Updated as of Wolf Patch/Primal Fury! kzread.info/dash/bejne/mmqWk5SBnbaxg8o.html The reaver culture looks pretty spicy; I'm thinking when the next DLC drops, rather than necessarily redoing every video (though obviously the Traits video needs to be redone and *now* is actually probably Tier List viable so that one 100% needs to be redone), I'll probably do a DLC round-up discussing where the new pieces slot in (and if the meta has shifted at all as a result of the new stuff). Thoughts? Flavors? Favorite type of salsa?

@M0rgi

8 ай бұрын

Putting Barbs as a B is a mistake in my opinion. Although a lot of the things they have are overall mediocre, Ritual of alacrity paired with best t1 unit in the game easily places them in A tier (in my opinion they are S tier) ritual of alacrity is so powerful and when used well it catapults your growth. Warriors are hands down most reliable t1 unit in the game especially if you want to evolve units as they will always go in first in auto combat and stun everything which results in great survival rate of evolve units.

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

@@M0rgi Yeah, I waffled on that a lot. I think ultimately they are weaker than High and I wanted to highlight that, but ritual of alacrity is a lot of pseudo economy they get access to through board clear. I just hate playing down 10 knowledge per city, especially with the rumored shift of Amplification to T3 tomes.

@M0rgi

8 ай бұрын

@@wepg thats the thing Barbarians are more difficult to play in general so people overlook their power. Its quite rare to find somebody play barbarians very well while its common to see people play industrious/high and get good results. 10 research per city is not game breaking and having 20 draft extra per city is quite nice also especially at the start of the game.

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

@@M0rgi I don't know if they are really that much more difficult, they are just different. Barbs kinda have to take Fabled Hunters in my experience (which, oh no, you have to take probably the best trait in the game) and Unicorn Mounts (again, what a tragedy, forced to take something widely considered OP), but you do have to be very proactive at *rapid* expansion. If you are not deliberately grabbing extra research posts and end up 3 turns behind someone else on getting to Tier 2 tomes and then 1 turn behind them researching Amplified Minds, you are kinda also running 200 or so more knowledge behind the non-barb (20+40+60+80 from the minds, assuming conservatively rolling out 1 per turn). Again, not game breaking, but falling behind on knowledge is often cascading.

@M0rgi

8 ай бұрын

@@wepg how strong of a pick fabled hunters is highly depends on world threat. If its normal world threat then its most broken pick on any culture. If its high world threat then its great pick but not mandatory and it depends on culture you play as. Unicorns are pretty much top pick for most factions you play but they are not mandatory every mount pick would suffice. They can be played without mounts like any other faction but they will be less effective like any other faction. Passive income is not the only way you gain research you gain a lot of it through shadow t1 perk which barbs utilize the best as they have strongest early clear. They have highest level heroes so you also target those high level wonders faster then other factions. Strong clear will boost every part of the game. My mostly played culture are barbarians and i never felt behind in research and usually was ahead of other players. As with everything there is a luck factor some games you are just unlucky with your placement but i think barbs have most flexibility on expansion and clear as people dont want to mess with them early due to their early power which result in a lot of units produced quickly

I think you've kind of underestimated mystic by a lot. You're missing the hilarious synergies between arcanists + tome of the horde + prolific swarmers. This can turn mystics into an immense early game juggernaut. The stacking bonuses from fury of the horde, spawnkin, and star blades compound on each other to turn each arcanist into hilariously cheap artillery pieces. If you can set up your board so that you have multiple stacks of arcanists you can stack up star blades, spam fury of the horde and give your hero the leadership abilities that boost damage, you can have multiple stacks of arcanists that when buffed for 2-3 turns will hit as hard as t4/t5 units, but from range. Its quite normal to see 10 arcanists on the board, each doing ~100 damage per round from range. Typically I'll have a cheap few summoned units suicide bait enemies into arcanist range, and then have my horde of arcanists annihilate every enemy that comes close. I've won fights against huge stacks of t4/t5 units and heroes with just 10 arcanists and a few summons. You can eke out flawless or near flawless wins from hilariously lopsided combat rating. There's nothing quite like seeing a dragon stomp all over two little spiders only to have it in turn stomped by a bunch of little tier 1 halflings firing atomic bombs. And even if some arcanists die, you can replace them insanely fast since they're just a t1 unit and they're not reliant on levels or evolving to get their damage, its mostly just stacking star blades and tome of the horde buffs which you can do just fine with a brand new unit that your cities pump out in a single turn.

