Age of Empires Heaven
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Age of Empires Heaven (often abbreviated to AoEH) is a fansite for the Age of Empires and Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome video games. It was opened in 1997 [1] by Mike McCart.
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[edit] Message Boards
AoEH is perhaps most popular for its message boards, which are widely regarded to be the most used AoE message boards on the internet. The boards themselves are comprised of four forums;
- Age of Empires/Rise of Rome - A place to discuss the game and expansion, and get general gameplay help.
- Scenario Design - Discussion of the Scenario Editor, and a place to show off new works.
- AoE Multiplayer Forum - A place to discuss all things multiplayer - tournaments, results, strategies.
- Veni Vidi Vici - The AoEH community forum, a place for chatting with other forum members about anything except AoE.
There are also links to other forums on the Heavengames network, including Outside Dicussions, HG Library, and HG History Forum.
[edit] Staff
AoEH’s forums are managed by staff members, who volunteer to help remove spam and bad posts from the boards. There are 3 ranks of staff on AoEH; Seraph, Angel, and Cherub (as detailed below). Profiles of the staff members can be found here. (CHECK LINK)
Need links to staff profiles
[edit] Seraph
Seraphs have a yellow username. They have complete FTP access to all regions of the main site, and have complete admin powers over the forums. AoEH currently has one Seraph - Phill Phree (aka. Phillistine), but because of Seraph’s global moderation/admin powers, any Heavengames Seraph can moderate at AoEH.
[edit] Angel
Angels have red usernames. They have partial FTP access to the main site, and have global moderation powers of the forums (meaning they can moderate on any Heavengames forum. AoEH currently has two Angels - Dr Lorenzo (aka. Doc, Lorry) and Centurion_z_1 (aka. Centy), but because of Angel’s global moderation/admin powers, any Heavengames Angel can moderate at AoEH.
[edit] Cherub
Cherubs have green usernames. They have minimal FTP access to the main site, and can only moderate forums where they have been set as moderators (ie. They can’t moderate everywhere). AoEH currently has one Cherub - BlitzkreigComin (aka. Blitz). Blitz is currently able to moderate all four of AoEH’s forums, but is unable to moderate anywhere else on the Heavengames network.
[edit] The Granary - Downloads
As well as the message boards, AoEH is home to a very large downloads section, dubbed The Granary, which is home to well over 1000 files. These files include custom scenarios and campaigns, as well as patches, modifications, utility programs, and other miscellaneous files.
Some files in the granary have become extremely popular online. For example, Memories of the Gupta Dynasty, a custom campaign for AoE by designer Andrea Rosa, has received several thousand downloads, and has been given a five star rating by many highly regarded designers [2]
[edit] Enhanced Editor
The enhanced editor is an edited version of the empires.dat file that is included with the game. This file, produced by scenario_t_c, was first released to AoEH in 2005 [3]. It has been credited as being the “best thing that ever happened to designing.” The enhanced editor allows all units in the AoE Scenario Editor to be placed on any terrain. It also unlocks many hidden units, and give the ability to insert “dead” units (the graphic of a unit after it is killed in battle).
[edit] AoEH Legend
Since AoEH is one of the oldest sites on the Heavengames network, many long time HG members visited it before visiting any other “heavens” (other sites). A lot of their actions on the message boards and site have since gone down as legend from the “golden days” of AoE.
[edit] Ingo Van Theil
Ingo is regarded by many as the greatest AoE designer ever [4]. He is credited with inventing many map design eye candies. His most important invention is a technique to make swamps in the AoE editor, and he first displayed this technique in Tai Gun [5].
[edit] Laughing Lugworm Tavern
The Laughing Lugworm Tavern is an infamous spam thread in the Veni Vidi Vici forum on AoEH’s Message Boards. Its starter, Dr Lorenzo, describes the LLT as;
This is a bit like a recovery roomThis is nothing like a Recovery Room. Well, it is, but that's such an antiquated phrase these days. Its like Splash Splash. Well, its not, but there's no better analogy.[6]
Splash Splash was the first spam thread on the Heavengames network. Whilst it is no longer available to the viewing public today, legend has it that it received well over 50,000 replies.
[edit] Can you survive the Blitzkreig?
“Can you survive the Blitzkreig” is the motto of BlitzkreigComin, a very highly regarded Rise of Rome player. According to many long time AoE players, Blitz (who is a cherub at AoEH, and leader of the AoEH Multiplayer Ladder) is by far the best player on Mediterranean (one of the random maps that comes with AoE), and is one of the best players on other maps too. “Can you survive the Blitzkreig?” is stated in bold red text in Blitz’s forum sig[7].
[edit] Agetoons
Agetoons are edited screenshots of Age of Empires, which are compiled in the AoEH gallery. There are several hundred Agetoons in the gallery, showing everything from 1 man vs. 100 elephant battles to Andrea Rosa (depicted by a priest) criticising a custom map for having overlapping buildings (Buildings placed too close together is one of Andrea’s pet hates), before realising that this isn’t possible (this Agetoon was uploaded by scenario_t_c to celebrate the launch of the enhanced editor).
[edit] References
- ^ Age of Empires Heaven Timeline
- ^ Age of Empires Heaven - Top Rated Campaigns
- ^ The Enhanced Editor Download Page
- ^ Andrea Rosa heaps praise on Ingo (3rd Paragraph)
- ^ Igno describes his swamps
- ^ The Laughing Lugworm Tavern
- ^ A post by BlitzkreigComin, including his sig
[edit] See Also
- Age of Empires
- Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome
- Age of Empires: Dawn of Man Expansion - An expansion pack for AoE currently under construction by AoEH members.
- Heavengames
