After 30 hours of gameplay

[Darvo Blackbird]

I want to enjoy it, but the game has too many flaws, that make it a chore to finish.

For example:

The maps in the elven campaign (I just uninstalled the game because of mission 5 and the limited turns, I finally had a bit of fun playing, and then you throw a turn limit against me, that was the straw... Why do you give us so many places to visit yet, you can only visit a fraction of the map until it is game-over) are WAY to big. The AI has to many cities and it takes a lot of time to defeat them and turn them (playing Good on Hard) over. Without any challenge...

Rushing in some scenarios is the only way to win (at mission 3 if you wait to long and the dwarfes got cannons and dreadnoughts its game over).

Auto combat vs manual combat, at the start you will almost do all the battles in vs manual mode but after a while you get bored of the same fights over and over and over and over that you use auto 9/10 times. And the battles are just a click fest anyway.

Story telling is great at the start of the game, but overall the rest of the playtime has almost no dialog.

Many abilities and items don't tell you if the are for combat or strategy mode. Or the don't function, for example I got a 100% hp regain that does not work in combat, but if you read the description it clearly states that every combat turn you get your hp back

I had multiple of occasion that I wanted to stop playing, but I gave it a change nonetheless. But after the time limit kick, you just annoyed me greatly.

[Vim]

I will grant you the extremely annoying presence of a time-limit on the map where you get the legendary dwarf Spoiler McDwarf and have to fight four separate surface dwellers. I played on Hard as well, and was happily exploring the underground and depths, finding the legendary city and getting my hands on the first Archon city of the campaign, then as I'm just starting to climb above-ground the game tells me I have 20 turns to build an army and conquer the entire map.

This one map defies all logic in that it is probably the most rewarding exploration map of the game and then force you into a mad conquest rush or lose scenario.

As for your other gripes, I kind of disagree for various reasons. Story telling has been great throughout (Not AoW 1 Journal great, but still). The tooltips for certain items could stand to be more descriptive, but all concepts are explained in the Tome of Wonders. If you see regeneration, you can look up that term and it will clearly tell you it's a turn counter thing.

Still, I'm sorry you're not finding it to be your cup of tea. You might want to grab AoW 2: SM, as it's a better game right now. AoW3 is still new, and has no expansions yet, but the potential is clearly there for me.

[Mavrin Azureblade]

Yes the time limit sucks, yes it is the best exploration map I've seen in the campaigns(so far).

My strategy for that map is send my first full stack up as soon as I can and grab as many neutral cities(early on most of the board is neutral) as I can and have multiple saves to make sure I come in under the time limit. I've beaten it several times but I've missed some by a turn or two and that really blows.

[ItsToBeXpected]

Possible spoiler ahead...




I agree with the OP for the most part. The game is also very short. Definately not an epic campaign like the old Age of Wonders. The campaign comes to an abrupt end after completing Burn the Shadow scenario, so in that sense, the story telling just fizzles out. The story is great up until that last scenario when suddenly its just all over. I thought i was in for an epic long story with multiple scenarios and campaigns, but no... After completing the game my first thought was "is this still in early access?" because it is just so short... Its shorter than fallout 3 for stoyline (and Fallout 3 only takes 10 hours to complete the main story - the gameplay in AoW can take forever if you turtle it, but the story itself is actually quite short)...

The time limit map was huge, and you needed a little luck on your side to finish it. The final map is also quite large, i never fully explored it, although it wasnt limited to time, the longer you take the harder it gets so it felt rushed. You just cant build up a SINGLE city before they are sending full stacks of giants and dragons (i ended up abandoning all but 2 cities just so i could focus my attacks - i think i won it in under 50 turns and only because the leaders i needed attacked me, so i ambushed them and mailed the special item to the hero that needed it). So you have to hunt the 2 down pretty quick, and more or less avoid the other 5 opponents... but it was fun and challenging. Just dissapointed that the story ends there, when it feels like there needs to be more, much more...

There is definately potential in the game. But that in itself is sad. Every game you buy these days always has 'potential'. They will release DLC and an expansion or two and then, the game will finally be a full game (like every game these days, they release it in installments so they can get more money).

But thats to be expected...

The game is still enjoyable and plays great. It is just really short...

[Nocturio]

Yes the time limit sucks, so much even that I stopped playing the campain.
One of the reasons I adore Turn Based Games is because I do not want to be rushed and like to take my TIME...

[Darvo Blackbird]

Originally posted by Nocturio:

Yes the time limit sucks, so much even that I stopped playing the campain.
One of the reasons I adore Turn Based Games is because I do not want to be rushed and like to take my TIME...

I agree, that's a great selling point for a turn based game. And ItsToBeXpected, this game indeed has potential but like you said, most games these day's will give you that feeling.

And I will look into part 2 Phoenixon, I am just resisting the temptation to play this game. It is addicted, but I know I won't like it.

Mavrin Azureblade that is sadly the problem of the game, if you rush it, you have a cake walk. This map is designed to be a rush map, like map 3 with the goblins and dwarfs.

[Thrones]

Well i just hit the 30 hour mark and I am still loving the game. Especially since I have been looking for something to replace Might and Magic Heroes VI. After dumping a ton of hours in Heroes VI, I just couldn't put up with playing it anymore with that annoying blackscreen bug and some performance issues on my laptop. Granted I have yet to hit that mission with the turn limit in Age of Wonders 3. And yes there are some bugs here too but not as ground breaking as Heroes.. >.<

[ItsToBeXpected]

The turn limit is not really an issue. Its part of a storyline, so makes sense. the story is just really short. The scenarios are fun and the random maps are great, and you can play at your own pace in them.

[JackArmstrong]

I agree that strict turn-limits have no place in a game ostensibly about empire-building and exploration.

[Dr_Nightmare]

I'm enjoying the game--only played random maps so far-- thanks for the heads up on the turn limit in the campaign map---wont be playing that one....

[CyberDown]

Campaigns are nice, but games like this thrive on custom maps imo.

I played a bit of the campaign, to ease me into the game, dont plan on finishing it. Ill start by creating a custom hero then making a bigass map with a smattering of NPC factions and go to town on it.

Thus far i like what i see, despite obvious dumbing down of some systems. Combat is like FE only its not so dry as to make me just auto fight like i did in FE after a few fights.

But yeah time limits on the campaign...obviously they wanted to throw a curve ball and test you or whatever...its the campaign cant expect it all to be the same exact thing with a different reason i guess...might be interesting to do a mission on a time bases tbh...

[TheStratovarian]

I wish I could have avoided this, after dealing with just mission 2 for the past 8 hours, and stalemating wether or not I rushed or not, raised cities, or anything above and beyond one could ask.. The fact that the game requires destroying/capturing all cities to kill off a hero, despite victory in combat over them, just kills this game for me after trying time and time again, especially since a loss will end your own game.

Fun, no, not with the ai immediately able to use what makes the autofight a win to know what is the easiest target, even baiting them the same way, (seriously, put the same units, same vet amount in two spaced cities, place one unit outside, and it targets that city everytime even if the other is weaker) its just the same old stacks of doom fight of civ 3, Civ 3! Its not fun, its boring, the $20 bucks on the steam sale may be giving this game too much credit for its cost. Its sad that I've found more fun in c&c 4 and civ 5 than this. And im utterly horrible with the former. I love the turn based strategy games, but this just falls short on so many fronts.

Homm, not my cup of tea, manages to get it right, why cant this game? It has the potential, its just failed to do so.

[Vim]

@DCL Now, I respect your opinion, but you are stating your opinion as fact which is disrespectful not only to other peoples opinion, but to the game as a whole.

If I understand you correctly, you liked Civ 5 better than this, but you didn't like Civ 5, is that about right? Then you mention Homm as not being your cup of tea, but still say that Homm got it right? Got what right? What exactly is it about the game that bothers you? It sounds like you're saying you think the game is too difficult, that the AI's army is too powerful? If so your opinion is pretty much the exact opposite of general concensus that the AI is too easy to beat, even on King difficulty. 6 units per stack is hardly a doom stack, and rarely will the AI attack with more than 2 of these -if that.

Regarding autofight, this will put your army in the hands of the same AI that the enemy uses, and if you doubt the result, or find it strange, you can always click "Replay" to see exactly what happened to clear up your confusion.

Aside from this, you're going to have to be more specific as to what exactly you disliked, and what you wanted to be different.

[Anvos]

I have to agree that map 3 is a pain, especially on my first attempt where I didn't know there was a city to rebuild just north of the first town, and then somehow the dwarf and human ai owned half the cities I was supposed to have.

On the second try things went better, though we spent most of the game at a stalemate over the pass into the dwarf's surface domain. Eventually though I built enough palaces that with the spirit resist global nerf active I could just nuke tiles. Though this did bring up the question of how the flame tank, dreadnaught, and mech are immune to spirit damage when they are supposed to have an opperator or more that could be effected you'd think.

[ItsToBeXpected]

You dont have to destroy or take over every city to kill an enemy leader. Just take his crown city and then kill him then he has no where to teleport back to. When a leader dies, he is respawned in his crown city 3 turns later, if he doesnt have the crown city he is defeated. The other hero units only respawn if they are the victor in a battle.

[Anvos]

Sniping the leader and throne city just seems to be a rather lame and unintended way to play the game to me.

Not to mention it sort of doesn't make sense as since were no longer in the age of Wizard Kings leaders seem alot more replacable (even the pc hero/leader is hanging out with a group of other leaders playing hero) so you've only solved your problems for a short while.