Age of Empires 4 is not the RTS revolution you've been waiting for

The recent Age of Empires IV technical beta gave players beyond the Age Insider programme their first chance to take the highly anticipated RTS game for a spin. It was fine, and I'm oddly pleased to discover that I'm just as mediocre at Age of Empires now as I was 20 years ago.

The beta offered PvP or co-op play against AI in up to 4v4 matches, with the English, Holy Roman Empire, Chinese, and Abbasid Dynasty available on a handful of maps. I had just as much fun playing around with the different civs as I did trying to actually win - it turns out building yourself a nice and tidy wooden wall is not the saviour you think it will be. That AI is also no joke either, even on intermediate settings.

I also found that an early rush can be killer. The English seem especially good at this, as they get access to some hard-hitting infantry earlier than the other playable civs, who have to make do with basic spearmen. Despite the community brouhaha over the art style, I found the graphics pretty enough (although I wasn't playing on max settings), and overall I saw nothing to make me especially concerned for the game's future.

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