Age of Wonders 4

Well, here we are. I have played over 1000 hours of age of Wonders 4. I still fell like a beginner and I still enjoy every minute of it.
I would like to share my experience with other potential players.
This game is unique and simply amazing. The graphics, map, music, gameplay are probably the best in the gaming industry of our time.
You start out with 5 introductory story missions that immerse you in the lore of the Age of Wonders series. (The game lets you play regular maps and factions if you choose not to start the story missions). After that, you move on to your own adventures with pre-made characters and maps or create your own factions and map parameters. I haven't yet purchased a single one of the many DLC and I am still learning new things from each game played.
When you start a new realm, ( RANDOMIZED MAPS ! ) you are the ruler of a single small town in a beautiful but very hostile world. You must research, develop your cities, explore, expand, exploit and exterminate. (4X) The game is a wargame at its core.
There is a subterranean level to explore exploit and conquer. And ancient Wonders to explore and annex. And multiple resource nodes guarded by enemies to clear with your forces.
Create your own leader, species and traits or use one of the game pre-made faction.
Diplomacy is one of the best in all of the 4X games I have ever played. It finally makes sense, and once you get a good alliance going, you can even share a victory with a faction stronger than yours if you survive and help your ally. The grievance system is a mini game of it's own. ( I don't miss the psychotic leaders in the Civilization games, that change their minds every couple of turns ) Once you have an enemy, they fight to the bitter end or sometimes offer you their vassalage if you hurt them enough, and when you have an ally, they remain reliable unless you stab them in the back. Whispering stones are used to improve diplomacy with free cities. ( Pure genius)
There is so much to learn such as: city sieges, magic tomes, magic affinities, use of imperium, magic materials, weapon and item crafting, the skill paths of every different heroes you can recruit, special city constructions such as dungeons to imprison live enemy heroes and extract mana, gold and research from them or crypts where you can resurrect heroes who died in battle but your army was victorious.
In my opinion, the heart of the game is the turn based tactical combat. I know some players who are lazy or much more experienced than myself use auto-combat. I have fought every single battle manually since I purchased the game, (which accounts for the insane number of hours of gaming I have accumulated so far). But you learn so much from the manual control of all your troops and tactical strategy and proper use of combat spells. The game is very forgiving with combat: If you lose auto-combat or manual, you can retry as many times as you want until you get it right or you realize you were just not strong enough for that battle. I have no plan to switch to auto-combat any time soon because I really enjoy the beauty of the combat and the triumph of using a winning strategy to defeat an enemy army of superior power. It's addictive !!!!!!!!!
Some players have left negative comments about the number or cost of DLC. In my opinion, that's unfair. I have not purchased any DLC yet. I will, eventually, but only when I feel I have attained a certain mastery of the base game. I think if a new player buys all the DLC, they will be overwhelmed by all the possibilities and the new game mechanics introduced. The player base seems very enthusiastic about the DLC, based on their online comments. DLC support the developers who work hard to bring us quality entertainment.
The DLC package costs about $100 + Compare that to one restaurant meal or one month of cell phone billing or one crappy airline trip. The developers of AoW4 deserve your respect and deserve to earn a decent living.
Now I need to give you a few statistics because the game is probably more difficult than you think and some players simply don't have what it takes to understand the game mechanics, do some research and experiment with different strategies.
Found your first city 69%
Breach a city's wall 65%
Reach a military victory 44%
Complete the first story mission ''Rise if the godir Valley of Wonders" 38%
Complete story mission 4 ''The eternal court'' 13%
(percentage of players who got these achievements)
Most YouTube videos on AoW4 are awful or out of date. Anything before the Griffon update is useless.
If you like strategy games such as previous AoW titles, Warlock master of the Arcane, Endless Legend, Heroes 3 complete, the odds of enjoying this game are excellent. Just know there is a learning curve. All good things in life require some skill and effort and luck and AoW4 is one of those good things.
Technical: no problem to report, no in-game crashes, a few post game pop-up crash reports after game exit to Steam with no data loss and a box to write comments about the possible cause and circumstance of the crash.
Have fun!
Addendum: works in Linux, Rated Gold on Proton DB . Also runs on Steam deck according to Reddit.

