Although quickly advancing to the next Age in Age of Empires 4 is not necessarily the best thing to do in every competitive match, there are plenty of times when it will be considered advantageous to do so.

If you know all the win conditions in Age of Empires 4, you know that building a wonder — which can only be done if you’re in the last era — is one of them. This means that there’s a lot to be gained from quickly advancing to the next era.

That is why many players constantly look for the best way to achieve certain milestones in Real-Time Strategy games. Doing so takes a lot of dedication since finding the best order in which one must go for specific units or technologies in Age of Empires 4 is a process that involves frequent trial and error, a lot of time, and a lot of calculations as well.

Leaving the Dark Age provides new options for players, and specific structures or buildings can take a while to be made. In order to put your enemy under the most amount of pressure as quickly as possible, which is usually the most meta way to win a game of Age of Empires 4, it’s generally a good idea to go for those more advanced units and buildings as soon as possible.

One of the most important things to know in any game of AoE is the Age of Empires 4 build order. Age requires so much thought but build orders remove a lot of that unnecessary headache and are mathematically proven to be optimal play.

Knowing a fast Feudal Age build order will be crucial to your success on the AoE4 leaderboards, and that’s exactly what we’re going to share with you in this guide.

Stick around and learn what to do when you want to leave the Dark Age as quickly as possible. Here you will find the fast Feudal build order for Age of Empires 4.

The 5-Minute Feudal Build

Almost There

There is a way to consistently leave the Feudal Age in about five minutes. You just have to strictly follow this build:

  • 7 villagers on food
  • 2 villagers on wood
  • 3 villagers on gold

When the game starts, you will have 6 villagers ready to work with. Put them all on a sheep and get the seventh one on the way. As soon as the seventh comes out, put it on the sheep as well. You need seven villagers on food as quickly as possible to make this work.

Keep producing new villagers because you will need 12 at the end of this build.

The sixth villager should build a house and be put on wood right after. And then, you will need the 9th villager on wood as well.

The next three villagers that come out should go straight to the closest gold vein. Keep them on gold until you need the requirements to build your first Landmark: 400 food and 200 gold.

Depending on the civilization that you’re playing, this build can be slightly faster or slightly slower. You can do it in under 4 minutes and 30 seconds if you try it with the Chinese. On the other hand, the Abbasids might take a little more than five minutes.

Transitioning to the Feudal Age will grant you a significant improvement to many things that your civilization has access to.

You will be able to build new structures, research new technologies, and even train more effective units.

Some civilizations have early access to powerful units. For instance, the English can have their Vanguard Man-at-Arms as soon as they reach the Feudal Age.

Taking advantage of that unit sooner than others is one of the things that players must do when learning how to play English in Age of Empires 4.

In fact, having a head start — such as reaching the next era earlier — and knowing how to use that in your favor is always going to be a great advantage in any Real-Time Strategy game.

Final Thoughts

Transitioning to the next Age will sometimes slow down the development of your civilization a little or can delay the pressure that you can put on. This is due to the fact you’re directing resources to your next Landmark, which delays the production of troops and structures.

However, almost all civilizations in Age of Empires 4 will benefit from achieving a fast Feudal Age time, and it’s later in the game where more of your decision-making will come into play.

Regardless of whether you want to advance to the Feudal Age as quickly as possible or stick around for a little longer to work on your economy, at a competitive level, it only takes the time to create a couple of Villagers to separate a slow build from a fast one.

If you memorize the fast AoE 4 build order for Age of Empires 4 from above, you’ll have a huge advantage over opponents that might even have more skill than you. You then need to use this advantage to snowball momentum towards a victory before they catch up.