Age of Empires IV Season 4, “Enchanted Grove,” drops tomorrow, and as the title implies, things are getting a bit strange with this one. The update will add a new fantasy-themed biome and event, complete with an Enchanted Stag to hunt. Perhaps Microsoft is trying get people excited for the upcoming Age of Mythology Retold remaster? Season 4 also includes a handful of new maps, the return of Nomad mode, and more. You can check out a trailer for the update, below.
Here’s a bit more information about what Vancouver-based Age of Empires IV developer Relic Entertainment has cooked up for Season 4…
Enchanted Grove Event
"We’re starting off Season Four by inviting you to step into the wondrous and new Enchanted Grove, which starts on February 16th and runs through March 29th. You can Get in the Grove to earn more portraits, coat of arms, and banners by completing challenges."
New Event Biome: Enchanted Grove
"We also kick off Season Four with a new, glowing biome you can explore and enjoy throughout the Enchanted Grove event. If your units successfully hunt the graceful yet elusive Enchanted Stag in a Multiplayer or Skirmish game, you’ll receive the Golden Stag Monument."
New Game Mode: Nomad
"Start with a fresh slate in the Nomad game mode. Available in custom and skirmish games, Nomad gives you three scattered villagers to begin your rise through the Ages. Build your Town Center quickly to get a jump on your opponents or search out the best positioning for better resourcing. Be careful – there are no guarantees an enemy isn’t building right outside your vision range! Nomad has all the same options as Standard game mode, save that everyone always starts in random locations. Teams or no, your nomads are scattered across the map."
- Choosing the Mode - Select Nomad among the game modes in any Custom or Skirmish game setup. Note that once Nomad is set as the mode, the option for Teams Together/Apart (in the Map Setup screen) is removed. Scattering is part of the fun in Nomad!
- Start Conditions - In Nomad, each player starts the game with three villagers spread around a broad section of the map. These villagers can start building a first Town Center. This first Town Center will be your Landmark Town Center and costs no resources. You won’t be able to build additional Town Centers until allowed by your civilization’s normal tech tree.
New Maps
- Four Lakes - A land surrounded by four lakes invites aggression from all sides, both on land and on water. Fight for control over the land and the lakes at the edge of the map! In this open map, action can happen anywhere and in every corner. Maintaining control over the lakes and islands at the edges of the map could be the key to victory at the center.
- Continental - Continental makes its return from the original Age of Empires! An extensive island surrounded by ocean — the water holds numerous fish and stealth areas to ambush your foes. With water restricting maneuverability, your Town Center will be in close proximity to others, so take strategic care to balance your military for both water and land!
- Marshland - Marshland is an open and aggressive environment set deep in the jungle. There are vast amounts of forest you can hide in to surprise your opponents, and though there are plenty of resources scattered in the swamps, beware of the dangerous wildlife lurking in the woods.
Landmark Reworks
Big changes here! We’ve taken a hard look at the landmark designs and changed some dramatically. Don’t worry, your favorites like the Golden Gate Landmark are untouched. We’ve looked at our data from the least used landmarks as well as many personal accounts from the community to target the underperformers. Our aims for these are to open up additional strategic options for the civilizations, create Landmarks that have more active and engaging strategies, and make the gameplay between Landmarks more unique. So we’ve buffed lesser used Landmarks and added more fun!
Mod Browser Update
In this update, we are making significant improvements to make the Mod Browser experience more intuitive and useful for mod enjoyers:
- Dynamic search – Players can now see mods search results appear as soon as they start typing in the search input bar, without needing to click on a search button.
- More relevant search results – We’ve made changes in how the server returns search results based on player’s search criteria.
- Popular Search – Search results will now be sorted based on their “popularity” score which is calculated based on subscription numbers and ratings, so popular mods would appear first.
- Official mods toggle – Players can now filter mods using the new “official” toggle to find official mods, as well as see a new official label on them.
- Subscriber count display – Subscriber count on mod tiles will help players find popular mods quickly.
- Pagination system – Players can now view search results with a new paging system to view them page by page, jump to a specific page or the first/last page.
Art of War Updates
"While we knew some of you would survive long enough to get gold easily, we were surprised to see just how long a few people managed to make it with the Ottoman Art of War Challenges! These changes are aimed at those that made gold look trivial."
- In the Ottoman Art of War challenge, enemy stone walls are now invulnerable.
- In the Ottoman Art of War challenge, enemy waves continue to scale up after the gold medal is achieved.
Daily Challenges
"All civilizations have new Daily Quests for all civilizations specific-challenges!"
New Cheat Code
"The newly-added cheat “minimally minimal” hides all UI. Perfect for screenshots, GIFs, villager selfies… whatever you want to capture!"
In addition to the new content listed above, Age of Empires IV Season 4 will introduce a long list of gameplay and UI tweaks. You can get the full rundown here.
Age of Empires IV can be played on PC and will launch on Xbox Series X/S sometime in 2023. The Season 4 update will drop tomorrow (February 16).
