Age of Wonders 4 Empires & Ashes: DLC Features Guide

What Does Empires & Ashes Add?

Bring cannons to a wizard fight in Age of Wonders 4 Empires & Ashes. This expansion adds industrial warfare through the Reaver culture, four magical tomes, and mechanical units built around firepower, constructs, and anti-magic. The Seals of Power victory condition also gives your armies a different assignment: capture valuable locations and keep them defended long enough to win.

Released November 7, 2023, the expansion includes:

• The Reaver culture and customizable Avian form.
• Four tomes covering alchemy, constructs, explosive warfare, and magical disruption.
• The Seals of Power victory mechanic.
• Two story missions featuring Laryssa.
• The Vaultsphere Ancient Wonder and Derelict Workshop infestation.
• Additional wildlife, mounts, equipment, and six music tracks.

The central appeal is the interaction between those additions. Your faction can combine birdlike citizens, industrial armies, and magical machinery, while a Seals match gives that army territory it must actively protect.

Reaver Culture: Make Room for Your Guns

Reavers combine Materium and Chaos affinities with an empire built around production, mana, conquest, and raids. Their launch design replaces the starting Whispering Stone with access to War Spoils, a resource earned through battles against other empires and Free Cities. Those spoils support intimidation and military options, including recruiting Magelock Cannons.

Image: www.paradoxinteractive.com

The launch-era roster rewards careful positioning. Magelocks and Magelock Cannons require preparation before firing, while supporting units help create the space and targets they need.

Build Your Firing Line

Magelocks deliver powerful ranged attacks, but their launch-era firing restriction prevents them from moving and shooting on the same turn. Enemy units reaching them can also shut down their ranged attacks.

Choose firing positions before committing your front line. Keep lanes open, spread your shooters so one enemy cannot tie up the entire formation, and use other units to clear threats away from your guns.

Several Reaver units contribute to that setup:

• Mercenaries provide an early front line. Use Drive Back to push enemies away and create breathing room.
• Harriers use nets to immobilize and mark targets. Set up those targets before committing ranged damage.
• Overseers provide support and can use Subdue against enemies already immobilized or otherwise stunned. Coordinate their actions with your crowd control.
• Dragoons combine mobility with melee and ranged attacks. Use their distracting attacks before following up with other units.

Magelock Cannons add artillery that can damage enemies in a line and destroy battlefield structures. Their launch-era setup restriction makes firing angles especially important. Line up the shot before advancing the rest of your army beyond its support.

Four Tomes for Alchemy, Constructs, and Anti-Magic

The expansion’s four tomes introduce different ways to develop an industrial or magically disruptive army. They also mix affinities, giving each theme connections beyond Materium.

Image: Steam / Triumph Studios

Tome theme	Tier	Affinities	Notable additions
Alchemy	1	Materium and Nature	Afflictor, Alchemist’s Lab, buffs and debuffs
Constructs	2	Materium and Order	Linked Minds, Worker Construct Nexus, construct support
Dreadnought	3	Materium and Chaos	Ironclad, explosive attacks, siege tools
Severing	4	Materium and Shadow	Severing Golem, anti-magic effects, buff removal

Alchemy and Construct Support

Alchemy gives you tools for weakening enemies and supporting your troops. The Afflictor brings ranged pressure and debilitating effects, while the Alchemist’s Lab adds a knowledge-focused province improvement.

Apply weakening effects before your damage dealers attack. That sequencing helps your army capitalize on the tome’s emphasis on debuffs.

The construct theme supports mechanical troops and introduces Linked Minds. In its launch implementation, this transformation grants protection against flanking and distraction when affected units stand beside another Linked Minds unit or a construct.

Keep those units together to benefit from the formation. Avoid sending a transformed unit off alone when its protection depends on a nearby partner.

Ironclads and Severing Golems

The Dreadnought theme introduces the Ironclad, a heavily armored machine with ranged firepower and multiple shot types. Its substantial upkeep makes the economy part of your army planning.

Check your income before recruiting several expensive machines. Leave room to maintain the troops that protect them and hold territory elsewhere.

The Severing theme takes a different direction. The Severing Golem combines combat power with magical disruption, including removing enemy buffs and cleansing allied effects. Use that toolkit against armies whose strength depends on magical enhancements.

Seals of Power: Capture, Occupy, Defend

Seals of Power creates a victory race around map objectives. With the appropriate realm trait enabled, seals appear across the world, guarded by hostile armies.

Image: Steam / Triumph Studios

The launch rules establish the basic sequence:

1. Find a seal and defeat its defenders.
2. Occupy it with an army.
3. Accumulate seal points through continued occupation.
4. Reach the required point total to win.

An occupied seal provides one seal point per turn under those rules. However, hostile defender armies can return to reclaim it, and holding more seals increases the frequency of those attacks. Rival empires can contest them too.

Budget for the defense before taking another seal. A successful capture creates an ongoing military commitment. Keep reinforcements within reach and maintain enough income to support armies stationed away from your cities.

Seals cannot be annexed into a city. Plan your defense around armies and travel routes rather than expecting city development to secure the objective.

Avian Factions, Bear Mounts, and New Exploration Sites

The Avian form adds birdlike citizens with visual customization and selectable traits. Its appearance gives your faction a distinct identity, while trait customization lets you shape its capabilities.

Choose traits around the army you intend to field. The Avian appearance does not require you to build a Reaver faction.

Bear mounts expand the visual options further, with Brown Bear, Polar Bear, and Dire Bear mounts among the additions. The expansion also introduces wildlife such as Scrap Hermits.

Exploration gains two named destinations: the Vaultsphere Ancient Wonder and Derelict Workshop infestation. These carry the expansion’s mechanical theme beyond faction creation and into the realm itself. Six additional music tracks accompany the new content.

Two Story Missions With Laryssa

The expansion adds Freed Lands of Manuhari and Sehiran Oasis, two story missions involving Laryssa and a struggle against Chaos threatening the Astral Sea.

Manuhari places you in a conflict involving the locals and remnants of a colonizing Commonwealth. Its story offers choices about how to approach that struggle, including pursuing a diplomatic resolution.

Build up your military early rather than relying entirely on finding friendly neighbors. Keep enough forces available to respond while exploring and advancing the story.

These missions give the industrial theme a narrative setting alongside the faction-building options available in custom realms.

Buying the DLC and Understanding the Free Update

Empires & Ashes requires the base game. It is included in Expansion Pass 1, so check your existing content before purchasing it separately. Its standard U.S. price is $19.99; promotional prices and bundle totals change.

Use the Empires & Ashes Steam purchase page to compare the standalone expansion with the available bundles.

The expansion also launched alongside the free Golem Update. That update introduced the Item Forge, revised form traits, expanded Free City cooperation, and changed water-related gameplay for base-game owners.

The Item Forge does not require this DLC. Its crafting system lets you disenchant unwanted equipment into Binding Essence and spend that resource on new hero gear, with additional infusion options tied to magical materials. Buy the expansion for its Reaver culture, Avian form, tomes, story missions, and Seals of Power content.