Age of Wonders 3: Golden Realms Review (PC)

Age of Wonders 3 is an acclaimed addition to the turn-based strategy genre, and developer Triumph Studios decided to make the game even better, with the release of the Golden Realms expansion.

The game received pretty good scores and is a must-have for any strategy aficionado with an affinity for fantasy, as there aren’t that many entries in the genre to begin with.

Age of Wonders 3 represents a modern reimagining of the classic gameplay that sees kings and queens from various fantasy races clash in combat, vying for supremacy, expanded upon with role-playing game elements, enabling players to devise their own strategy and approach the game in their own way.

The Golden Realms expansion further expands on that formula, bringing new content and new empire-building opportunities, among which a whole new race, the Halflings, and changing the lackluster end-game into something much more palatable.

Story

Age of Wonders 3: Golden Realms, like all the other installments in the series, brings a new campaign for fans of single-player action to enjoy, with an entirely new storyline focusing on the plight of the Halflings.

While the cheery and stubby fellows would much rather wine and dine than venture out into the unknown, the evils of the world reached their cozy home too, prompting them to rise to arms lest they lose everything they hold dear.

Some people prefer fighting in the shade

The new single-player campaign follows this fight, challenging players to guide the survivors of the Halfling race to safety, to recoup after a bitter massacre and rebuild an empire in a new land, riddled with perils.

The Halflings benefited from some very flavorful design. If the other races were a bit cliché, the team did a much better job this time around, and you’ll find many of the characteristics of the little people translated seamlessly into gameplay mechanics.

The naturally pastoral race turned alcohol, fireworks and rabbit dens into makeshift weapons and defensive tools, and are a welcome addition to the roster.

Gameplay

The expansion delivers a bunch of new features for fans of the game to enjoy, coming with tens of new units and a brand new race, as well as new hero items and specializations.

The racial prerogatives have been accentuated by the introduction of new, specific defensive city upgrades, and the location of new cities is more important than ever, with arcane treasure sites located within your settlements’ reach bestowing your units with significant upgrades.

The magic system was revamped, many of the locations add interesting modifiers when you fight near them, making tactical engagement and terraforming more important than ever, and irregular units got beefed up considerably.

The static additions offer gamers more variety, but the Golden Realms expansion really shines when it comes to new gameplay features, with the Empire Quests and Seals of Power introducing more exciting things to look forward to in the mid to late game.

The beginning phase is always the most exciting and easy to breeze through in any strategy game, and Age of Wonders 3 is no different. Where things usually start to slow down is once you have a couple of cities in a pretty good shape, and you start churning out units, building up your armies and moving further into enemy territory.

Things can become a bit repetitive and tedious, and fortunately, the developers managed to find a way to make the mid to late part of the game more pleasant.

The Empire Quests are basically global goals that everyone competes to complete, with the first player to have a metropolis, or to have five cities or a full good or evil alignment being rewarded with a different boost such as a resource-gathering building or a party of champions joining arms.

The Seals of Power mechanic is the most influential of the additions in the Golden Realms expansion, essentially providing a late-game alternative to painstakingly tracking down each and every remnant of the enemy forces.

This enables the game to keep a part of its momentum and grand-scale action aura, by basically allowing you to end it at the height of your power, and not diminish the experience by having you play cleanup, which is essentially what the game turns into after one player emerges the clear, unstoppable victor.

The game features a proclivity toward warfare, lacking the scientific or economic victory conditions of other strategy titles, and the Seals of Power enable those with a strong enough army to start a countdown timer to victory instead of having to mop up the map.

The neutral sites spawn new defenders regularly, so the gameplay premise remains largely the same, amass a strong army and keep patching holes as you fight and conquer, but now victory can be achieved with much less hassle than before.

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Sound and visuals

Nothing changed in this department, and the game looks just as good as it did before. That being said, the clutter is still present, and if you thought that the game artists could have highlighted the points of interest better, you’ll still have the same gripe with Golden Realms.

You still have all the details that make zooming into a pleasurable experience, and the music and sounds are pretty much the same, nothing to write home about but not too shabby either.

One area where I would have liked to see some improvement is the differentiation of units and their roles, and I think that the addition of an abstract layer for use in tactical encounters (and not only) would have improved the experience somewhat.

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion