vision II which adds 4 hexes of vision range. He is also dangerous with First Strike, because any unit trying to attack him might die before they can hit him if they are wounded. When he has Parry + First Strike he becomes even harder to hit and might hit you 2 times before you can hit him once.

Sure, the Lancer becomes useless when you can produce a Cavalier. But the Cavalier costs 95 gold, takes 3 turns, needs a T3 city and requires 6 upkeep. All gold income was cut in half in my mod. For example a Builder's Guild/Mine/Shipyard all give 5 gold and Farm gives 6. A city now gives 10/15/25/35 gold with maximum crops and produce merchandise. Not so easy to get that 95 gold now is it? The Cavalier basically became 2x as expensive (because his gold cost was not changed).

All of these "problems" can be fixed by making every unit unique and making it harder to mass produce high tier units. But AoW 1 has a limited list of abilities, so I have to work with what's available. In a new game this could be a lot cooler and much better than AoW III or Planetfall if the devs use their brain properly.

But you can't fix AoW 1 combat with any mod.

You can't fix everything, but we can change a lot of things. We can edit the range of attacks/spells and modify all the ATK/DMG stats as well. One example is that I made Winds of Fury have infinite range, you can cast it anywhere. Another example is that I made Venomous Spit 8 range instead of 4 range. We do the best we can with what we have, but in a completely new game it could be made really cool.

That's how it was in AoW 1. You think you will not lose in the next couple of turns then upgrade the city and don't bother with low level units.

That's not how it works in PvP. Also, I have modded the gold cost for upgrading a city and the time it takes to upgrade them (separately for each city). Gold income is much lower and unit upkeep is also higher, you can't just upgrade all your cities and win by spamming the highest tier unit like in vanilla AoW 1. Instead of upgrading a T2 city, I might choose to use it to produce T1 units every turn and upgrade it when I have an army and secured my borders.

Flanking attack in AoW 3 gives +2 Dam to every damage channel. And f. e. there's such a spell as Star Blades which gives 3 new damage channel. Just 1 Dam per channel but if you use it in flanking this can be a looooot of damage.

Flanking is still not a fun mechanic to me, it is so strong that it becomes the focus of the entire battle. I don't want to focus on turning units all game. I'd rather focus on tactical positions (I like the cover mechanic) and counting hexes for MV and ranged attacks. I also dislike moving and then attacking at range after.

Cosmos is nothing special. Dispel magic or Enchanted weapon this something so common that exist in 90% of other similar games. But let's take War's Berserk spell. With which magic sphere it can be associated? Or Looting of corpses? The classes were the only way to break the Summon elemental creature, do elemental damage restriction of AoW 1\2.

The magic system in AoW 1 is relatively small, there's only 12 spells for the 6 main spheres, 10 in Cosmos and 4 in Secret. I moved all the Secret spells to Cosmos, so now you can research Summon Syron or Conceal Area for example. However, there is no reason why they couldn't expand that in a new game, or even make something like Planetfall's double research for passive (empire) bonusses and spells. Looting corpses could easily be a part of the Death sphere. Berserk could be added to Fire, which in AoW 1 has Warmonger and Fury and is focused on destruction.

Unlike HoMM AoW is a seria where things practically always done for reasons. Classes are not only for unit sets they're for many other things. And territorial control in AoW 3 was integrated not just to be. It allows a lot of other game mechanics. And it tied with serious rewards for clearing sites on strategy map.

And AoW 1 doesn't grant rewards for clearing sites? If you clear a Power Node you get more mana income, if you clear a Builder's Guild you can produce new units (and yes I modded the unit roster of that structure, it now has balloons and a freezer which is like the frost tank). I see no reason that we need domains to make people want to clear the map. Exploration Sites give item rewards and Dungeons give prisoners, they all have their own unique rewards without a city.

Plantfall has even more problems but they are not because of it's setting. In terms of setting it's excellent game.

