Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition

8/10. I would give this game a perfect 10/10 if: 1. They give engineers for all siege engines like in Age of Empires 3 2. No predatory micro transactions

[h1]Retrieving... waiting to retrieve the match result from the server.[/h1][hr][/hr] 　At least that's the most memorable line after i spent at least 150 hours in this game. [H3]Summary Review:[/h3] [table] [tr] [th]　　About[/th] [th]　　Description[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]Gᴀᴍᴇᴘʟᴀʏ[/td] [td]　 　When the game first launched in beta, i played it and thought, "this is ridiculous, it's weird." it literally just felt like Age of Empires 2 and 3. it had the features we wanted, but it also removed some features we wanted... Funny thing is, if you played this after Age of Empires 3, which was straight going to the dump, this is what Age of Empires 3 should be. the pacing is slower but still consistent, windmill now supports 8-tile farms, sheep are no longer overpowered for opening the map like in AoE2, and most importantly, only Scouts are able to take those sheep. finally, they really put some love into the Scout... 　They only hear feedback from the pros: "You know what? we're pros, listen to us and the entire world will play." of course this game ain't got the same love and player base like AoE2 because no one wanted to suddenly shift their gameplay from one civ to another. But still, for me, i don't mind. yeah, i hate Mongol gameplay, but it makes the game have more variety. i just don't think it's for everyone. they need to relearn the game, and of course, just like every Age of Empires game, spam knights, bro. who cares if there's a unique unit? spam those knights and win. overall, spam one unit just like any RTS game cliché... it's fun. 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Gʀᴀᴘʜɪᴄ[/td] [td]　 　Holy cow, the graphics were ♥♥♥♥. what the hell is this? it's cartoony and chibi-ish, just like how everyone saw it in the first teaser... i mean, yeaaa, the entire map graphics, from the trees, grass, flowers, especially the water, look ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ beautiful. different biomes have different colors, vibrant and look so good. but the buildings and units? wtf bro. even AoE3 still had better proportions between units and buildings. this game is like those anime figures you slap together but with no white substance covering it. why? just why? 　i hate the Town Hall. if they really wanted to put a wall around the Town Hall, at least make it so units can't go through it. the collision between the wall and the units makes the game look stupid and cartoonish. also, why can't i remove the [i]Obscured Unit Alpha[/i]? i literally use this disabled on almost all RTS games, even Age of Empires 3 DE and the Command & Conquer series. i can literally remember where my units are. the silhouette just looks ugly... how come they didn't have this yet when Age of Empires 3 still had so many features, including changing unit colors for accessibility? HALO Microsoft, TF. 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Mᴜʟᴛɪᴘʟᴀʏᴇʀ[/td] [td]　 　i don't think this game has a better online mode. like damn, so many desyncs between players. i stopped playing online. i do appreciate that they have a mode for casual players to play against human + AI, but once i tried it, damn, the game would freeze, then resume, then pause, repeat... Singapore servers were ♥♥♥♥♥♥. 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Cᴏɴᴛʀᴏʟ[/td] [td]　 　Works fine with keyboard and mouse. 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Pʟᴀʏᴛɪᴍᴇ[/td] [td]　 　Main + Sides: 38½ Hours | Completionist: 168 Hours and u need to know each DLC adds a story campaign. well, most of them. the rest are just skirmish, play against bots, or play with friends. 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Sᴛᴏʀʏ[/td] [td]　 　　unlike AoE2 scenarios and cutscenes from AoE3, AoE4 introduced a documentary-style setting, which i bet the director thought would save a lot of money, but it didn't. and the devs who asked for funding literally just wanted to travel around the world for free... yeah, corruption. imagine after so many DLCs, only a couple got story campaigns. it's no longer about passion anymore, it's corruption. 　well, i do like the historically accurate documentary campaigns. they're neat, fun, and interesting. but for people looking for dialogue and an actual plot, well... this is Age of Empires. history is boring because so much history has been erased, especially that one that was founded in 1948, not before... its enevr even reach million and now they ruin the state anyway... you know what i mean victim card deck user. bet they don't dare create a truly accurate history. coward 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]PC ᴘᴏʀᴛ[/td] [td]　 [b]Performance Test[/b] (For this review) 　•　+60 FPS. 　•　Run on NVME. 　•　HD resolution. 　•　CPU | Low - medium Usage 　•　GPU | Low - medium Usage [b]Game Optimization[/b] 　this is how you create an optimized game. Firefly, please stop supporting Stronghold 4 if the game still uses 100% CPU on the main menu. wtf. 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Aᴄᴄᴇssɪʙɪʟɪᴛʏ[/td] [td]　 [b]Audiotory[/b] 　✓　Playable with disability _ Sound Setting 　•　master 　•　music 　•　speech 　•　SE 　•　taunt [b]Visual[/b] Colorblind 　✗　Deuteranopia 　✗　Protanopia 　✗　Tritanopia 　✗　Custom UI 　✓　Dark 　½　Scale 　✓　S. Preset Subtitle 　✓　on/off 　✓　Scale Display 　✓　Fullscreen 　✓　Windowed 　✓　Borderless FPS 　✓　30 　✓　60 　✓　Unlimited / Any Misc 　✓　Vsync 　✗　Gamma 　✗　Contras 　✗　Brightness 　✓　Resolution Scale 　✗　Customize config file 　✓　Advanced graphic setting [b]Motor/Body disability[/b] Control type 　✓　Simple 　½　Complex ✓　Slow reaction ✓　Binding custom control [b]Verdict[/b] 　If you had colorblindness, mf, go play AoE3 because that game knows that some people have disabilities. 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Bᴜɢ / 𝙲𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚒𝚗[/td] [td]　 　•　Naval bug 　•　Casual feedback ignored successfully 　•　Less love than AoE2 because corruption 　ⓘ　Build ID 23713729 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]DLC[/td] [td]　 　Check my full indepth review - The Sultans Ascend remains the biggest DLC, with the most civilizations and traditional campaign content.Content Breakdown by DLC Remember the price is also ass. some had region price and cheaper some is expensive and not worthy. 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Exᴛʀᴀ[/td] [td]　 [b][VALVᴱ] Suggested Region Price[/b] [h3]( 5.5 )[/h3] 50% region still overprice. [b]Community Health[/b] 　½　Toxic 　½　Moderator/Developer Problem [b]Note :[/b] 　Dev are ignorant also the community is also ignorant. 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Oᴘᴘɪɴɪᴏɴ[/td] [td]　 　game needs more work tbh. better accessibility, better skirmish options, which AoE2 still wins in that category. AI keep spamming naval units on any pond of water, making the game lag, avoid water maps. imagine if the AI was on the same map as two girls with a cup... 　also, forgot to mention this game can only use one mod, which is called a tuning pack in this game. those tuning packs or mods usually break the AI, especially Mongol, and make the AI do nothing. like huh? AoE2 never had this issue when using multiple mods, more than one... 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Rᴇᴄᴏᴍᴍᴇɴᴅᴇᴅ?[/td] [td]　 　No, go play AOE2, still i played this until it fixed. 　[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Oᴛʜᴇʀ[/td] [td]　 [i]Previous reviews have been posted　:[/i] 　•　[url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/RensAgatha/recommended/3678970/]TBH: Task Bar Hero[/url] 　•　[url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/RensAgatha/recommended/1388590/]Yakuza 6: The Song of Life[/url] [i]Playtime source　:[/i] [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/HowLongToBeat]HLTB[/url] 　[/td] [/tr] [/table] [H3]Extended Review:[/h3] [table] [tr] [th]https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3754706671[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]Due to Steam's 8k-character and limitation for reviews, read the full in-depth review in this guide![/td] [/tr] [/table] [quote][h2]If You'd Like To See More, Consider Following [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/35820949-My-Stupid-Review]My Curator Page[/url].[/h2][/quote] © 2026 MSR by Rens Agatha 　ᴵ ʷᵃˢ ⁿᵒᵗ ᶜᵒᵐᵖᵉⁿˢᵃᵗᵉᵈ ᶦⁿ ᵃⁿʸ ʷᵃʸ. ᴾˡᵉᵃˢᵉ ᵛᵒᵗᵉ ᶦᵗ ᵘᵖ ᵒʳ ᵍᶦᵛᵉ ᵃⁿ ᵃʷᵃʳᵈ ᶦᶠ ʸᵒᵘ ˡᶦᵏᵉ ᶦᵗ. ᴵᶠ ⁿᵒᵗ, ᶠᵉᵉˡ ᶠʳᵉᵉ ᵗᵒ ᵛᵒᵗᵉ ᶦᵗ ᵈᵒʷⁿ ᵃⁿᵈ ᶜᵒᵐᵐᵉⁿᵗ ᵒⁿ ʷʰᶦᶜʰ ᵖᵃʳᵗˢ ʸᵒᵘ ᵈᶦᵈⁿ'ᵗ ˡᶦᵏᵉ.

