When you breach enemy gates and order your units to attack, they will pick the nearest target, often a remnant of the sidewall that is of no consequence whatsoever. Speaking of weakness, I should address abysmal unit AI inside confined spaces. Not like the weak-ass version from Age of Empires 4. If you had played any Total War game in the last decade, you know how cavalry charge is supposed to feel. Cavalry charges are almost farcical – knights equipped with lances will slow down at the point of contact and engage in melee instead of punching a hole in enemy formation and scattering bodies around. Considering all that, it is puzzling why melee combat sometimes feels so impotent. Weak HorseplayĪs a visible upgrade to its ancient predecessors, Age of Empires 4 has 3D units on 3D terrain, all supported by advanced in-engine physic. Hoarding the relics inside the camps is, luckily, abandoned as a concept. These tactics are best suited to civs with fast and strong mounted units that can promptly respond to any challenge. Another way to WTFPWN your foes is via controlling the sacred sites scattered on the map (usually near the middle). Building a monumental wonder building such as Notre Dame and holding out the enemy onslaught for fifteen minutes is often more satisfying than pure outward violence. The simplest way of winning is by razing the opponent’s camp, but a dedicated „turtler“ might go for Wonder victory. Unlike many contemporary RTS games, Age of Empires 4 doesn’t actively penalize turtling, offering it instead as a viable strategy for some civs.ĭepending on the mode of play and scenario, there are several ways to achieve victory in Age of Empires 4, but a typical skirmish mission offers most of them. Battering rams and siege towers can be manufactured anywhere, eliminating the slow and arduous process of dragging them across the map. The fluid dynamic is helped by the infantry’s ability to ad-hoc construct some siege weapons. Turtling is OKĪge of Empires 4 plays faster than any AoE before it. All civs share the same pool of units, with several uniques like mighty war elephants fielded by Delhi Sultanate or The cannon, French potent siege weapon that doesn’t need to unpack before firing, like generic Bombard. There is also a metric ton of smaller distinctions, such as Rus’ ability to earn gold bounties by slaughtering predator animals with the scout unit. Mongols, for example, can pack their buildings and re-establish camp somewhere else the Holy Roman Empire, on the other hand, has massive bonuses for fixed fortifications, making their walls difficult to breach. The main difference between AoE 4 and previous iterations is the host of more significant variations between civilizations. Different outcomes or playing for the opposing side are not possible here. William the Conqueror WILL kill Anglo-Saxon king Harold in the battle of Hastings in 1066. Age of Empires 4 doesn’t dabble in what-ifs but steadily sails over the sea of authenticity. I’m OK with this as it allows for the necessary distance between players and history that they help unfold. The same documentary approach continues through scripted developments in missions, provided by the narrator instead of hero units in the field. They aim to be historically accurate, offering very detailed briefings, Discovery channel style. The Normans, The Hundred Years War, The Mongol Empire, and the Rise of Moscow are those single-player campaigns. Separate historical battles are not part of the package as they feature in the campaign(s) proper. In short, it’s big, and it has (almost) everything. It also comes with gorgeous cut-scenes that will eat up almost 200 GB on your SSD if you decide to install 4K HDR Video Pack assets (86 GB if you opt-out from that bloat). It offers four single-player campaigns, eight semi-asymmetric civilizations, skirmish, multiplayer, and a host of detailed training missions. Pure neo-classicism.Īge of Empires 4 shares much of its DNA with the Age of Empires 2, embracing the simplicity of, arguably, the best entry in the series. It aims not only to preserve but to actively promote and celebrate the ancient status quo. But what it does, it does surprisingly well. It has no ambition to break any new ground or jolt the comatose genre into forward momentum again. It’s a high-budget, real-time strategy game trapped inside a temporal bubble, constructed around the perceived want of a nostalgic fan. Considering how much everything has changed in the last quarter of a century, Age of Empires 4 is almost Old-Testamentesque in its conservativism.
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