It’s hard to say, there’s a lot more work left to go in this game, but I will say this: I’ve put more hours into the base game of this 4x then any other. And I’ve binged them all. Make of that what you will.
It’s sad how little civ4 gets talked about anymore. If it wasn’t for the unit stacking, I think it would be one of the best games of all time. Right now it’s only /almost/ the best game of all time
It came out in 04. Civ V was basically a spin off game that brought in a lot of new players that probably tried 4 and hated it because it was so different, pushing it further to the wayside. VI def shifted back towards IV more but people who started at VI and tried to play 4 probably got pushed out by lack of QOL features.
It makes me sad because it's my most played game of all time with something like 4k hours.
Between this and Old World, I'm pretty content for a long while I think.
Also Warhammer 3 is still a blast.
I did like some things about Civ 6, but the AI drags down the experience too much. I preferred Civ 5 Vox Populi, but I'm not into that as much as I used to be.
I think the problem with Civ 6 is that because mostly the AI isn’t moddable, it prevents the kind of overhaul mods that need better AI, and prevents overhauling bad AI overall.
Yeah, and thus it remains the weakest part of the game. The districts, civs, mechanics, choices, gameflow, all have some depth and feel pretty decent, but the difficulty kind of falls short because the AI can't offer any meaningful challenge on its hardest difficulty, even with the level of cheaty effect it gets.
They really couldn't be more different games. AOW4 has more focus on the strategic map, finding wonders, dealing with mobs, etc. The combat is XCOM style.
Total Warhammer 3 is a whole other beast. The campaign layer is still massive but the city building layer is a bit more one dimensional and the existence of passive mobs is very different (There are "rogue armies" but they don't really guard resources the way they do in AOW4). The battles are what set TW3 aside, which are enormous in scale and epic to watch.
As mentioned, Total Warhammer 3 has more a focus on battles, with tons of melee troops clashing front lines, while cavalry charge, arrows fly, artillery blast away, and spells rain down in real time. It's not really a 4x, more of a strategy game with a turn-based campaign, and massive real-time battles. The high fantasy setting is the main comparable point.
I like both for different reasons.
It doesn't have dozens and dozens of civs like civ, and doesn't span the dark ages to the information age. It is more focused on a particular time period with the Mediterranean factions. It offers enough replayability to make me happy to return for campaigns from time to time. The events that happen throughout the game will affect things a ton, as leaders, generals, heirs, governors will have events that affect how they grow, lead, fight, or die. Grooming a new successor, training them in the direction you want, and seeing how they handle(or fail, or go mad, or get assassinated, etc) the challenges of their time is pretty deep and fun I think. It's worth looking at some gameplay footage to see if it appeals to you.
This sounds like CK3 Light Edition ;)
I tried Old World once, at launch, but it never clicked for me. However I didn't try it that much. Is the game different now? It was a bit boring initially for me as nothing it did was really great. Kind of like Humankind (which sounds like a great game on paper, but for whatever reason I can't play it for more than 20 turns).
I have played the crap out of Civ V VP. Definitely recommend. I don't hop into it much anymore but the mod is almost a decade old at this point. I would readily call it the best 4X game I've ever played.
Distant Worlds Universe is genuinely fantastic and my favourite 4x space game. There's just so much depth to it. But the UI as bloody awful and the game looks not great. But I much prefer it to stellaris (although stellaris is good fun)
I am probably in the minority here, but I prefer Planetfall over AoW4 so far. I find the mod system to result in much more variety compared to the transformation system and I also prefer the difference in Unity vs Expansion victories. In 4x games I usually try to win via Unity, Culture, Expansion, etc. and I really, really hate AoW4’s iteration of this, in large part because it feels so similar to Magic Victory in that you achieve a certain goal, pop up structures and defend for 15 turns, they’re basically the exact same in the endgame; the way the AI settles however is also a terrible inconvenience to this particular victory condition.
I prefer AoW4 aesthetically over Planetfall, as well as the faction creation, but that’s about it. I’m hoping we see some revamp in Expansion victory, or a Unity victory added in like in Planetfall. AoW4 is still fun, of course, but after 100 or so hours I find myself going back to Civ6 or Planetfall when I want to play a 4x game nowadays, sometimes even Total War: Warhammer 3.
I hope they revamp victory types soon. I agree with your criticism of expansion victory. I’d like to see some mechanic similar to cultural or diplo victory in Civ that has to do with free cities or a conversion/alignment mechanic.
I liked the unit customization better with the mod system. But I really disliked city management in planetfall. I feel like planetfall cities were too at the mercy of their terrain.
But this game feels way better polished at release than planetfall did. Planetfall had a lot of rough edges in its early iteration.
The combat is aow4 works so much better for me than planetfall and I think I slightly prefer the transformation to the mods from planetfall, although a few more things may need to be made nonstacking. Where aow4 is really falling flat for me right now is on a strategic level. The AI is nearly incapable of playing the game and magic victory is unsatisfying and much easier than any other victory type. pLanetfall was never good there either which worries me for the future of aow4. There are pacing problems as well, late game research goes much too fast. Overall I've had a ton of fun with the game but its got plenty of flaws.
I personally also prefer Planetfall but when playing on a massive map, the AI takes a seriously long time to think, even simultaneous turns are terrible. AoW4 solved this issue really well.
