Some cities, such as the aforementioned Dragon settlements, give you access to units that are otherwise impossible to train in any other way.ĭuring game setup, the player may choose whether to enable settler units which allows the founding of new cities, or to disable new city settlement and rely on conquest instead. More times than not, I find myself playing with the ability to found cities. However, regardless of how you choose to play, you will spend the beginning turns of the game searching for cities to annex, or locations in which to establish cities yourself. Probably the most intriguing aspect of eXploration in Age of Wonders III is finding and attempting to loot treasure sites of various difficulty. Treasure sites provide opportunities for your heroes to prove their mettle. Each treasure site is given a difficulty level and the harder the site, the more epic the loot possible. A seasoned commander should be able to overcome a treasure cave or a dungeon with a “strong” rating relatively early in the game it will be impossible to defeat the creatures in a legendary or epic wizard tower or perhaps a crypt site for quite some time. These sites provide production bonuses if within a city’s domain but, more importantly, you can find incredible loot to customize and improve your heroes.

Finding a dragon mount or a legendary flaming sword forges a narrative for your hero as well as increasing your attachment to them. Having a veteran unit with XP-based upgrades is one thing, but these treasure sites create the opportunity to make each hero unit truly unique and adds a lot of immersion to the game. The tech tree in Age of Wonders III is rather diverse with a large pool of available skills for research that depend on your choice of class as well as magic specialization. So a Theocrat with water mastery would have very different skills to research than a rogue devoted to destruction.

Age of wonders 3 specializations tree