It didn’t take long for the Pro RTS crowd to break open Age Of Empires IV and find out all its exploits and easy tricks. There is a surprisingly large amount of them and they can vary in their usefulness from being pretty handy to downright broken.

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Some of these you may be aware of whilst others will be completely new. So if you’re looking for a few secrets that the community has found then you’ve come to the right place. Here is a short collection of things only pro players know you can do in Age Of Empires IV that are worth knowing and keeping as an ace up your sleeve.

10 Build A House Maze To Slow Invaders

Age Of Empires IV: Player Using Houses To Defend Town Centre

A fun feature the pro players of Age Of Empires IV have discovered is that you can use houses to buy time if you’re being attacked by a hostile army. For some odd reason, building a long maze out of huts has become a great way to defend your base if you’re unable to mount a counteroffensive. These buildings are cheap to make, quick to assemble and they’re great at blocking foot traffic to more important economic or military buildings.

It's especially useful in matches against the AI as they'll prioritize destroying the nearest building instead of running straight at your Town Centre. So get creative with those placements and protect your important structures with a deviously crafted labyrinth that will waste the enemy's time as much as possible to allow you to mount a strong counteroffensive.

9 Deep Water Fish Gather Faster Than Shoreline

Age Of Empires IV: Fishing Boat Collecting From Deep Water Fish Node

Keeping your economy ticking over with resources is going to be your main focus in this game because without food, wood, gold, or stone you can’t build anything or train anyone. One interesting fact the pros have discovered is that there is a way to farm fish faster in the early game.

You can find fish in two types of resource nodes, shoreline or deep water. Shoreline fish are easier to access since villagers can farm them but the gathering speed for them is slow, whilst deep water fish are located out in the oceans and are much faster to collect from, but you run the risk of being attacked. The Age Of Empires Community has figured out that in the early game your best bet to a quick and easy food stockpile is to spam fishing boats and then send them out to deep water spots. In the early stages of a match, there are not as many threats to deal with on the open waves, so it’s less of a risky tactic than it would be if you did it in the late game.

8 Snowball Your Early Economy With Prelates

Age Of Empires IV: Villagers Receiving Resource Collection Buff From Prelate

Each faction in Age Of Empires IV has its own unique units, buffs, and bonuses to make them all distinct and give them their own gameplay meta. As an example, the French have strong cavalry, the English get longbowmen, Mongols can move their base around and the Chinese have a solid economy.

One particularly strong feature belongs to the Holy Roman Empire and it comes in the form of their Prelates. These holy garbed chaps are extremely handy as they buff nearby units, including villagers by yelling their favorite psalms at them. One trick that can feel cheating in the game is to stand a Prelate near multiple resource gathering points to boost the amount that's picked up. It’s a simple little trick that’s always worth using as it can help your economy skyrocket in the early game.

7 Build More Blacksmiths To Multitask Upgrade Research

Age Of Empires IV: Two Blacksmith Buildings Researching Different Upgrades At Once

Although this may seem straightforward to most seasoned RTS veterans, for new players starting out in Age Of Empires IV the fact that you can multitask your research can go unnoticed. It’s a simple little trick that can help speed up your faction's ability to upgrade troops and resource gathering and in a game where every minute counts it can go a long way.

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To multitask your research all you need to do is build additional structures that are used for research. Upgrade research is tied to a building and having more than one means you can hit those enhancements faster. As an example, build two Blacksmiths but use one for sword improvements and the other for armor, it’s that simple.

6 You Can Hide Elephants In Outposts

Age Of Empires IV: War Elephants Being Hidden In Tiny Outpost Tower

It wouldn’t be an Age Of Empires game unless the community found something pretty silly that was overlooked by the devs and in this case, it’s the ability to hide certain units in places they really shouldn't be.

For some bizarre reason, you can garrison elephants inside outposts, and though it has no real tactical advantage, it's still fun to suddenly surprise any invader with a ton of angry and aggressive elephants out of nowhere. For example, you could place multiple towers filled with elephants around your Town Centre as the ultimate defence or as a nasty trap.

