Noticed. Though it is somewhat the mere addiction of physical hero attack from distance (melee also... which is pretty absurd even for a fantasy game... "yahooo i'm gonna have a charge against an enemy group and go back where no one can touch me without a scratch IT'S SO GOOD TO BE A HERO now it's your turn stupid peasant go where you can be slaughtered properly in my name")

As oliver said in less words... about heroes V

And KB yes that was really cool... but lacks of better city customization and, like we already said... heroes better interaction... looks more like pure adventure rpg with an army at your service... the pro was the nice non canon fantasy theme... looked like a final fantasy cartoon fable with those superbosses and stuff

I enjoyed Heroes IV a lot even though it had some flaws (looked just wrong it was the FOURTH installment of the series X'D)

BY THE WAY... SHRAPNEL HAVE A FANTASY TURN BASED 4X AND I DISCOVER IT ONLY NOW , surely i should have paid more attention to the all dominion 3 dominion 3 chatting... i was just stuck because i'm used and abused to look a lot on the net searching this kind of games and thought this was just something overrated BUT SHRAPNEL

surely it's opportune i say thanks and even sorry for understimating all the professionist gamers on this forum

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> warps on some dominion 3 review

Ah well then if there are no tactical battles then I will not be playing it. If I want a Fantasy game with no TB I have CIV4 FFH. But I have found over time that I get more into the game if I have both the Empire Building and Tactical battles.

Yes, all 3 AoW games will be available on Steam soon.

We're working on the 1.5 unofficial patch. We don't have access to the source code, so we can't actually fix most of the bugs, but we can improve the balance and add lots of new stuff for use by the map- and modmakers, as we did with the 1.4 patch. Unlike the previous patch, the development is very slow for now. I think it will see the light of day, but I have no idea when. We already made a lot of changes, so in the worst case we'll just release it in its current state.

If you want to try AoWSM, install the 1.4 unofficial patch and try some of the great maps made for it, I especially recommend those made by Swolte and The Groll. Also some mods (Dwiggs, BNW) are very good and worth trying, and there are maps made specifically for these mods.

What I mean is that if I can not actively particapate in the battle then it is just a cut seen for me.  I don't want to issue commands before a battle then sit and watch. I want to get my hands dirty.

I guess AOW and AOW:SM just spoiled me with thier fun Tactical combat and all the spicial abilities that the heros and units can weld.  I do hope you guys finish that 1.5 patch. The 1.4 patch was awsome.  Still play AOW:SM today and even started playing the original AOW recently inbetween my Elemental games.

Don't go around searching a bad game when you've the best TBS here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-qkm3p04bg

Elven Legacy with his sequels

Elven Legacy:Rangers

Elven Legacy:Magic

Elven Legacy:Siege

You have the be the craziest of crazy fanboys to even ponder if Elemental is better than HOMM 2 and/or 3. I like Elemental too but come on HOMM 3 is still playable and amazing today.

Does soon mean today? Can you make it come out today please?

This is a tactical game. Fantasy General 2009.

I agree with all of the posts here.  My favorites of those listed are:

Heroes of Might and Magic 3 - This is TBS perfection

Heroes of Might and Magic 5 - The gameplay is a little easy compared to 3 and also a little meh.  However, I loved the Tribes of the East expansion.  The way they did the Barbarians is one of the best implementations of a "Might" race that I have seen.  Really, TotE really makes HoMM5 "fun" for me.

King's Bounty & Armored Princess expansion- This is basically HoMM with a focus on Hero development and no castle management.  It's a little easier than HoMM because you don't have to worry about that stupid scout hero that's flagging all of your mines behind your lines and it's a little more pure tactics rather than grand strategy.  It has a much stronger focus on story (and it's actually pretty good), but overall it's a lot easier.

Master of Magic - This is an awesome game, but I can't play it now anymore.  I've been spoiled and just simply can't go back to 320x200 graphics.  Perhaps you can.  The complex gameplay though, from the sheer amount of magic, races and troops is still something that hasn't been replicated.

Disciples II - This game is interesting.  It simplifies the tactical combat quite a bit; there's really no movement involved, no magic (all magic is on the strategy map) and units just sort of bash away until you win.  It's more of a pure strategy game with a tactics minigame.  Not really my cup of tea (just for it's playstyle) but it may be for you.

