Age of Wonders 3

[Snozgobler]

One of the few games I've pre-purchased, and kind of regretted it after not feeling engaged at all when comparing my experiences to the time I spent with AoW2 and AoW2:SM. That said, compared to other modern games of a similar genre, it held up well.

I've just downloaded the latest version and will have to give it another go again in the near future.

 

[Absinthe]

One of the few games I've pre-purchased, and kind of regretted it after not feeling engaged at all when comparing my experiences to the time I spent with AoW2 and AoW2:SM. That said, compared to other modern games of a similar genre, it held up well.

I've just downloaded the latest version and will have to give it another go again in the near future.

Honestly it was extremely bland and lousy on launch. Probably the worst game of its genre I've played. A bunch of patches and some DLC improved it since then.

Give AoW3 a -75% discount when Eternal Lords is released and I'll consider it.

They gave it a 66% (and 33% on Golden Realms, full price on Eternal Lords). If you do decide to buy it, use GOG because everything else is Steam DRM (you still need to register a triumph serial for online play though). I made that link a codex referral, btw. Right now the whole game (all x-pacs included) costs some 50 USD (if you want deluxe, get the bundle, not the separate upgrade, or you'll overpay).

You can also just wait until the whole damn thing goes on sale, and if you find the DLC business model obnoxious, then you're probably better off waiting for a Complete Game Edition.

 

[Snozgobler]

Yeah, I bought it on gog originally, and I'm used to the idea of a DLC centric business model for game features that come alongside updates from my time playing Crusader Kings 2. Once I've tried the game again in its current form, I'll decide whether or not to buy the DLC.

 

[sser]

Have a lot of these changes gone in without the need to buy the expansion pack?

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Have a lot of these changes gone in without the need to buy the expansion pack?

Only some, but it's seemingly missing the biggest piece which theoretically should've been in the patch, race governance. Without it the alignment system is still as meaningless as it ever was. With it there's more of an impact on the gameplay if you go evil (Focus on one race) or good (Alliances and have multiple races), in that evil will get deeper in to the one race's tree much faster while good gets smaller bonuses spread out, but has an easier time making vassals and shit.
What Animal Friend listed up there is in the patch though.

I definitely wanna grab Eternal Lords but I'm waffling on if I wanna spend $20 for it. I mostly like AoW3 but I've yet to be hooked by it. Kinda the same situation as Civ5, if I actually start a game of it I generally play through it and have a good enough time, but once it's done I don't feel like starting another until months later. Got nearly twice as much time played in Endless Legend and even that hasn't completely absorbed me.

 

[sser]

Have a lot of these changes gone in without the need to buy the expansion pack?

Only some, but it's seemingly missing the biggest piece which theoretically should've been in the patch, race governance. Without it the alignment system is still as meaningless as it ever was. With it there's more of an impact on the gameplay if you go evil (Focus on one race) or good (Alliances and have multiple races), in that evil will get deeper in to the one race's tree much faster while good gets smaller bonuses spread out, but has an easier time making vassals and shit.
What Animal Friend listed up there is in the patch though.

I definitely wanna grab Eternal Lords but I'm waffling on if I wanna spend $20 for it. I mostly like AoW3 but I've yet to be hooked by it. Kinda the same situation as Civ5, if I actually start a game of it I generally play through it and have a good enough time, but once it's done I don't feel like starting another until months later. Got nearly twice as much time played in Endless Legend and even that hasn't completely absorbed me.

Yeah I feel ya on it not entirely hooking. They've been kinda stingy with sales, but I'm sure it'll be -33% off within a month or two. Lots of other stuff to play in the meantime.

 

[cvv]

Yeah, seems to me there is a literal shit ton of various 4x games today to choose from. I think with a little effort I'd be able to name like 20 of them, 10 sci-fi and 10 fantasy. Most of them are solid and fun to a degree. But almost all of them are also strangely uninspired or full of glaring design errors.

Games like Endless Space or Pandora are acceptable enough but for me the strongest emotion while playing them is deep appreciation of the true genius of the likes of MoO2 or SMAC. Same goes for Warlock or AoW3 and the old Master of Magic. I don't know, maybe it's mostly nostalgiafaggotry on my part...

 

[mastroego]

Games like Endless Space or Pandora are acceptable enough but for me the strongest emotion while playing them is deep appreciation of the true genius of the likes of MoO2 or SMAC. Same goes for Warlock or AoW3 and the old Master of Magic. I don't know, maybe it's mostly nostalgiafaggotry on my part...

