I just put three monks, one on each of the three sacred sites.
I assumed if you moved the monk you lose the site.
That doesn’t appear to happen. I just did a Sacred victory, had my monks on a site for five minutes and the moved it off the site. The countdown kept going and I won.
So how does this work? Can I move my monk off the Sacred site as soon as I’ve captured it and it still stays mine? Seems like an odd mechanic but whatever.
I’m not sure. Sacred Sites have always been confusing to me in AoE4 and I haven’t wanted to Google it. Just doesn’t make any intuitive or obvious sense. I’ve only played 5 or 10 matches, but like a lot of things in the game including the bland UI icons, I often just click buttons with little regard of what things actually do because the game, its graphics, and its UI aren’t very engaging. Not as immersive as other Age games for me
When the circle fills you keep the sacred site until an enemy places any unit on it to cause it to empty. If you or an ally have a unit in the circle it does not empty, the circle halts until the site is no longer contested. This also means that if you clear the circle of any enemies the circle fills back up again… unless it was fully emptied, then it will go back to 0 until another religious unit moves in.
Capturing all sacred sites can activate a win condition, whoever holds every sacred site wins after a 10 minute countdown (this resets if any sacred site is lost). The countdown is halted as long as an enemy is in the sacred site.
Each sacred site generates 100 gold per minute (per sacred site) for whoever has captured it. In team games this gold goes only to the person who captured the site, not the entire team.
Sacred sites are actually a huge deal in any game! Most people tend to ignore them, but they have many advantages. One of the nice things about Knights Templar is that they give people another reason to think about and contest sacred sites. Did you know that if the sacred site is under enemy control the Knights Templar cannot send pilgrims to it?
Whatever you do, once you enter castle age contest those sacred sites! Ideally you should have some monks left over from grabbing relics. You can shift right click the center of the sacred site to have a monk stay on the site until it is captured, and then it will execute the next command given!
Finally, it’s not just monks that can capture sacred sites! Jeanne d’Arc also has the ability to capture sacred sites!
And if you usually set up a SP skirmish map in a way where you’re trying to just play a classic Conquest match like AoE2 (so you disable every win condition), the only benefit of Sacred Sites is that they make 100g/min, right? Just wondering.
I wish we could make the sites not appear on maps at all
That is correct, yeah. Sacred sites generate gold regardless of victory condition.
I tried the 'get to the Castle age and shift right click your Prelate (Monk, whatever) to the first, then second, then third sacred site.
It worked like a charm.
