Age of Wonders

Game Information

Game Title: Age of Wonders 4

Platforms:

• PC (May 2, 2023)

• Xbox Series X/S (May 2, 2023)

• PlayStation 5 (May 2, 2023)

Trailers:

Developer: Triumph Studios

Publisher: Paradox Interactive

Review Aggregator:

Critic Reviews

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Age of Wonders 4 is a fantastic entry in the Age of Wonders series, giving players freedom and choice. The game is so full of customization that it gives unlimited possibilities that no two games will ever be the same, nor would anyone want them to be.

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Taking inspiration from RPGs breathes new life into Age of Wonders 4, which balances exciting breadth and surprising approachability.

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Age of Wonders 4 is a great title that will have you wanting to play only one more turn, and only one more round, as you unlock things in Pantheon progress and decide to play one more match.

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Age of Wonders 4 has its pitfalls, and some aspects may end up stinging fans of the franchise. However, it's a wonderful step up in a lot of ways for 4X games and offers an unparalleled degree of customization for the genre. There's so much joy to be had in spending hours playing through a game as a faction and ruler you created. The best stories in games are the ones you make while playing, and Age of Wonders 4 offers you a solid foundation to do so while wrapped in the form of an excellent strategy game.

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Fans and newcomers alike will find an accessible, compelling real-time strategy experience in Age of Wonders 4.

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This is undoubtedly the best 4X game I've played in years, delivering top-notch exploration, combat, and diplomacy alongside a rewarding and dynamic customisation system.

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An accomplished fantasy 4X with RPG leanings and cleverly interlocking systems that plain hasn't grabbed me personally, despite some colourful ideas.

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Age of Wonders 4 offers nearly infinite replayability with the built-in scenarios and ways to create your own, to include all of the included factions and ones you can manifest. This is a game that corrects past mistakes, includes expansions into its core, and has no shortcomings. This is an incredibly beautiful game that is popping with color and visuals. There’s essentially two to three games in here across its 4X, RPG, and tactical combat layers that offer variability and unpredictability. This is a massive game that is able to carry the weight of the series on its shoulders proudly, Age of Wonders 4 is purely magical.

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Getting rid of all the Humble Bundle keys I don't need one at a time. This will close when I get around to it after 12/14/23 8AM ET. Comment to enter. Winner will be selected from the comments using redditraffler.

Note: If you've won, I expect you to at least acknowledge my chat message as a courtesy so I know you got it/used it or I'll block you from entering my giveaways in the future. Thank you!

Edit: The winner is

Getting rid of all the Humble Choice keys I don't need one at a time. This will close when I get around to it after 12/11/23 8AM ET. Comment to enter. Winner will be selected from the comments using redditraffler.

Edit: Winner is

Yes, it’s only Bronze, which means that AoW4 sits at rank 50+. This still, probably, the best release for the series so far.

Edit: Numerous people have pointed out, that AoW4 is gold, when it comes to 2023 releases.

Hi,

I'm wondering which one to buy between age of wonders 4 and planetfall. Obviously planetfall has the financial advantage but lets take that out of the equation it doesn't really matter. What I value in 4x is simplicity or good tutorials or a wealth of information online. I'm not the greatest at games like these, but I do enjoy them. It just takes me a little while to get off the ground and understand mechanics so I do appreciate clarity and flexible difficulty options.

Thanks so much for the help

Age of Wonders 4:

PC Gamer 87/100 -

PCGamesN 9/10 -

eXplorminate's EXTENSIVE REVIEW is coming soon, but my personal review is that it's the best fantasy 4X of all time, IMHO, and I can't imagine a 4X fan that won't like it.

Our review is being written by someone who has over 500 hours with it and is a bit more nit-picky, but I'll let you read that soon TM.

I was going to post this in a , but I decided it might be useful to make my own thread given that people new to the Age of Wonders franchise might want to read it, not to mention people who aren't new but could use a refresher on the lore. I think this is reasonably accurate. Still, don't hesitate to correct me if I get anything wrong.

