preview Age of Empires IV: a story likely to last …
AoE 4 was announced in 2017 and has been quite discreet ever since. Only one trailer was presented in 4 years. Fortunately, communication speeds up and we were able to populate information through a live event called the Fan Preview and a small Q&A session with the developers. Here is what to watch out for and what to expect.
As you probably know, Age of Empires 4 takes up the historical context of its famous predecessor, Age of Kings. But when asked about the developers, they say it certainly won’t be a remake, but a spiritual sequel. We can therefore expect new developments and, as such, the main focus is on asymmetry at the level of civilizations. Each should be played in very different ways with original game units and mechanics to add a little more depth and variety.. Already featured, the English are an exception to the rule and are played in the traditional way to act as a goal for early fans who are not disoriented. On the other hand, we were able to see some gameplay pictures showing Mongolians able to dismantle all of their buildings to settle elsewhere in the event of a crisis. This should certainly pave the way for new strategies and allow the establishment of guerrillas and ambushes, as it will be possible to hide units in the forest to surprise the enemy.
Introduced two new civilizations
Two more civilizations have been introduced and these are China and the Delhi Sultanate. According to the extracts, the former should be able to rely on strong and varied artillery, while the latter have heavily armed elephants as well as powerful cavalry. This will add variety to the strategy, but we still hope that other more original gameplay elements will be revealed later. It also remains to be seen whether all of this will be balanced, but this point seems to have been partially resolved by a selection of developers that may not be unanimous. In fact, generic units have been added that are common to all factions to provide everyone with the archers, pikemen, and horsemen necessary not to feel helpless against a particular type of enemy or faction. That has always been the case on the series, but AoE 4 is said to be an extremely accurate game historically, which makes this choice a bit of a disappointment. Anyway, and To get to the different civilizations you know that there will be 8 (so there are 4 to discover) and that they will not be limited to Eurasia only.. Of course, others are already planned for sequel and will be offered in future DLCs.
A historical aspect at the heart of the game
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, Relic aims to make AoE 4 a game that reflects historical reality. This is especially true at the level of 4 different campaigns designed as real interactive document ation
As for the gameplay itself, it’s hard to get an idea without touching the game, but we can still draw some lessons from this presentation. At first, the battles presented seem massive, but this could be misleading as it has been confirmed to us that the limit on the number of units is set at 200 per player (i.e. a total of 800 in 4 vs 4). It’s a respectable number that obviously leaves a lot of options, but it’s also similar to what was done in previous episodes. It is not known whether the most powerful troops will count as one or more population units, as was the case in AoE 3, but we are clearly not going to find ourselves at total war, despite the impression that sometimes emerged from the extracts. And besides that we’re talking about the third episode, you should know that the developers opted for an identical age change, which leaves us with a choice of several strategic options. This AoE 4 therefore seems to want to get the best out of its elders and combine it in a context that has always been a fan favorite., what is good.
Our impressions
The information we have at our disposal is too incomplete to be able to offer a definitive or too enthusiastic review of this Age of Empires 4, but we have to admit that the developers appear to have very good intentions. Attention to historical details was drawn to the extreme and factional asymmetry. This seems like a good idea, especially Mongolian mobility, which should open up many strategic options. We are therefore looking forward to discovering more.
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April 10, 2021 at 7:01:59 pm