I tend to not get obsessed and really bother about games I do not like.Spend your time doing something else.

Personally I hate Elemental and Legendary Heroes. That's why I hang out here so much and mod it. I hate its existence so very much that I have to try and fix it... 

LH wins far and away on strategy, AOW 3 wins on tactical battles. Too bad we can't get one game with both parts good.

LH is the better game, but AOW3 has Multiplayer which is why it might be lacking in some areas.

AOW3 does has a better way to start combat with more than one stack in a fight.

They also have a better town battle map method in AOW3, a part from this LH has better depth but only with the DLC, we are yet to see what happens to AOW3.

cheers

DM

I'm just going to point out that Elemental has had 2 expansions so a comparison to a game that just came out is kinda unfair.

Expansions are not the same thing as entirely new games in a series using entirely new engines built by largely new teams.  Its an apples to oranges comparison.

The Elemental series has received 2 major expansions plus a bunch of patches.  AoWIII has received 0 expansions and recently released.  Come on now.

Complaints about AOW3 is about the poorly implemented strategy part of the game - which is practically identical to AOW1 and AOW2. So I think it's very fair to compare LH to AOW3.

I mean, your argument isn't valid, I think. Let's say LH had most strategy mechanics unchanged from E:Wom, and AOW3 was a drastic improvement from AOW1. Would you then say "but AoW has had two sequels! E:wom only had two expansions so it's ok that they didn't change anything about it!"

If anything, AoW3 should have been MORE evolved from two sequels than E:Wom from two measly expansions.

On most major projects, a MASSIVE part of the project will be taken up by developing the game engine.  Not in designing the play mechanics of the game like you are talking about, but in getting everything to render right, getting the UI to work right, and all that basic stuff.

AoW3 could obviously not inherit its engine from previous iterations of the game.  It had to redo that, which was undoubtedly a relatively large percentage of the time budget for making the game.  The same is undoubtedly true for the making of EWOM - Stardock's time budget for making that game had to include a lot of time that was sunk into making the basic engine go, and not on details of what the players are actually doing strategically.

However, when you release an expansion, my expectation is that there would be a relatively small amount of time spent on engine stuff (since it is largely in place - improvements might be made though), and a relatively large amount of time spent on improving the game mechanics that you are talking about.

Therefore, I completely reject the statement that you are making.  I would expect FE/LH to be vastly more evolved than AoW3 because expansions give developers time to concentrate on game mechanics rather than the engine, while the base game probably had a pretty big part of the time budget spent on the base engine.

PS - I don't even like AoW3 that much - I actually prefer LH.  These comparisons are just way off base IMO.

What makes MOM stand out above any of the others is the unbalanced method which they used. Each faction was a little better than the last depending on how you started with death magic being one of the most powerful. The blue magic was pretty strong. But, things just stood out more and were more fearful to encounter like the Skydrake or a passel of paladins. I loved everything about MOM.....the music was ghey and inspiring, you got xp for you leader even if you didn't go out adventuring with them and the magical creation of items was the best I've ever seen next to the next greatest rpg game of all Daggerfall.

It had an underworld to begin with not another game you had to buy to get it. It had random map generator not another game you had to buy to get it like AOW:II or Shadowmagic. It is a simple game an easily played in a few hours not a few days like the AOW series. It had an ai that actually did something not run up and down the same road a 100 times. It actually used the magic in the game. It just did things I haven't seen in other games more recent. All I see in more recent games is a "delaying" action not a challenge.

One of the MAIN great things about MOM though was NO MULTIPLAYER balancing act that always ruins the solo single player game. I loved that most. ) MOM the greatest and always will be.( well until The World of Magic comes out)

Quoting willie sanderson,

reply 17

NO MULTIPLAYER balancing act that always ruins the solo single player game

 

 

Too much stress on unsupported claim. I find things are quite conrary: multiplayer balancing leads to better experience in single mode.

Nope UNbalaced is the way to go and leave OUT Multiplayer altogether. MOM proved it works and it's a lot more fun playing with unbalanced races than playing basically the same template just a different skin or look. I'll always want unbalanced and no multiplayer from now on. P) Multiplay ruins games variation of the factions makes them more fun and gives the game longevity like MOM.

I have seen a lot of so-so single player games that could have been great single player games, but alas, balancing for multiplayer just made it rather lackluster.  So many good, creative, and just plain fun gameplay elements get removed from games all in the name of MP balance.  Ugh, I despise multiplayer games...

Personally I think LH really suffers from a lack of balance. Especially when it comes to scaling and PvE. Things that aren't balanced properly are usually too easy, simple, and uninteresting with a lack of diversity.