Age of Empires IV: The Sultans Ascend (DLC)

Age of Empires IV: The Sultans Ascend is a paid expansion that slots into the existing AoE4 framework with three headline additions: the Byzantine Empire, the Japanese, and a new single-player campaign set across the Middle East. If you already own the base game and have logged serious hours in skirmish or ranked, the question is straightforward - does this DLC give you enough new decision space to justify the price? The short answer is mostly yes, with a few caveats worth unpacking. The two new civilizations are where most of the replay value lives. The Byzantines lean into a defensive, economy-taxing playstyle with their Mercenary system, letting you recruit non-unique units drawn from other civilizations for gold. That mechanic alone opens up a wider strategic toolbox than most AoE4 civs offer, and it rewards players who actually scout opponent compositions and adapt mid-game. The Japanese, by contrast, are aggression-forward, with a Feudal-age all-in that punishes passive opponents and a Shinobi unit that can contest map vision. Both civs have distinct build-order implications that will take a week of practice to feel comfortable with, which is exactly the kind of depth this game needed. The new campaign spans several historical scenarios across the medieval Middle East. It follows the broad design logic of the base game's campaigns - voiced narration over illustrated cut-scenes, objectives that unlock gradually, with difficulty options for newcomers. It is competently made and teaches the new civ mechanics well enough, but expect somewhere in the range of eight to twelve hours of content rather than the sprawling campaigns fans of older AoE titles might remember. The AI in the campaign missions holds up, though veteran skirmish players will likely push straight to higher difficulty settings after the first few missions. On the balance side, the 73% Steam rating reflects some valid frustrations. At launch, both civs were considered outliers in the ranked meta - the Japanese especially drew complaints about early-aggression cheese being hard to counter without prior knowledge. Patches have moved things closer to centre since then, but if you are a competitive multiplayer player, check the current patch notes before committing. Casual and co-op players are much less exposed to these issues, and the cross-platform multiplayer feature means the player pool for online co-op is reasonably healthy. For modders, the expansion plays nicely with existing AoE4 mod tools, and community balance mods are already available if you find the official patch cycle too slow. For newcomers to AoE4 entirely: the base game's tutorial remains unchanged and does a solid job of explaining resource gathering, unit counters, and age-up timing before you ever touch the new civs. The Sultans Ascend adds no new tutorial content of its own, so first-timers should finish the base game's Art of War challenges before touching either new civilization. Once past that threshold, the Byzantine and Japanese civs are complex but learnable, and the community wiki documentation is thorough enough to substitute for an in-game theory mode. Bottom line: if AoE4 already has its hooks in you, this expansion delivers two mechanically distinct armies and a passable campaign that justify the hours. If you are on the fence about the base game, start there first.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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