Nice to see some other wiz 8 fans, maybe I'll make a thread in the tavern.

JJ, now I'm interested in MOO. I remember playing one of them with a friend but from your description it must have been moo 2.

Well, the original MOO is abandonware, so it should be no problem to give it a go. It runs with the Dosbox.
Expect a FAST game, like HoMM 2. Of course there is the added plus of DIPLOMACY which is clearly one of the game's strong points.
I'd strongly recommend a try.

Well, I picked up Fantasy Wars the other night.
If you were a fan of Fantasy General, I strongly recommend it. It's basically the same thing, but with larger battlefields and much better graphics. My only qualm with it is the lack of scenarios. There are only 4 that I am seeing, unless more open up later. I haven't gotten into the campaigns yet.

Overall though, it's fun for the type of game that it is.

Adding my own 2gp...

I quite enjoy Wizardry 8, depending on what kind of party you create and where you are in the game it could be sort of a turn-based strategy in combat, or more of a 'watch the party slaughter things easily'. Either way, it's a game I quite enjoy, and I dislike that the company who created this fine series went out of business.

Age of Wonders series, I enjoy all 3 titles of it that I have (Age of Wonders, Age of Wonders 2, Age of Wonders Shadow Magic). I agree that Shadow Magic is a good one to get, the gameplay is (in my opinion) better than AoW1 by far and noticably improved from the much more similar AoW2. Campaigns, though, AoW1 has the latter two beat.

Lords of Magic Special Edition, I don't know how many people like this game, but I quite enjoy it. Never managed to play it multiplayer. Single player I found challenging. A noteworthy thing to mention of this game is that the combats are not turn-based, they're pausable real-time.

I can definitely agree with the recommendation for Etherlords. I tended to play the second one a bit more than the first, but I think the first had more of its advertised features fully working. (WARNING: Both Etherlords games were programmed by Nival, so Nival haters, BEWARE!)

(Time to get burned at the stake) I have never tried the old Master of Magic. Nor have I ever played any of the Disciples series, and the only Master of Orion I have ever tried was the third. I didn't much care for MoO3, though, and haven't played it much.

As many others I really can recommend Disciples 2 although it has some really irritating features. As for Age of Wonders... I really dislike them, the fights take too much time and are generally boring, but there is not much point playing using only auto combat.

I really recommend King of Dragon Pass. It is very unique game especially for it's time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_Dragon_Pass

quote:

Originally posted by B_Doomreaver:
the only Master of Orion I have ever tried was the third. I didn't much care for MoO3, though, and haven't played it much.

Well, no wonder as the third one is clearly the worst. But the other ones are good.

Amost everything has has been said, but I agree that
Age of Wonders is best in its Shadow Magic version.
Master of Orion 1 was better than 2.
The Total War series is addictive (although I think the current Medieval II is disappointing)
Master of Magic is "holy grail of all fantasy-based strategy games". I still have my copy, but I'm glad to hear it is available as a free download, and that a remake is in the works (but download *where*?)
And, sadly, the golden age of turn-based games is past, but I can hope that they might come back somewhat as gamers age and reflexes slow.

This seems to be the right place to ask;

Does anyone know a good place to get Etherlords? I played the demo a few years ago, and I was reminded of a while back, and I remember how much fun I had with it. But now I can't seem to find it anywhere.

quote:

Originally posted by LordCobol:
Amost everything has has been said, but I agree that
Age of Wonders is best in its Shadow Magic version.
Master of Orion 1 was better than 2.
The Total War series is addictive (although I think the current Medieval II is disappointing)
Master of Magic is "holy grail of all fantasy-based strategy games". I still have my copy, but I'm glad to hear it is available as a free download, and that a remake is in the works (but download *where*?)
And, sadly, the golden age of turn-based games is past, but I can hope that they might come back somewhat as gamers age and reflexes slow.

This is the place to go (for other goodies as well):
http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/189/Master+of+Magic.html
Make sure to get patch 1.31 as well.

@Ivaron:
I don't know where you are living, but you should be able to get the game via Amazon.(xy). Ebay as well, I'd think.

For the MOM remake the latest news are, the game is planned to be published in 2009; public beta test may begin this year.

Hi, I have not heard of the word "abandonware" before. What is this all about? How does it work? What is "DOSBOX"? I am a newbie at all this. I would like to try it. Thanks

Dosbox is a Dos-emulator for windows that allows running (old) dos-programs in Windwos. See this link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOSBox

Abandonware are games that can be downloaded for free because they are old and no one claims a copyright on them anymore).

Wow, that Abandonia site is awesome! That really brings back some memories. Thanks a lot for that JJ.

Are there any other sites like that though? There were a few games that I really wanted to find, but weren't there.

quote:

Originally posted by Jolly-Joker:
@Ivaron:
I don't know where you are living, but you should be able to get the game via Amazon.(xy). Ebay as well, I'd think.

Thanks! I've never used those sites before, but I guess I could give it a try

quote:

Originally posted by KingImp:
Are there any other sites like that though? There were a few games that I really wanted to find, but weren't there.

The abandonia site has a links section that has other similar sites. What games are you looking for?

Yeah, I've recently downloaded Isles of Terra from some similar site and now I'm trying to make the bloody thing work. It does start, but it tends to crash on a whole arsenal of occasions. I hate emulators...

quote:

The Total War series is addictive (although I think the current Medieval II is disappointing)

At first, I thought it was great, Then i sort of agreed it was disappointing, But now i think its great again, It doesnt have all that many differences from rome that hugely, but it has 3 things going for it,
-Better Moddabiltiy, Most of the mods out for it are great, And most of those that are there to come will be better ( Although currently RTW mods are slightly ahead in terms of work done) And kingdoms added a lot of modding options
-Kingdoms Itself, Adds units and campaigns that are pretty good
-Best of all, The holy Banna of jerusalem
TWC Thread
Stop Pollution! Eat a bannana

I've searched my memories a bit and found 2 more noteworthy strategy space games, both of which are available as download in the net (look for them, if you are interested, and you'll find them).
The first one is from 1988. It was Norm Kroeger's first game for SSI and was called Stellar Crusade. This game is actually a fine example for the games 20 years ago: NO graphics to speak of, but one hell of a lot of gameplay. The game was pretty complex.

The second may ring some bells: Emperor of the Fading Suns from 1996. That game is still played, by the way, and comes with a couple of major fan-made mods.

I've tried playing Disciples 2 a couple of times, but I never liked it. It feels more like a Heroes 1 game than anything else, a really weird one.

I'd recommend Civilization 4 if your into TBS style games.

quote:

Originally posted by PhoenixReborn06:

quote:

Originally posted by KingImp:
Are there any other sites like that though? There were a few games that I really wanted to find, but weren't there.

The abandonia site has a links section that has other similar sites. What games are you looking for?

In my enthusiasm over seeing all these oldie, but goodies, I completely missed the links. I was able to find 2 of the 3 games I wanted, but I'm not so sure about downloading them. With this Abandonia, it tells you if it works on XP, which I like. I don't want to be downloading these special programs to get these games to work otherwise.

Anyway, the games were:
Lexicross (a space themed Wheel of Fortune so to speak)
Dark Sun: Shattered Lands
Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager

Dosbox is strongly recommended - the latest version 0.72 is a 1.2 MB exe.file, while the basics of "getting the games to run" within that shell are fairly easy to handle and even to configure (since it emulates much slower processor performances of course you can tweak "processor output" with so simple commands as ctrl F8).

Most Windows based programs will run in the compatibility modes XP provides - however, some may require some additional tweaks, for example in the registry.

Edit: Hmmm, I just checked the titles out of curiosity. All three are DOS-titles fromn the 1st half of the 90s and due to the then fairly large amount of base RAM necessary it is VERY probably that they don't run in XP (not enough base ram).

You will need the Dosbox for them.

Thanks for the info on DOSbox. I have used other emulators on my PC that work with Atari, Apple, NES, and SuperNes games. I don't know why, but I just love those older games.