My Problem With The Story

[GrandMajora]

While many people on the forums have voiced their own gripes about Age of Wonders 4's story mode, my personal disappointment is not related to how short or disconnected the story mode seems to be from itself.

No, my disappointment comes from the fact that AoW 4 takes place after an unspecified 'time skip' between itself and AoW 3. We were told that the 'official' ending to AoW 3 is that the Shadowborn succeeded in their plans of bringing back the Wizard Kings, but that's about as far as we got in terms of lore.

We have yet to receive any details about what happened afterward, but it seems like the alliance between the Commonwealth and the Elven Court failed to repel the Wizard Kings, because the empire is destroyed and its technology presumably lost at the time that the game picks up. This also seems to be set many years after the end of the last game, because Ham Binger is looking considerably older than he did in AoW 3.

Enough time has past at this point, that the main hero of the Elven Court campaign has effectively pulled an abrubt heel turn on her personality, having now become a jaded, cynical individual, who is willing to follow in the Shadowborn's footsteps in order to achieve her goals.

Werlac, the leader of the Shadowborn, apparently was not satisfied with whatever reward he was given for helping to bring back the Wizard Kings. So now he's abandoned them to look for a new higher power to serve. We don't know what this reward actually was that made him so disillusioned with the Wizard Kings, and the fact that he effectively just up and abandoned them without a more in depth explanation kind of cheapens his role as the previous game's main antagonist.

Not sure what the hell's going on with Melenis, but somehow the lady who previously wanted to exterminate all life on Athla is now married to Meandor, and everybody just seems cool with her being there. Except that to make the situation even worse, she now implies that she is not satisfied with merely destroying Athla, but has plans to exterminate all life in the multiverse, one realm at a time!

Basically, a ton of stuff happened between 3 and 4, which the devs failed to give more details beyond the most basic cliff notes. How did all of this happen? Why did all of this happen?

I feel like AoW 4 could have had a much better story, if it took place immediately after the return of the Wizard Kings, instead of being set years later. It could still present the Wizard Kings as a legitimate threat to the world, but also wouldn't suffer to the complete tonal whiplash of having the setting flipped on its head.

[blackhand_lost]

Well, Ham Binger has seen the events of AoW 1, so a decade or so won't affect him. Wiki says he traded his family's island for Julia's first kiss(so, greatest simp in AoW universe) and now won't die of old age. He probably just drinks too much

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Ham is pretty much immortal at this point.
The luckiest halfing.
Nothing short of divine intervention will kill that guy.

As for your complains.
1: I hope that when the ashen dlc comes out we get to see what happend during the invasion.
But i fear the reason they skip the entire invasions is eithers:
A: Because they ingame engine coudnt do it justice.
B: They didnt want to deal with it.
Given how the rest of the game is i think it is B.
I hope i am wrong.

Melenis was meandors wife all the way back in age of wonders 1 and being turn into undead give you a unending haterd for life.
If anything she has gotten to soft seeing her husband again.
But i suppose meandor has calming effect on her.

I really hope we get too see what happends during later story missions.
But i fear we wont.
I just hope they arent going to pull a blizzard and justify every single plot hole with:
It wasnt the story we wanted too tell.

[Picklefather Nurgle]

Age of Wonders 4 takes place at least 50-ish years after 3 and at most over a hundred years after. Ham is a Hafling and Halflings on Athla live for a few hundred years. So Ham is about at the human equivalent of his early/mid-forties, since age-wise he was around middle-aged in game 3. Even Edward Portsmith, the short-lived human from game 3 managed to become a Godir in that time period. He wrote the Tome of Enchantment I think. And judging by his aged appearance he became a Godir at the latest in his 60's. (Edward is unlockable with a mod that unlocks hidden pre-made factions. He was in the first dev streams as a selectable Faction Leader and has his own custom faction description, so he wasn't just made by a dev for nostalgia's sake. I think he was pre-made but is only gonna be released with the coming Magitech Expansion, since that's kind of his entire thing.

Sundren/Lithyl Nightweaver's character is a bit deeper than that but not much. She's more grizzled and world-weary but still very much who she was in the previous game, if a bit less naive.

Her father died and then her mother decided to be a deadbeat and just run off out of depression or to commit Sudoku in Minecraft somewhere, (though with one of the nature Tomes being written by her I think its safe to say she's just out getting some milk and cigarettes) but Sundren still wants to do the right thing and help people. She's just struggling with the decision of how she should help people: become Batman or the Punisher? That sort of thing. And unfortunately, we never get an answer during the vanilla campaign in 4. They leave things on a cliffhanger presumably for the first major expansion coming later this year.

