Played the skirmish mode 3 times so far, on my third play the game crashed to desktop, there is no auto save function so my game that i was enjoying up till that point was gone.
this game is not age of empires, its a pathetic cash grab reboot of age of empires 3 de, which was the worst one of all of them.
it has less strategic gameplay than age of empires 2, it has used an rts template readily available on the epic games marketplace and not even bothered to customise it.
there are very limited factions to choose from, all but the mongols play relatively the same.
The Ai is dumb, if you play on anything but the hardest difficulty you wont even be attacked.
The base towers only come in two varieties with a castle being the only one that can do anything for you defensively.
late game on a skirmish match is slowed to a crawl due to resources dwindling down to the point were niether you or the Ai can finish the match, be prepared for a long slow and boring match.
population limited to 200, same problem as age of empires 3: De, ruins the game, even aoe2 could handle more then that.
all in all, while this could have been the next best thing in the RTS genre and revived the genre, IT HAS NOT!
so many people singing praises about this game but all I can see is aoe3:de remade to look like something new.
Theres nothing new to see here people, it has less than age of empires 2, its pretty much the equivalent of when EA took over the command and conquer franchise, its gone and its never going to be the same...
final vestiges of hope lie in the modding community to save it like they did with aoe3...

one of the biggest disappointments in this game was the lack of diplomacy, I can't make new allies in game, well then... fk you too.
imbalanced units and poor economy in the gameplay add to the problems this game has, if you are going to make melee infantry so damn useless, then for the love of god make them cheaper to build!
I am a long time fan of AOE and if I see a sequal coming out, I EXPECT some improvement on the game, not a cash grab remake of AOE3 gameplay.

heres what you missed:


individuality in units between factions, each factions units need to have character and play to a different strength, you failed to do this.

Different types of buildings between factions, while some factions are missing things like walls and get economy buffs to make up for it, this doesn't work, its just lazy, i understand the mongols being nomads, cool, but all the other factions needed to have their own unique defences, not just build archery range, build siege workshop whatever...

DIPLOMACY! cmon guys, really? just go back and play age of empires 2 and re-implement it.

upgradability, if someone wants to just roll with melee infantry units, let them just buff that unit and go to town. don't force them into 4 stages of resource grinding only for their infantry to become tissue paper.

AI:
doesn't like using large invading armies, which to me is the whole point of the game and the base defences get out ranged by any siege units anyway so there no point building base defences when you kill many more units with the unbalanced siege cannons that deal more damage then the base defences do. every RTS game ever made suffers from the "resource hog and spam" strategy loop, if thats all the game is, no one is going to play it more then once because its a chore, think about how to make the game fun by lowering the cost of units to the abundance of resources.

ok I think I've made my point that this game is wayyyyy too basic for a 4th generation game.
good luck on age of empires 5, dont fk it up again.

Played the skirmish mode 3 times so far, on my third play the game crashed to desktop, there is no auto save function so my game that i was enjoying up till that point was gone. this game is not age of empires, its a pathetic cash grab reboot of age of empires 3 de, which was the worst one of all of them. it has less strategic gameplay than age of empires 2, it has used an rts template readily available on the epic games marketplace and not even bothered to customise it. there are very limited factions to choose from, all but the mongols play relatively the same. The Ai is dumb, if you play on anything but the hardest difficulty you wont even be attacked. The base towers only come in two varieties with a castle being the only one that can do anything for you defensively. late game on a skirmish match is slowed to a crawl due to resources dwindling down to the point were niether you or the Ai can finish the match, be prepared for a long slow and boring match. population limited to 200, same problem as age of empires 3: De, ruins the game, even aoe2 could handle more then that. all in all, while this could have been the next best thing in the RTS genre and revived the genre, IT HAS NOT! so many people singing praises about this game but all I can see is aoe3:de remade to look like something new. Theres nothing new to see here people, it has less than age of empires 2, its pretty much the equivalent of when EA took over the command and conquer franchise, its gone and its never going to be the same... final vestiges of hope lie in the modding community to save it like they did with aoe3... one of the biggest disappointments in this game was the lack of diplomacy, I can't make new allies in game, well then... fk you too. imbalanced units and poor economy in the gameplay add to the problems this game has, if you are going to make melee infantry so damn useless, then for the love of god make them cheaper to build! I am a long time fan of AOE and if I see a sequal coming out, I EXPECT some improvement on the game, not a cash grab remake of AOE3 gameplay. heres what you missed: individuality in units between factions, each factions units need to have character and play to a different strength, you failed to do this. Different types of buildings between factions, while some factions are missing things like walls and get economy buffs to make up for it, this doesn't work, its just lazy, i understand the mongols being nomads, cool, but all the other factions needed to have their own unique defences, not just build archery range, build siege workshop whatever... DIPLOMACY! cmon guys, really? just go back and play age of empires 2 and re-implement it. upgradability, if someone wants to just roll with melee infantry units, let them just buff that unit and go to town. don't force them into 4 stages of resource grinding only for their infantry to become tissue paper. AI: doesn't like using large invading armies, which to me is the whole point of the game and the base defences get out ranged by any siege units anyway so there no point building base defences when you kill many more units with the unbalanced siege cannons that deal more damage then the base defences do. every RTS game ever made suffers from the "resource hog and spam" strategy loop, if thats all the game is, no one is going to play it more then once because its a chore, think about how to make the game fun by lowering the cost of units to the abundance of resources. ok I think I've made my point that this game is wayyyyy too basic for a 4th generation game. good luck on age of empires 5, dont fk it up again.