As cities grow in population inAge of Wonders 4, players canannex nearby provinces and add them to their empires. Doing so adds resources to the city based on what province improvements players choose, along with the natural resources that are already present.
But while the basic mechanics are straightforward enough, it can be tricky to understand how to replace province improvements, annex ancient wonders, and even swap provinces between different cities. ThisAge of Wonders 4guide will cover both the basics of province annexation along with more complex topics like stealing provinces from enemies during war.
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Annexation Basics
Every city starts on its own province, and if this province has natural resources or magic materials, then the city will add them to its resource total automatically. Every city also starts with one population, and that population goes up as the city produces a food surplus. For every population a city has above the first, that city can annex one province.
When a city can annex a new province, players will get a notification at the start of their turn. By clicking on the city, players will see every province they can annex highlighted in green. Each province also has one or more pins in this view, and these pins indicate the kinds of improvements players can build for free in the province. These include huts, farms, quarries, mines, fisheries, conduits, and research posts. Aside from the huts, each improvement adds 5 units to the city’s resources, and that’s on top of any natural resource bonuses that come with the province.
However, not every improvement can go on every province. Farms can only go on fertile provinces (or whatever the player’s race considers fertile), conduits can only go on provinces with magical resources, and quarries can only go on rocky provinces or provinces with iron or gold deposits. Players can always build huts on provinces where nothing better will work, and while huts are bad improvements, they’re better than nothing.
Players should also note that they’ll need to clear away any enemies standing on natural resources or magical materials to get their bonuses. If a province view says that a resource is “occupied,” it means that the province owner isn’t getting any benefit from it.
The last thing to know is that cities have a maximum annexation range. Every city starts with a Town Hall 1, and this lets them annex provinces directly adjacent to the city. A Town Hall 2 extends that to the next ring of provinces and so on (although each annexed province must also be adjacent to a currently owned province). There are ways to extend a city’s reach using empire improvements,but this is how it works for most factions.
All these rules also apply to outpostsand any provinces they annex using a work camp. However, since outposts aren’t proper cities, players get no benefit from any non-global resources they gather (such as draft and food).
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Replacing Province Improvements
Even after a province becomes part of the realm, players can still make adjustments. By selecting a province improvement and clicking the arrow button in the lower-right corner of the province menu, players can change the improvement to any other type that fits in the province. This process takes 3 turns, and the province will keep providing the old resource until then.
There are a few reasons why players may want to replace improvements. First, while farms and food are useful early on, other resources are more useful once a city has fully developed and filled its neighborhood. Second, many city structures are only availableif the city owns enough of the right type of improvement.
Another way to swap improvements is to build an upgraded improvement from the city build menu. Players get access to thesebased on their starting faction and chosen tomes. These upgrades often count as basic improvements for the sake of building requirements, but they provide more resources or special bonuses. Upgrades also don’t have to follow the same rules about placement as basic improvements.
Annexing Ancient Wonders
Ancient Wonders follow different rules compared to normal provinces. For one thing, players can build outposts to control provinces, but they can’t build outposts on Ancient Wonder provinces.
The most important thing to understand about Ancient Wonders is that players must explore them and clear them out before doing anything else. Ancient Wonder battles are tougher than normal, and only one hero-led army can fight them, but doing so will provide players with a substantial reward and ownership over the Ancient Wonder’s province.
However, players can own an Ancient Wonder without getting any benefit from it. To actually get the resources it promises, players must have one of their cities annex the Ancient Wonder province. If players own the Ancient Wonder, this works just like any other province annexation, and if they don’t, annexing the Wonder is impossible.
If players happen to clear an Ancient Wonder on the wrong side of the map from their realm, they can sell the rights to the Wonderto another faction (or fellow player)that might want it. A Wonder can be a valuable piece of real estate, so be sure to get a good price for it.
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Transferring Province Ownership
One other thing players can do with provinces is change which city owns them. In the same menu where players can change the improvement type, there are also options for swapping owners. To allow this, the province must border at least one of the neighboring city’s current provinces, and the city must have enough population to support adding another province.
Transferring a province takes one turn, and the city that gave up its province should now be able to annex a new province or accept a transfer from a third city. Notably, province transfers can end up isolating a city’s province from the rest of its holdings.
Ancient Wonders are an exception to this system. There’s no button for replacing the province improvement of an Ancient Wonder, and so there’s also no way to transfer ownership. Another thing players can’t do is intentionally abandon a province once they own it. Finally,cities built underground can’t own surface provinces or vice versa, even if a province contains an underground entrance.
However, something players can do is steal provinces from enemy factions. Instead of pillaging an improvement, players can move units onto enemy improvements and then use the arrow button in the corner of the menu to transfer ownership to a neighboring friendly city. Just like normal transfers, the accepting city must have enough spare population to own a new province, but (unlike pillaging) annexing an enemy province doesn’t change the faction’s alignment.
Age of Wonders 4is available now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
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