The RTS boom is finally upon us starting with the humble beginnings of Dune 2. Now there’s two dominate players being Warcraft and Command and Conquer. Both plays similar as it relies on resource gathering however both using a different landscape as one is fantasy and the other modern day. Now Microsoft jumped into the RTS band wagon with its own game called Age of Empires. Again it has a similar feel to the big two however this time it also plays on history – like doing re-enactments of past influential battles. A nice twist to the genre as it mixes well with exciting RTS gameplay whilst providing an educational outlook of the rise of man.
Age of Empires starts from the Stone Age as a hunter / gatherer and then continues through the tool, bronze and then finally iron age. Each level historically represents the various stages of humanity as it gains knowledge since surviving the last ice age about 10 000 years ago. Naturally this also forms well from a gameplay perspective; the Stone Age is really quite simple to get a grasp of as there’s not much development there. Of course the last stage, the Iron Age is regarded as the most difficult as humanity invented many particulars. So looking from a timeline perspective, the game starts around 5000 BC and ends around 800 AD. Yet the ‘final’ civilisation, Yamato, doesn’t fit well enough considering it’s the only nation from 0 AD to 800 AD. So the other 11 civilisations fits snuggly enough from about 2000 BC to 0 AD.
Even though there are 12 playable civilisations, as a gameplay perspective, there’s really only four. The reason for this is because the single player game, there’s four nations to play out being the Egyptians, Greeks, Babylonians and Yamato. The starting campaign, Ascent of Egypt is a terrific way to learn the game as you get to play the Egyptians from their humble beginnings as hunters / gatherers (approx. 8000BC) to the empire as we know it. For me, being a complete noob when it comes to RTS, this game gently introduces you the notions of food gatherings to wood, stone and gold in perfect harmony. So it’s advisable to play the game’s four campaigns in order as they appear then wildly start from Yamato (the last of the four). But of course, you can play them in any order if you wish to choose so.
One of my biggest grips about RTS in general is about this idea of resource gathering. Yes, it’s the bread and butter of most RTS games however there’s too much emphasis on he-who-farms-resources-the-fastest-will-win. Age of Empires, during the single player campaign, thankfully doesn’t use this idea much however the multiplayer unfortunately do. The single player campaign is one of the best I have encountered with regards to RTS as it mixes strategy with resource gathering. For instance, there will be times you are stuck on an island and you need to use your priest to ‘covert’ the ship to your side so you can sail of it. Or you are placed in a situation where you need to pay 200 gold pieces every two minutes or get attacked via a vast superior army so you need to quickly build a transport ship to get the hell out of there as the ransom gold won’t last forever.
Of course there are many, many more examples however it’s a brilliant stroke from developers Ensemble Studios ensuring players won’t be bored endlessly collecting resources to build up armies, just to destroy the opposition as there are other missions where you need to search for five artefacts or build the magnificent ‘wonder’ (a resource hungry monument). Also Ensemble Studios have done an amazing job mixing history with gameplay so you get to play out some of the famous battles from the ancient world (e.g. Athens Vs Sparta – siege of Athens or the conflict between The Kyushu and The Yamato to say the least). Also it’s highly advisable to read the manual as it provides a comprehensive guide of man’s rise from the last ice age with many historical facts. So you can say you are getting a great education whilst playing the game.
Sadly there are some downfalls that will set the game back a little. First thing is about the units. Personally I started out churning land units as it’s something I felt conformable with however when getting used to the game, the land units are pretty weak in comparison to the other units. Other words, just avoid them if you can. Chariots and horse archers are pretty much the OP units of the game, especially chariots as they are very cheap to make. Whilst catapults can do massive damage thus pretty much the go-to unit, they are slow to fire therefore chariots can literally run rings around them and practically any other units for that matter.
Building units, like walls are worthless as first as they require stone (for which are generally hard to find) and there’s no units for gates so you can literally shut yourself in. Also why build a wall when you can build, say a stable where the hit points are almost the same and cost a lot less to make. They both do the same thing, that is block units and besides, you can churn out chariots (and other OP units like cavalry) with stables (if you got the resources of course). And because villagers are the most important unit (as without them, there’s no creation), playing Shang is the most ideal civilisation as villagers costs are cheap comparing to other races – meaning you can progress a lot fast than your competitors.
The AI are not the brightest bunch either as path finding is not the best, especially when you have multiple units doing to same thing like gathering wood. Some would just stand there waiting for a good five seconds before utilising another path unless you force them to move. Other examples like when a resource depicts its usefulness, they just stand there waiting for your next order. This can be very annoying during the heat of battle, you wonder why your food count is not increasing, only to realise your farmers used up its resource therefore merrily standing around until you give them your next order. Why not give out a chime (or something like that) to indicate this? The net result is unnecessary micro management.
Also placing on a fifty unit population makes the game have less epic battles as easily two thirds will be made up of villagers thus leaving the latter third your army. Basically having an army of fifteen units is regarded as epic (and that’s including ships). And if that’s not bad enough, you have no idea what’s the current population in any given time save on clicking on a house. More unnecessary micromanagement as it would be easier to hotkey the population count as there are many times I was planning to build a unit only to tell me I need to build another house or reached my quota of fifty units. And if that’s not bad enough, you cannot stack create units at all so if you want to line up, say three warships, you need to create them one at a time.
Visually, the game is pleasing to the eye with very detailed animations from the units to beautifully rendered buildings / landscapes. It’s actually quite pleasurable seeing a villager gathering berries in his little basket however it’s a bit odd when the resource picture represents a hunk of meat. The ‘big four’ civilisations all look different and even their wonder is fabulous to see. Sadly the other races are simply a carbon copy of one of the big four as it would be nice if all twelve look differently. Thankfully their racial bonus ties in with their real life counterparts yet, as mentioned before, the Shang will be the race of choice due to its cheap villagers.
The quality of sounds are also of decent worth as it has suitable noises for all the units like the sound of rolling wheels for the catapults to the crackling of flames from burning buildings. Yet I’m not sure why those stone towers burn brightly though considering they are made of stone. Pushing that aside, there’s no issues with sounds here. Yet the musical scores are absolutely high quality and beautifully composed instead of using a looping midi sound file and thankfully there are sounds when a unit has been created so you can take notes of its completion time.
Considering there are four single player campaigns, it can take a little while to complete. However there’s also a multiplayer option if you wish to go head to head or team up with another human player. There’s a myriad of options to choose from like the size of the map to winning conditions. You can even create your own maps and even go as far as adding in your own cinematic (must be in AVI format though). So you can practically tailor the game to your liking and it’s only limited to your own imagination. So there’s obvious a lot of love and care put into this game from developers Ensemble Studios from the packaging to the actual game itself. There are some considerable downfalls with this game however, because this game is the studios’ first, I’m sure they will improve with each new release.