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Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Marcov on May 05, 2011, 09:07:22 pm

Title: Age of Empires
Post by: Marcov on May 05, 2011, 09:07:22 pm
I've somehow made a thread about this long before, but that was about AoE 1, 2, 3. This is exclusively about Age of Empires I, who started it all.

Images (includes pics from The Rise of Rome, official expansion):

Doing a usual day's work in the Stone Age:

(http://i55.tinypic.com/majfr5.jpg)

The Yamato campaign. How does this squad take down an entire enemy camp? By assassinating their leader, of course! (and how the crap did Perseus get there?)

(http://i54.tinypic.com/zx3dyu.jpg)

Soldiers in white futuristic suits arming tactical nukes vs. giant catapults, who wins? (what you get when you perform the "e=mc2" cheat)

(http://i51.tinypic.com/rll65j.jpg)

This is what you get when someone in a car (oh and does anyone know what a "Winsett's Z" is?) armed with a rocket launcher attacks a highly defended base (Bigdaddy cheat):

(http://i56.tinypic.com/2s920ja.jpg)

This game, despite its age and low graphics by today's standards, is still fun to play - along with FreeSpace, it's one of my favorite games. Any of you have this, or remember playing this?
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: Mongoose on May 05, 2011, 11:25:22 pm
I think my brother tried to play it once, but that was after a long time of playing the sequel, so he really missed little basic things like, oh, build queues. :p The sequel was one of the all-time greats, though.
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: Grizzly on May 08, 2011, 02:43:46 am
Yeah, the sequel was completely awesome, but the orignal has that... feel to it :P. But I do get a bit upset because my brother has the distinct ability to almost completely bypass the pop cap by just building a load of barracks, and then training everyone simultaniously. The old system won't cancel training if the pop cap has been reached.

But yeah, its a fun game.
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: Dilmah G on May 08, 2011, 03:04:40 am
Man, I love AoE II with the expansion. Hell, my mates and I still play it at LAN's (one of the bonuses being we can bring basically whatever ****ty laptops we have lying around and run it on that), but really, it's an RTS that's fairly easy to pickup by most people and progresses at a pace that people are comfortable with.
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: Enigmatic Entity on May 08, 2011, 07:55:20 am
Played some RoR on GameRanger (FS2 isn't on there...) the other day, some really good people and some really crap people. I'm slightly above the really crap people...

I like RoR over normal AoE if only for the queing of units and the new civs...

Give the Babylonians 100's of hoyohoyo preists by spamming them inside their base. The only thing that wins is e=mc2 trooper, or diediedie, homerun, all else gets converted!
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: Marcov on May 08, 2011, 10:14:10 pm
yay more posts
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: chief1983 on May 13, 2011, 02:12:57 pm
This is what you get when someone in a car (oh and does anyone know what a "Winsett's Z" is?) armed with a rocket launcher attacks a highly defended base (Bigdaddy cheat):

Scott Winsett was the lead artist for AoE and other games at Ensemble, along with Brad Crow.  I'm guessing he drove a Z-28 Camaro.  Or a Nissan Z-series car.  Not sure which car the sprite resembles more.
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: Turambar on May 13, 2011, 02:25:33 pm
wololo
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: Nuclear1 on May 13, 2011, 02:53:23 pm
Microsoft could have stopped with AoEII and the expansion.  It was essentially one of the best RTS games ever made.
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: Nohiki on May 13, 2011, 03:29:14 pm
Microsoft could have stopped with AoEII and the expansion.  It was essentially one of the best RTS games ever made.
Sounds like you know some better >÷D
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: redalbatross on May 13, 2011, 03:45:23 pm
Have any of you tried the AoE Online beta? It's sort of like if World of Warcraft and AoE 2 had a lovechild. Not bad, really. It has potential, and the co-op aspect is cool. I always liked playing with people rather than against them...
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: chief1983 on May 13, 2011, 03:53:20 pm
I still think Warcraft 3 was a better game, but not necessarily the single player component.  I loved WC3's custom game community, and the single player mode is still terrific.
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: Nohiki on May 13, 2011, 03:56:47 pm
While the graphics of Warcraft 3 is undoubtedly better, i think that it all depends on the hero. I like the "agy" balance of power, best in AoM really, but AoK did well.
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: BlueFlames on May 13, 2011, 07:11:24 pm
Microsoft could have stopped with AoEII and the expansion.  It was essentially one of the best RTS games ever made.

I was given the collector's edition of AoEIII as a gift, and the last page of the included art book teased at a planned fourth and fifth game covering modern and distant-ish future eras, respectively.  Given the quality of the whole series up to that point, I was pretty jazzed about the prospects of those future AoE titles, right up until the moment Ensemble dissolved.

Now, AoE's future seems to be limited to Facebook apps, which strikes me as pretty goddamn horrifying.
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: Dilmah G on May 13, 2011, 07:48:47 pm
I personally didn't enjoy AoE III very much, it felt like they tried to take it a little too far and overcomplicate things. II was simple and fast enough to have fun with, but III I felt was a tad slower and a bit stale.
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: Enigmatic Entity on May 15, 2011, 06:26:36 am
wololo
...you...watch --->  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vmTXvxCfY8
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: X3N0-Life-Form on May 15, 2011, 07:28:54 am
I still think Warcraft 3 was a better game, but not necessarily the single player component.  I loved WC3's custom game community, and the single player mode is still terrific.

Well, they aren't exactly in the same RTS achetype class, being warcrafts & empires respectively. They don't tell stories or play the same way.
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: chief1983 on May 15, 2011, 11:44:16 am
Yes well, someone said it was one of the best RTS games ever made, not one of the best empire-building RTS games ever made.
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: X3N0-Life-Form on May 15, 2011, 01:09:18 pm
Ohh, I see, you were responding to nuclear.
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: Marcov on May 15, 2011, 08:43:33 pm
I personally didn't enjoy AoE III very much, it felt like they tried to take it a little too far and overcomplicate things. II was simple and fast enough to have fun with, but III I felt was a tad slower and a bit stale.

Yeah, I guess the developers concentrated too much on the graphics and in the process sucked some of the fun the older AoE games had.

AoE III is also fun to play, but still quite can't compare to AoE I and II. I dunno...it kind of feels like you're doing the same tactics, over and over again.
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: Mongoose on May 16, 2011, 12:40:44 am
While we're on the topic, has anyone else here ever played Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds?  It's built on the AOE II engine, to the point where it's essentially a graphical swap of that game, but that has the benefit of making it play just about the same.  Plus, the cheat codes let you make killer Ewoks. :D
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: chief1983 on May 16, 2011, 12:42:27 am
I obtained a copy at one point on my college network, wasn't terribly impressed.
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: Sololop on May 16, 2011, 01:02:39 am
wololo
...you...watch --->  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vmTXvxCfY8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Upy3WOgQVvE
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: Enigmatic Entity on May 23, 2011, 10:47:00 pm
Nice!

When you get bored in the Scenario Editor... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=248E-XJwdVY
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: SirCumference on May 23, 2011, 10:59:22 pm
I definitely liked AoE II the best. III had some neat graphics and technologies, but I felt like they limited the gameplay in some ways. For instance, they added limits to how many of a certain type of building you could have at one time, they didn't allow you to change your diplomatic stance, and you couldn't have more than two teams in a game.
Title: Re: Age of Empires
Post by: Locutus of Borg on May 23, 2011, 11:42:31 pm
and you couldn't build a castle in your enemy's city :(