@wepg

6 ай бұрын

I think you should probably play some MP. What you are describing is a consequence of manual battling against the AI, which is still non-functional. If you tried this against an enemy with a good grasp of the game's mechanics you would lose very hard, I guarantee it.

I'm looking forward to next DLC release. I didn't pick up the Dragon DLC but the game did get a lot better with patches and more fun. Your tierlist videos are helping a lot, I never payed much attention to Materium + fabled hunters, but the ressources gained are really insane. Here is something I'm interested in: - Tierlist on all of the tomes, but also not just tomes in a vacuum but combination of tomes (for example tomes of Chaos with Skald and morale shenanigans) - Build orders for cities and what improvements to prioritize For example when I'm expanding to my 2nd and 3rd city, what should I prioritize? Food? Or Research or Mana? I noticed when I prioritize food and production then my new cities don't contribute anything in terms of gold, mana or research.

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

Pretty much always go for an academy ASAP on every city; I think the interesting thing on city development turns on once you can build SPIs. I'm gonna be doing the Tier 2 Tomes Tier List soon! I *might* do a combined tier list for all tomes together, but those are really disorganized and generally tough to make useful beyond memes.

@R17inator

8 ай бұрын

@@wepg What do you usually build after getting an academy and/or workshop on your non-throne cities? Gold income structures?

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

@@R17inator Contextual, but I'm a big fan of SPIs (assuming you get good ones). Gold income buildings are very good, though, and you almost always have to take the mana buildings too (assuming you are doing a good job using your world map casting).

I have watched all of your Mp videos now! I can join mp now :)

@wepg

7 ай бұрын

If you haven't joined the discord yet, I think we'll start hosting a community MP soon!

Excellent video.

@wepg

6 ай бұрын

Thank you very much! I was planning on doing an update as soon as the new DLC dropped but uhhhhhh time management when unemployed is not one of my skills, turns out.

This is a pretty awesome video

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

Thanks! I'm gonna have to do a quick update once the Golem patch drops, but I think for now it is pretty informative. I will say that, in retrospect I think Barbarians deserve the A-tier I waffled on, but overall I think it's a great place to start when it comes to cultures in AoW4.

Thanks for all the content, love that you flesh everything out in detail. Is it possible to see a Tierlist or discussion for the Hero Skills (Those chosen on level up)? Thank you.

@wepg

3 ай бұрын

Signature Skills is planned for sometime this week, but actual level up skills is too situational I think.

Cull the Weak is practically nonexistent against strength-stacking builds like Industrious in general (Steelfury + Bastions) and anything with Skalds, they stack so much strengthened that they might as well be immune to weakened. Feels like Dark is practically forced to take Fetid Legion and Banshees (AKA battle mage that is squishy by T3 battle mage standards and like to suicide teleport). Mystic's attunement star blades not only scale poorly against units becoming increasingly resistant in the late game, but also any hero and ruler of any culture and origin can get Mana Unchained that applies full stack of star blades and two strengthened on any group of units in a 1-hex aoe, so basically any other culture can also take advantage of star blades, though granted, it does have the opportunity cost in that you could be getting other signature skills such as the summons, dark ritual and/or restoration. I think the T3 polearm unit we have all been clamouring for will be coming in Empires & Ashes in the form of the Bronze Golem from Tome of the Construct. Unfortunately, it does not look like something that has wind barrier or other way to make themselves better protected against enemy shooting attacks.

