So hey, doing something slightly new with this feature, in that this Brief Jaunt is totally a blind run. Triumph Studios/Epic Games' Age of Wonders is a game I've never had the privilege to play until fairly recently, when magnanimous GB pal ArbitraryWater gifted it to me. As a big fan of Master of Magic, which is very much cut from the same cloth mechanically speaking, I had wondered (so to speak) how an equally well-acclaimed fantasy-themed 4X strategy game had inexplicably passed me by. I wasn't sure what to expect going in, but I guess you'll all be learning along with me. I mean, unless you've already played this. I guess. I never think these opening paragraphs through. But anyhoo, here goes:
Age of Wonders, Lisa? Or Age of Blunders?
Also I Was Told Not To Start LPs With Simpsons Quotes, So Here Is Title #2: Um, Hobbits?
Welcome to Age of Wonders! This game has a rather elaborate intro that explains the backstory of the world and that of the two factions you can choose to play as. Rather than just screencap every still image of the intro and discuss it, I've summarized the whole thing below:This is basically Age of Wonders. Boiled down to its crucial elements, at least.So now Age of Wonders begins in earnest. Among the symbols down there you have the one-off campaigns, the much longer story modes, a handy tutorial I took the liberty of playing through so I at least have some idea what I'm talking about and the usual load game/exit game. Yo, it's a title screen.You know those games that have multiple factions to join, where there's some degree of ambiguity about who are the "good guys" and who are the "bad guys" and how there's always that feeling of "man, did I make the right decision throwing myself in with this lot?" inner turmoil once you commit to a path? Well this game isn't that. C'mon, just look at this screen. Shiny white temple people or evil chasm lightning people?Here we are at the custom hero screen. I decided to make my own, despite having zero experience with the game beyond the tutorial. Seems like a sensible course of action. The Leader is, of course, the kingpin of your whole operation (well, I mean, he's you) so it's integral you keep him alive and well. I also have no imagination when it comes to names, but you all probably knew that already.To this end, I've configured his skillset to befit a more "hands-off" leadership approach. I'll be standing at the back and just picking them off with arrows, Drew style, while ensuring I'll be the closest to the exit when it comes time to retreat. You know, like a hero would do.So this is an interesting variant on the Master of Magic spell system. Similar to the spellbooks of that game, your protagonist can only have so many expertise orbs that decide which spells they're able to use. Do you sacrifice versatility for higher-level specialization? Which elements work best together? And why won't the game let me be Earth, Wind and Fire? I suppose September was last month, oh well.The world map tells you where the next map is set, though it also has this alternate function that gives you a neat geography lesson. We're starting at Halfling territory up at the top left there, and we should finish up in the Valley of Wonders. Other notable destinations appear to be "The Skull" (which looks like a skull, so that should be cheery) and whatever the hell the "Isle of Last Goodbyes" is supposed to be. A Jeff Buckley tribute? If so, we better not need to swim over to it.Our first mission! We have to help the hobbitses of Flowershire (didn't I start the MoM Brief Jaunt with a tribe of halflings living in a town with a ridiculously cutesy name?) against some goblins. Sounded like a cakewalk to me at the time. Heh... hindsight's a funny old thing.But first, we have this very familiar spell research tome to leaf through. This is lifted almost wholesale from Master of Magic, so I'm very much appeased.But then the whole game turns into Heroes of Might and Magic, so now I'm back to being slightly trepidatious.Taking over towns is pretty easy if you have a good relationship with that particular race. Since I'm here to help the Halflings, they let me stroll right in. That is, after I paid a hefty stipend. Bah. Anyway, there's not much of MoM's fancy town-building here, just troop production and the occasional costly upgrade like putting up fortifications. Otherwise all towns will do is generate money for you, which comes in handy. Seems like you want whatever's on the border of your territory creating troops (where they're needed) and everywhere else on cash production.I finally encounter the enemy's forces down here and pick a fight with the town's defenders, just out of range of that worryingly large pack of enemies I paid no heed to, like the inexperienced dolt that I am.But hey, at least I get a level up after that tough battle. As we saw during the character creation process, you can invest points to develop your hero in various directions, choosing to focus on passive skills or increasing stats. I put more points into making my arrows hit things real good.So yeah, that huge army I ignored? Well, guess who reaped what they sowed. The units might be a little hard to make out, what with the game's tiny, tiny sprites, but essentially the enemy units in that image is everyone that isn't some stupid dwarf sitting on a stupid pony. I've made the situation a little clearer with the below artist's depiction:...After that whole massacre didn't happen because reloading is a thing, I eventually find myself conquering the two enemy