I guess it’s no secret that after two years, most changes in AoE 4 were somewhat related to skirmish play whereas traditional single player changes (AI, Campaign) fell short.
Speaking of AI, I made a topic a while ago:
However, I feel like most people use esports as a synonym for “bad” and ignore that, as Shneider said, it does a decent job at exposure to bring in new players. When I was modding on the Red Bull channel last year, I catched some comments during the AoE 2 days from people who remember that game from their childhood but didn’t know that there was a new version of that game being out for 3 years back then.
And speaking of esports - even after 2 years, I personally consider AoE 4 anything but esports ready as several important features (hidden civ choice, sharable replays) are still missing.