I enjoyed AoW 2 Shadow Magic. Not as free form as MoM but a decent turn based fantasy game given how few there are.

FE is more like MoM in gameplay (than AoW anyway) so if you like MoM you should like FE. Personally I enjoy FE and certainly don't regret owning/playing it but I look forward to further improvements to the game mechanics and AI because I think it still has a lot of untapped potential.

I really like FE and feel that it has the potential to be epic.  So far from what I've seen, LH will make it even better.  I'm sure AOW3 will be a good game, but I would hate to have to wait all that time for its release when FE is out now, and LH will be here soon.  I would watch some gameplay footage of FE and the LH beta, and if that appeals to you at all grab it.

As other posters have said, both games are good ones. However, I would choose Fallen Enchantres for several reasons:

- Fallen Enchantress is a lot deeper than Age of Wonders. AoW can be a bit better in the tactical part, but that's all about AoW's stronger points. FE has better empire building, better city management, research, better customization, a much more alive world, quests, and many more things. And on top of that, tactical combar in FE is not as bad, weaker than AoW but not as bad as some people say.

- Fallen Enchantress is a reality, AoW is still under development.

But yes, I'll probably buy both (I mean AoW when it come out, as I already have FE )

FE is a really fun game.  Lots of bugs to work around, but you can work around most of them.  LH looks like it will be a vast improvement, as well.  There's no way to know how the new AoW will be, but you can be sure FE is good.

The AI will never be as good as the AI in this game is right now. In the 3 earlier versions of AOW before AOWIII it never was any good. While the game maps are pretty and the units broad ranged and racey the rest of the game is a let down. (was for me an many others anyways.) Their best game of all the others was actually their first as it had the best ai of the 3 but had no random maps so the maps got old and boring to play on.

Short answer: I doubt AoW3 will be all that great. Give FE a chance, wait for LH expansion if you are in doubt.

Long answer:
I've extensively played both games, and I can think of pro's and cons for both game series:

The AoW series started out great, but gradually went downhill to the point that I'm not sure how excited I am about AoW3 anymore.

AoW1, the first game is by far the best. It had the greatest single player campaign I ever played in a game. Good storytelling, factions that (mostly) made sense or at least felt unique and the storyline kept me interested. Your decisions in the campaign had a huge impact on the outcome. It was also the most unbalanced of any fantasy TBS I ever played in gameplay terms. There were units that had absurdly overpowered abilities such as: "physical immumity" (cannot be attacked by anything non-magical). This didn't stop me from having a lot of fun with it because it seemed that the developers weren't as obsessed with game balance as much as really making me feel a difference when I played a lizard people versus humans or the undead. I also liked the excitement and risk involved in sending my leader character into battle. He was always the most powerful unit I had, but if he died, the game would end in defeat.

Because I loved AoW1 so much I was disappointed when AoW2 came out. The campaign felt very bland, and the story didn't appeal to me. I wanted to find out what had happened to the keepers and the cult of storms. But there were only vague references to the nations in the first game. I couldn't even tell if they existed anymore. Instead the focus was on powerful mages who would use the races of the world as minions to serve their magocracies. The leader characters were replaced with the mages who felt more like long range artillery units than the ruler of a kingdom because they couldn't level up in the same way as heroes and would only ever shoot spells from their towers. Some of the gameplay changes were good ones, but the racial factions felt like nameless fodder for the mages. The AI was also terrible at every difficulty level. I mostly remember the AI for spamming entire armies filled with underpowered units, mostly ballista's which were terrible at anything but city defense.

AoW2: Shadow magic fixed a lot of issues I had with AoW2, but also introduced an ever further departure from the story that I loved from AoW1. Now it had inter dimensional aliens running around between your typical orcs and dwarves. It did have excellent multiplayer gameplay. Multiplayer wise I have never found an acceptable substitute for a AoW2:SM game against a human player where you start with only a pioneer and carve out an empire on a randomly generated map. By the end the map would be littered with armies and cities connected by snaking roads. The single player experience was still terrible, and that is sad because that is the most important aspect to me.

From what I have seen so far AoW3 is going to look very good in the graphics department. In a strategy game that is not what I find important though. I'm worried about the player "archetypes" they intend to use. I may judge too soon, and maybe I should wait until more news becomes available but I'm already worried that the racial factions will become even less interesting by making the archetype, not the race, determine what units types you can produce. How is a Goblin Theocracy going to feel that much different from an Elf Theocracy if they have almost the same units? Goblin angels sound like awesome fun! But not if they come at the expense of the iconic Goblin suicide bomber! I hope I'm wrong, but I try not to set myself up for another disappointment by expecting too much from the game.

AoW is not even remotely in the same league as Fallen Enchantress when it comes to customization and detail. But that can be a drawback as much as it can be a strength due to the limitations of the AI. Overall I'm impressed with how the AI performs, and this is another thing that AoW can't compete in (though AoW2 is by now a very old game, to be fair). But even in FE the AI is far from perfect. I find that the AI struggles to make smart use of strategic spells, or any spells at all for that matter. They are also in trouble if the player uses some clever army manoeuvring. I've been able to give superior armies the runaround by sending small distraction forces, and the AI is slow to respond if you send a force deep behind their lines. However, if I'm cornered early in the game and it turns into an all-out slugfest I'm in deep trouble! The AI generally outproduces me and I have even lost games to the AI, which almost never happens to me in other games! One of the things I like most in FE is that you can design each and every unit to the smallest detail. And I have yet to encounter another game that is built from the ground up to be as modifiable as FE is. I had to get used to the races in FE though as it has no elves, dwarves, etc.

If you can only afford one video game purchase a year you might want to be looking at the premise of your question instead.

AOW3, good or bad, won't be out for awhile. If you haven't dove into FE already then wait and see the reviews on the expansion and decide then.

I'm getting AOW3 no matter what. I'm also getting Eador and that comes out soon.

Hmm, you ressurected a one year old thread to tell us this?

To be honest, I believe LH will be great after the 1.6/2.0 patches. I will be picking up AOW3, though, once it is on sale for at least 50% off.