Age Of Empires 2 The Age Of Kings Free Download
Giorgina Calvello
Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings is a real-time strategy video game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft. Released in 1999 for Microsoft Windows and Macintosh in 2001,[citation needed] it is the second game in the Age of Empires series. The Age of Kings is set in the Middle Ages and contains thirteen playable civilizations. Players aim to gather resources, which they use to build towns, create armies, and defeat their enemies. There are five historically based campaigns, which conscript the player to specialized and story-backed conditions, as well as three additional single-player game modes; multiplayer is also supported.
Despite using the same game engine and code similar to its predecessor's, development of The Age of Kings took a year longer than expected, forcing Ensemble Studios to release Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome in 1998 instead. The design team focused on resolving significant issues in Age of Empires, but noted on release that some problems remained.
Reception of Age of Empires II was highly positive. The significant number of new features was praised, as were the gameplay improvements. Three months after its release, two million copies of Age of Empires II had been shipped, and it topped sales charts in seven countries. The game won multiple awards and is today considered a classic of its type, having had a significant impact on future games in its genre. The original Age of Empires II and its 2000 expansion pack, The Conquerors, were later released as The Gold Edition. Age of Empires II is often considered one of the greatest games ever made.
Each civilization can purchase upgrades that increase the rate of gathering these resources. Players can also construct a marketplace for trade, where they can trade wood, stone, and food for gold, and use gold to buy other resources. Market prices fluctuate with every transaction.[12] Furthermore, markets and docks can also generate gold by using trading carts or cogs, which are sent to visit foreign markets and ports; once they return to the player's market/dock, gold is added to the stockpile. The amount of gold a trade unit earns on each trip is based on the distance it needed to travel to a foreign market; more gold is earned on longer trips. It is possible to trade with enemies' markets or docks, but the player's trading units may be attacked or destroyed by enemy units in the process. Players do not need to keep trading manually, as once they select the port or market the trading units continue to trade automatically and indefinitely.
There are five campaigns in The Age of Kings, containing historically based scenarios such as Genghis Khan's invasion of Eurasia, Barbarossa's Crusade, and Saladin's defence of the Holy Land. In the Joan of Arc and William Wallace campaigns, the player can control a unit based on its namesake; in others, players take orders from guiding spirits representative of the army's commander.[13]
Additional game modes are available to the player in The Age of Kings.[14] One mode, random map, generates a map from one of several randomly chosen map-generating scripts, with players starting in the Dark Age with a Town Center, three villagers (or more depending on the civilization), and a scout unit. The game can be won through military conquest, by constructing a special building known as a Wonder and keeping it standing for a certain amount of time, or by obtaining control of all relics on the map for a set amount of time. Deathmatch mode allows players to begin with large amounts of resources, creating a focus on military dominance, while in the regicide mode each player is given a king unit, winning by killing all of the other monarchs.
Buildings in The Age of Kings are split into economic[25] and military categories.[26] Buildings can research technologies and upgrades that increase economic, military, or unit-based efficiency, as well as provide resources for the player.[25]
The most important economic building is the Town Center, where villagers are created, all types of resources can be stored, some technologies are researched, and the player can advance to the next Age. The Town Center can fire arrows at enemy units if villagers or archers are garrisoned inside while enemy units are within range.[27] Other economic buildings include storage buildings for resources, farms, docks (the dock may also produce several military ships), and houses to support a higher population.[28]
Military buildings include unit-producing buildings such as barracks, archery ranges, stables, and castles, as well as defensive buildings such as walls and towers.[29] Military buildings can conduct research to improve the abilities of military units, increasing their strength, defensive capabilities, or other capabilities.[26] Castles are a key offensive and defensive building as they can build trebuchets, train the civilization's "unique unit/s", and fire a hail of arrows at enemy units within range, with garrisoned units firing extra arrows.[30] Castles can only be built after a player has reached the Castle Age, although in some game options, players begin with an already-built castle as early as the Dark Age.[31]
After advancing to the Imperial Age, players can also construct a Wonder, an expensive non-military building. On many gameplay modes building a Wonder triggers a victory countdown; unless it is destroyed within a certain timeframe, the player who built it wins. Every civilization's Wonder is in the shape of a real-world landmark unique to that historical culture.
