Age of Wonders 3 release date march 31. Lots of previews

"With that slightly tangential rant out of my system, I’m pleased to report that Age of Wonders III doesn’t simply contain a random map option, it contains a bloody good one." - from the RPS preview

This is leading me to being more optimistic. AOW2/SM had a terrible awful hopeless useless worthless broken map generator.

Now if they can work similar level of improvement with the AI (AoW2 has about the worst AI of any strategy game ever) then this could be as good a game as it looks.

lol, that's an interesting comparison.

It has ALL of the things?! Well, I was on the fence before but if it really does have ALL of the things...

Haha, I quoted the paragraph a bit outside its context. He was talking about High fantasy cliche.  It has all of them.

Want!  Now!

I'm very much looking forward to AoW 3.  I absolutely loved AoW.  It's hard to believe almost 15 years have passed since its release.

Age of Wonders returns!   I've played all of'em and I'll play this one as well. I'll wait some time for a sale (seems half the internet does that these days) and then it's of to multiplayer with the old guard

A new video about the Theocrat class has been released:

http://ageofwonders.com/classes/theocrat/

And here you can find the first multiplayer Let's play video:

http://ageofwonders.com/forums/topic/first-online-multiplayer-lets-play-video/

March 31st is a big day. I spent so much time with the previous games, probably more time than with any other game series. 90% of that time was mapmaking...

One thing I know for sure is that Triumph Studios wont let us down. AoW3 will be awesome.

This is an excellent preview:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/D3zj1lhKjyU?feature=oembed

Just nine days and I can play myself!

Oh man, this game looks good. All of the preview "Let's Plays" are just mind-blowingly good. It looks like it took a couple cues from Fallen Enchantress and may be the better game. It certainly looks poised to be my new go-to....

Watch Quill18's playthrough as a Dwarf Theocrat. If this game isn't 9+ across the board, then I don't know what fantasy 4X game will be. 

Apparently OnRPG has never heard of Elemental.  Reading their review, they referred to Fall From Heaven a couple of times, but didn't mention Elemental once.  I also searched their extensive article base, but didn't see anything Elemental related.

That being said, reading their review there were a lot of things mentioned that had me thinking 'I wish Elemental did that/still did that'.

Some of the interface screenshots looked very E:LH-ish to me.

Hopefully this helps raise the bar for the next game!

I don't like it.

Cool story. 

The last class has been unveiled, the warlord:

http://ageofwonders.com/classes/warlord/

here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vdi0Jkc6nyM

RockPaperShotgun has an update after playing a lot of AOW III for the review.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/03/26/wot-i-think-age-of-wonders-iii/

It's a con.  I watched the early lets plays, and is looks simplistic and after a few hours play I would say it would get a little boring.

It looks like they are using the Civ-V engine, are they?

It doesn't sound like you know the previous games. They have their own engine. Simplistic?! You obviously do not know what you are talking about. You do not have to like it, but do move on if you don't have anything meaningful to say about it.

No!  You move on if you have nothing more to do than insult people, fan person.

All of the Age of Wonders series games are still my favorite fantasy strategy games; nothing else has come close.  This new installment looks (and sounds from early previews and reviews) to be a worthy continuation of the series.  AoW perfectly mixes tropes with original material to create a truly immersive, beautiful looking fantasy world.  Everything about the series has always been top notch (no pun intended there) - the music, the art, the gameplay...  Really looking forward to getting this.

Go away, Tattyhat. The Age of Wonder series are some of the best games of all time and the new one, the game we're talking about here, is already garnering critical acclaim.

So, unless you have something constructive to say, go be your regular troll self elsewhere. 

What is the game play like in Age of Wonders (never played the series)?

Same here, I have never played it. But what I can see here only ignorant people are fans of the game and do little to promote it.

From what I could see from the game play it looked to me to be a heavily modded version of the Civ engine, but |I couldn't get a straight answer on this subject.

It's not really anything like the CiV engine other than purely cosmetically.

Most importantly you have tactical battles, and whatever they are doing with the adjacent hexes joining in thing.

However, AoW2 and AoW:SM were both very meh in my opinion.  I get there are a lot of fans of them, well more SM than 2, but still, they kind of just threw a ton of junk in and it made for a messy and ultimately uninteresting experience to me.

I have hopes that III looks back more to the original, which was great, than it does to 2 or SM, but I'll wait for a demo or at least several lets plays before I make my final judgement.

To answer the only real question/concern you have raised so far - no the engine is NOTHING like the Civ engine. It is completely new. Clear now?

Tattyhat, I am not a fanboy and still reserve judgement for the game, but I seriously cannot understand how you can be so derogatory and dismissive when (I) it's not out yet, and you haven't even played a demo (ii) most of the previews and reviews are complementary and (iii) IT'S ONLY A GAME !!!

And to go so far as to call everyone who defends the game "ignorant" does little to help your case...

Seriously, dude, take a chill pill!!!