Age of Wonders III - 5/20 hours

Age of Wonders III is peculiar because it has a lot of what I like in a strategy game - building, exploration, rpg style character advancement, but it has yet to hook me. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that I am peculiar because I'm playing a game that has at least 75% of what I like, but I'm still keeping it at arm's length.

Something has got to give, and I'm not yet sure which way it will break. I've played three full campaign missions so far (if you count the tutorial) and what can I say, I liked building stuff in my cities. The turn-based tactical combat was fine, though I preferred, when possible, to just auto-resolved the battles. And I liked seeing the different factions' units. The only part I didn't like was the overall goal of conquering everything on the map through military force.

I think I can cope, though. Age of Wonders III has a much friendlier UI than its predecessors, so that's one major problem I don't have to deal with any more. The other - borders being large and indefensible - I've not yet encountered, thanks to the way the scenarios have been laid out. I'll have to start up a random map to see an unbiased version of the game before I make a final determination.

My mood is hopeful, though. It bugs me to know that if this were a Civilization game, I'd be half done by now, but when I regard playing it in the future, I feel . . . narrowly in favor. I've played military games before and gotten into the spirit of them, so it being purely combat focused is not, in itself, a deal-breaker. And I don't have to manually check all of my units to make sure that they've moved, which is nice.

So, you know, I'm willing to entertain the idea that this might not be so bad after all.