You build a fantasy empire in Age of Wonders 4 (AoW4), a 4X strategy game. The 4X name comes from four goals: explore, expand, exploit and exterminate. Your faction is shaped by its physical form, culture, traits and first Tome of Magic. Each game takes place in a realm, a map with its own land, climate and rival rulers.
A session runs in turns. You can choose classic turns, where rivals act in order, or simultaneous turns, where everyone moves at once. Each turn, you move heroes and armies across a map that starts hidden under fog, because exploring reveals new land, monsters and ancient wonders that help your empire grow. Cities are the engine behind it all: they grow in population, produce the research that unlocks Tomes of Magic, and build the structures and units you need. When armies meet, the fight moves to a turn-based battle, and you can let the game auto-resolve it or play it yourself.
Your goal is to earn a victory, and the game offers several routes. A military victory means taking the Throne Cities of every rival and defeating their rulers, or forcing them into vassalage. An expansion victory means holding enough provinces to build three Beacons of Unity and defending them for 15 turns, while a magic victory means building three affinity improvements, Seed, Root and Heart, which unlock with Tier III, IV and V tomes, and then surviving a 15-turn ritual. If no one wins before the turn limit, the empire with the highest score takes the game.
- Developer
- Triumph Studios
- Publisher
- Paradox Interactive
- Release
- Worldwide: 2023-05-02
- Platforms
- Windows PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S
Game data
Cultures
Culture is the first choice when you create a faction in Age of Wonders 4, and it sets the affinities, buildings, units and mechanics that faction can use. The base game cultures are Dark, Feudal, High, Industrious, Barbarian and Mystic, and the add-on cultures are Reaver, Primal, Oathsworn, Architects and Nomads. Between them they cover everything from magic and knowledge to conquest, raiding and monument-building.
Forms
Forms are the body types your people belong to, such as Human, Dwarfkin, and Elfkin. Each one comes with default traits that you can keep or replace when you create a faction. The base game forms are joined by add-on forms from several expansions, and you need that add-on to use them. Picking a form is part of building a faction, alongside culture and traits.
Tomes of Magic
Tomes of Magic are the research books that drive magic progress in Age of Wonders 4. Each one is a themed set of spells, units and upgrades mostly tied to one of six affinities, with some blending two or more. They sit in five tiers, and higher tiers open once you own enough tomes and have enough affinity points. You spend knowledge to research the skills inside each tome.
Age of Wonders 4 gameplay tips
- Play the realms in order. Realms are sorted by difficulty, so going in order lets the challenge rise as you learn. If the first one feels like too much, start on easy mode and raise the difficulty once you're comfortable.
- Clear nearby Infestations early. Infestations start out asleep, but when their sleep timer runs out they wake and send raids that can pillage your provinces and even besiege towns. Their territory spreads one province at a time, so dealing with a nearby one early protects your improvements. Destroying its Spawner ends the domain and gives you treasure and Hero Items.
- Use an Outpost to claim land. A hero-led army can build an Outpost, which claims the provinces around it and can later be upgraded into a full city. You can't build one on an Ancient Wonder, so place it next to the wonder and give it a Work Camp, which lets it annex that wonder.
- Keep both city queues busy. Each city has one queue for buildings and one for units, so it can construct and recruit at the same time. Units are paid for with Draft, a resource used only for recruiting. An empty queue doesn't store output: its production turns into gold and its Draft into food, so keep something in each queue.
- Work up the treaties in order. Start with a Wizard's Bond, add a Defensive Pact, and only then ask for an Alliance, since an Alliance requires the first two. The other ruler has to like you before they agree to any treaty, so keep relations good. Be careful with partners, because when an ally is attacked, a Defensive Pact or Alliance triggers a call to war, and declining can break the diplomatic state.
- Watch your affinity as you research. Each Tome of Magic you study adds to its affinity, and your affinity unlocks hero and empire perks and higher-tier tomes, so the tomes you pick shape what your empire can do.