Age Of Empire Download

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Developer: Ensemble Studios
Genre: Historic Real-Time Strategy
Release Date: Oct 26, 1997
ESRB Descriptors: Animated Violence, Animated Blood
Number of Players: 1-8

When you first play Age of Empires, a warm feeling develops in your gut. Warcraft meets Civilization! Real-time empire-building! And does it ever look sharp and feel right.
But an uneasy feeling builds as you get deeper into it, a sense that all is not quite right. This is not quite the game you hoped for. Even worse, it has some definite problems. The pitfall when you review a game as anticipated and debated as this one is to make sure you criticize it for what it is, not for what you wish it was. I wish that Age of Empires was what it claimed to be - Civilization with a Warcraft twist. Instead, it is Warcraft with a hint of Civilization. That's all well and good, but it places it firmly in the action-oriented real-time combat camp, rather than in the high-minded empire-building of Civilization. The result is Warcraft in togas, with slightly more depth but a familiar feel.

Age of Empires places you on a map in an unexplored world, provides a few starting units, and lets you begin building an empire. Each game unfolds the same way. You begin with a town center and some villagers. The villagers are the basic laborers, and the town center enables you to build more of them and expand your settlement. The villagers are central to AOE: they gather resources, build structures, and repair units and buildings. Resources come in four forms: wood, food, stone, and gold. A certain amount of each is consumed to build various units and buildings, research new technology, and advance a civ to the next age.

There is no complex resource management or intricate economic model at work here. What you have is the same old real-time resource-gathering in period garb, with four resources instead of one or two. As your civ advances, you develop greater needs for these resources, but the way in which they are gathered and used becomes only marginally more complex (certain research can cause faster harvesting or more production). It appears on the surface to be a complex evocation of the way early civs gathered and used materials, but beneath the hood is the same old "mine tiberium, buy more stuff than the other guys" model. It is the first hint that AOE is a simple combat game rather than a glorious empire-builder.

There's no denying the thrill the first time a villager chucks a spear at an antelope and spends several minutes hacking meat from its flank with a stone tool. This is the level of detail that brings an empire-building game to life. If only those villagers would grow and develop over the course of the game, it would make it so much more interesting. If only they would trade in their loincloths for some britches and maybe some orange camouflage, and switch from spears to arrows and rifles. Yes, that's another game, but it could easily have been done in AOE, and why it wasn't is a mystery.

The overall impression of AOE dips further with the prickly issue of unit control and AI. As you expand your city with new and improved buildings, you develop the ability to produce new and better military units. These fall into several categories: Infantry (Clubman, Axeman, Short Swordsman, Broad Swordsman, Long Swordsman, Legion, Hoplite, Phalanx, and Centurion), Archers (Bowman, Improved Bowman, Composite Bowman, Chariot Archer, Elephant Archer, Horse Archer, and Heavy Horse Archer), Cavalry (Scout, Chariot, Cavalry, Heavy Cavalry, Cataphract, and War Elephant), and Siege Weapons (Stone Thrower, Catapult, Heavy Catapult, Ballista, and Helepolis). With the completion of a temple, a priest becomes available that can heal friendly units and convert enemy units. Naval units come in the form of fishing, trade, transport, and war.

The problem is that while enemy AI is savvy and aggressive (it can afford to be since it appears to cheat with resources), your units are bone-stupid. Path-finding is appallingly botched, with units easily getting lost or stuck. There is a waypoint system, but that hardly makes up for the fact that your units have trouble moving from point A to point B if you don't utilize it. Military units will stand idly by while someone a millimeter away is hacked to pieces. They respond not at all to enemy incursion in a village and wander aimlessly in the midst of battle. Was this deliberate so that the gamer needed to spend more time in unit management? If so, it was a poor idea, since there is simply too much going on midgame to worry about whether your military is allowing itself to be butchered in one corner of the map while you are aggressively tending to a battle in another portion. There is no excusing this flaw, and it seriously diminishes AOE's enjoyability. Finally, there is the fifty unit limit that is irritating many players, but in light of the game's already troublesome play balance, it was a solid decision to force users to build units more selectively.

