Like any modern 4X game, Age of Wonders 4 gives players multiple ways to win the game. Each story scenario has a set path to victory, but during regular and multiplayer games, there are four ways to crown a champion: military, magic, domination, and score.
Age of Wonders 4 provides some short guidelines on how to reach each of these goals, and the quest menu tracks how close players are to reaching them. This guide will go into more depth than the game does and let players know exactly what to expect as they travel the road to victory.
Military Victory
This is the classic way to win a 4X game. Fight the enemy, conquer or raze their cities, and be the last faction standing when the dust settles. Players can reach this ending by performing normal gameplay actions like expanding, going to war with other factions, and besieging cities.
However, it's worth mentioning that the "Military Victory" also allows for alliances and enemy factions who surrender and vassalize themselves before players finish them off. It's very possible to end the game diplomatically by allying with every faction but still end up with the military victory screen. In general, though, good and evil factions never get along with one another, so players will probably have to defeat at least one faction to see the end screen and add their ruler to the pantheon.
Expansion Victory
If players have enough of the map's provinces in their realm, either directly or through bonded vassals or better, players will get access to the special Beacon of Unity province improvement. The number of provinces needed changes with the size of the map, but players can see this number in the quests menu under the "Expansion Victory" section.
Each city can only build one Beacon of Unity, and since players need at least three Beacons, they'll also need at least three cities. Vassals don't count since players can't force them to build anything. This means that an Expansion Victory is impossible during games in which players only get to build one city. However, the Beacons can be as physically close as players like, and there's a good reason to concentrate them together.
Once three Beacons exist on the map, players can click on one of them and choose "Light the Beacons of Unity." Starting at that moment, players must defend all three Beacons for a total of 15 turns, and if they do they'll win the game.
Pulling this off isn't easy. First, every enemy AI faction will declare war on the Beacon lighter, and they'll break truces to do it. And if that wasn't enough, some factionless enemies called "Partisans" will spawn around each of the Beacons and try to occupy them. If they do so, the timer will stop counting down, and players must defeat them and re-occupy the Beacon to start the timer moving again.
Partisan units are based on the player faction's own units, and so players must be prepared to deal with their own favorite tactics and abilities. Two or three armies will spawn immediately next to a Beacon, and so players should have two or three armies of their own defending each one. Fortunately, Partisans can't raze Beacons to the ground the way enemy factions can.
In general, players should expect Partisans to appear three to four times as the timer ticks down, leaving plenty of time in between for healing.
Magic Victory
The Magic Victory is very similar to the Expansion Victory, but the way to reach it is different. Age of Wonders 4 is full of tomes, and these tomes work like the technology tree in other 4X games. Each tome has a rating between tier 1 and tier 5: every tier 3 tome unlocks a Seed province improvement, every tier 4 tome unlocks a Root improvement, and every tier 5 tome unlocks a Heart improvement.
Each affinity has its own improvement, but players can only build one of each no matter how many tomes they unlock. For instance, players can build one Seed of Order and one Seed of Chaos, but they can't build two Seeds of Chaos.
The way to win a Magic Victory is to build all three province improvements of the same affinity. Because players only get access to one tier 5 tome during a single game, it's only possible to build one set of all three improvements. However, unlike the Beacons of Unity, these improvements provide some useful mechanical benefits that make spells of the same affinity more effective. On the other hand, just like the Beacons, each city can only support one affinity improvement.
Once all three improvements of the same affinity are on the map, a new spell will appear in the spellbook called "Age of ____," where the blank is whichever affinity players have chosen. This spell costs nothing to cast but has a 20 mana upkeep, and while it's in effect players get a discount on spell costs. This also starts a 15-turn timer, and just like the Expansion Victory it'll involve every faction declaring war while factionless enemies spawn next to the three improvements. In this case, the enemies are magic creatures connected to the chosen affinity rather than Partisans.
Score Victory
This victory condition is much less spectacular than the others. Each regular scenario lasts 150 turns in total, and if no one has won by then, the game will check the overall scores of each faction and declare the player in the lead the winner. That's all there is to it.
One thing players can do is change the length of the game. When choosing a realm, either hit the "Create Realm" button or select an existing realm and hit "Edit." Next, choose "Advanced Settings," select the "Game Flow" tab, and look at the victory conditions. Players can disable allied Military Victories, the Expansion, and Magic Victories; use the drop-down menu to choose when the Score Victory takes effect. The options are 100 turns, 150 turns (the default), 200 turns, or disabled. Disabling the Score Victory means the game will continue for as long as it takes to reach one of the other victory conditions.
Age of Wonders 4 is available now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
