One of the things I think is neat in SM is the dragon growth idea, and I would like to see that expanded upon if they did a future release. It would be really neat if the troops you had initially could grow with you and possibly eventually becomes heroes. Ie you might start with a elven gather as a level 0 that grows to an archer or acolyte at platinum (one above gold) the archer could then grow a ranger or (small chance) become hero, the accolyte grows to a priest or hero. The ranger could then grow into a Ranger Lord or (little better chance) hero. The priest similary grows to become a high priest or hero. The Ranger lord or High priest then has a (chance) of growing to a Hero. With the chance of getting the hero better for units that advanced through more classes better than units that started at higher levels, and the hero level and abilities determined by what the unit was that advanced. Probably about two paths for each race would work best, one priest or shaman type and one rogue/ranger/paladin/warrior type. If this wasn't in the basic game, it would be nice if it was available for mods.

Another thing that would be interesting would be structural buildings, either inside the city or randomly on the map, that you could go to for unit improvements for a cost. For example there could be a blacksmith that adds sharpened +1 attack/damage to a Meele Weapon. Unit would need to be appropriate type, probably have Meele weapon instead of just strike. Or an Armor that can add hardening to armor and so forth.

Easier importing/customising of images and new sprites for the game would be really nice for mods as well.

I like the idea of a platinum level, but four is probably enough. A fifth level of creatures might be cool, although I am not sure. A huge size catagory, one hex all around bigger than current large units could be neat for some units, although all units should probably have a small unit representation on the big map.

People in ships can be involved in sea based combat, or at least the ranged attackers. Maybe have a bigger ship that moves on the map, and the units it carries can move about the ship. Ranged attacked could attack if something comes in their range, meele's could be involved if something comes up and attacks the ship in Meele (like Serpants or Kraken). Units being transported by air transports, similary have the option of staying up and protected in the balloon/galley or dropping down a rope to the ground.

I'm not that keen on the formations idea. I tend to like the more heroic individual unit idea. I also think its harder to see the individual units in a smaller mass.

I'd like to see male units able to seduce female units.

I want charm back, (like Dominate only with a lower attack ability.) I also think Hotwire would be a cool ability, (able to steal Machines.)

With Rome:TW you can stop pre-set unit movement with the backspace button. However, this works well in tradition tbs turns. I just don't see how it can be done with sim turn. I am totally for regiments like Rome:Total War. Imagine, a unit of fully armoured human knights (parthian cataphracts pops into my head?) numbers 50 men+horses. A regiment is always a maximum of 20 units, so it is possible (although expensive to recruit and maintain, long to recruit, and somewhat tactically shortsighted) to field 50*20=1000 knights. However, they can't siege their way into a fortified city and consider that a unit of goblin spearmen (little or no armour, pretty crappy morale, cheap to recruit and maintain) will consist of 150-200 spearmen, and 20 units=1 regiment=3->4000 spearmen, and by the time player 1 can field a thousand knights, player 2 can field several regiments, at short notice, of goblin spearmen. This all makes for a cracking battle, if you can have full control of all units, and the adjacent hex rule is implemented, as 6? regiments of spearmen (+darters etc) faces of against a thousand knights, or 20 demon lords/dragons (lvl 4 units like these should be 1 per unit). So, I hope I've painted a sufficiently gory and bloody picture. I'm not sure how this would work in pbem, as the a.i in any such setup will be prey to a human, right? I mean, a human .v. a.i fight would result in the human controlled knights going after one regiment then the next...

I just wonder how tactical abilities like charm/dominate/healing would work. I think the game can be made so that abilities like dominate etc become easier on a unit that is losing morale. It should be very hard to diminate a mass of charging knights. Ofcourse, these battles would have to be real time. To summarise, I believe that any future installment of AoW would benefit form a radical changing of the battle system, making it in effect AoW:Total war..

Realtime Combats and Regiments might be fun, But I do not think it would be a good idea.