I think Planetfall is much less attractive to a lot of people because of the setting. And I don't think it has more problems than AoW III either. I actually prefer Planetfall over AoW III, but I don't like the sci-fi setting and I don't like the "every unit has ranged attacks" idea either. That's a dumb way to solve flying unit problems.

 

[THE-Black-Knight]

IMPROVE THE SEA SYSTEM MAKE IT REALISTIC!
Do you want an improved navy system? You need to tune down the power of flying units who now don't even have to land EVER - If a flying unit ends its turn on water the unit should start blinking to show the player that the following turn they need to end their turn on land or on a boat otherwise they will drown (If they are Dragons they could only land on a BIG boat... Or maybe they couldn't so that their movement would finally be limited). That and the fact of having harbors produce money and food will do the trick (they do in real life!) - Also I would go back to the old AOWSM system of boats needed in order to transport troops. Sure someone will start again asking how they are supposed to disembark (!!) but having troops fighting from a boat in the same way they fight on land just makes no sense (sure, range units should be able to shoot from a boat, with a negative bonus, but a knight obviously shouldn't be able to charge! they would be forced to stay on the boat defended by the basic boat weapons)

In terms of comparison with Planetfall, I hope AOWIV will inherit its battle system and the interesting unit equipment system of that game,. Where instead Planetfall fails, in my opinion is with its oversimplified map. Players still need to be able to build roads and choose the exact spot where they want a city. The idea of having "regions" with names with names based on their topography is nice, but where in that region a city should be built is an essential strategic (and esthetic) choice that made the previous installments of AOW so great and immersive.

 

[BeltarTheLion]

And I don't think it has more problems than AoW III either.

1st Critical problem. AI has a lot of cosmite but spends it for spamming T1/2 units which die from 1-2 damage bursts to them so it's huge armies are very flabby and the human with mostly T3 armies has not only intellectual but huge unit-quality advanantage. Sometimes AI build T4 but without modules so these monsters die fast and inglorious. In AoW 3 AI at least can reach T4 units faster forcing human to deal with them.

2nd Critical problem. While defending city AI just runs to the attacker so you just stay out of reach of defense weapons and kills everybody. In AoW3 AI will not leave the walls if it has long range units which makes the assault of well-defended city not trivial task.

3rd Critical problem. When you start the game and control only your capital and then a couple of more colonies it's funny. But when you defeated the 1st enemy and got everything it had you head starts to spin when you see all these territories and colonists to control. Vassal system in AoW was good idea not only as protection mechanism but as a way to save player's time. And I don't understand why Planetfall allows up to 12 players on the map. Or just set Auto and don't change the population's employment at all but then another qustion rises why all this colonist control mechanic is needed in the 1st place.

And I really laugh when people want to build roads and Planetfall has more map level and etc. In reality even big 8 players map requires too much control for bothering about roads or underground.

I understand that these problems don't exist in PvP and Planetfall should be better for PvP than AoW 3 because it demands less fights for exploration sites and pickups per turn and has "combat card" system which allows player to spend the card and take control over the battle. But I've no freind with whom I can come home and spend evenings for single PvP game.

 

[Rodmar18]

The only thing Flanking does is make every follow the exact same combat pattern. "Go behind unit, attack unit, unit turns around, attack with another unit from behind again, wow such gameplay value". How does flanking utilize multichannel attacks? These 2 things are completely unrelated.

As BeltarTheLion said, you may have missed quite a lot in AoW3 that makes it a little more subtle than your otherwise very detailed summary might hint. Take heroes that add a channel to their stack (Sorcerer, Rogue, Theocrat come to mind), take a combat spell, a city enchantment and a racial governance bonus, and you end up with a T1 unit that can melt a T4, provided it is retaliated but once. Or cast a Warlord's combat spell on a Grey Guard T2 hell hound (who has a decent defense, and two damage channels already) put on guard, and see it how it can defeat 3 attacking T2 on the same round.

