Nope, the co-op series is another "Let's Play" style series like this one that gets into more advanced stuff. (My friend and I take on six Emperor computers.) The tutorial that I made for new players can be found here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ethkrcemr9yxg5s.html I hope that helps!

That's actually a really clever way of giving melee fighters an XP advantage that isn't just obviously trying to punish the advantage of ranged units.

Glad to hear it! It's always nice to see new people finding my original videos for the first time. This one seems like an eternity ago to me now, lol. I've come a long way since then!

@@BlackArrowGaming I'll look into your channel for some more stuff! Take care, Keimpe

dude you have replied on every single comment on this video :D reply on this

Done! Haha :p My channel is still small enough that I try to make an effort to reply to every single comment that merits a reply. It's led to a lot of good discussions, and it helps me become a better player :)

@@BlackArrowGaming and look at the views now , years later and Im just getting the game .

@@timpiscovich4955 That is good to hear! It's always fun to hear about someone new picking up the game and joining the community. Welcome aboard!

+chickenhed Thanks so much! I really appreciate the encouragement. I'm having a great time with this series :D

Yay! Always good to have someone new around! To be honest, I make plenty of mistakes in this first series. (Actually, I still make plenty of mistakes today, haha...) Fortunately, the AOW community has been pretty awesome as far as providing helpful feedback goes. My gameplay has improved a lot in the past four years thanks to them, so if you really want to get into the finer details of the game, I would encourage you to check out the comments every now and then as well. Cheers!

+Lossarnach13 Thanks so much! The point of this series is to help people learn how to play well, so I try to explain everything in detail. I've also received a lot of insightful comments from viewers that have helped me improve my own gameplay too, so if you have any suggestions, feel free to share them!

I have been asking myself that same question! I'm trying to do my part to help spread the word, haha - I've talked two or three of my friends into buying it and playing it with me :) I'm glad you enjoyed the video! I am wrapping up my third series right now, so there are plenty more videos if you'd like to keep watching! (Feel free to contribute your own thoughts/questions in the comments as well :D)

Very good, I'll try to spread the word, too! XD This and Heroes of Might and Magic III are one of my favorite games. There are most times over 1000 players playing this game (according to Steam Community Hub). Though this isn't a bad number, it IS a smaller amount than - for example - Civ 5 has, which has around 25.000 players playing the most time I've looked it up. I am looking forward to your next videos! Oh and last question: Where can a noob look for equal noob-ish players? Steam discussions?

I'm actually not sure - the Steam community forums have a lot of topics, but I'm note sure that new players gravitate towards any one of them in particular. Are you looking for people to play with or just to discuss the game with?

For the near future, I'm looking for both. ;)

I'm not sure about finding people to play with since I usually only play with people I already know. In terms of discussion, I wouldn't limit yourself to any specific group of players (even if I knew how to do that). I've had comments on here from people new to the game and comments from experienced players, and I've learned a lot from both types of people :)

And I'm excited to have another viewer, thanks! I'm actually working on my third AOW III series now, so there are plenty of videos for you to watch if you want to stick around!

Hey thanks so much, that means a lot! It's always nice to see new people watching my very first series for the first time. To be honest, this one is a little rough around the edges - I still make a lot of mistakes. But thanks to input from a very friendly community of AOW players, I've become a much better player overtime. It's been like 4 or 5 years since this first episode and I'm still making new ones :)

Thanks to you! I'm watching the whole series and reading all the comments, and I was wondering if you woulda have answered me like you did with anyone else even after all these years. And you did! You made me happy with this comment, as you entertain and teach with the game. Keep it up, gonna check your other content soon!

@@LeonePieraccioni Glad to hear it, thanks!

Much appreciated! Although I'm currently making AOW 4 videos now, I've published probably close to 700 videos for AOW 3 already. So there should be plenty to keep you busy for awhile :)

Thanks! I should be able to get another episode up this weekend.

Looking forward to it!

Thanks Jennison! Always good to see feedback like this on my older videos. Glad to see they are still helpful all these years later! I've published hundreds of AOW videos at this point, and thanks to viewer feedback my gameplay has improved overtime. Hope you enjoy the others just as much :)

+Erlend Thevik You bet! If you want a more thorough overview of the basics, I also have a gameplay tutorial on my channel. It is designed for beginners, so it might be a little too basic for someone who has played AOW I and II, but I do briefly review all of the races and classes as well as some other information specific to this iteration of the series.

