Age of Empires II

aoe2






Age of Empires II & Expansion

Age of Empires II has a much more advanced and varied set of technology trees than the original Age of Empires. To acquire technology, the player must first construct buildings. Each building offers a range of technology which can be researched, for a price. Technologies build upon each other. As technologies are researched, a wider range of buildings and units become available. Technologies may benefit military units (by perhaps increasing their defense attributes), civil units (villagers can benefit from technologies that make them move faster and therefore collect resources more efficiently, etc), or buildings (e.g. by researching technology that allows castles and towers to fire at units at their base). Technologies vary greatly in benefits and costs.

In the game, technology plays a central role. Early in the game, players must constantly assess priorities and allocate scarce resources between creating new units, upgrading existing units, and researching to upgrade to the next Age. Too much emphasis on researching technology and moving through the Ages without creating military can leave a nation defenseless. On the other hand, putting resources into a large population at the expense of progress can lead to defeat if the enemy has progressed and is able to field a small but more powerful attack force.

The number of technologies increase through the Ages, as does the price of said technologies. A special part of the game that was added in the expansion is that each civilization gets a unique technology in the castle when it goes into the castle age. This technology generally benefits the unique units of the civilization or enable some special upgrade which is not available to other civilizations. In addition to this, some civilizations also have some inbuilt technologies or upgrades. The special abilities of each civilization vary greatly and are roughly based on the specialties of the civilizations as they were in the 10th-14th century. For example, the Mongols can harvest meat 50% faster than other civilizations, the buildings of the Byzantines automatically get more hit points as they progress into the next age, and the Franks can build castles for much less than other civilizations.


Wonders and relics

Relics are special unique items that are scattered around the map, and can only be picked up by monks. Once placed within a monastery, a relic steadily generates free gold for the civilization that holds it (this reflects the historical realities of the power and influence that possessing famous relics brought to a church). To capture a relic from an enemy monastery, the monastery must be nearly destroyed. Once the monastery has low enough hit points, the relic will then be expelled so that a player may capture it with a monk.

Monks are vulnerable units (they can only defend themselves by converting their assailant, which takes time). A monk carrying a relic will quickly attract enemy units, so strategies are needed to protect him (e.g. researching faster conversion and movement, sending monks in convoy so one can heal the other, protecting the monk with a military escort, etc). If monks are ordered to move with a group of other units, the monks will move to the back of the formation. However, using the box formation will position the units so that they form a box around the monks, protecting them from all sides.

A possible victory condition is the collection of all relics or the construction of a wonder. This is the case in several campaign scenarios. To win a relic victory, all the relics must be held for a specific uninterrupted period of time, depending on the size of the map.

Wonders are massive structures that require large amounts of resources and time to build. If a player completes a Wonder, and it stands intact for an uninterrupted period of time, they win. If a Wonder is destroyed before the countdown is finished, the countdown resets. Each civilization has their own Wonder, typically a famous work of historical architecture, as opposed to the original Age of Empires, where each civilization's Wonder was based on their generic architecture. The Wonders in Age of Empires II are:

British: Aachen Cathedral
Celts: Rock of Cashel
Franks: Reims Cathedral
Teutons: Maria Laach Abbey
Goths: Mausoleum of Theodoric
Vikings: Borgund stave church
Byzantines: Hagia Sophia
Saracens: Great Mosque of Samarra
Turks: Süleymaniye Mosque
Persians: Ctesiphon
Chinese: Temple of Heaven
Japanese: Tōdai-ji
Mongols: A large tent, meant to represent the tent in which the Mongols would have meetings to oversee the administration of the empire.

In addition, the Dome of the Rock appears as a decorative building in the Saladin and Barbarossa campaigns as do the Pyramids at Giza, but neither can be built by any civilization. Another decorative Gothic cathedral shown in the Joan of Arc and Barbarossa campaigns appears to be also based on the Aachen Cathedral (upon which the Britons' and Teutons' own wonders are based, too). Finally, in the Genghis Khan campaign the Great Wall of China is present, represented by several blocks of conventional walls united with defensive towers scattered throughout.

Please review the system requirements before downloading.

* Multimedia PC with Pentium 166MHz or higher processor.
* Microsoft® Windows® 95, Windows 98, Windows NT® 4.0 with Service Pack 5, Windows XP operating system.
* 32 MB of RAM.
* DirectX 6.1 or later.
* 90 MB of hard disk space; additional 100 MB of hard disk space for swap file.
* Super VGA monitor supporting 1024x768 resolution.
* Local bus video card that supports 1024x768, 256-color resolution and 2 MB of VRAM.
* Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device.
* 28.8Kbps modem (or higher recommended) for Internet* or head-to-head play.
* Audio board with speakers or headphones.
* To access the MSN Gaming Zone you need Internet Explorer 3.02 or later software or Netscape Communicator 4.0 or later.

Age Of Empires 2

Age of Empires II: The Conquerors Expansion is the official add-on to the award-winning, best-selling real-time strategy game Age of Empires® II: The Age of Kings®.

Five New Civilizations

In addition to the 13 civilizations available in Age of Empires II, The Conquerors adds five additional civilizations to choose and command, including the Hun, Aztec, Mayan, Korean and Spanish. Each civilization has unique attributes, buildings and technologies, as well as a unique combat unit based on its historical counterpart.

Four New Historically Based Campaigns

The four new campaigns focus on historical figures such as Attila the Hun, El Cid and Montezuma, allowing players to ride alongside the Hun invasion of Europe, battle the Moors in Spain, preside over the siege of Tenochtitlan, or relive eight other battles that became turning points in history, such as Agincourt, Manzikert and Hastings, with such conquerors as Henry V, Yi Sun-shin and Erik the Red.

