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[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

I am thinking to buy this game, but I expected better reviews

   Despite how the people here are receiving it the game is overall seemingly well accepted. I am actually somewhat surprised at the negativity in this thread as I have had a really good time with the game. I guess the biggest thing is a lot of players really enjoyed the previous installment of the game and where expecting a big jump in quality.

[Kanil]

I thoroughly enjoy the game, and I did spend a lot of time playing SM shortly before release. I suppose it depends on what you expected?

The game'll still be here later, if you want to wait and think about it some more. It'll have some more patches by then too... speaking of which, 1.09 is out now.

[Neonivek]

I am thinking to buy this game, but I expected better reviews

   Despite how the people here are receiving it the game is overall seemingly well accepted. I am actually somewhat surprised at the negativity in this thread as I have had a really good time with the game. I guess the biggest thing is a lot of players really enjoyed the previous installment of the game and where expecting a big jump in quality.

Well aside from a few people who say it is too boring for them. Most of the people who complain just say the game is fine, albeit disappointing.

Also I love how you add the qualifier "big jump in quality" when their complaints mostly just boil down to "I kind of wish the races were more different". So a "Not a jump backwards in quality" could be said. Given I think most of the complainers were expecting just a TINY bit more then 2 or shadow magic gave them.

I'd make a debate as to if this really is an improvement to the series, but people would go "but classes!" and I'd go "They felt tacked on to me and feel like they take the place of what was previously magic specialties". So it would just boil down to pure subjectivity on both sides. (Also yeah, I felt the class system was for the sake of having a class system... It doesn't even make sense within the context of the game and instantly breaks my immersion right out of the gate... but now it is going to be a staple forever)

My thoughts is the game seems fine, I honestly thought they would hack ALL the interesting parts of the Age of Wonders series like the vast majority of modern remakes do while adding "modern mainstays" of pointlessness and thus take the soul from the original product. The "All the races are the same" and the "We are making many of the elements very similar for balance sake" I can live with. Heck my only real complaint is that I just think the class system is pointless.

[Retropunch]

stuff

Agreed - it's not that it's a bad game, it's just that it doesn't raise itself above any of the recent TBS fantasy games we've had and whats more, it's incredibly similar. Warlock/EE:FE/AOW3 all feel almost identical, and while AOW is the first, it hasn't done anything to push forward.

Furthermore, the classes and races are less unique in AOW to others, and that's pretty much their only difference.

For those considering, I'd say wait it out until it's had time to mature/get modded/expanded on. It's a solid base and could become a really fun game, but it needs a hell of a lot more to distinguish itself.
 

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

   My favorite strategy game podcast did a episode which starts with them talking about AoW3. It has some interesting discussion about the game with one person liking it and another not so much. Also if you like strategy games in general its a good podcast to check out anyway.

You can listen to it here

[Mindmaker]

It's really one of those cases where you say "It's a decent game, but a bad [insert series here] game".

[Teneb]

In the end, one's opinion of AoW3 will end up based a lot on preference. I like it, but it sure isn't the holy grail of TBS's.

[Levi]

So...  I have to admit I've never played an Age of Wonders game.  I in fact commit the grievous sin of confusing Age of Wonders with Dominions(which I've also never played) on a regular basis.  So I could use some help.

A)  What are the main differences between Dominions 4 and Age of Wonders III?
B)  Which one would you recommend if I were to pick one to play?

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

   While they are in a similar category of games Dominions is one of the more unique in the genre. There are some videos for both games (though probably more luck with Dominions 3 but is similar enough to 4) and honestly its probably better that you take a look at them because its hard to really advise them without knowing your tastes better. I think I saw a shortish how to play for Dom4 so I could go dig that video up if you want. I would go into more depth on the differences but I am somewhat blanking on them though there are differences.

[Akhier the Dragon hearted]

And the 1.09 Patch is out, at least on steam. If someone with GoG could chime in if they have it that would be nice.

12:02v1.09 Patch for Age of Wonders III
Community Announcements - sikbok
Hi everybody,


Since the release last week we’ve been hard at work with the feedback we've gotten and we can now present you with the first official patch for Age of Wonders III. Many thanks go out to players testing this patch over the past week!

Our overall goals with this first patch are: fixing hardware specific issues, registration issues, performance optimization, AI behavior and critical balance fixes. We also added a couple of features such as quick saves and native high resolution support.

