![]() If left to its own devices, it’ll develop a decent city and will follow your guidance on how it should proceed. Take, for example, city management automation: it’s actually pretty competent. What results is a series of interesting decisions that mostly (okay, almost always) feel fun to deal with, while keeping it all relatively digestible in a way that few other developers and publishers have figured out. If anything, it’s more of a “true 4X” game than any other game in the series before it, but Triumph Studios has gone to great lengths to make it easier to understand, and much more approachable. There are many tactical spells to learn, brutal and fast-paced combat to master, unit enchantments to consider, tome-specific units to compare and contrast, and city management to exploit. Hell, I’ll go out on a limb and predict that Age of Wonders 4 will do for fantasy 4X what Stellaris has done for space 4X: make it accessible enough and so wildly customizable that it will appeal to a much larger audience.īut that doesn’t mean that there aren’t many systems here to contend with. That being said, Age of Wonders 4 has, yet again, benefited from Paradox’s extensive knowledge of how to present dense information more legibly and fluidly.įrom rather extensive tutorials to a large and detailed encyclopedia, to my personal favorite, nested tooltips (à la Crusader Kings 3), Age of Wonders 4 feels extremely accessible. #2: It’s the Easiest Game in the Series to Learnīut fear not, there’s still some strategy and tactical depth to achieve, and on higher difficulties, the skill cap should still be pretty high. This is one of the best-looking and best-presented 4X games in existence. The obvious infusion of funds and talent from Paradox (Triumph Studios’ new publisher) is clear and I’m glad to see it. In short, everything about Age of Wonders 4’s presentation screams quality. You can see each of the five cities in the screenshots here in this preview all have different city models. Honestly, it’s like they thought of everything… It’s little details like this that really do a lot to draw you into this fantasy world. In fact, there are so many models that I lost track of how many varieties there are. ![]() Hell, there are even multiple different models for the cities that you and your AI allies and enemies will found. As long as they match the quality of the Tome readings, I would love to hear more. I’d love to see quest passages read by multiple different actors or even voice lines for some of the other texts. Here, in Age of Wonders 4, I see so many opportunities for MOAR. Whereas in Age of Wonders: Planetfall, I would often *cringe* at some of the voice-overs for various tech choices. ![]() My only complaint about the voice-over work, surprisingly, is that there isn’t enough of it. Audibly, I often found myself choosing a tome and listening to the excerpt read by the superb female voice-over more than once, despite normally avoiding “distractions” like that in the past. There are so many little details, from little sheep in your farms to wee little crows flying around crow-enchanted units, or the fire tips of arrows after a flame enchantment, and so much more. I’m sure many of you reading this have already watched at least one or two of the developer-led gameplay videos, but there are intricacies lost in presentations like that. There is beauty to be found in the voice-over work, the crisp, clean user interface and user experience, and just as much allure to behold in the spell effects and combat skills. Those Ancient Wonders are a joy to behold, both for their gameplay benefits and for their spectacle, as they’re beautiful and mysterious, further adding to the ambiance and fantasy of the Age of Wonders universe.īut Age of Wonders 4’s beauty isn’t just skin deep, either. Exploring each map to find its natural features is just as enjoyable as stumbling on its scattered Ancient Wonders, and unique locations that offer your cities exceptional bonuses. Though 4X fans are notably able to overlook a lack of production values and some even actively rebel against such “frivolous” things, it’s easy to appreciate the amount of skill and effort on display here.įrom detailed, artful unit models, to maps with lush forests, craggy mountaintops, and snow you can practically feel, the game just looks beautiful. Very few 4X games, let alone fantasy 4X games, are as beautiful, well-produced, and audibly satisfying as Age of Wonders 4. #1: The Production Values Are eXceptional By the time you’re reading this, I am likely having serious withdrawals.
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