The Industrious are unparalleled master builders—architects of towering cityscapes, impenetrable fortifications, and powerful Special Province Improvements. Their entire culture revolves around production, gold and resilience, excelling in building city structures quickly with unmatched production capacity and strong gold income. Their unique buildings and Special Province Improvements supercharge their economy and infrastructure, making them a powerhouse both in defense and in long-term development.

Their units are naturally tougher than most, benefiting from Bolstering effects that reduce the damage they take in combat. Their cities can achieve high Fortification defense, easily transformed into production and economic engines that can sustain prolonged wars or rapid expansion.

At the heart of their strategy lies the Prospector scout, a cornerstone unit that sets the Industrious apart. With the powerful Scout Prospecting ability, Prospectors can uncover vast amounts of gold, boost production, and even discover hero items—making early exploration incredibly rewarding and central to their momentum.

Constructs and Elementals are not a built-in focus of the culture, but those who delve into Materium tomes will find plenty of synergy. Materium tomes and empire skills also unlock unmatched siege potential with access to more siege project slots at a discounted cost, to break through the toughest defenses once war is at hand.

Bolstering is the signature trait of the Industrious culture, granted to all its cultural units. Once per turn, when a unit with Bolstering is hit by an attack, it gains a defensive boost:

• +1 Bolstered Defense if hit by a physical attack
  
• +1 Bolstered Resistance if hit by a magic attack

This ability allows Industrious units to adapt defensively during battle, gradually reducing the damage they take as fights drag on.

Tip:
While Bolstering may seem passive—it triggers automatically when your units take damage—it’s an important part of Industrious strategy. Several spells and abilities synergize with Bolstered stacks, either adding more or converting them into powerful offensive buffs. Industrious armies thrive in prolonged battles, getting tougher the more they're attacked.

The Industrious culture begins with 2 points of Materium Affinity, which helps you advance along the Materium path in your Empire Skills tree.

Tip:
The Materium path primarily boosts your Gold economy, Siege Projects, and Special Province Improvements. A few standout perks include:

• Master Mason: Reduces the Gold cost of all structures—grab this early to jump-start your economy.
  
• Metropolitan Society: Boosts income for cities that share a border. Great if your cities are close together, but keep in mind this is usually less effective in underground empires, where cities are often in isolated caverns. Even so, a bonus to your Throne City alone can be worthwhile.
  
• Arcane Artisans: Adds mana income to every Mine. We will need mana for combat spells and to pay the upkeep on our unit Enchantments and Sustained Spells. This basically makes our Mines as good as Conduits.
  
• Martial Ancestry (Capstone): Drastically cuts unit upkeep, letting you maintain larger, more powerful armies in the late game.

The Industrious Culture Tome is available to rulers of this culture from the start. Its spells focus on healing, defense, and turning defensive strength into offensive power.

• Bolstering Chant: Grants temporary hit points and +2 Bolstered Defense to a friendly unit.
  
• Steelfury Chant: Converts all stacks of Bolstered Defense and Resistance into offense—each stack grants Strengthened (+10% damage) and Fortune (+10% crit chance).
  
• Rune of Industry: Extends the Bolstering trait to all units in your empire, not just cultural ones.

Tip:
Bolstering Chant is a strong early-game heal that also helps you build up defensive stacks. Once your units have taken a few hits and accumulated Bolstered effects, Steelfury Chant lets you shift gears into offense—perfect for a well-timed push. Later in the game, Rune of Industry becomes essential if you're adding non-cultural units like Constructs or Elementals to your armies.

Builder’s Quarters (Quarry)
A Special Province Improvement that provides Production, plus bonus Production for each adjacent Quarry.

• Requires Town Hall 2
  
• Counts as a Quarry itself, enabling adjacency bonuses

Tip:
SPIs can replace any existing improvement in a province—not just the matching type. So while Builder’s Quarters benefits from being surrounded by Quarries, it doesn’t need to be placed on one.

