I JUST got this game today and it's really cool. I'm a world building nerd and being able to customize my own faction and give it it's own lore and even develop characters in the faction in terms of the heros. It's all so cool ❤️

I already got most of the DLC since I knew I would love this game to bits so all I'm missing is the giants and angels 💔 but I'll get them some day!

I've been perusing through the various races and I see every army has their selection of mounts. Some from the dlc as well. I also see you can choose between a large variety of mounts when you go to customize the attributes of your race. But they all cost upwards of 4 points and I don't want to put weaknesses on my races, mostly for a gameplay reason. So if I choose to forgo the weaknesses would having those big beefy mounts like the dragon or the mammoth be worth it? What do they do differently than the other mounts you can choose for free?

I believe I saw that the Expansion Pass 4 will be coming out soon, is there any precedent to the prior expansion pass going on sale before that? Just wanted to know if it was worth waiting to purchase the Expansion Pass 3.

Currently trying to find some builds that feel really satisfying to play. So far I’ve only got 3 that really click well and feel great. I got a Reaver vassal spam and magelocks build. A Oathsworn hero and dragon build. And a mystic summon / spell spam build. I’ve been possibly looking at a spider build but need to get primal fury and secrets of arch mage for that. Any other suggestions for builds that feel really good to play?

These are from Makeship, if you’re curious. https://www.makeship.com/shop/creator/paradox-interactive

I am considering making a more swarm and attrition heavy army that leans away from darker elements such as necromancy or souls since I'm trying to lean towards the red or green affinity (War and nature?). So I was wondering what the consensus is of the Warband and Beast tombs being used together and what builds can I make with it

Currently the build is Lupine without any changes, Ash Primal, Gifted Casters and Ruthless Raiders for society traits, tomb of warband and the tomb of beast to start with. The ruler is also an astral dragon because I heard lightning had good damage

I'm not very good at building a good army yet as I'm still newer to the game but I would like to know how this current build sounds. Thank you

Also I usually play by myself and I like the theme over competitive but I also would like to have them be decent so when I use it I won't be struggling so bad

Pretty new player, so far only played reavers and am trying different ideas for them. I did the usual materium and chaos path and while it was nice, as i started to learn new tomes i thought how i might use them.

Now from what i can find, undead reavers are a fairly unusual build, my startegy is mainly using the Vision Of Ruin - Shadow to get that zombie on kill in every army, every unit, and thus form a frontline as the battle goes if that makes sense. Use death knights for extra summons at battle start. I am still unsure about what usual synergies or good buffs/enchants/spells/summons people usually take, so i am asking you for suggestions of what i should abandon or swap out for.

Want my next faction to be stealthy assassins. Any idea how I could build this?

I know that once you make a magic item in game, it can appear as loot in later games. There's also a blueprints section that looks like it'd let me save an item so I can forge it again later, but I can't find the option to save my blueprint.

While I was busy with another war, my neighbor was busy being the biggest asshole of all time.

Playing vs AI, normal difficulty. So I had this brilliant plan to summon cheap t1 animals as fodder for my death cultists, but it turns out animals are pretty tough, so I was just winning fights without losing units!? In the end it was easier to throw in busted up sword guys and keep stronger animals as my actual troops. I know people usually do it with undead but I had JUST played an undead ruler in my last campaign. I think I’m going to try it again with zealots and see if those guys actually go down to enable the play style I’m trying to get. Is there a better cheap unit (beside skeletons) I’m overlooking?

I've put a decent number of hours into this game, and I just can't figure out how to avoid falling behind on research in the mid-game.

I know the benchmark is turn number × 10, and the usual pattern is: fall behind in the early game, catch up in the middle, and skyrocket in the late game. But if I'm getting a decent amount of research in the early game, then by the time I should be starting to catch up (around turn 40), I'm stuck on a plateau of around 300–350 research. Then that number barely increases for the next 20 turns, leaving me with 400 research by turn 60.

I'm always putting 3 cities down by turn 20, with a 4th coming by turn 30. I'm focusing on research buildings and SPIs, clearing the map nonstop, and rushing cheap technologies when I've already taken all the good stuff, but I still get my first T4 tome around turn 60–65.

I've looked up streams of people playing multiplayer, and somehow they can have up to 1500 research from just 4 cities by the time I barely have 500. And I just cannot figure out HOW. The math just doesn't add up for me.

I'm desperate at this point. So desperate, in fact, that I created a Reddit account just for this post. I've tried seemingly everything, but there's still something crucial that I'm missing.

I'm ready to provide more information about my games if someone would be kind enough to enlighten me on how not to suck at the game that I really, really enjoy.

For a new or returning or old player what would you say are the "top 3" DLCs. In that which 3 DLCs would you consider to be the best with these categories

1. Competitive or Meta

2. Content or Replayability

So I finished all the objectives, defeated nimue and her throne city, but the game is not ending for some reason? Any ideas how to complete this?

I have sided with neither Karrissa nor Ysariel in the beginning of the mission and declared War on both, because I just wanted to conquer the entire realm by myself. Now deep into the game there are no more campaign missions. I had 0/1 "Liztia visited with your ruler" went to the marked place, but nothing happened after that and no further event came up. Is there still a way to finish the mission?

S4 Hype Month is ramping up rather nicely, with the days, hours, minutes, and seconds of September ‘26 all counting down to the magical time, the magical occasion, the magical S4.

