Age of History 3 Reviews

This game is fun, it's just has a lot of bugs. Also the bots have a lot of advantages because they don't have the same circumstances. But as soon as the Multiplayer comes out, it won't matter that much anymore.

very good game but lost all my progress for some reason even though i always save everything grinded 16 hours on this game just to lose everything do better.

A game that has potential but UI design of the game is a horror story. Probably the most unnecessarily confusing UI system of all time. There is no depth or elegance to game other than a few useless mechanics dispersed here and there as eye candy.

its okay, in its core its just a grinding simulator, build things to get more money to build more things to eventually build a big army and then wipe everyone out, very repetitive.

This game is like HOI4 but for less advanced players. My only problem is the fact there is AI art. Overall a great game, especially made by one person

TL;DR wait for the game to improve its systems and/or wait for fans to do that on the Steam Workshop. Also hold off if you hate AI art a lot ig, though that too will likely be fixed given enough time. I typed the rest of this review out of both love, as the 1.5k hours I spent in the previous game shows, and sadness, as my thoughts on the current game showcase. ------------------ What I believe to be Age of History 3's shortcomings require two other games to be told in full. The series' previous installment (Age of History 2) and the Paradox game most likely inspiring AoH3 (Europa Universalis 4) are two different sides of the Grand Strategy coin. One of them focused on complexity and accuracy with so much to learn and so much to do, that being EU4; the other focused on simplicity and shorter experiences, that being AoH2. (They are not perfect examples, but are most relevant and will work well enough here.) Both are completely fair approaches to a grand strategy game, and there's a reason games like Hearts of Iron 4 and RISK are able to coexist together. So where does Age of History 3 fit on this scale? I have absolutely no idea. On one hand, there are many more systems within it. Armies have compositions, there are trade resources, religion and research, etc. A lot more to digest and get better at over time, a skill curve to be met with. You must learn how to properly manage the nation in order to do well, something akin to EU4. On the other hand, systems often feel shallow and underdeveloped. Research is clicking one button and making a value go up. Religion is a duplicated culture conversion. Trade resources largely just define what major building can be built there. You basically use one army composition and death stack it in singleplayer. In isolation, any of these would be fine, but almost all of the game's systems are simplified versions of things done far better elsewhere. I would go so far as to argue that its predecessor makes use of its own mechanics better, because AoH2 has a "monolith." That monolith was the combination of population and economy, used for a lot within the game. Armies were just your population being recruited flat out, the money you made was deeply tied to economy, buildings would help you increase population or economy, and the economy was limited and influenced by population. It was one larger system with few resources heading it you had to learn, but that you could get good at (and optimally abuse eventually, I'm not arguing it's a masterpiece.) By comparison, AoH3 has more resources, but none of them are able to strongly centralize themselves. There isn't any monolith the game can use and work off of for everything else, so it feels fragmented to a larger degree. Not to say there's no attempt, but a lot of the time I find some resources becoming completely useless sooner than they realistically should be, and none of them (besides money) make themselves prevalent in a multi-faceted way throughout an entire game. The sign of an interesting complex game (in my opinion) is the appearance of tough choices, sometimes propped up by a monolith, and I believe AoH3 struggles to find that. There are few cases where I think it does this well, mainly being "Choose between these buff options." AoH2's population and economy system is somewhat in AoH3, in fact, and it suffers from the surrounding bloat so hard you ignore it most of the game. Even EU4 has Monarch Points, controversial as they may be, to build lots of things around and create a tight-knit system where choosing almost anything has a consequence. AoH3 does not feel like a wrong choice is punished at all; just get more of the resource in short order and try again. This mentions nothing of the blatant and sometimes unnecessary usage of AI art that gives it no distinct identity of its own. Nothing of the AI nations themselves not being the best, a general failing of grand strategies but especially in this series. Nothing of the massive workload that grand strategy games must undertake, meaning there will inevitably be fewer needed updates than the game needs from its almost nonexistent devs and fewer resources given to it. I can't feel comfortable giving a better path forward to the game because so many things need to be tackled with it, and I am not experienced in such a thing. I want something positive before the review is over, so let's talk custom stuff. What I think you gain most from Age of History 3 is insane customization that is nice and easy. Pretty much any tool you could ever want is available and within the game itself, making alternate history scenarios hundreds of times easier to create and also leaving room for custom... anything, really. I see so much potential in a game that hands you the building blocks with no effort at all and lets you create something magical with them. Unfortunately, you do not get to build with Legos, but instead an assortment of random brands that sometimes don't quite fit together correctly. I hope the game can improve (if it does enough I will change my review) but as for now I cannot recommend it more than either Europa Universalis 4 or Age of History 2. It doesn't stand on its own yet or fill a niche nothing else does, so give it time to find where it excels and practically market itself. I personally believe that will come with developments in the Workshop, just gotta give it time. Also, one final note: If you disagree with me, comment! I could be stupid and mad because new and bad or something and I'm open to calm discussion. I'll edit this review if I disagree with anything myself later.

thıs game itself isnt bad and ı like the design of the Gui but there is a major flaw about the gameplay ı need to point out: you cant take any provinces nor war reperations from the allies of the country you capitulated even if you capitulate both of them. (ı know there is a mod that apperantly "fixes" this issue but thats not the case because even if you activate that mod thıs time it makes it so that if a major country like france allies with a weak country like luxembourg and even if you only capitulate luxembourg you can just make a peace with both of them and then you could just annex luxembourg and take nearly half of france and thıs really affects the balance of the game.) but keep in mind that thıs game is still pretty good for a work in progress game. ı would not recommend it though for now atleast.

absolute cinema. Not too complicated so for some players that think hoi4 or games like that are too complicated can come to this one and try it out.

its actually really fun to play with many mods and this game costs not that expensive tho, overall nice game!

I held off on a review for this game for a while of playing, but I've had a few recent games that just put me over the edge. This game is not much better than AOH2. A lot of the features are very poorly fleshed out and the economy system has not changed whatsoever; in fact it has become worse. The massive increase in provinces has made micromanaging an economy a complete nightmare. In fact, micromanagement is where this entire game suffers. In war, you often have to micromanage an army to chase down enemy armies because the ai is not good enough to engage in actual warfare, just snaking through territory. Much like AOH2, this game is essentially a glorified map painter, however unlike the predecessor there is a poorly implemented system where if you expand too much, you will be attacked by literally all of your neighbors, where the ai seem to be immune to this issue. Anyways, as a game the simple nature compared to paradox strategy games is both a blessing and a curse. I doubt I'll play the game itself again, but the map editor is very fun and useful for alternate history scenarios. And don't even get me started on the ai images...