AOE obviously is sticking close to an early-empire motif, and there's nothing at all wrong with that. Stone, Tool, Bronze, and Iron are the four ages, and with each come new structures and military units. You don't earn these advanced ages - you buy them with resources. Advancement is a simple matter of hoarding and spending food and gold. The overall welfare of your state is irrelevant as long as it survives: happiness is not measured, trade is barely modeled, and the state exists merely to produce a military machine to crush everyone else on the map. Naval power has a woefully unbalancing effect upon gameplay, with a strong navy able to shred the competition at the expense of reality.

Micromanagement is the name of the game in AOE. There is no unit queue, and to build five villagers, you need to build one, wait, build another, and so on. With units acting so stupidly, you should be able to set their level of aggression and the manner in which they attack (a la Dark Reign), but that is also not an option. Diplomacy is relegated to tribute and nothing more, and alliances are hard to form. You can be allied, neutral, or at war with other civs, but if the radio button is still set to "allied" when an opponent starts firing on your units, your units will not fire back, defend themselves, or even flee. They will just be destroyed. Cues as to exactly what's happening on the map are obscure; the duty has been relegated to unrelated sound effects. Does that bugle call mean my building is finished being built, or my units are under attack? How about some help, people? Victory conditions can also be irritating. There are several campaigns that require that specific goals be met, and these quickly grow tiresome. Thankfully, there is an excellent custom generator that lets you set map size, starting tech, resources, and other features. This is the saving grace of AOE, and what kept me coming back again and again. The main reason is that it let me change some of the insane default victory requirements, such as when the victor is the first to build a "wonder" (through another massive consumption of resources) that stands for 2000 years. These 2000 years can pass in about twenty minutes of game time. That means that as soon as an opponent builds a wonder, you create a whacking huge navy to go over and blow it up. Not a very subtle way to maintain an empire. In fact, there is no strategic nuance: It is merely a brawny muscle contest. For all its historical trappings and pretensions to recreate the early progress of civilization, in the final analysis it does not even have the depth of a pure combat game like Dark Reign or Total Annihilation.

If all these judgments seem harsh, it is only because Age of Empires looked, and pretends, to be so very much more. It still has tons of potential and a fundamental gameplay that remains entertaining enough to overcome the flaws and merit a fair rating. The system can go very far with some fine-tuning, but as it stands it seems downright schizo. Is it a simplified Civilization or a modestly beefed up Warcraft? It's almost as if the designers started out to create one game and ended up with another. With such beautiful production and the fundamentals of a vastly entertaining game, it's sad that it fell short of the mark. The disappointment is not merely with what AOE is, but with what it failed to be.

By T. Liam McDonald, GameSpot

Minimum System Requirements
System: Pentium-90 or equivalent
RAM: 16 MB
Video Memory: 1 MB
Hard Drive Space: 130 MB

Screen Shots

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Age of Empires Strategy:The Scout Rush


Scout Rush strategy increasingly gained importance after the advent of Age of Empires 1.0e.Scout rush is mainly done in Age of Empires multiplayer 1v1 games.But in my opinion it can be done in any type of game,be it 2v2,3v3 or 4v4.In this post an in depth analysis of the scout rush is provided.

Civilizations favorable for Scout Rush
The most favorable civilization is the mongols.This is because you can do a faster scout rush with mongols as compared to any other civ.Huns is another good option.Other cavalry civs including persians,saracens etc. are also preferred.

