Age of Wonders III is free to own until July 16th or until stock runs out on Steam.

Get Age of Wonders III

Free to keep when you get it before 16 Jul @ 5:00am. Some limitations apply. (?)

If you sign up to the Humble Bundle newsletter you can get a free copy of Age of Wonders 3. This offer comes during a Spring sale on the Humble Store which will last until May 23rd.

PCGamesN has a preview of Age of Wonders: Planetfall.

There’s a lot to be said for our globalised modern world, but none of it is particularly positive for 4X games. The more connected and homogenised we become, the harder it is to make new discoveries  - likewise, the better we communicate, the less desire we have to take and conquer. For a studio like Triumph, which was founded on making games that satisfy our inner invader, drastic solutions become necessary.

Age of Wonders: Planetfall burns the routers, knocks the satellites out of the sky, and mothballs the interstellar shuttles. Technology that has united us and allowed us to explore the universe is destroyed. The Star Union, once a galactic empire that spanned many thousands of worlds, has collapsed, marooning its people on their individual homeworlds. Cut off from one another, they have evolved to become culturally unique: scavenging cyborgs, bioengineering amazons, and bleary-eyed expeditionary forces awoken from cryosleep.

[...]

Age of Wonders: Planetfall has been announced with a new trailer.

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Age of Wonders: Planetfall is the new strategy game from Triumph Studios, creators of the critically acclaimed Age of Wonders series, bringing all the exciting strategic turn-based combat and in-depth empire building of its predecessors to space in an all-new sci-fi setting. Emerge from the cosmic dark age of a fallen galactic empire to craft a new future for your people. Explore the planetary ruins and encounter other surviving factions that have each evolved in their own way, as you unravel the history of a shattered civilization. Fight, build, negotiate and technologically advance your way to utopia, in a deep single player campaign, on random maps and against friends in multiplayer. Make sure you sign up to not miss any news at http://www.aow-planetfall.com

I found two more reviews for the Age of Wonders 3: Eternal Lord expansion.

Gamewatcher - 9/10

Like all good expansions, Eternal Lords doesn’t just throw in a bunch of new content at random (though that’s not to say there isn’t a ridiculous amount of new goodies, because there is). It carefully re-considers the mechanics of the core game and offers interesting new ways to approach familiar problems. The big draw here is the inventive Necromancer class, which is just heaps of fun, but both the two new races and the range of smaller changes, like the new options for a peaceful victory, are smart additions that will make Age of Wonders 3 feel fresh again to even the most jaded player. Take note, developers; this is how you do a good expansion pack.

OnRPG - 4/5

I’m in love with Age of Wonders III all over again.  It’s a terrific fantasy strategy game with something new and fresh being offered in both expansions. New victory conditions, new classes (or returns of old favorites), new characters, lore areas, lengthy and challenging campaigns!  Sure, the game is unforgiving and difficult, but it’s a nice hearken back to older strategy games of my youth such as Heroes of Might and Magic, as I have probably said before.  Kudos to AoWIII, they are really offering something unique, fun and suitably difficult. And I have to say, I love resurrecting cities in my own grim visage. That was one of the coolest points to be offered in the new expansion. Though I have to say that I still hate the controls. I do not feel they have gotten any better. Sometimes simply clicking on a unit is not enough and that drives me mad, but not enough to hate this title.

Here are two more reviews for the Age of Wonders 3: Eternal Lord expansion.

Gamespot - 8/10

Strategy game legend and Civilization creator Sid Meier once said, "Games are a series of interesting decisions." By that metric, Age of Wonders III: Eternal Lords is excellent. Your possibility space is vast, and you can craft your adventure and your nation in any number of ways. Systems of morality, player races and classes, and governance all work together to create an interlocking web of player-driven narrative potential. This expansion's only real weaknesses are those endemic to the structure of the base game, but Eternal Lords is a worthy follow-up and fresh take on the classic turn-based strategy game formula.

The Game Scouts - 9/10

There is so much more to Age of Wonders III: Eternal Lords, it’s impossible to cover all new intricacies and features with a single review. This is a remarkable expansion to an already superb game. Eternal Lords is an absolute must for owners of the base game. And those who have yet to acquire Age of Wonders III, what are you waiting for? This is one of the finest 4X strategy titles on the PC.

CGMagazine published a new review for Age of Wonders 3: Eternal Lord.

I'd say this expansion is fairly worth the money, if you really want to add onto your Age of Wonders III experience as a death-defying binder of souls.

Triumph Studios announced today the new expansion for Age of Wonders III called Eternal Lords is available on Steam for $19.99, and offer the complete saga for $40.19.

Embrace forbidden powers and prepare to reign for eternity, as today Triumph Studios launches the highly anticipated Eternal Lords Expansion!

Eternal Lords is the major, second expansion for Age of Wonders III, marking one year of continuous development since its release. With the introduction of the Tigran and Frostling races and the new Necromancer class, players must adapt to a world on the brink of cataclysmic change. New mechanics include the Race Governance system, which allows players to tailor the features of each race in their empire to meet their strategic needs, and adds new layers of depth to empire development and diplomacy.

The expansion is accompanied by the free V1.5 main game update introducing Vassals, the New Play by Email multiplayer mode, Mac/Linux support, Race Relations, improved AI, and more racial unit diversity

Nick Horth of GameWatcher published an interiview with Triumph’s Game Director Lennart Sas to get some details on the new expansion called Eternal Lords.

GameWatcher: Eternal Lords is bringing a whole bunch of new content to the table for Age of Wonders 3 players. A lot of other studios opt for smaller packs of DLC, so why does Triumph go for these big expansions instead?

Lennart Sas: We’re all very old-school gamers, and we just really like those big expansion packs. I’m not sure it’s the best business sense, but we prefer giving players a whole bunch of new features packed together for a whole new experience. Some people cut them up into smaller pieces, we also see some people selling what are essentially expansions as full sequels, but as old-school gamers we prefer to do things the traditional way. We want to give good value for money, and rekindle interest in the game that may have faded over time.

GameWatcher: How do you plan what’s in each new expansion? Do you listen to what the fans are requesting, or is it more an opportunity to add what you wanted to add in the base game?

Lennart Sas: It’s a mix of both actually. When making a very complex game like Age of Wonders you need to give things time to mature. When you’re in the thick of development you often run out of fuel in terms of new ideas, but when you’re looking back a few months down the line you can see what all the fans are saying, analyse and play the game yourself, and then these new ideas start to emerge. For example, the new race relations system we’ve added, the ‘Unifier’ victory, this all came forth from iterative development. Once you have the game out there selling and generating revenue, then you can start tweaking it and making it better. Continued development like that is a great benefit of this digital age, of development as service, where the community is right there for you to gather ideas from, get feedback from. It’s been a huge change for us from the usual model of working directly with publishers.

Triumph Studios allowed a YouTube channel called GamersPrey to play a beta version of the next expansion called Eternal Lords, and they posted a 20 minute gameplay video.

Once agan The Age of Wonders 3 website has a few more updates since the last time I checked. The first update compares stats from players of all three games.

Forumite Tibbles has been so awesome to put together this infographic comparing the exact amount of content in each iteration of Age of Wonders.

We’ve seen some people asking why Age of Wonders 3 has so few races compared to the older games. This graphic shows that while the number of races is indeed lower, the number of units, spells and abilities in Age of Wonders 3 exceeds previous games by a wide margin, even when leaving out racial variations of class units. With the Golden Realms expansion, and the upcoming Eternal Lords expansion included, Age of Wonders 3 becomes by far the most expansive game we as a company have ever created. We hope you’ve enjoyed playing it as much as we’ve enjoyed making it!

The second update show off the new Multi-player PBEM feature.

Today we’re starting a blog documenting the battle of the multiplayer champions Jomungur and LordTheRon and of two death defying (some might say suicidal) development team members: Sikbok and Lennart.

And the Third and final update is about some new locations in Eternal Lords.

After the Structures of Frost and Darkness, now we’ll take a look at the second set of new locations for Eternal Lords.

Triumph Studios announced patch 1.53 is ready for open Beta on Steam in preparation for the release of the new expansion called Eternal Lords Expansion.

Hi, Thanks everybody for your input on the V1.5 Open Beta! A lot of Feedback has already been processed resulting in the first update – V1.53 is live.

Triumph Studios announced patch 1.5 is ready for open Beta on Steam in preparation for the release of the new expansion called Eternal Lords Expansion on April 14th.

Before the Age of Wonders 3: Eternal Lords Expansion is released on April 14^th, we’ve decided to celebrate and start the open beta for the complementary v1.5 Update on Steam.  Additionally we’ve launched Steam betas for Mac and Linux versions which will also accompany the Eternal Lords release.  We’d love to hear your feedback – with your help we can make the game even better!

Triumph Studios announced the name of the new expansion pack for Age of Wonders III is called Eternal Lords. As usual here is the trailer, and more information.

Eternal Lords is the major, second expansion for the acclaimed strategy game Age of Wonders III, marking one year of continuous development since its release. With the introduction of the Tigran and Frostling races and the new Necromancer class, players must adapt to a world on the brink of cataclysmic change.  New mechanics such as the Race Governance system, which allows players to tailor the features of each race in their empire to meet their strategic needs, add new layers of depth to empire development and diplomacy.   Embrace forbidden powers and reign for eternity!

