

Lava Update
We start off with all the updates on Lava. Lava in Age of Wonders 4 used to be identical to the Void hexes: completely unpassable and unusable for empires and units, having the role of being a dead space. However, there are plenty of fire related fantasies a player can create with their race and empire, especially with the recent addition of a Fire Giant ruler. These fantasies could never be fully fulfilled without the ability to use lava to your advantage, therefore we wanted to make lava into something that could be explored and exploited, just like a forest or a mountain! First off, Lava now appears in annexable provinces in Desolate regions on the surface. The lava in the Underground has also been changed from large unannexable regions to smaller and annexable ones.
- The Smelter Mine, which works exactly like a mine and looks like a steel forge powered by lava.
- The Cinder Conduit, which works exactly like a conduit and looks like heated obelisks rising out of the lava.


- Desolate Adaptation
- Underground Adaptation
- Scions of Flame Transformation
- Demonkin Transformation

- Units with Lava Walking
- Units with Floating or Flying movement




The Underground
Originally in Age of Wonder 4’s Underground we tried to achieve an Underground generation that would work both for players that started on the surface and wanted to explore the underground for treasure and for players who wanted to build an empire in the network of caverns in the Underground. Furthermore, to create some variation in the Underground, we also included the Ashland, Snow and Ice overlays in the Underground. Appearing in some of the caverns and allowing players with arctic or desolate adaptation to also benefit from some areas of the Underground. However, we identified following issues:- The Ashland, Snow and Ice feel placed at random, and don’t nicely fit in with the rest of the Underground visuals.
- By trying to go for 2 target experiences at once. We instead landed on a generation that couldn’t comfortably achieve either.
- The regular Underground clime (also called the Rock clime in the studio). This hosts all the regular Underground visuals you’re familiar with.
- The Arctic Underground clime. This has all the original overlays of the regular Underground except cavern floor, which is replaced with Snow and Ice.
- The Desolate Underground clime. This has all the original desolate overlays except the Cavern Floor, which is replaced with Ashland and Lava.













