Age of Wonders 4

Good game, but the prices of expansions and the rate they are released is frankly an insult to those who've purchased the main game, its just fragrant and uneccessary greed. It makes immortal empires look cheap. The studio really needs to DO BETTER!

I really tried to like this game, it is exactly the niche I was looking for: 4X in a fantasy setting with turn-based detailed combat. I was even willing to overlook the predatory buisness practices that are all too well know from the Paradox games. "So what if I pay a bunch of money, as long as the game is good and has high replayability it's fine". However with the latest "patch" they completely ruined the game for me. In a free update that has arguably more content updates than some of the paid DLCs, they overthrow a significant part of the game, without the option to opt-out or undo. This even goes as far as impacting games already running - ability points and currency are being refunded and the entire system is turned on its head. Imagine playing dozens of hours, raising your empire with a clear strategy in mind, only for that to be voided by the very developers themselves in a forced update you didn't ask for (it's not just a balance patch either, it completely changes how part of the game works from the root). That kind of one-sided, customer-disregarding behaviour is simply appalling to me. I already purchased a couple of DLCs and was gonna get them all, but now there is no motivation to play the game anymore at all. Should've listened to my pals, that warned me about Paradox being only interested in grabbing money and selling additional DLCs. Verdict: If you care about integrity - stay away!

steam keeps annoying me to write a review so there you go

I rarely finish an actual campaign of any 4X games I play but I've managed to finish an absolute truck load in AoW4. Easy contender for my top strategy game.

The game offers A LOT of theory crafting and exploring of different builds while not suffering so much from the usual slogginess of 4X games when you reach the endgame. What I do not like is the constant churrning of chargeable DLCs, but I guess its necessary to ensure constant support for the game.

If you like fantasy 4X games, this is worth playing! It does have a lot of DLC but the base game has plenty of content to keep you busy.

别买这游戏老是闪退，特别是新DLC上线这段时间基本无法启动

I loved AoW3, and really wanted to love 4, but I've never once managed to bring myself to finish a single game. I tried again as a dragon, I tried again as an eldritch god, I tried again as a giant. Can't do it. TL;DR: 1. Endless customizability instead of lovingly-crafted pre-made playable (and facable) options makes the experience feel to me like a soulless simulator/sandbox instead of a game with character and identity. It's like the opposite of a Homm3. Where AoW3 and AoW gave you even MORE character and identity to play around through the combos of factions and class, here it feels like nothing has character or identity. 2. Each game very quickly starts feeling like a chore. Every single turn you have dozens of choices you need to make and carry out. I'm not saying we should never have gone more complicated and more options than HoMM3, okay? But it is kind of the polar opposite of that beautiful simplicity-that-breeds-strategy. It just feels like much more of a chore than AoW3 and even AoW Planetfall. Not to mention that the game essentially wants you to auto-combat to survive it (as every single player will tell you), while the actual mechanics of the game inherently discourage and clash with it. 3. The artstyle also feels a bit soulless to me, unfortunately, though I want to like it, and don't outright hate it. Longer ranty version: 1. I think that perhaps the central difference here for me is the lack of all character and identity to playable.. Factions? What do we even call the thing that you go into a game with anymore? In AoE3, each combination of species and class was a lovingly custom-made playable option, and so many of them felt worth trying out and finishing a whole game with. And maybe with different settings, and the cool dwellings, and stuff on the map modifying your cities and your units, and items and choices for your heros... In AoW 4, you fully customize your species (meaning a couple of traits), making the actual models you choose meaningless in terms of gameplay, then you pick your "culture", which is basically most of what the species was in 3, then you pick the type of hero, then the class of the hero, oh, yeah, and a couple more traits for your culture actually, and then also some more stuff for your hero... Takes an hour just to start a damn game up. And then you can also pick whatever tomes (wholly different research trees) you want throughout the game. It's like the exact opposite of a HoMM3, or an Endless Legend/Space, or AoW3. The Frankenstein you play, after it has drained your life force just to create it, feels soulless. It has no character, no identity to it. I've tried playing into a bunch of tropes that excite me, but none of them felt like I was discovering anything, or embodying something lovable. It felt more like... tinkering. 2. And this goes into my other big issue. After a bit of joy of exploration and discovery and optimization and building, the game just starts feeling like a chore. Micromanaging every single unit both on the overmap and in each combat - unless you want auto-combat to lose you units, which is especially painful due to the experience system. And inherently, the battles you want to be taking to be playing well are those that require tactics which the auto-battler will never use. Separating buildings and recruitment is a stroke of genius for long-time 4X players, but it ends up also adding another layer of constantly having to make a choice for every single one of your cities at any time. And choosing the tomes, and the research within the tome, or to reroll it, and the extra recruiting method on top of the extra recruiting method (rally the marches or whatever it's called), and so on a million more choices to make and carry out every single turn. By the time you're strong enough to clear that tier 3 dungeon that you built the idea of your second city around (let alone being ready to wage war on another empire), you're feeling like you're doing an unpayed job rather than playing a game. It's like that movie Click, where you just feel like you want to fast forward and not actually play most of what's going on to enjoy the idea of what you want to like about the game. 3. There's also something about the artstyle, where a part of me wants to tell me it looks great, but another feels it to be soulless Raid Shadow Legends type stuff, with everything so mega-saturated and exaggerated that it feels samey and fake rather than immersive and exciting. In summary: Maybe I'm just older and employeder than I was when I played AoW3, when it comes to the choreyness of it all, and to losing the childlike wonder I felt both about the playable options and about the artstyle. But I do think that there's something deeper going on with the soullessness and fiddlyness of endless customizability over pre-made, lovingly crafted playable (and facable) options. It's no longer a game - it's a simulator, a sandbox. And at that point, I'd rather just imagine custom worlds and cultures and species and landmarks in my head, or with friends, over having the chore of playing them out within this game.

