Recent reviews by Illy

I have been playing this series since the 2007. My judgements are relative in nature to the previous games in the series, but are also an evaluation of the AoW4 as a stand-alone game.

Pros:

1. This is a successful mixture of RPG+4X/GrandStrat just like AoW3 was. If that sounds fun to you, I can't imagine you won't enjoy this game.
2. As with all of the games in the series, this is a game to calm down with. You have time to collect your thoughts before each move.
3. It improves on AoW3 with greater customization and visuals, more mini-systems, and far more in-depth diplomacy.
4. "Loot" and itemization was expanded upon compared to previous games in the series. The item forge is great. If only it weren't hamstrung by a small loot table.

Cons:
1. The absolute worst part of this game is the uninspired art-style. The hand-drawn, nostalgic, tasteful art of the older games is absent here in favor of more cartoonish aesthetic and one which does not really commit to one style or another. On top of this, they have eschewed classic fantasy races in order to cater to the furry crowd. The result is a fantasy universe that is a messy hodgepodge of strange animal-races, which is not at all convincing and hard to be immersed in.
2. City sieges are not exciting. I auto-resolve them when I can. Remember figuring your way over the walls of the enemy city in the other games? The battle begins in AoW4 with the walls destroyed, so... This is a huge let-down compared to the absolute spectacle that sieges were in AoW3. I can remember sieges I experienced in that game 9 years ago. I can't remember a single one from AoW4.
3. Hero skill tree/class progression continues to be very poorly thought out and implemented. The skill trees for heroes are laughably messy and unintuitive. Please get someone to fix this. There are half a dozen player-made mods already that do hero-classes better than the official system.
4. The amount of trinkets/miscellaneous hero items in the game is a joke (too few).
5. Paradox and their scam business model, time-gating you into buying each part of a single, completed game, and calling those parts 'DLCs" and "Expansions". This company should be boycotted.
6. No map editor.

Solid game. Disappointingly light on historical event prompts, and features an intriguing family tree+diplomacy element to the game, both of which end up being rather superfluous to the outcome of each game. I am sure that mods can fix this deficiency. I highly recommend Attila nonetheless.