Game releasing on 31st March 2014. Can't wait for it as I'm a huge fan of the previous series: AoW1 and AoW2


Plot


Queen Julia, Saridas, and their daughter.

Before the events of the first game, the elven court was decimated by humans, an invasive race new to the Blessed Continent at the time. The elves split into two factions. The son of the slain king Inioch, Meandor, led the dark elves and the Cult of Storms, a group that intended to wipe out the humans. Inioch's daughter, Julia, led the wood elves and the Keepers, a group that had no genocidal intentions. These factions and others clashed in the Valley of Wonders, around the ruins of the razed elven court. The High Elf race was founded many years later when Julia married a dark elf and reunited their two races. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth Empire began as a joining of races for mutual protection and the sharing of knowledge. Though it set out with benign intentions, once the Empire was through expanding, humans seized power and pushed forward with technology and commerce.

The Commonwealth Empire means to sweep aside the old ways and assimilate the world. The Elven Court takes exception to this, and wants to rally the ancient races to stand in defense against imperial ambitions, hence the central conflict of Age of Wonders III.







GOLDEN REALMS EXPANSION DLC (launched 18th Sept 2014):


Golden Realms DLC (taken from Steam page)



Golden Realms greatly expands Age of Wonders III’s empire building mechanics and introduces bucket loads of new content. These new features are used in random maps, new scenarios and a new story campaign, where Halfling survivors settle in a distant land filled with danger and treasures never seen before.
New Content Includes:

The Halfling Race: The little folk are back, with new units, heroes and leaders. The jesters shoots fireworks which dazzle the enemy and the cleaver flinging brew brothers keep the Halfling armies fed while on the road. Halflings can be used with all classes and introduce the new Luck mechanic which allows them to dodge incoming attack while they’re in good spirits.

Golden Realms Campaign: In this three scenario campaign, you help the Halfling survivors of the Heartwood Massacre rebuild an empire in an exotic land and confront an ancient evil.

Exotic Map Locations: Capture the Naga Dwelling, home to serpentine queens and giant man-snakes, and discover new treasure sites such as the fabled Lost City to benefit your empire.

Over twenty new units: Encounter new exotic units such as the filth throwing Dread Monkeys, alluring Mermaids and the fearsome Glutton who can swallow whole regiments in one bite.

New Hero Items: The Golden Realms contain 50 new magical artifacts to discover and use. Wield the enigmatic Crystal Skull, or wear a stylish Witch Doctor’s Headdress to mix in with the locals.

Wild Magic Specialization: Unleash wild magic. Cause spontaneous mutations, warp equipment and turn orderly battles into a pandemonium where the lines of battle are violently warped.

Partisan Specialization: Use new skills for guerrilla warfare. Create concealed hide-outs and develop ambushing skills.

Two hand crafted scenarios: Playable single and multi-player these new stand-alone scenarios are built around the new features of the Golden Realms expansion.

Features:

Mystical City Upgrades: Arcane treasure sites located in your domain unlock new unique upgrades for your cities, making the location and specialization of your cities more important than ever. Building a city near a Crystal Tree unlocks the Enchanted Armory which reinforces your armored units.

Empire Quests: Achieve empire building goals before your rivals to unlock unique rewards for your realm. This introduces a new type of indirect competition between players. Examples are the Eternal City: be the first to build a metropolis and get an awe-inspiring Monument of Prime Good and Evil, where the first player to achieve full good or full evil alignment has a party of champions the respective alignment join at no cost.

Seals of Power: A new King of the Hill style victory condition where players must capture and hold the dangerous Seals of Power structures in order to achieve victory. Don’t sit and hold back as broken seals attract extra-dimensional beings wanting to take the Seal back.

Defensive City Upgrades: Each race has a unique city defense to build. The Draconian’s Firestorm Pillar sets ablaze those who dare attack their city. Or the Bell Tower for the Humans which rallies the citizenry to shoot volleys at oncoming enemies.

Random Map Generator: New content and features are integrated into the updated Random Map Generator.