I can't find your beginner's guide. Can you give a link?

Sure, no problem! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ethkrcemr9yxg5s.html

Thanks - it's a reference to the Zephyr Birds, which are the best overworld scouts in the game IMO. Unfortunately, I didn't really get to show them off much in this series! I like combining them with the partisan ability and hiding them on mountains. It's like having invisible mobile flying watchtowers everywhere :)

Thanks so much for the encouragement! This means a lot, and it's good to hear the the community is sharing my channel with each other on Steam :) Right now I'm trying to continue covering AOW 3 while also posting Planetfall content too. And, barring any major life changes, I hope to be there for AOW 4 as well...whenever that is ;)

Thanks Nisil! Was wondering if anyone noticed :)

Thanks! Don't be too hard on yourself - although AOW 3 does share some similarities with civ, understanding unit matchups and abilities is much more important here. Takes time to learn :)

+G.T.O Mongoose Hey thanks, that actually helps a lot! I used to think one spell would do it, but that didn't seem to always work. Didn't know that continuing to cast spells would eventually lure them out, even if the first spell did not. Very useful tip!

Thanks Ian! It's always nice to see people commenting way back on my first AOW video. Are you a new player? I've got a ton of videos on here and my ability to play vastly improves over time - thanks largely to feedback and advice from the community :)

@@BlackArrowGaming im not a new player cuz i have been playing aow3 for long time but i stopped for a while and u know this year i started playing back i forgot how the game works😭😂 but watching ur vids mann 😎brings back the vibes man thank you so much

@@ianisaac4640 No problem :)

Thanks man! This is a great game, and I have a ton of fun playing it - both on and off camera :D

Hey thanks - that is good to hear! Yes, if you are fortunate enough to get a warlord the "field medic" promotion is easy to get early. Druids can heal with nourishing meal fairly early on (healing comes later), so determining which unit should be party leader is all based on math. If most of your group is at or near full health, but one guy is hurt badly, then nourishing meal would be better since it would get used toward the injured unit (15 HP), whereas field medic wouldn't be as good (6 HP). However, if everyone in thre group is at least moderately damaged, field medic would be better because it would give +6 HP for each unit in the stack (for 30 HP total). Things could be a bit different for the Draconians due to their fast healing, but the basic idea remains the same.

Ah, thanks for the tip. I started my campain with your videos playing in the background, I enjoyed the game a lot more than I did in the past with your help on both tactical and strategical layers. I used to just play soc elf and phase everything over the wall. I really learned so much about sieging, its so much more fun now. I am up to date with your 3 advance serie, its great. Now I need to go back but I notice the audio in the earlier series is not as good. I am currently playing as frostling druid, my armies are almost all animal its hillarious. But after a while there are no animal left to befriend, how do you deal with this problem? do you farm the spawning camp or just roll with normal production. What I like the most is the bonus mobilitiy for support, it was so painful playing early game with little baby spider and lack range option. I dont know why but I have a thing for frostling now, elf is too op with longbow, it gets boring.

I switched to a new microphone sometime last year, so thats where the improved audio quality came from. Definitely worth the $$$, haha. I'm really glad that my series have helped you improve your gameplay! In response to your question regarding how to play with a Druid, don't worry too much about only using animals. You should always take them when you get a chance, but it is a good idea (with any class) to have a lot of variety. If you only have animals, you are in danger of being countered by units with animal-slayer, or units like the halfling jester that can panic animals. That being said, don't forget that you can summon animals with mana and the proper spells! Also, if you can plan things out well enough, it is sometimes worth passing up some early-game structures with animals in them and coming back for them later if you don't have befirend animal yet. Generally speaking, it is most helpful to do this in order to get spiders and snakes, which can evolve into more powerful units later on. This requires carefully planning how you are going to clear other structures though, because you don't want to waste time running your units back and forth if it can be avoided.

My favorites are probably the class you see here, a halfling necro with gray guard, and an orc theocrat with 2x destruction and shadowborn

Thanks so much! I am glad that you are enjoying these. (I am still making them, so there should be plenty for you to catch up on lol.) If you are new to the game, you might find my beginner's tutorital to be helpful. It can be found here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ethkrcemr9yxg5s.html Then again, if you are already watching my other AOW videos, you might already be past the point of needing beginner tips. Either way, it's good to have you on board!

+Martin K Thanks! I'm glad my video was helpful :D

Fricking taking notes here, you know shit got real when you start taking actual notes

Comments are a goldmine as well

Hi! I'm glad you are enjoying my videos...and taking notes, haha :) I hope I didn't mess up too much in this first series as it was so long ago. I've learned a lot since then! Usually my errors get corrected in the comments, if if there's a subject you want to double-check, searching the comments (easy to do with CTRL-F) is a good way to verify things. In more recent series I've begun incorporating discussions from the comments into the beginning of each episode. Hopefully that will be helpful to you as well :)

+peddroelm Oh yeah, abilities like field medic and natural healer are very good, especially in the early game. I usually still prefer to get combat healing spells like nourishing meal first though since they work both in combat (actively) and out of combat (passively). Draconians (with faster health regeneration) and Orcs (with Victory Rush) can manage ok without a designated "healer," but I usually don't use either of those races very often.

Thanks again! I am super excited about Planetfall too, and I will most definitely be covering it on my channel :)

Planetfall looks amazing can't wait:P

@@mr.mammuthusafricanavus8299 I know me too! :D

The shooting range upgrade would definitely help, but with the elves I usually get the damage bonus for archers since I use them so much. As a result, my elf druid cities actually grow slightly slower than most other Druids (due to the slowed growth rate for elves in general). A Goblin Druid is the best for rushing city growth IMO, since they have more growth per city due to their race and can get even more growth from wetlands with the race governance upgrade for it. Throw in the expander specialization too and things get crazy, lol XD

Thanks! I'm finishing work on my next Skyrim episode right now. Once that's done, I'll record a third AOW video. It's good to see that people are enjoying this new series!

Black Arrow Gaming It's strange that there aren't more hits on these videos. You are the only person putting out anything on AOW3 and a lot of people play that game. Maybe people just don't know about you yet.

+Fuzzmustard One person suggested I advertise on Reddit, gotta find my old account info haha.

Looks like you found it but I'll post a link here anyway for anyone else trying to find it :) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ethkrcemr9yxg5s.html

Glad I could help! There's a lot more to this games than meets the eye, and I do my best to point out little tips and tricks like that throughout the series. There's also a lot you can learn from reading through some of the comments as well - the people that have been watching my channel have been incredibly helpful and made me a much better player :)

Done. Valuable comments indeed. I looked for some strategy guides on this game, but found nothing really interesting. Just a bunch of obvious recommandations.

Yeah - it's hard to really explain what the best strategies are because so much of it depends on context. A good strategy in my game might be a bad idea in yours. That's why I think doing a "let's play" style strategy series like this is a little more helpful.

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it :)

Hahaha well I'm glad somebody likes my voice! In the past I've had a couple people say it sounds nasally, and I honestly can't argue with them...XD

Thanks so much! It's good to have you join us. I've got "a lot" of AOW III content now and I'm starting to do some Planetfall stuff too. One thing I always encourage newcomers to do is to check out the discussions that I have with my viewers in the comments. I have learned SO MUCH from the people who watch my channel. To be honest, I really make make a lot of mistakes and get a lot of things wrong, especially in my early series. I've definitely improved overtime, but I'm still far from perfect, so I rely a lot of the people who watch to help keep me on point. Feel free to join the discussions or ask questions if you'd like, especially if you catch up to the current episodes (where most of the comment activity is). We've got a pretty friendly and helpful community here :)

Perhaps Gimli needs to re-evaluate his friendship with Legolas...XD

As long as you're a druid, yeah, they definitely help. Nice to have poison damage as a third option for the Elves, who otherwise are pretty limited to physical and shock damage.

Good point, but it belongs to me now! Moah!

I'm glad to hear it helped! That's the whole point of this series :) If there is one single "best" tip to follow when fighting in tactical combat, it is to allow the computer to charge and attack you first. If done right, they will waste most of their movement running to you and only hit you once while your defense is raised. This does minimal damage to you, and leaves them wide open for a counterattack. There are certain abilities that can change this mechanic a bit, and ranged units sometime will force you to be aggressive, but for the most part this strategy will work.

Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it. There is a lot more AOW III content on my channel, if you are interested :)

I tend to bounce back and forth on this one - although I totally get what you are saying about the extra production, extra growth can also help because (A) bigger cities get production bonuses and (B) it can help your city expand to get structures in it's borders faster. Depending on what those structures are and how far away they are, it may of may not be worth it. I also often go for store house first because I like to rush the Eternal City quest (first to own metropolis) but I suppose the builder's hall would help with getting Imperial residency (first to build a grand palace). So there's good and bad haha.

I think your comment posted twice. I responded to the other one, but if it glitched up for some reason and you didn't see it, let me know!

You're welcome! I'm glad this was helpful!

I hope it goes well! Once you start to understand how to outplay the AI in tactical combat, it gets much easier :)

Thank you! I've played co-op games with friends a lot, but I we usually don't play PVP. We have done a couple games against each other, but most of my experience comes from fighting the computer enemies.

Thanks a lot, man! I am already working on my third series, so there is a lot of content already available on my channel with many more videos to come! If you are interested, other players in the AOW community have also left a TON of useful suggestions. I have learned a lot from them, so I would highly suggest checking out the comments section for each video after you watch it. Everyone on here has been really nice and positive to each other, which is a breath of fresh air when it comes to the internet, haha :) I have not tried the campaign, but that might make for an interesting series at some point since it is something that everyone can relate to. I would love the challenge! I didn't realize this video alone almost has 10k views. That's like a fifth of my overall views for all of my videos combined - wow!

Nevermind, I got it. It's all about not wasting those movement points.

Yep! Sometime I end up moving the rest of the army along anyway. It's more of a habit that I got into in order to make sure that I always retain the option to use those movement points for something else, just in case. Usually I attack with whichever unit has the most movement available, since that unit can catch up with the rest of the stack if they run in a different direction.

Air magic does have a couple decent synergies with the elves (particularly the druid) - for example, the "seeker" spell makes elf archers that much more deadly, and "Arctic Empire" works well for the elves since they don't mind the snow. Arctic Empire is also good for a Druid's hunters because hunters have the "Arctic Walking" ability which allows them to move through the snow faster. Zephyr birds also benefit from some of the druid's animal bonuses, so that's nice too :) in general though, I just like air magic a lot. Zephyr birds are arguably the best scout in the game and the air elemental is my second-favorite type of elemental (behind the earth elemental). I have not paired air magic with fire, but I do like to pair it with earth. In this game I paired it with partisan because that allows me to hid my zephyr birds on mountains and stuff, but it's hard to tell whether the computer can still "see" them or not, haha.

In my opinion, Goblin necro would be a tough combo to play because some of the necro and goblin abilities overlap. You'd be pretty reliant on poison damage since both Goblins and Necromancers use it a lot, and the Goblin's natural poison resistance is overshadowed by the fact that all undead units are immune to poison damage anyway (unless it is reduced by something like the spell "weakened"). Goblins are also the only race that naturally does well in blight terrain, which is rare. Undead units don't care what terrain they are in anyway, so that doesn't really matter for them either. Don't let that dissuade you though - I always tell everyone to play whatever they think is fun, since that's the most important thing! And with the right specializations, it's entirely possible to take something that wouldn't normally be a great combo and turn it into something really good. Coming up with interesting, experimental combos is half the fun of the game :)

@@BlackArrowGaming thanks for the answer. I agree about the disadvantages. What about the accumulative life steal natural habilities of the butchers and the one given by the necromancer?, That with the good growing rate of the goblins and their cheapness...

@@vicenteaviles8445 If you combined that, the butchers, and the lifesteal that you can get from the shadowborn adept specialization, that could be interesting. Just watch out for dreadnoughts - they'd be a pretty hard counter!

It's for the preorder package - if you didn't preorder, there's no way you could get it now. I don't remember what it gave me though - all I knew was that this was going to be a game that I was gonna have to play on day one anyway, haha :)

Believe it or not, I've never played the campaign - I heard it can actually be pretty hard, so you probably aren't the only one having trouble. Keep at it ;)

Yes, having more casting points is always helpful. However, when playing as a Druid, I prefer to research all of my empire upgrades first in order to get to "Animistic Knowledge" as quickly as I can. This empire upgrade gives you +3 research for all treasure sites in your empire - mines, farms, mana nodes, everything. This adds up very quickly, and once you have it, getting other spells or even Druidry upgrades becomes much faster. Not to mention that the Elves also get more research from all of their cities anyway :)

Cool, thanks for the explanation

No problem!

