When the fourth installment was teased after almost 15 years, the gaming world went bonkers, and the expectations were sky-high. However, the game’s release was met with a relatively silent affair and not much of a huge fanfare. However, the studios have launched the new “Festival of Ages” update a year later, and things are finally getting back to the old AOE ways!
4 An In-Depth Understand Of “Seasons”
Making justice to its tagline, the Festival of Ages, AOE 4 would regularly drop patches, providing access to new content, campaigns, and many more. Players partaking in the seasonal challenges would be rewarded justly and have options to unlock additional units and expansions to their arsenal.
The season also takes a similar approach to mobile gaming, where “login rewards” are quite common. Players logging in every day (every 24 hours, to be precise) will be rewarded for their consistent participation during the tenure of the season.
3 Ranked Seasons & Seasonal Events
The season is inclusive for all types of players and has two fundamental types. Firstly, ranked seasons are wherein players compete globally, taking part in online battles (1v1 to 4v4) and getting a winning streak. Like its name, ranked seasons come with a leader board and are periodically updated on the age of empires official website and can also be tracked by in-game options.
Players start with Tier 1 rank in the bronze segment and must work their way to Tier 3 in the Conquerer segment to be the ultimate force of the season. There are six segments in total which start with Bronze and proceed to Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond and end with Conquerer, with each of the segments having three tiers, as mentioned earlier.
As for the other parcel of the season, the game features weekly challenges that the player must complete during his in-game campaigns, skirmishes or multiplayer modes. These are pretty much the trophy objectives from console games but are to be completed within a fixed time period.Unlike ranked seasons, seasonal events are broken down into 4 phases, each having a timeframe of 14 days. In addition, these two-week events have a ‘break week’ in between to let the players flex their limbs and fingers.
2 Season 01 Timeline
Season 01 of the Festival of Ages campaigns was open to players from 10:00 AM PT on April 13 2022, with a deadline on June 30 2022, at 10:00 AM PT.
The seasonal events for the first season of Festival of Ages is available on the official website but are also penned below for the reader’s convenience.
Event 1: April 13 - April 27
Break week
Event 2: May 4 - May 18
Break Week
Event 3: May 26 - June 8
Break Week
Event 4: June 15 - June 29
1 Content Editor Beta Launch
Apart from the Seasonal play, many more goodies come along with the patch. The complete package in the content editor is the magical key to changing and mod the way the game is played. Players can now create their own maps for online play and skirmishes, level up an infantry hero to god mode, or play the game like Dungeons and Dragons with their own written quest.
Maps let the player get creative to create their very own battlefields. Islands, Peaks or a dense forest, it is time to play gods to create the perfect arena for the mightiest of armies to battle it out for supremacy. The custom maps can be used for multiplayer games or skirmishes.
If playing god to terrains and landscapes wasn’t powerful enough, players can now customize and tweak the units’ stats with the Tunings packs. Reduce unit costs, increase speed, add more to health, and inflate their attacks; the options are all in the hands of the players!
Game Modes is the custom scriptwriter for the game. But this might get tricky and is aimed at expert modders who have an in-depth knowledge of Lua and SCAR. The tools open gates to rewrite the way the game is played, create new conditions for victory, open new pathways to stories and campaigns, and many more. So the possibilities are as high as one’s imagination. But do keep in mind that there is only so much that the game engine can handle, and it is advisable to keep the creativity within those borders.
This is just the start and an outline of season 02 is already available on the official website. Season 01 is midway through and has already garnered much attention from the gaming world, and the leader board charts stand testimony to it. With much more seasons and updates planned, one could be with no doubt that the game is here to stay for a long while.
Age of Empires 4and the Festival of Ages is available on Steam.
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