Why I did NOT enjoy the Age of Empires IV Campaigns (Review) 

No character dialogue was the killer for me. Felt like a homework assignment rather than playing a game. AOE3 was super good in character stories and AOE2 was immersive to play their campaigns.

So it looks like AOE IV is having the same problem as many of nowadays movies: visually everything is looking tremendous and much time has been put into the details, but there is a lack of good storytelling at the basis, so you get bored. As I don't have much time to play video games I'm still stuck at AOE2, and I think I will stick to it in the future as well.

The way the original dev team design the scenarios in AOK and Conquerors really made me appreciate it even more nowadays, because although they took a lot of liberties with history (and how simplistic most of the scenarios are compared to Forgotten Empires campaigns) it was made up with the well-thought level design, and how each scenario flows smoothly to the next. Funny that you mentioned how the Vikings and Japanese couldn't be represented in the original campaigns due to their isolation, when the box art for AOK featured a Norsemen and a Samurai. I do like the cinematics presented by the devs in AOE3 and AOM, but it makes it even more difficult to modify or create original content for, (just look at the disastrous Tale of the Dragon campaign) If they want to follow multiple historical figures in a single campaign, they could use the Hautevilles as an example since they still follow through the storyline of the titular family, and the way it is presented feels more personal.

My personal summary regarding the campaigns is: Devs were mostly afraid of not being able to be different enough from aoe2. So their thoughts were dominated by what was the biggest weakness of aoe2 as a point we can exploit most to make something new. Which is: Historically accuracy. But whilst focussing on this to make a visually differentiation between aoe2 and aoe4, they forgot to make a game and not just a selection of videos. And forgot on looking at any strength of aoe2, as if they thought they are not allowed to reuse good aspects of those campaigns... Or adding something differently that can be improved compared to aoe2 like only looking with one factions eyes on the conflict. I think it is possible to take a conflict and have a streamlined narrative while also showing of the motivations of each involved faction. And I think this belittling approach to campaigns shows of as it may be the biggest influence why the game has been left by many players already. Having no good single player content means many are not bound midterm to the game. Be it by having replayable campaigns or having the opportunity to make your custom campaigns. Neither is there in the game imo. If you have played the campaigns once, there is probably not much you want to reexperience. And having that library of documentations is also mostly just a one- time watch.

Yes, the campaigns are often erroneous (badly in fact). You mentioned that Joan of Arc didn't actually fight, and she didn't directly lead either since Charles VII's records show the actual command structure. The maps for Orleans and Patay are also nonsense, the outline of those campaigns are erroneous, and some of the "historical background" narration is erroneous too (such as the tired claim that "Charles did nothing to save her" (tm), and so on). AOE2 had many of the same problems, but AOE4 was being touted as "educational" (!) by the company and therefore it needs to live up to a higher standard.

I feel the same, they are underwhelming compared to what Age II had. It's not because of the bones of the game itself, some scenarios reminded me of recent AOE2 ones such as the siege of Dover which had similar mechanisms as Jadwiga's defence of Vilnius. Campaigns did not feel grand-scale and too much like having a foregone conclusion. Let's compare the Mongol campaigns in both games. In AOE2, there was only one mission in China but it was a glorious sandbox build and destroy with several enemies to invade however you want, the only pressure (besides the risk of being economically steamrolled) was one player building a wonder. In AOE4 objectives are much more linear, forcing you through an exact path, and cover smaller events. Despite having 5 missions in China, it feels like you're only helping there and there instead of being in charge of the campaign itself. The end is especially underwhelming with the 3 last missions being besieging the same city. The smaller scale missions also forces the campaign to be smaller scale, entirely cutting Persia for example (Genghis Khan 4 in Age II) while Delhi would have been a good placeholder for it. Having campaigns cover a longer amount of history and the only voiced line being the narrator also prevents any connection with the characters. At most you see an historical figure for a couple scenarios, without any memorable line or banter to spice it up. Some mechanisms also did not help such as a ridiculous zoom level and no active pause, making it especially painful to manage several fronts at once.

My biggest issues with the campaigns is that it feels as if we have no say in the matter, that everything has already been written before, so there is not much suspense (I know it's supposed to be history, so of course it happened, I know) But the thing is, compare this. In AOE IV we have things like that : The walls defending the city had fallen, the soldiers had to regroup Now in AOE II, we would have instead : The City Wall's have FALLEN ! We need to REGROUP and barricade all that we can ! You see the difference ? By having the narrator being part of the story, we become, the player, as well part of the story and we care far more about what's happening. The same thing happens with cinematics. Yes, the documentaries are good, but once again, they don't make you feel anything. I mean, just play the Jadwiga campaigne from the Dawn of the Dukes DLC, and trust me, you will feel something by the end of it

I hate to say it but campaign design peaked in AoE2 and they've been getting less interesting with each subsequent game. I'm really sick of these blue/red one vs one build and destroys with no meaningful secondary objectives, diplomacy changes, or multiple paths to victory. At least Mythology and AoE3 still had characters. And Relic really didn't do themselves any favors by deciding to do William the Conqueror, Genghis Khan, and Joan of Arc over again; really set themselves up to fail by inviting those comparisons to AoE2 (I know Hastings isn't anyone's favorite historical battle but it's far more dynamic and challenging than AoE4's "send units up a hill until every enemy is dead" quasi tutorial intro scenario)

They really just need to get you as a consultant for all aoe campaigns. You’re definitely the community expert! Loved the video, and I don’t even play aoe4 🤣 your narrative is more interesting than the campaigns apparently, and as an artist I find your perspective on concepts and design to be intriguing. 10/10. Thank you!

