Age of Empires IV Review

Age of Empires IV is here... but was it worth the wait?
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00:00 - Intro
01:30 - Campaign
03:20 - Tutorial
03:45 - What's New to AOE?
10:30 - What hasn't changed?
13:04 - Unique Civilizations
17:48 - Combat & Controls
20:25 - Talk about Micro
25:00 - Combat Advanced
27:50 - Graphics & Presentation
32:50 - Optimization
33:35 - Art Style & Music
35:18 - UI & Keymapping
37:07 - Summary

#AgeOfEmpires #AOE4 #AgeOfEmpiresIV

[friendlytalbot]

One think that stood out to me was Relic's dedication to unit voices. They poured a lot into making it sound correct, and I think with the English, their spoken language becomes more modern as you age up, or so I was told. Haven't tested it. Still, Relic really hit the right spot, with the immense variation and little sound cues here and there.

[phigu]

Really liked this review! Didnt notice how strongly the game down-details units when zooming out and I agree that Relic has to impove optimization and performance. A game that looks like this has no excuse for low framerates, unless you play with an actual potato from 2004. Its certainly something you should check out on game pass.

[dansudo]

I'm very much enjoying AOE4 . Looks and plays better than I expected, and the campaign, while simple yes, is in my opinion very well producded, I love the documentary style videos, they are great. All things considered, I believe that Relic & World's Edge have done a great job with the game, and I can't wait to see what the future holds for AOE4 and the Age franchise.

[rjfaber]

Age of Empires I was the first game of any kind I ever played, and later I spent nearly a decade of my life playing and modding Age of Empires III. What set those games apart was that they always moved the RTS genre forward in terms of both graphics and game mechanics. Hell, AoE3 won GameSpy's best graphics award in 2005, not just for strategy games, but for any game released that year. Given all of that, I just find Age of Empires IV's lack of ambition a weird break from the series' established principles, and it must be a severe disappointment to everybody who was expecting something exciting from the first new game release in this series in sixteen years.

I'm sure I'll enjoy it when I eventually pick it up, but what I've seen so far has not enticed me to spend any money on it, and that is a sentence I never thought I would say about an Age of Empires game...

[masonjh]

The Wonder system was the best part of Asian Dynastys, I’m glad they’re back and the standard

[Maggerh]

Thanks for the nice in-depth review!

Small note tho: you CAN actually determine and see how troops will line up. Same controls as company of heroes : hold right mouse button after giving a move command and drag your cursor around

[youdontseeanoldmanhavinatw]

This is a wholesome channel. Not barely over 8 mins for ad revenue, the videos are long and thought out

[Kristaliorn]

A lot of work put into this. Much appreciated!

[CybranM]

This is the kind of video that makes it worth being a member! Love your detailed reviews.
Combat looks a bit too clunky for my taste but I might give it a go

[Ettan]

4:03 AoE3 also has landmarks that you age up with, so that isn't new to AoE

[Drakyry]

I actually completely agree with all of your suggestions regarding UI and controls. I was expecting soemthing crazy like a tactical pause or whatnot, but what you've proposed are I think ideas that 99%+ of the playerbase would agree with. The problem is, modern vidya companies dont really seem to keen on knowing what their playerbase actaully wants, and Relic is perhaps the worst offender in that regard - just look at DW3.

[MustangCruising]

after release, hopefully relic will listen to the community with all the feedback and give updates

[stefanjasovic]

You know what I would love to be worth the wait? RoP rome 2 2021 review

[MrJabbothehut]

I havnt played a lot of AOE before. Played AOM and found a lot of it very tedious in skirmish. I cant stop watching gameplay of this game for some reason. It just feels really alive, looks charming, and fun. Really agree with you about micro. Shit like reseeding farms and manually repairing ships is boring af and distracts from combat. Early game, from what I can tell, is about getting your economy up to have a solid base to then move on and attack the enemy. Having to do tedious chores during combat sucks.

