"Age of Empires 4" in the test: Finally jousting again

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"Age of Empires 4": Visually no revelation - but fun

Photo: Microsoft

The rebels put up bitter resistance.

But when the palisades burn in this round of "Age of Empires 4", York is lost.

The ranks of defenses are thinned with the cries of battle and the clash of swords.

The army of the controversial Norman king recaptured the city in northern England.

Many of his people died in the fight against the rebels.

But King Wilhelm had to set an example to underpin his rule.

"Age of Empires 4" is a new part of the legendary strategy game series, whose reputation is mainly dragged by part two, which appeared 22 years ago.

In the latest part, which will be launched on Thursday, only the right tactic will lead to success: Warriors have to be supplied with food, expensive weapons have to be financed with gold and stones for protective walls have to be mined.

The new "Age of Empires" also dovetailed economic and military construction art, it is by no means just about clumsy battles: Eight peoples from the Middle Ages are available to choose from.

The aim is to send fleets of ships in naval battles, to besiege majestic castles and to conquer the Great Wall of China with Mongolian horsemen.

In "Age of Empires 2" it was above all the multiplayer mode that promoted the game, along with titles such as "Warcraft 2" and "Command & Conquer", into the mandatory LAN party program of the 1990s.

"Age of Empires 4", I can say that as a veteran, brings back memories of night-long sessions in poorly lit cellars, it kindles a lot of nostalgia.

Progress trees with lots of details

"Age of Empires 4" scores with its variety of troops and cleverly used weapons knowledge. From lubricating oil for the axes of French siege catapults to Mongolian iron ore racing furnaces for more stable swords: the developers have come up with detailed progress trees for every civilization. They have modeled armaments and have considered special skills and functions such as pile protection walls for English archers and Chinese tax collectors as gold suppliers.

Getting started is easy, even for newcomers to the series. Step by step, players learn how to build stone quarries, send hunters into the forest and train knights. And since the controls have hardly changed, experienced "Age of Empires" fans can safely skip the tutorials and jump straight into the fray.

As in the past, the troops' artificial intelligence (AI) leaves much to be desired.

There is little discipline on the battlefield.

Those who do not force the units to a standstill by pressing a button risk that the suicidal soldiers throw themselves into the fray with a stray arrow every time they prick, even if they are hopelessly inferior.

It goes so far that disgruntled swordsmen leave the protective castle walls without hesitation to single-handedly pounce on an advancing siege army.

This AI does not work in keeping with the times.

Like a medieval documentary to play with

The highlight of "Age of Empires 4" are the single player campaigns.

The 35 missions of the four campaigns span a period of almost 500 years.

For example, players slip into the role of war heroes like Genghis Khan or fight in battles during the Hundred Years War.

In elaborately staged cutscenes, Mongolian horsemen chase through the steppe and camera drones follow computer-animated Normans on conquest campaigns along the English rocky coast.

The clips are prepared in an exciting way, the knowledge of history is finely dosed - even if the cars, bicycles and scaffolding that were filmed with them diminish the illusion of the Middle Ages.

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History can hardly be conveyed more entertainingly than in the 40-hour campaigns.

And when you then secure castle walls with catapults under time pressure and boil oil for the upcoming attack, as a fan of the series you feel in exactly the right place.

Graphically not catapulted into modern times

In multiplayer mode, the great art remains to ensure the supply of food, wood, stones and gold as quickly as possible so that the opponent is not a few development stages further: Otherwise the Rus will suddenly fire muskets at English archers. The computer opponents in "Age of Empires 4" are ruthless and therefore a good training for human duels: Even in the "Easy" level of difficulty, opposing elephants tear down the makeshift wooden walls after a few minutes if you have not upgraded quickly enough.

It is a shame, however, that Relic Entertainment has not only oriented itself towards "Age of Empires 2" when it comes to fun, but apparently also when it comes to graphics.

"Age of Empires 4" is nicely phrased as an homage to the nineties.

Visually, the series was not catapulted into the 21st century, although the water shimmers more beautifully, elephants trample more elegantly and arrows fly in Ultra HD.

In return, the minimum requirements for the computer hardware are comparatively moderate.

The game needs a lot of space on the hard drive with almost 50 gigabytes.

But even on computers with six-year-old Intel i5 processors and eight gigabytes of RAM you can get "Age of Empires 4" to work.