Age of Wonders 4 Review – A Revolution in 4X Gaming

After a long break, the Age of Wonders series returns to the stage. This time, the creators promise a number of innovations and, above all, real efforts to correct previous errors. In our Age of Wonders 4 review today, we’ll take a look at how they’ve managed to promote a well-known brand, as well as outline if the concept works without a well-defined story campaign.

• Platform: XSX|S, PS5, PC (Review)
• Publication date: 02/05/2023
• Manufacturer: Triumph Studios
• Genre: 4X strategy
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: Yes
• Data to download: 14.5 GB
• Game time: 40+ hours
• Price: from 1225 CZK (Steam)

Darkness wants to consume the world of Age of Wonders 4

The Age of Wonders universe has always been a place full of magic and variety. However, in the fourth part there is an invasion of dark magicians who definitely have no plans to ennoble the world. They want to subdue everything, and they don’t care, by force or diplomacy. Basically, your task is to resist this evil and, ideally, gain additional territory by protecting the world. After all, it can’t be done for free, can it? While you don’t have a well-coordinated campaign with preset heroes, Age of Wonders 4 offers you a relatively decent story that has a head and a tail.

Prim, at least in my opinion, plays secondary tasks here. They come to you on a massive scale. Their quality is high, among other things, they offer you a number of significant choices that subsequently determine the form of your empire, diplomatic relations, or the growth rate of some parts of the empire under your control. If there’s anything I would criticize Age of Wonders 4 for in this regard, it’s, at least in the case of large maps, the fact that the game literally floods you with tasks after a while, which is often the reason why that you simply forget about this task and proceed to another one that seems more interesting to you at the moment.

However, before you start completing tasks and fighting evil, you need to choose a faction through which you pursue your interests. You can choose from several presets, but it’s better to create your own group. There are really many options. You are offered ten races with six unique cultures, sixteen aspects of society, as well as a book of elemental magic, which essentially determines the direction in which your society is moving. There are so many options that my head is spinning. However, character creation fans will be thrilled as your faction’s basic formation is really complex and is without a doubt one of the elements that make Age of Wonders 4 worth watching, and you really haven’t finished that step in creating your character yet. . fraction.

You determine your nation almost throughout the game with the help of magical books. The ones in Age of Wonders 4 completely replace the traditional research format. Instead, you unlock new lines of sorcery and their associated abilities and units. Nature magic will give you access to regeneration spells, while material threads are for those who like jelly golems, siege magic, and stamina-related transmutations. It is thanks to transmutations that your race can never be the same as the previous one. For example, when playing as gnomes, you have the opportunity to create really tough warriors, but if you don’t want to, there’s nothing stopping you from turning these little gnomes into lichen-covered forest people who fight mostly from a distance.

I myself reached out to the dwarves at the beginning of my journey in Age of Wonders 4. First, I enriched them with an upgrade that turned their bodies to stone. However, this was not enough for me, so after a while it was time to add the metal to their genetic base. Thanks to this, they became an almost invincible army that was really difficult to defeat in battle. The only hitch was the low resistance to electricity, but in the end I always managed it by creating more armies that could overwhelm enemy forces with high resistance and numbers.

You will fight on the battlefield and beyond

Once selected/created, nothing in Age of Wonders 4 will stop you from starting the campaign, perfect for those who like to explore the game world. Ruins with a colorful history and monsters to defeat are waiting for you everywhere. Boredom is something you definitely don’t suffer from on the maps on offer. Their range is varied and offers different types of challenges, largely depending on the choice of destination you are heading to. You can count on the undead, goblins, infernal creatures, or even monsters from other worlds. Each unit itself has a certain strength, which is then added to the rest of the army’s values. The troops are relatively small, but can be supported by other battalions.

When you go head-to-head with someone, it is the values ​​of the armies that largely determine who wins. However, you cannot rely on them completely, as some units can reduce chances with spells, although this is not shown in the statistics. This is a problem to some extent, especially if you don’t like to fight, but if you like taking down enemies in direct combat, it’s a commonplace that you can easily overlook due to the high quality of the battlegrounds on offer. As for the battles, they are impressive. Once a few armies are involved, you can always count on a good carnage with arrows flying through the air, spells and screams fighting all over the place. Magic often plays a very important role here, not only during battles, but also outside of them, as you can use it to summon and improve your cities.

Megacities in Age of Wonders 4 work the same way as most 4X games. You always have several components to work with in order for the city to grow, build efficiently, research, and recruit new units. You can clearly focus on your base or make it a place where everyone can find something. Interestingly, there is an option to transform the population and thus change the base population and therefore the shape of the units you recruit in it. In addition to recruiting, your cities and fortresses can also be used to solve diplomatic problems. They have a high value, so you can drop them on the scale at any time. The diplomacy itself is well crafted here and works great overall.

Age of Wonders 4 strategy draws you in and doesn’t let go

Age of Wonders 4 was a hit. This is a strategy that brings a number of interesting innovations to the genre, taking the overall gameplay to a higher level. The main factor that determines the game is the formation of your own race, the creation and subsequent development of which you can really get out of control. The turn-based combat is complex and works with the terrain, which is a good thing in itself. The range of units is so varied thanks to the already mentioned nation setting that it’s hard to compare this piece to competing genre titles.

I’ve been thinking a lot about whether or not to critique Age of Wonders 4, and there seems to be one factor that deserves some critique, and that’s the side quests. While on small maps you can fill them up just fine, in the case of large worlds they are downright overwhelming, which at least didn’t make me very happy. Otherwise, though, it’s an absolutely perfect piece of work, showing that when Paradox wants to, it’s capable of pushing development so that it ends up being the perfect game to spend tens, maybe hundreds of hours thanks to its sophistication.