Reviewed by Game Boy!
Please note, all PC Games reviewed in this series are played by both men and women, boys and girls.
For lovers of ‘shoot ‘em up games’, and by that, I mean rapid fire, and in a medieval period, there’s none better than the acclaimed, award winning ‘Age of Empires II’.
‘Rome has fallen and the world is up for grabs’. So says the blurb on the ‘Age of Kings’ CD rom sleeve.
You have 1000 years to lead your people through the Middle ages to greatness. Control one of the most powerful civilizations of the time (13 in Age of Kings + 5 more with the Conquerors). Decide whether to conquer the world through military might, rule through diplomacy and commerce, or seize power by means of intrigue and regicide.
You can start as far back as the dark age with a town centre, scout and several villagers. You then gather food to create more villagers and mine gold to create Militia units to defend your town. Gather additional resources to research the next and subsequent ages. Build strong castles, indicative of your chosen civilization all the way up to age IV ‘Imperial’, while defending your town and attacking the enemy’s.
As many as 8 players are possible with a maximum of 4 teams and 200 units (+ 10 for Goths in the imperial age) per player.
Despite the fact that the Age of Kings CD rom case has an ‘ELSPA’ sticker indicating that the game is OK for 3+ years, the tactics required, along with the game play, are beyond that age, noted by the PEGI 12+ classification on amazon, while my suggested age is 8 = to a PG film.
To enjoy all that this great game has to offer, you need to purchase the gold edition, which includes 15 custom maps, including Capricious, Metropolis, Moats and the Unknown.
Be advised, although the game will install on Windows 10, it fails to run. Additionally, Windows 7 not only causes the map to take on a psychedelic hue, especially that of water, but two pairs of player colours show up the same on the mini map Purple = Blue, Cyan = Yellow).
Playing the game. Play the Wallace tutorial game all the way through to the end. Then, when you come to play your first game proper, start from the imperial age. That way you can see what you need as far as resources go for units and buildings. After that, start from the age below (Castle) and continue back to age I, the dark age.
I, myself, play from the castle age and ‘turbo random map’. Try it, yourself, and see.
Owing to the fact that you have one mouse, while the AI can multi-task like crazy, you need to micro-manage your resources. In that sense, don’t put too many villagers on wood when you need gold. Play about 10 games as the same civilization and it will come automatically.
Choosing a civilization. In the film ‘Die Hard’, when they come to the electronic seal on the safe, Alan Rickman’s character says: ‘I give you the F-B-I’. For this game, I give you ‘Genghis Khan’s Elite Mangudai’ and only the ‘Elite Mangudai’. Created in a Mongol castle, they are, fully researched, the 2nd fastest unit in the game to that of a scout line unit with husbandry. Elite Mangudai are a fast firing cavalry archer unit and the epitome of ‘shoot ‘em up’. Pair 20 of them with 15 ‘Drilled’ siege rams (the drill being the Mongols unique castle technology, one that makes siege workshop units move 50% faster) and you can level a city in minutes – while enemy units are focused on stopping the rams, your 20+ Elite Mangudai volley 20 arrows at said units and shred them as it’s known.
Be aware, when moving a group of mixed units as one (a maximum of 40 can be grouped at a time), they move at the rate of the slowest unit – hence my preference for an all purpose fast moving unit.
The Mangudai and rams only cost gold and wood to create. That reduces your need for food, which you will otherwise need to research archer unit technologies at the Blacksmith and Archery Range, Chemistry and Fortified walls at the University, Siege rams at the Siege Workshop and Husbandry at the Stable. Not forgetting Elite Mangudai at the castle and ageing up. In Team games, I tribute resources to my allies.
Only monks (not Spanish monks on asses) can pick up relics. They can also convert enemy units and buildings (except town centres, farms, monasteries, Wonders and gates) and heal units, while only villagers can repair siege units, buildings and boats. Owing to the fact that the Elite Mangudai are an offensive unit, there is little point in converting enemy units; moreover, inferior units. Myself, and since I don’t convert enemy units, I apply two game cheats to avoid being converted. Heracey (1000 gold), which is only available in the gold edition, kills a unit or destroys a building once it’s converted, and Faith (750 food & 1000 gold) makes units more resistant to conversion (in actual fact, it takes longer for the conversion to happen). More on that later.
Each civilisation has a team bonus, and it just so happens that the Teuton’s one makes conversion even harder. Watch out for Aztec monks. They receive additional hit points for each technology researched in the monastery and have a conversion range of 12 with Block Printing, easy for a fast moving fast firing group of 15/20 Elite Mangudai to kill.
Going back to ‘team bonus’. If you play a game with ‘Full Tech’ ticked, you lose the use of all the unique technologies mentioned on each player’s technology tree (Hotkey F2).
‘Full tech’, is when each civilisation has access to every technology in the game. That said, they do apply to units you may capture in the Age of Kings campaigns when played from the Conquerors’ menu, but only if you research a technology after you’ve captured the unit(s), which you capture the same as sheep.
Only two units are impervious to archers. Gothic Huskarls and Hunic Tarkens. Other than those, be wary of Paladins and siege onagers.
My allies of choice, beyond the ever present Spanish (Blue), Teutons (Red), vary between Huns, Mayans and Mongols, while, when playing against 2 or 3 ATE (Alliance Thunder Empire), you’ll need as many as 3 or 4 allies on some maps.
The following screenprint shows the military achievement for one game I played:
Pretty impressive, yes; however, kills above 1000 are only attainable on 1 specific map and with the correct strategy and map layout, or so I thought:
I totally surpassed and surprised myself with that game, one played on a ‘Land Nomad’ custom map and one of 3 that I downloaded from Games Heaven (see Alliance Thunder Empire AI details below). As its name suggests, it is land only, no water whatsoever. For a tactical measure, I choose a 3-player map to play on. Although all 3 types of food are present, sheep in abundance, gold mines are only present on maps that are 3-player and above, while stone mines are only present on 4-player and above.
All in all, when playing a Land Nomad map against ATE enemy civ’s, the onus is on you to match & behave with ATE’s intelligence. That’s because, the standard AI (your allies) with standard starting resources wastes them rather than using them to collect the wood they need to build a Town centre.
I go for maps where the deposits of gold are close by and along 1 or 2 edges of the map. That allows me to wall them in and make use of them in time, while using one or two as my first and second base camps.
As to this game. Thankfully, my allies, to who I tributed wood, gold and stone (bought at my Market) to get them up and running, were grouped together just below the West corner. As soon as I had my first group of 20 Elite Mang’s (15 of the next group queued), I left my castle, which was East of the North corner. To alleviate the attacks on my allies, mostly by green’s Aztecs, I attacked and destroyed their nearest town centre and raced to the aid of my allies.
Thereafter, it was volley after volley of 20 fast firing cavalry archers versus infantry, while employing 4 villagers from my second, South West camp to build Bombard Towers and wall in parts of my allies while tributing them more gold and stone, the latter to build a castle with, somewhere to garrison and heal my first group of EM’s while the second group repelled green.
Incidentally, yellow was foolish enough to set their camp close to my SW one, and so their attacks were minimal.
The beauty of the EM’s is, they are the perfect unit for pushing forward and gaining ground. That’s because the speed with which they fire kills enemy infantry units and cavalry archers before they get near them. Don’t be gung ho, though.
One of the reasons for playing the gold version is 4 of the 5 additional civilizations. The 4 weakest civilizations V Mongols are: Aztecs (weakest), then Mayans, Britons and Vikings. The first 2 of those 4 are included in the Conquerors expansion, along with Spanish (excellent in team games with sea) and Attila’s Huns (do not require houses unless you play full tech).
Although the gold edition boasts ‘smart villagers’, meaning that, once a resource gathering building is constructed villagers will gather a resource associated with it except for deer, villagers, when constructing buildings close to trees, can get trapped in a gap. The same can apply to units, in particular, a monk, if you set the gather point in the same direction as a gap. Also, watch out for one of a group of several villagers on the wrong side of a defence wall they just built.
Game types: There are 3 main game types, ‘Random map’ ‘Death Match’ and ‘Regicide’ with Age of Kings, plus ‘Turbo random map’ with the gold edition. Turbo lets you create units and construct buildings, except for castles, a wonder and Town centres, faster while villagers carry more resources. Apart from ‘Nomad’ map (see next), Regicide starts with a Castle (inactive as far as units are concerned until the Castle age), 10 villagers, a scout and a King. To win a Regicide game, you need to kill all enemy Kings. For super fun, play Regicide on a Metropolis map where you have 3 of everything. In ‘Death match’ you start with a treasure trove of resources.
The Maps: There are 21 standard maps, several Real world maps and 15 custom maps, while more custom maps can be downloaded and added to the ‘Random’ folder from Games heaven, which is where you will also find the ‘ATE’ AI. [URL for ATE:
aok.heavengames.com/blacksmith/showfile.php?fileid=4256]
Of the 35 maps in the gold edition, these 4 are best avoided: ‘Pilgrims’. Oddly enough, the aim of this map is for players to leave their small island and commute to a larger resource rich area of the map, only none of the other AI players, including ATE, leave their island, making for a boring game. The 2 ‘Sherwood forest’ maps favour infantry over cavalry because of the dense forestation. ‘Graveyards’. Never play against Aztecs, as their monasteries generate more gold from relics (their team bonus). The following maps are those I regularly play.
Standard: Arena – start with walls around your town. Black forest – watch out for gaps that the enemy may sneak through. Continental – the same as Dingos but without as much sheep. Coastal – generally speaking, parts of the map are surrounded by water. Salt marsh – includes shallows, lots of them. Be advised, with some aspects of shallows on a map, you cannot place a wall on a coastal area. Look for a section along the coast where you can, and then trail more walls back to where you left off. Yucatan – Amazon jungle, indicative of Aztecs and Mayans, noted by the presence of turkeys instead of sheep. Strangely, no civilization bothers building a dock to create warships on Yucatan.
Custom: Capricious – synonymous with random, resources and terrain vary from game to game. Dingos – abundance of sheep. Watch out for the wolves. Metropolis (see above). Moats – city is all but surrounded by a moat. Paradise island – several relics are located on the small central island. Shipwreck – Regicide game, stone can only be found off the main island provided that the map size is adequate enough. Team glaciers – total snow map with iced over shallows that connect adjacent parts of the map. The Unknown – Exactly as it says, 1 of three map terrains. Avoid the snow one as it’s mottled with grass, while snow makes locating stone behind bushes hard to find along with sheep.
Cheats: Believe it or not, the game cheats and in several ways. The most notable being ‘map reveal’. I discovered that fact when, having packed up 3 trebuchetes and moved them further back and against the map’s edge, 2 enemy pikemen deviated from their path and went straight to the trebuchets. In addition to an archer’s range being increased at the Blacksmith, their line of sight is also increased by as much as + 3. By comparison, barracks units and none archer infantry units created at a castle, only get an increase of 2 with ‘tracking’.
Enemy villagers can sometimes do what can only be described as an evasive dance when being fired upon by as many as 20 archers. Enemy archers and skirmishers, having fired their weapon of choice, retreat at a rate greater than that of the Elite Mangudai. Villagers and some units can pass through locked gates. Villagers can gather resources from and build walls on the opposite side of a diagonal wall and gate (see below), while rams can hit buildings on the other side of a diagonal wall without the need to destroy the section of wall in front of, adjacent to the building. Similarly, War galleys and Galleons can fire through walls.
Options on the main screen: This lets you set up and save any number of games with a specific map and game settings. Once you’ve saved the game by its name, change the map size to 1024 X 768 and click the ‘Single player’ shield (top centre). Select ‘Standard game’ from the menu, which takes you to the game settings part.
Game settings: Map size. Be aware, the greater the map size, the more terrain there is to lock down with walls. Difficulty. Hardest gives every one of the AI’s an additional 500 of each resource per age. Resources. Small, medium, large. Regicide starts with a fixed, very low amount of resources. Population count. 75 (20 villagers max) except for Regicide on a Metropolis map where you start with 30 villagers (39 if Chinese and 33 if Mayan) population 100 (create an additional 10 villagers). Starting age. For Mongols, start from Castle age except on the Unknown when its Imperial age. Map reveal. Explored. The berry bushes on the map indicate where the enemy village is. For reasons of cheating, already mentioned, you need to apply a counter cheat (see below). Victory. Conquest. The default setting of Standard has two victory attainments. You or your team holds all of the relics on the map or build a wonder and have it remain standing by the time the clock runs down to zero. Additional game options: Unchecking ‘Team together’ places the players randomly on the map, exactly the same as ‘Real world maps’. Unchecking ‘Lock teams’ sets all players as indifferent, even within a team. Checking ‘All techs’ gives every player access to every technology. The downside of that, as a reminder, is, every civilization loses both their team bonus and unique castle research. To replay a recorded game, click menu and select the game from the load game option (the date is USA. Month/day/year).
In-game settings: Speed. For a beginner, I suggest slow. You can increase speed to normal, simply by pressing the ‘+’ key on the number keypad of your keyboard, while pressing the ‘-‘ key reduces the game speed. Press F11 function key and the time appears top left. To save a game, press F12. F10 brings up the in-game options. F4 displays a list of the players, from the current strongest to the weakest. Although the AI is set up to attack the strongest enemy on the list, if the list changes, it is supposed to attack the newest strongest enemy. Three buttons down the right side of the mini map let you see 3 aspects of the mini map. Normal, military, and resources and villagers. Idle villagers flash on the mini map with resources selected, while relics are easier to see as white spots along with any selected unit or building.
