Since I’ve played almost every Age of Empires installment long enough, I think I can leave some feedback here.
Feedback on AI:
Bots at a higher difficulty level should focus more on counter units. I noticed this quite strongly last time in AoE II: DE, where the AI eventually heavily relies on counter units. This makes playing against AI more challenging and prevents players from simply spamming units.
Improvements and Ideas:
- Stronger AI at “very hard” without a resource bonus
- More counters and aggressive playstyle
- Settings per AI player such as playstyle, priority, etc.
Feedback on Units:
Overall, quite enjoyable and I find the concept pretty good. It also has certain similarities to previous Age titles. However, I somehow noticed that the counter function doesn’t seem to be as strong (unfortunately, I don’t know how it is for pros or high elo-players). The familiar “triangle” of spearmen, archers, and cavalry exists in AoE 4 as well, but the “triangle” feels more like a pentagon or hexagon. This doesn’t necessarily have to be bad, but in my opinion, it feels a bit less like the classic Age 4 and tends to lean towards spamming with less emphasis on counter units.
Feedback on Maps:
I think the maps themselves are great, including the mega random maps. This direction can definitely be maintained. However, there could still be some polishing here and there. Maybe in High-Elo it’s different, but personally, I often find the path to the wild boar quite tedious and sometimes not worth it. This makes the wild boar rather useless to me, as you can quickly obtain other resources and the further path often doesn’t really add much value.
Improvements and Ideas:
- Add random biome (so you don’t always have to choose yourself and can be surprised)
- Place wild boar closer to the home base
- More maps/types like in Age II: DE:
- More fun maps
- Possibility to play the smallest map with 8 players, etc. (e.g., Age II: DE Socotra with 8 players) possibly with a warning that it may not be optimized, etc.
- Desert biome, Amazon biome, Jungle biome (here, you can take an example from Age 3)
Civilizations:
I like the direction the civilizations are heading, less is more. Instead of having many, now having fewer and making the differences larger is personally great. I also find the sub-civilizations a great idea to refine the playstyle.
Improvements and Ideas:
- Spanish (Conquistadors and Monks)
- Aztecs, Incas, Mayans
- Vikings
- Italians
- Koreans
- Poles / Hungarians