It is really a damn good game so no wonders I have played so much

Forge of the firstborn looks like it’s going to be the first dlc to give us an inorganic species, and as someone who’s been DYING to get a golem race I’m sooooo excited! Too bad they’re the last planned to release of the dlc’s.

Those background culture/tome units look like they’re some kind of fantasy industrial enforcers, god I hope they give them guns.
The magelocks have been needing to be added to the ruler load outs, and imagine with me, an immortal metal forged reaver primed with a magelock and an army of metallic enforcers.
I would solely play (they will probably be called) the firstborn cause just from the cover art they look SO FUCKING COOL.

Tome of the God Emperor is widely regarded as the worst tome of the game to the point where if you are running Order builds, it's better to go another tier 4 tome than picking it up. This tome only has 1 good unlock in it while everything else in it is terrible. And it has been like this all the way since vanilla. Lets start with the one good.

Exalted Champion - gives a massive steriod of damage and defense for a couple turns. As long as the enemy doesn't have purges, your targetted carry is just going to unleash total havoc. And that is it of the good.

The bad:

1. Divine Protection - spend two turns worth of casting points to grant ONE (1) army stack resurgence for ONE (1) turn in case they die in said turn. I have never used this once nor seen the AI use it either. This sounds like something that'd be in a tier 2 or 3 tome like Beacon, Virtue, or Sanctuary. At tier 5, this should be affecting a whole province. Easily the wrost map spell in the whole game, period.
2. Mass Revive - easily the worst of the mass revive spells in the game. Costs the most casting points and only revives units that have Zeal or Faith and doesn't add any other effects. That is it. Mass Rejuvenation at least heals everyone who is alive that is nature-attuned in some way while also being cheaper and Battlefield Reanimation turns enemy corpses into your own units. This sucks so hard in comparison!
3. Wrath of the Emperor - a more expensive version of Comdemn Army that doesn't add much except for adding demoralized and doing 30 instead of 20 spirit damage so long as they are in enemy territory. Which means you now have to hunt down the enemy spell jammer to actually make this have its full effect. WHY DOESN'T THIS COMDEMN THE WHOLE PROVINCE LIKE AN ACTUAL GOD EMPEROR!? THERE'S MULTIPLE SPELLS AT EARLIER TIERS THAT DAMAGE WHOLE PROVINCES FOR CHEAPER! WHY HAS THIS NEVER BEEN TOUCHED!?

This tome is title fraud.

AI ended up with that in my current game. Draconian Transformation, Leafskin, Demonic Hunger. Looks even more sick with in-game shading, kinda like Swamp demons or Plaguebearers from Warhammer.

Wanted to doodle on of my custom rulers as well. This is Ariel of Athaloren. Fun fact she is actually the first ruler I ever made in a Age of Wonders game, back in AoW 3.

Yes.

Hello everyone, I’m two months new to this game and having a great time playing through the story realms. They are fun stories with a good amount of challenge, was stuck on Arcalot for a bit but beat it last week. I just bought expansion pass 2 and am now on rings of Emnora, and I’m pretty hard stuck on it for the time being. First ring is simple enough, but Malel on the second ring is an overwhelming force, no matter how early or late I enter the second ring. So I thought I would ask how everyone else managed to do it, so I can adjust my strategies a bit. If the second ring is this rough, I cant imagine the third 😆.

Question have they said how Elder Vampires an Mercantile will work together? I really want to make the Vampire Coast but it will suck if you get debuffed by no Sunless land constantly.

I was wondering, which are the favorite realms among the community.

I’d like if you could like a beginner vid to explain the game as all the ones I’ve watched seem to assume I got basic knowledge (I do not)

Been looking at getting a new dlc and was thinking about giant kings but it is 25 bucks so idk if it is worth it.

Hey so I am completely uneducated and useless when it comes to anything music related... but I wonder what this would sound like so if there is anyone with the skills can you reproduce the sheet music that devs posted in the dev diary today?

I find myself never taking the various execute moves from different hero trees or items (or God-forbid Druid of the Cycle), because they scale with missing health, and by the time a unit is at 20% hp I can probably one-shot them with an attack, so why would I gamble on wasting a valueable action on an 80% chance to do the same thing?

However, there's also very few ways to get around Steadfast, and dispel effects are already a little too powerful in my opinion, so an alternate way to get around Steadfast instead of more reasons to need dispells would introduce more counterplay.

Also Ctrl+f find and replace "Steadfast" with "Slip Away" for most of the same reasons.

So... the tome of the doomherald has a screaming banshee face while containing the unlock for corrupted soul. And the banshee is unlocked in the tome of... souls...

