Age of Wonders 4 trade routes: outposts, income and capacity

Choose a destination your city can connect to

Destination	Requirement	What the route provides
Your outpost	A route from a city with available capacity	Income gathered from the outpost’s domain, including Food, Production and Draft
A Free City	At least a Pact of Cooperation	A share of that Free City’s resource income
Another empire’s city	Normally a Free Trade Agreement, available after a Wizard’s Bond	Gold and Mana income
A foreign city reached by Cartel smuggling	Mercantile Cartel can bypass the agreement requirement	A hidden route with reduced income until an agreement is in place

Magic Materials are an exception to the outpost income rule. Having the material inside your domain still grants access to it without a trade route. The resource income from its node travels through the route.

Why an outpost appears to earn nothing

Manta removes automatic outpost income and upkeep. A valuable province therefore needs a connection to a city before its income contributes there. The new system can transfer resource types such as Food and Draft that matter to the receiving city’s development.

Vassalized Free Cities still provide Gold and Mana without a route. Establish a route to receive their other resource income as well. Improving the vassal relationship increases the route’s return.

Draft cost and route capacity

Creating a route costs Draft. Its cost depends on the destination and travel distance; outposts are cheaper to connect to than cities. Distance uses movement costs, so terrain and racial movement benefits can affect the route. Water connections are often efficient.

Each city has its own route capacity, generally starting at one. Core trade structures at city tiers 2, 3 and 4 increase capacity and improve the route’s escort. Their specialization options let you focus the city on particular kinds of trade.

Before planning another connection, check the city’s remaining capacity and whether the required diplomatic agreement is still active.

Protect or raid a route

Every route has an escort. It can resist small raiding groups, but it is not a substitute for an army when a rival commits a substantial force.

To raid, move an army onto a hex crossed by the route and use the raid action. You can inspect the route’s origin, destination and income before attacking. A successful raid awards three turns of its income.

If a route stops behaving correctly

Manta 1.1 fixes routes targeting cities that have become invalid, queues failing to clear after diplomatic changes, and a crash when hurrying a route whose destination is no longer valid. Update the game, then check whether the target city and agreement still qualify.

For a faction built around this system, compare the Mercantile Barony and Cartel.