Age Of Empires II: Conqueror 2.0 for Windows, Mac
- Publisher: Microsoft
- Genre: Strategy
- Platform: Windows, Mac
- Game Series: Age of Empires
- Overview
-
Reviews
- Compare Prices
User ReviewRead All Reviews »
Age of Conquerors: The Definitive Real Time Strategy Game.
Pros
New features, new civilizations, great game play, totally engrossing.
Cons
None.
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Age of Empires II: The Conquerors Expansion is the crowning achievement of RTS games to date.
Age of Empires II Expansion, titled the ?Age of Conquerors?, is a wonderful add-on game to Age of Empires II, ?The Age of Kings?. Ensemble Studios, owned now by Microsoft (they can?t keep their grubby mitts of anything!), came up with a great series of games, the ?Age of Empires? series. Their second series of games was ?Age of Kings?, which also proved to be a fine game. They augmented this game with this, ?Age of Conquerors? add-on game to complete this great gaming series. They came up with a winner here with this one, with new features, four new civilizations, unique ?technologies? to each civilization, etc. All of the ?Age of?? games are ?real time? strategy games, and all are very much critically acclaimed and award winning. I also have to admit, playing these games is a heck of a lot of fun, although they can be very time consuming, especially in my case. And, playing a game like ?Age of Conquerors? never seems to get old, because there are literally thousands upon thousands of different combinations of scenarios, map types, civilizations, etc. to build and play upon, and to vary in game play. What follows is a general table of information about ?Age of Conquerors?, including technical information and features, followed by a little about game play and a review of the game.
Information Table on ?Age of Empires II Expansion: Age of Conquerors?.
Company: Ensemble/ Microsoft
Name of the Game: Age of Empires II Expansion: Age of Conquerors.
Stand Alone Game? No, one has to have Age of Kings installed to play this game.
Cost: $29.95-39.95
System Requirements:
OS: Windows 95/98/ME
CPU: 133 MHz Minimum
RAM: 32 MB RAM Minimum
Hard Drive Space: 75-250 MB
Input Devices: Microsoft Compatible Mouse and Keyboard
Additional Requirements: DirectX 6
CD-ROM: 16x Minimum
Game Features:
3 new game types:
King of the Hill
Wonder Race
Defend the Wonder
5 New Civilizations:
Aztec
Huns
Mayans
Spanish
Koreans
New Campaigns: Attila the Hun, El Cid, and Montezuma
New Game Play Features:
Automatic Farm Replenishment
Garrison Units Inside Battering Rams
?Smarter Villagers?
Improved Trade and Tribute
?Friend or Foe? Colors
New Numbered Commands
Improved Game Recording
Full Sized Screenshots
Game Play.
?Age of Conquerors? is played like the other ?Age? games. One chooses a particular civilization to be, which means one can choose now from a whole list, from Japanese to The Franks, The Britons to Byzantines, The Mongols to the Aztecs, and the Huns to Teutons. Game play starts in the ?dark age?, and one can continue to advance to the ?feudal age?, the ?Castle Age? and finally the ?Imperial Age?. Basically, a player starts with three villagers and a scout, and the villagers can build various buildings, gather resources, as one needs resources, in the form of food, wood, stone, and gold, to build buildings, new units, research new technologies, and advance from age to age. One thing literally builds upon another in this game, and it all happens in real time. Each civilization has its own attributes, particularly in the types of technologies that one can research, which limits what each unit type can do, as well as having a particular unique ?Civilization Unit?, for instance, the Koreans have a ?War Wagon?, the Teutons have a ?Teutonic Knight?, the Byzantines have a ?Cataphract?, etc. In addition to all of this, there are various ways to play the game, as one can play from one to 7 different players, and they can be the computer, or human players, or any number of those combinations.
There are different levels, from ?easiest, easy, moderate, hard, and hardest?. On can play a campaign game, where there is a fixed scenario strategy or objective to be achieved, and a group of scenarios that make up the campaign. There are simple scenarios that use either a random map, or a predetermined map, such as ?Gold Rush?, where all the gold is in the middle of the map, ?Coastal?, which has units based on the coast, ?Islands?, with sea based units, etc. Then there are the numbers of units allowed in each game, from 25 to 200 per civilization. There are various buildings one can build that produce the units, a barracks builds infantry, an archery range builds archers, a castle builds the unique civilization units, etc. Other buildings are there for research alone, such as the university. Other buildings, like a stone quarry, or a lumberyard, are places to cache the resources, as well as to improve the economic capabilities of the villagers. There is also a marketplace, where you can perform trade, which is by a horse drawn cart. One can battle it out with a large variety of units, from siege weapons to archers, infantry to cavalry, and priests, who can ?heal? your wounded units, and also ?convert? enemies. There are also a number of different sea vessels that you can use to fight, trade and transport other units with. These combinations make game play extremely complex, variable, and make it so that you can never play the same game the same way twice. In addition to this, there are other ways to play, ?regicide? is a game where your objective is to kill the enemy kings, and keep your king allowed. ?Wonder Race? is a game to see who wins by building a ?Wonder?, which is a unique building each civilization can build.
Games are won by either totally annihilating the opponents through conquest, by building a wonder first and keeping it standing for the time allotted, by capturing all the relics, etc. One can build walls to keep the enemy out, or go on the offensive. One can play on teams, or have an ?Every Man for himself? game. The various ways to play the game are almost endless; literally thousands of combinations can be made for game play. And, the computer?s Artificial Intelligence, or ?A/I?, is extremely dynamic and challenging. On ?hardest?, expect to get hit by the computer?s enemy forces early and hard! Also, one has to remember that ?Age of Conquerors? is not a ?stand alone game?. It is the add-on game for ?Age of Empires II: Age of Kings?. One has to have ?Age of Kings? installed to play ?Age of Conquerors?, and has to have the CD-ROM for ?Age of Conquerors? to play.
What I Like About the Game.
The new features are great, such as the number pad controls. As a player on a team, for example, I like to play 4 against four on the A/I, that is myself and three computer players against 4 computer players, on hardest, random map, with about 75 units limited to each civilization. This is about all my computer can handle, in terms of the graphics. I can now command my teammates to ?give me food?, by pressing the number 3, or ?attack an enemy now?, by hitting number 31. This increased economic benefit can help a human player catch up to the fast A/I computer player, and help to offset that advantage it has. The new civilizations add a global attitude to the game, and it is fun to pit the Aztecs against the invading Spanish. I also like the new game play types, like Wonder Race or King of the Hill. The smart villagers are lots of fun too, as you can send a guy to build a lumber yard, and he builds it and starts chopping wood, in the last game he just built the lumber camp and stayed idle until made to do something else. The automatic farm replenishment is a great time saver in the game too, you just add wood to the grain mill, and when a farm is exhausted, the farmer automatically replenishes it, as opposed to in Age of Kings, when the farm was exhausted, the farmer just stood there doing nothing.
And, since economic resources are the keys to success in this game, these features are great. I also love the music, and sound effects to this game. I also love the graphics of the game, they are simply superb.
Things I Don?t Like.
The main thing I don?t like about this game is that it basically is one big ?improvement patch? for Age of Kings. ?Patches? are computer software updates that fix glitches or bugs in games like this. It basically means that the original game wasn?t finished, and that they released it ?as is?, and put a few new snazzy features onto it, and charged another $20-30 for the privilege. Of course, even so, there are patches that continue to be updated and released, and you can download them at Ensembles website: http://www.ensemblestudios.com/patches.shtml
Other things I don?t like is that when you play with 8 players, and more than 75 units per civilization, the game slows down the computer, and game play is compromised, in other words, it slows down and becomes choppy. They have ?cheat codes? in the game, which I don?t think is appropriate
But, all in all, ?Age of Conquerors? is a fantastic game! It is completely addictive, tons of fun, and hours of amusement. It is challenging, fun, and quite devastating. It is also the ?granddaddy of real time games? at present. Until Civilization III comes around, or ?Age of Mythology?, Ensembles next game, it will be the definitive real time strategy game. If you want a dynamically multifeatured real time strategy game to play with great graphics and cool music and sound, get this one!
There is a new released version that combines both Age of Kings and Age of Conquerors called "The Age of Empires II Gold Edition".
Information Table on ?Age of Empires II Expansion: Age of Conquerors?.
Company: Ensemble/ Microsoft
Name of the Game: Age of Empires II Expansion: Age of Conquerors.
Stand Alone Game? No, one has to have Age of Kings installed to play this game.
Cost: $29.95-39.95
System Requirements:
OS: Windows 95/98/ME
CPU: 133 MHz Minimum
RAM: 32 MB RAM Minimum
Hard Drive Space: 75-250 MB
Input Devices: Microsoft Compatible Mouse and Keyboard
Additional Requirements: DirectX 6
CD-ROM: 16x Minimum
Game Features:
3 new game types:
King of the Hill
Wonder Race
Defend the Wonder
5 New Civilizations:
Aztec
Huns
Mayans
Spanish
Koreans
New Campaigns: Attila the Hun, El Cid, and Montezuma
New Game Play Features:
Automatic Farm Replenishment
Garrison Units Inside Battering Rams
?Smarter Villagers?
Improved Trade and Tribute
?Friend or Foe? Colors
New Numbered Commands
Improved Game Recording
Full Sized Screenshots
Game Play.
?Age of Conquerors? is played like the other ?Age? games. One chooses a particular civilization to be, which means one can choose now from a whole list, from Japanese to The Franks, The Britons to Byzantines, The Mongols to the Aztecs, and the Huns to Teutons. Game play starts in the ?dark age?, and one can continue to advance to the ?feudal age?, the ?Castle Age? and finally the ?Imperial Age?. Basically, a player starts with three villagers and a scout, and the villagers can build various buildings, gather resources, as one needs resources, in the form of food, wood, stone, and gold, to build buildings, new units, research new technologies, and advance from age to age. One thing literally builds upon another in this game, and it all happens in real time. Each civilization has its own attributes, particularly in the types of technologies that one can research, which limits what each unit type can do, as well as having a particular unique ?Civilization Unit?, for instance, the Koreans have a ?War Wagon?, the Teutons have a ?Teutonic Knight?, the Byzantines have a ?Cataphract?, etc. In addition to all of this, there are various ways to play the game, as one can play from one to 7 different players, and they can be the computer, or human players, or any number of those combinations.
There are different levels, from ?easiest, easy, moderate, hard, and hardest?. On can play a campaign game, where there is a fixed scenario strategy or objective to be achieved, and a group of scenarios that make up the campaign. There are simple scenarios that use either a random map, or a predetermined map, such as ?Gold Rush?, where all the gold is in the middle of the map, ?Coastal?, which has units based on the coast, ?Islands?, with sea based units, etc. Then there are the numbers of units allowed in each game, from 25 to 200 per civilization. There are various buildings one can build that produce the units, a barracks builds infantry, an archery range builds archers, a castle builds the unique civilization units, etc. Other buildings are there for research alone, such as the university. Other buildings, like a stone quarry, or a lumberyard, are places to cache the resources, as well as to improve the economic capabilities of the villagers. There is also a marketplace, where you can perform trade, which is by a horse drawn cart. One can battle it out with a large variety of units, from siege weapons to archers, infantry to cavalry, and priests, who can ?heal? your wounded units, and also ?convert? enemies. There are also a number of different sea vessels that you can use to fight, trade and transport other units with. These combinations make game play extremely complex, variable, and make it so that you can never play the same game the same way twice. In addition to this, there are other ways to play, ?regicide? is a game where your objective is to kill the enemy kings, and keep your king allowed. ?Wonder Race? is a game to see who wins by building a ?Wonder?, which is a unique building each civilization can build.
Games are won by either totally annihilating the opponents through conquest, by building a wonder first and keeping it standing for the time allotted, by capturing all the relics, etc. One can build walls to keep the enemy out, or go on the offensive. One can play on teams, or have an ?Every Man for himself? game. The various ways to play the game are almost endless; literally thousands of combinations can be made for game play. And, the computer?s Artificial Intelligence, or ?A/I?, is extremely dynamic and challenging. On ?hardest?, expect to get hit by the computer?s enemy forces early and hard! Also, one has to remember that ?Age of Conquerors? is not a ?stand alone game?. It is the add-on game for ?Age of Empires II: Age of Kings?. One has to have ?Age of Kings? installed to play ?Age of Conquerors?, and has to have the CD-ROM for ?Age of Conquerors? to play.
What I Like About the Game.
The new features are great, such as the number pad controls. As a player on a team, for example, I like to play 4 against four on the A/I, that is myself and three computer players against 4 computer players, on hardest, random map, with about 75 units limited to each civilization. This is about all my computer can handle, in terms of the graphics. I can now command my teammates to ?give me food?, by pressing the number 3, or ?attack an enemy now?, by hitting number 31. This increased economic benefit can help a human player catch up to the fast A/I computer player, and help to offset that advantage it has. The new civilizations add a global attitude to the game, and it is fun to pit the Aztecs against the invading Spanish. I also like the new game play types, like Wonder Race or King of the Hill. The smart villagers are lots of fun too, as you can send a guy to build a lumber yard, and he builds it and starts chopping wood, in the last game he just built the lumber camp and stayed idle until made to do something else. The automatic farm replenishment is a great time saver in the game too, you just add wood to the grain mill, and when a farm is exhausted, the farmer automatically replenishes it, as opposed to in Age of Kings, when the farm was exhausted, the farmer just stood there doing nothing.
And, since economic resources are the keys to success in this game, these features are great. I also love the music, and sound effects to this game. I also love the graphics of the game, they are simply superb.
Things I Don?t Like.
The main thing I don?t like about this game is that it basically is one big ?improvement patch? for Age of Kings. ?Patches? are computer software updates that fix glitches or bugs in games like this. It basically means that the original game wasn?t finished, and that they released it ?as is?, and put a few new snazzy features onto it, and charged another $20-30 for the privilege. Of course, even so, there are patches that continue to be updated and released, and you can download them at Ensembles website: http://www.ensemblestudios.com/patches.shtml
Other things I don?t like is that when you play with 8 players, and more than 75 units per civilization, the game slows down the computer, and game play is compromised, in other words, it slows down and becomes choppy. They have ?cheat codes? in the game, which I don?t think is appropriate
But, all in all, ?Age of Conquerors? is a fantastic game! It is completely addictive, tons of fun, and hours of amusement. It is challenging, fun, and quite devastating. It is also the ?granddaddy of real time games? at present. Until Civilization III comes around, or ?Age of Mythology?, Ensembles next game, it will be the definitive real time strategy game. If you want a dynamically multifeatured real time strategy game to play with great graphics and cool music and sound, get this one!
There is a new released version that combines both Age of Kings and Age of Conquerors called "The Age of Empires II Gold Edition".
