Age of Wonders 4 celebrates the second anniversary:

Age of Wonders 4 anniversary - join the celebration!

Players stats, community contests, and maybe something else?..

Dear Godirs,

Today, we celebrate two incredible years of magic, strategy, and world-shaping adventures. From the very beginning, your creativity, passion, and support have helped shape the realms of Age of Wonders 4 into something truly special.

Whether you're forging empires, crafting your own stories, or sharing your stories with the community, thank you for being part of this journey. We wouldn't have been here without you <3

Watch the anniversary video to see new updated stats and... something else?

Moreover, join the celebration and participate in community contests on our socials:
It's been a while since our Meme contest on our Reddit page - it's time to bring it back: Read the rules, participate and get a DLC key of choice!

If you prefer hanging out on Discord, join our Official Age of Wonders 4 server and participate in a giveaway to win a Dire Penguin plushie!

Thanks Couchpotato!

Couchpotato spotted an official modding tutorial for Age of Wonders 4.

Couchpotato spotted a new Age of Wonders 4 - Dev Diary:

Dev Diary #41: Feudal Culture

Greetings Giant Kings and other, more respectable Godir. I am Thomas Schuiten, Designer at Triumph and today I get to share with you the details of the rework to our oldest Culture: Feudal!

Alongside the release of Giant Kings on April 1st we are as always releasing a free update to the game alongside it, the Ogre Update, which features improved underground, lava gameplay, more options for your faction creation and most importantly for this particular development diary: a rework of the Feudal Culture.

[...]

Couchpotato spotted a new Age of Wonders 4 - Dev Diary:

Dev Diary #40 - Giant Kings: Hand-Crafted Regions

Hey Giants and smaller folks! I’m Bas, a game designer at Triumph studios, you might remember me from some of the older dev diaries such as on the Siege system, Umbral Abyss and some others.

This time, I’m here to showcase some visual improvements we’ve made to the world map, which come with the free update to the game released alongside the new DLC, as well as a new major type of content in Giant Kings: Hand-Crafted Regions!

[...]

Age of Wonders 4 will get a new expansion on April 1:

Giant Kings coming on April 1st! + Giant Kings Dev Diary

Dear Godir,

We are excited to announce that the Giant Kings expansion and the free Ogre Update will be available on April 1st, less than a month!

[...]

Thanks Couchpotato!

Age of Wonders 4 update 1.3 is available as an Open Beta:

Tiger 1.3 Update Open Beta

Hey All,

Today we’re putting the next Update for Age of Wonders 4 into Open Beta. With this Update we’re looking to address the most critical feedback on the Hero Rework. Considering the time we’ve had this Update is incredibly jampacked with the separation of Hero Class and Hero Loadout, two new hybrid Hero Classes and 3 new Skirmisher Weapons/Loadouts.

Our hope is to be able to release this update fully before the Holiday Season, however that planning may change based on your Feedback. If you want to provide your feedback you can do so by making a Discussion Thread in the Open Beta Discussions.

[...]

Thanks Couchpotato!

The Age of Wonders series is 25 years old:

Today, a quarter-century ago...

The first Age of Wonders game was released! The series began as a dream from a small group of computer science students, driven by the idea to create a strategy role-playing game with the epic scope of the fantasy books we grew up reading. It was a mammoth project for us as inexperienced developers, taking over six years of development - including a full rewrite after we finished our studies and officially founded Triumph Studios. With support from Epic Games, Gathering of Developers, and like-minded young talent, we managed to bring the game from our dorms and bedrooms to a global audience.

We never imagined that this labor of love would still be keeping us busy 25 years later in a drastically changed world. Through each new chapter, Age of Wonders evolved, embracing new technology and, perhaps most importantly, finding a balance between innovation and staying true to the spirit of the original. We achieved this by welcoming fresh talent to the veteran developers and by incorporating invaluable feedback from players like you.

With the 2023 release of Age of Wonders 4 under the Paradox Interactive umbrella, the series reached new heights. We feel that this fourth iteration truly delivers on the original promise of allowing players to role-play as the ruler of a fantasy realm. AoW4 has become the most successful title in the franchise’s history, proving that some dreams only grow stronger with time. We hope to continue supporting it for a long time to come!

