Welcome everyone to Art of War.

In this megathread you can ask simple questions and give simple answers to anything about the game. You are also welcome to talk about a specific matchup, maps, or build orders. Feel free to also share videos on strategy, especially those aimed at new players.

Useful resources to help new players:

• The Art of War Tutorials in-game
  • Seriously, they are pretty good, play them first!
• AoE4World's Civ Explorer
  • Contains information on Civ bonuses, technologies, buildings, units, etc.
• Age of Empires IV Build Order
  • With this, you can write down your build order with helpful icons.
• Aegis
  • An interactive (and addictively fun) tool to practice building shorcuts.

Felt like sharing :)

When to make more military building i always fall short of unit bcoz i do not know exact time when to shift from one stable to 3 or 4 maybe

This article is dedicated to solving the problem of "git gud" ("Get Good"). For a long time, improvement in this game has been brutally generalized by these two vague words. People ask, "Why can't I get good despite having watched tutorials and played so many games?". There are many people who play hundreds, even thousands of hours but still remain at a mediocre level. Their improvement curve has flattened since they finished the tutorial or campaign, and their rank just fluctuates up and down. To resolve this, we must first take a philosophical perspective.

Playing more ≠ Getting better; in fact, it could mean worse.

I would like to introduce some of Huxley's theory here on Agnosticism (Non-religious) (the British biologist who said we actually originiated from monkeys): "scientific agnosticism asserts that human cognitive abilities are limited to sensory experience and phenomena and cannot directly comprehend the essence and developmental laws of things. In this process, logical reasoning and scientific methods are needed to assist our understanding." Allow me explain. Today, science has already been made clear to us. For thousand years, however, we believed the Earth was flat as we walk on it. We saw our bodies contained blood, and humorism ruled medical thought for centuries. These direct, intuitive, empirical perceptions led to many theories that were later proven false by science. If a boy in a town were never taught how to type, he might look at the keyboard and type only with his two index fingers. He could do this for years and become quite good at it, but when he enters a typing competition, he would be easily outpaced by people who type with all ten fingers. Even if the boy is intelligent and diligently practices his typing, his loss is determined by his typing method. The more he types, the more he solidifies his incorrect typing mechanics, making it harder to correct.

We are that boy.

In this game, there are players who position their fingers incorrectly and press keys with the wrong fingers—often without realizing it. Some players never use hotkeys and make selections by mouse clicks. Others set their mouse cursor speed too fast or play with a very high DPI without realizing it, and then wonder why they cannot click accurately. (edited)

We should understand that many RTS pro players share similar hotkeys, settings for their mice and monitors. It's not merely "up to preference"; these settings are based on proven scientific theories, which, when explained, will be understood by humans scientifically.The list could go ever on. I will talk about this in the next article. Regarding these issues, many tutorials say "it's up to your preference"—a simple line to avoid controversies and mislead players into self-indulgence. This is false, as all human players are subject to the same ergonomic principles and benefit from them. Science is actually born from controversies; people think and question, and it is certainly provoking.

1. Higher FPS Enhances Cognitive Ability: Your cognitive abilities can improve if you see more frames per second (FPS), which means you should set your graphics as low as possible and enable unlimited FPS. This is a fact. Low graphics also lowers input delay of your mouse and keyboard, this is also a fact.
2. Optimal Mouse Settings: With a high mouse DPI (greater than 3200), you won't click accurately. That's why professionals use 800 or 1600 DPI, also they use the default Windows cursor speed (level 6), and turn off mouse acceleration/high precision to ensure raw input and low lag.
3. Ergonomic Posture Matters: Your monitor and chair heights affect your posture, which could restrict and exhaust your arm movements, causing inaccuracy and the habit of not using your arm effectively during gameplay.

Your biggest improvement comes NOT from Training

But enabling your potential. North Korean students study 12 hours a day since middle school, but that doesn’t make North Korea the most advanced nor happiest country in the world. What is wrong with their education? It failed to unlock students' potential, which is exactly what education is for. Imagine you and a pro are in a 1v1 match; he will beat you easily because he is faster and smarter. Let's not just say "get good" but analyze which factors contribute to the defeat. What is the difference between you and the seemingly formidable pro player? Let's abstract both of you as machines with software and hardware components. He operates faster, thinks faster, and makes better decisions than you because of experience. Most players will emphasize the last point, conclude that pros play every day and are surely better than us. But the difference in experience is the least important here. Let us draw three conclusions from this:The first point is the most important and essential, it enables the second, and the third comes with time, but only comes with time when the first and second requirements are fulfilled. (edited)new

"Hardware": Your game settings, mouse, keyboard, table environment, etc. His "hardware" allows him to do everything faster and multitask effectively. If you don't change your "hardware," there's always an upper limit capping your performance.

Software: Your brain. Do you think slower? No, you just don't have as much time in the game to think and contemplate because your brain and hands are occupied with too many tasks (imagine a traffic jam).

