It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
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.
OK, now i pre-ordered the game.....from amazon...collector's edition
http://images.gamestar.de/images/idgwpgsgp/bdb/2471124/944x531.jpg
€ 64,99....but it looks nice and with 6.5 GB size i just can't download it anyway.
avatar
eRe4s3r: ...Speaking of AoW3, I wonder how "Multiplayer: Requires CDKEY and Registered Triumph Online Account" is not DRM ... because that's what I call DRM. That's the definition of DRM. Because I have the feeling that will be required even for local MP ;p

This is a honest question by the way, is there a clause in the NO DRM stance that says "but when it it's DRM for Multiplayer it's ok?" I haven't followed these things....
Quite a good point. I don't know if it will be required even for local MP but some publishers are such assholes and do such things. I guess that GOG so far tried to not mention the DRM of MP parts of their games otherwise they would have to take games down instead of adding some games.

The question here is if the requirement to have a registered triumph online account really is necessary for MP? Maybe the MP part is taking place on dedicated triumph servers anyway. Then there would be something like inbuilt DRM anyway. DRM in the sense of: they can cut you off of MP at any time.

But maybe they add the account just additionally, then basically this part of the game would not be DRM free and GOG might get problems because the advertisement is wrong.
Hello,

DRM is a wide term. It can hold a lot of mechanics in order to exercise control.

(can't post links - look at Wikipedia for DRM and scroll to Software and Games)

From my understanding AOW3 won't hold any of the described mechanisms in the wiki page.

For example I expect to be able to do unlimited installations, without any needs to "activate" or authenticate the software.

The only exception is the multiplayer - i.e. you have to buy two games if you want to play with 2 people. This will be probably tied to some sort of account which is tied with a unique cd key. The online part will be to compare your cd key to their database of legitimate cd keys. This is due that crackers usually find out how to generate semi-valid cd keys in order to bypass the basic cd key checker algorithms.

But this is how it works with many games - no one is restricting a region, installations, authentications. They just want everyone to have their own game for multi. And to be honest I feel that fair. (Tochlight 2 works like that)

From general experience I expect that crackers would probably even crack the local multiplayer - in the case if such requires the account.
Post edited March 03, 2014 by Arcador
avatar
Arcador: ...will be probably tied to some sort of account which is tied with a unique cd key. The online part will be to compare your cd key to their database of legitimate cd keys...
I think this is what commonly is understood by DRM. They can cut you off after you bought the game.

I wonder if it really is like this? Since GOG advertises the game as DRM free it could be that the advertisement is not fully correct. Currently GOG says in the requirements "open internet connection for online multiplayer. " but maybe they should say "online account with Triumph required for multiplayer" instead (which would state more clearly how close the MP part might be to a DRM).

Btw. who wrote "open internet connection for online multiplayer. "? Isn't a bit like "computer required"?
Post edited March 03, 2014 by Trilarion
avatar
Trilarion: Btw. who wrote "open internet connection for online multiplayer. "? Isn't a bit like "computer required"?
lan and hotseat are multiplayer too, with no internet. And if I remember correctly, hotseat was a possible multiplayer mode for the 3 previous games of the series.

But they're becoming quite uncommon recently, I know :)


EDIT : OK, you said "ONLINE multiplayer". In that case, sure, it seems a little... redundant.
Post edited March 03, 2014 by Kardwill
avatar
Arcador: ...will be probably tied to some sort of account which is tied with a unique cd key. The online part will be to compare your cd key to their database of legitimate cd keys...
avatar
Trilarion: I think this is what commonly is understood by DRM. They can cut you off after you bought the game.

I wonder if it really is like this? Since GOG advertises the game as DRM free it could be that the advertisement is not fully correct. Currently GOG says in the requirements "open internet connection for online multiplayer. " but maybe they should say "online account with Triumph required for multiplayer" instead (which would state more clearly how close the MP part might be to a DRM).

Btw. who wrote "open internet connection for online multiplayer. "? Isn't a bit like "computer required"?
I just want to quote the store description because that's what I talked about

Currently, the multiplayer options available are: Hotseat and Online Multiplayer (requires a unique CD key which will be located in your game shelf and an on-line account with Triumph Studios).
Now I am not stupid, I know why devs do that.... but a game can use a serial key without needing an "account"... what's the account even for? Does AOW3 have stat tracking, profiles? Achievements? Ladders? ;)
avatar
eRe4s3r: what's the account even for? Does AOW3 have stat tracking, profiles? Achievements? Ladders? ;)
You should check the aow3 website if you are really interested, but from the bits I remember, Triumph hosts some kind of profiles (your avatar and probably track records).
1 usd =1 euro, Anti Pre-Order and Day-1 DLC ! NO-MORE!

I think just "whining" on this forum about the missing fair prises wont help now.
The problem with us the gamers being scrBEEP'ed over by game distributers.
Is obvious not only about GOG's ending selling at a fair price policy. (And starting selling AOW3 with DAY one DLC's, witch nobody did not really notice).

Over at steam one can create groups. Consequently some have made a group.
All about day one DLC, Preorder madness, and generally about players getting riped off.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/thismuststop

maybe some GOG'ers with steam account wold join there as well.

Also maybe creating some twitter / facebook and whatnot groups abaut it in order to raise general awarnes about this kind of rip-off from game distributers wold help to.

Edit -> added

Ups posted in wrong forum and can not delete message now.
Wold have posted in discusion "Letter from the M.D.: About Regional Pricing"
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/letter_from_the_md_about_regional_pricing

Sorry.
Post edited March 03, 2014 by Agrilla
avatar
Agrilla: DAY one DLC's, witch nobody did not really notice).
It has come up. i think of it as a bonus edition. And that is what it is sold as. In olden times, bonus editions came with cheap swag. Nowadays they come with something we can actually play with. So long as Day 1 Bonus Edition don't rob the core game or destroy multiplayer, i don't see the problem. i guess we won't know till it comes out.
avatar
Agrilla: [skip]

Also maybe creating some twitter / facebook and whatnot groups abaut it in order to raise general awarnes about this kind of rip-off from game distributers wold help to.

[skip]
Well, life's very unfair in general. The world's gone mad a long time ago. So at least enjoy what you can squeeze out of it all. :-)
Peace.
I just have to say thank you for giving Norwegians dollar currency instead of euro.
At least some people can see that we are not members EU and will never be full members of EU.
avatar
Agrilla: 1 usd =1 euro, Anti Pre-Order and Day-1 DLC ! NO-MORE!

I think just "whining" on this forum about the missing fair prises wont help now.
The problem with us the gamers being scrBEEP'ed over by game distributers.
Is obvious not only about GOG's ending selling at a fair price policy. (And starting selling AOW3 with DAY one DLC's, witch nobody did not really notice).

Over at steam one can create groups. Consequently some have made a group.
All about day one DLC, Preorder madness, and generally about players getting riped off.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/thismuststop

maybe some GOG'ers with steam account wold join there as well.

Also maybe creating some twitter / facebook and whatnot groups abaut it in order to raise general awarnes about this kind of rip-off from game distributers wold help to.

Edit -> added

Ups posted in wrong forum and can not delete message now.
Wold have posted in discusion "Letter from the M.D.: About Regional Pricing"
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/letter_from_the_md_about_regional_pricing

Sorry.
I agree to most of your statments, i only have a other view on preorders.
I preorder a game if i played games of that dev in the past and was very satiesfied with the games and a preorder is a way to support them and show them that i liked their work.
But...to be honest...those Day.1 DLC are realy making me anry..together with devs/publishers getting used to release Alpha/Beta-status-games and even worse games with a incomplete "core" where you have to buy dlc's only to get a complte coregame.

If i am "hurt" by thinks like this...i never preorder from this dev/publisher again and even abstain from buying their new games before they reach gold-status...the one reason together with avoiding Steam i ended up here :)..with oldies you know at least what yoz get for your money ;)

AOW 1 gave me countless hours of Enterainment and AOW2+adons was/is at least good enought that i replay it from time to time and i still use it for direct MP-games.
So i preordered AOW3..because "my believe" that AOW3 will be a game at least as nice as AoW2+getting it without Steam outweight ny anger about their preorder and day1-DLC startey.
Post edited March 05, 2014 by DF1871
I found out who wrote "open connection for online multiplayer" which sounds so absurd. It's from Triump itself. GOG just copied and pasted. http://ageofwonders.com/about-age-of-wonders-iii/

Now the question is still how Multiplayer really works? Basically there is not much official information I could find:
"What game modes will be present?

You can play the unfolding story campaign (playable from two sides), stand alone Scenarios and Random Maps. The last two can be played online in simultaneous modes, or via Hot Seat."

It doesn't really clarify how MP is done.

And I don't want to bother them because I won't preorder anyway. I just wait until after release and then somebody will want to play MP and I'll see how it is implemented.

However usually it is so that MP to other locations only works through servers of the publisher effectively acting like a DRM on the MP part.
Well, at least we now know there WILL be hotseat, but no PBEM. That's something about MP, at least. It's just the "online" MP (which will probably be the main MP mode, sure) that is somewhat fuzzy.
I was really looking forward for this game and hoping it would have a price i can easily afford....but this current price is a little bit to much for my wallet especially for a pre order game.

so right now, i will wait and watch some let´s plays after it is released and of course wait for a good sale with some disccount to buy it :)