At 120 hours in, I feel ready to give some thoughts on this game. The graphic upgrades are great. Disclaimer: I am probably the target demographic - 90's kid who played the original with the CD versionin '96. I got the dosbox version over a decade ago, then caster of magic more recently. Played Civ 1 through 4 over 20 years, found 5 and 6 too weird. Loved Alpha Centauri for over a decade. Tried Age of Wonders 2, found it ok, but not that great. Would like to try AoW4 just to see what it's like. Pros: 1. Faithful recreation of an old game. 2. Neat updates - looking at the editor, I can see some really neat possibilities for future DLCs or mods 3. Graphics are a welcome change 4. Updated music based on the original is pretty cool 5. Plays like the original, and just as addictive as ever. Cons: These to me are annoyances, but nothing worth losing a star over 1. WASD instead of being able to use the mouse to move the screen around the map 2. The city building queue needs updated to handle future construction given current construction 3. Occaisional crashes. 4. Would love to see some new features based on new tech, i.e. customisable hotkeys for casting multiple spells in a row, i.e. Change terrain (personal favorite) or a common unit enchantment like Eldritch Weapon. 5. The game probably needs some optimization for faster loading. I have a 4790k and 32 gb ram on a SSD, and it still chugs to load things.
