With Age of Wonders III just around the corner, I thought it would be nice to go back to the series’ roots before jumping into the latest instalment. I was introduced to Age of Wonders by a friend of mine, but not the original game. It was the third game – Shadow Magic – that ensnared me, some time mid-2004. Shadow Magic had only been out for a year or so by that point, but its use of 2D sprites and beautiful art was still something of a welcome surprise. With 3D RTS games being the “in thing” around this time, I was eager to see what the retro-looking Shadow Magic had to offer.

Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised. But after all these years, I still hadn’t played the original game. I bought it on GOG as soon as it was released, but it languished in my library for quite some time. It was only recently that I decided to give it a shot.

Released way back in late 1999 / early 2000, Age of Wonders (AoW) is a turn-based strategy game, reminiscent of Master of Magic, Age of Empires and Civilization. While it certainly resembles the first of these more than the other two, AoW doesn’t define itself as being derivative of any of them. Gameplay in AoW consists of an isometric view of a vast, beautifully detailed 2D landscape which has been split into hexagonal cells.

You control units which move across these maps; different cells can consist of different types of terrain (e.g. water, hills, forest, mountains, etc.) which have an effect on how far your units can move. In the same vein, your units all have different amounts of movement points, which are subtracted as you move across these hexes. However, units can possess a variety of special abilities, including ones like “Forestry” – this allows a particular unit to move through forests without any penalty. You can gather units in groups of 8 for battle or defence, or split them for exploration.

Dotted across each map are towns and other structures. These can all exist on any of the three “layers” – the surface, underground and the depths. Some towns may be friendly towards you (depending on your race – halflings tend to like elves a lot more than goblins, for example) and join you willingly. Some might suggest a small fee to join your cause. Others will need to be taken by force. Once you have control of a town, however, you can begin generating crucial income and producing further units, as well as constructing certain upgrades. Towns will all be of a specific race (there are 12 in the game, though not all of them will be on any given map), but you can and normally do end up controlling a number of different races during the course of a game.

There are only two resources in AoW – gold and mana. Gold is a catch-all currency for everything in the game bar research and spellcasting, which I’ll come to in a moment. You gain gold from owning towns; depending on their size and the surrounding terrain, they’ll generate a set income every turn. As a bonus, when towns aren’t busy making units, they’ll default to producing “merchandise”, which is just a small bonus to gold per turn. You can also earn gold by capturing and holding other, special structures like mines and farms. You spend gold by creating units, but also in upkeep: each unit has a set maintenance cost per turn (except summoned units, which use mana), so you can’t amass vast armies without keeping an eye on the coffers. You can also spend gold on upgrades to your towns – these can be erecting walls to keep out enemies, installing a new unit type or even upgrading larger towns as a whole.

There’s a lot more detail, of course, but this covers the basics of exploring and settling. Each player also has a hero unit under their command; ostensibly, this hero is the commander of all your forces, but can be treated like any other unit. Heroes have the ability to research and cast spells, depending on their alignment to specific “spheres” (elements) of magic, but doing so costs mana. You have a small trickle of mana income every turn from just the hero, but capturing special structures called nodes will supplement this. You can divide your mana income between your reserves and research using a slider; favouring research will allow you to gain more spells in short order, but you might not have the mana available to cast them. You can also buy spells using gold if you find a wizard’s tower – they’ll have a single spell on sale, allowing you to bypass the research stage.

Spells fall into one of three categories – global, unit and combat. Combat spells can only be used during combat and are generally direct-attack spells. Global spells are cast on the wider map and can be anything from a town-protecting magic shield to a transmutation of wasteland to verdant woods and grass. Unit spells are buffs, healing and suchlike and can normally be used either in our out of combat.

While units in AoW can level up through combat to a maximum of Level 4, heroes can go all the way to 30, learning new skills along the way. You can choose these skills each time you level up, with a set amount of points being earned that can be redeemed against new abilities. Heroes can also equip special weapons and armour, which can be found in special structures (prisons and dungeons) dotted across some maps.

The races and units in AoW also have different moral and diplomatic standpoints. Races can be inherently good, evil or neutral and this will influence how others react to you. You can make peace or even ally with NPC races if they share alignments or if you’ve got good relations with them. It’s difficult to keep races of differing moral standpoints playing happy families; generally, if you’re not friendly with them or your moral compass differs too much, bad things happen. Races may declare war, or if the units were under your command, they may desert. You can improve your relations with different races through bribes or acts of generosity, such as upgrading a town of that race (if you have one).

But diplomacy won’t always work – that’s where combat comes in. While AoW is very much turn-based, during normal play you have the option to have all players take their turns simultaneously. This is enabled by default in single-player, which results in a slightly more fluid style of gameplay. During combat, however, it’s fully sequential. Initiating combat is as simple as moving your units over a hex occupied by an enemy, which will cause the attacked hex (and the six hexes surrounding it) to become the battleground. This allows for a maximum of 7 armies (up to 56 units) to be included in any given battle. You can choose to have the computer automatically decide the victor of combat, but for the most part, you want to get into the thick of things.