But the one thing you didn't mention (and it's understandable given how much you wrote), it's that the key mechanic in tactical combat is not even the flanking/reorientation thing in AoW3, it's the control abilities. Nearly every single physical or mental attack will automatically limit movement, if the enemy is mundane (that is, making a dragon or a giant a sitting duck). I'd be for a revision of these automatic effects, but the fact is that you also missed this not so subtle key mechanic.

The moral system play also a quite important role for the relevant units. Critical hits while flanking with a five channel attack... that can take some time to build and trigger, but I wouldn't call this boring.

But apparently, none of these mechanics seem to appeal to you...

Growing every city to max is just not interesting at all, it's merely a waiting game before they all reach the same level and do the exact same thing. Once again, Planetfall has improved this compared to AoW III by letting you make specialized cities.
[...]
. Lots of options? Yes, let me produce a Storehouse/Food Exploitation for more population... That's literally always the optimal thing to do because you need a larger city for better production and more domain/sectors. There is no reason to ever attempt to build other structures in a small city, this isn't "choice", it's just the illusion of choice. After you build structures for population you will always go for military, there's no reason to focus on research structures until later in the game.

I guess that a lot of what you say result from short PVP or competitive SP games, where the goal is to flood the enemies with units, and replace your loss faster than them. But on a longer game, you can very well spam cities and specialize them based on their resource sites and mystical upgrades. Should you have already all your production cities (with MCUs) set, another city with two or three research bonus sites will be an excellent boost when set to Produce Knowledge (+50% outcome) with building only the minimal number of buildings (Laboratory + Observatory; more depending on the racial governance). Of course, in the end, when you have basically won, you'll can always develop it to max in order to gain another +10 casting points, but this doesn't negate the fact that the city was specialized for a number of turns. The same goes for Produce Goods and Produce Mana, and you already know it.

 

[BeltarTheLion]

Nearly every single physical or mental attack will automatically limit movement

Why I say that AoW 1 has undeveloped combat system.

Let fight 8 T1 swordsmen vs 1 Orc-Warlord. What will happen? Swordsmen attack 1 by one and mostly miss. Warlord retaliate on every attack mostly hit. More likely at the end of the round we will have seriosly damaged Warlord who made up to 16(!) melee strikes and 2-5 dead swordsmen. And we have nothing to do about just feed high tier unit with more cannon fodder. Once I had even funnier experience 20 years ago and I still remember it. I had Titan with First strike and it was attacked by T1 units 3 times in row. And every time Titan killed them with a single swipe. 3 Attack attemts - 0 tries to hit.

AoW 1 was a great game in it's time it introduced mass battles no other TBS had before and no has now but it's the combat system as primitive as in HoMM. And when in HoMM long range attack units can only shoot or only move it's normal for HoMM because the shooters can reach every place on the battlefield without obstancles. In AoW shooters must move just to get close enough or avoid obstancle and if they can't shoot the same round they moved they're mostly useless. And why they can't shoot the same round they moved? Because AoW 1 has no action points as numerical representation of how many actions unit can do and most likely the disigners didn't understand how to balance the movement and the shooting properly.

In AoW 2 we already can spread the retaliate damage over many units and if we have numeric advantage do free damage after the target runs out of retalitae strikes. And we can leave enemy unit unmovable in it's turn. AoW 3 has all of that and adds guard mode and flanking attack and it works well because AoW 3 has a lot of ways to restrict unit's movement. And in fact the treat of flank attack is additional restriction itself because you should think what the enemy can do in it's turn. Of course the best thing in AoW 3 combat mechanic is "always hit sysytem" and simple but effective elemental damage so you can really plan your actions but flanking and guarding it's just a cherry on the cake.

 

[BeltarTheLion]

Gold income is much lower and unit upkeep is also higher, you can't just upgrade all your cities and win by spamming the highest tier unit like in vanilla AoW 1

Which effectivelly reduces the value of T4 city. Less money - less chances to upgrade it to T4. In fact you must pay for upgrade then for establishing production. And only after that you can build the 1st T4 unit.