This is my most played single-player game on Steam, so this is a strong recommendation on its own. However, if you're looking for a proper review:
WHAT'S AOW4?
Age of Wonders 4 is a turn-based strategy game in a fastasy setting. The goal of the player is to lead a player-selected faction and its leader to victory, defeating other factions. The use of force is mandatory, there is no "cultural victory." Turn-based combat between armies is a major focus of the game and of the AoW series overall. You do not need to play the previous installments to enjoy this one.
REASONS TO GET THE GAME
While there are other turn-based fantasy strategy games, the Age of Wonders series has managed to establish a great setting and a deep and rewarding turn-based combat system. But what AoW4 does better than its predecessors is the degree of customizability of the playable factions. The player is, in fact, incentivized to create his own factions, each with their own characteristics and lore background. My personal favorite creations are the industrious earth-aligned sculptor elves, the spider-worshipping goblins, or the umbral homunculi created by the eldritch monstrosity Zon'Gynoth.
REASONS TO SKIP THE GAME
While AoW4 is great, it may not be for everyone. First, and most obviously, everything is turn based, so if you don't like that, you may skip this. Additionally, AoW4 is combat focused, so if you are looking for a complex empire building game, there are other games for that (such as the great Endless Legend!). Lastly, as in many strategy games, the AI cheats depending on the difficulty. Human players need to win by outwitting the AI. Yet, despite this, I found the "easy" and "normal" difficulties very approachable.
CONCLUSION
The game is in its best shape ever at the time of writing (end of season 2, Archon Prohecy DLC). While already great at launch, the exceptional post launch support has perfected AoW4's formula with a greater number of customization options, additional story content, additional ruler types, and more. If it sounds that it could be your cup of tea, try it!

You can play as unicorn riding humans. ‘Nough said.
AoW4 is one of the best customizable turn based 4X games with tactical combat. This is one of those very rare examples where the sequel not only has feature parity with its predecessors, it also substantially expands on them. Imagine a fantasy version of XCOM baked into a larger empire simulation game. Both elements aren't as in-depth as more specialized games in the genre, but they blend together in a fantastic way.
What really blew me away about this game is just how customizable everything is. Not only your map/realm creation (all kinds of settings and features to tweak, story scenarios you can set up, etc.), but also you can create your own race every game, which is super fun when you get into it. It’s such a fantastic title, genuinely so good for folks who just want to make their own game/styles and create their own scenarios. If you're a creative type, it's almost godd**ned endless if you have the DLC’s.
The amount of care and detail that they put into this game is amazing to see. I haven't played a game that engaged my pursuit of mysticism and wonder for a long time now; and this just fit the bill. Even just looking at the amount of detail and customization that you can put into your army before the game even starts speaks volumes as to how intricate and fun this game can be. They clearly poured their heart and soul into the amount of imagination that they put into this, and I really appreciated the hell out of that.
Want to be an ice fanatic that wants to see the world covered in ice? Done. Want to be a eldritch lord that controls humans and wants to destroy everything? Ok. Prefer a dragon that’s mad because nature is being destroyed so you want to restore it? It can be done. A necromancer that will cover the world with undead minions? Sure. You can be a feudal group of spider riding frogs, mainly using poison magic to fight too. While you can also be decent unicorn riding humans, mainly using healing magic - but also feudal. What else do you need?! The customization is extremely deep, with lots of potential for role-play and decision making.
I have played many games and every playthrough I play has some weird different concept that I come up with on the spot because of the many options available. For example, I made a race of simian/monkey-folk who prioritize Nature, and lean on their relationship with animals. I’ve been able to cultivate an army of different animals who are running around the map supporting wherever needed. Meanwhile, I’m converting tons of tiles into Forests, making it harder for my enemies to move, and buffing my monkeys. I was invited to a Hunt, and told the free city that engaging in communion with nature is better, resulting in them changing their ways. Top notch fantasy stuff. Are they the strongest? No. Are they viable and will you be able to win? Yes. I love creating my own stories in games and AoW4 allows a plethora of different RP playthroughs. I already got 2-3 other playthroughs in mind once l'm done with my feline fanatics!
I also really appreciate how “approachable” it is for the genre. The game makes it very clear what resources are needed for which thing, and how to go about getting them. The UI is crazy readable, which helped me learn it and stay focused on what I was doing. Add onto that massive fantasy battles akin to Warhammer - but turn based - and I just can’t put it down. I’ve tussled with industrious steam punk frog people, brutal Edlritch gods focused on assimilating for the greater good, and armies of undead orcs led by a necromancer dragon. I’m just absolutely hooked.
Yeah, I came to AoW4 for its brand new shiny mechanics and good art direction, but I stay for all the various builds, theory-crafting, occasional roleplay and dragons - is there any other strategy fame, where you get to play as dragon ruler?! With the latest DLC, the game is now a "must buy" for 4X and HOMM fans in my opinion. The extra content gives more build possibilities and the free updates have addressed several deficiencies in the base game at launch (water economy, the underground). So now is a great time to buy. If you enjoy turn based combat and strategy games in a fantasy setting, it’s a no brainer.
10/10

Played 120 hours trying to build a peaceful utopia. Accidentally declared war on a squirrel god. Lost half my population to a diplomatic insult involving cheese.
Now I rule as a mushroom necromancer with a dragon wife and a vendetta against every race that didn’t vote for my wizard union tax bill. 10/10, democracy was a mistake.

This is a tortured recommendation: Please read all the negative points I bring up (and consider some negative reviews) before coming to a conclusion of your own about this game.

The game has acceptable graphics, passable combat mechanics, basic spellcasting, and somewhat chaotic city management due to its region system. For those of you who played Planetfall, you will find that enough has changed to make this seem a completely different game. I will not be going over those differences in detail, but secret technologies are lost, race specific units and tech are lost (replaced by culture units without any tech), the positioning of your armies on the map does not affect their positioning in the battle (just two lines of armies go fight), and anyone can grab any tech provided they have first acquired the prerequisite techs.

Let's talk negatives, but we'll start with some things that some may see as a positive.

Unit size is very small: typically 3 to 6 models make up a unit. While many will view this as a vast improvement from games which show an entire company of soldiers as one guy on the map, this is still a downgrade from games which show hundreds of individuals making up a unit.

There is no uniqueness to any given play through's magic: barring your "class" which may have a paltry 1 to 4 spells unique to the class, any given playthrough can acquire any given magic.

There is no uniqueness to races: In my opinion, a fantasy game's biggest sin. In other words, races are just glorified, no, actual skins you apply to your faction. Your crocodile men are exactly like my humans who are exactly like my 10 foot horned oni. You can modify an entire race permanently with spells as the game goes on, but there is nothing bespoke here: it's the same limited spells everyone is going to pick and choose from gated by research. Cultist fans who have been brainwashed by Paradox will cry out "But you can select 5 points of modifiers to customize your race!" so I can make crocodiles who like the desert or humans who are poisonous, but these affect the game in extremely small ways and are mostly not even noticeable. Even seemingly major "adaption" traits like "can live in desolate areas" doesn't make a drastically different experience than a race of moles who prefer living under the sun in the jungle. They might as well be cosmetic.

You can stack enchantments on every unit of your army at once and without limit: If I want to give my elite unit of halberdiers an enchantment which causes the blades on their weapons to be aflame then I do it for every melee unit I own or will ever make. More egregious, if I want to then enchant those weapons to be frozen then the frozen weapons will still be on fire doing both types of damage. Some may like this, I despise this as massively immersion breaking. I'm just adding stats to my melee units: the fantasy isn't there.

Your ruler is just another hero which allows you to cast map spells while he's alive: You gain no benefit from parking your wizard king or dragon tyrant or whoever in your wizard's tower. This means that there is no great choice you have to make between the advantages of a parked ruler and a ruler out on the field using his power to defeat neutral and enemy armies. In short, if you're not constantly sending your ruler out to hoover up xp then you are handicapping yourself.

Naval "combat" has gone through many iterations, all of them terrible: ever since civ5 with its auto embark nonsense, the ocean has turned into nothing more than a "terrain where you go faster" zone. The current way the game handles naval combat is just your same troops in boats doing their same things. It's all shockingly bad.

Cavalry is just a movement bonus: instead of a mounted knight unit being a terrifying shock unit, the horse just gives him "very fast movement" which is about a 20% increase in speed. If I upgrade my cavalry through racial customization or in-game shop mechanics to use elephants, that just gives them +15 hp. It's absurd.

No unit customization: Don't like the units your culture has access to? Too bad, you're stuck with your 1 armor shock knights who look heavily armored in the pictures. For reference, heavy armor in this game is 9 to 10 armor. This is extremely annoying, especially late game where heroes.... actually let's talk about that.

Heroes just one shot things: this is especially bad when talking about rulers, but a somewhat leveled up hero can, on his own, just delete entire units who have achieved "legendary" experience. I hate the entire concept of heroes being on their own and not attached to units, but this just takes that complaint in brand new, uncomfortable, directions.

The AI: from being able to generate six stacks of armies every few turns to having endless legions of heroes outfitted with the most annoying and very best magical items, the developers have committed the, admittedly widespread in 4x land, sin of trying to make the ai fill the role of a player instead of be an element in the world. As a result, in order to present a "challenge," ai rulers have supercharged economies and the ability to produce entire formations of stacks out of thin air using said economy. It's certainly better than an AI who plays "by the rules" and is unable to get in your way at all, but it makes for a very tedious endgame as you must contend with unending legions of ai armies while you make sure not a single unit of yours dies so that you can continue to oppose said armies. This requires all sorts of cheese in the tactical battles which break immersion and, most importantly, make the battles stale.

The underground: I don't know what it is, but the underground feels like a slog to explore. They have made significant strides in making it more interesting with improved tunnel networks and the addition of points of interest, but it takes forever to explore the thing and doesn't really feel like an underground: just another overworld dimensionally linked to the other one. The other problem is that entrances to it are everywhere.

The worlds that get generated feel small, but are stupidly large in terms of traversal: it takes units an entire turn just to move across your average city's territory. Now include wilderness, pointless oceans, and all the 150 turn limit.

The game doesn't respect your time: My hours played at the writing of this review is 425 hours. That is mostly made up of the AI sending endless armies at me where if I hit "auto battle," my army would lose, but if I actually play out the battle then my army completely eviscerates the enemy without much thought on my part. I encourage the developers to focus more on large, climactic battles instead of endless nonsense ones.

So, you would think after all these problems that I wouldn't recommend it. No, on the contrary I recommend it in spite of all these things because this is where we are in 4x land at this time. If you want a modern fantasy 4x and you've already played Stardock's Fallen Enchantress to death, your options for something enjoyable are slim. Age of Wonders 4 accomplishes this in the same way that 15% nicotine gum accomplishes filling in the void for cigarettes. It's acceptable.

A perfect blend of RPG and 4X strategy elements. My favorite video game in 50 years of gaming.

it's just all i want in a Fantasy Strategy game since i first try Warcraft III man.
so many customization, so many culture types, so many races and said races can be customized further in the game.
the campaign is surprisingly good for a 4X. and there is also many many many challange map with different flavor for gameplay.
i don't think i'll ever be bored, at least not for a long time yet.
protip, just don't optimize or pick the best strategy there is.
Roleplay a bit, it's one of the fun in a Paradox games