Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne

aka: Age of Wonders 2: The Wizard's Throne, Age of Wonders II: Der Zirkel der Zauberer, Age of Wonders II: Tron Czarnoksieznika, AoW2
Moby ID: 6708
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Description official descriptions

Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne is about a young wizard named "Merlin". The world is unbalanced, and Merlin must fight against other powerful wizards to gain control of all the different Spheres of magic to bring back the balance.

This game is the sequel to the original Age of Wonders, released in 1999. It is a turn based strategy game, and is more like Master of Magic than Heroes of Might and Magic. Some new features in the game are the "Pioneer," which lets the player to build new cities, and the "Teleportation Gate" that allows units to teleport to any friendly city.

Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne is focused on magic. The leader is a powerful wizard, and for the most part of the game he stays in his "Wizard Tower," a powerful structure built in cities. This wizard has a certain range, or "Domain," in which he can cast his spells. To aid him are individual heroes, which can carry items and gain experience. There is also a wide variety of units to choose from, including the "Glutton" that can swallow his enemies whole, and the pretty "Nymph" that seduces her enemies.

Spellings

  • 儇čæ¹ę—¶ä»£IIļ¼šå·«åøˆēŽ‹åŗ§ - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

85 People (81 developers, 4 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 83% (based on 45 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 23 ratings with 3 reviews)

A great game, just as the first one.

The Good
This is pretty much the only game I play, just as AoW1 once was. When it comes to turn-based fantasy games, AoW2 is king. Some people claim that too much AoW-feeling was lost from the first game, and I see what they mean and agree to some extent. But if you look at AoW2 as a single game, you can't miss the true fantasy feeling and great gameplay.

The wizard concept is new and cool. You can cast spells within a certain area from your main character, the wizard, when he's in his wizard tower.

One major improvement from the first game is the editor. Maybe not as advanced as the HoMM editor, but still very capable of creating great looking fantasy worlds. There's an event system that can be used to trigger certain events like unit spawning, messages, gold rewards and much much more. This is also what makes the game replayable, the user made maps. Some artistic fans have created extremely beautiful an advanced maps with RPG type events and great stories.

The Simultaneous turns feature (available in AoW1 as well) is nice. Even I, who am a hardcore TBS gamer, have learned to appreciate it. It speeds the game up, both in single and multiplayer, without loosing too much TBS feeling.

Great graphics. Way prettier than all the other fantasy TBS games put together, including HoMM4.

The great website http://aow2.heavengames.com should also be mentioned. Even the developers hang out there and answer questions and responds to suggestions. There's also a huge map archive and many many hints and tips for both mapmakers and players.

The Bad
I didn't like the music much. Luckily, there's a built in mp3 player that lets you use your own playlist, and the fantastic music from AoW1 can be converted to mp3 with a Winamp plugin... :)

Some AoW felling was lost as the unit descriptions didn't make it from AoW1. Reading these little well written descriptions while your opponent was making his move was a nice feature in AoW1.

The editor could also have a few more portraits available for your custom made heroes, or maybe even the option to import your own pictures. Perhaps the upcoming expansion will have that feature (please).

The editor could use some more features as well, like more options for cities and spells. These are no major problems for the average player of AoW2, but those who decide to create their own maps might find it a bit annoying, as you can't limit the size of cities or set what spells are available for the AI.

This game is really fun to play in online MP matches. Unfortunately, not many other players are available. Several polls show that people rather play this game in single player mode or use the play by E-mail feature.

The Bottom Line
There is no better way to spend a few dollars than to buy this game. It provides hours and hours of gameplay, mostly because of the user made maps that are available.

The game might be hard at first, but as you play for a while you learn how the AI works. The developers added a "beginner" difficulty level in the 1.2 patch, which is recommended for players new to AoW.

Windows · by Grov (657) · 2002

A very hard game, but enjoyable to say the least.

The Good
This game, is rather different to other strategy games I have played. First of all, it's turn based. Thats the one big thing to get used to. Its easy after a while, make your moves, produce units, manage its income and things like that, then u end turn. The next turn will begin once all the other opponents have finished their turn. There is so much to do in this game! Theres a story mode, which is very good and challenging. A scenario mode, where you pick a scenario and a character, modify the options and go straight into a game. Theres a multiplayer option to. You can play with them all at the same computer, or you can play online.