Давно так не залипал. Увлекательная и интересная игра. Кинул все свои деньги в монитор и скупил фулл длс пак.

今なおDLCを通じて拡張を続けている４Xゲーム。ファンタジー路線であり、プレイヤーが勢力をクリエイトできるカスタマイズ制が特徴だと感じた。 ・キャラクリが楽しい 設定項目が多く、いろいろ組み合わせることによってプレイフィールがガラッと変わる。ただ、外見だけは“プレイ中に変わる”ので要注意か。カスタマイズのパーツもプレイによってどんどん増えていくので、それがリトライ性を増している。キャラクリのネタがなくなると色々とシンドイので、購入前に目星をつけておくといいかも？ ・戦闘特化な4X 本作はバトルに重きを置いている。素材を得るにはバトル、（いわゆる）化学勝利の為にバトル、内政の為にバトル…全てが戦闘に紐づいている。その戦闘が面白いが故にこのバランスは成立している。civよりも信長の野望に近いのかも？ ”戦闘=手段の一つ“である4Xが多い中、戦闘ベースのシステムなのは面白い。一方で地道にコツコツとやりたい人には不向きか。 国をまとめ上げるというより、戦闘を通じて英雄を育て上げる方が意味として近い。言うならば4Xのシステムを用いたRPGゲームだ。 ・最適解を狙う作品ではない。 キャラクリや育成の幅は広いが、どうみても使いづらいものも多く、最適解を求めようとすると似たり寄ったりになりやすい。それよりも、「今回はこうプレイしよう」というテーマを自分で決めて、それに合わせて育成や選択肢を選ぶRPをした方がこのゲームの楽しみ方としてあっている。 システム的にも初期立地ガチャになりやすいのだが、これも「不利だからやめよう」ではなく、この逆境をどう乗り切るかに集中した方が良い。マップの条件やキャラクリによってはどうしても「このゲームシステムでやるものじゃない」立地もザラなので、逆境を楽しもう。 ・勝利条件はどれも似ている 勝利条件はどれも戦闘に依っており、そこのプレイフィールは変わりにくい。というか、軍事勝利以外が面倒だし”勝利直前には全世界が敵対する”使用上「どうせ戦うのなら」で焦土作戦に移行しやすい。 かといって時間切れによるスコア勝利に関しては「通常設定だと長すぎて、短い設定だと短過ぎる」のだ。その中間が欲しいところ。 4Xゲーでありがちな「引きこもり内政プレイ」は本作にはとことん不向きであり、それ用の勝ち方も用意されていない点には留意。 補足：一応DLCに「紋章勝利」という比較的引きこもり向けの勝利が出てきた。それも結局NPCと戦闘するのだが… ・DLC高すぎる これは大問題。DLCによる魔導書(化学ツリーみたいなもの)や種族設定の拡張が美味しいDLCだが、値段設計はかなり強気。セール中でないと割に合わないまである。特に「よくわからないから全部買う」はマジでNG。自分の遊び方を見て、合いそうなものだけピックアップするといい。 ・最後に 日本語訳は、この難しい言語と多大な文章量でむしろよくやってると思う。ここのレビューだともっと酷いと思ってた、とはいえある程度ニュアンスで読み取る力は必要か。固有名詞がズレてたり、違う意味にとれる表記をしていて不安になったり。