Age Of Wonders 2 - Wizards Throne Shadow Magic Torrent Download
Taj Barnett
In the campaign, a corrupt new empire led by the wizard Phobius, has launched an aggressive assault on the ancient races and all things magic. Meanwhile, an even greater evil in the form of hellish demons, breeds within its shadows. The wizard Merlin has been captured by the demons, but can still communicate with his old wizard friends. The player is cast as these wizards as they fight the human empire and the demons.
The main character is the Wizard, who most of the time stays in his wizard tower casting spells in his domain. He researches new spells and abilities and becomes more and more powerful as the game moves on.
The simultaneous turn option is not new for Shadow magic, but still a great feature that no other TBS has. This option lets all players play their turn at the same time, and the next turn does not start until they all end their turn.
One thing I've always liked with the AoW games is that they focus on strategy and tactics instead of hero developing. This actually makes the game more of a wargame than others in the genre (HoMM etc). The new tactical combat system (new since AoW2) is also very good. It allows lower level units to swarm good units and drain their movement points, and also allows ranged attack units to fire 3, 2 or 1 shots depending on how much they have moved that turn. During sieges, the defender is now allowed to move unlimited number of hexes within the city walls. The fun thing with tactical combat is that an army with a low number of units actually can defeat an army with better/more units if a good tactic is used. The combats are not predetermined in any way like they are in many other games (HoMM, Disciples etc).
The Shadow magic editor is great. You can import your own pictures for heroes and wizards, you can create all sorts of events and triggers and last but not least, you can create beautiful worlds of your own! The interface is simple and with just a little talent you can make very pretty maps. The events system allows for many different type of maps to be created, they can be focused on battle, quests, role playing etc. Your imagination is the limit really... The editor is a big part of why I like this game so much.
Mod support. You can access tools in the editor that lets you change most aspects of the game (unit stats, spells, city buildings etc.. There's also an ILB-editor included for those who wants to make new unit graphics.
The Bad
The music in AoW2 and Shadow magic is not very good if you ask me. Luckily you can make your own mp3 playlist, and I've converted the excellent AoW1 music into mp3's so that's not a very big problem.... :)
The AI has some problems, and the main problem is that he cannot build wizard towers. This can be annoying in some random generated maps where wizards start without towers.
The Bottom Line
If you like fantasy TBS this game will not disappoint you in any way. And once you get into map editing, you'll find there's not enough hours in the day...
The Good
Finally, the AOW developers put in a random map generator: one of the basic elements to call a game replayable. The scenario editor was complete enough to allow interesting work, and more so with the event engine. Also, some tools were provided to easily edit units, mages and magical items. Mods were a breeze to make, and personally I care as much for the modding capabilities as for the game itself.
The best of the game, however, was the tactical part. Not that was a deep and exhaustive model of tactical warfare (in fact, it was simple), but had a good amount of unit characteristics (both positive and negative) that allowed many possibilities and made up for a rich and fun battle environment. Death strike, Cold strike, Fire strike... all were different and had different and unique effects; so their counterparts (immunities), and others like Blurred, Cave Crawling or Path of Decay (that transformed any land you walked into a lifeless desert).
Deities were a nice idea: although not much variety of them (only 4) , the missions requested by your god provided something random, yet adding flavor to the game.
The Bad
Unfortunately, that didn't help AOW:SM become anything more than a flawed end to a saga. It wasn't the deepest of the strategy games; the management part was limited to construct a bunch of buildings and balancing gold income with army support. Neither was the strategic part: no supply lines, no attrition, very little effect of terrain. However, it could be a fun light game nonetheless if the developers didn't abandon it, with bugs unfixed and with none of the things they promised (and even advertised) to implement.
And what suffered the most was the AI. Supposedly, the AI would finally be able to use ships and sea warfare; it didn't. Also, to colonize and create new cities; it could, but only in premade scenarios with starting settler units; it was unable to build them. Also, to build and upgrade wizard towers; it didn't. Warfare AI wasn't very brilliant; on hardest difficulty as stupid as on easiest, only cheating more. When pushed over, left cities undefended and gathered all troops at the capital. Even with cheats, it was only a matter of waiting for its gold and mana to fall, so disbanding enough units and driving the player to an only final assault.
