Young people, as well as the first "Age of Empires" by people who came over.
Age of Empires is a game series that makes people feel the weight just by mentioning the name. At the beginning of its birth, in the past 20 years, "Age of Empires" has gained a hundred reputations, on the combination of themes, and the history is unparalleled in RTS; on content gameplay, even in the decline of RTS today, "Age of Empires" still maintains a stable growth of the competitive community.
The theme and gameplay, which leg is missing, this living legend cannot come to this day. Whether you are a history buff who has been inspired by the game, or a hardcore player who is obsessed with RTS, you can find your own place in the Age of Empires experience. At this point, Age of Empires 4, the latest in the series, still maintains the old-fashioned style it should be.
Thanks to the help of Microsoft, we can experience the era classic of RTS in advance, and it is also the original sequel to "Age of Empires". According to the basic template of RTS, the experience of this game can also be simply disassembled into two parts: single-player campaign and encounter. Each mode has its own fun focus, and even the basic mechanics are slightly different, such as the battle's building and technology lines, which will be a little thicker than the encounter.
A one-man campaign with a sense of historical immersion is one of the series' long-standing features. After three generations of overhead scripts, age of empires 4's campaign narrative returns to the historical perspective of the second generation. Combining the in-game level design with the off-game live-action documentary, players can have a more realistic and clearer understanding of the classic battles in history.
Referring to the "Trebuchet" popular science video released by the official exhibition in Cologne, Age of Empires 4 has a large number of similar live-action documentaries built in to introduce various iconic elements that appear in history and war. Not only the counterweight trebuchet, but also the whistle arrows used by Mongolian warriors, as well as the iron mask armor worn by Eastern European nobles, etc., these informative cultural contents will be gradually unlocked according to the player's progress in the battle.
Currently, Age of Empires 4 debuts with four campaigns, namely the Norman Conquest in Britain, the Hundred Years' War in France, the World Empire of Mongolia, and the Rise of Moscow in Rus'. Each campaign has a timeline that spans tens or hundreds of years, and players are able to experience several key battles on this timeline.
The number of first battles in this work is naturally far less than the second and third generations with more than 10 years of accumulation, but after actual experience, the overall content volume is still very sufficient. At medium difficulty, the four-generation campaign can easily provide more than 10 hours of play time, and if you count the repetitive challenges of difficulty, the campaign experience duration can be longer.
Thankfully, the game's campaign level design is very diverse, with sweeping, defending, siege, trade, tower defense, etc., involving the characteristics of different civilizations, many of which are new mechanisms that appear in Age of Empires 4. Whether it's simply a familiar process of encounters or a simulation of how to play war and history, you should try the game's campaign mode, which is definitely worth the money.
Many of the small details that shine in the second-generation battle can be found in this game. For example, in the four generations, the "Battle of the Thirty Warriors" of the Hundred Years' War is similar to the duel of the Cid at the King's Arena at the beginning of the Second Generation of Spanish. Both are very personally legendary, and can help players quickly enter the historical background of the battle in the form of a story introduction. After that, as the battle levels continue to unfold, the game's plot vision will gradually broaden, and eventually focus on the historical destiny of the entire country and nation.
All in all, the campaign of Age of Empires 4 still continues the narrative rhythm of the story, and the process of playing the battle itself is like reading a historical picture book. Although a large number of well-produced live-action documentaries, as well as gorgeous animation effects, make the binding of these picture books more modern and more colorful, thus losing some of the old texture of parchment rolls. But in essence, Age of Empires 4's campaign mode, the level of play with the sense of historical interaction, is comparable to the previous old works.
This historical and cultural interactivity has fully penetrated into the design of the camp of encounters. This is exactly what the critically acclaimed 2nd generation has not been able to do. In general, in the value, class restraint and other grass-roots design, "Age of Empires 4" uses the basic template of the second generation, and in the high-level design of civilization characteristics, unique mechanisms, etc., which can highlight cultural characteristics, this work boldly absorbs the relatively unbalanced but very brilliant special mechanisms in "Age of Empires 3". Moreover, the mine group that took over the production this time also applied their new RTS production experience on the "Company of Heroes" series, which was cleverly integrated into the interactive experience of the game.
It can be said that "Age of Empires 4" has the highest operating pleasure index and the most modern interaction in history.
First of all, as the era upgrade system of the gameplay framework, this game follows the spectacle upgrade system of the Asian Dynasty DLC of Age of Empires 3. Players need to spend a certain amount of resources to direct the villagers to build a spectacle with special effects in order to enter the next era. Each era has two spectacles for players to choose from, generally divided into military and economic. According to the strategic choice of long and short games, as well as the characteristics of the chosen faction, players need to choose their own discretion and choose the best.
Age of Empires 4 had eight launch countries. According to the different mechanisms of civilization, these eight countries can be roughly divided into three types. The first is Britain, France, and the Holy Roman Empire, which share a set of civilization templates, and only some of the arms are different from technology. The second is China, Russia, and Delhi Sudan, which have distinct factional characteristics, but the development model will not be too provocative. The third is Mongolia and black-clad food, these two countries have very special civilization characteristics, players need to re-learn, in order to master the rhythm of play.
