Do you want to learn the Age of Empires 4 tactics to win the game? Age of Empires 4 is a strategy game, and jumping in blind can be overwhelming. This comprehensive guide will help you learn the tips and tricks to win your first match.
Relic Entertainment, a well-loved strategy game developer and the creator of Company of Heroes, has been developing the fourth installment of the Age series for some time. As Age of Empires 3 was launched way back in 2005, the RTS fanatics are eager to play the game’s latest version.
Finally, the devs launched AOE4 on 28th October 2021. Age of Empires 4 has eight civilizations and four historical campaigns that display humanized histories. Therefore, you need to be aware of the game mechanics to get a shot at winning. We’ll explore some tactics that can help you battle and succeed in challenging game environments.
What is the concept of Age of Empires 4?
The concept of Age of Empires 4 is quite simple: Build a civilization and an army, then charge your enemy and defend your community. You can only win the matches once the other team or player is defeated or a specific win condition is met.
Just because it’s easy to buy the game and jump in does not mean that you don’t need a high skill that sets apart the newbies from the seasoned veterans. As the battle progresses in the Age of Empires 4, it will move through the ages while unlocking new units and buildings.
Every team in the game possesses its specialties. For example, the English civilization has a robust economy and defense. It specializes in Longbowmen to construct Palings to defend themselves against a stronger Cavalry, regenerate HP, or minimize their reload time.
Therefore, this makes learning each civilization or a team a long and exhausting process, and you are likely to opt for one that suits your playing style. As your competitors may already understand the complex mechanics, you have a lot to learn about Age of Empires 4 tactics in PvP and multiplayer modes.
For a newcomer, you can start by playing the campaign that has an easy difficulty level. However, it takes a lot of time, practice, and learning to become an expert.
Luckily for you, this guide will help you explore the tips that can haul you in the right direction to become an expert in the AOE4 game and get your first win. So let’s get on with it.
What are the basic tips to learn in Age of Empires 4?
Following are the essential tips you need to put your heart into before challenging other players to attain top ratings in the Age of Empires4 leaderboard. We’ll be discussing the advanced gaming tactics and the strength and weaknesses of the AEO4 gaming units a little later in this guide.
Choose civilizations wisely
Age of Empires4 comes with eight civilizations, and each one has its pros and cons. These civilizations are Abbasid Dynasty, Chinese, Delhi Sultanate, English, French, Holy Roman Empire, Mongols, and Rus.
It would help if you chose which civilization best suits your playing style as each of these civilizations can become authoritative in the right hands. Therefore, sticking with one civilization and progressing your way in that one can benefit you in the long run.
Utilize Art of War training
Art of war is a built-in Age of Empires training mode that helps new players learn the game’s basics. As a newbie, you can learn about:
- Early and late economy
- Combat skills
- Early and late-game sieges
Art of war training mode is a fantastic tool for new players before they try to jump into the Age of Empires 4 one vs. one (Skirmish) or multiplayer gaming mode.
Age of Empires 4 campaign mode
Age of Empires4 campaign mode is split into four sections, i.e., The Mongol Empire, The Rise of Moscow, The Hundred Years War, and The Normans. We recommend that you play at least one complain mode before playing Skirmish or multiplayer game.
Build farms and grow the number of villagers
In Age of Empires 4, a farm is vital in acquiring food to get more villagers and soldiers. Therefore, try building farms close to your Town Center so that your villagers don’t have to travel too far to collect food.
The villagers can’t fight for you; however, villagers are very important when speeding up the build time of constructing important buildings such as a Wonder. Therefore, try to build more houses to have more villagers in your Town and farm that could be a great asset to build an army.
Build some stone walls and upgrade buildings
Through a battle, the game lets you build stone walls. Stone walls make your defense impenetrable for minor attacks as these can not be destroyed without siege units. However, if you plan to eliminate your enemy’s siege units, you need your combat units earned by building a Blacksmith.
Additionally, you can upgrade some buildings in the game that can help you improve your combat units and the villagers. This will:
- Increase HP and ranged attacks
- Improve the efficiency of the upgraded buildings
- Speed up the hiring for new units
- Offer better resources
What are the win conditions in Age of Empires 4?