To all the incredibly talented developers and publishing partners who poured their skill and creativity into this journey over the years - thank you. And to you, the players - thank you for supporting us, for every conquest, alliance, and story you’ve created within this universe. Without your passion and loyalty, none of this would have been possible.

Here’s to Age of Wonders - may the legacy live on, and may the adventures continue for many years to come!

[...]

Thanks Couchpotato!

Couchpotato spotted an overview of the DLC Age of Wonders 4: Ways of War:

Intrigue Happenings — New Mechanic! | Ways of War Overview by @IndridCasts

Couchpotato spotted a new Age of Wonders 4 - Dev Diary:

Dev Diary #36: Intrigue Happenings

Hi everyone and welcome to today’s dev diary on Intrigue Happenings! My name is Michelle (@MichelleTriumph), narrative designer at Triumph, and I’m here to talk about the new Intrigue Happenings you will encounter during your time playing Age of Wonders 4: Ways of War! Lest you forget: Ways of War will release on November 5th, and is part of Expansion Pass 2!

Watch the recording of a Dev Stream with Michelle on our YouTube channel!

Be Warned, Ye Unspoiled

[...]

Couchpotato spotted the dev diary #35 for Age of Wonder 4:

Dev Diary #35 - Ways of War: Tomes and Wildlife

Hello again! I am Luis Ferreira, a senior designer at Triumph Studios. This time we are going over the Tomes and Wildlife that will be available to you on the first pack of our second expansion pass, Ways of War.

[...]

Conclusion

And there it is, tomes and the wildlife! I didn’t go over everything that a tome has but I hope this gives you a taste of what you can play with in the future, when Ways of War releases on the 5th of November! Hope to see you there, and join us next week for another Dev Diary!

Learn more about the new expansion pass of Age of Wonders 4:

Age of Wonders 4 Expansion Pass 2 Reveal - Archons are back! | New Content

Thanks Couchpotato!

Couchpotato spotted a new update for Age of Wonders 4:

Age of Wonders 4 - Mystic 1.3 Update

Enthralled Godir

We hope that you’ve been enjoying the summer season. For these past few weeks we’ve continued to work on the Mystic Update, undeterred by the insanity brought on through Summer Heat, Storms and Railroad Maintenance. The Mystic 1.3 Update aims to polish the changes we introduced with the Mystic Update.

We’ve focused our efforts on tweaking the Rank Updates and the Eldritch Sovereign but have also taken along some other requests. The Tome of Corruption has gotten some attention, as have certain Units. Beyond that we’ve improved the way Faction selection & Pantheon settings are handled and you’ll find more fixes for Crashes, AI and Multiplayer as well as improvements for the Modders among us.

As the Summer enters its second half our attention will fully shift towards the future, preparing new Updates & Content. We are dedicated to Age of Wonders 4 and will have more to share after the Summer.

May your Pantheon Thrive

[...]

Age of Wonders 4 got a new update:

Age of Wonders 4 - Mystic Update 1.2

Enthralled Godir,

As you may have experienced recently, the Mystic 1.1 Update and subsequent Hotfix have not been as stable as we wanted them to be. We apologize for this and we will aim to do better in the future! Today’s Mystic 1.2 Update addresses the majority of crashes that have been reported as well as some issues in AI Behaviour.

As it stands, there is more work to be done. We are planning a Mystic 1.3 Update with which we aim to address lingering issues as well as some of the balance feedback we’ve received. It’s key that we take our time for this, so no date has been set yet.

You can read all about the Mystic 1.2 Changes below, and please report any issues or feedback you have. May your Pantheon’s thrive.

[...]

Thanks Couchpotato!

Explorminate checked out Age of Wonders 4: Primal Fury:

Age of Wonders 4: Primal Fury Review

With Eldritch Realms already on the horizon and even more premium DLC confirmed after that (a second season of DLC is a first for the series!), let’s look back at the Wolf and Primal Fury era.

