Age of Wonders 4: Sprite 1.2 Update - 02/07/2026

Dear Godir,

We have a new update: Sprite 1.2 bringing fixes across the board! The Empire Tree is seeing a lot of balancing and Tomes, Units, and Story realms are also getting some adjustments!

Game Version: 1.015.004.123535

• Adjusted when AI rulers are allowed to call allied players into war.

• Combat AI: Improved handling of minimum ability costs for buffs while in Cautious Approach.

Astral

• Skill 9A “Tower of Enlightenment”

  • Now clearly indicates it applies to all Wizard Tower City Structures (both tier and side upgrades)

  • Replaced +10 Mana Income with +10 Knowledge

  • Now also grants +10 Food for those structures.

Chaos

• Skill 2A “Otherworldly Reinforcements” - Switched placement with Skill 5A “Iron Rule”

• Skill 2B “Specialized Troops”

  • Reduced Knowledge Discount for Unit Unlocks from -40% to -25% 

  • Additional effect: Units unlocked via Research now cost 25% less Gold to Recruit

• Skill 5A “Iron Rule” - Switched placement with Skill 2A "Otherworldly Reinforcements”

• Skill 6B “Destiny of War” - Reduced Gold and Mana income from +50 to +30

• Skill 9A “Endless Hordes” - Replaced with Resilient Hordes 

  • Tier 1 Units gain +30 HP, +2 Defense, and +2 Resistance

  • Tier 2 Units gain +20 HP, +1 Defense, and +1 Resistance

Materium

• Skill 1A “Metropolitan Plans” - Switched placement with Skill 2B “Land Sculptors. 

  • Reduced Knowledge discount on City Spells & Structures from -50% to -25%

  • Additional Effect: Structures unlocked through Research cost -25% Gold to Produce

• Skill 2B “Land Sculptors” - Switched placement with Skill 1A "Metropolitan Plans”

• Skill 4B “Growing Workforce” - Additional effect: Quarries grant +2 City Stability

• Skill 6A “Consolidated Industry” - Increased City Stability bonus from +1 to +2.

Nature

• Skill 3A “Symbiotic Armies” - Replaced +5 Morale per turn with +2 XP per turn.

• Skill 3B “Foraging” - 

  • Reduced HP Regeneration from +15 to +10 per turn 

  • Reduced XP gain from +5 to +2 per turn.

• Skill 7B “Spiritual Grounds” - Now includes the Blossom Node as a Food Node.

• Rite 8A “Rite of Awakening” - 

  • Increased Knowledge and Mana gained from +10 to +15 

  • Additional effect: Now also grants +15 Gold per population

• Rite 9A “Rite of Nature’s Guardian” 

  • No longer summons a random army of Animal & Plant Units at your Cities

  • Now summons a White Wolf with Animal Guardian and Resurgence and an Entwined Scourge with Plant Guardian and Resurgence in your Throne City 

  • Animal Guardian grants other animal units in the army +1 Defense and +1 Resistance

  • Plant Guardian grants other plant units +1 Defense and +1 Resistance

• Skill 9B “Rangers” - Replaced with Well Supplied

  • Units starting their turn in your domain gain “Well Supplied” for 5 turns

  • Well Supplied grants +10 max HP and +20% healing received in combat

Order

• Skill 5A “Shared Prosperity” - Additional effect: Now also grants +5 Production for Gold City Structures.

• Skill 9B “Absolute Loyalty” - Increased vassal income from +25% to +40%.

Shadow

• Skill 1B “Finders Keepers” - Reduced Income Rewards bonus from +60% to +50%

Evermore

• Added a tooltip clarifying that the Secrets of the Archmages quest ends when siding with Symon.

• Added information explaining that a single anchor city cannot bind multiple landmarks.

Azh’Ruun Pit

• Updated text to clarify that players only need to protect the Chain of Hatred.

Astral

• Tome of Abjuration

  • Unit Enchantment “Mage Armor”

    • Defense reduced from +2 to +1, 

    • Additional effect: Now also grants +2 Status Resistance.

  • Unit Enchantment “Abjurer Glyphs” - Now also applies to Support and Battle Mage units.

  • Special Province Improvement “Glyph Tower”

    • Adjacency Bonus now also counts Research Posts

    • Additional effect: now also grants +10 Draft

Chaos

• Tome of Burning Passion

  • Unit Enchantment “Strength Sapping Projectile” - Additional effect: Now grants +1 Fire Damage.

  • Special Province Improvement “House of Passion” - Cost increased from 60 Gold / 130 Production to 100 Gold / 250 Production so it matches its tier.

Materium

• Tome of the Sand Stalkers

  • Minor Transformation “Dunestalkers” - Movement on Sand provinces changed from Very Fast Movement to Fast Movement.

  • Special Province Improvement “Grand Bazaar” - Reduces adjacency bonus income from +3 Gold and +4 Food to +2 Gold and +3 Food.

• Tome of Shades

  • Unit Enchantment “Shadow Weapons” 

    • No longer always flanks Blinded Units

    • Now deals +3  Frost Damage when flanking or attacking Blinded units.

• Unit “Immolated Soul”

  • Now always counts as a Magic Origin Unit

  • Drafting an Immolated Soul now requires Mana instead of Gold

  • Now has Burning Immunity

• Unit “Temptress” Kiss of Seduction - No longer triggers Retaliation attacks.

• Landmarks now have an individual 40% chance to be included in the random map generation library, adding more variety and occasionally fewer landmarks on generated maps.

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Crash Fixes & Hangs

• Fixed a crash that could occur when inspecting Dragon Rulers due to customization data that no longer linked to a category.

