Which age of wonders game do you think is the best?

[Malaficus Shaikan]

I find myself doubting between shadow magic and age of wonders 3.
While shadow magic was great age of wonders 3 added a lot to the units.
Ability, racial traits, etc.
On the other hand.
Raise mountain, wetlands, shadow realm.

So my fellow wizards.
Which age of wonders game you think is the best and why?

[suejak]

Easily 4, not even a question.

[deadsanta]

HOMM III, duh.

[Frozen Esper]

Ranked from favorite to least favorite.

1. Age of Wonders 3
2. Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic
3. Age of Wonders 2
4. Age of Wonders
5. Age of Wonders: Planetfall
6. Age of Wonders 4

[Rhalius]

Age of Wonders 4 is easily my favourite.

I've been aware of the series since the first game, but it was not until the third one that I was enticed to get a game in the series.
I've enjoyed 3, enjoyed Planetfall too. But I always played them with cheats, never was good at juggling construction and recruitment, enemies always just had way more armies and still managed to develop their cities well.

But in 4, I can play it without cheats and enjoy myself just fine. Not playing on high difficulties, but to me it's about having fun. I enjoy the roleplay aspect a lot, making my own factions and seeing them go up against each other.
I like trying out all kinds of different combinations of species traits, culture traits and cultures. So many possibilities to mix and match, I look forward to all new content to add more to this since at release it already does offer quite a bit.

I mostly hope for new cultures.

[mrmolotov07]

I only played AOW planetfall before so i can't really compare but i like AOW 4 more bcs the character creation is fire and the graphism is better obviously then i love the units and the lore

[Charlando[SunsOfStmChrts]]

AoW4 is growing on me, but my current fav by far is planetfall

[BoogieMan]

4

[Aranea]

I really like where age of wonders 4 is heading, i still miss a lot of things that age of wonders 3 had, age of wonders 2 shadow magic had the shadow realm to add to underground in terms of extra overworlds, age of wonders 1 had two underground levels. Bothb things that i miss a lot.

Planetfall i hated at first cause it really isn't my cup of tea, but now i came back to it and been loving the added tactical complexity, which imo is better than what this game has in terms of customization and also on depth of combat.

Water combat in planetfall feels incredible, and since so many units are ranged there is a lot less of the whole stack your good units behind summons and throaway units that age of wonders 4 currently has.

So i guess currently my favorite has to be age of wonders 4, but that is because i feel it's the first time multiplayer has been really enjoyable. As before to me there were too many ways in which it felt exploitable. I didn't play multiplayer on planetfall though, so maybe that game is also better there right now. But i do prefer the fantasy theme.

I'm a bit dissapointed by the amount of content dragon dawn is offering though (only two tomes really hurt my soul)

but maybe now that they apparently will get additional resources for the game eventually due to its sucess later dlcs will have much more to offer in scope

[Mindmaker]

2 with Shadow Magic.
Not even a contest.

[Oakshadow]

Originally posted by Mindmaker:

2 with Shadow Magic.
Not even a contest.

Concur. Shadow Magic had some crazy scale to it. 12 races each with their own unit art styles. 3 map layers. And some of the most insane and terrifying units / abilities in the whole series.

I think AoW 4 has the potential to top it. It feels closer to an AoW game than 3 or planetfall did. Also if dragondawn is any indication of what the devs have in mind. I foresee a lot of what made shadow magic great, being translated over into the new system. Only race that I don't see making a return are the nomads. Though I'd be super stoked to see them reappear at some point. Them and Shadow demons were my favorite races to play. Though honestly just getting airships back would rock.

[TirAsleen]

Hard to rank them all for me right now, since i have to spend a lot more time with Planetfall, but i like what i see there so far. The game is running fluently on my machine, has factions and can be addictive, it only lacks space battles as in MoO II.

But i have to say this, i play since 1999 when the first game came out. And very actively as a main game.

I played AoW1 and AoW2: WT and most of time Shadowmagic in online MP in 2000-2006 nonstop every day on gamespy, when steam did not even exists.