@@georgec5614 Apart from that (bit late to the game here), in this particular game he's very short on mana, so casting more would just deplete the mana.

In this game, your starting spells are somewhat random. For example, sometimes the Druid starts with the "fertile domain" strategic spell (which is really nice to have right at the beginning), and sometimes they don't. I believe it is the same with combat spells. You can still research most of those low-tier spells pretty quickly, but it can be a bit annoying if you don't start with the ones that you actually need or want, haha.

I didn't play AOW Shadow Magic, but I played the original AOW a ton with my friends in high school. There were four of us and we would always play against each other, and it usually wound up being 2v2. One of my friends was really really good, and knew some trick (that I still don't know) to get a ton of units really fast. I would usually put of the best fight against him but inevitably get outnumbered, haha. I guess learning how to do a lot with a small number of units was good training for me in the long run :) AOW III is a lot more complex than the original, so my strategies now are quite a bit different. Also, since I always play against computers (instead of human players), that changes things drastically. In order to beat tougher computer opponents, there is one main rule: Learn how they behave, and then exploit their weaknesses. For example, computers will always always attack something if they have the chance to do so. So if you have a variety of units and the computer is coming at you with cavalry, leave a pikeman on the edge of their reach to lure them in so that each of them hit the pikeman once. Since the pikeman has polearm, he takes less damage for the cavalry and hits back against them much harder than any other unit would. The pikeman also has first strike, so the first cavalry that hits him would take two hits in retaliation. Now the rest of your units can counterattack the already-damaged cavalry from multiple angles! Another example would be how the computer positions their units on the strategic map. They are ocassionally prone to leaving their units in formations where you can attack just a part of their army without attacking the whole thing at once. Take advantage of this whenever you can :) Regarding your question about teaming up with other players, and you talking about human allies or computer allies?

Thanks for your great explanation. The problem for me, that I always struggle with the prioritizing things. Like town research or building units. Regarding the computer, I found out that the they are always scouting around, so if I leave your home city, to attack another, they will attack my main city when I reach the other city….. Do you also have video’s covering one specific subject, like town and upgrades, or joining with other teams against other players? I am coming from AOW2, but finding this game is a lot harder to conquer land and city’s!

What I like to do is build a few early-game units in towns that don't have good mythcal structures around them, since those towns don't need to be upgraded for the late game anyway. Focus on building up lots of good infrastructure in towns that have access to good mythical structures (which provide benefits to specific types on units, and and invaluable for the late game). That being said, building the basics (store house, shrine, and builders hall) is a good idea for every city. In terms of protecting you cities, thee things help: First, a couple of decent range units in a city with walls can ward off any scouts or small groups of wandering independents without much trouble. It doesn't take nearly as many resources for you to defend a city as it does for your opponents to attack it, unless the oppenents have good siege or other ways of geting over your walls. Second, geography is very important. Pay close attention to choke points and other important paths around the map. Often, you don't need to defend all of your cities - just the ones that might be vulnerable. Things to watch out for should also include tunnel entrances and independent camps that randomly spawn enemies. Third, don't forget to do a lot of scouting yourself! Filling in the map is good, but it's also important to keep an eye on the area around your cities to make sure nothing sneaks up on you. Flying units are especially good at this due to their extra vision range. If you know where the enemy is coming from, you can move a smaller number of defenders around to where they are needed rather that paying upkeep for defenders all over the place.

Thanks for the great explanation!

No problem! Also, to answer your other question, no - I don't have any subject-specific videos except for one tutorial video that is geared toward new players.

+Matthew Hallahan Select the unit, right click on it while holding the mouse button down, drag the cursor in the direction you want it to face, and the release the right mouse button. If that doesn't work, try the same thing with the left mouse button. It might be possible that my mouse controls are different than yours, haha.

Right mouse button worked, thanks.

