Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne

Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne
DeveloperTriumph Studios
Publishers
ProducerChris Lacey
DesignerLennart Sas
ProgrammerArno van Wingerden
ArtistsMao-lin Liao
Lennart Sas
Martijn Holtkamp
WritersRaymond Bingham
Josh Farley
ComposerMason B. Fisher
SeriesAge of Wonders
PlatformMicrosoft Windows
Release
GenreTurn-based strategy
ModesSingle-player, multiplayer

Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne is a turn-based strategy video game in a fantasy setting. The sequel to Age of Wonders, it was developed by Dutch video game developer Triumph Studios. It was followed by a stand-alone expansion pack, Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, which introduced random map generation to the series.

Gameplay

A war party preparing to attack a city defended by Nimue.

In contrast to Age of Wonders, players in Age of Wonders II take the role of an immortal spell-casting Wizard, who cannot be upgraded, but can revive after being killed if they have a Wizard Tower.

The maps for tactical battles are smaller than in Age of Wonders, with faster combat and less maneuvering of units. Hero levels are simplified from other iterations of the series, offering one of three skills per level, depending on the Hero's class.

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

Magic use in Age of Wonders II uses a "domain" system with only a small range around heroes, but projected farther by Wizard Towers and relays when a Wizard is present in a tower. Global spells can only be cast by the Wizard, via a spell book located in the main user interface, within the domain of the casting or allied wizard. Spells in combat can be cast either by Heroes in the battle, or the Wizard if it is within their domain (which includes heroes if the wizard in a tower).

Development

The game was announced in January 2001.[4]

AoW II kept the same 2D artistic style as the original, but uses a then newly developed Direct3D enhanced engine with 32 Bit color, 1280x1024 max resolution and a 3D special effects system.[5]

AoW II was developed using the Delphi programming language (Delphi 5).[6]

Reception

GameSpot named Age of Wonders II a runner-up for its June 2002 "PC Game of the Month" award.[11] It was a nominee for PC Gamer US's "2002 Best Turn-Based Strategy Game" award, which ultimately went to Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin.[12] It was also a finalist for The Electric Playground's 2002 "Best Strategy Game for PC" prize, but lost to Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.[13] It was a runner-up for GameSpot's annual "Most Improved Sequel on PC" and "Best Game No One Played on PC" awards.[14]

References

  1. ↑ "Gathering of Developers Declares "Age of Wonders II: The Wizards Throne" Now Available in Stores". GameZone. June 12, 2002. Archived from the original on May 10, 2007. Retrieved March 29, 2024.
  2. ↑ "Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne". Jeuxvideo.com. Retrieved March 29, 2024.
  3. ↑ "2002 Releases". Eurogamer. Archived from the original on June 2, 2002. Retrieved March 29, 2024.
  4. ↑ "Gathering of Developers and Triumph Studios Announce Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne". Gathering of Developers. January 26, 2001. Archived from the original on April 17, 2001. Retrieved May 19, 2024.
  5. ↑ "Second Age of Wonders". Eurogamer. January 29, 2001. Archived from the original on July 7, 2022.
  6. ↑ "Age of Wonders II Still using Delphi?". aow.heavengames.com. June 19, 2002.
  7. ↑ McDonald, Thomas L. (September 2002). "Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne". Computer Gaming World. No. 218. pp. 86, 87.
  8. ↑ Brogger, Kristian; McNamara, Andy. "Strategy for Your Inner Nerd". Game Informer. Archived from the original on August 11, 2009.
  9. ↑ Trotter, William R. "Age of Wonders II". PC Gamer US. Archived from the original on February 13, 2008.
  10. ↑ Anderson, Chris (August 4, 2002). "Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne". PC Zone. Archived from the original on December 2, 2008.
  11. ↑ The Editors of GameSpot PC (July 5, 2002). "PC Game of the Month, June 2002". GameSpot. Archived from the original on December 4, 2002. Retrieved April 2, 2021.
  12. ↑ Staff (March 2003). "The Ninth Annual PC Gamer Awards". PC Gamer US. 10 (3): 48–50, 54, 58, 60, 66, 68, 70.
  13. ↑ Staff. "Blister Awards 2002". The Electric Playground. Archived from the original on 2003-03-08. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
  14. ↑ GameSpot Staff (December 30, 2002). "GameSpot's Best and Worst of 2002". GameSpot. Archived from the original on February 7, 2003.
This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.