Part 1

The AoW timeline starts in what is pretty much the biblical Garden of Eden. Everyone lives in the Garden happy and safe, but then some of them do The Bad Thing and get kicked out. The people who get kicked out of the Garden are the ancestors of the Humans. However, unlike the bible version there are still other people living in the Garden who don't get kicked out, which are the ancestors of the Archons (AoW1 calls them Highmen, but every other game calls them Archons so that's what I'll use). The humans are not having a good time since everywhere outside the Garden is terrible at this point, but the Archons still remember when they lived with the Humans and decide to help them out. Their plan is to conquer a new world, populate that world with other races (mainly Elves) to help make it perfect for Humans to live on, and then give it to the Humans as their new home.

They set this plan in motion, but it takes a long time. The Elves now mostly live in the Valley of Wonders and after all this time most of them don't even remember that they're part of some divine plan, so they settle in and get comfortable. The Elves are ruled by a wise and benevolent Wizard King named Inioch, who's one of the few people alive who remembers the Archons. The other races have Wizard Kings as well, but they're not important right now. Anyway, after a while the Archons figure that the job is done and place a bright new star in the sky to signal the arrival of the humans. Inioch realizes that this means the Elves need to give up their home, and as you might guess he's not happy about this, especially since most of the Elves don't even know they're supposed to leave. The Archons show up in person to convince Inioch to get out, but Inioch buys some time by telling them he can prove everyone will live together in harmony (which is what they've been doing so far, so he figures it's a safe bet) so the Elves don't need to leave. The Archons spread out across the world to keep an eye on things, and a new faction is created among the Elves called the Keepers, who want to learn all about the holy wisdom of the Archons but still have no idea what their true purpose is.

At some point Inioch has a son named Meandor, but the child's mother dies and Inioch wastes no time to get remarried and has a daughter named Julia with his second wife. This makes a lot of the Elves very angry, not in the least because having more than one child is apparently illegal for Elves, but Inioch argues that Julia is meant to replace his first wife (in society, not in marriage) so she doesn't really count. Not everyone buys this, especially not Meandor who doesn't like having a potential rival to Inioch's inheritance. This forms the first foundation for what would later become the Cult of Storms and the Dark Elves. Around this time, the first Humans start showing up as well and immediately start doing what Humans do best: Genocide. The Humans have been promised dominion over this world, so they set to conquering and killing everyone who isn't Human. Though at this point they're mostly murdering races nobody cares about like Orcs and Lizardmen, so nobody's really all that bothered. So when they reach the Valley of Wonders, the Keepers (having been soaking up the Archon propaganda all this time) welcome them with open arms and Inioch orders the Dwarves to open up a mountain pass into the Valley of Wonders so the Humans can get in more easily. This is Inioch's second mistake, and it doesn't do much to make him more popular since nobody really likes the Humans. However, a large portion of the Human race still lives outside of the Valley, where they get bogged down fighting Orcs, Goblins, Lizards, and basically everything else they come across. The Valley Humans demand that the Elves help them out, but the Elves really aren't interested in getting involved in the Human wars. In response the Humans blame the Elves for literally everything bad that ever happened to them. Eventually the tension comes to a boiling point when the Humans "discover" "evidence" that the Elves were planning to murder all Humans all along, so in a totally justified pre-emptive strike the Humans murder all the Elves instead. They burn down the Elven capital, slaughter every Elven civilian they get their hands on, and murder the Wizard King Inioch on his throne.

