Well Craptastic!  I guess I should have purchased SM when this thread started LOL.  I was too busy playing the campaign in AOW 2 and forgot to buy it!  Wonder when it will be released? 

The 3rd fire mission in AOW2: Wizards throne was so huge it took me 5 days of playing here and there to beat the darn thing, the map is pretty huge.  The underground adds extra strategy as well.  I left an unexplored cave, missed due to fog of war, so close to my starting city I was shocked when I found it, and the undead city that was hiding in there as well. 

The AI seems to do a pretty good job, even on beginner.  If you leave any resources unguarded, and they have the ability to go after it, the AI will. 

While EWOM has a fantastic technology tree, something that AOW does not really have, it seems to be lacking in complexity otherwise? Maybe Stardock should hire a psychologist to study what the hell makes me stay up till 3am playing AOW, but not EWOM in its current state.  I know EWOM is a work in progress, and I mean that totally constructively.  Not knocking the Dev's at all, but seriously, where is the difference? 

Comparing the two further ..... I do like the cloth map, and the ability to zoom out, but the maps at the zoomed in level of EWOM are way too simplistic in the empty spaces.  I do like the art work in EWOM, but all that open space is plain ugly!  I also see similarities with HOMMV, the maps are very pretty. 

The tactical battles in AOW2 are sometimes nail biters.  There is something different in EWOM that I can't quite put my finger on.  Are the graphics better in AOW2 here?  No! EWOM has that feather in their cap.  I think it is the "Heroes".  I have two heroes in AOW.  Both have very different skill sets.  One is somewhat the tank, the other is the spell caster with wall climbing.  Trying to get the last hit with them so they get the XP makes the battles a bit interesting.  At first I did not like the fact that none of my units got the XP unless they killed the mob personally, I guess I have learned to live with it.  Makes me maneuver my heroes in for the last kill, while also trying to avoid getting them killed, they can still die fairly quickly just like any other unit. 

Anyhow, this is probably the wrong place, really just wanted to say how much I'm enjoying AOW, and when can I buy it, since I forgot to buy it last week LOL.

I played AoW:SM this weekend and feel the same way.  Shoot, last night I was up until 3am finally finishing off one of the early missions.

There are a lot of things that AoW:SM just seems to have nailed that I wish were in EWOM.  I love the tactical battles.  One small element I really like is how when you move a unit away from an enemy unit that they get free attacks.  I lost a few units to it cause I keep forgetting about it.  I love the wizard towers and the range of magic.  I love the shrines. I love the build merchandise or housing option (increase gold or increase growth).  I love how you can teleport items back to heroes.  I love the underground levels.  I love flying units.  I love the list of traits for each unit, enchanted weapons, items, etc.  I LOVE the Hexes!!

There, I've said it.  I've so wanted to make a thread comparing the two games and how I wish EWOM was more like AoW:SM but I know the devs are tired of the comparisons as well as the rest of the community.  At this point it serves no purpose.  So here's my one post where I proclaim my love for this game.

I hope they can afford me this one love post about AoW:SM.

Now back to your regularly scheduled discussion topics.

EDIT: I should mention that I continue to play regardless of the fact that whenever I quit I'm guaranteed a BSOD.

Your right Gravedancer.  Do you risk moving the engaged unit away to put the finishing blow on a more powerful unit or not?  100% agree with the things you have listed. Trying to line up several units on the hexes so they can all participate in the attack is critical. 

Something about this game that makes you want to curse at the enemy AI, or yourself, for not overlooking your stupid mistakes.....

Has anyone been able to buy AOW:SM from impulse?   I found the product page but I can't add it to my cart.  I click "Add to cart", and it says "there are no items in your cart".   I have no trouble adding the first Age of Wonders(I don't really want that one) 

I have been trying to find this game forever!!!

The only appeal i see for AOW 1 is that you can totally customize your wizard with any skill in the game.

But i didnt like how how the window was cluttered with giant buttons or the main movement view is about 1/3 the size of the screen. SM graphics blow AOW1 away. But it seems that alot of the mechanics in AOW1 made it all the way to SM. And i love the mechanics of AOW. So props to that.

I played SM for about 10 hours. And AOW for about 20 mins. So its a bit unfair.

Any reason why i should give AOW1 another chance?

No - it looks like the put up the impulse web page, but its still not live.  I'd assume it will be coming soon though. 

I hope so, my 'buy' finger is on the standby. Got MOO2 while I'm waiting.

There is one oddity: units with no move/retalation left can still hit at units moving away.

And yes, hexes trump boring squares.

Only for a brief period of time.

had to shut down D3d on my SW b/c of ATI update.

What did D3D do to the game besides zoom?

There are some effects that get removed, but I cannot name specifics. Try asking over at Age of Wonders II Heaven for more details.

Dear all;

Hi guys I'm looking for some volunteers to help me test this Windows program. I've been working on it for the past six months and have tested it with Aow 1, Wizard's Throne and Shadow Magic (original CD versions) and also with Shadow Magic from Steam. I haven't tested it with any of the games from Impulse. I am quite confident it should work, as they are the same games, but it may be that there are slight differences in where the game is installed and what the registry keys are set to. So I would like to test it properly. The program is Free by the way!

If you would like to help please email me on the address below, I've just written it that way to stop spam bots scraping it from the page. Thanks in advance!

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The Age of Wonders games were released in a time where most ISPs provided open SMTP servers, not requiring explicit authentication or any encryption. These days, and since the age of SPAM, those kinds of SMTP servers are rare. The development of SMTP servers over time effectively broke the play by email automatic-send function of the game. Players could still use the manual sending option, to use their own email client, but this involved manual repetitious actions for each game played.

Recently though a group of Age of Wonders fans have been working together to develop an application to restore the automatic send ability. The Age of Wonders Email Wrapper is a lightweight application that is run on the same PC as the game. It works by emulating an open SMTP server and accepting SMTP requests from the game.

When the game sends an email it will connect to the Age of Wonders Email Wrapper, as it would a real server, to send the email. The Wrapper then receives the email and sends it out over the internet using a modern SMTP server specified by the user and with whatever authentication or encryption is necessary.

The Wrapper can also download email games from IMAP and POP3 email accounts. So it essentially encapsulates the entire Email functionality of the game.
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Demo Video
david dot honess at gmail dot com