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Age of Wonders 4supports all kinds of faction builds. Each affinity in the game has its own way of doing things, and by focusing on the right strengths, you can overpower your enemies without breaking a sweat.
One of the trickier builds to focus on inAge of Wonders 4is the “Necromancer” build. This build focuses on crafting undead armies from the bones of your enemies, but what makes it tricky is a special resource (Souls) that you don’t encounter in any other build.
How to Get Souls in Age of Wonders 4
Your first task as a Necromancy faction is to make the Souls resource show up. To do so, you’ll need to pick up a Tome that gives you the Soul Harvest ability. The fastest way to do this is to choose a faction (or create one) that starts with the Tome of Necromancy, a tier-one Tome with Soul Harvest. However, if you want to dip into Necromancy later, there are a few other Tomes that grant this ability:
You may notice that there’s one Shadow Tome in each tier that focuses on Necromancy.This means that you may dip into another Affinity(even Nature) while still fully embracing the undead lifestyle. And because of how Tome tiers unlock, you only need one Shadow Tome for each tier to unlock the Tome of the Eternal Lord as fast as possible.
Once your faction has unlocked Soul Harvest, a new global resource will appear at the top-center of your screen. There are several spells and abilities that give you Souls, but the main way you get this resource is by defeating your enemies.
Certain world and story events can also give you Souls, but these are too rare to count on.
How to Spend Souls in Age of Wonders 4
Once you have a decent number of Souls, you’ll need to figure out how to spend them. That’s where a few other abilities and spells from the Necromancy Tomes come in handy.
Tactical Damage/Debuff
15 Souls, 20 Combat Casting Points
A friendly skeleton or zombie unit explodes, dealing Frost and Blight damage and inflicting Decaying on enemy units in a 2-hex radius
Tactical Buff
Friendly units in 1-hex radius gain 1 Strengthened, +20 max HP for the whole combat, and lose all negative status effects
Undead units in target army regain 20 HP
Summons a tier-three fighter unit called a Corrupt Soul
Strategic City Spell
60 Souls, 50 World Map Casting Points
Target city gains +20 Stability, allows friendly Undead in domain to deal +10 percent damage, and inflicts Soulbound on all enemy units
Target race becomes Undead, and gains Life Steal ability
Tactical Debuff
35 Souls, 40 Combat Casting Points
Target unit takes 15 Physical damage,loses 10 Morale, and has a Decaying Zombie spawn next to it every round
Tactical Summon
Creates a Corrupt Soul when cast on a fallen non-Undead unit, or restores an Undead unit to full health on your side
Summons a tier-five mythic unit called a Reaper
Summons six low-tier Undead units
Strategic Unit Enchantment
90 Souls, 75 World Map Casting Points
Gives your Support and Battle Mage units the Curse of the Reaper ability (possible instant death)
50 Souls, 80 Combat Casting Points
Restores all friendly Undead units to life at 50 percent health, and brings back all other corpses as Decaying Zombies
The other way to spend Souls is by getting several Tome abilities that let you bulk up your Undead armies after a successful combat.
Tome of Necromancy
15
After killing humanoid enemy units, you can recruit them as tier-one skeletons. Skeletons can only be Shield, Polearm, Archer, or Mage units.
Tome of Souls
50
After killing non-humanoid tier-three or tier-four units, you can recruit Bone Horror (T3) units.
Tome of the Great Transformation
100
After killing non-humanoid tier-five units,you can recruit Bone Dragon (T4) units.
You can get one Undead minion for each enemy you kill that qualifies. For instance, after beating a gold Ancient Wonder, you might be able to recruit two skeletons, two Bone Horrors, and two Bone Dragons all at once. But while you don’t have to choose which units to keep and which to dismiss immediately, all the units you don’t choose will disappear at the end of your turn.
The last thing to watch out for is unit upkeep. While most Undead units cost Mana or Gold to maintain, just like other units, the Reaper costs an additional 5 Souls per turn. Make sure you have a decent Soul income before you start summoning these monsters.
