Age of Wonders 4: Realm features Age of Wonders 4 guide, tips
In AoW4, you can choose 8 attributes for your land that will determine the future of your land. On this page you will find a list of all attributes, from geographical features to Environment effects.
Last update: 11 May 2023
Realm features are a set of 4 main and 4 additional attributes that define your future realm. These characteristics determine the appearance of the map, the conditions, creatures that inhabit the map and its political situation. Below you can familiarize yourself with the individual features that are present in the game, but you don't have to choose all of them.
- Geographical features
- Climatic features
- Inhabitants features
- Presence trait
- Environment effects
- Unit modifiers
- Free cities modifiers
- Rules modifier
Geographical features
 | Barren Oceans | The provinces are separated from each other by wastelands with sandstorms. If you fight in such conditions, each unit will get a sandstorm effect (-2 to sight, camouflage for units) and a 60% chance of having a unit blinded. |
 | Lava Lakes | A large land with rivers of lava that cannot be crossed. |
 | Lava Divide | Two continents separated by a huge sea of lava that cannot be crossed. |
 | Land | One continent, without visible bodies of water and other major obstacles. |
 | Divide | Lands separated in two by a great ocean. |
 | Coast | A land on which there is a small sea. |
 | Islands | Each empire has its own separate small land, separated from the others by an ocean. |
 | Scarred Divide | Two vast lands separated by an uninhabitable ocean |
Climatic features
This is optional - you don't have to use this.
 | Forming Realm | It is full of uninhabited provinces that have a low chance of changing a province trait. |
 | Endless Fields | Provinces in this climate are mostly (often likely) grasslands great for producing food, with no uninhabited provinces. |
 | Ovegrown Realm | In this climate, provinces are mostly forests, with a low probability of encountering arctic or desert provinces, and there are no uninhabited provinces. |
 | Desert Realm | The climate is warm and dry, making most of the provinces deserts and sparse forests. You will not encounter swamps and highland, arctic, temperate or uninhabited provinces. |
 | Scorched Climate | This climate is dominated by uninhabited provinces. You will not encounter highland, temperate or arctic provinces. |
 | Highlands | This realm is dominated by highland and mountain provinces. |
 | Frozen Realm | It is dominated mainly by highland and arctic provinces. You will not encounter temperate, desert, uninhabited or tropical provinces. |
Inhabitants features
 | Demonic Realm | A land full of demons. |
 | Wildlands | A land full of dangerous animals and plagues. |
 | Magic Origins | A land with a very large population of creatures of magical origin. |
 | Megafauna | In this land, you will encounter an increased number of animals and marauders with by the "empowered beasts" trait, which gives bonuses to attacking fortifications, health regeneration, and a 20% bonus to damage dealt. |
 | Immortal Spirits | In this realm, there is a high probability of encountering etheric units. |
 | Low Population | This dweller trait causes the number of free cities in the realm to decrease. |
 | Peceaful Lands | Lands inhabited mainly by friendly creatures such as fairies, plants and animals. |
 | Rampant Flora | Lands covered mainly with untamed vegetation. |
 | Rampant Undeath | A land filled mostly with undead units. |
Dragon Territories | The land is mainly covered with dragon lairs, they scare off other units, increasing the number of plagues. | |
 | Lingering Creators | A world inhabited mainly by giants and ogres. |
Presence trait
With this option, you can activate the Pretender Kings trait - 3 pretenders to the throne will appear in the game; Darman Voss, Jarlan Voss, Skogan Voss, who will wage war against each other for the throne of the kingdom. They get help in the form of 2 additional cities. They can achieve victory by allying with one of the pretenders or by defeating the others.
Environment effects
 | Arctic Blizzards | Arctic blizzards spread over the land, covering all units, provinces and battlefields. The trait does not appear in the Desert Realm, Scorched Climate and Forming Realm. |
 | Crystalline Abundance | This feature means that you will find an increased number of mana sources on the map. |
 | Domain of Mayhem | This feature causes all fights to be affected by the Domain of Mayhem trait - it gives units a 30% chance to gain frenzy every 3 turns. |
 | Small Underground | A feature that makes the underground small. |
 | High Underground | A feature that makes the underground bigger. |
 | Wondrous Past | Thanks to this trait, the number of ancient wonders on the map is greater. |
 | Volcanic Eruptions | Volcanoes are raging in uninhabited regions and have an impact on all units, uninhabited provinces and battlefields. The trait is not present in Overgrown Realm, Endless Fields, Desert Realm and Frozen Realm. |
 | Warping Wilds | This trait makes all uninhabited provinces have a small chance of changing their trait every turn. Not present in the Forming Realm. |
Unit modifiers
 | Lightless | Units' range of vision is reduced by -2. |
 | Gigantism | Marauder units gain the super upgrade trait, which adds 10 hit points and 1 point of retaliation. |
 | Curse of Undeath | Marauder and undead units gain access to free cities. |
 | Immortals | After having 10% of health or less, units receive the Routed state, meaning the units cannot get lost. |
 | Frostling Influence | Independent units gain the following statuses; frostling transformation (3 points to frost resistance, freeze invulnerability, 10 morale in icy environments, arctic cold), frost blades (4 frost damage, -2 physical damage, 20% damage against frozen or slowed units for melee attacks), frost arrows (4 frost damage, -2 physical damage, 20% damage against frozen or slowed units for ranged physical attacks). |
 | High Maintenance | Unit maintenance is increased by 100%, recruitment cost is halved. |
Free cities modifiers
 | No Free Cities | There are no free cities on the map. |
 | Bannerlords | Increases the occurrence of Rally of the Lieges by 25%. Bonus 5 recruitment points for each empire. |
 | City States | Free cities get a bonus of 5 population points. In addition, the power of Whispering Stones is reduced by -50%. |
 | Distrustring Locals | The power of Whispering Stones is reduced by -3. |
 | Might Makes Right | Conquest and vassalization is rewarded; 10 Alignment points for free cities, and 2 loyalty levels for vassals. In addition, the power of Whispering Stones is reduced by -50%. |
 | Hostile Houses | Empires are punished with -10 alignment points and -400 relationship points with free cities. |
 | Ruined Realm | In this realm, you will rarely find free cities, the most common sight will be ruins. |
Rules modifier
 | No Respite | Empire units regenerate -5 less health points per turn outside of allied territory. |
 | Megacities | This trait favors a large city, allowing you to expand its border 5 provinces further than normal, unfortunately it will be impossible to absorb, migrate or found new cities. |
 | Unlimited Power | |
 | Regenerating Infestations | Every 10 turns, plagues spread to unoccupied provinces. |
 | Disdain For Evil | Every empire gets complaints against other empires that are associated with evil. |
 | Deathcasting | Each unit that fells adds 10 spell points to its owners. |
 | Underground Start | Every capital of the empire is located underground. |