The gameplay has also been updated, featuring a new role-playing style leader class based system and interchangeable choices of strategy and appearances for each playable race.

[8] The "Rogue" favors less direct approaches to situations, employing stealth, thievery and manipulation as well as dark magic in diplomacy and warfare.

[11] Finally the "Warlord" specializes in direct conflict and combat tactics, utilizing effective non-magic based units and abilities.

Different city races are affected by the type of terrain, determining how well they thrive, for example dwarves prefer mountainous landscapes over tropics.

[14] As in the case of the first game in the series, Age of Wonders III offers a story-driven campaign that is playable from two sides, the human-centric Commonwealth Empire and the Court of the High Elves.

[3] The graphics of Age of Wonders III have also changed to a fully 3D perspective with camera control instead of the isometric view the series has utilized prior.

[15] When two rival players forces engage, either in open battle or during a siege of a city, combat takes place in a separate phase of gameplay within a hexagon grid-based 3D battlefield where units are designated movement and space.

Other options include the ability to just sprint or guard, greatly raising movement and defense respectively and evoking various different status effects such as stuns and poisons and damage enemy units that move into adjacent hexes.

The son of the slain king Inioch, Meandor, led the dark elves and the Cult of Storms, a group that intended to wipe out the humans.

The Elven Court takes exception to this, and wants to rally the ancient races to stand in defense against imperial ambitions, hence the central conflict of Age of Wonders III.

At Thannis's funeral, the Elven king Saridas vows retribution against the Commonwealth and prepares for all-out war while Julia does not share his genocidal intentions.

After a few battles, Sundren meets Merlin, who reveals that the Shadowborn, a secretive organization of which Isabella is part of, planned to push the Elven Court and the Commonwealth towards war.

If Sundren chooses to stop the war, Groshak leaves her in disgust while she forms the Torchbearers, a third neutral party dedicated to hunting down the Shadowborn.

After taking the oath of command, he quells the rebellion at Brisska Province with the help of Emperor Leonus's niece, the Sorceress Laryssa Mirabilis.

There, they meet the Elven Warlord Valery and drop the Oscillator gem off at a Dwarven Outpost controlled by Commonwealth Dreadnoughts Drugal and Gormsog.

After defeating and/or allying with the warring factions on the isles, the Torchbearers swiftly position themselves in the center of the battlefield and with the power of Merlin's magic wand, both King Saridas of the Elven Court and Emperor Leonus of the Commonwealth are captured.

While celebrations of the war's end are in progress, Torchbearer agents infiltrate the two empires to hunt down Werlac along with any surviving members of the Shadowborn.

[18] In February 2013, Markus "Notch" Persson, owner of Mojang and founding lead designer of the popular game Minecraft, was revealed as an investment partner in the development of Age of Wonders III.

Triumph Studios got into contact with Mojang following the mention of their series with the random blurb for the title screen of Minecraft, leading them to show a demo of the current development stage at the time, including with other potential publishers.

Lennart Sas at Triumph stated that "his biggest concern was that it would cost him a lot of time, so it helped that we made this sort of game before and were at an advanced stage of development".

[17] Persson himself is a fan of the previous Age of Wonders games and instead went on to help simply fund the development of III rather than having any publishing rights or ownership.

[19] The game was released worldwide on 31 March 2014, predominantly through digital distribution including online store platforms Steam and GOG.com, published by the developer themselves.

[22] The expansion features a new playable race, in the form of Halflings with their own unique units, buildings and abilities, utilizing a "luck mechanic" to aid in combat.

This expansion is more substantial - featuring two new playable races, the humanoid ice dweller "Frostlings" and the bipedal-feline "Tigrans" from previous Age of Wonders.

[35] Maxwell McGee of GameSpot also enjoyed the combat, feeling it was "where Age of Wonders III really shines", calling them "tactically rewarding" in addition to "streamlined empire management", yet was critical of the initial releases familiarity between races, their units and how they play.

[32] Cobbett went on to mention certain comparisons to Civilization V, noting the emphasis strategic battles, that "Age of Wonders III isn't remotely trying to be Civ 5 and its pace and your ability to roll with the punches is to its credit", but in regards to other features in the 4X genre he was critical of them in the game as "feeling overly clipped".

[32] Joe Robinson of Strategy Informer also drew comparisons to Civilization V but felt the game was still "more creative with the fairly rigid 'Civ' template".

[38] Tom Chick for Quarter to Three praised the addition of the Halflings and their unique gameplay compared to the other races and the new Seals of Power victory condition, calling it the "best-case scenario for how to do DLC".

By that metric, Age of Wonders III: Eternal Lords is excellent", yet in reference to McGee's earlier review for GameSpot wrote that it still "carries a few problems over from its core game".