Hungry Like the Wolf
Well known for being the sickest animal to have painted on the side of your van, Wolf is also the name of the latest Age of Wonders 4 (AoW4) content patch because research shows decimals are confusing. It’s probably better to hand out goofy names because Triumph’s versioning mathematically seems like barely any progress has been made (Wolf is “only” 1.006). This is certainly not the case.

Triumph listed five “highlights” for this patch. How’d they pan out?

Mutiny on the Bounties
“Bounties” was a brand new feature added in Wolf whose purpose is to essentially paint targets for other rulers, not just vassal cities. In short, you’re shown a list of potential targets and may choose one, then choose to offer a small, moderate, or great reward in either gold or mana. 

On creation, the Bounty is given a time limit and offered to all eligible rulers in the game. Other rulers may then decide to either accept the bounty or ignore it – neither is binding nor must a bounty necessarily be accepted to be completed. From the human player’s point of view, accepting one just adds it to your quest tracker.  If an AI ruler accepts your bounty, they will let you know and offer updates on how their progress is going.

[...]

Wrap It Up
Wolf was the first time in AoW4 that I’ve felt like the game respected me as a player enough to not separate every single choice into tiny modular pieces, and it’s so much richer and more satisfying for it. Creativity and memorable gameplay is not found in boundless options for expression, it’s found in tightly restricted situations where choosing one thing means sacrificing six others.

But did it bring AoW4 to the lofty heights of end-of-life Planetfall, or AoW3, or Shadow Magic? Just asking that question makes me feel like a kid in the backseat while driving on a family vacation because the question is also the answer: No, of course, we’re not there yet. But from what’s been revealed about Eldritch Realms thus far, AoW4 finally ascending to Triumph’s pantheon might be as early as the next exit.

Thanks Couchpotato!

The Eldritch Realms Expansion has been released:

Age of Wonders 4: Eldritch Realms OUT NOW | Release Trailer

Thanks Couchpotato!

Couchpotato spotted the dev diary #32 for Age of Wonder 4:

Dev Diary #32: The Art of Eldritch Realms

Sovereign greetings my Thrall kin, Art Director Rich Burgess here for another image-heavy thread of tentacles. Be warned of minor visual spoilers, don’t tread further if you want to go into the Abyss fresh!

For this Dev Diary I’d like to discuss the process of pulling this DLC out of the darkness of the Umbral Abyss and into the light. With some behind-the-scenes exploration and some technical processes.

Your Eldritch Sovereign Leader

I can't think of any games where you can customize your own monstrous Eldritch leader, so we had a lot of fun exploring what this could mean and look like. To start and hit the ground running we took the existing Lost Mage unit as a base and built on top of it.

Making sure the unit always floats and doesn't hold any weapons (albeit a Relic hovering in front) meant we were freed from many animation restraints and could really push the silhouettes and bodies of the leaders.

Tentacles are cool, but what other variations could we push? Folded moth wings instead of arms, a mermaid or sinew body, and insectoid legs, we tried to fulfill different eldritch fantasies. We started off with blue sky sketches exploring possibilities:

[...]

Age of Wonders 4 will get an expansion on June 18:

Eldritch Realms coming June 18th! ft. Umbral Abyss Dev Diary

Read the Dev Journal and Watch First Look Dev Stream!

Dear Godir,

We are excited to announce that the Eldritch Realms expansion and the free Mystic Update are going to be available in less than a month — on June 18th!

You can find below:

• Eldritch Realms key art reveal
• Feature highlights
• First Look Stream
• First Dev Diary about Umbral Abyss

Watch the teaser to see the breathtaking key art of Eldritch Realms:

[...]

Thanks Couchpotato!

Age of Wonders 4 celebrates the first anniversary:

Celebrating One Year of Age of Wonders 4!

Dear AoW Community,

Today, we celebrate the first anniversary of Age of Wonders 4! This milestone could not have been achieved without you, our fans and players. Our journey with Age of Wonders began nearly three decades ago when Triumph’s co-founder, Arno van Wingerden, and I envisioned creating a genre-blending strategy role-playing game. This dream allowed players to govern a fantasy realm set within an expansive, magical world.

