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The chronicle of the Third Era is about to be revealed!

Age of Wonders 3, the long-anticipated continuation to the fan-favorite, award-winning strategy series, set in a robust and beautiful world that becomes the scene for diverse, complex, and engaging gameplay, is available for pre-orders on GOG.com. Depending on your location you'll be charged $39.99 or the USD equivalent of £29.99, or €39.99. An extended Age of Wonders 3 - Deluxe Edition, featuring a full soundtrack and the Dragon's Throne standalone scenario, is available for $44.99, £34.99, or €44.99. As a special pre-order bonus, both versions include the Elven Resurgence, a standalone scenario DLC.

Imagine! Empires rising and falling before your very eyes, led to victory or defeat by heroes of legend so powerful that they appear to be titans in the eyes of mortals. Sorcerers harness the arcane powers to bend the rules of the world around them. Theocrats twist the wills of their followers with the holy aura bestowed upon them by their deities for their zealous service. Rogues rule the shadows, taking any chance to strike and win before their foes even realize there is a war to fight. Warlords earn the loyalty of their legions by the glory gained in the many battles they emerged from, victorious. Archdruids become one with nature, and the land itself rushes to their aid. Dreadnoughts rely on the art of engineering to construct their unstoppable artificial armies. All those powers, all of their miraculous exploits, all of their desires, all thrown into one realm of war. This shall truly be an age of wonders!

With Age of Wonders 3, Triumph Studios aims to set new standards not only for the acclaimed Age of Wonders series, but also for the turn-based strategy genre itself. Taking advantage of all the modern gaming bells and whistles, the title will deliver an impressive level of complexity in gameplay and an immersive, lush, and diverse gameworld that can become your own for hundreds of hours. With the ability to choose one of the six leader classes, you'll be able to custom-tailor your empire--and by extension your experience with the game--to your personal gameplay style, so you can enjoy the extensive campaign the game offers in any way you like. You'll be leading into battle armies recruited from within six humanoid races as well as some fantastic creatures and mythical monsters. The turn-based tactical combat itself will prove to be a challenge for the most seasoned of strategy gamers but also scalable enough for beginners to enjoy. With over 50 location types to explore and exploit, hundreds of abilities to master for tactical and strategic advantage over your foes, visually stunning presentation, and a smart random scenario generator providing virtually limitless replayability, this upcoming title may prove the only turn-based strategy game you'll need for many years to come!

Pre-order Age of Wonders 3, for only $39.99 or the USD equivalent of £29.99, or €39.99 on GOG.com (or opt in for the splendid Age of Wonders 3 - Deluxe Edition), and secure your entry to the fantastic realm of power and dominion, which opens to all the brave souls approximately on March 31. Note that Age of Wonders 3 is the first title with regional pricing on GOG.com in quite some time and this means that we are charging the USD equivalents of the official regional price.

Note, that just as we have done before in such occasions, we'll be throwing in a little something extra to the deal, to accommodate those of you, who end up paying more than the others due to the currency conversion rates applied. We've picked some games that fit well with the genre represented by Age of Wonders III, and if you're one of those people, you'll get to pick one of them. You'll be sent a gift-code allowing you to redeem one of the following excellent titles: Master of Magic, Lords of Magic: Special Edition, Eador: Genesis, King’s Bounty: The Legend, Disciples II: Gold, and Etherlords II.
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Senteria: I just read that there are no publishers involved when it comes to distributing AoW 3.
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Andanzas: Where have you read that?
http://tweakers.net/nieuws/94562/nederlandse-game-age-of-wonders-iii-verschijnt-op-31-maart.html

It's a Dutch website, one of the biggest Dutch websites when it comes to computer electronics and games.

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Lhademmor: I get the distinct feeling that this game will be downrated into oblivion on account of the 1€=1$ scheme rather than on the basis of the game itself. It'll be Omerta all over again.
That is, provided the community can keep up the rage all the way to the end of March.
I'll do my best to write an honest review about it. Mind you, Age of Wonders is one of the few strategy games I love.
Post edited February 27, 2014 by Senteria
No halflings? No nomads? No frostlings? Hopefully they'll have an expansion later to add these? (Triumph apparently thinks it's funny that the halflings just disappeared -- they ran a contest where people try to explain where the halflings went.)

I'm also a little leary of the reduction from 8 to 6 armies per stack (which I'm guessing won't be changed in an expansion) as it has the smell of streamlining-for-the-masses.

On the other hand, it sounds like they are also doing some interesting stuff this time: Independent towns act more like independent towns -- their armies protect their territory and you can communicate with them (and they provide quests). And your alignment changes dynamically based on your actions and affiliations. The game also has "dwellings" which are kind of like cities but only produce special (non-playable-race) units -- my brain is telling me I've seen a game with a similar feature before but I can't seem to put my finger on it. (Maybe I'm thinking of the places in HoMM which you can visit weekly to get troops, but I don't think that's it. Maybe my mind is blending those with the non-upgradeable outposts in Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns?)

The warlord system intrigues - it reminds my a bit of what Infinite Interactive was trying to do in Warlords 4, but AoW3 takes it to the next level. Though I'm also a little concerned that this might be a total replacement for the wizard customization available in previous games. (Hopefully it's not and you can customize after picking a warlord type.)

The random map generator has been improved, and the amount of customization it has reminds me of the first time I played Warlords 3. (I remember thinking Warlords 3 was so configurable that it was essentially a broad spectrum of games in one package.)

They've changed the combat system a bit. The rules, including flanking and attacks of opportunity (and how they interact), sound reasonably good.

