Age of Wonders 4

The most obvious change is the absence of conventional races.

When starting a new game, players have to choose a template for the race (humans, elves, orcs, goblins, animalkin, etc.) and then select various faction focus types, followed by customizing the traits and visuals of the ruler unit.

Upon a match's end, rulers can ascend to a pantheon, from which they can be reused with their acquired skills in future matches.

This will also unlock points and new cosmetic customization options.

For the first time in the series, units can also be visually customized, albeit to a lesser degree than rulers.

Randomly generated worlds now have 8 slots for custom options, which handle basic features like map layout and neutral army strength to modifiers for the gameplay itself.

Each player now has a limit on the number of cities they can claim, but each city can annex a considerably larger amount of regions (which are also smaller in size than in Planetfall ).

These regions are automatically claimed with a specialization building from the assigned city's screen.

A major change is seen in the city production aspect, as unit recruitment is handled by the new auto-generated resource called Draft instead of sharing Production with city buildings.

This also means that cities now have two production queues, one for buildings and the other for units.

Settler units have been scrapped in standard gameplay, as cities can only be claimed from others or evolved from outposts built by hero/ruler units.

Heroes no longer join the player randomly, but only when their hero limit is raised, most commonly by building/claiming a new city.

Finally, city sieges have been introduced as a gameplay mechanic.

Diplomacy has seen a slight improvement as well, with