Now about domain structure and necessity to have the treasure structure in your problem. We lived without that in AoW 1/2 and had no problems. You cleared the defense it's now yours. There's nothing wrong in that and many strategy games have this mecanic. But this mecanic has one restriction. It doesn't allow to create any tie between player's efforts to exploit the structure and the reward from it except the strength of the defenders. You just moves your units over it and has income till other player moves his units over. What AoW 3 suggested is areas with resource concentration but for getting maximum from them the player must make serious decision like making a builder or a pioneer moving it to the area and creating structure with territory control abilities. In prolonged game it can be even city where you can build some secret structure and have advantage of that. All this time you have to protect your new lands. And in this system structures like Temple of Sphinx or Ziccurat which give a lot of resources are much more logical than in AoW 1/2.

Of course you will not build a city near every gold mine that why all treasures give some significant reward immediatelly and clearing them off can be important part of the economic. You can get a lot of resources fast. Inventing some interesting mechanic and options requires introducing other mechanics. F. e. I don't understand why HoMM VI has domaines and flanking attacks because HoMM never had mecanics (like city founding and city growth or restriction of movement in tactical combats most tactical maps in HoMM have very few obstancles and units don't hit the enemy when it runs around them) which could be improved by such innovations.

City domaines also make less effective city spam no matter while making the map (common thing for AoW 1/2) or in game because they grow slower.

 

[Codyksp]

The "always hit system" is terrible and it's good they removed it again in Planetfall. Just because you had a bad experience with a Titan back in AoW 1 doesn't mean it was a bad system overall. And I don't think a T3 unit should be losing to a T1 anyway, unless there's a big majority of them. Lower tier units are supposed to be cheaper, fast to produce and weaker. That's how tiers work.

In my mod when you produce a Titan you invest in 2 city upgrades that cost 75 gold and take 4 turns. That's 150 gold and 8 turns just for the upgrade, assuming you already own a T3 city. Then you spend another 115 gold and 3 turns to produce a Titan. So you just spent 265 gold and 11 turns for this unit. If I produce 8 Swordsmen it will take me between 1 and 16 turns depending on how many cities are producing and which tier they are. The Swordsmen only cost 80 gold total.

Even if you take away all the time and gold for upgrades, it's still 115 gold and 3 turns every time, with 6 upkeep as well. A higher tier unit should be hard to achieve, expensive to produce (no mass spamming them) and difficult to kill as a reward. And even then a Titan with his 6/6/5/5/15/36 stats and First Strike could lose to a few strong ranged units or T2 cavalry because he can't one-shot them, especially if they have enchants. Even the Swordsmen could win with enchants if they aren't hit for 5+ damage and instantly die. Vanilla AoW has terrible balance and the AI is super bad. Modding has fixed a lot of these things.

As for combat... Action Points (and being unable to retaliate after 3 hits) is not a super intelligent system. In AoW 1 I have to constantly think about the ranged attacks units have (am I in range or not), I have to think about every single melee unit (can it move to me and attack?). There is no possibility to make them "useless" next turn by simply flanking them, they are always a threat and need to be dealt with. This is where you use attacks and spells that cause debuffs, like Entangle, Vertigo, Frozen. Or you place your units so they can protect other units by requiring them to move more hexes to attack or be hit by your unit. You need to come up with a tactical plan to take down the most threatening units while avoiding setting your own units up for their death and you can't cheese it with flanking or "never miss" mechanics.

Abilities are already limited to one use per round in AoW 1 and "drain" your actions and projectiles simply have set amounts. If you really want to move and shoot then action points could be used like in AoW 2, but not for movement and retaliation! My unit can move/attack less because someone attacked him last turn? That's so incredibly stupid.

Guard/Defense Mode is fine and I don't mind keeping it but Flanking should be removed. There is no strategy behind Flanking units for higher damage because it's literally the default gameplay, everyone has to do it to win. Every fight plays out the exact same way because you always focus on flanking the strongest enemy units. Fights are much more tactical when you can't just disable a unit by spamming it with weak T1s. A powerful unit is a permanent threat, as it should be. The added "depth" from AoW III combat is mostly an illusion and the fights are super easy because you never miss and high tier units are weak unless massed.

