Age of Wonders 4

Eyestabber · Post by **Eyestabber** » July 12th, 2023, 22:14

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 shit (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 · Post by **GhostCow** » July 12th, 2023, 22:29

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 · Post by **Fedora Master** » July 12th, 2023, 22:39

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 · Post by **Eyestabber** » July 13th, 2023, 00:52

GhostCow wrote: ↑ July 12th, 2023, 22:29
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 fucking 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 · Post by **Fedora Master** » July 13th, 2023, 00:58

Customization where 90% of choices are fake, too.

Tweed · Post by **Tweed** » July 16th, 2023, 06:04

But the new DLC added DRAGONS! OooOOOooOOoo!