I will want to pick a class/race that I didn't play much until now. Once the teams are set I propose every team discusses about who is taking which class/race and who is going evil/good.

Don't know if I count as rookie. Marcus can decide better if i suit this academy game or not. But I'm willing to play, can't promise a turn every day though, but since it's an 8-player game it probably won't be a turn every day, but more every 3 days (At least thats somehow what I expect...). Looking forward to the game (in case I'm rookie enough to participate).

Hello guys,

Welcome to this the 3rd (I believe) Acadamy Game. Me and Hiliadan will be the team "captains" of this game.

Additionally, to what Hiliadan stated in his post, I can recommend at least one player go for "pure evil" and one player for pure good. In a team match you meet so many cities so it make sense for one player at least to declare war on all cities other people meet, and for 1 (it's too expensive to sponsor more than 1 player) pure good. If you are short on gold, send a request via diplomacy menu and ask for, lets say 50g, from each player. This can be decided as a gift, or to be paid back later when you have more gold at hand.

I'm usually against giving cities to one player to complete mono culture, I actually think this quest should be disabled, it's so open for unfair play. I will at least not ask anyone to send me any city to complete a quest, unless I get invaded and can't survive without it!

Once the game is hosted, dont join straight away, lets wait until we can discuss combos in the team chat here in the blog (tick/untick the to post messages for the team"viewable only for team members, and tick/untick to display messages for all).

I can state my favourite combos and some reasoning behind it:
Dwarf Theocrat - A pure power-house with defensive strike crusaders, healing for the priests+2 fire damage (and 10hp healing and fire res) on the inherent healing. Boar riders are probably the strongest T2 cavalry as well. One of the easiest classes to play.
Draconian/Tigran Necromancer - For the inherrent fire/spirit resistance the race units have
Tigran Rogue - For the massive movement in combats, backstab with that movement is very effective.
Tigran Warlord - For the 40mp monster hunters which is absolutely massive in combats
Draconian/Frostling Sorceror - Both Draconians and Frostlings have Racial Governance bonus for casting points which is very important for a sorceror to summon units. Sorceror lack healing, so the draconians fast healing comes in handy
High Elf Druid - Mainly for the Long Bow Hunters, but also a tanky T3 racial units, because shamans are good, but not so much in melee combat. Also Human Druid deserve a mention because of the Knights that are very strong in melee.
Dwarf Dreadnough - Almost all units have armored, which benefit from the empire upgrades for Dreadnough. Also high elf have many armored units, so this could be a wild card.
Human Theocrat - for the Evangelist with range attack and also slightly better Martyrs with spirit blast instead of a physical range attack. Helps against undead/units with physical protections such as wisps.

When it comes to spells, a Rogue should go for Explorer, almost all spells benefit irregulars, and Rogue have many of them. A dreadnought might want to go for Air magic due to seeker on the machines. A class which depend on casting points should go for wild master or greyguard (or a combination of those is pretty good!).

Good luck and speak more once the teams are decided!

Game planned to start around the 15th of June.

This game aims to provide some good tactical and strategy tips for non-veteran players and to share knowledge among our community in and out of this game, in the spirit of what cbower started many months ago before he left AoW3. Indeed, all the insights from the game will feed the current AoW3 Strategy and Tactical Guide from Academy Games on the Battlefield.com

The idea is to do a 4vs4, with 1 experienced player and 3 non-veteran players in each team so that the experienced player can provide advice to the others and everyone can see what other players do to learn from their success and mistakes. Advice will also be frequently provided through the game blog.

So if you're new or if you think you can still progress a lot in AoW3, please join! I expect players who join NOT TO QUIT, even if they have a bad start, the point of the game is not to win here (and the game won't be reported for ranking of course!). I also expect players who join to be active and the game blog and share comments with others.

Priority will be given to newer players if there is more interest than seats available.

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I suppose a variety of classes would be a good thing, with a particular emphasis on Mind-Controlling classes to demonstrate the power of early mind control and snowballing.

For the races choices, some insight about good and less good class+race combinations would surely be welcome.

We are now 7 so we should be full soon!

I propose to start the training with some info on the Battlefield itself, as it's also an important part of the PBEM experience! I recommend the reading of this article
https://www.the-battlefield.com/aow3/index.php?page=commnews&eingabenewsid=51 which summarizes the functions of the BF. One is especially important for our game: the playtime function. As we are 8 players, it is important to optimize the turn order to - as much as possible - accelerate the pace of the game. Of course, we will probably take a lot of time to complete turns anyway because we are 8 and because we will play casually and not try to play as fast as possible. But still, we can probably save some time with a good turn order. So if you haven't yet, please input your time zone and playtime here: https://www.the-battlefield.c... It will then be displayed in the game blog and allow to choose the best turn order. I'll propose teams after that.

2nd thing we can start working on are classes, races and specializations. You can start thinking about your class now. Here are my thoughts on classes for team games:
1/ at least one person should have Explorer because of Master Cartographer, which reveal the map for him and thus for all the team if he makes screenshots and share them
2/ several classes stand out for team play for their strategic spells:
- Warlord: Authority of the Sword can be cast on other's cities and is almost a must have
- Dreadnought: Mana Fuel Cell can be cast on other's cities and can really help, both at the beginning and later to produce units in 1 or 2 turns
- Theocrat and AD have population boosting spells but they're not as important in my opinion
- Necromancer: Whispers of the Fallen is very very good to provide intel on enemies' moves. I believe it works only from your own cities but in my game with rickyroo, I was sometimes under the impression it also counter his cities for the 15 hexes distance, anyone has info on this?
3/ for races, I believe it's good to have 2 UG races and 2 surface races to cover the map the most efficiently possible. Then two directions can be followed: a/ use the same races to try to use synergies like giving cities to reach Monoculture faster and using climate spells like Artic Empire (though that's quite long term strategy!) or b/ diversify to potentially get Multiculture (each player gives a city to one of them, which gets another race and boom, he has Multiculture) and spread the risks (for instance if everyone took Goblin and the opponents are playing Necro, you're in trouble because of the Blight damage resistance).
4/ for specs, outside Explorer, I haven't noticed anything really critical for team games. Having one guy with Shadowborn and Seed of Distrust can be good, to put far away Dwellings out of reach of the enemy but that's more a bonus than a real need. Elemental mastery needs to take into account the race of others (you don't want to cast Artic Empire when you have a Halfling ally who Hates Artic).

Do you have other insights about class, race and specs for team synergies?

By the way, we should discuss something about team games among the community regarding fairplay: is it fair that 2 players each build a Beacon and Light it and then one gives his city to the other, winning the game for his team (if Unifier victory is set at 2 Beacons)? I think it's not, a Beacon city should not be given. We should probably write it down in the fairplay rules of the BF.

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Sounds great!
I will also ask Bishmanrock, maybe he is interested too.

Welcome, you're at the perfect place!
The game won't start immediately though. In the meantime, welcome to discuss with us on the chat: https://www.the-battlefield.c...

Hey,

A complete noob reporting in. I've played a lot against the emperor AI, but never done pvp before, so I'd be happy to join.

Saunatonttu joined !!

No you're not a rookie any more but you're also not a veteran, and you are very far from reaching 1000 points, so I think you're more than welcome to join.

I am no more a rookie (not so much as a few months back anyway) so I may not qualify to participate to this game, but in case you need a player, I can be your humanoid.

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