Not all Elves are killed tough, as the (second) Elven queen barely manages to escape the carnage with her daughter Julia. Meandor however gets caught up in the fighting and is struck down, mortally injured. The Humans turn the entire Elven capital into one big open grave and just pile up the Elven corpses in the middle of it, and Meandor gets thrown on top of one of those piles. However, Meandor turns out to be not quite dead and eventually wakes up, manages to heal himself, and escapes the city. He joins up with the Cult of Storms who accept him as their leader and the heir to Inioch's throne. Meanwhile the Humans are having a grand old time slaughtering every non-Human in the Valley. The Dwarves retreat into the mountains and close the mountain passes, hoping to prevent the Humans from getting out of the Valley, but this proves to be futile as not only do the Dwarves become the main target of the Humans now, suffering incredible losses and almost destroying their society, but the Humans aren't even terribly bothered by the blockade since they're excellent seafarers and keep getting reinforcements from across the sea. At this point the order of things pretty much breaks down entirely, as every faction is either fighting for its own survival or is adding to the chaos in an attempt to profit from it. The Cult of Storms, despite being more popular than ever due to Meandor's leadership and the fact that they were right about the Humans all along, fails to accomplish anything of note due to constant infighting. The Keepers mostly hide out in the forest, joined by the Elven queen and Julia, who they claim is Inioch's true heir. Of course, this only makes Meandor more pissed off. Meanwhile the Humans continue to expand from the Valley, while at the fringes of civilization other races like the Azracs and the Frostlings try to conquer new lands of their own.

The Azracs run into the Keepers and get totally wrecked. In desperation, they reveal their secret weapon, an Undead artifact called the Horn of the Dead. Their deal is simple: Give us everything you have or we will blow the Horn and drown the world in skeletons. Before they can do anything though, Meandor's wife Melenis sneaks into their fortress and blows the Horn herself. This ruins everything forever and the best part is that the Azracs take the blame for it. Classic Dark Elf shit. Now there's Undead everywhere, and the first thing they do is try to seduce Meandor with promises of power. Meandor isn't quite that stupid though, so he tells them to get lost. They next turn to the Humans, and have more success there. Human Necromancers start appearing and causing trouble, growing the Undead hordes. People everywhere get scared and flee to the well-defended big cities, which causes famine and plague to spread, which causes even more Undead. Literally nobody is having a good time anymore. Fortunately, the Archons are still around and they're experts when it comes to fighting Undead. They rally all the races under their banner to fight the Undead, except Meandor and his alliance of "evil" races who don't want anything to do with the Archons. They're not dumb enough to help the Undead either though, so they just get out of everyone's way and hide underground. The Archons win and everything's fine again, except it obviously isn't fine.

After the First Skeleton War things are quiet for a bit as everyone catches their breath, and there's a short period of peace. However, the Archons are like well we knew that you assholes couldn't live in peace, so now everyone needs to abandon their home and give it to the Humans. Why? Because I'm literally Jesus and I'm telling you to get the hell out. This obviously accomplishes the opposite of what they wanted and war immediately breaks out again. This time, the Cult of Storms makes the first move and has the Elven queen assassinated. However, this obviously accomplishes the opposite of what they wanted because it only makes Julia more popular (who herself is old enough to rule now), and the Cult wasn't exactly popular to begin with after refusing to help in the Skeleton War, so now everyone sees them as the bad guys. The Cult is cornered, but Melenis saves the day by casting a giant Earthquake spell on the Dwarves, trapping them in their underground homes. Thus, the Cult escapes while the Keepers are forced to save the Dwarves.

Having just barely gotten away and his Cult in shambles, Meandor is getting desperate now. Luckily someone gave him a good idea: If he can sneak into the Valley of Wonders and resurrect his father Inioch, the Elves would once again be united under a Wizard King. This might've been a good idea, except that the guy who gave him that idea was secretly a Necromancer. The resurrection ritual is sabotaged and instead of getting an Elven Wizard King, they get an Undead Lich King. And remember those corpse piles that the Humans created in the Elven capital? You will never guess what happens to those. So now we've got the Second Skeleton War underway. Of course, the Archons get involved again, except this time they're not planning to kill just the Undead, but everyone who gets in the way of Human supremacy. There's a big four-way war between the Keepers, the Cult, the Archons and the Undead, and long story short the Keepers win. Inioch and the Undead are proper dead again, Meandor is killed, the Cult is dispersed, and the Archons are like whatever we've got other things to do anyway, see you later.

TLDR: Form should have inherent tradeoffs that actually impact your gameplay/choices, Form/Culture/Affinity combinations should unlock unique units for production (Spider Queens, Incarnate, Giants, Basilisks, Dark Angels, Vampire Lords, etc).

Also consider: make your choices matter for Heroes, bring back secret spells, bring back terrain likes/dislikes for morale and economy impacts, make T4/T5 units cool again.

I’ve played Age of Wonders since the original, I love it, AoW4 is a wonderful framework but the world feels a little bland compared to predecessors. Choices should matter more, the Stellaris-inspired customization is cool but making Form meaningless results in everything feeling too similar. An Orc is not an Elf. Making Form as a Choice MATTER could bring immense depth back into the game.

Form

Form should MATTER, more than just a minor visual effect. While I appreciate the Devs desire for customization and not pidgeon-holing races into their stereotypical tropes, having form be meaningless does so much to rob the identity of the fantasy races and makes everything feel same-y. We can have both!

It robs the world of so much when facing Orc archers and Elf archers means nothing and they are simply archers that are bigger/bulkier or have pointier ears. Forms should have meaning, identity, and be another IMPACTFUL gameplay choice. You should be able to play as industrious builder-focused Orks, shaman style magic Orcs, or the classic WAAGH choppy CC Orcs- but an Orc should STILL have inherent qualities that are significantly more meaningful than the Trait choices (and Trait choices can still exist to help push customization!). An Orc is not an Elf.

So how do we make Form matter? 2 ways, that fit in the current framework of the game, and help bring the sense of WONDER back into this game:

- Forms need inherent tradeoffs, that you cannot change, independent of traits

- Forms need UNIQUE UNITS that are unlocked dependent on your Society/Affinity

INHERENT TRADEOFFS EXAMPLES: (numbers obviously subject to more thorough balancing, but you can see the meaningful choice and identity present):

- Ratkin: Max Stack Size +2, Def -2, Res -2, Dmg -20%, HP -20%, Tier 1 upkeep -50%, Tier 1 prod/gold cost -50%, Tier 3 upkeep +30%, City Population Growth +30%

Now you can ACTUALLY play as a HORDE. Ratkin can still be Keen-Sighted, or Strong, or whatever you prefer, but now they have IDENTITY. When you are playing against Ratkin, you know you are facing HORDES of RATS. These motherfuckers have stacks of 8 units. They can flood the battlefield. Your dream of playing as Skaven can be realized. Their playstyle can shift to throwing BODIES at problems, instead of cultivating a few stacks where you never rarely lose a unit the whole game. And you can still customize this RAT HORDE to be magic-y, or shoot-y, or overwhelming bodies in melee with your traits/society. Of course need to balance the actual numbers, and make sure it doesn’t allow OP stacks of 8 T3 spam, but you get the idea.

- Orcoid: +20% Melee damage, HP +20%, -2 Resistance/Status Resistance

Orcs are basic and THAT’S OK. They are BIG, they hit HARD, they are Orcs. You can double down with Strong Orcs, or maybe your Orcs are Resistant and not so shit at taking magic damage, but they are still ORCS.

- Lizardfolk: +20HP additional Regen per Strategic Turn, -50% Morale Lost, Basic Seafaring unlocked, Water/Coastal tile income +30%, City Happiness +40%

LIZARDS! They regenerate. They are swimmy and like water. They don’t lose morale easily. Their cities are happy because their society is ancient and sophisticated, caste system blah blah blah like in Warhammer.

- Toadkin: +50% Affinity gain, -20% Melee damage, -2 Status Resistance, Research +30%

Think Slann. Whatever kinds of Toads you build, they will gain affinity quickly, they will research quickly, but are weaker in melee and susceptible to effects (they are fat squishy toads with sensitive frog skin after all). They are MAGIC in a different way than Elves.

- Elfkin: Overland vision +2, +1 Resistance/+2 Status Resistance, +30% Magic damage (melee & ranged), City Population Growth -30%, unit upkeep +20%

Now Elves are good at MAGIC, whatever kind of Elf build you want to go with. They grow slowly, don’t grab as much territory, and don’t have tons of units- but can deal scary magic damage and resist shit. Oh they’re Elves, so they can scout well.

