Age of Wonders 4 - A True Game of the Year Contender! | AoW4 Review

Age of Wonders 4 is a fantastic new 4X, turn-based strategy game. With a rich history of development from Triumph Studios and published by Paradox Interactive, Age of Wonders 4 taught me to love fantasy strategy epics, and it didn't have to try very hard. I've had early access to Age of Wonders 4 gameplay for many weeks now, and here's my condensed review of Age of Wonders, answering: what is age of wonders 4, is age of wonders 4 good? How does age of wonders 4 play, and ultimately, is Age of Wonders 4 worth it? I'll cover AoW4 combat, civilization building, magic and research, the beautiful world it builds, some minor gripes, and conclude with my thoughts on Age of Wonders. #ageofwonders4 #aow4 #gaming #strategy
Content:
0:00 - Age of Wonders 4 Review
0:20 - Incredible Customization for Huge Replayability
2:35 - A Core 4X Turn-based strategy game
5:45 - AoW4's Combat (A Freeing Approach)
7:17 - World Building & Minor Gripes
8:34 - Branching Paths to Victory in AoW4
10:32 - Summary & Should I Buy?
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[@Smithers322]

One thing about Triumph: they address a lot of gripes, bugs and balancing post launch. If one goes and digs up old forum posts from AoW3 and AoW: Planetfall, they put a good amount of work into trying to make these games the best they can be. Part of the issue is just how much content they cram into their games: things inevitably fall through the cracks and have to be smoothed over with time, especially with the help of the player base and reviewers finding these issues and bringing them to Triumphs attention.

[@Cowkill]

Yep. They made huge changes in the first 2 months for PF (notably about sectors) and it was always in the right direction.

[@KminekOdRozkminek]

Hope they'll address the performance issues that were mentioned as present on consoles.

[@nordlysstark9208]

In this regard they seem to be a lot better than Amplitude Studios

[@Dijadiths]

@@nordlysstark9208 I would have to agree. As much as I love the aesthetics of the Endless Franchise, Triumph seems to make much more stable games with fewer bugs and issues once it’s patch/update cycle is complete. The Dark Matter DLC for Endless Space 2 is still broken to this day, whereas AoW3 and PF, while not perfect, are definitely better finished products

[@KminekOdRozkminek]

@@derekp9737 Don't be a PCMR elitist. Good games should be for everyone.

[@duaneclark7108]

I love the whole world portal view.

[@FlyinTonite]

"Oh man I can't wait for tears of the kingdom, so hype!" *Patiently waiting for aow4 which is going to be my crack for the next few months*

[@mattcbo]

i hope

[@Robbiee3344]

The release time on both are too close. I’m too stupid to learn enough to enjoy aow4 properly.

[@ashiok]

@@Robbiee3344 Age of wonders is one of the simpler 4x's once you get the hang of it; I know it might seem intimidating, but I'm sure you could grasp it if you were willing to endure the initial hurdles.

[@001648]

Dam this looks cool! I love the customisation of your race. Definitely need to give it a go

[@darkranger116]

i cant wait for the playable race mods, i really wanna make some undead lizardmen or draconians

[@101jir]

Those are already planned in a DLC I heard

[@Dijadiths]

Dragon form is going to be in the first dlc, Dragon Dawn

[@Trdina333]

Lizardmen form and draconuan transformation

[@zacharyjackson1829]

@101jir the dlcs will be 2023 Q3 Draconians with new tomes of magic 2023 Q4 new culture, magic tomes, empire building, new story realm 2024 Q1 Wildlife update with more monsters and more customize beast forms, and new resources 2024 Q2 new race forms including eldritch monsters, new magical realms and locations

[@101jir]

@Zachary Jackson You put 2024 Q1 twice, I presume the second one was meant to be Q2? Thanks though!

[@DonDensho]

Pre ordered yesterday! Cannot wait

[@snaggiz]

This game genuinely looks great. So much depth, customization and and potential. Excited to see what they do with it going forward!

[@russellcohen640]

I've been really excited for this one, but also trying to keep expectations low, just in case. I'm really glad to hear you enjoyed it so much. I trust your judgement, and so I remain excited for this one. Looking forward to more videos from you on this game.

