10 NOOB MISTAKES TO AVOID Tips Tricks Guide AGE OF WONDERS 4

[@cubandarknez]

I get that not having a bank is a good rule of thumb in RTS, but in this game I don't super subscribe to it. Upkeep in this game has a HUGE impact over the course of a game, and what I have found is that there are generally banking periods and spending periods, I try to get a solid military + economy, then bank up with decent upkeep as long as my army can kill some things, and then spend my bank once I tech up to the thing I wanted. If you are constantly spending, chances are you will be spending an insane amount on upkeep for the things you are producing, and then when the amazing T4/T5 things come around, you won't have the resources to use any of it. Main takeaway, once you have played a few games are you are strategizing more, you should think about what are your big spending spikes, and then plan to economize around those.

[@climhazzard115]

One mistake I make sometimes is actually over recruiting. It's not just important to have a bit of bank, but to have an income that lets you continue developing your cities. If my bank is decent but my income is average, I wouldn't recruit more units, I'd just spend my bank on city upgrades or save it for my next hero, etc. I usually just try to match my early unit recruitment with the pace I create my first 3 cities so that each hero has some units once I recruit them. Even that can sometimes end up nuking my economy. Btw, I didn't know you could use whispering stones on your own cities.

[@Ic0nGaming]

Yeah, that's why I kept talking about thresholds of income I try to maintain. Finding the proper balance between income and troop upkeep isn't easy though, probably one of the hardest parts in the empire planning. The Whispering Stone thing is pretty well hidden admittedly, that's why I had to feature it :D

[@MYPSYAI]

It's really better to recruit in waves. In the beginning you really only need 1 six stack and a few supports to tag along. That's more than enough to clear nodes and maybe explore some wonders if you are feeling adventurous. Once I get all that done and my second city is online i add in another full 6 stack. Now i use 2 stacks and go after infestations. On brutal you really need to max out on those infestations so that's when i start expanding rapidly at turn 30/40. Once the infestations are done then I go for free cities. Now you gotta have 3/4 full stacks with heroes and some reinforcements following behind. Once the free cities are done now you go for the win, either with magic or torches.

[@anthaer]

About stockpiling, there is a chance for event which can give a new trait for your race, if you have high gold or mana stockpile (from my experience it starts, when you have over 1500 in reserve). The trait is reducing income of gold or mana respectively, but give more stability for your cities. So sometimes you may want to go for it.

[@teutorixaleria918]

Hero affinity doesnt contribute to the empire development trees as you suggest at 4:30 in the video. Only your faction affinity does this, which is seen in the top right. Hero affinity gives bonus income to your cities.

[@Ic0nGaming]

Oh there you got me on a wrong assumption. Thanks!

[@Dijadiths]

Also, signature skills are what adds to this. For your ruler, it affects the entire society. For your hero’s, the cities they govern. Want some points toward shadow tree progression? Pick one of the shadow signature skills for your ruler

[@OmegaPuddle]

Actually Your main starting hero does give you extra affinities which boost development tree from his signature spells (at 5,10, 15 etc) but none of the other heroes do.

[@teotoniocarvalho]

Aprendendo bastante. Obrigado. =)

[@MYPSYAI]

One thing that helped me learn was to play all the way through on small maps, like the story maps are good for this. You don't even need to go into the endgame, just learn to win on normal difficulty until you know what everything does. Play the same faction until you figure out all there features. I played barbs like 5 times before i realized the scout could make an outpost (DOH!). It's really fun to play the battles too, it's kinda easy to go for auto-resolve, but auto resolve is really bad at the game and doesn't understand how to combine tactics and spells. I am learning how to play necromancy and auto-resolve will yeild 100% loss with no kills and when I play 2 guys die and we get all 18 kills. Necromancy has tons of AOE raise dead spells, so if you use it you want everyone to die in the same place. So the AI uses these spells but they get 1/2 summons but when I use them i get like 4/5. Also the AI will cast buffs and then summon units, but if you do it the other way around, the unit gets a buff. You can win big battles even if you are completely outclassed if you know how to play the battles. And only then do you really understand what works. What I really REALLY love is that you can hit auto-battle in combat, then turn it back off. Like that you can control the most important decisions then let the AI handle the rest. This makes huge battles way less tedious, you can just choose your spell, move a few key units, set up some strategy, then click the button and the rest of your army does it's thing. When you see the enemy turn pop up, just click it again and at the start of your turn you will be in full control. Thats how i like to play, it's fast and efficient.

[@MrSsnowBalls]

Excellent content. I like the way you narrate your videos

[@MomchilKiryakov]

I love your videos. Will you make a video with some economy guidelines? For example, you say that we should always try to be at our city cap, but at the same time, I rarely have the gold to power 3-4 cities producing buildings. So are there certain buildings that we need to build early, and how to prioritize building between our cities? Such type of economic advice will be highly appreciated. Thanks

[@Ic0nGaming]

Yup, I'm working on something like that =)

[@MrHvleeuwen]

lol thanks for finding the unit disband button for me :')

[@geetube79]

Thank you

[@GerritTV187]

Did you change the audio? Kinda heared every click^^ btw the last tip is super valuable. I only played 2 cultures so far and there's so much to discover and learn in the game. (I mainly Play barbarians ^^)

[@Ic0nGaming]

No, it's the same as usual. I noticed it while doing my timestamps as well. Don't really know what happened, I'll check the configs. Glad you liked it nevertheless =)

[@GerritTV187]

@@Ic0nGaming it's just noticable people making content for aow4 after that sponsor wave. Highly appreciated!

[@Ic0nGaming]

@@GerritTV187 Sponsoring? I wish :D

[@john0constantine]

5:30 I agree that you should always create armies over a certain income threshold, but the thresholds you give are (IMHO) not good advice: Mana: Casting spells is extremely powerful and you should always cast something - especially since the game allows you to precast. Your current casting cap sits at 95. So you already need 95 mana income for that. Plus a bit for combat casting. So a mana income limit of ~120 might be more reasonable in this example. Gold: With three cities you will likely have enough production for way more than 100 gold per turn. Plus you need to plan a little gold for diplomacy. So a cap of 200 to 250 would be more reasonable in this situation. There is a reason you can't recruit your third hero: Because you burned your gold on a unit instead of using it for a new hero that is way more impactful.

[@Ic0nGaming]

Yeah, the numbers were quite arbitrary, thanks for giving some better and more precise numbers. Helpful! =)

[@ToTheNines87368]

I disagree a bit with spending your resources. In general it’s true, unless your upkeep is pressured. However with Mana I’ve played factions where having a lot banked can be useful. Because I spent so much in battle and when my territory gets invaded I like to throw down a lot of tactical spells that can easily cost 120 mana a turn.

[@Ic0nGaming]

Well I'm not disagreeing with you at all. You sound like you have a plan with your stuff and that was the main sales point. I was more referring to my former self sitting on 2k-3k mana without even noticing I could do something with it. Stuff like that was more my idea.

[@mrbigglezworth42]

It's actually fine to have a bit of gold banked up for emergencies, but what you need to focus on is how large an army you can actually support. If you can produce at least or +/- 100 gold a turn, you're fine. If it's noticeably less then that, then you'll be slowly lagging behind due to lack of funds. Likewise in the early game, you can afford to spam more T1's then building up T2's. 2 or 3 full stacks of T1 will beat out A stack of T2.

[@Ic0nGaming]

As long as you have a plan behind your expansion it's not that important how you pull off your unit recruitment. But I had several games where I was green and new and totally forgot about the fact that I could hire stuff for like 10-15 turns and that's more what I referred to ^^

[@NhatAnhPhamDr]

I’ve just finish the game with tier 1 doomstack archer of dark culture ( with ton of buff).

[@Majber]

Industrious culture with mountains custom map I super op, lots of free gold