Age of Wonders 3 Announced

[NikitaDarkstar]

I'm sure there are some old Age of Wonders players around here so if you haven't already heard, Triumph Studios announced AoW3 a few days ago. Apparently they've been working on it for a couple of years now and are aiming for a fall release.

The entire announcement is here: http://www.ageofwonders.com/aow3live/about-the-game/ along with screenshots, a trailer and all that good stuff.

[Dallas-Dakota]

Aaaand now I want it to be late 2013. Damnit.

[warty goblin]

If they actually balance this, I'll be deeply sad. Half of the joy of AoW is the crazy broken things you can do. The other half is chopping halflings into quarterlings with orc warlords.

[Morty]

I, on the other hand, would like better balance. Some units being broken and others being weak is amusing, but in the long run I'd rather some race choices weren't traps.

[warty goblin]

I, on the other hand, would like better balance. Some units being broken and others being weak is amusing, but in the long run I'd rather some race choices weren't traps.

The inter-racial balance thing never really bothered me all that much, since the game strongly encourages you to use multiple races whenever possible anyway. The only races that I found seriously difficult to play were the high men and undead, and that's only because they sat at the extremes of the alignment spectrum and hence lost access to neutrals. Even goblins and halflings could put on a credible show, and if your enemies ever weren't encased in ice, you weren't playing the frostlings right.

[NikitaDarkstar]

I agree that the racial balance never bothered me much, and I personally found it fun that different races had their own challenges, and more specifically had unique play styles. I'll be deeply disappointed if all races feel like they're basically the same thing with a different skin on them.

That said undead and dark elves were always my favorite races with orcs close behind, simply because there's no such thing as "to many dragons" when you're the aggressor. :p
Or to many bone horrors when you're undead. Because screw your puny walls, that's why!

[Morty]

Fair enough, I guess. It seems that races will work quite differently in AoW3, anyway. Although just how differently can't be said at this point.

[NikitaDarkstar]

Indeed Morty, I just hope it will still be somewhat familiar. But at the very least it seems like the racial good,neutral,evil designations will be gone. (Or at least depend son your actions more than what race you play.)

[Morty]

It seems so. If I were to guess, I'd say that your units will be determined as much by the type of hero you play as by their race.

[Astrella]

Eeeeeeee! So excited!

[DemonicAngel]

Yesterday I came back to play AoW: SM, what a fortunate coincidence that I found this thread as well.

good news too. looks pretty darn awesome too!

[iyaerP]

I will be honest, nothing in age of wonders 2 pleased me quite so much as being fire aspect and having an army of dwarven runelords. They were immune to all my massive AoE spells, and it was the rare creature that could best them in combat.

[Tengu_temp]

I usually played AoW 2 as draconians. Because who doesn't like flying units that are actually good?

AoW 3 seems to promise a large variety of hero/race combinations, with each combo having unique units, which pleases me greatly. And I do hope for better balance, because things like abusing the Domination ability or spamming self-made magic items from Shadow Magic were just ridiculous.

[NikitaDarkstar]

The draconians were a fun race, even if I quite liked the tigrans myself. I guess the anthro (without being cute) cat thing appealed to me at the time.

As for domination, I may or may not be abusing it to pieces right now in AoW1. SM's item creation was fairly powerful if you knew what you were doing and prioritized it, but I wouldn't call it game breaking since it was quite expensive at the time.

Either way, the game looks promising, and from what we're hearing from the devs (they're actually pretty good about answering questions on the AoW3 forums right now) it's going to be a quite different game, but interesting.

[Cogwheel]

I just want two things carried over, really.

One: Shoulder Cannon.

Two: The ability to play Morgan Freeman.

[Andre]

I was pretty fond of my Knights +1 Chaplain/Herbalist stacks being carried all over the map by Air Galleys with the Knights buffed to the brims by the likes of Stoneskin, Enc. Weapon, Dark Gift, Fire Halo etc... trading for spells made it sort of easy.


SM's item creation was fairly powerful if you knew what you were doing and prioritized it, but I wouldn't call it game breaking since it was quite expensive at the time.

With an high enough level hero and the right items, you could solo many, many of the scenarios. Doesn't mean you couldn't restrain yourself from doing it, tho. :smalltongue:

[AgentPaper]

Looks pretty sweet, but I fear that Europa Universalis may have spoiled me of all other strategy games.

Regardless, it seems fairly likely I'll be picking this up at or soon after release, depending of course on whether I'm still enslaved by EU3/4/mods, and whether the game seems to be actually competently designed and, well, fun.

[NikitaDarkstar]

I just want two things carried over, really.

One: Shoulder Cannon.

Two: The ability to play Morgan Freeman.

Oh lord I had forgotten about that character, but yhea you're right, he does look like Morgan Freeman.

