An open letter to any dev from a huge fan of the game here. I'm a retired game designer, now an avid player, with over 550 hours played so far in AOW4, and over 1500 hours played in AOW3, and 2000 hours played in Planetfall. In my opinion you have made one of the best games of all time. I love how you've combined the best from your two previous games with a number of great innovations in AOW4. Here are just a few suggestions to consider as possible tweaks/additions to this already wonderful game. First, I think the main issue currently with sea play is treating sea combat like Master and Commander style 1700/1800's naval warfare with the focus on naval maneuvering of ships. In the current version of tactical combat, each unit becomes a single generic looking ship, otherwise retaining most of its abilities. This is a bit awkward both visually and thematically. AOW is a fantasy series, based loosely on medieval tech. During medieval times, naval warfare was largely about closing to within grappling/boarding range, and then fighting across the decks. You could simulate this by making the ships the BATTLEGROUND, with each ARMY contributing a single stationary ship in the battle (battlegrounds rendered with your ships on one side, enemy ships on the other, 1v1 up to 3v3 ships), all locked in grappling range with boarding planks allowing access to enemy ships (great choke points), water surrounding them, and channels between the ships for swimming units (of course flying/floating units would also be very useful). This would result in beautiful battlegrounds detailing the decks of the ships (with all the amazing, possibly faction related, artwork, features, obstacles, and even perhaps researchable ship upgrades like ballista that could exist on those decks, using a game mechanic similar to how siege upgrades work with cities ). This would make the battleground much more interesting both visually and tactically, while also unifying the way the game works across sea and land warfare. Second idea to make sea play more interesting is to create underwater realms using a similar mechanism to the underground world. Units that have a dive/surface ability could access this realm (in place of cavern entrances). This underwater realm could have kelp forests, beds of seagrass, undersea mountains, coral reefs, merfolk cities, domed cities, underwater dungeons like haunted shipwrecks, kraken dens, and sunken cities, etc. Some units would be bottom dwellers similar to non flying/non floating units on land (say crab units) that would only have the dive/surface ability when adjacent to a coast, while swimming units would work both visually and game mechanics wise like flying/floating units on land (with the addition of always having the dive/surface ability). This change could be accompanied by introducing a Merfolk faction with units like the Triton, Siren, Sea Witch, and Drowned Sailor, crab and/or turtle mounts, and animal units like sharks, baby kraken, giant crabs, etc (The dlc could be called something like March of the Merfolk). By making both surface water play and underwater play both strategically and tactically more like the land game, I think it would make investing in naval/sea/swimming units and research, as well as exploring this part of the game, much more unified, comprehensive, and exciting. On a related note, AOW3 had amazing underground play. It was one of my favorite tactics to take an army early and just spend the entire game exploring the underworld with that army, leveling it up, and exploring the beautiful and wondrous subterranean world. It felt like a D&D dungeon dive. Much of that beauty and wonder, as well as the D&D feel, is lost in the current version of underground. This version of the underworld is mostly all brown/dirt colored (aside from lava). Cavern systems can be made more visually appealing by adding areas of colored minerals, crystal features, glow worms, fluttering bats, phosphorescent or strangely colored fungal forests, etc. Also, exploring the underworld is now nearly impossible as it is almost completely filled in until 'excavated' one province at a time. Adding to the frustration is that there is WAY too much impassable rock. If they are meant to mimic above ground mountains, it should be noted that units can still move over mountains (just slowly). Trying to play underground is literally impossible in many ways, as you usually have to go above ground to both explore AND to engage even other underground cities, players, etc. AOW3 had a nice balance between already existing and interconnected caverns and tunnels to explore, and areas to excavate. The current version of the underworld is visually plain and painfully slow to build within or even just explore. Finally, faction traits and minor transformations focused on granting advantages in a certain terrain are, on average, very weak (if for no other reason than because their advantages are only applicable in that terrain). Because of this, I think they should actually grant, on average, much more advantage in that terrain (making up for the absence of any advantage outside that terrain, which might be most of the time). One example would be leafskin. Currently it only grants faster movement and concealment in forests. This transformation could be stronger by adding strategic advantages like allowing farms to be placed in any province with forest, and tactical advantages like removing ranged penalties for obstruction from obstacles (but only trees, bushes, etc) whilst also increasing the ranged penalties to enemies firing at you in plant cover). Similar additions to the frostling transformation (allowing farms on frozen, and maybe giving all attacks a small chance to slow/freeze when in frozen terrain) and rock transformation (allowing improved prospecting chances and perhaps giving units the rock walk ability - slow passage through impassable rock), and likewise similar additions to the terrain based faction traits. This suddenly makes trying to focus on fighting and building in your chosen terrain a massive benefit, whilst still being useless outside that terrain. This would make forest elves try to stay and grow their forests, likewise for subterranean molekin, frostlings in their icy realms, etc. Suddenly playing to your faction's theme is both advantageous and thematically very satisfying. I hope these ideas inspire some minor tweaks and/or amazing new dlc (like improved and exciting sea play) to what is perhaps one of the greatest games ever made. Keep up the amazing work and thank you.

