As a fan of strategy games like the Age of Empires and Total War series, I thought I’d seen most of the major series of veteran titles in this genre. That was until I came across Age of Wonders 4. The name sounded familiar to me as a game I’d heard about a long time ago (the first game came out in 1999), but I had no precise idea of what to expect. Before playing Age of Wonders 4 for the past few weeks, I wasn’t expecting such a polished, balanced, and feature-rich game with excellent gameplay. Although I’m not usually into fantasy games, this excellent title from Triumph Studios actually managed to grab me. So what makes it so great?
In short, Age of Wonders 4 is a 4X turn-based strategy game set in the fantasy world. Continuing the story of Age of Wonders 3, the storyline driving Age of Wonders 4 is as follows: The previously banished sages have returned, more powerful than ever, to reign as gods (called Godirs) among mortals. They are not only trying to conquer one world, because a so-called astral sea magically connects many different worlds inhabited by different races. As a player, you can choose to be the champion of one of the races or play as one of the sages who want to conquer as many worlds as possible. This means that the game takes place in many different environments, from snowy worlds to desolate and abandoned kingdoms, which are randomly generated with each new game.
You spend most of the game time looking at the game’s strategic map, where you manage your cities, expand into new provinces, recruit military units and go on conquests with your heroes and armies. The map has both an aboveground and an underground dimension, so it actually consists of two levels. In case of a fight, you can participate in a turn-based tactical battle or solve it automatically. It is very similar to Total War games in this theme. On the campaign map, you must balance spending and investments with several different resources. Empire, magic, gold, and knowledge are some of the resources needed for long-term planning, racial development, diplomacy, and tactical battles. Food, Production and Recruitment are only important for the growth of your cities and the speed at which you construct buildings and train new units.
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So I ended up playing one of my first games with a large humanoid race that specialized in founding new cities, with a racial trait that allows my army to recover health and accumulate XP faster. Other adjustments come from the use of magic tomes. These allow you to earn affinity points and grant additional bonuses that suit your playstyle, such as: B. merging more cities, dealing lightning damage to your units or other military bonuses. On another occasion, I started an underground game as a dark human wizard king leading a race of evil rodents. As you can understand by now, there are just so many different elements in the game that allow for a very high level of customization. They also make each game a little different.
In my experience, I automatically feel the need to play in a way that suits the race I’m creating. For example, playing as a good race and leader means freeing prisoners instead of killing them, or doing your best to complete side quests to keep your populace happy. Similarly, playing as a wizard king with an evil bent means you really benefit from an evil playstyle. I also enjoyed playing the leader of the evil rodents that come from underground to terrorize the world above. Other rulers will also like you or dislike you based on common traits, for example they both have a feudal culture or lean towards good rather than evil. The different game sessions are also connected via the Pantheon. This is where heroes from previous games you played come together and appear in new games you play.
In Age of Wonders 4, time flies as you expand your empire. I generally focus on earning enough gold income to quickly build an army, which I then cleanse of bandits and monsters in my immediate vicinity. It’s exciting to see your kingdom grow and new provinces annexed each time your cities grow. Founding new cities outside of your capital and then watching your provinces combine into one great empire just feels great. The same applies to free cities, which gradually become your vassals on some maps. Victory also comes in different flavors; be it through conquest, diplomacy, or by becoming the foremost magical power in the kingdom.
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The music is extremely appropriate and upbeat, which makes building your empire even more enjoyable. The game’s colorful graphics are also very pleasing to the eye, with plenty of subtle details throughout the campaign map. For example, you can see small sheep grazing in the meadows and small carts going in and out of the mines. The unit design is equally beautiful, with the dark and evil goblinoids imparting a truly malevolent feel, and a variety of unrelated monsters and scavengers roaming the world. So far, I’ve spent time examining each type of device every time I’ve come across a new one so I can appreciate every detail of its design.
Age of Wonders 4 also features role-playing elements. Heroes can collect items such as weapons and mounts from battles with bandits or conquer ancient wonders scattered across the map. One of my most impressive heroes was a humanoid who wore armor and a cloak and wielded an upgraded spear to deal lightning damage while riding a flashy unicorn. However, I had also had a feline wizard and a toad riding a creepy wolf-like monster leading my army. In addition, randomly generated missions must be completed, e.g. B. rescuing a captive girl or eliminating an army of demons affecting your leader’s character.
While I really like the game overall, there are a few minor things that I don’t like that much. The most important thing is that I don’t enjoy the tactical battles as much as the strategic part of the game. I’ve never been a huge fan of turn-based tactical combat, and Age of Wonders 4 hasn’t convinced me to change that mindset. I realize a lot of this is a matter of personal taste as there is a lot of depth to the tactical combat system. There is a “rock-paper-scissors” system between units, which means that the composition of your army plays a big role as the difficulty of the game increases. There are spear units that deal retaliatory damage to melee units that attack them, and support units that can boost friendly attacks, for example. There are also flanking bonuses and your hero can cast powerful spells, and there are even siege battles and naval battles in the game. However, I end up auto-solving these fights mostly because I’m more interested in spending time on the campaign map.
Another thing that got me a bit frustrated but maybe unavoidable is the fact that it takes a long time for the AI to finish their turns. Especially with several rulers and when you are 50 or older, I sometimes needed a little patience. I can imagine players with less powerful CPUs having to wait quite a while between turns. However, other than the loading times and skipping manual combat, I don’t really think the game has major flaws. It even has online multiplayer since launch, although I haven’t been able to test it yet. The game features simultaneous rounds that can be timed, meaning the campaign map can be played in real time.
In summary, there is so much in Age of Wonders 4 that it is difficult to give a good overview in a report of this size. What is clear is that Age of Wonders 4 is a very powerful 4X turn-based strategy game with so much customization that the potential for replay is almost limitless. Whether you want to fight as an elven champion of the people building a stable empire, an evil wizard leading an army of cannibalistic toads, or an orcish warlord plundering your neighbors, it’s all possible. So I think this game should not be ignored by anyone who likes empire building games like Total War or Civilization series. Even if you’re not normally drawn to the fantasy theme, Age of Wonders 4 is so well executed that you’ll be appreciating it in no time. In my opinion, an empire building game needs to provide the right tools for the player’s imagination to create a truly rewarding experience, and Age of Wonders 4 manages that… brilliantly.