The Bad
There isn't much wrong with this game apart from: 1. The game may be a little hard for beginners in the genre. It provides a huge challenge!!! 2. The game takes a while to get used to how it works. It is noticably different from real time strategy games. 3. The battles are long. You win a war with two players takes an hour atleast.

The Bottom Line
This game is challenging, different, and highly addictive. Go buy it!!! I got mine for Ā£19.99 at Virgin Megastores!!! Im in the U.K. as you can guess. The price is roughly $32 in american dollars. Just buy it!!!!!!!

Windows · by Luke Wheeler (2) · 2003

Flawed, but still a rather rare type of game that I'm glad I played

The Good
Despite clearly enjoying the game, I find it rather difficult to think of any specific thing I liked. Still, it must be said that it does do a good enough job of creating that ā€œone more turnā€ feeling thatā€™s required for any decent turn-based game, it occasionally made me lose track of time for a while and there were moments when I was rather excited about playing it, especially in the ā€œspecialā€ scenarios and towards the end. In fact, that final scenario was quite interesting and I was rather surprised that, despite the odds being so heavily stacked against you from the beginning, it wasnā€™t frustrating. To a certain extent, the game as a whole can be said to be rather difficult without being frustrating and there were a couple of other interesting scenarios as well, but that final one made a significant contribution to my overall impression on its own.

Otherwise, Age of Wonders II features certain elements that I tend to see as mandatory for this type of games, such as having heroes that actually act as such and can be relied on and allowing all other units to move freely as well. I find it somewhat difficult to consider these as positive aspects in themselves, as I tend to only consider lacking these elements as a flaw of those other games, but I guess I must point out that, by comparison, I clearly liked having those heroes to handle important battles and, especially in groups of two or three, just about all the offensive on their own, usually leaving only the task of defending my territory to the other units.
Once they gain enough levels, the heroes can become extremely powerful, though never quite invincible, so if you are so inclined you can play the game as something of an RPG with an added strategy element instead of the other way around, which is great from where Iā€™m standing. Add the teleportation gates that can be built in cities and, perhaps as the one clearly positive aspect, in the sense of a feature that I donā€™t consider as absolutely necessary, the interesting and massive battles that can be fought since all armies in adjacent hexes enter combat, and you probably have a good enough explanation for my lack of frustration, which is rare enough in itself.

The Bad
Moving on to the negative aspects, I must start with the lack of information. When you first need to select your starting skills, you wonā€™t know what each does. When you develop your first heroes, you wonā€™t know what the attribute cap is, nor will you know the maximum level for skills that have multiple levels. When you research summoning spells, youā€™re given no real information about the units in question. The description of some spells can be lacking as well, and the same thing can also be said about some skills. In addition, no attack or damage information is shown for units that only have ranged attacks, but on the other hand those attacks have effective attack and damage values, as well as chance to hit, listed when they are used, which doesnā€™t happen for melee attacks. And, while Iā€™m at it, a list of armies would have been particularly useful as well.

Then thereā€™s the matter of the AI, which is generally poor and at times terrible. Granted, the game is difficult enough even so, which means that a good AI would have made it next to impossible, but thatā€™s no excuse for the computer not doing so many simple things thatā€™d make a difference, starting from moving another unit away to be able to take the wizard to the tower of the city it respawned in if the garrison was full at the time. During sieges, it can be quite laughable, taking units all the way around to another gate instead of perhaps waiting one turn to be able to enter through one that was already destroyed or, perhaps worst of all, assuming that a breach was created when one of its units that can climb or pass walls does so and making all the others in the area waste a turn by pointlessly gathering behind it. In addition, it rarely seems to notice when moving units in a different order will bring benefits, makes rather poor use of units with multiple skills or of powerful heroes, doesnā€™t properly develop its cities, never uses transports, so itā€™ll never take units that canā€™t fly or swim across a body of water, and even enemies will make deals with you that will greatly harm them.

