History VideoGame / AgeOfWonders4

* ConvectionSchmonvection: Averted. Lava tiles cannot be crossed by any means, even with flying units, presumably due to the lethal heat. Meanwhile, the smaller lava chasms in the desolate biome will give your cities a happiness penalty if annexed.

* SummonMagic: Numerous tomes provide spells that conjure units to be placed within your domain or near a HeroUnit. Summoned units have the [[MadeOfMagic "magical origin" tag]], which gives them mana upkeep instead of gold and makes them uniquely subject to certain effects like {{Banishing Ritual}}s. There are also "combat summoning" spells and unit/hero abilities that spawn friendly units directly onto the battlefield, lasting only for a short time or until the battle concludes.

* TheArchmage: The gimmick of Wizard King leaders, being ancient wizards with centuries to refine their powers, is their superior spellcasting ability. Wizard Kings have +10% mana income in all of their cities, allowing them to fund more spells and summons, gain +5 max spellcasting points on both the world map and during combat every time they level up, which the first level also counts towards, and can use "overchannel" once per battle (or twice if they have the ''Weaver'' skill that resets cooldowns and once per battle abilities) to cast one more spell in a combat round. At level 20, a Wizard King will have a whopping 100 more casting points than a Champion!

* ExtremeOmniGoat: The [[BeastMan goatkin form]] (introduced in ''Primal Fury'') has the "herbivore" trait by default, which allows racial units to consume any flora-based battlefield obstacle (ranging from bushes and wheat crops to ''entire trees'') for a health boost and random positive status effect. There's an achivement for eating ten flora objects in a single battle, the icon of which depicts a goat munching on some grass.

** ''Empowered Animals'', also from the Tome of Vigor, has a similar effect on, well, Animal-type units, but instead of granting an extra retaliation, it boosts their base damage and allows them to demolish walls and other reinforced obstacles.

* {{Hellgate}}: The Demon Gate special province improvement, an upgraded [[PortalNetwork Teleporter]] that provides its host city with the ability to recruit a handful of [[OurDemonsAreDifferent fiend]] units -- namely the Inferno Hound, Inferno Puppy, Gremlin and Chaos Eater.

* ExtremeOmniGoat: The [[BeastMan goatkin form]] (introduced in ''Primal Fury'') has the "herbivore" trait by default, which allows racial units to consume any flora-based battlefield obstacle (ranging from bushes and wheat crops to ''entire trees'') for a health boost and random positive status effect.

* AntiMagic: The Spell Jammer province improvement that can be built in the territory of a city with a level 3 Town Hall, which blocks enemy spellcasting as long as it is intact. Also the Mage Bane, an Astral unit exclusive to independent marauder guards and/or infestations, which acts as a mobile Spell Jammer that only affects the particular battle it is in.

** The Tome of Beasts, a tier I Nature tome, is all about animal units. You can summon animals, buff animals and cavalry, and transform your race so units gain bonuses when standing adjacent to animals. The tome also unlocks the Wildspeaker support unit, which buffs animals and can summon them once per battle, and enables the construction of Wildlife Sanctuary province improvements, which allow animals to be recruited at host cities, in your empire.

* CrystalLandscape: Mana node battlemaps are centered on a grove of large, tree-like masses of blue {{Power Crystal}}s, with crystaline "roots" woven through the ground. One type of ancient wonder is a whole forest worth of these crystal trees, guarded by creatures tied to the Astral affinity. Units that stand on the crystal roots gain a contextual [[ShockAndAwe shock damage]] buff as they become charged with magical energy.

* DishingOutDirt: The Tome of Rock, a tier I Materium tome. It has a ''Rock Blast'' spell to smack a target with 30 physical damage, but for the most part the tome is defence-oriented. ''Stone Skin'' allows units to hunker down with extra defence and resistance, at the cost of becoming more vulnerable to spirit damage. The ''Earthkin'' minor transformation provides Rock Walking and Rock Camouflage, adapting your race to rocky terrain by mutating stone growths on their bodies. The tome also provides recruitable [[OurGargoylesRock Gargoyles]] and summoned [[ElementalEmbodiment Lesser Stone Spirits]], who serve as {{Heavily Armored Mook}}s.

* ElementalPowers: Common throughout the Tomes, but the Mystic Culture's units are notable for most of their attacks using the three common elemental damage types all at once: FireIceLightning, similar to the Fairy Fire used by Fey units and Sorcerer's Apprentices in the previous mainline title in the series. They can also gain additional cumulative Fire, Frost or Lightning damage for all of their Cultural units (and Tome/Rally units they acquire, given the right enchantment) in battle thanks to the ''Attunement: Star Blades'' passive, which triggers each time any side casts a spell in battle, even their enemy's.

* GreenThumb: The bulk of the Nature affinity concerns plant life and the natural world, starting with the Tome of Roots at tier I. Several Nature-aligned summons are plant-based creatures like Entwined Thralls, transformations involve hybridizing your race with plant life, and advanced tomes allow you to terraform your provinces into easily-settled temperate biomes and thick forests.

** The Corrupt Soul has two special abilities: "Hopelessness", which increases the Corrupt Soul's defense and resistance for every level below 'neutral' morale any attacker has; and "Crushing Anguish", a magic attack that has a chance to instantly kill a unit that has low morale.

** Materium dabbles in a bit of fire as well with the T4 Tome of the Crucible, which allows its user to cast lava bursts, pyroclastic eruptions and meteor drops to harm their enemies, and enchant their physical ranged units' shooting weapons with Meteor Arrows.

%%* SequelNonEntity: The Draconians and the Frostlings, who were established races in the previous games, are notably absent in ''Age of Wonders 4''. Both of the races were [[DemotedToExtra reduced]] to a race transformation, with the former being a part of the Tome of Dragons in the Dragon Dawn DLC.