Yeah, that's very good argument and reason to call game mediocre and not subjective opinion at all. :-p

http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/703317-age-of-wonders-iii/reviews

There it is :)

Very interesting! I'll create a new thread with in depth questions I got from your informative review. :)

It’s difficult to argue with someone who openly admits wanting to hate the game before even booting it up and claims there are hundreds of details that really annoy them, yet only listing a single one – the music and graphical callbacks. Which is exactly what they are by the way, callbacks. When it’s been over a decade since the last game in the franchise, using the old music is practically fanservice.

Hey I love Eador as much as the next guy, but Aow3 seems to be just the same as Aow1 and 2 with some improvements, so maybe you are just a bit tired of the game as such?

I grant you that after playing Eador everything else seems a bit pale and simplistic, but that's just me, Chief Eador fanman (not boy).

You know, after playing Dominions 4 even Eador seems simplistic...:)
I'm tired indeed, you're right. Tired of standard 3D clones. I don't want to dive deep into discussions "what exactly I dislike in AoW3" as someone demands from me.
"Don't you see how cool is to toy with hero customization?!"
"Don't you see how cool are these clouds on the main map?"
"Don't you see how cool are these T4 units?"

Yes. I don't see how cool is all of it I see the standard 3D clone with bland gameplay, bland music, and all the rest is also bland. So I can't understand all of these raptures and exaltations... On Triumph forum some very clever guy (he should be the most clever of them all) said that I'm a mercenary calumniator bribed by Warlock developers... :)

Sometimes it seems that all of such clever guys are payed praisers... Or AoW3 is the first fantasy TBS they've seen in their life.

Rather, I think I'd be pissed if AoW3 wasn' a 3D-remake of AoW:SM's systems, and by extension of the MoM-formula.

I mean, there are plenty TBS games, even nowadays. I wouldn't want them all to be constantly innovating for innovation's sake, that's the fastest way to kill a studio. Or create a new one, which is the crux of the matter.

I prefer if each "series" of games does something different from each other, but is reliable in it's iterative process within itself. By that I mean, AoW3 shouldn't be radically different from AoW2. At all. Rather if someone wants to make something radically different, name it another name.

And hence, AoW3 is exactly what I wanted it to be. A rather beautiful (comparing TBS) new release in the Age of Wonders series. It changes a few things like the class system, but the ultimate impact is minor, and in the end it feels like exactly the same game as previous titles did. Perfect.

Now don't get me wrong, I love games which do new things. But they should also be new games. Not existent ones with a numbers increase.

Clever comeback, however inaccurate. I played Dominions 3, wasn't too fond of it. Eador all the way. I agree with you about the 3D crap though, don't need it, don't need the Eador:Broken World 3D clone either. But if they have alot of gameplay enhancements, I can overlook the crappy graphics, and Aow3 seems to have that.

You still haven't said what exactly you dislike about Aow3 compared to Aow 2, except for the graphics. I mean that's fine, it's a valid complaint, fantasy lives with the atmospheric graphics, and 3D ruins it mostly,

And OMG I just saw this and as Eador fanman I have to reply.... Dude, Eador has morale,fatigue,terrain,health effects, a ton of useful spells to utilise these features and a crapload of diverse units. These other games can't even come close to the depth of Eadors combat system. The best of Homm battles? Inferior to Aow? WTF My 7 year old nephew, not too bright a kid, could play Homm3 after half an hour on his own, its not a complex game. I hope you were just writing this in the spirit of troll day.

I'm glad to see someone who can express my dislike of 3D in such exact words... ;)

You know, I couldn't force myself to play AoW3 more than an half of hour so I won't name all the weak points...

1) Idiotic hero customization with all of these haircuts and such... O Lord. Schoolgirls applaude. Is this a strategy game?
2) Class system that killed the quite unique race system of previous AoW games (not so unique 'cause we had Warlords and Master of Magic but still...). For me personally this race system was probably the main addictive trait of AoW1 and AoW2.
3) Battlefields and battle system. No more 6-sided battlefields, no more cool sieges from all of these 6 sides. Moreover 3D view makes everything that happens on battlefield awkward and ugly.
4) Music is vapid
5) I don't know... the overall ATMOSPHERE of the game tastes sugary but... err, INSINCERE. It's hard to express but such is my impression.

well like i said, eador is in every way inferior, the battle system is NOT more complex than AoW3. oh god, their happiness affects to some degree their performance and there are some useful skills. so are there in AoW3 and HoMM.

