Age of Empires II: The Conquerors

Age of Empires II: The Conquerors Expansion
Developer(s)	Ensemble Studios
Publisher(s)	Microsoft Game Studios, Konami
Version	1.0c (official) 1.0e (unofficial)
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh
Release date(s)	August 24, 2000
Genre(s)	Real-time strategy expansion pack
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer over IPX, TCP/IP, Modem or Microsoft Zone (now shut down).
Rating(s)	ESRB: Teen (T)
Media	CD (1)
System requirements	Pentium 166 MHz CPU, 32 MB RAM, 100 MB HD (plus 200 MB from AoE2)
Input methods	Keyboard, mouse

Age of Empires II: The Conquerors Expansion (sometimes abbreviated to AoC or AoK: TC) is the expansion pack to the 1999 real-time strategy game Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. The Conquerors is the fourth installment in the Age of Empires series by Microsoft Game Studios and Ensemble Studios. It features five new civilizations (the Aztecs, Mayans, Spanish, Koreans, and Huns), four new campaigns, eleven new units, twenty-six new technologies, new gameplay modes, new maps and different minor tweaks to the gameplay.

Gameplay changes

The Conquerors Expansion also introduced various new gameplay features and tweaks, including the new game modes Defend the Wonder, King of the Hill and Wonder Race. Additional maps, some based on real life geographic locations, and new winter and tropical terrain textures were included. In-game, infantry are able to garrison in battering rams, protecting the infantry while increasing the ram's speed and attack, while ships are able to form formations for more effective fighting. The graphics are the same, but new civilizations have been added such as the Spanish and the Huns.

Micromanagement is made easier, by an improved scripted Artificial Intelligence of villagers and siege weapons. Villagers will now commence automatically gathering resources, if they build resource gathering sites, while siege onagers will not fire if their attack is likely to harm friendly units. Additionally, an in-game option has been added to allow the game to automatically replenish farms after they are exhausted (for the same price as constructing a farm the ordinary way). Chat commands are introduced, in order to communicate more effectively with allied computer players.

Campaigns

The Conquerors Expansion adds four additional single player campaigns. These are based on Attila the Hun's rise to power, Montezuma's defense against Hernán Cortés and the adventures of El Cid. The fourth campaign, "Battles of the Conquerors," is actually a group of unrelated single scenarios, each based on a significant historical battle. These include the Battle of Agincourt, the saga of Erik the Red, and the Battle of Hastings, among others. Possibly by coincidence, all three campaigns (excluding "Battles of the Conquerors") deal with the history of Spain. The Visigoths (who later became the Spaniards) play an important role in the Attila the Hun campaign, El Cid goes over the Christian reconquests against the Moors, and Montezuma is about the Spanish conquest. In addition, the "Lepanto" scenario from "Battles of the Conquerors" is about a Spanish victory against the Ottoman Turks.

Online play

As of June 2006, The MSN Gaming Zone CD-ROM section was shut down for Age of Empires players, as well as many other CD-ROM games. There are several other Age of Empires II: The Conquerors servers worldwide. Microsoft has officially redirected matchmaking to GameSpy Arcade (AOE Landing Page).

Patches

1.0c was the final official patch by Ensemble Studios, it fixed many bugs and balanced units. Before 1.0b bombard towers were able to defeat armies of rams easily; after 1.0b and 1.0c, cavalry archers and bombard towers were balanced to be less powerful. The graphics of the armored Korean "turtle ship" was modified as well.

Compatibility Problems

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While it is possible to run Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings and Age of Empires II: The Conquerors on Windows Vista and Windows 7, a compatibility problem with the games graphics engine will result in graphical errors also known as "toxic grass" (grass will be red and green pixelated and oceans will look pink, purple and cyan-blue). No patch has been released by Microsoft. Running these games with Windows XP compatibility settings, disabling advanced graphics, opening a folder before launching the game, or using alt-tab in rare cases can help with the problem but do not completely eliminate it in Vista. Killing explorer.exe while the game is loading fixes the problem in Windows 7. Another solution for this problem is to force the game to run within a Window as opposed to full screen.

