Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Developer(s) | Ensemble Studios |
| Publisher(s) | Microsoft |
| Version | 2.0a / 2.0b |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Apple Macintosh |
| Release date | September 30, 1999 |
| Genre(s) | Real Time Strategy |
| Mode(s) | MP over IPX, TCP/IP, Modem, GameSpy Arcade, or GameRanger |
| Rating(s) | ELSPA: 3+ ESRB: Teen (T) |
| Media | CD (1) |
| System requirements | Pentium 166 MHz CPU, 32 MB RAM, 200 MB / (550 MB Gold Edition)HD |
| Input methods | Keyboard, mouse |
Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings is a real-time strategy computer game set in the Middle Ages. It was released in 1999, and it is the second game of the Age of Empires series developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft. Because of its commercial success, an expansion pack was released: Age of Empires II: The Conquerors, followed by a Gold Edition, which bundled together the game and its expansion pack along with a bonus map and games recorded by Microsoft strategy experts.
Contents |
[edit] Gameplay
The player has control over a society and guides them through four "ages". The game begins in the Dark Ages, where very few buildings and units are available. After a short time, the user gains the ability to advance to the Feudal Age, where more upgrades, buildings, and units become available. The next age is the Castle Age, in which the powerful castle may be built, and used to produce powerful units including the unique unit of each civilization. Finally, the user can reach the Imperial Age, which is reminiscent of the early years of the Renaissance. Once the user has reached the Imperial Age, they gain access to all the upgrades, units, and buildings that may be built for their specific civilization.
The player directly controls the citizens, and can order them to move or attack (all units except for trade carts, fishing- and trade-ships), construct new buildings, gather necessary resources (villager units), and perform a range of other tasks, such as repair damaged buildings or garrison inside castles or town centers for safety.
Although the playing area includes cliffs and mountains, these additions do not actually represent changes in the height of the land. Instead, they just represent an obstacle around which units must move. However, units can go over hills. Similarly, buildings are not actually built, they are simply rendered to give the illusion of height.
There are four types of resources, all of which are necessary to foster a civilization: wood, food, gold, and stone. Wood is used mainly for building structures, providing renewable food resources, building ships, training archers and for other similar uses. Stone is used mainly for constructing defenses like castles or towers. Gold and food are used for constructing units and researching technologies. In most cases, these resources can be traded for one another at the market rate. Often, one of the difficulties of a certain scenario or map is that it has a small supply of one type of resource, forcing players to adjust to this shortage.
[edit] Civilizations
In the original Age of Kings, the player can choose from 13 civilizations. Each has a distinct personality, with particular strengths and weaknesses patterned on the real civilizations. Each civilization also has some unique units (ships and warriors) with more-or-less historically accurate names, e.g. Mameluke for the Saracens. The game's civilizations are sorted into four different architectural styles:
| Group | West European | East European | Far Eastern | Middle Eastern |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Civilizations |
The civilizations can also be classified by their military nature:
| Cavalry | Infantry | Ranged |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
[edit] Single player
The game comes with five campaigns, all of which reflect some event in history, such as Joan of Arc leading the French to battle, or Genghis Khan's invasion of Eurasia. There is also a Standard Game feature, which pits a player against a set number of computer players for control of a map. The usual goal in standard games is to defeat any enemies and force them to surrender, but other goals, like building and protecting a special type of building (called a "Wonder"), also exist. Additionally, a "Deathmatch" game type gives the player stockpiled resources in the thousands from the beginning of the game to work with.
Campaigns consist of a series of scenarios of rising difficulty, depicting major events in the life of a famous historical character, e.g. a famous battle, the building of a famous monument, or some well-known anecdote. Only the William Wallace and Joan of Arc campaigns allow players to control the said character as a special unit, although Genghis Khan makes a short appearance in his campaign. The campaigns usually start with a range of existing resources, buildings, and units already in place, thus avoiding the laborious process of building a nation from nothing, which can become tedious. The original game's campaigns include those of William Wallace (a tutorial campaign), Joan of Arc, Saladin, Genghis Khan, and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa I.
[edit] Multiplayer
In multiplayer mode, up to eight players can simultaneously play against each other, or against computer players. Previously, the Microsoft Zone was a popular online destination for multiplayer, but this service ended on 19 June 2006.[1] Since then, 3rd party services allowing easy matchmaking have spawned.
