Empire building is there but fairly limited, and diplomacy is basically reduced to 'FIGHT!' or 'OK, not fight right now'. Online play is also ruined by desyncs causing all kinds of problems, from units and items being different from one client to the other, to in the worst cases the game getting so confused it actually takes full AI control of a player's empire and plays for you right before your eyes, yes I have had that happen to me personally.ĪoW III is best thought of as a strategic war game instead of a typical 4X title. It is great for empire building, different kinds of diplomacy with the opponents and its quests, but the combat is frankly a random mess in my opinion, even if you can force control units you can't actually be guaranteed they will do exactly what you want in the order you expect.

This is the game to play if you want to explore a fantastic world, fight weird monsters in strange magical places, and wage large-scale (well, moderately large-scale) war against all comers.Ĭiv and Warlock are very similar in therms of gameplay, apart from the setting of course.Įndless Legend is quite unique, for both good and bad. This is not the game to play if you want an intricate model of city development. The empire building, particularly without the expansions, is a lot more bare-bones in AoW3 than in similar games. The base rules are easy to figure out (units can move so many hexes, this happens when you flank them, this is what guard mode does, this is how action points work) but there is never one single obvious 'best' way to do something, and so you can just keep experimenting and changing up your tactics. There are just so many different tactics to use, so many different units with different abilities and different spells to tie together. One of the best turn-based combat systems I know. Not only is fighting battles a much bigger part of the game, but more importantly the battles are MUCH better. In general, AoW3 is much more combat and battle focussed than other turn-based 4x style games. (Except I forgot the extra specialisations, which Sam mentions the next post.)

Over in this thread I list all the stuff the expansions add. The DLCs add a lot of stuff and do make the base game more fun.īut the base game by itself already has a ton of content and should be enough to keep you busy for a long time.

Age of wonders 3 host with dlc