The Eternal Lords expansion for Age of Wonders 3 looks like it may be stuffed to the gills with content. Not only will it add dead people, cat people, and ice people, the DLC features so much more. Cosmic events are random occurrences like a sudden rampaging troll army or a rain of luck-infused shooting stars that can spice up the map for a few turns. Race governance adds an element of race relations to the game by making players care about their long-term interactions with other species. New map locations and a new Unifier victory condition adds further wrinkles. Finally, a whole new story campaign gives folks a reason to work through the goodies.
An epic battle of the forces of creation: fire versus ice, life versus death. As Arvik, heir to a broken Frostling kingdom, you awaken forbidden necromantic powers to reclaim your realm. You will find unlikely allies, and must choose between your Frostling roots and the full potential of your new found powers.
For old-school strategy gamers, Eternal Lords also comes with asynchronous play-by-email functionality. What doesn’t this DLC come with? Free time. You may have some issues getting enough of it to enjoy all the new stuff. You’ll have to work that out on your own. Eternal Lords for Age of Wonders 3 releases on April 14th for $19.99.
Everyone knows by now that Triumph Studios is working on an expansion to Age of Wonders 3 that will add Necromancy, the icy race of Frostlings to the game, as well as leader specializations that emphasize the moral alignments already present in the game. (You did know that, right?) Let’s say you’re some kind of weirdo that doesn’t get excited by the idea of undead Halfling cooks or angelic Frostling mammoth riders. Will tiger-men riding a tiger-drawn chariot do it for you?
Tigran Cavalry consists of light chariots functioning as mounted skirmishers. Drawn by sabretooth tigers they share the race’s core abilities such as the predator and athletic abilities, with good melee abilities. Although far more fragile than the cavalry of other races, the charioteers can hurl enchanted sun spears, powerful single shot weapons that do physical and fire damage, and can set opponents on fire.
Tigers on tigers. It’s settled. Thundercats ho! The as-yet unnamed expansion for Age of Wonders 3 is shaping up to be packed with content.
Undead halfling brewmasters. If that doesn’t intrigue you, then you’re an unfeeling brute. Unfeeling I say! Triumph Studios has revealed their next plans for Age of Wonders 3 and it’s the return of the undead to the series. The recent Golden Realms DLC added halflings as a new race to the game, and that was met with varying degrees of satisfaction from players, but the clamor for advocates of the less-than-living have always been loud and clear. People love zombies and reanimated skeletons. Triumph’s latest dev journal acknowledges that yearning and lets fans know that the studio liked the undead all along!
When we started AoW3 and developed the concept of the leader class system, the possibility of a Necromancer class quickly dawned on us. We think implementing Undead as a class has more potential than as a race, because this way we can model a gradual transformation of the leader, the population and the racial units to the undead state. The more they transform, the more powerful they gradually become.
The possibilities are interesting because as a class choice, Necromancers would combine the undead abilities with the different racial features. Ghoul high elven pikemen! Skeletal dwarven deepguard!
One of the issues with Age of Wonders 3 was the lack of variation in the endgame. You build up armies, gather magical fuel, then slog your way through battle after battle until the last enemy city falls. It’s a failure that many strategy games are guilty of, but it seems all the worse in Triumph’s Age of Wonders 3 because everything else is so damn good. I nurtured pixies and ice giants, researched spells that cause earthquakes and fire to rain from the sky, and this is it? I get another city to manage? Sheesh! I should’ve stayed in my first city.
The developers have taken some of that criticism and are hoping that the addition of a new victory condition will help add variety. Seals of Power, magical landmarks that can appear on maps, will act as control points for players to fight over. Owning a seal by defeating the guardian and placing a unit on it, grants charges to the owner. Once enough charges are accumulated, it’s game over. This will give wizards something else to fight over, but as Triumph explains, seal owners can’t get too complacent even if rival wizards aren’t nearby.
The Seals of Power, even after being conquered and owned, are still dangerous however! Periodically a Seal will spawn a new army of elemental guardians to attack the player occupying it. So players will need to keep strong armies on the Seals in order to keep control over them.
Along with the Seals of Power, Triumph plans to release new elemental units, and a new Overview screen to track player progress towards victory. No release date has been set for the additions.