Useful hotkeys: The claim that you can have certain military formations beyond that of the standard four is a mistake. ‘Q’ is normal grouping for military units, ‘E’ staggers them, useful against range units. ‘F’ splits them into two equal (+/- 1) groups, while ‘W’ creates a box to defend what’s inside (villagers constructing a tower). ‘A’ sets units to offensive, which is the default for non-siege military units. Once you’ve ungarrisoned Elite Mangudai from the castle for the first time, change their stance to stand ground, hotkey ‘N’. ‘D’ sets units to defence. To garrison units in a building (Castle for non-siege units, town centre or tower for villagers and non-cavalry and non-siege units) group the units and hold down the ‘Alt’ key on your keyboard while directing the mouse pointer at the building. NB. Sometimes when you do it they don’t all go inside the building despite there being space (20 max). F3 pauses the game.
As a beginner, before you attack an enemy, I recommend that you save the game. Even in replaying it should you suffer casualties, the AI may act differently. Pressing the full stop key on your main keyboard, moves the map to an idle villager while the comma key locates idle military units. To create a numbered group, drag the mouse pointer around the group. Then, holding down a Ctrl key press one of the numbers 1 to 9 on the main keyboard. To take control of a numbered group thereafter, press their numbered key.
Healing units. You can heal units by garrisoning them in a castle, tower or town centre, even your allies. To heal them quicker, research Herbal medicine at the monastery (not available to every civilization).
Bonuses: Mongol villagers have a civ bonus when hunting dear and ‘wild boar’. That’s right, wild boar. You are advised to use your scout to rain several blows on a boar while 5 villagers, grouped as number 2, shoot arrows at it. If you go too far and your scout kills it, you cannot cull the boar’s meat. You, therefore, need to use your judgement as when to have your scout stop.
Note: If you have a monk, and there are more boars, send the scout to get healed by him.
Game plan for Mongols: Wall in your city at the earliest opportunity and close all gates, even to allies. The strangest thing with this game is, the AI player loves placing buildings on vacant parts of the map, so watch out for them placing a building in front of your gate(s). Since you do not need an abundance of food – 20 villagers maximum, 40 In Regicide Metropolis – construct buildings 3 spaces back from your town centre for farms and place castles 3 spaces back from a wall. That way, if your castle comes under attack from enemy trebuchets, you simply ungarrison 3 of yours from your castle (provided you have them) and the 3 spaces give you range to strike back, especially on an Arena map where you first wall up the enemy’s gates and place your castle in range of their stone or gold. Watch out for them collecting wood from the end(s) of their walls, though.
Your ultimate game plan is to research Elite Mangudai. Technologies you can forgo until you have the resources for them are the Stable and Archery range technologies, while you could, because of the Elite Mangudai’s deadly accuracy, forgo Thumb Ring all together – rarely do I research it, as it seems to apply to cavalry archers created at the Archery range. Incidentally, and this took even me by surprise, Spanish Conquistadors, despite being armed with a blunderbuss of sorts, are an archer unit.
Bracer at the Blacksmith gives them a range of 7, while town centres have a range of six. They can also destroy an enemy’s gate as well. 20 Elite Mangudai can destroy a farm with 2 solid volleys, thereby undermining the enemy’s food supply to create food dependant military units. By solid, I mean 1 and then 2 close range volleys, otherwise it will and can take more, quite more.
Once you have researched all you need from subsidiary buildings, delete them from the map along with unwanted, redundant resource gathering buildings.
Gates and walls: Straight gates (which run SE to NW and SW to NE). Once construction has started they cannot be passed through until they are built. Diagonal gates (which run S to N and E to W), on the other hand, can be passed through by all other units except your military ones while they are being built. Unlike a straight gate, which can be placed against a building or a straight line of trees, the gate section of a diagonal gate has an added area in the middle that looks like this<>.
Placing walls then a straight gate and walls the other end of the gate is all fine and dandy on flat terrain, not so, however, on elevated and uneven elevated terrain where a small, unnoticeable gap may occur between gatepost and wall. The telltale sign of a gap is when the section of wall adjacent to the gate’s post is the same height as the gatepost. If walls are double thick and more, they are the taller of the two all the way along.
Counter cheats: In all cases, press the return key and a text input box appears. Once you have typed the cheat word(s) press return again for the cheat to take effect. Map reveal. Standard map reveal ‘marco’. Explored ‘polo’. If you chose Standard map reveal you need to type them in and in that order, starting with ‘Marco’. Resources in 1000 units: Gold ‘robin hood’, Food ‘cheese steak jimmy’s’. Wood ‘lumberjack’. Stone ‘rock on’. Cheats are not case sensitive.
Enjoy playing what is, without a shadow of a doubt, the best RPG game that was ever produced and with an endless supply of random maps. Rarely will you encounter the exact same map unless you play a ‘Real World’ map, of course.
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