I played basically all of AOE2 on my treadmill. The pause button (AOE2 Menu Pause - Album on Imgur) basically made this possible for me. I’ve lost 50LB this past year doing this. I have been looking forward to AOE4 but with no Pause command I’m basically for certain going to fall trying to make quick movements.
PLEASE ADD PAUSE back into the series! I’m sure there are people who need it for accessability too, and not just weirdos like me who want to multi task exercising.
NO! please no pauses. If you need to pause a game, just don’t play.
It’s a perfectly reasonable request to make as long as it’s exclusive to single player.
I do mean for single player and CPU matches. I generally don’t touch multiplayer with humans.
I don’t know what Rudy’s problem is.
wtf xD pause is a good function. i guess u just have to chill a bit more
I am a 72 year old German and I am playing Games like this for decades. I stopped playing, because without this feature its not worth playing for me. Maybe for younger people. I don´t see any balancing problems if this feature would only be integrated for the singelplayer modus.
But there is pause in singleplayer, just press ESC.
Thats not what i mean. I want to deligate the habitants and the forces before i go on, becaus i like to play without loosing one of my habitants. Its just my way to play and the pause-button in the former games gave me this oppotunity.
And if you want to play without this feature you can do so. So whats the problem with this button for the sinlge player modus.
Without this function, I can’t play normally. Only with this function can I fully enjoy the game 
me too.I can’t even play without it.
Guys, you know RTS means Real Time Strategy, right?
How would it ruin you experience if the game had an additional feature?
Nothing is being taken away from you.
I’m ok with the pause in singleplayer, but there are other genres that may fit their playstyle more.
Let them play the games how they want to play it.
Even if you pause a lot it is still different from a turned based game.
And even if, there are enough other reasons to choose AoE4 over some other games that are designed with active pause in mind. Those games often have different settings and a very different gameplay.
How many other games feature historical Middle Ages, base building and real time combat?
I like to play coop in multiplayer with friends against bot, and I have young child, so I have to pause the game sometimes to take care of him. This is a game breaker to me, can’t Imagine why it’s not in game whereas it was a feature of AOEII 20 years ago
Whether it is a dissability, or a young child, and older player or a jerk trying to lose weight on a treadmill, it seems like something strange to pull or (or in the case of some comments object to) so I really hope someone sees this and adds this 20 year old feature back in.
I probably will never be able to play without it, I do all of my gaming on the tredmill now because adulthood means time managment. 
I’ve played all of the AOE releases and I enjoyed being able to use the pause button to be strategic and i
also don’t tell the multiplayers how to play there game. This pause mode is only missing for the single player, especially for older people and I don’t see any technical or performance-impairing difficulties in integrating this feature and I wonder why so many people are upset that some single players want this feature back .
#GorMort: With 100 percent certainty, it will not be a complex and time-consuming undertaking to reintegrate this feature. This will certainly not neglect the other inquiries you have mentioned. Frankly, this argument sounds a little ridiculous.
Should anyone of the readers hear or know about a mod with this feature, I would be very happy to receive a link or hint.
Because it takes away development time from other things folks might want more?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sympathetic to the request. I wasn’t even aware it was a thing until about 2017, but I have nothing against it. But requests have to compete with other requests for attention and time from the dev team, which is why you’re going to see some folks object.
It sounds like maybe there are two separate feature requests in this thread?
Re: the OP, you’re only playing single player, right? The game pauses when the menu is open. Do you mean you need “active pause” to support treadmill-gaming?
Re: multiplayer, Northgard supports pause in multiplayer, giving each participant something like 2 or 3 pauses per game. It isn’t “ruined”. More than once, I’ve had to run and deal with the doorbell or one of the kids, and pause has let me step away without worrying. If you don’t need it, don’t use it, but some of us have lives that interrupt sometimes. (Arguing against this is exactly as stupid as those jerks that said Returnal shouldn’t have any way to save mid-run.)