Age of Empires II The Age of Kings
Age Of Empires II - The Age Of Kings (or simply Age of Kings) is a real-time strategy game set in the middle ages, released in 1999. It was developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft, following the success of Age Of Empires
Overview
The player controls the fortunes of a medieval nation from the dark ages up to the beginnings of the renaissance. As in most RTS games, the player directly controls villagers who can be sent to gather resources or build various buildings, which can in turn be used to develop advanced technologies and train military units. The objective of the game is to defeat competing nations on the battlefield. The game's combat system features an elaborate Rock, Paper, Scissors system of counterunits and balances which ensures that no single unit can be massed to win a battle. In single player mode, players can either fight a quick battle against computer opponents or follow the life of historical personalities through a series of campaigns of rising difficulty, interspersed with cutscenes. In multiplayer mode, up to eight players compete with their nations for world dominance.
Nations
In the original game, the player could choose from 13 nations, each having some distinct advantages and disadvantages in line with the historical nations they were modeled after. Each nation has a very distinct personality that is enhanced by a region-specific building set, unique units like longboats and berserks for the Vikings, and more-or-less historically correct language for the nation's units. The game's nations include:
Campaigns
The game features several campaigns where the player can follow the life of a historical personality. Campaigns consist of a series of several scenarios that are linked by cutscenes; each scenario might depict a famous battle, the building of a famous monument, or some well-known anecdote from the personality's life. The original game's campaigns included:
The Conquerors expansion
The expansion pack (The Conquerors) added new units, unique techonolgies for each civilization, new map types, automatized villagers and farms and garrisonable battering rams, plus:
Civilizations:
Campaigns:
See also
