There were a lot of overland map area affecting spells in Age of Wonders 2, while AoW 3 features almost none. Wild Magic Master has one overland area spell and all it does is destroy roads and bridges plus randomly turning affected tiles into tropic, volcanic, arctic, and blight. Water Adept has another which freezes water tiles for 3 turns. And Creation Adept has Cleanse the Land which converts targeted area to temperate terrain. Druid has Wild Growth which turns affected tiles into Dense Vegetation. Dreadnought can cast Spelljammer which makes it impossible for enemies to cast in the nearest 3 hexes. I think that's about it. Naval combat is underwhelming now that all land units just turn into boats on water. So aquatic units now have the special distinction of being the only unit that can't move on all tiles. Unit enchantments with upkeep costs were also outright removed instead of re-balancing them. And while AoW 2 had traits and spheres, AoW 3 just has specializations which are a crippled version of spheres with the old explorer and expander traits added as specializations requiring you to research for unexciting bonuses now.
AoW 3 is my favourite of all the AoW games, but I do agree with the majority of your criticisms. I would love more overland AoE spells. AoW 3 has plenty of overland spells but they're mostly either single-hex or domain, and while that's not necessarily
bad, it does lack the fun factor of the various Storms and (Un)Holy Woods and Spider's Curse and that sort of thing from the earlier games. Man. Nothing more satisfying than in AoW 1 dropping a Death Storm on someone and watching their units get wrecked and their lands turn to ash.
Embarkment (land units turning into boats) is something I'm so-so on. I do appreciate that it reduces the tedium of manually loading and unloading units, and I get that in AoW has a somewhat checkered history with boats in general (I remember back when AoW 1 first came out, "How do I get units off a boat?" was like every second thread hahaha), but I do think it robs the game of a few strategic considerations. That being said, I don't think it's terrible. The combination of taking an entire turn to embark and having slower movement once embarked means that amphibious units still have a massive mobility advantage over land units, and embarked land units are usually weakened enough from embarking that they're easy prey for aquatic units.
Overland unit enchantment is a sore point for me. I really miss them, and re-implementing them would make me love AoW 3 even more. I get that at this point that's more or less impossible - the fact that they're combat only means that AoW 3 has got some ridiculously powerful unit enchants (many of the T1 enchants are more powerful than anything seen in previous AoW games), and the ability to permanently apply them via global casting would just be insane. Still, though, I regret that it was implemented in the first place. It was mostly done because of the AI, and because in past games it was way too easy to exploit - wait until they waste all their casting points putting enchantments on some unit far away, and then attack, leaving them with no magic for the battle. I think an MoM style system where you have two pools of casting points - one for global and one for combat - would be cool, although that would undermine some of the strategic decisions that you have to make.
My ideal compromise here, actually, would be to allow two spells per turn in combat, but one of them can only be a unit enchantment. I definitely agree with the one spell per turn no matter how many casters you have thing, because in past games, and AoW SM in particular, multiplayer games would just turn into red rover matches. No one wanted to attack because the defender could just unleash armageddon in the first turn. But I don't think allowing a second spell, but only an enchantment, would break that.
The traits and spheres part I disagree with because the majority of what was in the traits and spheres have been migrated over to classes. In reality, choosing your class is more the equivalent of the traits and spheres of past games, while specializations confer additional customization beyond that. I would actually say that AoW 3 ends up having the most variety in terms of leader possibilities.
I love this game but i've been unable to have a close game against the AI (not too hard or too easy). On lord no one attacks me and on king everyone i meet declares war on me.
I wonder if there's any group of settings that can be used to adjust this. Or maybe i have to try setting teams to solve this issue.
Yeah, difficulty can be a sticking point. It's worthwhile to stick to the stronger combinations when first moving up to King (Dwarf Warlord and Dreadnought come to mind - though Dreadnought can be tricky and requires a lot of combat micro), and doing certain settings can make things easier. Island maps, for example, and starting further apart. Probably disabling independents, too. Increasing the map size without increasing the number of players makes it easier for you to expand without encountering much resistance, but it also means your enemies will be that much larger, so it's kind of a toss-up. Definitely disable Seal and Unifier conditions your first time around.
