Age of Wonders 4 is absolutely fantastic and should be a more-than-welcomed return to form and modern realization of the franchise, after a misstep in Planetfall. Paradox poured all of their knowledge and charm from their existing franchises and bolstered the edges of a wonderful 4x IP. In the end what you get is best of all the parties involved in refreshing this classic series.
Right from the start we get our now bog standard Paradox opening menu, Age of Wonders 4 looks like CK3 or Vicky 3 or Stellaris. And Age of Wonders takes a fantastic cue from Stellaris as well giving us not only a variety of world making tools but completely customized races. You can take different races and mix up all their traits and histories in a format similar to creating species in Stellaris. This on its own will keep the game infinitely fresh and provides an impossible amount of modding potential.
Once you're done fiddling with your unique world and brand new custom species, you're thrust into the game world which is highly reminiscent of Civ or Endless Legend or Age of Wonders 3. The world is fanciful and magical and full of all types of wonderful ideas. The most quixotic of which is that there's an entire map underground as well for underground civilizations. Most of the game plays out similar to major 4x standouts and you won't feel a lot of radical departures or game changing elements.
Except for the bits that make Age of Wonders, Age of Wonders. You get a number of fun and fancy and playful mechanics like spellcasting on the overworld and spawning units. You have a number of quests and several different empire-spanning skill trees. You have randomized events a la Crusader Kings that force you to make tough choices or pick up new quests and events. There are engaging city state mechanics where empires battle to gain the favor of these free cities. You also get a collection of spellbooks that become stronger as you level up giving you more and more spells you can cast in battle and on the overworld delivering increasingly powerful effects.
The whole game is gorgeous and engaging and just plain fun. It never stops being fun. And by the time you will inevitably finally feel like you've seen everything there is to see, Paradox will be ready to pump out DLC. One thing I would really like to see are playstyles that feel more pleasing to play as right now the game is heavily combat oriented. And the real time combat can get tedious in long wars. You can do your best to play peacefully and expand and avoid combat, but a lot like Civ it just ends up feeling like the best playstyles involve healthy amounts of conflict. I hope there are more PvE style elements like the end game crisis in Stellaris or some more involved pop-management elements like Stellaris.
In all, Age of Wonders 4 is one of the best 4x releases in the last several years. And it is a standout in the Paradox lineup. It's a delightfully complete experience at release and you'll easily get a couple hundred hours out of the base game before you could get bored.
Right from the start we get our now bog standard Paradox opening menu, Age of Wonders 4 looks like CK3 or Vicky 3 or Stellaris. And Age of Wonders takes a fantastic cue from Stellaris as well giving us not only a variety of world making tools but completely customized races. You can take different races and mix up all their traits and histories in a format similar to creating species in Stellaris. This on its own will keep the game infinitely fresh and provides an impossible amount of modding potential.
Once you're done fiddling with your unique world and brand new custom species, you're thrust into the game world which is highly reminiscent of Civ or Endless Legend or Age of Wonders 3. The world is fanciful and magical and full of all types of wonderful ideas. The most quixotic of which is that there's an entire map underground as well for underground civilizations. Most of the game plays out similar to major 4x standouts and you won't feel a lot of radical departures or game changing elements.
Except for the bits that make Age of Wonders, Age of Wonders. You get a number of fun and fancy and playful mechanics like spellcasting on the overworld and spawning units. You have a number of quests and several different empire-spanning skill trees. You have randomized events a la Crusader Kings that force you to make tough choices or pick up new quests and events. There are engaging city state mechanics where empires battle to gain the favor of these free cities. You also get a collection of spellbooks that become stronger as you level up giving you more and more spells you can cast in battle and on the overworld delivering increasingly powerful effects.
The whole game is gorgeous and engaging and just plain fun. It never stops being fun. And by the time you will inevitably finally feel like you've seen everything there is to see, Paradox will be ready to pump out DLC. One thing I would really like to see are playstyles that feel more pleasing to play as right now the game is heavily combat oriented. And the real time combat can get tedious in long wars. You can do your best to play peacefully and expand and avoid combat, but a lot like Civ it just ends up feeling like the best playstyles involve healthy amounts of conflict. I hope there are more PvE style elements like the end game crisis in Stellaris or some more involved pop-management elements like Stellaris.
In all, Age of Wonders 4 is one of the best 4x releases in the last several years. And it is a standout in the Paradox lineup. It's a delightfully complete experience at release and you'll easily get a couple hundred hours out of the base game before you could get bored.