Age of Wonders 4

[Eyestabber]

Played it for a bit. It's...just not fun. Replacing races with "cultures" makes everything bland and gives it all a samey feeling. The new Hero system seems super boring, becoming "Lord of Crops" for +25 food isn't particularly exciting. There are improvements over AoW3 like your heroes can actually fight now and the new affinity trees adds some extra depth. But it's just not...the "magic" isn't there. I have like 300 hours in AoW 3 and this game really feels like I "should" like it due to how similar it is to 3. But I just...don't. It reminds me of Interstellar Space Genesis, another game that I found nothing inherently "wrong" with but just couldn't enjoy it either.

Ofc, the fact that all models look like **** (despite the world map being pretty), there's a "body" bar and other forms of cuckoldry certainty isn't helping. Anyway, I feel like you people should TRY this game. Maybe you'll enjoy it, who knows. I know I didn't, but...

[GhostCow]

I had a ton of fun with this for about 20 hours before I realized that there's not much to it and it's very samey, even though it seems like it has infinite possibilities. The AI sucks too.

[Fedora Master]

The AI is nonexistent, as are meaningful choices. It's a typical Paradox game in that it wows people with the appearance of things to do but anyone with a brain quickly realizes nothing matters except stacking specific modifiers.

Player numbers also dropped from 12k+ to 2000. Telling.

[Eyestabber]

I had a ton of fun with this for about 20 hours before I realized that there's not much to it and it's very samey, even though it seems like it has infinite possibilities. The AI sucks too.

I wish the game could've fooled me for 20 hours. Things felt off from the very first minute when I noticed the Campaign, with its characters and hand crafted maps, was ******* gone and replaced by RNG templates. AoW 3 had very serviceable writing, but it was all sacrificed at the altar of "customization". NGL, when I installed the game I was legit curious to know whether or not my boy Edward Portsmith was gonna bang the Emperor's niece this time. Guess we'll never know.

[Fedora Master]

Customization where 90% of choices are fake, too.

[Tweed]

But the new DLC added DRAGONS! OooOOOooOOoo!

[Tag365]

Age of Wonders 4 was apparently successful enough to get a second Expansion Pass with three more DLC expansions.


Official trailer can be found here.


Do you think this game warrants the new batch of DLC? I'm having a hard time getting into the game.

[Finarfin]

Age of Wonders 4 was apparently successful enough to get a second Expansion Pass with three more DLC expansions.


Official trailer can be found here.


Do you think this game warrants the new batch of DLC? I'm having a hard time getting into the game.

50 Bucks.... These ******* **** aren't even ashamed and instead smile.
I literally got a brandnew game that comes out in 10 days for 35 bucks (Metaphor) just use a DLC unlocker or something

[Tag365]

Yeah, I've noticed it's $50 when there's only three confirmed DLC expansions. All three better be filled with content like Empires & Ashes and Eldritch Realms. A Dragon Dawn level expansion wouldn't cut it as an inferior price point preposition.

[Tweed]

Doesn't it all boil down to cosmetics anyway?

[Luckmann]

I've actually had a lot of fun with this, and I think it has improved considerably since release. I do agree that it was incredibly boring to replace actual races and reducing it to what is essentially just a cosmetic choice. While mods can help a little, as can staying true to "archetype" (the game seems like it doesn't want to break these anyway, or at least not much, on randomized civilizations/factions), there's just something missing when "form" (race) doesn't matter.

All the unique racials are gone, as are iconic racial units, as all units are now based on cultures and tomes (to the point where internally, the cultures are tomes). I personally run with a mod that endows all forms/races with at least one type of special ability, which is neat, but that just adds modifiers to all your units (or at least all your racial units), it doesn't truly provide anything unique. Sure, you may have a knight with better flanking, but it's ultimately "just another knight", it's not going to give your lizardfolk a special turtle ballistae or something like that.

It also just feels fundamentally wrong that if I'm "Water Halflings" or whatever we name my custom race, it doesn't actually help at all with my relationship with other halflings, say, "Strongheart Halflings" or whatever. You'd think that even if we are of different cultures, it should still be easier to convert a city from halflings to halflings than from, say, some kind of catfolk to halflings. They really should have included solid racial effects for each racial form, including impact on diplomatic relations, and a shared unit or two each, even if it's "just" slingers for halflings or whatever.

I feel like I'm harping a lot on a single thing here, but I really do consider it the game's single biggest flaw, because other than that, I've actually found it very enjoyable, and the customization is fairly solid. Like many of these games, there may be "fake" choices, but you're intended to play it more like a roleplaying game and work with the tools you have thematically, I think, not necessarily optimize for great success.

Doesn't it all boil down to cosmetics anyway?

Every DLC has come with things beyond cosmetics. Two new cultures (one of them with a few subcultures), at least two tomes for each DLC (which defines a lot in how things play), a few traits, a slew of racial traits (I don't know how many, because they retooled the system), and some other ****.

The only reason I don't have this installed is because I can't fit it onto be drive and I have to prioritize. It's not necessarily a game I play a lot, but more something I engage with in bursts.

[Tag365]

Doesn't it all boil down to cosmetics anyway?

In addition to the above there are two DLC ruler kinds. The Dragon Dawn DLC introduces the dragon lord which starts with an extra affinity point of their aligned affinity, a breath weapon based on that affinity, and a dragon hoard which makes them gain extra gold for hoarding items that aren't equipped to anybody, but have an inherent upkeep of 30 gold, and can't equip humanoid equipment as they are regular western style dragons. Eldritch Realms adds Eldritch Sovereigns which have no physical attacks but wield Relics, have a unique set of ranged magic abilities in combat, and can get a Forgotten Tome which grants one of three random abilities for combat which are switched between every few turns. They also have a "Thrall" resource used to cast Eldritch Sovereign specific Ritual strategic spells.

All else fails, you could likely role play as a savior on a mission to permanently slay the evil dragon rulers of a world or an Eldritch Sovereign trying to distort the world into his own scheme.

[mynameismortis]

Thinking of pirating this game, saw you could make your own faction and do some wacky stuff. Anyone who played it recently?

[GhostCow]

Thinking of pirating this game, saw you could make your own faction and do some wacky stuff. Anyone who played it recently?

I played it a bunch but eventually got bored. There are lots of options for picking your own faction but somehow the game always ends up feeling the same to me. It's an ok 4x game but maybe I'm picky because I haven't really enjoyed one to the fullest since Civ IV

[Eyestabber]

Thinking of pirating this game, saw you could make your own faction and do some wacky stuff. Anyone who played it recently?

I played it a bunch but eventually got bored. There are lots of options for picking your own faction but somehow the game always ends up feeling the same to me. It's an ok 4x game but maybe I'm picky because I haven't really enjoyed one to the fullest since Civ IV

Civ IV is peak 4x, comparing any game to it is unfair.

[asf]

series peaked with shadow magic

[Tag365]

Seems like Shadow Magic being the Age of Wonders magnum opus is the popular consensus. Age of Wonders 3 wasn't considered as successful, and Planetfall was a spin-off that was a sci-fi style game.

[Eyestabber]

Seems like Shadow Magic being the Age of Wonders magnum opus is the popular consensus. Age of Wonders 3 wasn't considered as successful, and Planetfall was a spin-off that was a sci-fi style game.

AoW 3 was quite good actually, but I never finished the campaign. There's something tiresome about it, I think it comes down to my gripe of modern strategy titles having overly detailed map that causes eye fatigue.

[Boontaker]

AoW4 is fantastic, roped some players into MP from a WoW guild and enjoyed every match, can go 10+ hours though.

[Eyestabber]

Three years later and the extra content made the game at least worth pirating. I'm enjoying it a bit, though not as much as I did aow3.

[Norfleet]

Seems like Shadow Magic being the Age of Wonders magnum opus is the popular consensus. Age of Wonders 3 wasn't considered as successful, and Planetfall was a spin-off that was a sci-fi style game.

Planetfall was "okay", but basically had no real connection to Age of Wonders other than branding. It was "Planetfall", with "Age of Wonders" tacked on for marketing reasons.

[Tweed]

Seems like Shadow Magic being the Age of Wonders magnum opus is the popular consensus. Age of Wonders 3 wasn't considered as successful, and Planetfall was a spin-off that was a sci-fi style game.

Planetfall was "okay", but basically had no real connection to Age of Wonders other than branding. It was "Planetfall", with "Age of Wonders" tacked on for marketing reasons.

It wasn't even Planetfall.

planetfall.jpg

Your old man LARP is slipping. RIP Floyd.

[Norfleet]

It wasn't even Planetfall.

Huh, fascinating. An Infocom game I missed. Figures it would be '83, though.

Your old man LARP is slipping.

See, here's the thing. In the 1980s, we didn't really have the Interwebs, so it was rather difficult to obtain every game. Or even hear of every game. If it wasn't posted to your local BBS, you didn't hear of it.