How different and unique are the factions ?

[The Alchemist]

Trying to figure out if this game is worth a buy

I’m on a 4x kick (new to the genre) and checking out the big names.
I’ve found that I really prefer games where the devs have hand crafted different factions with unique gameplay modes, visuals, ect. (Endless Space 2, Endless Legend) and don’t really like the “build your own race” style (Stellaris).
I just feel like the latter ends up feeling less inspired and bland as you can clearly see the “templates” for races being reused despite being totally different factions.

What’s this game like ?

[Blanch Warren]

Apart from climate options, in statistical terms, race is mostly combat options, though some of those are rather "unique". While you might just make a race based on cavalry or defense, options like herbivore are still theoretically viable.

How you play on a macro level is based more on 'culture' and 'society traits', though society traits does also include combat options.

[IlluminaZero]

Ruler types (particularly the Eldritch Sovereign and Dragon Lord) play very different to Champion / Wizard King (who have their own nuances and are predictably similar as humanoid Rulers).

The cultures not only play different among themselves but are effectively customizable based on how you approach your unlocked tomes (which is effectively a customizable tech tree).

Edit addendum: The variability extends way beyond combat options. Neutral High for example forces a specific playstyle in RP terms and hyper accelerates your economy for adhering to it. Oathsworn also has demands on playstyle while directly impacting your economic situation in obvious ways. This design philosophy effects the other cultures as well - Although likely not as obviously.

Faction traits such as "Hermit Kingdom" and "Chosen Destroyers" will also force you to adapt your playstyle on a largely economic basis.

The biggest critique against the variability of the factions tends to be how the top tier units are all tome units. So the end-game meta can basically feel the same in regards to lategame armies... Particularly if you never try different affinity combos.

This is further exacerbated if you reach a super-late endgame where not only do you have all tome units but basically have infinite resources.

This game tends towards supporting a somewhat aggressive playstyle (note: "aggression" in this context isn't just attacking other factions but map control) so I think its a more general thing of the game itself really being designed to be beaten at around 100 turns on the upper end.

If you think of it as a war game rather than a Sim game you'll likely enjoy it more. Although there are some Sim elements in building your Pantheon across games. I like this approach towards meta progression in Sim elements - It could be a bit more robust though.

[darkholyPL]

They aren't.
The end.

[Pantagruel]

For clarity, in this game 'faction' really means 'culture' -- race is cosmetic.

[cernodan]

This game is all about customization. Everything is as unique as you make it.
If you dislike this mechanic and prefer something more set in stone, try Age of Wonders Planetfall.
That game offers a more traditional approach to races.

[The Grand Mugwump]

How different factions are can vary. You can play as a generic +2 def and +10% magic damage race with nothing particularly standing out about them, or you can go into left field with raider cannibals who live in the swamp. Race and culture offer small to moderate changes in how to play.

The big changes in how a faction plays is the magical tomes (technology) they use. There are a large number of them which we can only use a small fraction of, and how they combine can create a significant amount of variety (unless you are blinded by min/max and only always take the best tomes). And some races and cultures will synergize with some tomes better than others (ie mystic summoners and the summoning tome).

When you combine these together, the variety in races starts to get more significant. There are also free cities (aka neutral cities) that you can vassalize and dungeons you can conquer which provide even more unit variety. Your angelic crusaders might end up using some undead bone dragons and goatmen riding dinousaurs in parts of their armies as they dominate their latest world.

I personally feel Age of Wonders 4 is best enjoyed when playing as a randomly generated faction. It's fun trying out different playstyles and trying to make the most of non-optimized starts. Or you can try to make the deadliest, most optimized rascals around to challenge high difficulty AI opponents with.

And how big of an impact the leader you choose has depends on how much you care about combat. If you auto resolve everything, then the leader choice has minimal impact on gameplay. But if you like watching or playing battles, your starting ruler will have a massive impact on gameplay.

[TirAsleen]

Pretty unique - use this link https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/HTML/EmpireTree.html

Go to units and choose an unit type :)

Thats your faction, the unit types you use.

There are also some culture units, but who cares about that one. Just meat in the grinder, they provide a nice city and housing and thats merely it.

Or maybe i summoned too many undead units and drafted too many demons...

[Terrkas]

Hard to tell. This game leans super hard into "customize your own race" but i think the options enable quite some different playstyles.

You can use this to make a race and see the options https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/HTML/FactionCreator.html


You could make more bland stuff like deal mpre magic damage and receive lessmagic damage. Or make some quite unique combos. Especially society traits can change up your gameplan.

Like one pushes you towards a mercenary role, where you get extra goodies for doing requests of other empires. Like conquering an enemy City. Others have some economic boni. Another turns you into irresistable diplomats where trades with cities are hugely discounted.

[Steelairship]

If you aren't a fan of custom factions, then the game may not be for you, however, imo the factions you can create can be a lot more unique than many players will tell you.

In terms of races, while you can customize the racial mind and body traits to whichever ones you want, the default trait tend to stick to fantasy tropes and each will feel unique. For example the default racial traits for the elven form focuses on ranged/magic attacks and increased vision whereas the dwarven traits focus on defensive tactics. If you change these traits to be "meta" traits, then yeah the races will feel the same, but the game defaults to trope-y or "roleplay" traits.

In terms of cultures, each one plays different than the other and have special mechanics or ways of playing. For example High culture has an "alignment agenda" where you get different bonuses depending on whether you are pure good (stability bonus), pure evil (combat bonus), or neutral (food/production bonus). Mystic culture has three different subculture focused on different aspect of magic and is the only culture that can see astral echo pickups on the map. Summoner subculture focuses on summoning, and allows you to instantly level up summoned units using astral echos whereas attunement subculture allows you to use astral echos as additional casting points.

Society traits can additionally fine tune the faction to your liking and there's one for basically every play style. There are too many to list but there are traits that focus on having one really powerful city, expanding to as many cities as possible, having as many vassals as possible, claiming wonders, conquering and razing cities, maximizing mana production, etc.

Tomes are where you have the most freedom and how your faction will turn out will depend a lot on what tomes you chose. There's tomes for each of the 6 affinities that provide spells, unit enchantments, racial transformations, and buildings, and each affinity focuses on something different, with there typically being at least two branches of tomes for each afinity. For example the astral tomes focuses on summoning magic origin units, offensive combat spells, and magic resistance whereas materium spells focus on summoning defensive construct units, increasing defense from physical attacks and casting spells that affect the environment rather than units.

This has gotten very long winded, but TLDR the game gives you a lot of freedom to experiment and create whatever faction you desire, however, if you want to stick only to the "meta" instead of roleplay or going with whatever seems most interesting to you (the game seems to make every combinations of factors at least viable imo), you may not get as much enjoyment out of the game.

[Blandersnatching]

From your initial description it seems like this isn't necessarily the game for you, as the factions are more "choose your own adventure" than they are "hand crafted different factions with unique gameplay modes". I'm also a fan of Endless Legend and ES2, and the asymmetrical gameplay present in those games is pretty much nonexistent in AoW4.

I like AoW4 but, honestly, prefer the design style that was present in previous titles. I don't feel like the freeform faction design leads to appreciably different playstyles, though DLC leaders like Dragons and Eldritch Sovereigns are, on tactical level, very different from the leaders in the base game.

Have you played any Age of Wonders games before, or are you looking at trying out the series for the first time? This game is the newest and previously the devs were less freeform with their faction design. If you're interested in trying out games like this but not interested in freeform factions, I would recommend looking into Age of Wonders: Planetfall, which is a sci-fi version of AoW and the previous game developed by Triumph studios. It's very fun and the factions are more similar to what you've described yourself as liking. There is still a great deal of variability within the system, but each faction has its own identity and specific playstyle that isn't really replicated by the others. Also, presumably you can get it and all of its expansions for much less money than AoW4. So I'd say that Planetfall is a good starting point to see if you like the base system of these games.

[darkholyPL]

Btw, as others have suggested, try previous AoW games, like Planetfall or AoW3.
In those games you have distinct races/jobs/secret tech.

Here you build your own 'race' simillar to Stellaris rather than Endless Legend.

Just a TL;DR in case it wasn't clear already or you don't want to read all of that.

[Genitor]

as a megafan of Amplitude games (specifically Endless Space 2) particularly for its unique factions i also love this game aswell.

Although if you dont want to create your own races than this is probably not for you. It comes with a solid base of default factions and many of those are pretty powerful (or rather can become pretty powerful as you develop the faction throgout the game). However, you wont find all the good combinations.

I love ES2 for the unique factions and the fact that you get an enitrely different game with each of them. I love Age of Wonders 4 for to craft my own factions and create combinations of tomes, spells, abilities and leaders that pack a punch.

How different the factions play is really up to you and changes drastically based on your choice of tomes. If you like crafting this is the game for you. If you want to have a faction designed for you by devs that just IS different than all the others than probably not.

[TirAsleen]

Originally posted by Genitor:

as a megafan of Amplitude games (specifically Endless Space 2) particularly for its unique factions i also love this game aswell.

I hope its has more unique units / faction and a better combat system than Endless Legend, cause thats the game that should be rather compared to another fantasy TBS.

That said i could not even feel the fantasy vibes in EL, even the UI was too sterile to allow this.

[Midas]

Originally posted by Skooma Pipe:

Trying to figure out if this game is worth a buy

I’m on a 4x kick (new to the genre) and checking out the big names.
I’ve found that I really prefer games where the devs have hand crafted different factions with unique gameplay modes, visuals, ect. (Endless Space 2, Endless Legend) and don’t really like the “build your own race” style (Stellaris).
I just feel like the latter ends up feeling less inspired and bland as you can clearly see the “templates” for races being reused despite being totally different factions.

What’s this game like ?

It's build-your-own-race style. Factions can actually vary wildly, but it's something you have to create, not something that is necessarily handed to you unless you want to stick to premade rulers.