Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition

Tried several methods to expedite this achievement after completing all other achievements, I believe I have found the fastest way. As an addendum, creating a setup with a saved game DOES NOT WORK. Saved games somehow nullify progress toward the ticker. That being said, there are ways to streamline the process.

GAMETYPE: Skirmish VS AI
CIV: Chinese (50% faster build buff for this civ)
MAP: warring islands (no enemy interference, but not sure if it matters, this method is fast)
MAP SIZE: micro (2 player), improves load time.
STARTING RESOURCES: high
AGE: starting age 1

Immediately put 5 villagers on building Age II landmark, pull 1 to build 1 house, no need to build more than 1 house, you will never hit more than 20 cap before all age landmarks are built. Continue building villagers out of town center and add them on building landmarks. When you hit Age IV, quit out of game, do not surrender. Surrendering causes the game to display win/loss banner, causing long wait time, quitting out will still count toward overall achievement ticker count.

EDIT: Per Tarvu, you can just restart skirmish, and counter will still populate, this saves even more time!

Unlike the mastery challenges, you do not need to complete the match in order for the age advancement to count towards your overall score.

For 500 age advancements at 3 ages per game, this equates to 167 individual games, assuming that you advance in age 3 times per game. Now you should come close to completing this one just by going for all of the other mastery/campaign/civilization achievements. Just the masteries alone (15 challenges for each of 8 civs equals 120 games,) should get you close.

However, if you need to spam this quick and fast, start a new skirmish starting at Age I with resources set to high. Immediately build your four landmarks as they become available. Produce more villagers and build a couple houses to expedite the process. As soon as your fourth landmark is built, restart the match and start again.

EDIT: After playtesting this, using the Chinese ability to build multiple age advancing structure does not advance the age count. You must advance to the next age, not to another dynasty.

I think this is the fastest way after trying different solutions. Since the tracker isn't tied to winning, we are going to set up a game save first :

Create a new skirmish :

Gametype : Skirmish, winning condition doesn't matter
Number of players : 1
Civ : Chinese because of the faster construction time
Map : Doesn't matter, I chose Arabia
Map size : 2 player, the smallest one
Starting ressources : unlimited
Starting age : 1

Setting up the save :

• Immediately queue 15 villagers

• Kill your scout

• Send your 3 sheeps away somewhere on the map (optionnal)

• With your starting villagers, build 3 villages

• Build more houses (optionnal)

• Continue creating villagers until you are at 50 (I found that was enough)

• Select your 50 villagers and create an unit group with them

• When everything is done, create a SAVE

Using the save :

• Build the 3 landmarks one after another

• When you are at age 4, reload the save

• The tracker will go up, it will take about 1 minute per run, around 8 hours to go from 0 to 500