Try to cluster your Quarries together, including Builder’s Quarters and other SPI from Materium tomes, to maximize adjacency bonuses. This is one of the major ways Industrious culture can achieve exceptionally high Production, fueling faster city growth, building, and unit output.

Each unit in the Industrious culture plays a specific role that emphasizes defense, endurance, and synergy. With abilities that punish attackers and support allies, Industrious armies are built to withstand pressure and strike back harder over time.

Pioneer (Scout)
Your scout unit comes with the Prospecting ability, allowing it to excavate cliff, mountain, and stalagmite provinces to uncover Gold, Production, or hero equipment.

💡 Don’t underestimate the Pioneer! Their ability to passively collect resources makes them an essential part of your economic engine. Deploy several early and keep them prospecting—this income adds up fast. Also, if you place the Pioneer next to an Earth section, in a province that can be prospected, you can do both on the same turn by prospecting first, then begin excavating the Earth.

Anvil Guard (Shield Unit)
A classic tank unit with a few tricks:

• Taunt forces enemies to attack the Anvil Guard
  
• Bolstering triggers when hit, increasing defenses
  
• Watchful grants an extra retaliation attack per turn

💡 Best used on the front line to absorb hits and taunt attackers. They become even tougher when buffed with Bolstered Defense from allies.

Arbalest (Ranged Unit)
Armed with the powerful Overdraw Crossbow:

• Removes Defense Mode from enemies
  
• Prevents retaliation attacks from its target

💡 Use them to soften up enemy frontliners before engaging with melee. Their ability to disrupt defensive formations is invaluable.

Steelshaper (Support Unit)
A flexible support unit that can bolster and heal:

• Grant Defense is a free action that gives Bolstered Defense to an ally (great on Anvil Guards)
  
• Strength from Steel converts Bolstered stacks into healing and Strengthened (+10% damage)

💡 Use Steelshapers early to buff defenses, then shift to healing and offense when you’re ready to push forward. They’re the bridge between your defense and offense.

Halberdier (Polearm Unit)
Defensive yet deadly:

• First Strike always attacks before the enemy in melee
  
• Rune of Retaliation reflects some incoming damage
  
• Watchful and Charge Resistance improve durability against aggressive melee units

💡 Great against cavalry and other shock troops. They hold the line and punish reckless attackers.

Bastion (Tier 3 Shield Unit)
One of the most durable frontline units in the game:

• Defensive Sweep hits the main target and adjacent enemies, then enters Defense Mode
  
• Inspiring Defense (free action) grants Bolstered Defense to both the Bastion and nearby allies
  
• Watchful allows for an extra retaliation

💡 While they can’t Taunt, Bastions are phenomenal area controllers and buffers. Their AOE retaliation combo makes them ideal for forming a defensive core.

How It All Comes Together
In early rounds of combat, your frontline (Anvil Guards, Halberdiers, and Bastions) should hold position in Defense Mode, soaking up hits while building Bolstered stacks.

Anvil Guards, Halberdiers and Bastions all have Watchful, allowing them to retaliate more than once per turn. With Bolstering and Defense Mode, they often deal more retaliation damage than they take!

Follow up with Steelshaper's Strength from Steel to convert that defense into healing and extra damage. Use the Arbalest to disable enemy retaliation, then finish with Steelfury Chant to turn your defensive wall into an offensive hammer!

The Result: Enemies break themselves on your line—then you break them for good.

Use Those Pioneers!
Don’t forget your Pioneers! Their ability to uncover Gold, Production, and items through Prospecting makes them essential to your economic engine. If you're running out of prospecting locations, head above ground and start prospecting the mountains. The resource advantage they generate can set you far ahead of your rivals.

While Industrious city structures may not radically alter game play, they subtly reinforce your culture's strength: high production, strong defenses, and city stability.

Worker’s Farmstead
Replaces: Storehouse

• Provides +Food and +Production

💡 Tip: This early structure gives your cities a solid boost to both growth and productivity—critical for early momentum. It’s a great first or second building in any new settlement.

Grand Mill
Replaces: Granary

• Provides +Food and +Production

💡 Tip: The Grand Mill stacks nicely with Worker’s Farmstead, letting you grow your population faster without falling behind on infrastructure. Excellent in cities focused on expansion or SPI development.

Bastion’s Barricade

• Provides City Stability
  
• Strengthens City Fortifications
  
• Adds 2 Bastions to your side during city defense

💡 Tip: Bastion’s Barricade is more than just walls—it adds elite frontline units to any siege defense, making your cities tougher to take. Combine it with Industrious culture’s already high production and you’ll have no trouble bouncing back after an attack—or repelling one entirely.

Industrious City Planning
Because you have access to strong SPI (Special Province Improvements) and boosted early-game Production, building these upgraded structures helps you snowball. Faster building = faster structures, faster economy, and better defenses.

Even if these buildings aren't flashy, they’re quietly strong—exactly like the Industrious culture itself.

Master the underground with endless Production, unbeatable defense, and unmatched crafting power!

One of the best things about Age of Wonders 4 is that there’s no single “correct” way to play. This is just one example of a strong and synergistic build centered around an introduction to Industrious culture with Materium tomes and Traits—but feel free to tweak it to suit your playstyle and goals!

This build aims to create a powerful underground empire with:

• Huge Gold and Production income from upgraded Quarries and Mines
  
• A fast-expanding scout network using Prospecting for early resource spikes
  
• The ability to craft the most powerful gear in the realm
  
• Rapid and cheap construction of Special Province Improvements (SPI)
  
• Armies of unstoppable Constructs and devastating Siege Projects

Dwarfkin (Pick any flavor you like)
Aesthetic choice only—choose your favorite variant!

Athletics
“Speed is survival in the deep.”

• Grants faster movement (world map + combat)
  
• Improves efficiency of our armies traveling the underground to clear resource nodes and reach new caverns to place Outposts.

💡 Especially useful underground, where caverns are large and require you to travel long connecting tunnels— we need to keep clearing and finding new places to build Outposts but it will not increase movement speed of Pioneers since they're mounted units.

Adaptable
Leveling up faster = stronger armies, sooner.

• All culture units gain XP faster

💡I recommend this trait on most builds as higher tier units make our armies much stronger.

Underground Adaptation
This trait is core to the build.

• Start underground
  
• Grants Cave Walk to all cultural units
  
• Build better Farms underground
  
• +1 Annex range
  
• Reduced Stability penalties from Lava and Chasm terrain
  
• Grants the Excavation Empire Skill

💡 Tip: Recent patches made Lava more useful and common, so ignoring its penalties has become more valuable. This trait unlocks your full underground potential.

Great Builders
“Wealth in stone, strength in structure.”

• Cities gain +2 Gold per Quarry
  
• SPI cost reduced by 50%
  
• Capital starts with Workshop and Vendor built

💡 These perks give you a turn 1 economy boost and pay dividends the more SPI and Quarries you build—which this build does a lot.

Subterranean Society
All things grow in shadow—if you know how.

• Underground cities gain +20% Food
  
• Underground Passages give +2 Imperium
  
• Excavation may uncover additional resources
  
• Unlocks Excavation skill

💡 This trait solves one of the underground's main weaknesses: slow growth. Even better, Excavation often reveals two resource nodes in one province, meaning you get more out of tight spaces! The Imperium bonus comes from each province you control that contains an Underground Passage. Most caverns will have 1 or 2 of these and any way to get a little extra Imperium is always good.

Tome of Rock (Starting Tome)
Start strong with offense, mobility, and SPI.