I think they should make the citys grow much slower. (in long games all cities become large and fully upgraded and the only things that get produced are level 3s and level 4s. This wasn't a problem in aow1 (at least not a big problem) Becaouse the cities didn't grow. One way to slow it down might be to have builders build on cities. This should take some time (say 7 turns) and it should cost something like 100 gp. The city must also have been the old size in atleast (lets say 30 turns) and you can only build on one city at a time. We would also have to make so that you need a large city to make highlevle units.

I don't want AoW 3 to be real time game as almost all strategy games are. I want it to be turn based and simultaneous as it is now.

It would be good if city growth would be slower and building availability is restricted by city size in AoW3 like it's made in dwiggs mod.

no realtime please.... aow series are entirely TBS. i think simultaneus turns are realtime enough

good thing, TC is still classic turns.

Lol, a bit of a copntradiction there? Aow has simultaneous turns, which to all effects and purposes realtime...The small scale tactical naturre of an AoW battle reminds me of a street fight between 2 gangs. I know I'm not the first person to have issues with 1 unit being just that, a single unit. i think you must be careful to avoid being a hidebound traditionalist. I think a regiment idea, in a real time battle setting, would work very well. It doesn't hjave to be a max of 20 unnits per regiment, it can be only 10, and you can scale back the max size of each unit, if what you're worried about is rampant finger clickyness (where the fastest finger wins, a.k.a most rts games out there). Just give the idea a chance in your mind.

Tearion, I hope the above is clarification enough, but just to ensure you understand, I am merely thinking of ways to make the tactical combat more interesting. With the above, some bigger maps could also be useful.

Quoted from from Beren's threat but fits here more:

now, that you mention it, i wonder about this too. the aow games are very limited regarding their authentic approach. elves should have a big growth penality. orcs, humans and especially goblins should have growth bonus.

another thing i would like to talk about is the stupid concept of buildable units dominating the map.

military units should not be builded but trained. you should be able to train some population in the barracks and then make them to soldiers but only if the required weapons are forged. indeed, i suggest a new resource. weapons! its really important for a war game to have weapons

i like the settler concept here. without weapons forged no soldiers (or at least no elite sodiers with steel weapons, perhaps only peons with a stick)

i hope aow3 will fix those BIG issues.

Quote:

What's the difference? Build, train, grown in a garden? How would it affect the game mechanics?

BLOODYBATTLEBRAIN, yes I would also like tactical combat to be more interesting. But I don't want real-time battles. I rather want a option to choose to play simultaneous so you can move all your units each turn, but still be able to do classic tactical combats if you want. And I don't want regiments. The units are unique so they wouldnt be able to use special abilities. I like when theres single units which is big, I don't like looking at many small dots on the screen.

Quote:

they are very different, like in sevenkindoms, population will decide how many units you can have. and time mus tbe spend in barracks to decide how good your fighters are. units that are build instantly are only basic fighers. in aow we only have silver and gold medals to decide how expierenced an unit is. in 7k there is a percentage rate from 0-100. the king always starts with 100 and the soldiers under him have 20 and have to train with the king to raise their skill.

now thinking about aow races, i think goblins should have the biggest population easily and thus could make the most units.

and not like it is currently elves dominating maps everyhwere with sheer amount of units. this, just don't feel right to me, if you consider that elves cannot reproduce themselves as fast as humans or especially goblins could. aow is using a classic fantasy setting with many well known races. its a must that those races have to be included the most authentic way possible for the game. in that regard, there could be done much more in the aow series.(and any other game as well....)

then training time of soldiers is important too, and it doesn't matter if that cames from combat expierence or barracks, thing is to make training important there must be a more complex expierence conception than just silver and gold medal, what is way too simple for my taste, as well as only 2 resources - gold and mana. hence as a hardcore TBS player i demand much more... aow is good in what it does, but some stuff is just not in there.

to grow units in a garden is definately an option too, ask the treeman.

