The interface is not an advancement but a step backwards from AoW1 and HOMMII. HUD looks more advanced but the semantic of click to order-other button to negate, is so much SIMPLE, intuitive, natural and effective that I spend several game loads undoing errors I commit clicking the wrong button. And I use Windows inverted buttons, which is not reflected by the button hints in the game. What happened to path indicators? Why you cannot choose to highlight range shadowing in combat mode? These should be options to select at the start of the game. If you have the source code it should be easy to program in the optional mouse control. I am still tweaking options to get performance and stop lagging but it is hard, there is almost no difference in looks.

The mouse thing takes some getting used to, but you will after a while, and neither method is more "natural" than the other. When I go back to AoW1, I also spend a while accidentally giving orders when I'm merely trying to select things. AoW3's system isn't better than AoW1's, but neither is it worse after you get used to it. Path indicators are still there, so I'm not sure what you mean. I'm not sure what you mean by "highlight range shadowing in combat mode." There are range indicators for missile weapons, visible if you select either your own unit or an enemy: solid circles indicate you'll do full damage, dotted circles indicate long range where you'll do half damage.

Do you mean that these are hard to see? I suppose an option to make them brighter would have been nice.

All in all, I think the interface and UI in AOW3 are much improved. I particularly like the detailed tooltips you get when hovering over abilities, including being able to click on enemies and using the mouse to see how far they can move on the strategic map, or how much damage they'll do if they attack various units of yours.

The model is natural because one button has always the same meaning: Cancel, and the other button always means: Select. Select character, select path, select walk as action. Or if you like, the default button advances the flow of the game, and the secondary button leaves things as they are or shows information. NO way you can err with such setup because the secondary button is always safe and leaves things as they are! I sent fairies to be massacred by butchers face up front instead of launching fairy fire (mortar)! I wanted to cancel the fairies selection to see the butchers range.

What I am talking about. Path indicators would stay on the map. You do not have to commit your move till you are sure of how the move looks. You can leave your path in place, search with the cursor alternate positions, then click the move button or double click where you have already marked. This is essential to coordinate pieces: cycle all pieces, gauge the uncommitted paths, move.

You need an option to mark the range indicators or no. It looks psychodelic, or Chinese! You have these romantic scenario graphics looking intemporal and epic and mythical... and suddenly you have a... a... green/orange/yellow/circles/hexagons Chinese marbles board? It is not consistent with options to hide the grid and hide the army banners, which incidentally should be two options, to hide banners in strategic AND in combat mode. In strategic no banners is impossible because... the piece cycling process does not work like in Civilization and is practically useless... See what I mean?

A patch given source code can solve these problems AND it would still be the same game.
Firing range indicators were introduced in Nintendo DS tactics games the past decade, and quite fast at that, by around the second wave of titles after introducing the DS. It is a style for tactics games, so in no way it is an advancement in this game. And again, using the secondary button to display move/fire ranges as information is natural for both controllable and non controllable pieces.

And now the left mouse button is "safe" because it selects, where the right button targets. The left button provides information, the right lets you act on it. You can indeed err in the AoW1 system if you try to select someone new without first right-clicking to deselect. I've done it. Walked archers around when I was trying to select someone. Just as annoying, having to remember to right-click every time if you want to be safe. And now you don't even need to click to see the pathing indicators. Just move the mouse around and you can see exactly how your troops will move. Exactly the same thing happens, only with less clicking.

You're right that being able to set paths for multiple troops before committing is convenient, but that system was hardly foolproof either: it didn't account for the previous troops moving, so you could end up giving all the move orders and then finding the first move blocked the path of the second troop.

Planning now can still be done, but it does require a bit more memorisation. Not really. Hexes and banners are optional because you can play the game without them, the range indicators are not optional because you really need that info.

Sure, some of the changes you propose would be nice, but much of it is convention, and much of it is very simple to get used to. I see these things as either not problems, or minor problems. You could mention it to the developers. They don't often check these forums, but always respond on the Steam ones. However, they're pretty much done patching this game (there was a patch last month, but it may well be the last) so big changes are not likely to happen. But you might get lucky. People complained about the colours being had to distinguish if you're colour-blind, so the devs added a colour-blind mode, for example.