Age of Wonders 4
Rule a fantasy realm of your own design in Age of Wonders 4! Explore new magical realms in Age of Wonders’ signature blend of 4X strategy and turn-based tactical combat. Control a faction that grows and changes as you expand your empire with each turn.Triumph Studios’ award-winning strategy series has emerged into a new age, evolving the game’s iconic empire building, role-playing, and warfare to the next level. A new storytelling event system and hugely customizable empires provide an endlessly replayable experience, where each game adds a new chapter to your ever-growing saga.Powerful Wizard Kings have returned to the realms to reign as gods among mortals. Claim and master the Tomes of Magic to evolve your people, and prepare for an epic battle that will determine the ages to come.
- Craft your followers by combining bodily forms, societal traits and arcane powers. Build anything from a clan of cannibal halflings to mystic moon elves, or recreate your favorite fantasy tropes
- Seek powerful tomes of magic to enchant your armies and evolve your people! See your people physically change as they morph into angelic beings or scions of chaos to face their enemies.
- Seek glory through brutal domination, cunning alliances, or ultimate arcane knowledge, and write your legacy into the very fabric of the realm itself!
- Every choice opens up new possibilities and tactical advantages; deep, multilayered strategy allows you to try new tactics or explore new powers at every turn
- Tactical turn-based battles bring your armies to life, showcasing their power in an environment shaped by your decisions. From skirmishes with roaming monsters to vast sieges with dozens of units on each side, with the addition of a morale system and more features, every battle brings a fresh challenge
- Tremendous variety in empires, units, and environments keep the game endlessly replayable. Age of Wonders is more moddable and open-ended than ever in the series’ history
- Explore a new realm with each game – or create your own! Challenge new variations and combinations of locations and features, from frozen wastelands ruled by ice queens to desolated ruins where dragons roam
- A new event system provides unexpected levels of storytelling for 4X games. See your decisions shape the world around you, from growing cities and roaming armies to world-warping magic effects
- Guide your empire to greatness – but the story doesn’t end with your victory or defeat! Ascend your rulers to an in-game pantheon and unlock ways to further customize your experience. Encounter your own creations as potential rivals or allies in subsequent games, and experience the next chapter in your own story!
Steam User 156
I don't even know if this is a good game. It just does a really good job of dispensing Dopamine as you get little accomplishments all throughout the course of play. You feel great the whole time, then you get up to pee and realize that you spent 7 hours teaching frog people to summon magma elementals but IRL your sink is still full of dishes and you missed your mom's birthday.
Steam User 182
i made a cat faction based on Mufasa and did the good guy route, then i made scar and did the bad guy route.
after , i played another campaign where they were both united against me, and scar betrayed mufasa. 10/10
Steam User 138
Honestly? One of the best strategy games I've ever played.
In short: if Civilization games partnered with Heroes of Might and Magic (rest in peace), this would be their child. And, oh god, isn't it such a beatiful thing?
I've always had a soft spot for strategy games. I grew up with RTS mostly, but I'm no stranger to Turn-Based 4X or Tactics (my favorite genre). It all started with HoMM3 and onward with Civilization 3 and many others from then on...
To be frank, I didn't really know much about this franchise... I've owned AoW3 and didn't play it much, as I thought it was an ugly game for its generation. Moreover, 4X games tend to be somewhat exhausting as matches can last for days and some have annoying little micromanagement quirks. This is not the case in Age of Wonders 4.
To elaborate, this is a game that rewards your creativity and doesn't require much knowledge or the previously mentioned genres. It is a very solid entry into 4X and turn based strategy. A lot of it's inner workings are rather simple: you have a throne city, which you must expand by capturing provinces (in game tiles) and a ruler, who acts like a hero/general unit that you can level up through combat agaisnt other factions or neutral armies. On top of that, as your turns pass by, you research magic by choosing tomes, each containing a few reseach projects that last a few turns each to complete. Here is where the beauty of this game shines through.
As stated before, this is a game that rewards your creativity a lot:
You may play with any of the default rulers and their races or create your own.
In the tomes system, you can make an absurd number of combinations: Want some evil elf barbarians? Game got you. Ruled by a dragon overlord? Got'cha. Eventually transform your people into draconic hybrids? Hell yeah, brutha :v
As you progress through the story or random matches, be them online or single player, you unlock cosmetics and traits to further increase your options when creating races and rulers.
Several events in the game in which you are presented choices which will impact the way your game develops, or even the race you created, by obtaining permanent traits through the outcomes of such events.
Lords you have won games with in realms can be ascended, which allows you to have them in your games as recruitable heroes or even allies rulers, maybe you'll see some of your creations as oponents or free cities you can annex or vassalize.
Every race is different from one another: different units, aesthetic and the way they usually play, their advantages and disadvantages. Some rewarding an evil playthrough or good one. Because, yes, there is an alignment meter which will come into play for your available decisions in random events.
Every tome you choose will have an assortment of enchantments to augment your racial units (poison arrows, frost weapons, anyone?), spells to use either in combat or the world map or even more units (!!) which can determine your strategies not only in battle, but as you reach out for victory.