[@GoldHaartGaming]

This game looks Epic! thank you for doing a review!

[@vectordream121]

Great video this looks so fun! I love these type of games and I am highly interested in this trying this one out. The artwork itself caught my attention. I prefer to play on console and I am a bit worried about what the performance will be like on Xbox Series X. I haven't been able to find too much info about that. The game seems big and wondering if Xbox will be able to handle it properly.

[@Gharon]

I played TONS of Age of Wonders 1&2 back in the days, never got around playing 3. I'll definitely be getting this though, i've been itching to sink my teeth into a 4X game and this looks just perfect for me.

[@__-tp4tm]

3 was fun, since I started playing 4 I can't go back anymore.

[@PashaDefragzor]

the loss of heroes in the first two parts did not lead to anything other than loading a save, but the process turned not into a game, but into an already prepared process of winning at any cost. I think it would be cool to add resurrection altars, about the same feature was added in Warcraft 3. And saves could be completely removed, leaving only the initial save. I still like how the first 2 parts look and from what I saw I can immediately say that the battle mode from the first two parts is perfect, in the fourth part everything somehow mixes up a little into a small porridge.

[@davidpt]

Your videos are so good, thanks for showing this awesome game, I am considering buying it, though my PC is quite old at this point so idk if it's available on PS5 maybe but I'll look into it

[@ovanstarfall6882]

The game will be available on PS5 too.

[@Overcast72]

Lords of Magic has came a long way! I guess that dates me - but that game was the basis of Age of Wonders. Had to be, if you ever play it - you'll know it too :) I was about to buy Total War:Warhammer 3, but to be honest, they are getting crazy on DLCs cash grabbing. Been a long time fan of this game in it's previous life as well. Thanks for the review, gonna go get addicted I guess :)

[@joshuasims5421]

So intriguing! One question: how does it handle the population races? Are there some kind of pops? If a ratkin empire conquers a goblin city, do goblins still live in that city or is the difference ignored?

[@GamerSerg74]

From the videos I have seen you get the choice of keeping the existing race or migrating your own people into captured cities.

[@JumboPixel]

Cities grow pops based on food in the traditional 4x sense. If you’re talking about races, then yeah, you can choose to migrate your species (or another species you rule over) into a newly captured city. It’ll align you closer to evil.

[@L4sz10]

You can keep the race of the conquered city, and you can recruit your unit templates with their race. So e.g. you have knights and you integrate a goblin city you can recruit goblin knights. If you control enough pops of a race, you can even use race transformations on them. Also,you can play a purist game and resettle the population of the conquered city to your own.

[@joshuasims5421]

Makes sense, cool!

I've already played quite a bit yesterday and it was amazing. And while I enjoyed myself quite a bit, I also have a few gripes, like seeing a few cracks in the walls, making the whole picture ever so slightly less interesting. 1) Uniqueness of races is currently nonexistent (only the first step of faction creation). You can mix and match ALL body and mental traits, which is great if you want race to just be a skin for your faction, but that's not really what you want, right ? I feel like having one or two race traits that are locked in place in addition to the mix and matching would go a long way, even if it's more about climate adaptability and minor changes. 2) Maybe the race traits need a bit more variety, not as much as CK3 that goes all out for roleplay purposes, but having maybe the same system with two extra slots and weighting each trait with a point system, including negative traits, could make it much more pleasant. 3) Performances in big battles, but that'll probably be addressed later on anyway. 4) Naval combat is uninspired. In AoW3 you could at least see a single unit of the squad on each boat. Maybe having boat skins and better, even if simple, animations for each unit type could help. 5) The DLC roadmap promises it already, but what the game needs most are more races, more tomes, more cultures to mix and match, because that's the game current greatest weakness AND biggest upside. I haven't played enough to say if I've encountered all Ancient Wonders already or not, but there doesn't seem to be that much diversity yet. Same with the lairs. But I expect the DLC to focus more on those aspects, which is probably the best to enable more creativity and replayability. 6) Affinity and Pantheon seem a bit too simple. I would have expected the pantheon to be much bigger, even if they continue with just a few cosmetics and traits, that's fine. I haven't encountered any of my ascended leaders or heroes yet, so I can't say much about it yet. But what I find unfortunate is that they do not seem to save the transformations once ascended. It makes sense from a balance standpoint, but we're talking about ascended heroes and rulers. 7) On Affinity, I don't know if it was just me, but is it really useful outside of just unlocking more tomes and getting to that magic victory ? The tutorial told me affinities had opposites, but I didn't felt it that much. CHAOS and ORDER seem like opposites, but for the other ones ? SHADOW has death magic, so maybe LIFE, but it's less clear cut. The empire tech tree is great for visuals, but it would help if opposite affinities were opposite of each other, or at least with a red string to link them.