Some annoying bugs exist as well. I didnā€™t experience any that made it impossible to continue, but some certainly make things more difficult, such as the fact that it often seems to check whether a quest, particularly a build quest, was completed only when you capture a structure, and at times it seems to fail to check at all, so youā€™ll be told you failed even though you did what you had to do. Some negotiations also seem to simply be ignored, which I think happens when the AI would have accepted the deal but it doesnā€™t have the required mana to make the transfer, or perhaps when it doesnā€™t have the amount of gold you asked for as well. During one scenario, both of my AI allies simply stopped moving as well, I believe after such ignored deals. In addition, though Iā€™m not sure whether these are actual bugs or not, itā€™s definitely unpleasant that the allied victory condition doesnā€™t trigger if your allies arenā€™t allied to each other as well and thereā€™s no way to persuade or force them to do so, leaving defeating one of them as your only option, and also that being pulled into combat alongside an ally means you donā€™t see the battle and the ally controls your units, but they retain control of theirs when theyā€™re pulled into combat alongside you.

I should also state that the story is little more than an excuse to get you from one scenario to the next and the low number of special events during said scenarios is, at the very least, a clear missed opportunity. I already mentioned that there are a few that are different, but most, and those you must complete in order to advance in particular, can hardly be said to have any story of their own. Some sort of unit descriptions would have been nice as well, and some more notable effects of your relationship with the various races wouldnā€™t have hurt eitherā€¦ And, solely for the fact that it doesnā€™t fit anywhere else either, Iā€™ll also add here that Iā€™d have liked magic to be more powerful, though I guess thatā€™s a matter of preference.

The Bottom Line
I must state that this review is based strictly on playing the campaign, without caring for any other scenarios and, as usual in my case, without any multiplayer, seeing as I have no interest in that aspect. Whatā€™s definitely not usual for me is that I didnā€™t even try the editor either, despite the fact that I often tend to do that even before starting to actually play a game that offers one, at the very least to get a better idea of what I may end up facing. And no, there was no particular reason why I didnā€™t do so with this game; I simply dived straight into the campaign, temporarily abandoned it at some point, and after returning to it I was set on finishing and didnā€™t even look at anything else.

Once again, I focused far more on the negative aspects, but there are plenty of them and they significantly affect the overall experience, so I doubt I was unfair, though the brief notes I wrote down while playing the game probably were, seeing as they included a very brief summary of most of those negative elements but lacked as much as one word about anything I actually liked. However, as I already stated, I clearly enjoyed playing this game and will stress this now, in the conclusion, if otherwise the review may have given you a different impression. The simple fact that, at least if you donā€™t count Castle of the Winds, itā€™s the first actual game I finished in about a year and a half should be proof enough of that.

Granted, the enjoyment may have been at least in part generated by the fact that I was rather starved for a decent fantasy TBS that actually featured those elements I listed above as mandatory from my point of view and didnā€™t frustrate me with things such as time limits, lack of control, choices that result in completely missing significant areas, parts of the story or development opportunities, or an unfair difficulty, pitting me against challenges that planning and tactics arenā€™t necessarily enough to overcome. However, it seems that such games are all too rare and, despite its many flaws, Iā€™m glad I finally got around to playing this one.

Windows · by Cavalary (11445) · 2014

Trivia

Archons

The race "Highmen" in AoW was renamed to "Archons" in AoW 2: The Wizards Throne. Reason? The devs didn't like that the sound of the word "highmen" is quite similar to another English word, which means something completely different....

Nymphs

During final testing it was discovered that the Nymphs' nipples could actually be seen at 200% zoom. The Nymphs were given some more clothes in the final game....

Portraits

The hero portraits are actually remade pictures of the developers and some other people. Here's a list (made originally by Martijn Holtkamp) :

Torgal: Lennart Sas

Winger & Jack: Arno van Wingerden

Joseph: Josh Farley

Federick: Menno Sas

Avernus & The spirit of Order: Arnout Sas

Wazzz: Martijn Holtkamp

Khitan: Mao lin Liao

Ham Binger: Raymond Bingham

Morrandir: Djurre van Dijk

Petrog: Peter de Groot

Taberu: famous actor

Belendor: famous actor

Arcos: Jaap guy (don't ask me)

Elme: famous actrice

Dana, Shenga, Chanta, Estra: The Triumph studios women.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Grov.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, JRK, Xoleras, Carl Ratcliff, Patrick Bregger, Plok.

Game added June 17, 2002. Last modified February 13, 2024.