In the Age of Empires 4 game, there are three win conditions. Each condition requires a different tactic when building your army and Town.
- In the first win condition, you build a new landmark in each Age and advance to destroy all your enemy’s landmarks (Maximum of 4). But don’t forget that your enemy also needs to do the same.
- On each map of Age of Empires 4, there are three sacred sites. The second win condition is that you need to sit a monk in all three holy sites to control them. Afterward, all you need is to prevent the sites from being destroyed for 15 minutes to win the battle.
- Once you reach the fourth Age, you can use 3000 of each resource to build a Wonder. You can use one villager to construct it in ten minutes, or you can do it with multiple to speed up the process. Either way, once the Wonder is built, you need to defend it for 15 minutes to claim a victory.
How to win the game in Age of Empires 4 Skirmish mode?
Once you’ve finished the campaign, you’ll be playing in the Age of Empires 4 Skirmish mode. You’ll start with a blank canvas to build your Town and use your combat units to win the match via any win conditions for the battle. Let’s find out how to play AOE4 in Skirmish mode and win wars.
Choose a preset
First, you need to choose a preset which will set up the exact match every time. However, you can customize the battles to select maps, win & starting conditions, and decide how many players or teams can participate in the match. Age of Empires 4 preset includes:
- Solo Battle vs. A.I. (1v1): Play Age of Empires 4 solo against an AI opponent.
- A.I. Teammates vs. A.I. (3v3): Align with AI teammates to play against AI opponents.
- A Passage to Conquest (1v1): Bay separating the Mongols to approach the land they wanted to conquer. The water can be a gateway or an obstacle to the win.
- An Abundance of Riches (1v1): The French responds quickly at the French pass location and defend the rich land in resources.
- A Contested Front (2v2): Two opposing forces fight by land or sea to claim territory at the Boulder Bay location.
- A Known Quantity (2v2): Be mobile to progress through lands filled with concealing wood and battle with two skilled opponents at the High View location.
Start building your Town
When you start in Age of Empires 4 Skirmish mode, you’ll see your Town Center. From here on in, you’ll start by hiring villagers and scouts. Villagers will take part in creating buildings and harvesting resources such as Food, Gold, and Stone. Furthermore, scouts will scan the map to locate your opponents.
However, it may take a long time to fill up your Town with every available resource and build an army that can effectively defend the Town.
For win conditions, if you are attempting to destroy all of your opponent’s landmarks, you need to build stables, barracks, and archery range at the earliest. However, if you are rooting for a Wonder win, your resources are more critical than your army.
The four ages
In the Age of Empires 4 Skirmish mode, you can progress through four ages. Each new Age unlocks new buildings and lets you construct a landmark prone to destruction to complete one win situation.
Each of the four ages allows you to build a better town and army. Therefore, you must collect resources quickly to move through the ages.
Defend your Town
While you are in the process of building your Town and army, your enemies will likely have a go at you. AI opponent will try to do so every few minutes. Therefore, if your win condition is to destroy the enemy’s landmarks, you need to defend your Town and landmarks too.
We recommend that you keep an army in your Town to protect your asset. Otherwise, you’ll be returning from battle to see your hard work being ruined.
Spend resources in the end
After a battle, all of your remaining resources are lost. Therefore, Once you are heading towards the end of the match, you need to spend your resources as fast as possible to give you a better chance at winning.
Infantry vs Cavalry Age of Empires 4
Infantry is the most basic unit in Age of Empires 4. This unit consists of foot soldiers who specialize in weapons such as spears, swords, and axes. Infantry units are efficient building destroyers in the early ages of the game, and you can create them quickly and cheaply.
Infantry units cost less food, gold, and wood than their cavalry counterparts. However, you can not use Infantry units for most rushing strategies because they are inferior to Cavalry. However, there is no cheap counter for Infantry in general, and they play a solid supporting role in defending other units.
Furthermore, Infantry units can slow down cavalry archers and become a powerful late-game option when gold becomes rare. Heavy Infantry is good against Cavalry, while Rifle Infantry and Foot Archers are good against heavy Infantry.
