Well, ok, Heroes III is da best TBS, yeah I know but I do not agree and if you lost interest in my review you should not continue reading this. ;)

Well, Age of Wonders was not a big hit back in the days in Hungary. Most guys already played HoMM II or III, so they were kinda occupied. I was not as I was a fresh gamer myself with my first PC. In addition I loved fantasy, read a lot of books and had fun discovering LotR. And one day I got a demo of this game with a magazine. In the demo there was only 2 maps: First Conflict and the tutorial. I was playing this game of hours, over and over again. Playing the same map with the 4 different factions again, and again. Saying to myself: look, orcs, halflings, elves...just in LotR, and the magic happened! :)
When I finally got the full version I did not stop playing this game for months. Imagine a fantasy TBS game with 12 different factions, some are friends, some are not, some just does no care about the others, while others are keeping the possibilities to change sides, if.... Each of these factions had at least 8-10 unique units to unlock and to play with in a beautiful fantasy environment. The whole story is so fascinating that I would still buy if someone would have the time to write a book from it. The music there was not recorded by a big orchestra but it is so pulling you in to the world of AoW that you loose reality and suddenly you fight for Julia on Keepers side, or for Meandor on the side of the Cult of Storm...
Clearly an exciting story telling, beautiful fantasy world, lots of factions and units and one of the best TBS experience ever made. One of my favourite games of all time...:)

Well, ok, Heroes III is da best TBS, yeah I know but I do not agree and if you lost interest in my review you should not continue reading this. ;) Well, Age of Wonders was not a big hit back in the days in Hungary. Most guys already played HoMM II or III, so they were kinda occupied. I was not as I was a fresh gamer myself with my first PC. In addition I loved fantasy, read a lot of books and had fun discovering LotR. And one day I got a demo of this game with a magazine. In the demo there was only 2 maps: First Conflict and the tutorial. I was playing this game of hours, over and over again. Playing the same map with the 4 different factions again, and again. Saying to myself: look, orcs, halflings, elves...just in LotR, and the magic happened! :) When I finally got the full version I did not stop playing this game for months. Imagine a fantasy TBS game with 12 different factions, some are friends, some are not, some just does no care about the others, while others are keeping the possibilities to change sides, if.... Each of these factions had at least 8-10 unique units to unlock and to play with in a beautiful fantasy environment. The whole story is so fascinating that I would still buy if someone would have the time to write a book from it. The music there was not recorded by a big orchestra but it is so pulling you in to the world of AoW that you loose reality and suddenly you fight for Julia on Keepers side, or for Meandor on the side of the Cult of Storm... Clearly an exciting story telling, beautiful fantasy world, lots of factions and units and one of the best TBS experience ever made. One of my favourite games of all time...:)