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Let's talk about an awesome RTS game [Age of Empires]
anoffday
To be changed whenever Anoffday gets around to it.Registered User regular
To be changed whenever Anoffday gets around to it.Registered User regular
Age of Empires is a series of games that were created by Ensemble Studios starting in 1997 with the first game. It's a real time strategy game that focuses on gathering resources (food, wood, gold, etc.) and developing a village and army to eventually overtake your enemy or enemies and win the game. It features different civilizations that have their own buildings, units, etc.
The first one came out in 1997. It's probably the least played since the previous games have come out. Personally I haven't played a lot of this one, but it's still fun if you can find a copy somewhere. It features civilizations such as Egyptians, Greeks, Babylonians, and more. In 1998 it got the expansion The Rise of Rome which added some new units and a whole new musical score as well as some tweaks but besides that it didn't add too much.
The second AoE, or age of kings is considered the best in the series by many and still played online today. It came out in 1999 and is still freaking awesome. It later got an expansion known as the Conquerors.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKxWHEiuIbIIt's also educational and is a good excuse to learn history with campaigns following people like Joan of Arc and Ghengis Kahn.
Oh, and one of the reasons why I made this thread is it because there is a good possibility it's coming to steam! With achievements!
http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/19fboa/age_of_empires_2_very_likely_coming_to_steam/
Also a new unofficial expansion called the forgotten empires just came out a couple months ago! I haven't tried it yet, but it adds more resolutions and new civs. It's supposedly pretty good.
If you can't wait for the steam release it's not hard to find the gold edition for 10 bucks at places like Walmart or Office Max.
In 2005 we got AoE3. Personally, I enjoy it, but I know a lot of people aren't fond of it. But it did add some new stuff and actually got 2 expansions that added native American tribes and Asian civilizations. The complete edition is on steam for 40 bucks, which is still a little pricey. So unless you're dying to play it now, I'd wait for an inevitable steam sale when it'll most likely be like 5 dollars. It actually ended up being my greatest game deal ever when I got it from games for windows on sale for a few MS points, which in USD was literally about 10 cents. Sadly, this would be Ensemble Studio's last AoE game and next to last game period before it closed it's doors in 2009.
The newest AoE was made by robot entertainment, which was founded by some former Ensemble guys. It's really cartoony and looks a lot different than previous AoE games. It's also more of a MMO game and is free to play. Its...ok. Unless you're broke and don't have access to any other AoE game, I wouldn't recommend it. I've also heard nothing new is being made for it, and like most MMO and f2p games, it's full of morons. So yeah.
There have also been some spinoff AoE games such as Age of Mythology, which I don't know a lot about, but feel free to talk about them here too because I've heard some of them are excellent as well. Here's hoping that MS who still holds the rights to AoE has someone working on an AoE4.
Steam: offday
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It's one of the few good Star Wars games, and the only good Star Wars RTS games.
Tried it last night. It's pretty good, but I don't think it adds a new campaign. I just saw new civs and maps.
To each his own, but I had the complete opposite experience.
I'm with you offday. AoE was my first multiplayer PC experience and it was amazing. I never played this game single player because it was lame. If you weren't on that M$ Zone thing idk what you were doing. Ancient Choson for life!
Shogun Streams Vidya
aoe2 was the first multiplayer game I ever played. Up until then I used to think I was the hottest shit at real time strategy and I boasted as much to my friends in high school. So one of my friends that played a lot of multiplayer challenged me and deployed such foreign concepts and macro, and micro, and actually doing stuff. And I was brought low through my own hubris, and yea great humiliation did I suffer the next day at school.
"What is this guy doing? Doesn't he realize he built a barracks already? You only need one."
"Wow this guy is super inattentive or dumb. He just keeps building barracks."
"Wait... now he can build infantry faster..."
"OH MY GOD."
So, yeah. That was when I went from not understanding RTS games to understanding RTS games.
That said, I was never any good at it, and for some reason the difficulty curve switching from Standard to Medium or whatever was just a huge leap out of my league. I suspect that, were I to apply the knowledge gained after a year or so laddering on SC2, I'd probably be able to handle it. At least I knew what I was doing economically though, I typically topped out around 40-50 Villagers in a 200-cap game.
The other RTS I really loved in high school was Rise of Nations. What a great game, and the Conquer the World campaign, especially with the randomize function, was amazing. Oh look, the Germans who started in South Africa are invading the Russians who occupy the Iberian peninsula, and they've got help from the Chinese on the British Isles! What will the Mayans have to say about that?
Also it was the only game I played that let you nuke everything until everyone lost.
Edit: In fact, with this picture http://hothardware.com/newsimages/Item24803/AOEII_Compare.jpg it looks worse than it originally did.
the game
the game is the HD part of AOE2HD
like
that's literally what it is
the game now runs in HD
also the water looks worse because they patched in animated water. It's coloured right, though. Actual seawater isn't #0000FF
Ensemble Hidden Path said more AoE2HD information might come out in the weeks before release, so it'll be interesting to see if any useful competition comes out of this...
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
Chief features to note are the ones already mentioned: cliff graphics, water graphics, fire graphics, shadows colour palette.
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
yup
also me too on hubris
playing versus the AI actively encourages bad habits, I suspect. The AI doesn't exploit map control, and actively yields to clever walling.
No custom scenarios, though. No Castle Blood. No World Map. My inner teenager is super bummed right now.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
I'd like generic interface improvements - command queuing in the AoM/AoE3 style, command queueing for buildings, techs in the unit queue, selecting more than 40 units, etc. - but I won't be surprised if they don't turn up. Still satisfied with an update at all, really.
What civs do you guys like using?
I remember Mongols are good because of their Mangudai. A group of them together is really hard to stop. They're like a moving castle.
I also like the Byzantines and the Japanese (because their buildings look cool).
(repeat call: anybody for the Steam 4-pack?)
We should get a STEAM group going for multiplayer matches!!
http://compass.xboxlive.com/assets/2a/ec/2aecc426-386a-494e-bd0d-d16d8a8e6f16.png?n=AOEIIHD3840x1080_1Big.png
But pretty water!
I got to a point where I could school most of my friends and occasionally hold my own in a mid-level online game, but I was never amazing at the game. There was a cruel twist of fate the first time I was on track to win a ranked match. Dude snuck some of his villagers out and hid them when I sacked his town. As soon as I found his refugee lumber operation, the power went out because the transformer in the alley behind my house exploded. You might take that as a freak occurrence, but it actually happened once a month or so. It was a weird house.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
Is that what they mean by multi-monitor support? Because that would be fucking rad, I just got a second monitor a few days ago.
edit: that's actually exactly the same resolution as both of my monitors together!
The water is animated too, I think it'll be pretty.
I'm not entirely sure how this warrants a $20 purchase for what amounts to a widescreen patch and compatability patch. Especially since I still have my discs in my closet.