Siege units (Form of Infantry) are good against buildings. However, Infantry units are easily destroyed by artillery, especially by the Heavy Cannon and Falconet.
Infantry vs Archers Age of Empires 4
Archers in Age of Empires 4 are superior to Infantry and can very efficiently kill villagers. However, they struggle against siege units that can eliminate an entire army of archers quickly. Players who are using archers themselves can use Battering Rams semi-counter against big archer armies.
While Battering Rams cause little to no damage to archers on their own, you can set them close to archers resulting in automatic fire. However, the Rams can resist the automatic fire due to their high pierce armor, allowing other ranged units to quickly finish the distracted enemy archers and force them to use intense micromanagement.
Another most straightforward counter against archers is the Skirmisher. This trash unit is cheap, easy to create and multiply, holds archer attacks, and bargains bonus damage against archers. Cavalry is also quite useful against archers since they can bridge the gap fast and have high pierced armor.
Age of Empires 4 Unit strengths and weaknesses
The general format of Age of Empires 4 is that Infantry has an advantage over Cavalry, but the Archers can shoot Infantry. However, Cavalry is fast and challenging to hit, which gives them an upper hand over Archers.
Despite the general format, some strengths and weaknesses in all units dramatically shift the game’s balance.
- Spearsmen are exceptional against Cavalry, but they don’t perform well against others.
- Swordsmen are great against light troops but inferior against heavy troops.
- Archers do exceptionally well against Crossbows and Spearsmen.
- Crossbowmen win the battle against heavy troops but underperform against light troops.
- Horsemen is a good choice against ranged units.
- Lancers in heavy Cavalry do well against Archers, Swordsmen, and Horsemen.
In the previous Age of Empire installment, Crossbowmen came as an upgrade for Archers. However, in the latest installment, you can build Archers and Crossbowmen separately and earn a bonus against armored units such as Knights.
What are the advanced Age of Empires 4 tactics to win the game?
Now that you know the basic knowledge of Age of Empires 4 tactics to win the game in Skirmish and multiplayer mode, it is time to discuss some extra tips to scale up your winning chances.
Use fishing ships and don’t ignore shoreline
Using fishing ships to repair military warships is one of the best Age of Empires 4 tactics. Why are we saying that? If you have a dock to wage a naval war, you are more likely to have a fleet of fishing ships. In AOE4, you can use fishing ships to repair military ships. Therefore, seeding a few of them in your naval fleet is a great idea.
However, it is best to protect the fishing ships as they can go down fast on focus fire. Furthermore, villagers can repair your warships near the land as well.
Additionally, if your Town Center is near a shoreline, watch out for fishing spots for food without investing too many resources. If domestic sheep and other food sources are scarce, you can quickly boost your economy by fishing.
Place units on stone walls
In Age of Empires 4, you can mount units on your stone walls in places like Gate, Attached Tower, or damaged portion of the wall.
Units on stone walls receive less damage; however, mounting only Archers on them can lead to enemy Infantry swarming the wall in case of a breach. We recommend deploying Some Men-at-Arms on stone walls as well.
Add weapon emplacements and use fire mechanics
In Age of Empires 4, Towers and Outposts are separate. You can upgrade Outposts for an extra line of sight. As far as Towers go, you can build them onto existing stone walls and then upgrade them to emplace weapons on them to boost your defense.
Furthermore, Fire mechanics is a new addition to the Age of Empires 4 tactics. A building catches fire once it drops below 25% hitpoints. At this point, you don’t have to burn your resources and can move on to destroy other buildings as the damaged building will eventually burn down to nothing.
If you have selected the Mongols civilization, setting buildings on fire offers free resources. However, if Mongols are your opponents, you can use fire armor technology to counter their attacks.
Conclusion
The fourth installment of the Age series has been getting popular day by day since its launch on 28th October 2021. Many Age of Empires 4 tactics can win you battles and matches, but the tips and tricks mentioned in this guide will help you off to a great start in Skirmish and multiplayer mode. Be sure to stick with the civilization that matches your skill and workout your win conditions.