Once The Age of Wonders 3 website has a few more updates since the last time I checked. The first update is about the new vassals & enhanced diplomacy system.

Race Relations

Relations are now tracked per race, making decisions about who you make war with much more important.  Declaring war on an Elven city might give you a quick conquest, but don’t expect your Elven citizens to be happy about it afterwards. As your relations with each race improves, you will be able to earn unique racial perks that boost your armies and economy as described in the Race Command Feature. However there are more benefits, like new ways of expanding your realm without warfare.

Vassals 

As your relations with Independents improve through better race relations and completing quests, you can convince independent towns to serve you as Vassals. Though they retain independence, Vassals have many benefits:

• Vassals provide you with a reliable per turn income, based on a % of the actual town’s income.
• Unlike regular independent towns, vassals grow in population and maintain their own defenders.
• Vassals occasionally give units as gifts to your empire
• Vassals are allies, meaning you can help protect them via the adjacent hexagon rule.
• Vassals can be bought to join your empire when you think the time is right.

The second update talks about the new expansion, and its new music.

In today’s journal Michiel van den Bos discusses the soundtrack for the upcoming expansion, and we a small update of little bits and pieces we’ve been working on. First, the Maestro in his own words.

The Age of Wonders 3 website has had a few more updates since the last time I checked. The first update is about the new Structures of Frost and Darkness.

Today we take a look at a selection of new locations for the upcoming expansion. This set is associated with the cold north and the awakening of dark necromantic powers in the world of Athla.

The second update is about a beta patch, and talks about the Mac/Linux versions.

This is an announcement that we’ll have a public Steam Beta for the Update/Patch 1.5 in a couple of weeks. This free update will launch officially together with the upcoming expansion. It will be loaded with new features such as Diplomatic AI profiles, overhauled diplomatic relations and you’ll be able to test the awesome new PBEM mode.  (PBEM is now the most played game mode here at the office!).

Also Lascha has been making great progress on the conversions; the Mac and Linux versions of the game are now nearing completion.  We hope to have both these versions ready to drop together with the Beta of Update 1.5 on Steam, to launch together with the new expansion. We could really help use your help to test Mac Linux, PBEM and V1.5 on as many systems as possible!

The latest update from Triumph Studios for Age of Wonders III introduces us to a new race called the Tigrans, and they will be included in the games next expansion.

Yes – we have another race lined up for you for the upcoming expansion, and as many of you have already guessed that race is the Tigrans! These warmth loving cat people make for a great contrast with the Frostlings (we already have some cool terraforming maps in development)  Also with their Egyptian inspired culture, they make for a great fit in the Necromancy theme.

Triumph Studios latest blog update brings information the developer is adding back PBEM Multiplayer to Age of Wonders III after it was cut before the game launched.

So wast is PBEM Multiplayer? Read on to find out.

As game developers who have grown beyond the uncomplicated days of playing games all days in the garage, we know all too well that nagging partners, unruly kids and life in general can get in the way of prolonged multiplayer sessions.  PBEM games are an excellent solution for this.

However in the old Age of Wonders games the PBEM feature wasn’t always as smooth. The large amount of different email services and email attachment limits caused some trouble, which luckily Dave Sp1ce helped address with his excellent Age of Wonders Email Wrapper.   With Triumph setting up its own multiplayer account server, and bandwidth costs dropping year by year,  we thought we could take the concept of PBEM into the 21^st century. We investigated a server relay system, where turns aren’t sent to other players as saved game email attachments, but are instead stored on a central server.

The advantages of Server Based PBEM are:

• Quick setup and easy management of multiple simultaneous sessions.
• Better gameflow, you can easily see which player holds the game and you get live updates when games are ready.
• Turn Timers with an auto end, so people can’t sit on their turn for too long.
• No email server incompatibilities, bounces on large attachments, etc.
• You don’t need to share email addresses with strangers.
• And potential for additional (currently unimplemented) features such as central messaging, user kicking, ladders, first come first serve out of order turn options to speed games up.

The Age of Wonders 3 website has had a few more updates since the last time I checked it. The first update is about the new race upgrade system from the next expansion.

Happy New Year!  Today we resume our Dev Journals,  this time it is one of the free features we plan to release together with the upcoming Expansion: Race Command.

The second update is about the new ShadowBorn specialization.

The upcoming DLC isn’t complete with new things to specialize your leader in. Today we reveal the Shadowborn specialization, which has its sinister skills distributed over Adept and Mastery levels.

And the third update show off some new 3D Leader models.

Hi there! In today’s Development Journal we’re taking a look at the new Leader 3D assets.  The art team has been hard at work on this for months, and is now nearly done creating all the race-class combos and an unprecedented set of extra customization options for the upcoming expansion.

The Age of Wonders 3 developer's haven't been idle with making the games next expansion pack, and now they offer a free X-Mass gift to every buyer.

Here is the infomartion from a new Steam Post.

With the Holidays approaching fast, we have a bit of a different kind of Journal for you: a gift to all you Age of Wonders 3 players.

The Age of Wonders 3 Holiday update features a dozen new types of head gear to be used with the Leader Customizer. The set includes sinister cloak hoods plus Undead and Frostling themed head gear in anticipation of the upcoming expansion, set for Q1 2015

As with other head pieces it takes on player colors; so if you want to create a Santa, select the new fluffy Santa hat, ensure to pick a red and white color scheme and choose a big bearded dwarf. Or select a hooded skull mask if Santas aren’t your thing. Al lot of these accessory types were tricky or time intensive to make (such as the hoodies), so they didn’t make it in the original release. Hurrah to Daniel for pulling it off!

All the head gear is available for all the classes and races, so get these updates from Steam (Auto update) and GoG (download patch) and get customizing now to look at your Christmas best.

Thank you for making the game such a success this year.

Happy Holidays!

- Team Triumph

PS: a lot of us will be off during the next two weeks; but we might have an additional journal lined up for you next week.

Age of Wonders 3's developers haven't been idle.  There's been a lot going on, including - apparently - Frostlings.  It's about time.

There has been a slew of developer journals posted to the Age of Wonders III website since I last checked, so if you're looking for more information on the game's second expansion pack, this newsbit should help you get there. Included among them are journals on necromancer skills, cosmic events, the Dread Reaper, content refinements, the Frostling army, and even more on Frostlings...

More information.

Well since my  last post about Age of Wonders III Triumph Studios has released two more updates on the games website. The first update is about Cities of the Dead.

Here is the next update on the Necromancer Class Design, thanks everybody for the feedback. Here is some of our progress that hopefully answers some of your questions and may be it incorporates some feedback here and there. There are many aspects to this class, but we’ll start at the root which are the mechanics for Undead towns and transformed undead races.

The second update is about is a followup to the one above about Necromancer Units.

Today we take a look at the conceptual designs for first Necromancer Units.  As we posted in our last dev journal, the Necromancer can turn many types of living units into Ghoul variants using the Great Transformation spell, but of course, the Necromancer comes with its own unique unit roster.  Today we’re going to take a look at the first lower tier Necromancer units.

Triumph Studios has released a breif update about the new Necromancer class.

With Golden Realms and V1.4 hot of the presses we do not rest, but get straight back to work on the next Age of Wonders III expansion.  As we’ve hinted in the past, we’re happy to confirm the coming expansion will include the Necromancer class!  Usually we run development journals when items are a little bit further in development, but with this one we want to give an early look on what we’re planning and hear your feedback. First topic: the Necromancer!

Also COG reviewed the new expansion, and gave it an 82/100.

At the end of the day this is just a very solid purchase if you’re looking for quality content at a low price that offers nearly endless hours of fun gameplay centered around an oft-forgotten race so key to true fantasy worlds. Thank you Triumph, for doing justice to these noble little people and bringing them to the center stage for a grand performance of dancing, singing, and a little bit of blood-letting. Let the games begin!

Since my last post about Age of Wonders III Triumph Studios has released two more updates on the games website. The first update is about map making.

With the added V1.4 support for sharing user content including Steam Workshop; Narvek and new intern JimiH_Dev have been so kind to put together an all new Step by Step Map Making Guide.

The Age of Wonders 3 editor is a lot more powerful than the ones that came with the previous games, but this also means its gotten a little less easy to pick up. But if you get the hang of the basics, you’ll notice it isn’t that hard to create your own scenarios and campaigns.   Here are the link to all guides related to map-making we have so far:

• (New!) Step by Step Map Making Guide
• Introduction to Level Editing Video
• Advanced Level Editing and Scripting Guide
• Sharing User Content with the Package Manager (incl Steam Workshop)

We’re looking forward to playing your user maps and campaigns!

The second update talks about multiplayer compatibilty with the expansion.

Hello everyone, with the Golden Realms Expansion out now, we’ll discuss how the Expansion impacts multiplayer. Are you worried you can’t play AoW3 with or against your friends, worry no more. All shall be explained below. People that buy expansions for AoW3 – such as the Golden Realms expansion – get their hands on all sorts of new goodies. Expansions can contain new races, classes, specializations, units, items, maps, etc. However, what happens if they play with people that don’t have access to those goodies?

