Overview
Ways of War is the fifth expansion for Age of Wonders 4 and brings a touch of Eastern mythology to the game with Chinese Dragons, Jade Lions, and a new Oathsworn culture that devotes themselves to one of three decrees.
You can find a video version of this review on YouTube!
Age of Wonders 4 being five expansions, and two expansion passes deep, means each one really needs to add something substantial to the game to justify its existence. Ways of War definitely accomplishes that with its new culture and tomes. It does, however, continue to make some of the game’s sore spots stick out by comparison, aspects that really should have been addressed before adding even more content.
That said, as with every expansion, Ways of War also released alongside a substantial free update. I’ll go over the key points of the Tiger update in this review as well.
| Gideon’s Bias | Ways of War Information |
|---|---|
| Review Copy Used: No | Publisher: Paradox Interactive |
| Hours Played: 20+ | Type: DLC Expansion |
| Reviewed On: Xbox Series X | Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series |
| Fan of Genre: Yes | Genre: 4X Strategy |
| Mode Played: Variety | Price: $14.99 |
Oathsworn Culture
The Oathsworn culture follows an Oath, a strict code of conduct that strengthens their stability and units as it increases, but penalizes you for being an Oathbreaker if you stray from the path. Much like The Primal and reworked Mystic cultures, the Oathsworn aren’t a monolith, and you can choose from three distinct subcultures for them.
Each subculture has a different affinity aspect, tier 3 unit, and a different devotion system. The path of Harmony increases your devotion by clearing infestations, vassalizing other races, and calling truces, but lowers it by starting wars and pillaging provinces. The higher their devotion, the more they self-heal when being knocked below a certain threshold of their health. They also have an excellent horse archer unit.
The Path of Righteousness rewards devotion for simply having a good alignment and lowers it for being evil. As its devotion increases, so does the bonus Spirit damage their units deal, assuming they aren’t flanking an enemy, as such actions are dishonorable. Their unit is the Avenger, a swordsman who can ignore half of an enemy’s defenses.
The Path of Strife offers devotion for starting wars and winning tough battles but loses it for entering truces, pacts, and alliances. The higher their devotion, the more fire damage they deal when outnumbered by the enemy. Their special unit is the brutish Warbound, a club-wielding warrior who can bulldoze through enemies.
Additionally, the Oathsworn’s other culture units have unique flares to them. Their glaive-wielding Sworn Guards have sunder, and their Honor Blades can go into defensive mode after striking. Vow Keepers are great at removing status effects, and their Seal Bearers can link to an enemy, causing it to take extra damage from all attacks.
The Oathsworn are another really unique faction to play, with multiple ways to play them. Furthermore, they lean into the roleplaying aspect of Age of Wonders 4, which is one of the game’s fundamental strengths. No matter which devotion you choose, you are nudged into roleplaying that Oath, as you will be forced to make suboptimal choices at times to maintain it.
At the same time, it often provides really interesting decision points, as you may have to break your oath to succeed. A completely friendless Strife Oath can cause you to become overwhelmed by enemies, for example. Likewise, there may be times when those who follow the Oath of Harmony, may have to put aside their pacifistic nature to deal with a threat too dangerous to let fester.
Mechanically, there are plenty of ways to take advantage of their strengths, a self-healing high HP build on the Harmony Oathsworn is effective, but so is a slightly self-destructive build that compensates with the Harmony Oaths self-healing ability. The Oathsworn may follow rigid oaths but they have flexible playstyles.
Much like the Primal and Reaver factions, the Oathsworn are a fun new addition to the game, offering even more viable faction builds you can come up with. But just like the other newer factions, they showcase how badly some of the original factions need a rework, like the one that the Mystic culture received.
New Tomes
Ways of War offers four new dual-aspect Tomes, all of which lean on the expansions Eastern Mythological influence. The Tome of Discipline offers self-healing martial Monks, stunning strikes, and the ability to negate status effects.
The Tome of Shades focuses on the darker side of the myth with ninja-like shades, a shadow network, and blinding effects. Then you have the Yin and Yang of Prosperity and Calamity.
The tome of Prosperity allows you to summon the golden Prosperity Dragons, and defensive enchantments, while the tome of Calamity brings with it the more chaotic Calamity Dragons and Ghost Fire.
The Tomes are all mechanically interesting and help further flesh out the tome library’s thematic variety. In particular, I’m happy to see more Order tomes that don’t revolve around religious faith and more Shadow options that aren’t undead-focused.
It should be no surprise that the tomes interact really well with the Oathsworn faction, but they offer more variety for a whole range of potential faction ideas, including spies or assassins at home in the dark and behind the curtain. I was pretty happy with the tome variety before the second set of expansions was even announced, but I’m even happier with them now.
Other New Additions
Ways of War adds two new forms, the Simian and Ogrekin forms. As with all forms, they are purely cosmetic, so there’s not much to say other than they look cool, which they do. There are also new mounts such as the blessed dragons, graceful judges, and jade lions.
There’s new wildlife to contend with, all of which kind of fall into the light and dark side of the expansion’s themes. Accursed fiends, Kappa-like guardians, and, of course, the new dragons. You spend a lot of time-fighting natural forces in Age of Wonders 4, so more variety is always nice.
Finally, you have the option for a new type of event, called intrigue. These events essentially spawn a long questline that directly affects another ruler in the game. For example, you might find that a ruler has been replaced by a friend. You can choose to ignore it or follow the questline.
It’s an interesting mechanic that can slightly alter the flow of the game, and it’s entirely optional to enable. While not as impactful as the Umbral Abyss introduced in Eldritch Realms, it still adds even more variety to the game.
That said, I’m once again saddened at the lack of Wonders in a game called Age of Wonders. Wonderous locations are a big part of the game and are required for one of the game’s victory conditions. Every expansion I keep hoping to see more of them, and each time I’m disappointed. They are probably the most glaring part of the game that desperately needs more variety, and is simply not receiving it.
Tiger Update
The free tiger update completely overhauls the hero system from the ground up. Heroes and rulers now have classes, a skill web, and weapon restrictions based on their class. Heroes and rulers also get additional options based on whether or not they are a Mortal Champion, Wizard King, Dragon Lord, or Eldritch Sovereign.
In some ways this new system is more restrictive, you can’t simply give a hero any weapon you want anymore. However, each of the class skill trees is so vast that there is still tons of build variety. Furthermore, it really makes each hero feel more unique. You know your Mages from your Warriors, and it works really well.
Furthermore, rulers and heroes have a new governor system that dictates the bonuses they grant to the cities they govern. They have a separate leveling system for their governer ability that is dictated by their ambitions, which are minor and major goals that a hero wants to perform. For example, a Privateer may want to battle in the water, and after doing so will level up their governer bonus.
The whole rework definitely adds more decision space to the game and offers heroes a more substantial personal identity. You might have a brute that wants to raid provinces, a mage that wants to teach recruits, or a hunter that wants to fight alongside the ruler. It gives you more choices to make, forcing you to decide on how much can you cater to the desires of your heroes, versus the other needs of your kingdom.
There are also new Pantheon unlocks, including new weapons, cosmetics, and two new society traits. Including a really cool shadow one called the Cult of Personality that focuses on heroes, with an expanded cap for them.
There are also some new realm traits, such as unbound tomes that allow you to freely pick tomes regardless of your aspects, and subdued Umbral Abyss if you want to play with the Umbral Abyss from Eldritch Realms without it dominating the game.
The free Tiger update, while not part of the expansion is a substantial one that was worth mentioning. The size of these updates gives me hope that I’ll one day see my complaints addressed, such as the lack of Wonder variety and the desperate reworks some of the original cultures need.
Verdict
Ways of War kicks off the second expansion pass with a bang and definitely justifies the existence of another string of expansions for Age of Wonders 4. The Oathsworn Culture and new tomes add more variety to the game while the Tiger update helps revitalize the hero system in great ways.
The only issues I have is less to do with what the expansion has, and more with what it didn’t. Primarily the lack of new wonders. However, continuously adding new, shiny, and unique cultures is making the ugliness of some of the old ones more prominent.
Some of them, like the Feudal Culture, need reworks, as they lack the same novelty or even mechanical strength of the newer cultures. Adding newer cultures feels like spraying air fresher to cover the stink, without cleaning the mess that’s causing it in the first place. That isn’t a dig at the Oathsworn culture itself, however.
Regardless, Ways of War is definitely worth the money and further cements Age of Wonders 4 as one of the best 4x strategy games you can play.
