Historically the fantasy strategy game genre has been dominated by a small number of franchises; in their umpteenth generation, they have formidably contributed to the refinement of strategy game styles and systems.
This is why it’s so notable that of late we have been blessed with new entrants to the field. Upstarts and newcomers to the fantasy-strategy arena, they combine new ideas with tried and true methods and compelling storylines to offer refreshing new presentations of heretofore worked-over themes.
Age of Wonders is a much anticipated strategy-fantasy game from Triumph Studios (and published by G.O.D., whose stable of successful and cool games seems to be growing apace). Its basic formula doesn’t deviate far from the HOMM/WL norm, yet whose specific mélange of elements make for an interesting and engaging product.
The elements used are not terribly novel in and of themselves; most initially seem standard-issue but on second glance have some nuances that have been missing in other games. Orcs, archers, halflings, dragons, all the standard fantasy fare is there. Each unit has a ‘to hit’ skill and damage level, hit points, etc. as well as some special abilities like flying or missile attack. Interestingly, the designers opted for a positive control on unit abilities. For example, units must have the STRIKE ability to be able to make ANY melee attacks. It’s almost the equivalent of object-oriented unit ability management, and suggests a particularly easy method of managing unit abilities (and thus play balance). Mana points are accumulated, and spent for magical research or spell casting. Towns are of the fixed (i.e. set by the scenario designer, rather than in the course of gameplay) variety, and are the source of gold and unit construction. Otherwise, it’s the standard 4x-strategy game conquer the town, build more units, conquer the next town, etc.
Unit combat can be fought on a tactical map, where the individual units can be moved into protective formations and apply their special abilities (such as missile fire) to best advantage. An auto-resolve feature is available for speedy combats, as is an auto-move for battles where a lot of tedious movement takes place. Be warned: most players agree that they use the quick-resolve feature only for combats that they will be certain to lose or win using it in close battles ensures a player loss. Using it in any battle will result in losses greater than that which a human would suffer. More on that later.
Despite the per-party limit of 8 units, AoW’s interesting exclusionary adjacent-hex rule makes for potentially massive combats. Picture this the tactical combat takes place on a cluster of 7 hexes, representative of the attacked party’s hex and the six surrounding hexes. If you or the enemy has units in these hexes, they participate in the combat! Thus combats can contain up to 56 units, but in my experience the battles are usually resolved before more than two of the hexes’ worth of units can consolidate and slug it out. This does lead to some rules bending. For example, if you move a stack of 7 units a full movement and they end one hex from an enemy, you can attack the enemy with a single wimpy but fast unit and the other units who are exhausted will nevertheless be included in the combat. I would say this is an error, and the units whose move is 0 should be EXCLUDED, as this can greatly benefit races with some slow but powerful units by artificially extending their ability to engage in combat.
I enjoyed the tactical combat quite a bit, but can’t help voicing some small problems with its current iteration. None of them are worth down-rating the game, but in my opinion they are all things that need fixing. First is the fact that tactical combat should cost more movement on the strategic map. It seems at this point that you cannot engage in tactical combat unless (at least one see above) unit(s) have movement left to enter the enemy’s hex. But the actual engagement of combat should cost a unit 25% of its movement, or the remainder, whichever is less (or SOME such cost). This would prevent major stacks from dominating too badly by having illogically high mobility. Second, and related is that the only combatant that can disengage from a combat once it has reached the tactical level is the attacker, so ostensibly a giant turtle could catch and kill a light cavalry unit it’s a fantasy game, sure, but let’s maintain a degree of logic here.
I wasn’t happy with the ability for defending units to execute an opportunity attack against every unit that passes adjacent to them without limit or consequence. This meant that the best thing to do with a tough unit is to wade hip-deep into the middle of an enemy formation and put a wimpy archer as bait a hex or two away. When the computer moves, all it’s forces will try to disengage to go after the archer, and your tough unit will get free attacks on all of them. Finally, as units weaken, their damage inflicting ability should generally go down. Once a critter is on it’s last 1 of 24 hit points, it shouldn’t be much of a threat.
Dungeon exploration where the player has the opportunity to seize magic items and rescue imprisoned creatures that then join the player’s army are likewise fought on the tactical map. An intense fog-of-war effect makes the exploration of torch lit halls, caves, and crypts feel persuasively claustrophobic. One much-disliked feature is the fact that treasures are for heroes only. If your lone leader is off somewhere else, don’t bother having any other stack clear that dungeon: +5 magic spear? Well, your army of cavaliers can’t even lift it! Any treasure you find cannot be picked up or carted around unless a leader/hero is there to hold on.
The graphic quality is generally good, with one glaring (and unfortunately particularly blatant) exception. Terrain depiction and spell effects are particularly nice (you’ll catch yourself second-glancing at the map from time to time noticing forests that spread and things that change on the map). Particularly great is the ability to actually alter the map in game time. Some units have the ability to dig through certain types of underground hexes (there’s the surface as well as up to two underground levels!), and major magic spells can even plant mountain ranges.
It must be noted too, that though some of the spell effects are nice they are so long and elaborate you might find yourself looking for a skip key after the 20th time you see the geyser. The portraits disproportional, oddly composed and shaded - are the pretty bad exception to the general rule and unfortunately stay visible most of the time. But don’t judge the game on them. There is a lot of artistic quality here that’s not so easily noticed.
The sound effects are generally average and the background music (both in variety and quality) is excellent. Note that in the pre-patch version the music can cause the game to slow even high-speed systems to a crawl. The 1.1 patch should fix this.
The included editor is a very professional, clean product simple to use and fairly powerful. There are a large number more than 20 individual scenarios, some very well done and balanced for multiplayer. Having a dozen playable races Goblin, Orc, Halfling, Human, Elf, Dark Elf, Lizardman, High Man, Undead, Azrac (desert people), Frostling, Dwarves, and an NPC only creatures catch-all category means that there’s a whole lot of variety. And it doesn’t stop there 80+ magic items, 35+ heroes and the ability to generate custom versions of either make replayability infinite and suggest that a prolific fan base will have the tools to keep this game on hard drives for a long time. The glaring omission here is the lack of a unit editor, even to use the in-game graphics or make your own. I could very, very easily see this becoming the tool of choice for RPG’ers that want to play a little strategic game of AD&D, RuneQuest, MERP, etc. if there was some way to include units beyond that substantial number already in the game.
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