Remember phrases like "Lumberjack", "Robin Hood", "Marco", "Polo", "Woodstock" and my favourite "Bigdaddy"? If so, you've evidently played a lot of "Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings" and if this is the first you've heard of them, you've clearly missed out on a lot of fun. AoE II is in my opinion one of the best PC games ever made and it's still very playable although it's decades old - well almost ... There's actually a rumor around the web that Microsoft is launching a fourth game but nothing is official yet.
About
The game was released, and published, in 1999 by Microsoft but it was developed by Ensemble Studios. The expansion "The Conquerors" was released in 2000. It is without doubt Ensembles most successful game ever but they also succeed with "Halo Wars" for Xbox 360 and of course the first AoE game. The first AoE game was released in 1997 and the third was released in 2005. I haven't played the first game that much because I instantly fell in love with the second one. I bought the third game the day it was released in Denmark but boy was I disappointed. It's still kind of sad to think about how useless the third games is and I'm not sure I'm hoping for a fourth game. I don't think they're able to make something half as good as the second one. Why do they insist on making sequels? Yeah, I know why and it's a shame.
Gameplay
AoE II is categorized as a RTS game (Real Time Strategy) which doesn't progress incrementally in turns like Heroes of Might and Magic. It's set in four ages: The Dark Age, The Feudal Age, The Castle Age and The Imperial Age, somewhere around the middle age would be my guess. You can choose to play in campaign mode or to play a standard game and you can play online and LAN games as well. I actually think it's still possible to find players in online games. My post focuses on standard games though.
Your main objective is to be victorious. There's different game modes in which there's different ways to be victorious. Some of the ways to win the game is by building a Wonder, defeating all enemy military units, defending your king and by controlling all artifacts. In order to be invincible you'll have to build lots of military units and in order to build military units you'll need buildings. In order to build buildings you'll need resources (wood, gold, stone and food). To gather resources you'll need villagers. You'll therefore have to balance your stockpile between buildings, villagers, military units and also upgrades. If you're playing against a medium or hard computer or some pro gamers, you'll need military units ASAP.
Other stuff
There is a couple of buildings and secondary objectives in the game which isn't necessary to build or complete but they may come to your advantage in order to win the game. You can build a monastery in which you can train monks. Monks have the ability to convert enemy buildings and units and to heal your wounded men. They can also collect relics and relics generate gold which is vital later on in the game.
You can also build a market. In the market you can do some trading. You can trade wood for food, food for gold, stone for food etc. etc. You can also build a carriage in which you can travel around the map in order to trade stuff with your enemies. And often your enemies won't attack your carriage. It's also possible to befriend your opponents and get allies in the war (if the game mode allows it).
Closure
I still play this game every now and then and it's a really nice LAN game cause the computer opponent is lacking some AI I must admit. Maybe because I'm a girl, I like the building aspect of the game too and I like to make my village pretty by not placing buildings randomly around the map and by foresting all the trees in my area and also by making a nice harbour and by barricading my village in a nice wall with gates and towers in it.
I think this game might be my second most played game ever. The first one being Zelda: A Link To The Past. And if you want to give it a try or play it again it's available on Steam, but it's quite expensive. On the plus side it allows you to play the game straight away. You can of course buy it from various web shops. I found some places for you to get it.
Danish readers - buy it from Fonas web shop here. The price is only 50 DKK.
International readers - buy it from Amazon here. Prices from $8.46.
I also found a CD key for Steam on G2A but it requires a bit of knowledge on how Steam works. You'll find it here and the price is 11€. You can download Steam right here.
FYI - If you're playing the game on Steam, you can buy the newest expansion "The Forgotten" which was released in 2013. I don't think it's an official expansion. Anyhow, it introduces new civilizations, new units, new technologies, new maps, new game modes, new campaigns and it's said to have improved AI. I'm not a steam user, so I haven't played the expansion but let me know if it's worth it to buy the game on Steam in order to play "The Forgotten" expansion.
Thanks for reading this post. Happy gaming and happy throwback thursday! //
Previous posts in Throwback Thursday:
Spellbinder
Double Impact
Goodfellas and Zelda
Super Mario Land 2
Hugo's House of Horrors
Super Nintendo
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