Software: Your brain again. You may make less smart decisions due to lack of experience. While decision-making is vital in the game, the process heavily relies on experience. In short, he has played more than you.

Why are Many Players reluctant to change?

In the esports community, pros are like gods looking down upon others from their thrones. They might say, "Get good," or "You lose because you're a stupid noob, thats who you are" as if they were inherently better. I wouldn't say common players are stubborn or mediocre—they are not. There's no published statistic stating that pros are naturally more intelligent or have been nurtured in a way that makes them surpass the average. I have known some FPS pro players who don't even know what the polling rate of a mouse is, which I find quite amusing. (You should know it as a pro, as polling rate affects mouse in-game performance.) Common players face two factors: uncertainty and unwillingness to take risks.

For pro players, its more the pressure of competition pushes them to make such changes more often. Changing your settings introduces uncertainty. Without prior knowledge, it may not work immediately and may mean you lose games for days while adjusting to the new settings. Most players feel uncomfortable with unfamiliar settings, leading them to conclude that the changes don't suit them. This is a misunderstanding. Scientific agnosticism dictates that you don't actually know what is best for you. What is best for you is not necessarily what feels comfortable now. The best settings must be derived from a logical method, which should apply to you and, most importantly, comply with proven principles.

About Pride and Ego

Sometimes we know we are not better but don't want to admit it or show it in any way. I wouldn't blame anyone who reads this and feels that way. It's natural; most players are male, and men are lions, proud creatures who live with their pride. Pride and ego drive us to strive hard and live up to our standards, even though it might sometimes hurt us. Ego and pride are what motivate us to play this game—to be a conquering general, commanding men to victory. I don't think these are bad traits, even though they do hinder us. However, it's really important that we assess our play levels rationally. One can only seek improvements, after admitting they are not as good as others in certain aspects. Thank you very much for reading this.

It would be extremely cool if future / current civs were to have the ability to throw cow / sheep carcasses as an alternative mangonel / Trebuchet ammunition in order to cause a desease among the targets, only inflicting minor damage over time but nerfing their stats & movement speed for a short period of time. Ayyuubid Mangonels already have alternative ammunition for special occasions and I think this design choice is really neat going forward and could be employed in other ways as well (some sort of rats mechanic or something)

Hi all, I loved following Outback Octagon 1 & 2 when they were released. Unfortunately, i wasn't able to follow Outback Octagon 3 when it was streaming live, but I found the playlist on Youtube to rewatch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X01AHSLcwqY&list=PLf1MgnzRUat_buJ4bzRxQHs1SD4UR-qMk&index=23&ab_channel=Aussie_Drongo

I'm rewatching the games in the order they were played, but I'm not being able to find the scores in the order they were tracked. Is there a link or posts that would allow me to follow the per-game score outcomes, and match by match results somewhere?

If it is already over, please don't tell me the results, I'd like to avoid spoilers for as long as I can :)

Thanks!

I’ve been playing AoE4 since release (wow , 3 years already??) & I feel like the controls are a massive turnoff. I have played over 200 hours , and I still have very little grasp on my controls, most specifically with regards to selecting units, and moving/attacking with them.

This is the basis of the game, and the default controls often feel like an extra opponent.

On a positive note, I am glad to see they finally added the option to remap controls to my mouse buttons. Good job!

Is there anything I am missing? Is this just a “me issue” ?

I am totally open to rebinding all of my controls, I just don’t even know where to begin. Any tips welcome & appreciated.

I hadn't played with the Japanese since the latest patch came out, but when I tried them, I noticed that the Ozutsu unit no longer deals as much damage to siege units as it used to—instead, it now inflicts very little damage. I understand this change was part of the recent update, but now I'm wondering how it’s possible to complete the achievement of destroying 50 siege units with the Ozutsu. Does anyone know if there’s a new way to accomplish this or any tips for achieving it?

This is something the community is very divisive about.

Personally, I like the new Mangonels. As someone who hasn't used them in the past, I have been using them more consistently in this one. And it does feel good to use seeing how so many players are so obsessed with building ranged units.

Mangonel takes 15% damage from ranged attacks. Archers in Castle do 9 damage per shot with both Blacksmith upgrades. This means Archers will do only 1.35 damage per hit on Mangonel. Crossbows do a bit more but they are also more expensive to build. There is zero chance it is worth it to snipe Mangonels with Archers/Crossbows if there are infantry in the way.

I also have not seen the massed Mangonels in the late game being even more unstoppable. Some people mentioned this. I have no experience, I am afraid.

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I am a JD player, and I find most of my losses are against Mongols and Rus. I am finding it difficult to play aggressively with knights when Mongols run Mangudai. It gets difficult looking for damage when a decent player kites them constantly. I respond with archers, the usual knight + archer comp, but at this rate Mongols tend to have several keshiks. This process is similar vs. Rus horse archers. I suppose need to counter focus their trade, so build outpost by resources. Even then though, difficult match-ups.

Any JD players here have advice on a how to play these match-ups?

https://preview.redd.it/97fye6og0tyd1.png?width=834&format=png&auto=webp&s=3b0925db8e66dd7bf28dff88d195a474f6e6ad2f

With this latest patch, I think Age 4 is going to repeat the same problem as Age 2.

I've seen on SteamDB that Age of Empires 2 has over double the players compared to Age of Empires 4, so I'm curious to hear from players, what is happening....

Is there anything like the Age of Mythology Retold/Age 3/2 DE where there is a benchmark to see how well your PC does on insane battles ?

The Extra Sheep podcast (here forth know has TES) have promised delivery of select merchandise to some countries outside the USA. These products have not been delivered in a reasonable time, and us over at Calamari Law will fight for YOU and YOUR rights to the products YOU purchase. TES will pay for their transgressions, and we will get a confession signed in INK.

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Please contact us at: scammedbyasheep@squidmail.ocean to find out how you can join in the class action lawsuit and bring down BIG SHEEP.

p.s. this is not a Rising Empires troll post, Calamari Law is not associated with RE or their affiliates.

Keep finding myself deleting them imperial due to enclosures, is the boom worth it or use wood for farms?

Using game pass version, latest update as of writing, windows 11 24H2.

I have encountered a very strange bug that happens whenever I exit AOE4. I noticed my pc acted strange whenever I exit the game, windows wouldnt shutdown correctly, lagging applications, applications like Steam wouldnt start at all. It would only be good again after I forced a restart.

After a few times I noticed that the exe, "RelicCardinal.exe" was running in the background as a task, even taking as much as up to 3gb ram. When I end the task, poof! My pc is back to normal and everything is working as intended.

I have googled this a lot, but I havent found anyone having this exact problem.

What Civ do you play and what are your very first five moves of the game in order?

I’ve been experimenting with using the exact vills needed to keep a military building producing (7 on food 2 on wood for spearmen instead of a rough estimate e.g lots on food and a little on wood for spearmen). I know this is common for understanding constant villager production (4 on food) but I’m wondering how much of the community uses this method to keep their macro tight. As an example if I’m playing Japanese making samurai in the feudal age, I would think of my macro as 4 food for vills + 7 for samurai = 11 food. 2 on gold for samurai + 3 on gold for upgrades = 5 on gold. Tc rallies to wood to begin saving for 2nd tc for example. ( I know this isn’t the best strat or whatever, I am only a quick play player)

Is this a good way of thinking about macro or am I reading into it too much ?

The Master Smiths wing in the Ayyubids sees little use, as it doesn’t offer much strategic value. Meanwhile, the Bazaar wing has two unique units, but they’re only accessible randomly.

Proposal: Replace the Master Smiths wing with a Bedouin Allies wing. This would unlock Bedouin Swordsman at the Barracks and Bedouin Skirmisher at the Archery Range in Feudal. Castle and Imperial Age upgrades would increase the availability or improve the stats of these units.

If you’d like to see this change, please upvote to help reach the devs and content creators!

Abbasid is a Big Problem atm with Multiple TCs and still not being able to kill them. This also heavily apply to 4vs4 on team games where booming Civs have massive advantage unless the attacks are all coordinated onto 1 Player.

Buffing Food Sources outside of TC will greatly help with this problem, since atm its pretty dumb you can still sit in the base all day without going out for map on food, just spam Farms nonstop and you literally get infinite food with barely any downsides once you have 2+ TCs going

Spearman frankly is too weak vs Knights, we need a new unit like Pikemen, with slower movespeed than Spearman, but can Pikewall, if Cavs charged into them they automatically dies or deal a significant damage, and should have a much higher bonus to Cav than spears.

https://preview.redd.it/ewjw8dswtoyd1.png?width=1146&format=png&auto=webp&s=16b755de644d9ecec774f40f312ce54ba2b1ad88

Interested to know if some of you guys play off meta and usually catch your opponents off guard because of strategy they never expect, not necessarily cheese but something cool you can do

I can just never seem to beat these guys. I'm a high gold low plat player and the OOTD always seems to get me. I usually play feudal age rush with decent results but no matter what I throw at them they seem to just make a few units that just cut right through mine. It's like their military units are too good too early. I know I should just play them myself to learn there weaknesses but I don't really have time, I barely get enough time to play the civs I like. Any help on strats to take down OOTD would be greatly appreciated 🙂

Just wondering how everyone feels about ottomans after new patch, I'm an otto main and since the patch I feel like I really struggle to get my economy rolling, I sued to be able to mass up a bit before getting raided but now I feel I can't keep up, anybody else having this issue as a otto main?

Hey just want opinions. I love ootd because of its uniqueness and the challenge to play at the ladder because is not that great. Las season I ended platinum (I play with controller on Xbox in multiplataform) and felt with good strategy I could pull out great games but right now all the games y had y feel that something is very different, maybe is that others civs got slightly buffs or the general nerfs affected also. Yesterday I ended very exhausted because couldn’t manage tu pull decent games. Thanks for the reading