The game is a good fantasy strategy game in the tradition of the well-known "Heroes of Might and Magic" (HoMM) series. Since I only know the first two installments of HoMM, I am not able to compare AoW II to the later published games in the HoMM series.

Gameplay

The campaign in AoW II is the story of the human Wizard Merlin who has been called as an ally to the old Wizard Gabriel. Gabriel actually needs Merlin's help, since the "Circle of the Wizards" lies empty - most of them have gone for conquering their own land / domains, others would like to come back, but cannot.
It is now the task of Merlin to find out what's going on there, and to find a way to get them all back.

Compared to HoMM I or II, AoW and AoW II show several enhancements - mostly in detail. For example, the heroes are "developing" much more in an RPG style than in HoMM I or II and combat is different, too: Whereas you have a relatively simple drawn "combat area" in HoMM I / II, the actual fight in AoW / AoW II looks like a "real" battlefield: The zoom takes the player e.g. to a besieged town or into a wood. The attackers have to actually break the heavy doors or walls of the town, and the defenders must do everything to hinder them. Obstacles like trees, or members of the own army standing in the way can be a real problem for ranged weapons like bows: the targeted enemy cannot be hit if there is a tree standing right in front of him. There is also a certain chance of "friendly fire" if another army unit of yours is in the way of your archer for example. Combat and the overall gameplay is turn-based. You can decide whether the opponents make their turn one after the other or all at the same time.

Buildings in besieged towns can also be destroyed (although this doesn't influence the gameplay). What is not so good about them is that they might obscure units during battle - your own and the ones of your enemy. Several times I ended up thinking "What? Where did that unit come from? " or "I didn't know / remember I had another one of my units standing over there...". So be careful.

What differs AoW II from the original AoW (among other points) is, that not only towns have walls, but now also the watchtowers, which grant the player a much farther look into the country and therefore are essential to notice approaching enemies.

The town is the main resource. It produces all the gold needed for maintaining units and heroes, and it is the source for actions taken by the wizard. Towns can be upgraded by producing special buildings within them, and they can grow, thus generating more financial income. It is important to note that towers can only be in towns - Wizard's Towers, that is.

The map is divided into the normal land and the underground. It is not necessary that a map contains underground areas, but it can have one (AoW II) or more (AoW) levels of these. Not only on the surface can there be towns, but also in the underground areas.

Whereas there was a fight between the Elves - Dark ones and Light ones in AoW (there was a Dark Elves campaign and a "Light Elves" [as I call them] campaign), now in AoW II there is a fight going on between the Wizards.

The Wizards are the new and main element in the game: A human - Merlin by name - is called by the High Wizard Gabriel to help him - and to battle the others who try to take countries as their own domain.

The Wizards are in fact *very* powerful, and some Wizards even act like gods - which they aren't. Instead, there are real gods / spirits, for which a town can build shrines. From that point on, the player (and, of course, the Wizard and his/her "units") are forced to worship the god/goddess, but for a good reward if the player manages to fulfill the god's quests.

During the game, you can, of course, contact the other Wizards. Contact is established by the means of diplomacy. You can establish a pact between two Wizards, or offer them peace. This is done by sending out messages to them, which can be accompanied by certain presents to influence their decision. Other Wizards can contact you, too.

The player is "The Master", and he directs all the units gathered around him (or her). And I even dare to say that the Wizard is the "Master Unit" - since he or she has abilities no other unit has - but can also be directed just like all other "normal" units. The units are your army - you need them to defend your own towns and your own domain against others units of enemy Wizards. Those do, of course, have their own ways of gaining power.

The domains are established through power - the Wizard's power. Magical power. In the game you can see the domain's border by a dotted line in the color of your Wizard - that's the border of the area wherein the Wizard is able to cast spells to support his own units or towns in fights or in general.

And that is another important point in AoW II: Spells. A Wizard "belongs" to a "magical sphere" (there are among others: Water, Fire, Life, Death), and can therefore only cast researched spells from that sphere except additional spells that are found or granted by the gods (not only spells can be researched but also talents which support the Wizard.) Spells of the Cosmos Sphere are generally available.

Spells are a necessity - for example to fulfill quests or to summon entities which are needed as powerful allies. But also towns and even countries can be influenced by spells: It is for example possible to blast elements of industry in towns (they are needed to build weapons and enhanced units and to increase the overall production rate of a town), or to slowly turn the own Wizard's domain into grassland. With the "Anarchy" spell it is even possible to invoke a rebellion inside a town.

Both - the player and the Wizard - need the heroes who tend to appear near towns to help you. The player needs them as elite fighters who additionally have abilities no other unit has. The Wizard is kind of a hero, too, but he/she is limited: the Wizard doesn't develop exactly like a hero does, and he/she is not as good a fighter as a hero.