How to do it?
Step:1 Making the economy
I have seen people doing a 25 pop scout rush with 4 farms,although very stable,this is very slow as the time taken to attack is around 13 mins.This gives the opponent the time to defend himself with spears.That is why a 22 pop advance with 2 farms and then a scout rush is preferred.
Follow a 22 pop flush strategy initially but try to get at least 2 deer for extra food.As soon as feudal age research is completed,build a stable and start making scouts.Then make farms with the new vils because you need more food.6-7 scouts are enough for initial rush.

Step:2 The Raiding
Scout raiding is most effective on those vils who are away from the town centre.Scouts are vulnerable to arrows so care needs to be taken so that they dont get too close to the town center.The advantage of scouts is,that they are quick and are very effective in hit and run.

Tackling spears:-If you have 6-7 scouts then you can easily tackle upto 2 spears.The best micro will be to move the scout away from the spear he is hitting and attacking him with other scouts.This way none of them dies.
Another way is to surround him and attack.This exploits the weak AI of the Age of Empires script.The spear is confused as to whom to attack and is half dead by the time it decides on one of your scouts.This method can only be used if he has one spear.
Another good trick is to look at villagers' hit points, if you have already hit one villager but spears chase you off, lure that spearman in some other direction with a scout while the others hit that villager. You might take a couple of hits but it's worth it to kill that vil. If you are attacking vils and you see spearmen coming, check the hit points on the vil, if it's close to death don't run until you kill it.

Dealing with different situations

Scenario 1:If the opponent sees you building a stable,then he knows that you will be going for a scout rush.So he will go for 5-6 spears.In this case I still prefer a scout rush but with 4-5 skirms. This will take care of his spears and then he gets very vulnerable as he does not have any more army.

Scenario 2:If the opponent is very aggressive and does a forward attack.In this case just defend yourself with a wall and tower and attack his base with 4-5 scouts.As he is doing a forward attack he wont have any enemy at base and you can easily raid.

The main point in scout rush is the micro.They are very vulnerable to spears and will die away cheaply if proper care is not taken.

AOE strategy- Fast Castle Age Advancement

This is one of the most popular strategy used these days in Age of Empires and is based upon the Knight Rush.

1.Civs favorable for fast castle strategy:-The cavalry civilizations are favorable with huns being hot fav.Particularly those civs which have an advantage of research are better.Examples are franks;their knights are 20% stronger and they have free farm research.Huns save wood as they dont make houses,vikings have free wheelbarrow ,so faster vils,persians have faster work rate etc.

2.Timing:-The ideal castle age timing is around 16 mins.I have seen ppl doing castle age as early as 13 mins but its not of any use.


3.The Fast Castle Strategy:-

HCCCCbuild 2 houses(1 house with 1 vil and the other with 2 vils)

Scout:-Explore with scout in circles.As soon as you find 4 sheep,bring 1 to TC for eating,keep others for exploring.

>>Keep clicking vils unless you have 6 on sheep and 3 on wood.

Click Loom:-While loom is being done build a lumber camp with the 3 vils on wood.

10th vil on boar,build a house near boar and then lure it.Make sure that the 6 vils having sheep finish it before they hunt the boar.

Click vils on bush and build a mill near it.

16th vil:-Goes to lure the second boar and builds a house.

17th vil goes for wood

vils upto 20 go for sheep

21st,22nd,23rd are farmers.

24th and 25th go to mine gold.

Click Feud:-While going feud you can either go for hunting with 4 vils or go for farming according to your civ.Make sure you have 300 wood as soon as you reach feud.

Feudal Age:-Once in feudal age click 5 vils on gold.

With 2 vils build a smithy and a market.
As soon as you have 30/30 you will be in a position to click castle.

While advancing do the lumber camp research and build one barrack and 2 stables.

Take care that you have enough food and gold so that you can take out atleast 4 knights(2 from each stable).

Castle age:-Once in castle click on 4 knights and build a TC near your main gold mine or your lumber camp.

Knights:-They are very costly,so take care with their attack,use them to raid the enemy's base,dont go near to his TC and keep
away from spearmans.

4.Precautions to be taken:-As your are going fast castle you are vulnerable to flush(Feudal Rush) and trush(Tower rush).Use the house bug to detect them and build walls wherever necessary.

5.Effective use:-Dont let your knights idle around.If you are successful in confining your opponent near his TC,then make siege and destroy his TC with onager or ram.

6.Aztecs and Mayans:-These 2 civs dont have knights.Explore the option of Eagle warrior.They are much cheaper so can be made more in number.Although they are weaker than knights they are very effective in raiding.For these two civs lay more emphasis on gold than food.And the important research is the first smithy research.For more info read The Eagle Warrior.

Age of Empire Strategy- Tower rush or Trush

Strategy making is considered to be the most important part of Age of Empires.Read this strategy only when you have mastered the timing,the counters and other points mentioned in the previous post.There are as such many strategies that can be used in Age of Empires but I prefer to discuss the most important ones.1.Trush or Tower Rush:- I use this strategy quite a lot and feel its the most important strategy for 1 vs.1.This strategy involves constructing towers in strategic positions in the enemies base.These strategic positions maybe a gold mine,stone mine or even near a lumber camp.If we do a micro on the tower rush strategy then we see that its the most balanced strategy.Balance is in reference with its ability to shift to another strategy if the tower rush fails.The micro is as follows3 vils -->build house:- During this time make scout do his rounds and find sheep.Make 3 vils and keep them on sheep.As soon as 1 house is built keep 1 vil to build 2 more houses,rest 2 vils go for sheep.Click loom:- During this time build mill with d vill u made d houses with.Also see to it that d scout is doing his work.If you find more sheep bring them near to the town centre and things like that.Ensure that there are 6 vils on sheep Otherwise your sheep will b wasted.Click 2 vils for bushClick 1 vil to lure boar:- When boar comes near to town centre then remove 6 vils that were on sheep and keep on boar.Click 2 vils and keep on sheep and after that all vils to wood unless pop reaches 20:-Till this time as the first boar is finished lure 1 more boar wid 1 vil who is on boar.Build 1 more house and lumber camp near a forest. After 20 click 5 vils n keep on stone:-Build a mining camp near d stone mine.Try to bring 1 more vil frm wood to stone so that d total vils mining stone is 6.During this time find the enemy with the scout.Click feudal age research:-During advancement take the vils on the boar for attack and build barracks and a house.Feudal age:-As soon as you reach feudal age start building towers at a strategic position like near a stone or a gold mine.Even a guard tower near his lumber camp would be a good idea.Also click 4-5 vils from town center and set gather point at wood.The advantage of such an attack is that as you are collecting so much stone so even if the opponent is using the flush strategy then you can defend by building towers in your base.If he is following a fast castle strategy then this strategy is very effective in raiding.After making towers,build archery range and fill the towers with archers.Try to build a network of towers so that he cant destroy any tower with vils(One tower protecting another) and then gradually try to get near his town center.Give sometime for economy and click castle age quickly.During advancement build stable,do the fletching research and make more archers.Castle Age:-If you have effectively collected stone then you can build two castles;one in his base(very near enemies town center) and one in your base just in case he raids you.At this time,he will also try to build a castle in his base for defense.You can disturb him by raiding with knights.The key now to win the game is going imperial age fast(around 30 mins is ideal).If you are in imperial age before he is, then make trebeuchets which will ruin his kingdom and consequently make him resign.The advantage of this tower strategy is maximum for koreans civilization because of their free tower upgrades.Turks BBCs can be used as a counter to the tower strategy during imperial age(against trebeuchets because of 12+2 range).Huns civilization trebeuchets are more effective because they are more accurate even without ballistics research.Position of your castle in the enemy territory is very important.Murder holes is an important research when in imperial age.Variations of the tower strategy exist.But the main point in this strategy is to reach fast feudal age(around 10-11 mins).Try this strategy and post your comments if you play with any variation.