You're not just a bigger empire with bigger ships but is not recognizable. In Civilization, Beyond Earth, Galactic Civilizations, fantasy Stardock 4X Fallen Enchantress, even Stellaris - and you observe grand changes. AoW3 was perfectly playable in auto-resolve multiplayer mode but opened up a whole new layer with tactical combat.Īnother thing that podcast made me think about is how many of the later 4X games dismiss progress. Even Total War series is not as good with balancing it (maybe 3K is close). And it's objectively wrong! AoW3 is one of the best 4X games ever, and I'd argue the only one (before AoWPF at least) that realized the player dream of tactical combat inside of an empire-building game. I remember at one point Rob was very dismissive about Age of Wonders 3, saying that Endless Legend was the only good 4X (apart from Civ series probably) and saying AoW3 is not close. I came so very close to writing it off as a bad job altogether in the first few hours.Here's Michael Valentine referred to as Dr. It still boiled down mostly to 'have a doomstack (consisting of 3-4 sixunit armies in adjacent hexes) and auto-resolve outside of sieges.' I found the strategy layer a bit lacking, too, myself it rather unfavourably compared with FE, Total Warhammer or even Civ IV. (Admttedly, FE was no better in that regard, but I recall having more fun with it's nine-unit stack than with the 'six but you can use more than one off you lke scattering your units around' that AoW3 did.) Really, the only time I had any fun on the tactical level was in the sieges, as that was because I actually had some time to shove my units into an actual deployment and have a plan. Moribund at best, and tactical battles with no deployment is a cardinal sin. 'Cos if it wasn't for the limited interest of story of the campaign, I'd have quit and gone and played Fallen Enchantress instead, which is pretty much better (at least in my memory (haven't played it for a few years) and apparently playtime) at what AoW3 did? Why on earth would anybody play the campaign in an Age of Wonders game? That random map button exists for a reason, and its by far the best part of the game.

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