A great return for the series, after so many years. Clearly heavily inspired by how Age II operated rather than III, but still with a strong overall production value. The game is quite solid overall; the cutscenes are all very well done with excellent visual clarity and many aesthetically pleasing moments.

The Mongol campaign is clearly the highlight here, where you are incredibly powerful and leave an incredible trail of devastation. One of the best and most enjoyable moments in the entire Age of Empires history is the mission to create a super-trebuchet to destroy the walls of Xiangjiang.

Another incredibly fun mission is defending against the Mongols on the Ugra River.

That said, the pathfinding isn't as good, and the UI options aren't as robust as in previous games, making you struggle quite a bit with the keyboard and mouse. Just for that reason, it possibly ranks as the least enjoyable among the three good games in the series (the first one is easily ignorable), but still something entirely worth playing.

Well age of empires 4 is not bad. It has all the greatest hits, it is a decent revival of the genre defining series. I still prefer it over the modern day alternatives.
I still dont quite bring myself to like it. The story is not told the same mesmerizing way the previous editions were. The gameplay is more nuanced maybe, but it just doesnt click like age of empires used to for me. Maybe I just grew up, dont have the time for the slow paced RTS gameplay. So I jumped back into Age of empires 2 and I was hooked like the old days. It just doesnt have the charm style and storytelling of its predecessors, swapping them out for polish.
I guess its a matter of preference. Still it is a decent game. I cannot say that it is not worth trying, especially if you are an RTS aficionado. Give it a try!

The game looks visually fantastic and is a proper addition to the series. I just think that the CPU ai is completely broken in comparison to the other games. I always built up my troops way faster than them and destroyed everyone. I have yet to lose a game, even on the most difficult setting because I just build up better than the CPUs can. Also sometimes I get annoyed with walls and how long they take to destroy, even with strong vehicles. But I do love the different maps and modes which make the game entertaining, also the recent addition of cheats has made it more fun for me.

Is it just me, or has the AoE, once the flagship of the RTS genre, deteriorated into boring mediocrity.

(a) Graphics-wise, this is a huge step backward. I'm not even talking about realism: the variety of units, the details on buildings, the terrain, everything has been simplified to a point where I feel I'm playing a f2p mobile game.

(b) The gameplay of the campaign is unbearably boring. The idea of having history lessons followed by an actual campaign mission is great in itself. But the game simply doesn't deliver. You show the vast and marvelous castles of Dover or York in the movie, and then in the game I end up seeing a frigging rectangular wooden wall with a single gate. WTF?

(c) The fact that you can no longer use hotkeys for fast building -- is insanely uncomfortable. I mean, I get it, they are trying to go in the MOBA direction with fast gameplay, quick attacks, no time to properly develop etc. But classical AoE was just not about it. People who play DOTA/WoW are not gonna appreciate this genre.

So ultimately, is this a good game? It's fine, if you're really looking for a fast-paced f2p-like RTS, and also wanna learn a few things about the early medieval history. But, clearly, I would rather recommend something like Ancestors Legacy which is what the AoE 4 should have ideally been like.

Joguei a campanha que é bem longa. Depois tinha cansado e não joguei mais Skirmish ou online, mas a ideia de jogar esses modos ficou na minha cabeça. O jogo em si achei muito bom. As mudanças, como as unidades não poderem atacar muros de pedra, eu achei genial. De uma forma geral ele tem um feeling muito bom. Eu continuaria jogando se tivesse mais espaço no SSD. As campanhas são muito boas, com partes bem educativas e filmagens lindas, mas não gostei de elas só envolverem 4 das 8 civilizações, e também de não ter nenhuma missão com águas. Não tem navios. Ou seja, a campanha deixa de fora muitas mecânicas. de jogo.

Completed all 5 campaigns on Intermediate difficulty in 34 hours 3 minutes. Can't believe I've never played AOE being a fan of strategy games. Hoping to go back and play 2 and 3 next.

Love the cutscenes and narration of all the battles. Definitely a learning curve from playing games like BFME and Halo Wars where alot of the materials fetching is done for you. Run pretty well on Series X had a few crashes and errors where the game refused to save but just spam delete autosaves and you'll be fine.

I put this off for so long and now I regret it! This is exactly the sort of "pick up and play a round during lunch" game I was looking for. Nothing will ever be as good as AoE2 but this comes pretty close!

Edit: I kept playing and now have over a 100 hours logged into this. Having a great time

I spent 40 hours on this within 2 weeks...

Un maravilloso documental que además incluye entretenidas partes jugables.

Pros:
- Los vídeos que se desbloquean al acabar cada misión de las diferentes campañas son el mejor premio posible. Excelente calidad técnica, artística y documental.
- Las 4 campañas que incluye son extensas y variadas.
- Es AoE. Un núcleo jugable a prueba de bombas.

Contras:
- En las batallas con multitud de unidades resulta complicado saber qué está ocurriendo.
- Ligado a lo anterior, las unidades se glichean demasiadas veces y no saben a qué atacar.
- No jugaba a un título de esta saga desde hace 20 años y aun así nada me ha sorprendido en demasía.

I picked this up solely because it was on Game Pass and I have nostalgia for the series. It's still fun, but I remembered quickly why I never got very good at these kind of games - there's a huuuuge amount of things you have to juggle in your head in order to play quickly. I'd have to play so much in order to reach a skill point where games didn't go for over 45 minutes. The amount of depth to the game just wasn't what I was prepared to devote my time to. The most exciting part for me was watching the history-channel style cut scenes in the campaign.