A way to involve the other civs and make the Mongol campaign more streamlined. Make it 3 chapters of 3 missions each. First 3 focusing on the unification of Mongols and the first campaign into China. Focusing on the rise of the empire. The next 3 on the Persian and the first eastern European campaign. That includes Abbasids, and can include the Delhi sultanate as an ally of the Abbasids. The last 3 focus on the final defining missions of each theatre. With the Mongols playing as different civs to show how much they had changed. Battle of Legnica and Mohi as the Mongols. The campaign of Kublai Khan into China as the Chinese civ and the sack of Baghdad as the Abbasid civ. The last two can have the player benefit from a few Mongol unique techs and traits while being a different civ, to show how the Mongols were changing and how the empire was close to splitting up.

I agree with everything you've said. Here's something I liked that I thought didn't quite deliver: the attempt to immerse yourself in the history that you are playing out. E.g. the cinematics showing real world locations then taking you to maps that are really closely based on those locations (compare to AoE2 which sometimes changes from history so wildly that it loses the immersion altogether: Hastings and Kyoto for example). However, I still think the narrative style of AoE2 is far more immersive for this than the top-down "documentary" style. Likewise, the lack of meaningful choice makes you feel less like playing as an actual historical actor (e.g. I love the option to siege Constantinople in the Barbarossa campaign, something the historical Barbarossa came very close to deciding to do, but chose not to). Finally, I think there's something to be said for the attempt at a wider scope in the AoE4 campaigns-- seeing your kingdom or dynasty develop over successive generations, but as you say this didn't quite work here, except to some extent the Moscow campaign. An example that I think works better is the three Dawn of the Duke campaigns in AoE2, all interlinked with the story of the Jagiellonian dynasty and some of the same characters, yet each campaign individually zoomed in close enough to get immersed in each of the characters' particular stories.

I didnt play these campaigns, only watched on Ornlu channel. And I think, Ornlu didnt noticed main problem of campaigns(Only mine opinion, because I didnt play it). But... It feels like campaigns have no soul. Like... When you hear: "Joan of Arc campaign", you remember everything. The hard siege of Paris, the liberation of Orlean, the death of Joan and etc. Every campaign has it's own really memorable moments and Idea. Grand Dukes campaign - Idea to show the Civil war between 2 factions on French territories, what more bloody and awful than 100-years war. Alaric campaign - to show the Barbarians from other side. It can be people what can be betrayed, tricked. It shows them not only as killers, and as innocent people what must to kill. Gengis Khan campaign - Show the true rage and blood, show the dark side of medieval people. The tricks, the blood, the burned cities and destroyed nations. Kotyan Khan campaign - Show what Mongols are demons for other nations. It shows the fear of kingdoms and tribes. Cumans just want to escape from this permanent execution. Every campaign has idea, unique story telling, unique gameplay, unique characters and other... It seems like authors used their feelings, their souls. It sometimes seems in custom campaigns, especially,i think... Aoe4 campaigns have no it... And that's sad. So sad... And don't worry, Ornlu. You will see 3 scenarios of Rus campaign soon in Aoe2, and it's gonna be more interesting, I hope...

I also don't think that the Documentary format itself is a problem - think about all the aoe2 campaigns that are told to you by someone else after the fact - El Cid, Barbarossa, Attila the Hun, and even Ghenghis khan are all retellings of events. It's *how* the documentary style is done. You can have a narrative in a documentary. You can have characters and events that you feel connected too. Each small arc in "the history of Byzantium" podcast made me feel something. I felt for Heraclius who fought so hard against the Persians, only to lose to the Arabs - a foe he not only helped create but also helped win, I felt the sheer sense of betrayal for the 4th crusade, or the horror of the Plague of Justinian. You could easily create short documentary narratives that are entirely told *about* characters and still create a sense of feeling and story. It just takes actually writing a narrative.

Regarding the conceptual problems brought up - as AoEII has way shorter timeframes, making comparisons a bit odd, I feel that Empire Earth 1 campaigns would make a fair comparison. EE is cousin to the AoE series and also opted to go for way longer timeframes for some of its content, most notably Greek (from settling Argos/Myceanae to Alexander's conquests) and English (Wilhelm of Normandy, medieval england, and ends on a huge timejump to Napoleon). Despite that EE avoided most of the issues brought up - each scenario still always tries to be character-focused to make for an engaging story, individual scenarios are way wider in scope than a single battle making one-off scenario not look disjointed in the grand sceme of things as well as enabling slightly more diverse gameplay. They are dated now, sure, but it shows that it really can be done decently in spite of character and location jumping.

18:18 Do you guys notice that campaign selection screen shows globe behind UI ? Wasn't that a great opportunity to show France when selecting The Hundred Years War or Eastern Europe when selecting Moscow campaign ? Instead they are showing Poland for some reason while Poles are not even playable. It always bothered me.

18:47 also lets not forget the beautiful backgrounds during the cutscenes cause they are very detailed and change based of the civilization you are using

I noticed you have not covered AoE1 at all. I suggest you do, as it has it's own narrative style in ways that somewhat resembles AoE4 while having more gameplay diversity despite the engine's limitations.

I haven't played 4, so I'm limited to pointing out that Ramblu is superior to script reading Ornlu.

Delhi would defend the Mongols from trying to sack them. Only including battles that the civ won made the issue of being too narrow while being to broad even bigger. Cause if you want that: "We are historically accurate and thus complex" - you gotta feature all relevant battles of a conflict and not just one faction was successful in. That is not how history is made if you want to give an objective view how the events influenced each other as time progressed. Heck even the defeat of the Persians could be covered by Delhians as they also represent the ghorids which are the ancestors for both the Delhi sultanate and the khwarizmian empire.

0:18 I would not be able to looks 12yrs old me in the eye if I wouldn't immediately comment here that I am a bit sus about your tone of "even the AoM Campaigns"! in my opinion, the AoM Campaigns truly were a cut above the rest! I still watch its cutscenes for that engaging storyline! now, on to the video!! :D :D

It feels like you are the one working on the documentary that would be showed to highschool students and then the teacher would say, "sEe, HiStOrY iS fUn."

