"General Mode" - Shifting Focus from APM to High-Level Strategy

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
1

Hi everyone,

I’d like to propose a new, separate casual game mode concept for Age of Empires IV, which I call “General Mode” (or “The Strategist Mode”).

The goal of this mode is to lower the mechanical barrier of entry and bring RTS back to its roots: pure strategic decision-making, rather than an APM (Actions Per Minute) competition. We’ve seen Microsoft successfully implement similar ideas like the “Villager Priority System” in Age of Mythology: Retold, and I believe a dedicated mode in AoE4 would attract a massive crowd of casual players.

How It Works (The Core Mechanics)

In this mode, players act as the High-Level Commander, while an integrated Tactical AI handles the repetitive micro-management (“the grunt work”).

  • Automated Economy: Players don’t manually queue villagers or farms. You simply set a macro-direction via a dashboard (e.g., “Focus on Food/Gold for Castle Age” or “Balanced Economy”). The AI automatically produces villagers and distributes them to resources efficiently.

  • Macro Production: Military buildings can be set to auto-train units based on a pre-set composition (e.g., “Maintain a ratio of 60% Lancers and 40% Crossbowmen”).

  • Command-Based Warfare: Instead of micro-managing single units in battle, players issue high-level tactical orders on the map or minimap, such as:

    • Flank from the West

    • Set Defensive Line at this Chokepoint

    • Raid enemy trade routes The unit AI will then execute these commands, automatically kiting, retreating when low on HP, or prioritizing counter-units.

Why This Mode is Good for AoE4

  1. Lower Barrier to Entry: Many players love the history, civilization designs, and grand strategy of AoE4, but quit because they cannot keep up with managing 100+ villagers while fighting on three fronts.

  2. A Pure Test of Wits: This mode elevates the game into a chess match. Winning depends entirely on your scouting, tech transitions, civilization matchups, and map control—not your finger speed.

  3. Preserving the Competitive Scene: This would be a completely separate, optional game mode (like Custom Games or Quick Match Arcade). It will NOT affect the standard Ranked Ladder, so hardcore competitive players lose nothing.

I believe introducing a “General Mode” would breathe new life into the RTS genre and welcome back millions of players who love strategy but hate the stress of high-APM multitasking.

What do you guys think? Would you play a mode where you focus 100% on being a General?

2

technically already exists with console controls on both consoles and pc these days, just mentioning

as long as it isn’t the main focus its just fine, it compliments the controller gameplay quite well and yes aom retold has this even with mouse and keyboard (i personally turn these things off like many do but if it helps you i’m not opposed)

3

In regards to APM I was watching streamers and they are just clicking a bunch of times for every thing they do? Doesn’t that just inflate that number? Like yes they move quick at a high level but it doesn’t take 10 clicks to move a scout to the same general spot.

1 Like
4

they do that mostly for the sake of inflating the number ye

basically, idea with the spam clicking is to keep that number at a consistent value, but that particular “skill” is the last thing anyone should be wasting time on, translation, learn the game, the mechanics the interactions, how to think through situations etc. apm, or high apm is smt that comes on its own as you get better at all the other aspects

i say this as someone that is effectively only clicking like once per second, like sure i’ll go way faster if situation calls for it (like a big fight while also catering to some economy), but never above 100 smt, at least currently ig

the 300+ apm is irrelavant outside of tournaments where everyone already knows all about the game and apm suddenly becomes one of few ways to stand out

i like to give scout a waypoint, jump back to tc to queue the vill and task em around then back to scout early on for instance

RTS is a game of multitasking really

there’s a reason why everything needs time to get done (researching techs, training units etc.)

5

basically the only reason anyone talks about apm at all is starcraft 1

that game was completely manual, actually dependent on it from certain level onwards

but in aoe games, you have all the really helpfull and well executed hotkey commands that most often actually help you do more with fewer actions, or way fewer actions, keeping 3 town centers working with villager production the old way of jumping tc to tc and queing 1 vill per stop took like 20 or so actions to get 5 vills queued in each tc, nowadays you can just use select all tcs key, hold shift and either click villager icon 3 times or press train villager keybind 3 times, thats 4 times less work for you while getting the same amount done, and you’re able to do it quicker too even with slower clicking