The Age of Kings shipped with five campaigns, each having multiple playable scenarios that progress a story line, and each centered around a different civilization. The campaign of William Wallace (Celts) serves as a tutorial campaign, and teaches the player how to move units, gather resources, and build armies to defeat the enemy. It takes place during the Wars of Scottish Independence against the English under King Edward I Longshanks. In the Frankish campaign, the player leads Joan of Arc against the English in the Hundred Years' War. The Saracen campaign features Saladin and his efforts to repulse Crusaders in the Middle East, while the Mongol campaign documents Genghis Khan's conquest of Eurasia; finally, the Teuton campaign focuses on Frederick Barbarossa's ambitious expansion of the Holy Roman Empire. The campaigns are sorted numerically to distinguish difficulty, with the William Wallace campaign being the easiest and Barbarossa and Saladin being the two most challenging.
The Age of Kings supports multiplayer over the Internet, or via a local area network (LAN). Up to eight players can take part in one game, with all of the single-player game modes available. The MSN Gaming Zone supported the game until the service closed on June 19, 2006.[32][33] After that, various multiplayer gaming services such as GameRanger supported it.[34] Since April 2013,[35] Steam supports in-game multiplayer for HD resolution[36][37][38]
The original Age of Empires was criticized for its artificial intelligence (AI), which did not "cheat" by attributing itself extra resources or using other techniques the human player could not, making it easier to defeat than in many other real-time strategy games.[43] For The Age of Kings, Ensemble Studios attempted to develop a more powerful AI system that still did not compromise by cheating. Industry veteran Mario Grimani led Ensemble Studios in the creation of the new system. The Age of Kings saw the introduction of a triggers system for its scenario editor. The triggers allow messages to be displayed, or actions to take place, based on pre-set criteria or "events".[44] The scenario editor was also improved by the new AI system. The AI and trigger systems interacted regularly in the single-player campaigns.[45]
The team was less successful in resolving other issues; programmer Matt Pritchard complained following the release of Age of Empires that there was still no process by which patches could be issued. Extensive cheating in multiplayer games of Age of Empires came as a result of several bugs in the game, which resulted in Microsoft promising Ensemble Studios there would be a patch process for The Age of Kings. Upon release, there were several bugs that needed immediate attention, but the patch process was not yet ready. The first patch was released 11 months later.[46][47]
Ensemble Studios developed a new terrain system for The Age of Kings, with 3D presentation capabilities that were vastly superior to those of Age of Empires. Pritchard noted an improvement in the team's artistic abilities following their work on the past two games, and he is noted as saying that "AoK became a showcase for their improved talent".[48] However, he complained about the lack of an art asset management tool, while other departments gained new tools and automated procedures to assist in design and play testing.[48][46]
The soundtrack for The Age of Kings was directed by Stephen Rippy, who has since taken that role for all games in the Age of Empires series. Music for the game was split into two categories. For "in-game" music, Rippy's team took musical elements from a variety of cultures and combined them to create a mixed sound. "Pre-game" music was designed to be unique to the civilization in question. Campaigns based on historical figures would include "a theme that will at least be rooted in [the character's] culture".[49]
A demo of The Age of Kings was released on October 16, 1999.[50] It featured the learning campaign, a sample of a random map game, and the ability to play via the MSN Gaming Zone.[47] Much to Ensemble Studios' disappointment, numerous incomplete versions of the game were leaked. These were picked up by warez sites, and sold illegally throughout the Pacific Rim; warez versions of the game were even sold outside Microsoft's offices in South Korea.[46]
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