[@TheLurker1647]

I loved AoW 1, liked Shadow Magic, but bounced off AoW3 hard after about six hours. I really like the direction they're taken the game in with all of the customizability. Obviously what you gain in customization, you're going to lose in balance. I'm sure there are some options that are "perfectly balanced", but this seems more like the kind of game where you can lean into roleplaying as opposed to min-maxing.

[@wiefdiwbofdbw]

this game sucks compared to AoW2 Shadow magic, imho

[@nufh]

This game is really expensive when compared to the previous version. Also, it is published under Paradox, there may be more paid DLC later.

4 are already planned for the next year of support, so yeah.

[@prinstyrio0]

Triumph is great at giving you a huge full game unlike what's become disappointingly expected nowadays, and AoW4 seem to different. They also got a clear plan ahead with all the info about 4 DLCs in advance and been transparent about ironing out bugs and issues, which in previous titles they do fast and well. Overall, if you just wanna support a developer that gives a great product and works to add more, both free and fixing issues fast, then Triumph is the one to do it. Even if Paradox is known for DLC bloat and releasing half-concept games that becomes amazing maybe in 2-4 years, Triumph is its own branch and kept this quality way before being under Paradox. Now they have said they may consider more DLCs if the game sells well despite saying during Planetfall they won't go the Paradox route releasing more, and I dearly hope it does, if any game deserves as many forms, cultures and additional features it can have for an extra penny each time, it's AoW4. It's the fantasy strategy game of my dreams.

[@williamhenry8914]

OOOOOOOO EXCITED!!!

[@HArDNUCkL3S]

Can you build units and buildings at the same time?

[@JumboPixel]

Yes!

[@8654ZuluFoxtrot]

This is my first Age of Wonders game and I'm enjoying it. But, the different nodes state you get their bonuses when you "annex" them. How in the heck do you "annex" them?

[@fartdonkey8290]

Take their guns away

[@duaneclark7108]

Can’t wait BUT I really don’t like AI just randomly spawning at end game around the 3 key areas. I get enemies in the world all coming after you at the end of the game but armies just popping in sounds, well…maybe a bit lazy. I’ll have to play it I guess to see for sure

[@GamerSerg74]

I hear you, it’s a little odd but without it you could just build them in some remote corner of the map. This system means you will always need a military to defend for that 15 turns. The game does have magically summoned units so we can imagine thats how they spawn in your territory if that helps with the “realism”

[@Dijadiths]

Given the lore of these games, it makes sense. Beings from other realms are often drawn to certain things, and these beacons/totems that are going to alter the realm you are in would be one of those. Age of wonders Shadow Magic revolves around repelling Shadow Demons from invading Athla, and AoW3 focused on Athla after it was cut off from the astral sea. AoW 4 is when everything is opened back up and random crap spawning everywhere actually makes sense now

[@rwme4698]

This is what I didn't like about AoW3. Planetfall also required you to build 3 structures & defend them w/o the random unit spawn & that worked well.

[@brence1984]

This can never be a triple A game… it lacks day 1 patching, dissapointing hype, apology posts by developer… and its an actual good game :)

[@EarlyRound]

Agreed. At this point in the year... GOTY. At the very least 4X of the year. Possibly 4X of the decade!

[@asteroidmonger]

Any idea how mod friendly this game will be?

[@mitchellkrever421]

The developers said AoW4 will have modding support. Aow3 has a ton of mods so I assume 4 will as well .

