The Iron Fist Wears an Iron Glove in Age of Empires IV

Can a sledgehammer crack a nut? There’s only one way to find out.

- By Ian Evenden

Who bought PC Gamer issue 13? Hands up. The longer-lived among readers might remember the Warcraft: Orcs and Humans demo contained on one of its cover floppies. After two scenarios of jolly orc-bashing lifted from the game, the third and final (if I remember correctly, which it’s possible I don’t) level of the demo was a custom scenario (I hope) that gave you a human village surrounded by a ring of orcs, who would merrily chop their way through your tiny population and all its huts.

It was an unwinnable scenario, a Kobayashi Maru that, instead of teaching important lessons about not violating treaties and allowing examiners to observe how a commander reacts, merely demonstrates that any village or population is vulnerable to overwhelming force.

Which brings us to Age of Empires. I played a lot of this while pretending to study at university in the late 1990s, right in the middle of the RTS boom kicked off by Warcraft vs Command & Conquer. I’ve still got the books on Michel Foucault if anyone wants an essay, but I’ve also retained a weird preference for a custom skirmish game on Age of Empires II’s Narrows map. The beauty of Narrows is that enemy scouts won’t cross the deeper bits of water, so instead of building a wall around yourself you only need to place gates in strategically chosen places to seal off a surprisingly large area. Once your army is complete—a mailed fist composed of longbowmen, men at arms, and lots and lots of trebuchets—you open a gate and march out to destroy the AI’s city.