Thank you for all of you feedback, and we’re looking to bring you many, many more updates! Up next are networking fixes - VPN / Hamachi support - and late game economy fixes.


- The Team @ Triumph Studios.



Change Log:

Compatibility
• WQHD / QHD (up to 2560 x 1440 / 2560 *1600) native resolution display support (the Black & White boxes and blurry text should disappear). Fix has been verified to work up to and including a resolution of 2560x1660.
• Fixed an issue for people using Intel HD Graphics - specifically for HD4000 and Surface 2 Pro - in combination with certain driver version, that caused a crash when opening interface screens - e.g. starting the game, opening options menu, skill book, etc.

Performance
• Fixed frame drop when armies were selected.
• Fixed decreasing frame rate occurring during extended play, particularly in longer battles.
• Fixed a memory leak when Windows was locked.
• Optimized a feature effecting maps with water, which should now show increased framerate.

AI Improvements
• Fixed some cases where the tactical AI would come out from behind the walls of cities and fortresses too soon.
• Stopped the AI spamming disjunction, so players can now use global magic more easily.
• Fixed an issue where the tactical AI would cast a resurrection spell on an invalid target.
• Made 'squire' AI easier to beat.
• AI settings for players were changed to compensate for this change, to keep the same level of challenge on normal difficulty.
• Using the 'restart' option in a campaign map now returns the player to the briefing, allowing map difficulty to be changed.

Scenario & Campaign
• Campaign: Heroes being mind controlled no longer causes you to instantly lose a campaign map if you rescue them by the end of combat.
• Campaign: Heroes which are protected by the 'resurgence' effect - e.g. the theocrat's 'rebirth' spell - can now die in tactical combat without causing you to lose the campaign map, as long as you win the battle that they die in.
• Blightmouth Crater: Closed a gap in impassable mountains.
• Blightmouth Crater: Removed two superfluous hearts of the blight.
• Blightmouth Crater: Fixed the behavior of independent armies.
• Elven Resurgence: Player 6 now starts with more gold mines, making the starting positions more balanced.
• 4th Elven Court map: Independents no longer interfere with one of the starting quests.
• 4th Commonwealth map: Fixed a message that missed an icon under specific circumstances.
• 5th Commonwealth map: A 'defeat leader' quest no longer reveals that leader's position.
• 5th Commonwealth map: Fixed a story message that had overlapping lines of text.
• 6th Elven Court & Commonwealth maps: Prevented story characters from dying when you are victorious.
• 6th Elven Court and Commonwealth maps: Added a few building upgrades to starting cities to give the player a better starting situation and more options.

Other Fixes.
• Fixed settings - e.g. graphics settings - not being saved when using the 'guest' profile.
• Fixed an issue when logging in with usernames of two characters.
• Fixed the stack confirm movement button being disabled in some situations when a stack was auto-moving.
• Fixed a rare crash caused by a player razing a city with a heart of blight, tropics, etc in its domain
• Fixed an issue where a backstab bonus wasn't being correctly applied. This led to situations where a unit could backstab a target without flanking it.
• Fixed a crash triggered by clicking on a "You lost your throne city!" event.
• Fixed a crash triggered by selecting a 'Egg has hatched' after loading the save game.
• Fixed the 'Remove army from event list' shortcut key function so armies are properly removed from the list.
• Fixed an issue where the 'Protect your leader and throne city' quest failed to complete on victory.
• The game now ignores controller input, to prevent camera drift when a controller is plugged in.
• 'Spring of life' now rewards units when explored.
• When creating a new custom leader, the field for setting a name is now left empty by default.

Balance:
• 'Shrine of smiting' is no longer 'Devout', nerfing 'Shrine of smiting' doom stacks which relied on stacking 'Devout' bonuses for the 'Smiting prayer bolts'.
• 'Shadow stalker' now does cold damage. This fixes an issue where rogues had limited options vs. blight immune troops.
• Increased the research costs of skills to slow down progression through the skill tree.
• Increased cost of racial tier 3 unit building to 300 gold and 100 mana.
• Decreased the base production of cities.
• Fixed issue with 'Libraries' and 'Observatories' generating too much knowledge.

Features:
• Added buttons on either side of the city name that cycle through cities owned by the player.
• We added a quick save option, bound under CTRL+S by default.
• Added extra text to the preview popup when attacking a city wall. Players can now see the hit points the wall have remaining as they plan their attack.

