I also believe the scale of the "unit/environment" ratio made the old's games maps feel more like an "adventuring map" rather than a "map depicted in a scroll", as well as other choices in art design. In the first games, even if you find a lonely mine at the edge of the map, if you can flag it, you're beneffiting from it, no need to create a city (or an outpost) by its side to make use of it.
This is compounded by gameplay elements in the new games that make surface structures less interesting (or completely irrelevant) unless they can be added to a city's domain. In the newest entries, the maps are almost like a "random painting" below your units, conveying little to no "narrative information".
With its focus on "random maps", both Age of Wonders III and Age of Wonders: Planetfall lost a bit of the "charm" of handcrafted environments the previous entries in the series had. One of the aspects the two newest titles in the overall Age of Wonders series lost the most is the strategic map narrative immersion. The "leader creation" aspect in Age of Wonders IV is one of its main draws for me, at the moment! Here's a picture of my custom "Tigran Wizard"! ^^ Age of Wonders III has "steam workshop integration", which also helps a lot - but lost a bit on the unique maps front, since there's a greater focus on "random maps" and gameplay itself pushed away some of the features that made such map-making in previous titles interesting, IMO. Both previous versions had a map editor (and the community created GORGEOUS maps for both games), but AoW: SM's editor tools ultimately allowed greater freedom of modding - and that's why we have so many interesting mods for this version of the game. To all old geezers out there, here are some of my favorite things in Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic!Īge of Wonders: Shadow Magic was the first title in the series to come with "editor tools" to change the base game itself. I finally got my favorite game in the franchise to run in my notebook again, and decided I should post some pictures of "old school" AoW here in the forums - maybe get some discussion about the old games' strengths going! I'm anxiously awaiting for AoW 4 to come - here's hoping it can become the "definitive" AoW experience the designers want it to be! ^^
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