For one reason or another, the Age of Wonders series somehow passed me by. I’m not sure whether I simply didn’t pay it enough attention or no one felt the need to say “Hey, Ryan, this fantasy 4X game with grid-based combat is everything you like” but after playing Age of Wonders 4, it’s clear that I’ve been missing out.
From the words of the devs themselves, it’s clear that Age of Wonders 4 is built to best appeal to the series’ dedicated fanbase, without leaving behind newbies who know nothing about the world. As one of those newbies, I’d say it’s successful. The game is approachable and is one of those ‘easy to learn, hard to master’ outings that always end up taking up entire weeks of my time as I optimise early-game building plans and create sprawling empires.
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Gameplay relies on classic mechanics but adds its own twists. You settle cities and expand them, exploiting natural resources to fund war, research, and further expansion, but rather than recruiting Settlers to build new cities, they are established by your Heroes, who construct outposts as they explore the land. This creates a feeling of adventure as you reveal more of the map and encounter new cultures and city-states. Diplomacy is exactly what you’d expect from this type of game, though sometimes too lax - I like winning hearts and minds, but sometimes that route to victory feels too easy, and can end up making campaigns feel very too similar and dull.
It’s a shame because combat in Age of Wonders is very good, diplomacy be damned. Battles take place on grid-based battlefields where up to 18 units can fight (three full army stacks) on either side. The sides take turns, with each unit having a certain number of actions to take per turn, with more powerful skills using up more of their allotted action points. A good amount of strategy is required, with different unit types having very obvious strengths and weaknesses - if you’re up against giant enemies, for example, you’ll want more spearmen in your ranks - and spells being able to change the course of battle very easily. Battles feel engaging to play without getting too thick into the trees - it’s good that you have to keep your wits about you, but you don’t have to worry about optimising every little stat.
While it’s possible to jump into a game quite quickly, you’ll want to explore the depths of the customisation options. Everything from your culture’s background to how your people look and dress can be fine-tuned to your liking and serves to individualise each and every run. Like nicknamed Pokemon, you grow quite attached to these rulers - it’s a nice touch that completing a campaign allows you to ascend your ruler to your Pantheon, where they’ll be able to interfere with future runs. In many ways, these features are reminiscent of Wildermyth, where storytelling and replayability are the watchwords. The game makes a solid attempt at keeping things fresh, but with the limited scope of the preview build I was playing, repeated events and the repetitive nature of 4X early games made the experience a little frustrating at times.
Your faction is shaped by the affinities you gravitate to. Your culture and the society traits you choose for it all affect your affinity scores, which in turn affects your resource and how effective certain playstyles are, along with the narrative events that end up triggering. Going with a high nature affinity, for example, will be more conducive to wide gameplay with sprawling empires, while chaos affinity is more warlike. Each affinity is also linked with Tomes of Magic, which are basically sets of spells, units, and buffs that replace the standard research trees of 4X games. Picking and choosing the right Tomes for your strategy is very flavourful and stands out as something entirely unique to this series.
Battles can also be automated with no downsides - you can click a button when engaging an enemy and see what predetermined outcome the game has for you. If you’re happy with the outcome, you can save yourself the hassle of mopping up the enemies, and if you’re not happy with it, you can go into the battle yourself and show the computer how it’s done. Having this flexibility is a fantastic way to make the game a bit more accessible and shows a respect for your time.
Age of Wonders 4 is a very solid attempt at adding some bells and whistles to a formula that the 4X community is extremely familiar with. The emphasis on granular customisation and endless replayability is compelling, and even failed campaigns don’t feel like a waste of time as a result - it means you get to load up the faction designer again. It suffers a little from feelings of repetition even with such levels of customisation, but this is something that will surely be assuaged with the Pantheon system for unlocking new features and a campaign of story maps.
