Hello, I'd like to play some Age of Wonders games.
I have some questions however:

- is it worth to try all AOW1, 2WT, 2SM?
They all seem good, but also a bit similar and long.
Is there any reason to try Wizard's Throne before Shadow Magic?
(or is it possible to import the campaign into SM?)

- are there some missing things from Gog's version? (patches, options, censorship, etc)

- are there important unofficial patches or mod improvements I should really try?

They are all worth playing and also play very differently due to different races and such and there is also a difference in the map size of the battle screen between AoW and its successors.
AoW has mini dungeons when you enter a location, sadly they didn't make it into the successors.

I don't believe that you can import the AoWWT campaign into AoWSM.

For AoWSM there is a fan made (1.4) patch with some major changes and also with new maps:
http://aow2.heavengames.com/downloads/showfile.php?fileid=661

There is even a patch 1.5 in development:
http://aow.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=29,4823,,60

I really love the AoW series. Each of the games has something unique that makes them fun to play.

Cool, then I'll stat with Aow1.
Usually, the first games are less polished, but more original : ) There aren't even mods for that? Incredible.
I guess I'll have to try WT too. I usually prefer fixes\improvements over new fan-made content, but I read that patch 1.4 is very well done and so become almost a standard for SM.
Version 1.5 seems too young and untested to use for now. I'll decide later.

Thanks!

1. You can give them all a shot, you don't need to finish them. I hear wizard's throne is the least favourite and pretty similar to shadow magic. Age of Wonders 1 is a lot different but still holds up very well
2. I don't believe there is anything missing from GOG's version at all. Except the manual
3. I know there are some mods for age of wonders 1 that "improve" the units. I wrote "" because it's subjective. You can visit

you can find the stuff for AoW 1 here: http://aow.heavengames.com/

Similarly for AoW 2: http://aow2.heavengames.com/

Two replies in a old subforum?? I guess it's due to AOW3 :P

Btw, about AOW1, do you mean "Warlock's Rule-Set"? Did any of you try it, however?
I'm always dubious about mods that change too much (and I'm not going to try both original and that).

Thanks for the links.

Nah, I just love Age of Wonders 1. So that's why I keep an eye out on this subforum.

I think that's the one I meant. I haven't tried it myself as I like AoW 1 the way it is. :)

Nah, that's just gog. We love our old games. :)

If both of you fans didn't play with WR, maybe that mod isn't as adopted as the Upatch.
I'll just try the original campaign, then.

P.S: but do you maybe get some notifications about new threads this subforum?

2WT is only worth it for the campaign, but stand-alone maps made for 2WT (an unfinished game with no boat AI) can be used with SM.

Personally, when I click on the Community tab, AoW is the first game in my list of games. So it's easy to see when some action has occurred here.

Plus, for a few of us, seeing comments and being reminded about AoW1 and AoW:SM is like snuggling up with a loved one in front of the fire. Lots of good memories. And I hold out a glimmer of hope that a new group of players will show up looking for some AoW:SM PBEM games. :-)

To repeat what others have said: AoW1, AoW:2WT / AoW:SM, and AoW:3 are truly different games and most players prefer one over the others, independent of release date. This series did not repeat itself in the same fashion as other similar games (HoMM and Civ) in my opinion. This is not meant as a positive or negative statement about those games which I enjoy playing too, just a personal observation...

The Wizard's Throne 'scared' me away from these games as that one was not really to my liking. Must try others some day.

Ah the good ol' days with our Age of Wonders 1 games were glorious.

Ok, I've installed AOW1 :)

Is it possible to stop Win7 from switching color mode to basic, though?

Btw, I'll probably play at.. 800x600 4:3 to keep the look&feel of the day ;)
(well.. even if the LCD won't help in that, alas)

EDIT
The image isn't ugly, but it's indeed stretched (no black bars).
And my monitor options that fixed the resolution in WinXp are only available in analog mode -_-'

EDIT2
I've connected my monitor also to the VGA port, so I just need to switch the source to analog when I play lower resolutions ; )

Warlock's Ruleset is/was the most popular mod for AoW 1. I quite liked it and played much more with the mod than without. (It comes with a BAT file that lets you easily switch back and forth, though.)

The biggest changes it makes are to balance.
* It's much harder to make invincible super-heroes. Still possible, but much harder. This is the biggest change and makes the game more fun, i.m.o. Mostly, you can only raise Defence to a certain value and then have to rely on spells/items to boost it further.
* Certain units like dragons (and flyers in general) are weakened to stop them dominating everything.
* Weak units like swordsmen are boosted/given special abilities to make them worthwhile
* Spells are rebalanced. For example: Fire Magic in vanilla is pretty useless, for example, but with Warlock's it becomes viable.

The balance changes are sensible and add a lot to the game, but if you actually like super-strong heroes, you don't want to use it.

It also adds a bunch of units, but not too many. Some of these are added to the racial lineups to increase variety. For example, Goblins in the mod can no longer build rams or ballistas, but they can build Wolves and Warlocks.

Some of the more of the interesting ones can be recruited from special map structures, or encountered as neutral creatures, but since AoW1 doesn't have a random map generator, these only appear on maps that have been built with the mod in mind. Most maps for the game (and there are a lot of great ones) were made for vanilla and won't include these creatures. The same goes for the new structures and locations the mod adds to the game.

You can still use the mod for the balance changes and the extra racial units, but it's a shame that there aren't more maps that use the other new stuff.

Find maps for the game here
There's also a page with multiplayer maps there, and another page where you can find the mods like Warlock's. And lots of other neat info.
I also made a map once that DOES require/use the Warlock's mod and the new creatures and such, if anyone's interested you can find it here. here.