Age of Wonders:Shadow Magic : New Interview

I think it's worth noting that we helped get the ball rolling on AOW being in digital distribution -- it's on Impulse right now.

We're big fans.

But like any new IP, it takes time to get it quite right, especially on a limited budget on a new engine.

I recently bought the digitial release and have found myself enjoying the nostalgia. Yet at the same time, It has really made me understand what is so special about elemental.

I recently reinstalled the original retail disk version of Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic and found myself enjoying it more than I did when I bought it in 2003. Kudos to Impulse for making the game available to gamers who missed playing it the first time around.

I love these kinds of interviews, no marketing pitches because the cgame is already out, and some insight into the thoughts of the men and women behind the scenes.

RPS: What’s the key of the game? Why do you think people were so into them?

Lennart Sas: Looking back I think the multiplayer, solid strategic core, and modding tools are what made the Age of Wonders games stand out. There is a community of players still active today. For people new to the series, check out the community site http://aow2.heavengames.com for tons of user created materials, extensive manuals, background info, and people to challenge online.

If only AOWSM had someone like Brad doing the AI.  It's also too bad you couldn't get Reactor and AOWSM MP working together, that would have been nice also (but most likely impossible)

I really wonder now what would happen if Stardock and Triumph worked together on AOWIII using the Elemental Engine with Brad doing the AI.

The first hurdle to that would need to be overcome: hexes. (Hexes are important to AoW)

And the AoW:SM AI can be made greatly more effective with a map optimized for the AI to play well and tweaking some values through modding to make the good choices more appealing to the AI (such as giving pioneers some combat ability so the AI will build cities).

That leads to a question- could the Kumquat engine be reconfigured to use hexes?

Thanks for this. I was pretty happy once I got that e-mail saying that I could get AOW from impulse (I'm not a big fan of Steam and the rumor was that Steam was going to carry it)

Well they should keep the hexes since this is much better that squares.  Now I have modded the Pioneers in my game to have some sort of attack based off the race they are. And I also for the most part have them look different. For example the Undead have that Death Ray attack. The Halflings has a sling attack, Elves have bow attack, Humans muskets etc. They are all some sort of range attack.

Good stuff!

...as for AoW-SM: It's the best fantasy TBS right now, IMO.  EWoM has the potential to be better, but it will take a lot of time to tweak/polish the gameplay elements. Either way, the game is in the right hands, so I am not worried.

I played the original but for some reason didn't get into it all that much (even though I love MoM). I've just purchased the trilogy off Impulse, so I'm gonna give it another go.

I own all the games but unfortunately I can't find my original AoW disc, all i have is a special 2 games on 1 disc with AoW (and Tzar) and it never worked (installs but crashes in gameplay)...

I really liked the RPG system for heroes in the first AoW, but overall game is much more fun in AoW 2

If you're either new to the game or want to check it out again, PLEASE do yourself a favor and get a couple of mods.

To wit:

The community fan patch (aka 1.4)

Dwiggs 5.0

Required patch for Dwiggs 5.0

Mind you the latter two are my preferred "overhaul" mod but there are TONS of other mods and scenarios at aow2.heavengames.com.

Oh, and thanks again PawelS for your great work on 1.4 =D

It wouldn't be AOW III it would be Elemental II.

The first AOW was definitely the best one for all around game and challenge. It didn't come with a random map or scenario generator though and that put it far down on the list. Finally when AOW:SM came there was a random generator but sadly they had changed the mechanics of the game and the ai is terrible compared to the first one. They took away options that made the first one great also like being able to take your leader/wizard off the map and playing a game of conquer the entire map. The SM version all you ever had to do was eliminate the stupiid ai wizard and you eliminated the entire race. Same issue Elemental is going to have unless they fix the AI to protect itself from this stupid game mechanic.

We gotta get GalCiv III  in 2012-3 first to fund Elemental II in 2017 or so.

One thing I loved about AoW:SM were all the little surprises. For instance: Leprechauns being terrifying masters of hand to hand combat.