Will Elemental be the TBS Fanatasy game to replave Age of Wonders SM?

Actually I went back on AOW a long long time ago and went back to MoM.  AOW just never impressed me as much as it seems to have others.

But EWOM will be the game to replace MoM for me, I'm sure of that.

Call me a blashpemer but I never liked AoW. While I admired the art direction, the overall feel of the game and interesting magic system, but I deeply despised the combat feel and it's mechanics. My 0.02€ (don't hate me :)).

I don't know if it will replace AoW for you, but I've a strong feeling that you might like this game - even if only to some small degree. The second question is much simpler; I strongly believe that EWoM will offer much more robust 'API' than AoW.

id have to agree with rishkith and red and say i never really got into the game, but Id also say if you liked AoW, you will most likely enjoy this game as well, perhaps even more so! I thoroughly enjoyed MoM and im hoping to see this game take the best of it and improve on it ten fold  

Blasphemy! While I enjoy MoM, I actualy discovered it after years of playing AoW, so it can't quite compete. Sadly, turn-based fantasy games like MoM and AoW are a neglected niche, so I'm really looking forward to Elemental.

One of the major reasons I liked the game (AOW:SM) was the combat system. I never saw the point in using the fast combat options since the funnest part of the game was directing your troops in combat on the battlefield.

I did play MOM and while it was ok it did not grab me like the AOW games but it has been a long time since I played it.

Hell yeah, the AoW:SM combat system was decent...it's a shame that Elemental's combat system will be continous turn based, instead of real turn based, but maybe it will work very well. We shall see..:)

Elemental is going to slaughter AoW:SM....end of story.

If they put in an option to turn it off then I will be fine with it since I will never use it.

Well I hope so. I also hope to be able to create units in a editor without having to be a programmer like in AOW:SM.

My favorite part of AoW was the multiple maps. I loved seeing a vast underground kingdom of dwarves and goblins etc. and also digging with the moles to expose new areas.

Yea the multipule mapps were pretty cool.

FYI:  Real time is nothing more than a simultaneous turn system with auto turn ends and really small turns.

You just stretched the definition of the word "turn" far beyond what it originally meant, good work!   

Unfortunately, when you do this, you essentially redefine all games to be turn-based, almost completely negating the meaning of the word.

I prefer to use the dictionary definition of turn:

–noun

a time or opportunity for action which comes in due rotation or order to each of a number of persons, animals, etc.: It's my turn to pay the bill.

Using this definition of turn, the phrase "simultaneous turn" becomes an oxymoron.

Bellack, I think it's safe to say that if you're a fan of AOW:SM you're going to like Elemental a lot.

In the meantime, I might recommend the Fall From Heaven II mod for Civ4.  While it does not have tactical combat, it might hold your interest for a while until Elemental is released.  I've been playing it for a long while now and I'm still having a blast with it.

While true it's not exactly saying much.  AoW:SM really was pretty terrible game mechanics wise.  It looked nice, and had a decent though not overly impressive story line.

A better comparison would be to Wesnoth I think, even though Wesnoth is almost an entirely different kind of game.  At least Wesnoth is a really freaking well done game.

The sea units were bad because they rarly did anything until Players released to overhall patch that really made the game shine. Still the best fantasy stratagy Turn based game I've ever played to date. After all was said an done my friends and I had created over 200 unites per race and 500 independants. We created some very hard maps. I never really played the story line version of the game just jumped in to playing the maps Player and auto generated.

I just played some AOW SM based on this. And i only played like 30 minutes but i like it. Reminds me ALOT of MoM. Infact nothing else i played comes close.

What about AOW 2? I read reviews at Gamespot and they seem to be better than part 1.

Why AOW SM? and not AOW2?

AOW: SM has a random map generator.  AOW 2 does not.

Isn't AOW SM the most recent version of the AoW series? I'm pretty sure it came out after AoW.

Either way they are both gigantic improvements over AoW 1 (which had lots of promise but was a giant disapointment).

Stupid question...What is "Wesnoth"?

I think that AoW is the best fantasy strategy turn based game since Master of Magic, but, after playing the beta, I think that EWOM is different, specially in technology path and city management. EWOM is something like a Civilization with tactical combat and adventure, and I like a lot.

I think I will play both, and King's Bounty and Disciples III.

Raven X:

http://www.wesnoth.org/

Test it, it's free

Thanks. Looks interesting.

Also have a look at the Wesnoth Experimental forum - for those good ideas not in mainline Wesnoth.   I especially recommend Wesnoth-XP (currently for version 1.8 of Wesnoth), talked about in the Reduce RNG influence thread.   (I use RNG-Smoothing setting of 3 and default Damage split ratio of 0% - so each attack does 0, one third, two thirds, or all (standard damage) depending on how many, 0, 1, 2 or 3, respectively, of the simulated rolls for each attack, result in a successful hit.  I find this good because in this game, the effect of bad luck is worse than the effect of good luck.  This mod makes the game a little more forgiving, yet still keeping you on your toes.)

The game is also *very* balanced.   Simple, but it has a wealth of tactics.

Best regards,
Steven.

hmmm you could tell us about wesnoth some months ago to kill the time not 2 days before elemental release

Well, I only started on these forums on the last day of June (so effectively July).  When you're new to a game forum, you don't immediately go suggesting other games to play, at least not initially.   And Wesnoth will still be good to fire up every now and then for a change, even if Elemental is really fantastic and has been released.

Best regards,
Steven.