Age of Wonders 4

I've had this on my machine for a couple days, and when it's playable its fun... when it's playable. The game is an unstable mess at this point. It was rushed out the door and the QA really dropped the ball. I've been playing the tutorial/quickstart and on turn 101, when the independents move, it crashes, repeatably and consistently. I've never seen work this shoddy from Triumph, and can't help but thing that being on the Paradox umbrella has impacted their standards. Considering a refund. Will give them a week to get their act together. TLDR: Do not buy now. Not in a stable state. Wait for patching to commence.

Seemingly for the better part of a year now (posts on steam and other sites since September 2023) this game's multiplayer is completely fucked. It will work fine for 10-20 turns but much beyond that and you're guaranteed to start seeing crashes, deadlocks, freezing, weird bugs, etc. It is impossible to get through a game to any meaningful turn count in multiplayer. Real shame, the game otherwise runs well, looks great, is fun, and has a ton of playstyles to explore. But it's just not something I can recommend as it has been abandoned by the developers in an awful state for multiplayer.

It's pretty and mostly bug free but it has three severe problems; AI spreads like flies. While pretty it's hard to distinguish one thing from another visually. Everything has been corporatised. It's bland, mediocre, repetitive and boring. A beige game.

This is a very early review, so take it with a grain of salt. I'm still on my first game and I can see why this game is so popular. 4x games are notoriously complex, with a large variety of systems at play. While not cutting too many corners, AoW4 manages to distill the greater part of the information it throws at you to just about the simplest form possible (kudos to the UI team I guess). It's a full 4x, but it feels more like playing an rts in terms of complexity. I spend less time poring over stats and more time focusing on my armies (which could be a pro or con depending on you playstyle). While maybe too simple for some, the ease of access is welcome (I am no longer a young gamer), and helps to foster the 'one more turn' appeal of the genre. Customization is cool, but I haven't played long enough to really see how it affects your faction mechanically. Aesthetically it's a blast though, despite a glaring lack of ponytail hairstyles. Combat is... good. I'm not good at it yet, but it is enjoyable. Overall I'm not completely floored by AoW4 like I was with Endless Legend (an absolute must play of the genre in it's day), but the wide variety of aesthetic options, easy to digest information, and strong combat will keep me coming back for a long time. If the devs ever add a trading marketplace like the one in EL, this is subject to change, lol. Game seems to run okay on a 1660ti, although the initial load takes a very long time (granted it's pretty much the only load in a session). tldr: good game if you want a 4x that plays like an rts Kudos devs!

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.