Age of Wonders 4 is our most successful execution of this vision to date. It offers unprecedented freedom in faction creation and strategic development, enriching both the core gameplay and role-playing experiences. This first year since release, with its intense development and feedback cycle has made the game even better.

A heartfelt thank you to our talented developers and to you, our community, whose ongoing support and feedback have been integral to this success.

A Gift of Appreciation

In gratitude, we’re excited to announce a gift: an update that includes both a standard and exotic Raptor Mount and a Dragon Scale Interface skin. This update will automatically be available on all platforms starting May 2nd.

Looking Forward

And there’s more good news. Triumph will continue to develop Age of Wonders 4 beyond the current Premium Edition. We are working on more free updates and thrilling premium content. We're eager to share more details with you after the summer. But first, get ready for the Eldritch Realms expansion in June!

Thank you once again for your support!

Thanks Couchpotato!

Video Games checked out the DLC Primal Fury:

Age of Wonders 4: Primal Fury DLC review – the trees are speaking Fey

Basically the magic zoo update

After Age of Wonders 4: Empires & Ashes gave players the opportunity to role-play as fantasy conquistadors, it’s time to balance things out with Primal Fury, the third of four DLCs making up the Age of Wonders 4 Expansion Pass. Primal Fury is all about living in harmony with nature’s spirits and unleashing their wrath on those who dare trespass their domains.

[...]

Primal Fury feels a little less substantial than Dragon Dawn, the other DLC pack at the same price range of $9.99 USD, due to the sheer presence that expansion’s Dragon rulers have, but that’s a misleading feeling. Each of the Primal Culture variations alone adds a ton of options to your next campaigns and, as always, each Tome of Magic has a massive impact. I made a faction of Goatkin led by a Dragon ruler and worshiping a divine snake spirit with the thought being that the Dragon could represent the deity’s physical form (or maybe the Dragon tricked the Goatkin into thinking so, gaining a willing flock of food and slaves in the process). Each DLC is growing the amount of cool factions you can create and gameplay styles you can enjoy.

Primal Fury is another very solid entry into Expansion Pass 1, which is shaping up to be a truly strong “full” expansion even with the fourth and final part still awaiting us – and that’s not a Fey mind trick.

Thanks Couchpotato!

Couchpotato spotted a Age of Wonders 4 - Primal Fury feature overview:

What's in the Primal Fury?

Couchpotato spotted Dev Diary #28 for Age of Wonders 4:

Dev Diary #28: The Art of Primal Fury

Ancestral greetings my humanoid kin, for this Dev Diary I’d like to discuss the process of summoning this DLC to life. Be warned it is an image heavy thread!

Also don't forget to watch our recent Primal Fury Midgame Dev Stream

The art team, specifically the Art Director (me) the Concept Artists along with the Creative Director, are the first to explore the DLC. Through the ideation process of moodboards, keywords and rough sketches we set out by exploring the big questions -

Are we alone in the universe, what mood do we want to convey, what are the visual gaps we want to fill, and what would our players love?

[...]

Age of Wonders 4 gets a major update and the Primal Fury Content Pack on February 27:

Primal Fury Content Pack and a Free Wolf Update coming February 27!

New forms, new tomes, new culture!

Fellow Godir,

We are excited to announce that the Primal Fury Content Pack and the free Wolf Update are going to be available in less than a month — on February 27th!

[...]

Thanks Couchpotato!

Couchpotato spotted a user survey for Age of Wonders 4:

Take the survey to help us improve Age of Wonders 4!

Hello Rulers!

We want to know more about you as an Age of Wonders 4 player - what you love about the game, what you think we could do better, and how you prefer to be informed about the news. We value your opinion highly and appreciate you taking the time to help us make Age of Wonders 4 a great experience for you.

Take a survey

Thank you so much for supporting us!

UPD: We see all your feedback regarding the survey — thank you for letting us know! We will do our best to adjust them in the future.

Couchpotato spotted the dev diary #24 for Age of Wonder 4:

Dev Diary #24: Seals & Tomes

Welcome to the developer diaries for both the new Seals Victory and the new Tomes that are coming in Empires and Ashes. There is a lot to cover so this dev diary will be split in two, starting with…

The Seals Victory

Hello everyone! I am Sam Minh, a designer for Age of Wonders 4. Today I will talk about the Seals, what they are, how to achieve a Seals Victory and what challenges will stand in your way.