• Fixed a crash that could occur in the Freed Lands of Manuhari due to a missing underground infestation region.

• Fixed a crash that could occur on Evermore for players who don’t own the Giant Kings content (only applies to newly started games).

• Fixed a crash that could occur on Burrow Downs when Happenings armies gifted a conquered free city to Arachna that Arachna had not yet met.

• Fixed a crash that could occur when a structure was absorbed by an infestation, such as after a player who owned an Ancient Wonder was defeated.

• Fixed a crash that could occur when clicking a header in the City Overview.

Achievements

• Fixed the “Pruning For Progress” achievement not unlocking when completing an Affinity Branch.

Art

• Fixed an issue where the icon for the Living Spider Nest ascension was missing.

• Fixed an issue where the the Houndmaster and Clay Arbalest had incorrectly placed Arrow PFX

• Fixed an issue where the eye visuals for the Champion, Collector, and Archer in the Nomad culture were missing.

• Fixed an issue where Sword/Net Loadouts did not use Culture Swords

• Fixed an issue where Rulers with a Floating/Flying Major Transformation would not have movement Animations when equipped with Floating Daggers.

• Fixed an issue where the Sapper Unit was missing their Head and Staff when affected by the Gaia’s Chosen Major Transformation

• Fixed an issue where the horns from the Demonkin Major Transformation were placed too low on Toad and Moleman forms.

• Fixed an issue where the Owlkin Mystic (Potential) Spellweaver form sometimes appeared without a head when a random head was selected.

• Fixed an issue where modifying Leg Length would separate the Bodies when under the effect of Spider’s Embrace.

Combat

• Fixed an issue where Constricted couldn’t be applied to units with Slowed or Marked

• Fixed an issue where Death Casting wouldn’t give casting points when an enemy unit dies

Culture

• Oathsworn

  • Fixed an issue where the Avenger’s Radiant Slash applied Sundered Defense in addition to Sundered Resistance; it now applies only Sundered Resistance, matching its description.

• Primal

  • Fixed an issue where annexing a Primal Den before receiving its quest would not increment the quest’s counter.

  • Fixed an issue where both the old and new versions of the “Spirits of the Desert” quest were able to trigger at the same time.

  • Fixed an issue where the “Spirits of the Ashlands” event showed a wolf instead of a sabertooth.

• Reavers

  • Federated Reavers’ Federate Soldier property now correctly affects Heroes with Federate Levy.

Faction Creation & Rulers

• Fixed an issue where Symon was incorrectly flagged as an editable ruler.

Heroes

• Fixed an issue where the Nature Affinity Skill “Poisonous Undergrowth” was not marked as a debuff ability.

• Fixed an issue where the Order Affinity Skill “Dome of Protection” was not marked as a support ability.

• Fixed an issue where the Warlock’s Claim Soul ability would fully bypass Defense, and its description now reflects this.

Interface

• Fixed an issue where Exalted Unit Ranks would not combine into a single line item.

• Fixed an issue where Archon Prophecy wildlife units were incorrectly tagged as Tome units.

• Fixed a missing capital letter at the start of the second paragraph in the “Frikka’s Deception” arcanum event text.

• Fixed an issue where the Chaplain Research Skill was marked as a Strategic Summon instead of a Unit.

• Fixed the description of Staves of Life for consistency.

Multiplayer

• Fixed an issue that allowed Intrigue Happenings to occur in Multiplayer after the introduction of the new Narrative Content Settings

Secret Spells

• Fixed an issue where several Secret Spells (Cinren’s Temptation, Noctus’ Mastery, Ydgaard’s Trade, and Zaethyl’s Paradise) were affected by the Mystic Potential subculture without gaining its benefits.

• Fixed an issue where the Evasion from Yaka’s Feline Infusion did not affect the correct attack types.

• Fixed an issue where the economy bonus from Zaethyl’s Parasite would stack with repeated casts

• Yaka’s Feline Form now correctly has the Minor Transformation tag.

• Ysariel’s Fallen Form now correctly has the Major Transformation tag.

Story Realms

• Fixed an issue where pre-made rulers from Story Realms would not receive their correct Ascension Traits when unlocked in the Pantheon.

Evermore

• Fixed an issue where the “Into the Storm” quest could occasionally trigger twice, which could lead to various bugs and crashes.

• Fixed an issue where overlapping unit properties could be applied incorrectly in some scripted situations.

Azh’Ruun Pit

• Fixed attacking Walburgis (and DaDa Yo) adding the Demonized race transformation to the attacking faction.

• Fixed an issue where DaDa Yo could be edited after being unlocked.

• Fixed Ysariel’s title not rendering correctly in his Shrouded Portal challenge.

• Fixed an issue where the Chain of Lies would not break if Karissa had already been defeated when approaching the City

• Fixed an issue where quest objectives were not incrementing for the Break the Chains and Evil Bound quests when chains were broken or a player was defeated.

Burrow Downs

• Fixed an issue where the “To Court with Mockery” landmark claim counter would not refresh in some vassalization situations, which could prevent the quest from being completed.

• Fixed a missing story event when Ham Binger was defeated explaining that the player loses the mission.

World Map

• Fixed an issue where a region on a Breached Isle could not be annexed.

• Fixed several provinces on Frikka’s Isle that couldn’t be annexed due to rivers and mountains incorrectly placed on their center hex.

• Fixed an issue where the units unlocked from the Mistflow Gardens Landmark had a Gold Cost instead of Mana. This applies to the Evening Sprite, the Seasonal Fairies, and the Nymph.

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