Age of Wonders 4 Review
I’ve been trying to play some new games recently, following the success of my Year of Gaming Challenge in 2025. One of the games I decided to try was Age of Wonders 4, a turn-based strategy game that’s basically fantasy Civilization.
So, is it any good? Well, that’s a tricky one!
Age of Wonders 4
You may not have heard of the series. I hadn’t. And no, it’s not fantasy Age of Empires. It’s a bit of a misleading title. It doesn’t even have Ages in it, like Civ does. But it does have magic, orcs and dragons!
Age of Wonders 4 is a turn-based strategy game developed by Triumph Studios and published by Paradox Interactive. It was released in May 2023, and is the latest in the Age of Wonders series, which has been around since 1999. The game is set in a fantasy world where players can choose from a variety of races and classes to build their own empire, explore the world, and engage in tactical battles.
I’ve never played a Wonders game before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, other than Civ with a coat of fantasy paint. And god knows I’ve sunk enough hours into Civilisation over the years! What intrigued me was the idea of creating your own civilisation, with the freedom to create a race of holy paladin orcs or evil demon-worshipping halflings, and generally breaking free of the more grounded and realistic gameplay of Civ, which has lost its shine for me in recent years.
Gameplay
I don’t want to keep comparing the game to Civ, but it is a very similar experience. You start with a small settlement and a few units, and you have to explore the world, gather resources, and build your empire. Fundamentally, the empire management layer is very similar, and therefore just as enjoyable as a Civ game, even if it is a bit more limited in scope.
The main difference is that your civilisation doesn’t go through different ages. Instead, you focus on researching different magic abilities that give you spells that you can cast on the world map or in the tactical battles, or which make modifications to your units and buildings.
You can gather multiple units to form armies, and you can have up to three enter into turn based tactical battles together from the world map. I enjoyed the battles, which involve working how to strip opportunity attacks from your opponents, then trying to flank them or hit them with powerful spells to gain the upper hand.
Story & Writing
The game feels like it has a bigger focus on story than Civ, certainly in the campaigns that I played. There are several key story moments in each campaign that define your goals and how the story plays out, plus some randomised events, ruins to explore and requests from your heroes and other factions to complete. These include little vignettes where you’re presented with a situation and have to choose how to respond, which can have a range of consequences.
The writing is generally pretty good, and I think I much prefer this approach to other similar games that I’ve played. It would have been good to see a little more voice acting to add some life to the game, but I appreciated the fact that these little wrinkles were added to each playthrough in an attempt to make each one feel at least a little different.
Craft
It’s clear that the game doesn’t have the same budget as Firaxis’ hit series, but the game is still pretty well made. It has a distinctive visual style, and I admire the level of customisation that you have over your ruler, heroes and units. It’s somehow more charming and less over-the-top than the slightly uncanny Civ VII style.
Most of the features and gameplay loops are intuitive and work well. My only gripe is that they make some odd choices for using abilities and casting spells. In most games, you select an ability and left clicking on the target to use it, with right click being a quick and easy way to cancel the action if you change your mind. In this game, you right click to use the ability. And Escape sometimes - but not always - cancels the action too. I can’t tell you how many times I accidentally shot my ruler in the back or threw a fireball at my own units before I adapted to this odd control scheme.
But apart from that, I encountered very little in the way of bugs or glitches, the game ran smoothly and I didn’t have any crashes. I have no idea what the game was like at launch, but if there were any issues, they seem to have been successfully patched away. This, incidentally, is why I never play games at launch any more, by the way!
Well, that and the price. Speaking of which…
The Catch
The main problem for me is that base game is just not as deep as Civ. It feels a bit like a mobile game, where they let you try it for free and then charge you to unlock the rest. Except the demo cost £20. And the cost of buying all the of expansions and DLCs to unlock additional content is just ridiculous. The base game is £41.99 at full price, then there are three expansion passes, currently selling for £42.30 each! (And in the middle of writing this article, they announced a fourth!). That’s nearly £170 quid to unlock ‘the full game’. Alternatively, you can buy all of the DLC for £130.44. It’s slightly odd that this costs less than buying the expansion passes, and even then, that’s the cost with 4 items reduced by 30% and three more reduced by 20%!
For comparison (yes, I’m going to bring it up again!), Civ VI may be £49.99 at full price, but I can currently buy all of the DLC for that (a total value of £99.06) for a bundle price of £24.78! Now, I got on even less well with Civ VI than I did with AoW4, but at least that bundle doesn’t feel like such an unreasonable cash-grab! Even with Civ VII, which came out in 2025, the total cost of the base game and all DLC is £105.85, and you can get it all in a bundle that costs £52.90!
So, I’m sorry Triumph/Paradox, but there’s no way I’m paying that much for one game!
A Publisher Problem?
I’m not sure how much of these questionable monetisation practices are down to Paradox or Triumph Studios. I’m disinclined to trust Paradox, given their history of dodgy decisions, but the recent Cities Skylines 2 debacle has made me question whether the studios themselves could be as much to blame. I don’t know the answer, but this game hasn’t helped to restore my faith in… well, in game development as a whole, frankly!
Stats
- I got the game on Steam £20.99, a 50% discount on the full price of £41.99.
- I’ve played it for 40 hours and have beaten the tutorial and first story campaign.
- Part of me really wants to play more, but I can’t shake that feeling that I’m not getting the full experience, and the price of unlocking it all is just too high for me.
Final Thoughts
So, in conclusion, it’s hard to recommend Age of Wonders 4. It’s not that I didn’t have a good time playing it, but I couldn’t shake the feeling feeling that I was playing a demo that I’d paid too much for, and that I’d have to pay A LOT more money to get the full experience.
Civ VI was a mixed bag too, but at least it doesn’t cost as much to buy the game and all the DLC. You’re probably better off with that over AoW4, unless you can get it heavily discounted in a future Steam sale
For more, check out my other Game Reviews and Gaming-related rants.
Thanks for reading. Take care of yourselves!