This is more as a viewer who tried to watch some of the campaign but couldn't even bring himself to finish watching the two videos he tried to watch, but the sheer dryness and lack of immersion killed it for me. From the cutscenes to the in game narration there was nothing to keep me interested in seeing what the next part of the story would be like because I knew all I'd get would be more dry, dispassionate narration. And while sure the opening cutscenes were high budget, being high budget isn't a substitute for actually being engaging. As nice as drone footage of ground that didn't actually look like that when the battle was actually taking place is I would have quite happily swapped that for a bit of static art and actually engaging narration and story to go with it. People call it documentary style but documentaries are typically actually fairly engaging when narrated by good presenters and properly scripted. This lacked that and it just kills any desire to see more of it.

The lack of civs in the campaign is SOOOO painfull in the Norman, Moswoc and Joan of Arc Campaigns. It's all mirror matches or fighting one other civ. English VS English or French. French Vs English. Moscow Vs Mongols or Moscow vs other rus. So boring.

The lack of character development is a big issue. I found myself not caring about anything that happens in the campaign after 3-4 hours.

12:07 This was the biggest issue I had with with AoE3 . That game has like thrice the complexity of AoE2 but only has a third of the campaign SP content which doesn't do a good job at capturing the details of the game . It was only when I began playing skirmish as random civ aganist random AI I began to understand AoE3 works and finally grasped the endless list of unique units and techs .

I also don't understand the campaign choices. I mean: the Mongol Empire and the Hundred Years War, seriously? Retreading the same ground as AoE2, when they could have done so much more to differentiate between the two games. Imagine, instead of a Campaign based on the Hundred Years War, you'd have one based on the rise of the House of Valois and their ascension to the French throne, and instead of the Mongol Empire you'd have a Campaign based on the Ghorid conquest of northern India and the establishment of the Delhi Sultanate, for example.

also, is hard to compete with the emotional high of the narration in the polish campaing in AoE 2. for me, is the best of the best....also, the jokes are pure gold !

I played all the campaigns on hard. Worst mistake of my life. Formigny simply CANNOT be beaten without abusing AI because your fixed forces are so severely underpowered.

those general critiques of the campaigns reminds me of the AoEI campaigns, and they had the excuse of the technology not being ready for more complex scenarios or story telling, with things like triggers only being implemented with AoK, resulting in scenarios like: "here are two monks and nothing else, now try to win a game vs two AIs, bye".

@Ornlu they can actually give delhi sultanate an appearance in the mongol empire camapign if they wanted,mongols attacked northern india a bunch of times looting multan,lahore and most places theat r now in Pakistan i believe and mongol invasions were a huge cause of concern and i believe during the reign of allauddin khilji he built a network of castles to deal with this incursions and in the battle of kili he defeated the mongols of the chagatai khanate (i could be wrng abt this)there were many following battles in which the mongols were defeated and their status as an invincible foe was busted tho this wasnt the mongol army of subotai or genghis mind u but a mongol empire beaten from internal strife and conflicts ( a little attila the hun 6th mission intro reference 😉)

You talking about Age of Mythology makes me wonder if they'll ever make a Definitive edition for it.

I'd say that the reason there weren't any naval aspects to the campaigns is because naval warfare was even more broken when they made the campaigns than it is now 11. So dodgy.

Different colors is such high yield for low effort changes.

One advantage of the campaign having a fixed data set does mean that you don't need to make adjustments to the campaign when you make balance changes; Warcraft III did something similar. At the very least they should have used a dataset closer to the release version of the game though. For naval, I really would have loved to see the Battle of Yamen in the Mongol campaign.

I think the documentary idea was novel and interesting, and the videos they had between scenarios were really nice. But in terms of the scenario gameplay itself it felt lacking. First of all the difficulty curve felt all over the place; oftentimes the earlier missions are harder than the latter ones and the AI in general seems way too passive which makes the campaign as a whole feel too easy. Being able to boom for an hour at your leisure and then go kill them with a deathball is not the most interesting gameplay Also the general narrative feels largely detached when they cover such a large time period with different characters and don’t really properly voice anyone and just let the narrator do all the talking instead. I guess that’s a consequence of the documentary angling but it makes the continuity of it all feel weird Also we still only have campaigns for half of the factions in the game

good vid My experience of the campaigns was quite enjoying them to begin with, I loved the cinematic sections and the extra videos you unlocked from each mission, but this slowly faded to getting bored by the monotony and repeated formula. The detached narrator never immersed me in the campaign, unlike the carefully selected narrators of AOE2 did or the fictional characters that AOE3. Overall the campaigns feel like different people worked hard on different elements and they were just sort of thrown together at the end, which much love and attention paid to random parts and not the work as a whole. I remember distinctly the mission where you get cannons as the french (they make a big deal about this in cinematics) was hilarious to me because they make such a big deal about how important gunpowder was, and then the cannons in game have bad animations (no reload, no pack/unpack), no soldier manning them or horse to pull them and just look like someone had to create a cannon real quick in blender. I didn't play much AOE3 but i remember the falconets with their horse to move them and the man working the gun, and yet AOE4 just has this lump of metal that wheels itself around the battlefield seemingly at its own accord. Those incomplete cannons appear to me as a good metaphor for the game as a whole

To be fair the campaigns in the original Age of Empires (1997) also didn't follow a single person, but a whole ''civilization''. These campaigns often span multiple millennia and sometimes followed multiple empires of one civilisation. The Babylonian and neo Babylonian empires for example.

When even AOE 3 is better at doing campaigns you know its *BAD* . I knew it would have been a mess since i saw all that history channel style nonsense. Even Catscientist Reconquista custom scenario that covers hundreds of years is done better and has more personality that these wannabe documentaries.