[@shadearca]

Very

[@kleen8803]

More in to civ,but im guessing thats a few years of..ao4 has kept me entertained past all story realms,not sure il keep coming back for any new content like i did for civ.but its a good game on its own. Best civ game would be civ 6 with hero and combat like or better then aow4.

[@christopherhumphrys7398]

Never played any of them before? Will it be hard ro get into?

[@chrisloriot1398]

If you're looking to get into the series for the first time, I would recommend choosing one of the pre-made factions and pre-made maps There's a ton of customization that a new player could get lost in, but that's probably the only thing that would hold someone back.

[@corneliuscrispus2763]

@@chrisloriot1398 Seconding this. Past experiences from Age of wonders taught me that campaign was a good way to learn, but not it's less a narrative campaign than a guide sandbox it seems, so you might want to consider doing the tutorial map with a suggested faction before jumping into customisation madness. Once you do learn the game though, guaranteed hours of fun if you're a creative soul.

[@Toto-95]

Nah, it's pretty "easy to play, hard to master" type of thing but not nearly as hard as stuff like EU4 or HoI2 Just standard 4X mechanics with a lot of options for combos and upgrades that's all

[@louisjabb3047]

If you played some 4X titles before, the combat might be the biggest hurdle. The rest is relatively standard

[@JumboPixel]

Not hard to get into. As I say, the tooltips are great, the 4X gameplay is solid, and despite the affinities and such seeming overwhelming in scale, they’re actually integrated well into the game giving players flexibility to make the ‘wrong decision’ and circle back. Ultimately how fast you picking it up will depend on things like your experience with strategy games. I have only limited experience with AoW (until now) and got the hang of it just fine.

[@Not_Kiz]

Expansion victory and xombat voctory are kinda scuffed they kinda need to make magic victory harder cuz by the time youre even close to finishing these you couldve done magic victory like 40 turns earlier even if you fokus on them

[@raccoonmaster9826]

the auto combat works well until the endgame where perk synergy becomes strong, manually I've won fights against (normal&hard AI, still learning&testing) in which the game told me I had killed maybe 1 of their 18 units via auto battle. Because of the insane pool of mana (especially as wizard king) you can kill armies purely by holding the line and using AoE/debuff spells before they get to you. (in this scenario I had 0 casualties, morale debuff stacking is quite fun) My only concern with the game is the vassal cities being utterly garbage imo, should be able to levy the troops as in civ or just fix them all together.

[@tyalikanky]

After several DLCs, maybe

[@Snowman_0690]

my main issue is can it run in my pc??

[@4verse79]

good stuff

[@ericlondon2663]

I am horribly addicted to AoW4.

[@DmytroBogdan]

Looks like Endless Legend with modern graphics. That what Amplitude should've made instead of Humankind

[@GG21188]

They should of took all the tomes and even races and put them in the pantheon system just give you basic custom options. Because in the end they are still in the game and they are still free just gives you something to work towards. Even banners and colours could be unlocked

[@Orzislaw]

No, thank you. I don't like grinding in factions I'm not that interested in to be able to play what I really want to play.

[@snowdawn]

One of the best Age of Wonders 4 review Jumbo. I look forward on buying the game on PC via Gog and watching you play the game :)

[@Boatlick]

I like the game, but I really miss the linear campaigns of 3

[@sebastiedjuan7468]

Cerafull! I still remember his enthusiasm for Humankind!!

[@DmytroBogdan]

Dude, he is probable played to do this enthusiastic review and its OK as long as buyers have some brain cells left

[@sebastiedjuan7468]

​@@DmytroBogdan someone can play but doesnt understand doesnt have a good taste

[@DmytroBogdan]

@@sebastiedjuan7468 Its not about taste, I'm sure there fans of AoW series but sell it as Game of the Year and masterpiece is too much

[@liamwinterton7370]

I just started playing through the tutorial. Thought it was really bad. Essentially just "Click the help button and then the thing you want to learn about". I'm pretty new to the genre as a whole and just recently started Civ 6, who's tutorial is immensely superior. I found the strategy view controls + UI quite old and dated, and the controls for the in game combat was also quite bad. Refund for me, personally.