Here are two new reviews the Age Of Wonders III expansion Golden Realms.

Incgamers - 7/10

Overall, Golden Realms offers a little bit for every Age of Wonders 3 player; whether they want a heavy competitive game, expanded tactics and spells, or simply to turtle their way to victory. For fans and Triumph Studios, this is the start of a fresh journey forward after the release of Age of Wonders 3. Golden Realms isn’t perfect, but it’s a good foundation to hopefully be further built upon.

Leviathyn - 9/10

Golden Realms won’t win over any new converts to turn-based strategy gaming but as an expansion it easily succeeds on all levels. The new campaign is fun (though very difficult) and great at showing off new content, naval warfare is greatly expanded (and the new maps have plenty of it) and the expected crop of new units, items and features integrate smoothly into the main game. Age of Wonders III was already one of my all time favorite turn-based strategy games, and Golden Realms makes it even better.

Triumph Studios announces patch 1.4, and the Golden Realms Expansion are now available for download on Steam. Here is the information taken from the site.

This joyous day sees the release of both the feature loaded Golden Realms Expansion and the free V1.4 update. Thanks to all our fans for making this possible, developing, expanding and tweaking a huge game like AoW3 would be impossible without your feedback! The expansion and patch will massively improve your Age of Wonders III Experience.  Here’s what you can expect:

Golden Realms greatly expands Age of Wonders III’s empire building mechanics and introduces bucket loads of new content. These new features are used in random maps, new scenarios and a new story campaign, where Halfling survivors settle in a distant land filled with danger and treasures never seen before.

New Content Includes:

• The Halfling Race: The little folk are back, with new units, heroes and leaders. The jesters shoots fireworks which dazzle the enemy and the cleaver flinging brew brothers keep the Halfling armies fed while on the road. Halflings can be used with all classes and introduce the new Luck mechanic which allows them to dodge incoming attack while they’re in good spirits.
• Golden Realms Campaign. In this three scenario campaign, you help the Halfling survivors of the Heartwood Massacre rebuild an empire in an exotic land and confront an ancient evil.
• Exotic Map Locations: Capture the Naga Dwelling, home to serpentine queens and giant man-snakes, and discover new treasure sites such as the fabled Lost City to benefit your empire.
• Over twenty new units: Encounter new exotic units such as the filth throwing Dread Monkeys, alluring Mermaids and the fearsome Glutton who can swallow whole regiments in one bite.
• New Hero Items: The Golden Realms contain 50 new magical artifacts to discover and use. Wield the enigmatic Crystal Skull, or wear a stylish Witch Doctor’s Headdress to mix in with the locals.
• Wild Magic Specialization: Unleash wild magic. Cause spontaneous mutations, warp equipment and turn orderly battles into a pandemonium where the lines of battle are violently warped.
• Partisan Specialization: Use new skills for guerrilla warfare. Create concealed hide-outs and develop ambushing skills.
• Two hand crafted scenarios: Playable single and multi-player these new stand-alone scenarios are built around the new features of the Golden Realms expansion.

Triumph Studios announces patch 1.4 for Age Of Wonders III is now in Beta on Steam.

As we’re ramping up for the Golden Realms Expansion set to be released September 18th, we’re first going to talk about the accompanying v1.4 Patch. There’s a huge list of changes below, but the stand out features of the patch are:

• A whole bunch of AI improvements and fixes, including: a more aggressive AI, trespassing updates, AI surrendering, etc.
• Updated disjunction mechanics. See Dev Journal: New Disjunct & Spell Mechanics for details. This also includes changes to abilities removing buffs and debuffs to make these consistent with the disjunct mechanics and more interesting overall.
• Non-Hero units can now continue levelling up beyond “Elite” and the level cap for Heroes has been razed.
• Added an option to disable observing other people’s Manual Battles, such that the units and spells of other Players are no longer revealed.
• Tactical spells balance update, making them – and especially buff and debuff spells – more viable and fun.
• An update to all Elementals, adding more variety to their strengths and weaknesses.
• Multiple balance changes – specifically to Arch Druid and Rogue units which – adding racial diversity.
• Changes Happiness and Morale to make these systems more interesting. Includes changes to Skills, Abilities and Status Effects to add more active and direct ways of influencing Morale.
• Addition of the Package Manager to facilitate user made maps.  This including Steam Workshop support. See here for a guide on how to use it!

They also released a new Development Journal about Wild Magic.

Hi there, here’s a look at another new feature from the upcoming Golden Realms expansion.  This time it’s the new magical sphere of Wild Magic.  Players who choose this specialization have the ability to direct the flow of raw magical energy for spectacular results.

Triumph Studios has released a new update on the games website with information about the diplomacy improvements for the Age of Wonders III expansion Golden Realms.

Development Journal: Diplomacy Improvements

In today’s dev journal, we take a look at the the improvements we’re making to Diplomacy.

Diplomacy Improvements

First we take a look at the new AI surrendering logic. Imagine the following situation: you have built a mighty empire, you are crushing everything your enemy can throw at you.  You are conquering his realm city by city. But still, no throne city in sight to end the reign of that puny lord. It looks like you are in for the long haul…

Triumph Studios has released a new update on the games website with information about the next expansion for Age of Wonders II called Golden Realm.

Golden Realms greatly expands Age of Wonders III’s empire building mechanics and introduces bucket loads of new content. These new features are used in random maps, new scenarios and a new story campaign, where Halfling survivors settle in a distant land filled with danger and treasures never seen before.

Since my last post about Age of Wonders II Triumph Studios has released three more updates on the games website. So sit back and get ready to read three updates.

The first update is about a new game feature called Mystical City Upgrades.

The goal with this new feature is to make cities a lot more unique. We got some feedback that right now city upgrades could use more diversity. The class structures vary per class of course, and the tier 3 unit building is different for each race. Then there’s the Harbor which you can only build if the city is located next to water. But you wanted more, and we heartily agree!

The second update talks about the New Disjunct Spell Mechanics.

Age Of Wonders 3 has many spells that that you can cast to strengthen their empires, enchant their cities and swing the tide of battle in their favor. Many of these spells can be removed by your enemies however, if they research an ability called Disjunction. Disjuncting a spell is simply a case of paying the same amount of mana that a spell cost to cast in order to Uncast it, removing its effects from the world.

Under the new rules, all players will have the ability to disjunct other player’s magic from the start of the game without needing any special research, however disjunction is no longer guaranteed to succeed.

The final update is about the developer hosting a Multiplayer Tournament.

With the World Cup nearing its conclusion; we have another great international sports event to look forward to: The Age of Wonders III Summer Tournament 2014! 

Community member BloodyBattleBrain is the instigator and will lead the organization. The exact rules will follow, they are partially dependent on the amount of players and your feedback of course. Triumph will contribute prizes.

The plan is to start the tournament July 15th,  If you wish to participate as a contestant, please post in the comments below!  Any suggestions on the tournament format are also welcome!

Triumph Studios has a new development journal for Age of Wonders III that talks about a new upcoming victory condition from the games expansion.

Seals of Power Victory Condition

Hello everyone! As the first post-release Development Journal, we’re going to talk a bit about the creation of the Seals of Power, which is a new Victory Condition for both random maps and standalone or campaign scenarios. As with other upcoming new features, we can’t give an exact date of when they will be implemented. Note that some new Dev Journal features presented will be part of  expansions, while others will be included in patches / free updates.

So back to this new feature! When cleared, these legendary Seals of Power allow you to accumulate Seal Charges. The first player to be fully charged wins the game!

They can be pre-placed on maps, and in the Random Map Generator settings you will get the option to either play with or without Seals of Power. Since this represents a whole new way of winning the game it will add a whole new element to the gameplay experience and it can spice up the end-game.

 

Triumph Studios has a new update on the website for Age of Wonders 3 with information on the games upcoming expansion, and talk about the return of the journals.

Development Update and Return of Journals

Hi guys, just a quick post that we’re making great progress on lots of new Age of Wonders goodies for you.  The upcoming update should include Steam Workshop support and Cloud Saves. This should make it easier for you to exchange user made scenarios and manage save games across multiple computers.

The tech team is working hard on porting the game to Mac (and likely: Linux).  Already did most of the graphical side of things; the release will likely coincide with an expansion.

Then we’ve got lots new features and content in the works.  The first new race (one with –ling in the name) is nearly complete with others in development. New races are a lot of work: core units, class unit variants, leader and hero assets, City and TC graphics, new abilities, balance, etc). We also have an exotic new dwelling, new monsters, music, classes and a new campaign in the works.  We’re also testing some exciting new mechanics that include new victory conditions and a new type of quest.

Triumph Studios has a new post about the recently released patch for Age of Wonders 3 with a list of all the updates, and changes on the games website.

Update V1.2 is here

With this week’s massive update we make race choices matter more,  with racial traits impacting more class units. Water combat is more tactically rewarding, and we’ve added new game speed settings  that allow you to adjust empire development speed for quick multiplayer games or marathon XL maps.  See the list below for much more updates! Thanks to all of you providing feedback! This game just keeps getting better and better. \T

This official update will be applied automatically via the Steam client (you might have to restart) and GoG users can down load an installer.