No it's clarity.

 

[Irenaeus]

Seems like I should buy the expansions then.

 

[Norfleet]

With it there's more of an impact on the gameplay if you go evil (Focus on one race) or good (Alliances and have multiple races), in that evil will get deeper in to the one race's tree much faster while good gets smaller bonuses spread out, but has an easier time making vassals and shit.

Really, now? In my experience, being "good" or "evil" seemed heavily dominated by whether or not I slaughtered the guards while creeping or just let them run so as not to maul my doodz, with "good" being practically the default option if you didn't massacre everyone. With the amount of good-points I would amass simply by NOT engaging in potentially injurious battles for no reason, I could pretty much burn down the entire map and still be pure good.

 

[Absinthe]

The good and evil system in AoW 3 isn't very well developed. Eador did it much better. Eternal Lords tries to make it count with the three new alignment based specializations though.

Speaking of which, I've been looking at their Tier IV summons.

• Keeper of the Peace Master's Arch Angel synergizes rather powerfully with the Sorcerer class because it counts as a Support unit. This means that the Sorcerer empire upgrades will give her Phase, Projectile Resistance, and Inflict Stun plus as a Summon she benefits from Summoner's Aura (+2 def +4 resist) when fighting inside your city's domain. On the other hand, Sorcerer already has a Tier IV summon in the form of the Eldritch Horror, which is already hideously powerful.
• Shadowborn Master's Fallen Angel on the other hand seems to synergize with Rogues. In the first case, the Rogue ordinarily does not have a Tier IV unit (Shadow Stalkers are Tier III) and if I recall correctly the Fallen Angel does 5 physical, 5 blight, 5 frost, 5 spirit damage, 2 shock damage (Entwined By Shadows strategic spell from Shadowborn), and 5 fire (only vs Animal, Devout, Fey, and Dedicated to Good) which gives her a kind of secret backstab since flanking boosts all your damage channels by 2 (so she does +10/+12 damage on a flanking attack) and as an Infantry unit, the Rogue will give her Backstab (+6 phys when flanking) and Poison Mastery (+2 blight damage). So she looks like a 20 (25) attack unit, but in a Rogue's hands she is liable to hit for 40 (47 if the fire applies) damage per flanking hit (did we mention she can petrify enemies?). You definitely want to flank with her. On non-Rogues, she still flanks for 32 (39) damage. Amusingly she would be weakest against a Rogue's Shadow Stalker which is immune to two of her damage channels and has 60% phys resistance (100% with a rogue buff).
• Both of the above seem to synergize with Theocrat as they become Devout units (Order of Templar Knights / Order of Absolution). However, when it comes to ruining people's shit with Armageddon, the Arch Angel tops at 10+2(Keeper's Creed) spirit damage.
• Chthonic Guardian doesn't seem to have any powerful synergies.

Mind, if you just want a Rogue leader to do flying backstab infantry, then a Sorcerer Hero with Draconian Flyers and Draconian Elders will ensure that the Flyer does 4 damage channels (5 fire from elder, 1 shock from Sorcerer's Charged Army, 2 blight from Poison Mastery, and 16 physical) plus backstab for 38 damage backstabs (31 without the elder's buff though).

Also, while Grey Guard Master seems underwhelming, the Grey Guard Adept has some solid perks. The freebie as Grey Guard adept is +50 food to all cities while the leader is neutral (you start neutral) which is pretty good. Their Dedicated to Neutral city enchantment doubles your units' crit chance (now you have 50% chance of critting for +35% damage at highest morale). Incidentally it seems the Deity Military Race Governance for Tigrans is doubled crit chance, so conceivably you will autocrit every hit if you stack 'em. Now add Killer Instinct from Destruction Adept and it does an extra 50% crit damage (also +3 damage vs player race units). Aside from that it's also decent for Halflings which are very dependent on maxed morale. Without these things, crit chance is a bit on the weaker end, but that's alright because unlike Keeper of the Peace and Shadowborn, Grey Guards get their dedicated unit booster strategic spell as Adepts for +1 resist and +2 defense against non-flanking attacks. Also Cardinal Culling just wrecks stacks of the same unit (-5 phys attack, 40% phys weakness for target unit and every unit like it). You'd have to be a Theocrat or use a Theocrat hero to fix your army with Purifying Burst.

Also a Rogue Keeper of the Peace adept can stack Rally of the Populate with Incite Revolt for -1100 city happiness and an increased chance of betrayals. That seems strong. Also, looking over it, right now a Rogue has four specializations that give Tier IV units: the angel summons and Wild Magic's Unstable Transformation, but Unstable Transformation lost some appeal now that Succubi have a once per combat permanent seduction instead of 3 turn duration and cooldown.