And despite playing in tourneys, and thousands of hours in shadowmagic i still think AoW1 is the absolutely best game and no other AoW can ever hope to touch it, in terms of game design and pure pleasure to play it.

I wish it would be just be nostalgica.

It isn't nostalgica, it is that good. The game runs strong in SP with its amazing campaign and MP with its overpowered leaders and the option to play leader off, something thats is not possible in Shadowmagic. You always have to stick around with your lame weak wizard. You can play AoW1 like a deathmatch game that only ends until the last unit is killed.

I also like its simple system of only allowing units to be build in cities and how Tier 4 units are capped naturally by having only some rare 4 hex cities that are able to produce them.

You don't build buildings, only units.

In MP terms this translates very well, you will see massive battles everywhere, since every turn is invested in building armies not generic buildings.

The first game also has a lot of little details the sequel do lack, like the spinning wheel button and unit descriptions, like 4 Different A.I. scripts with my favorite the sorcher A.I. that plays allways agressively no matter what and razes your stuff.

And there is the tactical combat map, its much bigger than in the sequels.

The gore unit death animations and blood, you see this only in AoW1, but it adds a lot to the immersion of war(a little bit like the old fallout titles 1+2)

The restricted magic spheres, you cannot choose fire, if you choose water, air if you choose earth or life if you choose death, AoW1 was a very radical game.

Sweet fixed racial alignments.

2nd level UG(not really needed but i prefere this to shadowrealms that are never taken in MP games)

I guess, people would still play it, if it would have a stable MP connection, Mods and RMG.

After playing AoW4, i think a lot about the good times i had in AoW1, and how much has changed for the worse(cosmetics).

I would rank shadowmagic 2nd, since it values races and tier units, magic and spell enchantments and was quite enjoyable in MP. But the SP was nothing compared to AoW1.

Maybe Planetfall 3rd, but need to spent some more time with it.

Not too impressed with AoW3, races were devalued allready in this part, the combat changes are nice, tho.

AoW4 is last for now, but it lacks polish and DLC content, but allready comes out with huge design flaws for the sake of cosmetics something i really do not care about. Proper Races, factions, units, and magic direction is required for me to enjoy an AoW game.

From what i can tell so far, not too many steam people did play AoW1 at all, its not to compare with Heroes of might & magic, the first one was never as good as the 2nd and 3rd installment, but AoW1 is the best game by far, especially for its time of the release, a true masterpiece in game design and love letter to the fans playing such games.

[PXR5]

2.1 no contest, even 1 is better than 4. I would go, with mods,

2.1
Planetfall with all DLC and heavily modded
1
2
3
4

[Blobby]

AOW 3 is a 10 for me. The Multiplayer didn´t had any problems and the kampagne was nice with soe points to change a little bit the story.

Planetfall is a 5 to 6 for me .The Problem was that the NPC was worse the nAOW 3 and was in round 5-10 by you.

AOW 4 is for me a 3 to 4. The Multiplayer is a mess with lags and a AI that is just sad to play against even on high difficulty. The Story is only 5 Chapters long what is really sad and most of the Story can skip by a magic or skill.

[Magic A. I.]

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

Which age of wonders game do you think is the best?

1. As gameplay goes, Planetfall is the best by far. It lacks proper customization though, so it's not the best at everything. Also, voice overs are terrible. The illiterate grunt that voiced Vanguard is particularly annoying.
2. AoW3 was really well made, but free city placement caused AIs to make a mess out of a nice map. As polished and engaging it was, it didn't fully allow you to build your own empire the way you like it.
3. AoW4 has some nice features that previous games didn't have. But the implementation of those features is very limited and it makes you feel like you are playing an unfinished product (which it is). Out of the three it obviously received the least attention and respect from its developer (but probably more money and total work hours to ship it).

[daniel1vicentevieira]

In terms of gameplay, this one.
In graphics, AoW3.
But AoW2+SM hold a special place in the heart.