The Direction of Age of Empires IV What im curious and concerned about

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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First of all, I have to express two personal expectations.
The first is that I hope they can resolve the technical limitations so the game can finally support a larger population cap.
The second is that, with improvements in the technical framework and coding, the AI can become more logical and adaptive.

As for other aspects—if King Art’s Dawn of War 4 succeeds, and truly delivers on what they claimed—greater focus on core gameplay, enjoyment, battlefield tactics, expression, and unit authenticity—then we might well conclude that the competitive “esports” direction taken by Company of Heroes 3 and Age of Empires 4 has completely failed.

When I hoped AOE4 would carry on and evolve the legacy of AOE2, opening a new era for the series, it instead gave me a rude awakening. Ironically, I still play Age of Empires 2 far more than AOE4. I believe an RTS game must provide plenty of modes and freedom of choice, yet I’ve found nothing truly interesting in AOE4’s gameplay. Combined with its weak logic, low AI learning ability, and difficulty that relies purely on cheating and spamming units, AOE4 feels increasingly cheap and simplistic. All these years, I’ve never thought AOE2 was perfect—but AOE4 is simply boring.

As for what’s next for AOE4—maybe they’ll end development, maybe they’ll continue—but I doubt players’ technical concerns will ever be addressed. The studio clearly doesn’t care about those things. It’s already late 2025, and aside from announcing new DLCs and seasonal updates, AOE4 hasn’t delivered any long-overdue technical fixes or improvements that would actually enhance the experience. Every update feels like they just dump all the good and bad together without real optimization, then reactively patch or remove problems later. This primitive workflow makes me feel like the developers and the players live in two different dimensions.

Everyone hopes AOE4 will keep expanding with more content and game modes, but what we get is year after year of snail-paced updates, disappointment, and meaningless balance changes. Meanwhile, new and independent RTS titles are springing up like mushrooms after the rain. How long will AOE4 even stay in our memories? Era 117 is releasing this November—and it even includes RTS elements. With so many new games constantly emerging, what can AOE4 possibly offer to keep players invested? I’m genuinely curious—and equally baffled—why the developers are so obsessed with creating more and more variants.

Each time they’re asked about it, their official reply is: “We’re exploring new possibilities and creative directions; this is part of our effort and experimentation.” But is that really true? We can’t read their minds. If they keep making variants, will they lose their sense of direction? How will they properly manage the relationships and subtle differences between the original civilizations and the growing number of variants? Are they even capable of doing that well?

So then—how much longer can Age of Empires IV truly shine?

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Given how much AoE II caters to its competitive scene, I’m not sure of your argument’s general premise.

Does AoE II cater to other kinds of player as well? Yes. Therefore, AoE IV should as well. I’m hoping The Crucible is going to be a great example of that.

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And remember 3 things of the current state of the game

  • There is still no CO OP mode like SC2 or II DE CO OP Campaign Scenarios

  • The Single Player content is lackluster, boring, repetitive not engaging (telling about base game campaigns, Sultans Ascend Campaign is definitely an improvement on gameplay from them). There are UI/UX, units, buildings, mechanics that are not updated with the ones we have on Multiplayer and Skirmishes modes, which is a GREAT FAIL. Needs an update ASAP. SP and Campaigns is where an important part of RTS gamer community look for the first contact with the game.

  • The On-boarding experience keeps being quite annoying, simple and not give the players the actual basics about the game

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I don’t think that itself is a problem.

The problem is when their “new possibilities” start to take over the staple contents that once promised quality, and that a large portion of the community had been expecting. Full civs, single player campaigns, unique assets and sound designs, even “official support”, those are all replaced by some “new creative experiments”. Not as an add-on, but as a complete replacement. That’s where their entire creative energy went to.

Spoiler alert: and they all happen to be cheaper to make but sold at the same price. In the meantime, none of those things offer anything really “new”. What a variant can achieve, a full civ can do better. The only difference is variants require much less work.

They had been cheapening the value of every aspect of what made the franchise great, and what made AOE4 launch with 70k peak players, since the “experiment” called Victors and Vanquished in AOE2. So that’s an overall direction across the board for this franchise not just one game. They didn’t cheapen the price though.