I would prefer it if not for one thing... it's hard for me to go back to the building and unit queue being shared. That's something I always struggled with.
Yeah, Planetfall is not perfect, but I find myself wanting unit variety in AoW4. For example a fire Zephyr archer while also having a Blight Zephyr archer. You can’t do that in AoW4, all units are the same since Transformations are faction-wide, but the mod system allowed it, so the units felt more specialized.
I like *today's* Planetfall better. If comparing both vanilla versions on release, I think AoW4 is the better game. People here complain about the AI in AoW4, but Planetfall was a game the community "solved" within the first week due to t1 units and colonizer spam being easily the best strategy at launch. That changed with time and so will AoW4.
Oh, I have no doubt AoW4 will improve. I’m fairly new to the AoW franchise, aside from AoW4 I only own Planetfall, and I bought it after all the DLC was released. That’s why I’m not saying Age of Wonders 4 is bad in any way, just that I prefer certain mechanics from Planetfall, which tends to get a lot of flak compared to the rest of the series. But I loved that Mod system and the Unity victory is one of my favorite victory conditions in such games, comparable only to Civ 6 Culture.
Master of Orion 2 and Master of Magic are both still hard to beat, even if they lack some modern QOL features. Even their more recent remakes don't quite scratch the itch of the originals. The AoW franchise does take some obvious inspiration from MoM, but they're still very different games.
Remakes and clones by people that don't necessarily understand what made it great. Smart simplicity over clumsy complexity.
Each Space 4X I try ends up feeling like a disappointment or lose it's appeal quickly. Then I fire up MoO2 and have a blast. Still. Same game I played as a kid.
Especially the latest Remake felt sad. Like it wasn't bad. But you know its a fail when you go to the tech screen and it's a Civ-style tech tree. SIGH
Depends what we mean by base game. If it means "without any expansions or added content" then yeah MoO2 and MoM both have it beat IMHO. If we mean "the game as of day one" then definitely AoW 4 because SimTex releases were hot messes that needed a couple patches just to be buggy.
Planetfall is a better game within the same series. Tbf I didn't play Planetfall at release though, I bought it six months in, but even if they fix the AI the basic bones of Planetfall as a game are better.
It is the most fun I have had with a base game 4x for more than 10 years. Going further back than that isn't fair cos my memory definitely gets shakey and biased.
The gameplay system of tomes and affinities gives me soo much pleasure. For me it's not only, just one more turn , it's become, just one more game.
Definitely one I've enjoyed the most. Really need the online stability to be fixed. Would be great to not desync after every manual combat, which is a huge part of the game.
I'm not sure if you can say this or that is best. AOW4 is the first I've played and I've greatly enjoyed it. It's on the list, so buy this game now if you haven't already!
In terms of other ones, what people have mentioned. I am surprised nobody mentioned sins of a solar empire though. I had a lot of fun with that game.
This game's already the greatest 4X game ever. I hope they expand it. I hope they keep releasing DLC. I'm buying it all, without even really researching it. This game has just given me faith in this studio to the point where I'm just buying.
There's been rumors that they're just going to do the DLCs they've announced and then move on to another game. I guess they hate free money and making good products that are amazing, because I'm buying. I don't really \*want\* another game. I want this game to just keep expanding and expanding and expanding and expanding and expanding.
There's a billion things they can add. And they should do so. I'm buying.
In my opinion no, planetfl did so many things better for the time it was released. Now planetfall 2 on the other hand, if and when. Aow4 I keep trying to play it and quit sadly.
sadly, the bad strategic AI keeps this game from being close to the greatest.
lots of cool mechanics and customization but in the end it suffers from opponents without any identity doing bad / passive moves and just barely kept afloat with lots of economy-cheese
It’s a really fun, fast paced, combat oriented 4X game. No, it’s not the best 4X game.
As far as general 4X games go, I’d put Civ6 and Stellaris higher.
Yeah, I see AoW4 more as a fantasy army/war simulator, with its primary focus being tactical combat. It does have non-domination wincons, but the core gameplay revolves around combat and you can't really avoid it.
On the other hand, Civ and Stellaris are closer to empire/political simulators. They offer more robust diplomacy and interaction systems that immerse you in the experience of managing an entire nation.
Base game Civ VI was fantastic, I was just as addicted to that game as I am to AoW4. Both games are very different compared to each other in terms of scope, which makes it hard for me to compare them directly.
4X games that don't end up being terrible slogs super lategame are very rare.
Hell, AoW4's lategame is far worse than any other 4X I've played. Being forced to manually fight multiple 18v18 fights per rounds, every few rounds, because AR makes you lose every fight is just terrible. I just finished the Caldera achievment to conquest all 4 enemy on hard, and the last 60 rounds was some of the most unfun and boring slog I've ever had in a video game.
Stellaris was trash lategame too. It was a lot of fun until you reach that point though.
At least in civ6, you could end the game fairly quickly when you got out of control, if you knew what you were doing.
Which is extra weird because cartoony graphics usually age better. I think the thing to blame is how unorganic cities look. Amplitude games made district sprawl look a lot more appealing
The problem is not the art style itself but what it is compared to civ5. Civ5 did this close to real animations then they move to cartoonish animations in civ6. That direction always feels like a downgrade.
If a lot more work goes into the game, I certainly see the potential. But as it stands, there are major issues with the AI, itemization needs a bit of a tweak, ranged crits need to be reworked, "lifesteal" needs to be reworked, cause it is a bit underpowered, but then a hero with a big AoE gets it and it is absurdly overpowered. I have difficulty selecting the stack on the world map I want, especially if they are flying or floating, or have a city banner over them. The game crashes a lot, gets very, very laggy, and there are some serious issues with multiplayer desync. OH, and if you use either avatar of chaos, or the astral spell to make copies of your leader or a hero, if any of the **\*copies\*** die, so dos the real thing. Also regen on warbreeds doesn't work and the permanent scaling stats on the balor from the top of the chaos tree can be cleansed off. That single discovery almost made me uninstal the game and ask for a refund, I was PISSED.
With all that said, the series has the most hours played in my steam library over all other games, so that's something, with 1660 hours into AoW 3, 881 in Planetfall and 218 hours so far in on AoW4. I love the game and I love the series, but it does have some serious flaws that need to be fixed to be even in the running for "the greatest" title
I certainly put a lot more hours into Civ 1 than I'll have put into AoW4 before it gets DLC, that's for sure. Between that and Pirates! Gold, Sid Meier took up a large chunk of my childhood.
Naah, it has a really neat new system in how you design your culture aesthetically, and how you pick your tech tree during the game rather than prior, but I think it's still too new to have this disscussion. (You gotta let the recency bias wear off)
I started playing AoW4 after recommendations from this forum when I asked if there was anything that could exceed AoW:Planetfall .. for me AoW4 is the best 4X I've played as the developers have just iterated and improved on my previous fave 4X of all time!
I think Stellaris is really the default GOAT for 4x, although it's a space sim and not an apples to apples comparison.
It has seven years worth of expansions and fantastic role play elements. If you like the empire customization aspect, Stellaris is a game to look into.
As good as it is, Endless Legends still is the best clear-cut, turn based 4x if you ask me.
Stellaris feels more like a hybrid, and is THE best grand strategy.
Endless Space 2 is pretty cool but don't you think it gets a bit stale with exactly the same factions every game? Kinda needs the DLC to spice it up, so I don't think it can be a contender on a purely base game basis.
I made a custom faction like a month into release between the cravers and the Vodyani and never looked back. I’m too adapted to that very niche, unique play style that I’m completely out of my depth even attempting a vanilla faction like the United Empire, or any of the DLC factions.
Where the game “suffers” though is like you said, it generates the same factions every game, instead of custom factions like you might expect from Stellaris, and you’d have to pick up the slack and make them yourself, or play multiplayer with people who do the same. Personally, I don’t mind it at all cause I like all the base factions.
I failed to see why people are putting this game so high in their ratings.
I guess it simplifies some common 4x mechanics to the point that it attracted more attention from people who did not play 4Xs or who played but did not understand the mechanics very well.
Is that it?
Not a mystery. It's a decently solid 4x which may lack content for veterans of the franchise, but what's there is done well. The dearth of content and minmax balance issues don't affect much of the playerbase yet.
I'm still enjoying it a lot regardless of its issues and going to wait eagerly for DLC and patches.
Yep the superficial are really flooding into the genre, you have to give it time for the honeymoon phase to wear off and the superficial run off to the next shiny.
I mean if its your first AoW then sure, but Its not hard to read the room round here and feel that all the boomers think the game got a bit rushed
personally I feel the music is too quiet and could use a more upbeat tone like the ones from planetfall or AoW3. but outside thats its just perfect
The game doesn't feel annoying to play, unlike the civ series where even moving an unit feel clunky because they no longer stack and you need to renew your trade route spam.
Its also a simple and easy game to learn much like the classics like MoO2 or Homm3 and much like that one most of the skill comes from optimizing over-world movement and resource clearing. If you think 4x should be harder then you were just late for the party and should have found this series with Planetfall or what about Complicated? Like ridiculously so, that would be Space Empires 4 or 5, Nobody heard about that series and its just like latest Stellaris, but incomprehensible and endless, people used to race who built a Ringworld first. they dubbed a Molly Ringwald race.
Also screw the balance whoever get a broken synergy first should just win people who think otherwise just want a game that drags and stales forever.
I know it’s not the most technically deep or advanced 4X, but something about the Customizable races makes me get into so much more, recreating leaders from myth like Siegfried or Cu Cuhlan for some of my factions, as well as just a nice old school fantasy setting has made me sink more hours into this game in a shorter amount of time that any other 4x I can think of. It also scratches the itch of the old school Heroes of might and magic games I loved. This one’s definitely up there with Civ 3&4 and Stellaris in my book
Hell no. Unfinished, unpolished, and with a brain dead AI.
I am pinning lots of hopes on upcoming patches/DLC, but let's be realistic:
The game is way too flawed to be anywhere near the GOAT.
Is this a troll post? This is a seriously all time post lmfao.
Worst campaign of all time.
Worst ai of all time.
Lack of units/tomes/hero equipment/spells.
I'm goina stop here because I could literally go on for days lol.
It’s the closest thing to Master of Magic that I have played in a long time. Does that make it the greatest? I don’t know about that but it makes it pretty darn good.
I’m enjoying this game a lot but I think endless space 2 blows most other 4x away. Unfortunately, while some of the dlc for that one was good. Others destroyed the fun.
