Age of Empires 4 Jin Dynasty Guide

The recent ‘Yue Fei’s Legacy’ update for Age of Empires 4 introduces a new campaign and a playable faction in Skirmish mode: The Jin Dynasty. However, players are questioning whether this new faction is competitively balanced.

The Jin Dynasty is a new civilization with special units and improvements, making it different from other groups in the game. They excel at defense and, when played strategically, can gather resources faster than anyone else.

Best Units for the Jin Dynasty in Age of Empires 4

Mounted Villagers

Mounted Villagers are a key advantage in the Jin Dynasty. These are upgraded villagers that are better in every way – they move and gather resources more quickly, and can carry more at once. This makes them ideal for speeding up your progress in the early game.

These extra units have a couple of key drawbacks. First, you’re limited to a maximum of 20 Mounted Villagers unless you recruit Emissaries. Second, they cost both Gold and Food, making them quite pricey. Because of this, it’s important to protect your Mounted Villagers and avoid losing them.

Mohe Tribesman

A product doesn’t always need to be the best to be successful; often, being able to make a lot of them cheaply is enough.

Mohe Tribesmen are versatile units you can depend on whether you’re attacking or defending. They’re skilled ranged cavalry, meaning they excel at fighting from a distance, but aren’t very strong in close combat. Their real strength lies in supporting your melee fighters by providing ranged damage from behind the front lines.

Iron Pagoda

Following the elite cavalry, the Jin Dynasty also fields the Iron Pagoda, a heavily armored unit. While expensive to maintain – requiring significant food and gold – these troops are incredibly durable and perform best when deployed in large groups.

Iron Pagoda’s cavalry excels at quickly pursuing and engaging enemies, but they remain vulnerable when facing large groups of spearmen.

A special building from the Jin Dynasty, called Grasslands, can greatly reduce the Food cost of your Iron Pagoda.

It’s a good idea to research technologies that improve your melee units or the Iron Pagoda, as these will significantly boost their combat ability and help them survive longer in battles.

Zhanma Swordsman

The Zhanma Swordsman is the Jin Dynasty’s strongest infantry unit. For a well-rounded and dependable army, it’s best to have an equal number of both Zhanma Swordsmen and Iron Pagoda units.

While Jin Dynasty swordsmen don’t need as much funding as the Iron Pagoda units, they take significantly longer to train. Because Zhanma Swordsmen are a high-tier unit from the Imperial Age, building a large army of them is especially challenging.

Best Jin Dynasty Landmarks in Age of Empires 4

With each new era in the game, you’ll need to construct a new Landmark. Each era presents two different Landmark choices, and in the Jin Dynasty, these typically focus on either strengthening your defenses or improving your resource gathering.

Best Feudal Age Landmark: Flower Pagoda

As you advance to the second age, you can choose between two Landmark buildings: the Flower Pagoda and the Great Pasture. The Great Pasture combines the functions of both a Grassland and a War Stable, letting you create cavalry units.

The Grassland is a special structure from the Jin Dynasty that gradually trains horses for you. If you build a War Stable next to a Grassland, you can quickly and cheaply train cavalry units whenever trained horses are available.

You’ll eventually need buildings like War Stables and Grasslands during the game, but these are standard buildings you can construct anytime. Flower Pagoda is different – it’s only available during the Landmark selection and if you forget to build it there, you’ll lose the opportunity.

Flower Pagoda is a tall structure with one special ability: Flower Garden. When activated, Flower Garden creates a circular area. Any villagers gathering resources inside this area will collect materials 25% faster.

And there’s more! Using Flower Garden on the battlefield boosts the attack speed of all your non-siege units by 25%. That’s a huge advantage, so be sure to take advantage of it when you’re advancing to the Feudal Age.

Flower Garden only allows one session to run at a time.

Best Castle Age Landmark: Dragon Pavilion

In the Castle Age, Dragon Pavilion and Mountain Hall are much more evenly matched than they were in the Feudal Age. Both offer powerful benefits, but Dragon Pavilion excels at defense, providing a significant boost to your base’s security.

The Dragon Pavilion building is unique because it only creates Emissaries, just like your Town Center can. However, building a Dragon Pavilion gives you a 33% discount when hiring Emissaries and also grants you one free Emissary upon completion.

The real draw of Dragon Pavilion isn’t just the building itself, but what it does. It features the Meng’an Mouke upgrade, which adds a powerful cavalry unit. This unit automatically leaves the building and attacks any enemies that get too close, providing a built-in defense for Dragon Pavilion.

Meng’an Mouke are special cavalry units. While you can create them yourself, you don’t have direct control over them. The Dragon Pavilion upgrade extends this capability to your Town Centers, allowing them to automatically produce cavalry when enemies approach.

A new Meng’an Mouke unit appears in the Dragon Pavilion every minute, while all other buildings take two minutes to replenish their units. This means your forces will automatically rebuild over time, even if lost in battle, and you won’t need to spend any resources to do so.

If you unlock the Flying Fire Battalions upgrade through the Great Wall Bastion, you’ll get a significant defensive boost: you can have 10 more Meng’an Mouke defenders, giving you a stronger defense against attacks.

Okay, so even if I don’t go with the Dragon Pavilion, I can still get those Meng’an Mouke defenders! I just upgrade my Keeps and Outposts, and they’ll appear there. But, sadly, I won’t be able to have them protecting my Dragon Pavilion or Town Centers if I skip that building. It’s a trade-off, I guess!

Okay, so if I think my town is pretty well-defended already, I can choose Mountain Hall. It’s cool because it gives me a bonus that keeps coming back, which is awesome for building up my resources.

Mountain Hall also has an area of effect. When villagers within this area gather resources, they generate karma. Once your karma reaches 1,000, you’ll receive a 60-second bonus, boosting the performance of everything you own.

Farm gathering rate increases by 75%
Buildings regenerate 50 health per second
Any defensive unit or building has its attack speed increased by 50%
Every captured Relic produces three times more Gold

At the end of each era, your karma resets, and you’ll need to rebuild it to 1,000. The Mountain Hall serves a dual purpose: it functions as both a base for accumulating karma and a monastery where you can train monks. These monks are used to acquire religious artifacts and capture relics. If you choose to build a Mountain Hall, you won’t need to construct a separate monastery.

Best Imperial Age Landmark: Pagoda Forest

If you’re looking for a really strong defense for your town, the Great Wall Bastion is a great choice. It’s an improved version of a keep, already upgraded to maximize Meng’an Mouke’s potential, and it includes four powerful Bed Crossbows.

Pagoda Forest also helps defend your base, but in a unique way. It creates small forests around itself – up to 15 in total – and each one constantly generates 40 Wood per minute. When fully developed, this provides a significant, free income of around 600 Wood every minute.

This building has a unique power: it can convert enemy units into allies. When activated, it transforms all enemies within its range, making them fight for your side until they are defeated.

Pagoda Forest is a powerful defensive structure. Position it near town entrances to attract enemies, and then activate its ability to automatically gain free troops when they get close.

Pagoda Forest doesn’t become more powerful on its own, but placing up to three Monks inside will slightly increase the range of its special ability with each Monk added.

Best Jin Dynasty Strategies in Age of Empires 4

We highly recommend getting most of your food by hunting animals. There are two upgrades that will greatly increase the amount of food you receive from each hunt:

Mohe Ancestry, which increases the gather rate of hunted meat by 20%.
Collective Hunting, available at the Town Center. This is a one-off blessing. When purchased, it spawns four Reindeers around the Town Center, each offering 400 Food.

The Jin Dynasty excels at wood gathering. If you upgrade your Lumber Camp with Draft Horses, villagers will collect wood 15% quicker and can carry 10 more wood at a time.

To make your base extra secure, outposts are a great choice, especially after the Meng’an Mouke upgrade. Don’t forget to use the ‘Fortify Outpost’ ability, which significantly boosts their health and defense.

When it comes to weapons for outposts, the best choice depends on their location and what they’ll be shooting at. If the outposts are within your base and intended to defend against soldiers on foot or horseback, Handcannon Slits will likely be more effective.

If your outpost is located on the coast and meant to attack ships, Cannon Emplacements can be very effective. Also, Bed Crossbows work well against ships if you finish with the Great Wall Bastion as your Landmark.

The Jin Dynasty isn’t known for its strong offense, so it’s important to balance ranged and close-combat units. While the Zhanma Swordsman is their most powerful infantry, they are slow to build. However, if you’re in the late game and need a powerful attack, the time it takes to produce them is worth it.

Okay, so if I’m playing as the Jin Dynasty, I’ve learned it’s all about cavalry – seriously, those Iron Pagoda units are a must-have. Later on in the game, if I’ve got the resources, a mix of Eruptors and Mohe Tribesmen can really dominate ranged fights. But honestly? Eruptors are pricey, so if I’m running low on cash, I can skip ’em and still do fine.

While the Jin Dynasty’s siege weapons aren’t great for taking down buildings, their ‘Nest of Bees’ attack is useful for dealing area-of-effect damage to groups of enemies. This provides helpful support for your close-combat units.

2026-05-18 13:39