Play AoW 3 before 4?

[Soulmancer]

I currently own 3 but never played it too much. Is it better now to jump straight into 4 or wait for a better sale and more updates?

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

They're different games. You do not need to play either 3 or 4 to play the other.

I personally prefer AoW3 to AoW4, though AoW4 seems to be more popular in general, or at least seems to have reached a wider audience.

AoW4 emphasizes free-form play, player choice, and customization. You can make your own races, tweak the random map generation in a ton of ways, play a dragon or a demon horror thing if you want to. But this comes at the price of everything feeling far more generic.

AoW4 also has more complicated strategic gameplay, with a much more involved system of city development and research. Personally I do not think it's that enjoyable, but your mileage may vary.

AoW3 has better combat, in my opinion. AoW4's combat feels sluggish and its units feel far more generic. (A consequence of the "design your own race" thing mentioned before.)

AoW4 has prettier graphics.

AoW4 has more DLC. There are 2 DLCs for AoW3, which are all you need. (But you do need them, they add a lot to the base game.) AoW4 is still getting new ones? To be honest I stopped paying attention after the third or so. I did see some messages that they had overhauled whole systems (heroes have classes now?) quite recently. So it does not seem the game will be stable anytime soon.

AoW3 has a great modding community and some really good large-scale mods, if you are in the mood for more content. I have not really checked the state of modding in AoW4.

In the end, you should decide what kind of game you like. But if you already have AoW3, you could certainly just install it and give it a go. It's a more limited game in some ways (very combat focused) but it's also very good at what it does. And as I've mentioned, I think it's a lot more fun.

[Soulmancer]

Both games have good campaigns?

[Gladen]

Age of wonders 3 has 4 official campaigns while mods provide additionaly 2 unofficial with the Wasteland Expansion and Shadow Realm Expansion all in the workshop.

Age of wonders 4 provide story realms which can be connected stories of the universe. But they are not arching as a campaign and can be more comfortable said to be random generated stand alone scenarios. So everytime you play a story realm and repeat the scenario the events are the same, but the map is randomised.

One of the lackluster in Aow 4 is handcrafted maps. There is no level editor, but I believe at some point it might come.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Originally posted by Soulmancer:

Both games have good campaigns?

Like Gladen said.

To elaborate: I do not think AoW3's base campaigns are that good.

They can be pretty decent, but they rely on heroes too much so they don't resemble normal gameplay on random maps or player made maps. (Often I won without ever building units, as the easiest way to play those maps by far is to use heroes and mind control abilities.)

That said, the AoW3 DLC campaigns, though short, are very good. Fun, well designed maps with a lot of twists and turns and hidden secrets to uncover. I liked the story better too.

On AoW4: Like Gladen said, the story realms are much more like normal random maps. As in, they are random maps with certain parameters set and a story element.

On the one hand this makes them more replayable, and you can use whatever race or class you want to play them rather than being forced to use the story characters.

On the other hand, this means they feel far more like normal random maps, and they don't have nearly as much interesting stuff. And because they are all one-offs there is no real sense of progression or overarching story either.

(AOW: Planetfall had a similar system, but at least did have fixed story characters and maps linked together to form a proper story. I personally thought that was a better balance to strike, but then I'm one of those relatively rare people who really like Planetfall.)

[Soulmancer]

Thanks, I'll dabble around with AoW 3 for a bit first. I see AoW2 and TW W3 are both on sale right now, but I was more a fan and familiar with the HOMM series back in the day rather than TW... so I was leaning more towards AoW..

[Fulano]

Originally posted by Soulmancer:

Thanks, I'll dabble around with AoW 3 for a bit first. I see AoW2 and TW W3 are both on sale right now, but I was more a fan and familiar with the HOMM series back in the day rather than TW... so I was leaning more towards AoW..

If you already have 3 I'd definitely say give it a try, it's a great game.

[Greatot]

Well, if you want to understand the lore and setting you might as well play Age of Wonders 1, Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne, Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic and then Age of Wonders 3. Otherwise, there is no special connection between 3 and 4 that makes 3 a requirement any more than the other games.

[Soulmancer]

Thanks, I guess 4x games don't typically have a campaign and that the random maps are essentially the campaign. I just like to use em as a tutorial and a lore/story piece. Something I miss from the older HOMM games.

[Narn]

3 is a better game because of better randomization compared to 4. Every game in 4 has everyone and everything almost the exact same distance apart and 4 has really small maps. 3 is much better with this.

[GIGACHAD]

AoE 2 is better tbh, 3 is way too harsh for my eyes, treasures can be overlooked and Campaign maps are overly railroaded garbage with Rushing, towns so far apart assembling a big army is impossible.

[easytarget]

Since you popped in from instanbul with a hot take in the other thread, might as well post the same response back at you here as well:

Can anyone argue with a stranger willingly calling themselves gigachad?

[chuftka]

I bought 4 and after trying it, went back to 3, which is a superb game.

I agree with the first answer in most ways but I find 3 much prettier. 4 seems optimized for consoles and has lower quality art assets for the terrain and also a ton of "mist" anytime you zoom out (strategic or tactical) or are looking at areas you have seen before but are currently outside of your vision range. It's pretty extreme IMO and ruins the game for me. I have a PC and want a game that takes advantage of my graphics card which 3 does. Oddly 4 makes my graphics card fan really run loud yet looks uglier despite being on Ultra settings. I don't care for the sector system in 4 either. The art of city placement has been lost.

I didn't play it enough to get a great feel for the gameplay differences (about 40 hours) but the genericness did remind me of Stellaris. Some people like that and it makes more sense for sci-fi IMO. But for fantasy I like races to feel distinct.

[Júpiter]

Originally posted by Soulmancer:

Thanks, I guess 4x games don't typically have a campaign and that the random maps are essentially the campaign. I just like to use em as a tutorial and a lore/story piece. Something I miss from the older HOMM games.

I came to AoW 3 looking for an alternative to HoMM 3... And it is a great alternative! Now HoMM: Olden Era is coming, but I very much doubt I'll enjoy it more than I do it for AoW 3! One thing for AoW 3 is that the base game campaigns feel like HoMM, but the random maps are played very differently!

[TirAsleen]

Originally posted by Júpiter:

I came to AoW 3 looking for an alternative to HoMM 3... And it is a great alternative! Now HoMM: Olden Era is coming, but I very much doubt I'll enjoy it more than I do it for AoW 3! One thing for AoW 3 is that the base game campaigns feel like HoMM, but the random maps are played very differently!

If you like campaigns you should definately try Heroes of Might & Magic II: The Succession Wars - The Archibald Campaign was the best one in the entire series.

AoW1 Cult of Storm campaign was perhaps even better.

From both series the only campaigns i really liked and couldn't care less for the rest, played every game.

As for the topic, Soulmancer should definately play the Necromancer in AoW3, for me perhaps the only interesting class in that game. I bet more dev time was spent on it, so huge is the difference in gameplay and asymmetric class features.

But AoW4 might working for a guy named Soulmancer, too, with all the soul economy there.

Wish'd the devs would get another 100 devs and make the perfect AoW that combines all the best features of previous AoWs.

So much unused potential to dominate the steam charts.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Originally posted by TirAsleen:

AoW1 Cult of Storm campaign was perhaps even better.

That one was my favourite particularly in the path where your evil character ends up joining the pure good high men. Amazing values dissonance.