Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne

Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne is a turn-based strategy video game in a fantasy setting. The first sequel to Age of Wonders, it was developed by Triumph Studios, a Dutch game developer.

Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne
Age of Wonders II - The Wizard's Throne Coverart.png
Developer(s) Triumph Studios
Publisher(s) Gathering
Producer(s) Chris Lacey
Designer(s) Lennart Sas
Composer(s) Mason B. Fisher
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows
Release
NA: June 12, 2002[1]
EU: September 20, 2002
Genre(s) Turn-based strategy
Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer
Gameplay Edit

Unlike in Age of Wonders, where the player has the option of removing their leader from the map, players in Age of Wonders II take the role of an immortal spell-casting Wizard, who cannot be upgraded, but in certain circumstances can survive being killed.


Screen capture of tactical battle in Age of Wonders II.
Combat and heroes Edit
In contrast to Age of Wonders, the maps for tactical battles are now much smaller. This led to faster combat and less maneuvering of units. Also in contrast to its predecessor, when gaining new levels Heroes can no longer choose new skills from a list of all available skills; instead, the player is forced to choose one of three offered skills, depending on the Hero's class.

Magic system Edit
In Age of Wonders, magic is used via the spell casting abilities of leaders and heroes, and global spells can be cast some distance away from the hero; use of spells in combat is restricted to battles where a hero with spell casting is present.

Magic use in Age of Wonders II uses a "domain" system; spells can only be cast within the domain of the casting wizard, or the domain of an allied wizard. Magic domains can overlap with each other, and in the simple case, are centered on the Wizard. When a Wizard is present in a Wizard's Tower, the radius of the domain increases significantly, and in addition is radiated by other Wizard's Towers, Magic Relays and Heroes under the control of the player. Global spells can only be cast by the Wizard, via a spell book located in the main user interface; spells can be cast in combat by either Heroes involved in the battle, or (provided the battle takes place inside their domain) the Wizard who controls any party which entered the battle.

The Wizards Edit

A war party preparing to attack a city defended by Nimue.
Each sphere is mastered by two wizards (except Cosmos), only three wizards do not have a seat in the Circle of Evermore: Julia, Queen of the Elven Court; Meandor, her brother and former leader of Cult of Storms; and Merlin, a Human King.

The other wizards are:

Water: The Jolly Merchant Marinus and The Mysterious Nimue
Fire: The Arrogant Yaka and The Seductive Karissa
Earth: The Grumpy Fangir and The Solitary Mab
Air: Tempest, Lord of the Skies and Article, the Ice Queen
Life: The Wise Anon and The Ancient Serena
Death: The Twisted Nekron and Arachna, the Spider Queen
Cosmos: Aged Gabriel
Development Edit

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.

Reception Edit

Reception
Review scores
Publication Score
CGW 4.5/5 stars[2]
Game Informer 8.5 out of 10[3]
PC Gamer (US) 90%[5]
PC Zone 82/100[4

Age of Wonders III is a 4X turn-based strategy video game developed and published by Dutch developer Triumph Studios. It is the fourth game in the Age of Wonders series, following Age of Wonders, Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne and Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic released in 1999, 2002, and 2003 respectively. It was released on March 31, 2014 through digital distribution, as well as through retail in select territories for Microsoft Windows. A port to Linux and OS X was released on April 14, 2015.

Age of Wonders III
Age of Wonders III Cover Art.jpg
Developer(s) Triumph Studios
Publisher(s) Triumph Studios
Producer(s) Djurre van Dijk
Designer(s) Lennart Sas
Arno van Wingerden
Arnout Sas
Writer(s) Raymond Bingham
Composer(s) Michiel van den Bos
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux
Release Microsoft Windows
WW: March 31, 2014
OS X, Linux
WW: April 14, 2015[1]
Genre(s) Turn-based strategy
Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer
The game is set in a high fantasy fictional setting, where players take the role of a leader to explore the world, interacting with other races and kingdoms, both diplomatically and through warfare while progressively expanding and managing their empire. It features a new graphics engine for the series, in addition to an updated soundtrack. The gameplay has also been updated, featuring a new role-playing style leader class based system and interchangeable choices of strategy and appearances for each playable race. It also supports online and local multiple player modes and a level editor along with a new story driven single player campaign mode.

Gameplay Edit


An Elven city (left) with its own and rival armies placed on a world map view.
Age of Wonders III, like the previous games in the series is a turn-based strategy game set within a high fantasy universe where the player assumes the role of a political-military leader. Gameplay is 4X-based (explore, expand, exploit and exterminate) where players explore the world map, slowly building an empire through colonization, warfare and diplomacy with rival powers.[2][3] However new to III is the greater addition of role-playing game features, where players must first choose and customize their leader, all options are dependent on the player's chosen style of play. There are six available races in the initial release: humans, draconians, high elves, dwarves, orcs, and goblins, all that will determine the race of their empire with each having unique perks and abilities.[4][5][6] The leader and empire is further shaped by the choice from skill sets based on traditional RPG classes along with further specializations and skills to select.[4] Each leader class also has access to their own unique units with a distinct visual look based on their corresponding race, each to accommodate their own unique approach to strategy, both in combat and when managing their empire.[2][7] On release there are six different classes a leader can be. The "Sorcerer" class emphasizes the use of magic for enchantments and summoning powerful units.[8] The "Theocrat" derives from an organized religion based society including zealots followers and the use of holy spells and warriors.[9] The "Rogue" favors less direct approaches to situations,

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