Age of Wonders
Description official descriptions
Age of Wonders is a turn-based strategy game set in a fantasy scenario. The campaign can be played on two sides and tells a tale how the humans come to a new land and destabilized the peace between the races, throwing the land into war. The game also features several stand-alone scenarios. There is an extensive diplomatic matrix which structures the relationships between the 12 races and their respective leaders. There are global-spells which can be cast on the strategic map, outside of tactical combat.
Creatures can move around without being led by a hero, so the map eventually crawls with all sorts of strange beings. Neutral forces are not always static, most of them move around and sometimes attack the 12 races. The automatic tactical-combat mode shows a somewhat detailed overview of the combat simulation: it is a worthwhile substitute for impatient gamers, especially in multiplayer encounters.
As in Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Restoration of Erathia and Master of Magic, heroes are very important. They reach new levels of skill and power with experience and can be equipped with artifacts. But they do have limitations that usually do not allow a solitary hero to overrun a city-garrison all by himself.
Pre-game customization allows the following choices: 5 levels of AI skill (with the 1.2 patch), 5 AI personalities (from very violent to defensive), "classic" turn-based moves or simultaneous turns, incarnation of the player as the main hero (if he dies, it's game over for that side), selection of the main hero's name, face, and bonus sword-and-sorcery attributes, etc.
The map editor allows the gamer to create new maps, which can have up to 3 geological levels (one or two can be placed underground, with a cramped and dark tunnel-design).
Spellings
- 奇迹时代 - Simplified Chinese spelling
Groups +
- Age of Wonders series
- Animals: Penguins
- Fantasy creatures: Dragons
- Fantasy creatures: Dwarves
- Fantasy creatures: Elves
- Fantasy creatures: Goblins
- Fantasy creatures: Halflings / Hobbits
- Fantasy creatures: Orcs
- Fantasy creatures: Unicorns
- Game feature: Hexagonal map
- Gameplay feature: Fog of war
- Games that include map/level editor
- Green Pepper releases
- Protagonist: Female (option)
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Videos
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Credits (Windows version)
56 People (52 developers, 4 thanks) · View all
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Mars Publishing - Publisher | |
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Mars Publishing - Graphic Artist | |
Mars Publishing - Project Editor | |
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[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 78% (based on 41 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 59 ratings with 6 reviews)
This game reminds me of Master of Magic without the replay value.
The Good
Solid construction, nice design. Generally, good graphics.
The Bad
There was no quality engaging enough to want me to replay the campaign or any of the scenarios again.
The Bottom Line
Worth buying, but not a classic.
Windows · by Jeff Watts (18) · 2001
AoW sets the standard for future fantasy TBS-games.
The Good
Well, this is my favorite game of all time, and here I will try to explain why...
First time I played the game I was not that impressed, and put it on the shelf for a month. I tried it again later, and was hooked. The cartoon-like graphics which I found boring at first, after a while showed to add to the feeling of the game. And the large amount of units makes this game never boring, you never know what kind of ugly creatures youll find in a dungeon, and one battle is never like the other.
Also the music is the best music I ever heard in a game (it's made by Michiel van den Bos).
One fun aspect is also the play by E-mail feature. It's more fun than it sounds.
Also the support from the developers is great. They frequently visits the gamers forum and reflect on game suggestions.
The Bad
The AI could be better, and the map editor could have more story-telling features (even if the developers added some features after gamers suggestions).
The Bottom Line
A turn based fantasy game, taking place in a beautiful world with a lot of different creatures.
Windows · by Grov (657) · 2002
The Good
The game can be a lot of fun, especially building up your heroes. I like the fact that you don't have micromanage your cities as much as you do in Heroes of Might and Magic or in Master of Magic. Tactical combat, although time consuming, really gives you a lot of tactical options if you have a good mix of units, especially if you are fighting with two or more stacks of units. Finally, the graphics and sound are well done.
The Bad
The single player game is very repetitive since the objective never vary between missions from the basic "Conquer the map" quest. Most of the maps can be won fairly easily by just maintaining a stack with your heroes and a few other fast, powerful units since the computer AI is very defensive. Basically, the computer just usually hangs around his biggest castle with his leader hero and stacks up a ton of defensive units. All you have to do to win is to move your power stack over and assassinate his leader hero and watch ALL of his armies turn into neutral armies.
This gameplay flaw is even worse in multiplayer, because many of your hero's powers are useless (especially combat spells) if you just play defense with your hero. Of course, if you put him on the offensive, you risk even more, but this is necessary to take over enough cities to win the game, so winning is more due to good luck than good tactics.
Another major problem with multiplayer is that there is no middle ground between smart tactical combat and dumb quick combat. Quick combat is a good idea, except that the game gives you no tuneable options such as turning off the use of magic, or being able to set how aggressive heroes are in their attacks. A lot of the time your hero casts way too many expensive spells (like Terror) or charges into combat and gets himself killed while in quick combat and this is frustrating because you know that in tactical combat you would have won with a few minor losses.
Tactical combat is flawed especially in the defense of cities. Walls give you a huge advantage in that only certain troops can break through or fly over them, but they also give you a huge disadvantage vs. the attacker since your archers often cannot fire over the wall at the attackers while they are trying to break in and your troops are almost always very spread out compared to the attacker. Why doesn't the defender get to place his archers on top of walls so they can shoot unhindered at the attackers? Why can the defender run away and give up the city if he faces overwhelming odds? Why can't the defender place his stacks where he wants within his city before the attacker gets to move?
Overall, Age of Wonders has a lot of good ideas, but a mixed implementation of those ideas. Even though I was disappointed with the game in the end, it is still a fun game and if its problems are fixed in Age of Wonders 2 then it will be a great game.
The Bottom Line
Age of Wonders tries to take the best elements of Master of Magic, Heroes of Might and Magic, and Warlords, but many of the gameplay elements they chose don't combine to make a game with lasting replay value.
Windows · by Droog (460) · 2001
Trivia
Extras
The UK edition of the game is said to include a novel by David Eddings 'worth 6.99£'. Either most people didn't like it and threw it away or it never was there; anyway it's definitely pretty hard to find.
Getting off a boat
Most people playing the game for the first time faces the same problem: How do you get units out off a boat? This is not covered in the manual, and the words "How do I get off the boat?" is probably the most posted and joked about in the AoW-forums.
Highmen Theme
The song "Highmen Theme" seems to be remix of Journey.umx which is played during the Nagomi Passage level ('day' version) in the Unreal mission pack Return to Na Pali.
Information also contributed by Grov, MDMaster and toothbrush
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Related Sites +
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Age of Wonders - Epic MegaGames, Inc.
official game page from the Epic Games website from 1996, archived by the Wayback Machine -
Age of Wonders Heaven
A prominent AoW-site. It contains maps, concept art, lost pictures, lost units, etc. The developers also visit the forum frequently. -
Welcome to the Age of Wonders
Official site for the turn-based fantasy-strategy game "Age of Wonders" (released in November 1999).
Identifiers +
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Jean-Paul Cardinal.
Additional contributors: Tomer Gabel, PCGamer77, Unicorn Lynx, Grov, Patrick Bregger, MrFlibble.
Game added December 30, 1999. Last modified February 13, 2024.