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jat247's Age of Empires II: Conquerors Expansion (PC)
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| [March 29, 2011 12:23:32 AM]
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Age of Empires II: The Conquerors Expansion – Tuesday, March 15th (Games One and Two)
Age of Empires II: The Conquerors Expansion is a single and multiplayer RTS game published by Microsoft on August 24th, 2000.
= Game Play =
You choose a civilization and control a kingdom and all of its corresponding resources (wood, food, gold, stone, and your population limit in this case). You typically strive to advance through four ages; the Dark Age, Feudal Age, Castle Age, and lastly the Imperial Age. Each age of advancement unlocks more technologies in your civilizations technology tree which, for a price, can be researched. You control villagers that do all the collection of resources and create buildings, as well as any military units you choose to create. There are a variety of buildings that can be created. Town Centers allow you to create more villagers, while houses increase the population limit (the max limit is typically 200, but can be changed as a game setting). There are also military buildings like the Barracks and Archery Range for creating military units and doing corresponding military unit research and upgrades/enhancements. In fact, most buildings have research tied to them. For instance the mill has research tied to it to increase the productivity of food collection, universities include various technological advancement research, and castles provide protection and a place to safely house a king inside depending on the win conditions that were set for the game. When I play I change settings to where I always start off in the Dark Ages with fog of war on, with the minimal amount of resources and only a Town Center and a few villagers. I set the win conditions to Conquest mode. You have to destroy all enemy units as well as all enemy buildings that are capable of creating new units. There are several win conditions that can be set however. You can choose to destroy the enemy king as one option. As a second option you can choose to build a Wonder which require a ton of resources to build and keep it from being destroyed for a certain period of time. As a third option you can choose to have a time limit, and by the end of that time whoever has the highest score wins (which is determined by many factors, a couple being the amount of resources collected and units/buildings created etc.). The last win option you can choose to capture all the relics on the map (which are randomly scattered around the map) and hold them for a period of time in a monastery you have created.
There are two main modes of gameplay; one is strictly single player while the other can be either single player or multiplayer. There are Campaigns that you can play (strictly single player, the tutorial teaching you how to play is also campaign style) and there are Random Map games. The Campaigns start a player out with a story from ancient history (Like William Wallace and how he defied the British, and his defeat at Falkirk), and then the player must set out to complete goals that are laid out for them that follow the story. Random Map games can be single player with you fighting against NPC(s) or multiplayer over LAN or GameSpy Arcade (Unfortunately Zone.com no longer hosts a server as of June 2006). Random Map games allow a player to choose a ton of options like teams sizes and team difficulties (5 levels of difficulty if an NPC is chosen), as well as win conditions, general starting resource amounts, max population size, and what map is chosen and how big it is etc. For team matches, you can also choose the option Diplomacy where teams aren’t locked but you can forge and break alliances with players in the game. This is great because it’s always fun to play mind games with players and backstab a player or two when the benefits for you are right! You can even choose to have a Death Match where the resources are (almost) exhaustless and you can start a full-fledged war from the very start of the game. I personally almost always choose the Regicide type of game where you start out with almost no resources and build your kingdom custom from the ground up. I never got into the King of the Hill (control the middle of the map for a time period) or Wonder Race (first person to build a Wonder wins) game types.
= Audio & Graphics =
Microsoft was able to choose soundtracks for the background music that somehow never seemed to get old no matter how long matches lasted, or how many games you played back to back. Their music selection was impeccable. Their sound effects were decent, like for arrows being fired, or catapults damaging a castle or other building. They had sound effects for units when they were damaged, or wolves that were randomly placed on the map with the purpose of killing your villagers if you weren’t careful. The graphics were decent for the game when it was released. They don’t match up to the graphics now of course (the gold on the maps kind of look like lumps of messed up butter), but even so I’m so distracted having a blast playing that the graphics are more than adequate for the job. You basically have an isometric bird’s eye view of the map. Additionally you have a mini map in the corner which is crucial to help you navigate and keep track of unit movement on the map more easily.
= Analysis =
This RTS game really captured my attention and held it until they brought down the game’s online server at Zone.com in June of 2006. There were so many different kinds of strategies to play by, all dependent on the many customizable options within the game, and the many different technology trees each different civilization offered. I was always absorbed with how best to balance my strategies and tactics amongst not only my own team, but against the enemy team as well. With proper planning and strategy no defense was impenetrable, just as no attack was impossible to repel. The combinations players came up with and utilized in game matches were unending even after so many years of playing. Playing this game again brought back many fond memories of amazing adrenaline rushing fights to the bitter end; no game was the same as the next!
= Final Thoughts =
I absolute LOVE Age of Empires II: Conquerors Expansion! If not THE best RTS game I’ve ever played, it’s one of them. I got the game as soon as it came out! I would definitely recommend it for lovers of RTS games. It’s a great way to let loose with friends online, and guarantees many hours of action packed fun. Speaking of time, for anyone that does decide to play it, here’s some advice. Try not to spend too much time trying to research everything. Research what you need. While it’s great if you can research almost everything, I’ve found you have to be especially careful with your time management. Resources do run out on the map in this game if the match ends up being too drawn out. When you collect that wood you needed so much of, the trees do disappear once they’ve been used; if you’re not careful and don’t win quickly enough then eventually you’ll run out of trees!
This entry has been edited 2 times. It was last edited on Mar 29th, 2011 at 12:40:03.
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jat247's Age of Empires II: Conquerors Expansion (PC)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Tuesday 15 March, 2011
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