The Norman dynasty ended not long after the battle of Lincoln. The Angevins, while also French, were not the house of Normandy.

0:40 my dumb brain thought this was gonna happen: "Now before you get your pitchforks and torches ready, please leave a like and subscribe to the channel."

Great video!! Just wanted to comment one thing: the map laying out campaigns is actually, I think, bigger than we give it credit: having it show you how much you/your empire travalled is an awesome way of making it all feel big and important. AoM also did it in a really cool way to explore parts of the worlds and it's myths, but I still think AoE2 did it best. With Huns and Mongols, you can see how much it grew and how much has been conquered. Details like this come together to help shape our memory of a game. Anyway, amazing work, congrats and keep it up :)

I think a lot of the maps were too linear and streamliend with not enough optional objectives. Most maps have forests just blocking you in to the intended play area, and 50% of the map are just completely unused.

At the end of the day, between the "broad" personal tales of AoE2 and the fictional family saga of AoE3, I'm glad that AoE4 at least TRIED something else with the documentary style. Personally, I'm still a sucker of those 10-15 long missions other RTS games have compared to the 6-8 missions that AoE2 has (more time spent knowing the characters and the intricacies of the times they lived in), so I'd probably would've done something similar with going in-depth of these historical time pieces, but also still taking the PoV of someone who was there as a personal connection to the time, place and people.

Agreed - i was feeling like replaying aoe2 campaings in 2-3 nomad scenario and after finishing have not returned to age 4

And this is why we've got to stop focusing on the development company and focus on the people in the team, just like we do with movies. Homeworld, Dawn of War, Company of Heroes. They were such staples in single player RTS. Its saving grace is definitely the multiplayer. At least now in 2024 I'm happy to say has turned out really solid. They've polished it up to be the best Age of Empires MP experience I've ever had. The civs are much more mechanically diverse than older titles, the QoL features are top notch, the hotkey page goes on for days etc. Its a very clean package that lends itself strongly to competitive multiplayer.

Very nice analysis! It pretty hurts to see AOE 4 fails in so many aspects of the game, I really wish/ed it to be a masterpiece but it seems far from becoming one.

I enjoyed the AoE IV campaigns - but not as much as the AoE II campaigns. I prefer the AoE II approach with the link to one historic person. The campaigns in AoE IV are covering very long periods in the history of entire civilizations. And at some points, this feels like they are cutting too much historic content. E.g. a Norman/Plantagenet campaign with John Lackland but without Richard Lionheart feels incomplete. And there really should be some kind of "Historical Battles" for the Holy Roman Empire, Chinese and the other civs.

Campaign function being different from multi-player function is a certified Relic classic move. Company of Heroes 2 has a WILDLY different balance between campaign and multi, and even between mission pack levels. For example, flamethrowers absolutely dominate in campaign and are much more situational in multi

I played thru aoe4 recently, then played aoe 2 DE and wow, aoe 2 DE is sooooo much better. Wtf were they thinking. Great vid. I recently started watching your vids, your narration and script is awesome man like for real one of the best I’ve heard on YT.

Mongols fought Delhi sultanate on 1305 during Mongol conquest of India ( and lost), surprised they missed perfect opportunity to use Delhi

I was also left pretty disappointed, I had hoped for something more like AoE3 where its overarching plot following a family over multiple generations, as well as the Persistent Home City (I REALLY like persistent elements in campaigns, feels like your efforts has actual payoff), it made for a very enjoyable campaign, my favorite in the series. In particular the Railroad Wars and its characters was pretty fun. AoE4 in comparison is just a bunch of loosely connected scenarios, almost lazily put together, with no in-game narrative to make me care. The gameplay was also fairly repetitive, and for all the defensive missions I found it really annoying that villagers can't autorepair. For people only interested in singleplayer, this game should be a hard pass IMO.

@Icarian I'm posting this here since it doesn't seem to allow me to reply to replies for some reason, only to post new comments. Pierre Champion (a prominent historian) provided a lot more evidence rather than just "clues", so there is substantial evidence that Charles was behind the efforts to rescue her.

I could not agree more with the verdic. The missions felt often like on rails, something I truly realised when I played AoE2 campaigns again (turing my playthrough I though something was off, but could not really pinpoint what it was). I really think with the whole "we want to tell history like it was" the somewhat shot themselves in the foot. Its something that might sounds great on paper and is something a lot a players wished for, but in practies, it has many downsides. I think this is the core reason why the missions are build so straight-forward and without any meaningful player choice, because that could strafe from history. One thing with the water: apperently is was added very late in development, earlier versions that some pros played in ~2019 did not have water gameplay at all. Because they saw in the data that water maps aren't that populer, they wanted to scrap it entirly. I think at this point, the campaigns were already set and not possible to add later. I don't mind the techtree not being the same as in the multiplayer (StarCraft 2 does the same thing). I like it when they don't have to look for balance but fun gameplay. But in general, that seemed not the top priority when designing the campaigns of AoE4.

It looks like they've very clearly not spent any time on the design aspect of the scenarios at all, and it is criminal that they could ship an unfinished game like this.

I think you do a good job of describing the issues with the campaigns. Hopefully future campaigns are better. I think in AoE2 the AoK campaigns are a lot weaker than what came later so I have hope that what may come will be better. Will you ever play through the first AoE campaigns? It'd be interesting to hear your thoughts on those as well and how they compare.

The campaigns in aoe4 are NOT memorable, the scenarios are not memorable. We dont even care or feel invested into the battle at hand. Remember in aoe2 how invested and interested you would get in the barbarossa campaign or attila the hun… so disapointing. I dont care about the norman campaign because they never really immersed me into the story and setting. The hand holding is boring and the scenarios are so bland. Some aoe2 scenarios were so interesting because there were many things at play, many ways of winning. Anyway im just rambling but i am disapointed with the campaigns when i remember how glorious aoe2 campaigns were.