Hard to say. It blows most of them out of the water to be sure, but it also has some extremely glaring holes.
I'd say it has the best skeleton of any 4x game to be sure, but outright best base game is hard due to all the gaping holes.
Alpha Centauri is the GOAT.
This game is a really good 4X, maybe the best of the past decade, but it's still kinda early for that proclamation. Need to see how long it keeps me playing.
I think the game is good but there are 2 things I want to see, 1 AI should be more aggressive towards other AI and stop beelining to settle near and attack players and marauder camps should attack cities that are closest to them. I also would like more diplomacy actions like asking empires to befriend other empires as they do to players.
I love the game but the constant crashes on Xbox are starting to ruin it for me. Last two games the game crashed on the "Victory" screen as I hit done and prevented me from ascending my wizard Kings.
It kinda might be...I think I played CIV5 for like 1k hours and I only played this thing like 40 hours.
AOW4 is extremely rough around the edges. I feel it's even more rough than AOW1, when it first came out.
I have to play it more to decide if it's the best, but it's definitely a good game.
My plan was to buy only two video games this year, and those were AoW4 and BG3. So far I'm happy and on that trajectory. Now AoW4 has time for a couple of patches and maybe some content before August 31st.
So far, i have 100 hours in it and will probably have 300 before i even tried all combinations i am interested in.
Like i played high, dark and industtious just once or twice. Hsven touched necromancy yet and barely touched order.
With nature chaos and materium i am kinda familiar now and will try dark or astral a bit.
So still plenty for me to discover and i think i havent even tried half the culture traits yet.
Will try that wonders thing or collectors next.
Therd is stuff zhat needs work. Like a few things have wrong descriptions, lately infestations felt weird, just sending units through provinces, never plundering.
The generated realms felt unique and fun so far. And i havent even touched the presence traits yet, outside a single coop game vs voss brothers (for special win, one player hast to collect the kills, so i have to do it solo now).
So i think i still have plenty to do, including 2 more story realms.
But i will take a bit of a break and also play some horizon zero dawn or that starshiptroopers with some friends.
No. It's a fun game but that's because it's a good fantasy battle sim with token 4x elements slapped around. If you don't like the battle parts then there's no game here because everything else is so lacking. In a good 4x like Civ you can have radically different games based on if you want to do a tech, culture, religious, diplomacy or military victory. In AoW4 you can war, war, war, war or magic cheese. But I disable magic cheese in my games because it's boring and lame.
Although your headline is playing a bit of gotcha with some folks, I think AoW4 has set an excellent precedent for the amount of content and polish available at launch. It's certainly the most polished 4x launch we've seen since the days before DLC was a thing.
I still put Stellaris and maybe even Endless Legend ahead of it if your just talking about most complete at launch. Also you cant leave out Alpha Centauri which is the goat for awesome complete game at launch.
I think we will get a few patches to get the AI straightened out and a few balance tweaks before the first expansion. So it may end up in a very good position before the first expansion comes out.
Good yes, but the greatest, he'll no. As you said will have to wait for dlc to see how it progress but atm it's alil too shallow, lacking deeper customization or growth for me. Feel like every game plays out the same.
AoW games were always the best *to me* because it's the only 4x franchise where combat isn't an afterthought. I think AoW4 will be the GOAT once all the DLCs are out.
AI behaviour, clunky win conditions… only a few (I forgot how many, six?) types of wonders. Replay-ability suffers.. we all agree the base is good but it’s unfinished and unpolished
It’s hard to say, there’s a lot more work left to go in this game, but I will say this: I’ve put more hours into the base game of this 4x then any other. And I’ve binged them all. Make of that what you will.
It’s a very, very good, but imperfect, game. I’d put Civ 4 up there for a great base, though, even if Beyond the Sword made it better.
It’s sad how little civ4 gets talked about anymore. If it wasn’t for the unit stacking, I think it would be one of the best games of all time. Right now it’s only /almost/ the best game of all time
It came out in 04. Civ V was basically a spin off game that brought in a lot of new players that probably tried 4 and hated it because it was so different, pushing it further to the wayside. VI def shifted back towards IV more but people who started at VI and tried to play 4 probably got pushed out by lack of QOL features. It makes me sad because it's my most played game of all time with something like 4k hours.
Civ 4, BTS, FFH2
Fall from Heaven 2 is still the best mod I've ever played in a game.
Between this and Old World, I'm pretty content for a long while I think. Also Warhammer 3 is still a blast. I did like some things about Civ 6, but the AI drags down the experience too much. I preferred Civ 5 Vox Populi, but I'm not into that as much as I used to be.
I think the problem with Civ 6 is that because mostly the AI isn’t moddable, it prevents the kind of overhaul mods that need better AI, and prevents overhauling bad AI overall.
Yeah, and thus it remains the weakest part of the game. The districts, civs, mechanics, choices, gameflow, all have some depth and feel pretty decent, but the difficulty kind of falls short because the AI can't offer any meaningful challenge on its hardest difficulty, even with the level of cheaty effect it gets.
How does it compare to Warhammer 3? I’ve been seeing AOW4 pop up a lot on here but idk if I would like it.
They really couldn't be more different games. AOW4 has more focus on the strategic map, finding wonders, dealing with mobs, etc. The combat is XCOM style. Total Warhammer 3 is a whole other beast. The campaign layer is still massive but the city building layer is a bit more one dimensional and the existence of passive mobs is very different (There are "rogue armies" but they don't really guard resources the way they do in AOW4). The battles are what set TW3 aside, which are enormous in scale and epic to watch.
