Age of Wonders 4 Review and Thoughts! (Thanks to Paradox Interactive for Sponsoring)

Links- play.ageofwonders.com/Sotek
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Thanks to Creative Assembly for all of their diligent work going into Warhammer 3 and for allowing me to cover everything.
#review #AgeofWonders #sponsored

[@loremasterofsotek]

Link to grab the game and support the channel: play.ageofwonders.com/Sotek Now the REAL question is, which Warhammer race do you attempt to recreate (or horrifically distort) through your own creation? I literally made Skaven...that also are able to rip out people's souls and build them into bone constructs. The Geneva Conventions may have several questions for my ratmen.

[@ltcinsane]

I kind of hope they put a lizardman race option in the game just so Loremaster of Sotek can embrace his true nature. :P

[@archmageeldran2567]

@@ltcinsane if memory serves one of the dlcs will be adding the draconians which are dragon people so a very similar niche.

[@dmitriyk.2890]

I am also planning to recreate Skaven (if the game actually runs on my laptop).

[@bjorn-falkoandreas9472]

Man, Paradox made ABSOLUTELY certain they seeded everybody I watch with AoW4. I haven't played the series since AoW:Shadow Magic.

[@hazy1266]

I love that paradox gave you this game and you got sucked into it like you did... I grew up with the Age of Wonders series and got to Warhammer through Total War and found my way to you through your contagious excitement for all things Warhammer and lore. AoW has always been my love and I am excited to see you enjoying the game! That said: Riders of the Apocalypse, Archaon as Dark Human with Nightmare Mounts and stomp the world with Chaos Knights! - Or the obligatory Thorgrim Underground game... and literally digging out my empire ;)

[@SymbolicLogic24]

Archaon back story is actually quite interesting and awesome if you can find someone who tells his story well. Everything he did to become the everchosen and get acquire the items he did is quite a feat and really shows his determination.

[@Dead_Heir]

Honestly Stellaris's difficulty is a meme. I just started this week and it's really not that complicated. I wish people hadn't kept telling me it played like a graphing calculator because I'm loving it.

[@samcook6368]

It's one of the easiest of Paradox games.

[@Dead_Heir]

@@samcook6368 right? Don't get me wrong, it's deep for sure, but if you watch any beginners guide, enable the tutorial, and play on lower difficulties to start, it's not bad at all. I feel like people click through all the menus and immediately alt+F4.

[@derdusel9681]

it really aint that difficult. Shit like eu4 and victoria 3 on the other hand are games where u need a college degree for

[@samcook6368]

@@derdusel9681 V3 is a lot easier than V2. CK2 and EU4 are the hardest still-popular.

[@horsem.d.7979]

Paradox games seem harder than they are. You literally just have to keep trying and everything becomes simple and intuitive. You’ll find yourself wishing that it was more complicated and that the ai was smarter lol.

[@Canuovea]

Yeah, okay, the faction creation stuff did convince me.

[@Azhalan]

Every single streamer I follow who reviewed the game liked it. A lot. Really looking forward to playing 👍

[@bargrz]

Most (if not all) of the videos were sponsored. Humankind receiced glowing reviews at launch, too. It looks promising, but I'm worried about replayability and boring, repeatable early game.

[@Azhalan]

There was a lot of sponsoring, that's true. However, most streamers played it way beyond the amount of time they were paid for. And I highly doubt the game will be as good as Heroes 3 or 5 or Civ 4 which I played for thousands of hours. Still, what I've seen so far looks really promising.

[@trowachess]

Skaven can transmigrate into any franchise!

[@ShadowoftheMask]

Stellaris is funnily enough most beginner friendly paradox grand strategy game :'D It does look more complicated than it is after all dlc though (I honestly consider total war games more difficult to deal with than stellaris)

[@SymbolicLogic24]

Agreed

[@shiftyprophet]

Total war is so simple, there’s buildings that make money or armies and diplomacy to talk to other factions boom that’s the campaign

[@ShadowoftheMask]

@@shiftyprophet That describes all 4x games if you cut out few details :'D

[@aarons6201]

Waiting for it to unlock currently. Less than an hour assuming I have my time change maths right. Glad to see your positive review here, even though there’s minimal Warhammer interaction. Thanks man, good luck with all your busy-making stuff.

