Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition

Easier way which uses terrain to give easier defence and make the enemy go into a war of attrition - lots of villagers.

Set yourself up with a Player vs AI skirmish match with the following criteria:

Battle vs AI: 1 vs 7
You are Chinese obviously
AI Settings: 7 x Enemy AI (Hard) - make them all French because they get cheaper villagers through the ages.

Game Setup:
Win Conditions- Landmark only
Starting Resources- Very High
Starting Age- Age II
Map State- Concealed

Map Setup:
Map- Archipelago
Map Size- Gigantic
Locations- Teams Together

So you'll start off on a very easy to defend island and plenty of stone to build keeps on the beach approaches. The enemy will go into war machine D-Day overdrive trying to take your landmark.

Immedialy use a villager to initiate the Age III transition, choosing the Imperial Palace build option. This is the building with the spy ability we want to use. With one of the villagers make a house or two and build more villagers. As soon as the palace is built, build castles on the beach front approaches in preparation for Operation Overlord that's going to come. Upgrade them asap and populate about 5 archers in each one. Create choke points and try to have two castles supporting each other.

You should have time to have build a few keeps before the start to show up.

I kept triggering the spy ability at the Imperial Palace as soon as it was available, was around 20-30mins in when it popped.

Set yourself up with a Player vs AI skirmish match with the following criteria:

Battle vs AI: 2 vs 6
AI Settings: Your Ally (Hardest), 6 x Enemy AI (Hard)

Game Setup:
Win Conditions- Only Sacred Sites (Turn off landmarks and wonder)
Starting Resources- High
Starting Age- Age II
Map State- Concealed


Map Setup:
Map- Dry Arabia
Map Size- Gigantic
Locations- Teams Together

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Your aim is to develop your base and defend it to the best of your ability until you've built the imperial palace within the Age III advancement. Rush for this as fast as possible whilst also building up your defenses. Don't bother trying to capture the Sacred sites, they're the distraction too! We're aiming for your friendly AI to take the brunt of the enemy attacks.

With the sheer amount of enemies and their skills by the time you have managed to build the palace, they should hopefully have enough villagers combined! When the structure is built the Imperial Spies ability can be used within the building menu or by pressing 'Q', this reveals all enemy villager positions across the map.

If you don't get it on the first attempt, survive until it refreshes and go again. We're waiting for their combined numbers to add up. The achievement should unlock almost straight away once the ability is used if there are enough of them. I got it the third time the ability was used.