Age of Empires 2 coming to Steam...in HD

[Spiritual_Beggar]

So, with the fantastic news that AoE2 is being released again via Steam, with some updated tricks.....I thought I'd see who else out there used to play this game religiously?

I have very fond memories of playing this as a kid. Have been waiting for someone to make modern OS compatible version, modding aside.

Can't wait for this to be released. Anyone up for a few games?

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/08/age-of-...


Oh yes, and........


Wolololo

[Squirrelofwoe]

I sank more time than I care to remember into AOE 2 way back when! Bloody loved it. I've had passing flirtations with Age of Mythology (bloody good) and AOE 3 (not so good), but never to the extent of AOE 2.

I heard someone mention a HD remake of it but have yet to look into it in more detail...

Oh and I REALLY must get back onto BF3 at some point too!

I'm sure you have all missed me!

[Spiritual_Beggar]

Squirrelofwoe said:

I heard someone mention a HD remake of it but have yet to look into it in more detail...

Already bought my copy on Steam.

Roll on 9th April!!

"Monk....I need a Monk!"

[Squirrelofwoe]

Spiritual_Beggar said:

Already bought my copy on Steam.

Roll on 9th April!!

Result!! This is now on my list!

Spiritual_Beggar said:

"Monk....I need a Monk!"

[Hilts]

I think I'll get this. I spent a lot of time on AoE2 back in the day, tried installing it last year but couldn't get it to work properly
even with some full screen patches.

I see steam are doing a bundle with AoE3, is that worth getting?

[Spiritual_Beggar]

Hilts said:

I think I'll get this. I spent a lot of time on AoE2 back in the day, tried installing it last year but couldn't get it to work properly
even with some full screen patches.

I see steam are doing a bundle with AoE3, is that worth getting?

Depends on the price.

AoE3 was fun, but not quite as fun as AoE2. Didn't provide quite the longevity that 2 did.

[A.J.M]

I lost weeks to this game.

How to win was always the same, build a massive wall round the town, 2 deep, get loads of farms and make it self sufficient. Get a few castles to get the population limit to 200.

Then train loads of Elite Longbowman and trebuchets, and basically steam roller through the map.

[Spiritual_Beggar]

A.J.M said:

I lost weeks to this game.

How to win was always the same, build a massive wall round the town, 2 deep, get loads of farms and make it self sufficient. Get a few castles to get the population limit to 200.

Then train loads of Elite Longbowman and trebuchets, and basically steam roller through the map.

I used to find the Goths particularly good fun.

Once you had the economy sorted, you could churn out infantry lightning fast with their bonuses. And those Huskarls were near as dammit immune to archery fire....so had no problems rolling into a base a laying siege to a castle or tower.

The AI was pretty stupid though. Online was a bit more interesting. Though that had a tendency to turn into Age of Siege Weapons pretty fast

[mids]

Struggling with lag and low FPS with this, not impressed considering how well the original ran. The official forums are full of woe, hoping the devs can figure it out as when I play multiplayer with friends my lag is causing their game to slow down too

[A.J.M]

Spiritual_Beggar said:

I used to find the Goths particularly good fun.

Once you had the economy sorted, you could churn out infantry lightning fast with their bonuses. And those Huskarls were near as dammit immune to archery fire....so had no problems rolling into a base a laying siege to a castle or tower.

The AI was pretty stupid though. Online was a bit more interesting. Though that had a tendency to turn into Age of Siege Weapons pretty fast

I played online a few times,it usually ended up with massive siege battles and the constant attempts to break through the lines to rampage a base.

I usually played on the archipelago map, as that stuck water in the way. So you had to build up a massive navy first to rule the waves before you could dream of landing a D day style attack on someone...

An interesting tactic my 2 mates and i did was build our base in a corner, with all 3 players in the same base. So we all could build up defences and put a massive wall round the 2 exposed corners. When we needed more expansion, we could build out more walls and towers etc, so you ended up with several layers of defences. Placed all the fragile stuff right in the corner so it could never be touched. Worked for us, was a total bawache for whoever tried to take us on.

I then would sit back with my longbowmen guarding the base while they went out and attacked others. Think we only lost once with that tactic when the other guys all ganged up on us.. We did flatten 3 of their bases before we lost.

[cH3wY]

£13.49 though? For game over 10years old and that I already own? No chance

[Patrick Bateman]

Started playing this again for the first time in what must be well over a decade, wasn't sure if I'd still have the patience for a strategy game any more but this really is timeless.

How do you get properly good at it?

I have to go defensive big time, wall-up to high hell and just amass a ridiculous force. And that's just against the AI on moderate!

[Squirrelofwoe]

Patrick Bateman said:

Started playing this again for the first time in what must be well over a decade, wasn't sure if I'd still have the patience for a strategy game any more but this really is timeless.