[@MoBettaBeef]

Timezone conversions: PDT: 9am 🕘 MDT: 10am 🕙 CDT: 11am 🕚 EDT: 12pm 🕛 GMT: 5pm 🕔 GMT+8: 12am (next day) 🕛 GMT+9: 1am (next day) 🕐 GMT+11: 3am (next day) 🕒

[@Arachnomen]

I am really interested in this game, thanks for covering it!

[@nagashtheundyingking4404]

nice Sotek get that bag would love to see you explore more games outside of Warhammer just to get some flavour in there.

[@Ale-mv3gr]

Thanks for the video!

[@battlemode]

Pleased to see a fantasy 4X finally breaking into the mainstream. You gonna play this more?

[@RawCauliflower]

I was a huge fan of the third game. Looking forward to getting this

[@charliealvarado401]

cant wait for this. Years of fun incoming

[@arthanor9631]

Sounds like he's looking forward to being done with the wedding to play this more than the actual wedding 😂 Can't be a much more glowing recommendation than that. To be fair, the game looks quite good indeed. (And congrats on the wedding!)

[@Tomahara]

I would 100% watch you do a play of this!

[@fallenswan1670]

I've not experienced AoW4, but Age of Wonders: Planetfall is something what I - as old Sid Mayer's Civilization player* - would call as "best Civilization game ever made", despite that it is with sci-fi-theme. What little I've seen about AoW4, it seems by game play very similar as AoW: Planetfall, but some things of course are improved. Biggest changes seems to be in way, that you can create your own factions (what was kind of developed idea in Planetfall for multiplayer... but it was not part of single player campaign, where you play different scenarios with different factions. Although your previous chose effected somewhat for your future faction with same "race" - what kind of their secret weapon technology tree would be, where they focus on. In planetfall playable factions are: Vanguard (humans, who are what is left of army of Star Union. Plays maybe bit like eldar or elves, but have some troops similar to Imperial Guards), Dvar ("space dwarfs", very dwarven like short humans who are inventors and prospectors from fallen Star Union), Kir'ko (ex-hivemind ant-like creatures who were once enslaved by Star Union and their hive mind was broken, but they want recreate it and bound to a earth - be one with ecosystem... Kind of lizerdmen-ish), Amazons (kind of space woodelfs - use lot of bows and animals in troops, come more along with Kir'ko than most of others), Syndicate (kind of darkeldar or dark elves, use lot of psi-weapons and have hackers... low level troops are quite weak, but their high level troops are scary stuff... Psi-weapons pass armour, and hackers can take your robotic troops... But syndicate focus on backstabbing also other syndicate, they are motivated by money), Assembly (cyborgs and robots, they were created mostly after fall of Star Union, people who were desperate to seek ways to survive after the empire vanished in blink of eye. Possible terminators, if want so...but they are not automatically "evil" or warfare people). (*I've played Civ 1-5, but felt that five was somehow "soulless" and didn't liked it way I liked 2 and 4, and never tried 6)

[@gregoryshinn9805]

Thanks for the video

[@irongrinch9976]

This looks awesome….and I’m sure I will spend most of my time on the customization screen lol

[@khelgarironfist3301]

I thought the first race i'd create in this wouıld be KaK Dawi.. and guess what Sotek exactly did? Khazuk lads. AoW 2 and 3 were also great btw, still got the 3 installed which seems in ways pretty similar to 4. Honestly i'm surprised you haven't played these. They also have plenty of cool features that Total Warhammer could take example from.

[@IAMTHEJUGGERNATE]

It looks fun, but it's going to be a while until my friends and I don't go to Total War Warhammer 3 when we have the time for a strategy game night/day. Every once in a while we'll bust out a modded classic like Ultimate Apocalypse for Dawn of War or any assortment of mods for Sins of a Solar Empire, but usually it's just Total War for now - embracing the chaos of the ultimate endgame scenario as a group of friends is just too fun - even if the AI is occasionally braindead and the races aren't particularly balanced right now.

[@jaimerontome2424]

You should check out age of wonders planetfall, they have a very unique range of factions.

