Line #10 YMMV/AgeOfWonders


1	* AccidentalInnuendo: It's jokingly rumored among the fandom that the reason for the High Men's change of name in the sequel to Archons is due to the original name's similar pronunciation to a certain component of the female genitalia.
2	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: The game had quite a plenty good music tracks.
3	* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: Whenever building a new settlement with a pioneer, doing it with either goblins (bonus to population growth, which will allow to transform it into a village faster) or at least any race that has a production bonus (faster construction of essential buildings). The other racial bonuses simply aren't that great for developing new settlements, while the race of the settlement can be swapped later on with ease for something more suitable for your goals.
4	* DesignatedHero[=/=]DesignatedVillain: We're told that the Elves, Halflings and Dwarves are good, and the Orcs, Goblins and Dark Elves are 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.
5	** Never mind the fact that "good" races enslave the population of their enemies just like the evil ones.
6	** The Highmen are even designated as "pure good", although it is hinted that they either exterminate or expel all other races (even the good ones) for the sake of a World of Men.
7	** For what it's worth, the Goblins use suicide bombers and poison unlike their Good counterparts. There's a lot more violence if you look at the FlavorText of their other units too.
8	** The very tutorial teaches you that the best way to deal with unhappy populations of opposite-alignment races is to either "migrate" the population to replace it with a more friendly race, or ''burn the place to the ground'', killing the population and forcing the survivors into banditry.
9	--->'''Tutorial prompt:''' "These goblins are more trouble to keep happy than they're worth. Let's see how well they like living off the land, without roofs over their heads! (...) Notice the angry party of goblins that has appeared next to their former home. These are likely to be quite unfriendly creatures. If they should attack you (and since you burned down their home, they likely will), feel free to select automatic or tactical combat to resolve the battle."
10	** The third installment seems to wise up to this. There seems to be more grayness involved among the races, and the alignment of a player is determined by their actions rather than their race. Signing peace treaties and alliances increases the "good" side of the scale, and declaring war on peaceful factions gives "evil" points. Migrating a city to replace its population with your own race is now also seen as an "evil" act and gives points in consequence.
11	* GameBreaker:
12	** The humble Pioneer. AI never uses them, while they allow to perform two equally broken actions: building roads (making it trivial to move around your domain and sending reinforcements before widespread teleportation) and, far more importantly, repairing razed and setting up new settlements. There are two sources of income in this game: on-map features, which are limited in quantity, and settlements. There is literally ''nothing'' preventing you from building one after another, eventually gaining an absurd economic edge due to the sheer amount of those.
13	** In the first game, First Strike on a hero, especially when combined with Cold Strike or Lightning Strike. Whenever you get attacked in melee, you get to attack first with a good chance of 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.
14	** Halfling pony rider is an infamously broken unit from the first game, and spamming them is a reliable way to victory with minimal effort. Pony riders are a particularly cheap tier 1 unit that has tier 2 stats, abilities and survivability, without any real hard counters until late game. They got ''slightly'' nerfed in the sequel, making them "only" a good cavalry scout.
15	** In ''Shadow Magic'', you can use Item Forge to create custom inventory. Despite various restrictions to what can be loaded on items and the fact only three buffs are possible per equipment piece, it's extremely broken.
16	*** An item with the Drain Will and Dominate abilities. A hero equipped with this is practically guaranteed to add any 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.
17	*** Similarly, a combination of Double Strike, Drain Life and First Strike on a single item offers the ability to ''always'' hit first and do so like a train, while regenerating just absurd amounts of HP in the process. Add to it a ring or a shield with Haste and either Physical Protection or Block (or both) and you have a OneManArmy. You can just keep making those items, load them on all your heroes and simply ignore using non-hero units from that moment on.
18	*** While it borders on ComplexityAddiction, Marksmanship stacks up infinitely and is pretty cheap item effect to add. Making two rings with +3 Marksmanship, along with a weapon that has Fire Cannon and +2 Marksmanship on it and giving it to a hero with Marksmanship levels (up to +4) offers in total +12 Attack ''and'' Damage to default 18 Attack and 16 Damage of Fire Cannon ability. This allows a guaranteed hit on just anything within the range of the attack, while dealing no less than 15 damage even with the crappiest damage roll, which is OneHitKill against vast majority of units and almost guaranteed destruction of gates and ''Stone'' Walls in sieges.
19	*** Alternatively, a much cheaper alternative for a "siege" hero is a humble option to Climb Walls, combined with Physical Protection, offering the option to simply charge head-on into the defenders.
20	** The Chain Lightning spell in the first game can stun up to four enemies for a small mana cost, is very easy to target, and it's FriendlyFireproof.
21	** 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.
22	** 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 to absurd levels. Luckily for the other players, it takes a long time to pull your research to this level.
23	* HilariousInHindsight: At first, one might think that Anon [[https://64.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3vemryXFK1rv30aco1_1280.jpg bearing a resemblance to Morgan Freeman]] was inspired by the latter playing the role of God in Film/BruceAlmighty and Film/EvanAlmighty, were it not for the fact that Age of Wonders 2 actually ''predates the first of those two films by a year''.
24	* TheScrappy: [[ChildMage Symon]] from ''Shadow Magic'' is widely disliked because he was born a wizard and can only cast low-level spells due to having only one sphere from every element. Other wizards, on the other hand, trained long and hard to hone their abilities upon gaining them or were otherworldly beings in the first place, and most of them can cast high-level spells despite specializing in a specific number of elements.
25	* ScrappyWeapon: Throw blades, which seem to exist solely so bows and poison darts don't look that terrible by comparison by mid-game. They are by far the weakest ranged attack in the game and even if somehow the attack itself lands, they deal meagre 0-2 damage per blade. At least poison darts deal damage over time from the poison and bows have good range and a half-decent damage output as long as they can pierce through armour. While throwing blades ''do'' benefit the most from Marksmanship upgrades, there are simply better weapons around.
26	* ThatOneLevel: The first and third Dwarven 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.

Context YMMV / AgeOfWonders