[edit] Game mechanics
[edit] Technology
Age of Empires II has a much more advanced and varied set of technology trees than the original Age of Empires. To acquire technology, the player must first construct buildings. Each building offers a range of technology which can be researched, for a price. Technologies build upon each other. As technologies are researched, a wider range of buildings and units become available. Technologies may benefit military units (by perhaps increasing their defense attributes), civil units (villagers can benefit from technologies that make them move faster and therefore collect resources more efficiently, etc), or buildings (e.g. by researching technology that allows castles and towers to fire at units at their base). Technologies vary greatly in benefits and costs.
In the game, technology plays a central role. Early in the game, players must constantly assess priorities and allocate scarce resources between creating new units, upgrading existing units, and researching to upgrade to the next Age. However, too much emphasis on researching technology and moving through the Ages without creating military can leave a nation defenseless. On the other hand, putting resources into a large population at the expense of progress can lead to defeat if the enemy has progressed and is able to field a small but more powerful attack force.
The number of technologies increase through the Ages, as does the price of said technologies. A special part of the game that was added in the expansion is that each civilization gets a unique technology in the castle when it goes into the castle age. This technology generally benefits the unique units of the civilization or enable some special upgrade which is not available to other civilizations. In addition to this, some civilizations also have some inbuilt technologies or upgrades. The special abilities of each civilization vary greatly and are roughly based on the specialties of the civilizations as they were in the 10th-14th century. For example, the Mongols can harvest meat 50% faster than other civilizations, the buildings of the Byzantines automatically get more hit points as they progress into the next age, and the Franks can build castles for much less than other civilizations.
[edit] Wonders and Relics
Relics are special unique items that are scattered around the map, and can only be picked up by monks. Once placed within a monastery, a relic steadily generates free gold for the civilization that holds it (this reflects the historical realities of the power and influence that possessing famous relics brought to a church). To capture a relic from an enemy monastery, the monastery must be nearly destroyed. Once the monastery has low enough hit points, the relic will then be expelled so that a player may capture it with a monk.
Monks are vulnerable units (they can only defend themselves by converting their assailant, which takes time). A monk carrying a relic will quickly attract enemy units, so strategies are needed to protect him (e.g. researching faster conversion and movement, sending monks in convoy so one can heal the other, protecting the monk with a military escort, etc). If monks are ordered to move with a group of other units, the monks will move to the back of the formation. However, using the box formation will position the units so that they form a box around the monks, protecting them from all sides.
A possible victory condition is the collection of all relics or the construction of a wonder. This is the case in several campaign scenarios. To win a relic victory, all the relics must be held for a specific uninterrupted period of time, depending on the size of the map.
Wonders are massive structures that require large amounts of resources and time to build. If a player completes a Wonder, and it stands intact for an uninterrupted period of time, they win. If a Wonder is destroyed before the countdown is finished, the countdown resets. Each civilization has their own Wonder, typically a famous work of historical architecture, as opposed to the original Age of Empires, where each civilization's Wonder was based on their generic architecture. The Wonders in Age of Empires II are:
| Gamecivilization | Wonder |
|---|---|
| Britons | Aachen Cathedral* |
| Celts | Rock of Cashel |
| Franks | Notre Dame de Reims |
| Teutons | Maria Laach Abbey |
| Goths | Mausoleum of Theodoric |
| Vikings | Borgund Stave Church |
| Byzantines | Hagia Sophia |
| Saracens | Great Mosque of Samarra |
| Turks | Selimiye Mosque |
| Persians | Taq-i Kisra |
| Chinese | Temple of Heaven |
| Japanese | Tōdai-ji |
| Mongols | Genghis Khan Temp |
- The English Wonder is a jumbling of a number of the sections of the real Aachen cathedral found elsewhere in the game (see below)
In addition, the Dome of the Rock appears as a decorative building in the Saladin and Barbarossa campaigns as do the Pyramids at Giza, but neither can be built by any civilization. Another decorative Gothic cathedral shown in the Joan of Arc and Barbarossa campaigns appears to be based on the Aachen Cathedral. Finally, in the Genghis Khan campaign the Great Wall of China is present, represented by several blocks of conventional walls united with defensive towers scattered throughout.
[edit] Soundtrack
The following tracks appear on the audio part of the game CD, listed in order of playback. The tracks themselves are not separated, but are instead one long track with floating transitions. The names and times given here are taken from the "Music From The Ages" and "More Music From The Ages" CDs, two audio CDs featuring tracks from both Age of Empires II and The Conquerors expansion, usually only given away by Ensemble Studios as competition prizes.[2] The tracks are composed by Stephen Rippy.[3][4]
- Shamburger (3:25)
- I Will Beat On Your Behind (2:58)
- Drizzle (Firelight Smoove Mix) (2:40)
- Machina del Diablo (3:00)
- T Station (3:13)
- Bass Bag (3:10)
- Ride, Lawrence, Ride! (2:53)
- Smells Like Crickets, Tastes Like Chicken (3:01)
- Operation: Monkey (3:26)
- Tazer (2:55)
[edit] User generated content
[edit] Scenario editor
Age of Kings also includes a built-in scenario editor. It is similar to the one from Age of Empires, in which players can make custom missions and series of missions. The largest difference from the design of the editor of the first game is the use of "triggers". These are used for performing actions once the conditions are fulfilled (if they do).
For example, a player can create a trigger to declare victory as soon as a building or unit is visible. A player can create triggers with multiple requirements or results. Killing certain soldiers can change the ownership of a building to another player as well as increase the health of the building. There is a huge abundance of possibilities.
To use the triggers in the scenario editor, create a new trigger and assign a condition and effect from the list. Occasionally there are variations to how many soldiers can be assigned triggers to. For example, if a player wants to make 6 soldiers patrol, at times they can only select the trigger for one, and six individual triggers must be made, while other times six can be selected at once.
In the expansion there is an addition of a few triggers: units and buildings can have their names changed, their health increased, and attack increased just to name a few.
[edit] Artificial Intelligence and Random Map Scripting
The game CD comes with complete documentation for both Random map and Artificial Intelligence scripting documentation present in the Docs folder. The scripting can be done in any text editor; however a special editor, named ScriptED,[5] has been developed just for the AI scripting of this game. The scripted AI performs much better than the games' default AI.[6] The most prominent community for scripting for Age of Empires II is AI scripters. Various other resources for scripting are also present on the internet.[7] Back in 2000 a contest[8] named AI Wars was held by Heavengames for AI scripting, nowadays regular tournaments[9] take place at AI scripters.
[edit] Reception
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| GameSpot | 9.1/10 |
| Game Revolution | A- |
| IGN | 8.8/10 |
| Eurogamer | 9/10 |
| PC Gamer | 94/100 |
| PC Gamer UK | 91/100 |
Upon release Age of Kings received a positive reception from critics, with an average score of 92% at Game Rankings. Game Revolution noted that "AOE2 is the best looking of the 2D RTS games[sic] out there right now."[10] Gaming Age Review noted that the AI sometimes surrendered unexpectedly at the start of games, and was otherwise occasionally prone to serious mistakes.[11] Reviewers such as PC Gameworld's Scott R. Krol noted that the unit pathfinding and AI is vastly improved in AOE2 over previous real time strategy games.[12]
[edit] Other games based on Age of Empires 2 engine
The video game Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds, based on the battles of the Star Wars movies and released in 2001, used the Age of Empires 2 Genie engine.
[edit] Other platforms
- The PlayStation 2 version was released by Konami in Europe on November 2, 2001, and later in Japan on February 14, 2002.[citation needed].
- The Nintendo DS version was released in the US on February 15, 2006. It features a turn based battle mode rather than real time strategy genre used in the PC version.
- A Windows Mobile version exists for Pocket PC.
- A version for mobile phone exists (Subject to country).
- A version of this game was set for Sega Dreamcast but with the lack of popularity and sales of the console, the game was canned with only a demo existing.
- A version of Age of Empires II for Macintosh OS 8, 9 and X was published by MacSoft Game Studios.
[edit] References
- ^ MSN Zone - "CD games retiring"
- ^ http://aok.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/aokcgi/display.cgi?action=st&fn=8&tn=4904&st=21&f=8,4904,1,10
- ^ Suciu, Peter (4/30/01): Soundtracks on CD-ROM: Stirring Music That Accompanies the Interactive. Retrieved on 4/21/2007.
- ^ Music4Games (1/2/06): Interview with Age of Empires III lead composer Stephen Rippy. Retrieved on 4/21/2007.
- ^ ScriptED. www.aiscripters.com. Retrieved on 2008-02-21.
- ^ Smed, Jouni; Hakonen Harri (September 2003). "Towards a Definition of a Computer Game". Report No 553, Turku Centre for Computer Science. ISBN 952-12-1217-9.
- ^ Potter, Don (1/14/07). Artificial Intelligence: AOK2. Retrieved on 2007-03-12.
- ^ contest
- ^ tournaments
- ^ Johnny B. (10 1999). Game Revolution PC Review - Game Revolution: A Monarchist's Love Story. Best of 1999. Game Revolution. Retrieved on 2008-04-06.
- ^ Ryan Thompson. Gaming Age review- Age of Empires II. Gaming Age review. Retrieved on 2008-04-06.
- ^ Scott R. Krol (20020504). Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. PC Gameworld. Retrieved on 2008-04-06.
[edit] External links
|
|||||||||||