• Rock Blast – Solid early nuke; cancels Defense Mode and Retaliation
  
• Earthkin – Grants Mountain Walk, complementing the Cave Walk which we already have
  
• Obsidian Weapon – Adds Bleed to attacks
  
• Unlocks the Central Quarry (SPI)

💡 A balanced opener with offense and mobility. Central Quarry is an early SPI keystone—combine it with others for huge adjacency bonuses later but you will need Town Hall 2 first.

Tome of Enchantment
Sustain spells and early buffs for your units and cities.

• Sundering Blades – High chance to Sunder Defense (great with physical-heavy armies)
  
• Awakened Tools – Sustained spell that boosts city economy (offset the Stability penalty with SPI)
  
• Unlocks Runecarver’s Camp (SPI)

💡 Try to triangle the Runecarver’s Camp with the Builder’s Quarry (Industrious Tome) and Central Quarry (Tome of Rock)—they’ll all get adjacency bonuses from each other!

Tome of the Dungeon Depths
This is where your empire transforms.

• Dungeonering Conclave (Research Post) – Adds the Dungeon feature to provinces (and looks incredible!)
  
• Clay Forge (Quarry) – Boosts Production & Draft, unlocks Clay Golems (make these your core units)
  
• Underground Vault (Mine) – Grants Gold + Binding Essence per Dungeon province
  
• Silent Barracks (Quarry) – Adds City Stability to Dungeon provinces

💡 The Dungeon aesthetic not only makes your boring caves look much cooler—it boosts your economy, draft speed, and crafting power.

Tome of Transmutation
Final puzzle piece for god-tier gear crafting.

• Excellent unit enchantments
  
• Transmuter battlemage (also a racial unit)
  
• Unlocks Transmutation Circle (SPI)

💡 The Transmutation Circle almost guarantees access to any Magic Material you need—essential for powering up your hero gear crafting via Infusions.


“Crafting isn’t just a skill—it’s our legacy.”
We’re choosing the Rock Giant King for his unmatched synergy with our crafting and production-focused playstyle.

As a non-Champion, he doesn’t benefit from Form Traits or Racial Transformations BUT he does have Cave Walk and Fast Movement built-in—he keeps pace with your Athletic Dwarves

Starts with Item Forge already built (in addition to the Vendor, and Workshop we already get from the Great Builder's Society Trait)!

Most importantly - Unique Giant King skill tree unlocks new Infusions and a higher Infusion Point cap—craft items stronger than any other ruler!

Giant King Governor boosts:

• +Production on Quarries
  
• +Gold income
  
• +1 Binding Fragment per turn per Quarry

💡 Binding Fragments are extremely rare—and required to craft the strongest gear in the game. This ruler supercharges your crafting engine.

Collector: Easily achieved with your Pioneers + crafting
Reward: 600 Binding Essence and Equipment Mastery (gain Health per item tier equipped)

Competitive Merchant (or any you like)
Only matters if you intend to play against this empire as an AI

Edit: Made some changes to the information regarding use of the Athletics trait

Early on, you may need a few Farms, Foresters, Research Posts, or Conduits just to meet building production boosts or unlock important city structures. For example, you can build three Foresters to unlock the Armory, then replace them with Quarries or SPI—you’ll still keep the unlock.

Once you're through the early development stage:

• Prioritize Quarries and Mines
  
• Group them together to maximize adjacency bonuses
  
• If unsure, Quarry is almost always the best choice

💡 Tip: Don’t be afraid to replace early improvements once their purpose is served. You want your mid/late-game economy mostly built around Mine, Quarry and SPI clusters.

Your crafting engine is a big part of this build. It kicks into high gear once your Giant King ruler unlocks:

• Increased Essence & Fragments from disenchanting
  
• Unique Infusions
  
• +1 Infusion Point per item

Here’s what fuels your crafting machine:

• Essence: From Underground Vaults and Disenchanting unused Tier 1 & 2Hero Items
  
• Fragments: From every Quarry (after unlocking Rock King’s Governor trait) and Disenchanting unused Tier 3 & 4 Hero Items (which you can also buy from AI Empires if needed).
  
