How is PBEM going to work with tactical combat?

Without knowing what PBEM stands for, i'll assume it means "Cowbell."

I agree, EWoM needs cowbell.  And once it has cowbell, it needs more cowbell.

//allways define your acronym at least one for the uninformed.

Not being lucky enough to get SNL (S-a-t-u-r-d-a-y N-i-g-h-t L-i-v-e) in the country where I dwell, I wasn't familiar with the term "cowbell" - Had to Google it (you know "Google"? that search engine...) eh eh - Just kidding I hate it too when people use acronyms I am not familiar with.

This game definitely needs Play By E-Mail mode!

I overheard a couple of the programmers talking about adding IPoAC game play.  Not sure how they'll combat the latency issues, though.

The entire appeal of a multiplayer MoM-type game is the tactical combat against another human being. Auto-resolve pretty much ruins it for me.

I'd rather have the PBEM feature some sort of system to defer all of the battles of the turn until a time when both players are online so that they can play all the battles at once.

Well, I read an article a few weeks ago about a South African company that proved that IPoAC was faster there then using the leading ISP. So support for IPoAC might be a major selling point over there

I never really got into AoW:SM so I don't know too much about it.

In MoM the auto-resolve for combat simply couldn't take into account the complexity of the tactical battles. There were situations where you had no chance of losing the fight tactically (due to certain abilities like flight, invisibility, magic immunity, missile immunity etc.) and yet the auto-resolver allowed you to lose it anyway. Likewise, there were situations where you had no chance of winning and yet the auto-resolver gave you a win.

In many cases, winning or losing a battle could hinge entirely on a single spell.  Auto-resolving the battle simply cannot take that into account.

I'd take Play by Avian Carrier over Play by E-mail any day.   There is such a small market for carrier pigeons these days.   It would be nice to see some growth in that field.

I hope this can be included for gameplay...  Dominions_3 is very fun having battles where orders are given before battles begin.  Very large maps could move more quickly with this option as well instead of waiting for two massive players to each fight 20+ battles amongst 10 other players plus independents.  Providing orders before battle would be a great option. Naturally I still want the tactical combat control as seen from AoW:SM as an option.

Still, there's only so far an AI can go. It's the entire reason why we play against other humans, AIs just aren't up to snuff. There is no way an auto-resolve would make all the same decisions I'd make in a given combat.

Well, player vs player tactical combat is simply not an option in PBEM, AFAIK. You can play other modes if you want tactical battles

HAHAHA Last year I found in my parent's home my old Commodore 64, and I took a look at my old Lords of Midnights... what a deception! Some things should just stay parked in memory lane! At the time it was great though it really was! I remember as a kid I made the whole map on paper, I was really into that game! But we are going off topic...

AI in "Age of Wonder Shadow Magic" is a good enough challenge to give a player time to build up armies and organize a kingdom before the confrontation against the other players, and since the mechanics of auto fight are complex, but not impossible to foresee, the challenge becomes building the "right" army for whatever threat other players are likely to display. You can't be a fan of MOM and never try AOWSM in multiplayer (PBEM rules).