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

Yeah, the Dark ability to apply weakened drops off pretty hard against dedicated Strengthened builds in the mid/late game, though fetid legion is a very good spell on a pretty solid tome so not one you should be afraid to pick up. We'll see how combat effective our little golem turns out, but I think one T3 polearm is a start (but certainly not the end). There are just too many large targets running around in the mid/late game for me to *not* want to exploit that somehow, and you can only do Gold Golems so many times before it becomes a snooze fest.

@iTzTiMeToJuMp

8 ай бұрын

I think that's why star blades is a strictly rush/clearing ability. It does have interesting synergy with the might + arcane focus that each seemingly give +1 damage (fully stacked is +9/+9/+9) which is a lot of damage early.

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

@@iTzTiMeToJuMp Athletic Mystics look like they might be viable for exactly that once the patch drops. It's still a narrow application, but it looks like it should play well!

I only played single player on the hardest difficulty though. Agreed that industrious and high are the easiest to play. I can make the others work too.. the only one I'm struggling with is dark which is a shame as I like it the most.

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

Dark has some serious issues, but in MP it's about a 50/50 to play on normal world threat or high world threat, and Dark generally has an easier time on normal world threat.

Loving your channel bruh. I finally beat my buddy 1v 1 after he beat me 5 times in a row! Your have extensive Knowledge. New sub.

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

Excellent! I'm probably going to be putting together a community MP group soon, so if you are interested join the discord.

@Tom-ym2id

8 ай бұрын

​@@wepgI'm down 100%. My buddy and I would love to do a 2 v 2.

How to keep neutral alignment with High at the start? If creeps surrender, do you have to spare them?

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

You just need to be between +5 and -5 alignment, so you can kill a few of them without hurting your neutral alignment. If you get down to -5, consider doing something good at an ancient wonder, but also be aware that by the mid/late game you probably want to go pure evil anyways for the big early combat damage boost.

@yeeterbohlen282

8 ай бұрын

@@wepg That's good to know, thanks!

I really hope feudal gets upgraded soon. It needs a LOT of love.

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

Agreed. It does sound like Feudal will benefit a lot from Athletic, though probably not as much as it will benefit Mystic. We shall see!

@coderaccoon6061

8 ай бұрын

@@wepg where would you place the new upcoming dlc culture just based off previews?

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

@@coderaccoon6061 I'm gonna guess probably high B, though the meta looks like it is going to be pretty dramatically different if the changes to mobility are as big a deal as they appear to be, so I'm gonna give that low confidence.

@coderaccoon6061

8 ай бұрын

@@wepg fair enough! Tbh, I think their units are going to be a lot stronger compared to all the other cultures right off the bat. Hopefully they can be balanced around that.

@ItWasSaucerShaped

7 ай бұрын

nah. this video massively under-valued how much steadfast contributes as a multiplier to the feudal economy it enables you to trade so efficiently against other armies and clear indies so efficiently that it is easily worth 2-3 times the value of prospecting

can you please suggest good pvp build for non primal expansion players? i tried a lot of RP things, and only morale/industrious build was good

@wepg

4 ай бұрын

What kind of build do you want to build first? Just generically strong? Is there a specific thing you want to test or lean into?

@Max_Cony

4 ай бұрын

@@wepg just simple traits, culture, and tomes order, for something that is effective in pvp. no specific requirements apart from maybe not using mounts, tired from spearmen meta.

Any plans to make a hero skill/enchantment tier list? It’s daunting to try and find it all as a new player when you’re trying to make an OP stack haha

@wepg

7 ай бұрын

I intended to before the patch, and the only thing that got reasonably dropped is Dark Ritual (which is still useful against Necromancers, but those are rare). I should do it soon!

Man I wanted to try multiplayer but after hear you talk about the meta it sounds not fun for me. Seems like research is king and tome selection is limited if you wanted to even have chance at victory. Good video thought.

