Posted on: May 13, 2023
DebbieL
Verified ownerGames: Reviews: 8
Customisation is the name of the game
By far the best feature of AoW4 is the flexibility. With 10 races to choose from, 6 unique cultures and numerous society traits and magical tomes, it's easy to create the fantasy empire of your dreams. World map gameplay is a big improvement over AoW3 - you can choose all-out war and slaughter everything if you like, but there are also far more options for diplomacy and peaceful play. You'll even get occasional 'quests' from random events or allied city-states. Auto-combat has also been improved a lot, and you can manually replay a battle if you're not happy with the results. The turn-based combat is also very enjoyable - fun and resonably deep without being over-complex. The only real downside for me is the lack of an overwatch feature as seen in Planetfall. The downside of all this customisation is that it arguably goes a bit TOO far at times. For example, racial 'forms' are purely cosmetic - they have some default traits but these can easily be changed. All the previous lore regarding inter-race relations, terrain preferences etc. has been thrown out the window, leaving the impression of a society with no real history or pre-existing culture. Even the story missions are largely procedurally generated, allowing you to play any character or faction you want. This may well be a big issue for people who loved the story of previous AoW games. There are also some odd gaps in the customisation, especially in the world generator - e.g. map size is determined by the number of players and distance between them, so you can't have a small number of players on a huge map. There's no option to remove the underground layer or set terrain percentages as in AoW3. And in terms of leader cosmetics, some race/culture combos give an annoyingly small number of heads, hairstyles and outfits to choose from. Still, for me these feel like minor nitpicks of an excellent game. Some bug-fixing and balance tweaks are needed, but overall it's an easy 5-star rating and well worth a buy.
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