Age of Empires 4 Counters – Unit Strengths and Weaknesses

The classic real-time strategy game is back in the form of Age of Empires IV. Relic Entertainment’s latest installment hit the digital storefronts on October 28, 2021. As always, everyone is likely wondering about the best unit counters. Luckily, all the information we need is inside the game files if you paid for the digital deluxe edition. Here’s a look at the Age of Empires 4 counters, including unit strengths and weaknesses.

Note that these counters are primarily just based on armor and theoretical damage. In reality, the outcome could be much different when considering a units’ abilities to harass, kiting units, and overall unit speed. Regardless, here’s the breakdown of Age of Empires 4 unit counters.

Age of Empires 4 Counters – Unit Strengths and Weaknesses

• Spearmen are good against Cavalry and bad against others.
• Swordsmen are good against all light troops and bad against heavy troops.
• Archers are good against Spearmen and Crossbows.
• Crossbowmen are good against heavy troops and bad against light troops.
• Horsemen (light Cavalry) are good against Ranged units (and Mangudai).
• Lancers (heavy Cavalry) are good against Swordsmen, Archers, and Horsemen.

The general format of all Age of Empires games follows this formula: Archers beat Infantry, Cavalary beats Archers, and Infantry beats Cavalry. However, as we’ve come to learn, Cavalry can easily die to mass Crossbowmen. At the time of writing, a popular build is mass Crossbowmen, which is only weak to siege units such as cannons as they are hard to take down at range. 

In previous AoE games, Crossbowmen were an upgrade for archers. However, in the new AoE 4 game, players can build both Crossbowmen and Archers separately, and they have a nice bonus against armored units like Knights and Man-at-Arms.

How to find the Unit Counter Chart in Age of Empires IV

If you have the digital deluxe version of Age of Empires IV, you can go to your Steam folder and find the official counters charts here:

  \SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Age of Empires IV\Unit_Counters_Chart  

For more guides and related content, check out our Age of Empires IV section.