settle into the rhythm of resource-
gathering, villager spamming,
scouting, and forward-settling.
Victory conditions have been
smoothed out to keep matches pacey,
with military conquest now only
requiring you to destroy an enemy’s
landmarks, the number of which
increases with each age. For a
religious victory, you can no longer
take relics back to the
safety of your base, but
instead have to hold
onto all the Sacred
Sites on a map for ten
minutes. Given their
central locations on
maps, this should
encourage more feisty
strategies than the
sneaky relic-hoarding of AoEs past.
But defensive-minded turtles needn’t
worry: the Wonder victory – whereby
you build a late-game wonder and
hold it for ten minutes – still exists.
Sieges feel much better thanks to
the ability of infantry units to create
battering rams and siege towers. It
does wonders for the pacing that you
no longer have to guide your siege
equipment across an entire map.
Positioning soldiers on walls
defensively, on the other hand, offers
increased sightlines, and I
shamelessly exploited this against the
AI by building stone walls right up in
their business, picking off key
economic buildings with wall-
mounted archers.
Finally, the ability to quickly rotate
and position unit groups on an axis is
great for battle micromanagement,
letting you set up defensive positions
or proper army formations more
elegantly than before. These aren’t
huge changes, but they all help the
combat feel that bit cleaner.
GROW UP
Despite a single 3 0-minute game of
Age of Empires ostensibly spanning
decades of technological progress, the
series has never really evoked the
sense of time passing; for all I knew
from playing the original AoE, Rome
really was built in a day.
Age of Empires IV addresses that
dissonance with a few discerning
touches. When you plonk down
buildings, for instance, you see
sped-up wireframe outlines of
builders popping up at different
points around the construction site
- like old stop-motion footage of a
skyscraper being erected. Each civ
has its own soundtrack too, which
mixes in beautifully from the menu
music and evolves throughout the
ages. They’re little things that
increase the grandness of your
journey through the ages, ironically
in a game that actually seems to be a
little bit faster than its predecessors.
And yet, for every thoughtful
tweak and feature there’s an equal
and opposite misstep holding Age of
Empires IV back from
greatness, because god
forbid it outshines the
immortal second entry.
Building and ground
textures are on the
washed-out side (and
nope, I won’t accept
explanations that this is
just part of the game’s
more ‘painterly’ art style). Having
gone back to Age of Empires III:
Definitive Edition for comparison, I
found that not only are textures
cleaner there, but the game is more
secure about showing them off by
letting you zoom in further.
Speaking of zoom, the
combination of high camera angle
and limited zoom-out makes for quite
a narrow field of view. I’d love to have
seen some kind of free camera
functionality that lets you admire
your town planning and get into the
nitty-gritty of battles, or at least the
option for an isometric perspective.
And battles still feel too polite, as
units and cavalry charge each other
only to stop just short of collision and
start jabbing at each other with their
pokey-sticks – it’s kind of alarming
that I can refer back to Battle for
Middle-Earth as an example of‘cavalry collisions done good’. Units
in vague proximity to war elephants
seem to drop dead (elephlatulence?),
and there’s no dynamism when castle
walls fall out from under units or
bombards blow troops away.
Similarly, leaving population caps at
the traditional 200 means that battles
never really reach the grand scale the
trailers tease you with (unless
orchestrated by the campaign).
But perhaps what I think of as
anachronism others will think of as
purism; a game zealously keeping to
an excellent formula, right down to
its strangely civil combat, and
non-existent horse-turning
animations that look a bit like a
carousel pony rotating on its axis.
The fact remains that the strong AoE
loop, ever so slightly refined, is as
compelling as ever, spruced up by a
colourful roster of truly distinct civs.
Age of Empires IV has strong
foundations to really grow into
something, but it comes at a time
when Age of Empires II: Definitive
Edition is adding long-desired co-op
campaigns and an ever-expanding
library of historical battles. Age of
Empires IV is missing both those
things, and looks a little content-thin
for a £ 50 game (conversely, it’s an
absolutely glorious Day One release
on Xbox Game Pass).ONE FOOT IN THE PAST
Relic told us two months ago that
they weren’t looking to steal AoE II’s
player base or place at the top of the
series hierarchy, but rather give
players an interesting new
alternative. In this sense I guess
they’ve succeeded, but it feels like
with a bit more attention to detail
(rather than, say, hours of globe-
trotting documentary footage), they
could have heralded a new AoE era
rather than invoking a past one.
But in a series where a single
game can take years, even decades,
to evolve into its final form, the only
thing really standing in the way of
Age of Empires IV’s growth is the
ongoing success of its predecessors.
It offers enough new ideas amidst
the sturdy old foundations to rank
among them, though it’s not yet
ready to rule.77
A worthy new entry in the
series that’sequal parts
progressive and dated. It
could’ve been farbetter
if it was bolder.VERDICTBattles never
really reach the
grand scale the
trailers tease
you withTHEHOTTESTKEYSThese five
shortcuts
will serve
you wellSELECT IDLE
VILLAGERS
(Ctrl+V)
Never let your
villagers rest with
this handyshortcut.SELECT IDLE
MILITARY
(Ctrl+C)
Military units get
scattered, sogather
them up.CYCLE TOWN
CENTRES(H)
Jumping straight to
town centres lets
you easily navigate
to nearby buildings.GROUP UNITS
(Ctrl+ 1 - 9 )
Select a group of
units by dragging
your mouse or
double-clicking.FAST-BUILD
(Q-R, A-F, Z-V)
To activate these,
you’ll need to press
two hotkeys in a row
(tricky, we know).Age of Empires IVREVIEW