@AgentPaper, shush about Europa Universalis... I don't have enough free time now or vacation later to be reminded of it and dragged into it again! D=

[Cogwheel]

Oh lord I had forgotten about that character, but yhea you're right, he does look like Morgan Freeman.

@AgentPaper, shush about Europa Universalis... I don't have enough free time now or vacation later to be reminded of it and dragged into it again! D=

Oh good, so it's not just me. We also need penguins, by the way. And nodes randomly guarded by Rift Lords for that DEAR GOD WHY factor.

...Come to think of it, most of the maps felt as if they were lifted from IWBTG or its ilk.

[markwell]

Well i am glad it is being produced and supported by such great people.
I must say my favorite race were the goblins, but all of them were superbly designed.
A day ago it was revealed that Notch, the creator of Minecraft provided funding for the game.

You can find a lot more about the game at the AoW3 fansite (http://www.squidoo.com/age-of-wonders-3).

[NikitaDarkstar]

Indeed he is, there's an article at Eurogamer about it too (with some nice artwork at the bottom). http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-02-13-how-notch-funding-age-of-wonders-3-came-about

As for Rift Lords... I'll take them over AoW1's syrons any day. At least rift lords don't have "physical immunity" on their list of abilities. (or at least I don't think they do...)

[warty goblin]

Oh good, so it's not just me. We also need penguins, by the way. And nodes randomly guarded by Rift Lords for that DEAR GOD WHY factor.

...Come to think of it, most of the maps felt as if they were lifted from IWBTG or its ilk.
The campaign maps could be brutal, but didn't hold a candle to a couple of the scenarios. Anybody remember 'Kinslayers' from the first game? The one where you're nominally fighting the elf civil war, but really trying not to be utterly wiped out by the lizards?

And the dungeons could be just plain sadistic. Suffice to say I never wondered why nobody had scooped all that treasure before I showed up.



A day ago it was revealed that Notch, the creator of Minecraft provided funding for the game.

So at least some good came of that $10 I spent on Minecraft a couple years ago. I certainly didn't get anywhere near that level of fun from the actual game itself.

[Cogwheel]

The campaign maps could be brutal, but didn't hold a candle to a couple of the scenarios. Anybody remember 'Kinslayers' from the first game? The one where you're nominally fighting the elf civil war, but really trying not to be utterly wiped out by the lizards?


I actually didn't really touch the campaign. Multiplayer scenarios all the way, and yes, they were astonishingly cruel.

[warty goblin]

I actually didn't really touch the campaign. Multiplayer scenarios all the way, and yes, they were astonishingly cruel.

The original AoW campaign is surprisingly good. Probably because it's just a long set of skirmishes, linked by a persistent hero and the ability to bring some select units along from map to map. The story turns out fairly well too, I remember my ending was a delightfully bittersweet thing, as I won the war, only to watch the world move on and change to something I no longer knew.

And some of the later missions were fairly brutal as well. Or they would have been if I hadn't been hauling around two fully leveled melee-spec heroes. Thanks to max damage and round attack, between them they could grind through an entire stack in about three turns.

[NikitaDarkstar]

The campaign maps could be brutal, but didn't hold a candle to a couple of the scenarios. Anybody remember 'Kinslayers' from the first game? The one where you're nominally fighting the elf civil war, but really trying not to be utterly wiped out by the lizards?

And the dungeons could be just plain sadistic. Suffice to say I never wondered why nobody had scooped all that treasure before I showed up.


So at least some good came of that $10 I spent on Minecraft a couple years ago. I certainly didn't get anywhere near that level of fun from the actual game itself.

Yhea, the scenarios were a challenge, the campaign was for when you wanted a legit reason for headdesking or hurling items across the room, even on easy setting.

As for the dungeons, it didn't take me long to just switch those over to automated combat, at least it didn't take as long to get my butt kicked that way. It also didn't take long to realize that saving before going into one was a really, really good idea.

And then AoW2 gave us dragon lairs.... -.-

[warty goblin]

Yhea, the scenarios were a challenge, the campaign was for when you wanted a legit reason for headdesking or hurling items across the room, even on easy setting.

I really don't remember the campaigns being as bad as some of the more vindictive scenarios. They were fairly belligerent yes, but the ready access to high-level heroes made a world of difference. That and usually only needing to hunt down and kill a single leader.

Although the last map in the campaign was a real viscous piece of work. Nothing ruins my day faster than the enemy having level 30 heroes too.


As for the dungeons, it didn't take me long to just switch those over to automated combat, at least it didn't take as long to get my butt kicked that way. It also didn't take long to realize that saving before going into one was a really, really good idea.
What was delightful about the dungeons is that sometimes there was like three kobolds, and sometimes a batch of wraiths or something else horrific like that. You just never knew if this was going to be a walk in the park, or half an hour of watching your prize stack getting flayed with a garden rake.