5 Pair Battleships With At Least Three Fishing Boats

Age Of Empires IV: Fishing Boats Providing Healing Services To Warship

Alongside the massive graphics overhaul, one other feature that got tinkered with during development was naval combat and ship maintenance. In past games, you would sail your flotilla out to battle, then bring any surviving boats back home to your docks to be repaired. In Age Of Empires IV you're now able to fix ships on the go and the pros are already using this to make some pretty powerful armadas.

For some odd reason, fishing boats can heal friendly frigates, and now any war at sea turns into a massive mess of ships battering each other with cannon fire or ballista shots in a brutal DPS race. Plus, depending on the faction you play as fishing boats can be extremely cheap to churn out. It's a cheap and simple tactic that's perfect for new players looking to defend their ports and as a general rule of thumb, keep them at a ratio of three to one to keep up a steady healing rate.

4 Don't Go For The Closest Trade Post

Age Of Empires IV: Player Discovering Trade Post

Trade Posts have made a return and now they’re more useful than ever since the pro players have cracked them open and figured out their secrets. Similar to how they operated in Age Of Empires III, these lone outposts can be bartered with for extra coins and resources, so setting up a well-defended trade route becomes mandatory if you want to survive into the late game.

An interesting thing about them that's easily exploitable is how they pay out resources. Instead of a flat rate that you can farm by dumping down a building next to it, the further your market is from the Trade Post, the more money you earn. The game rewards you for taking longer and more dangerous routes, so if you want to get your hands on a big payday you’re going to have to carve out a bloody path to the farthest one you can find.

3 One Tile Is All You Need

Age Of Empires IV: Setting Up Farmable Land Around Mill Influence Tiles

Building placement in Age Of Empires IV is another part of the game that’s been given some much-needed changes and whilst the new grid system has had a mixed reception in the community, it’s more useful than you think. This is most notable when you involve influence tiles that buildings such as the English Mill have because as long as something is touching that tile of influence you get their collection buff.

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A single English Mill, as an example, can hit 12 farms at once with the right-field placement surrounding it. So when you're building up your base, especially in the early game, try to think tactically about how you dump your buildings down if they're going into an influence tile. Try to line them up in a way that will maximize efficiency and space.

2 You Can Steamroll Consistently With French Knights

Age Of Empires IV: French Cavalry Patrolling In Formation

Real-time strategy games can be a nightmare to balance at times as every unit needs to have a counter that will stop them from steamrolling. Unfortunately, it seems that the French Mounted Knights are an exception to this rule as feedback from the community points at them being ridiculously overpowered at the moment.

These horse-mounted units are exceptionally hard to stop from charging straight through your units and if a large enough horde smashes through your gates it’s going to be a quick Game Over. Currently, the only way to stop them is to either physically block them with walls or wear them down with a large spearmen blob. No doubt this will get balanced out with a patch further down the line, but if you’re playing online and you see another player has chosen the French, tart building up those defences because they probably know about the Knights being unstoppable.

1 Battering Rams Are Great Transport Vehicles

Age Of Empires IV: Battering Ram Unit Being Used To Transport Soldiers

Sieges in Age Of Empires IV are absolute anarchy but incredibly fun. It’s super satisfying to watch enemy walls crumble after a successful assault, and now you can make things much more difficult for the defenders as it seems battering rams can be used as armored APCs.

In previous games, they were classed as siege units that just battered down walls and gates before trundling off until they’re needed again. But now you can stack up to 16 units inside to keep them safe, and with the rams already high HP it becomes the perfect armored transport. If it’s destroyed, everyone inside is deployed instantly and they also receive no damage for their transport suddenly falling to bits. Squeezing your army inside for a surprise ambush is a devious little trick, but it works consistently as other players need to destroy them before they can breach their walls or destroy buildings anyway, it just saves you having to click the deploy button.

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