Age of Wonders III

 PC
User Score
8.0

Generally favorable reviews- based on 627 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 444 out of 627
  2. Mixed: 116 out of 627
  3. Negative: 67 out of 627

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  1. Khyrid
    Apr 5, 2014
    3
    I played the first two Age of Wonders games a lot for years and I love them. I hate to have to say it, but this third game is a disappointment. It forces the player's strategy too much, limiting you to one option. You are put in positions where you need to rush and that's all you can do if you hope to win vs the poorly programmed cheating supplemented AI.

    You have to send out small fast    I played the first two Age of Wonders games a lot for years and I love them. I hate to have to say it, but this third game is a disappointment. It forces the player's strategy too much, limiting you to one option. You are put in positions where you need to rush and that's all you can do if you hope to win vs the poorly programmed cheating supplemented AI.

    You have to send out small fast units to grab undefended AI cities which feels more like an exploit than normal game mechanics.

    In combat I was fighting to siege an enemy fort and our armies were evenly matched, so obviously I wanted to use some strategy and position my forces for the best approach. Not in AoW3. In this game you're penalized for using strategy. A message popped up after only a few turns saying that no unit had been damaged fast enough and the battle was ended. The only option I have is to rush at the gates so my forces can get cut down by their defenses.

    I don't have time for games like this. It's unbalanced. The AI gets bonus money to spam OP units on normal or higher. Any difficulty easier than that is too easy and no challenge.

    Here's some advice for the devs, actually try to program AI routines. Not just a few basic ones, stop think about why the AI is losing strategically and make routines for dealing with those scenarios. It's obvious you didn't even try. You should probably try to hire me to fix your terrible AI.    … Expand
  2. balvan64
    May 30, 2014
    4
    At first I thought this is a good game, but after a few hours in I realized I was just fooling myself, it's a bad game.

    * After killing 11 out of 12 soldiers in a squad it still does the same damage as if nothing changed, * Not enough ruins and such to explore, you barely get 2 items per game. * Strategic battle starting positions are insane. * Heroes customization has too many    At first I thought this is a good game, but after a few hours in I realized I was just fooling myself, it's a bad game.

    * After killing 11 out of 12 soldiers in a squad it still does the same damage as if nothing changed,
    * Not enough ruins and such to explore, you barely get 2 items per game.
    * Strategic battle starting positions are insane.
    * Heroes customization has too many useless traits, and even level 10 heroes aren't that powerful.
    * You can only cast 1 spell per combat round, but what if you have 2 casters? or 3?
    * Casting global enchantments is pointless, whatever you cast is immediately dispelled the following round.
    * Heroes only give their bonuses if they are leaders, so you can't stack two heroes in an army. why?!
    * All races have the same buildings.
    * There is almost no different between the units of each race (priest shots fire, priest shots poison etc...)
    * It takes ages to clear a map, and it's mostly waiting on your cities to produce enough units to take down the 3 army stacks the computer has holed up in his castle. really really boring.

    I can go on for ages, this is a bad game, they did not think this through, this is a big disappointment!    … Expand
  3. Zalzany
    Apr 2, 2014
    3
    Imagine AoW from days of old. You had the large detailed filled UI that took up about 1/4 the screen at times over 1/3. It has detailed info, and descriptions when your magnet things in the city, or looking at unit stats. Now imagine a free Ipad app with generic bubble themed buttons, and pop ups that are transparent and disappear out of sight like one big mouse over tooltip. Now smashImagine AoW from days of old. You had the large detailed filled UI that took up about 1/4 the screen at times over 1/3. It has detailed info, and descriptions when your magnet things in the city, or looking at unit stats. Now imagine a free Ipad app with generic bubble themed buttons, and pop ups that are transparent and disappear out of sight like one big mouse over tooltip. Now smash them together with some old 3d graphics, a few new features that sound awesome.

    What you get is an ugly thing that looks like it should be on an Asian website as F2P and be for your tablet or facebook profile. Granted it is a bit big for that. It has lots of stuff to it, nice new features like researching unit tech suppose to just needing to hit X city size and have y production to make the building needed to train. I love all the the stuff on paper, but visually it looks like a knockoff of the franchise, and like it as little work and thought as possible was put into the UI.

