Age of Wonders III coming later this year!

[FarAway Sooner]

I love the FELH system, but I find the game play to be fairly uninspiring.  There's an extensive tech tree, and great unit customization, and different weapons afford different special abilities (e.g., a Spear allows an occasional special attack that affects two units in a straight line from the attacker, while a Hammer's special attack allows a double-strength attack (followed by skipping the next turn)).

However, the way the units and tech trees work out, everything ends up feeling the same.  A group of soldiers equipped with Flaming Swords doesn't attack any differently than a group armed with Electrical Maces, unless you happen to be fighting an enemy with resistances (or vulnerabilities) to those two.  It's a brilliant concept, but the implementation makes it feel a bit like I'm playing "Spreadsheet Fantasy Simulator".

I also am not crazy about the races and monsters they established for FE.  I appreciate the effort to diverge from the traditional High Fantasy tropes (Orcs & Goblins vs Dwarves & Elves, with Humans in the middle).  Brad Wardell puts a lot of attention to the backgrounds and histories in his games, but I don't find that detail really resonates with me.  I can't even keep many of the different races straight.

They probably play different, but after 50 hours of playing FELH, I still don't really understand how.  I suspect that the aforementioned graphics have a lot to do with it.  The units just aren't interesting looking.

I love the FELH system.  But the whole is no more than the sum of the parts.  I hope AoW 3 turns out differently.

[Toonces]

Feist, Brooks, Eddings, Weiss and Hickman or my personal favourite Gemmel

See, this is why I love this site.  Turns out they have Legend in the library so I just downloaded it for my Kindle.  I've been in a real reading slump...this is just what I needed!

Thanks FlickJax!   :-*

[FlickJax]

Feist, Brooks, Eddings, Weiss and Hickman or my personal favourite Gemmel

See, this is why I love this site.  Turns out they have Legend in the library so I just downloaded it for my Kindle.  I've been in a real reading slump...this is just what I needed!

Thanks FlickJax!   :-*

NP sir another excellent character for Gemmel is the Jerusalem man - Jon Shannow a post apocalypse Gunslinger - http://sfbook.com/jon-shannow.htm

[bbmike]

NP sir another excellent character for Gemmel is the Jerusalem man - Jon Shannow a post apocalypse Gunslinger - http://sfbook.com/jon-shannow.htm

I knew Gemmel seemed a little too familiar to me! I actually have a copy of The Jerusalem Man I bought years ago but never read it. I'll have to dig it out from wherever it may be. In the meantime I now have Legend on the Kindle as well.

[FlickJax]

NP sir another excellent character for Gemmel is the Jerusalem man - Jon Shannow a post apocalypse Gunslinger - http://sfbook.com/jon-shannow.htm

I knew Gemmel seemed a little too familiar to me! I actually have a copy of The Jerusalem Man I bought years ago but never read it. I'll have to dig it out from wherever it may be. In the meantime I now have Legend on the Kindle as well.

Never read it ....you missed out there.

[Zonso]

I know this is sacrilege but it's my opinion....these comparisons of current games to an the ancient MOM have me scratching my head in disbelief. I got MOM on GOG and found it to be just OK at best. These newer games like FE: Legendary Heroes, the Age of Wonders and others are far superior in all regards....graphics, depth of gameplay, interface, etc.  I know I'm in the minority here but I am finding this to be the case with most of those oldies, including the revered original Xcom....the newer ones blow it away.  Nostalgia back to the 'good old days' can be quite forgiving and forgetful of glaring faults.

That's been my experience as well and even more so with Master of Magic which as I recall was pretty broken, and still had issues after patching, ie balancing. What it did offer was customizability which fuelled players imagination. I like Legendary Heroes and think it is an excellent game. I'm on the fence yet with AoWIII - this review http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/04/02/age-of-wonders-3-review has some significant bad mixed in with the good. Anyone here playing care to comment on the weak strategic aspect of the game?

[tgb]

I think the reviewer was looking for a fantasy version of Civ or EU.  I would like one of those as well, but Age of Wonders has never been that.  Everything on the strategic map is geared to one thing - making your armies bigger and badder than the other guy's and going out to chew some bubblegum.

Think of this as more the equivalent of early CA titles like the first Shogun or the first Medieval, but with turn-based battles.

[FarAway Sooner]

Looking at the forums, I think the biggest complaint with the game (once they solved blurred text and some other graphics issues affecting select subsets of systems) is that the game moves too quickly towards building stacks exclusively of Tier 4 units.  Since each stack can only have 6 units, and Tier 4 units are way better than T3 units, and they're not that expensive to produce, the AI just ends up fielding a huge number of T4 units by late mid-game and that's all you fight any more.

There are various solutions out there, but initial indications from the Devs are that none of them seem easy to implement (e.g., putting a cap on the number of T4 units in a stack would completely confuse the AI).  Still, it seems like something that needs to be solve.  Tier 4 unit spam is a serious issue, for a game with such a wide variety of interesting lower-tier units.

[Rayfer]

Looking at the forums, I think the biggest complaint with the game (once they solved blurred text and some other graphics issues affecting select subsets of systems) is that the game moves too quickly towards building stacks exclusively of Tier 4 units.  Since each stack can only have 6 units, and Tier 4 units are way better than T3 units, and they're not that expensive to produce, the AI just ends up fielding a huge number of T4 units by late mid-game and that's all you fight any more.

There are various solutions out there, but initial indications from the Devs are that none of them seem easy to implement (e.g., putting a cap on the number of T4 units in a stack would completely confuse the AI).  Still, it seems like something that needs to be solve.  Tier 4 unit spam is a serious issue, for a game with such a wide variety of interesting lower-tier units.

Haven't played this new version of the game but if I remember correctly didn't the older versions had this same issue or something very similar to it?  As new tiers opened up you had to build armies full of them or you would never survive the AI's attacks.

[PanzersEast]

Looking at the forums, I think the biggest complaint with the game (once they solved blurred text and some other graphics issues affecting select subsets of systems) is that the game moves too quickly towards building stacks exclusively of Tier 4 units.  Since each stack can only have 6 units, and Tier 4 units are way better than T3 units, and they're not that expensive to produce, the AI just ends up fielding a huge number of T4 units by late mid-game and that's all you fight any more.

There are various solutions out there, but initial indications from the Devs are that none of them seem easy to implement (e.g., putting a cap on the number of T4 units in a stack would completely confuse the AI).  Still, it seems like something that needs to be solve.  Tier 4 unit spam is a serious issue, for a game with such a wide variety of interesting lower-tier units.

I think if they narrowed the gap between the unit or at least mixed them a little more that would help.  The game has a way of sneaking up on you as well..... So far I am not having the issue, but I am facing a mix of 3 and 2 tier with some 1 tier units lurking around.

Ranged units as the older version play a big part of the game.....


PE

[Swatter]

I am definitely going to pick this one up, though I am really busy at the moment. That's probably a good thing, allowing the devs the time to patch is always a good thing. Sort of like I never touched FE or EWoM until Fallen Heroes came out and was patched. I love playing games as they were meant to be played, not games that are rushed to the presses.

[undercovergeek]

http://ageofwonders.com/all-about-the-age-of-wonders-iii-level-editor/

editor opened to masses

the race to a GoT map or a Warhammer one and their races starts now!

[JudgeDredd]

I have managed to stay away  ;D

[undercovergeek]

for now sunshine!

[Gusington]

Me too. But I am weak. Not as weak as JD. But weak.