The Seals are ancient structures constructed by the order of the Archons, to protect a world from the outside… or to seal something within. Controlling the Seals gives one great power over the realm thus Godir are racing to take control over them.

People who have played Age of Wonders 3 might be familiar with how the Seals Victory worked there. There are a limited number of Seals spread around the world. Each Seal is defended by an army of strong defenders. Once they are defeated, you will gain one seal point per turn as long as your units stand on top of the Seal. Capturing and holding multiple Seals will provide you with more points per turn. Once a specific amount of points has been reached, you achieve victory.

[...]

Couchpotato spotted the dev diary #23 for Age of Wonder 4:

Dev Diary #23: Empires & Ashes - Reavers

Hello everyone, yesterday we announced Empires and Ashes, the new expansion for Age of Wonders 4!

We have a lot to tell you about, so we’re going to split it between 2 dev diaries. To begin with, Michelle and Thomas are going to start talking about the story being the expansion and the new culture, the Reavers!

Story Realms

I'm Michelle, a narrative designer at Triumph, and I'm here to immerse you in the thrilling content of Empires and Ashes. Today, I'm excited to unveil two new Story Realms!

You may remember the human dreadnought Edward Portsmith. A stalwart defender of the Commonwealth Empire in Age of Wonders 3, he, alongside the Elven heroine Sundren and the sorceress Laryssa Mirabilis, united the diverse peoples of Athla against a common nemesis: the Shadowborn who schemed towards Athla's impending doom. Despite the valiant efforts of these Torchbearers, the Seals protecting Athla were shattered, plunging the realm into chaos as countless of its defenders vanished into the Astral Sea.

[...]

The Empires & Ashes expansion for Age of Wonders 4 will be released on November 7:

Age of Wonders 4: Empires & Ashes | Announcement Trailer

The new Empires & Ashes expansion lets you fuse magic and steel to create mighty weapons of war, as well as many other features. The upcoming Golem update will also bring new features to the base game, such as the Item Forge, and War Coordination, among other goodies and QoL updates!

Thanks Couchpotato!

Couchpotato spotted the dev diary #21 for Age of Wonders 4:

Dev Diary #21: Watcher Update: Research and Magic Victory

Hi champions, wizard kings and dragon lords! I’m Bas, a game designer at Triumph who has written some Development Journals in the past about Sieges and Ancient Wonders.

Today we’re going to be taking a look at some of the major changes we’re working on for the upcoming Watcher update. In particular updates to the Research system, and a shiny new Magic Victory system featuring Gold Ancient Wonders! Some of these changes were put into the open beta last week, while others will be coming some time today. Make sure to keep an eye for when that goes live!

Tome Requirements and Research Speed

Since the release of Age of Wonders 4, lots of players have made all kinds of combinations and builds using the tome system. Stacking all kinds of bonuses and sometimes reaching incredible research incomes in order to make the most powerful builds! While this is where a lot of the fun lies for players, we also identified some issues:

Many early tome unit enchantments increased damage for units, which when stacked by researching a lot of early game tomes, you could create incredible damage output on early game units for little mana, research and gold.

After players have built up their research economy. Low tier tomes become incredibly quick to research. This also meant that players who had finished their tier 5 tomes would be able to go through the rest of the tome library fast. And some would even have completed the entire tome lineup in a single realm, let alone finish up several tomes in a single turn!

[...]

The Dragon Dawn Content Pack has been released:

Age of Wonders 4: Dragon Dawn Content Pack | OUT NOW!

Thanks Couchpotato!

Take a look at the upcoming Dragon Dawn Content Pack:

Age of Wonders 4 | Dragon Dawn Content Pack First Look — Coming June 20th

Thanks Couchpotato!

JumboPixel presents the announced updates and DLC for Age of Wonders 4:

Age of Wonders 4 MAJOR UPDATES - Dragon Dawn DLC, HUGE Game Patch & MORE!

Techraptor reports that Age of Wonders 4 sold 250k copies in a short time:

Age Of Wonders 4 Sales Hit 250k In Just Four Days

Age of Wonders 4 sales managed to reach 250,000 in just four days, according to new data revealed by publisher Paradox Interactive. This figure makes the fourth major installment in the Age of Wonders series the fastest-selling across its franchise, which should be encouraging if you love these games.

In a press release, Paradox says that between May 2nd, when Age of Wonders 4 launched, and May 6th, the game sold 250,000 copies across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. These sales take into account both pre-orders and post-launch sales and also incorporate both the standard and premium editions of Age of Wonders 4.

[...]

Thanks Couchpotato!

PC Gamer reviewed the strategy game Age of Wonders 4:

AGE OF WONDERS 4 REVIEW

Dust off your wizard hat.

Magic is rarely wondrous in its frequent videogame appearances. It harms, it heals and if you're lucky it maybe transforms enemies into sheep or frogs. Not so in Age of Wonders 4, however, where it drives every component of this arcane 4X, dramatically transforming worlds, cities and the creatures that inhabit them. With your expansive collection of magical tomes, you can dabble with god-like powers to your heart's content. 

The Wizard Kings—would-be deities—have awoken in the Astral Sea and are ready to exert their influence over the multitude of worlds that exist in this magical realm. As one of these Wizard Kings, or a mortal champion, you must grow in power to dominate these worlds, using magic and warfare to put the competition in its place.

[...]

With all the ways you can develop your empire, Age of Wonders 4 demands to be played over and over. But there's also an overarching progression system, the Pantheon, that encourages you to hop back in. Founding cities, forging alliances, completing quests and countless more activities will net you Pantheon XP, which in turn unlocks points that can be spent on the Pantheon tree. Rewards include new cosmetics, icons and gear, which can be used in your next game. Through this system you'll also automatically unlock new map types. Meanwhile, rulers you've created can join the Pantheon, allowing them to appear in future games as potential friends or adversaries. Conceptually, I'm a big fan, though I confess that I would have liked Triumph to do more with it. A new cape or hat doesn't hold a whole lot of appeal. 

Not that I need more excuses to keep coming back. Age of Wonders 4 scratches my itch for experimentation like few other strategy games, seducing me back in to try new tome combos and drag my empire in new, weird directions. And every time, I return from my fantasy foray with a sack full of anecdotes, like when I resurrected a rival ruler who had been plaguing me all game as an undead minion, forced to serve me for eternity. Magic just makes everything more fun.

Score: 87/100 

Thanks Henriquejr!

The strategy game Age of Wonders 4 has been released:

Age of Wonders 4

Rule a fantasy realm of your own design in Age of Wonders 4! Explore new magical realms in Age of Wonders’ signature blend of 4X strategy and turn-based tactical combat. Control a faction that grows and changes as you expand your empire with each turn.

Triumph Studios’ award-winning strategy series has emerged into a new age, evolving the game’s iconic empire building, role-playing, and warfare to the next level. A new storytelling event system and hugely customizable empires provide an endlessly replayable experience, where each game adds a new chapter to your ever-growing saga.

Powerful Wizard Kings have returned to the realms to reign as gods among mortals. Claim and master the Tomes of Magic to evolve your people, and prepare for an epic battle that will determine the ages to come.

Create te Empire of your wildest Fantasies

• Craft your followers by combining bodily forms, societal traits and arcane powers. Build anything from a clan of cannibal halflings to mystic moon elves, or recreate your favorite fantasy tropes
• Seek powerful tomes of magic to enchant your armies and evolve your people! See your people physically change as they morph into angelic beings or scions of chaos to face their enemies.
• Seek glory through brutal domination, cunning alliances, or ultimate arcane knowledge, and write your legacy into the very fabric of the realm itself!

Strategy meets Role-Playing like never before

• Every choice opens up new possibilities and tactical advantages; deep, multilayered strategy allows you to try new tactics or explore new powers at every turn
• Tactical turn-based battles bring your armies to life, showcasing their power in an environment shaped by your decisions. From skirmishes with roaming monsters to vast sieges with dozens of units on each side, with the addition of a morale system and more features, every battle brings a fresh challenge
• Tremendous variety in empires, units, and environments keep the game endlessly replayable. Age of Wonders is more moddable and open-ended than ever in the series’ history

Make your Mark on a vast reactive World

• Explore a new realm with each game - or create your own! Challenge new variations and combinations of locations and features, from frozen wastelands ruled by ice queens to desolated ruins where dragons roam
• A new event system provides unexpected levels of storytelling for 4X games. See your decisions shape the world around you, from growing cities and roaming armies to world-warping magic effects
• Guide your empire to greatness - but the story doesn’t end with your victory or defeat! Ascend your rulers to an in-game pantheon and unlock ways to further customize your experience. Encounter your own creations as potential rivals or allies in subsequent games, and experience the next chapter in your own story!

Zerkovich presents the main game mechanics of Age of Wonders 4:

5 reasons to try Age of Wonders 4!

IGN reviewed Age of Wonders 4:

Age of Wonders 4 Review

The fact that your legacy follows you in Age of Wonders 4 is rewarding, and the faster pace of its very strong campaign mechanics and pretty good tactical battles make it feel like you can write a new chapter of this saga in a reasonable amount of time. Cranking all the dials up to maximum weirdness can lead to some edge cases that ruin the fun a bit, but it's not that big of a price to pay for the vast map and empire customization we get to play with.

ACG reviewed the upcoming Strategy RPG Age of Wonders 4:

Age of Wonders 4 Review

Dev Diary #13 for Age of Wonders 4 explains how diplomacy works.

Welcome to another Age of Wonders 4 Dev Journal! My name is Thom (not to be confused with Tom or Thomas), I’m a gameplay programmer at Triumph Studios and primarily responsible for the Diplomacy systems and related AI.

Today I will take you through some of the changes and additions we’ve made to the Diplomacy systems. There is a lot to go through as we had many objectives when working on the diplomacy system for AoW4:

•     Improving the overall experience of how players interact with each other.
•     Increased player agency while still focusing on how AI players can manage difficulty and pressure in a more proactive manner.
•     Clearer AI behavior and proper foreshadowing of actions and shifts in the AIs attitude.
•     Greater variety in gameplay and the role of personalities.

Together with Jordi, we’ve done a stream highlighting these changes as well:

Trading

We’ll start off the journal by talking about the trading system, which is at the heart of your negotiations and dealings with the other rulers in the realm. Throughout the series we’ve featured Diplomacy in various forms, always trying to improve upon the last iteration, and we hope that the new system is no exception.

With Planetfall we introduced free form trading where you can haggle with AI players to try and achieve specified trade deals, sometimes at a great profit too. The only downside was that you’d have to go back and forth with AI players to broker a deal, which did not always work out since there was no way of knowing which deal would work for the AI beforehand. For AoW4 we have reworked this system entirely, focussing on clarity and providing a more straightforward experience.

[...]

Dev Diary #9 for Age of Wonders 4 focuses on Ancient Wonders.

Dev Diary #9: Ancient Wonders

Greetings future Rulers, welcome to another Development Journal! I’m Bas, a game designer at Triumph Studios. I’d like to give you some glimpses into the grand structures called Ancient Wonders that can be found in the realms you conquer.

Each Ancient Wonder is a monument from the great ages of the past, with several ties to the old Age of Wonders lore. They make the lands more coherent and mysterious as you encounter an ancient Mother Tree guarded by vengeful Entwined, a Secret Temple desecrated by evil cultists summoning a demon or a Lost Tower of ancient wizard horribly transformed by the Astral Sea.

Ancient Wonders are, next to being monumental landmarks in the world map, also filled with adventures and the promise of loot. They are the evolved versions of Treasure Sites in Age of Wonders 3 and Landmarks from Age of Wonders: Planetfall.

Discovering an Ancient Wonder

When you first uncover an Ancient Wonder on the World map, you already get a glimpse of what’s to come through:

• The name, which hints at the adventure that awaits inside.
• The tier, which indicates the difficulty but also the value of the Ancient Wonder and its rewards!
• The background lore, indicating what the Ancient Wonder’s original purpose was and what might still lurk inside

Beware though, that trying to enter and capture Ancient Wonders, while a dangerous ordeal in itself, also have diplomatic repercussions, other players gain grievances if you try to explore Ancient Wonders that are close to them. No one likes nosy neighbors stealing the loot.

To take you on an adventure, we’re following Wizard King Cinren Toliath of the Ashborn Hedonists.

[...]

The latest dev diary for Age of Wonders 4 talks about cities and how they can be expanded and goes into lots of detail.

City Domain

Cities project a sphere of influence around the city called their domain. This domain extracts resources and ensures rival players can’t just enter it without consequences (more about diplomacy in a future dev diary!)

In Age of Wonders 3 and prior, this domain was a hexagon-shape that grew equally in all directions out from the city. This allowed it to exploit the natural resources of nearby resource nodes but gave the player no control. In Age of Wonders: Planetfall this was changed to a sector system, which resulted in player control over growth and more natural shapes that follow the environment. But these choice moments were few and far between and it was hard for many players to comprehend the impact of these choices.

Age of Wonders 4 uses a new province and expansion system. Provinces also follow the natural features of the world. They are smaller than sectors and unlike Planetfall you will gain a new province every time you gain a new population. Cities can easily get up to 15 population and 15 provinces, making your cities grow more organically in byte-sized chunks. This allows you to “steer” their expansion towards high value resources or to cut-off bottlenecks with your territory.

Province Improvements

Whenever you annex a new province you can immediately choose what type of province improvement will be built here.
The choice of improvements depends on what features that province has.

[...]

IGN presents the official story trailer for Age of Wonders 4:

Age of Wonders 4 - Official Story Trailer

Age of Wonders 4 will be released on May 2:

Age of Wonders 4 | Announcement Trailer

Rule a fantasy realm of your own design in Age of Wonders 4! Explore new magical realms in Age of Wonders’ signature blend of 4X strategy and turn-based tactical combat. Control a faction that grows and changes as you expand your empire with each turn.

Triumph Studios’ award-winning strategy series has emerged into a new age, evolving the game’s iconic empire building, role-playing, and warfare to the next level. A new storytelling event system and hugely customizable empires provide an endlessly replayable experience, where each game adds a new chapter to your ever-growing saga.

Powerful Wizard Kings have returned to the realms to reign as gods among mortals. Claim and master the Tomes of Magic to evolve your people, and prepare for an epic battle that will determine the ages to come.

Create te Empire of your wildest Fantasies

• Craft your followers by combining bodily forms, societal traits and arcane powers. Build anything from a clan of cannibal halflings to mystic moon elves, or recreate your favorite fantasy tropes
• Seek powerful tomes of magic to enchant your armies and evolve your people! See your people physically change as they morph into angelic beings or scions of chaos to face their enemies.
• Seek glory through brutal domination, cunning alliances, or ultimate arcane knowledge, and write your legacy into the very fabric of the realm itself!

Strategy meets Role-Playing like never before

• Every choice opens up new possibilities and tactical advantages; deep, multilayered strategy allows you to try new tactics or explore new powers at every turn
• Tactical turn-based battles bring your armies to life, showcasing their power in an environment shaped by your decisions. From skirmishes with roaming monsters to vast sieges with dozens of units on each side, with the addition of a morale system and more features, every battle brings a fresh challenge
• Tremendous variety in empires, units, and environments keep the game endlessly replayable. Age of Wonders is more moddable and open-ended than ever in the series’ history

Make your Mark on a vast reactive World

• Explore a new realm with each game - or create your own! Challenge new variations and combinations of locations and features, from frozen wastelands ruled by ice queens to desolated ruins where dragons roam
• A new event system provides unexpected levels of storytelling for 4X games. See your decisions shape the world around you, from growing cities and roaming armies to world-warping magic effects
• Guide your empire to greatness - but the story doesn’t end with your victory or defeat! Ascend your rulers to an in-game pantheon and unlock ways to further customize your experience. Encounter your own creations as potential rivals or allies in subsequent games, and experience the next chapter in your own story!

Thanks Henriquejr!