Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Age of Wonders 1 or 2???

Lagi

Savant
Joined
Jul 19, 2015
Messages
726
Location
Desert
Fire Sphere is really weak, yeah. Funnily enough, it suffers from the same problems as Fire Magic in HoMM 3 - it is, ostensibly, the offensive magic school, but has some of the weakest offensive spells. Flaming Arrow, Call Flames, Fire Breath, and Swarm are all really underwhelming and Fireball is only so-so. The only thing Fire has going for it damage-wise is Sacrificial Flame cast by a hero with Fire Halo. Fury is a pretty wimpy unit enchant, Fire Barrier is extremely niche, IIRC Anarchy doesn't even work (or at least not on higher levels), Fire Elemental is an unimpressive summoning, and what's even the point of Fire Mastery? So what does Fire have going for it? Fire Sprite is a pretty good early summon, Fire Halo can be a useful enchant, Cloud of Ashes has its place, Warmonger is a neat late-game enchant, and Fire Storm is what it is.

Adding insult to injury, Fire's opposite, Water, is way better at direct damage spells despite the fact that these aren't even Water's focus. Ice Shards is way better than Flaming Arrow or Call Flames, Geyser and Frost Beam are both way better than Fire Breath or Swarm, Great Hail is substantially better than Fireball and can be better than Sacrificial Flame depending on the situation. Fire just does not stack up to Water, and that's not even taking into account spells like Healing Water, Liquid Form, or Flood. The humble Healing Water is one of the most useful spells in the game. Did they finally manage to wear your uber hero down to only a couple hit points? Haha whoops, they're back at full health!

I liked AoW 1's concept of opposing spheres, but in practice it didn't work out that well. Life vs Death was mostly a matter of which race you chose, Water vs Fire had a single clearly better option. The only really difficult choice was Air vs Earth.

Also, as for your 1st point, funnily enough in AoW 1 lvl 1 units are, in theory, the strongest units to use against uberheroes. The way AoW 1's mechanics work, there's always a 10% chance of a hit and a 10% chance of a miss. When a hero is pimped out with max defense, you want to start getting in as many attacks as possible. In practice that doesn't actually work out though just because of AoW 1's upkeep mechanics: mass-producing hordes of T1 units will bankrupt you very, very quickly (for reference: For the production cost of one Red Dragon, you could get roughly 14 Orc Swordsmen. However, those Orc Swordsmen would cost you 56 gold per turn. The Dragon? 10).

I maintain that unit upkeep weirdness is one of the main causes of T4 spam in AoW 1 and SM. Especially annoying because IIRC upkeep costs are hardcoded.
:kingcomrade: moar!

here is shameless promotion of my UI script. Please, don't hesitate to grumble about it poor quality
 
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 10, 2018
Messages
6,704
Location
Mouse Utopia
Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In
I maintain that unit upkeep weirdness is one of the main causes of T4 spam in AoW 1 and SM. Especially annoying because IIRC upkeep costs are hardcoded.
Upkeep formula is moddable in aow2 if you install the MPE 2.0 mod, which modifies the game's .exe and comes with a powerful modding program. Also in aow2 you can give units the summoned promotion to make them cost mana for maintenance. In AoW1 we're out of luck though.
 

vota DC

Augur
Joined
Aug 23, 2016
Messages
2,258
2019 is near and means 20 years of Age of Wonders. Will they release source code?
 
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 10, 2018
Messages
6,704
Location
Mouse Utopia
Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In
2019 is near and means 20 years of Age of Wonders. Will they release source code?
does anyone ask Triumph to do it?
People have in the past, but not for a while now I think?
What's the best way to go about asking? I love modding these games but I don't know about technical stuff, I just use tools provided by more tech-savvy fans. So I don't know if I'd even benefit from source code, maybe you'd be able to use it?
 

Lagi

Savant
Joined
Jul 19, 2015
Messages
726
Location
Desert
2019 is near and means 20 years of Age of Wonders. Will they release source code?
does anyone ask Triumph to do it?
...I love modding these games but I don't know about technical stuff, I just use tools provided by more tech-savvy fans. So I don't know if I'd even benefit from source code, maybe you'd be able to use it?

sure, I'm godlike haxxor - I would change the DEF cost of hero & other upgrades and press F7 to compile.
seriously - That incline after source release would be massive. Its perfect game, just poorly "equalized". Lots of old fags here has tremendous knowledge about it.

edit:
ok, i can send mail to paradox. How do people ask Devs usually about the source? write post on official forum?
 
Joined
May 11, 2007
Messages
1,853,653
Location
Belém do Pará, Império do Brasil
Do they still have the source code? A lot of ancient gaming source codes were lost, ya know - Fallout, for example. Hell, some guy found a CD with the Starcraft source code one of those days.

Wow, twenty years. I feel old. I discovered the original AOW in a CD Expert Magazine demo in the early 2000s, spent YEARS trying to find the game for purchase in local shops (a local distributor was selling then). Never found it, piracy bailed my ass. I remember downloading Shadow Magic years later using a 56k modem. I spent a week or two of straight downloading, but DAMN IT if it wasn't worth every single moment.

Source Code would be great, but would Triumph even do it? Don't forget, they're selling a new game.

If they can't/won't, then I think it would be just as good to pull a "OpenXcom" - make a new engine, make it load the assets of the original without including them in the download.

