Age of Wonders 4 - First Anniversary

[HiddenX]

Age of Wonders 4 celebrates the first anniversary:

Celebrating One Year of Age of Wonders 4!

Dear AoW Community,

Today, we celebrate the first anniversary of Age of Wonders 4! This milestone could not have been achieved without you, our fans and players. Our journey with Age of Wonders began nearly three decades ago when Triumph's co-founder, Arno van Wingerden, and I envisioned creating a genre-blending strategy role-playing game. This dream allowed players to govern a fantasy realm set within an expansive, magical world.

Age of Wonders 4 is our most successful execution of this vision to date. It offers unprecedented freedom in faction creation and strategic development, enriching both the core gameplay and role-playing experiences. This first year since release, with its intense development and feedback cycle has made the game even better.

A heartfelt thank you to our talented developers and to you, our community, whose ongoing support and feedback have been integral to this success.

A Gift of Appreciation

In gratitude, we're excited to announce a gift: an update that includes both a standard and exotic Raptor Mount and a Dragon Scale Interface skin. This update will automatically be available on all platforms starting May 2nd.

Looking Forward

And there's more good news. Triumph will continue to develop Age of Wonders 4 beyond the current Premium Edition. We are working on more free updates and thrilling premium content. We're eager to share more details with you after the summer. But first, get ready for the Eldritch Realms expansion in June!

Thank you once again for your support!

Thanks Couchpotato!

More information.

 

[SSIGuy]

It's a pretty good game; definitely leans into the 4x space more than any past AoW. My biggest issue is how much the game bogs down in the latter stages. Granted that's an issue for many 4x games but I find games with stacks of units typically make this worse. It is too easy for the AI to pump out stacks of units and rush them across the map, making the end game one big whack-a-mole slog.

I much prefer Civ 6's approach. It results in a much more strategically realistic use and deployment of troops, guarding choke points, etc. Of course, as anyone who has played Civ will know, this is much harder for the AI to manage so it definitely cannot put up as good a fight.

Still, I'll take that over the stack model—and it doesn't help that the end game goals all involve defending different kinds of nodes, so hence the big, ongoing, boring, stack rush late game towards those nodes.

 

[Couchpotato]

Still not a fan of the direction the series has gone. Sure it might be a good game that sold better then past games, it just feels like another 4X game on the overcrowded market.

 

[notdart]

Still not a fan of the direction the series has gone. Sure it might be a good game that sold better then past games, it just feels like another 4X game on the overcrowded market.

I view it as a pardadox game with actual combat instead of simulated combat. What i mean by that is they added a lot (too much) complexity which is typically found in a paradox 4x game.

 

[SSIGuy]

Still not a fan of the direction the series has gone. Sure it might be a good game that sold better then past games, it just feels like another 4X game on the overcrowded market.

Gotta disagree with some of this. There is such a dearth of quality AA/AAA fantasy 4x games, that I'm glad they've gone down this road (even though early titles like Shadow Magic are still my favs). And beyond that, I feel like they've done some really interesting things and I personally find the systems mesh together really well. I really like how independents work in this game; courting them has a really nice power curve. And I like the tome system. It is an interesting middle ground between the older, simpler "choose your next spell" system and a full-on tech tree. I also like the narrative flourishes/quests and the way they've made goodie huts a bit more interesting and rewarding for conquering them and bringing them into your empire.

So this game will fill that fantasy gap nicely for me while I continue to hold my ever diminishing hope that we'll ever get a true Legendary Heroes sequel—or at least something similar from Derek Paxton.

 

[Couchpotato]

Well I have to disagree as I don't want another 4X, I wanted another AoW game. I didn't enjoy the lack of any good campaigns or story either. So we will never agree.

I was straight out lied about “story realms being new campaign”. They are not. They are still randomly generated maps with “bank” start each time. Heroes, their items and levels, do not transfer. Even if they did, it would be moot point since hero skills selection is awfully bland and leave little space for something truly unique. No idea why scripted campaigns were abandoned, I suspect Paradox growing influence, which would also explain why AoW 4 is more complicated, however on paper only (like separate production resources for buildings and units, as opposed of single production stat, lots of buildings with smaller benefits each, lots of poorly explained additional mechanics that ultimately have little or no real impact and so on). Map generation is more restricted – cannot disable underground completely anymore, just reduce it in size and even large maps with few leaders still spawn AI close enough to place outpost right next to capital and then proceed to throw insults every few turns until declaring war. I seriously don’t know why there is even diplomacy in this game if everyone hate everyone for just existing (since AI seems to hate each other with the same burning passion). No more comfortable maps of AoW 3 with slow but peaceful exploration and growing in power. Whole game seems to be adjusted for multiplayer, which is yet another bane of modern times – hungry beast swallowing and destroying everything in pursuit of “balance”.

Sadly the old blood is gone and the new blood took the series in another direction. I'm not alone either dozens of steam threads feel the way, but get drowned out by loyal fans.

 

[Carnifex]

Another one I keep meaning to at least try, perhaps sometime this summer.

 

[ArcaneMagix]

This is the best of the series so far, but be aware the AI does start with considerable advantages even on Normal difficulty. I am on my third game after losing the first two by narrow margins (150 turn limit with highest score being the winner). There are DLC's available, but with the fantastic customization options not sure I'll even need to add those any time soon.

 

[ArcaneMagix]

Won the third try and earned Pantheon points.The Pantheon system makes AOW4 even better. My wizard can now show up in new worlds as a faction or recruitable hero.

 

[Couchpotato]

We need the facepalm emoji back but since a few are bothered by emoticons it wont happen. Also yes I'm being an ass-hat as this whole week is nothing but a pile a shit.