Age of Empires IV - The New RTS Hope?

Time is rapidly reaping its harvest: some genres are moderately developing, some are stagnating, and some genres are buried under the thick of time to such an extent that young gamers risk not catching them at all. Real-time strategy games once basked in the spotlight, but having spawned a new genre, MOBAs, they eventually succumbed to their offspring in popularity and audience attention.

Good, relevant to this day RTS can be counted on the fingers of one hand. At different times this field was ruled by different "lords". So, in the distant noughties WarCraft and StarCraft ruled the ball. Then players' attention was directed to the ambitious Command&Conquer, and then people saw the prospect in Warhammer 40.000: Dawn of War.

At the same time, the genre also had a niche segment, the segment of strategies based on real-life events - these included Age of Empires, Cossaks, and the Total War series; the latter repeatedly flirted with the fantasy world of Warhammer, which spawned another quality fielder.

Time has judged strictly, but fairly: WarCraft is morally obsolete, remaster didn't help, and Command&Conqueror seemed to fall into oblivion; Warhammer 40.000: Dawn of War series reached its peak with SoulStorm addon, after which Warhammer 40.000: Dawn of War II was released - the part, from which the series began to fall rapidly; Total War is alive and well. But the franchises, whose actions unfolded in historical epochs, found their narrow but loyal audience, the series Cossacks and Age of Empires are still afloat. And if Cossacks took an honourable place in the hearts of players, but preferred not to rush after the fashion, the object of our today's consideration, - Age of Empires IV, is still full of ambitions....

Work on mistakes

The Age of Empires series has existed since 1997 and has managed to survive a number of relaunches, change its setting and name for a moment, and get a lot of remasters. It's funny that even to this day fans of the series are more fond of parts with 2D isometric graphics, rather than full 3D projects.

Spiritually, Age of Empires IV is closer to Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition than Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition. In the latter, the developers from Ensemble Studios made a lot of mess. For the fourth part of the Great and Terrible Microsoft ("terrible" just had to be to the word, Microsoft - you are good)

Age of Empires IV was entrusted to the developers with a great experience in the RTS genre - Relic Entertainment. And if you know who it is, then, perhaps, you have already become wary. There are some good games in the portfolio of Relic Entertainment, but their name will hardly tell you anything; and there is that very ruined series Warhammer 40.000: Dawn of War.Однако Relic Entertainment не ударили в грязь лицом настолько сильно, как некоторые могли бы подумать. На релизе Age of Empires IV явился на свет сырой и недоработанной, но корневая концепция у игры поистине амбициозная.

After 8 months, a lot of things have changed: most players left immediately without seeing the improvements. For example, the game initially lacked a ranked matchmaking system, which is the basis of all the basics. But first things first...

Strategist's Corner

If you are looking for unobtrusive entertainment for the evening, some strategy, then you are not at the right place. Age of Empires IV even though it has a single-player campaign, but it is more for the sake of decency than for the end user.

The actions of the game take place in the Middle Ages with a great claim to authenticity: here you will find the Hundred Years War, and the emergence of the Mongol Empire, and the formation of the Principality of Moscow.

There are only four companies, and it's a bit difficult to give them a definite assessment. On the one hand, the story videos are just a sight to behold: real drone footage with CGI overlay look like animated paragraphs of history textbooks with all the colours, just as we imagined those events in our imagination.

However, only the Mongols got a really high-quality story. The gameplay component of the campaigns itself is simple and monotonous: capture a castle, hold a castle, capture a castle, hold a castle. There are very few truly rare activities, and the artificial intelligence of opponents raises questions. But the single-player campaign copes with its goal, namely to familiarise the player with the mechanics.

The gameplay won't appeal to everyone

The pace of the game does not favour constant battles. Parties last for an hour or even an hour and a half. For the first half an hour of the game there may not be any clashes on the map, each party member is building a base in a hectic pace. The game does not encourage early aggression, so be prepared for town-building.

Everything in Age of Empires IV is excellent in this respect. It is really pleasant to build here, because the process is thoughtful. And watching the construction of the next building, you feel aesthetic pleasure. There are only four resources - gold, stone, wood and food - but you need to use them wisely. The exchange of, let's say, food for gold is not at the most favourable rate, so resource management is an integral part of gameplay. Over time, players cut down all the trees on the map, deplete all the mines and kill all the animals (animals are pitiful ;( ). The party cannot last forever, at some point further base development will become impractical. 

Age of Empires IV fights with those who like to sit on the base in an original way - victory conditions. Usually for the sake of victory in strategies you need to destroy the enemy's base, and players are not in a hurry to attack each other, saying: "Well, now I will collect an invincible army and definitely win!". To win in Age of Empires IV you need to either destroy the enemy's base (classic), or capture two of the three relics on the map with a faithful unit and hold them for 10 minutes, or build a special expensive building in the last phase of development - the Eighth Wonder of the World. The wonder must stand for 15 minutes. If it stands, you win, if it is destroyed, you lose. You destroyed your opponent's Eighth Wonder of the World? The enemy has lost.

It may sound fascinating, but it's a bit difficult to convey the very feeling of the game in text. The main problems of Age of Empires IV are not the most spectacular battles and not the most "independent" squads. And if I will deal with the remark about the battles in the next paragraph, then the complaints about the squads will fit into one sentence: the squads require constant supervision and microcontrol. If you send them, if you don't watch them, you lose them.

Battles do not shine with cinematography. No epic battles and bloody battlefields. The units have only one attack animation, and the models sometimes stick together in one solid lump, which hurts immersion. Age of Empires IV lacks proper brutality, and battles lack weight. It is strange that in the same Warhammer 40.000: Dawn of War back in bearded 2008 everything was in perfect order, but with Age of Empires IV the developers from Relic Entertainment were lazy. They know how to make spectacular battles, so there are no excuses for "plastic warfare". 

Moreover, a quick glance at the players' squads will be enough to determine the winner. In Age of Empires IV there are no situations when one squad crushes a superior army. This is not StarCraft with its wonders of microcontrol...

Verdict

Age of Empires IV is a purebred RTS, so 95% of players will play it on PC. I give another 80% on the Steam platform. So, the price for Age of Empires IV on Steam bites. But nobody forbids you to buy the game, play for an hour and a half, and if you don't like Age of Empires IV, ask for your money back. Age of Empires IV is not universal, it's too niche.

For fans of the RTS Age of Empires IV is a gift. This is the kind of game that will make you teach yourself, get into the subtleties, get into the meta and develop fine motor skills of your fingers. All in all, Age of Empires IV is good, but amateur...

But for those who go into games to relax, I would recommend passing by. The single-player campaign here is not worth the money, the bots are not too clever. And let's be honest, Age of Empires IV is not a game about relaxation.