Age of Wonders III - 20/20 hours

That turned out to be not that bad after all. I never went back to playing the game "correctly," but the parts of it I did experience, I enjoyed. Summoning weird fantasy monsters and then using them to win simple turn-based battles was pretty decent. If I were to play this game for a longer time, I could definitely see myself becoming more confident, perhaps even getting into some actual wars with an NPC army and attempting to conquer them. Unbelievable, I know, but it could happen.

The big lesson I learned from playing Age of Wonders III is that I should not buy bundles of older games just to complete a series. If this had been the only Age of Wonders game I'd played, this would probably be a very different post. I'd probably be saying something like "the remarkable diversity of units, spells, and equipment make exploration a satisfying game in its own right, and if Age of Wonders III happens to be a little too military-focused for my taste, it was nice as a refreshing change of pace. And who knows, maybe I'll occasionally be in the mood for some fantasy-themed conquest that's a little more forgiving than Might and Magic: Heroes VI."

But I'm not saying that now, because my entire approach to the game was tainted by emotional responses shaped by the previous games in the series. I started this suspicious and that suspicion guided which game modes I would try and my strategic approach once I got going. To be completely honest, I kind of enjoyed the campaign levels I played. I stopped only because I was worried about running into the sort of overwhelming opposition that characterized Age of Wonders II for me.

But what sense does it make to fear something that only exists as an inference based on incomplete information? I was assuming that Age of Wonders III would be like its predecessors, but the flaws of the earlier games were apparent much earlier than 5 hours. I was taking the fact that I hadn't encountered them as evidence they were hidden especially well. And that sort of thinking leads to self-destructive paranoia.

I only ever engaged with a shadow of the full game. I liked what I saw, but I still can't shake the fear that I would be unmade by the unfiltered light of the true thing. I figure someday I'll come back and test myself against it, just to satisfy my curiosity. There's also the nagging thought I should buy the expansion packs so I can get halflings, frostlings, and tigrans, which were conspicuously absent as I was starting random map after random map in an effort to see all the unique units. Though, why would I buy DLC for a game I've only got a perfunctory interest in ever playing again?

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I may just come back to Age of Wonders III for no reason other than to have an excuse to buy the DLC and have a "complete" game. It makes no sense and is actively counterproductive, but that's the way my brain works sometimes.

Maybe I haven't learned as much as I thought.