@wepg

6 ай бұрын

This is kinda true in all 4X games, to be fair. You need to know how to best scale up your empire, and in basically every game where research exists, research is going to be the most readily available form of scaling. There are a lot of different ways to get lots of knowledge, including clearing the map with fabled hunters or just playing a big production society or research post SPI stacking, but you kinda want to do at least one of those things or you will struggle.

PLEASE, make a tier list of IV and V tier units.

@wepg

4 ай бұрын

Perhaps! A lot of them have some forms of viability out there, though a lot of them are also "if this, then okay I guess" which could get tired after a certain point

Any significant changes with the latest patch?

@wepg

3 ай бұрын

I'm planning on having the update out by next Wednesday at the latest, Tuesday if things go well, but a bit. I think Barbarians is also S tier but is a lot less user friendly so Industrious is still top dog. Primals are B, Dark + Mystic are C and Reavers and Feudal D. Reavers I could see an argument for as C tier because they can be pretty solid in a big PvP manual at the end of a game, but Feudal can do that too and probably better than Reavers but both are just not very functional militarily or economically in PvP at the moment.

Oh geez, poor feudals. Regarding sauce... Difficult question, mustard-honey sauce perhaps.

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

Yeah, someone I played with called Feudal "barely a culture" once and honestly I am inclined to agree. Hold the Line is stupid strong, but basically the rest of the package is pretty anemic due to their miserable unit quality and early game economy as a result. I think the Peasants -> Defenders is cute, especially if the Defenders are mounted, and we'll see if bears and the new trait system helps them out at all, but I think their game plan is fundamentally a *lot* worse than the other cultures at the moment.

@danrope6160

8 ай бұрын

@@wepg Yeah, right now I'm playing with Shira Snowblood (a feudal premade) and having the Defenders mounted feels good but the overall Culture is weak somewhat. Perhaps Defenders should evolve into Knights as well and be a whole evolve T1->T2->T3 package? That could be a start. Regardless, as you say, their gameplan is way worse than the other Cultures. Feudal is the best at expanding but they lack the strength to do something meaningful with their additional provinces.

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

@@danrope6160 Actually, that would be pretty interesting. It wouldn't be OP simply because there are a lot of straight T1 -> T3 evolution units, but it would give the feudal faction a bit more punch in the later part of the early game to offset how bad the early part of the early game is for them.

How would you order the cultures in terms of when they are at they're strongest? EARLIEST - Mystic - Barbarian - Feudal - High - Dark -Industrious LATEST

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

If you are just looking at early game power, you are also inherently looking at early game movement and clearing, which is a big part of the ranking system here (as, ultimately, most things about your culture stop being terribly important past the early game). I think purely from an early game perspective, I'd probably rank them as: Barbarian/Industrious Dark High Mystic Feudal Though this does depend a bit on what settings look like. Higher world threat makes Fabled Hunters worse which makes barbarians a little worse in comparison to Industrious, while not playing on land limits mountains a bit which makes Industrious a little weaker.

Can we get a new one of these with the 2 dlcs please

@wepg

4 ай бұрын

Yup!

Mystic is the best if there is no other mystic on the map to steal your globes.

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

If there's no other mystics on a big map they are better, but their early game creeping is way too slow and their lack of real scouts definitely prevents them from being anything above C tier consistently. This *might* change with the next patch, as Mystic looks like it will benefit a lot from the athletic trait, as having 40 movement on all their stuff right out of the gate should help them out a lot, but the issue with their production will still remain and the pickups aren't even like a ridiculous amount of resources you get versus something like Industrious. Gold/Production allows you to build Knowledge/Mana, but not the other way around unfortunately.

@wizard380

8 ай бұрын

@@wepg yeah i can see that. but they are kinda unstoppable in late game with summons and they turtle a bit better then industrious because of the constant spell barrage they can dish out. mana feels a bit too important

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

@@wizard380 The issue is that they are meaningfully slower at getting to the late game at the moment. It doesn't matter if you are technically stronger once everything is up and going if you are like 3-4 levels behind your opponents due to your fairly slow farming and creeping phase. The update with athletics might make them more viable, but at the moment Mystics are pretty bad once you know how the game plays out- it's a *very* fast-paced game even on the biggest settings. I had 650 knowledge on Turn 39 in our most recent MP game, for instance, and a bunch of high level heroes to run along with it. Mystics struggle to get there currently.

@wizard380

8 ай бұрын

@@wepg that's true.

Maaan... Dark gets +10 knowledge from buildings (in theory). Meanwhile High gets 10+ for the special province improvement alone and 10 in addition because of the scholar guild. Cull the weak gets countered by strenghtened. Also why does the interogation chamber grant stability if the whole shtick of dark is not caring about stability. Also meh units and no support unit. I mean they aren't actively bad like feudal but why are they are just a worse High culture lol

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

Yeah, Dark is in a weird place right now tbh. At least they have a Mine SPI which isn't like super useful early on but *is* pretty powerful assuming you can survive long enough.

I find getting dark knights so hard to get. Lol

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

I'm probably going to do a let's play or two once the new patch drops featuring some gameplay, but watch the first episode of my most recent MP match with WinSlaya if you haven't yet. You can get dark knights up and rolling really quickly if you are really dedicated to it!

@drkmgic

8 ай бұрын

@@wepg oh nice!! I will. I actually follow winslaya. Subbed.

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

@@drkmgic Dope, yeah WinSlaya has been a ton of fun to make content with. If you watch any of his streams I'm nurgles_herald in game.

Salsa verde

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

Ooo, that's one of my favorites!

Am i the only one that find end game really slog. Like 3 groups of army is too tedious. Hope they adress that in their next game.

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

Yeah, I think if you manual combat a lot right now it dramatically increases the length of the game for very little increased fun. I'd recommend just autoing a lot of battles and only fighting the ones you *absolutely* need to (though tbh I think auto-only is a real blast against the AI right now).

The video has a lot of information I appreciate, but it's so quiet. My ears needed to squint to hear.

@wepg

5 ай бұрын

Hmmm, I can hear it without any issues on all of my devices at meaningfully less than max volume on the devices, is it possible you had the video sound turned down on KZread itself?

Personally I think industrious is the worst and at the same time the most boring culture lol.

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

Industrious has a great economic plan and pretty high quality units, a very strong spell in Steelfury Chant and one of the only cultural units that is playable in the late game in the form of Bastions. You might personally think it's the worst, but I promise you it is far from it.

@oakenwood9199

8 ай бұрын

@@wepgAt the time it would be powerful I would probably allready have won the map with another culture. What's more important to me though is that its like watching paint dry playing battles with it, rather have an enjoyable experience.

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

@@oakenwood9199 Nah, Industrious starts the game fast and powerful, that's one of the advantages. You also don't really use the cultural units forever except possibly the bastions and bring good units from tomes to win things. I think you might learn a lot watching some more of my videos, as you might be surprised about how games really play out in Age of Wonders 4 once you know how to really play.

@pt7145

4 ай бұрын

You’re not playing it right, industrious starts off so fast with prospecting and production bonuses from its culture and tomes you hit critical mass so much faster than other cultures that as you are heading to the stratosphere with your build everyone else is still playing around in the dirt. Prospecting is broken, that is all

bro u need to speak a bit louder (or adjust mic), kinda hard to rly hear u

@wepg

8 ай бұрын

I can take a look at OBS but iirc the mic is already at like 150% and if I turn it up too high it starts recording static. I'll double check that before our next video though.

Culture doesn’t appear to work like this anymore. So this whole video seems to be out of date.

@wepg

3 ай бұрын

Check the pinned comment. Most of the video is still accurate and useful to frame things for the Wolf Patch update, but without watching this you won't understand a decent number of the older cultures.