[RexGalilae]

It's surprising how AoE 3 got so many things better than AoE4 in terms of graphics and immersion. Heck, even the "new" age progression system of building wonders was taken straight from AoE3: Asian Dynasties. Not to mention AoE 3 had way more immersive campaigns and stories to tell.

It's surprising how much of a dark horse AoE 3 really was.

[slushg]

On your point about the English and the French specifically it appears they have succeeded with their design goal. They wanted both of these civs to be more “AOE” in their design Holy Roman Empire then progresses this uniqueness concept like a ladder (with the Mongols being the most unique out of all) it is something I appreciate but it certainly presents it’s problems.

With movement, I think it’s important to keep the identity of the franchise alive too many new mechanics will make it feel less like AOE they did try a lot of things during development and worked with core members of the community “total war and COH while being fun certainly have their own identity and I like that their are options that feel more retro.

AOE is AOE it has an identity don’t remove it for the sake of modernisation. Now I do play a lot of AOE so it will skew my perspective some aspects of this of course.

Now I want to have more control of formations I will say that.

The visual pop in is a bug, in terms of visuals a lot of the community plays on old computers still so they wanted to make sure as many players as possible could join compared with AOE3 (that murdered computers for some as did AOE3DE. Now I would like some more detailed textures on units and ground textures for sure.

Optimisation still need work though having said that it’s still better then it was during testing.

Lack of blood is something I do not understand unless they want to cater to the Chinese market there should be a blood option.

It’s funny in general the UI is one of the most criticised aspects of the game by a general portion of the AOE community.

Fun fact about the music, for the first time the music is working on a dynamic system I will edit both the video link and the blog about the visual design and music.

Lastly I feel like this art style captures the identity of the franchise quite well (minus some unit art and the lack of blood) to me it feels consistent with the rest of the age games while still being it’s own thing.

In conclusion I like how AOE4 takes bits and pieces of every previous entry (including AOEO) and incorporates them into the game somehow art style being somewhat inspired by AOEO, setting and core gameplay of two civs inspired by AOE2 heroes with an ability from AOM being put back in AOE4. Landmark mechanic from AOE3 expansions being put into 4 as a main mechanic.

I personally would have liked some more innovation in certain areas but I understand why they chose to go this route for the fourth entry in the franchise after a long hiatus, I just hope the next main line entry is something like an AOM 2 (preferably with AOM DE in-between) where Relic and Adam Iseengreen really feel like they could push the boundaries with a mythology formula.

Really great review! Well balanced between praise and critique more should follow this formula. I have subscribed!



I still would look more detail on units and ground textures on ultra settings.

[Brendissimo]

I think your definition of micro is actually wrong but I agree with your suggestions for QoL improvements. Micro, in my experience, is the intensive management of one unit, or a small group of units, and their special abilities, with exceeding finesse. Being able to kite really well with a ranged unit in RTS in an example of good micro. Controlling all your units on the map and being aware of everything you're doing at once is not micro, it is macro.

[AnthroTsuneon]

'If you're not here for the multiplayer and wanted a grounded, real campaign--'
Joke's on you, I wanted neither. I wanted an RTS singleplayer experience with campaign missions that might seem the same at times but might mix it up, whether with hero units or little special mechanics. So far, this isn't a mind blowing campaign, but I got what I came for.

Mind you, the UI is ugly as sin and follows 'modern less-is-more design' like a bible, which.. Considering how much it was taught in colleges out here, at least, when I went through design class, I am saddened but not surprised by

[ComradeBucket]

Nice review. Your breakdown of the graphics and art style really made me think twice, those are some pretty glaring issues. I'm not into pvp in this franchise so I think I'll wait to pick this one up.

[craigstwist]

Don't often get a 40-min review. Fantastic. About comment on group replenishment, I agree. I like Stellaris-style unit management. Create a fleet from what's currently available, replenish with a click when models are destroyed.

Also, I can't help but feel this kind of scrutiny would have been a stage of development, prior to release, 10 years ago. Games are being released in evermore broken conditions as profits become paramount.