Glad to help. And hopefully you'll able to sort it out.

I am running it in 1680 x 1050, which is the native resolution for my widescreen monitor. I am fairly certain that the digitally remastered versions support at least up to full HD, as I havebeen playing it on a different computer in exactly that res.

As for playability, I am again playing AoW 1. It is much easier, less complex city building and AI is not very good at all. Also, the combat is not very good. The music and the opening screen, however, kick ass! And AoW ia also fun when playing MP, it is just that the whole wizard and wizardtower thing is so nice.

Played all 3 in the series, and my personal opinion is that AoW:SM offers the most complete package. It has a large variety of units, options & tactics to use.
Myself, I only play singleplayer, and enjoy it greatly. It's always fun to see all the different units of all the races, the personalisation of your heroes and the exploration of the random maps.

That is easy to fix, at least if you have a NVIDIA or ATI card. I play Shadow Magic with black bars on the sides so that the GUI and interface aren't scaled.

AoW looks older, but I think it looks better, especially because of the hand painted potraits that the units have. But AoW: Shadow Magic looks great too, it just pales compared to the first game. I agree! But get AoW 1first to see if this kind of strategy game is to your liking and then get AoW: Shadow Magic later.

An interesting comparison though I really disagree. I think that Civ 2 is a significant improvement over Civ 1 and for me there is not any reasons to play it. And while Civ 3 was also a significant improvement over number 2, there were a few things missing so that going back to number 2 once in while can be good fun. (Civ 4 is also an improvement on many things but Civ 3 remains the best.)

I think it would be better to compare the relationship between AoW1 / AoW:SM as that between Heroes of Might and Magic II / Heroes of Might and Magic III.

HoMM III is an improvement over HoMM II in that there is more of everything, thus more choices, a little more complex game, a slightly better balance and HoMM III has a very good random map generator.

AoW: Shadow Magic is an improvement in that it is more balanced than AoW 1. Some things were taken away while more were added so a little more complex game. AoW: Shadow Magic has a random map generator.

On the other hand AoW has a much better atmosphere than AoW: Shadow Magic. I've never heard anyone praise Shadow magic over the first one for the atmosphere while the reverse is done a lot. It is not that the atmosphere is bad in Shadow Magic, in fact it is very nice, the landscape and units look great and the swamps are beautiful. It is just that AoW: Shadow magic feels much more conventional and has not got the special feeling that AoW 1 has.

AoW 1 has a serious feeling, if you look at some portraits, read some descriptions about your units you will feel like your game is about the fate of great races and cultures.
The battles in AoW: Shaow Magic\AoW 2 were streamlined so that they would not take as much time, but they have never felt as epic as some of them did in AoW 1.
The races and units are much better designed in AoW 1. Sadly, in AoW 2/SM they also ditched the hand made portraits for each unit and instead added unit acknowledgement sounds that make it sound like any RTS and sometimes just silly.

While the art and sound design in both HoMM III and HoMM II is outstanding, the one in HoMM II has a special part the heart of many gamers, including myself. While AoW 1 has a very serious Tolkien feeling, HoMM 2 has a light-hearted mix of Fairytale and Sword & Sorcery. But it feels like such a great adventure. There is nothing like saddling up that horse and ride into those magic woods with the sounds of birds and a beautiful tune in your ears. There is great treasure up ahead and you have just picked up reinforcements.

Great post, Sargon. HOMM2 and 3 really do have that wonderful feeling you've described.

?!
Not any reasons to play Civ 1(when you can play Civ 2) I assume you meant to say...? Otherwise your point here is...dubious. What?! How so?! No, no no...Civ 2 was much better than Civ 3 and try as I might to force myself to play Civ III it just does not have the allure of Civ 2. ROTFLMAO! Sorry I know that opinions are opinions and all that and there will always be a minority of players who think the worst game in a franchise is the best(we see that even with Heroes of Might and Magic IV sometimes for example) but come on man. No that is not valid. Heroes 3 improved many things over Heroes 2 but they also screwed up some major things and the two games are actually pretty close in quality overall(check out any poll on the subject and you will consistently see these two games as nearly tied for the top spot on "Best HoMM game" polls). AoW: SM improved a great deal over AoW and did not screw anything up. And it has WORSE balance in several ways. If all the great ideas of Heroes 3 had been given time to fully develop and be play tested then your above would be true but unfortunately it was not. So you basically have your heroes in any game going for "Earth Magic" and a few other skills because the only spells needed are "Slow"(at expert level Earth magic), "Town Portal" and "Resurrection"/"Animate Dead" then "Air Magic" as a secondary for spells of "Haste" and "Dimension Door" and maybe "Chain Lightning". And it has a bunch of great features that AoW 1 did not have(expanded city development etc.). You realize you are making my case for me here right...? LOL! How do you even BEGIN to substantiate such a thing? It is like saying "Jackson Pollack's painting were better than Picasso's because they were better emotionally.". 'Ambiguous' does not even begin to cover this... I have not heard EITHER said by anyone(not saying tehy have not said such...I am sure someone has), nor should such a thing even matter to this discussion. Games should not be valued/judged by how many at any particular forum feel some unquantifiable and unqualified "atmosphere" is better. The "atmosphere" of Heroes 2 is much better than Heroes III, largely because of the brightly colored palette and music but that does not make Heroes 2 a better game by itself. Okay I get it. You have a nostalgic attraction to the first game. This happens to pretty much everyone but it is not grounds for an objective(as possible) review of games. More so for me. So I can dismiss this rationale.... Wow. You are reaching a bit here aren't you? Trying to force a comparison to real-time strategy games that is not inferred by the gameplay itself and again making unqualified assertions about the portrait art?

I have all three AoW games and while I miss some features from AoW1, I prefer Shadow Magic.

I like SM's gameplay the most -- AoW1 had larger maps and battle areas, but that just lent itself to aimless wandering more often than not. Also SM had some REALLY fantastic mods that add a /lot/ to the game -- but AoW1 has Michiel van den Bos music.

van den Bos and Brandon are pretty much my favorite game music composers, ever.

If only 1 had more maps, or, even better, a map generator, it would rule supreme. As it stands, SM simply has more lasting appeal.

I also don't really like 1's implementation of leaders and the character development system, but that's a minor complaint.

It has a map generator.

It has a map editor. That's not what I'm talking about.

That was actually one of the things that I really missed in later games, the characters. I loved the system, as it gave you so many options to play with. It was not very well balanced though, and I was able to find some downright broken combinations. Still, I much preferred its freedom to the systems used in later games.