Diplomacy AI was even worse. In fact, the AI knew only about two things: propose a peace treaty and propose an alliance. Oh, and in that precise and exact order. A good diplomatic engine, capable of constructing and reviewing proposals, wasted. But well... since in random maps there was no other way of winning than total conquest, it didn't was something to bother.
Finally, the spell list was rather small; about 100 spells grouped in five schools, making 20 for each, and also a small list of summoned creatures. Seems smaller when remembering the +200 spells of Master of Magic, a game a decade older.
The Bottom Line
And that was the fate of AOW:SM... being a poor man's trying of MOM, despite good ideas. It didn't learn from its illustrious predecessor, but rather fell in many of the same errors, and in some aspects was worse. No fan of the original MOM (a declared source of inspiration from the developers) can feel that this title is going to take the throne of fantasy strategy games.
But the sad thing is that it could be fair only if the developers were actually willing to put a little work. They left the game uncooked, told their customers about many features, and broke their promises; things that were advertised were also promised to be in a patch that never came. Hell, it was made a 1.4 patch by fans (who couldn't touch the exe and thus not fixing the big ones), and Triumph Studios uploaded it into their site, so they were aware of it. But no other official patch has been released, so we have an unfinished an bugged game, killed by untrustworthy developers that add insult to injury. They don't deserve your money.
His fame became an unpleasant weight in later years. Whole Halfling villages named their children Binger, or Ham, or some combination of the two. Ham disappeared centuries ago, but now and again, a Halfling named Ham appears, does good deeds, and heals a few wounds; and the legend spins up again. Sometimes there is more than one Ham, which gets terribly confusing, and whole towns have festivals or contests to determine who is the real Ham Binger.
Steven Woltering, credited for "Scenarios & Additional Design", was before he was hired by Triumph one of the fans hanging out in the AoW forums at HeavenGames. Among other things, he made the map "Rise of Kings" that came with patch 1.3.
Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic is an expansion pack for Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne. A new empire is threatening the Ancient Races with extinction and, even worse, legions of demons led by the shadowy Phobius are trying to turn the world into a living nightmare. Added material includes new races, more units for the existing races, additional spells for the immortal wizards, and a sparkling new campaign. Players can create their own maps and scenarios with the campaign editor, while the random map generator can create unique maps for every battle.
Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic is the ideal "quick follow-up" title. Falling somewhere between a new game and an expansion pack, Shadow Magic jams so much new stuff into the design that it gives veterans of the series a reason to download this game. It's also an ideal way to introduce new players to this high fantasy world of turn-based strategy. Unlike the recent Disciples 2 add-ons, Shadow Magic provides a lot of bang for your buck; it's loaded with additional features, tweaks, and is simply a more balanced game from top to bottom.
There are three new races in the game (for a grand total of 15). New to the scene are the Nomads, Syrons, and the Shadow Demons. Each new race comes with a completely new retinue and set of rules. The desert-dwelling Nomads are always on the move and have the ability to "caravan" a city and pack up and relocate to a more hospitable location. The Syrons and the Shadow Demons are both denizens of the new "Shadow World," an alternate plane of reality that negatively affects every unit in the game except those that call the Shadow Realm home. This "Shadow Sickness" makes it more difficult for units to move, attack and defend, but there are spells and items in the game that cancel its effect.
Aside from the new races, each old race gets some sprucing up in the form of a new advanced unit and a new special building. For example, the humans no longer have the witch unit but now may recruit the healing herbalist and magic-hating chaplain. Most of the new units fit in perfectly with the theme of the race with which they belong, such as the elven treeman, the undead necromancer, and the dark elf succubus. The only odd choice is the new dwarven gargoyle. It just doesn't seem very dwarf-like. This was a balance issue as the dwarfs desperately needed a flying unit, but it was a surprise that it wasn't some kind of flying machine.
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