Age of Wonders 4: Undead and Necromancy Guide (2024)

Age of Wonders 4 supports all kinds of faction builds. Each affinity in the game has its own way of doing things, and by focusing on the right strengths, you can overpower your enemies without breaking a sweat.

One of the trickier builds to focus on in Age of Wonders 4 is the "Necromancer" build. This build focuses on crafting undead armies from the bones of your enemies, but what makes it tricky is a special resource (Souls) that you don't encounter in any other build.

How to Get Souls in Age of Wonders 4

Your first task as a Necromancy faction is to make the Souls resource show up. To do so, you'll need to pick up a Tome that gives you the Soul Harvest ability. The fastest way to do this is to choose a faction (or create one) that starts with the Tome of Necromancy, a tier-one Tome with Soul Harvest. However, if you want to dip into Necromancy later, there are a few other Tomes that grant this ability:

• Tome of Necromancy (T1)
• Tome of Souls (T2)
• Tome of the Great Transformation (T3)
• Tome of the Reaper (T4)
• Tome of the Eternal Lord (T5)

You may notice that there's one Shadow Tome in each tier that focuses on Necromancy. This means that you can dip into another Affinity (even Nature) while still fully embracing the undead lifestyle. And because of how Tome tiers unlock, you only need one Shadow Tome for each tier to unlock the Tome of the Eternal Lord as fast as possible.

Once your faction has unlocked Soul Harvest, a new global resource will appear at the top-center of your screen. There are several spells and abilities that give you Souls, but the main way you get this resource is by defeating your enemies.

• Each enemy you destroy in battle gives you Souls based on their experience rank and tier.
• The Tome of Necromancy gives you:
  • The Soulwell special province improvement acts as a Research Post and gives you 5 Souls per turn.
  • The Soul Collection world spell gives you a sustained 10 Souls per turn but costs 30 Gold in upkeep.
• The Tome of Souls gives you:
  • The Soulbinders unit enchantment allows Battle Mages and Support units to inflict the status Soulbound with their standard attacks. This gives you 2 extra Souls when the affected unit dies, plus they sometimes come back as Decaying Zombies.
  • The Soul Collector hero skill is in the Support category, and it lets your heroes inflict Soulbound with their attacks.
• The Tome of the Great Transformation gives you:
  • Domain of Death - a sustained city spell that inflicts Soulbound on every enemy unit in the city's domain (among other effects).
  • Desecrate Structure - a world spell you can use to target resource nodes in provinces you own. For each node you use the spell on, you gain 5 more Souls per turn. This effectively lets you convert Mana into Souls.
• The Tome of the Reaper gives you:
  • Construct Soul Siphons - a siege project that gives you 40 Souls at the start of the siege battle, six free Decaying Zombie units, and Soulbound on every enemy unit.
  • Harvest Population - a sustained city spell that flattens a city's Food income and lowers Stability by 20 but gives you 30 Souls per turn.

Certain world and story events can also give you Souls, but these are too rare to count on.

How to Spend Souls in Age of Wonders 4

Once you have a decent number of Souls, you'll need to figure out how to spend them. That's where a few other abilities and spells from the Necromancy Tomes come in handy.

Firstly, several spells come with a Soul cost.

The other way to spend Souls is by getting several Tome abilities that let you bulk up your Undead armies after a successful combat.

You can get one Undead minion for each enemy you kill that qualifies. For instance, after beating a gold Ancient Wonder, you might be able to recruit two skeletons, two Bone Horrors, and two Bone Dragons all at once. But while you don't have to choose which units to keep and which to dismiss immediately, all the units you don't choose will disappear at the end of your turn.

The last thing to watch out for is unit upkeep. While most Undead units cost Mana or Gold to maintain, just like other units, the Reaper costs an additional 5 Souls per turn. Make sure you have a decent Soul income before you start summoning these monsters.

General Necromancer Tips

• Get used to relying on tons of tier-one units because skeletons are the best way for you to expand your armies and explore your surroundings. This is a valid strategy even in the late-game, thanks to a rebalance to tier-one units made as part of the Mystic Update.
• Be sure to cast Wightborn as soon as you can. Many of the spells and units unlocked by the Necromancy Tomes only work on Undead units.
• Don't underestimate how many Souls you'll need. Cast Desecrate Structure on as many resource nodes as you can because a good Souls income is worth more than a good Mana income to a Necromancer.
• Units created by the Reanimation abilities count as "Magic Origin," and they cost Mana in upkeep. Be sure to focus on Mana generation to afford your Undead armies.
• Remember that you can dip into one or two other Affinities and still be a dedicated Necromancer. Astral gets you extra Mana and Casting Points; Chaos gives you other sources of cheap low-tier units; Materium makes city building easier, and so on.
• Since skeletons are Magic Origin units, there's a great synergy between a Necromancer build and the Mystic Summoning culture. Try creating a custom faction with Mystic Summoning and the Tome of Necromancy, and see how quickly you can create an unstoppable horde of skeletons.
• If you ever find yourself a little short of the Souls you need to recruit something, send one of your armies out to destroy an enemy army.

Age Of Wonders 4

Platform(s)

PC , PS5 , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S

Released

May 2, 2023

Developer(s)

Triumph Studios

Publisher(s)

Paradox Interactive

Genre(s)

Turn-Based Strategy