Triumph Studios has a new post on the Age of Wonders III website where they share a few guides to help anyone who is interested in modding the game.

Advanced Level Editing and Scripting Guide

Hello everyone! It’s about time we get into advanced level editing, and explain the script commands we used in the campaign and stand-alone scenarios.

For a video showcasing basic editing like placing units/structures, painting terrain etc look here.

The script documentation still very much needs to be considered ‘raw material’. As such, it may contain errors, it will definitely not explain everything you want to know and it will not warn you about everything that can go wrong if you use a script in a specific way. I wish you all good luck with making your own stories and adventures!

Download the 60+ pages Scripting Guide here!

Download the Mirror Pact Example Map here so you can see scripting in action.

If you have questions, feel free to post them on our Level Editing forums!

Triumph Studios has a new post about a recently released patch for Age of Wonders 3 with a huge list of all the updates, and changes on the games website.

Huge v1.1 Patch Unleashed

Hi! Today’s massive official Patch – v1.10 – is all about improving mid and late game balance, which is especially noticeable on the larger random scenarios.  A typical scenario should now have a more gradual buildup. Other goals include finalizing VPN support and tackling the bugs reported by the community and of course many more little fixes and additions as listed below.

Our focus will now move to resolving additional multiplayer connection issues, improvements to localized text and adding features requested by the community. We’ve are also working on some big new features for you, which enhance empire building and diplomacy.

The build will auto-update when you (re-) launch the Steam Client and is available for download at GoG.com

Triumph Studios has posted two new updates on the website for Age of Wonders 3. The first update is a post with information on the games lore that contains spoilers.

While we are currently working on expanding the Age of Wonders universe, we have prepared this detailed timeline, which contains all key events that happened in between Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic and Age of Wonders III.  This timeline will answer questions concerning the activities of key characters, disappearance of entire races, as well as raise some new mysteries!

The second update is about the making of Age of Wonders 3.

Game Development site Gamasutra interviewed Age of Wonders 3 director Lennart Sas, covering how the series made its “remarkable” return,  some particularities on development and the advantages of self-publishing.

Gamasutra has a new interview with Lead Designer Lennart Sas of Triumph Studios to talk about getting self published for Age of Wonder III, and finally releasing the game.

It’s been awhile since we’ve seen an Age of Wonders game -- roughly 11 years, I think. What happened?

We were very busy with Overlord for a while, and we’re a small studio so we can really only focus on one project at a time.

Also, the games market has really changed. In 2004-2005 the console market was really booming and the PC market -- you know, when digital distribution wasn’t as developed as it is now -- the PC market was really declining. Every publisher we talked to said “give us a console game!” so that’s when we started looking into making a strategy game on consoles.

When we came out of the Overlord deals we saw that the console market had drastically changed. It was late in the lifecycles of both consoles, it seemed very hard to launch new IP, and there was a financial crisis going on.

At the same time, we saw that digital distribution on PC was really booming, with lots of smaller studios and indies moving towards digital distribution and self-publishing.

So we said 'hey, Age of Wonders is an old game we always wanted to go back to,' and creatively speaking we were loaded up with new ideas after all these years off. So we decided to try and bring the game back, since we were still very fond of it: we had kept our websites alive through the years to keep interacting with the Age of Wonders community.

But we were also a bit scared of going back to Age of Wonders, because after we released Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, we said we’d added -- how do you Americans say -- 'Everything but the kitchen sink'? It was fully complete, and it was sort of [our] zenith. We were worried about failing to meet people’s expectations; we were really sort of scared of our own shadow.

But we started conservatively planning and laying out what kind of sequel we could do, depending on what kind of funding we could get, and I’m happy to say we were able to make the game we wanted to make and spend 39 months on development.

So how did you find that cash? How did you approach your inaugural attempt at self-funding?

The Overlord project was fairly successful -- we sold the IP -- but we maybe stayed a bit too long trying to chase more console deals, which didn’t work, so we had to scale back the studio. It was the only time in our 17-year career as a game development studio that we had to do that, but that reduced our burn rate a lot and allowed us to invest in a prototype for Age of Wonders 3.

We didn’t know how to finance it yet, but the rights for Age of Wonders sequels reverted to us in 2009 or 2010, so we were able to self-publish those games on Steam. We were quite pleasantly surprised by the revenue that generated -- of course it was a small amount, but for ten-year-old games it was still quite impressive, and it allowed us to finish that critical first prototype.

So when we reached a certain point, when we had that first playable, we went the traditional route of talking to various publishers; it was definitely a buyer’s market back then so people were asking for lots of sequel potential, sequel options, that kind of thing.

And then by pure chance -- this was in 2011 I think, right before Kickstarter became really popular -- we noticed that Markus Persson had written something on the Minecraft splash screen that talked very favorably about Age of Wonders.

Of course we knew about his success, and so we figured that if he was a fan we should send him a note and see if he wanted to do something with us.

This was before Markus became super super busy, and he said 'Well, let’s meet so I can see the game. Come to Sweden!'

So we flew over to present the game, and we agreed to work together on this. I mean, he didn’t really work on it, but he made a significant financial contribution to its development.

Triumph Studios has a new post on the Age of Wonders 3 website with information you can now listen to the games full soundtrack on Youtube.

Listen to the full AoW3 Soundtrack on Youtube

The fantastic original soundtrack that comes with the Age of Wonders III Deluxe edition contains crisp MP3 and loss-less FLAC file downloads.   If you missed out, then we now have a streaming YouTube alternative for you to check out.  The soundtrack’s composer Michiel van den Bos has uploaded the soundtrack to his channel for your enjoyment.  If you still haven’t bought the game – get the Deluxe Edition! Over 2 hours of magical music.  BTW – We are looking into making available a Deluxe Edition upgrade, if you already own the standard edition.

For now: check the full playlist here.

Triumph Studios sent out a press release with information about a new patch for Age of Wonders 3. The should auto update on Steam unless you have the GOG version.

First Age of Wonders 3 update released; game continues to be developed with input from community

DELFT, the Netherlands, April 9, 2014 – Triumph Studios, the team behind the Overlord and Age of Wonders series, today releases the first Age of Wonders III patch along with plans for continued support and fan interaction.

Since the critically and commercially successful release last week, the team has been hard at work looking at the feedback we have received and can now present the first official patch for Age of Wonders III. Many thanks go out to the players testing this patch in beta form over the past week.  The overall goals with this first patch are: performance optimization, fixing hardware specific issues, registration issues, improved AI behavior and the first balance adjustment. Triumph also added the first feature requests such as quick saves and native high resolution support.

Triumph Studios, is working closely with the fans at ageofwonders.com to provide continued support in the form of free features, as well as gathering ideas for expansions.

Triumph Studios has a new post on Steam about a recently released Beta patch you can now test out to help fix a few problems with the game. Here are the patch details.

v1.08 Beta Patch Test Branch

The team has been hard at work with the feedback we've got since release. Before we roll out the first patch officially next week, we have decided to release a beta preview patch. This optional update is placed in a separate branch on Steam and will be available officially next week on both Steam and GoG. This allows users to check whether system incompatibly issues have been fixed for them, as well as getting gameflow feedback from the grognards on an experimental balance pass. If this patch doesn’t work for you, or if you want to start multi-player with friends not having the v1.08 beta patch, you can easily revert to the current official build. First we’ll list the fixes, then we’ll describe on how to switch to this v1.08 Test Branch in the Steam Client.

If this patch resolves the issues you have, then please let us know in this topic. If you find any new critical issues in the patch, please let us know about that too.

Some of the balance changes - especially those slowing down research and obtaining large stacks of end game unit - are experimental. We'd love to know what you think of these changes, so we can make adjustments.

If all this switching and test code is not for you, you can stick to the current build - i.e. change noting - and wait for the official patch to auto-update later.

Triumph Studios has released two more updateson the Age of Wonders 3 website. The first update has information on the games reception, and update plans.

The dust is settling after launch; so it’s time for an update!  The team is very happy and humbled with the overall reception so far: reviews, sales, but most importantly we’re happy with overall fan reaction. But of course we can always do better. We’ve spent 39 months developing Age of Wonders III, and we’re planning on supporting the game for a long period of time. We’ll release patches, free new features and dlc/expansion packs and we’re looking forward to implementing lots of feedback from the community.  For the first update/patch, which will go live in the coming days we are looking at the following items:

Likely fixes:

• WQHD / QHD (up to 2560 x 1440 / 2560 *1600) native resolution display support (the Black & White boxes and blurry text should disappear)
• Frame Drops, particularly when having an army selected removed.
• AI Difficulty lowered for “Squire” – people dying in the first Elven Court mission is not good.
• AI Global Spell Disjunction Spamming is limited
• AI Leaving their walls less quickly in combat
• Disabling of controller / joystick input to avoid camera drift
• Saving profile – e.g. graphics settings – fixed for the ‘Guest’ account.

New Features:

• Previous/Next Button for Cities (added to the city header)
• Quick Save Option.

