Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic

Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic

Developers
	Triumph Studios
Publishers
Retail	Gathering of Developers
Digital, original	Triumph Studios
Digital, current	Paradox Interactive
Release dates
Windows	July 25, 2003
Reception
Metacritic	82
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
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: Shadow Magic 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 2 Heaven with Shadow Magic support as well.

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SecuROM 4 DRM.
Publisher website
GOG.com
Green Man Gaming
Humble Store
Steam

Essential improvements

Patches

The latest official patch is v1.30.0.2616.

Skip intro videos

Change settings
Open the game's setup executable (AoWSMSetup.exe). Uncheck the box labelled "Show Intro". Press OK.

Improve performance

On modern systems, the game's input is sluggish if not modified.

The following methods may also fix the issue related to the error message Runtime error 217 at 4000C2DE.

Method 1: Use dxwrapper
Download dxwrapper Extract dxwrapper.asi, dxwrapper.dll, dxwrapper.ini and Stub\d3d8.dll to <path-to-game>. Open dxwrapper.ini with a text editor. In the [Compatibility] section, set D3d8to9 and DDrawCompat to 1. Save the file and close it. Run AoWSMSetup.exe and enable Direct3D.

Method 2: Use dgVoodoo 2
Download dgVoodoo 2. Extract dgVoodoo.conf and dgVoodooCpl.exe to <path-to-game>. Open the MS\x86 folder inside the archive and extract the 3 DLLs to <path-to-game>.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Triumph Studios\Age of Wonders Shadow Magic\
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/61520/pfx/

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Save\
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/61520/pfx/

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

General settings (external application)

Gameplay settings (in-game)

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		HUD stretches from 4:3.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
60 FPS and 120+ 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

Sound settings (in-game)

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Sound effects, music
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost		Using Alt+Tab ↹ from a fullscreen (non-Direct3D) setting will render a black screen, forcing a hard exit from the game.
Royalty free audio

Localizations

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

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Players	Notes
Local play		Hot seat
LAN play		8
Online play		8	Does not have a native online lobby; used GameSpy Arcade for matchmaking.
Asynchronous multiplayer		Play by Email

Connection types

Type	Native	Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting
Direct IP

Issues fixed

Can not run game in fullscreen on later versions of Windows

This problem shows up as Window being the only display option available.

Set AoWSMSetup.exe to run in compatibility mode for Windows XP SP3 or 16-bit (65536) color mode.

Install dgVoodoo 2.

Gibberish text

This occurs when using very high resolution, likely breaking the character mapping in the fonts.

Use a lower resolution (e.g. 1920x1080)

Shaders do not work in windowed mode

This problem has numerous effects, such as:

• Red overlay that indicates areas pioneers can't build an outpost doesn't appear.
• Red overlay that indicates targets that are out of range doesn't appear.
• Zoom level is stuck at 100% and can't be changed.
• Bloom effect around lights is not present.

Configure dgVoodoo 2
Install dgVoodoo 2. Open dgVoodoo.conf and edit the following lines to say the following: FullScreenMode = false,ScalingMode = centered,WindowedAttributes = Borderless and AppControlledScreenMode = false. Open the game's setup executable (AoWSMSetup.exe) and change the Display Mode option to the monitor's resolution. Also make sure that Use Direct3D is enabled.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	7
DirectDraw	7

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Audio	Miles Sound System
Cutscenes	Bink Video

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	98, ME, 2000, XP
Processor (CPU)	450 MHz
System memory (RAM)	128 MB	192 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	900 MB
Video card (GPU)	DirectX 8.1 compatible