There are no minor factions, mercenaries, or historical themed upgrades/cards/shipments to add any depth. Outside the campaign, the game is devoid of history when compared to AoE3. And there’s the continuation of having gold run out and things devolving into trash wars. The moving deer being locked behind a tech makes it basically useless. On the eco side, there’s a bunch of tedious units that always go idle like the tax collectors. The fancy walls are one of the only innovations in the game but they are super buggy and siege tears through them so they’re kind of a waste. Buildings like keeps are just a waste since they don’t even train units unless you’re English. You can’t turn the tide of battle with new recruits, they piddle out to die one at a time from your 10 production buildings while your buildings fall from a few tosses of a torch.Ĭavalry does just as much siege as heavy infantry and isn’t balanced for population efficiency so bases just melt. That coupled with the fragility of buildings means the back and forth intense gameplay of AoE3 is not possible. Firstly it slows down the game immensely since the game isn’t played on 1.7x speed like AoE2. The lack of batch training is the main dealbreaker. Pretty much immediately in the closed beta after realizing the fundamentals of the game are flawed to the point where even when they fix all the bugs and horrid UI it still just won’t be fun. The worries are on the newcomers, they gotta stick around, they need to be introduced into the genre of real chads, which is RTS.Īnd yes, it plays different then Age2 or 3, but for me as RTS player in general, i dont mind it, cause it is not my only reference.Īll of this my opinion of course and not the absolute truth. I will stick around for the moment anyways, there is no doubt in that. Hence the missing QoL, the missing ranked options, the missing hotkey customisation.Īnd you know what? I am perfectly fine with that, as long as it will be delivered. It has a Tab called “Learn” it has the Art of War, it has all the things to make it as easy as possible for complete new players who never touched an RTS.Īnd yes, it feels like this also was the primary goal of the devs, and secondary then to appeal the long time RTS nerds like me. Age 4 tries to get people into it again, thats why when u initially start the game, it goes straight into a tutorial iirc ( i skipped that naturally and queued directly for 1v1).

RTS was a genre in decline, nowadays we have way more casualplayers, way more people who have access to computers and just play to relax.

Micromanaging your army of Archers Knights and Mangonels while jumping back to your eco and get those lazy idle vills back to work. Multitasking, lots of clicking, techs, mathematics, unit types, counters, lots of knowledge, lots of things, if you play MP there always is the other guy who is pressing you. Lets be honest guys, RTS Games can be the most stressing games there is. On the other hand though, it also needs to set the entry barrier as low as possible while achieving the point above. Be the new RTS on the block for all the people who want something new after Years of Age2, COH2, or SC2. And out of my perspective, it needs to that and it is good that it does that.Īge 4 needed to do 2 things - be appealing to longtime players and be attractive to the people who play competitive and will grind the ladder as much as possible. Thing is though, that yeah, it makes some things easier / simplifies it. I played some AoE2, but in general i am an RTS player and play all kinds of RTS at all.įor me it clicked instantly and i love it and am happy with it.

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