While Age of Wonders III isn't remotely trying to be Civ 5 and its pace and your ability to roll with the punches is to its credit, this can leave a couple of its four Xs feeling overly clipped. Buildings and upgrades come just as fast, making Rome feel lazy for not being built in a day. If you want a new unit, chances are it's going arrive about as quickly as if it were ordered from Amazon, or quicker, with Prime. Taking to the sea, for instance, needs just one turn's research into Seafaring, at which point any armies just magically turn into a ship on water. The short build/research times can also impact some of the minute-by-minute decisions simply by making them less of a project. Cities just pour into and draw from big pots, specialised by their owner's race more than commander's needs, in a way that can make some of the bigger decisions seem oddly inconsequential.

This works really well for the most part, though Age of Wonders III looks so much like Civ 5 that the economics of war and scope of empire building can come across as a little slight. It's a game of battles, and a game of war-the building of armies and leveling-up of heroes in a fantasy world liberally sprinkled with quests and treasure and potential allies, played out over two campaigns, several scenarios, and a random map generator.

To get the gist of Age of Wonders, imagine Civilisation stripped down to its conquest breeches, its armies as devoted to making the tactical game interesting as the cities make the strategy, and a big dollop of RPG elements like heroes and magic gluing it all together and offering bursts of power and game-changing abilities. They were killer penguins.' If this game had brought us nothing more than that quote, the wait would have been well worth it. 'These were no men,' declares the in-game tome. Dedicated to evil, and summonable to join the armies of goblins and dragons and elves and magic.

But really, it doesn't get better than the penguins.

There's always been much to like about Age of Wonders, a fantastical fusion of strategy and tactics last seen back in 2002's Shadow Magic.

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