Either you didn't play Eador more than 10 minutes, or you are just trying to annoy me, (which would be ok)

The morale system is WAY more interesting than in Homm, not only does it have the out of battle morale, but what happens on the battlefield affects it, and it makes a HUGE difference. A very strong unit can be deafeated simply by ruining its moral, which opens up alot of possibilities. Units lose or gain morale based on what happens around them, comrades die, emenies get killed. Not to mention all the spells than affect it.

The fatigue system is completely missing from either of these other games. Units lose fatigue from every action, which opens up tons of possibilities and strategies.

Hitpoints of a unit affect its performance...


Frankly I am at a loss on how you could make a statement like "eador is in every way inferior, the battle system is NOT more complex than AoW3"

And your one city complaint...not only does this one city have more buildings than all other cities of Aow combined, but you can build a myriad of buildings in every province! I am convinced you haven't really played much Eador.

Which AoW are we talking about here again? Because I feel like that's been all of them

are you trying to annoy me or what? go play some age of wonders 3 and then play eador. in each province you can build one of a few generic building which give you +5 gold or production and the likes, nothing special. yes in the city are more building options which are ALL tied into either a small economic boost or ONE unit you can produce after you finished that building. also you can only build 4 -8 (idk the exact number anymore) building from each category to limit yourself in one game session. yes the fatique system is in there, but to be honest it was one of the biggest annoyances i experienced with eador, it adds very little strategic option. maybe you were dreaming from some of them.

i don't say its a bad game, it has some very unique and interesting gameplay concepts but the execution of them is just poorly executed. you only have one main race in eador and can build some elve building to have 2-4 elve units and the sorts, but besides that every gameplay you start out and 50% of the time you play the same race and units. it feels VERY repetitive. as i said, the text events you encounter are the real gem and what was pulling me back to the game for some days. but after a week i stopped playing the game cause the repetitive factors were way too high and it seriously annoyed me that i only had ONE city and the provinces, except some +5 gold mine on some provinces, were lying empty and useless. the goal was to destroy all enemy cities but you got nothing as rewarding as an additional city. defending those far away provinces was also cumbersome because you had no place but your only city where you could reinforce your army. sure it was either a design decision or just the lack of skill from the devs. the game is a nice diversion from traditional 4x fantasy games but i wouldn't call eador necesarry an 4x game cause it has really nothing of the "i have an empire" feeling.

Conquest of Elysium 3 = +600 unit types, +300 weapon types with +50 damage types, +600 spells in 48 magic paths.
Dominions 3&4 = +120 pretender (your God) types, +500 weapon types, +160 armor types, +2000 unit types, +250 independent monster unit types, +70 nations to play, +700 magic sites, +800 spells, +300 magic items, EACH unit has special abilities, morale, encumbrance, experience, item slots, age, battle afflictions...

That's where "I have an Empire" feeling is!

So GET LOST with your schoolgirls' toy AoW3!
Dixi.

It seems you never played AoW1 and AoW2...

Raw numbers mean relatively little. Simplistic games often have the deepest of gameplay. Example Frozen Synapse, tactically one of the most thought-inducing TBS you can play. And? 5 types of units, no construction, no bases, no nothing.

If numbers impress you that much, then there's plenty games for you - as you cite. If complexity is your thing, have it your way.

But it's also good that games like AoW - or more extreme FS - exist which aim for a low complexity.

Sorry, but your example of Frozen Synapse is irrelevant, 'cause we're talking about fantasy-TBSs with 4X elements.
Games I mentioned are not only raw numbers. It's better to try than to chat about it.

As for AoW3 - yes, it's game with much lesser complexity but what previous parts of AoW series had the last one has lost. Instead we have now "hero customization" and generic 3D. Triumph Studios, they've just thrown their trumps out and now they have no trumps in their hand.That's all I wanted to say finally.

Maybe you are just more picky than me, I played ALL of these games here for hundreds or even thousands of hours over the past 20 years, but for Eador it took only 1 year to reach so much play time, because it simply blew me away. Unmatched depth, incredible complexity and finally a difficulty worthy of its name. I like them all, I will continue to play them all, but Eador is the king, for now, I hope something better will come of course.
Your critique points I can't agree on, what you criticize, I like. It is only repetitive, if you don't try anything new, there is an astounding amount of tactics and strategies you can use. Really I get the impression you just didn't try it much, it took me like 100 hours before I fully appreciated the game, and another hundred till I was ready to decide that this was the best game ever.
The fatigue system annoyed you? Well maybe you just like more simplistic games, that's ok. I like having more tactical options.

then have fun playing this eye-cancer games on your potatoe ;).

You've sold me, I'll probably pick up Eador also... later. (I was waiting to play AOW3 until I could afford to upgrade or buy a new computer, but I am busy now with college work anyway).