[gimli]

stuff

Agreed - it's not that it's a bad game, it's just that it doesn't raise itself above any of the recent TBS fantasy games we've had and whats more, it's incredibly similar.

Indeed. You speak the truth. Like I've said, it is not a bad game, but it's just an average fantasy TBS. It isn't a "gem" like MoM/AoW/SM, and that is the problem. If it wouldn't be called "Age of Wonders", I wouldn't say a word personally.

stuff

For those considering, I'd say wait it out until it's had time to mature/get modded/expanded on. It's a solid base and could become a really fun game, but it needs a hell of a lot more to distinguish itself.

+1 again, but it really needs a hell of a lot more.

[sambojin]

So as a question for those that own it, how moddable does it appear to be? Or rather, how easily moddable is it? After-all, all games on PC can be modded, even if you have to get down to the nitty-gritty and hex-edit things and work out what value/address applies to what attribute, but is it layed out fairly openly in AoW3?

Also, just as a comment on videos I've watched, strategic withdrawal seems to be just as effective as second-turn-attack in any non-walls battle. Possibly even better than charging assuming you have any reasonable amount of missile troops or magic. This seems to make goblins OP'd rather than weak (those darters really are cheap enough to use as multi-battle waves/whittlers even against the toughest tier 4 armies). If you can get some ranged +elemental damage from hero levels with them, they'd be glorious. Or is it a case that gold is essentially unlimited, so nothing but the best cuts it in late-game?

edit: I'm also kind of for units causing at least some damage when they attack. It's understandable that an archer unit could realistically completely miss, but a trained melee unit wouldn't realistically do *nothing* to an enemy they attacked. HP can be looked at in many different ways: the endurance, morale, equipment condition, health or fighting fitness of a unit (or a combination of all these factors). Likewise, I tend to think the amount of figures in a unit as more of a handy visual reference of remaining HP, rather than "Yes, there's literally 6 people taking over a town". Dragons, etc can be just one figure, because to my mind they're sodding huge, able to take on an abstracted representation of 100 men in a unit. I guess it depends on how big and abstract you think the figures in a battle are in comparison to the actual graphics portraying them.

[Muz]

So...  I have to admit I've never played an Age of Wonders game.  I in fact commit the grievous sin of confusing Age of Wonders with Dominions(which I've also never played) on a regular basis.  So I could use some help.

A)  What are the main differences between Dominions 4 and Age of Wonders III?
B)  Which one would you recommend if I were to pick one to play?

Completely different from top to bottom. Dominions is more of a grand strategy game. Think something like Europa Universalis. Heck, Dominions is even categorized as a wargame in some circles... it's the kind of game that you want for absolutely realistic fantasy war simulation.

Age of Wonders is more tactical. Think something like the Total War games.

In AoW, you focus more on tactical placement of your troops, try to figure out lines of fire, entrapment and so on and focus on winning battles. With Dominions, your skill is in picking which provinces to conquer first, diplomacy, etc. There's a bit of that in AoW, but it's not the core mechanic.

I won't dismiss AoW3 entirely, because it looks like a good game. But it seems similar to like Civ5 and Sims 3 when they first came out. It's a step back from AoW2:SM, but has potential with mods and expansions. With a little polish, it could really stand out.

Judging purely from the price tag, I'd recommend Dominions 4 at the moment, because AoW3 is priced about twice as much. Dominions easily takes first place for grand strategy fantasy games whereas AoW3 is still eclipsed by Wesnoth.

[Mindmaker]

You should mention that Dominions 4 requires some serious dedication to learn, while AoW3 can be picked up and played instantly.

[Viken]

I think it comes about due to the limitations of tile-based gameplay.  There's basically endless variety when it comes to strategy games, and turn-based strategy games in particular; but when you have a landmass of whatever the size, with different environs and on top of that a magic system that's supposedly there to allow you to manipulate it, things get really restricted, really fast.  Sad as I am to say, the alpha of Warlock 2: The Exiled is a lot better at it compared to Age of Wonders 3.   People want that sort of diversity, along with the strategic depth and generally more customization and freedom of play that comes with other larger wargames, like Dominions 4 and Europa Universalis while also having the character depth and RPG-like quality that is considered a natural part of games like this.  Elemental and its sequel are examples of this effect on such games. 

Anyway, love it or hate it, I liked it for what it was, although I haven't gotten that for into the campaign yet.  I'm not big on the strategic combat, and keep getting my ass kicked in it.