I've seen some negativity on the forums here so I thought I would just make a fluff topic about how great this game is. I've seen people running into issues with it but so far I have had little to no problem running the game, and it looks pretty great on Ultra settings. My only real complaint is the vaguely creepy animation for characters waving - those fingers, man, those fingers!

Other than that, I am absolutely head over heels with this game and I love the fact that Triumph was able to make a game so close to the oldschool game's feel, unlike something such as Heroes of Might and Magic 6. No offense to HOMM6 but that game is drastically different from what I loved about HOMM3, whereas Age of Wonders III feels quite similar to what I loved so much from Shadow Magic.

My only other complaint? The music isn't quite as addictive, but hey, not every fantasy tune can be as pitch-perfect as Shadow Magic's Air theme. ;)

So to summarize, great game, great fun with the campaign and two random map games so far, and a super-special thanks to Triumph for keeping the game so close to the "feel" of the original games! You guys rock!

I fully agree, the minute you start playing it is very clearly an AoW game, it gets the feel very right. Someone else complained has complained about the interface already, and I don't understand why I think it is particularly good

I'm waiting to see if it gets any complaints from the old diehard fans, the type that usually complain over some very small change and ruin the entire experience for themselves with their grumpiness!

I'm quite hugely impressed:
- No launch issues.
- No major bugs. All annoyances, but no constant CTDs or anything.
- Actually feels more Master of Magic than previous games, despite the class system and all that.
- Really beautiful.
- Nice to have the sister be the badass rogue in the family, and the brother the diplomat. ;)

Huge thanks to Triumph! Some bug fixes and some extra settings and this'll keep me busy for years to come. :o

I love it, too!

Just started playing yesterday - 5 hours non-stop. Played the first Elven scenario from the campaign on hard (most games I play on hard) and have been exploring every bit of the map, before I today will take on that big ugly Orc and finish the map.

Triumph Studios has done a great job on the map design, with all those nice details if you fully zoom in. Love that!

I think the changes are not too big as compared to AOW1 and 2 (it actually feels a bit more like AOW1, which is good in my opinion). I am sure, there will be more races as DLC, and - let's be honest - with too many races and with several hundred units most of them were not too distinct from another.

Music is also excellent. I like how they re-visit the classic AOW themes, and then switch to something entirely new.

AOW3 just jumped to place 1 on my current playlist. And there is FTL Advanced Edition coming up this Thursday (another time-eating game), which will put me into a very huge dilemma. :-)

I am quite pleased with the game thus far. Back in my teenage years I was a big fan of the original Age of Wonders, and though I have only played a few hours up to this point, Age of Wonders 3 seems to hit the same spot for TBS goodness.

In particular, I have been enjoying the combat. I have seen some complaining about the smaller size of the battle maps, as compared to the original games but I don't mind. The smaller maps mean that you are thrown right into the action, rather than slowly walking up each unit, which is an improvement as far as I'm concerned.

Also, I'm really liking the music. The original soundtrack was great and this iteration manages to be familiar but fresh at the same time.

As for performance issues, other than some slight slowdown here and there I haven't run into any serious problems. I turned SSAO to low but left everything else on the highest settings, and it seems to run fine most of the time. I'm not trying to deny that there might be performance problems for others, just pointing out that they aren't universal.

yeah, the game is great, it has still some little rough edges with the AI and optimization but otherwise its a great game. i will buy the future dlc's / expansion packs for sure.

I'm loving the game as well. I particularly enjoy breaking the traditions with female characters for all the playable races, dwarves even! And idea of musket toting elves is too funny!

how about (obese) orc succubi? =P

oh boy, i hope they can somehow shift the balance a bit towards NOT having a stack of tier4 units lategame. semi-rant...coming from an angry siege against an enemy rogue hero (AI), which had 8 tier4 rogue units around.

also the AI needs some slight adjustments, as i was starting the battle i enabled auto-combat for fun and watched how the AI was trying to win the fight for me. the AI send one of my heroes quite quickly alone into the enemy stronghold, that should definitely not happen -.-.

We are actually indeed in the progress of doing precisely that.
We'll have to test and see how it works out, but it's a major change to specifically the rush to end-game research.