Loved the video, and yeah, that is pretty much it. I feel also that, playing the moscow campaign first, I had a somewhat better first impression thatn the others, and thought that there were some good potential there, using the mechanics of the civilization in a good way for it to complete certain objectives (like you having to use hunter cabins to have gold), but these were more often than not left behind in others. Also, that narrator got tiresome really really fast. Both in the cinematics, and in the campaigns themselves, which, as you pointed out, felt like they were giving me directions more than anything else, and the 'midly excited' tone in telling the things from above, making you feel completely detatched from what you were playing definetly didn't helped, the voice itself made it feel tiresome, specially because you could not catch any break from it, from the cinematics, to the campaigns, and it being present in ALL the campaigns, with the same tone, and the same mildly excited numbness, if there is such a thing. And, truth be told, despite having many interesting things inside about some historical facts, there were plenty of things wrong or outright ahistorical, which, made me as an historian specially cringe in discontent. Like, the mini-documentaries you had about how crossbows functioned, or the Rus's masks etc. were interesting, but the cinematics many times presented somethings that frankly, if they had the intention of making it look like a documentary, they should definetly hold themselves up to a higher standard. The bits about the 'english identity' at the end of norman campaign were specially gringeworthy (for instance, english and french identity started to really form only AFTER the 100 years war, which again, could be something to be explored in that campaign, but it wasn't... The 100 years war began and went much more as a civil war inside a society that was deeply interconnected and could quite possibly become eventually a single thing, than two countries fighting, it became these countries with national identities in the final years of the war, and after that as well. It is such an very interesting thing how the war started with feudal loyalties with war banners and such, placing the very strict vassalage hierarchies against each other, and ended with some of the first professional state-armies in Europe since the Roman Empire). And the Mongol campaign was also particularly eggregious in this, they basically copied the narrative of the 'relentless horde sacking everything' from age of empires II, without any of the flavor and excitement of it (again, placing a numb coat of that same narrator tone for the whole duration of it), like there are so many interesting new things discovered and discussed about the historiography about the mongols and their empires that could absolutely be discussed there, and it was all an missed opportunity. Like, hell, the reason they invaded the kievan rus in the first place is so much more intriguing and complex than 'just wanted more tribute because we conquerors raaar', involving repeated offences and attacks of the Kievites against their traders and envoys, attacking their allies, and the position of the kievites that the 'tatars and eastern nomads were easy prey' since their relationship with some turks and Khazars that they conquered. The same way it was the conquest and invasion of Persia and the abbassids, and all of this being boiled down to 'we conquerors, raar', like a tidal wave of orcs, is frankly offensive, and many other things that would frankly just make this comment be even bigger and digressive. My impression overall is: The bones of good campaigns are there, with the animation, actors, the superceding of modern things with ancient stuff etc. And some interesting ideas even in the gameplay, about using the strenghts and mechanics of the playable civilization as a core about the scenario. But, there are some coat of things that sadly needs to be adressed. I don't even care much about the large time they want to focus about, but I feel they can really make it be more interesting and engaging than it is right now.

The streamlining of the campaigns did get to me. The one take away I have for the campaigns as a whole is they have some great educational tidbits.

Concept: I get that they wanted to go with a less fictional narrative, as AoM* and especially AoE3 were not that well received on that account, while not just doing aoe2 in 3D. tho tbh there are many negative examples of why this is boring out there, that relic should have known better. Another problem is that the game HAS TO(and I'm not debating this, it's how things should be) cater to 12 year olds and you can write a compelling narrative for 12yos but not if its also supposed to "be 100% correct" if you want to describe a casus belli to a 12yo, you gotta go with "X wanted to be king" or "X is evil" otherwise most will just lose interest. The good part is that today young people can simply wiki the date and location of the campaign mission and go to the wikipediaarticle. I'm not saying 12yos are dumb, I'm saying 90% of them will not be interested in your product if it starts off by explaining a casus belli. Campaign techtree: Probably related to release state but I also get this as a safety precaution against balance changes affecting the perfectly calibrated missions. which might be an issue IF it were impossible to patch scenarios(as done in aoe2) AND IF these missions would be perfectly calibrated in the first place AND IF That would even matter, it's not like missions rely on clutching umicroabe situations and Hitpoint timers, nobody cares if a mission is a bit harder or a bit easier after a patch. - just look at the aoe2 GK campaign, Chinese cant train their scripted gunpowder, Bohemians don't get SO/SR/Pala bonuses and Magyars are not at all comparable to Teutons. Still nobody cares. It's a bit like self driving cars: it's a solution to a problem that misses the real problem and is more disruptive and expensive than existing solutions. Player colour: YEAH F that! I myself have problems telling some colours apart sometimes, but even I HATE always fighting blue vs red? IS THIS HALO, MICROSOFT?!?!? It sucked aoe3 (it was ok in aom as there you always were the same guy), but could we not get a bit of variety?! No naval stuff: I think this is because they made the scens before they did water? *l love the aom campaign but i also know its weakpoints. PS: Eagerly awaiting your next AoE2: DE Campaign Review & Tier List :)

I first played the AoE 4 campaigns almost two years ago as part of my work on the AoE 4 companion book and looking at them now two years later and also having revisited some of the AoK + AoC campaigns in DE, I see a lot of the points people critiziced about them and I agree with large part of your points. Regarding colours: absolutely agree. Something which makes the AoE 2 campaigns so memorable is that you have different colours throught each campaign, whether it's Blue for Joan, Red for El Cid or Yellow for Attila. Stuff like that makes campaigns more memorable. Regarding storytelling and mission design: AoE 4's campaigns are more like a modern approach on the AoE 1 campaigns when you look at it but 1's campaigns definitely gave you more freedom to achieve the goals. 2's campaigns try to soak you into the world of the narrators and invite you to relive memories of their live, whether it's Jimena telling the story of her husband, Father Armand being a warrior on the Catalaunian Fields or Joan being narrated through the diary of Guy Josselyne. The sole thing coming close in AoE 2 narration-wise to the AoE 4 style are actually the intro and outro slides of Battle of the Conquerors and the Forgotten.

