Developers,
It’s 2025. Four years since launch. And AoE4’s middle-mouse camera drag is still broken in the most basic way.
Here’s what happens right now in AoE4:
• I press MB3 and drag → the camera pans, but the cursor moves with my mouse.
• I release MB3 → the cursor now appears where my hand ended up, not where I pressed MB3.
• Result: my hand and cursor are out of sync, forcing me to constantly realign.
This is NOT standard RTS behavior. Here’s how it should work (and how MOBAs/other modern RTS do it):
• I press MB3 → cursor locks in place where I pressed.
• I drag the camera freely.
• I release MB3 → cursor reappears at the same spot where I pressed it.
• Smooth, intuitive, no desync.
Comparisons:
• Dota 2, LoL, Total War → do it right. Cursor lock works perfectly.
• AoE2:DE and StarCraft II → suffer from the same problem players complain about. And AoE4 is repeating that mistake instead of fixing it.
• AoE4 → still wrong, still unfixed, despite years of feedback.
This isn’t a “feature request.” This is a basic UX fix that should have been in at launch. Cursor lock during camera drag is fundamental RTS usability. It’s not optional polish—it’s core functionality.
Please stop pushing this down the backlog. Give us a simple settings toggle:
“Lock cursor during camera drag.”
Until this is fixed, I will not be playing AoE4. And I’m not the only one—players across Steam, Reddit, and these forums have been calling this out since 2021.
This is the kind of small but crucial fix that shows you actually play your own game. Please don’t let AoE4 go down in history as the RTS that ignored basic usability for years.