The launch of Age of Wonders III may have gotten lost in the shuffle of many huge game releases in recent months, but there is reason it should stand out in a saturated genre. The game might not have gotten its due when it launched at the end of March, but after spending hours with the game, I can say it's one worth the time of any fantasy or strategy fan looking for something a bit different.
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AoW3 is, like its predecessors, a turn-based strategy title featuring a campaign and both cooperative and competitive multiplayer. You take control of a wizard (an important character that represents you, and wields more power on the field than anyone else) and one of the game's mostly-fictional races in straight 4X-style strategy gameplay.
During a match, you grow and improve both individual settlements and your overall empire through non-violent expansion and military conquest, with the objective of destroying the opposing wizards and their factions.
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There's no huge Total War-style world map, as AoW3 instead offers smaller one-off levels as you would see in titles similar to Age of Empires. However, it combines this with smaller tactical battles in which you take the individual units of an army and control them in turn-based grid combat. The series is very high-fantasy in theme and looks great, each faction's distinct appearance reflected in the units, cities, and even in the landscape of its territory.
It's this somewhat uncommon combination of turn-based world map gameplay and tactical battles that helps set AoW3 apart, though it does lead to some issues as well. On the positive side, you have more control over your faction's fate than simply overpowering the opposition through greater numbers, and it breaks up the world map gameplay, keeping it from becoming too stale. The world map is richly detailed and looks good, but it's a nice distraction to enter a tactical battlefield (faithfully created to resemble the location on the world map on which the battle is taking place) and pick off the enemy one by one.
Even if not present at that particular battle, you can also cast spells during combat via your wizard (which can level up and unlock new abilities), so long as you have enough mana. The tactical maps are different depending where you're fighting, including city sieges with walls and defenses. Some units can fly or scale walls, others can destroy them, and certain magic powers of others can tip the scales in one turn.
The campaign puts you through a long series of story-driven missions, which take place on varied world maps across different ecosystems, giving you a good excuse to play as most of the game's races--Dwarves, Draconians, Humans, High Elves, and more. There are two different campaign storylines to play through, extending the play time--though there's plenty of hours available with custom games.
Each race has unique units and looks extremely different from one another, though balance is kept through unit types of varying power. Your army must consist of a combination of ranged, melee and special units to succeed--even an army of balanced Human soldiers can fight off some powerful-looking Draconian forces.
You'll appreciate changing races from mission to mission in the campaign, which focuses on a typically fantasy but mildly interesting story of justice and good vs evil. Each level varies slightly in its objective and background, though you'll mostly be aiming to seek allies and destroy an enemy on each map.
The negative side of AoW3's dual map system comes in terms of time consumption. You have the option to let the computer automatically resolve battles for you, but it will often result in your army perishing in a fight you could have won on your own, or at least losing more troops than you should. When your units are weak or the army isn't full, it's wise to pull back and train new troops to fill it-the whole army will likely get killed in its next battle otherwise.
That will lead to you feeling the need to manually fight most battles, which can get pretty time consuming: it takes at least a turn to build a unit, and a couple for the more powerful ones. That means putting together an army will leave you biding your time rather than going on the offensive, racking up the turns as you wait. This can be a particular issue in the campaign, as you need to keep certain units alive and won't want to risk the whole mission by getting ahead of yourself (the missions can be pretty difficult too, and I was challenged as early as the first).
All of these facets of the game add up to some missions taking quite a long time to complete, especially if you're overly-careful in strategy games like me. It's my only real complaint about the game, though, and perhaps the more adventurous players are able to streamline the experience.
If you're not playing the campaign, online or offline matches are highly customizable and can provide hours of entertainment. You can create your own wizard in pretty extensive detail, from his or her appearance to the types of powers he or she can wield. Your wizard can use powers on the mission map by spending mana, targeting your own territory for bonuses or the enemy's lands to ill effect.
Ultimately, I can recommend Age of Wonders III to anyone who hasn't played the previous games and isn't sure what exactly to expect. The campaign is decent, providing some contextual challenges you won't find in custom games, and multiplayer matches (or games against the computer) can provide hours of entertainment. The game has its issues with tedium--some games will drag on or require a lot of micromanagement--but the tactical battles are fun and the variety of world maps can continually offer you new experiences.
