AoW4 (MP) Basics - Imperium and Empire Development

[@wepg]

I'm planning on doing a quick video about Mind & Body traits today (which will not require a tier list as some of the picks are *way* better than others), but I'm also hoping to get a tier 1 tome tier list done in the near future. Maybe a Tier 2 tome tier list as well, but um tier 2 tomes are pretty different in terms of power level.

[@AmitabhaAsukin]

You're doing a god's job. I hope to see videos on all magic tomes tiers, pls keep up with a great work.

[@wepg]

Will do! I'll also have to revisit the Traits video once the next update is out, as the introduction of the points system means there will probably be a brand new meta there.

[@Whoisthis911]

Thank you very much for this video! If i can suggest one thing that would help beginners like me, it is to talk a bit more about the bad choices/options in the empire tree and why they are bad. I know the video is already 32 minutes long but there are a lot of choices/options in the empire tree that you skipped over because (i assume) you know they are bad, but we beginners dont know why. Thanks again!

[@IamSpiritAlpha]

Playing vs Brutal AI I find Call to Chaos very strong perk, because I get t3-t4 units very often from infestations, and that a very big spike to fight back those t4-t5 units at turn 7 yourself lol. Too bad it’s so underwhelming in MP, but I must I just hate MP flow at this point, too hastefull and stressful xD

[@wepg]

It's a very different game. On Brutal you should be able to walk all over the AI as the enemy rulers will end up spending most of the game dead, so most of the challenge will be coming from the world itself, whereas in MP other players are going to be a lot better at clearing out infestations for the resources and exp (and not losing their ruler *most* of the time, as autoresolve vs AI is way more challenging and fair). Perhaps some day Triumph will revisit "Brutal" difficulty, but because of the symmetrical impact of world threat and starting resources it's actually significantly easier than some of the other settings you can cobble together, simply because the AI loses all of their starting stuff super quickly and rarely recovers, compounded by how much extra oomph you can get out of manual battles... it's ultimately slower than MP by a fair deal but also not really challenging after T30 if you know what you are doing, whereas in MP just having enormous amounts of knowledge won't autowin the game, as a lot of people will have turbo knowledge.

[@IamSpiritAlpha]

@@wepg yep exactly, most challenge of brutal comes from learning to fight those t4-t5 stacks at turn 10

[@ereviscale3966]

I'm so bad at combat that the auto resolve is only like 10 percent worse for me

[@jasonharrell2964]

Awesome video. Liked and subscribed.

[@wepg]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@mattheworman7779]

Commenting for more AOW content

[@wepg]

Thanks for the comment! I'm thinking we'll do cultures next and then maybe Tier 2 tomes, though if the rumors I've heard about Tome of Amplification being moved to Tier 3 are true that could shift things around a bit in the meta.

[@WinSlayaGaming]

Oh wow yeah, advanced logistics is a massive upgrade. I should be using it in every game XD. It is one of the empire skills that was changed after the release of the base game back in May, right?

[@wepg]

Yeah, I think it was only added in the Watcher update.

[@WinSlayaGaming]

@@wepg that makes sense

[@TheIlluvatar619]

great job!

[@wepg]

Glad to hear you enjoyed it! Mind and Body trait video should be out this evening; I'm gonna do a society traits tier list too, hopefully out tomorrow.

[@jb9515]

wow..I didnt know that city one was repeatable..I guess it says it but I wish it was made more clear in the shape or whatever. Do the shapes mean anything? Do outposts exploit the resources in their starting square?

[@wepg]

Yeah, outposts exploit their own tiles. I should probably do a basics video about outposts, tbh.

[@БорисЗотов-в5п]

howdy! what do you think the best/optimal mp shadow build at the moment?

[@wepg]

I think generally there are some fantastic shadow tomes- I'm a very big fan of Cryomancy, Tome of the Cold Dark and Tome of Oblivion. Unfortunately the T5 Shadow tome is just *very* bad right now, so I think if you want to play around with big shadow your best bet is to plan for Astral 5 as your T5 tome and take a bunch of good things along the way to ensure you have the strongest Living Fogs possible. You'll want to also ensure at least a little bit of Materium early on as Materium 1 is a very big deal on the Empire tree. I think a plan like Dark with Cryomancy/Evocation/Amplification/Revelry/Cold Dark/Teleportation/Oblivion/Astral Mirror/Arch Mage and at least 1 Materium society pick and then level 4 signature skill on ruler picking up Materium affinity should perform pretty darn well.