-Dwarfkin: +2 Defense, +4 Status Resistance, -8 Move Point Cost on Mountains, Gold Income +20%, -25% Affinity gain

Dwarves. They love mountains, they love gold, they are tough little bastards, but they’re stubborn so they are notably slower to pick up affinity.

- Humans: +50% General Affinity, +1 Trait pick (either Mind or Body)

The generalists. Always hard to make interesting, but maybe something like this to showcase how mutable humans can be.

UNIQUE UNITS: Another key to making Form GREAT again and bringing back that sense of Wonder in the world. Different Form/Culture/Affinity breakpoints should unlock UNIQUE units. There are so many combinations where you could throw in absolutely ICONIC AoW units and actually make your Form/Society/Affinity combination matter without being game-breaking or forcing you into 1 particular path. EXAMPLES OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD:

- Elfkin + Dark: SPIDER QUEENS. BRING THEM BACK

- Elfkin + Dark + 6 Shadow Affinity: Incarnate. This unit-possessing little spirit was epic

- Elfkin + Mystic + 6 Shadow Affinity: Eldritch Horror

- Orcoid, Barbarian: WARLORDS. The iconic T3 Melee Orc that absolutely wrecked things up close

- Orcoid + 6 Nature Affinity: Glutton

- Dwarfkin + Industrious + 6 Materium Affinity: Steam Tank

- Dwarfkin + Barbarian: Firstborn

- Dwarfkin + Feudal + 6 Nature Affinity: Stone Giant

- Lizardmen+ Feudal: BASILISK

- Human + High + 4 Order Affinity: Pegasus Rider

- Human + Dark + 4 Chaos Affinity + 6 Shadow Affinity: Black Angel

- Any form + Mystic + 6 Chaos Affinity: Efreet

- Frostling transformation + Mystic: Northern Glow

Wow that was a lot. Other things in no particular order that would also help bring back the WONDER:

- Heroes being tied to your affinity/culture choices. You shouldn’t be able to get Skeleton-summoning necromancer heroes unless you’re Shadow affinity or Dark culture or some combo there-in. It’s so silly that any choice and any play-through results in the EXACT SAME heroes choices being available. Make your choices matter for Heroes!

- Secret Spells: Bring them back! Additional/varied reward, they’re cool to find, you can make them interesting

- Terrain likes/dislikes: Bring this back too. Maybe tie it to Form (or Form/Culture combo). It’s cool, it’s thematic, it would open up more terrain/terraforming based strategy and actually make Mind traits of Adaptations potentially a very cool avenue to go down and specialize in.

- Tier 4/5 units: Make them better. Make them feel powerful and unique and cool again. The Imperium system already provides a fantastic way to dis-incentivize spamming T4/T5 units, so make me WANT to clear that wonder/annex it/recruit that Fire Giant early. Make MORE T4/T5 units. Make some have both a 3 hit attack and a charge attack. Make them have more interesting abilities.

That's my essay. It will probably fall on deaf ears, but who knows- maybe one of the incredible modders will be inspired and make some of this a reality.

So this game caught my eye as a fan of both warlock master of the arcane and civ.

I kind of wanted to know what players of previous entries think/ expect and anyone who was involved in the beta's impression.

Seems to not be being covered to heavily but the early reviews seem promising.

On a gameplay mechanics note, what do you think of an overmap and battle maps both being turnbased? Seems almost like a TBS totalwar.

Edit: It's out on steam.

So a brief description since this is actually getting upvoted and looked at, Age of wonders 3 looks a lot like Civilization,but instead of choosing a pre existing historical empire you create a fantasy one by choosing a race (elf dwarf draconian etc) and a class (sorcerer warlord druid etc) and this lays out your basic skills.

You then grow a city and fight neutral monsters and enemy players on an overmap, however actual combat zooms into a chess like hex grid where armies of 6 or more units fight and last man standing wins the battlefield.

Beating neutrals gets you loot (what makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power?) which you equip to your starting hero / recruited hero to buff resists and get abilities.

There is underground combat and naval combat I believe.