| โ | A rugged, mountainous area that creates many choke points. | โ |
| —Age of Empires IV description | ||
Altai is a random map in Age of Empires IV. Two mountain ranges with traversable passes divide the map into land corridors, with players facing off down the center.
Features[]
Altai is a mountainous land map. It is notable for its two large mountain ranges which run parallel to the map edges and split the map into a wider central lane and two smaller edge lanes. These can run in either a northwest-to-southeast or northeast-to-southwest orientation. The mountain ranges extend nearly the length of the map and are mostly impassable, but there are always openings behind the player start locations. There is also always at least one larger opening in each range closer to the middle of the map, and sometimes more, especially on larger map sizes. Narrow, snaking paths can also traverse each mountain. Players will always spawn in the central lane towards the back. Two Forgotten Ruin Points of Interest will always spawn in one of the sets of opposing corners, and the two Trade Posts will always be located near these ruins, either directly in the mountain crossing behind the teams, or slightly further up the map edge in the side lanes. Altai has three Sacred Sites, with one in each lane. The two edge lane Sacred Sites are always closer to one of the teams, spawning at a variable distance from the center axis of the map. Altai follows the standard Relic generation, with the Relics capable of appearing in any of the lanes.
Resources[]
Every player will always start with one large Deer pack within range of their Capital Town Center. In a 1 vs 1 game, there will be six other small Deer packs spread around the map, whereas in team games, there will simply be the standard second large Deer pack per player in more contested area. Sheep, Berry Bushes and Boars follow the standard distribution, and the Boars and large Berry Bush patch are capable of spawning in any of the three lanes. Each player will start out with two large circular woodlines which can be in front of, behind, or beside their Town Center, and small circular woodlines dot the rest of the map. Large Gold Mines follow a fixed spawn pattern, with two located in opposing corners of the map, and in team games, the rest (either 2 or 3 depending on team size) located in the middle of the center lane. There are only two contested Small Gold Mines per map (except in 2 vs 2 where there are none) and they also appear towards the center in any of the lanes. Both Large and Small Stone Outcroppings follow a more random placement.
Changelog[]
- With update 13.0.4178, Forgotten Ruins were added to the map in the corners, where the Trade Posts used to be. The Trade Posts were moved to be slightly adjacent to the ruins, either in the mountain crossing, or further up the edge lane.
Trivia[]
- The map's name implies it is based off the Altai Mountains of Central Asia, where the controversial proposed Altaic language family is assumed to originate from.
Gallery[]
