Age of Wonders 3

A vile defilement of a marvelous turn based strategy series. I consider Age of Wonders 2 Shadow Magic to be the best medieval fantasy TBS ever made. However, AoW3 takes the series gameplay and dumbs it down so much that what remains is tasteless, unsatisfying and utterly bland and boring husk. Party unit cap is reduced from 8 to 6, unfunny leader's class system, all interesting and funny mechanics like random hit chance, possibility to hit friendly unit with range weapon and many other have been removed . Since 3D graphics are much more expensive than 2D I can understand inclusion of 6 races only but this adds to how boring the game is. The only good thing is possibility to customize look of the player's leader, overwhelming majority of games does not allow any customization.

While there are several balance issues that need to be addressed, I found myself thoroughly enjoying Triumph's newest addition to the AoW franchise. If you enjoyed AoW:SM or the other entries, I would highly recommend this game!

Excellent

It lacks some charm that the other AOW's had, but is a decent game. If it had the variety that Shadowmagic offered, AOW3 would be the bomb. I am bummed about the lack of races. I expect they will turn up in DLC though. That is the way of things nowadays. I have a monster computer so, I have not noticed any slowdowns. Everything runs smooth, I had one crash in creating a large world. The only thing that bothers me game play wise is no one ever misses. All in all AOW3 is solid enough. I just wish they had all the races.

Takes like 5 mins to startup on Windows 10/11. Feels unstable. I'd go with Endless Legend tbh. At least you know it won't crash 40 hours into a campaign.