• Magic Materials - Acquired from Trade with Empires or Free City Vassals, and Transmutation Circles (choose what you need).

🔥 With enough Essence, Fragments and Magic Materials, you can mass-produce Tier 4 items with game-changing effects.

Infusion Targets – Sample Combos
Want a few top-tier infusion recipes to aim for? Here’s a cheat sheet of powerful item effects and the Magic Materials required:

💡 Crafting Tip - Don’t rush to disenchant everything. Extra items can also be sold for gold or gifted to boost relations. Use your Item Forge constantly once your economy is running—gear up every hero!

You’ve got choices, and they’re all strong:

Culture Units - Bastions and Transmuters make excellent troops and benefit from all your Form Traits, Racial Transformations and Enchantments.

Construct Army (Clay Golems FTW)
Unlocked via Clay Forge, these units are monsters:

• Immune to Bleed, Disease, Poison, Distracted
  
• Reinforced, Heartless, Control Loss Immunity
  
• Undying: Revive 2 turns later at 50% health
  
• Legion Trait: Each additional Clay Golem in the stack boosts Defense and Damage (up to +4!)

A full stack of 5 Clay Golems + 1 well equipped Hero = a wall of pain

Note: Other Constructs like Bronze, Iron, and Golden Golems don’t get Legion, but Golden Golems are powerful for late-game pushes. Also, Constructs don’t benefit from form traits or racial transformations, but still receive class-based enchantments (Shock, Ranged, Shield), and we have lots of those!

• Default cap: 3 Siege Projects
  
• +1 from General Empire Skill Tree
  
• +1 from Materium Empire Skill Tree

Total: 5 siege projects per battle!
Materium tomes have some of the strongest siege projects in the game, and you’ll be able to deploy them affordably. Use them to cripple cities before the first sword is drawn.

You’re set up to win however you like:

Magic Victory

• Easy to “turtle up” underground
  
• Build Teleporters and Roads in tunnels for fast defense
  
• Hold chokepoints, control underground passages
  
• Let enemies waste armies on your Undying Clay Golem Legions, fully equipped Heroes and Golden Golems while you complete the rituals

Expansion / Military Victory

• Your gear + constructs + siege combo makes your armies elite
  
• Push above ground once your economy is secure
  
• Use siege warfare to soften targets
  
• Topple cities rapidly with unstoppable golem stacks

💡 Final Tip: Don’t forget to use your mountains of gold to grab any missing Magic Materials from vassals or empires. Your crafting engine can scale infinitely as long as your Item Forge keeps running and your cities keep building Quarries!

What makes the Industrious culture so fun to play isn’t just its raw economic power or incredible SPI synergy—it’s how many different directions you can take once your foundation is built.

Love Constructs?
You’ve got unstoppable golems, high production, and siege superiority.

Prefer Elementals?
Switch gears with the Tome of Geomancy, which lets you transform your entire race into Elementals—giving your culture units bonuses like immunity to bleeding, elemental damage resistance, and extra elemental damage. This opens up new synergies with Summon Elemental strategies that can make use of your mana income from the Runecarver's Camp and Mines boosted from the Arcane Artisans empire skill perk, all culminating with the super powerful Summon Earth Titan combat summon spell!

Dragon Lord more your style?
The Equipment Hoarders society trait pairs very well with the Dragon Lord's Dragon Hoard. With this setup you want to keep most of your hero items for the Gold and Mana income rather than disenchanting them especially since your Dragon Lord only has a few slots for magic items.

Or maybe you just want to become the realm’s greatest smith, crafting an endless stream of magical gear to outfit dozens of heroes with custom loadouts? Industrious makes that viable—and satisfying!

Whether you're hunkering down for a Magic Victory, unleashing an unstoppable siege force of constructs, or transforming your people into elementals, Industrious lets you play and win in a lot of different ways.

So go build something incredible!