Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition

130 Achievements

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The Ottoman Arts

Earn a gold medal in the Ottoman Art of War challenge.

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How to unlock the The Ottoman Arts achievement in Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition - Definitive Guide

WhySoSeri0usBro

TrueAchievements

02 Nov 2022 05:31

This achievement is probably the most difficult achievement in AOE4. Its not impossible but it will take a few tries and you can't really wing it.

Mission Objective:
Survive an onslaught of enemy waves coming from the North, East and West for at least 21 mins. The enemy will send Spearmen, Men At Arms (MaA), Archers, Cavalry, Rams, Trebs, Cannons, basically everything except Monks.
Its hard to outline a step by step guide for this scenario so instead I will be providing some tips and optimizations that I made to get myself across the finish line.

Note: I had two great runs, one ended on 20:30 and the other on 20:50. The latter led to the achievement unlocking for me even though the Art of War menu (rightfully) points out that I got a Silver medal.

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Military:

- Use your spearmen to counter the early cavalry attacks efficiently. Its especially important to out-value your opponent in those early fights so you can snowball into a decent army by mid-game.

- Add some archers to your army soon after the first ~2 raids. They will help even the odds and minimize the casualties your infantry units suffer.

- Monks are great, but dont' over index. I would say you should cap out at 6 monks by the late game, leave them towards the university and blacksmith in stand ground formation so they can heal nearby allies and those in transition.

- Spawn Heavy Cavalry in batches of ~3-4 and setup Ambushes in the north western and north eastern passages. You'll want to pounce on the enemy cannons and mangonels to avoid losing your army. Do it too early and your ponies will be demolished by their Crossbowmen or Spearmen.

- If you can comfortably manage it, spawn a Giant Bombard from the Siege Workshop. This baby can decimate squads of the enemy army and it may be the difference between Gold and Silver. I would adivse keeping it to the east as thats where the most Siege heavy push typically happens in the late game.

- Make sure you have a healthy amount of Spears throughout the scenario, you're going to need them to thin out the cavalry.I would set the Military Schools to produce Gold units like MaA and Heavy Cav, while the barracks pumps out a trickle of Spearmen.

- Keep the archers at the back and the Monks even further back. The Monks have a price on their head and the Archers are there to collect that bounty. They will snipe your Monks in a coordinated shot and insta-kill them.

- Make Military Schools as soon as possible. They require stone so keep your stone villagers actively mining and pivot one of your gold or wood villagers over to build the schools as the opportunity arises. Make sure to send that villager back to their resource. Back to work peasant!

- Make Military Schools and any unit production buildings within the influence of the University or Blacksmith. The production rate buff (60%) is extremely important and you can't afford to lose that.

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Vizier Points:

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Economy:

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Late Game:

- Congrats you're close but you're gonna have to fight it out to the last donkay here. The prior tips should help you get to the 18-19 minute mark. If you're not getting there, do more practice run and try to stay on top of these tips and optimize.

- After the 19:00 mark, you are most likely losing the war on one of your frontlines and the others are going down in flames. That's fine. Don't concede.

- Keep spamming as many units as you can, spend all of your resources. We need fodder and distractions to delay the Siege units in particular.

- If you have any Cavalry, take them to the north eastern passage and flank the Trebs that are coming from the right.

- The eastern front will be the most siege heavy front (always was for me anyway) so do your best to keep those siege units busy.

- As the enemy begins to snuff the light out of your beautiful Ottoman civilization (British opponent confirmed?), send all of your Donkays back to the TC. Have them run interference and distract units as they move to the right.

- Do the same with a decent chunk of your remaining villagers.

- If possible, task 7-8 villagers to repair your TC if its come under fire.

- Hang in there, the Siege can be distracted last minute and your TC might not burn down before you hit the 21 min mark.

- Either way, let the match end, you may end up getting it if you were close enough like I was (20:50).

- If you're really good at this game, you're still probably getting wrecked here so do the best you can to interfere with the Siege. I legitimately don't think there's a ton of headroom for surviving in this scenario as your economy is nerfed by the fact that you can't build additional TCs and your population cap is reduced with every house that burns to the ground.

- Hopefully, you've got it at this point, if not keep practicing. Unfortunately, my capture was corrupted, and I can't post the last 10 mins I ended up recording. If anyone does end up recording their run and would like to volunteer their video that would be fantastic.

Good luck! Feedback is welcome and I'll try to update this solution periodically.

02 Nov 2022 05:31

7 Comments

Definitely the most difficult challenge.

On food, wait a few mins at the start, the Medresa berries will grow. You probably don't need to actually pivot to farms, build a mill on the southern shore for fish when the berries run out, there is a lot of food here. It saves you time and wood. Keep maybe 2-3 on the Medresa berries as they respawn, only enough to match the spawn rate. As others say, military schools asap. I used primarily Sipahi and Crossbows. Sipahi are good early alternative for heavy cav as raiding units on siege and range, they have an attack bonus on ranged units. Choose the left 3 vizier points first, I went with Trade Bags as my fourth since I had 10 or so Traders. I went for a crossbows and heavy cav from my own production, so gold focus. Build a couple more stables in the blacksmith range for this. Heavy cav is tanky, good against siege and range, decent on infantry, just watch them on spears. You don't have to have the greatest micro, but you do need to mico the siege on each attack with your cav before you leave your units to deal with it on their own or focus on your eco.

By Seitzz on 08 Oct 2023 19:58

This one is no joke. The real key is to build the Military Schools ASAP and ensure you have enough production. I cycled the military schools between crossbow, MAA, and lancers.

First attempt was 19m 9s (I really fell apart around 13min or so)
Second attempt was 22m 50s (I stopped all inputs around 21m)

I constantly hit "escape" to pause the game on the second try to keep an eye on my economy and having enough villagers on the right things as well as to ensure I wasn't floating too many resources. This REALLY helped me since I'm not an amazing AoE 4 player at all.

Layout of waves shown below - this helped me make sure my army and calvary were in the right locations (especially to kill siege)

Wave-Time-Direction-Force
1 1:40 North 4 Elite Horseman
2 2:40 North 10 Spearman
3 4:00 West 1 ram 6 MAA 3 Elite Horseman
4 5:10 North 10 MAA 10 Archer
5 6:30 North 21 Horseman
6 7:30 North 1 Ram 10 Spearman 10 Crossbow
6 7:30 West 4 Knights?
7 3:30 West 1 Magonal 20 MAA
8 9:30 North 2 Ram 15 Spear 20 Archer
9 10:30 East 2 Magonal 10 Horseman 10 crossbow
10 11:30 West 10 Archer
10 11:30 North 2 Ram 20 spearman 1 Treb 1 Cannon
11 12:30 East 3 Magonal 16 MAA 6 handgunner
12 13:30 North 3 Ram 1 Magonel 10 Archer 10 MAA
12 13:30 West Horsemen
12 13:30 East ??
13 14:15 West 1 cannon 30 MAA 10 Crossbow
14 15:30 East 2 ram 2 cannon 15 archer 10 MAA
14 15:30 West 7 knight
15 16:00 North 3 ram 20 spearman 10 horse 20 archer
16 17:00 North 20 horsemen
16 17:00 East 2 magonal 10 MAA 10 hand cannon 3 treb 15 Archer
17 17:30 West 2 ram 2 cannon 15 crossbow 15 archer 15 MAA
18 18:30 North 2 cannon 10 crossbow 15 MAA
18 18:30 East infrantry
18 18:30 West 10 MAA
19 19:00 East 2 cannon infantry
19 19:00 West 3 magonel 10 horseman 5 knight
20 20:00 East 2 cannon 20 MAA 20 Crossbow
20 20:00 North 30 infantry

By Grakusgg on 06 May 2023 01:27

A hint on the economy. Every single failed attempt I had was because of small raids, either from lancers or archers. Eventually I moved everything down behind the bridge, on a road to the market. This way I was able to boost my economy with no harassment at all. I had to move 10 spears to intercept an attack once but apart from this no surprises at all.

By Mikasz on 04 Nov 2022 09:10

I got the same luck with it popping even though my record is 20:49. I wonder if it is because the loading times are a bit slower and therefore registers and extra bit of time.

By Tucky90 on 21 Jan 2023 15:05

Can't say for certain on the PC version but the xbox Art of wars were made easier by reducing all requirements. A gold for this mission you only need 16 minutes now

By SkormsGhost on 04 Oct 2023 03:06

For those struggling with this achievement, this can be done on console where the requirement is only 16m. I'd argue that 16m with an unfamiliar control scheme is much easier than making 21m on PC.

By AspiringDoctor on 31 Dec 2023 05:33

Good guide. As per Mikasz's comment, moving your economy down south is an easy way to ensure nothing harasses it. That being said, there's only one wave of 3 heavy cavalry that will harass your workers from the west. So long as you have several spearmen ready to meet them they will not harass your workers.

I kept 5-8 cavalry in the north east forest and took out siege as needed (heaviest siege is always from east, but there's some from north, west is never an issue).

Also, I had the stone to spare so I built two castles, one west and one on east of the town center. Over time the enemy will eat away at your towers and houses, so I built more houses in the south economy area and then let the incoming waves break on the castles. You can last ridiculously long this way as long as you take out siege. I was at 23 minutes before I got overwhelmed.

By BAD T0AST on 28 Dec 2022 21:30

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ZodiaKk418

TrueAchievements

04 Dec 2022 07:03

In order to unlock this achievement, you need to earn a gold medal in the Ottomans Art of War challenge by having a time over 21 minutes. I included a video below to help you out if stuck.

Bronze: 10:00
Silver: 15:00
Gold: 21:00

My Time: 21:48

Art Of War: Ottomans

04 Dec 2022 07:03

THE ZOD

TrueSteamAchievements

04 Dec 2022 00:00