Turn-Based Strategy games have been an integral part of PC gaming for the last few decades, with hit series like Civilization, Caesar, and Pharaoh, all gaining cult followings and breaking sales records back in the day. Now, more genres and an ever-evolving player base have displaced the records and acclaim, but they are no less active in modern gaming. The upcoming Age of Wonders 4 takes a heritage from those golden age games and smacks it silly with modern graphics and quality of life improvements. The biggest selling point for this game is the creative stories you can tell via created realms, races, and decisions you make in the game. These decisions can also come back and haunt or help you, and it creates a hugely replayable game that can cater to each player’s preferred way of playing. Create your lord and become a Godir, and join a pantheon of your own creation.

Gameplay

Age of Wonders 4 is a turn-based civilization builder, utilizing a hex grid, resources, and stacks of units for laying waste to other civilizations. Triumph Studio and Paradox Interactive’s latest title changes the formulae with magic, incredible creatures, and highly customizable races and maps to create narrative chains that feel unique for each player. Upon launching into the first game, players are presented with a series of realms. Story realms are 5 realms that follow a singular storyline, set upon the backdrop of war between ancient Wizard Kings returning to take control of different races and Champions of the respective races rising to fight back. The story realms are a fairly enjoyable experience, with plenty of guidance for newer gamers and a throughline between the realms that keeps the player engaged in creating their own factions journey.

Playing a standard or custom realm is basically the same, but with less guidance via narrative events. Instead of following the story, you’re fully in charge of it. Many narrative events will come, but there is no objective besides the various win conditions so players can feel free to enjoy this wacky game however they like. Make a race of Wizard Orcs, Underground dwelling Dark Elves, or Evil Necromancer Halflings on a realm of your choosing or creation. There are so many customizable options to create unique games, with the freedom to create realms, races, leaders, pick magic tomes and regalia to match or tear down fantasy tropes. The race modifiers and magic tomes will set the tone for the game, and I have already had a blast with the customization and have made quite a few factions and enjoyed each immensely. From the traditional Human Empire that focused on faith to a group of Magical Moles that used teleport magic, I was constantly building and playing wacky combinations that were fun in theory and then even more interesting to play with.

Once the customization is done and the first turn begins, how the game is played is familiar due to similarities of recent games like Civilization 6 or Humankind. Players begin with a city and a few units. The units must fight and explore the fog around them. Going into battle allows the player to auto-resolve the combat or fight it manually, with the option to reset and fight it out if the auto-resolve is not a good result. These turn-based battles can feature 3 stacks of 6 units on either side, making up for a maximum of 18 units per side. That’s to say, these battles can get crazy. With different units being able to cast spells, buff their allies or debuff their foes, fire crazy weapons, and even be resurrected from the dead, these fights also have a surprisingly high level of tactical engagement. Taking into account the type of enemy units and what magic they have focused on is very important in how the fight should take place, and I kept finding myself outplayed and needing to use the handy replay button to save a catastrophic battle.

In the meantime, cities must balance Production for buildings, Food for population growth, and Draft for units through careful expansion into districts and the creation of buildings. The primary resources used are Gold and Mana, both of which can be earned per turn through various buildings and events. Mana can also be used to cast spells on the campaign map and in turn-based battles, and it would be smart for new Godir to manage both effectively. Run out, and you will quickly lose units and face other problems. On top of that, research is used to gain new spells and new tomes of magic, changing the options you will have to research. Some of these spells are incredibly powerful, and can even be used to modify races in your empire. Examples that I have seen include spells to ascend them to angels, turn them into walking plants, and become undead. While these are high-level spells called major race transformations and are available only once per race, lower-level options like magical blood or growth in size can be stacked on top of each other as minor race transformations. There are so many more spells that have cool effects that align with specific magical alignments, and I can’t wait to see what combinations other players come up with.

As the game progresses the player will meet other Leaders and free cities. Free cities can be befriended and later visualized and assimilated into your empire, while Leaders are in charge of their own factions and in direct competition with each other. You can declare war on these leaders or attempt diplomacy, as the game can be won either by conquering everyone or being allied with everyone. With multiple avenues to victory, such as building magical alignment buildings and casting a spell to change the world, conquering everyone, or just having the highest score at the end of 150 turns, players will really be able to tell their own victory for each playthrough. Victory is not the end though, as those newly ascended Godir enter your Pantheon and can be seen in later games as recruitable heroes or opposing Leaders. In my case, I had my first game’s Human ruler come to aid my Wood Elf faction in their darkest hour of need, and it was incredibly cool to see that after spending over 100 turns with this guy. Each successful game levels up your pantheon, unlocking more customization options for creating races and leaders.

Audio and Visuals

For a strategy game, Age of Wonders 4 is gorgeous. Vibrant colors roll across the campaign map interspersed with marauder units, different terrains, ruins, magical conduits, and district improvements. There were a few graphical glitches I noticed, but as the game is still pre-release I can forgive them because of how darn well the game ran. I also ran into some weird issues when fast-forwarding in battle, but nothing game-breaking or shocking.

The audio was another surprising high point. Fantastic music tracks accentuate the status of your empire and battles, and I really enjoyed the voiceovers for some of the characters, cutscenes, and descriptions. It can be surprisingly tough to have epic-sounding people and music in these turn-based games, but when it works it truly adds another dimension of enjoyment.

Replayability

AoW 4 is hugely customizable, and that opens up almost limitless possibilities for replays. Try a new race and magic combo, create a new realm, and give it another try! The shorter game times of 150 turns standard really kept me engaged with each game I played, and I would still be in the mood for more even when I finished a game or quit the faction I was using. For this review I have already made something like 6 unique factions, and I feel like I have only scratched the surface. While overall there will be a lot of similarities between types of factions and animations, it still works out in such a cool way that you barely notice. Yes, the dwarfs and the frogkin are literally the same animations and probably similar models, but I don’t care because it is so goofy and fun and I have been casting spells leveling up my little armored terrors.

As with most of my reviews, replayability is up to the player. If you enjoy it and still find fun and unique experiences you will keep playing for a while. To speak for myself, I have won 4 realms and I still cannot wait to play more combinations on my own and get my friends involved when the game releases. It feels great and goes by quickly, and as with many of these type of games the feeling of “one more turn” is strong here. That “one more turn” quickly turns into transforming your race, fighting a battle, assimilating a city, or any number of other milestones that lie ahead of you in “just a few more turns”. It’s okay, I have been there many times this week thanks to Age of Wonders 4, and I think if you’re reading this you will probably feel the same. This one will probably end up being a time sucker, and I’m not mad about it at all. Into another realm, I go!

What It Could Have Done Better

Other than some bugs and a few crashes that I was already warned about, there is very little I would change in Age of Wonders 4. There is already so much there to play with and do, most things are minor. Many animations are reused everywhere even when it doesn’t seem applicable, and there is a distinct lack of variation amongst similar cultures even when the race and playstyle is very different. The biggest issues I faced were not being able to select armies for combat and confusing UI items that could get me lost.

Battles, as I have mentioned, are maxed out at 3 stacks per side. You can deselect armies if you don’t want to use them in battle, but as far as I’m aware you cannot change the specific armies that engage. This caused me to fight a few battles with already wounded units when there was a full stack right next to it and within reinforcement range. There were a few times this heavily frustrated me, and I would definitely suggest this is changed as it defeats the purpose of having multiple stacks supporting each other. The other big problem I had was with some of the UI deciphering each other. While the nested tooltips in-game are awesome, there were many times when a notification didn’t have any explanation and then would quickly close out and vanish if not acted upon. Not sure if that was a bug or a feature, but I would recommend giving players time to read the event/notification before it goes away.

Verdict

Age of Wonders 4 is one of my new favorite turn-based strategy games, and is scratching an itch I didn’t realize had been missing since Civilization 5. With a great combination of dynamic storytelling, tactical combat, and exciting expansion and upgrade options, I have been having an absolute blast. I recommend AoW 4 for anyone who has a similar civilization itch, anyone who enjoys fantasy strategy, and really any gamer that has ever had an interest in turn-based strategy. This is seriously one of the better strategy games I have played, and I cannot wait to play just one more turn… maybe one more turn… okay but this turn is the last one!… oh no it’s 6am and the birds are singing…

Age of Wonders 4 will be out on May 2 for PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, Xbox, and PlayStation. Check out the newest trailer below and let us know your thoughts in the comments!