After this, I pick a culture. Each has its own magical affinities, economic structure, combat bonuses, and unique mechanics. Feudal cultures gain a special \u2018stand together\u2019 buff for adjacent combat units, while dark cultures have special city structures in which they can imprison enemy heroes to pump them for additional knowledge income.<\/p>\n

Culture is further refined by the selection of two society traits, which is where I really got to hone a specific playstyle for each campaign. I can choose to make my people the \u2018chosen uniters\u2019 to focus on diplomacy and peace, or I can get extremely nasty by making them ritual cannibals who become more powerful as I gain points in the evil alignment.<\/p>\n

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Age of Wonders 4 has what I think may be the most powerful magic system I\u2019ve encountered in a strategy game. As part of creating a custom race, I get to pick an initial tome of magic. This is Age of Wonders 4\u2019s answer to the traditional tech tree, and it\u2019s a big shift from the system found in Age of Wonders III. Here, magic is divided into tomes, each with a particular magical affinity. Studying multiple tomes from one type of magic unlocks more advanced tomes, but I always have the option of branching out and studying new kinds of spells.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s important, because part of what makes Age of Wonders 4\u2019s magic so powerful is that it unlocks spells that can transform my entire faction. My dark cats began their first campaign with a slight tendency toward evil (cat owners can confirm that this is highly realistic). However, I began studying nature magic tomes, and eventually cast a spell that granted them animal kinship, allowing me to conjure wild animals to recruit into my armies and spells that boosted their stats in battle.<\/p>\n

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This highlights one of the things that I think makes Age of Wonders 4 a truly special game. All that customisation I\u2019ve described is just the beginning: my people change and grow over the course of each game, sometimes transforming into something altogether different from what I started with by the time I reach the score screen. It feels completely organic: each decision I make is reflected in the new choices I have across my kingdom, from city management to battle tactics. At any point, I could start studying from the tome of necromancy, which opens up an entirely new soul-harvesting mechanic for my people.<\/p>\n

Those choices and changes are reflected visually, too. As my evil cats become more attuned to nature, my units start weaving twigs and leaves into their costumes. Their eyes take on a permanent green glow when I grant them animal kinship. And at some point, their warrior king found a unicorn, which he\u2019s riding around a mystical archipelago somewhere in the multiverse.<\/p>\n

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All of this might sound a bit overwhelming, and it probably would have been in less-practised hands than Triumph Studios\u2019. Actually playing Age of Wonders 4 feels deceptively simple: right-clicking is all I have to do to issue the majority of commands, and an unobtrusive list of alerts on the right side of my screen keep me up to date on all the available decisions I have during a turn.<\/p>\n

It helps that the game is utterly gorgeous from top to bottom, as I mentioned in my Age of Wonders 4 preview a couple months ago. The beauty of the fog of war that shrouds the mountains and forests at the edges of my explored territory extends to the menus and UI, which manage to be both thematic and easy to read. And I love the way diplomacy is handled. By giving a Whispering Stone to another civilisation, I can open diplomatic channels with them. The menu for these talks is clean and intuitive: I can issue plain-language pronouncements, like a declaration of friendship, or I can settle grievances by declaring war or demanding payment for territorial incursions, all at the click of a clearly labelled button. It\u2019s a game that feels elegant to the touch.<\/p>\n

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On top of all this, simply exploring the map and fighting things is just an old-fashioned good time. There are ancient wonders to explore, with powerful monsters to fight and new artifacts and weapons to loot. Bands of renegades guard treasures scattered around the world, like in the glory days of Heroes of Might & Magic. Depending on the map, there can even be an entire underworld to explore beneath the surface, with its own people and cities to discover. World generation is terrific, and showers me with options like giant forests, enchanted island chains, zombie worlds, or dimensional rifts.<\/p>\n

My complaints about Age of Wonders 4 amount to nit-picking. I\u2019d like it if it was possible to arrange my troops prior to battle, since these can get complex when I have several full stacks of units besieging an enemy city, for example. And while the options for creating my own faction are impressive enough, it\u2019s the kind of choice that just makes you want more, and more of the truly weird. Mole people are great, but why not penguins? Or ghosts, maybe? Give me merfolk or dragons or a race of gelatinous cubes to command. Deep as it already is, I can see the potential for more.<\/p>\n

That will more than likely be resolved by forthcoming DLC, so I\u2019m not too worried. In the meantime, I have a new favourite 4X game to spend my weekends with. If you\u2019re a fan of the genre, new or old, Age of Wonders 4 is a game you owe it to yourself to play.<\/p>\n