spindown: Unfortunately not. They have to negotiate everything separately: the game itself, the manuals, expansions, soundtracks, other bonus content... If all the rights are owned by the same party then it can be easy to get permission for all that stuff at the same time, but sometimes the rights are distributed among different parties. In this case, I think the Age of Wonders manuals don't belong to the same company as the games themselves.
:/ So we are now on lost position it seems.
I could agree with any expansions licence, even soundtracks... but manual.. how can you play the game, know its rules without it :D It should not be treated as "bonus". In some cases, no manual = no fun at all.