Age of Empires II

[Colonel M]

So for those that have been living under a rock for the last 16 years - AoE2 is a real-time strategy game released in 1999. It has a pretty wide fan base in various countries and its original expansion, The Conquerors, is still played by many older players on Voobly and Steam HD. A company has continued to revamp the game and make it into HD for everyone to enjoy. Though The Forgotten Empires was an expansion that was, ironically, sort of forgotten, a new expansion just came out today.

Website

By the way the game is on sale on Steam. It's $2.99 for AoE2 and $7.99 for African Kingdoms. Solid price if you ask me.

African Kingdoms has included some interesting gameplay balance. For one - Camels have finally gained their rights and are now no longer classified as boats. It's a pretty big change since Camels were atrocious at raiding. There's also a huge Mesoamerican buff in my opinion. The Eagle Scout can now be built in the Feudal Age and the research cost for Eagle Warrior is decreased by 100 Food.

There's more to discuss, but I wanted to see if anyone still or has played this game and would like to play it. It's still a blast single-player and some do play it solely for the campaigns. Still, I'm sure there are some competitive people out there.

Basically - Wololol it up in here and discuss about the great AoE2. It's a game that, despite its age, is still a fun game to play in my opinion. Here's to hoping someone on here still plays the game every now and then.

 

[Shinryu]

Just makes me lament even more the passing of Ensemble Studios, always liked AoE and AoE2 more than contemporaries SC and WC because it is also full of fun historical factoids. We'll never get to see their take on WWI-II era and futuristic ones hinted in the AoE 3 booklet :(

Though I'll probably wait until a Steam sale to pick up the new expansion (didn't even know there was going to be another one after Forgotten Kingdoms). Mostly because I'm stingy, secondly because I don't have the time to play it.

 

[UncleSam]

If I have the forgotten expansion can I buy the new expansion cheaper or no

 

[Soul Fly]

OMG I remember playing AoE and the conquerors when i was like 8 and I played them for years, the AoE campaigns were really fun, never actually expanded that much beyond a few RTSes. I'm not really huge on the HD part of it, though, takes away from the massive nostalgia :/

But yeah i'm not too huge on paying for what is essentially a really old game..

The original non-hd game is easily available online as abandonware with the the complete forgotten empires expansion (which was initially a community fanmod) which also includes a lot of fixes to the OG game like widescreen hack for modern monitors, AI fixes, completely revamped AI presets for new beefed up play modes.

It's very playable and just feels way smoother (imo) than the HD re-release because it still uses the original engine. Better for the nostalgia trip.


PS: apparently Age of Mythology (my favorite Ages game) is also getting a HD release.

 

[Codraroll]

Well, the "HD" part of it basically only locks the game to the highest resolution, and makes fires look a little more pretty. Otherwise, the change is quite underwhelming.

Anyway, I played AoE a lot when I was younger, and I enjoyed the Forgotten expansion, so I'll have a look into this new one too. On the surface, it doesn't look like it changed as much from the previous version as Conquerors or Forgotten Empires did, but it should be enjoyable nonetheless.

 

[DHR-107]

AoE2 HD is awesome. Bought it ages ago but haven't played it all that much.

The graphics are identical to the original, except now the interface works at "HD" resolutions. I actually played a game of it last night and it was really good. I'm really used to AoE3 now because I played that way more, it's so weird coming back to 2 and having villagers carry resource back to HQ/Lumberyard/Quarry etc.

On a different note, it hasn't aged very well... Game still feels clunky sometimes, but overall it's solid :)

 

[HelenTheHero]

I loved playing AoM with all of the mythology in it, one of my favorite strategy games.
Yeah it's not AoE2, but come on... Age of Mythology! :D

 

[Codraroll]

And by the way, the way the thread title has "Age" in plural but "Empires" in singular kinda ticks me off.

 

[Lolk]

i played it once with friends and freaked the fuck out when I looked at the clock and 4.5 hours had passed.

 

[Shinryu]

i played it once with friends and freaked the fuck out when I looked at the clock and 4.5 hours had passed.

Yeah the game has a way of doing that to time. One of the reasons I make sure I have a ton of time before playing.

 

[Joim]

This thread has made me go buy AoE2 right now in Steam, even though I don't know if I'll actually play.

 

[Colonel M]

I meant to fix the title. My bad guys.

I'm just glad they finally fixed idle villager again. That bug was annoying as shit.

I might take a swing at laddering again once the changes settle in (bugs in particular). Aztecs look super promising per usual.

If I have the forgotten expansion can I buy the new expansion cheaper or no

Not sure if still on sale, but you would be at a greater advantage than those that lack both new xpacs (AA still needs Forgotten to play Forgotten civs - and some like Italians and Indians got nice buffs).

 

[DHR-107]

I think they do some rotating civilizations too... So every so often you can get ones you don't normally have access too? At least that's what it seemed to imply when we played the other day.

 

[Aerodactyl Legend]

Have the base and FE. Haven't played much though. Will wait for the holiday sale for the new expansion, the price will be better.

I never did vs. humans because apparently there were massive stability problems early on in the game and many people were complaining about FPS drops and such. Has that gotten any better recently?

 

[Colonel M]

I think they do some rotating civilizations too... So every so often you can get ones you don't normally have access too? At least that's what it seemed to imply when we played the other day.

Yes.

You will get a certain amount of free Civs I think every week. Xpacs like Forgotten and African have one or two free for each of them too (I can't remember which).

So you -can- at least get a feel of some civs even before purchasing the xpacs. This is only for HD as Voobly, IIRC, only plays with Conquerers.

 

[Soul Fly]

Yes.This is only for HD as Voobly, IIRC, only plays with Conquerers.

The fan-made incarnation of FE for the OG AoE2 (identical to the HD release) is the expansion of choice.

Most of the basic fixes (like widescreen support etc) are absolutely necessary for online play, not to mention various AI fixes (no more annoying civilian micromanagement issues) and Civ buffs (Britons, and Japanese getting bloodlines come immediately to mind) are very much the standard in competitive play.