Depending on the characteristics of the civilization, the entire encounter process experience will also have intuitive differences. For example, China could spend twice as much to build two era wonders to trigger special dynastic gains. The black-clad eater needs to build a huge complex next to the initial spectacle "Palace of Wisdom" to trigger a new era.
In addition to the main framework of the era upgrade, the differentiated camp features are everywhere. For example, China could use a special unit called the "Imperial Court Official" to increase the productivity of designated buildings and collect construction taxes on a regular basis; all the technology of the Delhi Sultan was free, but at the cost of extremely slow research and development; and most of the Mongol buildings could be packed and moved, unable to build walls, but needed stone to study technology. Not to mention, each cultural group has its own set of art styles.
In addition to the difference between the individual factions, there are special settings such as the inability of Islamic countries to hunt wild boars, and through these careful small designs, players can clearly feel that the mechanics of the entire Age of Empires 4 are completely immersed in the background of respect for cultural diversity. In a way, even the Civilization series has a hard time doing that.
While the soft power is in place, the RTS hard gameplay of Age of Empires 4 has also reached the ceiling of this series.
The engine technology and design ideas introduced by the Mine Society have added dynamic vision, vertical terrain, etc. to the game, an unprecedented strategic dimension. Players' units can take refuge in dense forest terrain and wait for an opportunity to ambush enemy troops. Broken vertical terrain can also block the view, making battlefield information more complex. Correspondingly, the vision of the reconnaissance cavalry can penetrate the dense forest, forming a vision game between reconnaissance and anti-reconnaissance. In the same way, units have better views of the highlands, and occupying superior terrain has become an important part of the strategy.
If the blessing of dynamic vision increases the operability of field warfare, then the introduction of vertical terrain has completely changed the form of frontal combat. The city wall of this work is no longer just a roadblock, but a garrison platform for infantry to go up and down. Units stationed on it can gain high ranged resistance, ranged attacks on the city walls, and extremely high range buffs. At the same time, there are more vertical height difference terrains on the map that can be safely output by archers, which makes the game's defensive gameplay qualitatively strengthened.
When the mechanism is stronger, it must be balanced. Naturally, there will also be sanctions against the defenders, corresponding to the archers. After studying the corresponding technology, the infantry of Age of Empires 4 can directly build equipment such as punching vehicles and siege towers on the front line. While possessing the ability to attack strong points, these devices can also cover the infantry stationed in them, reducing the long-range threat of archery units. The rich means of infantry breaking the city make the player not be helpless against the city wall in the early stage, and the high functionality of the infantry can also balance the strength of some cavalry powers very well.
Corresponding to the expansion of the gameplay of infantry and archers, the cavalry also ushered in a wave of mechanical enhancements. The game has added a new attack mode of mounted gun charging, and the first attack after the continuous movement of the heavily armored cavalry can cause high charge damage. As a result, the threat level of heavy cavalry in field battles skyrocketed, often dealing a fatal blow to vulnerable long-range troops. There are also special classes like the Chinese Musketeers, which can deal high range damage when charging, which is simply a nightmare for crispy archers.
This change to cavalry in Age of Empires 4 somehow solves an old problem in RTS gameplay - the snowball operation, which is often referred to as the gunner in StarCraft. Specifically, it is a bunch of long-range units huddled together, pointing at each other's units to cause rapid and effective attrition. Because melee units have a small area to engage enemies, they cannot concentrate damage, so they are often in a weak position. After the cavalry has the charging skill, its high explosiveness can significantly narrow the gap between the two.
Combined with the above detail changes, it is clear that the battlefield experience of Age of Empires 4 is trying to develop in the direction of de-numerical and increasing the immersive experience. Similarly, the concept of a front has been added to the game, and the infantry has the same collision volume as the building in the sticky mode, which can block the passage of units. Lancers can also upgrade their hold-and-hold skills to get high counter-damage against cavalry. Coupled with the fact that cavalry can charge, is it more and more like the Total War series next door?
In fact, this is the sense of play and interaction that we mentioned in the previous second test experience report. If RTS is abstracted to the extreme, then the game experience of each player is actually a competition between the speed of the keys and the size of the value. No one is obsessed with such bone-chilling "entertainment" unless you take it as your profession or just watch a simple performance.
Since "StarCraft", RTS has a bad problem, the story experience of the campaign mode, and the repetitive gameplay of the encounter, are always extremely fragmented, which is obviously two things that can communicate with each other. It's like buying pork, and as a result, the fat, lean meat, and bones are all shaved wide open, but it is clear that the fat and thin flowers are the most fragrant, and even the ribs of the meat are the longest.
Over time, people forget that RTS, like Age of Empires, which is fat and thin, and tries to carry a little bone, is the dream lover that most players first see. We are history buffs first, campaign parties, PVP elites, AI busters, and then RTS players. And after so many years, we can still understand the new Age of Empires from many old perspectives.
Whether you're an RTS die-hard player or have only ever met with real-time strategy, Age of Empires 4 should have what you want, or something you don't expect. This year, an experience like this can only be one less than once. Take this opportunity, even if you don't buy a new work, you may wish to find friends who have been online together before, and rub a game of battle platform together, even if it is just a simple computer.
Happiness is the most difficult emotion to reproduce by memory, and the opportunity is rare, so let's grasp it.