Roderick

Three Wonders of Age

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Goddammit.

I thought I had succesfully weeded out any weakness for hype. I thought I was free. I cared not for any game soon to be released, at least not in a big way, I cultured active disinterest and was happy. But now Age of Wonders III has come along and it has ruined my simple life. I crave this game. This Dutch game.

Now hear the ululations of anticipation:

It's supposed to come out somewhere start of 2014, so I expect it within a few months. It had better, so I can once again not care about upcoming games until they're released.

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I played a good amount of Age of wonders when I was young. I feel it has a cult following, generally being shadowed in the collective conscious by Heroes of Might and Magic. I'm sure this new one will at the very least be a great nostalgia trip, but looks to be shaping up nicely.

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Absolutely. Another crazy things about AoW3 is that it came about because Notch wanted and financed it. That is pretty mindblowing.

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Couldn't be fresher (unless you saw this yesterday, in which case: you must be a wizard!) - the latest gameplay footage.

My body is ready.

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Apparently, the release date is a cool March 31st. Of the year of our Thumb 2014. So close already!

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This came out today! Anybody pick it up yet? At a cool 39.99 I might be grabbing it when I get home.

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The sublime irony is that right now I'm in the thick of a review of Dark Souls II and up to my ears in work. Curses!

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Yes, and apparently it's topping the Steam chart in sales as well. Pretty cool! I wonder how much impact the super charming walkthrough videos had.

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Completely at a loss for gaming time in these last months, I nevertheless got AoW3 during the Steam sale (50% off, but it was already reasonably priced).

 

I've only just begun to dabble in the campaign to learn the ropes. The interface is simple enough, I get most of what's going on. The unit descriptions are quite densely packed, but not necessary to ingest fully to operate them. What does strike me as downright bizarre is that I'm in the first introductory campaign, and it's very clearly a tutorial explain how to move and everything, yet I have full access to what I can't imagine not to be the full tech tree. Strange! I like the gradual build-up of powers over the course of many levels, and this is tempting me to just research everything while I think I scarcely need it.

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i just played an hour too. Liking it so far. I think i read in my bible of wonder that you get a selection of low level research first, and as you progress you unlock higher level ones. I for instance have researched Rogues -> Bards -> Assassins, which are Ranks I, II and III of something or other.

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Yes, that's how it is, but I'm just amazed that you can already go through the entire tech tree in the first campaign mission. I'd have preferred slowly unlocking units and options, which as a mechanic I like because it forces designers to think of specific challenges and it forces players to really learn about a unit.

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I'm still trying to figure out whether my city improvements mean anything at all. For a game that RPS claims is At its core, the game is still about building settlements, expanding them and creating armies, I don't really feel like I'm getting much out of growing my cities to be metropolises and then spitting out dudes. To me, it feels like this is a tactical game of moving electronic versions of little Descent (the boardgame)-style figurines across a Rune Wars-esque map. That's a fine game that many people enjoy, but I feel like RPS is off the mark with that quote.

 

Caveat: I have never played any Age of Wonders or Heroes of Might and Magic games, and did not enjoy X: Total War where X = {Rome, Napoleon, Empire, ..}

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Yes, I've been going down that dark alley as well. I love upgrading my cities so I immediately focus on that at the cost of not building armies. It doesn't take long before I'm completely out-numbered, even though I'm ahead in tech. I'm in level 2 of the campaign and already this is hard as nails. Gotta get those siege engines in place, and some extra stacks of dudes before I take on an enemy on at least three fronts. Aaaaaaand it's 1:30 in the morning.

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There is a 3MA episode about this game. Both the guys enjoyed the scenarios more than the campaigns. You can customise the setup to suit your preferred play style, and if I recall, you can start with armies pre formed.

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Wouldn't the title of this thread more accurately be Three Ages of Wonder?

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Ok, finding the game quite clunky, but enjoying it nevertheless. I've been playing it a bit like i play civ, which is a bad thing. A minimum guard is of no use when 3 armies storm into a city.

Also, this game seems to be a hilarious event generator. I won a battle when we were down to 2 units each. His lord fled the battle rather than face me, which left my battering ram and perminantly blinded trebuchet against a gang of giant beetles. i won somehow.

 

 

Captain Fancy Pants

gDHjECY.jpg

 

Dragon lady (i really like that they are a fair bit grotesque)

XjaQUAM.jpg

 

 

 

The Looooove Wizard

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Lady Dreadnaught (i love the female dreadnaught basic template - queen victoria punching her way to victory)

U4SvzL8.jpg

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I think you meant to say that you're playing AoW like you play Civ, but with a side of character makeup studio on the side.

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Yesterday I started a random map and it's already much better. I, too, am trying to figure out how this work. At this point the enemy seems to send out random troops to harrass me, so you do need to defend all of your cities with a few groups at least. My thinking is that you're best served by having a few well developed cities in central places to spawn your armies, and then have an array of lesser cities in the back to provide resources. Somehow you'll need to defend those, so a good choke point is very useful there. The map I'm playing at is quite open though, so I'm at a loss for how to defend my cities short of building up huge forces just to hold them and turtling on.

 

I like the quest structure and the general vibe of the game, it's charming and cute. And the battles are pretty fun! I've had some tense situations with half of my army blasted to shreds in one go by some weird contraption. It's good! The game seems to circumvent some of the problems hounding Heroes of Might and Magic (which is how I'm playing this) by having resource points fall into your domain rather than you needing to collect them every week. But I'm still uncovering how best to supply my heroes and effectively win. All the while having quite a bit of leisurely fun.

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Boy, this is nuts. I was three hours into a random skirmish map, my first, just trying out tactics and everything, and suddenly BOOM, I've won. Turns out I had made an alliance with my only competitor and that immediately triggered the win condition. And this while I had just finished a big battle against a quest dragon. It was all so sudden and unsatisfying, it felt like my epic campaign had been cut short. I wasn't even allowed to play on. No way I'm every going for a peace run again. War all the way!

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