    Every thing is designed so you can look at the pretty most the time still back ground like you paid 39.99 to preorder a back drop that moves from time to time. No detailed info at easy access, no feel that the old ones had that every decision mean something. It went from a game of chess, to a kids travel edition checkers, easy to use, and folds away out of sight when not in use. Went from detailed chess pieces stored off to the side of the bored when not in play to generic magnets with pieces of plastic glued to them that just get stuck to the board, then easily vanishes under the the table that doubles as a box as far as unit and city details went    … Expand
  4. Bogdan0x400
    May 2, 2014
    2
    I expected to play a similar game to AoW2 with old bad stuff being thrown away. But what do I see instead?
    The Cons:
    1. Gameplay has got even slower than in AoW2. There is a lot to automate in UI. Now I have to click even more buttons and messages than I've used before. I want to be able to automate most stuff so I won't feel as if I am working instead of playing. Personally for me this    I expected to play a similar game to AoW2 with old bad stuff being thrown away. But what do I see instead?
    The Cons:
    1. Gameplay has got even slower than in AoW2. There is a lot to automate in UI. Now I have to click even more buttons and messages than I've used before. I want to be able to automate most stuff so I won't feel as if I am working instead of playing. Personally for me this the biggest con, and this is why I've stopped playing this game after ~10 hours in total. I don't want to micromanage woeful stuff that mu computer should do for me.
    2. AI on strategic map is really stupid.
    3. Looks like they've spent most of their development time on graphics. Personnaly I would still buy AoW3 with old graphics, but better gameplay, and would enjoy it.
    4. No possibility to run an autocombat and then go manual combat like in HoMM. Come on, was it so difficult to implement?
    5. Most spells are useless.
    6. Cities have more structures, and most of them become useless because you'll produce 1 unit at 1 time.
    7. Ever run out of mana?
    the Pros:
    1. You can have much more casting points.
    2. Attacks and damaging spells don't miss.    … Expand
  5. FantasicGamer
    Mar 5, 2015
    3
    In short, it is just a mediocre game with elements similar to HOMM series (spell, combat, exploration) and Civilization (leader scene, diplomacy, world map and city control) but without their depth.

    Age of Wonders is originally a series with its own unique characteristics and UI, but the transition to a streamlined modern title (AOW3) makes it lose all its charms, becoming a game excels    In short, it is just a mediocre game with elements similar to HOMM series (spell, combat, exploration) and Civilization (leader scene, diplomacy, world map and city control) but without their depth.

    Age of Wonders is originally a series with its own unique characteristics and UI, but the transition to a streamlined modern title (AOW3) makes it lose all its charms, becoming a game excels at nothing but with some basic elements in modern 4x title.

    The empire management (happiness), diplomacy (leader scene) and resource controlled by cities gives me a recall of Civilization 5. Unfortunately, the depth of empire management is non-existent. Happiness is mainly determined by how often you win wars, so you have no other main ways to control it. City management is just a simple decision choice to build something (a selection of text from an interface) which unlock units or generate new resource per turn. After you have made the decision, nothing needs to be worried about, and you can just click end turn while controlling units to explore in mean time until it is done for your next decision choice. Diplomacy is just a joke, you only need to care about 3 resources in game, and so there is no need for trading or whatsoever. Even you negotiate something with other factions; they may soon break it without any consequence. Because the main goal of this game is only to crush all factions other than you in the map, so AI won’t even bother with this.

    On the RPG perspective and combat side, it is sub-par compared to HOMM3 or King’s Bounty series. Spell is limited and can only be cast once per battle. Equipment choice is a joke, as you may only come over with 1 or 2 equipment before the game ends, as you need to rush and finish off your opponents quickly, before the game ends up as a deadlock and repetitive resource depletion fight. King’s Bounty does a much better job in the aspect of hero growth and equipment variety. Combat lack the awesomeness and varied ability of units in King’s Bounty series, a high quantity of ranged units and powerful spell is all that matters. In terms of the exploration and turn progression, HOMM3 does a better job in this area.

    The only thing unique in this game is the leader choice and race combination, but that doesn’t matter too much. The core basics of race remain the same and unit variety is still similar as ranged, melee, and calvary, although the leader gives some benefits for each race which doesn’t matter in long term.