They reduced the number of factions but made them more asymetrical compared to AOE2. The assymetry is mostly in how the economy of the factions works (e.g. in one faction you might do research in a ccompletely different way), or some military relative advantage (knights an age earlier) --- what this does is that the factions all play very differently, but the gamestate as a whole remains very readable. Whatever faction you fight against, you can quickly identify which units belong to which group (spears, cavalry, etc), even if you might not be super knowledgeable about all the intricacies of the faction. The game also looks great, and is very readable, by stradling a good line between realism and cartoon-looks. The main campaign is also excellent. It's all framed like a historical documentary in how it's narrated, and it uses footage recorded at locations relevant to each mission. It even works great on linux, although it does give me a warning that I should play maps with more than 4 faction. In practice, this was not really a problem. Overall, it's one of my favorite RTS of all time.

The gameplay itself is fine the campaigns suck and the narrator lacks emotion. The campaign doesn't make you feel like you're the one in charge at all, it just has a narrator talking down to you over and over again. There's no character interaction at all. If you're intending to play for the campaign like you would with AoE2 and AoE3, prepare to be disappointed.

游戏好玩是好玩，不过得找人一起玩组排，野排队友全是唐氏综合征，他妈的甘。如果你是新手，建议先玩战役，战役可以了解一下这游戏的基本玩法，而且说实话这游戏战役质量挺高的。如果你要打多人排位一定要先搜搜每个文明的教程再玩，自己有游戏体验还不至于祸害队友。至于快捷键，不用特意学，玩多了自己就会了。

They turned a great game into pay to win goytrap; every other month they throw a new unit, new civ thats op. everyone has to get it to compete, then after a month it gets nerf, then the other part of the paid dlc will be op; it will be nerfed just on time the next dlc is coming out. COD all over again.

Age of empires 4 — 0/10, refunded twice in spirit. This game is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ embarrassment dressed up in a nice coat of paint. somebody at this studio looked at a "rock paper scissors" counter system, the most basic design promise an RTS can make, and shipped rock-rock-rock-rock-knight instead. that's not a balance oversight, that's a fundamental failure to understand the genre. four years of "balance patches" and the answer is still mass knights into face. how do you cash a paycheck for that and sleep at night. *Years to fix knights: ∞ *Unique civ identities: Cosmetic *Patch notes that matter: 0 *Build orders that matter: Also 0 Spent four hours studying a build order so my spearmen would be ready in time. didn't matter. man-at-arms into knight rush, same as it ever was, same as it will be when the sun burns out. relic could release "age of empires 5: still just knights"! Every "council meeting" patch is the same theater: nerf something nobody plays, buff a unit nobody asked for, and leave the knight problem exactly where it's been since launch. you had AoE2 sitting right there as the blueprint for how counters are supposed to feel, and you still managed to ship a sequel that plays worse than a twenty-five-year-old game. that's not a balance team, that's a group of people actively pretending not to see the problem every single patch cycle. it's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ joke, and the silence on it is the punchline.

Leavers don't get punished, and this game doesn't have a region lock. Think about that before you buy this game.

If you liked this game because of childhood nostalgia you're in for a treat: you don't know jack about how to actually play. You will loose against easy AI. Don't even think about playing against real people. Ranked? Do your taxes instead. Or paint your fence in the heat of the day. Anything, just don't play ranked and ruin how you felt about that game at one point in time.