Then they try to gaslight the players that (1) these ARE the same spirits as what the game/franchise had been offering, even better, and (2) after the former point did not land, they pivoted to say there was never such a promise of delivering those staple contents so you’re wrong to expect them.

Edit:
For example, saying “civs and variants” every time is inconvenient for the players. So over time, however they (pretend to) make the distinction (which only happened after a major pushback), “variants” eventually become equated with “civs”. Then they’ll get a free pass for selling variants at civs’ prices, and their players will do all the gaslighting for them. And that’s essentially the purpose.

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Thank you for taking time to share your perspective.

I like the variants and feel they are one of the better additions to the series. I can appreciate you don’t feel the same way. I see them as adding flavor and depth to an otherwise stale meta.

The new patch notes have details on a lot of fixes for AI, graphical improvements, as well as new map features. They are small individually, but collectively represent their attempt to address community concerns and offer new possibilities in gameplay.

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Co-op would be great. The Crucible looks perfect for it, if they could make that happen at any point.

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EXACTLY!

I hope the same. I wonder why they did not add CO OP already on it. seems the right blueprint to do that
There could be updated with more and diverse missions. Not only to defend your wonder. There are plenty of fun missions on Sultans Ascend campaign that they can adapt from on this game mode.

This way the game will 100% sure will atract more casuals to it. while training them right there for the Multiplayer and Competitive Scene if they want to.

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I can’t really guess what their purpose is in making these variants. As I’ve said before, I can’t read minds. But what they tell us isn’t necessarily the truth — after all, we have no way of seeing what’s really going on inside their studio. That’s why I’m even more puzzled and curious about why they keep making these variants. What’s the real purpose behind it?

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Either it’s cost-effective and they want to, and it’s cost-effective and they’re being made to.

Developers read community feedback; they will know people also / instead want non-variant civs.

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Most of AOE2’s players are casual who never touched multiplayer.

AOE’s saga has been Always oriented to casual players. A good e-sport scene grewing uo along the years but the main base of players remain the casual ones.

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And yet the game has the biggest MP events with the highest prize pools.

Most players of games like AoE are generally single player. I don’t disagree. But AoE IV’s support for MP is at least the same as AoE II’s, especially when you considered ranked events / tournaments, etc.

So saying “AoE IV bad, look at AoE II” is a weird way of looking at the situation, in my opinion.

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That makes it even stranger — I still can’t understand what the meaning behind their choices and actions really is. Was it the production schedule? The investors? Creative exhaustion? Or a lack of resources?

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The game genres that thrive in the esports scene are never RTS titles. One clear example of how RTS esports can no longer move forward is that so-called Stormgate, made by a bunch of ex-Blizzard employees who foolishly claimed they would bring RTS back to the top of esports. But according to our group’s offline survey, most people simply don’t play RTS—or more accurately, there just aren’t that many people who want to play RTS esports. When asked about RTS esports, the common reaction we got was: “What? Esports RTS? Oh god, please don’t ruin RTS again.”

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Note: The last 3 AI difficulties in AoE4 come with the ability to cheat… since the intention here is to provide a kind of challenge.
If you want the AI ​​not to cheat, please do not use the last 3 difficulties.

—> In the later difficulties of AoE2, the AI ​​also cheats.

But the AI ​​in AoE4 is much more fun compared to the AI ​​in AoE2.

There are some flaws, but overall it’s more positive than negative.

Examples of what’s cool about the AI ​​in AoE4 (It doesn’t exist in AoE2) :

  • It moves like an entire army in formation
  • It can ambush
  • He can divide the army, so that a small group of cavalry can go around and attack the enemy trebuchets and cannons from the flanks/back.
  • He can divide the army so that a small group of lancers can accompany and defend his trebuchets and cannons.
  • It can control the entire army, making it retreat and regroup to attempt a counter-attack

However, AoE2 is superior in other aspects:

  • It’s a lightweight game. It works on various computers.
  • It has a huge number of civilizations.
  • Its campaigns are of high quality (due to the map design and storyline).
  • It has much better mod support, with mods that can improve graphics and gameplay.
  • It has a very good scenario editor.
  • It has much larger maps compared to AoE4.
  • It has a wider selection of colors to choose from when playing as your civilization (AoE4 has fewer colors. :sad_but_relieved_face: )
  • It has a great variety of wildlife.
  • It features maps inspired by real geographic models of parts of the world map. (AoE4 doesn’t have this)
  • Can be configured to have increased capacity and possess much larger armies than those seen in AoE4.
  • Overall, it has much more content, if you add up all the civilizations and campaigns. Many hours and hours of gameplay to see everything.
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My fear is that it’s something much worse…

Maybe the engine used in Age of Empires 4 needs some Relic specialists to help with production…

And what if the “contract” has ended and those Relic members who helped produce the entire game and the first DLCs are no longer there…

Maybe the idea behind the variant is the lack of qualified people who know how to efficiently use this engine… and the variant would be a chance to “recycle” and “reuse” existing resources, facilitating the production of new DLCs, since they lack qualified personnel for the production of unique civilizations, which require a lot of production knowledge.

I hope that’s not the case… otherwise, we’re screwed… there will be few new unique civilizations coming and soon we’ll know how this ends.

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I don’t really understand why you brought up AoE II’s AI in this discussion. AoE II DE’s AI is a continuation of the original game’s system, and it’s already reached its limit — it’s not something that can be further improved in a meaningful way. No one denies that AoE IV has a certain level of tactical depth, but “tactical depth” doesn’t mean its AI is free of problems.

What I’m talking about are the issues within AoE IV’s own AI:

The AI doesn’t adjust its overall strategy based on map resources or terrain, and it can’t react dynamically to the player’s behavior. As the player develops, the AI eventually just stops attacking and starts wandering aimlessly around its base. It relies far too heavily on fixed script routines, lacking any real dynamism or real-time adaptation. Its strategies are predictable and repetitive, leaving no replay value at all.

If you’ve ever played the 2008 version of Red Alert 3, you’ll notice that AoE IV’s AI isn’t even half as smart — RA3’s AI could actually learn, adapt its strategy in real time, and even toy with the player. AoE IV’s brain-dead AI, on the other hand, doesn’t even adjust tactics based on different civilizations, doesn’t understand unit composition, and attacks with the same mechanical timing over and over.

From 2021 to now, the community has been asking for modding support for AI customization and editable AI logic, but those requests have been completely ignored. I play AoE II DE often — and honestly, it’s much more fun. AoE IV’s AI isn’t even on par with Company of Heroes 3, which uses the same engine.

On top of that, the AI’s economy is totally unbalanced: it constantly mismanages resources, never reallocates villagers properly, and becomes outright stupid in the mid-to-late game. Its control logic is chaotic — I’ve never seen the AI adjust formations or positioning based on battlefield tactics. The pathfinding is terrible: units get stuck, clump together, and never take advantage of high ground, ambushes, or choke points like rivers for defense or offense.

Its base building logic is also a mess — completely unplanned, just throwing down structures randomly for the sake of fast production. It doesn’t even build proper walls, reacts slowly to attacks, and its military structures don’t coordinate at all. Otherwise, it just compensates with resource bonuses and map-wide vision cheats.

So tell me — what’s actually good about it?

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An RTS with a Triple A budget and price tag, especially in this era of competition between games (we are not in the late 90s and early 2000s), must focus on all the pillars that make an RTS successful in the short, medium, and long term.

Focusing almost exclusively on the casual market is something that RTS games with smaller budgets can do, but a Triple A game cannot afford to do so; that’s what 4x and other genres are for.

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Yes, i agree with this. And this could be also the reason why next titles are moving to UNREAL Engine: developing with Unreal Engine should be cheaper than Essence Engine.

So you could focus on SP and multiplayer at the same time.

Developing AOE4 with Essence requiered a lot of works and Money because this Engine have been developed for different kind of RTS, with a small scale than AOE.

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What RTS with triple A budget cannot afford to make a single new voice line, theme music and models for full civs and campaigns in more than two years?

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The development of the base game is one thing, but what they decide to do with subsequent DLCs and the problems Relic had is another.

Also keep in mind that it looks like a new game is coming (we don’t know exactly what it will be), so everything fits together.