[This message has been edited by DarkMystery (edited 04-07-2005 @ 01:37 PM).]

whenever a game is won or lost, you can look into the statistics of each game.

what does it helped the game that one had the most population? just think population could be a bit more representative and do more in the game, like becoming an active resource in the game also deciding how much units could be build(like upkeep).

Bigger population may also allow you to migrate cities faster.

I've not read through all the posts on this topic, so please forgive me if I repeat something someone else has already suggested.

I have been playing a strategy game somewhat similar to Warhammer called Mage Knight, where you get to assemble a team to take on your opponents.

Each player gets a certain number of points (in our context it would be a certain amount of gold/mana), and is allowed to select any number of creatures (or weapons/armour) that fits within the cost. Terrain is then chosen and the players go to battle.

There are also additional constraints in each battle, eg pure faction (no mixing of different races), melee figures only etc.. as well as scenarios eg storm the castle, capture the flag

As an example, say each person is given 1000gold/mana (for the sake of this example, lets assume they are interchangeble) and this is the teams they have chosen

Battle - Pure faction

Player 1 - the Black Widows (Dark Elves & Death sphere)

Sucubus x 2 - $120 x 2
Incarnate x 1 - $300
Black spider x 2 - $40 x 2
Bone dragon - $225
Blade dancer - $100

Total $945

Player 2 - Dwarven forgemasters (dwarves & earth/water sphere)

Steam tank - 300
Earth elemental - $220
Runemaster x 2 - $200 x 2
Berserker x 2 - $80

Total $1000

You can also spend some money to upgrade the spells and skills. Not exactly sure how this can be implemented though.

This section could really be like the Arena that is scattered throughout the map. We could play this head to heda as well, what do you guys think?

One thing that I'd really like to see is a solid in-game multiplayer interface. Gamespy Arcade is garbage. If AoW had a better system for setting up multiplayer games (a simple one would be fine, I'm not asking for Battle.net here), the multiplayer community would probably be larger.

well Triumph is not blizzard, don't think they will pay and maintain a similar project as battle.net.

cause:

1. the community of tbs games in general is too small to make the effort be worhtwile compared to other genres as rpg and rts.

2. certainly TS has not the budget for this

3. bf(i recommend the tourney games there) and gs is the only option to get online games going on a reliable basis with players around the world. but its often pretty hard to get a game going with reliable players its not just you log in and instantly play a game and if you win or lost the game you can play a new one without a lot time of waiting included.

[This message has been edited by DarkMystery (edited 04-16-2005 @ 04:41 PM).]

But if it was easy to play multiplayer I bet the online community would be the dubble at least. I personaly got aow1 in march 2001, but I haven't found my way out to the online cummunity untill just recently. Having a good multiplayer option would probably be a great help.

yes it would be helpful.

I don't think that multiplayer is so important for turn based games. You know, they take a lot of time to win/lose a map, when multiplayer is for short (>1 hour) skirmrishes. I think they should concentrate on single player. The one really good TBS for multiplayer are chess .

I think multiplayer is the most important in TBS games. They can remove campaign. And chess is boring

[This message has been edited by Tearion (edited 04-20-2005 @ 03:37 AM).]

how about both, a good sp and mp in one game?

Yes both would be best but since Gandalf theWhite said he wanted only single I must say counter with saying that I only want multiplayer since multiplayer is much more fun

Quoted from tearion:

I didn't say I want only multiplayer, I only meant that I think that single is more important. Yet AoW3 should still contain good multiplayer.

ok but I think multiplayer is more important. Anyway they should make their best both in single and multiplayer.

If the mp of AoW3 includes PBEM, and it had better, I'm hoping they'll do away with the extra FC combat mechanics and just let the AI simulate TC. That would make balancing a whole lot easier, IMO.

Still don't understand why they went through the extra effort of creating an FC engine.

Quoted from ZE:

yeah! better cut off FC entirely so there is only TC and surrender

FC and TC stand for..?

FC = Fast combat
TC = Tactical combat

Quoted from Tearion:

Yes, and they should do their best while making map and campaign editors, too. (For me, making maps is sometimes even more fun than playing them ).