- I want my strong units to actually be strong (and hard to produce)
- I don't want to play SimCity, I want to simply focus on combat and the map itself.
- I want combat that isn't focused on 1 mechanic every single time.

As I've said a few times before, Planetfall is much better than AoW III in a lot of ways and only worse in a few. I already summed up what I would want to keep and remove, the only thing I would change in that list now is that I want both Flanking and retaliation costing Action Points to be removed. I have a lot of opinions on a lot of things, but that list is really the most realistic summary since I know many things won't be removed anyway. I'll just post it again since everyone forgot apparently.


What I would keep:

• From Planetfall: Unit modding system, unique races (reminds me of AoW 1), combat system, sectors (if I had to choose between sectors or domains), the tech tree (no randomly unlocking spells!), the city building (assuming we will never get the AoW 1 cities back), better unit abilities and hit/miss chance in combat.
• From AoW III: Underground & Depths layers and the fantasy setting (please bring back the original 12 races), world events (better than Planetfall) and the strategic map (it's much more clear!).

What I would trash:

• From Planetfall: The sci-fi theme (fantasy is just more appealing).
• From AoW III: Morale bonus/malus for winning fights, losing a hero, etc. (these were removed in Planetfall I believe).
• From Both: The Flanking & retaliation costing action points mechanics (I think it's extremely unfun and makes combat boring).

What I would like to bring back:

• From AoW I: Race relations & alignments (they were much more important), more units (it had 12 per race), storm altars, unique unit art (not a static picture of the model) and fixed size cities (this will probably never happen).

Everything else I am pretty much neutral on, they can keep or trash it or rework it into something better. There are too many systems to name everything.

 

[BeltarTheLion]

In Planetfall you will not miss completelly with 75% chance of full damage. In fact it's system much more stable tham even AoW 2's one. And it's system designed for units shooting to each other from the covers not just standing and repelling melee assault. So the chance to hit is the mainly defence mechanic. In fact with correct modules it can be avoided leading to constant 85-95% chance which makes the battle as clear as in AoW 3.

For PvP AoW 1 system unusable and AoW 2 system was higly criticized because you can have fatal misses and enemy fatal hits in final battle.

 

[Rodmar18]

I have no experience in PvP and didn't played AoW1 nor Planetfall. I wouldn't be opposed to the random damage window being enlarged down to 0, and up a bit more (to fake a "lucky hit"). Modern computers are able to handle complex random distribution (something more convoluted than a Gaussian, and obviously not the simple dice roll).


But the worst, "unsettling" mechanic in AoW3 is that all those special effects depend on target's defense (resistance) and not on damage reduction from cover or distance. Take an elite Storm Sister: she can attack a target from max range from under cover and deal the minimal 3 x 1 damage, and yet have 3 x 30% (vs 12 resistance, iirc) to stun her target. That is 2 chances out of 3 of totally disabling a unit for two rounds. And that's not even an automatic secondary effect as mentioned earlier. For me, if a target is so well covered that it doesn't suffer from a fire salvo, it shouldn't have standard chances of being scorched or immolated!
There would be exceptions of course (like the LoS mechanic), and they would lead to very interesting abilities and units (for example, a powerful attack that infects, or has a chance to infect, on first damage dealt, etc).

I had this change in mind when I suggested above to generalize secondary effects to all or most attacks (any flaming sword or arrow could scorch on hit), albeit at a very "low" chance. This wouldn't go wild if now chance for secondary effects was tied to damage reduction from various source (distance, cover, ...). On the other hand, we could have more powerful abilities granted to fewer units, that would warrant better chances (up to current levels).


What also didn't help AoW3 from being a bit caricatural (or extreme) is the simplicity of its combat system, in the end. We have computers, no dices, pens and paper. Why would any entangling effect last for 3 rounds, just because it's the same name? Do we really need to know by heart, and comforted by this meta knowledge, that entangl-thingy is always 3 rounds? Couldn't we have random duration? Or a chance that a target passes a second resist check while we thought it was disabled for good? Couldn't turn base tactical players adapt to more convoluted rules and mechanics? I have a slight doubt seeing how some miss the not-so-good old rock-paper-scissor system, even in MMORPGs (or always refer to WW2 in any single wargame).

 

[Codyksp]

In Planetfall you will not miss completelly with 75% chance of full damage. In fact it's system much more stable tham even AoW 2's one. And it's system designed for units shooting to each other from the covers not just standing and repelling melee assault. So the chance to hit is the mainly defence mechanic. In fact with correct modules it can be avoided leading to constant 85-95% chance which makes the battle as clear as in AoW 3.

For PvP AoW 1 system unusable and AoW 2 system was higly criticized because you can have fatal misses and enemy fatal hits in final battle.

I agree that the hit chance system in Planetfall is pretty decent. It's based on distance and height and can be changed by cover or negative effects like Blind. However, this is really not all that different from AoW 1 either and I highly disagree with your remark of that system being "unusable".

The Paradox Wiki also states they disliked the 100% hit chance of AoW III: https://aowplanetfall.paradoxwikis.com/Warfare. But because people are cry babies and will complain that missing is not fun, they added Graze as well. It's a decent middle of the road solution.

Planetfall:

• The game is heavily focused on ranged combat, this is something I don't like. It should be a mix of both.
• There is no ATK value and DEF/RES are basically shields and armor, which reduce damage taken by a flat amount.
• Attacks never have 100% hit chance and are lowered by distance, height, as well as Defense Mode or Blind for example.
• Melee retaliation (Overwatch) always happens when someone moves past them or hits them point blank, this is good.
• Stagger is better than the stupid AoW III system that simply takes away action points, but I still dislike that it removes action points.
  In my opinion Stagger should only take units out of Guard mode and Overwatch. It shouldn't fully disable them.
• Crit/Fumble are still produced through morale, which I already hated in AoW III. But it's less extreme in Planetfall.
• Status affects are based on the unit tier and unit resistance against that specific effect. I dislike the unit tier being included.

AoW 1:

• Both melee and ranged combat are the same, the system is very clear for both types.
• ATK vs DEF calculates chance to hit, RES is only used for a few spells and status effects.
• Damage can only be reduced by protections or avoided completely with immunities.
• You can lower ATK and DEF with status debuffs, morale and spells like Terror.
• You can also raise DEF with High Prayer and unit enchants can raise all stats as well.
• Leadership also raises the party's ATK by 1 (it raises DEF by 1 as well in my mod).
• Melee units can ALWAYS retaliate, they are always dangerous to approach and have full attacks every turn.
• Ranged units can also retaliate if you give them the Strike ability, hybrid units often have this.
• There are no action points and a unit can always fight back, but there is no Guard mode either.
• Every attack has a 10% chance to crit, crits do full damage. Normal attacks have a damage formula based on ATK/DEF.
• Units can have a minimum of 10% hit chance and a maximum of 90%. A 10% hit chance unit will always crit when it hits.
• 5 ATK vs 5 DEF = 50% chance to hit, from there it's +10% or -10% for every difference between the stats.
• Status affects roll against RES, after an attack successfully hits. They all have their own unique ATK value (i.e. Cold has 2 ATK).

https://ageofwonders.fandom.com/wiki/Combat_mechanics (this isn't fully in depth, but I know all the details).

A lot of the systems in Planetfall are improvements over AoW 1, but for a game from 1999 I do not think the system is "unusable".
In a completely new game I would take Planetfall as a baseline and remove/change a few of the systems to make them better.

• Remove the ranged attacks on every unit, it's not fun when all units can attack from a distance and hit flying units.
• Keep the baseline 90% hit chance and Shields/Armor is fine too. Maybe make hit chance penalties a bit higher.
• Keep defense mode, but make it only available if you didn't attack in the same turn or with a special ability.
• Only use action points for movement, ranged attacks and abilities and make them unable to be drained by enemies.
• Remove morale from combat or at least make it have a much lower impact, like a maximum of 10% crit/fumble.
• Remove unit tier from resistance to status effects, just give some units a higher baseline resistance (regardless of tier).

 

[BeltarTheLion]

However, this is really not all that different from AoW 1

Again. AoW1 is a game about melee attacks. Planetfall about ranged attacks and it's battle maps designed for providing a lot of cover against ranged attack. They have completelly different philosophy. AoW 3 system with orientation for melee attacks and simplified treating of obstancles with distance works perfectlly in AoW 3 setting but it just will not work in Planetfall. And even Planetfall system gives much more predictable fighting than AoW 1 and 2 did.

But the worst, "unsettling" mechanic in AoW3 is that all those special effects depend on target's defense (resistance) and not on damage reduction from cover or distance. Take an elite Storm Sister: she can attack a target from max range from under cover and deal the minimal 3 x 1 damage, and yet have 3 x 30% (vs 12 resistance, iirc) to stun her target.

While this has some logic and sometimes abused when the player more interested in secondary effect like stun than in sligtly more damage and shoots 3 shots from max distance this so minor problem compared to AoW 2 that I wouldn't even take it in account. May be in next game it will be realised better. There's a lot of effects in AoW 3 that shouldn't depend from attack distance like seduce or drop net some of them have zero range.

• Only use action points for movement, ranged attacks and abilities and make them unable to be drained by enemies.

So remove the tactic. I see AoW 3 is too complex for you. It's too brutal and doesn't forgive mistakes by enemy missing. That's the only explanation I can assume because nobody can explain me why it's bad. I had enough of this miss shit and sudden huge damages during the years of playing AoW SM. What's more not so long ago I started on small SW uP1.4 scenario . I noticed 2 things: 1) I play more how in AoW 3. 2) Fighting is slow because unit constantly miss. And I lost 1 gold medal berserk in single engagement. Something that I could avoid in AoW 3 because while units are fragile but damage is stable. May be it's not so noticeable while you play only AoW SM and the game itself with it's atmosphere and effects is rather lazy but if you suddenly switch it's shocking difference.

Couldn't we have random duration?

No. And thx god the developers don't hear such ideas. It's like suggesting to move twice in chess.

And the main computer in battle not the one that rus the game it's player's head which can make decisions like "I entagled this unit so I can kill it faster now or ignore it because it will not effect on combat for some time".

There is no strategy behind Flanking units for higher damage

I just started one standart AoW 3 scenario with Chivalrous intentions and New Arsenal mods because I wanted to test the last one. I took Dreadnaught Dvar with 1 Life 1 Grey Guard and 1 fire spell. Beacuse I thought that combining Oil Skin spell with a lot of units with fire attack would be devastating. And Grey Gourd's city enchantment for doubling crit chance too. But it looks that I wrong I must only do flanking.

 

[Codyksp]

Again. AoW1 is a game about melee attacks. Planetfall about ranged attacks and it's battle maps designed for providing a lot of cover against ranged attack. They have completelly different philosophy. AoW 3 system with orientation for melee attacks and simplified treating of obstancles with distance works perfectlly in AoW 3 setting but it just will not work in Planetfall. And even Planetfall system gives much more predictable fighting than AoW 1 and 2 did.

And Planetfall being about ranged attacks is bad. There is no reason why you can't combine both types of attacks, especially when there are abilities like "Phase" or melee units (Cavalry) with higher movement than a ranged attack. Also, Age of Wonders 1 has cover as well. You can shoot freely from behind objects, but incoming projectiles have a higher chance to miss. AoW III's system is bad and Planetfall needs to be improved.

So remove the tactic. I see AoW 3 is too complex for you. It's too brutal and doesn't forgive mistakes by enemy missing. That's the only explanation I can assume because nobody can explain me why it's bad.