The original AOW still has things its predecessors never had - like 12 players.
 

vota DC

Augur
Joined
Aug 23, 2016
Messages
2,258
Even simple things like a short sighted archer can't be done: skills can't be modded or added so an archer minimum attack will be 4 attack and 2 damage.
I need for lore reason to change relation. I did food chain mod there too (like in aow3) with the campaign too but for example Follettus Demens is supposed to be friendly with United Sewers because they have Lizardmen among population so I was inspired by goblin-lizardmen alliance in Ultima Underworld 1. If source code is in I am quite sure you can set manually race relation: they aren't tied with alignment since there are some spells that change it and also there is Highmen-Human relation that would be wary if only alignment count.
I am not sure if something like Regrowth skill from AOW3 can be implemented even with source code since it would require a new mechanic.

2019 is near and means 20 years of Age of Wonders. Will they release source code?
does anyone ask Triumph to do it?

Yes, but in 2004! 5 years after is really a short time but 20 years is another matter.
 

Lagi

Savant
Joined
Jul 19, 2015
Messages
726
Location
Desert
"Dear Paradox, forward this to ex-Triumph employee:

When you gonna make new patch to Age of Wonders 1? there is lots of OP stuff waiting to be nerf. [here list of stuff]
Would like to remind You, that you are still selling AoW1 [link to steam,gog]. That means there is interest in this gem.
I suggest You to make expansion to AoW1 with new campaign, new units & abilities, new terrain & fixed stuff. Or if you REALLY have to make (gods forbid, its already aesthetically flawless, and one of the best looking game ever) - remake, doing it 3d you will only make it worse. 3d will never has a charm of 2d (even if its mechanically a better game).

If you currently dont have manpower to do it, them please consider releasing the source code. So multiple individuals can make thousands version of AoW1 (like with Doom). And do it before Christmas 2018/19 because I dont have free time after that.

best regards,
No-one from RPG codex"
 
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 10, 2018
Messages
6,704
Location
Mouse Utopia
Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In
past couple of years have seen a lot of the stuff in this thread modded.
A few people including myself have been hex editing, still without source code but a lot of stuff can be done now. Race Relations, ability stats, vision ranges, city upgrade costs per size, bonus movement speed from unit medals, etc etc etc
 

Lagi

Savant
Joined
Jul 19, 2015
Messages
726
Location
Desert
Yes "guys". why dont you make it already?! Im waiting!

[i can pay for it 10 pounds]
 
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 10, 2018
Messages
6,704
Location
Mouse Utopia
Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In
The latest thing (past few days) is someone figuring out how to mod the terrain alteration abilities. So in basegame, most terrains can be created either temporarily or permanently but now we can make a Rejuvenate spell reworked into "Dessicate" (Since Healing Showers already improves terrain so there's a mild redundancy) and we should be able to make Firestorm dry the terrain out, ie grassland to steppe, steppe to desert.

I may also look into modding "Lower Terrain" or "Rejuvenate/Dessicate" into a "Stoneburner" spell that creates lava. I might even be able to figure out how the delayed semi-random melting of Freeze Water ice works, and copy it into this lava-creating spell so that after a while the lava cools and turns into Wasteland.
 
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 10, 2018
Messages
6,704
Location
Mouse Utopia
Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In
The latest thing (past few days) is someone figuring out how to mod the terrain alteration abilities. So in basegame, most terrains can be created either temporarily or permanently but now we can make a Rejuvenate spell reworked into "Dessicate" (Since Healing Showers already improves terrain so there's a mild redundancy) and we should be able to make Firestorm dry the terrain out, ie grassland to steppe, steppe to desert.

I may also look into modding "Lower Terrain" or "Rejuvenate/Dessicate" into a "Stoneburner" spell that creates lava. I might even be able to figure out how the delayed semi-random melting of Freeze Water ice works, and copy it into this lava-creating spell so that after a while the lava cools and turns into Wasteland.

Wow that's awesome!

Yo, what's the KKK on the AOW mods you guys have so far? From what little I see on Discord (I see you guys on my phone all the time, it gets annoying to see your notifications fill my phone every time I wake up, sometimes, but rarely read in depth. No patience for discord lol), you guys seem to have at least two mods: One for playing auto-combat in multiplayer (for PBEM) and another for playing tactical.
Initially we only had Ziggurat, the one I made with PBEM in mind. And initially because I'm a PBEM type the discord started out with PBEM games only.
Later on we had enough people for livegames, and before long we had this livegame player (username "The Chosen One") asking for changes that would've been good for livegame tactical combat but bad for PBEM balance. So I said he should create his own mod, he decided to build one off mine but at this point his is quite highly divergent from Ziggurat.

Initially I really disliked his "design philosophy" of placing too much emphasis on a kind of "reductive balance" and not enough on thematic and diversity considerations, but in the end the result is quite diverse, maybe my butthurt walls of text on the topic persuaded him or I was just being paranoid on the issue. Plus, these days he is the main one figuring out new hex edits, though I've still done some lately.
EDIT: fuck, he decided to replace Incarnates as a recruitable because "they're unreliable" and "I don't raid I defend my structures" :argh:
EDIT2: all good, persuaded him to give the replacement "Stormlord" unit possessed so that when it dies an Incarnate pops out.

So it's Ziggurat Engine Mod for PBEM, and AoW Evolved for livegames. There's also AoWx for a LAN group who play amongst themselves and which comes with a new campaign. And AoW+ which started off all the "modern" hex edit modding, and is pretty well suited to singleplayer campaign-ing and is designed to be compatible with rulesets.
 
Last edited:

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom