Age of Wonders 4

 PC
Age of Wonders 4 Image
Metascore
83

Generally favorable reviews - based on 30 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
7.9

Generally favorable reviews- based on 77 Ratings

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  • Summary: Age of Wonders 4 invites players to rule a fantasy realm of their own design, in a blend of strategy, role-playing, and turn-based combat. Powerful Wizard Kings have returned to the realms to reign as gods among mortals, and players will rise to challenge their rule using Tomes of Magic toAge of Wonders 4 invites players to rule a fantasy realm of their own design, in a blend of strategy, role-playing, and turn-based combat. Powerful Wizard Kings have returned to the realms to reign as gods among mortals, and players will rise to challenge their rule using Tomes of Magic to unleash arcane destruction and evolve their armies, gaining new abilities and forms. For the first time in the series, players can create their own custom factions, and leave their mark on countless worlds through each choice they make. Create the Empire of Your Wildest Fantasies: Craft your followers by combining bodily forms, societal traits, and arcane powers. Build anything from a clan of cannibal halflings to mystic moon elves, or recreate your favourite fantasy tropes. Seek powerful tomes of magic to enchant your armies and see your people physically change as they morph into angelic beings or scions of chaos to face their enemies. Strategy Meets Role-Playing Like Never Before: Every choice opens up new possibilities and tactical advantages; deep, multilayered strategy allows you to try new tactics or explore new powers at every turn. Tactical turn-based battles bring your armies to life, from skirmishes with roaming monsters to vast sieges with many units on each side. Write Your Own Legend: A new event system provides unexpected levels of storytelling for 4X games. See your decisions shape the world around you as you seek glory through brutal domination, cunning alliances, or ultimate arcane knowledge. Your own creations may even appear as potential rivals or allies in subsequent games, as you experience the next chapter in your own story. Make Your Mark on a Vast, Reactive World: Explore a new realm in each session – or create your own! Challenge new variations and combinations of locations and features, from frozen wastelands ruled by ice queens to desolated ruins where dragons roam. With a tremendous variety of empires, units, and environments to keep the game endlessly replayable, Age of Wonders is more open-ended – and mod-friendly – than ever before in the series’ history. [Paradox Interactive]
    … Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 29 out of 30
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 30
  3. Negative: 0 out of 30
  1. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Jan 23, 2024
    100
    You are not bound by fantasy stereotypes or archetypes, and can thus create often very bizarre combinations of races and their elements. It's a brilliantly done system, and one on which the authors will be able to build all their major or minor DLC for a few more years if sales are good. In an age of games as services, one couldn't ask for more from a solid strategy game. [Issue#327]
    All this publication's reviews
  2. Shacknews
    Apr 27, 2023
    90
    Age of Wonders 4 might be overwhelming at first, but it's brimming with potential and gives you the tools to tell unique stories with your chosen hero. The nearly decade-long gap between releases gave Triumph the chance to polish Age of Wonders 3's weak points and come up with substantial improvements to combat and presentation. The result is one of the best grand strategy games in ages.
  3. Gamereactor UK
    May 1, 2023
    90
    There's so much inside Age of Wonders 4 that it's hard to give a good overview in the space of this review. What's clear is that Age of Wonders 4 is a very solid 4X turn-based strategy game with so much customisation that the potential for replayability is nearly endless.
  4. Eurogamer Germany
    Apr 28, 2023
    80
    Although Age of Wonders 4 may seem at first overwhelming, it's actually not. Many automatisms help beginners, and gradually you'll be able to abandon them if you want to. In the end, its great flexibility offers an enormous replay value and encourages you to try out all possible combinations.
  5. SECTOR.sk
    May 12, 2023
    80
    Undoubtedly a very high-quality turn- based strategy. The remarkable combination of Heroes, Civilization (4X) and Total War brings a large number of options that you can use on different maps, it's just a shame that without a full-fledged story. At first it might seems to be complicated and a little messy, but you'll get the hang of it quickly.
  6. Finger Guns
    May 3, 2023
    80
    Age of Wonders 4 is a triumph of a game, and an easy recommend for any players looking for a fun 4X game. There is a lot to celebrate here, and the number of options the player has makes for many hours of content to look forward to. A couple of problems here and there do raise their heads, but overall there is an extremely strong and well crafted game to look forward to for any who are tempted to give it a try.
  7. Screen Rant
    Apr 28, 2023
    70
    Age of Wonders 4 is a beautifully crafted 4X experience for players who like to dig deep and learn how to customize a game to fit how they like to play and be able to research through many varieties of choices and traits. The game offers some ways to simplify things for those who are more casual but definitely is something that someone could spend hours, days, and weeks digging into and still not be able to see everything the game has in its depths. While its overloaded amount of bookkeeping can prevent some enjoyment, what's here is more than satisfactory for the genre.

