Description
Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic is a stand alone sequel to
Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne. Like in its predecessors, it's all about turn based strategy in a fantasy world.
In the campaign, a corrupt new empire led by the wizard Phobius, has launched an aggressive assault on the ancient races and all things magic. Meanwhile, an even greater evil in the form of hellish demons, breeds within its shadows. The wizard Merlin has been captured by the demons, but can still communicate with his old wizard friends. You play these wizards as they fight the human empire and the demons.
The main character is the Wizard, who most of the time stays in his wizard tower casting spells in his domain. The wizard researches new spells and abilities and becomes more and more powerful as the game moves on.
One unique feature is the Simultaneous turns mode, where all players move their units at the same time. For those that like it old-school there's still a Classic turns mode.
The innovations and improvements compared to
Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne are:
- Three new races.
- One new unit for each race, and all the old units has been balanced to make the races more equal.
- A third level, the Shadow world.
- Several new structures.
- Improved graphics.
- Improved AI.
- Random map generator.
- Better editor with modding tools and campaign editor.
Alternate Titles
- "奇迹时代：暗影魔法" -- Chinese spelling (simplified)
- "Age of Wonders: Магия Теней" -- Russian spelling
- "Age of Wonders: Magia Cienia" -- Polish title
Part of the Following Group
User Reviews
The Press Says
| 1UP |
May 09, 2004 |
9 out of 10 |
90 |
| Gameplanet |
Sep 10, 2003 |
  |
90 |
| GameSpy |
Aug 19, 2003 |
86 out of 100 |
86 |
| GBase - The Gamer's Base |
Mar 06, 2005 |
8.5 out of 10 |
85 |
| Armchair Empire, The |
Aug 23, 2003 |
8.5 out of 10 |
85 |
| GameZone |
Aug 01, 2003 |
8.4 out of 10 |
84 |
| GameSpot (Belgium/Netherlands) |
Sep 03, 2003 |
81 out of 100 |
81 |
| Joystick (French) |
Sep, 2003 |
8 out of 10 |
80 |
| Strategy Informer |
Sep 17, 2003 |
7.5 out of 10 |
75 |
| Game Revolution |
Aug 01, 2003 |
B |
75 |
Forums
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Trivia
References
In the description for the hero Ham Binger you can read the following :
His fame became an unpleasant weight in later years. Whole Halfling villages named their children Binger, or Ham, or some combination of the two. Ham disappeared centuries ago, but now and again, a Halfling named Ham appears, does good deeds, and heals a few wounds; and the legend spins up again. Sometimes there is more than one Ham, which gets terribly confusing, and whole towns have festivals or contests to determine who is the real Ham Binger.
This refers to a bug in
AoW2, where you could end up with two Ham Bingers when playing the campaign. The bug was fixed in a patch.
Steven Woltering
Steven Woltering, credited for "Scenarios & Additional Design", was before he was hired by Triumph one of the fans hanging out in the
AoW forums at HeavenGames. Among other things, he made the map "Rise of Kings" that came with patch 1.3.
Awards
- Computer Gaming World
- March 2004 (Issue #236) – Strategy Game of the Year
This entry to the MobyGames database was contributed by
Grov 
(647) on Aug 05, 2003.
