Is age of wonders 4 abandoneware?

[Cybersbe]

I'll try those if a dev, after analysing the pantheon FILE i put in the bug thread says that he found the cause of the files corruption and it is avast related. (and indicates which file should be excluded, and why)
In the meantime, no official support said that avast IS the problem they just pointed that it might be related. and never taken the time to look more in the detail in the 3 cases i have given from 2023, 2024 and 2025 (each FILE.zip contains a different pantheon case that become corrupted)

So you refuse to even TRY adjusting things unless you get a definite, "yes, this is the problem and you need to change it" from the devs? You're not really helping your case here... (bear in mind, these guys are busy. They kinda have to prioritize, and prevailing issues that are affecting multiple users are more important than a single user's specific circumstances.)

 

[Snorro Soliman]

I'll try those if a dev, after analysing the pantheon FILE i put in the bug thread says that he found the cause of the files corruption and it is avast related. (and indicates which file should be excluded, and why)
In the meantime, no official support said that avast IS the problem they just pointed that it might be related. and never taken the time to look more in the detail in the 3 cases i have given from 2023, 2024 and 2025 (each FILE.zip contains a different pantheon case that become corrupted)

Respectfully, but this sounds wrong to me OP. I understand the annoyance of losing many hours of progress. Really sucks, and I do hope you can find a fix. Keyword:you.
The devs responded to your initial report, suggested several fixes and the community suggested a few more, backed up by well intentioned research and tips. The devs don't work for any of us directly, or are under any obligation to provide personalised tech support. Imo they can't be expected to solve every issue we might have, given the near infinite combinations of hardware, software, clients and OS that is inherent in PC gaming. You might at least _try_ to attack your issue as suggested by users above, or by the devs in their responses, rather then demanding a personalised fix or suggesting the game is abandoned. 99 out of 100 cases, issues like these are caused by 3rd party settings, or caused by some wonkey interaction between software. In my view, the devs support their product(AoW4), they are not some private troubleshooting hotline.
Maybe try another machine, use Defender only, clean install steam/AOW4 and admin run all to see if your cloudbased pantheon recovers?

 

[Wyrd Deofol]

I'll try those if a dev, after analysing the pantheon FILE i put in the bug thread says that he found the cause of the files corruption and it is avast related. (and indicates which file should be excluded, and why)
In the meantime, no official support said that avast IS the problem they just pointed that it might be related. and never taken the time to look more in the detail in the 3 cases i have given from 2023, 2024 and 2025 (each FILE.zip contains a different pantheon case that become corrupted)

So now you say you only take advice from the devs, who are under no obligation to go into every personal detail of every report?
You even push HOW they should approach your issue.
Even though they DID in your case, respond twice and as i might add, you said they abandoned their game, showed no support and some other stuff on Steam as well?

I'm done, keep your Avast and stubborn foolhardiness.

 

[Cybersbe]

So now you say you only take advice from the devs, who are under no obligation to go into every personal detail of every report?
You even push HOW they should approach your issue.
Even though they DID in your case, respond twice and as i might add, you said they abandoned their game, showed no support and some other stuff on Steam as well?

I'm done, keep your Avast and stubborn foolhardiness.

Actually, if I’m understanding correctly that bit about “They have only said that Avast MIGHT be the problem, they have not stated that it IS. Until they tell me that it is, I’m not doing anything.”, that could very well mean that he doesn’t want ambiguous ADVICE (and in fact may have already gotten advice), but definitive hard INSTRUCTIONS. (If not the devs somehow personally fixing his game.) Which makes him look even worse.

At any rate, the fact remains that with the numerous possible computer/software combinations, the devs can’t even begin to analyze individual problems, so it’s unrealistic to expect anything more than “this program might be the problem”.

 

[Lord Sheogorath]

As an avast user I can say try excluding the AoW4.exe in avast and run the game. I was having a problem where my custom rulers weren't saving. After several months I tried this solution and and the problem was fixed. In my case avast even didn't show any messages like in your case so I spent months trying to figure out the cause.

 

[Mechalibur]

What ideas?

We really need the devs to be more active here than on discord.

A lot of discord posts by devs are just off the record comments on stuff they'd like to implement. They probably don't post those kinda things on the forums because the blue border makes it look like an official statement when it's just idle thoughts.

 

[seperamos]

A lot of discord posts by devs are just off the record comments on stuff they'd like to implement. They probably don't post those kinda things on the forums because the blue border makes it look like an official statement when it's just idle thoughts.

Unless I'm mistaken on discord functionality, couldn't a user screencapture a discord conversation? Even devs could float ideas in the forum's suggestions section with players, and get a feel for the zeitgeist with upvotes.

I'd rather participate in forum polls and threads than add more bloatware that I don't use often on my pc.