Age of Wonders 4 review 2023: 4X turn-based strategy video game

In most 4X games, the great things your past civilizations did are only remembered when you talk about them with friends over drinks. Your Gandhi from a previous Civilization 6 campaign won’t come through a portal to save the day in a later one. His skinny body is still scarred from a nuclear war with Alexander the Great. Still, that would be cool. And that’s a big part of why we keep coming back to Age of Wonders 4, because the rulers we led to victory do become gods and show up in future adventures. That’s just the cherry on top of a well-made fantasy strategy game with different types of tactical battles and a pace that’s almost perfect.

Age of Wonders 4: Description

Age of Wonders 4 doesn’t take place on many different Earths or in faraway galaxies. Instead, the story takes place on a new map, where powerful Sorcerer Kings teleport between many different realms in their search for power and glory. This made me think of a given run as a more manageable, if not exactly bite-sized, six- to twelve-hour sprint, which helps me feel like we have a long-term stake in my pantheon’s progress. It’s a great way to move through account levels in a way that doesn’t feel forced, fake, or too much about making money. we didn’t find any sneaky microtransactions in the review build. The recent trend to add them right after release has put everyone on notice, but so far, so good.

The other thing that made me plan two or three campaigns each time we started a new one was that the tools for making an empire were very detailed and gave me a lot of freedom. It’s probably the most customization we have seen in a pure fantasy game, and the fact that we could play against stereotypes was especially exciting. You can make noble orcs in shining armor who march to battle while saying holy words, or you can make bloodthirsty elf cannibals who live to destroy.

Age of Wonders 4: Pros and Cons

System Requirements Table

Age of Wonders 4: Wizard builder

Your choice of ruler is almost as important. If you choose a mortal champion, it will be from the same species you just made, but Wizard Kings can be from any species. At first, all you do is choose how they look and what weapons they start with, but as you play, you’ll find lots of new gear and XP that you can use to make them stronger. Rulers and the heroes you’ll hire later are the game’s most powerful units. They can help your empire by running cities, but they really shine in tactical battles.

The problem with this way of building an empire is that while some of the choices you make can have a big effect, a lot of it is situational, hidden, or more about taste than about being useful. Especially early on in the game, you won’t notice much difference between your helpful goblins and your dangerous mole-people. You won’t find as much variety as in, say, Amplitude’s Endless series, where each faction has a very different way of playing and uses different systems. Not at first, anyway. But once you start building on top of these foundations, your experiences will start to be more unique, which will make your mid- and late-game much stronger.

Even though the early turns can be a bit repetitive, the creation process makes sure that you start with a well-defined empire and clear goals. For example, if you’ve built an empire of evil people who use soul magic, you’ll want to start fighting quickly and steal enemy souls to power an army of the dead. Your long-term goal might be to turn the people who live in your empire into undead monsters. That’s what Age of Wonders 4 calls a “major transformation” and it’s one of the ways you can improve the people who live in your empire.

Age of Wonders 4: Cross Cultured

The other way around. Age of Wonders 4 feels like it has a lot of variety and not much variety at the same time, which is very strange. Let me put it this way: every choice you make when making your faction has an effect on how it plays. However, it doesn’t always FEEL that way. For example, every culture has six units, but since one of them is a scout, they really only have five. Most of them fit into one or more groups. Shields, spears, help, and other things. All units in a category have some things in common. All shield units have a high defense and can form a wall of shields that protects the units next to them. Spear units can stop shock units that are coming at them and do more damage to cavalry and large units.

There is a difference between a shield unit in one culture and another. But it can feel subtle. Does the fact that one unit does more blight damage on its first melee hit than another unit that has a chance to weaken the enemy change how you use them? Not enough times. In the early stages of a game, there are some key rules that apply no matter what. You use spear units to stop shock troops and shields to stop ranged units. You put your units next to your shields and supports so that you can take advantage of their defensive bonuses. In the meantime, you flank the enemy with your own shock units and rain down arrows and magic with your archers and battle mages.

Final Words

As much as we like building a legacy in a 4X game and then starting over to do it all over again, it feels much better that my legacy follows me in Age of Wonders 4. And the faster pace of its very strong campaign mechanics and pretty good tactical battles makes me feel like we can write a new chapter of this saga in a reasonable amount of time and still have time to do something else on my day off, especially with the very well-done story realms. When I turn all the weirdness dials all the way up, there are some edge cases that make the game less fun for me, but it’s not a big deal because we can customize the map and empire so much. It is really great.

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