Educational Post:

...It's not the size of the wave, it's the motion of the ocean 

Fat tactical battles need love too

Agree totally indeed!

I Guess that is a part of why I got bored by AoW3 after just 30 min. So little strategical depth it seemed, even though battles seemed well thought out. The big test for this kind of game, in my view, is if it's fun with only auto-resolved battles. If it doesent feel in depth enough for me when I auto-resolve all the battles, it's not the game for me.

Anyways; I have plans to give AoW a chance in multiplayer tonight, vs 3 other humans. This option can save the game a little bit for me I hope, at least with the correct game settings. For me the only thing I miss in FE compared to AoW is the multiplayer option.

Re: the battles in AoW3 - I just cast spells and manually move any units with unique abilities, then auto-battle the simple units for the remainder of each turn.  Then I switch auto-combat back off during the opponents turn so that I can cast and make any necessary adjustments at the beginning of mine, before letting my simple units do their own thing again.  Plays somewhat similar to Endless Space battles; and I power through them quite quickly.. many times in under a minute or two.

and to be fair, age of wonders (3) has the better combat mechanics and execution. i doesn't necessary mean the 3 attacks model, which is a neat concept, but i mean the many traits, abilities and different stats / stat effects EVERY unit brings to the table. the diversity and broad spectrum of unit traits is gigantic. some may call certain higher tier units OP but they all are in some regards. some of my favorite classes in AoW3 is the dreadnaught class, the higher tier units have high armor, high hp and high long ranged damage BUT they are machines and thus no natural healing abilities and they cannot be healed by spells either. only one repair skill and a high tier & high cost building can heal them (ladder only in the city this is present). the rogue class has a tier3 unit (weirdly no tier4 aka highest rank but their tier3 could be tier4) which hasn't only a decent amount of hitpoints and a high damage output, but he also has a 60% immunity to physical attacks. 

furthermore the tactical maps are hex-based which in my personal opinion adds more strategic depth / angles you can attack and position your troops (or the AI theirs). the maps have tiles which are either inaccessible without destroying them first or are completely inaccessible (i know FE:LH has to, but ...), these are not just for choke points and defensive reasons, they obstruct and reduce the ranged attacks. distance plays a role in the strength of ranged attacks as does elevation.

also AoW3 has naval combat (not very fleshed out like land combat but it has some), you can also have islands as a map type, which some people (like me :p) love.

both titles (AoW3 and FE:LH) are great fantasy 4x games, each with a different focus / strength. in FE:LH you have a bigger focus on customization (nr.1 focus), quests and city building (which is more 4x-like than AoW in that regard, AoW and not 3 cause every entry in AoW was that way). AoW3 at the other hand has better visuals, races which are more high fantasy (which for some is a bigger immersion factor, like me for example) and the unit traits and spells are more unique / diverse and allow for greater synergies and some more strategies.

in terms of AI rant / complaints like kwm did, well you cannot really compare a fresh released (indie) game, yes triumph is quite indie, with a game that has not only already an expansion (or 2 depends on how you count), but also the release of course was much earlier than that of AoW3 and stardock has improved the AI (thx again) much since then with patches!

also another + for AoW3 are the maps, played AoW3  all the days since release and i feel that the biggest map of AoW3 is double the size of FE:LH biggest map. 

edit: @ cardinaldirecton: are u trolling? sure you can do that, you can also do that in fallen enchantress for example. but why do that? don't know what difficulty settings you play on (squire? :D), but the AI especially in tactical battles can be potent. last night switch for a session to fallen enchantress, you recognise the difference in combat immediately. FE:LH lies more in the globa / strategic aspect, the tactical battles are less addictive as they are in AoW3.

Age of Wonders 3 actually bought be BACK to FE:LH.

There are just too many things missing from AoW3 that I enjoyed in FE:LH, such as the whole empire building component.

For me, the perfect game is FE:LH strategy component using the tactical battles from AoW3.

Things I like better in FE:LH:

1. There is just more to do. I found the first few hours of AoW3 *awesome*, but then it gets boring very quickly.

2. Heroes feel more powerful, and hero levelling up feels more meaningful.

3. Hero gear is better.

4. Diplomacy is way better.

5. I much prefer the tech tree over the random spell research.

6. INITIATIVE IN COMBAT. This is such a superior system to AoW3 and allows for such things like more than one spell in combat.

7. Much more powerful and interesting wandering monsters.

8. Improved quests.

9. The spells are more fun IMO.

10. Ability to build your own units, and much more in depth leader customisations.

11. The game scales with time better.

Things I like better in AoW3:

1. The tactical map graphics.

2. The tactical map combat system, very polished, reminds me of X-COM almost!

3. Optimisation seems better. FE:LH chugs on my computer on the strategic map.

4. The underground is an awesome concept.

5. Flying Mounts.

6. Sieges.

7. Unit stats improvements on level up.

I think AoW3 makes a great tactical war game, but I want much more than that out of a game these days, and I don't think it's asking too much to demand more. Unless they expand the strategic side significantly, I don't think I will be going back to the game, which is a shame, because what they have achieved in the tactical side of the game is pure awesomeness.

Take a look at Endless Legends. Personally, I'm burned out on the whole empire building thing... way too many hours of civ I guess. Watching some pre alpha videos of EL reminded me just how much. Maybe if it's done differently, but I admit it is a bit refreshing to have a game with a different design focus honestly (just imo of course). I think it's better to have a tight focus and do whatever you plan to do really well (like Aow3's tactical combat). The multiplayer in AoW is also quite good- I almost didn't even try it as I don't usually play it in these types of games, but the AI seems quite poor. I like both, but for very different reasons.

I was following the development of AoW3, and felt it to be awesome all the way (back then i didn't really know about LH, since i played elemental in it's first stages, and then something about moving bought games to gamestop, and i just went 100% steam instead.) But when Aow3 finally released it sure was good looking, but 95% ranged combat. it wasn't even that high in AoW:Shadow Magic, melee units actually had a chance of surviving to do damage (orc warlords, nom). 

Both Aow3 and LH have this. it's a pain in the beginning, when you're surrounded by monsters (and, all love to LH for those monster's chance of being completely pains and not even worth to try and kill before lategame) and barely have a stick to wave at them, but as soon you grow a bit all combats turn fairly easy, although i never ever leave it to autocombat, since.. i don't know how bad the AI is fighting for me, but even in the easiest fights i take more damage than needed.

But since Civ V was already mentioned, remember Vanilla Civ V? back then it was hard to decide if I wanted to continue playing Civ IV or not.. Now Civ V is kinda hard to not like. I'm really hoping for great expansions to AoW3, re-introducing undead, frostlings, halflings, syron, nomad and whoelse i've forgotten.

That is the sad part for FE: It is based on elemental, which was, nicely put, bad. It has been quite a few years from that, and it has developed, but not as much as you might have wanted. Stardock on the other hand, is worth an applause for continuing updating and not abandoning anything.

AoW3 probably will deliver a greater update before the year's end, and float away, closing the gap up to CivV-level. 
 

Hmmm, Can we agree to disagree?

+1

Won't go near Civ 5. Fell very short of Civ 4, imo.