what exactly is age of wounders
it looks decent enough but how is it for people slow to learn
will it be newb friendly or brutal
any info on the newest one that is comming out soon

Age of Wonders is a strategy game series; cut and dry explanation is that the games revolve around using hero characters to gain land/resources, build territory and armies, and beat down any enemies which prevent you from doing that. I like the AOW series because they have interesting plots to follow while you're doing 4X (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) stuff; there are also interesting races/units, and a spell casting system which lets you aid your armies/territory building, but that's also available in other games.

Here's an awesome gameplay trailer for AOW3 with a dev playing the game- it's worth watching all the way to the end. In short, definitely play AOW games, they will rock your socks :]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4Su5M7FKNE

edit: as for new player friendliness, I think so- try playing the games on the easiest setting to get used to them.

I also found a demo

I have so far only played Age of Wonders 1 extensively, I want to finish its campaign first before playing the others more. Out of the games currently out the first one seems like the most user.friendly.

Age of Wonders is essentially a turn-based strategy game: You build unity, you move them around and you fight the enemies' units, trying to conquer their resources while defending yours. You build units in cities and you get new cities by conquering enemy cities or conquering (or bribing) neutral cities. it is pretty simple to learn because there isn't a ton of units and terrain modifications or whatever; what you see on the map is what you will play with for the most part.

However, Age of Wonders is not a pure strategy game. When two stacks of units clash the computer does not simply throw the dice and 2014-03-20ermine the winner, instead it goes into a tactical mode. There you can control each unit individually in turn-based combat on a playing field that's based on the world map terrain. Many units have some sort of special abilities that you can use. So it's a tactical game in a strategy game.

However, that's not all: special units can be heroes and each faction has one leader hero. Heroes can level up and learn new skills, equip items and cast spells. A high-level hero can be like a one-man army against weaker opponents. So it's a "strategy tactical role-playing game".

However, there is still one more thing: in Age of Wonders you don't research technologies, you research spells. Your heroes and power nodes that you captured generate energy which you can use for mana or research. Research allows you to learn new spells and mana allows you to cast spells. i already mentioned spells in combat, but spells can also be cast on the world map. Scatter an enemy stack with a tornado, obscure the enemy's vision with a cloud of smoke, teleport your party to one of your cities, flood parts of the map or freeze water, summon creatures to fight for you...

So Age of Wonders is a strategy role-paying game with tactical combat and godlike powers. It's really cool and it's a great introduction to the genre. I recommend playing the tutorial and maybe watch a Let's Play to get a feel for the game.