But what's more important is that the Wizards need their towers: only from within a tower is the Wizard able to cast spells over the land to support his units in a fight or to influence the area around him. The actual domain around a Wizard alone is relatively small - only with enough towers you are able to take care of the whole land. Every town with a tower is part of your own magical domain, so with all towns (which have towers) the whole domain can be much greater than the actual domain area around the Wizard alone. Also, the heroes have their own kind of domain around them, which is somehow connected to the one of the Wizard.

But all of the heroes and Wizards are almost helpless without their units. Units are the members of your army. Every race has its own, specialized units which come in levels. You begin with low-level units and you can upgrade your town to produce units of higher levels. The units with the highest levels can be real frightening, for example the "Dark Elves Incarnate" which is able to "possess" an enemy unit.

Units always travel in groups. If there is only one unit in a group, only this one will be displayed. The representation of the group is generally done by displaying the unit with the highest level or the hero which is leading the group.

A small sign in the shape of a shield at one side of the group shows a number representing the quantity of members in that particular group. The color of this sign belongs to the group's Wizard.

Interface

AoW II is a game which is very much detail-oriented and so is the user interface.

The overall interface is quite good - but a bit too detailed for my own taste. You have quick access to the main (and most important) functions but some other functions are rather "hidden".

As an example, let's take a look at the pioneer, which is a specialized unit. The slow moving pioneer is the only unit that can build and re-build structures such as destroyed towns, mines or teleporters.

In a scenario game, however, you can decide not to let the opponent take advantage of the ability of the pioneer to build outposts (which can grow into full towns) or teleporters. (I think this feature was taken into AoW II after a poll about that feature on an AoW II dedicated website).
Now, here is my example (image to the right - of course, everything is in German there since I played the German language version of the game):

Graphics

Graphically, AoW II shows even more detail than its predecessor - almost everything is now in a way animated. Even destroyed mines smoulder from inside. The degree of details is so unbelievable high - "high" in terms of detailed artwork and animation - that I felt my lower jaw dropping when I was playing the game for the first time.

Since the battles are taking place on real battlefields (a wood, for example), the high amount of animated units might cause the whole screen to flicker a bit - at least that's what I sometimes see on my Athlon 800 PC with a GeForce 2 GTS. This is not that bad, since the flickers quickly go away if you shift the actual view into an area with few or none animated units (you can lower the grade of detail and animation in a small configuration program or from within the game.)

The only thing that annoyed me a bit is that everything looks quite small. But I got used to it after a while so this isn't a real drawback… at least until it comes to choosing a certain unit in the midst of a battle ;-)

Compared to AoW I or II, I think that the graphics of the units look more "comic-like" in HoMM I and II. I have the impression as if units in general look far more realistic in the AoW games than in HoMM I and II.

The game uses some DirectX graphics effects (mostly for spells) but this does not have a significant impact on the overall performance. The only performance critical factor is the high amount of animated units in a battle - especially in a siege battle.

With the small setup/configuration program that comes with AoW II, you can, of course, choose to lower your desired level of detail in terms of graphics.

Some Technical Notes

The package I reviewed (bought in Germany) came with several languages: You can play AoW II in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian languages. Additionally, there seem to be Polish and Russian versions of the game out there.

The desired language can be chosen from a drop-down list in the small configuration program. From within this program you can also control other parameters: Should the game use sound, music, DirectSound? What kind of sounds should be played? Does the player want the game to use Direct3D? Should the fights show blood? What resolution do you desire while playing the game?

Triumph Studios - the makers of Age of Wonders I and II - also put an editor as a separate program into the package with which you can design your own maps.

The game supports singleplayer, multiplayer (LAN, Internet), and even multiplayer via e-Mail (a rarity nowadays).

A short note about copy protection: AoW II comes with a copy protection. That means that you'll have to keep the CD-ROM in the drive while playing.

Sound & Music

I like the non-aggressive tune of the songs. They are quite calm (for my own taste) and good to listen to. I think they fit well into this fantasy universe. Also, I didn't have the feeling as if the songs would be annoying like in some other games which have good songs but which tend to go on one's nerves if played looped too long without any pause. Every scenario of the campaign has its own leitmotif. The music comes in mp3 format.

Almost every unit has its own sound - except for some undead units which produce no sound at all - seemingly because there is no life in them. ;-) Some of these sounds reappear, for example the Dragon of the Elves and the Wyvern of the Goblins produce the same cry. But that's nothing which bothers me much. These sounds are in WAV format.

