Download age of empires 2 the age of kings full

While not perfect, AOEII contains no sharp-stick-in-the-eye game busters or fatal flaws that suddenly leap at you after hours of play. The designers have "fixed" the majority of major complaints levied at the original Age of Empires and, in one fell swoop, have improved the product immensely while incorporating significant features in nearly all aspects of gameplay.

In effect, any faults AOEII may have are niggling at best and don't critically affect the intense and absorbing qualities of this real-time strategy success. For those who like historically based strategy games, look no further than Age of Empires II. Even though the on-screen images of similar types of units may at times be difficult to discern especially in the furious heat of large battles , the designers have more than made up for it in several ways.

The 13 civilizations are easily recognizable due to factors that include distinctive cultural philosophies in both political and military areas , the flavor of realistic language indigenous to each race that, while somewhat limited in scope, is still very influential in developing an era-enhancing atmosphere and proprietary architecture that evolves throughout the various ages. Regardless of which civilization you choose to play, each will exhibit traits, weaponry and research proclivities based on the historical record.

One highlight of the game there are many , features buildings that are upgraded pursuant to advancement through the four ages: Dark, Feudal, Castle and Imperial.

These structures, shown amazingly to scale with astounding details, eventually build to magnificent showcases that dazzle the eye. Individual units a vast number exist can be periodically upgraded as well along with the effectiveness of purpose for which they serve.

Level headed and decisive management of requirements, resources, research and goals are essential in AOEII:AOK and can seem daunting at times in the flurry of real-time activity. To help novices conquer the learning curve necessary in the game, a short campaign-based tutorial is provided that guides William Wallace through his attempts to thwart the British troops of Henry Longshanks as they try to bully the Scots into submission.

Additionally, the manual contains an exhaustive "tips" page for beginners not familiar or experienced with real-time strategy games. The actual movement of your forces on-screen couldn't be simpler, especially with the point-and-click interface and shortcut keys that, once learned, make manipulation of the many aspects of gameplay a breeze. The selection process of grouping like units together could be difficult but isn't, due to the intelligent visual depiction of groups that allow for a fast winnowing-out process.

In fact, several methods are provided for selecting individual units as well and establishing a rallying point a flag that can be situated just about anywhere on the game map. Speaking of grouping units together, the introduction to the game of a central bell-ringing option at the town hall is enormously helpful. With this handy tool, you can call the populace away from their daily jobs to garrison buildings or locations in order to fend off surprise attacks, especially when your military may be away from the town.

You can gather the masses to conduct group healing, position them for protection safety in numbers or generally take stock of your population. Once the crisis has passed, a simple second bell-ring will send them all back to work automatically. The technology tree in Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, while not as exhaustive as the one in Civilization, is still formidable and won't likely disappoint anyone involved in a specific campaign or scenario.

The game comes with a marvelous fold-out reference chart that contains an incredible amount of information and is nearly priceless as an aid to keeping track of possible advancements by the individual 13 civilizations. The chart unfolds to four panels, each filled front and back with indispensable data regarding each civilization's specific attributes.

Included are unique units e. Unit strengths and weaknesses are covered with each showing the best response unit to use against specific attacking units, the best counterattack unit and a clear indication of which units are not appropriate for that specific skirmish. Before you start thinking that if you've played one huge-scale multiplayer game, you've played them all, Age IPs campaign missions will include specifically-made buildings and artwork.

If you'd played skirmish or multiplayer games in Age 1, you'd have come across almost everything there was to do. Now we've included buildings in the campaign missions that aren't in the multiplayer game. They may not have a big impact on the way the missions are played, but it keeps everything fresh, with big cities, encampments and new scenery objects.

We call them sandwiches - they're like little prizes that keep people interested. So what else is better about this sequel? Well, for starters, it's set right about the time the mighty Roman Empire, and Europe as a whole, fell apart. Again, the game spans 10, years, taking in the Dark Ages.

As a result, instead of phalanxes and chariots there'll be knights in shining armour and rock-hurling catapults. The interface is more streamlined, with more commands - production queues, for example. The game also includes a host of new features: troops can be garrisoned in towers and other buildings and villagers can be alerted and sheltered from attack. There are more race-specific units, a greater variety between the 13 civilisations, and the technology tree has been broadened.