"Dude, Eador has morale,fatigue,terrain,health effects, a ton of useful spells to utilise these features and a crapload of diverse units. These other games can't even come close to the depth of Eadors combat system." <-- i think this must be a troll post, these features are mostly also available in other fantasy strategy games, aow3 included. yes they tried to implement a bunch of different mechanics into eador but done that poorly! the overall game is very bland and limited in the possibilities it offers to you! maybe you should play eador once more, the combat wasn't really that big of a deal, it was quite boring and shallow.

eador for me personally was a huge waste of money because you only play with ONE city, every other city you conquer (from the opponent AI) doesn't give you another city to build a stronghold or in general use the city. you only have one city. the combat was getting boring quite quickly. yes there were some interesting combat skills but apart from that the battlefields were really tiny and didn't have so much tactical depth as AoW (or even HoMM and elemental) have. the only interesting thing were these text-events like we have them in king arthur for example. they were the only redeeming feature for me. the UI was very cumbersome, even terrain you capture only gives you some small advantages. the game overall felt more like a blant game of chess than a truly athmospheric fantasy strategy game. the game delivered no immersion, it was fun to play for some hours but beyond that had no replayability for me. there are no different races, everyone has the same units. the progression is always the same. but really the biggest downfall for me was just to be able to control one city, only having one main race (yes you can build certain race quarters to get a few other racial units, but not many) and the combat was quite boring compared to HoMM and AoW (3 or SM). yes there might be some good spells and spell-mechanics in eador, but the overall game was just mediocre. now of course everyone has different opinons, but when you say with a general certainty that eador is superior to HoMM(3) and AoW then i beg to differ!

sure, if you don't like 3D graphics (or your computer can't handle the game cause he's old) then 2D graphics are better. i for myself prefer good 2D art over 3D graphics in almost every situation. i am not that young and come from the SNES era so good 2D art has some nostalgic value in my book. but you have to be honest that AoW:SM (or 2) with its pixelated & blurry pixel graphics aren't that good looking, i never played the game because of its graphics. aow3 on the other hand, the maps (on ultra) just look awesome, you see trees moving in the wind, rivers flowing through the land and other nice little visual effects which increase the immersion for me. are the unit graphics AAA? no! but there are good enough to deliver the immersion i was looking for.

yes the combat has been made faster, you don't have a 6 sided siege, but they also added more depth with flanking for example. in every evolution of a game are some sacrifies to make because change is always difficult, but i believe that triumph studios stayed true to their core features and implemented new ideas like the classes in a fashion that increase the amount of customization you have and the amount of unique playstyles you can create.

in older AoW titles you had more diverse races yes, in AoW3 the biggest diversity comes from the classes. like someone in the forums said, if you want your AoW2 humans then play human dreadnaught only, if you want your dark elves then play elven rogue only. but in aow3 you can mix and match as you please. it offers you more freedom as to what you want to play and how exactly it should be executed. i think with future dlc / addons and the re-introduction with further races & classes, that the game can become a true classig again.

and rodor, i can't really understand why you are bitching about the leader customization option? would you prefer to only have ONE simple picture for a race instead of the option to customize your leader which further enhaces the roleplaying / fantasy-fiction element? your argument "O Lord. Schoolgirls applaude. Is this a strategy game? " is just immature, nobody forces you to use this system, you can choose pre-defined leaders. some people doesn't seem to like having more options offered to them (or maybe can't handle the amount of information presented).

EDIT: all review so far were very positive about aow3, total biscuit released an first impression video about aow3 some days ago and gave this game a huge endorsement. you are entitled to your opinion that this game is bad, but it seems you are the vast minority and maybe the problem lies more on your end than it is the games fault!

I don't care a sh*t about reviews wherever they are.

I never needed to change the color of my main heroine's bra in ANY STRATEGY GAME. It's a blatant idiocy and the concession to the schoolers' tastes (i.e. the tastes of majority of modern PC games). The same could be said about breasted elvish harlot posing on main menu screen. It's such a banal tricks but they do work.

Yes, I'm in minority. But this your argument is from "Millions of flies can not be wrong" pool. And majority likes AoW3 just from the simple fact that Triumph said here and there on their forums: "We were listening the community", "We were listening the community", "We were...blah-blah"...

The goal was to make game that majority would like, 'cause majority means more money, simple as that.
Plus the usual human vanity and false pride: "Have you seen those little wings on High Elves' helms? It was MY suggestion!", "Did you notice, Goblin Darter now deals +1 more damage than before but he's lost the poison immunity? That was MY suggestion!" and so on...

So developers made the game that majority likes instead of making the game they like themselves. They can say the opposite - believe magister in psychology (me), it's hypocrisy. Hypocrisy as all the business is.

Oh, God bless you, good sir, God bless you! But may I like Dominions and Master of Magic instead, please? And not like AoW3?

Thanks, I'll do that ^^ (In fact, I already do. Both games are cool, although quite different)