My idea of Age of Wonders was fixed by the very first game in the series, which I loved because it reminded me of Heroes of Might and Magic II – then and still one of my favourite-ever games and emphatically not a 4X. Obviously the series has become more complex since then, but when I saw Age of Wonders: Planetfall widely labeled a 4X upon its release, my brow still furrowed a little.
And yes, I know, the average reader is probably thinking 'who gives a V-Buck', but you've clicked on an article about a strategy game, so I'm betting you enjoy strategy games. Therefore you enjoy efficiency. Order. Categorisation. Taxonomy (ooh). Naturally we're all grown-up enough to understand that none of this really matters, but zoom out a little further and neither do videogames, the wider entertainment industry, or indeed humanity's continued existence as the Sun's going to expand and fry us all in a few billion years anyway. It's all a question of perspective and, provided you allow that we're talking on a particular, nitpicky level, this stuff is really important.
All of which is preamble to say that I asked Planetfall's game director, Lennart Sas, whether Age of Wonders is now a 4X series at PDX Con this year.
"Age of Wonders really started off as a war game with empire building," Sas says, but – referencing the definition of 4X as 'explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate, he adds that "every iteration from Age of Wonders 1 has added new mechanics, so we've been on this trajectory of adding detail. The franchise that has been around for 20 years now – I think the celebrations will be in November – and if you want to stay relevant you have to innovate.
"I think it's still a loosely defined genre. People sometimes call Civ[ilization] a grand strategy, which of course is a big victory for Paradox, and Stellaris is sometimes called both a 4X and a strategy game."
The big question, then: is it fair to call Age of Wonders a 4X?
"I think it's fair. If you look at the definition of 4X, some games just have the war bit dialed up a bit further, some have the city building stuff dialed up further, and it's great that these games don't all follow the exact same tropes. That's also a part of [Age of Wonders'] survival – by focusing more on the war part, we're not like a ton of other 4X games."
Age of Wonders: Planetfall's first major expansion, Revelations, is best 4X games if you'd like to do some additional research into this extremely important matter.