When Paradox Interactive comes knocking with a new 4X turn-based grand strategy, you don’t turn your nose up at them. With Triumph Studios developing this game, it had all the makings of something great, and safe to say I wasn’t disappointed.
This game is all about variety. No two matches look the same, and that’s thanks to the amount of refined control the game gives you in the race builder and faction creation. I had playthroughs where I played as feline scholars, barbarian toads, necromantic elves, and cannibalistic humans, all of which lead to very different games.
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Every step of the process is important. You choose your race, then give them physical and mental attributes, decide their overall culture as well as additional traits, and then finally customize everyone’s appearance. They all make a difference to your playthrough, and you can fine-tune things to your heart’s content.
The game world is no different. There’s a big chunk of random generation, but you can modify elements of it if you wish, even in the campaign mode. Do you want your world littered with ancient ruins of a forgotten civilization? Or ravaged by devastating blizzards? Or maybe a bit of both? Don’t forget about the underground layer either.
If you’re worried about the overwhelming complexity then never fear, as the nested tooltip system from Old World and Crusader Kings 3 is here to let you look up any keywords and understand all of the game’s interconnected mechanics. It’s the pinnacle of UI design for strategy games right now, and every game in the genre should be adopting it.
It also has a lot of familiar elements for fans of the genre. If you’ve ever played a Civilization game then you’ll immediately recognize a lot of the basic layout when you get into a game. You can build plenty of infrastructure like farms or mines and eventually start to develop specializations and upgrades for your buildings. This is all dependent on your research and overall culture.
This isn’t a Civilization tech tree though, you’ll be given three options from a pool of research topics that could be anything like units, building, or new spells. You can affect a lot with these spells. Some are just for combat, but you’ll eventually be able to change your race’s appearance, adding strange features like icicles or rocks on their body. Naturally, these choices can sprout out almost exponentially, as you can later pick another tome and research even further.
Then you’ll end up on a skill tree that looks like it’s out of a Diablo game. There are all sorts of aspects and elements that you can specialize in, and you’ll get bonuses accordingly. Most importantly, you’ll only ever have enough resources to do a small number of things at once, so there are some difficult decisions to be made, which is where these games really sing.
I hope you’re not tired out after all of that choosing, as there are still plenty more choices that need to be made. Narrative and diplomatic events will appear from time to time and how you tackle them is up to you. Let’s say a humble leader asks for your aid in paying off their debts. Sure, you could cough up the cash and secure their allegiance, but wouldn’t it be more efficient to use your knowledge of shadow magic to cut off the problem at the source?
Taking the peaceful path is entirely possible too. You can forge strong alliances where all benefit, and you won’t need to betray them at the end for a mash dash to the finish line. There are three victory conditions: expansion, magic, and eliminations, and all of them make room for joint victories as an alliance.
If you do win the favor of free cities you’ll be able to partake in the Rally of the Lieges, which lets you recruit units from your subjects, expanding your armies with new troop types that varied depending on what race your subjects are. If that’s not cool enough then go out and defeat the guardians of ancient ruins to get even more new troops. They could be anything from bone dragons to Lovecraftian horrors – it’s a real roll of the dice.
When you get into the meat of combat you’ll be taken to a separate map where it all goes down. These are wonderfully crafted areas where strategic points and bonuses can be won with careful planning and solid tactics. There are abilities, flanking bonuses, and combat spells as always, and the way you balance your armies will have a huge impact on how things play out.
Up to three armies with six units each can jump into the fray of battle at once, and these massive fights are a sight to behold. The animations can still be a bit sub-par at times, and camera shaking can cause framerate issues when big combat spells are going off, but these issues can be easily ironed out before release.
The AI is very competent too. It loves to focus fire on vulnerable units and always attempts to flank for bonuses. It’s able to read your tactics too, countering bunched-up armies with area-of-effect spells that will firmly tell you to change strategy. It’s pretty aggressive and can play out intelligent ploys, for example, I was once led into an ambush that forced me to pull away from a siege I was conducting, saving the AI city.
When it’s all said and done, win or lose you’ll earn XP towards the meta-progressions system called The Pantheon. This contains all the factions and leaders you’ve created and encountered, remembering them for future games. It also gives you more creation options for realms and factions, which gives you a great sense of slowly building a world all your own.
Role-players or min-max strategies will find a lot to offer in Age of Wonders 4, and Triumph Studios have done the series proud.
Written by Marco Wutz and Ryan Woodrow on behalf of GLHF.