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Age of Wonders

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games
Age of Wonders
Age of Wonders cover
Developers
Triumph Studios
Epic Games
Publishers
Retail (North America) Gathering of Developers
Retail (Europe) Take-Two Interactive
Digital, original Triumph Studios
Digital, current Paradox Interactive
Release dates
Windows November 11, 1999
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Turn-based
Perspectives Bird's-eye view, Isometric
Controls Multiple select, Point and select
Genres 4X, Strategy, TBS
Themes Fantasy
Series Age of Wonders
Age of Wonders on HowLongToBeat
Age of Wonders on IGDB
Age of Wonders guide on StrategyWiki
Age of Wonders on MobyGames
Age of Wonders on Wikipedia
Age of Wonders
Age of Wonders 1999
Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne 2002
Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic 2003
Age of Wonders III 2014
Age of Wonders: Planetfall 2019
Age of Wonders 4 2023

Age of Wonders is a singleplayer and multiplayer bird's-eye view and isometric 4X, strategy and TBS game in the Age of Wonders series.

General information

Official Discord for game series
Official Paradox Plaza forums
GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions
Age of Wonders Heaven fansite

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
Windows
Publisher website
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Gamesplanet logo.svg
Icon overlay.png
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
Soundtrack and HD wallpaper included.
Windows
Green Man Gaming
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Humble Store
DRM-free
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Windows
A demo is available.

Essential improvements

Official patches

The latest official patch is v1.36. It can be found in the Age of Wonders Heaven fansite (only needed for retail versions).

Unofficial patch

Players running Windows 8 or newer, or using Wine to run the game on Linux, need to download this unofficial patch to fix the Exception during MapViewer.ShowScene error which may appear on those systems.

Skip intro videos

Enable from launcher[citation needed]
  1. Open the Age of Wonders Launcher.
  2. Open the Settings.
  3. Check the box labeled "Skip Intro".
  4. Press OK.
Enable from registry[citation needed]
  1. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Triumph Studios.
  2. Open "Age of Wonders" and then click on "General".
  3. Right-click on "Skip Intro" and choose "Modify".
  4. Change the value to 1 and click OK.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Triumph Studios\Age of Wonders
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/61500/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Save\[Note 2]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/61500/pfx/[Note 1]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

The in-game menu can be accessed by clicking the dragon icon in the lower-left corner
The in-game menu can be accessed by clicking the dragon icon in the lower-left corner
General settings (external application)
General settings (external application)

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Unscalable UI. Small icons at higher resolutions.
Multi-monitor
Fully supported in windowed mode.
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Resolution is changed by dragging window borders or maximizing.
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Use Borderless Gaming software
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
Frame rate is capped at 30 FPS.
High dynamic range display (HDR)

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Music and sound effects
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
German
Retail only.
Polish
Retail only.

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Notes
Local play
Hot seat
LAN play
Direct TCP protocol.
Online play
The official multiplayer service has been shut down.
Asynchronous multiplayer
Play-by-Email (PBEM); refer to this guide or use the Email Wrapper automates the sending and receiving process to eliminate mistakes made by manual e-mail sending.

Connection types

Issues fixed

Crash at startup on Windows 10

Disable DirectSound
  1. Run the setup executable (AoWSetup.exe found in <path-to-game>)
  2. Go to the settings tab.
  3. Untick Use Direct Sound.
In case of issues, run the executable as administrator and compatibility mode set to Windows XP Service Pack 2.

Retail version does not work on Windows 7

Run the game in windowed or borderless fullscreen windowed mode.[1]

Game stuttering on start, runtime error on exit

Use dgVoodoo 2[citation needed]

Game crashing / mapview error / error during draw

Play the game in fullscreen mode[citation needed]
Ensure Data Execution Prevention (DEP) is set to the default (Windows programs and services only).[2]

Garbled text

Reinstall the game or lower the resolution.[3]

Enabling cheats

Use beatrix command line argument[citation needed]
  1. Make a shortcut to AoW.exe instead of Launcher.exe.
  2. Replace the AoWCompat command line argument with beatrix
  3. Start playing and press Ctrl+ Shift+C. A ringing sound will be heard to confirm it.
  4. Start cheating by typing the words into the game (cheats list)

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
DirectDraw 6
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Maps

The game also supports external singleplayer and multiplayer maps. Map editor is included in the game.
Archive: AoW Heaven Downloads Central

Mods

Most mods are found in the AoW Heaven fansite.
DevEdit, the tool for customizing the game, is available also at the AoW Heaven fansite, and also make sure to read the beginner's guide if you want to start modding.
Warlock's Rule-Set is the most popular rule-set and is a basis to many other rule-sets. For 64-bit systems, download this mod fix.
The Community Content Pack includes a lot of popular mods and maps, including Warlock and various full campaigns.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 95
Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium 166 MHz
System memory (RAM) 32 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 300 MB
Video card (GPU) DirectX 6 compatible
Other 4x CD-ROM drive


Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/61500/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (61500) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.
  2. When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

References

  1. http://aow.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=13,5427,,60
  2. gog.com - last accessed on 26 May 2023
  3. gog.com - last accessed on 26 May 2023