Multiplayer Game Support

Age Of Empires 2 & The Conquerors Expansion

Age of Empires 2 Cheats Enter Cheats Faster Entry Location: Press Enter to enter cheats Type the code, for example cheese steak jimmy's. Don't press Enter, though: copy it then press Enter. Press Enter then paste it the keep doing it then about 1 minute you will have 1000000 food. You can do it with other things like wood, stones, gold, etc. Cheats for DEMO Version Entry Location: Bring up the chat box by pressing ENTER then enter these codes pepperoni pizza (gives you 1000 food) coinage (gives you 1000 gold) woodstock (gives you 1000 wood) quarry (gives you 1000 stone) reveal map (reveales map but not fog) no fog (lifts fog) gaia (control animals not people) Faster Construction Entry Location: During gameplay Ctrl + Q Double Transport Ship Capacity To increase your transport ship capacity without researching any thing. Go into the siege weapons work shop and create a few battering rams. Then garrison some troops inside the battering rams (these have to be foot soldiers other wise it won't work). Then load them on to a transport ship and you'll be able to quadruple your transport ship capacity. Submitted By: Mike Haberman Show end sequence Entry Location: During gameplay Ctrl + C Get Immutable building Entry Location: During gameplay Ctrl + P Gives a Cobra car Entry Location: While playing, hit ENTER, then type in the code. HOW DO YOU TURN THIS ON Kill Opponent # Entry Location: While playing, hit ENTER, then type in the code. TORPEDO# Gives a Saboteur Entry Location: While playing, hit ENTER, then type in the code. TO SMITHEREENS You Win Entry Location: While playing, hit ENTER, then type in the code. I R WINNER Change screen res to 1024x768 Entry Location: Use the following command line parameter to start the game 1024 Enable Auto save Entry Location: Use the following command line parameter to start the game autompsave Cure SoundBlaster AWE freezes Entry Location: Use the following command line parameter to start the game Msync New Resource Menu Entry Location: During gameplay Ctrl + T Turn Off all terrain sounds Entry Location: Use the following command line parameter to start the game NoTerrainSound No pre-game FMV sequences Entry Location: Use the following command line parameter to start the game NoStartup Disable all sounds except during FMV seq Entry Location: Use the following command line parameter to start the game NoSound Standard mouse pointer Entry Location: Use the following command line parameter to start the game NormalMouse Turn Off music. Entry Location: Use the following command line parameter to start the game NoMusic Cure display problems with some video ca Entry Location: Use the following command line parameter to start the game Mfill Change screen res to 1280x1024 Entry Location: Use the following command line parameter to start the game 1280 Change screen res to 800x600 Entry Location: Use the following command line parameter to start the game 800 Destroy All Enemies Entry Location: While playing, hit ENTER, then type in the code. BLACK DEATH 1000 Stone Entry Location: While playing, hit ENTER, then type in the code. ROCK ON 1000 Wood Entry Location: While playing, hit ENTER, then type in the code. LUMBERJACK 1000 Gold Entry Location: While playing, hit ENTER, then type in the code. ROBIN HOOD 1000 Food Entry Location: While playing, hit ENTER, then type in the code. CHEESE STEAK JIMMY'S Reveal Map Entry Location: While playing, hit ENTER, then type in the code. MARCO Remove Shadow Entry Location: While playing, hit ENTER, then type in the code. POLO Fast Build Entry Location: While playing, hit ENTER, then type in the code. AEGIS Control Nature Entry Location: While playing, hit ENTER, then type in the code. NATURAL WONDERS You Lose Entry Location: While playing, hit ENTER, then type in the code. RESIGN Destroy Yourself Entry Location: While playing, hit ENTER, then type in the code. WIMPYWIMPYWIMPY Gives VDML Entry Location: While playing, hit ENTER, then type in the code. I LOVE THE MONKEY HEAD

Age of Empires 2 Hints Make Unit Faster When you click the make a man button on the toolbar click on the little flag where you can place the man you just started to create and keep clicking in the same place as fast as you can. It should double the time to make a man. Submitted By: Warrnambool. Super Wall This is hardly a cheat, more of a cheap win. note that this takes lots of time and stone to do. go to a corner in the map and build your desired town. then build your walls w. only castles. they are nearly impossible to destroy when they are used like that. i always just build a square mass of castles and its all over. just make sure you have workers to repair them. and if you have enough stone, simply built a single wall in front of the castle wall and then your castles are safe for a while. to get all the stone, use the code rock on. hit enter, then type rock on. highlight it, copy it, hit enter, hit enter again, and hit ctrl+v. use as needed. the castle wall takes lots of time, but it is foolproof. just remember to build that single wall, and i would put archers in the castles to give better attack. finally, build things that can destroy battering rams and catapults and you cant get touched. Submitted By: Jman Easier Typing Push enter ands type the code you want, but don't push enter when your finished!!, high light it with the mouse and then right click it, push in COPY and then push enter, push enter again, {without typing anything} right click the area where you type in, then push PASTE and then enter, you can continue pushing this code in until you feel satisfied of what you have Beat Enemy Almost Every Time Build your army almost every time. make an army of as many people as you can (I use spearmen) and separate them into two groups. use 1 expendable person to find a group MAKE SURE HE DIES THE ENEMY WILL FOLLOW HIM!!! then take one group and put him on one side and the other group on another side stay a healthy distance away until ready to attack make sure you outnumber them by a lot the ATTACK!!! it works almost every time.

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