Other games that I haven't seen listed here:

Fire Emblem series - This is one of the definitive TBS's on the Game Boy/DS hardware.  It almost completely tactics focused; your strategy is really related to how you gear your units, but it's a lot of fun.  All the units are "heroes" in the sense that they have a storyline, they talk to each other in battle (you can gain support for each other if they fight together often which can lead to romantic outcomes).  In addition, the game features permanent death, so your heroes can actually die (and it's reflected in the storyline).  It's a great game, but sometimes, mind-numbingly hard, especially due to 2 points.  1) All stat generation is RNG.  This is cool because in one game you might have Edgar the super buff knight, but you might also have Edgar, the worthless you guy stash on your bench because his stat growth was terrible.  2) If you're trying to beat the game without losing anyone to permanent death...prepare for a LOT of reloads.  The storyline is very strong due to all the interaction of all the units and the beautifully hand drawn anime-style cutscenes.

Other games that you might enjoy but don't fall under the aegis of TB Fantasy RPG/RTS:

War of Eustrath - This is a Sci-Fi TBS on the iOS platform.  It's a lot of fun; you run around in killer robots to kill other killer robots.  It's storyline is pretty good too; it has anime-style cutscenes to tell the story and your robots have attacks governed by "Will", which is sort of like Mana Points except the more Will you have, the stronger your attack and defense too, so you have to decide if the spell you're using is worth the Will since it will affect your normal attacks as well and "Energy/Ammo".  Your best attacks in the game use both Energy and Will so it's a careful balancing act.

Civilization 4 - This is a TBS, but it's not really fantasy.  Civilization is pure strategy; not really a ton of tactics, but it's done in a very polished and fun manner.  I'm not going to go too much into this because most everyone should know what this game is.

Front Mission 4 - This is a Sci-Fi TBS on the PS2.  Again you control giant robots to kill other giant robots.  The storyline is sort of cheesy and disconnected, but the cool part is buying parts and upgrading your robot.  You want a shotgun?  A sniper rifle?  Heavier armor?  Self-repair?  You can have all of these, but you have to balance the weight and power requirements of the gear.  In addition, the pilot level up system is amazingly complex.  The focus is mostly "upgrading your pilot/robot to crush all beneath your giant foot".

X-Com series - This is another Sci-Fi TBS on the PC.  It's the "Heroes of Might and Magic" for Sci-Fi TBS; IE. it's perfection.  You have to kill aliens (hire soldiers!) and capture their technology so you can research them for your own use (hire scientists!).  Then you can reverse engineer their technology to make your technology better (hire technicians!).  Meanwhile, you have to protect countries on Earth by shooting down UFOs and stopping their terror attacks (tactical gameplay is amazing).  This is the perfect meld of strategy and tactics.

Wesnoth is pretty amazing, especially considering it's free - but it's pretty much just a war game with no builder elements.  It does chain battles together with a story to make campaigns, and there are a LOT of campaings since users create them too, and you can level up and persist troops thru the campaign.  It has sandbox mode too but IMO the campaigns are more enjoyable.  If you want seriously quality tactical fighting - Wesnoth is for you.  IMO, few things (turn-based) come close for quality of AI and quality of tactical fighting.  In Wesnoth you will fight well or the AI will pulvarize you.

I would actually rate Fall From Heaven at the top of the list for recent stuff.  It's a total conversion mod of Civ IV - and I mean total, you'd barely recognize that it's Civ IV except for the look and feel of the UI.  Everything in it is redone from civics, to tech tree, to religion, to races, to graphics (make sure you get the media pack too).  It has a very nice node-based magic system and a solid hero system.  Each race is very distinct and varies from humans, to typical fantays (dwarves/elves), and even a vampire race (eat your own pop to gain power - it's pretty slick).  Even the splash/menu screen is different.  It's complex enough that it has its own monsterously huge PDF manual.  It's probably the closest thing to MoM you'll find even though it's more modelled on DnD (the lore and everything is based on the lead dev's PnP DnD campaign).  It is insanely well done and a lot of fun.  It's also so good that it's been picked up to be produced as a stand-alone game.

Seems like an odd game to have random maps, it's a campaign/story game rather then a sandbox 4x game.

This ...

Too often you get companies trying to do too much, reinvent the wheel or redefine the genre. Complicated game dynamics usually do not make for a rewarding lengthy relationship with a game. The best games have simple rules "easy to learn, difficult to master". I much prefer stack/units melee defense, ranged defense, magic defense over Elemental's whacko stack reliant catch all DEF attribute.

so there is no other option to purchase age of wonders shadow magic other than through places like ebay or amazon?