New features

Civilizations

Five additional playable civilizations come with The Conquerors Expansion, including the Aztecs and Mayans, who share a newly created New World architectural style:

The Aztecs and Mayans completely lack the ability to train cavalry units. This is partially balanced by the fact that they start with eagle warrior infantry units, who have many of the advantages that cavalry has. Both civilizations also lack all gunpowder units. The Huns are also unique in that they do not build houses to support their population, allowing them to ignore the maximum production limit of units, and focus on building up their economy and military instead (However, they can not ignore the maximum population limit predecided for each game).

Some^[who?] argue that because Huns came from central Asia, the Far East Asian style architecture would have been a better choice for them in the game. However, the reasoning for choosing the Eastern Europe style is most likely based on the fact that the Huns did not really build buildings; instead, they took whatever they needed from peoples with whom they came into contact, and the cities they seized were in Eastern Europe.

Units

A screenshot of Age of Empires II expansion shows several units, including the Eagle warrior.

The Conquerors Expansion introduces twelve additional units to Age of Empires II: Age of Kings:

• Eagle Warrior & Elite Eagle Warrior (fast-moving infantry, resistant to conversion).
• Halberdier (an upgrade to the Pikeman). Replace hidden in Age of Kings Halberdman (with sprite of upgraded Pikeman when standing, and graphic of Phalanx in other actions).
• Jaguar Warrior & Elite Jaguar Warrior (anti-infantry infantry, unique to Aztecs).
• Plumed Archer & Elite Plumed Archer (tough foot archers, unique to Mayans).
• War Wagon & Elite War Wagon (heavily armored ranged cavalry, effective against walls, unique to Koreans).
• Conquistador & Elite Conquistador (mounted gunpowder users, unique to Spanish).
• Hussar (an upgrade to the Light Cavalry; available to almost all civilizations capable of creating cavalry units).
• Tarkan & Elite Tarkan (anti-building cavalry, based on Tarkhan, unique to Huns).
• Petard (one-use siege units that explode; available to all civilizations).
• Turtle Ship & Elite Turtle Ship (heavily armored, short-range cannon ships, unique to Koreans).
• Missionary (swift mounted monks that cannot carry relics, unique to Spanish).
• Genitour & Elite Genitour (Light Cavalry Skirmisher only available through use of map editor. Initially intended to be Spanish unique unit, but replaced by Conquistador. The fact that it has no sprites at the moment causes it to appear as a Militia who throws javelins by swinging his mace).

New heroes

New heroes added in this upgrade include Yi Sun Shin, Attila the Hun, Bleda The Hun (A non-regenerating hero), El Cid, The Imam (in the second campaign of El Cid), Oda Nobunaga, King Sancho, Erik the Red, Harald Hardraade, William the Conqueror, Henry V and King Alfonso.

In level 4 of the Moctezuma campaign, the starter unit is a special Jaguar Warrior with 400 hit points, presumed to stand in for Cuauhtémoc, who narrates each level's introduction and epilogue.

The non-regenerating hero is a new genre.

Wonders

As in Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, each new civilization has its own unique wonder.

New maps

There are a total of eight new random map types. The Conquerors expansion also introduced 15 real-world maps, which are pre-made. New Random Maps:

• Arena — A perimeter of forest encircles a large central area abutted by each players starting location, which includes a walled perimeter.
• Ghost Lake — A large frozen lake on which nothing can be built fills the center of the map.
• Mongolia - A large number of short cliffs constrains unit movement.
• Nomad — Players start with no town center and with units scattered over the map.
• Oasis — In this desert-tiled map, almost all the forest surrounds a small central lake.
• Salt Marsh — The land is divided by large number of marshes and rivers.
• Scandinavia - There are no berry (forage) bushes in this winter-themed random map.
• Yucatán - This map uses the tropical tileset, with turkeys instead of sheep.
• There are several custom scenarios in which users can create various objective based games.

New Real-World maps:

• Britain
• Byzantium
• Central America
• France
• Iberia
• Italy
• Mideast
• Norse Lands
• Sea of Japan
• Texas

The expansion also introduces the "Blind Random" option for multiplayer games, in which the type of map randomly chosen is not revealed in advance, and the "Random Land Map," which selects only from the list of primarily land maps.

Technologies

The Conquerors Expansion introduces in total twenty-six additional unique technologies to Age of Empires II: Age of Kings video game. These technologies can be purchased from various in-game buildings, most notably the castle (which now being able for the player to research the unique technology(ies) of the civilization), and give the player an additional bonus depending on the technology.

