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| | The sequel to Age of Empires spans a thousand years, from the Dark Ages to the late medieval period, in which players control human destiny from the fall of Rome through the Middle Ages. Starting with minimal resources, players must build nations int...
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Specifications
ZIN Product Number: 200405
* Please Note: This information is based partly on Traditional Medicine which uses natural materials to support health. This information has not been evaluated or approved by the FDA. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). These products are intended to support general well being and are not intended to treat, diagnose, mitigate, prevent, or cure any condition or disease. If conditions persist, please seek advice from your medical doctor.
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Description
The sequel to Age of Empires spans a thousand years, from the Dark Ages to the late medieval period, in which players control human destiny from the fall of Rome through the Middle Ages. Starting with minimal resources, players must build nations into great civilizations. Players can win in several ways, including conquering enemy civilizations, accumulating wealth by extensive trading and diplomacy, building and defending wonders of the world, or protecting a king or queen.
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Ingredients
One For The Ages!
At first glance, Age of Empires II still appears to operate very much like its predecessor. Each round revolves around collecting as many of the four basic resources (wood, food, gold and stone) as you can and using them to build an army to destroy your enemy. The units that you build this army out of are, with one new exception, still split into four basic types - cavalry, archers, infantry and siege engines. As you advance through the various ages, you'll have the power to improve each one of these four unit types with new technologies and training styles, but for the most part, they still serve the same purpose on the battleground as they did in the first game. And, as in the last title, these technologies are simply purchased with resources gathered from the surroundings rather than requiring any sort of scientist units or buildings.
Power to the People
So what has changed? Plenty. Behind each one of these simple categories lies new game mechanics designed to enhance the experience of long term play. Let's start with the resource gathering. While there's not all that much that can be done with the standard RTS peons-gathering-the-goods feel, Age of Empires II has done a very good job of keeping you involved with their labors by offering up plenty of technology options that can not only improve the quality and speed of a villager's work, but also increase their value to you as a whole. As with the first title, farms can be improved so that they can be harvested more times before needing to be rebuilt, new axes and saws increase the speed with which wood can be collected, mines can be improved so that gold and stone come in more quickly, but now there are new options as well. Once you've constructed a castle, you'll be able to research Sappers, which will give each of your villagers a strong bonus when they attack buildings, which makes them a useful combat tool when you don't have enough resources to build a siege engine. Better still, at anytime, you can ring your town bell and all of your villagers will stop what they're doing, rush into the town center and start taking potshots at attackers - quite useful when you find yourself low on conventional troops. Villagers now play an important role not only in the collection of resources, but also in town defense and even in combat. Don't get too cozy with them though, later in the game, you (as well as your enemies) will gain the ability to research spying (Treason in a Regicide game) which gives you the ability to see through the eyes of the enemy peasants. This last ability, although very expensive (200 gold for each villager the enemy has), is especially vile when someone uses it on you in a multiplayer game and often heralds the beginning of the end. The best defense against this tactic is to either ensure that your enemy doesn't have access to that much gold, or to have enough peasants on hand that he won't be able to afford the purchase of the technology.
Selective Service
Each side has its own special unit that can't be built by anyone else and possess special attributes that make them more effective at various combat and economic functions. The different races don't have access to the same technology upgrades which, in result, limits their access to the various combat units available. Here's an example: Celts are the only race that can build Woad Raiders (their own special unit), but they have no access to the Camel, Heavy Camel, Arbalest, Hand Cannoneer, or Bombard Cannon. Their inability to research Plate Barding, Bracers and Ring Archer Armor mean that their Calvary and Archers will not be able to advance as far as others. The civilization's overall attributes allow them to build Siege Workshops 20% faster, allow their Siege Weapons to fire 20% faster and allow their infantry to move 15% faster than other civs. What this means on the battlefield is that the Celts are best equipped to make rapid assaults with their fierce infantry units and use their Siege Weapon advantage to destroy an enemy's combat structures before they can build more troops to stop them.
Restrictions on a civilization's research don't just fall under combat either. Certain cultures have a real problem when it comes to the construction of certain defensive or economic structures which, while it won't hurt them once they're on the battlefield, may make it a lot more difficult for them to get there in the first place. The Goths, for instance, can build gates, walls or any sort of guard tower, giving the enemy open access to their encampments. The Japanese have access to every type of infantry, archery and monastic unit and upgrade, but the fact that they can never develop Improved Mines or Crop Rotation may make it very hard for them to afford those units when it comes time to build an army. In the end, each of the different races is very well balanced with small differences that do a pretty good job of delivering the feel of particular civ.
Duking it Out
Once you land yourself in a battle, you'll discover another facet of Age's delicate balancing act. Each unit type on the field has at least one other unit type that it is really good at attacking and at least one unit that is its nemesis. Archers are excellent at wiping out infantry, particularly Militia units, but are destroyed in a hurry when attacked by Skirmishers. Cavalry can cause absolute mayhem when it hits a battlefield crowded with foot soldiers, but is halted by Pikemen or Camels. It's all very confusing at first, but it all makes sense and eventually you'll be responding to combat threats like a pro.
Another new addition to the combat engine is the inclusion of combat formations and individual or group attack stances. When marching into battle, you can select from five different preset formations: Line, Box, Staggered, Flank and Horde, or you can choose to create your own custom formations (which I didn't find all that useful). The preset formations are actually very useful and do a pretty good job of intelligently preparing your troops for battle. In the Line setup, your units walk in a double file and turn to face the enemy as a wall if attacked. As a Box, your soldiers will move to protect the weaker units by forming four human walls around them. This is particularly useful in the multiplayer Regicide mode when you need to move your king across the playing field. I didn't see much use for the Staggered formation until the first time I faced down a Mangonel and it wiped out most of my fighting force with a few shots. When Staggered, your units are spread out enough that they won't be completely devastated by an area of effect attack. Flank splits your group in two and attempts to surround whatever you are attacking and finally, Horde just moves your troops in a disorganized mass. I don't know what this last one is really good for, but it looks good when you're attacking an enemy with Woad Raiders. FREEDOM!!
Combat stances are also very helpful. By setting your units to defend, attack, or stay put, you can put an end to those horrifying moments when you realize that your town is under attack and your entire army wandered off across the continent because they saw a villager. In attack mode, your units act pretty much like they did last time, moving to attack nearby enemies and keeping after them until somebody dies. Defend mode works in a similar fashion - units will engage the enemy when they see 'em, but won't go too far afield before they return back to their original starting point. In Stand Your Ground mode, units will attack the enemy, but won't move from their current position. The final mode, No Attack, has your units stay put, and they won't attack even if they're being attacked. I'm not sure what this is good for, but it's a lot of fun to watch. Other new troop options include Patrol, which lets you set patrol points so your troops can cover a wider area, Guard, which will have your troop stay within sight of a selected building or unit and attack anything that tries to hurt it, and Follow, which has your unit tag along behind anyone you click on.
One more new addition to the game's combat engine is the monk, a unit that is built in monasteries and has both the ability to heal your troops and to convert enemy troops to your side. OK, so it's not entirely new. The monk basically replaced the priest from the original, but they do look a lot cooler. The monk's abilities massively affect the game's balance. Since there are units that heal, you can take a group of soldiers into an enemy outpost, destroy it, and still have enough power to plow further into their territory. The conversion ability is pretty powerful, but is balanced out by the fact that monks have to rest for a while after each conversion. At later technology levels, certain cultures gain the ability to improve their monks with Fervor, which makes them move faster (they're real slow to start with, Sanctity, which gives them more hit points, Redemption, which gives your monks the ability to convert enemy buildings (with certain exceptions), Atonement, which allows your monks to convert enemy monks, and Illumination, which decreases the amount of time monks need to rest after a conversion. Players who are concerned about such things can also develop Faith which will make all of their units more resistant to conversion.
Getting Your Friends Involved
The game ships with standard options for IPX, LAN, Modem and Serial cable competition, and also supports Internet play through the Zone. In addition to the standard Random Map and Deathmatch options, Age of Empires II also serves up an excellent new option called Regicide. In this game, both sides are given a king unit, a Town Center, a Castle, and a handful of villagers. The game continues until the king dies. While this may sound simple, there are dozens of different strategies to use here ranging from the very obvious (protect the king by placing him inside a dozen walls protected by a hundred troops) to the very dangerous (keep the king on the move so that the enemy can never find him).
Another multiplayer option is to take on your buddies in a custom scenario that you create yourself in the Custom Scenario Editor. This helpful little tool lets you set up your own landscapes and starting troop mixes so that you can recreate your favorite battles of history (or in my case to just create really funny battles). This little feature adds years onto the life of this product.
Wrapping it All Up
Age of Empires II is a huge game. Graphically, the game is light years ahead of its predecessor, with amazing attention to detail in every pixel. If you've been looking for a good multiplayer game or don't mind your strategy served up in a very straightforward way, there's a lot of fun to be had here.
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Label Information
Windows 95/98 NT 4.0: P166
32MB RAM
200MB Hard Disk Space
SVGA Monitor at 800x600 Resolution
Local bus Video Card
2MB VRAM
4X CD-ROM
Mouse
28.8Kbps or Higher Modem for Internet or head-to-head play.
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