This update should drop in the next couple of days. Steam versions will update automatically, and a patch will be downloadable from GoG. This is just a start! We have many other updates and fixes in the works, including an option to disable observing multiplayer tactical combat between other players.

The next update has more information the games editor with a new video.

While most of you have probably just begun delving into the depths of AoW3; we’re already getting questions about the editing tools. Designer Narvek  has prepared this tutorial video, showing the core features.  The Editor allows you to create your own worlds and paint terrain features with ease.  Place armies, cities, and resource structures with the click of a button. Create your own heroes, and set default diplomatic states between sides.  Tech savvy editors can script interactive events such as quests and create entire campaigns, including story scenes with custom art and voice tracks – just like the campaigns shipped with the game!

Triumph Studios has a new update for Age of Wonders 3 where they post most of the Lets Play videos available for the game. Now I must warn you they contain spoilers.

Let’s Play Video Barrage!

With just a couple of hours until the game’s release, we have a couple of new English Language Let’s plays from Youtube gaming celebrities for you to check out. These let’s plays give a great view of what’s the game is all about, and as the game is soon deep and varied, each video is different and even developers discover new things by watching these videos.

Triumph Studios sent out a new press release with news that Age of Wonders 3 is now available. You can buy the game on GOG or Steam.

The Prophecies Are True: Age of Wonders III Now Available!

The legendary fantasy series makes its return to the legendary PC platform

DELFT, the Netherlands, March 31, 2014 – Triumph Studios, the team behind the successful Overlord and Age of Wonders series, announced today that Age of Wonders 3 is now available on Steam, GoG and retail in select territories with a recommended price of $39.99 (local prices may vary)

The third Age of Wonders title revives the classic fantasy strategy gameplay of the original, where kings, queens, and dark lords battle for the spoils of an ancient paradise. This iteration adds RPG-inspired classes and specialization, letting rulers craft empires of their own design and craft their own unique strategies and play styles. 

"After 39 months of hard work, we're finally letting our baby out into the world. We're excited to let people finally return to the game they loved so much," said Lennart Sas, Development Director at Triumph Studios. "The new classes and specializations let players choose to play the way THEY want, rather than being hemmed in by the typical fantasy restrictions."

Key features include:
·          Explore, expand and exploit a living fantasy world. Discover wondrous locations and gather legendary heroes.
·          Develop your domain, with many classes having the ability to change terrain and climates to suit your needs.
·          All new 3D graphics that provide a crisper and more detailed overview of the world and battle maps.
·          New styles of play are possible with the introduction of RPG style leader classes like warlord, theocrat, rogue and sorcerer, along with a wide selection of specializations.
·          Command a variety of races. Pick your starting race and shape your people’s destiny using your leader’s unique skills.
·          A brand-new tactical battle system renders each battlefield and siege in great detail; new rules include flanking and a massive set of special unit abilities.
·          An epic story campaign with two playable factions;. Choose the mighty Commonwealth Empire or join the Court of the High Elves, founded after the reunion of the Dark Elves and Wood Elves.
·          Compete online in extensive multiplayer modes and scenarios.
·          High replay value through random maps, difficulty modes and tools allowing user created content.

Age of Wonders 3® is rated T for Teen and PEGI 16 and now available through Steam, GOG.com, and a variety of online and physical retailers. For more information, visit www.ageofwonders.com

Here are three more reviews for Age of Wonders 3 I managed to roundup this week. All three are positive, and don't forget the game will be out on Monday the 31st.

Gamespot - 7/10

Online foibles aside, with its tactically rewarding battles and streamlined empire management, Age of Wonders III is a well-crafted strategy game that doesn't let itself get bogged down in needless busywork. It pushes your focus onto its strongest suit, the battlefield, while keeping everything else in the background. Some smart elements of randomness help keep you on your toes after multiple sessions, though you will find several go-to strategies still apply regardless of the sort of army you lead. Age of Wonders III is the welcome return of a long-absent strategy series and a tactically rewarding game.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun - No Score

Age of Wonders III could have been constructed in the golden age of turn-based strategy. In fact, given the competition it’s going to have as the year goes on, it’s an additional reason to believe that we might be heading for that golden age right now.

IncGamers - 8/10

Age of Wonders 3 has taken almost forty hours of my life away so far. Players new to the series will like the depth of both content and gameplay, and should also like the balanced gameplay mechanics. Veteran players will love discovering new class specific units, researching the wide variety of new spells and the expanded story, but I do fear that some veteran players might take a while to get used to the Age of Wonders 3 changes.

Triumph Studios has a new update for Age of Wonders 3 where they reveal the last hero called the Warlord. They even include a new gameplay video of the Warlord.

Today we announce the 6th class of Age of Wonders 3, the fearless and brutal Warlord, with another 20 minute long game play video. In this video the battle hardened armies of an Orc Warlord Iron Lady march to crush the nations of weaklings.

For more information about the Warlord Class, check the class page.

“A Warlord once told me that a nation at peace was a nation breeding cowards to be enslaved. Warlords rule by the Law of the Sword, establishing a chain of command based on battlefield glory and duels to the death.  Their armies consist of highly specialized, mobile troops and powerful beasts trained to do their bidding.    Warlords are master tacticians, and often legendary warriors unto themselves. Though they tend to trust the power of their hardened armies over supernatural forces, Warlords have mastered arcane skills that strengthen their armies. They instill mythical courage in their own troops, while striking terror in the hearts of their foes..  ” –”Gifted Lords of the Third Age” by Ralinstone Pedant, Chronicler

I managed to roundup a few reviews for Age of Wonders 3 to share with everyone today. This should be the first batch as the game will be released next week.

Critically Sane

The game had a much stronger visual style than Fallen Enchantress, as colors tended to pop. The world was vibrant and engaging, and cities, as they grew, were more compelling visually. Thus continues the recent trend in revitalizing the strategy gaming genre- stronger visuals are important, especially in games that have long playtimes. No one wants to stare at ugly brown for 30 hours.

Matchstick Eyes 

Like its predecessors, AoW3 takes place across two layers. There is a strategic map, where players explore, build cities, and train armies; and there is a tactical battle map, where those armies meet. Even on the strategic map, the focus is on warfare (and indeed, my reviewer’s guide uses the analogy of an RTS). Empire management is quite simple, closer to Warlock than to Civilization.

Gizorama

I thought that AOW3 was a beautifully imagined game that depicted this mythical land with vibrancy and great detail. I’ve been playing a volley of “next-gen” console games off and on for the past two weeks, and for the most part, Age of Wonders represents itself extremely well: images are sharp, crisp and tight. Compared to its predecessors (AOW2 and Shadow Magic, consecutive precursors), this game is diverse with an imaginative and seemingly limitless barrage of high fantasy elements and environments that have been crafted with vivid detail.

MMO Huts

It has been ten years since we have seen an Age title come out. The community is strong however, and it is easy to see the hard work that Triumph Studios has put in to this title. It is more than my nostalgia talking though. It is a strong strategy title, with beautiful graphics and delightful themed music; it has lots of options and choices to make, and I can see having hundreds of hours of fun playing this with and against friends and strangers alike. It can be incredibly challenging, but honestly I think players will revel in it.

Cheat Code Central

Eleven years is far too long of a gap for a series of this caliber, though we can set those complaints aside for awhile, as Age of Wonders III has the potential to keep you hooked for a good long time. Whether playing a campaign against the computer or taking on eight other players in a random map, it bears the hallmark only a few empire building games have--the addiction to take "just one more turn". With a half-dozen classes, each with exclusive skills, spells, and units to unlock, as well as countless more denizens to discover, each playthrough is bound to reveal something new and interesting for you to enjoy.

Triumph Studios has another development update for Age of Wonders 3 on the games website. The update links to a new preview, and some new how to play videos.

Here are some new externally made videos to tide you over, while we are finishing the last bits of the game and are preparing new webpage content ourselves (Yes, yes – we still have that Warlord Class to reveal …  and we have some other cool bits to show like a certain editing tool

PCG Media has posted a new written and video preview for Age of Wonders 3. We can all play the game in the next twelve days. Here is a small part of the preview.

I can see Age of Wonders III alienating a lot of people at a glance. It has a rather generic name, and the curse of the third in the series doesn’t bode well for gamer confidence, but believe me when I say that if you like Civilization, and you love fantasy, you’ll absolutely adore Age of Wonders III. With an astoundingly impressive character creation system and insanely deep mechanics for conquest and battle, Age of Wonders III is addictive, endearing, and an absolute gem even in its beta state.

Don’t be concerned if you’re not familiar with the franchise, between you and I, let’s just call this Civilization: Unicorns and Pixie Dust, no one else has to know.

Triumph Studios has two new development updates for Age of Wonders 3 on the games website. The first update is a collection of six videos about the games multiplayer.

So Multiplayer in Age of Wonders III, how does that work?!  Forumite and Beta-tester BLOODYBATTLEBRAIN has been so kind to record the first video of an Online multiplayer match between fellow Beta tester Arjan_van_Daalen and himself.  This series of videos show the 2 players battling it out in Age of Wonders signature Simultaneous Turns Mode on a Randomly Generated Map and features.

The second update is about a boxed collector's edition only available for select regions. So if you live in the US or UK you will have to import one.