 

[Metro]

Now $10 on Steam.

 

[octavius]

Still DRM free on GOG.

 

[Metro]

Why support Witcher games, though? Anyway, so long as there is GOG I'll always have a DRM free backup regardless of where I buy a game from.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Will there be a third expansion? I just want to know if I'm already getting the full thing or if three months down the road they'll release the Complete Edition™ with more stuff

Impossible to know for sure, but seems pretty unlikely. It's possible a third one might pop up, but if so it's likely that it won't contain a whole lot of new content. Besides, I feel like for reasons that are unclear to me, two expansions has become The Rule with TBS games.

Anyway, IMHO it's definitely worth picking up, for ten bucks or otherwise. Been playing the AoW series religiously since the demo of the first game back in 98 and honestly I'd have to say that the third one is my favourite.

I will say that, as a general caveat, AoW 3 does feel much more like a successor to AoW 1 than it does to AoW SM. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is up to you, but I will say that generally speaking the people who are mostly fans of SM and never really got into AoW 1 tend to be the ones most disappointed with AoW 3. Note the generally: Obviously there are people who preferred AoW 1 to SM and still dislike AoW 3, and people who started with AoW SM and absolutely love 3.

But IMHO even if you end up hating the game, for ten bucks it's worth getting for Michiel van den Bos's soundtrack alone (dude that did the music for AoW 1, Unreal, Deus Ex, and others). As far as I'm concerned, that guy's second only to the great Paul Anthony Romero.

 

[CRD]

vanilla is a bit meh for some, but with the expansions it is a great game that worth every dollar

 

[Cnaiur]

I just wanted to say that - with Eternal Lords installed - this is a great game.

Vanilla lacked races, units and polish, but Triumph slowly improved things up to a point where I now play this instead of Shadow Magic.

 

[MilesBeyond]

I just wanted to say that - with Eternal Lords installed - this is a great game.

Vanilla lacked races, units and polish, but Triumph slowly improved things up to a point where I now play this instead of Shadow Magic.

Absolutely. Not that I'm surprised, really. AoW 3 vanilla was, while disappointing, still a significantly better game than AoW 2 vanilla, IMHO, so it's not really much of a surprise that AoW 3 expansions is as good as (if not better) than AoW SM.

Actually, I'm curious - for those who still think AoW 3 is shit, why's that? Not looking to get into a pissing contest or anything, just interested in hearing other perspectives on the game. Also I guess I should say "people who think it's shit relative to AoW SM and/or 1" because if someone comes in like "It doesn't have world-altering spells like MoM" I mean that's a valid criticism but it's not really relevant to my question.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Just wanted to add that I'm having tons of fun with this game with all expansions. Playing short games on random maps in sequence.

 

[Sranchammer]

Had some nice things but the graphics has destroyed any love I had for the game

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Yup, it's a fairly typical case of a tb strategy trying to have super duper 3d AAAwesomness for no reason when it costs a lot of money and doesn't improve functionality in any way and doesn't even look that good. The leader creation thingy is the prime example here: they've obviously put a lot of effort and budget into it and most results look like love children of Saturday morning cartoon character and a prosperian turd golem.

That said, with both expansion the game started to be fun.

 

[Irenaeus II]

It looks pretty good, wtf are you talking about?

 

[adddeed]

It looks ok. It runs poorly however. However AoW1 and AoW2 are both visually superior, thatnks to the art style, the clean and uncluttered visuals, and the sharpness of the picture. AoW3 visually is messy, hard to differentiate things on the map.

 

[Irenaeus II]

I have no problem differentiating things on the map, neither I think it's visually messy. I really like the unit models and the terrain gives me a good mood. I'm very satisfied with visuals, it's better than Civ4 FFH, which was ok already. Of course AoW1 and AoW2 are both visually superior, considering they are 2D art and not 3D shit, but what can we do. No one makes beautiful 2D games anymore, unless it's 8-bit shit graphics.

It runs like Bolt on my computer, but that may be because I have a super computer. Load times are under 1 second, which means I can never read the tip text on loading screens, or fully appreciate the loading screen splash images. The game is super responsive and turn times are super quick (I play on normal sized maps, I imagine if you play on larger maps, turn times will crawl in late game).

 

[Raghar]

What runs poorly? It works completely fine in comparison to Disciples 3, or Rome II.