I really liked the documentary style and thought it was an excellent change of pace. It's a very different game. That said, agree your thoughts on the level design and over-use of 1v1s. Definitely more style than substance but overall worth playing I think.

Good wolf, always go for the jugular... mediocrity is neither encouraged or tolerated for our beloved AoE. This current heir brings shame to our long&proud lineage... time to oust this bastard and return to our long lost roots. If only campaigns were the single botched thing about AoE4...as it stands the only thing thing about it that doesn't merit criticism or a massive overhaul is the surprisingly decent sound track .

Not saying I would BUT if I had to do the documentry mission I think I would forgoe doing campaigns and instead do 30 something historical battles under 4 themes: 1) Hundred Years War (you get English and French battles instead of English winning off screen), 2) Kings of the Third Crusade, 3) Mongol Conquest, 4) Enemies of the Hoarde (focusing on various nations breaking free of Mongol / Tartar rule). Again not endorsing documentary style but I think if I did it that way that's how I would have do it. At least you can feature every civ this way.

i had the feeling the ai doesnt know how to use siege effectively, they only used rams against my walls.

Single player being different than multiplayer isn't really a problem, in fact that's what I'd want. Have unique units and structures that make it more fun. Case in point: Starcraft 2. Anyway, I feel like they made this game first and foremost as an e-sport game, catering for hardcore players, with balance being the focus, then forgot to add the fun into the single player part.

Hello comrades. (I am writing from Russia, sometimes using Google translator. Therefore, I apologize in advance for possible stylistic errors). I will express my point of view. In the second part of the game, you felt like a part of the historical world. Almost every game mission was made in such a way that the world around lived on its own. And you had to study it and think it over well in order to win. This is especially true in the second expansion. Remember the Ethiopian company. second mission. On a huge map there are several cities, robbers, pirates. All of them trade with each other, fight, and all this without your participation. The world lives without you and that makes it feel alive. Your settlement is a small part of the world. You have to think. Should I give the relics to a neighboring city and get an ally, or take it for myself and get an enemy? To release the daughter of the head of another city, captured by robbers, or to share a ransom with them? Build a fleet against pirates or pay off them? So many years have passed, but I still remember. Ah, there were also puzzle missions without a base and tactical missions with restrictions on building and collecting resources! What about the fourth part? Small maps that obviously do not correspond to the scale of the battles. Here are the blue ones for you. But the red ones are your enemies. Go from point A to point B to defeat the reds. or defend your base from them. Therefore, individual tasks that try to diversify the overall picture (like a mission for Rus', where you have to collect gold in different ways and pay tribute) look like a pearl in a pile of dung. Everything else is boring and monotonous. It is possible to make the game more ambitious was not allowed by the system requirements, which would then become completely prohibitive. But these are questions for developers and programmers.

Got it in one. Completely agree with you. I was super bored, compared to aoe2 where i played every scenario that made the game fun. I also hated 1v1 campaigns

Tge sadder part about Moscow? AoE2 did a similar thing with Bari abd it's much better in the long run.

Hey, I just want to point out that one may agree with you or not, but you have such strong arguments and explainations when you do a "pros or cons" videos. Really like that style, your "deep approach" Thank you.

Also I know that AoE2 has been out for a looong time, and the creativity, variety, and content is just so far ahead, but even comparing the base Campaign maps to these ones, AOE2's still reign superior. I think AOE4ks campaign isn't meant to replace or replicate AOE2's, but it's still disappointing.

Wow, you really hit it out of the park! Although I enjoy the game, I think that when RTS developpers, ESPECIALLY seasoned ones, can look at Starcraft II, Warcraft III, Age of Empire 2 & 3, etc., and all those level designs, varied storytelling and original challenges, there is no excuse for what were ultimately very bland campaigns. I mean, to make Gengis Khan bland... Plus, the idea that we would rather play as King John ''a sheriff is more famous than I'' Lackland rather than Richard ''I went crusading and beat Saladin while the german emperor was sinking'' Lionheart, is baffling. There is literally a point in the Mongol campaign where after having burned some chinese villages, some chinese monks show up to heal my troops for no reason whatsoever...like, thanks a bunch,, and now to pillage more villages!

Worst of all, no building rotation.

They used the money and time for making silly RU-vid Videos about trebuchets and other stuff instead of caring for the game itself

Yup, I feel like they put in quite some effort in the campaigns but it fell flat.

The maps feel so small because bases are so big.

Now i wanna know your thoughts on the aoe1 campaigns

4:40 are you implying that Minotaurs, trolls and stuff never existed???

Just watched this in full now I have played them all. Agree with a lot of the points. The timeskips are just so jarring and lead to a lack of cohesion. Feel like I play the scenario to move into the next with my only input really being 'win.'

Long story short, the game is incredibly blant and boring, lacks any kind of spirit and identity

14:25 great review, thats a real idea and the fact the civilization isnt known with a word in the unit's description. as well will fix it is a good tutorial mission which explains every thing by order because there is no order in age of empires 4 or there is im just assuming as have seen in the closed free in steam beta for this game or has an improved aoe2 feel which is very hard to think about this game this way or you play too good you dont have time to talk to the other players and listen to their advice i was only considering what my teamates were saying when we almost lost due to the walls being a good chokepoint to kill the advancing enemies which is stupid as walls are for defense not for a strategy in order to weaken as army or to win it, thats to exhast the enemy only!

>has a historical documentary type narrative >still has the same common-mistake errors of history Not a good combo.

I disagree with your comment, but not on the Aoe4 part but when you suggested that AoM campaign is worse than Aoe2, AoM is probably the best campaign ever made in RTS history.

I'm doing an AoE (2-4) playthrough from Alaric all the way through the Black family adventures; historical battles and all. Going through it I kind of wish AoE4 chose to more new stuff instead of a lot the same historical content as AoE2. In the end I decided to leave out a lot of AoE4 missions because of the things you mentioned. I actually think AoE4 is alright in terms of skirmish games. But the campaigns not so much. I ended up omitting all of the Norman campaign missions except 8, 9, and 10 as I felt those narrative wise they contributed to the historical playthrough they kind of show Richard left England a mess while he was off crusading; they kind of served as an okay follow up to Cyprus/ Saldin 6. Hastings is redundant so I just played AoE2 version. I think it's fine for an intro mission but intra civ rebellions / squabbles don't make as good of story telling as inter civ conflicts. Most of the Norman campaign actually showcases stuff conflicts AoE2 didn't, however it is just largely intra civ squabbling in England that I felt unnecessary to include in my playthrough because they just too micro in scale. My Hundred Years War campaign is AoE4 2, 3 (might be my favorite AoE4 mission), 4, and 7 plus Grand Dukes, Agincourt, and classic Joan of Arc. My Mongol campaign is classic Genghis 1-6, Kotyan Khan, AoE4 7-9, and Ivaylo. I feel like AoE4s first 6 missions just didn't add much. Yeah Kiev isn't exactly redundant but it was a grind fest, so it's out. I do actually plan on keeping all the Moscow missions as while they aint perfect they do kind fill gaps and supplement the AoE Lithuanian, Poles, and Tatar campaigns. Last mission is also nice segway into the AoE3 Rus historical battle. Anarchy of King Steven custom campaign is also a better substitute game play wise for Maltida / Steven / Henry story.

This reminds me a lot of the original Age of Empires campaigns, which were pretty meh story-wise imo. Like anything in history, you need to make people feel something to get invested. Hopefully we see an overhaul in Return to Rome.

I agree with everything that you've said! The campaigns were so bad for me, that I couldn't even finish any of them. It's so boring, it couldn't hold my attention, not even during one single level..... I love the multiplayer though. It is where the game really shines. But, man, amazing video as always. You are definitely the best AoE youtuber. I wish you a lot of success in the future! 😊🍀

They should've stuck to the original "Fall of the empires" concept and went for napoleonic-WW1 era instead of this glorified history documentaary

Honestly, and this is just my opinion, I expected the AOE4 would have the same campaigns as AOE2DE did. I had the most absolute fun in finishing all the vast campaigns AOE2 does, and I hope AOE4 has that as well. In sorts of variety of civs and campaigns. But this can just be a dream of mine haha

i am on same boat as you, i was looking at and expecting something like grand peasant to rich kinda campaign like AOE3 but here its all in bits and pieces, just set pieces and you cannot make your own grand strategy to defeat other 3 empires, i mean documentary like style is really really great. but gameplay feels so limiting, i was really rooting for it but after couple of free weekends, i am no longer interested in it. i mean why limit the game to only select set piece and set map.. it has such huge potential. just play 3-4 scenarios and map ends.. like come on.

Hey man, when does the tierlist for AoE II campaigns part 9 (and 10) come?

I'm glad I'm not the only one who was not satisfied. While I have not nearly finished all of the campaings but I did get the feel for essentialy everything. And yeah I do agree, I'd actually go even further and say I did not like thet documentary approach or even the documentaries. Surely they were well done but they just, together with the general way the campaings were narrated made it feel incredibly souless and impresonal, nothing too memorable, nothing to get attached to. Now that aside with the fact that you have no other color avaiable other than blue (something you also mention) and the cold visuals of the game (comparatively to AoE especialy) just left it feel kinda without soul in general. I will definetly be looking forward to making campaings of my own when they give us the oppurunity but for what they've given us, I must say I'm not the greatest fan of the campaings at all. On the note I think Delhi could've also been included in Mongols, maybe as persia? It's not exactly the same thing but that's the one use i could think of.

Another "minor" detail that bothered me about the campaigns is the soulless, dull, executive type of narrator that made this sound either like some corporate training ad for employees, or some kind of news reporter for BBC. And why did it have to be the same British accent for every campaign?

This is the first Age of empires which abandoned for the boredom, i cannot pass the half Norman campaign for the absolute lacking of interest.

Offbeat here but How can I make a game Limiting only 100 total units?

I remember when i played aoe2 for the 1st time and each campaign had a progress not just on difficulty but the use of triggers, alliances and map designs. I wish i could be optimistic and say aoe4 devs are learning and get used to the game's tool but my main concern is the same as yours: LACK OF CREATIVITY

I tried Aoe4 briefly during the beta-testing, but I didn't like the gameplay at all, the same with campaigns. It just doesn't feel like Age of Empires anymore. I don't say the game is bad, maybe I'm just used to the older RTS games, younger players will probably enjoy it more. However, it's cool that they made the Rus campaign. The Rise of Moscow or Ivan the Terrible would make a perfect AoE2 campaign for Slavs by the way. So many battles and wars with different civilizations and also the narration could be interesting to show Ivan's personality. He was maybe even more violent than Vlad Dracula, but extremely religious at the same time.

You watch documentaries on a big screen, you don't play through them as an interactive format. Making the campaigns in a documentary style was a bad idea from the start. Basing the campaigns entirely on the historical side of things and not telling any of the stories of the characters or anything like that was an extremely flawed move. They also failed to deliver any of the charm that previous titles' campaigns had. They are just generic as can be. There's nothing engaging or interesting about them from mission design to map layout to characters and story to playing with different units / powers and such.