Q: So why isn’t the game available in retail shops in more countries?

We focused on countries where (strategy) PC games retail is prevalent and healthy, which pretty much is continental Europe. In the US and UK, it’s a challenge to get new full price PC titles in shops these days. We also had to limit the amount of co-publishing deals, due to internal overhead.

Q: Can I buy a physical copy from another country?

Retail copies from Northwestern Europe are not region locked and include English in-game text and voice. If you’re looking for a Limited Edition, the German one sold on Amazon.de could be an option. Careful! Lower priced copies from Russia and Poland are region locked for activation. (unless you want them just for the physical goodies!)

Q: Why did you include an in-game manual, not a physical one?

We live in 2014, with games being supported and updated after release. A printed manual would be outdated the moment it is sent to the printer. The digital manual, called the “Tome of Wonders”, displays actual game variables for things like units and spells, to ensure all data is up to date. Most importantly, it is super convenient to browse using hyperlinks and search functions from within the game.

Q: Why did you Steam-wrap the retail copies?

The Steam platform has many cool features, including features that make our lives a lot easier in regards to distribution. Did you know this decision allowed us to spend a month of additional development on the game? The game is subject to a day one patch upon activation. Doing retail without Steam would mean we’d have to lock the build a month earlier for manufacturing!

Triumph Studios has a new development update for Age of Wonders 3 that reveals the next hero class called The Theocrat. They even included a new video.

A radiant sun shines over Triumph Studios today, a perfect moment to reveal the long-expected Theocrat Class with another 19 minute long game play video, once again narrated by Tombles. In this video he finally gets his chance to convert you to Goblindom as he roams the lands with his Goblin Theocrat, spreading the good word, and bringing light to the blighted lands. Watch as his army fearlessly engages the heretic Sorcerer hordes in her own backyard, scaling the walls of her city and showing just how powerful those on the righteous path of the Theocrat can be.

“Theocrats lead the masses by their hearts. They heal, persuade, minister and convert. Their zealots are fiercely loyal, convinced that any action they perform will earn them a greater reward in the afterlife.  Because Theocrats tend not to wield many directly offensive powers, it is tempting to believe Theocrats pose no threat. History has proven this to be foolishness. Many earthly kingdoms have fallen under relentless crusades where holy armies of martyrs, evangelists, templar knights, war shrines and angelic beings bring Armageddon to pagan lands.” –“Gifted Lords of the Third Age” by Ralinstone Pedant, Chronicler

For more information about the Theocrat Class, check the class page.

If you feel like reading a new preview for Age of Wonders 3 then head over to
Quarter To Three were the writer shares his opinion.

It’s a pretty grand time to be into turn-based fantasy strategy games. Fallen Enchantress, Eador, Warlock, and Dominions 4 are all well worth playing for distinct reasons. And with the release of Triumph Studios’ Age of Wonders III at the end of this month, it might get to be an even better time.

Age of Wonders III is very much a military-centric fantasy game with a hearty layer of spellcasting on top. It’s much more like Warlock: Masters of the Arcane than Elemental or Eador, with minimized city building and empire management in favor of moving around stacks of units and pitting them against other stacks of units in tactical combat. Short stacks. Don’t expect to group more than six units at a time. Also, make sure to leave some units to defend your city. This isn’t one of those games where you get a favorite stack to do all the heavy lifting.

The economics are pretty lite, with only a couple of resources. But the amount of detail when you level up (or custom-build) a hero is pretty hardcore, with all sorts of options for a +1 here or -1 there. This is a game that allows for some persnickety specialization, to the point that leveling up often seems like an easy choice. Why would I spend one point for, say, sleep resistance when I could save up a few more points to raise my unit’s health? The thinking seems to be that with more choices, there’s more freedom to develop your characters and armies however you like.

Thank you Thrasher for the link.

Here are two more previews of the soon to be released Age of Wonders 3.

Eurogamer

I need to get those things out the way now. I'm quietly optimistic about Age of Wonders 3 and after having spent some lovely evenings amidst its shimmering spires, creaking forests and flitting faeries, I've very much enjoyed myself, but I must make it clear to you that it's a little bit silly.

I suppose all high fantasy is a little bit silly, and the higher it gets, the sillier it becomes. Though I haven't yet found flocks of giant moths, walking castles or a school for wizards, Age of Wonders 3 is the sort of game that has me thinking I still might, and perhaps very soon.

It's full of things. It has all of the things. It has maps resplendent with strange magical decoration, from mysterious ruins to esoteric shrines to glowing magical nodes, sometimes so close together that you stumble out of one and straight into the other. Its strange locales are populated by wisps and trolls and goblin scoundrels. Some of its creatures are beyond bizarre, such as the cherubs that look more like naked aliens, while the leaders it offers you as avatars embody every genre stereotype you'd expect. There's a particularly peculiar opulence to its excess, something that feels closer to Liberace than Tolkien.

Space Sector

One missed opportunity, in my opinion, is that Age of Wonders 3 doesn’t feature any alternate victory conditions. Other than conquering all the enemies, or conquering all the enemies with your allies, you’ve got no other real avenue to ending the game. In addition, I didn’t seem to have access to a spell to reveal the map despite exhausting every single research option in one game. This made tracking down the enemy throne city, which was underground within a vast network of narrow passageways and waterways, a rather tedious task. I’m hoping they add something in to make this process easier, or perhaps provide a way to ask enemies to surrender to you when they are greatly outnumbered. If not, I can see myself exiting games prematurely once victory is a foregone conclusion.

IncGamers takes a look at the at the tactical combat in Age of Wonders III. If you want more information I had another post last week with more information.

This week Triumph Studios revealed an in-depth look at the tactical combat mechanics in Age of Wonders III. Since I touched lightly upon some sneaky tactics in last week’s preview, I thought I’d now dive into some of the strategies and tactics available with the mechanics and units, and how they compare to the previous games in the series.

The depth of strategy and tactics has been improved. Some tactics remain the same, but others like concealment are more effective. It’s really interesting to see how far Age of Wonders III can provide for players both in terms of balance and the tactics you can employ against one another. In true RPG fashion, when you throw magic into the mix the combinations of tactics you can come up with expands dramatically.

In Age of Wonders II, each unit had movement points which were used for their various actions like attacking, attacks of opportunity, retaliation and shooting, to more special abilities like healing, using an item or casting spells. The amount of times a unit could attack or retaliate was based on their remaining movement for the turn. Attacking a unit expended the defending unit’s movement due to retaliating against those attacks. Once exhausted, the defending unit could no longer retaliate.

In Age of Wonders III this mechanic is made more visible to players through coloured hexes and action points, which have been introduced to separate them a little more from movement points.

Triumph Studios has a development update for Age of Wonders 3 with news pre-orders are now available on Steam, and GOG. The official release date is also March 31st.

Here is a new trailer that comes with the news.

Now, after more than 3 years of development and more than 10 years of waiting from the fans, Triumph Studios is ready to confirm the release date for Age of Wonders III: March 31st!

Pre-orders have started at Steam and GOG.com and at retail in select territories. We have a Digital Regular and Deluxe Edition available. The latter adds the truly epic Dragon’s Throne scenario and a fabulous two hour soundtrack; don’t miss out on this! And we have added a free pre-order gift: The Elven Resurgence scenario, which takes the series’ back to its roots in the ancient Heartwood Forest.

Strategy Informer is the next site to preview Age of Wonders 3. Here is a brief snip.

Despite my personal issues with early pacing, I don’t mind declaring “so far, so good” on this one. At the end of the day, it’s all a matter of momentum, and once you get going these issues become less critical and tense. New issues can arise though, and I worry that there won’t be much to sustain the game in the ‘late-game’ phase, when all the mystery is gone and it becomes purely an Empire-vs-Empire slug match. Which is interesting in its own right but it always leads to the ‘critical mass’ problem, which primarily war-focused games like these (traditionally) don’t handle that well. Still, you shouldn’t be worried, and this is definitely one to look forward to!

Triumph Studios has a development update for Age of Wonders 3 that goes into detail on the games tactical combat.

This week we’re going to have an in-depth look into the Age of Wonders III tactical combat mechanics. Tactical combat is one of the most important parts of the game, and we’ve worked very hard to refine the rules to make it more exciting and tactical. Our main goal was to make combat faster, and more lethal, while maintaining and improving the depth and tactical options that people expect from the series.

I managed to find two more previews for Age of Wonders 3. 

IGN

This is a far more warfare-based game than Civilization or Fallen Enchantress; there are no peaceful victory conditions. That's not inherently a bad thing, as AOW3 is clearly streamlined to be a game of epic battles. This is a slight shift in focus, but combined with the fast-paced combat, it makes AOW3 a sort of turn-based, fantasy cousin to the Total War series more than a fantasy Civilization. That's would be a pleasant niche to take over, but Age of Wonders III is going to have to improve its strategic layer's speed and accessibility in order to fill it.

IncGamers

Overall, despite a few misgivings, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time playing Age of Wonders 3. It feels fresh and I’m happy with the majority of the changes and the fan suggestions from the beta forums. Triumph have fixed some of the problems from previous games in the series and any new ones created in the will hopefully be resolved before release. I do have some reservations about Triumph managing to incorporate as much beta tester feedback as possible on the racial unit diversity and bugs before release, but it would be great to see this happen.

Triumph Studios has a development update for Age of Wonders 3 with a let’s play video revealing the archdruid, and random maps.

Today we have an all new 18 minute Let’s Play style video for you. Our resident narrator Tombles, shows off the newly revealed Archdruid Leader Class in action  on scenario made with the Random Map Generator.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has new preview of Age of Wonders 3 based on the games beta.

Is it unfair to hope for more than a solid sequel, with all the pieces seemingly in place? I was relieved when I accepted, a couple of hours in, that Triumph hadn’t diminished in the decade since Shadow Magic. The game feels safe – a riff on a formula successfully applied many times before – and there’s something to be said for sinking into a well-constructed game, with the growing certainty that it was built by solid, steady hands. But as draconians battled dwarves and dwarves battled elves, I found myself thinking of the weird humour and strange planes of Warlock II, and the sheer oddity of Eador: Masters of the Broken World. My mind even turned to the latest Fallen Enchantress game, which was the (presumably) final manifestation of a deeply flawed experiment.

Age of Wonders III isn’t weird, strange, odd or experimental. It’s also substantially less flawed than many of its apparent competitors. I expect it to absorb a great many happy hours when the final release arrives in the near future but I also expect that I’ll spend at least some of that time dreaming of worlds more wondrous and weird.

Thank you Thrasher for the link.

Triumph Studios has two new development updates for Age of Wonders 3.

AoWIII to be CO-Published by BUKA in Russia and CIS

Today we can announce Age of Wonders III is to be co-published with BUKA Entertainment in Russia and CIS. BUKA is a respected partner who also co-published Overlord.  We’ve always been super happy with the response on our games in Russia and we hope AoWIII will live up to expectations!  The game will be localized in Russian and available in stores across in Russia and CIS countries.

Dev Journal: Conquering Infinite Worlds in the RMG

Among all the beta madness, we found some time to prepare a new development journal. One of the things we’re tweaking in this beta phase is the Random Map Generator (RMG).  In this journal, programmer Lascha Lagidse will tell you how the RMG is constructed and what considerations have been made.

Triumph Studios sent a new press release about the Rouge class in Age of Wonders 3.

Age of Wonders III Rogue Leader Class revealed

DELFT, the Netherlands, January 23rd 2014 – Triumph Studios, the team behind the Overlord and Age of Wonders series, today reveals the Rogue leader class of Age of Wonders III.

"Rogue Lords are masters of stealth, manipulation and theft. Any foolish citizen who makes trouble, disappears without a whisper in the middle of the night. Rogues employ charm, poison, assassinations, and the magic of the shadows to appease their subjects and manipulate rival leaders. Rogues have two faces: one they wear in public, while the other is a ruthless schemer behind closed doors, directing sinister forces that wait in shadow for the perfect moment to strike."

Examples of Rogue Class Units include:

- Scoundrel – The dirt fighting henchmen of the Rogue with the ability to climb fortifications.
- Succubus – Corrupted seductress built at cities from one of the main races.  (Yes – we also have Dwarven Succubi with beards). Can convert units on the battlefield.
- Shadow Stalker -  Incorporeal monster of elemental darkness.  Has protection against physical weapons.

Rogue Skill Examples:

• Mass Battlefield Panic – Attempt to panic all enemy units on the battlefield. Units that were not Panicked are Hindered instead. Panicked units don't obey orders and attempt to flee from enemies or escape the battlefield.
• Night Wish - The caster's domain is shrouded in a sinister darkness and becomes unexplored for other players and all units suffer a vision range penalty.
• Rain of Poison Blades - Rains down armor piercing blades covered in poison.
• Plague of Brigands - Infiltrates the domain of a target enemy city with brigands that attack everything within sight.

Triumph Studios has a post on the Age of Wonders 3 website with information the game will be released in late March.

New Year’s Update!

Happy New Year! Here is a small New Year’s update outlining what you can expect from us in the coming months towards the release of Age of Wonders III. The closed beta has kicked off with a first circle of dedicated testers. Feedback so far has been very useful and tremendously encouraging for the team. After the initial glut of bugs have been squashed we’ll be extending our invites.

Keep a close watch on our website, we’ll be adding lots of new pages to the website including new Leader Class pages and new Development Journals loaded with information.

We’re looking forward to bringing you this long awaited game. Age of Wonders III is now targeted for a release date late March, with Pre-orders starting sometime before that. Thanks for all your support thus far.  In the meantime, please register and share your thoughts on our forums - who knows, you might be selected for the beta

Triumph Studios has two new updates for Age of Wonders 3. The first update introduces us to the sorcerer class.

“After the ascension of the ancient Wizard Kings at the end of the Second Age, a new breed of magicians, called Sorcerers, claimed power. Seeking to unravel the mysteries of cosmos, they’ve learned to directly tap into the mana currents and wield magic in its purest form. The Sorcerer summon magical creatures ranging from shock Wisps to extra-dimensional Eldritch Horrors. Being the most magically focused of all the classes, the Sorcerer wields a wide arsenal of combat invocations and unit and domain enchantments. Sorcerer’s domains tend to be loaded with protections such as anti magic domes and guarding glyphs, while they cast corrupting magic on their enemies. Needless to say Sorcerers favor mana over gold and rely on spells instead of brute force. With their arcane knowledge, they strive restore the dominance once held by the Wizard Kings.” — “Gifted Lords of the Third Age” by Ralinstone Pedant, Chronicler

Read all about the Sorcerer class, its units and skills in our new class page. It’s also a great place to check out our new screenshots!

The second update is a small contest to win a beta invite.

Triumph Studios has a new development post were they showoff the games cover art.

After going with a bunch of alternatives with our co-publishing partners, we settled on this concept. Our retail partners want a standout cover, preferable with the logo at the top so it’s easy to see on the shelves. The cover should show the experience of what the game is about. It displays the various types of leaders you can be in the game , looming above a battlefield in a fantastic world. The central character also has high contrast so we have an element that pops from a far (from smaller on-screen versions).

There were big arguments whether a female (Sundren) or male (Edward) should be the central character. Apparently covers with women sell a lot less, so we opted for the male. Don’t tell this to Rhianna Pratchett (our friend and writer who worked on Overlord!). Seriously though, we felt the pose with the central large sword better fitted with the male dreadnaught than the female Rogue. The light beyond Age of Wonders logo shines on the lead characters, as if they have a heavenly mandate to protect the arcadian landscape below from the attacking army. Will the player protect the Age of Wonders, or use it for his own evil goals?

The art is a group effort. The initial concept was done by Lennart, subsequently Lead Artist Allert van der Leij did the 3D posing and worked out the page core of the page in high detail. Additionally Intern Chilly Prins (who has a great knack for color and environment) added painterly details, bringing the elements together. Then Len did some final detailing on the characters.

The Characters:

• Dwemus, A Dwarf Theocrat. A jolly Dwarf Priest appearing in the story. He’s got a grudge against the Commonwealth
• Sundren, High Elf Rogue. Daughter of Julia and King Saridas. Protagonist of the Elven Court Campaign
• Edward, Human Dreadnaught. Protagonist of the Commonwealth Campaign.
• Reshkar, Draconian who you’ll help find a new homeland in the the Elven Court Campaign
• Saridas, former Dark Elf, appearing in both EC and CW campaigns

(Elements of) this art will also be used as banners in the digital stores and on the webpage. Hopefully we’ll get some posters printed too.

Triumph Studios has a new development post were they interview The Audio Guys on how they created the music, and sounds for Age of Wonders 3.

After having done a fantastic job at our Overlord titles, we’re happy to announce our friends at UK-based The Audio Guys are teaming up with us again to make the sounds for Age of Wonders III.

The videos you’ve seen in the past used mostly placeholder sounds. Although some legacy sounds will remain, a lot of work needs to be done. Together with music maestro Michiel van den Bos the Audio Guys are hard at work to ensure Age of Wonders will have immersive audio-scape fitting the gameplay and game world. Here is Dan Gardner to tell us a bit about creating sound effects for Age of Wonders III.

Triumph Studios has released a new press release with news about magical locations you will visit as you play Age of Wonders 3.

DELFT, the Netherlands, October 30^th 2013 – Triumph Studios, the team behind the Overlord and Age of Wonders series, today reveals detailed information about the many unique locations that players will encounter in Age of Wonders III.

Age of Wonders III is a strategy game in which you, the leader of a fantasy empire, conquer an enormous world filled with a wide variety of locations and fantastical creatures. During your campaigns you will encounter ancient sites and structures that are realized in unprecedented detail for the genre:

• Explore the world map and discover over 60 legendary sites, ranging from monuments and ancient civilizations to dangerous brigand camps and sunken cities.
• Each site is visualized in detail using the 3D battle engine, using a combination of hand crafted and procedurally generated elements, such as terrain features and the climate of the site.  Combinations of defending monsters and arcane hazards provide an enormous variety of tactical challenges.
• Rewards for conquering sites include resources, spells, buffs, rare units and unique hero items. Many of these cannot be acquired by regular in-game research, encouraging the player to explore the world and hunt for unique treasure.
• Once conquered and part of your domain, most sites keep on giving, generating a steady stream of income or bonuses for your cities and empire. Players must defend these sites to protect them from raiding enemies.

