Video games - Age of Wonders

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	Video games - Age of Wonders

Age of Wonders is a turn-based strategy PC-game often likened to Master of Magic
. Originally entitled World of Wonders, the game incorporated several RPG elements that were dropped when simultaneous turns were implemented. The game was released by Triumph Studios, a Dutch game developer, in 1999.

Gameplay

Players have an isometric view of the map, which consists of hexagonal tiles, and can have up to three layers (surface, underground, and depths). Units are arranged into groups (also known as parties or stacks) of up to eight units; a single such group occupies one tile. Cities occupy between one and four tiles, and other structures generally occupy a single tile.

Each player leads a certain race. There are 12 races available in the game, though not all of them may be present on every map, and of those which are, not all may be playable. List of races includes traditional fantasy Elves, Dwarves and Halflings, as well as several unique ones such as Frostlings and Azracs. Races, as well as units not belonging to any specific race, such as dragons and giants, have a certain alignment, which can be good, neutral, or evil. According to their alignment and certain other factors, cities and independent units of one race can be friendly or hostile towards another race. This can manifest itself in different ways; for example, an orc city is not likely to surrender to the elves, and if conquered, may revolt unless there is a strong military presence in it to oppress the population. Units of hostile races forced to fight alongside each other in a single group will have lower morale, and are more likely to desert. Race relations can be improved by acts of goodwill towards other races, such as upgrading their cities, or hampered by razing, looting, or migrating cities belonging to that race. There are also several spells which have a global effect on race relations.

There are two resources, gold and mana. Gold is used to build units, buy heroes, cities and spells, upgrade cities. Mana is used to cast and research spells and use altars.

Turn system

Units within the game have a limited number of movement points, which are replenished at the beginning of each turn. Two turn systems are used - sequential (or "classic"), where players take their turns in order, or simultaneous, where all players can move units at once. In practice, actions in the latter system are added and executed via a queue. Simultaneous turns are only available in single player and live multiplayer games; PBEM and hotseat games, and all combat, use the sequential turn system.

Units

Units can be built in cities, which can be further upgraded to produce more advanced units. Also, wandering independent (not belonging to any player) groups of units can be hired, if they are well-disposed towards the player. Units may have different strength, reflected by their level, which can vary from 1 to 4. Units under player control require a certain amount of gold every turn as an upkeep, the size of which depends upon the level of the unit. Summoned units use mana for upkeep instead of gold.

Units have several parameters, namely attack, defence, damage, resistance, movement points and hit points. They may also have special abilities such as Archery, Fearless or Swimming.

Units earn experience for killing other units. The amount of experience earned depends on the number of enemy units killed as well as their level. Upon earning a certain amount of experience, the unit gets a silver medal, and later on a gold one. Units with medals also get slight increases to their basic parameters, or otherwise improve their combat performance.

A special type of unit, a hero can only be hired, when they appear at random at one of the player's cities. Heroes earn experience points just like all other units do; however, instead of getting medals for it, they gain levels. Upon reaching the next level, they get a number of skill points, which a player can then spend to improve their parameters and teach them special abilities. This point system is similar to that used in many role-playing games. In addition to that, heroes are the only units in the game which can learn the Spell Casting special ability, allowing them to cast spells. Unlike common units, heroes can be brought from dead by magical means, although such experience will greatly decrease their morale.

Magic

Spells are divided into three types - unit spells which enhance a single unit, combat spells which are used to directly damage or handicap the enemy during combat, and global spells which can affect terrain, structures and groups of units on the global map, or summon magical creatures to player's aid. All have different mana costs depending on how advanced they are, and some of the more powerful unit and global spells can take more than one turn to cast. Counterspells to block and dispel unit and global enchantments are also available.

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