During battle, the wider map is replaced with a zoomed-in view of the hexes of the battlefield, which are now split up into hundreds of smaller hexes. Movement across the battlefield is identical to that of the rest of the map, except that each unit now occupies one hex each and can perform a certain set of abilities. Some units might only have the ability to attack using melee, which means they need to close in for the kill. Others might have ranged attacks, but can’t move and attack in the same turn; line of sight will also need to be taken into account. Spells can also be cast, if you have a hero in the fray. Each side moves all of their units at a time, before handing over play to the opposing side.

Combat is based on a simple set of stats that every unit possesses. The army that attacks can optionally retreat if things are looking grim, but victory is otherwise determined based on the last unit standing. If your main hero / leader dies in combat, however, it’s game over, regardless of how many units you still have. Some special circumstances that influence battles might include a town fortified with walls – you’ll need a unit that can climb, destroy or otherwise ignore walls to breach those defences. The AI isn’t dumb, either; it’ll position units in devious ways and often force you to make your troops vulnerable before they’ll engage.

If you win out on the field, the enemy simply disappears and you move into the hex they occupied. If you were assaulting a town, you move in and occupy it. This is yet another layer of depth that AoW introduces: chances are good that the race of a conquered town is going to be hostile towards you. If your occupying force isn’t strong enough, the town might rebel against you, forcing you outside the walls and declaring independence. This is why it’s normally a good idea to migrate any conquered towns to a race that’s friendly towards you: doing so will grease diplomatic wheels with that race and negate the risk of rebellion. If you don’t think you can hold it, or don’t need the income, you can also raze the town to the ground.

All of these features are integral components of just about every map in Age of Wonders. From the campaign to the scenarios, I’ve only given the barest outline of the complexity of this marvellous game. Multiplayer is an option, too: pick whichever method suits you best, whether it be local hotseat, live internet matches or Play By Email (where you send special “turn files” to the next player).

Since I moved backwards in the series – from the third game to the first – I was afraid that the original title would be so far removed from what I was used to that it would be unplayable. To my delight, it took me only a few minutes to adjust to the older interface and somewhat reduced feature set – the core gameplay remains relatively unchanged. That’s not to say that AoW II and Shadow Magic aren’t vast improvements on AoW; they just don’t diminish the original. Since the version I’m playing has been specially tailored by the fine folks at GOG, it plays just fine on my modern OS with no playing about with compatibility settings required. It even runs at 1920×1200, though the units and interface are rather tiny at that resolution: you’d have had to duct tape several CRTs together back in the day to achieve that amount of screen real estate.

Everything about AoW speaks of quality; every aspect of the design has been crafted to draw you in. It appeals to a particular quirk of mine: I like to spend hours and hours getting everything on each map. Every town, every upgrade, every structure and node, forcing the enemy back inexorably towards their last bastions as I explore and expand. The beautiful artwork and music are the perfect companions on this journey, which will often see me spend upwards of eight hours on a single campaign level. When you consider that this game also comes with its own map editor, allowing the creation of user-made scenarios, the replay value is basically incalculable.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this ridiculously long article, it was my friend who introduced me to the AoW series to begin with. He created a custom map in Shadow Magic and we took it in turns to play by email, sending turn files back and forth, like a modern day chess game played by pen pals. It remains one of the most engaging and fun multiplayer experiences I’ve ever had; with the addition of instant messaging, we could discuss turns and strategy while sending our files to each other.

Age of Wonders certainly shines brightest when you have someone else to play it with, but the campaign also stands on its own. Unlike the early Age of Empires games or Civilization, there’s a proper story to be told. There’s two factions to play, each with wildly different lore and missions. On top of that, there are branching paths to take through each story – not to mention a variety of difficulty levels – giving you plenty of opportunity to go back and play through a second or third time.

I’m hard pressed to find any faults with Age of Wonders; it just does too much right to do any wrong in my eyes. I’m definitely biased in my opinion, having played and loved its sequel so much, but I don’t think it makes my viewpoint any less valid. If you’re a fan of turn-based strategy and want more value for your money than you thought possible, you can’t go wrong with Age of Wonders. I can only hope that the upcoming Age of Wonders III stays true to this amazing pedigree.

You can pick up the Age of Wonders games DRM-free from GOG at the following links:

AoW | AoW II: The Wizard’s Throne | AoW: Shadow Magic | AoW III (Pre-Order – available March 31^st) | AoW III: Deluxe Edition

Alternatively, they’re also available on Steam:

AoW: Trilogy Pack (AoW, AoW II and AoW:SM) | AoW III / AoW III: Deluxe Edition (Pre-Order – available March 31^st)

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