Age of Empires II combines great battles, empire building, and everything a Real-Time Strategy games need.
Microsoft did indeed do many things right in The Age of Kings. There are many new changes in gameplay in this game, as well as the numerous bugs in Age of Empires fixed. Without a doubt, this is the greatest Age of Empires game in the series, and one of the best Real Time Strategy games in general.
In this game, you must choose from many different civilizations in the game, each with its own unique attributes, as well as its strengths and weaknesses. There are also units and technologies for each civilization that aren’t available for some. It is amazing how all of these civilizations can be the so similar, yet different. Age of Empires II, The Age of Kings, takes place in the Dark Ages, after the Roman Empire was toppled. You start off in the Dark Ages, with only a handful of villagers and a Scout. You must use these to help improve your tiny force, into a thriving civilization.
These villagers are the most important types of unit in the game. They are responsible for the gathering of the four resources in the game: food, wood, gold and stone. These resources are very important for many reasons. You must use these resources to build armies, buildings, defences and researching technologies needed. You must also use these villagers to build the structures needed to win the game.
Ages in Age of Empires II are like different steps in a civilization. When you advance to the next age, you get more technologies to research from to improve your civilization. Also, you get to build new buildings to research technologies and build new types of units. Advancing to the next age is the best way to improve your civilization, and is extremely vital.
There are five different types of units: Infantry (for example, Long Swordsmen, Pikemen), Cavalry (for example, Knights and Scouts), Archers (for example, Crossbowmen, Longbowmen), Siege Weapons (for example, Mangonels, Battering Rams), and ships (War Galleys, Demolition ships). They all have their strengths and weaknesses against each other. This makes it very important to make many types of units.
There are also many units in the game. They all have their strengths and weaknesses against each other. For example, Spearmen and Pikemen have an attack bonus against all types of Cavalry. Cavalry and Infantry both do a lot of damage against Siege Weapons, and Siege Weapons do more damage against buildings.
I will now state the changes made in Age of Empires II over Age of Empires. You will find in these game five different military campaigns: William Wallace’s Learning Campaign, Joan of Arc, Saladin, Genghis Khan and Frederick Barbarossa. In these campaigns, you must complete objectives based on the character in the campaign. These campaigns are extremely fun, and should keep you occupied for hours.
You will also discover that there is a new game mode: Regicide. In this game mode, you must protect your king, and slay all of your opponent’s kings. The last team (or teams, in allied games) with their king standing wins. This game mode is fairly good; yet it is also very challenging, as although you start off with more villagers and a castle (I’ll get to castles in a moment), you also have much less resources than in a basic Random Map game. This adds an extra challenge to the game.
Another big change in this game is the ability to make castles. Castles are buildings, which cost a lot of stone, yet they provide great protection. They shoot many arrows at an enemy at once, and are very useful on defence. Not only that, but also this is where you can build your civilizations unique unit!
Each civilization has their own unique unit. They all have their different strengths and weaknesses, and they all provide their own role in combat and their own fun. The Turks unique unit is the Janissary, a type of archer (a gunman) that does a whopping 18 damage and a large range, yet it has a long cool down time between shots that makes them hard to use, as well as little hit points. The Persian War Elephant really packs a punch, dealing 20 damage and fully upgraded has 600 hit points! Despite this, it is very slow, and if enough Pikemen is attacking them, it’s lost. This feature really makes the civilizations a bit unique from the rest.
You can also garrison units in certain types of buildings. You can put Infantry, Archers and Villagers in Watch Towers, Castles and Town Centres. And a bonus in the game is, that Villagers and Archers inside will actually fire on units! This is indeed very useful. Not only does it help defend your town with covered archers and villagers, as well as keeping your people safe from being harmed.
Also, in Age of Empires, while the Al was extremely intelligent, you were extremely stupid. But now that has been fixed, as your units are smarter now than they were in Age of Empires. Now, your units don’t become lost as much when you send them into mazes, and your troops will attack units when they are a few footsteps away. Plus, your opponents don’t mass you with their strongest unit’s 10 minutes into the game.
Also, in Age of Empires, the unit supply limit was a mere 50. But that has been changed in this. You now have an option of 25 (??), 50, 75 (standard), 100, 125, 150, 175 and 200 (my favourite). This makes the game more free, and also does help build armies and villagers, so it works out well.
There are many ways to win in this game. Some people like to throw everything all the time in the game, from early in the game to late in the game (me). Others wait to upgrade their units to the max, and make huge armies and quickly destroy their opponents with a few types of soldiers. Others like to make an ample amount of siege weapons backed up by some different types of units. There are many strategies in this game, and you can develop your own strategy game after game. If you were to find five different Age of Kings players and checked out their strategies, all of them may be different.
There are also many other changes, like units and technologies, but I don’t want to get to that now. I’ll get to the basic game features now: Gameplay, Graphics, Sound and Value.
Gameplay in this game functions well, and is extremely fun. It is fun to control your own empire, and have war with other civilizations. Age of Empires and the Rise of Rome were not entirely, but mostly war. But that has changed in this game. You now actually can build a great empire, and wage war at the same time, which the original seemed to lack.
The graphics aren’t excellent, but they’re good enough to satisfy many people. What I didn’t like is how the units seemed 2D, which is now disappearing in games. There isn’t much that is 3D. It would’ve also been nice to see some nice little things in the game. I would’ve like to have seen the trees blowing in the wind. Another thing I would’ve liked was the water ripple when a ship goes through it, in what it normally would look like. However, they are still quite good, and will not overly disappoint. The sound is also great. When you click on a unit, they say something in their native language! Each civilization has their own native language that they speak that no one else does. I have never seen that in a game! All that I often hear in all Real Time Strategy games is people speak English, but not in this game. There is also a great soundtrack in the game, which gives a different feeling in the game. Also, the FX sounds in the game are also very well done, and hearing them all in the heat off battle is amazing. However, I did encounter a few glitches. One I heard was when the game started, the music started turning choppy, and repeated itself a lot. Another one I heard was that there were many clicks going on in the music, to the point that the music eventually stop. Despite all of the problems, there is great sound in the game.
Now as far as value goes, there is a lot in this game. There is a lot of replay value in this game. You can spend hours at a time, playing one map, or a few maps. You can develop new strategies after every game, and you will never get tired of it. I have had this game for years now, and I am still finding new strategies to play. There are also five different military campaigns, so that throws in some more value as well. There is also a map editor in this game. You can set up your own situation, in which you can choose your troops and towns, and also set your opponents. You set diplomacies, objectives and many other things to make a map unique. This is a fun little thing, to set up your own situation, or even re-create the real game’s campaigns (I do that a lot)! You can even recreate historical recreations if you want, such as the Battle of Hastings, or the Crusades.
What do I think of the game? I say that it is one of the best Real-Time Strategy games around. There is so much to do, and it is great to take control of people in the middle ages. There is just so much to do in the game, and you will not get tired of it. At one time, this was my favourite game around, and when it was overthrown of that position (by Diablo II) it was still my favourite Real Time Strategy (until Starcraft came into my life!). But to this day, it is still one of my favourite game of all time, and still not tired of it. That is how great it is!
Overall, you definitely owe to have Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings in your collection. It is simply too good to pass on. There are tons of positives in this game, and only a few negatives, which is what all games should try to get. If you like Real Time Strategies, but for whatever reason have never played this game, you must buy this game. It is just too good to pass on!