Though If Santeria says the AOW3 campaign is worth it's salt I'll take her word for it. AOW doesn't need to be Eador (whatever that is), AOW is a mass strategy game with RPG elements. Besides, I'm sure it's modable also, though I don't think anyone's first inclination would be to mod it to have thousands more units and statistics - I imagine there is a reason cardgame nonsense developed out of that.

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/000/554/facepalm.jpg

I might be wrong, but I don't imagine that the community had effects that specific (except with regard matters that really are that superficial). Personally, I went to the forum more to try to pinpoint what I thought was the truth of the series than to try to influence the game - which should be extrapolated from the series's essence. I like to hope the developers have a good idea of what that essence and extrapolation would be and what it should be painted into, but I can do logic games and verbal masturbation in case they don't.

You can build forts in Eador that will allow you to reinforce your armies in faraway provinces (or defend a chokepoint by forcing the enemy to siege them, allowing your army to come help).
Placing forts and shops (to repair your hero's equipment and sale your loot) is the key to your expansion and your heroes' combat capacity in Eador.

I agree that it doesn't feel like an "empire game". For those, like you, I prefer more variety in troops, opponents, landscapes, etc... for the fun factor. But Eador is tactically and strategically quite rich, and one of my favorite strategy games. :)

It's a duel, man. Weapon's choice is up to you. I'm only not completely sure what did you mean under "potatoe"... :? :)

lol, haha...which duel? you can love / hate whichever game you desire, this doesn't really affect me. i just don't understand openly discrediting a game for visual flair (for example) which is one of the most personal criterias there are.

i get your arguments and partially i can agree with them, i just don't get your statement that triumph at least partially broke AoW3 just because they added 3D and the option to customize your leader / main character. the alternative would've been a fixed 3D model or just 2D art. being able to customize your leader is just a nice gimmick.

i also like to play roguelikes and another favorite strategy / simulation of mine is dwarf fortress, so i am by no means one of the newer generation which main criteria is the fidelity of the graphics. but having a great and overall proven gameplay concept and couple these with some good / decent 3D graphics doesn't break a game. its all a personal perception.

and the statement about coloring the bra in AoW3 is just immature, which i believe you aren't really that young.

well, "true charm" it really depends what your personal flavor is. i also played some ascii roguelikes like caves of qud which ascii graphics were nice, dwarf fortress is played by many hardcore fans only in ascii-graphics or with ascii-tilesets which are only improved ascii-graphics. i personally favor the spacefox tileset, which has a slight quirky style but where every dwarf and many monster types are pictured in a nicely detailed pixel art.

also i would strongly recommend you use the PeridexisErrant's Dwarf Fortress Starter Pack r52 which already includes the most favorite tilesets for you to select (spacefox, my favorite, included). furthermore it has some nice unofficial patches included and comes with some inbuild mods which make your live WAY easier. easier not in the sense that the game gets easier but less difficult to deal with the UI which in my opinion is what makes dwarf fortress so hard to learn. things like mousequeuery (or how its called) are a godsend which allows you to place orders for mining, stockpiling and buildings (etc.) for example with your mouse.

also some very important tips if you are new to dwarf fortress which i will assume now after your question:
- disable aquifiers in the mod settings menue, even hardcore players have huge problems dealing with them.
- use the quickstarter guide on the DF-Wiki: [url=http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Quickstart_guide]http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Quickstart_guide[/url]
--> follow the recommendations in the quickstarter guide like the kind of surroundings and temperature.
- start to farm early
- start to produce some items like goblets quickly for sale when the merchants arrive (for that also build a merchant station early which needs a 5x5 room, which is connected by a 3x3 tunnel and has NO traps on the way or otherwise the merchants won't find the way.
- don't dig too deep too fast, in my last playthroughs i never really went that far so i cannot tell from my experience but i read in the forums many times that there are many caves below which contain monsters, etc.
- build traps quite early (stonefall traps) because body snatchers come after a while and dwarfs can go very depressive if goblins steal their kids.
- plan and build a cemetary not too late and have at least 3 coffins placed there already. you won't believe how often i forgot to build a cemetary and some coffins just to witness a ghost wandering around my fort and terrorising my dwarves (too much traffic in the main entrance with too few doors led to someone who got trampled to death and his corpse was already rotting in the hallway^^).

...and be prepared for some titan invasion :D (not the ones from the anime)

Edit: also use soundsense (also included in the starter pack i linked), you have to update it once to get all the soundfiles (the aren't in the pack), but its such a nice sound asset mod which increases the athmosphere tremendously.

Edit2: here is the link to the spacefox-tileset thread in the DF-forum which shows you some ingame pictures of the tileset. http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=129219

some other good tilesets are the ironhand tileset and the obsidian tileset, both already included in the starter set.