In a single mission, alignment dictates your diplomacy. Then we move on to other races and the story branches depending on that. In the campaign, we take the side of good or evil, starting with command over halflings or goblins regardless of our leader’s race. The races’ alignment has impact on both the campaigns and single missions. I can’t help but feel like this has some unpleasant implications. High men are a race of celestial beings that look like pale humans with a Greco-Roman theme. Then I actually found out they’re…desert-dwelling humans with a fantasy-Middle Eastern theme. Azracs…I wondered who they were when I played the demo. Frostlings are a goblin-like race living in, no surprise, the arctic. Most of those are self-explanatory, but there’s a few that won’t be immediately obvious. Finally, the evil races are orcs, goblins, dark elves, and undead. The neutral ones are humans, frotslings, azracs, and lizardmen. The good races are elves, dwarves, halflings, and high men. Good races are good, bad races are bad, neutral races can be both. Now, my opinion about assigning moral standing to entire races is as low as it gets, but sadly Age of Wonders plays it entirely straight. There are four good races, four evil races and four neutral races. What is Age of Wonders? It was, at its core, a fantasy wargame between twelve races. Many years later I could finally play the full version. I’m not sure what about it spoke to me the way other games didn’t. My younger, more excitable self found it as a demo version in a gaming magazine and fell in love. The series begins with the first game, titled simply Age of Wonders. This time it’s “Age of Wonders,” a turn-based fantasy strategy game.

Today I will introduce you to yet another game series that made an impact on me when I was growing up.

Planetary alignment age of wonders 3