    In the end, it is just a slow-pacing RTS executed in a turn-based perspective where you control hero or scout to explore a tiny map and gather 3 types of resource, while the cities serve as a resource generator with automatic resource generation per turn and a barrack for military unit production, so that you can produce units to rush all your enemies ASAP before the enemies have too much resource to recover its loss, which is the only vital strategy for this game.    … Expand
  6. godking
    Aug 31, 2014
    4
    have you ever heard about "city management"?. if you had you hadn't heard it from AGE OF WONDERS III.

    how about different playstiles? nope, just rush em all and we'll be fine. becouse if you dont rush then the AI will send some OP armies to crush your forces and they are "nasty" becouse i can handle some of those tier V monsters but i cant when they are like 18 and you cant deal proper    have you ever heard about "city management"?. if you had you hadn't heard it from AGE OF WONDERS III.

    how about different playstiles? nope, just rush em all and we'll be fine. becouse if you dont rush then the AI will send some OP armies to crush your forces and they are "nasty" becouse i can handle some of those tier V monsters but i cant when they are like 18 and you cant deal proper damage to them.

    ok so maybe its a little bit boring to clean all the map of those bandits. and i dont want to play every single battle becouse its a waste of time. so i use the autoresolve button and voila, i lost 2 or 3 units to kill 3 bandits. so you have to fight every single battle or you are going to lose units or maybe a hero.

    graphics are no good or bad. sound its no good or bad too. magic is a little bit useless, like 85% of the spells you are going to use em like 1 or 2 times at most.

    my veredict: only play it if you are a fan or a bored gamer. excuse me if my english is bad.    … Expand
  7. guillaume321
    Apr 15, 2014
    4
    Weak game for me, both visual and gameplay. If you really want to play turn based fantastic strategy then go for Might and Magic Heroes VI. It excels everywhere and is 100 times better than this.
  8. zugod
    Apr 25, 2014
    1
    There is nothing wondrous about Age of Wonders 3.

    I've now played for 40 hours on two maps and am sick of this game. It feels like I'm playing AOW2 with poorer maps. Despite the graphics, the maps in AOW3 are POORLY decorated, as if they were decorated by an AI--they look completely generic and more or less the same except for their shape. I've seen all the AOW3 maps, which are    There is nothing wondrous about Age of Wonders 3.

    I've now played for 40 hours on two maps and am sick of this game. It feels like I'm playing AOW2 with poorer maps. Despite the graphics, the maps in AOW3 are POORLY decorated, as if they were decorated by an AI--they look completely generic and more or less the same except for their shape. I've seen all the AOW3 maps, which are much smaller than AOW1&2 (even the XL size), and they look like they were decorated with a palette of maybe 15 tiles. Good maps in AOW2 are decorated with thousands of beautiful tiles and exquisite detail. The maps in AOW3 are plain, boring, and pedestrianly conceived. The tiles are limited, plain, generic, and boring whereas the tilesets in AOW2 were hundreds of times more vast, and indeed, many of them were wondrous. There used to be all kinds of beautiful, cool swirling magically wondrous things in the AOW2 tilesets, but they are nowhere to be seen in AOW3.

    I think the problem is that instead of attempting to break some new ground in the genre, all they did was take the easy way out and bring AOW2 into the 21st century (circa ~2007, mind you) by giving it a makeover. That's it, AOW3 (should be AOW2.5) is nothing but a makeover. And they thought they could actually make money doing it. I mean, they must be trying to target the undiscerning consumer who loves playing games in 2014 that were good enough to be out in 2007.

    To wrap this up, finally, so I can put the bad taste behind me... I would have been 100 times more satisfied if, instead of taking the time and effort and cost to "develop" AOW3, they simply put out a new pack of beautiful, wondrous maps for AOW2, which was a game that I can only describe as perfection.    … Expand
  9. wolverine101
    May 7, 2014
    0
    Worst game scores in the history of the franchise. Easy to see they didn't improve anything but the graphics. Less factions to play with, less factions to play against and no personality settings. Over at the Steam forums if you say anything "negative" about the game they will ban you and call you troll. lol They are sooooo insecure about this game and they have reason to be. Down fromWorst game scores in the history of the franchise. Easy to see they didn't improve anything but the graphics. Less factions to play with, less factions to play against and no personality settings. Over at the Steam forums if you say anything "negative" about the game they will ban you and call you troll. lol They are sooooo insecure about this game and they have reason to be. Down from over 4000 players just a few short weeks ago to around 1600 now. lol Keep on worrying Triumph you on the way out just like the others before you. lol… Expand
  10. nomentanus
    Apr 30, 2015
    0
    I purchased through Steam - but I can never play the game. If there's a number to be had to register, God alone knows how to access it. Nor is the compulsory account registration manageable or recoverable after errors. Dead loss. Zero it is.
  11. Dethstar
    Sep 25, 2016
    3
    Another Heroes type game. More of the same but for me as a mature player it lacks depth and feels very juvenile in terms of the script and the general design. I just couldn't take it seriously and found it impossible to immerse myself in it.

