The patches have improved the game immensely compared to launch - better camera, better hotkeys, color selection, much fewer bugs, better balance, better maps.
Free to play week in order to make more players try out the game.
Sale with 50% off making the game one of the top sellers on steam.
Two new civs for free.
Also looking forward to the navel rework in the next major update.
When age of 4 released many people finds its bad, but I say that this game has potential and needs time. I love this game, I am sure devs will add what forum want in the near future. 
It’s good that people keep providing feedback to the developers but at the same time give them time to address these issues is equaly important.
We’re finally heading towards our two first new civs, who knows what’s more to come in the near future
100% agree.
This game is getting better and better. The naval rework for season 3 really got me pumped for it.
As someone who plays both 1v1 and team games, the improvements are really notable.
For the first few months i really disliked playing team games, 2v2 was the most I could handle, now i absolutely love playing 3v3s and 4v4s.
Also balance is insanely better with only 4% win rate difference between the “best” and “worse” civs in diamond+
dont talk so loud , because they migh do bad it later haha , but yes! theyre doing stuff nice , i heard that World edge leader was changed right?
He might know us , age fans more than we think off.
This is great guys , as they said , it has never been a best time to join age of empires , there is a lot going on 
I am certainly more optimistic about the game since the announcement of the new civilizations. However, there are still many bugs and issues from release nearly a year ago that have not yet been resolved or fixed. While the free week and half-off discount does a lot to bring more players into the game, more needs to be done to bring back players who tried the game and left because there are simply more players who tried the game and left than new players who haven’t tried the game before, interested in playing it and have the capability to do so. Season 3 needs to be more than just another season. It needs to be an overhaul of the game to fix many more of the bugs from release and address most of the complaints from a consensus of players who left the game. Players will come for the new civilizations and it’s the best time to also provide features and fixes the players have been looking for since release.
And there’s a thing that makes me feel more confidental about the future of the serie: It seems Forgotten Empires Is always more involving into the development.
Like raid said we most more than this current peak; I agree the approach to getting those old players back is with NEW SHINY THINGS and bug fixes!
the game was tested by stremers who are dedicated to valorant, freefire or LOL, those people play 6 hour campaigns and leave the game. So it was normal that they have tried the multiplayer and they have left, we better worry about calling the interest of players of, warcarft and starcarft aoe2 or aoe3
Although a quick go down is to be expected after the free week event
But it’s the best answer for those of us who are persisted till now
peak
As nice it’s to see those numbers of active players it’s probably due to the fact that it’s free to play so the numbers will most likely go down once the free trial is over.
Nice to see it nonetheless!
There’s no doubt. The question is what retention capacity is the game going to have after such good numbers. There’s also a free DLC just around the corner.
we are all happy , but we will see if that persists after free dlc , idont think 30k will be something we are going to get ever until a new free event , but maybe 20k after free dlc as an stable playerbase on weekends should be nice tbh.
The numbers will surely drop a lot after the free week, but it shows that the game still generates a lot of expectations…
We have around 20k new players over the weekend compared to a week before, I’m very interested to see how many will continue to play the next weekend
I hope that the discount motivates you to compare it but that does not guarantee that you will enter the multiplayer, so the team rankeds (the cost of the wonders according to the number of players) and the rework of the sea are important
Perhaps more important is that AOEIV made it to the top of the Steam Bestsellers list. This means that people who played it for free are buying it.
You have to give everything to retain as many players as possible. I trust today more than ever that it is going in the right direction.
yes! best part is that best sellers are people who paid the game , not the ones who are f2p for now , so new players! 
When people are not satisfied with the game, they curse Relic Studios; when people are satisfied with the game, they praise Microsoft Corporation.
