Age of Wonders 4 has excellent strategic and tactical gameplay, nice visuals, and a turn-based strategy that can compete with Sid Meier’s Civilization and other 4X games, making it a great game giving Total War-style battles on a turn-based grid.
Age of Customisation
Starting in our game of Age of Wonders 4, we can choose our specific realm with the tutorial, story realms which allow you to understand the fantasy world you are playing in, told via events and quests; you then have trial realms which are different difficulty premade domains, and then we have the exciting custom realm option.
in Age of Wonders 4, you can set up different traits for the realm that consist of; Geography traits; these allow you to choose how the realm is laid out, such as with many small islands or one giant land mass. Climate traits such as a Frozen realm will leave you without desert or tropical areas but plenty of arctics, or you can go with an overgrown realm for vast amounts of forest. You can then add environmental effects such as volcanos and blizzards. Finally, you can choose your inhabitant traits, such as demons, mythical creatures, and general wild animals.
In Age of Wonders 4, you can decide how the different cities will act with “free city modifiers”, such as being consistently hostile or distrusting and less likely to be diplomatic. You then can decide how units work with rule modifiers such as being full of magic, so much so that they release it upon their death; that healing is interrupted; that animals are constantly occupying new areas; or that you begin as an underground society.
Then you have a way of Unit modifiers in Age of Wonders 4, which can create specific units to have Gigantism or even become immortal. Finally, we, too, have the presence trait of Pretender Kings, which creates a fallen kingdom with 3 successor kings all vying for the throne. Whoever defeats each or makes an alliance with them shall win.
From here, you can select your faction with many to choose from; we have our usual humans, elves, dwarves and orcs, but then we have Feline (Cat humanoid) halflings, ratkin (Rat humanoid), goblins, molekin (mole humanoid) and toadkin (toad humanoid) characters Each Champion shall carry their own tomes such as Zaethyl Silverleaf of the Elves being closely linked to animals and nature which shall help with food and defence.
In Age of Wonders 4, different Races have their own traits, too, with the First Elves having: better knowledge, accuracy and magic. You, too, can create your own faction, which allows you to choose the race you like the most but with whatever traits you want, so you are not restricted here. Going through their culture will enable you to align more with a barbarian’s chaos, the mystics’ magic, the shadow affinity of Dark, and more. Then, moving on to Society traits, make your magic stronger with Gifted Casters or gain a more stable income with Imperialists.
Then moving on to the tomes as mentioned earlier in this review of Age of Wonders 4, you can then even decide your rulers’ origin; you only have a choice of champion or wizard king here. There should be more considering all the other traits due to the ruler’s will. It makes sense to take a magic path or the imperialist path. a Barbarian Warlord, Noble King, or Underground King are just a few suggestions for other rulers that could be added with bonuses related to other traits.
There isn’t much customisation for your ruler, but it is better than nothing. Being able to select a few changes of hair, body size, skin colour, and such is still lovely; as for the race customisation, this is even less with just colour, mount, physique and arm or leg length.
A world full of Wonder
Upon entering the Age of Wonders 4, it looks like a very pretty Civilisation or Total War style.
Setting up your city, choosing what structures to build and units to purchase, and then choosing to battle, we have manual combat or an auto-combat. This is where things get interesting. The battle map isn’t how other games would show you the battle or be a grand affair. It is quite a small map, but you get to fight in a turn-based style; you must move each unit separately. This got somewhat annoying as you can’t select your entire army, and if you have many units, this can get tedious.
There is retaliation for units that attack you at a melee range, but only if they are within your circle of power; distance units cannot appear to retaliate against other ranged units until it is your turn. If you are right next to an enemy or they are near you and try to move away, there will be a penalty for this. One handy thing is that there is an auto-resolve, and if you are unhappy with the results, you can press retry and have a chance at a manual battle for a better result.
With Auto battle, the checkmark states, “allow the AI to use spells in auto-combat”. This didn’t seem to have a natural effect, whether on or off. The auto does also not allow you to view the battle and watch it play. It’s just an effortless auto thing, and you win or lose, but you are shown your chances.
When travelling, you will encounter different parts of the map, many enemies of varying difficulties, and additional resources that can aid your towns, cities, or units. In addition, you will meet other leaders and members of the Free Cities that you can capture into your sphere of influence and create powerful allies or enemies with the power of imperium.
Your ruler levels up as they continue their campaign; from here, you can choose new skills in warfare, battle magic or support to gain an advantage on the battlefield. Your team also seems to regain health, whether at home base in their lands or enemy territory. You will gain items for your hero as your progress, such as helmets, torso equipment and new weapons.
Age of Wonders 4 has set victory conditions; an Expansion Victory is likely to be the longest, with even on the first realm needing to occupy 106 provinces, a Military victory being the most straightforward as you simply need to defeat the other rulers of the land, a magic victory being an average level of difficulty to achieve as it will take time. Still, you must continue down a magical path and research a Tier 5 Tome. You then have a score victory which would also be somewhat lengthy but might be the easiest if you can keep at the highest score and survive until the final turn.
As time passes, you will also begin to unlock your Empire development tree, giving you access to different Empire skills. These can align directly to your towns, or you can put points into your direct traits of Mystic, Dark etc. The general empire skills will be the ones that directly influence outposts, cities and the world around you, whereas your direct trait skills will usually affect how things play out in battle with a few things that will help you on the world map.
Is this one of the Great Wonders?
For those who want this mixture of making your own story, with more fighting than you would see in Civilisation but not quite as in-depth as something from Total War and not wanting the great stories of an Age of Empires but still being able to play enough story to understand the world you are playing in. Then this is certainly something for you; there are points on the map that can even give a further story you may not have collected from just playing through the story and the events and quests involved there. Age of Wonders 4 is full of potential, and while it may not be a Wonder in the entire world of 4x games, it definitely is a Wonder compared to Age of Wonders 3.
Age of Wonders 4 Trailer
Age of Wonders 4 is available on the following platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft Windows
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