Well I’m back after my long hiatus (sorry about that, pesky exams, irritating little things aren’t they?) and I have another wonder for you, Age of Wonders to be exact. The game follows the same premise as most battle games, but with a fantasy twist. Imagine a cross between Lord of the Rings and a classic turn based wargame and you should have it.
Plot Line: The age-old struggle of the Good Guys vs. the Bad Guys vs. the Poor Suckers Caught In The Middle.
The game is divided into three main sections:
- A story-led campaign (playable from both sides: Good or Evil, known here as The Keepers and the Cult of Storms)
A long list of individual scenarios, ranging from small skirmishes to long, drawn out, twelve party strategic exercises.
An editing tool, for tweaking existing scenarios, or for creating your own.
There is also a multiplayer link, but I’m afraid here I have no comments as I haven’t had opportunity to try it out.
Age of Wonders uses single units, which can be grouped into parties of up to eight. Each is controlled separately, and although routes can be planned in advance you still have to tell the units to move each turn. Each unit is allocated movement points, and how fast these are “spent” depends on the terrain (i.e. It “costs” more to move through mountains or a forest than over grassland). These units could be any member of the dozen races or one of the weird and wonderful creatures that can be found wandering (or in some cases slithering) around the place. I’ll talk more about these later.
So what exactly do I mean by “a fantasy twist”? Well let’s start with your army:
The regular foot soldiers take on different weapons, according to their race. For example Halfling “archers” carry slings instead of bows, the Dwarves carry axes and the Undead use “bone rams”, a fashionable new take on the traditional battering ram. Some races also bear characteristics, (e.g.) any Lizard unit can swim and Frostlings are protected against the cold. Units are built in cities, the units available depends on the race of the city’s inhabitants, and the size of the city. Cities must be upgraded to allow more complicated units to be built but the size of the city will limit how many upgrades you can make in a city. You can change the race by migrating a city’s population, but this will have a damaging effect on your popularity, both among your own people and among the other races. As a side note, due to the Good vs. Evil theme running through this game, some races (i.e. the ones on the other side) will be predisposed to dislike you anyway, so don’t take it personally when they declare war on you for no apparent reason.
In addition to your infantry, you will have other more specialized units at your disposal. I’ve listed some of the more interesting ones below:
| Race | Unit | What Is It? |
|---|---|---|
| Elf | Fairy | A fast moving flyer that hurls little balls of magic at people who upset it. |
| Highmen | Spirit Puppet | Cheap to produce and as it technically isn’t alive is protected from heat, cold etc. Very useful as infantry. Incidentally it also looks a bit like the Michelin man. |
| Dark Elf | Lady of Pain | The wood nymph’s evil twin, seduces and/or beats up enemy soldiers as necessary. |
| Dark Elf | Incarnate | Immune to nearly everything. Can possess enemy units but reappears when a host dies. |
| Lizardmen | Giant Slug | Looks sort of like a sock with teeth (and *really* bad breath) |
| Halfling | Leprechaun | Good for scouting as these little guys are conveniently invisible until you step on one. |
| Goblin | Troll | Unbelievably thick and ugly as hell but if one hits you you’ll know about it. |
| Goblin | Big Beetle | Just what it says on the packet. Good for digging tunnels underground. |
| Frostlings | Nordic Glow | Not sure what this actually is. Picture a kind of floating snowball with sharp bits. |
| The Undead | Bone Horror | The Natural History Museum gone horribly, horribly wrong. |
| The Undead | Wraith | Walks through walls and curses things – oh yes, and it’s not actually there… |
| Azrac | Beholder | Big ugly floating thing with eyes on stalks that simply scares the living daylights out of anything that comes near it. |
As a leader, you can choose whether or not to put yourself on the map, although personally I find it much more fun to be on the map. A downside to this is that if your character is killed you lose instantly, and have to start again. You may also have one or more Heroes offer to join your cause. Between them, Leaders and Heroes are the only units able to use magic. These range from simple healing spells to summoning spirits to large scale battle spells. Yes, that’s right, battle spells, Weapons of Mass Destruction for people with imagination. Performing spells requires “mana” both from the caster and your stock of mana crystals. The former can be increased by upgrading your hero when he/she makes a level, the latter are either found lying around, or more often, produced from power nodes when you capture them. You can research spells (this takes up part of your mana income) to increase your armoury, moving up the scale in terms of effect and of course cost.
Overall Thoughts
There is an helpful option allowing players to switch between a turn-based set up, and simultaneous “real-time”, so you can pick whichever setting suits you best; and you can choose between an automated combat (allowing the computer to take over) and tactical (the DIY approach) meaning that should, for example, a single archer be attacked by five black dragons, you can skip the hopeless bloodshed and cut to the inevitable result, (i.e. archer got eaten). The only problem with the tactical combat option is that once an engagement has started, there is no way to stop it until either the aggressor withdraws, or one side is defeated.
The graphics are simple but effective and sounds are good, especially the background music, although the combat sounds can get repetitive. The race relations idea is a nice touch, although again, the messages can become a little repetitive after a while. I’ve heard that this is much improved in the sequel. The ability to customize leaders and heroes allows you to choose your own strengths,
For me personally, is the “creatures”, that is, the non-humanoids included in the game, that are the highlight of the game. Each of the 57 species comes with a picture and short passage describing its habits, behaviour (or some cases eating preferences). The sheer variety and thought that has gone into them is amazing.
The campaign is very well made, and scenarios provide plenty of variety, with the editor allowing for endless variations. To my knowledge there is at least one patch available with more scenarios on it, along with numerous others, which have been released on the web. A particularly good one is http://www.strategyplanet.com/aow
A sequel, The Wizards Throne, was released in November 2002.
Minimum system requirements:
Windows® 95/98Pentium® 133 MHz processor. 16 MB RAM. SVGA video card and display capable of 16 bit colour. 2X CD-ROM Drive. Windows 95 compatible sound card for music and sound effects
Final score: A magical 9/10
[Jennifer, really appreciate the time, effort and trouble you went to in producing this review. I know from experience just how much goes into just learning a new game without the additional chore of considering it in a balanced and forthright manner, required for a review. Must admit to being an ‘Age of…’ fan, but have recently been dappling in the ‘Cossack’ world, with which I am deeply impressed. Cannot see a review on those games coming in the near future, if at all, too busy playing (when time permits). Thanks once again. Kenn].
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