I'd say waiting for Fallen Enchantress is your best bet. You are too late to get FE free with a purchase of War of Magic, but you would get it heavily discounted, so if you want something to play now then you could get WoM at little penalty. FE is a substantial upgrade but WoM is getting some upgrades which have not been added to FE. Nothing really huge, though. The two don't interact as far as everything I've seen, and I really doubt that they will have any reason to do so.

WoM isn't very fun. FE has approximately a 100% chance of being better then WoM. Wait for FE.

ok thanks.  I was trying to find more information on the discount but failed.  I am bummed its not up to par yet.  I did check out dominions 3, its like 55.00 bucks!  And its 5 years old...crazy huh?  

With the killer sales Steam has been having all week, you're really better off getting something from there until FE comes out, then coming back. Honestly there isn't a good reason to spend money on WoM.

It's not really "broken" anymore, it's just bland and not interesting.

The Kohan series is really good.  I saw the warchest on sale at direct2drive for today.  Still has an active multiplayer community as well (although Kohan 2 has been a bit slow of late, I hear the first is still going strong).

Give Master of Magic a whirl if you haven't tried it. Like $5 over at GOG. Worth every penny.

Here is the recipe to the best fantasy game experience there is:

1. Purchase Age of Wonders Shadow Magic (yeah, its nearly 10 years old)

2. Go to Age of Wonders II Heaven and download patches 1.3, 1.4, and the new 1.5 MP Evolution (makes the game perform better on high end systems)

3. Install these patches. Remove the official Shadow Magic icon from the desktop - you'll only be playing MP Evolution anyway.

4. Download either Dwiggs 5.0 mod or Brave New World from the same site (read the instructions - especially for BNW. There are three or four files that need to be downloaded and installed for this mod).

5. Install these mods.

6. Copy the mods from Program Files (x86)\Age of Wonders Shadow Magic\User\Resources and paste them inProgram Files (x86)\Age of Wonders Shadow Magic\MP Evolution.

7. Run 'AoW - MP Evolution settings' from the desktop. Pick the settings you want for your system but for Version choose either Dwiggs or Brave New World.

8. Run AoW MP Evolution and play an extra large random map.

9. There's your weekend done and dusted.

Age of Wonders is very good game.. Dominions 3 - this game is average. I dont feel this game ;/ 

BTW. Elemental is a good game! I like it.

This. As a fantasy strategy game fan I have to say Kohan is one of my favourite games of all time. It is a real time game but in many ways plays like a turn based strategy in that you try to keep your troops alive (they will gain experience and heal their damage if you do) and troop composition, positioning, outposts, etc all matter.

Otherwise Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic is my pick as the best successor to date to Master of Magic. I live in hope of FE taking the crown but we will just have to see.

Yeah, I always thought the city management was unacceptably light, the tactical pacing was a little slow / off for me, and I've never liked underground layers (far different from Myrror) for reasons I've stated elsewhere (with an addition here).  That said, Shadow Magic seemed much closer than the previous versions - it might have been as simple as the guardians for the resources and the mysterious new faction, but it 'felt' a lot better to me.

Nope, it doesn't. Wait for FE.

Some new things are interesting, like an event system and minimim 4 men per human units. Others make the game worse, like new limits on basic buildings and healthpoint making every unit a glasscannon.