I'll never understand why they build such a great tolkienesque world in Age of Wonders 1 and then instead of expanding the world they instead replaced it with the most cliche story about a mage named Merlin. :/
Replacing that again with a completely new world order while still using the same characters and therefore the same world.

Just makes no sense to me... like if Lord Of The Rings - The Two Towers had suddenly been made by Michael Bay instead of Peter Jackson.

I heard that the main writer, Ray Bingham, used a bunch of ideas he'd had lying around for years for AoW1. Then for AoW2, he was pretty much running on empty, and I think AoW3 didn't involve him at all. It happens to every franchise eventually, I guess, like the Simpsons or anything that goes on long enough. SC2 story is on all accounts puerile drivel, whereas original Starcraft has a very good story in its campaign (I played it for the first time recently, as it's now available for free).

I think I might be relieved if they don't make a campaign for Planetfall! Perhaps i'm judging their writing too hastily, but probably not.

Ray Bingham was involved in all 3 games. Part of the issue was that the gameplay was so radically different in the 2nd game that he had to go back and make a lot of edits to his already written story to reconcile them.

https://youtu.be/v0nfOfy6ACc

FIRST LOOK | Age of Wonders: Planetfall

from the Paradox youtube channel

Looks like a game I'll happily try out and make my judgement based on how much fun I have.

I refuse to think of it as an Age of Wonders game though. :P