Yeah, most of the time it's better to let your ranged units attack first to soften targets up for your melee attackers for a couple reasons. First, it prevents your melee units from getting in the way and blocking ranged units' line of sight. Second, it's often better to weaken a target and let the melee unit finish it off because it might allow your melee unit to avoid taking an attack of retaliation (if it can kill the enemy unit that it's attacking). That being said, there are a few circumstances where it might be better to let the melee units attack first. One is guard breaker - if you can manage to get your melee unit slightly off to the side and still land a hit on the enemy, you can break the enemy's defensive mode if your melee unit has the "guard breaker" ability. This can allow your ranged units to hit the enemy for more damage, and possibly even flank it. Another reason a melee unit might want to attack first is if it can inflict a specific debuff that you want. For example, if you have a melee unit that can inflict shocking, it might be worth trying to shock the enemy unit first so that any ranged units that can inflict stun (which checks against electrical resistance) have a greater chance to stun the enemy. Ultimately, it all comes down to the circumstances of the fight. I suppose that's part of the fun of this game :)

+Slayerlord13 I do this because increasing health increases the amount of damage you can take from both physical AND magical sources. Try looking at it as a matter of percentages. Oftentimes heroes start out with about 50 health and 10 defense (on average). Increasing 50 HP by 5 points is a 10% increase from 50, and increasing defense by 1 point is a 10% increase from 10. So if someone hits you with a physical attack, you should lose the same percentage of your total HP regardless of whether you increased HP by 5 or defense by 1 (assuming damage calculations are that simple, which they might not be). However, since increasing HP also increases you ability to survive attacks from magical sources, it's like you are increasing both your resistance and defense at the same time. In fact, from a purely mathematical perspective, increasing your HP is actually more efficient than increasing your resistance anyway. Taking a similar example, let's say you've got 50 hp and 10 resistance to start. You can spend 1 point to raise HP by 5 (10%), but you have to spend twice as many points to raise resistance by 10%, since it takes 2 points to raise resistance by 1 (unlike defense). So not only is raising HP twice as efficient as raising resistance, you basically also get the benefit of raising your defense at the same time. Keep in mind, however, that there is a notable flaw in doing this. Status/effect-based abilities and spells will either succeed or fail based on you defense (e.g. "throw net") and your resistance (e.g. "invoke death"). Raising HP does nothing to protect you from status effects like these, which is why I start raising defense and resistance once my HP hits about 70. It's a balancing act. If you want to get REALLY technical, some status effects are also linked to your resistance/weakness to certain types of elements. Some examples are "curse" (affected by blight resistance) and "inflict stun" (affected by shock resistance). That is why it is easier to curse elves (which are weak to blight), but harder to curse goblins (which are resistant to blight), even though elves get +1 general resistance. I hope that helps! :)

Hmm, interesting. To clarify: I do have around 300 hours playtime so I'm not a complete newb but perhaps I have overvalued defence & resistance slightly. (my heroes usually stop at 60-65 hp rather than about 70) My mindset with defense vs hp seems to often be that extra max hp only really matters if the unit starts the battle at full health and/or is near full health and can be healed, while defense/resistance reduces damage taken at any amount of hp. I might very well be outright wrong or at least messing up somewhere along the way.

+Slayerlord13 In that case, I think you would be correct. If you health is already low when entering a battle, it doesn't really matter what you max HP is - defense and resistance will be what you need. I was assuming that all units would be at max health, so I didn't think about that. Given the importance of spells and status effects (especially with regard to things like "inflict stun"), I still put a fairly high value on resistance. I think that's probably why resistance costs two points instead of one. But during the very early game, when most of what you are doing is fighting independents for treasure, I think HP and defense are probably a better use of your skill points.

Black Arrow Gaming Thanks for the tips! Also, I'm not sure exactly why but I seem to really struggle against King (haven't even dared to try Emperor) I suppose I'll watch this series and try to see how you handle the AI differently. (so far I've only watched the first episode, though I believe I'll have time to watch the others today or tomorrow) Any specific things that would help? My games on Lord usually end up with one AI left which just hurls army after army of T3-T4 units which usually all die at my walls only to kill a few units but the AI still seems to hold the majority of the map (I might be expanding a bit slowly) and on King it just seems to have too many units too early for me.

