I don't have many hobbies- I prefer to waste my spare time watching television but last year I discovered two activities that have taken up hours upon hours of my time. The first of these "obsessions" is Epinions and the second is a computer game called Age of Empires 2 (AOE2).

I have never played the original Age of Empires and I don't think that I ever will. From what I have heard, if you play AOE2 before AOE, you will become very frustrated when you find that the interface in AOE2 is missing from AOE. Simply put, all the nice parts of AOE2 are missing in AOE. My boyfriend and I discovered AOE2 when a demo version of it appeared on a CD that came with a computer gaming magazine that he bought. We loved the demo and had to have the full version once it came out.

Age of Empires is a strategy game that you can play against the computer or in a multiplayer game over the Internet. To begin with, you must pick a civilization to command and AOE2 comes with thirteen to choose from. You can play as the Britons, Byzantines, Celts, Chinese, Franks, Goths, Japanese, Mongols, Persians, Saracens, Teutons, Turks and Vikings. Each civilization has unique strengths and weaknesses. For example, the Vikings are a stronger naval power than most, and the Goths don't seem to be good at much of anything. Additionally, each civilization has its own unique military unit; for instance, the Vikings have longboats and the Persians have war elephants.

There are several different types of single player games that can be played, so I will explain the basic game first. Once you pick your civilization- you must build a city out of nothing starting with only nominal resources (food, wood, gold, and stone) a "Town Center," 3 villagers and a scout on horseback. You must build villagers to collect resources. It costs food to build villagers, wood and/or stone to build buildings and food and/or gold to build military units.

In the Dark Ages, where the game begins, you are limited in what you can build. You may choose from a mill (for collecting food), mining and lumber camps, a dock and barracks. In order to advance to the next economic age, you must meet multiple requirements- you have to "pay" a certain amount of food and gold and build a certain amount of buildings. For example, you need 500 food and two Dark Age buildings in order to advance to the Feudal Age.

When you start a new game, you can choose to play against anywhere from one to eight other computer-controlled opponents but when the game begins, you cannot see anything except for what your units see. You have to use the scout to explore your surroundings and note the location of resources and the enemies. Sometimes, you can gain an ally by building a market and paying tribute, but for the most part, the computer-controlled opponents are out to get you! You have to make sure your civilization can defend itself militarily by building barracks, archery ranges, stables, siege workshops, towers, and walls. One way of winning is to simply defeat all of the other civilizations, which can be achieved by knocking down all of their buildings.

This is not the only way to win; when your civilization reaches the Imperial Age, you can have your villagers build a "Wonder," which is an edifice to your economic prosperity (it costs 1000 food, 1000 gold, 1000 wood, and 1000 stone to build) and defend that Wonder for 300 years. Although 300 years passes by fairly quickly (three years equals about one minute) the computer players will try to destroy your Wonder to prevent you from winning.

There is a third way to win. At the beginning of the game, five "Relics" are placed at random points on the map. Your civilization can get one or more of these relics by building a monastery and sending a monk to get the relic. A relic must be kept in the monastery and only a monk can transport relics. If you are in possession of a relic, it will generate "relic gold" which is just like regular gold and can be used to buy/build things. Monks can also be used to convert enemy troops to your own color and they can also heal friendly troops (those of both you and your ally if you have one)

The normal game is a lot of fun and you can change parameters to your liking. For example, you can choose the geographic location that you want the game to take place. Such locations include islands with one civilization on each island or even the "Gold Rush" map that has lots of gold in the middle but also many wolves patrolling the area. You can adjust the difficult level, the technological age in which you start, the maximum capacity of your town, the level of resources and other factors that will affect your gaming experience.

If you need a little more structure, there are several specific types of games that you can play. For a while, I was really a fan of the "regicide" type of game where each civilization starts out with a castle and a king, and you must try to kill the other kings while defending your own king. In the "Death Match type of game, you start out with huge amounts of resources and you must fight everyone to the death. This is nice is you have little interest in the economic aspect of the game.

AOE2 also comes with several "campaigns" which are themed games with specific instructions and a historical theme. The campaigns available in AOE2 are Joan of Arc, Frederick Barbarossa, Ghengis Khan and Saladin. I have tried all of these campaigns, but they do not really appeal to me because they are too structured and I cannot really do what I want.

I have never played multiplayer, so I cannot comment on it, but I must imagine that playing against real opponents is a lot more fun than playing against the computer especially if you are playing against friends which would probably be easiest in a college situation because of the Ethernet capabilities.

The graphics are nothing revolutionary, but they do their job. Everything is totally recognizable- stone, gold (rocks with yellow flecks), trees, and water are all very easy to see. The player's view is always from above, so you are constantly looking down on your civilization. As a result, the people are very tiny and can be a little hard to see, especially if you assign one to build something and then forget about him because after hebuild whatever he is building, he will just stand around. Graphically, everything is pretty detailed considering the size. The game features everything exquisitely, but not in a revolutionary manner.

My one complaint, I suppose, is that there is no background music, but it doesn't bother me that much because I am always busy working on building my city that I don't always notice. You will hear small sounds if you click on a building, and if you need the villagers to gather in the town center, you can push a button to make a bell ring. If you are being attacked, a trumpet will sound to tell you that you are being attacked. The majority of the sounds are everyday sounds- horses hooves on the ground, boats moving through water, sheep bleating as they are being herded, etc. Soldiers make sounds when they are fighting too- swords clash, cannons fire and arrows swish through the air.

The game is easy to control once you get the hang of it. You have to use the mouse to move around the game. Much of the game involves clicking with the left button dragging the arrow to the desired location and then placing by clicking the right mouse button. For example, let's say you wanted to build a lumber mill. First you must click on the villager that you want to build the mill. Then you select lumber mill from the small menu that pops up. Drag the arrow over to the nearest block of trees and right click to place the lumber mill. The villager will walk from wherever s/he is to the building site and start working. On a side note, it should be noted that villagers can do any number of tasks. They can build buildings and gather resources (including the basic resources and fish, sheep, wild deer and boars). Once you have assigned them a task, you can change your mind and assign them a new job. Anyway, it was a little difficult for me to get used to the left click, right click combo, but after I while, I learned. It should be noted that this is also how you move people from one place to another- you select the units that need to be moved and you right click where you want them to go.

AOE2 has something for everyone. You can pick a civilization like the Byzantines and focus on a defensive military stance and focus on economics, or you can pick a more aggressive civilization and beat up the other civilizations before they have a chance to build much of anything. My boyfriend and I have owned this game since April and we have yet to play through the entire game with all the civilizations. We have only begun to experiment with the options that allow us to change the game, and we have not played through all of the campaigns. There is so much to do that even if you find something you like and do not want to try anything new, there is still so much to do and you will not get tired very quickly.
Overall, I never would have thought that I would like a game like AOE2, but it has turned into one of my favorite games to play and I liked it so much that I bought the add-on (The Conquerers) as soon it came out. If you like AOE2, then you will love the add-on! I will eventually write an epinion about the add-on but I wanted to get my thoughts together about AOE2. Writing an epinion about the add-on before AOE2 itself would be like making the frosting before the cake!

If you like strategy games, then you should definitely try AOE2! I should warn you that this game is somewhat addictive and should not be played when any major school or business projects are due. You should have no deadlines whatsoever because playing this game will ensure that your deadline will not be met!