See all 33 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

Write a Review
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 27 out of 34
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 34
  3. Negative: 2 out of 34
  1. Spped14
    May 10, 2023
    10
    Excelente! Fiel a la saga en su historia, en su jugabilidad, en su estética, su música, etc. La velocidad de la.partida es notoriamenteExcelente! Fiel a la saga en su historia, en su jugabilidad, en su estética, su música, etc. La velocidad de la.partida es notoriamente superior a entregas anteriores, lo cual le da más dinamismo al juego. Por otra parte, la personalización es tanta que se puede crear cuquiwr estilo de juego según gusto y paladar.
    La curva de aprendizaje para nuevos jugadores es bastante buena, lo cual permite que gente recién ingresada en el género pueda divertirse sin problemas.
    Uno de los puntos más fuertes que tienen estos juegos es el workshop, pudiéndose incorporar miles y miles de nuevas mecánicas y modificaciones.
    Si bien he leído de que pudiera estar desbalanceado, no se está teniendo en cuenta que para llegar a las cosas "desbalanceadas", pasan varios turnos y hay muchas formas de hacer contra a eso. Lo siento más como una excusa por parte de malos jugadores.
    Por parte de issues de UI, estabilidad, y demás he encontrado muy pocos, prácticamente nada comparado con otros juegos AAA actuales.
    En conclusión, un excelente juego al cual ya le he dedicado horas y horas, y aún a por más!    … Expand
  2. rednosewine
    May 5, 2023
    10
    i am not good in english, so only short review: very good game. i like very much. already played like 20 hours. buy!
  4. BOJIOTOBA
    May 4, 2023
    10
    the game is like a masterpiece. very simple but at the same time deep mechanics.
  5. Manawydan
    May 31, 2023
    9
    Definite upgrade from AoW3. Nice graphics, solid tactical play, and a satisfyingly broad range of customization options that make theDefinite upgrade from AoW3. Nice graphics, solid tactical play, and a satisfyingly broad range of customization options that make the different races/factions feel very unique.… Expand
  6. indieinsights
    May 7, 2023
    8
    It is better than Age of Wonders 3, obviously. It had a rocky start in the first hours, where the Steam reviews dropped for a few hours to 40It is better than Age of Wonders 3, obviously. It had a rocky start in the first hours, where the Steam reviews dropped for a few hours to 40 %, because of crashes, but it is now rightfully much higher.

    The visuals suffer a little from typical small team issues: everything is too dark, even during the day for light factions, as if the devs had little experience in computer graphics. The shadows on the NPCs and beneath trees show the problem. The female in particular are badly lit. Small studio problems. Maybe they will fix it.

    But the game's pace, gameplay, are really alright. Best 4X game since Civ6.

    The only complaints I can think of (after 45+ h) are

    - The faction creator causes generic, boring races with no soul. If any race can be anything, any time, it feels... dull? Random? I read that some journalists complained about that one too, so maybe it is worth mentioning. There are no real Orcs, Elves, Skavens, or Demons in this game, if you need some.

    - City sieges are not fun, and make little sense. You siege an outpost for 2-3 turns, but also a big city for 5 turns? And when you beat a large army defending that city of 20 units? Nah, doesn't matter. Still waiting 3 turns.

    - The bad/evil standing looks nice but you notice soon that it doesn't matter. Bad and evil factions ally all the time, even after a war. Once allied, their opinion ratings increase which makes them move closer. It is a bit like the generic faction designer: it only leads to a big brown soup of randomness, unlike in other games.I also noticed how diplomacy in this game flips around like a flag in the wind.

    - Tactical combat at first is fun, but soon you 4-5x 6-unit-stack-armies vs another 4x 6-unit-stack-armies. Not only is map movement annoying. If they attack your tiny outpost, all you do is hoping that the siege takes 3-4 turns, so that you can move your 6-unit-stack-armies there quickly.

    - The world map is difficult to read. You actually want to know where your armies are, where the enemy's armies are, to plan better, but I guess the devs did not play the game themselves. The map becomes useless, unless you want to see where the borders are?

    - Research is confusing. After almost 50 h, I still do not understand the book choices and differences much. I could read some wiki on it. True. But come on, research should be more obvious and transparent, since picking the wrong books has a huge impact on your game.

    - I played multiple campaigns so far. I noticed that I do not connect or care for my factions, race, whatever. I do not read the stories. I think that it has to do with the faction designer that causes to not care about it, since any race can be anything, any time. This is contrary to Warhammer where you do care.

    - Another thing I noticed is the weak AI. Eventually, you have to play on super hard mode because the AI's building order and expansion are not as good as yours. But maybe that will improve soon too.    … Expand
  7. walkerz2
    Aug 14, 2023
    8
    É muito bom poder misturar diversos tipos de tomos para formar civilizações, um otimo 4x!
  8. matreaus
    May 15, 2023
    2
    First 4 hours are great. You learn the mechanics and it seems decent.
    But then:
    1. AI is absolutely stupid - it leaves towns undefended.    First 4 hours are great. You learn the mechanics and it seems decent.
    But then:
    1. AI is absolutely stupid - it leaves towns undefended. Does not attack when it has advantage.
    2. Game gets unplayable when your allies have many troops to move - sometimes your turn takes 15s and then you wait a minute for your allies troops to move and cannot skip this...
    3. It just gets so boring so fast.

    Definitely overhyped, not worth the money.    … Expand

See all 34 User Reviews

Awards & Rankings

45
#45 Best PC Game of 2023
37
#37 Most Discussed PC Game of 2023

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