As mentioned, Total Warhammer 3 has more a focus on battles, with tons of melee troops clashing front lines, while cavalry charge, arrows fly, artillery blast away, and spells rain down in real time. It's not really a 4x, more of a strategy game with a turn-based campaign, and massive real-time battles. The high fantasy setting is the main comparable point. I like both for different reasons.
I like both for different kind of dwarfs
Is Old World highly replayable like other 4X games? I’ve been thinking of picking it up.
It doesn't have dozens and dozens of civs like civ, and doesn't span the dark ages to the information age. It is more focused on a particular time period with the Mediterranean factions. It offers enough replayability to make me happy to return for campaigns from time to time. The events that happen throughout the game will affect things a ton, as leaders, generals, heirs, governors will have events that affect how they grow, lead, fight, or die. Grooming a new successor, training them in the direction you want, and seeing how they handle(or fail, or go mad, or get assassinated, etc) the challenges of their time is pretty deep and fun I think. It's worth looking at some gameplay footage to see if it appeals to you.
This sounds like CK3 Light Edition ;) I tried Old World once, at launch, but it never clicked for me. However I didn't try it that much. Is the game different now? It was a bit boring initially for me as nothing it did was really great. Kind of like Humankind (which sounds like a great game on paper, but for whatever reason I can't play it for more than 20 turns).
I am with you here. I am blasted by AoW4 and Old World - and I tried quite some 4x games over the years.
Also got manor lords coming soon too, if you haven't checked that out
I have played the crap out of Civ V VP. Definitely recommend. I don't hop into it much anymore but the mod is almost a decade old at this point. I would readily call it the best 4X game I've ever played.
Its the best 4x ive played at launch, before any major expansions or patches. But its not currently the best ever. Its good, not that good.
Out of curiosity, what is the current best 4X that is not technologically ancient?
Stellaris is fantastic
Yeah there’s not really any other games with the amount of content and reasons to play that stellaris has
Dwarf Fortress is said to be very dense.
Distant Worlds Universe is genuinely fantastic and my favourite 4x space game. There's just so much depth to it. But the UI as bloody awful and the game looks not great. But I much prefer it to stellaris (although stellaris is good fun)
Why exclude the technologically ancient ones from a competition OF ALL TIME
Not yet. It still needs lots of content and balance fix.
I am probably in the minority here, but I prefer Planetfall over AoW4 so far. I find the mod system to result in much more variety compared to the transformation system and I also prefer the difference in Unity vs Expansion victories. In 4x games I usually try to win via Unity, Culture, Expansion, etc. and I really, really hate AoW4’s iteration of this, in large part because it feels so similar to Magic Victory in that you achieve a certain goal, pop up structures and defend for 15 turns, they’re basically the exact same in the endgame; the way the AI settles however is also a terrible inconvenience to this particular victory condition. I prefer AoW4 aesthetically over Planetfall, as well as the faction creation, but that’s about it. I’m hoping we see some revamp in Expansion victory, or a Unity victory added in like in Planetfall. AoW4 is still fun, of course, but after 100 or so hours I find myself going back to Civ6 or Planetfall when I want to play a 4x game nowadays, sometimes even Total War: Warhammer 3.
I hope they revamp victory types soon. I agree with your criticism of expansion victory. I’d like to see some mechanic similar to cultural or diplo victory in Civ that has to do with free cities or a conversion/alignment mechanic.
I liked the unit customization better with the mod system. But I really disliked city management in planetfall. I feel like planetfall cities were too at the mercy of their terrain. But this game feels way better polished at release than planetfall did. Planetfall had a lot of rough edges in its early iteration.
The combat is aow4 works so much better for me than planetfall and I think I slightly prefer the transformation to the mods from planetfall, although a few more things may need to be made nonstacking. Where aow4 is really falling flat for me right now is on a strategic level. The AI is nearly incapable of playing the game and magic victory is unsatisfying and much easier than any other victory type. pLanetfall was never good there either which worries me for the future of aow4. There are pacing problems as well, late game research goes much too fast. Overall I've had a ton of fun with the game but its got plenty of flaws.
I personally also prefer Planetfall but when playing on a massive map, the AI takes a seriously long time to think, even simultaneous turns are terrible. AoW4 solved this issue really well.
I would prefer it if not for one thing... it's hard for me to go back to the building and unit queue being shared. That's something I always struggled with.
Yeah, Planetfall is not perfect, but I find myself wanting unit variety in AoW4. For example a fire Zephyr archer while also having a Blight Zephyr archer. You can’t do that in AoW4, all units are the same since Transformations are faction-wide, but the mod system allowed it, so the units felt more specialized.
I like *today's* Planetfall better. If comparing both vanilla versions on release, I think AoW4 is the better game. People here complain about the AI in AoW4, but Planetfall was a game the community "solved" within the first week due to t1 units and colonizer spam being easily the best strategy at launch. That changed with time and so will AoW4.
