Fallen Enchantress

Ozion · 2012-10-31T10:42:10.000Z

I liked AOW1’s tactical battles better than FE’s tactical battles. But like FE overall more than AOW1 but a lot.

The jury is still out on whether FE is better than AOW2:SM for me. The lack of flying units bothers me.

Jag · 2012-10-31T10:47:40.000Z

Ozion:

I liked AOW1’s tactical battles better than FE’s tactical battles. But like FE overall more than AOW1 but a lot.

The jury is still out on whether FE is better than AOW2:SM for me. The lack of flying units bothers me.

and water. I understand they had to cut it out for production reasons, but it does limit gameplay. My first map had a single chokepoint that stuck me on one side of the continent. I didn’t even realize how much more of the world was blocked too me because the Empire holding it was stronger and kicked me out when I tried to go through.

TurinTur · 2012-10-31T10:51:51.000Z

Ozion:

I liked AOW1’s tactical battles better than FE’s tactical battles. But like FE overall more than AOW1 but a lot.

The jury is still out on whether FE is better than AOW2:SM for me. The lack of flying units bothers me.

I liked AoW1 tactical battles more than AoW SM’s tactical battles. And I liked AoW SM’s tactical battles mroe than FE’s tactical battles.

Byrdman · 2012-10-31T10:52:46.000Z

I would say that it doesn’t speak very highly of FE to be comparing it to a decade old game and find that the older game is superior. However, as a fan of the genre that has been progressively devolving over the years (as the HOMM games get progressively worse) it is nice to see FE take a step in the right direction.

KevinC · 2012-10-31T10:53:35.000Z

TurinTur, what did you like about AOW1 tactical over SM? It’s been too long and I don’t recall the differences.

TurinTur · 2012-10-31T10:58:27.000Z

They nerfed the battles. Battleground were bigger in AoW1, which allowed a bit more of flanking and whatnot, archers mechanics were different, and in sieges you really need to use a wall-crushing unit to break the walls (instead of “every unit can hit the wall x times and break it”); or use climbing or flying or teleporting units.

And in general, balance wise, there was a bit of too much of nerf-everything-for-the-sake-of-balance. Some stuff made sense because it could break the game, but they also lost a bit of the magic and charm of the original game, everything was a bit too “normalized”, with no highs and downs.

KevinC · 2012-10-31T11:01:17.000Z

Byrdman:

I would say that it doesn’t speak very highly of FE to be comparing it to a decade old game and find that the older game is superior.

I don’t know about that, some of these games that get talked about (Master of Magic, Age of Wonders) are considered classics by a lot of people, especially the former. That’s pretty common in other creative endeavors as well - I mean people still compare a lot of modern fantasy to Tolkien and hold LOTR in higher regard, but that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been any good fantasy novels.

Also, I don’t feel like the past decade or so has seen much attention given to the TBS genre, especially fantasy. There hasn’t been a lot that has topped AOW:SM for me because there really hasn’t been many new titles that I’d view as a competitor until recently.

Giaddon · 2012-10-31T11:45:20.000Z

Byrdman:

I would say that it doesn’t speak very highly of FE to be comparing it to a decade old game and find that the older game is superior. However, as a fan of the genre that has been progressively devolving over the years (as the HOMM games get progressively worse) it is nice to see FE take a step in the right direction.

Heh, it shows how young a form video games really are. No one bats an eye comparing movies that are 20+ years apart, and books that are centuries apart!

Alstein · 2012-10-31T11:45:26.000Z

Ozion:

I liked AOW1’s tactical battles better than FE’s tactical battles. But like FE overall more than AOW1 but a lot.

The jury is still out on whether FE is better than AOW2:SM for me. The lack of flying units bothers me.

There are flying units in the game- air elementals and crow demons can fly.

Swishtail · 2012-10-31T12:55:16.000Z

Good discussion all around…

One happy glimmer on the horizon is Triumph Studios’ little hints on their Twitter feed that they’ll be perhaps announcing Age of Wonders 3 before end of year:

https://twitter.com/TriumphStudios

TurinTur · 2012-10-31T12:59:15.000Z

Yeah, time ago they said they were hiring, and by the people they were searching it seemed to indicate they were again doing TBS (so AoW3 was very possible). Let’s cross fingers.

Byrdman · 2012-10-31T13:15:07.000Z

Giaddon:

Heh, it shows how young a form video games really are. No one bats an eye comparing movies that are 20+ years apart, and books that are centuries apart!

I would say that books and movies of yore hold up significantly better to modern comparisons than games because books and movies aren’t evolving as rapidly and aren’t as dependent on the available technology. That being said, I agree that AoW:Sm is a classic, and is still very playable today. On the other hand, if a game that came out 10 years ago does something better than a game that’s coming out today (better, not just differently) I think that is a shortfall of the newer game because, at the very least, the new game could ahve simply copied that element from the older game.

KevinC · 2012-10-31T13:26:01.000Z

TurinTur:

Yeah, time ago they said they were hiring, and by the people they were searching it seemed to indicate they were again doing TBS (so AoW3 was very possible). Let’s cross fingers.

It’ll be an iOS match-3 game.

Mark_L · 2012-10-31T13:32:34.000Z

Freemium city-builder with “mana” as the limiting reagent. You can buy 100 mana for .99, 1000 for $8.99, or 10000 at $79.99!!!

KevinC · 2012-10-31T13:36:51.000Z

Even better. Mark: 1 Kevin: 0

Funkula · 2012-10-31T15:49:52.000Z

I see no reason it can’t be both. Triple Town counts as a match-3, doesn’t it?

ridge · 2012-10-31T16:03:48.000Z

I uninstalled after an hour. The game is a Frankenstein. Pull Dominions, Civ, Master/Age, and then sow on the latest fad in gaudy graphics. Hollow is a good word. It doesn’t do anything particularly well or new or interesting. It is okay.

robc04 · 2012-10-31T19:57:42.000Z

I played Age of Wonders (and maybe the sequels) back in the day, but don’t have a strong recollection of them. I have a hard time playing older games now just because I can’t stand looking at tiny pixelated graphics on modern widescreen LCD monitors. So, are any of the Age of Wonders games worth playing today and do they look so bad that it interferes with playing them? I started to try the original XCOM and couldn’t deal with its ugliness.

KevinC · 2012-10-31T20:10:53.000Z

robc04:

I played Age of Wonders (and maybe the sequels) back in the day, but don’t have a strong recollection of them. I have a hard time playing older games now just because I can’t stand looking at tiny pixelated graphics on modern widescreen LCD monitors. So, are any of the Age of Wonders games worth playing today and do they look so bad that it interferes with playing them? I started to try the original XCOM and couldn’t deal with its ugliness.

AOW:SM is still very playable, IMO.

WarrenD · 2012-10-31T21:44:55.000Z

robc04:

I played Age of Wonders (and maybe the sequels) back in the day, but don’t have a strong recollection of them. I have a hard time playing older games now just because I can’t stand looking at tiny pixelated graphics on modern widescreen LCD monitors. So, are any of the Age of Wonders games worth playing today and do they look so bad that it interferes with playing them? I started to try the original XCOM and couldn’t deal with its ugliness.

Age of Wonders 2 and SM still look and play great IMO.

Both play at widescreen resolutions which is a must for me to play older games and they look good doing it.

There are also some good mods for Shadow Magic in particular at Age of Wonders Heaven-http://aow2.heavengames.com/