[@liamwinterton7370]

I will add, that like in Hearts of Iron, the tooltips system is absolutely incredible. I wish it was something they would add to Stellaris.

[@clintonjarvis6953]

You sound like your from NZ ... Same obligatory sub lol..

[@JumboPixel]

I am indeed - can't miss that Kiwi twang can ya!

[@Necreon021]

Anyone else here after Total War Warhammer 3 DLCs more than doubled their price?

[@Kolljak]

two days are not coming fast enough.

[@TheZoepers]

DLC potential on a paradox game, say no more. DLC FEST.

[@Aircool212]

No Dog people?

[@cumunist2120]

never trust reviews on launch it was mixed at 50% positive now its at 80%

[@kihro]

The music isn't quite as good as 3.

[@MaxAngor]

They added UI scaling in Planetfall because I asked them to. I asked them to add single-unit graphics option and thicker hex outlines for easier visibility. Hope they added those.

[@dankofdaday]

bruh i just turned aussie after wathicng this video

[@marekmagdziak5916]

Masked Civ6 game.

[@vicwaberub5297]

I played all titles before. AoW4 seems to be a game about diplomacy, management and map control like in Civ6. But the old games was games about troop building, fights and adventures. I'm a little bit disappointed.

[@ilianceroni]

Understandable, however from the victory conditions we can assume the major focus will still be about military fights. Both the “expansion” and “knowledge” victory conditions require the player to stand in a defensive fight for x amount of turns, so even the “science guy” will need to build up armies.

[@101jir]

That's the one thing that really disappointed me about AoW3, the diplomacy often resulted in nonsensical scenarios. I loved everything else about it, so when I realized combat was going to be just as good, and RP was going to be a heavy focus I was stoked!

[@GamerSerg74]

You don’t see troop building, fights and adventure? They do have story events and quests, even the non-military victories require a military.

[@101jir]

Also, what Gamerserg said

[@vicwaberub5297]

@@GamerSerg74 I didn't say, that I can't see troop building, fights and adventure. But I compare it with AoW 1-3 and SM and I see a gameplay about diplomatic relations and regions. You don't build a stack of units and conquer a world - your cities must be grow for expansion. Thats a big difference.

[@gaven9763]

I feel they dropped the ball of handcrafted/good storytelling vs making everything random.

[@kdhlkjhdlk]

Another game I can't run and can't afford. Ah well, guess I'll have fun in a couple of years.

[@TheSometimeAfter]

Cant trust a word you say. Just sounds like hype to me. I'll wait for the real reviews to come out

[@Gardstyle35]

never heard of that game lol

[@kunaljain1986]

Ignorance is bliss I guess.

[@kunaljain1986]

@@aloneaflame9343 the opposite

[@Judasz696]

Warhammer total war 3 better

[@chronosschiron]

no not even close to game of year

[@DmytroBogdan]

He said strategy game of the year but I agree, its meh

[@DmytroBogdan]

@@chronosschiron whatever, hype was and always will be. We should get used to it and don't put expectations too high. From this review its "90% Endless Legend" and its fine but why would I buy another copy?

[@chronosschiron]

@@DmytroBogdan ya i too have endless legend

[@Thirteen13551355]

Completely different game. Maybe do some research.

[@DmytroBogdan]

@@Thirteen13551355 4x with magic, leveling up heroes and equipment. Nice try troll

[@wiefdiwbofdbw]

game is kinda trash compared to AoW2

[@cygnusx7]

I really don't see why this would be GOTY worthy. And I don't think you explain very well why it would. It doesn't seem bad, but quite unambitious overall. (?) Graphics, animations, UI all look like they could've been made many years ago. At a glance it seems like nearly the identical game engine as AOW3, which was released 9 years ago! Where are the improvements?!? And I don't see any major gameplay innovations either. It all comes across as a bit MEH... There's not even a campaign? I'm disappointed. I really liked this series in the past.

[@SkreltNL]

cant be contender when not released yet

[@xlnt2new]

not a word about 1vs1 ): not subscribing until you come play with the multiplayer community (: