
AoW2 changed so much about the mechanics the writers kinda had to retcon some stuff to make it fit. The story itself can be a little hard to follow if you only play the games themselves. Here is a collection of links that delve into the lore of the series. (Archons) Suffice it to say the evil protagonist and his angelic allies have a very hard time understanding eachother. My personal favourite is where you start on the evil side and end up allying with the neutral lizardmen and then the pure good High Men. The Elven ending is considered canon, and involves starting as a Keeper and allying with the Dwarves and the Elves when those choices present themselves. NB: you can play through the AoW1 campaign in several ways and there are six endings. UI is clunky and the game is simpler than AoW3, but it's still quite a lot of fun and I find the campaigns to be the most fun in the series. It runs okay-ish on modern machines, last I checked. You can certainly play the AoW1 campaign if you like older games. (In particular: Melenis is important in the Eternal Lords campaign.) Some of these are relevant to the AoW3 story. This site has some of the backstory of AoW1:Īnd a timeline describing the events before the first AoW1 game campaigns It takes place several centuries later and mostly has a very different set of characters and feels like a different type of story.


The story of AoW2 in particular feels a bit disjointed compared to AoW1. There is an ongoing story, but it is fairly loose.