    It seems like a fairly straight forward rip off of the games it is trying to copy.
  12. PattonMcCrotch
    Apr 15, 2015
    3
    This game suffers from a number of obvious problems right from the get-go.

    First of all the tiny font will make you squint in order to see ANY text in the entire game, from start to finish, in a 1080p res, even with a very large monitor. If you want to scale to 1440 or 4k, forget about it. You will have to use a lower resolution than your monitor is designed for. The combat is poorly    This game suffers from a number of obvious problems right from the get-go.

    First of all the tiny font will make you squint in order to see ANY text in the entire game, from start to finish, in a 1080p res, even with a very large monitor. If you want to scale to 1440 or 4k, forget about it. You will have to use a lower resolution than your monitor is designed for.

    The combat is poorly implemented. Too many restrictions and "time outs" that lead to auto-losses even against the AI make the game a hassle.
    At least in the Elven campaign, even simple things like unit icons are done wrong. Pike units look like sword units. Sword units look like pike units. More than once I chose the wrong unit to separate from the army and had to re-load for the umpteenth time to get right. Once again, the font being so small makes this more of an issue. Can't rely on the text, can't rely on the icons. What can you rely on?

    You can rely on early encounters that are annoying as hell, where all the enemy units are either range AND melee, or include a mega-armored unit that no matter what, you will lose one of your precious early units to. If you try to work around with maneuver, you will time out and lose the battle.

    Although there is an option for 'confirm end turn' in the options, it does nothing to prevent an actual errant click of 'end turn' button on the screen. Just let us use the keybind. Really don't need an on-screen button for this. Why do you still do this?

    This game seems to be to be made by developers who could potentially make a great game, but lack common sense and instead end up with a crumby experience that is not ready.

    Save your money, honestly, even games like Elven Legacy are better than this.

    These issues should never be around in this day and age of gaming.    … Expand
  13. PowerGamer
    Oct 15, 2015
    2
    Horrible solo play. Starts out where the AI is no challenge at all then suddenly cheats like hell.
    It's obvious the enemy AI can see the whole map and iterates through all your units to pick the weakest target.

    Would have okay if the enemy had scouts, but they devs didn't even bother to take it to a decent level.
    Lazy, bad, minimal AI design and game play.
  14. Indyninja
    Aug 10, 2019
    4
    Everything that made AoWII: Shadow Magic so exemplary for it's time seems cast off here. Races have almost no unique units like they used to - what matters more is the type of wizard you choose to be. I found it bizarre, and the single player campaign ended up being a slog-fest, with enemies throwing full armies of top-tier troops at you over and over that you need to swim upstreamEverything that made AoWII: Shadow Magic so exemplary for it's time seems cast off here. Races have almost no unique units like they used to - what matters more is the type of wizard you choose to be. I found it bizarre, and the single player campaign ended up being a slog-fest, with enemies throwing full armies of top-tier troops at you over and over that you need to swim upstream against, with no possible alternative strategy than to just hack through them over and over and over and over...

    I really do wonder why there's so much love for this game. It's nowhere near what the earlier entries were. I had high hopes, but this whole mix-and-match system makes for dull, repetitive experiences with little to offer from trying new races.    … Expand
  15. Tomicsavo
    Feb 17, 2020
    1
    Bad tutorial, did not like it.---------------------------------------------

Awards & Rankings

71
#71 Best PC Game of 2014
44
#44 Most Discussed PC Game of 2014
57
#57 Most Shared PC Game of 2014

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
80

Generally favorable reviews - based on 35 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 29 out of 35
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 35
  3. Negative: 0 out of 35
  1. Ragequit.gr
    Jul 30, 2014
    84
    Age of Wonders III offers a very good option for turn-base strategy fans, continuing successfully the legacy of the series. It offers many hours of play, especially if you want to taste every bit of detail. Some further improvements which would force the player to ponder of his strategy before acting are needed. Nonetheless, Age of Wonders III is an amazing game that will always keep you thinking "one more turn".
    Read full review
  2. CD-Action
    Jun 28, 2014
    95
    There was nothing in the way of Age of Wonders III maintaining the quality level of its predecessors. But that did not happen and instead of another solid title we got a game that will make every armchair strategist cry... tears of joy. [05/2014, p.52]
  3. DarkStation
    May 21, 2014
    80
    If you enjoyed the previous Age of Wonders games and you had any reservations about this game, then rest easy – it is a very good one.
    Read full review
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