I'm shocked, SHOCKED, how well this game plays on my antient laptop. I'm getting a consistant ~45 fps on a 10 year old mid range laptop. Gameplay wise it's better and worse than D3 in different ways. It looks prettier than D3, has much better quality of life, and has more agency in charater development. BUT, it lacks Blizzard's AAA cinimatics, has a duller loot drop system, juggling skills is not nearly as smooth, and controller support is a joke. ARPG's play best with a controller, sorry for the reality check, but they do.
I've played Civ since Civ1, but Civ3 is the one that I've put the most time into. That said I need to put my rose tinted glasses aside and admidt to this game's serious flaws. Easily the number one problem is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to keep pace with research on even the easiest levels. No matter what you do, you WILL get left behind. Next is it's IMPOSSIBLE to keep pace with building new cities. Espionage is just flat out worth messing with, the payout simply does not justify the cost. Negotiations are completely unfair and it's very cleat that the AI players are WAY stacked against you. And lastly you constantly have single weaker enemy units cut down an entire army. I once threw 10 veteran swordsmen at a rookie spear man on flat open ground and it was elite with full health at the end of the turn. That's not bad luck, that's cheating. Basically the whole game feels like it depends on cheating the player rather than good AI to make it challenging. Not cool. That said, it's tons of fun.
AoW3 has been said to be the spiritual successor to Master of Magic and I've got to say that that's pretty much spot-on. The game is very sleek and stream lined to avoid too much micromanagement. Also, all the math is kept simple and easy to understand. But too be fair it also has some faults as well. Here's my pros and cons list. Pros: -You leader is also a combat unit, which adds a lot to the experience. -Very sleek and streamlined. -Significant and clear choices. -Lots of things to do on the map like quests and clearing out dungeons. -Tactical combat is fun and rewarding with just the right amount of challenge. -Ability to skip tactical combat with a single button so you don't need to waste time on given victories. Cons: -Enemy movement is updated while you look around the map which often has an effect that you can't predict. And it's not just showing you what had happened. Like if you see an enemy move onto a tile, but then reload and move to the tile before the system can move the enemy, you will in fact beat them to the spot. That's just sloppy design for a TBS. -Aesthetics make it difficult at times to assess the map. -The GUI could use some better design. I must have clicked end turn rather than spells at least 10 times in one play through. -The end game turns into a real slog where you're just clearing out the remaining 80% of the map when your victory is already a given. -End game units lack variety. Every race and every leader ends up with one clearly superior unit that is cheap and easy to make. Manticore. Manticore. Manticore. At the end of the game just set all cities to churn out manticores and march them across the map. -Not a lot of choices when making a leader. You pick a class, a race, and get 3 perks. But the perks are absolutely bare minimal. You can pick from 6 magics and 2 non magic perks (one of which is completely a useless).
Master of Magic is one of my all time favorite DOS games and I've read on many MoM sites and forums that Age of Wonders 3 is pretty much the same. After putting in ~8 hours I've got to say that is pretty spot on. So if you're a fan of MoM this game is an absolute MUST. The improvements between the two games are as follows: -Hex maps -Your Wizard is now a Champion that fights on the field (massive improvement) and allows you to cast wherever they are -Races have their own disposition towards you. -More tactical choices -Streamlined Mechanics -Less Bugs -Better and more clear diplomacy Things that I'm not crazy about: -Graphics. I miss the pixel art style, and the new look tends to blend together and I often made mistakes because of misreading what was going on. -The memory management is sloppy and often times AI actions are playing catch up while you're making moves and can effect game play. For example you can look at an enemy occupied tile and decide to move into it, but then suddenly more enemies will move into the spot while moving. AND depending on how fast you click can determine rather or not the moving enemy army will be in the battle. -Not enough character creation options. There are only a few races, and there are only two non-magic perks/traits. One gives your cities faster growth (awesome!) while the other lets your cities and troops see one more tile (whoopty-freaking-doo!). -Units move too much in one turn making it impossible to react to enemies moving into cities. -WAY too much combat and not nearly enough time spent building your empire. The combat is fun, but it's like 4 fights a turn. -Combat and city building is a steep learning curve.
