This might seem like a minor thing, but it does need to be said; please, Relic, do not neglect to include an in-game encyclopedia detailing the real world history behind the techs, civs and what not.
As a kid, I found its inclusion to be an amazing little bit of icing on the epic cake. A lot of old games used to do this, and went a long way towards pushing my interest to learn more about the subject matter (not to mention flesh out what was presented). To an extent, even Age of Mythology had this (though not quite as extensive if I recall). Looking back, I feel like it added a lot of value and honestly benefits the younger members of the audience.
The Age series has always helped enrich (if even in just a small way) as much as entertain us. Please do keep up this tradition.
Listen to this guy! And yeah I remember that too from when I was a kid (AoE times, not that I understood engolado that well) but I still tried to learn and I still enjoy a nice campaign and so on with the small stuff.
the encyclopedia in game, besides giving hints on the historical reality, can give some technical characteristics on the unit / building in play, electing the strength / weakness points.
the cyclops lore says that they were stormlords in aom. and also smiths. veri interesting 
@bubble said:
the cyclops lore says that they were stormlords in aom. and also smiths. veri interesting 
according to a mythological version, the Cyclops were skilled craftsmen, experts on the skill of working with iron and making zeus lightning.
@jennywaboom will there be a encyclopedia?
read the encyclopedia more than my history books and it came a long way to helping me understand history whiles playing the game. It was like, ‘fun education’ to me. (:
Do we really need an in game encyclopedia? Is it not a little redundant in a world of Wikipedia? It would be great to have one, but I won’t miss it if we don’t.
@Mr_JimWest said:
@jennywaboom will there be a encyclopedia?
They aren’t going to answer any questions until much further along in development.
@“Andy P” said:
Do we really need an in game encyclopedia? Is it not a little redundant in a world of Wikipedia? It would be great to have one, but I won’t miss it if we don’t.
Hello! I think the encyclopedia is not fundamental, but if there is certainly an added value: in fact many times in the section “encyclopedia” are not only real historical notions (which between us, we do not care much … we are full of history books, documentaries and more) but also a list of the complete statistics of the unit / building at stake. Features that sometimes are not complete on the game screen.
We definitely need transparent stats. No question there.
Totally agree!! I cannot tell how much I learned from playing games, and more specific playing Age of Empires. Take a look at its competitor “Empire Earth”, how nice it was to listen to some stories while playing games. I remember well the Napoleon campaign. Age of Empires IV could include real information, valid data and maybe play as “heroes” in real battles!.
Age of Empires steps up from other games because of that. It is not only a game!