Age of Wonders 4 is a genuinely fantastic 4X game in the vein of games like Civilisation and Endless Legend, tasking you with conquering a world among many in the astral sea, one turn at a time. Its turn-based nature makes it perfect for on-the-go gaming, squeezing in a quick bit of empire expansion on your lunch break. That said, this game is easy to lose hours upon hours to, so for your big evening gaming sessions, you will want a Priority membership to conquer kingdoms uninterrupted.
Age of Wonders 4, from Paradox Interactive and Triumph Studios, is a 4X (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate) turn-based strategy game that sees you take the reins as a fledgling Godir. Each map has you stepping into realms to lead civilisations on grand conquest against the machinations of other Godir before ascending the Astral Sea into your growing Pantheon.
This novel concept makes Age of Wonders 4 immediately stand out from other 4X strategy games because it adds continuity between your campaigns. Each world is a realm in the Astral Sea, and as your pantheon of deific rulers grows with each completed campaign, more and more of them will begin appearing to influence your future campaigns in other realms, whether as friends or foes.
Each deity added to your pantheon unlocks new features for future campaigns, from simple cosmetic items for your ruler to map mutations that can completely change how you play a game.
All this comes together to create something very rare, as far as 4X games go, a game where you want to finish every campaign. Combined with the slightly shorter than average game time (6-10 hours per campaign, rather than 10-30), this makes every campaign exciting and approachable. But let’s get a bit more into the mechanics of said campaigns.
Whenever you start one, you can build a custom faction and ruler; with the number of options available and the magic systems diversity, you can make just about anything. Even better, your library of custom factions is used to populate maps. For example, I played a race of subterranean wolf-riding sophisticate orcs in one game. I ran into a previous faction of mine, cannibalistic chaos and slaughter-loving dwarves who ran a steamroller over my dainty wizards. It was awesome.
Combat in Age of Wonders 4 is excellent, moving from the overworld into highly detailed grid-based maps for strategy warfare that puts me firmly in the mind of the board game Warhammer: Underworlds. However, there’s something besides combat that makes Age of Wonders 4 really stand out for me.
If you haven’t figured it out from my spotlight on Total War, I love me a bit of empire-building. However, as much as I adore Total War, there’s something it lacks that Age of Wonders 4 brings to the table in a way it simply cannot. Diplomacy.
The diplomacy system in this game is like none I’ve ever seen, robust and extensive, with options for a wide range of treaties and agreements. Even better, the AI use it to its fullest extent; I’d have my allies introducing me to their friends, suggesting we form alliances, new arrivals paying me to join wars, and old friends offering to trade settlements to give us the resources we need. Total War is about war (it’s in the title, after all), but in Age of Wonders 4, you can win through the soft touch rather than the blade’s hard edge, and it’s such an exciting breath of fresh air.
The story realms add even further nuance, with set objectives and a grand, realm-spanning narrative to follow, but like all 4X players, I live for the sandbox; I’ve been losing entire evenings lately to this game, and were it not for GeForce NOW Powered by Pentanet, my poor, aging PC likely would have performed self-immolation in protest.
With my Priority membership, I’ve enjoyed the game at its best. If you’re looking for an excellent game that will devour hours upon hours as you conquer realm after realm, I wish you and your budding Godir Pantheon the best of tides on the Astral Sea. See you out there.
This spotlight was written by Pentanet team member “Motley” and does not represent the opinions of Pentanet or NVIDIA.