The Age of Wonders 3 development journal has a new update with more information about the Leader Classes.

During the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco and at Gamescom in Cologne this year, we showed some of the different classes that you can play in Age of Wonders III. We had our blessed Theocrat attack a city with his divine units, while our Dreadnought used heavy machinery to crush all around him and defeat his arch enemy Grelka Greenclaw.

Up until release of the game we will show much more of the remaining classes. So we figured it would be the right time for us to organize the information we have released so far and show it in a new overview on the Age of Wonders III website. As a result of that I’m happy to announce our Dreadnought class page, the first of a series of six.

On this page you’ll find class info, special units and skills, trailers and screenshots, explaining you what kind of varied gameplay you can expect.

Aside from new class pages, we’ll also keep updating existing pages with new units and skills. Please remember though that the game is still in development and things can change for the sake of gameplay or balance.

Age of Wonders 3 has a new post on its development journal this time exploring the wonders of the third age.

In Age of Wonders III there are many mythical locations for your empire to explore and exploit! We’re not talking fabulous cities or the monster dwellings we showed before, but we will look at the more hidden and secret places; like the ruins of a Wizard’s Tower or the Sunken City of an ancient civilization. All of these offer great rewards. These locations have special combat maps associated with it, along with its unique sets of (usually) monstrous guards. High level locations are protected with enchantments posing extra challenge to your adventuring parties.

Age of Wonders 3 has a new post on its development journal giving out more details on the games heroes.

In this first journal about Leader and Hero classes we start out by discussing the creation of the leader and hero customizer and assets in Age of Wonders III. My name is Nils Ruisch and I’m a 3D character artist.

I was tasked to co-design and create the hero assets for Age of Wonders 3. In the previous games of the series, the heroes and leaders have always been portrayed with the use of 2D images. Heroes like Yaka, Tempest and Artica all look stylized, characteristic and are easy to recognize. However, since the Age of Wonders series took the step from 2D to 3D it was time for the heroes to make this transition as well. It was my task to realize the 3D art part of this.

Age of Wonders 3 has a few updates on the game's official webpage. The first update talks about the games dragons.

Dragon Origins

Background: The Scripture tells of Dragons being the first living beings to appear from the crucible of creation. Each Dragon type to emerge represented one element; ranging from metals, gems to fire and frost. As the raw creational forces started to settle other beings appeared on the world. The Dragons became jealous of these newcomers and started to prey on them. This conflict started the First War of the world, fought between the Dragons and Giantkin. The First War is said to have lasted for millions of years, but was never settled. The Great Flood ended the Age of Giants. Both Dragon and Giantkin numbers dwindled, to make way for the humanoid races.

Today only a few of the powerful Ancient Dragons are known to exist, often living in remote Dragon Peaks. Dragons born after the Age of Giants are called Wyverns, with undeveloped forearms and limited powers compared to their fore fathers. Wyverns and Dragons are hunted down by entire armies for their precious scales and gem and gold loaded hoards that are the dragon’s primary foods. In order to ensure survival of their kind, Dragons turned to powerful wizards to create a more rapidly breeding humanoid subspecies called Draconians, which they hope will one day will replace the humanoid races.

The second update shows the graphic changes to the games interface.

Since Age of Wonders III was announced we released a lot of screenshots and several trailers at GDC and Gamescom. We showed gameplay and released a whole batch of dev journals. Like proper fans, our community picked apart every screen and footage we released for small details and clues. It’s rewarding to see even small changes being noticed and clearly nothing escapes your attention!

Aside from all the very positive feedback we received from our fans and the games media, we are aware of some concerned voices about smaller issues. One of the arguments we heard on the forums was that some of you were worried if our interface was becoming too ‘modern’ and didn’t get enough of the fantasy treatment. Particulary the font we used received some criticism.

Even though changing a font sounds easy, there are a lot of requirements. It should not only be readable in many different sizes and formats, but also work for different languages that aren’t English.

IncGamers has posted a short preview of Age of Wonders 3 were the devs share info on spells, trade, and AI.

With AoW3′s skill system and classes we’ve chosen to not allow players to trade skills, which includes trading spells. The thought behind this is that allowing this type of trades would muddle the class definitions, which we want to keep strong and focused. E.g. I’m in a multiplayer match and the Arch Druid that shows up on my doorstep casts Destabilize Mana Core. This issue will be especially apparent when human allies start sharing all their spells.

As a consequence, skills – and spells – will not be visible to other players. As far as diplomacy exposing other information, we are still looking into the details. So, this is one of those things which has alpha build in scare quotes stamped on it. The goal would be to expose nothing the player can’t find out. E.g. you can see cities that you have seen on the map, but not the items a player has.

Finally – for the bit on the AI – things are, a bit complicated. If – like you describe – the AI would reserve mana and casting points because you could cast Destabilize Mana Core there’s the risk the AI couldn’t cast any spell. That could actually end up worse than when it would cast spells and then fail to dispel the Destabilize Mana, i.e. you end up not casting Destabilize Mana Core – in most battles – and the AI ends up losing battles it could have won by sniping the last unit with a spell.

Anyway. Nothing at this point is final. We’re still figuring stuff out and balancing things. 

StrategyInformer has a new preview for Age of Wonders 3.

I’ve never played the previous Age of Wonders games, but I liked what I saw of Age of Wonders III. Civilization tempered pointless military expansion through offering differing routes to victory, and Age of Wonder's exploration and interactive environmental features act in a similar fashion – the player doesn’t need to just bring everyone to heel, they can go on quests, or discover hidden sites on other levels of the map. The hidden depths that this game hopes to offer should be plenty to distract players from simply conquering everyone. I’ve got a lot of time for Civ-like strategy games, but especially ones that try to be a bit different.

Game Informer has a short preview of Age of Wonder 3 with some new screenshots.

The Age of Wonders fantasy strategy series has been MIA for over a decade. Developer Triumph Studios is bringing it back in a PC sequel due out next year. This slew of screens shows off the graphical improvements coming on both the meta world map level and tactical battle layer.

Age of Wonders is still about exploring huge maps, facing off against up to eight rival kingdoms, and battling for resources and land. Players can choose leader classes like steampunk Dreadnoughts or cunning Rogues and build a city in their image. Dreadnought cities might excel in machine works, while a city led by a conniving Rogue could boast extra diplomatic options. Age of Wonders III offers online matches, asynchronous email-based warfare, and a story-driven single-player campaign.

Triumph Studios has released a new gameplay video for Age of Wonders 3.

During Gamescom 2013 we introduced Gustav. Gustav is a fearsome dreadnought dwarf in Age of Wonders III. The class of Dreadnought is one of six classes that can be played in the full game.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has news that the Startegy/RPG Age of Wonders 3 has been delayed to 2014. The usual answers was of couse given.

The Age of Wonders will dawn but we must wait until 2014. That suggests that this year is the Age of Mundanity, or perhaps even the Age of Blunders because I am incapable of resisting such a simple and satisfying rhyme. Eurogamer espied a forum post detailing the reasons for the delay:

"We’ve made great progress developing the game and feel now is the time to give you heads up that we will take a bit more time creating all the features and content. Age of Wonders 3 is the largest game in the series and with the additional polish we hope we can give you an even better experience."

Here is a GDC 2013 video to watch, and make you want the game now.

SpaceSector has an interview with Lennart Sas and Arno van Wingerden the founders of Triumph Studios. The interview deal with the RPG/Strategy game Age of Wonders 3.

SS: A lot of 4X and turn-based strategy games of all genres tend to reach a point in the mid to late game where gameplay becomes more about micromanagement and tedious mop up of your opponents than about having fun. What steps have you taken to keep the player engaged and interested in the later stages of a game?

LS & AW: It’s our goal to keep the games as exciting as possible in each phase. Each class includes powerful end-game skills resembling a nuclear option to make enemies bow down in submission. In a free-for-all game, enemy AIs can join forces and gang up against you in a last ditch attempt to thwart their impending annihilation. The game features high level exploration sites and monster dwellings reserved for late game uncovering.

Also don’t forget Age of Wonders has always been a game heavy on combat. The map is fully malleable and the end game might show a lot the towns in ruin and the countryside corrupted by blight or high-level magic. Subsequently the final conflict might focus on a couple of remaining developed hot spots. But beware; alignment is now fully dynamic. Scorched earth tactics might provide short-term gain, but will most likely work against you over long term.

SS: Out of all the improvements and elements you’ve added to Age of Wonders 3, which aspect of your game do you feel stands out and is going to be the most exciting to players?

LS & AW: Age of Wonders 3 has so many systems, which all have seen improvement, from the added depth of the tactical battles, to more variety in location on the world maps, to new domain system. In the end it’s all about how these systems work together. As it’s such an overarching feature I’d go pick the new leader classes which really are at the root of the new Age of Wonders experience, where the player is able to be a leader of a fantasy realm that is an extension of his own character and provides great variation in game play as RPG character classes do.