Age of Wonders 4 Rise From Ruin: DLC Features & Guide

What Does Rise From Ruin Add?

Your next empire can pack up its cities and take its economy with it. Age of Wonders 4 Rise From Ruin introduces the Nomad Culture, whose traveling settlements turn resource gathering into a reason to keep exploring. Alongside Harefolk, three new tomes, and magically devastated landscapes, the culture pack gives you new ways to build an empire around movement, conquest, and scavenging.

Detail	What you need to know
Release date	March 9, 2026
Developer	Triumph Studios
Publisher	Paradox Interactive
Regular U.S. Steam price	$19.99
Required game	Age of Wonders 4
Included in	Expansion Pass 3

The central additions are the Nomads and their two traditions: Conquerors and Scavengers. Both relocate cities and extract lasting economic benefits from resource nodes, but their military and economic tools push them in different directions.

The pack also introduces the Astral Barrens, where province mana generation stops and spellcasting carries risks. Its ruined landscapes connect to Fated Regions and the Devouring Winds, a crisis rooted in disastrous experiments with magic.

You can purchase the pack separately through the Rise from Ruin Steam page. Check your Expansion Pass 3 ownership before buying it individually.

How Nomad Cities and Overharvesting Work

Nomad cities retain their population and structures when relocating. Instead of abandoning a developed settlement, you pack it into a City Barge, move across the world map, and unpack at another location.

Image: www.paradoxinteractive.com

Previously built Special Province Improvements can be placed again without paying their construction cost. Population determines how much territory the relocated city can immediately claim.

This mobility supports an empire with fewer permanent settlements and a presence across distant parts of the map. Nomad population growth is slower than that of other cultures, so moving into fresh territory becomes an important part of city development.

Overharvesting Turns Nodes Into Essences

Resource and Magic Material Nodes inside a Nomad city's domain undergo Overharvesting. Once that process finishes, the node becomes ruined and its corresponding Essence attaches to the city.

That Essence continues supplying income. Magic Material Essences also retain the associated material benefit, allowing the city to carry those economic advantages to its next destination.

You can spend Imperium to accelerate Overharvesting.

• Scout the next settlement site before packing up. Identify fresh nodes and a defensible destination.
• Review unfinished harvests before leaving. Spend Imperium when securing a particular Essence justifies the cost.
• Plan around lost province income during travel. A packed city continues generating income, but its province improvements are absent.
• Keep the City Barge escorted. An undefended barge can be captured without a fight.

Packing up also leaves the city's City Cap requirement in place. Moving settlements does not create extra room under that limit.

A City Barge Still Needs Defending

The barge cannot participate in combat. When attacked with defenders present, the battle uses a siege combat map, but attackers do not need to complete a normal siege first.

A packed Throne City still functions as your Throne City. Your ruler can return from the void at its barge, and Rally of the Lieges can also use it.

Move your escort with the barge throughout the journey. The settlement's mobility carries its accumulated development into the field, where it remains vulnerable to interception.

Conquerors and Scavengers Explained

The two Nomad traditions share their traveling economy but reward different decisions on the world map and in tactical combat.

Image: www.paradoxinteractive.com

Conquerors: Pillaging, Annexation, and Momentum

Conquerors use aggressive settlement placement to pressure enemy territory. Pillaging supplies food, while annexing pillaged provinces grants Draft, Production, and Gold through Aggressive Annexation. Nodes in newly acquired provinces then become Overharvesting targets.

Their Warcamp Special Province Improvement supports this approach with Draft, additional regeneration for nearby units, and faster pillaging of adjacent hostile provinces.

Position your next settlement near territory you intend to attack. That lets your city support pillaging, annexation, and resource extraction in the same area.

In combat, Empowering Momentum activates when a unit moves at least three hexes away from its starting position that turn. Momentum increases damage and healing output by 20%.

The trigger measures displacement, so teleportation and forced repositioning can help activate it. Support abilities also provide ways to give Momentum to units that need to hold their position.

Useful research includes:

• Chimes of Momentum: Extends Empowering Momentum to non-cultural units.
• Swift Strike Blessing: Grants Momentum and Fortune to the target and another nearby friendly unit.
• Watchful Eye: Provides vision around a province and applies Marked to enemies when combat begins there.

Plan repositioning before spending attacks. Use swaps, pulls, and movement abilities to activate Momentum while keeping vulnerable units protected.

Scavengers: Wonder Essences and Battlefield Loot

Scavengers can extract special Essences from Ancient Wonders. The Wonder's improvement type determines the Essence, while its tier determines the strength of the benefit.

Each Wonder can provide an Essence only once. Unlike an Overharvested resource node, the Wonder remains intact.

Ancient Manuscripts from Research Post Wonders grant Knowledge based on collected Essences. Wonder Essences also provide City Stability, giving exploration a direct role in economic growth.

Scout Ancient Wonders along your intended migration route. Bring your cities toward opportunities to expand their collection of Essences.

In battle, fallen friendly and hostile units leave Loot. Units with the Scavenger property can collect it to recover 15 HP and gain a stack of Looted Power.

Each stack grants:

• +1 Defense and +1 Resistance
• +20% attack damage
• +20% healing from support abilities

Looted Power stacks up to five times.

Use Looters and Dustweavers to distribute Loot without pulling key units out of position. Their abilities move these benefits around the battlefield.

Spread Looted Power before casting Improvised Remedy. The spell heals affected friendly units for 10 HP and removes their negative status effects. Scavenger’s Bags lets non-cultural units collect Loot, while Empowering Trophies supplies a stack directly.

Harefolk, Nomad Units, and New Mounts

Harefolk add a new physical form built around the appearance of survivors from a shattered world. Their default traits emphasize mobility and evasion, but you can customize those traits rather than being locked into a single mechanical identity.

Image: Steam / Triumph Studios

Appearance options include different ears, hair, and horns. The pack also adds Camel and Scorpion mounts for faction customization.

The Nomad roster carries its movement theme into combat:

• Dunerider: A scout with Warfare Training that also functions as a ranged combat unit.
• Wind Warrior: A shield unit whose Windborne Rescue swaps places with an ally and heals both units.
• Dustweaver: A support unit that heals, removes negative effects, and pulls an ally toward itself.
• Strider: An archer with a stronger opening shot and Windstride for repositioning.

Use Windborne Rescue to extract an exposed ranged unit or reposition an attacker. For Conquerors, the swap can also help create the displacement needed for Momentum.

Tradition-Specific Units

Conquerors receive the Raider and Champion.

The Raider is a mobile shock unit with fire effects tied to Momentum and Slip Away for escaping danger. It also supports Optional Cavalry.

The Champion alternates between two attacks and their associated stances. Storm Strike is a charge that applies Sundered Defense and enters Storm Stance. Wind Strike is a repeating attack whose third hit knocks the target back and enters Wind Stance. Switching attacks rewards the Champion with Momentum.

Alternate the Champion's attacks to maintain its stance benefits and Momentum.

Scavengers receive the Looter and Collector.

The Looter is a skirmisher that collects Loot and transfers Looted Power to allies through Catch! The Collector is a polearm unit that pushes enemies aside with Plow Through and destroys corpses with Dig Up to gain more Looted Power.

Use Dig Up against corpses that could return to the fight. It removes that threat while strengthening the Collector.

The Three New Tomes

The new tomes cover martial training, desert adaptation, and warfare supported by infernal power.

Tome	Tier	Affinities	Main additions
Tome of the Warband	I	Chaos and Materium	Unit training, morale support, Draft, and the Lieutenant
Tome of Sand Stalkers	II	Materium and Nature	Desert terrain, concealment on sand, sandstorms, and the Sand Scorpion
Tome of the Warlord	III	Chaos	Siege tools, Infernal Might, the War Golem, and the Warlord

Tome of the Warband

This tome develops armies through training and battlefield support.

Mentorship gives the least experienced unit in a hero-led army an additional 40 XP per turn. Training Regimen increases city Draft, while Commander's Call heals units and grants morale in an area.

The Lieutenant adds support to an active fighter: its attacks and defensive actions benefit a nearby ally, and Discern Weakness debuffs enemies of the targeted unit type.

Place a developing unit in a hero-led army to benefit from Mentorship. Use Training Regimen where you intend to recruit additional troops.

Tome of Sand Stalkers

This tome connects economic development and combat to sandy terrain. It enables farms on sand and provides City Stability benefits for occupying it.

Dune Stalkers grants movement and concealment benefits on sand, plus combat speed and flanking bonuses in sandy battles. Desertification converts the target province and adjacent provinces to include the Sand feature.

The Grand Bazaar rewards nearby sandy provinces with additional income. Combat tools include a sandstorm that slows enemies and can blind them, along with a summonable Sand Scorpion.

Terraform around a planned Grand Bazaar to support its adjacency benefits. Fight on sand when using Dune Stalkers to take advantage of its terrain bonuses.

Tome of the Warlord

This tome supports recruitment, sieges, and armies that continue fielding lower-tier troops.

The War Forge supplies Draft, with additional Draft and Gold tied to controlled ore Magic Materials. The Gladiatorial Pit adds Draft, Gold, and City Stability.

Conqueror's Edict strengthens siege assaults. Might of the Battlefield grants Infernal Might and morale in an area, with doubled effects for Tier I, II, and III units.

The War Golem combines fire attacks, obstacle destruction, and repositioning. The Tier IV Warlord supports lower-tier troops with Field Tactics and command abilities whose shared cooldown resets when it kills an enemy.

Keep lower-tier units within your Warlord's support plan. Its commands and Field Tactics give those troops additional value alongside your stronger units.

Surviving the Astral Barrens and Devouring Winds

The Astral Barrens change the practical cost of exploring a magical wasteland. Province mana generation is disabled, Magic-origin units cannot regenerate health there, and spells cast within the terrain can backfire.

Check your army's health before entering a long stretch of Barrens. Move Magic-origin units out of the terrain when they need to regenerate.

Inspect the battlefield before relying on a spell to rescue an exposed unit. Backfire risk makes positioning and unit abilities especially important.

The world map additions include ruined Ancient Wonders, Fractured Infestations, and 20 handcrafted regions. New enemies include six Fractured creatures, plus the Sand Scorpion and Sand Worm.

Fated Regions and Echoes of the Fracturing

The Echoes of the Fracturing realm trait introduces Fated Regions connected to Archmages who pursued the power of the Well of Creation.

Their failed experiments unleashed the Devouring Winds, which consume magic and leave the Astral Barrens behind. Quests lead into contaminated domains and toward artifacts connected to the catastrophe.

The pack includes five new Realm Traits and two Realm Templates, allowing these themes to shape your realm setup. Its presentation additions include three music tracks, an interface skin, banner emblems, and three premade rulers.

What the Free Scorpion Update Changed

Rise from Ruin launched alongside the Scorpion Update on March 9, 2026. The update was free for all owners of the base game; the Nomad Culture, Harefolk, and other culture-pack additions require the DLC.

The Scorpion release introduced several broad gameplay changes:

• World map movement normalization: Regular units received the same number of Move Points, allowing mixed armies to travel together without a slower regular unit reducing the army's speed.
• Passive experience: Units began gaining XP each turn, while battle XP was halved.
• Defense and Resistance changes: Damage reduction shifted toward the source of damage rather than simply the damage type.
• Province management improvements: Province Pins made ownership and acquisition clearer, with options to purchase vassal provinces for Imperium and capture pillaged provinces.
• Item Forge additions: Shields gained access to Defense Mode: Protective Wall and Defense Mode: Stone Wall infusions.
• Culture adjustments: Culture Enchantments were extended to Mythic Units, alongside structure and income adjustments.

The update also added a custom Color Picker for banners, skin, hair, armor, and metal. RGB sliders and Hex Values let you enter precise colors when building your next faction.