More videos by Triumph Studios here: https://www.youtube.com/user/triumphstudiosgames


Review/rating by Totalbiscuit:




Eternal Lords expansion coming out on April 11th, 2015!!

http://ageofwonders.com/eternallords/




ETERNAL LORDS

The major, second expansion for the acclaimed strategy game Age of Wonders III
Marking one year of continuous development since its release, Eternal Lords introduces the Tigran and Frostling races and the new Necromancer class. players must adapt to a world on the brink of cataclysmic change. New mechanics such as the Race Governance system, which allows players to tailor the features of each race in their empire to meet their strategic needs, add new layers of depth to empire development and diplomacy. Embrace forbidden powers and reign for eternity!

Features Include

The Necromancer Player Class: The Necromancer’s legions march to establish an eternal kingdom, unifying all the world’s races in death. The Necromancer creates spectacular undead units, such as the Bone Collector, a crablike monstrosity which eats corpses to strengthen itself. Other units are summoned, such as the Banshee, which invokes despair in the hearts of the living. The Necromancer’s dark magic allows players to convert towns to cities of the dead, filled obedient Ghoul minions.



Torch Bearers, Grey Guard and Shadow Born Leader Specializations: Champions of Good, Neutrality and Evil respectively, these three new specializations deepen the alignment mechanics and provide players of all classes powers to withstand the challenges of the new age. Learn spells to summon mighty Angels, end game units who embody the essence of each alignment.



Frostling Player Race: Frostlings are a race of humanoids that emerged from the frozen north. Lead by their Ice Queens, they embark on frequent raids in warmer lands. Their seafaring skills, offensive fighting style and frost magic spread fear among the coastline villages they pillage. Frostings are even more deadly in their home arctic clime, where they build cities carved into the very glaciers they hope will someday grow to cover the earth.



Tigran Player Race: These feline humanoids hail from remote desert lands. They worship the sun and track the cycle of day and night; life and death. Their natural curiosity about necromancy and the passing of regal souls into kingdoms of glory in the afterlife inspires them to construct massive tombs. Tigrans are natural sprinters, capable of moving far faster in combat than members of the other races, and are familiar with shape changing magic, allowing their mystics to transform into Dire Panthers.



Eternal Lords Story Campaign: An epic battle of the forces of creation: fire versus ice, life versus death. As Arvik, heir to a broken Frostling kingdom, you awaken forbidden necromantic powers to reclaim your realm. You will find unlikely allies, and must choose between your Frostling roots and the full potential of your new found powers.

Cosmic Happenings: The dawn of the Eternal Lords has triggered cataclysmic events that can radically shift fortunes. These events occur as the game progresses, disrupting the best laid plans and providing opportunities for cunning players to gain an advantage. Falling Clouds can fill the world with mist, giving shock weakness to machine and armored units and reducing sight range, while the March of the Troll King can cause armies of trolls to rampage across the map.



Race Governance: Relations are now tracked per race, allowing you to make careful decisions who to make ware with. Declaring war on an Elven city might give you a quick conquest, but don’t expect your Elven citizens to be happy about it afterwards! As your relations with each race improve, you will be able to earn unique racial perks that boost your armies and economy.

Unifier Victory Condition: When reaching maximum Governance for a Race, the production of a Unity Beacon is unlocked in cities of that race. Building Unity Beacons for the number of races set in the victory condition, makes you the Great Unifier and wins the game

A dozen Mysterious Map Locations: Capture the Reef Colony Dwelling, home to horrors of the deep, and discover new treasure sites such as the Lich’s Castle, Temple of the Sands and the Hall of the Forefathers to benefit your empire.



Plus New Hero Items, Standalone Scenarios and more! Eternal Lords incorporates feedback from the community and coincides with a free update which includes ”Play by Email”, a new asynchronous Multiplayer Mode. In PBEM games, a player takes their turn in their own time and then uploads it to Triumph’s servers. Once it is uploaded, an email is sent to the next player in the game, who may then take their turn. This allows players to play when they like, without needing to set aside a large amount of time with other people to play a game all at once.


AoW3 Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/AoWSeries

Get it on Steam or GoG:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/226840/
http://www.gog.com/game/age_of_wonders_3

This post has been edited by Davidtcf: Mar 12 2015, 01:09 PM

for me it's way better than Civ5.. alot ppl don't know this game as the first AoW1 was during the Pentium 1-2 era.. then followed by AoW2+expansion Shadow Magic during Pentium 3-4 era. Took them 12 years (4 years development, other years on other projects) before finally releasing AoW3!! Been such a long wait.

I love the strategy, the tactical combat view, spells research (AoW3 will have skills research also! + knowledge resource), in game & global spells, many many units and diversity, ability to expand town/migrate/raze/loot/caravan, build buildings, good/evil/neutral alignment, trade, diplomacy, hero skills (wall climbing, round attack, hurl boulder, cast lightning, first strike, double strike, holy champion, flight etc), insane spells (like super boost gold income, create chaos in cities, create roots to entangle enemies on terrain, cast poison cloud etc), and finally, the awesome MUSIC by Michiel van den Bos. You can try hear AoW1 soundtrack here.. still awesome till this day:



AoW2 + expansion soundtrack (not as great but still awesome.. no worries as Michiel mentioned he'll be reusing alot of AoW1 songs in AoW3 - after modernizing them ):



you should get AoW1+2 when there's sales on Steam.. dirt cheap due to many years already but gameplay is still awesome and worth it (AoW1 has like what, 12 races?? .. I feel it beats the well acclaim Heroes III of Might and Magic if you played both (4x game) for the first time.

List of factions for AoW1 and AoW2:



More info on AoW races:

http://www.triumphstudios.com/ageofwonders/races.html
http://aow2.heavengames.com/gameinfo/races/

Glorious full list of units for AoW1 and 2:
http://aow2.heavengames.com/aowsm/gameinfo/units/
http://aow2.heavengames.com/gameinfo/units/

AoW1 and 2 spells:
http://aow2.heavengames.com/aowsm/gameinfo/magicspells/
http://aow2.heavengames.com/gameinfo/magicspells/

Hero classes and their respective skills:
http://aow2.heavengames.com/gameinfo/heroe...roclasses.shtml

yea same here.. my type of game till I preorder it in full price + deluxe .. can't wait anymore.

Hope they'll release expansions till it fill up all 12 races full like last time.. so far now AoW3 will have 5-6 races only i think..

Heroes of Might and Magic series.. yea I played all of them too from 3, 4, 5 and 6. 4 being the worst. I prefer Heroes 5 over 6 (completed 6, only left expansion haven't). Heroes 3 being the best yet too outdated graphics, also due to the fact I completed most of Heroes 3 + expansions while I was at 2ndary school.

Right now playing Heroes 5 when I'm free (completing Hammers of Fate expansion).. once AoW3 out will focus on that instead.

This post has been edited by Davidtcf: Mar 18 2014, 02:09 AM

urm AoW1 and 2 already kind of difficult if you set the higher settings..

http://aow.heavengames.com/strategy/tips-tricks.shtml

got 6 difficulty.. i usually play lower than Lord..

I find the prev AOW games ok... just nice difficulty for me. Prefer it over HoMM as they usually only have 1 best way to complete, not like AoW where you can get more creative to find a solution for the current campaign mission.

cant wait to download it tonight and play it tomorrow

so much going on on AoW3 steam forums:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/226840/discussions/0/

amazing game... need.. more.. time.. playing this... @@

yea worth every penny... u can read other ppl's feedback in that forum too... mostly positives.

i went in for 10 minutes also realized it's a good game liao.. running the game on Ultra... very beautiful AoW in HD grahics. Soundtrack awesome as always by composer Michiel van den Bos.

Amount of features: units, spells, skills etc all outnumber AoW2. In future they will add more races (most likely till it covers all 12 races as in AoW2, AoW3 has only 6 races now, split to 2 alliances: Commonwealth Empire and the Court of the High Elves). Right now game is 2.7gb only for deluxe but might increase in size soon.

Listening to soundtrack at office (as I bought the deluxe edition).. can't wait to go home and play

I can say this is wayy more better than what HoMM6 was when it launched.. truly SPECTACULAR.

Totalbiscuit gave it a high rating:

doing Elven Court campaign no.4 ... finally able to use Giants (Tier IV units) + making them

gonna steamroll the Normal AI with lots and lots of them.

This post has been edited by Davidtcf: Apr 5 2014, 09:23 AM

yea. it is nice amidst its flaws as of current state.

Too much OP-ness for Tier IV units.. expect to see a nerf to them in the future soon as many are complaining on the AoW forums. Makes sense la as once you unlock Tier IV (e.g Hand of Smithing) it is obvious all the other units doesn't matter. Just spam T4 units and u win. When vs Insane AI, that is what they will do and quick at it. Normal to see 6 units of T4 units keep coming at your towns by AI. Only way to counter that as of now is to spam back T4 units at them (T4 achievable usually by Turn 40).

And we need more units diversity.. as of now all races seems too similar except for their Tier 3 unit (e.g. Knight, Gryphone Rider).

yeah the beta patch is mostly for laptop based graphic cards and also Intel integrated. Most likely this patch will fix it. If wanna install have to go to the Steam >game properties and install the beta patch from there. Once release officially will auto push to all AoW3.

Then important point is also Disjunction spell. Even on Normal difficulty now your Global spell will get dispelled in 1 to 2 turns by the AI if u cast it. So this patch will reduce their frequency (actually more of a game mechanic problem, last time AoW1 and 2 uses mana % to disjunction, more mana u put it higher chance to succeed. Put in like 100 mana most likely fail. 200 - 300 mana usually for higher chance of global spell removal.) So don't bother researching global spells till the next patch research battle spells, skills, and racial units (e.g. Rogue Assasins) instead.

This post has been edited by Davidtcf: Apr 7 2014, 05:01 PM

I'm playing Elven Court mission 4 liao. Start to see the game's weaknesses as I go deeper.

Right now I feel like everything is very Rush based.. rush and defeat AI as soon as possible else expect to see many many T4 units at their base.. sure hard to win >.< playing normal.. haven't tried easy as I want a challenge.

I still like their Hero system tho.. encouraging to make u keep playing and watch them grow. Oh ya next patch will make sure ur mission won't end if one of the heroes get seduced/converted/dies while resurgence is on him. Right now immediately u will lose the campaign if any "important" heroes goes through this state. Main leader can die la coz can resurrect at Throne City.. so I always put all useful artifacts on her/him and rush forward for kill But die adi takes 3 turns to return from the Void Zzzz.. so make sure your throne city not too far away la as near as possible to battle.

This post has been edited by Davidtcf: Apr 7 2014, 05:05 PM

Altho I disagree on some of the game design, it's still hard for me to go back to a 10 year old game AoW2 (I completed AoW1 and 2 campaigns and played some scenarios, u should if u haven't they are both great). It's still fun in it's own way. Well as more patches, DLC and Expansion comes out for it I hope it will be much more better than what it is now. It's my favourite game and can really make me hook without much effort.

I like HoMM series too but this one is more addictive. Haha.

This post has been edited by Davidtcf: Apr 7 2014, 05:11 PM

it's still nice la.. got other aspects of the game that makes it good.

maybe u can put it aside later play once more patches come out if u wanna experience it better.

T4 OPness oso good for campaigns.. can finish it easier

like what people on this thread says:
http://ageofwonders.com/forums/topic/who-e...likes-the-game/

we're still enjoying it much amidst its problems.

in campaign u have heroes.. auto solved most of the time get them killed..

in scenarios your leader would be the prime target of AI and prone to die if always auto solve.. need to hold him/her back sometimes. Once he/she up till high lvls will be worth more than any troop.

troops in AoW3 have experience points too.. gain enough medals their stats will keep increasing (some will even evolve into a higher tier unit).

This post has been edited by Davidtcf: Apr 13 2014, 09:57 PM

i can only play normal difficulty till mission 4 for Elven.. reach mission 5 really really tough.. restarted that in easy xD this new patch will allow reduce difficulty once u press "restart".

True.. with more expansions and updates it will be a better game.

Yea no time for Dota d... married with a kid now. Dota need to always play else will rusty.. haha.

MMORPG? mostly need to pay for the good ones.. WoW is still the best. No $$ or time for it.

dont attempt Elven Court mission 6 till the next patch, apparently there's a bug with capturing Leonus.. it won't work.

http://ageofwonders.com/forums/topic/missi...trouble/page/2/

http://steamcommunity.com/app/226840/discu...38050800452788/

Looking forward to next patch. Gonna attempt Commonwealth campaign while waiting.

(playing in Easy mode, can't survive Normal difficulty once hit mission 4 .. too hard >.< )