It seems that after the newest patch, Malwarebytes detects the launcher as "Machine Learning/Anomalous" and quarantaines it. Does it happen to anyone else?

I don't have aow3 installed, but in your place I'd just assume it was a false positive. Although I usually get those from mods and not recently made main games....

I whitelisted the launcher file, but now it seems to get stuck on the "getting documents from server" dialog. Reinstalling doesn't seem to have helped.

You could view it as a sign from a higher power and rejoice in playing the earlier games.

Or you could contact the support of either Malwarebytes or Triumph (assuming you haven't done so already).

Looks like that's what I'll have to do. Probably Paradox, since whitelisting the game in Malwarebytes does seem to work.

I suggest you stay with version 1.801 (if you - hopefully! - still have the installer files somewhere as backup on your hard disk). There are obviously no changes to the game with 1.802 but according to the anouncements on the triumph website you now have to create a new paradox account and give them your (fake) birthday and location in addition to your e-mail address.

Since the patch adds nothing to the game and everything still works fine with 1.801 (and you can still log on to their server with that version to play MP as long as all players use version 1.801) I will definitely not update...

Sadly, I play PBEM with friends who use Steam.