[@afalling0bject178]

Where is the multiplayer community at? Reddit/discord/etc

[@wepg]

Most of the MP community is concentrated in DreadReaper's server at the moment- discord.com/invite/2jV8TBM6

[@akedus44]

Single-player exclusive player here. Just wanted to ask why the MP meta prefers foresters over farms. With quarries generating +5 gold and farms generating +5 food with their Imperium tree improvements, wouldn't it be more tile efficient to have a mix of farms and quarries who are generating +10 resources each? I understand foresters are useful for boosting the research building tree but then you could just swap them to something else after.

[@wepg]

It's mostly because food takes forever to be useful. The single most important piece of infrastructure in the game is an Academy. Get those up and going immediately. After that you have some flexibility, but generally you need to build mana stuff too. Build a few SPIs along the way and now the game is basically over. Food is, unfortunately, not very good even on a longer match, as every population past 5 is sorta pointless (cultural units are very quickly replaceable with tome units).

[@akedus44]

​@@wepg Ah, I see. Thanks for the insight. Wonder how much the next DLC will change things up. Reavers apparently have two T3 units so maybe that means that the other cultures may recieve a second T3 unit too.

[@wepg]

@@akedus44 Yeah, more T3 units would be very welcome in my book, but I also think the boosts for city halls need to be lower. You can always build city hall 3 without the boost if you decide you really need your cultural T3, but if they reduced the boost levels to 4/8/12 it would make food a lot more meaningful and farms better as a result.

[@akedus44]

@@wepg From what I can tell, the current "curve" of the City Hall boosts are designed with the idea that you're gonna get most, if not all things in its structure tier first. So I think it's unlikely that the city hall boosts will be lowered.

[@MiracleDirk]

Is tome of amplication still good now it's a tier 3 tome?

[@wepg]

It seems a lot less necessary now, given that you get it online when you have a *lot* more base knowledge. I think it's still good, but it's probably only an A-/B+ tier tome now at best, as the competition in T3 tomes is a lot stiffer than the competition in T2 tomes.

[@texastannerite2576]

Why pick up advanced logistics if you’re not getting road building?

[@wepg]

You can get roads basically everywhere via outposts. You *can* always take road building instead of Military Engineering, I suppose, but it's almost always worse due to the way you get extra movement in friendly tiles.

[@jaredrichardson78]

You have some really interesting points, but I disagree with you on some. If you are playing a map where everyone is on their own team and there is no diplomacy, only war, Chaos tree is INSANELY good. A free 30 gold and 30 mana per active war you have is nuts. On a massive map with 8 players (my personal preference) that is a free 210 gold and mana per turn and I think, but I am not sure, that each free city at war with you, including enemy vassals, also counts. It is always an immediate buy for me and takes a struggling economy, to a wealthy one, or a good economy into the stratosphere. I agree that the first several buys are just putting a turd in a dress, but the latter half of the tree has so much value. And the Balor capstone, assuming you have the patience to babysit it, at full stacks and full rank, it is an insane unit with a little over 260 hp, I believe, an insane AoE, a great range and a solid tank. Plus, if you are playing evil and already have some incentives to raise cities, like loosing city stability for good relations with free cities, or even chosen destroyers, the incentives for raising cities are insane and will single handedly run your economy.

[@wepg]

The issue is that the early imperium tree is garbage and in order to get your good stuff you need to be hyper specialized in chaos, otherwise you will not get there before a player with a better economy kills you. I had 650 knowledge on turn 39, and I know for a fact that can be a lot higher if you know what you are doing. Chaos has a lot of duds when it comes to their tome selections, which means that to get your big chaos early enough to compete you are going to need to specialize in bad to mediocre magic and pray no one runs you over.

[@jaredrichardson78]

@@wepg Fair point! But you do get some help from racial units still being viable, if you are investing in a late game build for chaos. Although, the tier V tome isn't as good, seeing as (at least the last I played it) the avatar you summon, if it dies, so does your leader.

[@wepg]

@@jaredrichardson78 I think if you are planning on "late" game chaos you probably want to play it the way M0rgi usually does with Pandemonium giving you a bunch of Chaos Eaters you then upgrade into Balors ASAP. I think he's had like 4+ Balors online by like T40 if the rumors I have heard are true.

[@jaredrichardson78]

@@wepg Dont threaten me with a good time