Conclusion

Well, I hope I have written enough to give you an insight into what to expect from Age of Wonders II. From my point of view, this game is a good alternative for everyone who likes fantasy RPGs but wants to see something more in the direction of strategy games. AoW II is a fantasy strategy game with all known main races - and some more - you might know from your "RPG sessions". AoW is not a classic CRPG game, though. It mixes strategy and role-playing. Only the heroes do kind of evolve like characters in a "real", classic CRPG. (Note: In AoW, you can even distribute experience points for your heroes; in AoW II, you are offered talents instead.)

A short note about gameplay and the AI: The gameplay is fairly well balanced - with a few exceptions. Of course, this is my personal opinion but there were some things I noticed: The high-level units tend to become too powerful for my taste. An Incarnate can be a real fright, for example, since this unit is able to possess other units - and if the Incarnate manages to possess a high-level unit of your own army, the results can be quite dreadful.

Also, units not equipped with ranged weapons are not able to beat flying units (someone in a forum even called this thing a kind of "immunity"). So, when going into battle, it is a "must" to carry at least some units with e.g. bows or with magical abilities in your army. But since especially these units are *very* likely to become a major target for the CPU (I refer to the CPU as the AI) they also must be very well armored or be accompanied by strong and fast units to protect them.

Heroes belong to another sort of units, the CPU likes to take out quickly. If you want to keep your hero, then you must equip him with some of the few special items which can be found in AoW. Compared to HoMM, there are very few of those special items to be found - whereas in HoMM it is quite an amount.

The CPU can be assigned to act in several levels of difficulty for a game: The lower levels are for an easier challenge whereas the higher levels are, of course, more difficult: A high-level AI tends to produce almost only high-level units, a thing that I've encountered in a scenario. In that game, the pressure was very high, and I did only survive because I built up a *very* strong defense of my towns - but even with that, I had several fights with only very few of my own units remaining.

In my opinion, the defense of towns is a bit too easy: It is possible to take out quite a mass of high-level units with a medium-level installation of defenders. On the other hand, besieging a town is quite hard.

The CPU is better than in AoW I when you choose to let it battle for you. It has improved but it's still not as good as a human player. Personally, I think it is best to take control of all your units and battles yourself, especially when using high-level units or fighting battles with many low-level or medium-level units against a strong enemy. I often had the feeling as if the CPU (when it battles for you) doesn't notice the really dangerous units - instead it focuses on taking out archers and other units with ranged weapons, and heroes.

What I liked very much is that bit of humor in the campaign. I've noticed that there are some bits of humor in it, not much, but refreshing for a strategy game (another reason why I liked "Z"). I do well remember the "cheap armor"... ;-) or the Glutton, which is the highest level unit of the Orcs. He sort of behaves like a Juggernaught and looks like Jabba the Hutt with a crown on his head ;-) .

The printed manual with 170 pages is a nice gadget in times where companies tend to reduce everything while raising their prices, and manuals often come as relatively simple PDF files.

If you wish to try out this game, I can only give you the advice not to use the beta demo but the newer full demo. Both are quite big: About 100 MB. Since the first one is beta, it has too many bugs in my opinion. The location of the newer (and nearly bugfree) demo is available from the official sites: www.ageofwonders.com and www.ageofwonders.de , and also from the Age of Wonders Heaven fan site (which I highly recommend) at http://aow2.heavengames.com .

Also, the first and the second patch (and the Demo) are ready for download from the pages of the publisher, Take 2 Interactive ( www.take2.com , www.take2.de ) and from several other sources. As far as I know, you have to be careful not to mix patches written for different languages or countries!

You should keep your display drivers up-to-date. I experienced a graphics problem with my GeForce driver that came from my graphics card's manufacturer, Elsa. However, switching to a nVidia driver solved the problem.

The forums -especially the ones at AoW Heavengames - are good resources for information. Some posters there have even written detailed articles about units and other aspects of Age of Wonders II, for example comparisons between different units of the same level. The support there is also good. Personally, I'd say that it is better to look around there than on one of the official sites.

There are two main forums for both of the Age of Wonders games:

The Lifeline : http://pub30.ezboard.com/bthelifelineanaowforum
The AoW Heavengames Forum : http://aow.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/Ultimate.cgi

Of course, there are other forums, too, but these two are the ones I know longest. Also, these are places where members of the development team (Triumph Studios) post quite often.

For a better insight into the world of Age of Wonders itself, I'd recommend the following discussion:

"AoW II is *not* a direct sequel to AoW!"

Although I must admit that I'm not an expert in the strategy games genre, I'd recommend Age of Wonders II because of its high grade of detail and the tolkienesque fantasy world. The overall impression shows that the development team put much love into this game. It had a really great overall long-time motivation to me and it was always fun to see how everything develops.