Age of Empires IV: Knights of Cross and Rose DLC Review

Age of Empires IV: Knights of Cross and Rose is the games second DLC pack and adds 2 new variant factions: The Knights Templar, a variant of the French faction and House Lancaster, a variant of the English faction. Alongside these new factions are a new game mode called Historical Battles with 4 new maps and 10 new random skirmish map presets – the former of which is themed around the new factions and the latter caters to all civilizations.

Note: A large balance patch has gone live since the start of this review so some numbers and features may be different. It addressed some substantial problems, but it is hard to tell where the balancing is currently.

Representing the renowned order of religious knights established 1118 in France to protect pilgrims on their way to the holy lands, and disbanded in 1312 under not terribly ideal circumstances, the Knights Templar were a powerful – and very wealthy – force for many years, with an enduring cultural legacy. In game they’re represented as a French variant civilisation, so expect some nice heavy cavalry and a civilization that, god willing, you’ll enjoy a lot.

Harkening back to Age of Empires 3, the Knights Templar choose from one of three allies every age advance, called “establishing commanderies”. France, Antioch or Knights Hospitaller for Feudal Age, Republic of Genoa, Kingdom of Castile or the Angevin Empire for Castle Age, and Teutonic Order, Republic of Venice or Kingdom of Poland for Imperial Age. This grants one or more unique units and a civilisation-wide buff such as the Teutonic Orders “all gold units gain +2 melee armour.” This is a great mechanic that allows the player to mix ‘n’ match based on desired playstyle, map features, or to adjust their strategy to counter their enemy. However, if the player chooses poorly – or is just outwitted – it can also lock away units that would have been important, saddling the player with something they then have to ignore or just try to make work.

There are a lot of unique traits for the civilisation, summarised in no particular order: no gunpowder units, defensively oriented with trebuchets on their unique keeps called fortresses and range bonuses for archers near them, they’re expensive gold wise but can escort pilgrims to sacred sites and generate gold, don’t need lumber camps to deliver wood – but also don’t get to research tech to improve harvesting, and more.

Unique Units

• Templar Brother: Knight replacement. More expensive than a regular Knight, but has additional health and damage.

Feudal Age

• Knight Hospitaller Commanderie – Hospitaller Knight: Heavy Melee Infantry that can heal nearby friendly units.
• Kingdom of France Commanderie – Chevalier Confrere: Heavy Cavalry that is cheaper than a regular Knight. Gains additional health for each nearby Chevalier Confrere.
• Principality of Antioch Commanderie – Serjeant: Heavy Infantry with high melee armor. Throws axes which deal melee damage from range.

Castle Age

• Angevin Empire Commanderie – Heavy Spearman: Armored Spearman that is stronger around Fortresses.
• Republic of Genoa Commanderie – Genoese Crossbowman: Expensive Crossbowman that deals additional damage to melee infantry.
• Kingdom of Castile Commanderie – Genitour: Mounted Javelineer that excels against ranged units.

Imperial Age

• Kingdom of Poland Commanderie – Szlachta Cavalry: Elite Cavalry with exceptional ranged armor. Slows the attacks of enemies it damages and deals additional damage to light infantry.
• Teutonic Order Commanderie – Teutonic Knight: Absurdly Powerful Heavy Infantry that gains power for each enemy felled in combat. Reduces the armor of nearby enemies.
• Republic of Venice Commanderie – Condottiero: Fast infantry that costs only gold. Strong against Gunpowder units.
• Venetian Galley: Large oared vessel with a long range forward mounted Trebuchet.
• Venetian Trader: Expensive but fast moving trader. Max Build limit of 5.

Famous from the War of the Roses and from heavily influencing A Song of Ice and Fire, House Lancaster is a variant English civilisation with mechanics based on their aristocratic and feudal nature. They received far fewer changes to their default English faction than the Knights Templar did to theirs, however.

Their economy is strong with Manors that produce resources constantly and town centers producing four free sheep. Home defence is strengthened with an extra arrow from their capital town center and villagers attacking enemy units with more powerful short bows. As always, they have a lot of unique techs and upgrades like billmen that upgrades spearmen to reduce armor of enemies by -1/-1 when attacking or summon various levies from Lancaster castle.

Unique Units

• Yeoman: Archer replacement. Ranged infantry with increased speed and range. Volley upgrade.
• Hobelar: Horseman replacement. Cheap and expendable cavalry with high ranged armour.
• Earl’s Guard: Man-at-Arms replacement. Heavy melee infantry that periodically throws daggers.
• Demi lancer: Special heavy cavalry. Accessed only via landmarks, a durable cavalry unit with low damage.
• Lords of Lancaster: Effective heavy melee infantry that grants nearby military units +5% max health.

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Historical Battles

The Historical battles in Age of Empires IV are well paced and entertaining but not terribly long. You could finish them all once within about 45-60 minutes and then replay value would be in if you enjoy pushing your score higher. They are fittingly voice acted and come with nice, scripted events and cutscenes.

Skirmish Maps

One of the few major RTS games that uses random maps still, these add a substantial amount of variety to the game. Age of Empires 4 civilisations often have area-based facets to their gameplay such as the Templar Knights new Pilgrims mechanic and increased range for units near their fortress, or other civilisations bonuses to resources harvested in town center range. The new map types cover a range of gameplay styles from wide open to claustrophobic, high to low economy and so on. Even if you play with the same civilizations, you can have completely different experiences on Highwoods than you would on good old Black Forest.

• Relic River
• Mountain Lakes
• Waterlanes
• Wasteland
• Shadow Lake
• Rugged
• Highwoods
• Hedgemaze
• Flankwoods
• Enlightened Horizon

Concerns

The Age of Empires IV: Sultans Ascend DLC added two completely new civilisations (the highly desired Byzantine and Japanese factions), four variant civilisations, a new 8-mission campaign, 10 new challenge maps and two new biomes. Comparatively, Knights of the Cross and Rose immediately faces a problem value-wise as they are the same price, but the content seems substantially reduced with only two variant factions, 10 new settings for random map generation, and four new historical battles that take about 15 minutes each to complete. Comparison to the previous DLC aside, it could still be worth it on its own merits but as always that’s very subjective.

There are balance concerns for both factions but at launch it’s hard to tell as no one knows how to play as or against the factions yet. Templar unique units are all more expensive but also in general substantially stronger, with some breaking the traditional rock-paper-scissors mold where archers defeat horse archers normally, whereas the Templars Genitours for example defeat archers instead. While it’s hard to tell the economic impact of Templar pilgrims currently, House Lancaster Manors seem to be heavily over-tuned with the resources they generate (and have received a small nerf already).

Something that’s not a big deal but also not what you’d call ideal, is that Templar Allied units all speak French – it doesn’t feel great hearing Teutonic Knights or Genoese crossbowmen speaking French. Hopefully this is changed but it’s not a deal breaker by any means.

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Price will definitely be a sore point for this DLC – whether an Age of Empires IV fan sees enough to warrant picking up at release, on sale, or at all will vary. Personally, I get all my enjoyment from the game out of skirmish comp-stomp matches and the Knights Templar instantly became my main faction to play so it’s easily worth it for me – stylistically and mechanically they’re just too good! The new random map generator also adds a lot more replayability as they substantially change how each match is played. House Lancaster will take some getting used to but also appears to be fun to play, though not as different from the English as the Knights Templar are from the French.

This review utilised a key provided by Xbox ANZ and Age of Empires IV: Knights of Cross and Rose is available with a 15% launch discount for $AU16.96 ($US12.74) on Steam.