Age of Wonders 4

Showstoppers / Deal-breakers: - About 1:11 time ratio from player turn to AI turn, meaning every hour played is 5 minutes player, 55 minutes waiting for AI. That's with all Auto Combat, because manual combat, while fun, makes turns take even longer, with minimal ROI. (This is using a gaming optimized machine several generations above recommended specs). - RPG elements (heroes and player spells) nerfed into oblivion. AoW3 had already nerfed them from previous installments and MoM's RPG/Player heavy balance. Now they may as well not exist because they have so little effect on battles. - Unit production lovers who whined on AoW3's board won the day. The game is now all about city production of units. This might be more tolerable if turns didn't take so long, but the Hero/Player powers was what I liked in these kinds of games, so it killed the game for me. - Heroes no longer have spell points. As if it wasn't bad enough that heroes and player units couldn't cast spells in the same turn in AoW3, now only the player unit can cast combat spells at all. YUCK. Improvements: - Units and buildings can be produced in parallel. The new currency, Draft, seems unnecessary, but at least parallel production finally got implemented. - All fields of study are now available to research. Unfortunately most of it is on unit improvements and employs mutual exclusivity on many improvements, thereby ruining the fun of diverse research. - City management now includes province management, which makes them feel a bit more unique. - Empire upgrades via affinity currency adds some decent upgrades. - "Races" are more fluid and customizable - Dragon player unit type from the Dragon DLC is pretty interesting This is the first game for which I have requested a refund.

Great continuation of the concepts introduced in AoW3 and Planetfall. Mechanically this game feels like a big expansion for the latter, or an extensive conversion of its mechanics to a fantasy setting. If you enjoyed Civilization (Galactic or otherwise), you will probably be very happy with the macro-level strategy that this offers, as well as the high amount of customizability you get when choosing your "civ" and the incentive to try out new ones. It also throws in the adventure RPG elements of HoMM, and I think it does a really good job of it - the menus could have been clearer (sometimes it feels like the devs sacrificed ease of use in favour of appearance), and some mechanics need a slightly more hands-on tutorial, but it's not overwhelming like some other 4X games. I really think it's an almost perfect blend for those who either want a "grander" HoMM or a more "personal" Civ. It has a lot of customizability and automatization options to aid newbies and yet more than enough replayability to keep the more wisened 4X veterans occupied for dozens (if not hundreds) of hours. From a technical standpoint in my experience there's much to write home about. It feels like the Steam version has more issues, but in my 10 or so hours I haven't yet encountered a crash to desktop and the performance has been smooth (I have a Ryzen 9 5900x and GTX3070) - I only just wish there was an in-game FPS limiter option (currently only various vsync), as I don't need 90+fps in a game like this. I enabled it on driver level and am a happy camper. On a side note, kinda sad that some refund a great game because it gives more gender OPTIONS, like it's something unacceptable in a high-fantasy setting where one can play as giant rats or mole people. Refer to one J.R.R. Tolkien, who described dwarf-women as "in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other people cannot tell them apart" all the way back in 1955.

It's an okay game. The graphics went more of a sideways movement rather than an upgrade in my opinion. A different style, more cartoony a bit. The game overall suffers from being too convoluted with too many systems for this and that. I like complex strategy games, but not when the "fun" factor gets sucked out because of too much micromanaging. AOW3 is better imo. It was cleaner, had better combat, better spell effects, and a better user interface. Some other things that really bother me about AOW4 is that the random map generator won't let you choose the size. Merely how far apart your opponents are. Also you have to play with an underground. There are no special racial units anymore. AI is bad. I really think the game is just a big hot mess. Not every game series puts out a better addition each time they launch the next game in the series. Look at Heroes of Might and Magic for example....most people agree that HOMM3 was the best, even thought it went to 7 in the series with improved graphics. I think the same will apply here.

Well, after 10 hours of playing and learning the gameplay, the wow effect quickly faded. Then 30 hours of trying out different approaches, different magics, factions etc., but nothing new. The conclusion is clear: there's no real strategy or tactics in this game. A shame for a so-called 4 X Exploration: zero Exploitation: basic, worthy of a casual game Expansion: a big joke Extermination (let's call it armed conflict) so simple and boring, diplomacy unfortunately average is just as simple. But the worst thing is the universe. There's no immersion, enchantment or wonder, just piles of pretty, neat but soulless units. This game will only bore you after a few hours.

Age of Wonders 3 disappointed me greatly by shipping with only few races, removal of miss chance of attacks, removal of city rebellion risk while it is being forcefully migrated or razed, turning undead into ugly ghouls... Age of Wonders 2 is my favourite game of all time. For first few hours I thought AoW4 is decent, offering a great amount options so I would like it more than AoW3. However as I played it it became I realized that somehow Triumph studios managed to create a game I like even less than AoW3. There is no campaign. There are some scenarios on randomly generated maps with little story. Maps feel plain. There are very few exciting locations upon them, unlike AoW1 and 2. There is basically *one* type of interactive structures upon the strategic map. The Ancient Wonders, a dungeons which reward resources, items, units etc. and which may be claimed afterwards by city or outpost to provide income and allow recruitment of some special unit (here cities expand their territory like in Civilization, parties cannot flag structures). There is a bizarre concept implemented: guards of resource locations will grow in power with time. This is utterly unfunny. Recently, I spend quite a long time playing scenario included in the Dragons expansion. It turned out to be broken. When I fended off siege of my capital city, the city never cleared the status Walls Breached, it became inoperable and stopped providing income. There is no way to fix this because it cannot be released as vassal nor the capital can be moved. I reloaded and it happens always, from multiple save points. I probably could win that scenario being handicapped like that since the AI is not outstanding but I lost desire to play anymore knowing that any game may break like that. It is 7 months after release. Optimization is poor. Game does not look in any way splendid and yet performance is much worse than eg. Anno 1800 which looks beautiful. And why Undead Reaper wears pink panties on his head!?