I played the hell out of AoW1, and while I'm enjoying myself in Shadow Magic, I'm a bit of a fish out of water.


Any newbie tips you all can share with me?

You don't need any. The Shadow Magic campaign is easier than the AOW1 campaign.

I guess I should actually play the campaign instead of fooling around in Scenarios, then. Sorry.

1) Use your Wizard in battles for the first 1-15 turns because they are strong enough to assist and will rise, phoenix-like, at your Wizard Tower after death. From turn 10-15 onward, they are more useful projecting force via spells in the Wizard Tower.

2) Try and get your Warrior hero as high a defense as possible and earn them as much experience as possible. A Level 8+ hero can take down almost any enemy unit.

3) Use cannon fodder (Level 1 units) in the beginning, but don't waste money supporting stacks of them once they live past their usage. (Just like AoW1.)

4) Read the strategy guides over on heavengames. The highly mobile force guide is the key strategy against the AI or against humans.

5) Join a multiplayer game with other humans. We're way more fun to play with than the computer. No cheating via extra resources. :-)

Hmmm, maybe I need to check that as well....

Ah, yes my friend Wenne. I did sucker both of your heroes into traps last turn and then killed off your units with my "highly mobile forces" that were just beyond your sightlines. As has been confirmed in a number of threads, I am not a nice person. I think you have gotten rusty with your time away from gaming. ;-)

I think the AOW2:SM campaign was more difficult. In AOW1 you just run around with super-heroes and kill everything in sight. If you have dwarves, you could just use a few healers, an air galley and some giants and kill everything in auto-combat. It wasn't exactly challenging, except for map 5 or 6, where you need to think for a bit. Maybe it was easier for me since I started playing AOW2:SM though.

Funny that. It reads like my recolelction of the AoW2SM campaign. a company of maxed out heroes with nice, self created items to give them at least first, extra and double strike, coupled with life stealing and energy drain...... nothing that could stop them. Those were the days! Now, playing against humans, you do not reach that level of sophistication. I blame Mimo.

That's true. However, I never played scenarios in AOW2:SM, I just jumped directly into the campaign and had to learn as I went along and didn't make great items until much later. Maybe if I would play the campaign again, I'd think it's easier than the AOW1 campaign, not sure.