Age of Wonders 4
Taking inspiration from RPGs breathes new life into Age of Wonders 4, which balances exciting breadth and surprising approachability.
With every new edition, tactical strategy fusion series Age of Wonders has changed up exactly how it works – and Age of Wonders 4 showed its priorities as soon as it let me make a faction of mystical, arctic-dwelling wolf-riding dwarves.
Age of Wonders 4 review
- Developer: Triumph Studios
- Publisher: Paradox Interactive
- Platform: Played on PC
- Availability: Out 2nd May on PC (Steam, Epic, Windows, GOG), PS5, Xbox Series X/S
After choosing a campaign, the first choice you make is whether to use a pre-made faction or customise your own. Where in Age of Wonders 3 you could alter your leader’s appearance, your empire was functionally a combination of race and class – Orcish Theocrats, or Dwarven Dreadnoughts. Here, I find myself picking my way through a menu that feels a lot more like RPG character creation: choosing a body type (with swappable perks), culture, society, and early specialisations by way of that first Tome of Magic – and, of course, appearance customisation.
Culture, and your first Tome of Magic, determine the pool of units you get. A dwarven knight in a feudal society is the same as a human knight in a feudal society – but I can upgrade them very differently. But taking enchantments through the Tomes of Magic – whether its unit enchantments that apply to just support roles, or racial enchantments that apply to all dwarves in my empire – can take base armies down a very different route, especially with the ability to mix tomes of different affinities. Mixing Order and Nature tomes within a feudal culture feels distinctly different to mixing Chaos and Nature tomes within a barbarian culture. Even with a nature tree in common, it’s druidic paladins versus primal hordes. As you play across the strategic map, the units you can recruit and how they play vary even further, as cities you vassalise and ancient wonders you explore will also free up unique units. It’s a kind of depth that allows for incredible min-maxing, but Age of Wonders 4 makes a point to advise you not to worry about the numbers, and to explore themes and aesthetics you find interesting. Therefore: mystical, arctic-dwelling wolf-riding dwarves.