+Slayerlord13 When it comes to fighting the computer, the biggest and most important thing that comes to my mind is understanding how to exploit it's weaknesses. I know "exploit" sounds like playing dirty, but given the massive economic bonuses given to harder computers, it's impossible to win without tipping the odds in your favor. A few tips to remember: First, play every single battle as defensively as possible. Try to lure the computer into attacking you so that your range units can decimate the enemy when they charge your front line. Getting the computer to charge can sometimes be tricky if they are holding still and not moving, but once they start "fighting," they will go nuts and attack almost anything they can hit. To get them to start fighting, casting an offensive spell or two usually does the trick. Hitting them with a range attack usually will too. Once they charge you, use their aggression to your advantage. Let's say they have a horseman charging you, and you've got a pikeman and an archer. If the horseman can reach both of your units, it will attack the archer, since it will do more damage to the archer and take less in return. However, if you keep the archer back, the horseman will charge straight at the pikeman simply because the pikeman is the only unit it can hit. One they have started fighting, computers will always attack something whenever they can, even if the only unit they can attack is one that is perfectly suited to counter them. Second, don't neglect your spells. A lot of "good" players (myself included) do not use magic often enough, and wind up with huge stockpiles of mana (which is wasted after reaching your mana limit). As you could see from my series, I used the spell "twisted roots" a couple times to turn tough battles into easy ones. Spells are very important, so learn to use them often. Don't let your mana go to waste! Third, and perhaps most importantly, become very familiar with the different abilities and weaknesses of various types of units. This seems fairly obvious, but it's very important. For example, did you know that the Tigrans' tier I pikeman unit (the "sun guard") has the "guard breaker" ability? This means that one attack from a sun guard can stop any unit from defending, which will leave that unit vulnerable to flank attacks and lower its defense and resistance. Knowing the little niches of your units is a huge advantage. Fourth, know your enemy and plan accordingly. If you are going up against a dreadnought, you can expect to fight a lot of machines which will have projectile resistance. As a result, don't invest too many resources into archers. There's a lot more I could go into, but it's getting late and I gotta work tomorrow. I'll try to remember to throw some more tips your way if anything else comes to mind! Glad you are enjoying the series!

Your RAM is fine, but I would need to know how many cores and HZ your processor has, and the exact name of your video card. It would also help to know whether you have an integrated or dedicated video card. You can also check out notebookcheck.net to read up on the quality of your card. I use that site a lot, seems to be a pretty good resource.

On the surface, the druid does seem quite a bit like the sorcerer, but the real differences are highlighted in the empire upgrades. Druids get some very nice bonuses for archer and support units, and since elf archers and storm sisters are already awesome, the elves are a very good fit for that class. Druid heroes also get better passive healing abilities than Sorcerer heroes do, and several good options for elemental resistances. Sorcerers get nice bonuses for support units as well, but their best one by far is the one that gives inflict stun to all of their support units. Since elf storm sisters get that anyway at gold medal rank, I've always felt that this particular empire upgrade is a bit wasted on an elf sorcerer. To each his own, though! There is a lot to love about the sorcerer class overall, and I certainly wouldn't want to talk you out of any playstyle that you are interested in. That's the great thing about this game - with the ability to mix and match so many different races, classes, and abilities, there's something for everyone :D

Thanks for your kind words! You raise a good question about my choice of Partisan as a specialization. Since I won this particular game rather quickly, I didn't get to show why I like it so much. One of Partisan's empire upgrade bonuses gives units that are by themselves concealment on several types of terrain, including mountains. This combines well with Zephyr Birds, which I get with the first level of Air magic. Zephyr Birds have increased vision range from being a flying unit, and have another inherent vision upgrade on top of that. Since they fly, they can also cross mountains with ease and use mountains to keep slower walking units from catching them. If you add mountain concealment from Partisan on top of all that, it's like having invisible mobile watchtowers all over the map. Hence my character's name "Sir Bob the Vigilant" :D

Makes complete sense. Just watching a few of your battles has upped my game a lot. I'm not often patient enough to fight tactical battles every time, but when I do, the outcomes have much improved.

+James Kelley Yes - if you want to play at your very best, you should fight tactical battles every time. Even if your units are so good that you don't even have a chance of losing any of them, you can still be smart in terms of how you allocate their experience points. For example, let's say you have an Orc Priest and an Orc Spearman, and both of them could kill the same enemy unit on a given turn. Instead of picking one or the other to kill it with, you can maximize your exp gain by cursing the enemy with your Orc Priest (which gives it some xp) and then killing it with the Orc Spearman (which gives it exp too). That way, two of your units get xp instead of one! It is also useful to use tactical combat as a chance to heal your units if you have units with healing abilities. Oftentimes, by going into an easy battle with a few healers and a few wounded units in your group, your units might come out of the battle with more health than they entered it with. Plus, the healers get xp for healing your units too :) For these reasons, I very rarely fight in auto combat unless I'm playing with a friend and need to speed up the flow of the game.

+Che8t Idk...originally I wanted something very bold and easy to read, as the thumbnails on KZfaq can be very small on certain resolutions. I'm honestly not too worried about something like that, but I will consider something different for the third series whenever I get there.

Yeah! It's not in a playlist so it's a bit harder to find, but the link is right here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ethkrcemr9yxg5s.html

+Outis one for deluxe edition and the other for preorder i think

+Outis Yes, Rastayeti is correct - Preorder and Deluxe Edition. I'm a big fan of the original AOW, so I basically bought everything I could for this game as soon as it game out, haha.

It is generally faster, yes, but I try to avoid declaring war on cities that belong to races that I want to use a lot. This is because the speed at which you unlock race governance upgrades is affected by how much those races like you. In my case, I was surrounded by Elvish cities. Since I was an Elf myself (and as such would rely heavily on Elf units), it made sense to be nice to Elf cities. Later in the series, I do attack a different independent city because I lacked an incentive to be nice to them. Basically, the context of the situation determines whether or not I attack (unless I'm trying to play as a pure good or pure evil character).

Um...I never noticed that before, but you are right. They definitely had 13 health, and the game definitely told me that I did 7 + 6 damage. Last time I checked, 7 + 6 is 13. ??? Hahaha, I have no idea!

+Jeremy Chambers I actually have no idea, I'm afraid. I've never done online pvp outside of my own personal group of friends, although I'm sure it could be a lot of fun.

Crap - they've found me! :)

Yeah - new episodes "normally" twice a week :)

Black Arrow Gaming I was wondering: Can you tell a littlebit about the computer difficulty differences?

Check out the wiki article here: age-of-wonders-3.wikia.com/wiki/AI Cheers!

Here you go - it's old and the audio quality isn't great, but hopefully this is what you are looking for! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ethkrcemr9yxg5s.html

thanks!

Fair enough man, I totally understand that the style and content of my videos isn't for everyone. For the time being, I haven't really done any PVP stuff and therefore haven't talked much about auto combat either. Since this series is built toward the single-player side of the game, I spend a lot of time in manual combat (since it is something that you have to do often - and very efficiently - when dealing with Emperor AI opponents). With regard to explaining the basic game content, the amount of attention that I devote to this changes as the game progresses. You might find the later videos in this series (or the later videos in my subsequent co-op series) more interesting, since by that point there is a lot more going on to consider on a strategic level. In my current series, I've also started reviewing comments from viewers each at the beginning of each episode regarding how certain game mechanics work and good tips for more advanced strategies. With this being the first episode, however, there isn't a lot to talk about other than the basics of how to expand as quickly and efficiently as possible, and I didn't have any viewer input to draw from. Either way, I still appreciate the input, and hope that you will stick around if my more recent videos appeal to you more :)

i understand, il have a look through your other vids if i get time. A lot of the game seems like radom chance tbh in pvp.

The whole game is kinda a mix of luck and skill. For example, attack damage almost never shows you the exact amount of damage that will be done - instead, it give you a range. So, if an enemy had 20 HP left and your attack will do between 13 and 22 damage, a skilled player will probably look for a better alternative if attacking would put their units at risk, despite the fact that they could get lucky and succeed anyway. I think luck comes into play most heavily when it comes to your starting location. It always sucks when you pick a Sorcerer and get no mana nodes near your first city, haha :p

Not much I can do about that, I'm afraid! If you don't want to stay, then I hope you are able to find another AOW channel that better suits your preferences. Feel free to come back if you ever change your mind :D

yeah there isnt any... you have monopolised that really. shame. the game is fantastic.

Indeed. This game really doesn't get the attention that it deserves, unfortunately.

@@BlackArrowGaming very cool how you replied to this unnecessarily rude comment.

@@MikenasFlohr Being unexpectedly nice to people goes a long way - even on the internet :)

Glad to hear it! I'm working on my third series right now, so there are plenty of videos to watch. I hope they are helpful to you! Others viewers have posted a lot of useful comments as well. I've learned a lot from them, so you might enjoy reading some of them too :)