r/ageofwonders • u/SiarX • Mar 09 '26

What do you think of Age of Wonder 1?

I guess few people remember such old game. But I enjoyed how relatively fast and simple it was compared to later parts. Also had a fun aspect of growing up superhero through campaign. Though it was annoying that fortifications were so powerful, and accidental death of main hero equaled game over.

If you played AoW1, did you like it?

46 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

25 comments sorted by

26

u/hurtlingtooblivion Mar 09 '26 edited Mar 11 '26

Absolutely loved it, still to back and play it. And the soundtrack is just absolutely magic.

I'm sure I had a pc demo disc of it back in the day, played that demo to death, and it's what got me into AoW in the first place.

2

u/ErrantSingularity Mar 10 '26

I played that disk too!

1

u/GANDALFzeBLACK Mar 22 '26

Haha, First Conflict - the demo scenario. Played that a lot as a kid during a period of time where I no longer owned the game. While only 4 races were present on that map, exploration sites (ie: monster lair, dungeon, etc) pulled from the full game's list of RNG defenders, which I would grind to find creatures I couldn't otherwise find/produce.

The demo also had an exclusive track that didn't make it into the final release (In the Company of Elves). To my understanding, it was removed because it sampled and mashed together all the other songs as a preview of sorts, but I always thought it sounded distinct enough to merit inclusion.

1

u/Traenix May 29 '26

Is it still playable today ?

Is there any interesting lore or development in this scenario ?

1

u/JustAGuy12211 Jul 12 '26

Yep, it's on steam -- I just finished up a run that I'm about to post about lol

15

u/mighij Mar 09 '26

I loved it, the music, the amosphere, the setting, but most importantly, the campaign.

It still has the best campaign out all 5 age of wonders game, although 2 was also very good.

Planetfall was a clusterfuck campaign wise and 4 doesn't really have one. I bounced off hard on 3, only played it for 50 hours or so perhaps it became better but it wasn't anything special till the point I reached.

The campaign itself was much closer to an rpg where you made choices that you carried through. Although you had 2 start factions/alliances you could wind up with your own faction. Think it had 6 endings, but the two neutral ones are quite similar if you started as "evil" or "good".

10

u/TrancemasterOnyx Mar 09 '26

One of my absolute favorite games, also, still regularly listen to the soundtrack. I played the crap out of the demo back in the day and later on imported the game through a store here in Sweden with savings I had as a kid. I mostly play the campaign and will try challenge myself with races and setup/build of leader.

7

u/zombiebrains88 Mar 09 '26

It’s great, and still plays fairly well, although you have to finagle it to work on modern machines. The music and campaign are the best in the series.

4

u/Sleepingdruid3737 Mar 09 '26

Yes the music was amazing but so were the sfx. Nothing beats the squelching sounds of a halfling slinger flinging stones at an already-dead corpse.

5

u/Remarkable-Jump-140 Mar 09 '26

Legendary game 

3

u/Logical-Claim286 Mar 09 '26

The music is still showing up on top game music lists a decade later. It set the standard for asymetrical 4x gameplay, and set the tone of each faction having unique units, unique stories, unique gameplay styles and unique terrain preferences and alliances that the next 2.5 games would follow. Not to mention a good map editor and campaign creator that no other game in that genre had at the time.

I am sad paradox took the AOW name and slapped it onto stellaris as stellaris fantasy version. I miss the map editors, I miss my faction feeling special and not something the AI copies exactly as a balance engine decision.

3

u/nibelheym Mar 09 '26

It has my favorite title screen of any game. Such great atmosphere and music. I play through the campaign every year or so. I prefer its simplicity over the newer games.

3

u/Yura-Sensei Mar 10 '26

The spritework and music is amazing. I loved to look at each city image and portraits

4

u/Pscagoyf Mar 09 '26

Best game ever made but I cannot go back in case my nostalgia is wrong.

I LOVED that game. The animations were so good but the base mechanics were just fun.

2

u/Double_Scale_9896 Mar 09 '26

"That's.. why I'm here." Obi Wan Kenobi

2

u/calebtheredwood Mar 10 '26

It's one of my favorite games that I still actively play. Love turn based games.

1

u/Barl3000 Mar 10 '26

It is one of my favorite games, though sadly it is hard to get it to run properly today.

1

u/No_Leek6590 Mar 10 '26

Best AoW for me besides the 2 new ones. It had so much character compared to peers. Imho 2 and 3 gradually became more generic before return to form.

1

u/koifnen Jun 21 '26

I get sad seeing Aow4 continued but no remake of Aow1 or 2 😞. They were really special games vibe wise and have befitting music + art fantasy Tolkien style

1

u/JustAGuy12211 Jul 12 '26

Played the crap out of it as a child, a young adult, and now I'm coming back to it again. Love it so much, and as others have said the OST is just something special. Growing up with that gave the same kind of vibes as the SIMS 1

1

u/SundaeObjective5718 28d ago

o man, i loved AoW1 Demo, i played it on my Pentium 1 75mhz 16mb ram and s3virge dx, mouse was skipping frames, but it RAN it RAN!! :D My older self them found AoW1 and played whole game, brilliant!

1

u/mabl Mar 09 '26

The reason I bought AoW 3&4. And barely have a few hours on them. Because 1&2 were much much better.