Age of Empires IV: Top 5 Secrets You Didn’t Know Existed

by Mike Alexander / Articles, Age of Empires 4 Guides, Slider Posts, Top Lists / 15 Jul 2022

Age of Empires IV is the latest entry in the world-renowned real-time strategy franchise from Relic Entertainment and World’s Edge. In it, you will choose from 8 different civilizations and build up an empire from scratch using their special abilities.

As your empire grows you’ll play a part in historical battles for conquest & domination over a region. When you aren’t in battle, you’ll be building settlements, managing your people and collecting resources to keep everything running smoothly. With 4 separate campaigns and 35 missions that cover 500 years of human history, there is a ton to experience in Age of Empires IV. Since it was released in October of 2021, many Age of Empires fans might think they’ve worked out all of the game’s secrets and mechanics, leaving nothing new to be discovered. However, you might just find something new to use in your playthroughs in this list of Age of Empires IV: Top 5 Secrets You Didn’t Know Existed. If you’re ready to add some extra tactics to your gameplay, then round up your army and let’s get started!

Extra Ways to Use The Knight’s Charge

When you engage a target with the knight units, they will do a charging attack with their spears thrust forward. You’ll mostly do this on stationary targets, but it is also possible to use this charge attack on a feisty unit that is trying to escape you. When you use the Knight’s Charge, there will be a short cooldown period, about 10 seconds or so. After that you are free to use it again. If you activate the charge attack on a fleeing enemy, that unit will continue to chase it down and attack it. If that first attack doesn’t kill them, wait for the cooldown and try again.

Identifying House of Wisdom Wings

When either playing or facing off against the Abbasid Dynasty, you will encounter the House of Wisdom. This is the nation’s landmark that will determine how they advance through the ages. For other nations, it is easy to tell with just a look what the strategy will be, but the Abbasid are different. However, if you make a note of the icons for the House of Wisdom’s different wings, you can tell which wing was built. Each one shows up as an add-on to the primary House of Wisdom, so the shape and location of the wing will be a dead giveaway the more you encounter Abbasid Dynasties.

Changing Targets for Garrison

When your towns are under siege, your primary buildings will first be attacked by battering rams. As they approach, you’ll likely target them with your garrison’s arrows to try to take them out before they can make it to your walls. The rams will always be accompanied by a squad of archers, which will continue to do extra damage to you if they are left alone. So, when the battering rams are too close to prevent them from doing damage, it is possible to change your garrison’s target from the rams to the archers by selecting the building being attacked and then the archer squad. This will minimize the damage done by the archers.

Mangonel Tactics

When using a mangonel in combat, the shots it fires will track moving targets. In the campaign, this won’t be an issue, but in multiplayer matches, you may come across players who try to outsmart the mangonel’s tracking abilities. They can do this by changing the direction of their movement right after the mangonel winds up to launch, which will be enough to get them out of harm’s way. When this happens, you can change the target of the mangonel to the empty ground you think the enemy will change direction towards, thwarting their attempt to dodge your attack. The timing on this maneuver is critical, but like all things, practice will make you a pro, and the benefits of being able to pull this off are great.

Sheep Transferring

At the beginning of every game, you will be tasked with creating scouts and doing recon on the map to locate your enemy and find out what they’re doing. At the same time, you will come across sheep that you will need to round up and take back to your base for use in materials. If you send out multiple scouts, it is possible to maximize your efficiency when transporting your sheep back to base. Each scout can wrangle 4 sheep, and if you have two scouts out on patrol, you can pass 4 more to one of those scouts and send them home, while keeping the other scout in the field to keep uncovering the map. This is the best way to add to your resources and scout at the same time.

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Mike Alexander

Mike has been playing video games since he was able to hold a controller, having been fascinated by Sonic 2 on his mom’s Sega Genesis. That fascination and passion for the art form has grown exponentially nearly 30 years later, and he doesn’t see that fading away anytime soon.
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