{"id":147848,"date":"2021-10-27T21:13:37","date_gmt":"2021-10-27T15:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.www.bullfrag.com\/age-of-empires-iv-is-the-best-game-to-start-with-real-time-strategy-or-return-after-many-years-of-rest\/"},"modified":"2021-10-27T21:13:37","modified_gmt":"2021-10-27T15:43:37","slug":"age-of-empires-iv-is-the-best-game-to-start-with-real-time-strategy-or-return-after-many-years-of-rest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bullfrag.com\/age-of-empires-iv-is-the-best-game-to-start-with-real-time-strategy-or-return-after-many-years-of-rest\/","title":{"rendered":"Age of Empires IV is the best game to start with real-time strategy, or return after many years of rest"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I must admit that, as much as I like them, Strategy games <\/strong>I am very bad at it. It does not matter if we talk about RTS, in shifts or 4X. I have tried everything from Starcraft 2 to Total War: Warhammer, through Civilization VI, Stellaris or Endless Space 2. But none is given to me, no. There is a certain point where I lose control of everything that happens around me, of the game, I am left behind. I have no problems with other complex games like MMOs, but these are difficult for me. This week, yes, I had the opportunity to play Age of Empires IV, a game that I knew was being recommended by colleague Alberto Pastor with great fanfare. And the experience<\/strong> it has been very different.<\/p>\n

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It is the first time that I feel that I am understanding everything that happens around me in a game of these characteristics: where are my subjects, what they do, how many resources I generate and what they are for. I also understand which units I must deploy to defend myself against each opponent, and I am even able to go from age I to age II in about six minutes with the English and the French. Sounds like a small thing? Of course, it is really little thing. But it feels like huge progress<\/strong> for someone who, under normal conditions, would spend half a game pulling food out of the bushes. And all this progress I owe to the fact that AOE 4 is a game very accessible<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Fortunately, the issue of accessibility is increasingly popular in the video game industry: we have very complex games, but that (almost) any player can enjoy regardless of their motor skills or level of experience. Yes, there is still a lot of work ahead, but we are getting the batteries. AND Microsoft <\/strong>has long been at the fore in this field thanks to the super flexible Xbox Adaptive Controller, as well as a strong commitment to the software <\/em>own. But right now, what interests us is to understand how Age of Empires IV manages to involve the player in cognitive concepts or processes<\/strong> that you cannot perceive normally.<\/p>\n

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You can’t solve a problem you don’t know you have<\/h3>\n

Video games have many subtle ways of leading us through their levels: for example, a designer can tell you which way to go simply by lighting up the place with a streetlight to get your attention; while in Super Mario, the appearance of the enemies tells you if you can jump on them or you should throw a fireball at them – you don’t need to read anything to know that if you jump on a shell that has spikes, you will hurt yourself, it is logical! – but in an RTS, things are not always so obvious<\/strong>. And there we have the first challenge that the player faces: not knowing how to proceed<\/strong>, how to face adversity.<\/p>\n

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Mark Brown in Game Maker’s Toolkit used to say that strategy games often follow the same pattern for their tutorials: “click here to get this, now we’re going to build this, let’s do it like this.” By the time you finish the session you have done many things, but you have not learned anything because nobody explains you for what reason <\/strong>you want to enter such menu or build such thing. He also rightly commented that if you die in, say, a Call of Duty game, you quickly understand what happened there and learn what was your mistake<\/strong>. In an RTS, however, you may not understand what you’ve done wrong until several hours into the game and you’ve fallen behind. It is not the most practical.<\/p>\n

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The Age of Empires IV tutorial is also very linear, but at least it goes out of its way to explain the things of logical and orderly way<\/strong>: you have villagers, you need food. You can get it directly from the wild, but if you hunt you get more in exchange for endangering your villagers because they are further from home. Reasonable<\/strong>Don’t you think Yes of course. By the time you realize it, you have farms, sawmills, and quarries up and running; the basics of production<\/strong>. The same goes for the militia<\/strong>– You understand the basics of attacking a lonely and defenseless enemy unit, just so you can see on screen, firsthand, how to fight in AOE.<\/p>\n

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