This is in addition to the fact that you can win via economic or military means, and should provide a lot more scope. But this broadening of strategic options isn't just limited to the single-player game. Ian has made it his mission to look at how people played the first game, with a view to expanding the ways in which war is waged and to make it easier to counter your opponent's tactics.

It wasn't as if it made the game miserable because 90 per cent of the time people figured out a way to counter rushing. In that respect, strategies are always evolving. What I was more interested in was discovering strategies outside of that, something that can be done every single time that will cause you to win. But rushing isn't enjoyable if the game is over ten minutes later. We didn't want to make rushing impossible, just very difficult.

I think rushing is a good military strategy, attacking quickly when your enemy isn't prepared. I'm sure that there are experts out there who will pick things apart, which is why I spent time working with these guys, finding out how they are winning and how they are being beaten.

We've got some really hard-core players who can tear the game apart and watching them is very useful. The original Age Of Empires was also let down by its AI routines, although at the time they seemed acceptable. These days, expectation is a lot higher. I'm used to bad interfaces, and I've played games where people would ask why I was giving it the time of day.

I'm not turned off by poor presentation, but I've had to train myself to see them because the pathfinding problems in Age I didn't actually bother me - I'd got so used to it that I didn't even notice. Some games are so immersive that you can forgive them almost anything, and Age l was one of them.

However, to be a good games designer you have to be critical, you have to be able to look at the game from everyone's perspective, from the newcomer to the hard-core gamer. It's hard to step back and see what turns people off the game, but it has to be done. By way of a few mouse clicks, troops can now be arranged into a number of attacking or defensive arrangements. Infantry or pikemen will take the forward rank, with archers behind. If you have siege weapons, they'll take the protective centre ground and every one of them will stay in formation and move at the same speed.

It's a powerful tool, and has been handled without the need for a complex interface. By the look on Ian's face, it's something he's immensely proud of: "The pace of the game is such that you don't even have time to pick from a massive array of formations. The interface has had to be streamlined and in the event of a surprise attack you won't even have to select a formation, because your troops will immediately switch depending on what units have been grouped together.

Of course, if you're planning an attack of your own, you can choose the best formation for the job. Once the idea solidified and we saw it working for the first time, we were very pleased.

Stunned, in fact. It worked beautifully. It's light years ahead of games where you just grouped similar units together, sent them all in en masse and hoped for the best. It might not have the depth of a real hardcore strategy game, but for the speed of Age II it works perfectly. Ensemble make a point of burying themselves in historical books and photographing ancient buildings whenever they're abroad after all, the US isn't well known for its medieval architecture. Right at the heart of Ensemble's freshly painted Dallas offices sits a library of books spanning every culture that has ever populated the planet, a plethora of works that the British Library would be envious of.

The main characteristic of the Age series is that every building and unit is historically and graphically accurate, even in terms of sound and music. In the sequel though, there will be even more diversity, including race-specific graphics, music and dialogue.

Some criticisms of the Age series have been unfair. For some inexplicable reason, its combination of Civilization and WarCraft was lost on certain gamers. Civ fans complained it was too fast, while WarCraft aficionados complained that it was too complex. Ian explains: "There was an impression somewhere along the line that we were attempting to merge two games that are worlds apart. Our vision was never for it to be half WarCraft and half Civ, and I believe that there was an article somewhere that called us CivCraft II, or something like that.

That was probably where it all started. But that was never our intention: our intention was to take RTS, which was a pretty cool genre, and add some Civ-like aspects to it. Let's get this straight: we're going to put fun ahead of realism any day of the week. We're working with a historical background, but that doesn't mean that we can't throw fun elements into it. And 1 like it, because for a few months at the start of the project I get paid for reading history books, so I'm happy with that.

Anyway, the historical flavour is nice, it's easy to understand what the units in the game are -everybody knows what an archer is, but not what a troll does. It's a lot easier to grasp. Trying to make the game more like Civ or more realistic is missing the point of what we're trying to achieve. Maybe some day we'll do a more Civ-ish version of Age, but only if we can make it fun.

