Age of Wonders

Age of Wonders is a fantasy turn-based strategy. Humans have come along and destroyed the elven kingdom. The elves then split into two factions: Light and dark. Your goal is to rebuild the kingdom and make peace with the humans (light) or destroy them (dark). Gameplay is simple and straightforward. Towns produce gold and are used to create new units. They can be purchased if the inhabitants are favourable or captured. Places like ruins or caves can be explored for items and gold. Combat can be automatic or tactical. Automatic combat is faster and is calculated by the type and number of units. Tactical combat gives you direct control and is best used when outcomes are questionable. The graphics have a painterly feel and have aged very well. Aow also has a wonderful soundtrack. All these things make it really easy to get sucked into the game for hours. This is where the turn-based gameplay works in it’s favour. It’s easy to stop at any point, but it also has that ‘one more turn’ quality that’s associated with Civilization. I've enjoyed my time in aow and can see it becoming one of my favourites. Verdict: Buy it. Strategic gameplay, beautiful graphics & music, and a low price make this game worth a try.

This game can be quite challenging, which I think is a good thing. Some of the maps can take quite some time to win. The graphics aren't outstanding, but they are good. The AI is OK, but not outstanding, but it does do a good job of constantly coming after you which keeps the game from being too easy.

I do not understand all the complaints, the gameplay would be so difficult, they don't know how to beat even the first map ot the scenario, and they have no idea how to progress on a specific map, and so on. It's easy, too easy. I will tell you how. First point, save game often, in critical situations one or more times a round! It's no shame to check the situation first and roll back the time. And sometimes your leader will trap in an hopeless situation, and otherwise it will be an annoying "game over". Send out some fast troops, prefer flying units to explore the area. Use spells like haste and water walking, and skill mountaining, to be one step ahead every time. Use warp spell to jump behind the lines and town gate spell to catch an army just before it gets an apparently unsecured town. Jump to an important harbour or teleporter and destroy it, so your enemy can't reach you or has to go a much longer way. The KI don't manage this. And it neither uses jumping nor repairing units itself. The AOW-KI has generally no complex strategies. It always uses just one big army you have to avoid first until your armies and heroes getting stronger. If there is a little danger, they barricade in its main town. They use to strech their big armies, wehn thex on the road, and the player can catch them one stack after another from the edge. Additionally, the KI is very carefully, almost coward, so when it is not SURE to win a fight, it mostly avoid it. And KI don't systematic develop their heroes, so the player usually should have a superhero (all basic values 10, at least 20 hit points, spell V) much earlier than the KI-enemies. Thats not all, but its a foundation. This in mind, and with a little expierience, the game will be really nice and entertaining.

Review as at 5 June 2019, running on Windows 10 with a 4K monitor. The settings offered compatibility with ridiculously high resolutions, producing some interesting interface designs that probably weren't intended by the original creators, with hilariously small text and icons. However, regardless of whether I ran it at modern resolutions or era-accurate ones, the game would regularly crash, referring to "draw errors", and I couldn't make it run reliably enough to enjoy it. The game may take further work from GOG to make it fully compatible with current systems.

I love this game, and better yet I am running it through Crossover 9.0 on my MacBook Pro. It runs flawlessly and is still as fun as I remember it.