Age of Empires IV

It’s all here.

If you’re new to the series, think of it as a management sim, but one where the aim is to save your people from invaders or to crush whole nations beneath your mighty fist. Control freaks, step right up because you are about to live your best life. You’ll have worker townspeople at your disposal to build up settlements and collect resources, and an army – complete with specialised units and siege weaponry – to command. You need food, gold, wood, and stone to purchase everything you need, collect or trade enough and you can advance your civilisation through different historical ages, offering more advanced technology. Winning is about using all of the above as efficiently as possible depending on the enemy, the map, and its resources and landscape. Maybe you’ll terrorise the local populace with endless legions of archers and swordsmen, or maybe you’ll work on your defenses and focus on building a “Wonder” to prove your people’s dominance.

There are eight different civilisations to play with, either in campaigns or in Skirmish mode against other players, and each has been meticulously designed to offer different gameplay experiences. My personal favorite is the Mongols, who can earn resources by burning down enemy buildings – rather than focusing on just building out a base with numerous farms and mines and mills – and travel with their own sheep. The Mongols are also impressively mobile, able to pack up the settlement’s buildings to move to a more strategic location. The Rus, or Russians, have Warrior Monks, the Abbasid Dynasty have camels and a House of Wisdom that can be expanded with extra wings to grant new research options, and the Delhi Sultanate has elephants. Elephants! Each civilisation has beautifully detailed differences in their clothes and armor and architecture, so even if you’re playing as the boring old English there are tiny visual treats to savor.

★★★★★

A triumphant return for the strategy series, and well worth the wait.