History YMMV / AgeOfWonders

* TheScrappy: [[ChildMage Symon]] from ''Shadow Magic'' is considered the franchise's equivalent of [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Wesley Crusher]] because he was born a wizard and had one sphere from every element. Other wizards, on the other hand, trained long and hard to hone their abilities upon discovering them or were otherworldly beings in the first place, and most of them specialized in a specific number of elements.

* DesignatedHero / DesignatedVillain: We're told that the Elves, Halflings and Dwarves are good, and the Orcs, Goblins and Dark Elves evil, but they don't play any differently. While the good races are described briefly as having peaceful wholesome habits and the evil races are supposed to be violent and aggressive, we don't really see this in action either. Finally, the Elves' goal is peace while the Dark Elves want genocide of the humans, but they want the genocide because the humans did it to them first. This kind of retribution doesn't necessarily fall outside the realm of what many "good" characters do. And in gameplay the difference doesn't show up at all: both sides are equally warlike, and have the option of fighting or buying off neutral races. Furthermore, a central gameplay mechanic is the ability to repopulate captured cities with a population of a friendly race; it's plain cultural imperialism at best and the good and evil races do this with equal impunity.

* EvilIsSexy: Karissa, the female Wizard of Fire from the second game.
* FridgeLogic: Somehow, a lone Goblin Bomber can manage to capture an unguarded walled city, when their attack is explicitly said to be suicidal and they are only ever shown to carry the single large bomb and no other armament (which is not enough to get through a stone wall or sometimes even a wooden one). And even then, the Bomber is still clearly shown as being fully loaded afterwards.
** The bomber can at least threaten to blow up the town (in theory), but how does an inanimate siege unit manage to capture towns?1

** In the first game, First Strike on a hero, especially when combined with Cold Strike or Lightning Strike. Whenever the you get attacked in melee, you get to attack first with a good chance at freezing or stunning the attacker, thus negating the attack. Or with high enough damage, just killing the attacker outright. With the Customize Hero option, this can be bought on a leader at the start of the game, thus leading to a OneManParty.
** In ''Shadow Magic'', you can create an inventory item with the Drain Will and Dominate abilities. A hero equipped with this is practically guaranteed to add any one enemy unit from every battle to your side, permanently. Even the ones supposedly immune to mind control. Even enemy ''heroes''. That results in many players going into the nomads' third mission with a killer stack of 7 heroes.

** Sacred Wrath, a spell that hits everything on the battlefield with holy light, becomes FriendlyFireproof in ''Shadow Magic''. With enough casting points, it can be cast up to three times (more with well upgraded mage heroes), making for a very effective way to damage and debilitate a large garrison or strike force.
** The spell Flood, given a couple of turns, floods every baseline ground tile with water. The aquatic Lizardmen are already at a strategic advantage on watery maps, but with this spell in play this advantage grows into absurd levels. Luckily for the other players, it takes a long time to pull your research to this level.
* TheScrappy: [[ChildMage Symon]] from ''Shadow Magic'' is considered the franchise's equivalent of [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Wesley Crusher]] because he was born a wizard and had one sphere from every element. Other wizards, on the other hand, trained long and hard to hone their abilities upon discovering them or were otherworldly beings to begin with, and most of them specialized in a specific number of elements.

* CrowningMusicOfAwesome: The game had quite a plenty good music tracks.

* GameBreaker: In the first game, First Strike on a hero, especially when combined with Cold Strike or Lightning Strike. Whenever the you get attacked in melee, you get to attack first with a good chance at freezing or stunning the attacker, thus negating the attack. Or with high enough damage, just killing the attacker outright. With the Customize Hero option, this can be bought on a leader at the start of the game, thus leading to a OneManParty.

** The spell Flood, given a couple of turns, floods every baseline ground tile with water. The aquatic Lizardmen are already at a strategic advantage on watery maps, but with this spell in play this advantage grows into absurd levels. Luckily for the other players it takes a long time to pull your research to this level.

* ThatOneLevel: The first and third dwarf missions of the first game's campaign start you with few resources and run you through ''huge'' mazes of dark, enemy filled tunnels to reach specific points on the map. If you don't know exactly how to get to the goal, it's easy to either spread your forces too thin or get lost, both of which give the enemy time to build up strong forces undisturbed.

* CharacterAlignment: Ultimately a battle between good and evil with the neutral races playing wild card. In ''The Wizard's Throne'', alignment is now determined by whatever the dominant alignment of your forces is, rather than by your own stats. During the Wizard's throne you cycle between good and evil and back again in an attempt to restore the Balance Between Good And Evil.

* TheScrappy: [[ChildMage Symon]] from ''Shadow Magic'' is considered the franchise's equivalent of [[StarTrek Wesley Crusher]] because he was born a wizard and had one sphere from every element. Other wizards, on the other hand, trained long and hard to hone their abilities upon discovering them or were otherworldly beings to begin with, and most of them specialized in a specific number of elements.

* CrowningMomentOfFunny: the entire third game is made of this to the point where it's almost impossible to take it seriously. Every second hero says something absurdly ridiculous when first introduced, every second road sign is a joke, every second unit description is dripping with sarcasm and that's not even talking about the running gags and brick jokes littered all over the game maps.

* GameBreaker: In ''Shadow Magic'', you can create an inventory item with the Drain Will and Dominate abilities. A hero equipped with this is practically guaranteed to add any one enemy unit from every battle to your side, permanently. Even the ones supposedly immune to mind control. Even enemy ''heroes''. That results in many players going into the nomads' third mission with a killer stack of 7 heroes.

* AwesomeButImpractical: The Spirit of War may reward quests with some useful spells like Hellfire and Fireball but his quests are often StupidEvil [[ViolationOfCommonSense Violations of Common Sense]] and he'll put you at odds with the far more practical Spirit of Order.
** The spells Hellfire and Tremor damage everything on the battlefield, including city structures you might have planned on using. The former is useful in moderation, though, as machines are weak to fire.

* OneManParty: Thanks to a couple of {{GameBreaker}}s, a properly customized hero is basically invincible. It's possible to beat the entire single player campaign, as well as most AI skirmishes, using only a single unit.

** Sacred Wrath, a spell that hits everything on the battlefield with holy light, becomes FriendlyFireproof in ''Shadow Magic''. With enough casting points, it can be cast up to three times (more with well upgraded mage heroes), making for a very effective way to damage and debilitate a large garrison or strike force.

* TrueNeutral: The neutral races help fill in gaps on the FantasyAxisOfEvil and FiveRaces.

* AwesomeButImpractical: The Spirit of War may reward quests with some useful spells like Hellfire and Fireball but his quests are often ChaoticStupid [[ViolationOfCommonSense Violations of Common Sense]] and he'll put you at odds with the far more practical Spirit of Order.

* AwesomeButImpractical: The Spirit of War may reward quests with some useful spells like Hellfire and Fireball but his quests often fall into ViolationOfCommonSense territory and he'll put you at odds with the much more practical Spirit of Order.

* DownerEnding: If the Undead win, then an evil player will become one of them, but a good player will realise his error and try to run, only to be hunted down by the demons.