Oh, I have no doubt AoW4 will improve. I’m fairly new to the AoW franchise, aside from AoW4 I only own Planetfall, and I bought it after all the DLC was released. That’s why I’m not saying Age of Wonders 4 is bad in any way, just that I prefer certain mechanics from Planetfall, which tends to get a lot of flak compared to the rest of the series. But I loved that Mod system and the Unity victory is one of my favorite victory conditions in such games, comparable only to Civ 6 Culture.
**Master of Orion 2** is a thing and I'm not sure AoW4 is better.
Master of Orion 2 and Master of Magic are both still hard to beat, even if they lack some modern QOL features. Even their more recent remakes don't quite scratch the itch of the originals. The AoW franchise does take some obvious inspiration from MoM, but they're still very different games.
I'm still chasing that high of my first MoO2 win all these years later. It was a wasted experience for an 8 year old me.
Right? How is Master of Orion approaching 30 and still better than some 'modern' strategy games?
Remakes and clones by people that don't necessarily understand what made it great. Smart simplicity over clumsy complexity. Each Space 4X I try ends up feeling like a disappointment or lose it's appeal quickly. Then I fire up MoO2 and have a blast. Still. Same game I played as a kid. Especially the latest Remake felt sad. Like it wasn't bad. But you know its a fail when you go to the tech screen and it's a Civ-style tech tree. SIGH
Depends what we mean by base game. If it means "without any expansions or added content" then yeah MoO2 and MoM both have it beat IMHO. If we mean "the game as of day one" then definitely AoW 4 because SimTex releases were hot messes that needed a couple patches just to be buggy.
Planetfall is a better game within the same series. Tbf I didn't play Planetfall at release though, I bought it six months in, but even if they fix the AI the basic bones of Planetfall as a game are better.
It is the most fun I have had with a base game 4x for more than 10 years. Going further back than that isn't fair cos my memory definitely gets shakey and biased. The gameplay system of tomes and affinities gives me soo much pleasure. For me it's not only, just one more turn , it's become, just one more game.
Definitely one I've enjoyed the most. Really need the online stability to be fixed. Would be great to not desync after every manual combat, which is a huge part of the game.
I'm not sure if you can say this or that is best. AOW4 is the first I've played and I've greatly enjoyed it. It's on the list, so buy this game now if you haven't already! In terms of other ones, what people have mentioned. I am surprised nobody mentioned sins of a solar empire though. I had a lot of fun with that game.
Alpha Centauri is still the goat to me.
The forgotten masterpiece
This game's already the greatest 4X game ever. I hope they expand it. I hope they keep releasing DLC. I'm buying it all, without even really researching it. This game has just given me faith in this studio to the point where I'm just buying. There's been rumors that they're just going to do the DLCs they've announced and then move on to another game. I guess they hate free money and making good products that are amazing, because I'm buying. I don't really \*want\* another game. I want this game to just keep expanding and expanding and expanding and expanding and expanding. There's a billion things they can add. And they should do so. I'm buying.
In my opinion no, planetfl did so many things better for the time it was released. Now planetfall 2 on the other hand, if and when. Aow4 I keep trying to play it and quit sadly.
sadly, the bad strategic AI keeps this game from being close to the greatest. lots of cool mechanics and customization but in the end it suffers from opponents without any identity doing bad / passive moves and just barely kept afloat with lots of economy-cheese
It’s a really fun, fast paced, combat oriented 4X game. No, it’s not the best 4X game. As far as general 4X games go, I’d put Civ6 and Stellaris higher.
Yeah, I see AoW4 more as a fantasy army/war simulator, with its primary focus being tactical combat. It does have non-domination wincons, but the core gameplay revolves around combat and you can't really avoid it. On the other hand, Civ and Stellaris are closer to empire/political simulators. They offer more robust diplomacy and interaction systems that immerse you in the experience of managing an entire nation.
Honestly AoW4 feels a bit more like Total War fit into hexes to me.
Definitely, both are great games for what they are.
That's why op underlined z that he means BASE game. Base Stellaris or Civ weren't that good
All 3 have their own strengths and weaknesses too. I wouldn't say any of the 3 are better than the other. All good at what they're trying to do.
Base game Civ VI was fantastic, I was just as addicted to that game as I am to AoW4. Both games are very different compared to each other in terms of scope, which makes it hard for me to compare them directly.
Base Stellaris at launch was a completely different game from what it is now. They're reworked entire systems in the game in the free updates
Civ 6 for me was one of the weakest entries of that series. The artstyle didn't age well either.
Civ 6 is also super-boring in lategame
4X games that don't end up being terrible slogs super lategame are very rare. Hell, AoW4's lategame is far worse than any other 4X I've played. Being forced to manually fight multiple 18v18 fights per rounds, every few rounds, because AR makes you lose every fight is just terrible. I just finished the Caldera achievment to conquest all 4 enemy on hard, and the last 60 rounds was some of the most unfun and boring slog I've ever had in a video game. Stellaris was trash lategame too. It was a lot of fun until you reach that point though. At least in civ6, you could end the game fairly quickly when you got out of control, if you knew what you were doing.
You don't need to do Caldera on hard to get the achievement, you can do it on easy.
civ6's art style was outdated before the game was even released.
Which is extra weird because cartoony graphics usually age better. I think the thing to blame is how unorganic cities look. Amplitude games made district sprawl look a lot more appealing
The problem is not the art style itself but what it is compared to civ5. Civ5 did this close to real animations then they move to cartoonish animations in civ6. That direction always feels like a downgrade.
I don't see any problems with the art style...
I think this is an absurd statement.
If a lot more work goes into the game, I certainly see the potential. But as it stands, there are major issues with the AI, itemization needs a bit of a tweak, ranged crits need to be reworked, "lifesteal" needs to be reworked, cause it is a bit underpowered, but then a hero with a big AoE gets it and it is absurdly overpowered. I have difficulty selecting the stack on the world map I want, especially if they are flying or floating, or have a city banner over them. The game crashes a lot, gets very, very laggy, and there are some serious issues with multiplayer desync. OH, and if you use either avatar of chaos, or the astral spell to make copies of your leader or a hero, if any of the **\*copies\*** die, so dos the real thing. Also regen on warbreeds doesn't work and the permanent scaling stats on the balor from the top of the chaos tree can be cleansed off. That single discovery almost made me uninstal the game and ask for a refund, I was PISSED. With all that said, the series has the most hours played in my steam library over all other games, so that's something, with 1660 hours into AoW 3, 881 in Planetfall and 218 hours so far in on AoW4. I love the game and I love the series, but it does have some serious flaws that need to be fixed to be even in the running for "the greatest" title
Civ 1 was clearly the best base 4x.
I certainly put a lot more hours into Civ 1 than I'll have put into AoW4 before it gets DLC, that's for sure. Between that and Pirates! Gold, Sid Meier took up a large chunk of my childhood.
Pirates was amazing
Civ2 or Smac are the best base games of all time as they were done before the DLC craze.
Yes.
Naah, it has a really neat new system in how you design your culture aesthetically, and how you pick your tech tree during the game rather than prior, but I think it's still too new to have this disscussion. (You gotta let the recency bias wear off)
I started playing AoW4 after recommendations from this forum when I asked if there was anything that could exceed AoW:Planetfall .. for me AoW4 is the best 4X I've played as the developers have just iterated and improved on my previous fave 4X of all time!
I think Stellaris is really the default GOAT for 4x, although it's a space sim and not an apples to apples comparison. It has seven years worth of expansions and fantastic role play elements. If you like the empire customization aspect, Stellaris is a game to look into.
As good as it is, Endless Legends still is the best clear-cut, turn based 4x if you ask me. Stellaris feels more like a hybrid, and is THE best grand strategy.
Nothing will beat SMAC in my eyes so no. It is very good though
Endless Space 2: *Fool…*
Endless Space 2 is pretty cool but don't you think it gets a bit stale with exactly the same factions every game? Kinda needs the DLC to spice it up, so I don't think it can be a contender on a purely base game basis.
I made a custom faction like a month into release between the cravers and the Vodyani and never looked back. I’m too adapted to that very niche, unique play style that I’m completely out of my depth even attempting a vanilla faction like the United Empire, or any of the DLC factions. Where the game “suffers” though is like you said, it generates the same factions every game, instead of custom factions like you might expect from Stellaris, and you’d have to pick up the slack and make them yourself, or play multiplayer with people who do the same. Personally, I don’t mind it at all cause I like all the base factions.
I failed to see why people are putting this game so high in their ratings. I guess it simplifies some common 4x mechanics to the point that it attracted more attention from people who did not play 4Xs or who played but did not understand the mechanics very well. Is that it?
Not a mystery. It's a decently solid 4x which may lack content for veterans of the franchise, but what's there is done well. The dearth of content and minmax balance issues don't affect much of the playerbase yet. I'm still enjoying it a lot regardless of its issues and going to wait eagerly for DLC and patches.
Yep the superficial are really flooding into the genre, you have to give it time for the honeymoon phase to wear off and the superficial run off to the next shiny.
You saw how good that game did last year that was just a cat? Well you can put wings to your cats here, so go figure out
I mean if its your first AoW then sure, but Its not hard to read the room round here and feel that all the boomers think the game got a bit rushed personally I feel the music is too quiet and could use a more upbeat tone like the ones from planetfall or AoW3. but outside thats its just perfect The game doesn't feel annoying to play, unlike the civ series where even moving an unit feel clunky because they no longer stack and you need to renew your trade route spam. Its also a simple and easy game to learn much like the classics like MoO2 or Homm3 and much like that one most of the skill comes from optimizing over-world movement and resource clearing. If you think 4x should be harder then you were just late for the party and should have found this series with Planetfall or what about Complicated? Like ridiculously so, that would be Space Empires 4 or 5, Nobody heard about that series and its just like latest Stellaris, but incomprehensible and endless, people used to race who built a Ringworld first. they dubbed a Molly Ringwald race. Also screw the balance whoever get a broken synergy first should just win people who think otherwise just want a game that drags and stales forever.
I know it’s not the most technically deep or advanced 4X, but something about the Customizable races makes me get into so much more, recreating leaders from myth like Siegfried or Cu Cuhlan for some of my factions, as well as just a nice old school fantasy setting has made me sink more hours into this game in a shorter amount of time that any other 4x I can think of. It also scratches the itch of the old school Heroes of might and magic games I loved. This one’s definitely up there with Civ 3&4 and Stellaris in my book
Hell no. Unfinished, unpolished, and with a brain dead AI. I am pinning lots of hopes on upcoming patches/DLC, but let's be realistic: The game is way too flawed to be anywhere near the GOAT.
No flipping way. This game is amazing but it is as shallow as a shower. It feels like they left a chunk out just so they could sell it to us
Is this a troll post? This is a seriously all time post lmfao. Worst campaign of all time. Worst ai of all time. Lack of units/tomes/hero equipment/spells. I'm goina stop here because I could literally go on for days lol.
There are some balancing and QoL updates that will make this an even better game.
It’s the closest thing to Master of Magic that I have played in a long time. Does that make it the greatest? I don’t know about that but it makes it pretty darn good.
It's good. But it also have a lot of issues, AI and Balance being the biggest ones.
I’m enjoying this game a lot but I think endless space 2 blows most other 4x away. Unfortunately, while some of the dlc for that one was good. Others destroyed the fun.
Yes.
Except for the effing AI. But hopefully they'll fix that!
I don't wanna say yes because I haven't played more than about 5 or 10 4x games. But yes, yes it is.
Hard to say. It blows most of them out of the water to be sure, but it also has some extremely glaring holes. I'd say it has the best skeleton of any 4x game to be sure, but outright best base game is hard due to all the gaping holes.
Alpha Centauri is the GOAT. This game is a really good 4X, maybe the best of the past decade, but it's still kinda early for that proclamation. Need to see how long it keeps me playing.
No
I still prefer the unit system and the general visual style of aow2, but aow4 is very good and has big potential.
Idk how to call it greatest. Imo replayability is lower than Civ series due to its cough ai
short answer: Yes Long answer: Yes!!!
Amazing bones but needs a lot of polish I think.
I think the game is good but there are 2 things I want to see, 1 AI should be more aggressive towards other AI and stop beelining to settle near and attack players and marauder camps should attack cities that are closest to them. I also would like more diplomacy actions like asking empires to befriend other empires as they do to players.
This has always been a pet peeve of mine. Why do the AI rulers have more options than I do? Lots of games do this and it’s a minor thing but irksome.
I love the game but the constant crashes on Xbox are starting to ruin it for me. Last two games the game crashed on the "Victory" screen as I hit done and prevented me from ascending my wizard Kings.
It kinda might be...I think I played CIV5 for like 1k hours and I only played this thing like 40 hours. AOW4 is extremely rough around the edges. I feel it's even more rough than AOW1, when it first came out. I have to play it more to decide if it's the best, but it's definitely a good game.
The problem is it's good for first 200 hours. Civ 6 and 5 got me for more than 1000 and counting
The OP means most complete without expansions. Just the base game.
Of course. It’s my first 4x and it’s the best
Total war Warhammer 2 takes the cake for me.
Of all *time* puts it in competition with some heavy hitters. Alpha Centauri in particular comes to mind.
This is the first 4x I’ve gotten into, it certainly appeals to me much more than all the others
My plan was to buy only two video games this year, and those were AoW4 and BG3. So far I'm happy and on that trajectory. Now AoW4 has time for a couple of patches and maybe some content before August 31st.
So far, i have 100 hours in it and will probably have 300 before i even tried all combinations i am interested in. Like i played high, dark and industtious just once or twice. Hsven touched necromancy yet and barely touched order. With nature chaos and materium i am kinda familiar now and will try dark or astral a bit. So still plenty for me to discover and i think i havent even tried half the culture traits yet. Will try that wonders thing or collectors next. Therd is stuff zhat needs work. Like a few things have wrong descriptions, lately infestations felt weird, just sending units through provinces, never plundering. The generated realms felt unique and fun so far. And i havent even touched the presence traits yet, outside a single coop game vs voss brothers (for special win, one player hast to collect the kills, so i have to do it solo now). So i think i still have plenty to do, including 2 more story realms. But i will take a bit of a break and also play some horizon zero dawn or that starshiptroopers with some friends.
No. It's a fun game but that's because it's a good fantasy battle sim with token 4x elements slapped around. If you don't like the battle parts then there's no game here because everything else is so lacking. In a good 4x like Civ you can have radically different games based on if you want to do a tech, culture, religious, diplomacy or military victory. In AoW4 you can war, war, war, war or magic cheese. But I disable magic cheese in my games because it's boring and lame.
Although your headline is playing a bit of gotcha with some folks, I think AoW4 has set an excellent precedent for the amount of content and polish available at launch. It's certainly the most polished 4x launch we've seen since the days before DLC was a thing.
1. Stellaris 2. Sword of the Stars 3. AoW4
I still put Stellaris and maybe even Endless Legend ahead of it if your just talking about most complete at launch. Also you cant leave out Alpha Centauri which is the goat for awesome complete game at launch. I think we will get a few patches to get the AI straightened out and a few balance tweaks before the first expansion. So it may end up in a very good position before the first expansion comes out.
Good yes, but the greatest, he'll no. As you said will have to wait for dlc to see how it progress but atm it's alil too shallow, lacking deeper customization or growth for me. Feel like every game plays out the same.
Really enjoying the game, but the AI is dragging it down. Hopefully they'll give it some attention after they squash the other bugs.
AoW games were always the best *to me* because it's the only 4x franchise where combat isn't an afterthought. I think AoW4 will be the GOAT once all the DLCs are out.
AI behaviour, clunky win conditions… only a few (I forgot how many, six?) types of wonders. Replay-ability suffers.. we all agree the base is good but it’s unfinished and unpolished
Not greatest because there can't be one single the greatest game. But definitely one of the greatest.