I have to agree with you Tatty. LH is alot better if you are like the two of us, prefering strategy over tactics.

That said, AoW3 is a good game and alot deeper then games like Heroes VI. I just get bored fast when it's almost all about the tactical battles.

So.... after a lot of hours burned on AoW3.

Positives against FE/LH

1.) Hero's levelup is almost as bad as original Elemental's. Way too simple. Only thing that makes levelup meaningful is that unlike Elemental series, the game is well-balanced and still can make specialized heroes if you choose traits carefully. The hero's high initial hp also makes him/her not as utterly as useless as FE heroes in general. They also level up and grow fast enough to not make laborious unlike FE. 

2.) Sieges are awesome.

3.) Massive battles, up to maxium 36 units (I believe). It's amazing. With siege battles, the game's tactical battles are quite memorable sometimes.

4.) Graphics are quite pretty.

5.) And multiplayer. But then, I never play multiplayer anyway.

6.) Unit movements are fast enough. Please, FE/LH's two tile movements is just atrocious.

7.) The game is ultra-polished from top to bottom. There are some errors such as disappearing custom main hero and stuffs. But no game-breaking bugs found so far. Hell, even current LH has SEVERAL game breaking bugs such as Beast Lord and Auto-save bugs.

Negative against FE/LH

1.) Civilization option is non-existent Empire builders look elsewhere. All cities basically become non-stop unit factories. No specialization or any meaningful options can be found.

2.) Unit diversity by races are.... well, let's say FE beats it. Only meaningful differences are made by your main hero's profession, which do provides a lot of diversity in that way.

3.) Units are quite boring as hell. FE/LH's weapon system is far better.

4.) Monsters are boring as hell too. Sure elemental damages are included, but all units are too similar. There are no interesting unique, game-changing monsters such as Dark Wizard. Dragons in AoW3 are barely as strong as a mere slags.

5.) It's personal, but I think Initiative-based FE/LH turn-based battle is far superior than traditional turn-based AoW3. While AoW3 battles are massive in quantity scale, FE/LH battles are very dynamic.

6.) There are far more interesting magics in FE/LH than AoW3. I should play Sorcerer more, but this is my initial feeling.

7.) AI is... well... maybe tactical battles it is ok, but in strategic level, it is simply travesty. Too many nonsense movements and easily exploitable by any human player who figured out its tricks.

8.) No interesting event-related area as such as Wildland.

9.) Quests are far inferior to FE/LH.... Well, let's say there is no quest in AoW3. It's all "Plz kill these guys and then we join you!" 

10.) Other than levelups, hero customization is very weak and shallow compared to EF/LH.

Same with FE/LH

1.) AI cheats in massive scale. Even the easiest option, AoW3's AI cheat level is as extreme as 'ridiculous' in FE/LH. Since I play between Expert~Ridiculous, my feelings toward cheating AI is about same in both games.

The maddening fact is that FE/LH is actually far superior game than AoW3. It's no contest. If someone plays FE/LH for a very long time suddenly plays AoW3 will find himself/herself being very annoyed by this shallow, lacking-in-depth 4X fantasy game. Well, AoW3 is certainly has more depth than Warlocks and Eador, but FE/LH beat those games no problem.

Yet, unfortunately, terrible balance decisions such as low movements, hero leveups, loots manage to make FE/LH far less interesting than AoW3. This is why I called it maddening because there is literally no way FE/LH can be worse than AoW3 other than massive battles. Yet with all of comical balance issues pulled the game down.

Not to mention we are still having game-breaking bugs still present even the most updated versions of the game. AoW3 has just released but the quality of polish is just astounding  compared to FE/LH. 

Now, this makes me consider a popular mode called Patchwork... From what I've read, it fixed a lot of balance issues.

There are circles that show up on the map to indicate your range when you have ranged attack selected.  Hexes with the circles are in-range.

Your best bet is either to soften units up before you hit them with melee, or with multiple melee units at once. Counter attacks they make drain the actions they can take next turn, so you can overwhelm them.

As someone else also noted, flanking attacks help a lot, and most classes have some sort of spell, troop or ability to help take on melee troops. Rogues get backstab, Sorcerers have a spell that gives their units shocking attacks, and so on. 

The champions are good at finishing moves. I've used my champion in combat several times, but I have to set it up so that the enemy must pay a large price before they can attack the champion.

I dont know ... my rogue does 35+ damage with no retaliation allowed (Assassine Strike), is (nearly) immune to range attacks and gives my all my units armor piercing, +1 blight damage and wall climbing.

Also he can cover the whole battlefield in smoke, making all units very resistent to ranged attacks. Even magic ones.

Any more power and he would be like a walking god and that would be a bit boring i think.

But he can't own the battlefield alone, like a LH Hero can. Which i think is completly OK. YMMV.  

yes and die the next turn against any lvl 3+ troop...

yes they do have powerful spell and skill thats not the point

the point is they CANT FIGHT, ofc they can all stay back and throw spells, but since spells are much limited you most of the times end passing with champions which is boring (also it happened to me some champon got killed even when staying back just cause opponent had flying stuff or spells...)

this is  a bad gameplay choice, like you said champions are still useful as buffers but thats a unfun mechanics

but i have yet to see a tank champion, dunno if there is a warrior class or any class focused on not dying maybe thats what i want...

Hopefully getting my grubby hands on this one before the month is a forgotten dream. Need to show 'em that 4X is alive and kicking!

Hm. No, mostly they dont against a single unit, even if it is lvl 3. If the hero gets surrounded, flanked, backstabbed then yes. Sure. But i still think that is ok. I cant rush headlong into the enemy army and hope to melee them down, true. but if i use the hero like a normal unit, protecting its flank and all that, he is very powerful IMHO. And i think thats a better design then LH with its One-(Wo)Man-Army in late game. Make me care a lot more about 'em.

I am not sure why we have so different experiences. But i might have got lucky with items. My rogue had 13 defense and resistence and 65 HP at the end of campaign one. I have also 40% resist to fire and 20% to blight.

Edit:

All that said i have to agree that ranged units are far superior to melee units, short of some special units.

Elven Storm Sisters lvl2+ ... what were they thinking?! A ranged unit that can stun with.every.shot.?! Why should i build anything else? Ever?

Interesting. Do you think that this is limited to the campaign because the enemies are too powerful? I would guess that in a normal scenario or random map skirmish things would be more balanced.

Grr, reading this has sucked me in, there goes the weekend.

The AI is very basic... but the more I play, the more I think the game is basic as well. They've spent a HUGE effort on making an interesting set of rules for the units in the game - even a basic unit can have 20+ different traits. How does the AI handle all this?

1) every city I capture is underdeveloped

2) The AI units are just a mix, they don't build/spawn units to counter mine, they just mix

3) few spells are cast - maybe the AI isn't researching extra spell points?

4) in tactical combat, it's classical "go for the kill" behaviour. Meaning, the AI targets anything that is damaged. This is exploitable - attack with your hero then heal it up and the AI will leave it alone. The only exception to this rule is that the AI always tries to attack something in range first.

5) the AI doesn't understand tactical spells. It uses strange spells on my units, and it buffs its own units in strange manners (make a unit devout slayer against all my evil army?). A few units can truly mess it up. My favourite example is the arch druid spell that summons a tier 1 animal to your side in battle every round. Use it in a siege and watch the whole AI army abandon the battlements as it rushes back into its city to kill a boar that spawned in the core of the city.

6) The only unit trait I've seen the AI play well with is Polearm (extra damage vs mounted and flying).

What does it do well?

1) It seems to be aggressive in strategic mode, if it has the upper hand. No waiting around. If you capture a city with 6 units remaining, and the AI has 18 nearby, it's coming for you.

So far, I'm totally ok with the AI cheating at every turn. If it didn't, with this AI, a medium map would be over in 30 minutes.

its just impossible to make ai with the level of actual players

when we played with 64k we were 8 years old with no background

now i play videogames for 30 years, ofc no ai can match me and never will

thats why i say since years even strategy games should go deep into multiplayer, there is no other choice but devs are scary to make the step and keep walking the safe and known route

one day someone will make a strategy game thought for multi and will be the next wow, lol, civ