The Miscellaneous PC & vidya Games Thread

[Syt]

Paradox have announced Age of Wonders 4:

Scheduled for May release: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1669000/Age_of_Wonders_4

[The Brain]

I loved Shadow Magic, but 3 never grabbed me.

[Syt]

Well, they have a dev diary:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1669000/view/3663149487974712471

Inception

First, a bit of history:

The premise and focus of Age of Wonders 4 has been two decades in the making. At the conclusion of 2003's Age of Wonders Shadow Magic, the warring Wizard Kings were banished from Athla along with the Shadow Demons. We knew that if the stars of game business aligned we'd bring them back, bigger and scarier than before.

After Triumph's Overlord period came 2014's Age of Wonders 3. This long-awaited sequel was developed and published independently and was set in a lower-magic era. It saw the rise of the Human Commonwealth's renaissance empire in the void left by the aforementioned archmages. The scheming Shadowborn plotted to bring back the Wizard Kings and the magical times of old, and in the canon ending, they succeeded!

After joining Paradox, we released Age of Wonders: Planetfall (though development actually started prior to the acquisition). This sci-fi sister game allowed us to experiment with new angles, allowed us to bring the game to a new audience on consoles, and taught us a lot about IP building, ranged combat, meta empire systems and unit mods.

Now, after three and a half years of development, we are ready to announce the newest sequel to the fantasy saga. The biggest Age of Wonders game to date: Age of Wonders 4.

The Return of the Wizard Kings

Age of Wonders 4 starts with the banished Wizard Kings breaking free from their otherworldly prisons. Corrupted by centuries of torment in eldritch domains, they have returned to the world of Athla and now seek other realms that lie within their grasp. Not merely satisfied to reclaim their thrones, they seek to establish themselves as gods over mortals.

The mortal leaders scramble to rally their populations against the invaders. Choosing to be a mortal champion or one of the returning Wizard Kings, you must master the forbidden arts and prepare for a confrontation the likes of which the universe has never seen; taking the conflict to Athla and other worlds within the Astral Sea.

Vision

The central theme that emanates through Age of Wonders 4 is Creation; which ties closely to the returning wizard kings with their god-like powers. If AoW3 was autumnal, then AoW4 represents a fresh spring, heralding an age of new beginnings where the magical forces of creation flow freely. This spring theme is actually part of the art style guide, leading to fresher, green and blue tinted color palettes.

The series has always featured a strong in-world player avatar whose empire embodies their traits. With Age of Wonders 4 we take this further with unprecedented faction creation and evolution systems, as well as new ways for players to create realms to conquer. Next to enhanced avatar character creation, you can build your own starting race. Your choice of physical form, culture, traits and magical tome defines your unique race at the start of the game. You can go for an existing trope or create your own unique vision. Mystic Toads, Cannibal Halflings, or Isolated Deep Dwarves are all examples of what is possible. The modular nature of this fantasy race construction set will also make it easier for modders to add content compared to previous games.

But this is only the beginning; our goal is to instill a great sense of progress and agency during the many hours an AoW game takes. No longer stuck in a predefined research/building path determined at the start of the game, you can now evolve your faction in the direction that suits you during play. You rule an empire of your own design, crafting a personal journey.

Gameplay Depth

With each iteration of the Age of Wonders series we have added more gameplay depth: systems that allow players to develop their own strategies and stories through the game; adding agency and replayability. Age of Wonders 4 continues on this path of evolution. Here are some of the new features:
The Tomes of Magic and Other Progression Systems

Players will need to harness the newly unleashed magic to best their rivals. This is done by researching arcane knowledge contained within ancient tomes. We have broken up the game's "tech tree" into 54 Tomes of Magic, spread over 6 Affinities to the cosmic powers (Order, Chaos, Astral, Materium, Nature and Shadow). Each Tome is centered around a strong theme (Pyromancy, Necromancy, Faith, Teleportation, etc) and includes a number of spells and upgrades for your empire you can then research. You can start with goblin barbarians, and follow the path of Shadow with tomes of necromancy and cryomancy that create a frozen empire of death, or use Nature's tomes to create an empire that lives in harmony with the creatures of the forests. As well as tomes, you can use the Empire Tree to unlock skills that improve your empire. Each affinity has its own branch that follows a particular playstyle. Chaos focuses on leading armies in wars of conquest, while Order looks to conquer the world through vassalage and diplomacy.

As you play the game, picking new tomes and skills from the empire tree, your empire will change to reflect your choices. Your unique path and developing Cosmic Affinities affect the spells you use, the cities you build, and the units you field. You control how your people evolve both physically and socially. This all instills a strong sense of progress and roleplaying, while respecting the medieval high fantasy setting.

New Narrative Engine

New to the game is a narrative engine that laces encounters, diplomacy and many other aspects of the game with narrative flair. How you respond to these events tests your judgment as a leader. The events react to who you are, while immersing you deeper in the living world. Of course, many of the events shine new lights on the universe's rich lore, while the game's story missions drive a new epic plot forward.

Intricate Diplomacy and Relations

Diplomacy, both with rival rulers and free cities you encounter on the map, has received a great deal of attention with new types of pacts, grievances and AI personalities to deal with. AIs have better awareness of who you are and their own place in the world.

Cities and Economy

Cities can develop in multiple new ways: we've introduced a new province system where population growth directly results in new territory that can be added to your city's domain, allowing you to shape your domains and expand towards high value locations. Other features include separate production queues for structures and units to ensure that new units can be drafted faster without stalling city development. There are special province improvements for you to build around your cities and a new empire management resource called Imperium. The game's economy alone will likely be the subject of multiple dev diaries!

Combat and new Siege System

Combat has always been at the heart of the game and is better than ever. There's a new morale system which can cause units to rout; adding a new dimension to combat. We have added clearly defined unit roles, which make it easier to identify the many units in the game. And, of course, there are a ton of new units and clever abilities that look and animate better than ever.

There are more links between the world map and combat, like narrative event options that impact battles and most importantly a new siege system that takes the preparations to the world map and gives defenders a window to break the siege. More on these things later!

What's Next
This is just a short overview of things we're doing with AoW4. Of course many loved features make a return: multiplayer, underground, heroes and their arsenals; all have seen evolutions big and small. This is a fully loaded sequel!

From the time of this announcement to our release on May 2nd, there will be an intense barrage of development journals and other community activities, where we'll take a deeper look at the many facets of this game: gameplay features, art, etc. We hope you like what we have to show and we're looking forward to your feedback.

Check back next week where principal designer Tom Bird is going to take a closer look at the building and evolving factions using the Cosmic Affinities and Tomes of Magic !
If you like what you've seen - please Wishlist the game!

Thank you!

[Syt]

Also, another video:

[Syt]

And one more video, from DasTactic:

(Haven't watched it yet, but I look forward at the announced faction customization features)

[garbon]

I loved Shadow Magic, but 3 never grabbed me.

I loved 1, 2 and Shadow Magic. 3 also left me cold so I don't think I'll be in a rush to try 4.

[Syt]

I'm carefully optimistic after DasTactic's video. It seems they bring stuff back that was missing in AoW3, like good/bad affiliations.

And at first glance it seems to have more content than AoW3 even after all its DLC.

The game has 10 races (orcs, halflings, elves, tigrans, humans etc.). Each race has a default trait or two (e.g. Orcs are ferocious), but you can change that trait for your faction. Then you select a culture (feudal, barbarian, etc.). After that you pick two cultural traits. And after that your customize your ruler, among other things picking your starting spell tome (out of 50+).

Your overall selection will determine what units you will have at the start, what buildings you have etc., though apparently you can further develop your faction during play. Anyways, if you want to play ferocious barbarian halflings whose hordes feed on the corpses of their enemies to heal, you can do that. The game comes with predefined factions, but other than that you can mix/match looks and traits as you like.

Your successful wizards can become enemies in later games from what I understand? (They call it "Pantheon")

Worlds can be similarly customized - biomes, what kind of special features etc. They also promise extensive modding support.

I'm cautiously optimistic. DasTactic is a big AoW fan, though he didn't like AoW3 as much as the previous ones (though he did enjoy modded AoW: Planetfall a lot), but he seems stoked, and I would hope they'll give him early access so that he gets a preview series before release so we can better gauge if the game is good or not.

[crazy canuck]

I liked the mechanics in Planetfall.  Looking forward to this.

[Jacob]

I'm willing to give this a go, I think.

[mongers]

Playing Unciv, seems like a very good clone of Civ 5 for mobiles and low spec pcs. 

[Syt]

Second Front is set to come out 31st January:

Turn based WW2 tactics game.

[Tamas]

Second Front is set to come out 31st January:

Turn based WW2 tactics game.

At a very cursory look it looks like a poor man's Battle Academy, and that's quite an old game now.

[mongers]

Going back to the Civilizaiont theme, yesterday I bought 'Call to Power 2' on gog.com*. I'me enjoying it, no city worker-hex placement, so less micromanagement and some interesting alternative mechanisms for upgrades and what workers would have done.

I'll try out the Apolyton mod this evening, not sure if I tried that out back in the day.


* half price at the moment on gog.com and steam, a cheap game anyway.

[Syt]

CtP2 was a better game than CtP1, but I admit I liked CtP1 better - it had a fictional history planned out until 3000 AD and had crazy, overpowered techs and buildings, like using nanites to disassemble enemy cities (grey goo), having your Empire dissent eradicated by installing an AI Pyramid that controls everyone (with a chance of the AI going rogue and starting its own empire), plus silliness like orbital factories, or building underwater cities (it was a viable strategy to fast track underwater colonies, then create pollution that caused the sea levels to rise - your cities were immune, enemy cities might be lost to the waves ...).

The games made a good effort of getting rid of workers, instead giving you a public works budget, and had a decent attempt at changing 4X combat from single unit v single unit towards stacks attacking each other, with melee, ranged and flanking units attacking in phases.

[mongers]

CtP2 was a better game than CtP1, but I admit I liked CtP1 better - it had a fictional history planned out until 3000 AD and had crazy, overpowered techs and buildings, like using nanites to disassemble enemy cities (grey goo), having your Empire dissent eradicated by installing an AI Pyramid that controls everyone (with a chance of the AI going rogue and starting its own empire), plus silliness like orbital factories, or building underwater cities (it was a viable strategy to fast track underwater colonies, then create pollution that caused the sea levels to rise - your cities were immune, enemy cities might be lost to the waves ...).

The games made a good effort of getting rid of workers, instead giving you a public works budget, and had a decent attempt at changing 4X combat from single unit v single unit towards stacks attacking each other, with melee, ranged and flanking units attacking in phases.

Syt, yes CtP 1 sounds like a fun OTT game, but I think it's not really available online, I think one might have to resort to buying an old CD on ebay etc. :gasp: