

I came so very close to writing it off as a bad job altogether in the first few hours. It still boiled down mostly to "have a doomstack (consisting of 3-4 sixunit armies in adjacent hexes) and auto-resolve outside of sieges." Can be used at 7 range to distract or just get more firepower. 3) Reconstruct Daemon - use on dead machine/cyborg units to create a new unit. 2) Haywire Daemon - machines and cyborgs are disabled for 2 turns, or staggered (works best if compromised already). I found the strategy layer a bit lacking, too, myself it rather unfavourably compared with FE, Total Warhammer or even Civ IV. Add the Impact and/or Stun module for maximum effect. (Admttedly, FE was no better in that regard, but I recall having more fun with it's nine-unit stack than with the "six but you can use more than one off you lke scattering your units around" that AoW3 did.) Really, the only time I had any fun on the tactical level was in the sieges, as that was because I actually had some time to shove my units into an actual deployment and have a plan.

Moribund at best, and tactical battles with no deployment is a cardinal sin. 'Cos if it wasn't for the limited interest of story of the campaign, I'd have quit and gone and played Fallen Enchantress instead, which is pretty much better (at least in my memory (haven't played it for a few years) and apparently playtime) at what AoW3 did? Why on earth would anybody play the campaign in an Age of Wonders game? That random map button exists for a reason, and its by far the best part of the game.
