Age of Wonders 4 Pantheon: XP, Rewards, and Ascension

How Does the Pantheon Work?

Your favorite ruler’s story can continue after victory. The Age of Wonders 4 pantheon lets you preserve ascended rulers for future realms while earning permanent customization unlocks through play. Understanding its two progression systems helps you pursue the rewards you want and decide which version of a ruler to keep.

The Pantheon combines an ascended ruler collection with an XP reward track:

• Ascended rulers can return in later realms as recruitable heroes through events or as leaders of starting factions.
• Pantheon XP advances your Pantheon level. Every 500 XP grants a point to spend on rewards, including society traits, hero origin equipment sets, and cosmetic options.

These systems serve different purposes. Ascension preserves specific benefits for an individual ruler, while Pantheon points unlock additional choices for future faction creation and customization.

Official page: Age of Wonders 4 (paradoxinteractive.com)

Pantheon XP Values and Leveling

Pantheon experience comes from military victories, diplomacy, exploration, research, hero development, and forging. Sessions using cheats do not award Pantheon XP.

Image: Steam / Triumph Studios

Action	Pantheon XP
Achieve victory, regardless of victory type	250
Defeat a hero or ruler with your units	10 each
Conquer a city	50 each
Eliminate an empire militarily	150 each
Destroy an infestation, regardless of tier	25 each
Clear an Ancient Wonder, regardless of tier	50 each
Improve Free City allegiance	15 per tier
Vassalize a Free City	100 each
Gain a hero level	10 per level
Unlock a tome	50 each
Complete a bounty	100 each
Form an alliance, including vassalizing another empire or becoming its vassal	100 each
Forge a tier 1 item	15 each
Forge a tier 2 item	20 each
Forge a tier 3 item	25 each
Forge a tier 4 item	30 each

Every 500 XP earns one Pantheon point. A victory’s 250 XP supplies half of that threshold before counting the other accomplishments during the session.

For example, a victory, two cleared Ancient Wonders, one unlocked tome, and one vassalized Free City contribute 500 XP combined: 250 + 100 + 50 + 100. Hero levels, battles against enemy heroes, and other qualifying actions add to those entries.

City conquest counts before you decide the city’s fate. You do not need to resolve that decision to qualify for its 50 XP.

How to Earn More XP During a Realm

Build XP opportunities into the campaign you already want to play. Several activities reward both your realm objectives and your Pantheon progression.

Image: www.paradoxinteractive.com

Combine exploration with army development

Clear reachable Ancient Wonders and infestations while developing your heroes. Wonders award 50 XP each, infestations award 25, and every hero level contributes another 10.

Choose manageable targets rather than risking a valuable army for the Pantheon payout. Infestation and Wonder tiers do not change their listed XP rewards.

Use diplomacy alongside conquest

Pursue Free City allegiance and vassalization when they fit your expansion plans. Allegiance improvements award 15 XP per tier, and vassalizing a Free City awards 100.

Keep diplomatic alliances in mind, too. Forming an alliance awards 100 XP, so military elimination is only one of several ways to build progress through relations with other empires.

Finish the victory you are pursuing

Complete your realm to collect the 250 XP victory award and receive the opportunity to ascend your ruler. The victory award is the same regardless of victory type, so pursue the condition that fits your position.

Unlock useful tomes and complete suitable bounties along the way. Tomes contribute 50 XP each, while completed bounties contribute 100.

What to Unlock With Pantheon Points

Pantheon rewards include society traits, hero origin equipment sets, helmets, capes, faction icons, racial mounts, and item forge options.

Image: PlayStation Store

If a faction concept depends on a specific society trait or equipment set, work toward that reward before spending points on additional cosmetic choices. Check the reward path before creating a faction around a locked option.

For appearance-focused factions, browse the helmets, capes, icons, and mount options together. Choose the unlocks that support the character or faction you actually want to create.

Two reward rules are especially useful to know:

• Certain Challenge Realms unlock automatically at specified Pantheon levels. These unlocks are free and do not require spending a point.
• Some rewards require paid DLC. Starting with the Tiger update, certain rewards tied to DLC-exclusive hero types, such as Dragon Lords, require the relevant DLC to unlock.

Check a reward’s DLC requirement before committing points toward it.

How Ruler Ascension Works

After winning a realm, you can ascend your ruler into the Pantheon. An ascended ruler can select an Ascension trait based on the tomes researched during that session.

Plan your research with that choice in mind if you want to shape a ruler for future play. In a realm with Shrouded Isles, a ruler can also ascend with a secret spell learned from Shrouded Arcanum.

What a ruler retains depends on the ruler type:

Ruler type	Benefits retained through ascension
Champion and Wizard King	Racial transformations from the last session
Dragon Lord	Aspect and Transformation, the first two Signature Skills, start active; the other two remain dormant if reached during that ascension; visual effects are retained
Eldritch Sovereign	First Signature Skill, gained at level 4; the third, gained at level 12, remains dormant with its visual effects applied
Giant King	Second Signature Skill, gained at level 8; the fourth, gained at level 16, remains dormant
Elder Vampire	First and second Signature Skills, gained at levels 4 and 8

For Dragon Lords, changing retained Signature Skill selections requires reaching the corresponding level and using a respec. Retained visual effects do not mean every associated skill starts active.

Winning again with an ascended ruler

Another victory with an already ascended ruler brings up a confirmation asking whether to overwrite that ruler’s Pantheon data. You can keep the current Ascension trait or replace it with a different one.

Review that choice carefully when the new campaign produces different transformations or Signature Skill selections. Overwriting updates the stored ruler, so decide which campaign’s version you want to preserve.

Tome paths after the Griffon update

Before the Griffon update, ascended rulers saved their researched tomes, and AI-controlled versions attempted to follow those same selections.

The Griffon update replaced that behavior through Extra Faction Data. Previously saved tome selections were converted into a tome path. Use the tome path settings when shaping an AI faction’s research direction instead of relying on the older ascension behavior.

Managing Your Ascended Ruler Collection

The Pantheon holds up to 300 ascended rulers. You can remove rulers at any time, and the game warns you when the collection is full while attempting to ascend another ruler.

Ascending a custom ruler moves that faction into the Pantheon tab. Removing the ruler moves the faction back to the Custom Factions tab, giving you a way to manage the collection without losing access to the custom faction.

Completing a story realm also ascends its other AI campaign factions unless they are already present. Those rulers receive preset Ascension traits, and their ascended versions are used when replaying story realms.

Review those additions when organizing a large collection. You can also rename the Pantheon whenever you like; its default name is “My Pantheon.”