I think the only big open question at this point with respect to how good/bad this game will be is the AI. I would really love it if the AI was good enough that it didn't have to cheat with respect to visibility (fog of war, concealment, invisibility, etc.) but I don't want to get my hopes up. Even if they've only made minor but noticeable improvements to the AI over AoW:SM though, that would still be a positive, and along with the new map generator should make the game worth every penny and a lot more (to me at least). If they somehow manage to botch the AI, that could render the game effectively worthless to me. I'll have to wait and see.

As I refuse to buy DRM'ed games (because I consider them a bad deal, not to mention a security risk considering what some of them do to your computer), and since I've been anticipating the next AoW game for almost a decade now, I'm glad this game will be available DRM-free so I can buy it and play it.
Exclusive day one DLC for pre-orders is just fucked up. I remember the times when finished game was a finished game, expansions were real expansions and one could try demo of the game before buying. Now the shit is all over the place. "Pre-order and you will get what should have been in the game in the first place but will not be for people who will actually get to know what state the game actually is on release. Trust us, the game is just perfect especially for this special (regional) price." And later on a bunch of minor additions through DLCs start piling up resulting in Gold, Diamond and GOTY editions... Sad sad days...
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Andanzas: Where have you read that?
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Senteria: http://tweakers.net/nieuws/94562/nederlandse-game-age-of-wonders-iii-verschijnt-op-31-maart.html

It's a Dutch website, one of the biggest Dutch websites when it comes to computer electronics and games.
So, according to Google Translate, the game will not be sold at retail, only as a digital product? In that case, it's really hard to understand this situation.

Thanks for the link!
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Senteria: http://tweakers.net/nieuws/94562/nederlandse-game-age-of-wonders-iii-verschijnt-op-31-maart.html

It's a Dutch website, one of the biggest Dutch websites when it comes to computer electronics and games.
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Andanzas: So, according to Google Translate, the game will not be sold at retail, only as a digital product? In that case, it's really hard to understand this situation.

Thanks for the link!
Unfortunately, yeah. I mean the game would look nice in my physical collection of games and you're welcome.
Out of interest has anyone tried gifting the pre order from a cheaper zone to one of the zones where game is higher priced?
You genius! I almost missed it, this deserves its own thread
Post edited February 27, 2014 by kScope
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Andanzas: So, according to Google Translate, the game will not be sold at retail, only as a digital product? In that case, it's really hard to understand this situation.

Thanks for the link!
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Senteria: Unfortunately, yeah. I mean the game would look nice in my physical collection of games and you're welcome.
If there's no publisher involved/no physical release then it would appear they're just trying to price gouge... I can't think of any other reason for their decision to use this pricing scheme besides greed :/
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Senteria: Unfortunately, yeah. I mean the game would look nice in my physical collection of games and you're welcome.
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adamhm: If there's no publisher involved/no physical release then it would appear they're just trying to price gouge... I can't think of any other reason for their decision to use this pricing scheme besides greed :/
Indeed, they should've just gone with the same price for everyone. So the Euro price for everyone, considering they're Dutch.
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Senteria: Unfortunately, yeah. I mean the game would look nice in my physical collection of games and you're welcome.
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adamhm: If there's no publisher involved/no physical release then it would appear they're just trying to price gouge... I can't think of any other reason for their decision to use this pricing scheme besides greed :/
Thats what im thinking too
No publisher. No retail disk to be flogged instore for digital price to match to
No good reason to regional price the game...
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Senteria: I just read that there are no publishers involved when it comes to distributing AoW 3. So the developers are directly responsible for the price (difference). I think it's rather idiotic. My fellow countrymen are ripping me off, but hey, Dutch people have always ripped others off to make themselves better in the past, haven't they? =\

Instead of releasing the game at a flat price world wide, they would actually have gotten more customers and a better PR for their upcoming game. GOG used to know that fact very well.
If there are no publishers demanding prices, it leaves it to the devs, logically. In that case they act like jackasses... i don't think they need to be reminded 1$=/=1Euro
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TheJadedOne: No halflings? No nomads? No frostlings? Hopefully they'll have an expansion later to add these? (Triumph apparently thinks it's funny that the halflings just disappeared -- they ran a contest where people try to explain where the halflings went.)
No undead, no archon, only one elven race... There are quite a few iconic AOW races missing in this game. Which, while everything else I've seen semms cool enough, concerns me a little. Even if they are introduced later as DLC or expansions (which they will be, I'm sure of it), their absence from the day one release means they won't be part of the campaign.

[EDIT : Although for the archon, I suppose it will be covered by the theocrat class]

Since I'm not into multiplayer and I'm mostly a campaign player (single scenario and random maps are something that never interested me in AOW), I'm worried that the game's design might be quite different from the long, interesting, meaty campaigns of the previous titles.

So definitely no preorder. I'm a AOW fan, but I'm waiting to see if the singleplayer experience is up to my alley on this one.
Post edited February 27, 2014 by Kardwill
At the top of the firefox browser it states $54.99, on the game page $49.99 and Pre-order $29.99 Which is it??

$39.99 = £29.99

Don't think so. USD doesn't equate to 75% in GBP.
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Niggles: Out of interest has anyone tried gifting the pre order from a cheaper zone to one of the zones where game is higher priced?
That's what I did. Got a friend from the US to gift me the game and send him the cash via Paypal.
I should have made friends with people in Russia instead though. Damn the game is cheap there :)
Why GOG?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiZNSzWIaLo