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Fantastic review. This is basically the only video that I've found that clearly and concisely explained the appeal of this game for a beginner to the series.
I moved to AoW4 from playing Civilization. At this point, with all the DLCs i find AoW4 much more fun due to the customization options with nuances. All these options around faction building allow really fun builds and experimentation, thus replayability. I agree with the shortcomings you listed. I'd add also that the existing victory conditions need rework.
I will give you my review. One friday I bought this game on sale, and on sunday evening I was calling my boss to take a day off. If you are a 4X fan this game will just suck you in. It has better combat than endless legend (in my opinion), much more empire variety than civilization, where most nations have just few bonuses here and there. Great exploration. Magic is awesome. You can sacrifice your whole race and make them undead, terraform your surroundings. Unlike civ, the further you go, more interesting fights get. Because your high tier tomes and units finally get rolling. Its a great game. One thing I would like to have in this game, would be some mode more centered around combat. Sometimes I want to just go and fight, but the whole empire management and diplomacy just holds me back. Something like chaos warriors in total war warhammer. Where they just go around burn everything and make their army larger, no empire management just pure brutality.
A pure combat faction would be a lot of fun - I like the changes to necromancy that mean you keep gaining troops through battle, but they could deffo go further. I love how Stellaris let's a player become the game crisis, would love to see more 4X games do that. It would be a perfect thematic fit for AOW4.
I'd say AoW Planetfall is better, if it had more content added and more and smaller sectors as was implemented in Aow4. In Aow4 they removed absolutely beautiful and hillarious units descriptions
If you have played enough games, you can unlock the Chosen Destroyers in your Pantheon. That is a Society Trait, that locks you to just one city for entire game, but you gain big permanent income increase when you raze other cities. That could easier the empire management a bit for you. :) Or if you pick a realm trait Megacities, every player is locked to only one city, but they can spread it larger then in a normal game.
About the ai "pulling armies out of nowhere", it is not actually cheating... (other than economic buffs on higher difficulties) the ai when scared is just very good at using all the ways the game has to recruit troops, like the rally of lieges, the empire tree, and just plain gold rushing, etc.
Thank you for pointing that out - I stand corrected. I knew the AI used rally / gold rush (didn't know about empire tree tbh) - but never thought it could add up to the numbers being pulled every other turn. Guess the economic bonuses help that out. I'll keep an eye on it more closely in my next game . I'd still rather see an AI play better rather than see them get any bonuses at high difficulties, though very few 4Xs have actually managed to make that work.
@@WillisBorker They are also really good at force marching, teleporting other amies around the map back home. it can help a lot to understand it to cheat away the fog of war or look at what their income/options are before it happens and see how much they pour into getting troops assembled to defend their cities if they eg. lose a battle outside their capital that is now under siege.
@@Sten43211 Yeah I'll definitely have to keep an eye on that properly next time. Force March does have a way of making things seem a bit fishy, but I know it can be legit (had the same problem with Old World - but then realised the AI just used Forced March really frequently). Thanks for pointing all that out though, that's given some fresh perspective. I'll check all that out for myself in my next game - and that'll definitely turn around one of my big complaints of the game!
@@WillisBorker it does not cheat aka create armies out of thin air. The consensus seems to be that the AI gets bonuses to production based on difficulty. On higher difficulties, the AI gets larger bonuses. The consensus also seems to be that the AI still follows the same general rules of producing units however. Like they don't just create units out of thin air, they also have to make use of city production / summoning / rally of the lieges.
it's so punishing on easy for any mistake now that it's kinda hard to learn even on the tutorial map. I feel like people who started at the beginning had an advantage to learn to play
Thank you for this review. Ive been debating for a year if it was worth buying or not. This was the push I needed to get it. I love the idea that your hero can be found in another game if you win. And how customizable you can make your race i stead of just being handed one.
Hey. I've been meaning to buy this game since launch but every single discount period I've had new releases of games I prioritized over this. Even this time too (Dragon age) but I thought "Nah, fuck it. Let's fix this now" so I naturally went to check reviews. One part of the review decided it for me decisively and it was this part 7:50. I always try to finish my campaigns but yes, it is easy to restart for an infinite number of reasons, so to see that they have a system for this situation is AMAZING. I love it and it really put me over the edge of getting the game. I actually got the premium edition. I am interested in more DLCs than I expected so I thought, let's save money now by getting the season pass along with the game.
Please, could you tell me how does it compare to Age of Wonders: Planetfall? I have over 1K hours in Planetfall so that is the best reference point I can have.
I rate it better than Planetfall - though a lot of that comes down to tastes of fantasy Vs Sci-fi. 4 is a lot more streamlined and easier to play, but still retains the depth - it's not that it's dumbed down, it's just very fluid. The UI/UX design is the best in the series. There's less micromanagement that's needed - but there's still a lot for the player to control. They've struck a good balance. I much preferred the combat in 4 over Planetfall - a lot of that is down to the UI/UX as well. Everything's very readable (though there is some frustrating RNG with some units). The one area Planetfall wins is its Empire Mode. One of my favourite game modes in any 4X game and I'm hoping they add something similar into 4. Also diplomacy / espionage / trading has always been a weakness of the series, if you've sunk 1000 hours into Planetfall, I'm guessing you'll know what to expect. So yeah - TLDR: I consider it a better game in nearly every category, and if you don't mind the switch from Sci-Fi to Fantasy, I'd say it's worth migrating over.
I do love the sci-fi setting more but 4 is the better game. Unit customization in planetfall is better imo because it allows for more unit specialization but in all other terms AoW4 is a better game. Tome system in AoW4 is amazing. I would love to see planetfall 2 with QoL and mechanics changes introduced in AoW4 (but with planetfall unit mod system).
There's actually a new tome in the Primal Fury expansion (Stormborne), which does indeed allow that eventual possibility. It's pretty high teir (level 4), & requires the right build to unlock; so you have to work for it. But turning your species into sea people (via the major racial change: Naga Transformation) is definitely a legitimate possibility. One you don't even need mods for! 👍 BTW, thank you paradox for making this fantastic game! Peace. ❤😊
they should make a game that runs decently on pcs, i have the recommended specs and cant run the game on low with out stutter even on small maps with 3 factions.
I feel i'm better witing for a humble bundle of this , to get everything at a decent price ... i already have a paradox game to play/try , victoria.... seems it improved and that's nice
A fellow Humble Bundle enjoyer! There've been some great strategy games lately (Vic 3 isn't for everyone, but I enjoy it - worth trying but it takes a long time to get into) I wouldn't expect AOW to be part of a bundle too soon, but Paradox games do appear - so it's likely at some point. Usually when there's DLC to go with it. I reckon AOW will be part of humble choice to coincide with an expansion in season 2 - maybe 4 to 6 months?
it is fun. the last dlc was interresting but i had hoped for more customisation regarding the insects, like the head or tails of the units, but they are stuck looking like earwigs. the new lord type is cool but to me it does not beat the awsome factor of turning my elder dragon into a dracolich. my biggest gripe with the game is the war time diplo, or the compleate lack of it (diplomacy in general is also rather bare bones but imo peace deals are the worst part of it). your only choice is a white peace, a province claiming pact or vassalisation. nothing else, if you want any resources you will have to wait for the ai to offer you something (if they ever do), nor do you have the option to offer anything of yours. i do not know this but i have no reason to assume that you could do any of that in multiplayer war diplomacy. There is really no reason to even bother with it. this is not helped by the reason the devs actually gave to me when i asked them about it on steam. paraphrasing: "we have changed diplomacy to this and also complearely gutted the war diplomacy due to some players pulling of ridicolus diplomacy exploits in AoW3. things are this way to make sure there is only offers that the ai would accept". i got no response when i asked them about why i can not simply demand gold or mana and let the ai give me a number they would accept. they have had a year on this and have done nothing with it. another but more minor problem i have with it is the necromancy rework, and it is mostly just a bit of an immersion break. at first you could only raise undead from your pepole (by recruiting them in your city like golems) and now it is only the enemy units that you can raise. now i get why they only allow one of the two and it is mostly up to yourself which source of undead you find it the least ridicolus that your necromancer overlord is ignoreing. the bodies of the enemy or the local graveyard of his very own town.
what bullsh*t review, didn't even take a second to search for the validity of your claims that the AI is cheating. the devs have posted tables what they AI opponents are getting at their respective difficulty settings and players have confirmed it by datamining. the AI gets mainly economic buffs in terms of +10 % to like +50 % more gold, food, production etc.. they also start with a unit or two more and get some slight damage buffs and protection buff against the marauding units on the higher difficulties. BUT what the AI NOT do is cheating, there are several ways how you can a) travel a huge army around the map (teleporters) and b) spawn units or entire armies with spells and the rally of lieges. also rushing draft. the AI uses all these options to create new units / armies, it does NOT create them out of thin air.
Someone in another comment did correct me about creating units. I did read into that after and checked it myself, and yes I was wrong about that. I didn't know they used force march / rallies / teleports so often and efficiently - so yeah, I was wrong about that and I apologise for saying that in the video. However, everything else, the bonuses to economy, unit buffs, extra starting units, map vision - those are all added as bonuses. Whether you want to define that as that AI as cheating or not (I personally would) - they are there to make the more difficult AI more challenging, rather than just make them play better. It's something most 4X games are guilty of (Civ is notorious for it), but it's not something I'll condemn a game for - given my review of AOW4 is overall glowing.
I must admit, AoW4 was a bad purchase for me. I want to like it but there are many things I don't like (or are just worse than in previous games). The first thing i don't like are that "races" does not exist. They are just Forms here and the cultures does not make it up for me. Generally, most cultures have similar Units just with 1 "extra thing" and when they are available (DLC cultures are a bit better). I just miss any form of "identity". The second thing i don't like is the Pantheon. Not a bad thing itself but it is just much worse than Planetfalls Empire system. And my biggest thing is the enchantments/transformation. First of all, some of those Transformations just looks bad and secondly it is just a much worse version of the Mods Mechanic from Planetfall. In Planetfall you could make the same Units to 2 different "Units" by modding them differently. Here it is just stacking buffs..... There are of course also some good things in AoW4 but overall it was still not worth its money for Me.
Sorry to hear you didn't like it - and I completely see where you're coming from. Despite being the same series - Planetfall is very different to 4 - and both do different things their own way - and people will prefer one way over another. Completely agree with you on the galactic empire mode, it's fantastic and I just want something like that in 4. I never thought 4 invalidates Planetfall, and both have their place. I'd personally rather play 4, but I also played and enjoyed 3 - which is a much more natural jump compared to PF and 4. Maybe you'll try 4 again and it'll click, or they add some features that'll bring it more in line with you expectations. But if not, well, hopefully there's a planetfall 2 in the future that makes up for 4!
@@forwenein2669 Yes that is very funny indeed. Of course, no problems is different from poor performance. Maybe you should make a video of you showing your framerates and frame timings under various conditions including zoomed into a bottom city on an explored map. And then analyze the impact of the various graphics options including the options in the ini file.
![[Brutal] Nature Hordes are INSANE in the early game - Age of Wonders 4 - Ep1](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/vAyLKmg4r3o/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Brutal] Nature Hordes are INSANE in the early game - Age of Wonders 4 - Ep1](/img/tr.png)
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Its not the winning that counts but the Tentacles we grow along the way.
Fantastic review. This is basically the only video that I've found that clearly and concisely explained the appeal of this game for a beginner to the series.
Willis is brilliant at what he does!! So happy you liked it!
I moved to AoW4 from playing Civilization. At this point, with all the DLCs i find AoW4 much more fun due to the customization options with nuances. All these options around faction building allow really fun builds and experimentation, thus replayability.
I agree with the shortcomings you listed. I'd add also that the existing victory conditions need rework.
I will give you my review. One friday I bought this game on sale, and on sunday evening I was calling my boss to take a day off. If you are a 4X fan this game will just suck you in. It has better combat than endless legend (in my opinion), much more empire variety than civilization, where most nations have just few bonuses here and there. Great exploration. Magic is awesome. You can sacrifice your whole race and make them undead, terraform your surroundings. Unlike civ, the further you go, more interesting fights get. Because your high tier tomes and units finally get rolling. Its a great game. One thing I would like to have in this game, would be some mode more centered around combat. Sometimes I want to just go and fight, but the whole empire management and diplomacy just holds me back. Something like chaos warriors in total war warhammer. Where they just go around burn everything and make their army larger, no empire management just pure brutality.
A pure combat faction would be a lot of fun - I like the changes to necromancy that mean you keep gaining troops through battle, but they could deffo go further.
I love how Stellaris let's a player become the game crisis, would love to see more 4X games do that. It would be a perfect thematic fit for AOW4.
I'd say AoW Planetfall is better, if it had more content added and more and smaller sectors as was implemented in Aow4. In Aow4 they removed absolutely beautiful and hillarious units descriptions
@@Adoffkayeah planetfall might be the best game in the series imo. Highly underrated game
If you have played enough games, you can unlock the Chosen Destroyers in your Pantheon. That is a Society Trait, that locks you to just one city for entire game, but you gain big permanent income increase when you raze other cities. That could easier the empire management a bit for you. :)
Or if you pick a realm trait Megacities, every player is locked to only one city, but they can spread it larger then in a normal game.
@@martinian8 thanks, I didnt explore pantheons that much, I thought there are mostly just cosmetic things
About the ai "pulling armies out of nowhere", it is not actually cheating... (other than economic buffs on higher difficulties)
the ai when scared is just very good at using all the ways the game has to recruit troops, like the rally of lieges, the empire tree, and just plain gold rushing, etc.
Thank you for pointing that out - I stand corrected.
I knew the AI used rally / gold rush (didn't know about empire tree tbh) - but never thought it could add up to the numbers being pulled every other turn. Guess the economic bonuses help that out.
I'll keep an eye on it more closely in my next game . I'd still rather see an AI play better rather than see them get any bonuses at high difficulties, though very few 4Xs have actually managed to make that work.
@@WillisBorker They are also really good at force marching, teleporting other amies around the map back home.
it can help a lot to understand it to cheat away the fog of war or look at what their income/options are before it happens and see how much they pour into getting troops assembled to defend their cities if they eg. lose a battle outside their capital that is now under siege.
@@Sten43211 Yeah I'll definitely have to keep an eye on that properly next time. Force March does have a way of making things seem a bit fishy, but I know it can be legit (had the same problem with Old World - but then realised the AI just used Forced March really frequently).
Thanks for pointing all that out though, that's given some fresh perspective. I'll check all that out for myself in my next game - and that'll definitely turn around one of my big complaints of the game!
That's good to know. It felt like it was cheating for me too. I'll have to look into getting better at building armires.
@@WillisBorker it does not cheat aka create armies out of thin air.
The consensus seems to be that the AI gets bonuses to production based on difficulty. On higher difficulties, the AI gets larger bonuses.
The consensus also seems to be that the AI still follows the same general rules of producing units however. Like they don't just create units out of thin air, they also have to make use of city production / summoning / rally of the lieges.
Such an underappreciated masterpiece. Perfect review for a near perfect strategy game!
it's so punishing on easy for any mistake now that it's kinda hard to learn even on the tutorial map. I feel like people who started at the beginning had an advantage to learn to play
Thank you for this review. Ive been debating for a year if it was worth buying or not. This was the push I needed to get it.
I love the idea that your hero can be found in another game if you win. And how customizable you can make your race i stead of just being handed one.
Hope you enjoy it!
I want Willis to read me a bed time story!!
I read a mean 'Snail and the Whale'
The real wonder is Willis.
Hey. I've been meaning to buy this game since launch but every single discount period I've had new releases of games I prioritized over this. Even this time too (Dragon age) but I thought "Nah, fuck it. Let's fix this now" so I naturally went to check reviews. One part of the review decided it for me decisively and it was this part 7:50. I always try to finish my campaigns but yes, it is easy to restart for an infinite number of reasons, so to see that they have a system for this situation is AMAZING.
I love it and it really put me over the edge of getting the game. I actually got the premium edition. I am interested in more DLCs than I expected so I thought, let's save money now by getting the season pass along with the game.
I loved AoW3 but didn't buy AoW4 because Planetfall was disappointing. After trying it on a free weekend, I now love it. Great game!
IS Xbox series x console crossplay with Steam? I want thod feature before i buy
Yes you can crossplay between platforms.
🔥🔥🔥
Please, could you tell me how does it compare to Age of Wonders: Planetfall? I have over 1K hours in Planetfall so that is the best reference point I can have.
I rate it better than Planetfall - though a lot of that comes down to tastes of fantasy Vs Sci-fi.
4 is a lot more streamlined and easier to play, but still retains the depth - it's not that it's dumbed down, it's just very fluid. The UI/UX design is the best in the series. There's less micromanagement that's needed - but there's still a lot for the player to control. They've struck a good balance.
I much preferred the combat in 4 over Planetfall - a lot of that is down to the UI/UX as well. Everything's very readable (though there is some frustrating RNG with some units).
The one area Planetfall wins is its Empire Mode. One of my favourite game modes in any 4X game and I'm hoping they add something similar into 4.
Also diplomacy / espionage / trading has always been a weakness of the series, if you've sunk 1000 hours into Planetfall, I'm guessing you'll know what to expect.
So yeah - TLDR: I consider it a better game in nearly every category, and if you don't mind the switch from Sci-Fi to Fantasy, I'd say it's worth migrating over.
I do love the sci-fi setting more but 4 is the better game. Unit customization in planetfall is better imo because it allows for more unit specialization but in all other terms AoW4 is a better game. Tome system in AoW4 is amazing. I would love to see planetfall 2 with QoL and mechanics changes introduced in AoW4 (but with planetfall unit mod system).
Sea People would be cool!
There's actually a new tome in the Primal Fury expansion (Stormborne), which does indeed allow that eventual possibility. It's pretty high teir (level 4), & requires the right build to unlock; so you have to work for it. But turning your species into sea people (via the major racial change: Naga Transformation) is definitely a legitimate possibility. One you don't even need mods for! 👍 BTW, thank you paradox for making this fantastic game! Peace. ❤😊
Willis 👑
they should make a game that runs decently on pcs, i have the recommended specs and cant run the game on low with out stutter even on small maps with 3 factions.
Where is Willis?
I feel i'm better witing for a humble bundle of this , to get everything at a decent price ... i already have a paradox game to play/try , victoria.... seems it improved and that's nice
A fellow Humble Bundle enjoyer! There've been some great strategy games lately (Vic 3 isn't for everyone, but I enjoy it - worth trying but it takes a long time to get into)
I wouldn't expect AOW to be part of a bundle too soon, but Paradox games do appear - so it's likely at some point. Usually when there's DLC to go with it. I reckon AOW will be part of humble choice to coincide with an expansion in season 2 - maybe 4 to 6 months?
🔥 🔥 🔥
Yeah but is it better than Hearthstone?
it is fun. the last dlc was interresting but i had hoped for more customisation regarding the insects, like the head or tails of the units, but they are stuck looking like earwigs. the new lord type is cool but to me it does not beat the awsome factor of turning my elder dragon into a dracolich. my biggest gripe with the game is the war time diplo, or the compleate lack of it (diplomacy in general is also rather bare bones but imo peace deals are the worst part of it). your only choice is a white peace, a province claiming pact or vassalisation. nothing else, if you want any resources you will have to wait for the ai to offer you something (if they ever do), nor do you have the option to offer anything of yours. i do not know this but i have no reason to assume that you could do any of that in multiplayer war diplomacy. There is really no reason to even bother with it.
this is not helped by the reason the devs actually gave to me when i asked them about it on steam. paraphrasing: "we have changed diplomacy to this and also complearely gutted the war diplomacy due to some players pulling of ridicolus diplomacy exploits in AoW3. things are this way to make sure there is only offers that the ai would accept". i got no response when i asked them about why i can not simply demand gold or mana and let the ai give me a number they would accept. they have had a year on this and have done nothing with it.
another but more minor problem i have with it is the necromancy rework, and it is mostly just a bit of an immersion break. at first you could only raise undead from your pepole (by recruiting them in your city like golems) and now it is only the enemy units that you can raise. now i get why they only allow one of the two and it is mostly up to yourself which source of undead you find it the least ridicolus that your necromancer overlord is ignoreing. the bodies of the enemy or the local graveyard of his very own town.
its
what bullsh*t review, didn't even take a second to search for the validity of your claims that the AI is cheating.
the devs have posted tables what they AI opponents are getting at their respective difficulty settings and players have confirmed it by datamining.
the AI gets mainly economic buffs in terms of +10 % to like +50 % more gold, food, production etc.. they also start with a unit or two more and get some slight damage buffs and protection buff against the marauding units on the higher difficulties.
BUT what the AI NOT do is cheating, there are several ways how you can a) travel a huge army around the map (teleporters) and b) spawn units or entire armies with spells and the rally of lieges. also rushing draft. the AI uses all these options to create new units / armies, it does NOT create them out of thin air.
Someone in another comment did correct me about creating units. I did read into that after and checked it myself, and yes I was wrong about that. I didn't know they used force march / rallies / teleports so often and efficiently - so yeah, I was wrong about that and I apologise for saying that in the video.
However, everything else, the bonuses to economy, unit buffs, extra starting units, map vision - those are all added as bonuses. Whether you want to define that as that AI as cheating or not (I personally would) - they are there to make the more difficult AI more challenging, rather than just make them play better. It's something most 4X games are guilty of (Civ is notorious for it), but it's not something I'll condemn a game for - given my review of AOW4 is overall glowing.
I must admit, AoW4 was a bad purchase for me. I want to like it but there are many things I don't like (or are just worse than in previous games). The first thing i don't like are that "races" does not exist. They are just Forms here and the cultures does not make it up for me. Generally, most cultures have similar Units just with 1 "extra thing" and when they are available (DLC cultures are a bit better). I just miss any form of "identity". The second thing i don't like is the Pantheon. Not a bad thing itself but it is just much worse than Planetfalls Empire system. And my biggest thing is the enchantments/transformation. First of all, some of those Transformations just looks bad and secondly it is just a much worse version of the Mods Mechanic from Planetfall. In Planetfall you could make the same Units to 2 different "Units" by modding them differently. Here it is just stacking buffs..... There are of course also some good things in AoW4 but overall it was still not worth its money for Me.
Sorry to hear you didn't like it - and I completely see where you're coming from. Despite being the same series - Planetfall is very different to 4 - and both do different things their own way - and people will prefer one way over another. Completely agree with you on the galactic empire mode, it's fantastic and I just want something like that in 4.
I never thought 4 invalidates Planetfall, and both have their place. I'd personally rather play 4, but I also played and enjoyed 3 - which is a much more natural jump compared to PF and 4.
Maybe you'll try 4 again and it'll click, or they add some features that'll bring it more in line with you expectations. But if not, well, hopefully there's a planetfall 2 in the future that makes up for 4!
TH-cam tells me that author disabled dislikes...
No it dont.
The game is unoptimized. Very poor performance.
Funny how on my laptop it runs 18 vs 18 battles with no problems
@@forwenein2669 Yes that is very funny indeed. Of course, no problems is different from poor performance. Maybe you should make a video of you showing your framerates and frame timings under various conditions including zoomed into a bottom city on an explored map. And then analyze the impact of the various graphics options including the options in the ini file.
@@SandCannon sounds like a lot of effort to do something for someone I don't even know, now, does it?
@@forwenein2669 for your sake. Not mine. I already know what I'm talking about. 🌞