I played AOWI and AOWII and also AOWII-SM. I have played AOWII and AOWII-SM many times and finished it many times and play it even now since its release. Therefore I had high hopes for this game. What I liked about AOWII and AOWII-SM was the fantasy world it created with so many races, so many spells to research, a not so bad story line. It looked and played well. Coming to the AOWIII, the first thing I noticed was the absence of a cinematic. How could they not have done it? Oh well anyway, moving to the game play, while it has evolved and become more like Civilizations, I think it has been utterly ruined. Other people may differ from in opinion. OK, I only played some bit of the first mission and am writing this review. We not have parties of soldiers in this game rather than 1 soldier per slot. This is OK but the fighting progresses differently now. It is not possible for someone to miss an attack. I have a high end gaming machine and the game still does not run optimally on it, it kind of slows down from time to time even on low graphics. By slow I mean the frame rate drops. I have not found this game satisfactory and think have wasted the money on it.