The list would go on and this would turn into a major wall of text. Do yourself favor and play this game when you are able.
It is simple to learn but by no means less fun because of that, plus an active modding community adding even more options? Yes, please.
Steam User 222
Sid Meier's Civilization V or VI, but with magic, dragons and other mythical creatures.
If that doesn't sell it, no review will.
Steam User 90
Create your own faction up to the smallest details, and crush your enemies in a turn-based 4X fantasy world that you can fully customize. Play the good guys or conquer the world. Explore, experiment, defy the usual tropes and try new perspectives. There’s plenty of room for roleplaying if you are inclined to do so. You’re in for a great experience.
On the board, Age of Wonders 4 behaves like a regular 4X game, complete with the expected elements (medieval setting, no firearms or futuristic technologies, use of magic, diverse sentient races) along with your personal preferences. Turn-based battles allow for another level of depth, and using spells and enchantments against your enemies is very fun.
The star of the show is customization. You can either go wild with creativity or stick to convention. Want to play Tolkien’s standard-issue elves against a rising evil power? You can. But you can also play undead feudal toads, honorable faith-bound orcs, angelic moles, scholarly crocodiles or vicious, barbaric halflings. The fact that you can personalize your faction leader gives you even more fantastic options. A draconic overlord leading a troop of enslaved dwarves? A minute wizard rat as the monarch of a human kingdom? Yes, you can.
Age of Wonders 4 follows the current trend of “multiverses” that so commonly these days explains the infinite possibilities of characters in different situations. You play as a god or “godir”—one of many—that visits one of the countless realms (game worlds) to fight other godirs for dominance. A game within a game, if your godir dies she returns to the afterlife hub to try again, and the same will happen to your opponents. Or you can play as a commoner in one of such realms, fighting to win the right to ascend to your very own pantheon of divinities. You can create as many as you want, and play with them however you like. The only real way to kill a godir is by deleting him from your game options.
The models are gorgeous, colorful and varied, and there are lots of them. Mythical creatures, extraplanar beings, animals and people are all depicted in detail and variety. The animations are excellent, despite some clipping with capes and beards—something quite common in games of all flavors. The graphical style is fine, even if not too original, but the interface feels a little bit dated and derivative.
There’s a wonderful feature that I’ve noticed after a long time playing, that is seldom mentioned elsewhere. Depending on your chosen race and traits, you will be able to construct certain buildings that make for a unique scenario experience. My shadow dwarves were able to build experimentation chambers and underground laboratories, but those were not available to the rest of my factions.
The concept of magic is associated to tomes, which contain spells that share a common topic. While there are some more advanced and powerful than others, you will never be restricted to a specific magical school. There’s something for everyone, and you can alter your strategies on the spot. You’ll find spells that can summon mythical creatures and monsters, buff your allies, enchant your weapons, and even alter the climate and turn the landscape into a barren wasteland, a frozen desert or a lush forest.
There is a moral system in place, but I found it somewhat rudimentary or too simplistic, that tends to polarize factions and influence certain situations. An artificial “karma” of sorts will mean that if you behave in a wrongful way, you could even get worse results in dilemmas and choice events. I personally disliked this, since it takes away some of the fun of being evil.
The music is fine; sometimes overly dramatic and with little thematic variation. I found it repetitive after a while, especially in the faction creation screen. If you’re like me and most of the usual gamers of the genre, you’ll spend a lot of time here. There is little voice acting—mostly in terms of flavor text—but it’s solid.
Mechanics-wise, Age of Wonders 4 is best played with mouse and keyboard. Misclicks are sadly common thanks to a cluttered interface, army models and banners in the world map. Sometimes the use of right and left clicks was unclear to me, but this is mitigated with on-screen help. I did not encounter a single error, crash or bug in over 80 hours of playtime.
The triumph of Age of Wonders 4 is its enormous flexibility, which derives in the huge number of possibilities for you to shape your gameplay to your liking. If you have played other fantasy games before, you’ll soon appreciate this. Those titles will eventually appear too rigid and limited, but we must remember that with many available options comes generalization and a lack of focus.
I’ve heard some comments on the apparent blandness of the game, but you can’t be universal and highly customizable without being abstract and generalist. That’s the price to be paid for personalization, and it’s perfectly fine.
I bought the premium edition with a small pre-order discount. So far, the experience has been satisfactory, and the game content is plenty and adequate. The DLC so far has been nice and adds meaningful elements to an already interesting gameplay, like the ability to play as a dragon lord, and an additional race and culture. Another thing worth noting is that the developers are in constant touch with the playerbase, be it with surveys or forums. They are quick to respond and the game is updated frequently.
If the idea of having a powerful playground full of alternatives to create your dream realm of fantasy tropes appeals to you, you’ll love this game.
Wonderfully recommended.
Steam User 48
Short Review:
YES... thumbs up... it's enjoyable, fun to play (now), and will soak up countless hours of happiness. Buy it!
Long Review:
First off, a bit of background... I'm an old PC Gamer who loves the 4X-format. I have played EVERY version of AoW as they released including AoW1 back in 1999. I spent a LONG time playing AoW3, and couldn't wait for AoW4, I was first in-line!