So what next from Ensemble? Obviously Ian wasn't going to spill the beans at this early stage, but I was told that Ensemble want to become a 'two-game team' - creating their next two titles side by side. At the moment we're keeping all our options open and looking at what we think would be the most exciting thing to do next. Imagine that: taking fast-paced historical strategy out of the feudal age and through the Industrial Revolution. For now though, we're quite happy to wait for the second instalment in the series.

This may not be the technological quantum leap some are hoping for, but when it comes to Age Of Empires II, it's the little things that stand out, a testament to the fact that there really wasn't all that much wrong with the first game.

Where many games developers are trying to be revolutionary, Ensemble have moved on to their evolutionary phase, honing their game and taking what made the first one such a joy and making it even better.

Barring some freak accident, Age Of Empires II will certainly be an improvement on its predecessor, we've seen the evidence and we're willing to put money on it. So close to release, the only danger is that Age fans, Ion Storm, their offices are just down the road , will be so addicted to the new sequel that Daikatana will slip by another year. But I think we could live with that.

Watch out, though, because you could also become a lowly trampled serf. Age of Kings is a masterful sequel to Age of Empires. It begins in the Dark Ages after the fall of Rome and progresses through the Feudal Age, Castle Age, and -- if you live long enough to spend the resources -- Imperial Age. The campaigns are based on historical people and events.

There are five campaign levels: The William Wallace learning campaign has seven scenarios. Each of these will give even the most experienced players a run for their money, especially if played on the most difficult settings. They are ranked and increase in difficulty level as you move on to the next scenario and on to the next level.

To be able to build your unique units you must get to Castle Age and build a castle. Below is the list of each civilization and the unique unit that they have. It is wonderful to be able to play with either keystrokes or the mouse or a combination of the two to navigate and rule your kingdom. If you know how to play Age of Empires , then you already know how to navigate in this game. Even if you have never played Age of Empires is there anyone out there who falls into that category?

There are lots of new features and things to research. One of the things that is both exciting and discouraging is the number of things that you can research.

It is next to impossible to come up with enough resources in order to research all that is available, so pick and choose what you need for the way you play. In Age of Empires I did get to the point where there was nothing left to research but I have not yet had this problem in Age of Kings. One of the nicest new features is the town bell you can ring to call all your villagers to garrison the town center, protecting your town center and villagers from those unscrupulous raids on your economy.

I guess if you played that way in the previous games you will have to come up with a new strategy. There is also a very nice feature that allows you to find your loafing villagers and get the freeloaders back to work.

One of the biggest challenges is to keep all your villagers working, as they like to take breaks and stop contributing. Now you can click on the idle villager button or press the period key. The map view allows you to easily monitor your progress and yet it does not detract from the gameplay. Overland trading with trade carts which can be created at the market has been added to the game, something that helps a lot with resources in land-based games.

In Age of Empires you needed water to be able to trade. You can still trade on the seas but you are not restricted to this supply channel. You can convert almost any resource into gold through your market, but use it wisely since the trade rate gets worse each time you use this option. There are also new sources of food with wild animals and sheep as well as deer, farms, and fishing.

Working gates for your walls now means you do not have to leave a hole and try to defend it any more. Just make sure you monitor the gate because the enemy can walk through when your people open it. A good source of obtaining "free" gold is collecting artifacts and depositing them in your monastery where your monks will exchange them for gold. If you destroy a monastery with artifacts in it you can take them back home to your own monastery. In one game, I received almost 3, gold just from the artifacts.

It is well worth the risk of losing a monk to get all the gold you can. Go for the gold. Multiplayer mode is my favorite part of the game.

The computer opponents are smart and the artificial intelligence is better in Age of Kings , but there is no substitute for a live opponent even if that opponent is only your very computer-savvy six-year-old. There is an advanced mode and a simple map mode. OldGamesDownload June 5, 0. The game is pre-installed ready for you to play — enjoy! Enjoy the game! For problems launching the game: First of all, you want to enable DirectPlay on your computer. Now, launch the game by double clicking on the game icon.

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