Posted: 12-Feb-2001
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4 out of 5 Mice |
Vendor: Microsoft | Type: COMMERCIAL |
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Reviewer: Bill Catambay | Class: WINDOWS |
Genre: action strategy
The Conquerors Expansion set is a follow-on to Age of Empires II: Age of Kings. It provides several new features, some much more noticeable than others. For instance, I can hardly remember the new attributes to soldiers, or the new civilizations added, or the new units, but I know they were there. What I do remember are the new features which make game play much more fun.
First of all, one of the things I had a hard time with in Age of Kings is letting all the farmers loaf around after their farms died. The more farmers you have, the more unmanageable the task became to get them all planting new farms (something you really don't want to mess with when you're engaged in battle). The Conquerors provides a new feature which is supported as soon as you build a windmill: farm queues. You can queue up quite a few farms, and as the farmers lose a farm, if there is a farm in the queue, they will automatically pant a new one! This is perhaps my favorite new feature.
Another of my favorites is that the builders are smarter. If you send some off in a remote area to build a mine, they will automatically begin mining the closest minerals (if any are nearby) as soon as they have completed the mine. Same for wood cutting. Also, when you send several builders to build a long wall, they disperse to opposite ends of the wall instead of building from the same point. This is the way I prefer them to build it, and now they do it automatically (albeit, they still sometimes build from the wrong side of the wall, so you still need to keep an eye on them to prevent them from being trapped or stuck in harm's way).
The units which launch range attacks that can cause damage to your own units during a battle are supposed to be smarter as well. However, I was bitten so much by friendly fire in Age of Kings that my whole battle strategy was changed to avoid taking those risks, so I really didn't get a chance to test this feature all that much. Another feature I never had the desire to test out is loading foot units in the RAMs. I did it once, and it didn't work out quite like I had hoped. My soldiers fought better out in the open.
Finally, the new campaigns are fun. Good stories, good history lessons, and towards the end of the campaigns, some pretty intense thinking is required to accomplish the goals. Needless to say, you'll want to save a lot, especially in time sensitive situations (such as needing to destroy an enemy's wonder before time runs out).
All in all, the expansion set is great for Age of Empires fans. For the price of the expansion, I personally would have liked to have seen more improvements to the game, or a lower price tag.
Some things I'd still like to see is the ability for smarter societies, including road building, and train building, for transporting units faster. It would also be fun to see the age advance up to current day and perhaps beyond, although I imagine that would be a significant enhancement. There would have to be migration of units and incorporation of units such as tanks and jets. Civilization II using the Age of Empires engine would be the ultimate strategy game.
Pros: Some nice new features, some much needed new features, new campaigns
Cons: Not that big of a shift in game play, so a lower price would have been better. Still not available on the Mac.
I would rate this as a 4 out of 5 Mice.