Melenis was always Meandor's wife. His favorite actually. Ya boy had a Harem. She was in game 1, unleashed the undead plague on Athla, died, became undead, got killed again, came back in game 3, got killed/escaped after getting her butt kicked by her newest boyfriend, (her releationship with Meandor is.... "complicated") who refused to kill the living despite being a Necromancer himself.

Melenis, Meandor, Merlin (leader of the Circle of Evermore/Strongest of all the Wizard Kings from Athla), Tempest (Wizard King coming with Dragon Dawn. He made the Draconians from game 2) along with Nimue, Artica, Arachna, Nekron, Anon, Fangir, Marinus, Yaka and Serena had all become Godir between the 2nd and 3rd games.

In this one we see Sundren trying to raise up a new Godir (Alfred Elderstone) for her future plans. This makes sense if you've beaten the last Story Realm when combined with the opening cutscene, then after that you track down her uncle for help Melenis and Meandor are having a disagreement. Well, "disagreement" meaning she wants to get back together and he told the thot to be GONE. Makes sense really. Both are liches, so neither of them have much of a sex drive anymore.

But anyway, yeah, that's the gist of the things you were confused about. Hope you have an easier time getting it all together in your head.

[ZirosLlewelyn]

Others in this thread have already given you a run down on some of the lore you're missing, but basically, 4 is pulling a lot of stuff from AoW1 and AoW2/SM rather than AoW3. Like the whole Archons and Elves creating the multiverse is Lore from all the way back in AoW1. So at the moment, there's not really a lot of direct connection to 3 besides the Sundren stuff. Presumably there'll be more ties to AoW3 in DLC 2 and 4, since they're actively invoking the Commonwealth and stuff.

As for Ham, I wouldn't base too much off how he looks. Not only has Ham been immortal since the first game, AoW3 Ham is kind of the odd one out in terms of appearance since they switched from painted character portraits to 3D models. He even got his hair bleached for the game lol

And yeah, while the lack of a way to really to tell how long its been is very frustrating, it's not unusual for the series. All the major characters are immortal and nigh unkillable, so they (And by extension, us, as they're our viewpoint characters) have a different scale of time than most Athlans. In a way, Age of Wonders 4 isn't just the name of the game, it's the 4th Age of Wonders on Athla.

That all being said, I've definitely got a lot beef with the Story mode in this game too. I suspect they returned to AoW1's Bring-Your-Own-Leader style to better make use of the Build-Your-Own-Race system. Its not an unviable choice, but it'd need some extra work to make it feel cohesive. And it would've been nice if it locked you to that character for the whole campaign and in turn, "saved" some of your progress like previous games did. The heroes and items you gathered could stick with you for the whole campaign, as did any spells you researched, and in AoW1 which plot branches you followed were also retained and played into the narrative. IE: If you were a Keeper you'd be approached to either help the Dwarves with the invading Goblins or help the Lizardfolk with the invading Frostlings. Not only would the side you picked would be remembered, it decide which missions you'd play and which path the campaign would follow. As is, its just so disconnected. You could be basically anyone, and it changes the story not a whit even though it should (Especially given the difference between Story Realms 1, 2, and 4 vs. 3 and 5).

As is, I think they should have put you into the role of specific characters as it'd allow for a stronger narrative focus. Even if each Story Mission had a unique character (Story 1 you play as Alfred Elderstone, Story 4 is Sundren, Story 5 as Arachna or one of the Shad'rai already present, etc.), it would allow you to better create character specific moments with actual character writing. Like Story 4 would be more meaningful if we're playing from Sundren's perspective and not just some random Godir she's following. She meets both her aunt and uncle for (possibly) the first time, and has to fight the ghostly remnants of her father, brother, and grandfather. There's a lot of potential dialogue there. And sure, as is, Sundren's *there* but 90% of the time she may as well not be since the dialogue is directed at your Godir rather than her. Even though she's the one with history and connections to everyone there.

Also they should bring back sign posts for the Story Maps. Its such a minor thing, but I keenly feel it's loss. In the older games you'd come across sign post while adventuring. Sometimes it'd be stuff like telling you where the road leads, or it'd be a silly joke, or some bit of worldbuilding. All in all, it helped build up the feeling of being on an adventure.

[blackhand_lost]

Originally posted by Grandfather Nurgle:

Age of Wonders 4 takes place at least 50-ish years after 3 and at most over a hundred years after

But Edward Portsmith is still alive and he doesn't look old. I assume he should have been about at least about 25 y.o. or so in AoW 3

[~ Fabulous ~]

Originally posted by blackhand_lost:

Originally posted by Grandfather Nurgle:

Age of Wonders 4 takes place at least 50-ish years after 3 and at most over a hundred years after

But Edward Portsmith is still alive and he doesn't look old. I assume he should have been about at least about 25 y.o. or so in AoW 3

he is a Godir, Yaka for example is old af, yet he look not that old, could be the same story for Edward