It's bad because it is not fun. Random elements make combat less static, less predictable and add more fun to the game. This is not supposed to be a game where you open your calculator, do some math to find the best tactic for your battle and then play it like a robot. Introducing a chance to miss or a chance for debuffs and abilities to be resisted makes it important to change your strategy while playing. There is nothing "complex" about AoW III at all, almost everything can be calculated before the battle begins.

I just started one standart AoW 3 scenario with Chivalrous intentions and New Arsenal mods because I wanted to test the last one. I took Dreadnaught Dvar with 1 Life 1 Grey Guard and 1 fire spell. Beacuse I thought that combining Oil Skin spell with a lot of units with fire attack would be devastating. And Grey Gourd's city enchantment for doubling crit chance too. But it looks that I wrong I must only do flanking.

Even if you choose a damage boosting combination like Skin of Oil and Fire damage abilities, you STILL need to use Flanking for maximum damage because everything you just said is only increased even further through flanking. So just remove this garbage mechanic and let us use tactics like the one you just presented, something you actually have to use your brain for.

As alternative, give flanking only to specific units with the "Flanker" tag, remove the damage bonus and make it only do 1 or 2 attacks instead of 3. Flanking would then be used avoid retaliation but not always be the best choice for pure damage.

 

[Rodmar18]

So remove the tactic. I see AoW 3 is too complex for you. It's too brutal and doesn't forgive mistakes by enemy missing. [...]Something that I could avoid in AoW 3 because while units are fragile but damage is stable. [...]And the main computer in battle not the one that rus the game it's player's head which can make decisions like "I entagled this unit so I can kill it faster now or ignore it because it will not effect on combat for some time".

So, you like complexity, but also stability, and not simplicity and uncertainty. I like both complexity and uncertainty, and hate meta that is allowed only because systems are too simple and too deterministic... and make tactical games too much like... chess, like back to pen and paper board games.
And don't caricature, please. It's not because an effect isn't 100% reliable that it should be dismissed. It's just that now you'd put T1 units at risk when you send them to tag hits on a powerful entangled unit. Besides, I think I was misunderstood. Random duration can still be read in a tooltip and be well known, except if it's cause by a secondary resistance check. It's only that you don't know it before using the ability.

And Grey Guard's city enchantment for doubling crit chance too. But it looks that I wrong I must only do flanking.

Yes, flanking always works. But critical attacks are like the Lucky evasion, they require high morale units. Lately victorious units should be enough, normally. If things haven't changed with DLCs, a Grey Guard unit with maxed morale will crit every other attack. I like this "uncertainty from beyond the scene". It's like Lucky, or the ability to inflict always more damage on a target that has more negative morale levels.

In a completely new game I would take Planetfall as a baseline and remove/change a few of the systems to make them better.

• Remove the ranged attacks on every unit, it's not fun when all units can attack from a distance and hit flying units.
• Keep the baseline 90% hit chance and Shields/Armor is fine too. Maybe make hit chance penalties a bit higher.
• Keep defense mode, but make it only available if you didn't attack in the same turn or with a special ability.
• Only use action points for movement, ranged attacks and abilities and make them unable to be drained by enemies.
• Remove morale from combat or at least make it have a much lower impact, like a maximum of 10% crit/fumble.
• Remove unit tier from resistance to status effects, just give some units a higher baseline resistance (regardless of tier).

That's pretty much AoW3 except for the details your already pointed out (90% to hit instead of 100%).
10% crit/fumble roughly correspond the three central morale levels in the scale (high morale get 7% crit and low morale get 15% fumble; normal get 0 chance). I'd say that all you hate about morale effects apply to very high or very low morale, and both extremes. But how would you reach those levels if not because of abilities, spells, terrain, actions (victory, recruit/loss of an hero), and diplomacy? That's part of the game, and another layer of complexity that thankfully defeat a bit "builds" and "meta-gaming".

As for unit tier tied resistance to status effects, I can see were devs went from: if baseline resistance is too high, those units can become very resilient to damage, and this is not always wanted. The system you describe in Planetfall seems to make it possible to resist status effects better than damage, without introducing new resistance stats.