Let's Play Age of Wonders III: User Input Required

Much has happened with very little in the way of choices to be made. Lizardheim completed the world's first Great Palace and shortly thereafter became the world's first Metropolis, earning it two landmarks that make our city even more prosperous and productive than its infrastructure and culture already have earned it. With the city's development complete, we construct the Blast Furnace, and are now ready to begin construction of our mighty war engines. While waiting for research to finish on the Flame Tank designs, we construct two sets of Cannons - the first of our artillery pieces.


While our army hunts down the stray roaming monsters, a spy drone standing watch over the underground passage determines that neutral monsters can attack those in the entrance, and may be able to leave altogether. Given the small size of the animals and that Warbob Sexlizard's forces will excel at killing them, we split our army into two - Irane will take the fairies, two units of draconians, and the shock serpents that she has tamed and clear out a second eldritch pit to the northeast while Warbob Sexlizard will take the remainder of our forces, consisting of Per and a mixed bag of infantry, cavalry, and rocketeers, underground to clear out the monster den.

Imane, after clearing out the eldritch pit and its denizens, finds herself quite close to a handful of gold mines. She clears them out, and a second set of settlers is built in Warboburg. We will soon be adding an additional settlement to our mighty empire to take advantage of these mines.

The fights are fairly straightforward, but help reinforce the fact that these fairies that have joined us deal incredible amounts of damage if kept safe.

Underground, we discovered that the den was fortunately quite close by. Upon sparing the helpless creatures in the camp, our alignment was recognized as Pure Good. A pair of golden wyverns and a nymph immediately sprang to our service, appearing beside the holy form of Warbob Sexlizard. With the wyverns as scouts, we discover that it is incredibly unlikely that Wazuhl lives underground. Indeed, there is barely anything worth conquering in the depths without making an incredibly long trip up a channel of lava or embarking on ships and riding up a narrow stream.


Our exploration was cut short, however, due to some disturbing discoveries on the surface. Our Spy Drone flying over the neutral giant village encountered a roaming Eldritch Abomination, while one to the south west discovered another undead dragon and the Haunted Boneyard from which it must have originated. With the dragon and its carrion companions hunting down our drone, we will need to move quickly to put a halt to the spread of the undead to our west. Hopefully this should be the last neutral encampment on our western frontier, as our empire hugs the western edge of the map.

Near the undead lies a nearly helpless village of elves. They have asked our help in dealing with an incursion on their lands, which we of course offered to provide. Whether we will be able to reach them in time or not, however, depends on our priorities.

Also to our south lies a pirate base. The neutral raiders that call this base home are, fortunately, locked to the seas. While they may cause trouble for an army sailing across the lake, they do not pose much of a direct threat. Their proximity to Lizardheim has caused our people some concern, however, so they should be dealt with at some point regardless.


Worse still, we made contact with a faction of dwarves which have occupied a town of halflings dangerously close to our southern border. A dwarven Theocrat named Brenn Grimdotter, she is beset with ignorance. Jealous of the progress we have made and fearful that our discoveries may shine a light on the ignorance which she preaches, she has declared war on us as soon as we met.

Fortunately, with two highly mobile Spy Drones, we are able to keep eyes on Brenn's forces in the area and will know ahead of time before she is able to launch an attack on us. One of these Spy Drones will watch the settlement, while another will move to the east to see if we can find more of her empire, as well as the elusive Wazuhl.

With these potentially dangerous foes discovered in rapid succession, Warbob Sexlizard returns to the surface. Given that we will soon have our first machine units complete at Lizardheim, we leave Per in charge of our mixed forces and move Warbob Sexlizard ahead to take control of our mechanized forces. We begin construction of a Dreadnought's Forge in Warboburg as well to construct Draconian Engineers to support the tanks and cannons built in Lizardheim. We should soon have more than three stacks of units - a modern army under Warbob Sexlizard's capable command, a mixed force under Per Notchson, and an army comprised of natural forces under Imane the Nightowl.

Having finished research in flame tanks, only one technology remains in the Dreadnought unit path - the well named Juggernaut. The final word in artillery, its mortars have incredible range and deal massive area of effect damage. Any enemy that closes with it will find it difficult to pierce its thick steel armor, and once per battle it is capable of firing a devastating broadside which deals massive damage to all units within melee range. However, this would require a lengthy amount of research, when other options are available much more quickly. It will also require an additional building to be built in Lizardheim, and each Juggernaut is both very expensive to construct and takes twice to three times as long to complete as our cannons or flame tanks even when we can build them.


1) What shall we research?
2) Where should our main army move first?
We have three options available -
A) Move to our southwest first. This will allow us to rescue the elven village, secure our southwestern front, and possibly construct an additional settlement as well to take advantage of the bed of resources located there. The disadvantage of this option is that it will take the bulk of our forces away from the path along which Brenn can potentially attack.
B) Attack Brenn's closest settlement. A rich village surrounded by gold mines, we would both reduce the threat that she presents while also gaining resources for ourselves. The disadvantage of this option is that we will almost certainly fail the quest of the elves, and may find ourselves under attack by the undead - especially dangerous on account of the fact that there is an undead dragon roaming about.
C) Clear the lake of pirates, then sail to the elve's defense. The disadvantages of this route is that we will still need to move further west to clear out the undead camp, and that we may move right past the undead dragon which spawned from it.
3) Should Imane move south to reinforce the forces of Warbob Sexlizard once again in our war against Brenn, or remain in the north to guard Jazztown and our newly settled outpost from the Eldritch Abomination?

Surface map will be posted shortly.