[@MihaSith]

so anvy to all who gonna play it today! i just going to work for nex 32 hours(((

[@Edward_Bowes]

will buy now

[@camio3466]

I gotta check this out sometime but I'm kinda hoping we'll get a proper Overlord 3 someday, as unlikely as it may be :')

[@Eli_The_Grey]

I love these games and really wish I could get this one, but I'm out of work rn and dead broke lol.

[@Felderk5]

So hyped to play AoW4

[@jsnel9185]

I still play Stellaris regularly. It's in my top 5 games of all time. I am very much looking forward to AoW4.

[@midhnor4762]

Are you gonna try Stellaris with the new DLC?

[@pokyme]

this feels like a blend of heroes of MM + CIV with warhammer fantasy lore?

[@Navinor]

Algorythim go brrrt!

[@magji]

What? No lizardy boy options? The game sounds dope though

[@boxinsteadyeddie]

Basically the only true successor to Heroes of Might and Magic

[@Mirkomir_Blobszczonowicz]

Oooooh Age of Wonders... I played and play it till the first game and I was even in that weird minority that prefer it over Homm series :D By the way - at the start those are the first 1, maybe 1-2 tiers units? Are there any higher tier race units? Are those customizable too? (I miss The Karags...) In AoW 2 the map had three levels - surfave, underground and shadowrealm :D

[@davidr5284]

My favorite paradox game is stellaris, the similarities with costumizability and strategy roleplay are right there. As a base game it's amazing and I can't wait to see how they expand on it in the future, I can already see amazing changes like making culture and species archetype customization even more granular, adding more content themed around mixed mana types, more wonders, more events, more items, and you know the modding is gonna be insane. can't wait for release in 2 and a half hours.

[@sdgamer1860]

I'm just waiting for the Draconian and Lizardman Forms to drop with Dragon related Tomes. Some examples of what I think such Tomes would probably have is Dragon's Blood, Half Dragon bodies akin to Fire Emblem Sacred Stones' Dragon Kin and Dragon Mounts. Once that happens then it's time to create the Dragonborn factions that I'm sure plenty of people (myself included) really want to make EDIT: I just read the what the 1st DLC is and it is basically what I just mentioned so we are in for a real big treat when Q3 starts. Q4 seems to be when we are getting the AoW 3 Dreadnaught class units (Steam Tanks, Gyrocopters and gunpowder infantry)

[@BobSmith-lt6wy]

this game is getting review bombed by reddit trolls on steam so I appreciate this genuine review

[@armonkaviani7808]

Can anyone recommend whether it’s better to play a 4x game on pc or console? This will be my first one!

[@josstroeven2380]

shit man 20min ago i would have had it through your link

[@user-zu8ky1sf8v]

"Ok woman, let's get done with it - I have a game to play"

[@gr4692]

Old world news vid?

[@Everhardt94]

A game where I can create a bunch of custom dwarf races? Just shut up and take my money!

[@parttimehero8640]

A little game xD

[@doomedrpgproject4473]

Honesty, I'm a bit underwhelmed by everything I've seen about it so far. It just feels like Age of Wonders 3.5. Take some elements from Planetfall, import them into AoW 3, and call it a day. I wondering does it really add anything new for series veterans?

[@marinribaric9749]

Looks more like a civ game than any of the previous installments. 3 already eroded a bit of faction identity with its customization. Are factions just interchangable visuals with descriptors?

[@Isvoor]

The form is visual only, but the starting culture isn't. There's a ton of customization that happens in-game by choosing tomes, enchanting units and casting race transformations. I do hope that we see more cultures and tomes though to get stuff that was in the previous game (like dreadnoughts and plague doctors). There's a bunch of DLC already listed, so I guess it's just a question of time.

[@marinribaric9749]

@@Isvoor that's what I feared...

[@maximal99334]

Can't wait to no life this game!

[@capefury8731]

I missed it?? You getting married???

[@rodrigosouza8471]

Wh3 review? XD

[@ItachiUchiha-69]

I like sotek as much as the next guy, but stellaris and other paradox games have really simple concepts. You increase the 4 numbers at the top of your screen. That’s it, now you know how to play stellaris. There is a little more nuance sure, but at the end of the day if you are gaining the most numbers you win.

[@lordnovas]

Age of Wonders 4 is problem. Its hard to stop playing that game once you start.