Am I missing something?
(apologies if this has been asked before)

I just created my first Giant king for the first part of the Archon prophecy campaign. After casting my first racial transformation I noticed it doesn't apply to my ruler.

How much of a drawback is that and can the Giant kings still compete for power with regular heroes?

I like building up my rulers over the campaigns and I probably have more than ten Pantheon heroes from the first two campaigns. I redesign as I go and change traits, tomes etc. between missions but I try to add more transformations with each mission and the ruler I ended the gloom campaign with looks like the image. He starts at over 450 power (or whatever it's called) at level 1, my new giant starts at 130.

So if I start a new regular ruler for this campaign he will eventually have a bunch of transformations plus an ascension trait, the giant (as far as I can tell) will only get the ascension trait.

Quick one today. Have an Animated Fire Sword

Cute

So I got the game recently due to the sale. I love 4x games and AOW4 has some amazing systems I can tell will keep me for a while. So I'd finally like to try my hand at multiplayer games. My questions are though;

1, where do you find games? Is there a official/unofficial discord or other place that's primarily used?

2, general playstyles or strategy information that people should know ahead of time? Or Alternatively any good content creators I should look into who cover this stuff? I saw someone say giant leaders are better for pvp, are wizard king and champions not viable or just not as good. And anything else that playing the campaings might not prepare you for?

3, any etiquette to know about? Like should I have a build planned fully ahead of time so as not to slow people down or are there social taboos to avoid during a multiplayer game. Do people normally sit on a voice call and hang out or just do their own thing? And how long do games normally last

Hey guys!

I just got the game a few days ago and cleared like the first 2 campaign realms, really enjoying it so far. Been playing with the orc barbarian civs mostly.
I'm fairly new to 4X games, seeing as i've only played a bit of CIV5 previously, but i'm familiar with strategy games as i play a lot of RTS and EU4.

I'll mostly be playing single player so i don't game optimization isn't that important but i was wondering if someone could give me a few general tips as to what i should focus on early game? I'd like to make a few topic points and hopefully someone can answer and guide me in the right direction, thanks !

1. When should i expand ? How many cities should i make ? So far it's been taking me a good 20 turns until i finally start thinking about a second city but i have a feeling i should be getting a 2nd city much faster.

2. Unit compositions. Is it wise to make a lot of tier 1 units? How many units should i aim for before i tech up, should i be producing units non-stop or is it okay to stop unit production for a while?

3. Tech timing. I currently have no idea when i should go Tier II or Tier III or onwards. I've been making almost all available T1 buildings and then i'd tech to T2. Is this correct?

4. What kind of provinces and buildings should i focus on early game? I've been starting off with farms and food buildings because it made sense to try and expand my city ASAP before go into production or gold/mana/knowledge. Is this the right approach?

5. Tomes and affinities. Should i stick to just one affinity with my tomes or should i spread out to multiple? Usually i've been sticking to 2 affinities through my games

Plenty of other things i've yet to learn but these are the mechanics that i felt are the most important for me to understand, so any tips are greatly appreciated :)

Title.

Do these generally go on discount? I'm keen on getting Thrones of Blood, Cosmic Wandered and Rise from Ruin but the current price is spicy so wondering if there's a general discount season for these etc?

Not sure what other pre-Manta SPIs are eligible but this change is potentially a fairly big deal.

I've tried many cultures and tome combinations, nothing clicks to me like chaos imperial reavers and chaos conqueror nomads.

It's a completely different game in the amount of fun I have and how strong I get in the game. I dont understand how to play with the other cultures and what im doing wrong but I can never get as strong or have the same fun as with the former two.

Hi, my friends and I have been fans of AoW games for yearsss, and we really like AoW4 but since launch its just been awful to play multiplayer due to the constant desync and other issues.

Unfortunately, the devs seem to be against fixing it based on comments from them I've seen over the years.

Does anyone have any tips or work arounds that may help us with this? From our own sleuthing it seems possibly related to the drop-in drop-out sorta playstyle of multiplayer lobbies, forcing us in Australia to connect via poor servers, even just launching the game and looking at the multiplayer button instantly pops up server connection issue warnings before even getting into a lobby. I wish we could directly connect peer to peer or something.

We come back every update or so often hoping it might have improved over the years just to have our fun drained instantly as we constantly have to replay turns, rejoin games, or just live through the torture of connection and stability issues. Leaving me to just play alone :(

Anyway, anyone have any tips or fixes that might help?

The bonus damage on electrification is battle wide and triggers for each hero armed with the Tempest Orb (Tempest's Chorus).

I pivoted to a lightning build and I've got evokers inflicting it multiple times per turn, their attack does 16 damage but adds 5 per hero when it triggers electrification, potentially more than the base damage.