Think that depends on how long they hold out on giving the info. I'm hoping the only reason is they haven't decided which is which yet.

Interesting, but I always hated the halflings in the 1st game, doesn't seem like this is going to change my mind on this game.

epic

The long wait times between turns won't change due to 32-bit game..

I actually thought it was a 64-bit game as it was privately funded by Markus 'Notch' Persson. Disappointment!

What.the.f*ck....have you played Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic?   There were an AI surrender feature introduced in v.1.2 (I think) which SUCKED!!!

As long as you attacked with vastly superior forces, the enemy just waved a white flag and disappeared.

The Heavengames forums (best fansite and worked like official forums cause they didn't exist back then) had several threads about that worthless feature. One post in particular was about two guys in LAN where one of'em attacked a city of the other player with eight crossbowmen/archers which surrendered!

The guy who had the city just stared in disbelief and shut down the game. The other guy agreed that it was COMPLETE bullshit!

The developers had to release a patch that made AI surrender optional.

It's actually a completely different surrender mechanic.  In AoW:SM, one side of a particular battle will surrender before the battle even starts if it's outmatched.  That's even true of player-controlled empires.  It's nuts.

In AoW3, what they mean is that an AI opponent will throw in the towel entirely if they are losing the game.  It's nothing to do with individual battles, but to do the with entire game.  It prevents the boring mop-up.  The enemy leader then joins you as a hero.

Yes, the Halflings are really fun!  They have a 20% Physical Weakness but as long as they have okay morale they have a chance at dodging completely any incoming attack or spell (Lucky ability).  Morale is VERY important for them as if it gets too low they get NO chance to get a LUCKY break.  The new stuff is well integrated into the game, there are seals of power, and special buildings for conquered sites (a different one for each site, so cities are different based on what sites are around them).  And did I mention the Filth-throwing Monkeys (neutral units), Chicken throwing Halfling Farmers and the Halfling Jesters with their fireworks?   Note to mention the Brew Brothers who can temporarily raise HP of living units and have a strong physical attack.  It may not seem like much, but everything is well integrated into the game and the latest patch fixes the great majority of the balance issues.  Oh, and when a unit gets to maximum level, it can gain multiple levels of Champion status - basically an extra 10 HP per level which means that a sufficiently levelled Tier 1 unit can sometimes take on the big guys, and still survive.

Wow, the base game AOW 3 is -50% this weekend on Steam. It costs 20 dollars now. And The Golden Realms expansion only 10 dollar!

I've played a bit of the new Halfling campaign and I like it. The story is good and there are a couple of nice surprises.

Halflings are not dull at all. The new Naga dwelling creatures are cool as well.

Necromancers!! 

Ohooo the DEAD shall SERVE!   ME!

Deathmagic was THE most fun to play in any Age of Wonders game!   Starting out on a great map (medium or so) as leader of the Dark Elves with full deathmagic was great. Started with some low lvl deathspells fueled by your Dark Elves manabonus made for many casts of deathmagic. Captured everything you could in your immediate area while your scouts found new targets of conquest.

Soon you set your armies with black spiders against independent cities and converted them to Dark Elves to get MORE mana for your deathspells. You focused on getting more mana & research so you could researching Bone Dragon and "Raise Undead city". Once you had the Undead city spell you conquered a city, looted it for gold and immedietly raised it to an Undead one. Now you were on a roll. Add the Bone Dragon and you could fight anything but the most powerful stacks.

The world was mine!

Looking forward to do it again. This time with stronger enemies (AI).

Guess what?  As well as the new Frostling race and Necromancer class, the new expansion will have the Tigran race!  See here:

http://ageofwonders.com/forums/topic/dev-journal-tigrans-part-i/

Plus there are other features like Race Governance that gives bonuses for treating a race well, and other improvements.  Race Governance, in particular, is going to be in a free patch released at the same time as the new expansion.

This expansion is going to be huge!

I've been lucky enough to be in the closed AoW3 beta since last year, but I can tell you guys, this xpack is going to rock your socks off! It's huge and improves and expands on almost every aspect of the game.

For me the best addition, besides the major new content of course, is the introduction of PBEM, which finally gives me a chance to play multiplayer games.

Heard March 31st as the 1-yr anniversary given out - supposedly in a podcast yesterday or earlier today.