feels quite weird how they split dragons by affinity and yet the tome seems to only be focused on fire (ie chaos affinity)

Here is a tip: Since XP is split between your forces just take your dragon lord out at the start and carefully clear the 2 mob neutrals. Gives you 1-2 levels at the start per battle. Unless you are mostly leaning into your DL being a support leader of course. But if you wanna go ham on the dragon powerhouse fantasy just play it safe a bit at first and get fast levels and soon you come to appreciate the absolute UNITS these guys are.

0:17 - So we got ourselves alligators, monitor lizards, t-rexes, chameleons, cobras and skinks.

Great video! Can you do a deep dive on specifics of Wyvern update too? Triumph still hasn’t shown full patch notes publicly :(

Perfect! Cant wait for the release next week

Man, your channel is filled with awesome content, thanks a lot for all the time you spend for giving us such a good content, i really appreciate it, now a desrved like to you, Sir!!! ❤

What about the new wildlife units coming out in the free update? :P Aside the balance changes, will there be new events? New World events maybe?

Here is another tip: Don't assume Rank I and II of stuff like Dragon Scales or Draconic Health are all the same. Scales I gives you +2 physical armor and +5 resistance to your element and Scales II gives you +2 magic resist and +5 again to your chosen element resist. Likewise while Health I and II gives you +15 HP each Draconic Health III gives you a whopping +30 HP, really making your DL a beefy boi, esp if you upped armor and resists too.

Awesome

Thanks

After draconian transform,i think it offers more customization under adjust appearance right?

The Draconic transformation is kind of lackluster in appearance I have to say.

I can't wait for people to unequip every item every time they end turn and then equip them again and repeat ... at least they have only 4 item slots : )).

I’m going to get this on console this game looks amazing

Just realized tome of evolution might synergize really well with Feudal culture because the feudal Spearman can evolve into the defender or something, right?

What does the dragon transformation look like on other races?

I know its not original at all but I'm making a dragon king who'll rule over dwarfs

lord of the rings fan .......................and making a dragon from the simarellion sounds fun

Are they adding more achievements to the game? I finished all the extant ones, so I want to know if I have more to chase after, or if I can just enjoy the DLC

Ine is hands down the strongest - at lvl 12 it have the best range, its tea easiest to aim/hit a lot of units and it does the best dmg. Too bad it sucks before 12.

I wonder... can you ressurect killed Dragons as your own undead Dragons?

can you get another dragon lord after game start or is your ruler the only one you can get?

Not sure how to explain it bur it feels like the game wants to be large and expansive but actually games feel fast and "small" for lack of better words

I am not sure they are the most powerful heroes. Being able to double cast (twice per battle with a magic focussed hero) can be extremely powerful with higher level spells. The dragon's most notable ability is the 1CD large AOE breath when combined with a CC effect, which is certainly pretty good, but the first turns are often the most important in a fight, and frontloading 2 extra spells in the first two rounds can have a much bigger impact than a single breath attack, particularly as your hero doesn't have to give up an action to do so. Also, some of the higher tier weapons are really strong, doing things like AOE damage and stun (and resetting your attack with a killing blow), or a storm orb combined with the auto crit and gilded on crit hero abilities. Granted, there is significant RNG as to whether or not you get the best gear, something which is far less of an issue for a dragon. And unlike over channel, its strength isn't tied to research, which can often significantly lag behind level progression on your main hero (ie. you will hit level 12 long before you get the most powerful spells more than likely). But I dont think dragons are clearly stronger, even in just pure combat terms, than an optimally geared wizard king at high research levels.

Watch the fucking tail.

If DLC forms are going to have starting traits, they really should add that to the starting forms. It feels stupid for there to be 0 difference between elf form, dwarf form, and goblin form, if lizardfolk start with blight resistance and a chance of poisoning during melee. All the arguments for flexibility go right out the window, and it seems much more like a cash grab. I hope it is simply that they intend to add some gradually, at a later time. I don't care whether they abandon that original direction or if they keep it, but they should choose one or the other instead of locking one behind a paywall.