4) A is for... Age of Wonders 3
The challenge: To play through each of the games on my Steam library.
The rules: I have to play at least 1 hour of each game, in alphabetical order.
The newest of the Age of Wonders games (by a good ten years or so), AoW3 is subtitled 'Eternal Lords'. I think maybe it should be called 'Age of Wonders 3: Eternal Loads'.
I was starting to get a bit nervous that the game wouldn't start at all when it finally booted up, and after skipping past all of the developer intros I found myself at the title screen. This is the first place AoW3 pleasantly surprised me. Right at the very bottom middle of the screen is a button labelled 'Get Started!' It was almost as if the game was super enthusiastic to have me here, like it was saying 'Yeah, you didn't like the last place I lived but look, my new house is way nicer!'
The plot of the game is that the Light Elves and the Dark Elves have finally made amends after the events of AoW1, and are making their way in the world as a united Elven Nation. Sadly, the conquer-happy Humans are still being right gits, and so the Elves send their prince to try and diplomance their way out of the situation. Spoiler alert: it doesn't go well.
The game starts as you take control of Sundren, the Elven princess. Tired of being told she should marry and smile more often, she sneaks off to follow her brother as he goes on a diplomatic mission to try and gain the Orcs as allies. This little plot really hooked me into AoW3, for two reasons.
Firstly, the character you play is quite obviously a rogue. She gets wall-climbing and poisons and all that kind of sneaky stuff. But she's a Princess and a hero, and isn't portrayed as gritty or grim, just someone who got fed up of being told that girls should stick to their gender roles. Secondly, the diplomacy (obviously) doesn't go well, and that's because the orcs are intelligent and political people in this setting (it seems). Yeah, they come with the whole 'Orc Fury' talents and such, but they manage to draw in the Prince, distract the Princess, and join the Human Commonwealth all in one well-executed swoop.
The gameplay is fairly similar to the previous games, but way more finely tuned. AoW3 doesn't suffer from the flaws of it's predecessors - you still need to leave units garrisoned but it's not quite as easy for random single units to take all of your stuff away. The combat is more fun, simply by the virtue of being able to move a unit a bit at a time. In the previous games if you moved at all it was turn over for that unit. Now you can inch forward to judge ranged distances, and it makes for a much more interesting combat. Truthfully, the only way this game is worse is that you don't get to create your own hero (in the campaign mode), but I liked Sundren enough that it didn't bother me, and there's still loads of flexibility in the leveling-up trees.
I ended up playing this game for nearly three hours, and just about finished the first mission. There's going to be a lot of game here, and I think I'd like to play more of it. AoW3 is the first game to go in my GG folder. Also, as the screenshot shows, my partner has played *a lot* of this game...
The rules: I have to play at least 1 hour of each game, in alphabetical order.
The newest of the Age of Wonders games (by a good ten years or so), AoW3 is subtitled 'Eternal Lords'. I think maybe it should be called 'Age of Wonders 3: Eternal Loads'.
My computer trying to load this game
I was starting to get a bit nervous that the game wouldn't start at all when it finally booted up, and after skipping past all of the developer intros I found myself at the title screen. This is the first place AoW3 pleasantly surprised me. Right at the very bottom middle of the screen is a button labelled 'Get Started!' It was almost as if the game was super enthusiastic to have me here, like it was saying 'Yeah, you didn't like the last place I lived but look, my new house is way nicer!'
The plot of the game is that the Light Elves and the Dark Elves have finally made amends after the events of AoW1, and are making their way in the world as a united Elven Nation. Sadly, the conquer-happy Humans are still being right gits, and so the Elves send their prince to try and diplomance their way out of the situation. Spoiler alert: it doesn't go well.
I just love a good hexgrid map
The game starts as you take control of Sundren, the Elven princess. Tired of being told she should marry and smile more often, she sneaks off to follow her brother as he goes on a diplomatic mission to try and gain the Orcs as allies. This little plot really hooked me into AoW3, for two reasons.
Firstly, the character you play is quite obviously a rogue. She gets wall-climbing and poisons and all that kind of sneaky stuff. But she's a Princess and a hero, and isn't portrayed as gritty or grim, just someone who got fed up of being told that girls should stick to their gender roles. Secondly, the diplomacy (obviously) doesn't go well, and that's because the orcs are intelligent and political people in this setting (it seems). Yeah, they come with the whole 'Orc Fury' talents and such, but they manage to draw in the Prince, distract the Princess, and join the Human Commonwealth all in one well-executed swoop.
Gamblag (the Orc leader) telling a totally awesome lie
The gameplay is fairly similar to the previous games, but way more finely tuned. AoW3 doesn't suffer from the flaws of it's predecessors - you still need to leave units garrisoned but it's not quite as easy for random single units to take all of your stuff away. The combat is more fun, simply by the virtue of being able to move a unit a bit at a time. In the previous games if you moved at all it was turn over for that unit. Now you can inch forward to judge ranged distances, and it makes for a much more interesting combat. Truthfully, the only way this game is worse is that you don't get to create your own hero (in the campaign mode), but I liked Sundren enough that it didn't bother me, and there's still loads of flexibility in the leveling-up trees.
I ended up playing this game for nearly three hours, and just about finished the first mission. There's going to be a lot of game here, and I think I'd like to play more of it. AoW3 is the first game to go in my GG folder. Also, as the screenshot shows, my partner has played *a lot* of this game...
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