Age of Empires Mobile introduces the Mercenaries System to beef up your army

Back in those carefree days of dial-up internet and floppy discs with their mammoth 1GB capacity that wouldn’t even fit one of Link’s fingernails, Age of Empires emerged as a massive strategy game. The series is still going strong today with its mobile version, Age of Empires Mobile, showing off its latest feature.

You can now add to your army through the Mercenaries System, which allows you to contract and recruit some powerful new units. You can then unlock and upgrade their exclusive technologies to complement your homegrown heroes. A nice way to spice up your army with some different factions.

To start grabbing these fighters you will need to be at least Level 26. You will then unlock the Mercenary Camp, and all your wildest dreams will come true. What’s better, if you act fast, you can recruit your first set of Mercenaries for free by completing the recently released event. The best killing machine is a free killing machine.

Each of these units comes packing some rather handy abilities. The Indian Battle Elephant on one hand gives all heroes a 5% chance to perform two normal attacks per round. Korean Archers reduce all damage received by troops by 2%, whilst on the flip side, Swiss Pikeman can ignore 2% of the enemy's defence for some extra damage.

As exciting as this new feature is, let’s not forget some of Age of Empires Mobile's more interesting features. One of these is the What if moments, which offer a very intriguing twist on historical events. Would Joan of Arc have avoided that barbecue if she commanded Roman Centurions, and if Hannibal led the Japanese Samurai, would he have crossed the mountains on a giant Shiba Inu? I sincerely hope so.

Age of Empires Mobile is available to download from the App Store and Google Play.