Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition News

Age of Empires IV Achievements Revealed

On October 28, one of the most acclaimed and iconic real-time strategy game series will return with the release of Age of Empires IV, ushering in a new era of kings, queens, empires, and heroes. Age of Empires IV invites players to make history their story with eight unique civilizations and four epic campaigns that cover nearly 500 years of history, from the Dark Ages all the way through to the Renaissance.

In true Age of Empires style, you’ll harvest resources, construct massive cities, assemble epic armies, and lead your troops to battle across land and sea as you’re immersed in a highly detailed historical setting. You can also hop online and experience a robust multiplayer feature set, competing against skilled players online or cooperating with up to seven of your friends across a variety of PVP or PVE modes.

And what better way to show off your strategic prowess than with achievements! Shared here today is your first look at every achievement you can unlock in Age of Empires IV - save for some of the most secret achievements you’ll have to discover for yourself (no spoilers here). Learn new skills in the Art of War challenges and earn the title of “Record Breaker” and +10 to your Gamerscore by receiving five Gold medals. Emerge victorious from battle against A.I. to test your strength as a strategist and earn one of four achievements, based on the difficulty level of the A.I. Or challenge yourself as the French to win a match without producing infantry for the “Who Needs Infantry?” achievement for 20 points. In all there’s nearly 90 achievements here for you to unlock – which ones are you going to go for first?

With innovative new ways to expand your empire across vast landscapes in stunning 4K, Age of Empires IV is set to bring real-time strategy to a new generation of PC gamers. We hope you’ll join us October 28 when a new age dawns with the release of Age of Empires IV.

Achievements List

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Check out this fan-made spreadsheet with detailed Age of Empires IV unit stats

We're less than a month away from the launch of upcoming RTS game Age of Empires IV, although gamers were treated to an initial taste during the recent open beta a few weeks ago. For our part, we quite enjoyed what was on offer, and we look forward to getting our hands on the full game at the end of the month.

In the meantime, fans are not sitting idle, and one industrious player - TurnSpender - has pulled together their own spreadsheet that offers minute detail on all of the units, buildings, techs, and pretty much anything else you could think of that was available during the recent stress test. While these values are undoubtedly subject to change - and many have probably already been tweaked as a result of the second wave of feedback - seeing everything laid out in detail is already fuelling the theory-crafting ahead of Age of Empires IV's launch.

TurnSpender posted the spreadsheet on the AOE4 subreddit, where other RTS fans are already analysing the data. Another user - Ubles - has posted a lengthy reply with some very notable observations, such as how hardy scouts are relative to their cost, and how crucial spearman upgrades can be.

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Six strategy games like Age of Empires

Let's talk about games like Age of Empires. Ensemble's classic set a gold standard in RTS game design that has had few competitors, most of which hail from contemporary challengers such as Command and Conquer or Starcraft. Since these halcyon days, no newcomer has really managed to topple these titans from their gilded thrones.

Even the creators of Age of Empires were reluctant to challenge the series' own legacy, with a fourth game finally coming later this year in October, 16 years after the release of Age of Empires III. If you can't wait for Age of Empires IV and are looking for something similar, we've thrown together a quick guide on five strategy games that we think are pretty neat, and follow the same formula.

We've not included titles such as Command and Conquer or Starcraft II, because while these games are RTS titles they are also very informed by their respective settings and differ in key ways. Age of Empires is first and foremost an historical strategy game, so with only a couple of exceptions we're looking at RTS games that also use this as a starting point.

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The English are "OP": Age of Empires veterans weigh in on the AOE4 beta

The Age of Empires IV technical beta is over, and everyone is taking some time to reflect on the upcoming RTS game. We shared our own thoughts on it the other day, but a handful of well-regarded beta testers - two of them self-proclaimed former Starcraft 2 pros - have shared some in-depth feedback of their own.

"These are just our opinions," user HuT_3527 explains, "...we are all competitive RTS players so that skews our perspective on certain things. Our desire is to highlight opportunities to optimise the competitive multiplayer aspect of the game. With that in mind, we can also be wrong."

The group's feedback is bulleted and spread across a number of topics, such as notable bugs, specific thoughts on each of the four Age of Empires 4 civilisations on offer during the beta, units, and more. Overall, they feel the game is solid "but falls short of what can be a great RTS," with specific points of questioned including the lack of dedicated command bar, upgrades that cost too much, and some balance concerns over the English and the Chinese civs.

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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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