How do you get properly good at it?

I have to go defensive big time, wall-up to high hell and just amass a ridiculous force. And that's just against the AI on moderate!

Trying to wall up (turtle), whilst the most tempting strategy, always seemed to make things more difficult. It was my default tactic in most strategy games for a while but it only really works against low level opponents. More difficult AI and even an average human player will end up with so many more units than you if you adopt this approach. The reason being you end up sacrificing so much map control and consequently resources, that the enemy can simply out-build you.

They have more resources than you from increased map control, plus they can put it all into offensive units as you are not attacking them.

While walling up, you have less resources and spending a ton of those resources on defensive structures...

Much better to be aggressive- use bunches of mobile units to both defend and attack the enemy. Stop them expanding where possible, hassle their production, and generally keep them as busy. All the while expanding yourself (to get more resources), and protecting said expansions with more mobile units.

That's generally true for most RTS games, but I think it has a particular significance in AOE because the defensive structures generally do so little damage for their cost, compared with an equivalent cost of units. You end up needing to spam up so many towers to get the required defensive firepower, when half that cost spent on mobile units will normally give you a much greater return.

Walls & towers do have their place, particularly for protecting isolated expansions etc, but they should only ever be considered a delaying tactic in my opinion- used to hold up enemy units just long enough to get your own units there to counter.

The ultimate expression of the turtle in AOE would be an insanely built defensive line with multiple rows of walls/towers/castles etc- but then the enemy (who is not being attacked) would be free to spam up trebuches which could simply destroy your defensive structures from outside of their range!

[Patrick Bateman]

I'll need to have a bit of a practice trying that early on. Getting archers and the like to harass enemy villagers and throw a spanner in their production.

Wonder if it's worth trying it with a full exposed map first to get a feel for timings and what the AI throws up.

[Squirrelofwoe]

Patrick Bateman said:

I'll need to have a bit of a practice trying that early on. Getting archers and the like to harass enemy villagers and throw a spanner in their production.

Wonder if it's worth trying it with a full exposed map first to get a feel for timings and what the AI throws up.

It could be, the AI will certainly be working to the constraints of set timings and programming which once you get a handle for does give a good degree of predictability.

On the flip side, it will obviously have significantly more APM than a human player (which is the biggest hindrance to expansion in RTS games). They might also have certain resource advantages/cheats depending on the difficulty level, which coupled with the unit build programming might mean they are not ever building to their max capacity anyway- which would obviously make resource harassing somewhat pointless... The joys of playing against AI opponents!

[smithyithy]

I used to love AoE, but after playing Civ 5 with Steam mods I don't think I could go back.

Anyone that liked this sort of game but hasn't played Civ - give it a go, it's fantastic, you will be up until 3am telling yourself 'just one more turn...'

[Squirrelofwoe]

smithyithy said:

I used to love AoE, but after playing Civ 5 with Steam mods I don't think I could go back.

Anyone that liked this sort of game but hasn't played Civ - give it a go, it's fantastic, you will be up until 3am telling yourself 'just one more turn...'

I've played a few of the Civ games but they just never hook me like decent Real time strategy games do. It's just something about turn-based games in general, they just don't do it for me. It's frustrating in a way because they are clearly superb games with huge followings, but I just can't get into them.

I much prefer being forced to make decisions on the fly in real time. I've sunk countless hours into Dune 2, Dune 2000, AOE 1, 2, 3, Age of Mythology, all the C&C series, Total Annihilation, Starcraft, Starcraft 2, and the current pinnacle of the genre for me- Supreme Commander Forged Alliance.

That said, I did spend a heck of a lot of time playing Endless Space which is turn-based. I thought that was absolutely superb (and just on the right side of frustratingly tough to make it almost impossible to put down). Even when I was clearly getting stomped by the AI, exposing my early foolish decision making from which I had no means of comeback, I still had no desire to restart- even losing was a lot of fun, something which is quite rare in any game!

I think the reason that hooked me in a way that the Civ games never have is because it almost didn't feel like a turn based game, not to mention the stunning visuals of the space battles- the Civ games have obviously always looked more 'board-game' esqe, and while I know some people love this, it's just never really done it for me.

Edited by Squirrelofwoe on Tuesday 26th April 09:35

[smithyithy]

Good points. That's probably why it does appeal to me to be fair, as I've played turn based tabletop games (Games Workshop etc).

I've had some great games though, the mods and scenarios on the Workshop are brilliant - recently played a massive Earth 2015 map, as North Korea

[Squirrelofwoe]

smithyithy said:

Good points. That's probably why it does appeal to me to be fair, as I've played turn based tabletop games (Games Workshop etc).

Funny you should mention that as I did play a fair bit of WH40k way back in the day and loved it so I'm really not sure why the turn based computer games don't appeal!