Thank You, i hated the campaign this time,

I would never buy AOE 4. Don’t want to cause a headache by looking at those blob of units. Thank god Microsoft are updating AOE2. Excited for Indian dynasties.

Now I'm wondering how would you like AoE1 campaigns

(I copy here my reddit comment) Hello, I feel like your video is summerizing the opinions of many people disapointed with the AoE 4 campaign so I would like to take that opportunity to address some of the critics because I believe this campaign is actualy very well made. So I will focus on answering your critic of the concept of the game as it is, I feel, the main topic that made some love it and some hate it. The other points I feel like are either more opinion based or do not cause a lot of debate. Concerning the level design being boring, I think we will all agree on the fact that AoE 4 missions are indeed very repetitive. Now, the question is was there a way to make it not repetitive while still sticking to History? For example, naval battles are non existent, but was there a way to incorporate it into a campaign based on the hundred year war or the mongol invasions? I, as an historical incult, don't have the answer, but I find the "weird to have no water combat, why designing water units then, hello devs?" line a little to easy. The first part of a valuable critic is to make the effort to understand the intention of the creator (which does not mean agreeing with the solutions found of course), and it seems you are not always honestly trying it in your video. I would also like to point out the good ideas in some (rare) missions, for example hiring a pack of forces directly with gold (Patay,...) was allowing the player to try out different compositions when reloading a save instead of having to rebuild an army every single time, I found that it sped up the pace, which is a good thing in rts where campaigns can be very long. I do not see the typical AoE 2 mission when you turtle for 15 minutes to defend againts 3 different AIs harassing with little groups that are too small to be an actual threat but too big to allow you to do anything else than defending, before steamrolling the opponent completely in 5 minutes only to spend an additional 15 minutes hunting down villagers building forums everywhere on the map that would prevent you from getting the victory as a model of an RTS acampaign mission, not at all actualy. I remember this sarracen mission when you are put up against 4 ennemies in a HUGE desert map, that took hours to complete only because villagers had infinite options to run away and rebuild. Who does want this kind of stuff again? Certainly not me. I bless the devs for giving much clearer objectives and win conditions. Now reguarding the campaign not having the same unit stats as the multiplayer/skirmish, it is indeed frustrating, but understand that the missions are balanced around the units having precise stats, and changing it every time a patch comes out could possibly make some missions unplayable, at least on hard. For example, playing with 150hp horsemen vs buffed up spears would make some French campaign missions pretty tricky to say the very least. This is why it is very common in rts games to have seperate unit data for campaign. Now, for the main course I will focus on your "concept" part, aka AoE4 being more documentary-styled. First, you seem very disapointed by the lack of "character development", that leaves you unable to find interest in the characters appearing in the different missions. The problem here is that you are again not trying to understand the intention of the game, and you end up blaming the game for not giving you something it openly does not have any intention of offering. To illustrate my point I will take the example of the French campaign. The goal of this campaign is to tell the main events of a war that changed France for ever, from a kingdom stuck in old-fashioned chivalry to a nation at the peak of warfare technology after barely surviving extinction against all odds. That's it, nothing more nothing less, telling information, relating facts. Not making you attached to joan, not making you angry at charles 7, not making you laugh at La Hire. Now of course you have every right to be disapointed, but the problem here is that you are presenting it not as a choice but as a mistake. The devs SHOULD have made you attached to Joan, but they did not, therefore they failed. You have a sentence that sums up this idea in your video "AoE 4 is a video game, not a documentary, leaving out any character developpment LEAVING THE PLAYER BETWEEN SEEMINGLY ARBITRARY TIME FRAMES (/caps because this part is important) leaves the player thinking they are just bouncing around" (7:44). In this sentence you are making, in my opinion, two very wrong assumptions. The first is that character developpment is an absolute necessity in a video game to make the player feeling interested or involved. The second, that probably explains the first, is that campaign missions' dates and events are completely random. They are not random at all. If I continue within the hundred year war campaign, it is no accident that you start with a mission where two teams of knights fight fare and square in an arena, respecting a strict morale code (cf the "break", like if it was some kind of sport), to then attack the brits from behind at Patay, to then just blast them of in mass with cannons at the end. It shows step by step how the french nation changed to survive. But you do not see this logic, because the only narrative link you are ready to accept is an emotional attachement to a character, so when given pure information with no emotional orientation you establish that the events are random, without trying to understand what the creator is trying to show. Then you obviously feel lost and uninterested. And I would like to highlight that I am not blaming you for prefering a fictional story over a documentary, not at all. Everyone has its own preference, and the AoE 4 campaigns are not flawless in their style, I admit I had to do extra research to really undertand, and to be honest, trying to sum up the 100 year war in 10 or less missions + cinematics is probably too ambitious. My point is that you do not give the game its chance by trying at least to understand the intention. You stop caring right when you find out that what you were looking for coming in is not there, and I really think it is a pity. To take the reverse example, if I start blaming AoE 3 for not giving us any historical information, would this make sense? No, because that is not the intention of the game. When judging it, I will take it for what it is, a fictional story centered around a character. Do I have to like it now that I accepted the narrative choice? No, and personnaly while I enjoyed it as a kid, I found myself completely uncapable of finding any interest in the game's campaign when I re-did it with definitive edition, as I find the story too obvious and childish, to the point I skipped cinematics. That is what makes me sad when I see so many people saying this game's campaign is uninteresting. I am afraid they are missing out on an opportunity to understand the evolution of our world which has a lot more value than knowing if blake will marry the pirate girl in a fictional novel, and sad to see informative content being rejected with the argument that fun needs to happen constantly for people to keep attention.