Leader

Leaders are the empire builders, they lead armies across the various battlefields with strong abilities and powerful spells. A leader is defined by a few factors that dictate their strengths and weaknesses in the game from the minor little details to the huge game changing effects.

The first thing you should consider when creating or selecting a leader is their race, the various races of Age of Wonders 3 have different affinities for certain environments and situations. An example of this would be the dwarves penchant for slow movement and tough nature lending itself to defensive, unstoppable advancement.

The second factor should be the leader's class, this is a huge step as this can fundamentally change large portions of the game for you. With the different classes having very different empire effects, spells and abilities and also class specific units with their own abilities you are presented with a choice here for major difference is grand strategy.

The third factor after these is your specializations, these are lesser strengths that give your leader access to additional spells or effects during the game. Elemental options here give access to different effects based on your level of commitment, with the higher levels meaning a much stronger affinity to a specific element. This also carries over to the moral specializations with the evil alignment choice giving you more access to damaging spells and corrupting effects and the good aligned specialization allowing for more healing and purification effects.

A leader is for all intents and purposes the strongest unit to have in your armies due to their ability to flee to the void instead of dying on the battlefield. Very early in the game when they are weaker than some units, but they quickly grow in strength as they cumulate experience. This is unique to the leader role so heroes are not able to do this. While this does make them functionally immortal you should also bear in mind that research stops while your leader is in the void and any spells you were maintaining or in the process of casting are discontinued. You are also unable to cast spells until your leader returns from the void.

The leader remains in the void for 3 turns before they revive at their throne city with full movement points. It should be noted that while this 3 turn exile is a dangerous vulnerability at any stage in the game it can be devastation in the first 20 to 40 turns of the game as these are some of the most difficult and where even a single turn of inaction can seriously affect the mid-game strategies of both you and your enemies.

When creating a leader you can customize their appearance and gender, but these customizations have no effect on gameplay.

Leader Races[]

These are the available races you can choose to lead from the start, bearing in mind that you can absorb other races as the game progresses.

Golden Realms adds the following races:

Halflings

Eternal Lords adds the following races:

Leader Classes[]

These are the classes that you can choose from. They are the main defining factor in your choice of leader.

Eternal Lords adds the following class:

Necromancer

Leader Specializations[]

Each leader can choose three specializations that allow unique spells to be unlocked. Note that the Master specializations take up one of the three specializations and require the Adept specialization also be chosen.

Golden Realms adds the following specializations:

Eternal Lords adds the following specializations:

List of Leaders[]

TODO: Add links to the Golden Realms leaders

See also: Pre-Made Leaders
The game comes with a set of predefined leaders, many of which appear in at least one of the campaign scenarios.

Leader

Contents

Leader Races[]

Leader Classes[]

Leader Specializations[]

List of Leaders[]

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