Age of Wonders 3 FREE this weekend on steam

[Blake00]

My love of Heroes of Might & Magic, Civ and Master of Magic was why I picked up a copy of Age of Wonders in 1999 and loved it, and then of course loved the even more amazing sequel AoW2 in the early 2000s. I still haven't tried the much newer AoW3 yet but it looks pretty bloody good plus they're now working on a scifi version with AoW Planetfall. Presumably to help promote their up and coming game they're now offering Age of Wonders 3 for FREE, and AoW 1-2 for dirt cheap as well.

https://store.steampowered.com/sale/age-of-wonders/

Oh and before anyone asks's, no they're not on sale on GoG sadly.

[RFS-81]

FWIW, I think AoW is worth the time of anyone who reads this forum.

[Gustaran]

I would like to mention that the choice of title for this topic is somewhat confusing. Since Steam very often runs promotions where a game can be played for free for a limited duration (usually a weekend) I assumed this was the case as well.

I just now realized that the game is added to your account permanently.

[naufragar]

I'll join the chorus praising this game. We've run a couple succession games on RB, too, if people want to check those out.

Has anyone been following the upcoming sci-fi Age of Wonders? I probably owe the devs for all my good times with AoW3 but I've had this sort of rule to never buy Paradox-published games until long after the initial release.

[RFS-81]

I probably owe the devs for all my good times with AoW3 but I've had this sort of rule to never buy Paradox-published games until long after the initial release.

Is this about the thing where Paradox redesigns the whole game twice in the first few years and sells a billion DLC? I could be wrong, but that seems to be mostly a thing for games developed by Paradox. I've just checked up on Battletech on GOG and it seems to have one cosmetic DLC, two big "expansion pack" style DLC (with one more upcoming) and a "Digital Deluxe" edition with soundtrack, artbook and stuff. I haven't played (or bought) Battletech, but that seems kind of OK to me. Though it looks quite bad because of the special edition, season pass, and special edition+season pass offers cluttering up the store.

EDIT: What the hell, that cosmetic DLC is a single skin for a single mech for 4 Euro! That's not kind-of-OK.

[naufragar]

Is this about the thing where Paradox redesigns the whole game twice in the first few years and sells a billion DLC? I could be wrong, but that seems to be mostly a thing for games developed by Paradox. I've just checked up on Battletech on GOG and it seems to have one cosmetic DLC, two big "expansion pack" style DLC (with one more upcoming) and a "Digital Deluxe" edition with soundtrack, artbook and stuff. I haven't played (or bought) Battletech, but that seems kind of OK to me. Though it looks quite bad because of the special edition, season pass, and special edition+season pass offers cluttering up the store.

EDIT: What the hell, that cosmetic DLC is a single skin for a single mech for 4 Euro! That's not kind-of-OK.

You're probably right. I looked up what the "season pass" for AoW: Planetfall was and it looks like they're planning normal expansion packs? Presumably like the ones AoW3 had.

[Blake00]

Yeah I've been reading the dev diaries on the scifi AoW Planetfall. Looking very very good! Although I'm still yet to actually play AoW3. Hopefully it's nearly as good, equal or better than good old AoW2.

[MJW (ya that one)]

So what do you think of Planetfall? Age of Wonders 3 in space like Beyond Earth was Civ5 in space (Planetfall feels like a whole game rather than a crappy stand alone expansion pack that was made to keep the peons busy).

[Bobchillingworth]

Last I saw it was largely getting positive reviews on Steam, but people complained that the AI's empire management needed work (it sounds like they just ported over the excellent AoW3 AI for the tactical side of things).


I'll pick it up in like a year or two, after the inevitable flood of DLC from Paradox is bundled and the AI has gone through several rounds of patches. The good folks of Triumph Studios made tweaks to the AI for AoW 3 for like three years following release.

[RFS-81]

I like Planetfall a lot so far. I don't remember the last time I payed 60 Euro for a new game on launch day I played the two campaign missions of the Vanguard faction. That second map was huge, and I'm a bit of a completionist with side quests. The campaign is a bit more like a role-playing game, so I'm not sure how it holds up as a strategy game, but so far I like what I see! They added a lot more empire management. The new colony district system is pretty interesting. Tactical combat is similar to AoW3 (i.e., good), but ranged attacks now play a bigger role. There's a new Overwatch ability like in XCOM. One thing I was skeptical about was that they moved away from the damage system in AoW3 where attacks always hit and defense, cover etc. reduces the damage. That was one of my favorite improvements of AoW3 over AoW2 because it made battles less random. Attacks in Planetfall all have hit-chances. However, if you've got a reasonable chance to hit, a miss will often still become a grazing shot for half damage. I still like the AoW3 system better.

The setting is really cool too. The whole thing about rebuilding on top of the ruins of a fallen space empire fits well with all the Age of Wonders gameplay tropes with ancient dungeons, artifacts and so on. The idea of some precursor race that left all sorts of ancient artifacts around is pretty stale, but in Planetfall, the precursors are human and the empire is still in living memory, if only because some people spend a lot of time in cryo pods or use other life-extending technology.

I'll write a longer post with first impressions tomorrow in another thread, if anyone's interested.