I waited nearly a year after release of AoW4 to actually write a POSITIVE review. This game released back in May of 2023, and initially I was hypnotized by the flashy graphics and interesting game mechanics... it probably wasn't until my 2nd or 3rd game after release where I started to notice a problem... I felt alone... VERY ALONE... like I wasn't even playing anyone else (aka: the AI). Simply put, in my opinion, the AI was AFK on launch. It would just sit there and rarely do ANYTHING. It might declare war on you and... NOTHING... you might attack it, they would hide in their cities or run for the hills... you could leave empty cities 10 feet from their biggest armies and they would do NOTHING AT ALL.
I kept waiting for a patch, an update, a DLC... SOMETHING that would address the AI.. I played, trying to enjoy everything else that was wonderful about the game, but the AI was just so bad... and after the first DLC came out (Dragon Dawn) and the AI WAS STILL Garbage... I played a game or two of Dragon Dawn, sank my head, and stopped playing all-together... the AI was that useless. I asked around during the 2nd DLC, Empires and Ashes... heard the AI was still broken and didn't bother.
FInally... when the 3rd DLC, Primal Fury came out they did a major fix to the AI and I was back... Did they really fix the major problems with the AI? Yes, it's day and night better than the launch AI (and you don't need to buy any DLC to get the AI fix, that comes standard with the free updates).
I guess this is kind of expected of a typical Paradox game. It launches with... well "issues"... and eventually, over time, it gets better and better and better. It's why i waited nearly a year to write a review on a game I started playing a year ago. Had I written an honest review a year ago, I would have given this game a Thumbs-Down. If, like me, you played this game on launch and gave up because of the AI, give it another go, they fixed the AI. If you were waiting for it to be out long enough to get enough updates to be a solid game... now is the time to jump in. As a veteran Age of Wonders player, I'd easily say WITH THE PRIMAL FURY/WOLF UPDATE, AoW4 is now every bit as good or better than the final version of AoW3... and there's still more DLCs coming (or so they say).
The graphics, gameplay, spells, item forge, etc, etc, etc... it's all awesome. If you like 4X games and a fantasy setting, you owe yourself playing Aow4... you don't need the DLCs to have a good time, but they add a lot of extra content to the game.
Thumbs Up, highly recommended.
Steam User 118
Ooph! Allot of hate for this game it seems. Well, allow me to give my five cents!
For a bit of background, I have played EVERY Age of Wonders games, and it is one of my favorite fantasyworlds to
play in. I have finished EVERY ending on Age Of Wonders 1, finished Age of Wonders 2 out of spite, and me and my friends still couch-coop Age Of Wonders Shadowmagic. Hell, I even liked Age of Wonders 3, which, in my opinion, is still the weaker one of the series.
So my opinion on Age Of Wonders 4 is simple....if you are looking for a story, dont look here. From what I have seen so far, there is some story there, but its not the important part of the game. The most important part is building your own Pantheon, a group of wizard/heroes/Dragons.
The focus of the game lies in building your own character and play games with it. You could play some of the pre-built scenarios, the story scenarios or randomly create your own world and try to conquer it. Honestly, to me, playing some of the story scenarios with my own character is basicly what we, the old Age of Wonders fans, would want.
The only thing I can fault the game for is two-fold. First of, the "Beginner Scenario", it is supposed to teach you the game together with the inbuild Tutorial and Help functions. This works, but it took me this long (11 hours) to FULLY understand every aspect of the game. I personally feel that a decent tutorial, the old school way like in Age Of Wonders 1 or Shadow Magic, would have worked better. It would make things clearer in a better pace.
Ofcourse I made happy baby noises when I saw Ham Binger in the hero screen, a hero who has been in the game since Age of Wonders 1. But where are my Frostlings? The devs made Artica, and gave her a group called "Frostlings", but the whole race is BASED ON HUMANS. From what I know Lore-wise, they would be more akin to Goblins, but frosty! Though, even Age Of Wonders 3 treated my Frostlings better, adding them as DLC. As a big lover of Frostlings, this is kind of a shame. I, however, love the massive, and i mean MASSIVE options when creating your own faction. Mole-kin, Rat-kin (Warhammer called due to copyright, methinks), and Toad-kin are absolute GREAT additions. I may have lost my Frostlings, but I gained allot more!
All in all, if you love Age Of Wonders, just buy the game. Its good, but dont compare it to Age Of Wonders 2 or Shadowmagic. The game is a beast of its own, and though it a little bumpy getting to know the game, now that I know it...I dont want to play anything else. I cannot wait for the upcoming DLC. I will be playing this for years to come.
EDIT: So, after playing even more of the game, i needed to retract/delete the above part of missing the older Wizard from Age Of Wonders 2 & Shadowmagic! Guess who ya battle after the turorial? YAKA! And allot of the odler Wizard are there!! You just unlock them after playing against them in the Story scenarios. I still feel that the campaign feel less than, well, a campaign, cause you pick a new scenario every time, instead of picking a wizard like in Shadowmagic, or it being themed like Age Of Wonders 2. But still my verdict stands, its a must have for Age Of Wonders fans around the world!