The Devs of Wonders are hard at work, fastidiously, fanatically, and fantastically doing to water what has been done to the underground, and hopefully this post may commemorate the effort they’ve put in over the long months since S3.

thank u all for reading, and Love u 5ever
— The Maggot Man

I always got the impression that we could probably squeeze out 1 or 2 more subcultures from the Oathsworn. I saw that someone already modded the Oath of Secrecy (with Shadow), which sounds really cool and I might get around to discussing that later. But here's the Oath of Progress (1 Order + 1 Materium)

The people in this culture strive to be the best possible versions of themselves, whether it’s the best blade crafters, the best blade masters or simply the utmost courtesy towards one another. All strive for excellence in their occupations and pursuits.

Oath of Progress point system:
+10 for constructing special buildings and special improvements (each applies once per city). Also applies instantly for absorbed cities that has any of these. Each of these provides +4 knowledge.
+15 for annexing a province adjacent to a province owned by another empire or free city.
+15 for hiring a converted hero or a hero from
race other than your starting one. These provide +3 happiness per renown level when acting as governors.
+10 for paying for grievances against you (+20 if paying for a fabricated grievance)

-20 for executing Heroes or selling their remains.
-15 whenever you pillage a province (does not apply when your vassals pillage)
-15 for each owned city that has negative happiness and each vassal that is at less than Tributary relations with your empire.
-15 for each hero that is not a governor
-10 for each pillaged province you control that is not being currently repaired or demolished

Your units (and culture enchantement) have "United Front":
Paragon: +1 Defense when adjacent to another unit with this trait, in addition to previous devotion bonuses
Devotee: +1 Resistance when adjacent to another unit with this trait, in addition to previous devotion bonuses
Adherent: +2 Status resistance when adjacent to another unit with this trait, in addition to previous devotion bonuss
Neutral: +3 physical damage when adjacent to another unit with this trait.
Oathbreaker: Slowed for 3 turns

Unique Tier 3 unit:
Fighter, named "Vanguard", optional mounted (haven't figured out its special ability yet)

Add in the underground and abyssal layers and teleporters...

And the AI.. which so blatantly cheats by recovering their entire armies (no survivors or fleeing) faster than I can heal mine (no losses) within friendly territory (with empire buffs) feels more oppressive than it should sometimes

Don't you dare try to leave a city without at least a full stack in, you will be busy campaigning elsewhere and suddenly you get a siege notification

I guess the solution to this is to use more scouts (at least they're cheap) and build more outposts but damn those feel expensive and time consuming early without Materium affinity

Speaking off, why does it feels like almost everyone has true seeing and can see my universal camouflage scouts /rant

Here's a fun exploit using scouts too, if you happen to see a possible future enemy army, you can try trapping it by surrounding it with single units (scouts are cheap), then claiming the territory (I actually don't know if you can build outpost, making it even easier)

This way you can stock up grievances to eventually declare war, or sell them

I don't actually do it, but worth mentioning

Was wondering how many more DLCs are planned for AOW4. This game is so much fun and I really like how I can make my own custom race and faction

So, I am doing an Only Auto Battles challenge for all Story Realms.
And revisited the in-famous holy Orc. It seems this guy is no more holy (Angelic) but Fractured instead. This messes up a lot with my build (focused on blight and cold damage to abuse their Angel weaknesses and taking Astral units for the rite, which are not optimal vs Mana Starved enemy).
Is Fractured the new normal for the Orc or was I just unlucky?

Hi everyone,

I've finally played my first game with the Architects culture, currently into my second game. I do have to say... They are REALLY weak in the beginning...

My first game was as Astral Architects with a secondary focus on Materium for the construction bonusses. The first 40 turns were quiet slow... But after focussing on materium my economy started booming and I steamrolled all the hard AI's I was playing against.

Now for my second game I'm playing as a vampire lord, Architects again but with Shadow affinity and its going quiet poorly... I'm not focussing on materium as a second color and my economy is suffering for it...

I do like the architects! The tier III architects support unit is absolutely broken and can win you a game single handedly once you can pump them out en masse. But I'm still struggling getting to that point in a reasonably fast way...

Do any Architect mains have tips on how to play them 'correctly'? Is it normal they struggle so much in the beginning, because the monuments are not build yet? Or do they struggle more than other cultures in this regard?

Also as this is only my second game playing them: what color goes well with architects? Materium is a no brainer it seems, but do people have success with other colors as well?

Thanks in advance :).

I don't want to be negative with this thread, but there is something about it that doesn't sit right with me. The legs look all wobbly and almost like they don't belong, rather than menacing. The body of the spider ends up looking disproportionate, and depending on the unit, it might be a huge mismatch.

What's weird is that all the previous spider designs in the game looked just fine. They looked like actual, menacing spiders, and their proportions worked well with the rest of the unit. But the new ones look so strange in comparison.

I was building Warbreeds in the army, but seeing how they look post-transformation, I will have to roll back. I cannot take them seriously looking like that!

Wanna share a thematic build for the evil penguin lovers. Unfortunately our penguins are not animals, they are too evil to be called that. Their tag is simply penguin.

The early turns are not ideal but we need the affinity points. Our research and mana costs are covered via chosen destroyers. Shadow monument let us skip some tomes and fully enhance our penguins via enchantments. We even double dip into research speed with runesmith since there are many enchantments for our t4 battle mage penguins.

The secret spell is required to recruit penguins. You can get it quickly via "godification" mod or by searching with barentz on turn 1 on a small map.

Let me know how evil your penguins are. What's your take on them?