New technologies

All of these technologies are available to more than one civilization.

• Bloodlines - Cavalry have +20 hit points.
• Caravan - Trade carts and trade cogs move twice as fast.
• Thumb Ring - Archers fire faster and with 100% accuracy.
• Parthian Tactics - Cavalry archers have +1 armour and +2 pierce armour. Also, cavalry archers get a +4 bonus against spearmen, pikemen and halbardier. while mangudai get a +2 bonus against them.
• Herbal Medicine - Units garrisoned in buildings heal four times faster.
• Theocracy - If several monks convert an enemy unit, only one of them must rest afterwards.
• Heresy - Units converted by an enemy monk die instead of becoming the enemy player's unit.

Unique technologies

All of these technologies are unique to a specific civilization.

• Garland Wars — Unique to the Aztecs. Increases infantry attack by +4.
• Yeomen - Unique to the Britons. Foot archers have +1 range, and towers have +2 attack.
• Logistica - Unique to the Byzantines. Cataphracts cause trample damage, meaning they can hit other units near them while attacking. They can also run through infantry units, instead of being forced to run around them.
• Furor Celtica - Unique to the Celts. Siege weapons have +50% hit points.
• Rocketry - Unique to the Chinese. Chu ko nus have +2 attack, and scorpions have +4 attack.
• Bearded Axe - Unique to the Franks, and gives throwing axemen +1 range.
• Anarchy - The Goths are the only civilization with two unique technologies, and this is one of them. Unlike the other unique technologies, it is available in the Castle Age. It allows huskarls to be created at barracks.
• Perfusion - The other Gothic unique technology. Barracks units are created +50% faster. Combined with the Gothic team bonus of barracks units created +20% faster, and the technology Conscription, barracks units can be created +103% faster. Combine this with the Goths' cheaper infantry, and the fact that they have +10 population in the Imperial Age, and you can create a very large army of infantry in a matter of minutes.
• Atheism - Increases Wonder and Relic victories by 100, and the Spies and Treason research at Hunnic castles cost -50% resources. (So 1800 gold goes down to 900 gold).
• Kataparuto - Unique to the Japanese. Trebuchets pack/unpack nearly instantly, and fire faster. ("Kataparuto" is the Japanese katakana equivalent to "catapult".)
• Shinkichon - Unique to the Koreans. Onagers have +1 range.
• El Dorado - Unique to the Mayans. Eagle warriors have +40 hit points.
• Drill - Unique to the Mongols. Siege weapons move +50% faster, making them about as fast as cavalry.
• Mahouts — Unique to the Persians. War elephants move +30% faster.
• Zealotry - Unique to the Saracens. Camel riders and mamelukes have +30 hit points; combined with Bloodlines, they can have +50 hit points.
• Supremacy - Unique to the Spanish. Villagers have +40 hit points, +6 attack, +2 armour, and +2 pierce armour, which makes them a lot more useful in battle.
• Crenellations — Unique to the Teutons. Castles have +3 range (Bodkin arrow can bring their range up to +5), and garrisoned infantry fire arrows.
• Artillery - Unique to the Turks. Artillery (cannon galleon, elite cannon galleon, bombard cannons and bombard towers) have +2 range. That means you can fire at castles using a bombard cannon, without getting in their range (even if it is a fully upgraded Teuton castle).
• Berserkergang - Unique to the Vikings. Berserkers heal themselves faster; 40HP per minute (instead 20).

Soundtrack

The game disc itself is a mixed mode CD (contains both Data & Audio tracks). Track 1 appears as the data track, and track 2 is the soundtrack as a Red Book audio track. According to Gracenote^{[citation needed]}, it is called "Subotai Defeats The Knights Templar". As in the PC version, the file is very long and uses small transitions to separate tracks. It lasts 30 minutes and 48 seconds. The Age of Empires Collector Edition Soundtrack CD's tracklist gives a lot of the individual tracks own names. The tracks were composed by Stephen Rippy and Kevin McMullan^[1]

These are the tracks that appear on the audio part of the game CD, in order of playback. The tracks are not separated, but instead are one long track with floating transitions. Some of the tracks are featured on the "More Music From The Ages" CD, though these are usually only available as prizes from Ensemble Studios.^[2]

References

External links

• Official Microsoft site