towns on this side of the bridge. Yay for revisionism.A curious aspect of this game is that a town won't do much for you if it's full of goblins that hate your guts. So what I've set-up here is a standing order to kick them all out of their little goblin hovels and bring in more halflings. I'm not sure if you can make use of the goblin units or whatever the deal is with holding towns full of a hostile race (I'm fairly sure a rebellion would be on the cards), but give me any opportunity to send goblins packing with their little hobo bindles and I'll take it. Plus, while their green hides are dejectedly walking up an empty highway to destinations unknown, I can hum The Incredible Hulk's ending theme.In this far more reasonable battle, I've brought in one of the siege weapons you can also create. Walls are impassable for the side doing the siege-ing, but I can smash them down with this battering ram as long as it stays in one piece. Of course, the moment the enemies walk out of their fortified town to hack away at it, they're gonna getting pounded with rocks so bad they'll wish... they weren't getting pounded by rocks... so bad. I need to work on some pithy action dialogue, damn.A dozen reloads and an hour or so later, we're finally at the gates to the enemy's HQ. If I wanted some extra back-up, there's a town of friendly elves just down there. Clearly that's an option if you aren't entirely confident that your little halfling followers are up to the task at hand. But gosh darn it if I haven't grown attached to the little blighters. Charge! For Flower-whatever!I'm so glad I remembered to take lots of screencaps of that epic battle. What a fight! And that point where that thing happens? I thought I was a goner, were it not for that brilliant display of- OK, much like Bunto the Goblin Lord himself, I believe I've beaten this joke to bloody submission.Yay.So now we get some PsEG-style statistical nerding out as we see exactly when and how things started to go pear-shaped for my erstwhile rival. Clearly it was this point here, when my line went higher than his line. I get graphs.And the game presents me with a branching path. I go north through a mountain pass, where I'm told I'll meet up with another hero from the Keepers faction, or I go south through a subterranean cave network and perhaps meet up with some of my dwarven brethren and probably a Balrog knowing my luck. But for the time being, we're all done here.
So I'm still not sure how I feel about Age of Wonders. It's a neat composite of a lot of what made Master of Magic work (the combat magic, the customization, the tactical turn-based combat) and a few of the things I liked about the Heroes of Might and Magic series (uh, nice maps?), but... well, the thing is, I generally suck at the strategy games which are all about grabbing resources as quickly as possible and holding onto them. I like to take my time and soak in a new map, but that's rarely conducive to not getting Zerg rushed while I'm prancing around sniffing the flowers.
I forget how Master of Magic negates that aspect sufficiently to make it enjoyable for a strategy putz like myself - my cynical half suspects it's because the AI in that game kind of sucks - but I have more fun in MoM raiding the treasure troves of eerie dungeons while my Empire prospers with a minimal amount of supervision. Plus I always have the option to switch my focus back to my towns and armies and let the adventuring crew get a cushy job guarding some border town for a spell. With Age of Wonders it seems it's all about performing the next necessary task as quickly and efficiently as possible in order to stymie the progress of the opponent, otherwise they'll just walk all over you. "No time for love, Dr Jones", in other words. Hardly a valid complaint to make against a 4X strategy game, I'll grant you, but I think Master of Magic is a weird aberration of RPG and PC strategy game in that regard, and one that just so happens to fit my playing style perfectly. Given the success of the recent XCOM remake, I think it's not completely crazy to assume that there's a considerable number of people out there who don't generally have the head for these games but have found at least one that somehow agrees with them.
But still, this was a heartfelt gift and I owe it the chance to get more interesting with the sheer number of different units and scenarios it has yet to present. Shouldn't really judge a game by its hobbits, after all. So all that's left for me to do is thank @ArbitraryWater once again for his generosity and for opening my eyes to one of my favorite PC games' closest contemporaries, and to thank the rest of you for reading another one of these all-over-the-place mini-playthroughs. Farewell for now. *Plays blog off to sad Incredible Hulk theme*
So hey, doing something slightly new with this feature, in that this Brief Jaunt is totally a blind run. Triumph Studios/Epic Games' Age of Wonders is a game I've never had the privilege to play until fairly recently, when magnanimous GB pal ArbitraryWater gifted it to me. As a big fan of Master of Magic, which is very much cut from the same cloth mechanically speaking, I had wondered (so to speak) how an equally well-acclaimed fantasy-themed 4X strategy game had inexplicably passed me by. I wasn't sure what to expect going in, but I guess you'll all be learning along with me. I mean, unless you've already played this. I guess. I never think these opening paragraphs through. But anyhoo, here goes:
Age of Wonders, Lisa? Or Age of Blunders?
Also I Was Told Not To Start LPs With Simpsons Quotes, So Here Is Title #2: Um, Hobbits?
Welcome to Age of Wonders! This game has a rather elaborate intro that explains the backstory of the world and that of the two factions you can choose to play as. Rather than just screencap every still image of the intro and discuss it, I've summarized the whole thing below:This is basically Age of Wonders. Boiled down to its crucial elements, at least.So now Age of Wonders begins in earnest. Among the symbols down there you have the one-off campaigns, the much longer story modes, a handy tutorial I took the liberty of playing through so I at least have some idea what I'm talking about and the usual load game/exit game. Yo, it's a title screen.You know those games that have multiple factions to join, where there's some degree of ambiguity about who are the "good guys" and who are the "bad guys" and how there's always that feeling of "man, did I make the right decision throwing myself in with this lot?" inner turmoil once you commit to a path? Well this game isn't that. C'mon, just look at this screen. Shiny white temple people or evil chasm lightning people?Here we are at the custom hero screen. I decided to make my own, despite having zero experience with the game beyond the tutorial. Seems like a sensible course of action. The Leader is, of course, the kingpin of your whole operation (well, I mean, he's you) so it's integral you keep him alive and well. I also have no imagination when it comes to names, but you all probably knew that already.To this end, I've configured his skillset to befit a more "hands-off" leadership approach. I'll be standing at the back and just picking them off with arrows, Drew style, while ensuring I'll be the closest to the exit when it comes time to retreat. You know, like a hero would do.So this is an interesting variant on the Master of Magic spell system. Similar to the spellbooks of that game, your protagonist can only have so many expertise orbs that decide which spells they're able to use. Do you sacrifice versatility for higher-level specialization? Which elements work best together? And why won't the game let me be Earth, Wind and Fire? I suppose September was last month, oh well.The world map tells you where the next map is set, though it also has this alternate function that gives you a neat geography lesson. We're starting at Halfling territory up at the top left there, and we should finish up in the Valley of Wonders. Other notable destinations appear to be "The Skull" (which looks like a skull, so that should be cheery) and whatever the hell the "Isle of Last Goodbyes" is supposed to be. A Jeff Buckley tribute? If so, we better not need to swim over to it.Our first mission! We have to help the hobbitses of Flowershire (didn't I start the MoM Brief Jaunt with a tribe of halflings living in a town with a ridiculously cutesy name?) against some goblins. Sounded like a cakewalk to me at the time. Heh... hindsight's a funny old thing.But first, we have this very familiar spell research tome to leaf through. This is lifted almost wholesale from Master of Magic, so I'm very much appeased.But then the whole game turns into Heroes of Might and Magic, so now I'm back to being slightly trepidatious.Taking over towns is pretty easy if you have a good relationship with that particular race. Since I'm here to help the Halflings, they let me stroll right in. That is, after I paid a hefty stipend. Bah. Anyway, there's not much of MoM's fancy town-building here, just troop production and the occasional costly upgrade like putting up fortifications. Otherwise all towns will do is generate money for you, which comes in handy. Seems like you want whatever's on the border of your territory creating troops (where they're needed) and everywhere else on cash production.I finally encounter the enemy's forces down here and pick a fight with the town's defenders, just out of range of that worryingly large pack of enemies I paid no heed to, like the inexperienced dolt that I am.But hey, at least I get a level up after that tough battle. As we saw during the character creation process, you can invest points to develop your hero in various directions, choosing to focus on passive skills or increasing stats. I put more points into making my arrows hit things real good.So yeah, that huge army I ignored? Well, guess who reaped what they sowed. The units might be a little hard to make out, what with the game's tiny, tiny sprites, but essentially the enemy units in that image is everyone that isn't some stupid dwarf sitting on a stupid pony. I've made the situation a little clearer with the below artist's depiction:...After that whole massacre didn't happen because reloading is a thing, I eventually find myself conquering the two enemy towns on this side of the bridge. Yay for revisionism.A curious aspect of this game is that a town won't do much for you if it's full of goblins that hate your guts. So what I've set-up here is a standing order to kick them all out of their little goblin hovels and bring in more halflings. I'm not sure if you can make use of the goblin units or whatever the deal is with holding towns full of a hostile race (I'm fairly sure a rebellion would be on the cards), but give me any opportunity to send goblins packing with their little hobo bindles and I'll take it. Plus, while their green hides are dejectedly walking up an empty highway to destinations unknown, I can hum The Incredible Hulk's ending theme.In this far more reasonable battle, I've brought in one of the siege weapons you can also create. Walls are impassable for the side doing the siege-ing, but I can smash them down with this battering ram as long as it stays in one piece. Of course, the moment the enemies walk out of their fortified town to hack away at it, they're gonna getting pounded with rocks so bad they'll wish... they weren't getting pounded by rocks... so bad. I need to work on some pithy action dialogue, damn.A dozen reloads and an hour or so later, we're finally at the gates to the enemy's HQ. If I wanted some extra back-up, there's a town of friendly elves just down there. Clearly that's an option if you aren't entirely confident that your little halfling followers are up to the task at hand. But gosh darn it if I haven't grown attached to the little blighters. Charge! For Flower-whatever!I'm so glad I remembered to take lots of screencaps of that epic battle. What a fight! And that point where that thing happens? I thought I was a goner, were it not for that brilliant display of- OK, much like Bunto the Goblin Lord himself, I believe I've beaten this joke to bloody submission.Yay.So now we get some PsEG-style statistical nerding out as we see exactly when and how things started to go pear-shaped for my erstwhile rival. Clearly it was this point here, when my line went higher than his line. I get graphs.And the game presents me with a branching path. I go north through a mountain pass, where I'm told I'll meet up with another hero from the Keepers faction, or I go south through a subterranean cave network and perhaps meet up with some of my dwarven brethren and probably a Balrog knowing my luck. But for the time being, we're all done here.
So I'm still not sure how I feel about Age of Wonders. It's a neat composite of a lot of what made Master of Magic work (the combat magic, the customization, the tactical turn-based combat) and a few of the things I liked about the Heroes of Might and Magic series (uh, nice maps?), but... well, the thing is, I generally suck at the strategy games which are all about grabbing resources as quickly as possible and holding onto them. I like to take my time and soak in a new map, but that's rarely conducive to not getting Zerg rushed while I'm prancing around sniffing the flowers.
I forget how Master of Magic negates that aspect sufficiently to make it enjoyable for a strategy putz like myself - my cynical half suspects it's because the AI in that game kind of sucks - but I have more fun in MoM raiding the treasure troves of eerie dungeons while my Empire prospers with a minimal amount of supervision. Plus I always have the option to switch my focus back to my towns and armies and let the adventuring crew get a cushy job guarding some border town for a spell. With Age of Wonders it seems it's all about performing the next necessary task as quickly and efficiently as possible in order to stymie the progress of the opponent, otherwise they'll just walk all over you. "No time for love, Dr Jones", in other words. Hardly a valid complaint to make against a 4X strategy game, I'll grant you, but I think Master of Magic is a weird aberration of RPG and PC strategy game in that regard, and one that just so happens to fit my playing style perfectly. Given the success of the recent XCOM remake, I think it's not completely crazy to assume that there's a considerable number of people out there who don't generally have the head for these games but have found at least one that somehow agrees with them.
But still, this was a heartfelt gift and I owe it the chance to get more interesting with the sheer number of different units and scenarios it has yet to present. Shouldn't really judge a game by its hobbits, after all. So all that's left for me to do is thank @ArbitraryWater once again for his generosity and for opening my eyes to one of my favorite PC games' closest contemporaries, and to thank the rest of you for reading another one of these all-over-the-place mini-playthroughs. Farewell for now. *Plays blog off to sad Incredible Hulk theme*
Well this is good to see, even though I can claim very little experience with the actual campaign for this game, preferring instead to do the one-off scenarios because that's how I play Heroes. The first Age of Wonders is pretty equally Heroes of Might and Magic and Master of Magic in its approach, while the sequels are a bit closer to the Master of Magic side of things and have more involved city building 'n such. The AI in this first game is also crazy aggressive (a bit less so in AoW 2 and Shadow Magic), which offers a nice contrast to the functionally retarded AI of MoM, which doesn't really care if you are clearly invading its lands with a stack of 9 heavily enchanted paladins and razing all of its cities. Also simultaneous turns make for much quicker, much more enjoyable multiplayer games.
But hey, at least there aren't stacks, right? And hey, you can get right on Disciples II after this and compare them, since they offer pretty different takes on this genre.
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