![]() ![]() There will be no skipping this phase in Age of Wonders III. Everyone else gets to endure the long painful decline to an inevitable defeat. Eventually one of the players will stop being a fantasy kingdom and start being a janitor, adopting the unenviable role of the player who has to mop up a game that was won a hundred turns ago. For all the design smarts of Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes and all the snappily epic battles in Warlock, those games never made me care enough to sketch out a map on a piece of paper.īut the more you play Age of Wonders III, the more an ugly truth emerges. It takes a really good strategy game to make me care this much. I got to the point where I was even sketching out maps on a notepad by my computer to keep track of which cities were which and where I was protected by rivers and which swathes of forest were ideal for my elven army as opposed to which deserts were best conquered by my dragon men. I have had few randomized fantasy worlds grip me quite as effectively as the random maps I’ve rolled up in Age of Wonders III. You and the other factions will build up your empires, level up your heroes, and cultivate veteran armies of advanced units. The only victory condition is to take the enemy’s capital city. The most glaring gap in Age of Wonders III is the endgame. But why don’t more games know the importance of a strong ending? Why doesn’t Triumph Studios, a veteran developer with nearly decades of experience making Age of Wonder fantasy strategy games, know the importance of a strong end? It’s a fundamental fact of good game design at a time when games have formidable competition from each other and from other forms of entertainment. Plenty of games know the importance of a strong beginning. The end should make it all feel worthwhile. The beginning should make you stick around until the end. Two of the most important elements of any narrative are the beginning and the end. It’s nearly a complete package that rivals Warlock, Dominions 4, Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes, and Eador for the superlative ways you can get your elf on. A welcome flexibility in terms of how you can play. A fantastic terrain model that provides beautiful evocative worlds with meaningful gameplay effects. Invaluable heroes who develop unique roles as a game progresses. Let me repeat that one because it bears repeating: A wonderfully competent AI. Superb tactical combat that makes battles even more of a joy. Distinct and detailed armies that make battles a joy. A broad tree of skills and spells that makes you want to keep starting new games again. Clever combos of races and classes that make you want to keep starting new games. This fantasy strategy game has nearly everything a fantasy strategy game needs, including some things other fantasy strategy games don’t have.
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